OK, so maybe the use of the word ‘epic’ is inappropriate. Wee Z and I WERE going to go do a double century, but then thought EH! and got groceries for New Years Eve homemade BBQ pizzas instead.

Bonus round: a trip to Tam Bikes was lucrative: a pair of short touring bars from Wald (at $12, about 5 times less than the Soma Sparrows on Carpetbagger) to use in lieu of the chopped straight bars I have on Rapscallion, my Wee Z carrier, which leave me very close to the seat and interested in a little more lift. PLUS, I was hunting for a new stem as the one I have on there now is a two bolt design, and after Gran Failo, I decided to phase out all my two-bolt stems for safety. ESPECIALLY on my baby cargo bike.

Enter a $100 Thomson ELITE 4-bolt, used, which they gave me for $40, and then dropped to $30 at the register by the mgr for NYE local type bonus action. SWEET.

That’s how to do New Years and it’s just started…!

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THIS may be the most gorgeous bicycle i’ve ever seen in my life.

the southsiders are a euro motorcycle club with an incredible aesthetic, loads of class, and a love of bicycles as well. as such, they recently teamed up with some frame builders to develop their own bicycle.

now, i don’t believe this is, or is ever going to be, on sale to the public, but that doesn’t make it any less overpoweringly awesome. moreso, in fact.

the details are immaculate. the geometry is very reminsicent of turn-of-the century bicycles, and it’s a coaster brake single speed, so there are no cables whatsoever on it. the stem, cranks, chain guide, and 3-pronged axle wingnuts are all custom fabricated. and the most incredible detail of all, at least to me, is the integrated lighting. the handlebars have inset, front-facing white lights near the clamp area, and rear-facing red lights at the ends. and in the back, the single sickest cycling light setup i’ve ever seen — red lights integrated into THE SEAT STAYS.

click through for a whole bunch more photos, each more glorious than the one before.

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THIS is a great project for several reasons, not the least of which being that it seems to reach from the late 80s till now.

the best part to me is that it reminds you that messengers on fixed-gears are in the vast minority.

also, that dude in the banner pic? not only do i still see him every day, he’s still riding that same schwinn spit-fire. AWESOME.

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THIS is a great idea. a simple sticker to put in your outer rear-view mirror that reminds you not to kill us.

next great idea? getting people to use their rear-view mirrors.

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The last few days, due to family and work deadlines, I’ve had to race to work and then race home late. Thus, I’ve taken my fastest bike, the Cinelli road bike christened ‘Rogue’. Now, I LOVE riding fixed. Mile for mile, they are the most ENJOYABLE bikes to ride. But I sometimes forget how fast you can go when you can LEVEL UP, I mean gear up. Zoom!

My ride home currently is a snaky route through a curvy residential street with hills and valleys and some winders. It’s awesome.

And, you know, looking down at my stem is like hitting the nitrous. On a car, not on a lung.
Anyway. Zoom.

Side note: hands still frozen, even in my longfingered gloves, including my new Knog ones. I checked online. Good at 50-65 degrees. WHAT? No wonder. It was 37 this morning.

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i gotta say, THIS is really appealing to me. an underseat-mounted water receptacle whose hose threads smoothly along your top tube, complete with a self-retracing clamp at the headset.

here’s the thing – when i take long-distance rides, i do so with two water bottles in a bracket under my seat. and while that works just fine, i take whatever’s the opposite of long-distance rides FAAAR more frequently. thus, i have an empty bracket on my bike most of the time. with this, i would get the same amount of water, with a MUCH easier delivery system (reaching around behind me to get a bottle, then drinking from it, then putting it back, takes time and effort), and in a far more temporary setup. i could ride my bike with no brackets or attachments for the majority of my time and then when i take a distance ride, boom — just slap this on.

it’s intriguing in that sense. i don’t know if it’s $80 worth of intrigue, but i like it. a lot. bonus points for having tool stowage therein.

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I love this model because of how stark her hair and skin are against the clothes and bike…

http://comfort-eagle.com/post/14408531918?9a1d1a80
http://comfort-eagle.com/post/14408546723

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Now with added field testing!
OK, so just as I complained that there were no safety pins in the modern world, two arrived the same night, pinning tags to some dry cleaned upholstery. Nice! I used one at the top of the plastic sleeve as discussed yesterday, and it worked just fine. I think a future mod, if this goes forward, would be the use fo a snap or a glued in piece of velcro. The safety pin just takes too long to implement.

It worked as designed. While riding I could look down and see what was playing, and if you a) enabled the screen to stay on indefinitely and 2) allow auto-rotate, it works as you might imagine, swinging the image into view as you bring your arm up. I generally wear fingerless riding gloves (on two fingers anyway) and so obviously as I said yesterday the finger to plastic interface worked fine with the touchscreen. Today I wore heavy winter long finger gloves and with some effort I still made it work with touch, but realistically that’s not convenient. But that is an issue that goes back to any interaction between touch and gloves. Get capacitive gloves, take the gloves off, muscle it, use a sausage, whatever.

I like threading the earbuds up the sleeve. Keeps the cables out of reach. Also, putting the Cutter sleeve on top of arm warmers helped it stay snug.

Success, I bellow to the heavens with an outstretched fist, the iphone displaying Rage AGainst the Machine cover art.

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Now this is happening.

- The nature of a round arm is such that you have to get it just so to not force the velcro on the outer flap to break. Which is OK because that’s where you’d want it right.

- The velcro-sealed play card pockets actually aren’t. That surprised me but I guess it’s for quick changes on the field. So the outer flap (comprising two of the three clear surfaces) velcros to the inner flap (the third clear surface) but there’s no velcro at the top where you insert the cards. Therefore, nothing stopping the iPhone from launching. At speed. Here, I’ve used a piece of trusty elctritole tape. I’ll swap that with a safety pin, once I find one, which will probably be in the coin return tray of a payphone, equally elusive.

- It feels comfortable despite the weight of the device. I wonder if it will slip with ride vibration however. That said, if it went over an arm warmer, that would give it more traction. A second safety pin on the arm warmer would secure it further.

- the earbud chord can snake up your arm and out of your sleeve, wich has the additional benefit of not being snaggy.

- with Voice Control (or Siri that replaced it, when Siri works) I have very little need to look at the iphone. If I want to know what’s playing on my random shuffle, I ask. If I get a call or something, I either answer or don’t. If I get a text, I never stop, unless it was planned coordination. But I can see how this would allow you to have more interaction at lights and such.

- Most important detail: YES, the touch is active through the plastic.

TOTAL SUCCESS.

$8 shipped on ebay.

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Toling you, having two bikes with cargo capability is pretty nice.

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