Housekeeping

Yesterday was supposed to be another social ride, and of course I was looking forward to it. As usual though, shitty weather prevailed and we didn’t get to do it.


This just in: rain sucks.

Anyway, since I had a ton of free time I figured I would get out in the garage and rearrange my bike stuff. I’ve been so busy lately that it looks like a tornado went through there, and it pissed me off every time I walked out there. So, I grabbed a beer and got to work.

I’m saving those cans in the background for a project. You’ll see one day, maybe.


There was shit everywhere. Well, not literally shit, but you know what I mean. The first thing I found was a cooler left over from our heckling at the Winter Short Track races, and it had a nice little surprise inside.

It was still cold, surprisingly.


After the cooler was emptied and the beer was put in the fridge, I pulled all the bikes out to sweep the floor. I put them back in one by one, after working on most of them. There were little nagging issues on each one that I’d been putting off, and it felt nice to get that out of the way. Eventually I got all thirteen bikes (yes, thirteen) back in there and moved on to other stuff.

Yes, I can count. And no, I couldn’t fit all of them in the photo. They’re not all mine, you know. There are three of us that ride, but the majority of them are mine. One bike in particular isn’t actually complete, but it’s getting close.

Thanks to Sam from The Hub for getting me a chain for that old beast. I’m still trying to find a seatpost clamp (I thought I had one), which would pretty much make it complete and ready to ride. At least I’ve been able to add some accessories though.

I know, this is some real exciting shit. Cleaning my bike area and doing random repairs does not a good blog make, but it’s probably better than me talking about playing the guitar the rest of the day.


That was exciting for me, but probably not so much for you. Here’s hoping I get to ride again soon.



For your sake and mine.

Housekeeping, Part II (Electric Boogaloo)

 Yep, I stole the idea for that title from you, George.  It’s difficult not to do it when talking about sequels.

Anyway, after taking care of most of my bikes last week, I realized that I hadn’t really been taking care of my bike area.  Over the years, I’ve accumulated tons of spare parts that will probably never find a home on anything I own.  I’ve managed to build a few complete bikes that went the hell away, but there were still tons of things that I will most likely never use.

Like this pile of 26 inch tires, roadie wheels, and assorted shitty drivetrain stuff.

Or a rear shock that I still have for some reason:

How about a brand new 26 inch tire that I won at a race last year?

A pile of POS 26 inch suspension forks?

I even found a (used only once) mitre saw buried in there.

Okay, that wasn’t bike-related, but the pile of bike shit I had covered it up.

I found some 29er tires, but they are wire bead so I won’t dare use them.

I’ll probably donate most of this stuff to the local Trips For Kids chapter, and hopefully they can use it.  I may sell a few things here locally, but it’s not like I’m sitting on a gold mine or anything. 

I just really needed to clear some space so I could get an unobstructed view of my autographed Dolemite movie poster.

I still have a shitload of stuff, but at least it’s all usable (and now packed away neatly.)  We still have way too many bikes for just three people though.

Two of those are of the full squish 26 inch variety, and they will be finding new homes soon, hopefully.

So yeah, if you ride bikes and work on said bikes it’s pretty easy to gather useless shit.  I really hate to get rid of stuff, but I can’t see any reason to keep it around.  In the future, maybe I can just get rid of old stuff every time new stuff comes rolling in.

That would make sense.

I don’t really like to make sense.

Have you looked in your bike room lately?

Oh yeah, I’m racing again this weekend in Columbia, SC.


I will be bringing gears this time.

Who gives a shit.

Spring Cleaning

If you read the title of today’s post, you would probably assume that I didn’t make it to the Kerr Scott Trail System this past weekend. Well, you would be correct. After checking the weather report several times a day up until Saturday, the forecast was less than promising. Sure, I knew the weather here wasn’t great, but I was hoping that the rain would miss that area (or at least they would only get a small amount). That turned out not to be the case. I didn’t think that it would be a very good idea to make the trip from Charlotte to Wilkesboro and take a chance on riding in shitty conditions. I’m not sure if the trails actually “close” up there, but I didn’t want to make the hour and a half drive to find out. With my out of town off-road adventure pland thwarted, I chose to head out to the B-43 shop to do a little cleaning.


First, I decided to do something I had been putting off for a long time. Let me elaborate. You see, I’ve been riding motorcycles since I was pretty young. Friends, family, and even strangers would let me ride their two-wheeled machines, and I developed a love for a motor on two wheels. When Lunchbox was still in diapers, I bought myself one of those fancy crotch-rockets, and I rode the shit out of it. Many years later when I met Little Miss Sunshine, I found that she too liked to ride a steel horse on the open road.


We rode together a lot at first, but my love of pedaling eventually took over again. I became less interested in the hassle of motorcycle maintenance, and more concerned with hitting the trails on a less-complicated steed. So, a little less than a year ago I decided to sell my beloved Yamaha FZ-750. Although I never regretted it, I did miss it from time to time. Little Miss Sunshine also lost the love for riding motorcycles, and her trusty steed remained parked in the garage for nearly three years. Sure, I road it from time, but there was no use in keeping something that we really didn’t use.


With that, we decided that it was time to sell it. At first I resisted, thinking that I would ride it every once in a while (enough to justify keeping it I thought.) I tuned it up about six months ago, and took it for a spin around the block. After that, it sat around, unused again. We decided that enough was enough, and that it should be put up for sale. I brought it out of the garage on Saturday morning, and I took it for one last ride. I headed out on a nice windy country road, and I have to say that I really did enjoy it. However, this time it wasn’t enough to make me want to keep it. I would rather pedal one of my many bikes than let a machine do all the work for me. So with that, I parked it in the driveway and decided that I would no longer be a motorcycle rider.


I grabbed some cleaning supplies and got to work. I wanted to get it nice and shiny so I coulod take some photos. There would be no turning back this time. Every time I thought about how much fun it was to ride a motorcycle, I quickly realized that the love was finally gone. No more leather jackets, helmets, or twisting the throttle on an old country road. My two-wheeled adventures would be on a human-powered bike from now on. After I got it all cleaned up, I snapped a few photos:



Yes my friends, it will be put up for sale now. I’ll probably stick it on Craigslist for now and see what kind of interest we get. It is a 2005 Yamaha V-Star Custom, with only 5,561 miles. Yes, that is the real mileage. Most of those miles were accumulated in Florida, with only about 200 put on it here in North Carolina. Am I offering it up to you, my dear readers? Well, yeah, if you want it. That wasn’t really the reason for the blog post today though. I was just sharing my thoughts like I always do, but if you want to buy this beast, you can just shoot me an e-mail. It’s going up on Craigslist later today.


What else did I do this weekend? Well, I guess I’ll save that for tomorrow. I can tell you everything on the first day of the week. What the hell would I write about otherwise? See y’all tomorrow.