A nice November weekend
November is normally very wet in Seattle, but this weekend was dry and unseasonably warm (mid-50s). I spent much of it outside.
Saturday morning Christine and I started finishing the new doors that go out to the bedroom deck. This is a project that we put off for years and it is great to finally have new doors that open and close and that we can see through (the old doors had cracked seals in almost all of the windows). To protect them properly we had to seal the wood with polyurethane.
Saturday afternoon I took off on my bike for some errands. My first stop was Free Range Cycles where I saw Kathleen’s nice Jeff Lyon city bike and picked up a jewelry like but inexpensive Origin-8 stem. Her bike looked great, I was at the Seattle Bike Expo when he delivered the frame to her and it was great to see it all put together. I liked his headlight mount and thought Kathleen’s use of an old purse as a saddlebag was cool too. I was also really happy with the bargain that is an Origin-8 stem, no $30 stem should look this nice. They come in a variety of lengths and angles and I expect that I’ll use them again.
After Free Range I headed over to Alistair’s house where we nice conversations (as always) about bikes and other matters. On my way I stopped at the View Ridge PCC and discovered that they now carry Ten Spoon Winery from Missoula, MT. I met the owners of the winery last year at my friend David’s wedding, he served their wine and I went over to the winery to buy it for him. The cherry wine is dry (not sweet like most non-grape wines) and was really complex, I look forward to opening this bottle.
(I love this photo because we only see bikes on the road…the cars are on the sidelines)
This morning I woke up nice and early and met up with about 20 members of point83 for a breakfast ride. We met at Top Pot Doughnuts, then rode downtown and across I90 to Mercer Island. We spent a long time there in “Waffle Park” enjoying real and fake bacon and some nice beverages before riding back to Capital Hill for another breakfast. I tore off before the final breakfast and rode back to the U District to meet Christine for breakfast at one of our local places.
After my third breakfast of the day I went over to the Bike Shack to hang out and work on the RB-T. It got some shiny new stainless fenders and I checked out Lee’s huge Pugsley wheels and helped some folks. The Bike Shack is a fun place and I think I’ll try to swing by more frequently. I left them my old SKS fenders and picked up some MKS Sneaker Pedals to try out.
This evening Christine and I walked down to the Neptune (movie theater) to see Into the Wild. I read this book non-stop when I first picked it up, it is a very consuming story. The movie was similar. It’s interesting that I remembered all of the details the Alaskan part of Alexander Supertramp’s journey, but had forgetten the two years that led up to it. I’ll have to read the book again. Walking down to the Neptune and back was refreshing too, I always forget about how walkable our neighborhood is. I’m quick to jump on the bike when I’m solo and probably too quick to jump in the car when I’m with Christine.
I wish all weekends could be this nice. Got stuff done, had fun with friends,and got in a few miles on the bike.
that truing stand worked fantastically! wheel #1 is tensioned, trued and mounted… the pugsley looks like a drag racer with the skinny front tire.
Just out of curiosity, which origin8 stem did you get? They seem to have several models on their website, and I can only find futuristic black ones in 1-1/8″ Do you use a spacer so you can use it with the RB-T’’s 1″ steer tube?
Can you tell I agree they are beautiful and am looking to copy you?
Ignore Origin-8s website, it is way out of date. It is a brand name of J&B Importers and you can check their website to see sizes and options.
I bought this one:
STEM OR8 MT/RD ALY 100×26.0 17d SL
Retail should be about $30-$35 and your LBS can order them from J&B.
A URL that works today for the full list is this:
http://74.8.32.132/nondealer/view.phtml?f_cat=STEMS%3A+THREADLESS+STEMS%3A+ORIGIN8