Sunday, September 12, 2010

MashSF X Saglife










































































My Chrome bag has been giving me some
back pains (a side effect of getting older
as well as going on 70 mile rides with the
bag loaded down with weight) so I thought
it would be wise to invest in a backpack
with two straps as opposed to the messenger
bags asymmetrical diagonal strap.

After a fair amount of research and shopping
around on the internet, I kept coming back
to this SAGLife X Mash collaboration. While
the price was substantially more than other
considerations, the overwhelmingly positive
reviews of the bag in tandem with the assurance
that the bag was designed with my specific
demographic in mind relieved the pain of
separating myself with the money.

While I only have my initial impressions to
report, I am very pleased with the bag so far.
The laptop pouch fits my 17" MacBook Pro and
the amount of cleverly designed pockets highlight
how flawed the Chrome "huge void" design really
is.

I will be taking the bag to Boston in two weeks
and will be able to give a more thorough report
after having traveled and ridden with the bag.

Bike Check: Ryan gets Gears and Brakes.
























































































So, this post has been in the works for some time.
I referenced the build in an earlier post when I
took shipment of the group that I spec'd for the
build. The reason for my hesitation was the fact
that the bike had not been released yet. The frame
set is a test frame of the 3 series Madone which
is Trek's new entry level carbon offering. The neat
thing that sets the bike apart from other models
are the fender and rack mount bosses on the drop
outs. I built the bike for RAGBRAI and have since
put roughly 2000 (hard) miles on it, which included
(but are not limited to) getting airborne off of a
crashed pace line member, off roading into a ditch
and mashing up a 19% grade for a mile in my big
ring (Somehow the bike and my kneecaps held
together for that event).

Working at Trek has given me the opportunity to
ride some extremely expensive high-end road bikes.
While I would be lying to say that I have no desire to
own said high end road bikes, the 3 series Madone was
the perfect entry into carbon/road/geared bikes. The
Sram group had performed flawlessly, the frame has
taken my abuse in stride and has even gotten me into
the exciting world of lycra.

Kwame visits the Dog Park.































Kwame and I went down to the Sun Prairie dog park to
rough up some lesser dogs. He proceeded to ignore any
dog that was not at least 4 times his size and he managed
to hold his own. His only distraction from the big dogs is
when a really fat Chihuahua showed up. He went investigated
the portly toy dog for a few moments before returned to
picking fights with a fully grown greyhound.

He did incur some physical harm when he intersected paths
with a boxer. When the two dogs tumbled, the boxer stepped
on Kwame's right rear leg. After a small yelp and a moment
or two of limping around, he was back to 100%.

The best part was he slept like he had just eaten Thanksgiving
Dinner for the next 2 days.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Hans.
















Wears his sunglasses at night.

Upside down.

Zurich Old Town.























A parade of drunken euro 20-somethings.

Soft Focus. No Glasses.
















David Bloome. Deceptively quick on a bicycular vehicle.

Dela.




























































Eurobike Bartender of the Year.

Sharp as a tack in his second language.
Let me behind the bar to get my own water.
Hope to see him next year.

Post Eurobike Dinner.













































Serious talks about the future.
Less serious conversations afterwards.

Electra Girls.
















I wish you girls could make babies.

I want to see how cute the offspring would be.

Eurobike: Part Deux.

















































































Vendors to Manufacturers.

Sensory Overload.

Faggin.
















They wanted 5000 Euro for this Cromoly Brakeless Track
Bike wrapped in leather.

That's a lot of money for a gimmick.

Pork Products.
















Man that is a nice presentation for what was essentially
really thin meat loaf.

Bronze Horse.
















Made for riding.

Schutzengarten.
















My german is shaky at best, but I am fairly certain that means
"shooting garden".

Prep Time.
















Our 9am departure turned into a 11:45am departure due
to a stripped seat post tube. After some scrambling,
improvising and some impressive MacGuyver-ing the
12 bicycle designers and engineers were able to get
everything fastened.

We were on our way. Going Clockwise.

Ryan Looking Uncomfortable.































Photographers take photographs for a reason.

They aren't photogenic.

Pretty.




























































Clouds mask alps. Bell Towers mask clouds.

Awkward Phenomenon.































At Hugo, German people would come up to me in pairs and
ask me to take a picture of them with my camera.

However, they did not ask for the picture, nor did they ask
where it would be posted online.

Weird.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Paris Charles de Gaulle.























Not much unlike Shanghai Pudong.
Just bigger, more clownshoes.

Zurich. Old Town.
















Super. Pretty.

Detroit Spokes.























If I ever make a scraper bike. You better
believe I am spec'ing this wheel set.

Mark my words...
















Trying to put out a fire with a paper napkin, does not end
well for anyone.

Trekkers in Europe.
























































































Some of the best people in to world to get
drunk in Europe with.

And yes I realize I ended that sentence with
a preposition.

No Brakes!
















I don't know why this happened, perhaps Bianchi had too
many "No Brakes" stickers laying around, but this "track"
bike was not only set up with brake bosses in the Fork and
Frame, but was actually equipped with both front and rear
brakes.

Krautbauer took offense.

Knog.
















Knog is, without a doubt, having fun with their product.

Mannequin.























Why would you even make a mannequin in
that pose?

Because you want people to take pictures like
this.