3 hour walk

So I haven't posted in a couple weeks. Where have I been? Busy. Last Thursday was turkey day and I didn't end up riding. I did however end up drinking and eating a bunch. The thursday before that we just rode all over the place. Magyar had his new bike set up and Dan was around. We went to the beeramid for a while and rode all over town before heading back to Cliftons parents place for snacks fire and beer. When I'm not busting ass I've been riding my BMX bike around a bunch, eating great food with people, drinking a lot of wine, and trying to catch up on other projects. I leave for Japan in less than a month. not much else is new. I will try to get more stuff up here ASAP, but my camera is broken and I am going to continue to be super swamped untill I get back from Japan.

In the meantime look at this write up Derek did about dynamos on the EC velo blog:
http://ecvelo.blogspot.com/

And watch this awesome John Darnielle (from the mountain goats) video

John Darnielle - Autoclave - A Take Away Show from one shot seattle on Vimeo.

Stolen (another one!?!)

Someone stole Adam Flytes old bike. he sold it to a friend and it has become the latest victim of bike thievery. From Adam:

"be on the lookout for my old bike. it was stolen last night from my friend gillian. if you recall, it's a white fuji frame, black velocity arrowheads with black iro hubs. "

It has some orange on it and flop and chop bullhorns I believe. If you see it around take apropriate measures to re-acquire it. This bike stealing thing is getting rediculous. If it is not yours keep your damn paws off.

If it is lock your shit up and hope for the best.

ekg

I think the whole "hipster" thing is really silly. It just seems really dumb all around to pigeon hole people into a dumb sounding group based on interests. Especially such an ambiguous group.

Then I went to Milwaukee and hung out in Riverwest all weekend...

I'm re-thinking my position...

Vids kids

So, despite the fact that every single fixed gear movie out there now seems to hanve the same exact artsy time lapse cloud shot, and a ton of the same tricks and blah blah blah. I think this one is actually kind of neat. Plus it's fun to watch people with such low gear ratios spin.

VéLOrue Montage from Bill Bottriell on Vimeo.

This is also really cool.

KILROY - Teaser I of IV from Gorilla Bicycles on Vimeo.

Cadence

anything you want

It's been a long time since I've posted anything here. I've been pretty busy, and unfortunetly I've been off of my bike other than just gettinga round lately. Last night was the first time in a week or more that I've gone on a ride just to go on a ride, and by 9:30 I realized that I shoul dreally be doing a 100 other things. It's frustrating to say the least, but other than that I am happy with life right now.

Ghetto cross was last Saturday and it was a ton of fun. Lots of riding and drinking and by 7 I was absolutly tanked and dead tired. I wouldnt have it any other way. This Saturday I am going to be in Milwaukee for zine fest. Once again I know that I should be here doing things, but I need the time off, so I'm going to take it.

Not a ton of other news. The weather has been beautiful, so go for a bike ride.

See you tomorrow night.

I'm thinking of selling my bike and buying this instead. There seems to be a rash of them on EC craigslist of late, so strike while the iron is hot.

Things to note

As much of a joke as I think Prolly is he put up a neat tutorial on polishing old components. Here

Also, the new issue of Urban Velo is available online Here

2 on the ground

Holy fuck, it's happened. Bikeec is now officially two years old. I know I mentioned this before, but I think it's interesting how arbitrary time is and the different ways we measure it. We weight everything against time. How long things do or do not last equates to how good or bad they are. We pick these dates that we assign so much value to and year after year when they come around we sit around and reflect on whether time robbed us or not. For the general population that date is January first. For me that date is Nov.1.

I know that when I started this I thought it would be an awesome way to try to capture a bit of what is going on in Eau Claire right now, but in the process it has become a scale measuring much more. My life 2 years ago was so different than my life now that I can't help but cringe and think about it sometimes. The things we feel so dedicated to one moment can completely slip out of relevance a month later. Things we hate become incredibly important. People we care about leave, we find new ones to take their place.

I can't help but get sappy about all of this when I read this thing because I have put a lot of emotion into the little things on here. I don't feel like I've written a post I would ever take back. Which sounds silly, but it is endearing to me. If for no other reason that I can look back on what I've said and be happy that I remained somewhat sane and by some stroke of luck there are still people out there that are interested in what I have to say and want to hang out with me. Or at least don't mind me tagging along. I appreciate that.

All this is really about is that I am happy with this year. Not all of it, there was a lot of crappy parts. But there always is. And I know I write about a lot of the same things, but that is reassuring. Because that means that they are still happening. And I could do these things forever. Even on the crappiest days I can get on my bike and realize that I have that at the very least. Which is something remarkable that not everyone can say. We are lucky to have a scene and friends that get it.

So all of that said I just want to thank everyone for doing everything that they do and tell you all never to stop. Here is to one more year, for better or for worse.