The list could go on, but the truth is what it is - Happy Monday!
I have a few Trek frames in my garage that I bought off of Craig's List and they have been hanging from the ceiling for almost 2 years now. All three have their dents, scratches and other marks of age. I decided it was high time to do something about it. The fringe benefit is the fun in building a bike up instead of stripping one down to sell. With a little planning and 30 minutes here and there I was able to put this together from parts in my bins of spares.
About a month ago I picked up a pair of NOS Weinmann 750 brakes, and they pushed me to get this done. The 750 calipers have just enough reach to get to the 650b rims. There is plenty of room for the 584x37 Col De La Vie tires, and fenders are in the works. The wheels are decidedly not S&S, Phils laced to Velocity Dyads, but they belong to my wife and i am "borrowing" them. I used an old MTB stem, bars and levers that span 20 years of age. The shifting is handled by a Shimano Deore DX in the rear, Suntour XC high normal front and NOS 105 clamp on DT shifters. The front rack is the Bruce Gordon (made in Oregon) rack that used to live on my Rawland. The saddle is an Avocet Touring in pretty good shape. All of the cables and housings are from my recycle bin.
Initial rides have been unloaded and it handles fantastic. This will become my around town bike for errands and such. There are only a few things I hope to change. The handlebars will be switched out with some Wald 867 bars that are on the way. I may do something about the saddle, but i tis OK for shortish trips. I have some newer brake shoes to put on, but the old black blocks have been slowing things down acceptably. As for fenders, I have an older set of the VO zeppelins that were bought on clearance 3 years ago, and will be re-shaped to work here.
Yes, new bikes are fun, but sometimes the best bike is what you have. At least for the moment.
Remember - Reduce - Reuse - Recycle
my eBay auctions here. As written a few days ago, I am preparing to take the business to the next step and need to raise some capital, and keep bootstrapping this along. This week we have my Rawland dSogn frameset, an older Selle Italia Flite Trans Am, King Headset and Tange Switchblades fork. Soon to come up are the wheels from the dSogn, 40 Hole Dyads laced to White Industry M16 hubs, and older Dura Ace crankset, some more saddles, and other odds and ends. I am still planning on updating the Yardsale pages with some older Trek road frames you may remember.
Thanks for taking a look, your continued readership and support help me steer this venture into the future.
my eBay auctions or on the soon to be updated Yard Sale pages of my site. I am preparing to take the business to the next step and need to raise some capital, and keep bootstrapping this along.
Also, I decided to enter some pictures in the county fair this year. I had a bit of time and figured it would be a good learning experience. It was exactly that. I had fun working through the process, the price was right, $0, and learned enough to be better prepared for next year as well as any other opportunity to show my prints. Competition is usually pretty high as we have a large amature photo contingent in the area as well as Brooks Institute right up the road. Out of 7 entries I was able to pull one honorable mention ribbon
Major lesson learned was to not let it go untill the last-minute, next year's entries will be better presented for sure.
Late morning walnut hunting. The time is a little past for the early walnuts, but this tree started a bit slow this year.
I keep track of the edibles I see out on my rides, walnuts are one of my favorites, but will not be ready for another couple of months. Last year I had posted some pictures on flickr from a gathering expedition near the top of Sulphur Mtn., and there was a comment that I should look into making nocino. Having no idea what that was I resorted to google and found this nocino recipe. Now off to the store this afternoon to grab a few more ingredients.
This tree is a little easier access then the one on Sulphur mountain.
Since then I have run the full cycle of black and white dark rooms through digital as it has emerged over the last decade or so. Always trying to capture the moment, the feeling and the light.
In the last few of years it hit me that I spend way too much time on a bicycle to not be carrying a camera. The whole idea is to capture the beauty I see while out riding, to share the feeling of riding a bike while being outside. Along the way I gathered inspiration through blogs and photo sharing sites like Flickr. In some ways it was a new frontier. Not many people try to carry full-sized SLR cameras on their bikes, let alone try to shoot while riding. I had tried a few point and shoot cameras for their compact size, but was often disappointed in the results. I found seriouscompacts.com on the web and realised I could get what I wanted out of a smaller camera, but my wallet would be sore afterwards. I almost bought a Panasonic DMC-LX3, but held out a bit and bought in to the emerging miro 4:3 technology. I could have near the full power and versatility of my Canon DSLR in half the package size. Without the size and weight many doors have opened while few have closed.
While reading over at the the adventure monkey blog I first saw the term "PhotoCycling" used. I was awestruck, yes Eric's pictures are great, but that was the perfect word for what he, I and a now many others have been doing. Combining the passion of photography with our other passion of riding. I hope that my venture here at Ocean Air Cycles inspires you to get outside on your bike as well as capture the moments to spread the word.
I tip my hat to the inspiration I found at Eric's site as well as, Gnat Likes, ecovelo and epicurean cyclist Thank you for sharing your photographs and stories.
