X-0 R.I.P.

Death of an old (and expensive) friend. This X-O rear derailleur is a 2005 model, complete with the then high-style faux carbon fiber graphics. I caught a stick with it in October and bent it just enough to force its retirement. Sure, SRAM claims these are serviceable, but how do you know which parts are bent?

And so a toast...

...or at least another lame excuse I've concocted to buy a six pack of "Hazed and Infused"!

Yosemite Surgery

It has been at least a 6 months since I started this project...

Remember that I picked up a Yokota Yosemite Columbus OR tubed frame a while back, with the intention of painting it up in a topographic map style, (see the Yokota thread link there on the right to get up to speed), well I'm finally moving on with the frame alterations.

These goofy rack mounts have got to go.

And these upper mounts. Such nice noodling for the derailleur cables and the rear brake, and then this rack junk tacked on to the stays with brass. Ugly.

Let the Dremel Tool action commence!

Drive side, before the final clean up. Best to cut conservatively, as you can always take more off, but you can't put it back on! Well, not easily anyway...

Non-drive side...again, before final cleanup with a file.

Drive with a little cleanup underway.

Seat stays lose their tacky little rack mounts too. Again, before final cleanup, or during anyway.

A little grey primer and some sanding...

Now I'll do some sanding on the full frame, then hit any spots that may need minor filling, and then final sand and when that's all done...color!

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It's been a long time since I've hand drawn maps...and I've never done it on a curved surface. I should practice first!

Flea-action galore!

Lucky for me I'm the only person on the planet that searches for "Yokota" when he's on the fleabay. Scored a Jersey, (in another size, thanks!)

Back of said jersey.

Shorts.

Altek Vs, these were listed with levers a while back...and I was either A) on vacation, B) on dope, or C) on dope on vacation. OK, actually, I was just on vacation. I no puff the cheeba.

Somebody made out on the Vs...

White Bucks!

BAM!

So smooth! I am all style, baby!

Shed Door

Spent Saturday and Sunday this weekend off the bike and working on the shed. I installed two vents in each end wall, high up so that they can assist the soffit vents do their jobs and release some of the hot air that collects in the shop. Travis came by on Sunday and we removed the barn style double doors and replaced them with a steel door and dead bolt. No more padlocks!


The vent on the front. It is screened and louvered to keep out the critters and rain.



Door and filler wall. The both of them will be painted the original red as the doors were...to keep the same proportion of red in the look of the shed.

Rear vent.

Dead bolt and knob sets, both salvaged from the front door from when we bought the house.

A proper threshold! With weather stripping even!

Next up a little primer and paint and the old shed will be good for a couple more years!

Disney!

We went to Disney a few weekends ago, about the time the blog fell silent I guess. We were there for 4 days, and it took me at least that long to recover.

First 2 days were at EPCOT. I love EPCOT. EPCOT is the grown man's Disney experience. The rest of Disney is for sticky little smelly children covered head to toe in a foul cocktail of poo and gooey candy.


It was the Spring Flower Festival at EPCOT. Pretty neat-o. We breezed right by all this stuff to try to make our dinner reservation at Mexico, but when we got there Jane freaked out at the sight of the volcano mural and insisted we needed to leave ASAP. We were hungry and tired and thirsty and you know what that means!...


Yup! All you can eat at Germany, and beers as big as your skull! Yeehaa!

The English gardens. Or maybe the Canada gardens. What's the difference, really.

Day 2 at EPCOT began much the same way as day one, with Jane freaking out and screaming about being scared of something and then us having to leave and find something for her to do. Here we've just stopped shrieking at the Nemo ride in The Seas.

This poor guy was chillin' in the grass.

And this poor guy was chillin' in the bushes.

Disney, day one. You'll note that everyone in this picture is a fat pig save for the steroid pumpin' dude there in the middle with the stroller. Everyone at Disney is 400 pounds. It's the law.

Jane gets a picture with "Mary Puffins" and "Burp". Mary Puffins is H-O-T!!!

Note the little hands on the steering wheel. I can already feel my insurance rates rising...

Spotted this in Minnie's house. I don't think this is an original Hopper.

This outmoded mindless philosophy of cheap land everywhere is what is screwing up my state. Poor Florida. Disney was a genius in many ways, but in this instance, he was a true idiot.

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In Disney fashion, even the sign has a corporate sponsor.

And we're out! A good 4 day trip marked by a couple tantrums, but overall I acted OK, I guess. Jane was well behaved too, and we all had a ball. With kids, you almost need to do these trips, and we'll for sure be back.

WTF

OK, I'm back from vacation, see...and while I've been waiting here to post until something a little more exciting than 4 days of commuting to work happens, this I just can't pass up.

Kooka cranks... *ugh!*

...painted in the worst abomination of a color scheme Klein ever splattered on a frame. I had a Quantum road bike back in the day that was sprayed this color, and it is truly as ugly as it looks.

So nasty. But, in case you've been struck on the head with something sharp lately, and your judgement has been severely compromised, these babies are currently on the flea. Knock your bad self out, because you will not be bidding against me.

EDIT! - and cooler heads prevail as these nasty things sell for less than $75. U-G-L-Y!

Pass

Just to reinforce to everyone that I don't buy EVERY 217 Sunset rim, or Altek brake lever, that hits the flea. Here's four that got away....

28 hole, for the pair. NOS 217 Sunsets. $51! If I weren't such a fat pig I'd have given these a spin for that price.

32 hole 217 Sunset, sold for a paltry $26. This would have been mine if I wasn't at work when it closed. I don't hit the flea from the office.

Altek blacks, sold on a BIN - Best Offer listing for $125. I have two sets of black, so I let these slide. Too rich for me to pay that for a third pair.

And finally, another set of Alteks. These sold for $99 or so. I might have considered buying these, but at $99, chances are there was another buyer willing to pay more, and my participation in that auction probably would have driven the price closer to the $120 that the other set went for, and then the deal is gone. Pass

See, I'm not so crack-freak psycho that I buy up all these listings that hit the flea...

...just most of them.

Commute - Who pays for this?!

Ever wonder how this crap gets on the road? Accident sure...but shouldn't the company that got paid to recover the car also be responsible for recovering the other debris? The answer is yes. How does this crap get left behind then?...because the cop that cleared the accident scene as clean didn't do his job and make the tow company pick up the crap.

Tow company should also sweep up the spill-dry absorbing agent spread over the fluid leaks that inevitably come with a car wreck. They don't...instead leaving the spill-dry and the fluids to seep into the street drains, and then into the St Johns River.

Lazy. Just lazy. Lazy cops, and lazy tow truck operators, and lazy citizens who don't say anything when they see this disgraceful crap all over their city. This junk is on a bridge, so you know where the next stop is, right?...Yup. The River. The worst part is, some ass-munch actually took the time to MOVE the debris from the roadway and put it up on the curb!? Why not put it on the truck in the first place!

Sloppy and lazy people disgust me.


Styrofoam bumper pads, and over by the blue bridge support...a window held together with tinting film. How long would picking this up take?

I mean, if it's already, I don't know...YOUR JOB?


An air filter element. Are you kidding me? They left an air filter on the sidewalk in the middle of a bridge downtown? L-A-Z-Y!

Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go polish up my Kevlar for the next big drug bust. Word is COPS is filming on location right here in the River City. I might even step out of my air-conditioned cruiser for this one.

Rode the ti mountain bike though. I usually sport a mountain bike on my commutes around town so that I can hop over all the crap that gets left in the street by lazy people.

Reinforce those brakes. You never know when you'll have to grab a handful of stop to avoid hitting a refrigerator that some 'official' left on the roadside after an accident.

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Tighten up, folks. Do Your Jobs.

Sunsets!

Who needs more spares? ME!

Shameless auction picture ganking again. What did you expect from someone low enough to piss away his daughter's college fund on NOS Mavic Sunsets? Shhhh...don't tell her mother!

Reasonably affordable too. There should be an economic indicator established based on the fluctuation in value of a set of 217 Sunsets. A single rim sold a few days ago for a little less than 30 bucks...I fell asleep. Can you sleep through other economic indicators? I know you can sleep through college....

Amaryllis

In bloom. This is the only one we had this year. The armadillo must have lunched on the others.

Rime

If you've ever clicked on the blog links over there on the right, you know that my brother's blog, "Shadows and Light" spends an inordinately large amount of time archiving 'artistic' vandalism. Well every once in a while I see something pretty neat there, and here's an example of that. Pretty creative. The artist is a cat named Rime. I dig the penguin. This one hasn't actually landed on S&L yet, but I'm sure it will.

In Jacksonville, this would say something like "Cheap Sex - Call Dookie!"

More street art at the S&L Flickr page.

Low Dollar Yokota

See what I mean?...Hold the Euclid and what do you get for your non-Columbus tubed Yokota? $26! Wheee! This one even comes complete with a swank YST headset!

High Dollar Yokota

See what happens when a Yokota Yosemite is built with fancy parts? You get a Yokota Yosemite free if you pay for the parts! $380! And Campy Euclid stuff is ass too!




Pretty, sure. But ass none-the-less!

Goofiest brake lever on the planet. Italians...go figure!

Sweet cranks though.

Still...$380 is a chunk of change to pay for a Yosemite and some Euclid crap. It's not even a Columbus tubed Yosemite! People will buy anything on the flea.