AM - LAST CALL!

And I'm spent!...angry Mammal has played itself out! Stay tuned for more worthless Shtick!

God Bless Sears

You can giggle all you want about buying stuff from Sears, and I agree that for the most part all these big box retailers are going to hell in a hand basket, but Sears still features one of the most valuable services offered by any retailer...The Ability to Buy PARTS!

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In the last month I've taken advantage of this service twice, first when the plastic clasp that holds to door closed on our front loader washing machine broke, and most recently, a new carburetor when the automatic choke on my lawn mower began acting funny, thanks to the gummy nature of Ethanol additives now splashed in by fuel retailers with their gas.

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You can buy the parts online, and in all cases the part numbers are either printed on the parts themselves (as was the case with my washer clasp) or in the owner's manual, (lawn mower carb).

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Well, the clasp came a few weeks back and works fine, as expected. The carb came last week, and coupled with my earlier surgery to repair the rust and cracks in the mower deck and combined with a new plug and filter, sharpened blade, and a splash of fresh oil, it's installation brings the old creaky mower back up to speed for hopefully another 7 or so years. Total cost?...$85. Very favorable compared to the $400 price of a new USA made Snapper or Toro.

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A new lawn mower carburetor! Don't try that at Wal Mart! Who needs a new mower!? Why am I talking about lawn mowers!?

Interweb Shoppage

More goodies for my stash.

Ritchey levers,

737 SPDs,

HG91 Chain,

M910 hubs,

and an XT front derailleur.

All but the hubs will hit the Rocky Mountain. The hubs are just because. They are so sexy I may stuff them in my pants and walk around in the mall, just because.

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Just because.

Made in Tampa!

I was putting the little girl to bed a few nights ago when I saw this...my hometown! I'm so proud that Tampa has turned from Cigars to "Bunky Boards" for Rooms to Go. Meh!

WTB Rollercams...egad!

I should have stocked up on these back in the day to pay for the rugrat's college instead of buying into the Florida Prepaid College Fund!

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WTB Rollers...

$535! Holy Crap!

Cook Bros CBR cranks....

$460!

Back to the commute!

For the first time in quite a while, it was neither three degrees nor raining when I got up this morning, and Kristen has not a sniff of a meeting tonight, so I get to commute on the bike! I was starting to feel guilty claiming to folks that I commute to work on a bicycle when over the last month and a half or so, I'd done it maybe twice. Felt good to be back on the bike in the morning. I could feel it though. It took a while for my knees to limber up and stop their normal morning litany of popping and pinging.

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I should take pictures on the commute sometime, instead of these static wannabe shots in my office. Bleah!

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Smelly clothes ready for the return trip. Yummy.

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Who says the view from under my desk is bad?

eBay Out Door

Some parts come in, and some go out. In addition to the Kona and the EWR mentioned earlier, these three goodies are on their way out the door.

SDG Saddle, headed to the UK.

XTR levers.

Carbon composite bar.

Angry Mammal

Hey, women are mammals too!

Rocky gets a bath.

Cleaned, polished, touched up and taped and ready for parts and another 22 years of use. If you can get away with it, I say never repaint a classic frame.

From the side, note the frost-wasted pepper plant in the box just beyond the screen. Poor plant...I even covered it.

Tange MTB tubes. The pride of any Toyo built contracted frame. The welds are typical Toyo clean. Aint that yellow pretty?...makes me feel bad for all the negative things I've ever said about anything... OK not really, but it is a nice color.

Looking down the flank. Note freshly wrapped chainstay and twin bottle braze-ons on the downtube. This is a size large frame.

And underneath that nice clean wrapped chainstay, hides one of these mud-grabbing little devils. I put this little boat anchor together from parts, picking the cleanest from a big bag of bits. I contemplated polishing a set for this bike, but the patina appeals to me. I've got most of the goodies for completion in my tonnage of worthless old crap stockpiles, including three other sets of U-brakes and a huge bag of 986 cantilevers (nobody liked them back int the day, save for maybe Grant Peterson and me.) I picked up a couple front derailleurs off the old Fleabay for very cheap, so that fills the last parts gap...I'll use the cleanest of the lot when they get here. And now a little more elbow grease on the old beast, including a full breakdown and clean of the rear brake, and some serious polishing and scrubbing to clean that Dia Compe 986 brake on the front, and I'll be set.

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Old bikes are neat-o.

Goodbye #2

This one stings.

As much as I'd like for it to not be the case...this MEDIUM (are you listening eBay seller?) E-Motion is just too small. It's either a medium or Jay and the Grove fellas made an E-Motion with a short top tube. It's a great looking frame, and I'm still going to shop for that large, but the medium here needs to go to a good home, and lucky for me, I've got one of those homes in the family.

Pretty frame. Nice metallic orange. Yummy yum, and I think orange is a nasty looking color but this is one lovely frame.

Whenever possible, always take pictures of your funky old orange vintage bicycle in front of your funky old orange vintage Preway fireplace. All I need is deep shag, a lava lamp and Jim Croce on vinyl and I'll be pimpin!



Obligatory Fresh Frame sticker detail. Dig that metallic. Yum.

Enjoy the frame, P+C!

And I'm off to enjoy my fireplace, with its scented candles. If you need me, people, I'll be grooming my sideburns and drinking some crap Chianti out of a bottle with a basket for a base. Now where did I put those rolling papers?

Goodbye #1

To many horses, and only one ass!


Thinning out the herd, what with the Rocky Mountain hitting the homestead here, I need the space and somethings got to go. Kona Lava Dome, one of the last quality double butted steel frames to come out of the house of Kona with cantilever braze-ons, and some other nifty little frame features. This frame was never going to be a retro build, instead I planned to do some custom paint in a funky theme, but the Yokota Yosemite project takes over in that regard. I even tried to order some replacement decals from a normally heralded and reliable source in the UK, but after about 6 months of gentle probing on my part to get the project moving, I'm just going to take the hint and drop the request for custom decals, and now, for unrelated reasons of course, the project in general.


It is heading to a good home.

Friday already?

Angry Mammal

...'plays' with ball.

Separated at birth?

RE: COLD!

I also haven't used a picture of my own for far too long...shame on me. No, thankfully this is not here in Florida!

COLD!

We've had 11 days of freezing temperatures here in North Florida, so to this point, two weeks into the new year, I have yet to touch a bike! It's killing me! Plus, I weigh a lot!

Yokota paint project is also on hold, as my hands get too cold to hold a spray can when I go outside. I can't even work on a bike!

It's amazing, that when you structure your life around spending a bunch of time outside, as we are want to do here in FLA, when the weather prevents that outside time, you really start to suffer. I am ready to be warm again, and it looks like tomorrow will be nearly 70 for a high. Which is good. I will be at work. Which is bad.

Saturday, I will not be at work...

...and it is supposed to rain.

Who did I anger to deserve this and how do I wipe my Karma-slate clean?!

SDG and Hugi goodies from Fleabay!

I post all these pictures up for my mom. I know how happy it makes her that I invest so much time in collecting all this old crap.

Hi Mom!

SDG Comp in black full Kevlar...

...and a spare Hugi cassette body.

Auction ganked artwork, as usual.

Mammal is Tardy

Friday's Angry Mammal got held up in traffic...

WTB Brakes and more Retarded Prices

WTB Rollers... for $800!

Sure that's a damn nice brake from back in the day, and very rare then and even more now, but holy cow people?! Does that come with a French Concubine? Is that why the shipping is a psychotic $30 on top of the 800 bones...she's a fat French Concubine to boot?

Egad!

Fun with Fleabay! Rocky

1988 Rocky Mountain Avalanche. Yummy and headed to Jacksonville.

Shown here in my shamelessly ganked auction pics

Paul Brodie would be proud.

Ring in the New Year with...an Angry Mammal!

Happy New Year!

OK, sure...technically this isn't a mammal...Technically. But I'll let you tell him that.