Greetings campers and Osborn impersonators:
Apologies to those who initially received just a blank stare from me Sunday. Way behind on sleep and calories. 18-hour drive home from someplace warm, level, and rideable. 3 hours sleep, up at 4 AM for a 3+ hour drive to Westminster MD, and another 3+ hour drive back home. Yikes. Didn't see the giant rabbits I used to hallucinate (I hope) during long drives like that, but maybe I just didn't notice them in the blowing snow. Still too dazed and confused to play with my bike swap loot. Or to even figure out what I was thinking when I bought some of those things. Managed to successfully avoid everything with french threads (not completely spaced out), but I do see now that there are really 8 cogs on that $2 cassette. Not the 7 I counted at the swap. Oooooops. Never had that problem with freewheels. Oh well, cogs is cogs. And still one of the more enjoyable days I've had in recent months.
Yeah, got a nice low mileage steel Trek from Sam Fitzsimmons, at a reasonable sub-ebay insanity price. Most likely a 1983, 620 tourer, but on further investigation the frame is not noticeably different from the Trek sport touring frames of the same vintage. Just has more touring type components slapped on than their standard issue road bikes, and caliper brakes, not cantis. So really just a pseudo tourer. Maybe in 84 they went to real touring geometry. Certainly rideable, and it will make a good travel bike after I replace the helico-matic hubbed wheels. It will be a more dependable expendable than my current most dependable expendable, until I find an expendable 720 or Specialized Expedition. Something with a longer wheelbase, and more bottle cage attachments. See how this just keeps escalating? There's a pecking order even among the dependable expendables. Always a sucker for good touring bike, and always seem to have room for one more. A backup for the backup for the backup. You can justify almost anything this way.
And of course, acquired another little pile of amusing crappe that probably won't fit, work, or that I'll probably just never use. And tools to fix tools. Cheap enough that I can afford to be wrong. And the "new" bike needed brown bar tape if I decide to keep it anatomically correct (Thanks Leslie), and in order to desecrate it to meet my personal idiosycrasies, some nice old Specialized touring pedals (DOH! Forgot toe clips.), and a saddle that fits MY carcass, and new brake hoods, and ...... One stop shopping. Sooo much easier than ebay.
But really just went for the company. First time I've seen Jill leave a swap empty handed, but understand that she now has to alter her M.O., and actually SELL stuff rather than buy or give it away. I'm sure she will make the adjustment. And Tom Witkop kept me nervous all day, also walking around relatively empty handed, but he finally bought a DeRosa frame that was too small on his way out the door. Whew. Nothing else quite as enjoyable as diving into a box of bike junque and bumping into a familar face there. Or meeting a new one there. And thus began the usual philosophic discussions about "wants" vs "needs", and the sorry state of bottom feeding now that the stuff appearing in the junque boxes is mostly newer stuff we don't even recognize, much less have any hope of finding a use for. Always fun to share those little "What the heck is THIS?!" moments with someone who is equally puzzled. Even for just a dollar, I still have to maintain the illusion, and have some glimmer of hope that I will accidentally find a use for an item, someday.
On the spousal topic: No problem bringing the new bike home. I have offered to take her to visit Wayne's house, but she knows I'm capable of even worse. I'm probably okay as long as I don't start sleeping with the bikes...... But in my own defense, shovelled two feet of snow off the roof last week before departing for a conference/escape with the spousal unit. Took her away from her conference one day for her first ride in a small airplane (1928 New Standard biplane. Open cockpits, radial engine. Goggles and silk scarf. Grass airstrip. Perfect weather.). First words out of her mouth after takeoff were "I WANT ONE!!!! I do love that girl somedays. Mission accomplished, but another favorite old vice rears it's expensive head again. First time in 20 years I really wished I had been able to keep the old man's Piper Cub. Shovelled more snow off the roof after returning from the swap. And we both work, and allow ourselves our separate vices and together vices, as long as the house payment and long term financial goals are never in jeopardy. There are many paths to domestic tranquility, Grasshopper. And if those strategies fail, and she asks how many bikes you own now, you can always get a bit nasty and ask "how many shoes do you own, IMELDA.."
If the snow quits piling up, (soon I'll be able to touch the top of the
snow globe) it's on to Copake and T-town. THAT will be a challenging
weekend. No man is a hero to his sled dogs (remember what usually happens
to them when people food runs out), or to his Subaru.
.
Blah blah blah
Larry "I've been Helico-maticized. (but I'd rather be psychodelicized.)"
Osborn
Bruceton Mills, WV