Greetings campers and income tax evaders
Good to get back to T-town after missing it last fall (that was a first). Saw some old friends, met a couple new ones, brought home some greasy grungy "new" toys to play with, just great to be having fun out there again with the kooks. Even though I had to miss Copake and the WABA swap in DC to be there. Whouda thunk the day would come when there would be three swap meets to choose from on the same weekend. We gotta spread the fun out a little better. T-town was closer than Copake, and the deepest pool for bottom feeding, so that's where I had to go.
Missed a few early bargains while helping Walt Skrz...k & company get set up to sell, but still managed to corner the market on NOS GB stems (Sorry Don, just the clunky ones, not the recessed ones. Raleigh littered the planet with these things. And it takes a really sick person to notice the difference, and an even sicker one to care. Welcome to the dark side.) and collected an assortment of orphan drive side 170 mm triple crank arms. A real challenge finding 170s ever since Shimano decreed we will all use 175s on triples. Not with these knees we won't. Found a couple handfulls of other silliness and a couple weird tools I've always wanted but have been too cheap to buy, in particular a Campy seatpost bolt wrench (been using my now obsolete automotive ignition wrenches all these years, and they worked pretty well). Also found a replacement for the Campy crank arm removal tool I somehow managed to mangle last week. (Has anybody else ever trashed the threads on one of those? I amaze myself somedays. But hey, have to keep it all in perspective. Better to jazz up a 30 year old tool than the component). So if anybody has 170 orphan left side crank arms......I'm looking to buy or trade. I also have some orphan double crank arms to swap (all various Shimano) that I can't use. Where have all the left arms gone? (Sing it: "Gone to Copake?, every one.".) Hopefully they will show up in the fall, or at the Cirque, or next year.
Did what I could to talk Paul "Fenders" Lee into a nice Raleigh Competition GS for a reasonable sub-ebay price, and he was generous and considerate enough to let his spousal unit drag it around the rest of the day. Sooo she'll probably never talk to me again. Glad it wasn't my size, or I might have to divert precious energy towards being jealous. Also so far unmentioned, and possibly deserving, saw an Alpine that was neither my size nor on my shopping lust.
Returned home from a ride Sunday to a phone call from a neighbor who's off-topic road bike has been stored in my dry and raccoon-free rafters for 5 or 6 years now, finally wants to get it back out on the road again. The hilly terrain had been the primary deterrent to riding it, but now a triple crank sounds more appealling (and almost socially acceptable) as a solution. So when the question was asked this time around, my answer was, "I just happen to accidentally have IN STOCK, a stray drive side triple arm that matches your double. And a longer bb spindle, and small chainrings in a variety of ego deflating sizes, and a front der, and a long cage rear der, and a wider range cassette if you want go all the way with this........ no more excuses." I love swap meets. Not buying all this junque for myself ya know. Just doing my part to change my little corner of the world, cheaply, one triple crank and two tired aging knees at a time. By invitation only. Sorry, I don't do interventions. You can't help someone until they admit they have a problem, (or just start to miss their road bikes) and are ready to help themselves. One more friend welcomed back from the abyss of mountain biking. My good deed for the year, AND a new vacancy opened up in the rafter hooks, just screaming to be filled, soon.
But ya know, being nice to other people just ain't natural for me. So to balance my ying and yang while patiently baby sitting for another friend's new Ti Serrotta while she's moving, I've kept her nervous by constantly threatening to vandalize it, in a vintage sort of way of course. Told her I might fill the frame tubes with sand, install some little steel bits on it, anything subtle and quiet to get it's weight up a little closer to that of my loaded handlebar bag. And if I want/need to be really cruel, I could install a narrower saddle so she'll think her butt got bigger over the winter. That would probably be more fun than I could stand. And we can't overlook the little cosmetic touches. So my favorite score at the swap was a sheet of really nasty looking "flame" stickers to go with the acid pink bar tape I picked up for her at Westminster. Nooo, I won't actually do anything to the bike, but she doesn't know that for certain. A big paper clip to the packaging and brake cable, and I can technically and "legally" tell her the tape and flames are ON the bike. What's the point of having friends if you can't mess with their minds once in a while? Yeah, I know, it's a wonder I have any left at all.
See ya'll at the Cirque Larry "Two left feet, but no left arms" Osborn Bruceton Mills WV