Steven,
We did in fact have a streak of "unCalifornia-like" weather over the holidays; although the climate here in the south is much more pleasant, even when it isn't all that agreeable. We arranged for the weather so that you would feel more at home while you were here. ;-)
You just reminded me I need to dig out my Alex Moulton; it is a really fun and odd machine. I'm talking the older pig-iron ones; not the modern version. I have two. One is set up with Campag. 7spd cassette rear hub (to allow an 11 tooth cog on the rear) connected to a single bar end Suntour shifter. I run a 62 tooth TA chainring in the front. I painted it the "bowling pin" style; yellow with blue accents. It's a fun bike with drop bars. My second one will eventually be set up as a track bike!
Brian Baylis La Mesa, CA It steers kinda funny; I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable on it over about 150mph!
Charles wrote:
> especially in
> all the beautiful golden California sun we've had lately--we've
> had an extraordinarily beautiful winter, brief, intense storms
> followed by week, after week, of flawless, cool, crisp, perfectly
> sunny days.
Having spent both Christmas and New Year's in California. I can promise that not everything is always rosy weatherwise. During the time I was there, the average temperature at my home in NJ was actually higher that it was where I was in the San Francisco area. It also rained more in that short time than it has in the last month here.
I nonetheless had a wonderful time and would have loved to spend some more time with the local CR members. I had the pleasure of meeting up with more than a dozen and they were all overly friendly and helpful. I partook in the ride organised by Guy Apple just after Christmas (already reported on by various people), visited Brett Horton's wonderful office display, met up with a few members here and there and had hoped to meet up with even more if the flu and other maladies had not hit my family. For the CR ride, I had offers coming out of my ears for bikes to ride: for interesting fare such as a 60's Bianchi, 60's Cinelli, Masi... You may question my sanity therefore in selecting a bright yellow Alex Moulton belonging to Bob Freitas. Maybe, a question of 'been there, seen that'. At least now, I have got the desire to acquire an Alex Moulton out of my system for a few more years.
While in the San Francisco area, I stayed at a vacation rental property that I can only highly recommend to anybody wanting a relaxing cycling vacation. It is located in Sonoma in lovely wine country. The owner's website is:
http://www.beautful-places.com/
Thanks to everybody (Jan, Peter, Stevan, Ed, Brett, Joel and all the others) who went out of their way to meet up with me and especially to Bob for the use of the trampoline bike (maybe next time I'll have to try it out again once the suspension is dialled in ;-)
California is not only for the weather.
--
Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ