Ice cream eating champ???

AHHHHHahahahahahahahah

The nasty rumor these days is that the local roadie group is being selective about who they are allowing to ride and not ride. Sounds like if you are 20 lbs. overweight....you are OUT......oh the humanity!!!!

Glad i'm down 15....only 5 more to go. I can't wait (or weight??)

Abdul in Cali

I am by no means an authority on ebay. I have used the site for picking off various bits of goodness for the green machine and other oddball parts for various bikes over the years.

I have never had any significant problems (except for those people who seem to take forever to ship out items i've won, or having to live with the B.S. fees that ebay and paypal charge you).

I have sold a few bike related items. Among them a Seven complete road bike that went off without a hitch.

I did agree to take back a fly ass set of chris king MTB wheels that some douche won (for a crazy low price). When he got them he said the rear hub was tight. If you know anything about King hubs, you know it takes some miles to loosen the hubs up.

I decided to start getting rid of some of my old road equipment. First up was a scott cr-1 limited frame and fork. Very sano. I put a $400 reserve on it and let her rip. The usual conditions applied....no overseas shipping, no first time buyers with zero feed back, paypal only....blah...blah.

The first hr. the reserve is met.....the obligatory emails start coming..."how much to sell outright"......"how much to ship to Taiwan"....."will you sell without paypal".

At auctions end.....price gets to $785....not as much as the frame and fork is worth...but i'll take it. So I fire off a paypal invoice and nothing. Then I see the name of the winning bidder.....Armand Abdul from some place in California.

Flag #1 goes up.

He finally responds to the invoice and makes paypal payment. Then paypal informs me that payment will be held in internet "escrow" for 21 days for "buyer protection"

Flag #2 goes up.

WFT...."buyer protection"?...what about seller protection?????

So I send him an email to his gmail account to verify his paypal "confirmed" address. I just wanted some verification outside of the ebay private messenger system. He responds, but from a different email address.

Flag #3 goes up.

So I feel like I have enough ammo that if he tries to stiff me. I have his address, two email addy's, and paypal/ebay info.

I am fully prepared to jet out to Cali and stone his ass in front of his wife and kids at the local circle k if need be.

Somerville Express

After about 2 months of waiting on this and screwing with that.....the green machine is in working order.



I have very minimal time on it to be frank. I honestly liked the geometry of the Lynskey and went round n' round with IF about duplicating the numbers. IF had some ideas about certain angles and I had ideas to contradict their numbers so some give and take was applied by both sides. It was an eye-opening experience and much more detailed than the custom fit experience I had with Seven. I let those bean counters talk me into a frame that flexed more than Wendy Whopper's bra and turned out to nothing more than a high dollar commuter.



That being said, the thing feels totally different than the Lynskey. It is waaaaaay stiffer. So much so that a fox f29'er is going on it.

Pushed of course.



I rode a pushed fork and it was incredible the difference felt over the stocker.



I had a WTB rocket saddle on it. I liked the rocket, incredibly cush, maybe too cush. So I am going to give the gobi a fair shake and see how it treats me bum. (ed. note....partial lap @ chickasabogue last night revealed that the wtb is going back on).

The I9/arch wheelz are the real deal. I really didn't believe the hype but after running the king/arch wheels and switching over to the I9's....they track better and offer way less flex. I make this statement because I was getting some rear tire rub with the kings and so far the I9's have been rock solid. I heard they are making road wheelz now.

I am having gearing issues still. The local terrain offers me a chance to push a slightly bigger gear (33/17), which is a taller gear than most use but I suspect Oak Mtn or something with more terrain fluctuation will force me to a 18 rear cog. We will see.

I have become a believer in ergon grips as well. They are one of those items that are heavier, uglier, etc.....but damn if they don't make riding better. No hand/wrist issues at all. Even running rigid.

More details to follow.