This is the first of a series of articles. Not sure how many it will be. The series won’t conclude until the bike is completely reassembled and ready to ride which might be next spring.
Let’s take a brief walk through some ancient history – the 60s and 70s.
My formative years coincided with the great American bicycle boom of the 60s and 70s. While there have been multiple bike booms over the last 50 years, the boom of the 60s/70s was quite extreme and had lasting cultural impacts:
- 1970s: The 1970s boom was by far the sharpest — sales more than doubled in just three years (from 7M to 15.3M). The 1970s bust was the most devastating: a 50% collapse in two years, with massive overproduction and retail failures.
- The 1970s boom permanently shifted the market from children’s bikes to adult lightweight bikes — a structural change no later boom needed to repeat. The 1970s is also the only period in US history where bicycles outsold automobiles in a single year.
- MTB boom: The MTB boom was built over ~15 years. The MTB boom never really “busted” — sales plateaued but never crashed.
- The boom was driven by a genuinely new product category (suspension, off-road capability), California innovation culture, media coverage of downhill racing. By the mid-80s, MTBs were 60% of specialty store sales.
- 2020: The 2020 spike was the fastest in absolute terms (65% in one year) but the shortest-lived. The 2020 correction was milder: sales fell back to roughly 2019 levels by 2023, with the main damage being oversupply and price deflation at shops rather than a demand collapse.
- The boom was driven by lockdowns, gym closures, fear of public transit, work-from-home. E-bikes grew 145% that year and have continued climbing since.
Legacy of the booms:
- 1970s: European brands (Raleigh, Peugeot, Motobecane, Gitane) lead the boom at the beginning, and Japanese imports (Fuji, Nishiki, Miyata) finished the boom and were the ultimate winners. The share of American brands (e.g., Schwinn) in the market shrank throughout the boom and they were the ultimate losers.
- MTB era: American brands — Trek, Specialized, Diamondback, Schwinn (revived) — dominated. For the first time since the 1930s, US-made bikes were competitive.
- 2020: E-bike brands and mass-market retailers (Walmart, Target, Amazon) captured the volume; Trek and Specialized captured the premium end.
Where was kinnath in all of this?
In the beginning, kid’s bikes were “sized” in the stores by the diameter of their wheels. We would have gone through the cheapest bikes our parents could get away with as we rapidly outgrew the bikes going from 20-inch wheels to 24-inch wheels. These bikes had one speed and coaster brakes. They would have looked something like this:
By junior high, I had graduated to 26-inch wheels, five speeds, and hand brakes. The transition from one speed to five speeds was easy enough. But the transition from coaster brakes to hand brakes was somewhat more eventful. You can get used to breaking with your hands when paying attention and learning important lessons like – rear brake first, unless you want to pitch yourself over the handle bars. However, the first time you get caught off guard and need to make a panic stop, there is a moment of sheer terror when you peddle backwards and nothing happens.
We lived in a middle-class development in rural Tennessee outside Chattanooga. The street wound its way up the top of a ridge between the surrounding valleys where the lower classes had smaller houses and more than a few shacks with tin roofs. All of us from the development rode the bus to school where we rubbed shoulders with the kids from low places. Many of them became my good friends, and I had total freedom to ride many miles to see them after school and on weekends. So, I put a lot of miles on the bike – riding alone, on winding country roads, with no cell phones, and no one knew where we were most of the time.
In ninth grade, we moved back to Iowa (where our family originates), and I continued to ride that bike everywhere – to school and to my first job at McDonald’s after I turned 16. By this time, 10-speed “racing” bikes we showing up and all the cool kids had one. In an effort to fit it, I turned the handle bars upside down on the cruiser to mimic the drop handle bars on the racing bikes. This let me ride in similar positions with hands up on the top center of the bars for an upright position and down on the grips for a “racing” posture. Looking back, I’m sure fooled no one but myself.
I rode that bike until I managed to bend the frame a wee bit as the result of a minor altercation with an automobile on the way home from work one day. At that point, I had a job and had spending money. A friend in high school (a year ahead of me) was trying to get into racing. He saved up his money and bought a Raleigh International. He spent a lot of time trying to convince me that Raleigh was the only bike I could want. So, I picked up Raleigh’s beginner, budget bike – the Raleigh Record. It was blue and it would have looked something like this.
This really was a big step up from the basic 5-speed cruiser. It rode better, provided a better range of gear ratios, and shifted smoother. Yet considering how crappy this bike was in retrospect (heavy with shitty components), it just shows how bad the older, classic cruisers actually were.
Brave AI says:
The 1973 Raleigh Record was a basic entry-level drop-bar road bike positioned at the bottom of Raleigh’s production line, primarily serving as a 13-year-old’s alternative to the Schwinn Varsity. {kinnath says: ouch, that stung}
- Construction: The frame was all steel (except for the brakes), featuring heavy tubing and steel wheels, which made the bike heavy but stable and durable for general recreation.
- Components: It was equipped with low-end parts, typically including plastic Simplex derailleurs (noted for being dismal).
I don’t remember why I dumped the Record, but I needed a better bike.
By then, I was an adult (19ish), married with one kid, and working full-time as a printer. As soon as it was practical, my wife had gone back to work. Child daycare as we know it now did not exist. That meant our son was watched by a series of less than spectacular sitters. Not that it mattered, neither of use made much money so we couldn’t have paid for better than we got.
There was enough money for rent, utilities, and groceries. With what was left, it was all we could do to keep one car in running condition. Whenever possible, I left it in my wife’s hands. Thus, the bike was my primary mode of transportation. I rode to work as soon as the snow cleared in the spring and until the snow fell the next winter. If it rained, I walked or my wife drove me where I needed to go. When it became clear the Record wasn’t cutting it, I bought a new Peugeot U08 – it cost about $100 USD retail. It was orange and would have looked something like this.
It was a big step up from the Record – rode better, shifted better, but was still heavy as hell.
Brave AI says:
The Peugeot UO-8 was a highly popular ten-speed bicycle manufactured by Cycles Peugeot during the 1970s “bike boom,” with production running from the early 1960s until 1980. It was marketed as a mid-range racing-style cycle and was sold in vast quantities, particularly in the United States where it competed with heavier department store bikes.
- Frame and Geometry: Constructed from medium-strength straight-gauge steel with a long wheelbase that provided stability and a soft, comfortable ride on city streets and rough roads.
- Components: Stock equipment typically included Simplex Prestige plastic derailleurs, Mafac Racer brakes, cottered cranks, and distinctive textured steel rims (Rigida), which were heavy and offered poor wet braking but were durable.
- Ride and Value: While often criticized for its heavy steel rims and plastic shifting components, the UO-8 is renowned for its excellent handling, forgiving ride quality, and solid frame construction, making it a favorite for restoration into touring or commuter bikes.
Our daughter was born in January of ’79. From that point on, it was impossible for my wife to work, pay for two kids to be watched, and have any money left over. So, she stayed home, and I took a second job at Godfather’s pizza nights and weekends (this was during their peak growth period – when they were actually quite good).
One of my coworkers at Godfather’s noticed that I rode to work most of the time. He let me know that he had a custom-built bicycle frame in his barn that he had gotten from his cousin (who raced). He figured he was never going to get around to building a bike out of it – so he offered to sell to me for one hundred bucks (brave AI says $461.40 in 2026 monopoly money). That was a big chunk considering my situation, but I jumped at the chance to own a real “racing” bike. And that was how I fell into an early-70s Gitane Tour De France bicycle frame. It would have looked something like this (see below) except it was red, and it had been stripped down to the frame, the bottom bracket, the crankset (no pedals), and the headset – very close to being just a naked frame.
Since I never saw or rode the original bike, so we’ll have to rely on search results to see what it was like.
Brave AI says:
The Gitane Tour de France model, introduced in 1968 as an update to Jacques Anquetil’s 1964 winning bike, typically featured Reynolds 531 double-butted tubing with chrome-plated fork crowns and dropouts. While the frame material is premium, the original componentry from the early 1970s was often a mix of French parts (such as Simplex derailleurs and Stronglight cranks) rather than top-tier Italian groupsets, which some collectors view as a trade-off between frame quality and component prestige.
Key characteristics of these frames include:
- Material: High-quality Reynolds 531 steel, known for its strength-to-weight ratio and ride comfort. Frames built with Reynolds 531 steel are fabulously lively riders and are often sought after by vintage cycling enthusiasts for their excellent ride quality and durability
- Construction: Early models (late 1960s to mid-1974) often had 1/2 chrome plated forks and rear stays.
- Ride Quality: Described as solid, sturdy, and lively, offering a comfortable and responsive ride that many riders prefer over other steel frames of the era.
Of course, I knew none of this when I bought the frame.
As I mentioned before, I was solidly in the class of “working-poor”. I relied heavily on my bike for transportation. I rode it everywhere, and locked it up in lots of places. Some nice. Some not so nice. While the bike boom had crashed a few years before, bikes were still popular. And theft was still common.
The frame had scratches in the paint and pock marks in the chrome. Rust was present. So, I stripped the paint and buffed off the rust with steel wool. I also took the shine off the chrome and hand-painted the entire bike with Rust-Oleum paint. I vaguely remember blending a pastel blue with gray to get a “boring” color and brushed it on. I fitted out the bike with whatever hodgepodge of parts I could pick up at the local independent bike shop (where the guys actually knew what they were doing). The final bike looks like this:
At the time this bike was built out in late ‘79 or early ’80, it had the following components:
- Wheels: 27 x 1-1/8 inch clincher wheels with Maillard 120 mm hubs and alloy rims
- Drivetrain: the original bottom bracket (later replace with Sugino); the original Stronglight crankset (replaced later with Suntour); alloy pedals and toeclips; Suntour freewheel; Suntour chain; Suntour Vx derailleurs; and Shimano downtube friction shifters (the shop didn’t have Suntour shift levers in stock)
- Braking: Weinmann 500 single-pivot side-pull brakes
- Steering: no-name alloy quill stem and 3 ttt (aka 3t) Italian alloy handlebars
- Seating: no-name steel seat post and a decent leather saddle
Not exactly Campagnolo, but decent components at modest prices.
The first few times riding the bike were actually a bit unnerving. Steering was far, far more responsive – learning not to oversteer was challenging. And the Reynolds 531 steel flexes a lot (I mean a lot). Riding down a steep hill at high speed, if there is any undulation in the pavement you can feel the front fork flexing up and down. But I got used to it quite quickly, and came to love the feel of being on this bike.
By the time I put this bike together, I had found a better first job (still in the printing business). I still kept the second job making pizzas and rode the bike all over the place. Eventually I had enough money to buy a couple of decent cars, and the bike got set aside.
In spring 1982, the bottom had fallen out of the Iowa economy (Reagan and Volker were actively crushing inflation which came with some not-so-trivial impacts on the general economy), and I lost my primary job. So, I said fuck it and went to college. With no serious income, we lost both cars, and I reverted back to riding a bike everywhere (or using the bus in winter).
I graduated in Aug 1985 and got an engineering job with my newly minted diploma. We moved to Phoenix and found a place to live not too far from my job (quite a feat if you know what Phoenix is like). The plant was in Deer Valley (far north Phoenix), and my wife enrolled at ASU in Tempe. While I was making more money as an engineer than my two old jobs combined, even buying one new car was still challenging. My wife got the car to commute to school, and I continued to ride my bike to work. This continued for three years until my wife graduated and took a job. Then we bought a second car, and the bike got set aside.
The weather in Phoenix is pretty conducive to riding bikes. It rains all of six days a year. Winter lows are moderate, and a light jacket is enough. Surprisingly perhaps, riding in the middle summer is not all that bad. As long as you are moving, the brutally dry air does a good job of keeping you cool enough. Noteworthy is that I did ride my bike home from work the day they closed the airport – a record setting 122 degrees American. That was a fun day, I suppose.
We returned to Iowa in ’92 and moved into a small house in a little town 20 minutes down the freeway from work. Driving to work was the only real option. Riding around the small town was not very entertaining and getting out on the highway could be scary. So, the bike collected dust in the garage.
Eventually the rails-to-trails movement opened a 50-mile trail about 3 blocks from our house. In the early days, the trail was gravel. Road bikes with skinny tires are not well suited to gravel, so my wife and I bought a pair of Trek trail bikes and hit the trails. The old road bike was never ridden again.
So, here we are in the year 2026. I’ve lost 80 pounds and the new focus is on fitness. The trails were paved over some time ago. The 50-mile trail near our house connects to several other paved trails all winding through some fairly scenic areas (come on, I know it’s Iowa, but not everything is corn or soybean fields)
Now is the time to resurrect this old bike.
Stay tuned.
Nice bike you’ve got there. It’d be a shame…
great memory. thanks.
Nice article. I remember the bike I had as a kid. 20-inch wheels, one speed, coaster brakes, etc., but it had steel mag wheels which made it heavy but sturdy for jumping off hills. I considered off and on getting a trail bike, especially up in NH where they have a good set of trails through the woods. Right now in TX, not so much because of the heat all the time.
I had a Schwinn Varsity.
It also could be used as a boat anchor in a pinch.
Wealthy family member gave me a French Stella Arctic which weighed like half as much and felt like a rocket in comparison.
I thought of Tres when I found this mug at Goodwill two days ago but here’s some American Bicycle Boom for you.
https://ibb.co/J0t4LgZ
https://ibb.co/fzkk1WJz
Can we talk about how weird it is that Queen wrote a song about fat bottomed girls and how they make the world go round?
I don’t like big asses.
I don’t understand that affectation.
They look like future diabetes to me.
It makes me wonder what Freddie Mercury saw backstage.
Thanks for that image Chafed.
Not.
I have a newish Schwinn cruiser with the aluminum frame and three speed coaster brake.
I need to get back on it.
I’ve never owned — or even ridden, IIRC — a skinny-wheeled bike. It’s never come up, but I always thought something was ‘off’ w them.
Ha! My first job at McDonald’s when I was only 15!! (…had to get ‘parental permission’ and my bro had already worked there, but still. *frump*)
“By then, I was an adult (19ish), married with one kid, and working full-time as a printer.” <– Yes. Two horses in harness, you and I.
My mom Had an early 70s skinny tired ten speed. I did not like riding it. Very rigid and a bit terrifying to corner. I think it was a Schwin.
I haven’t spotted a skinny-wheel bike in the wild in a long time.
In the city it’s all fat, tiny tires and now mostly battery-operated and driven by Spanish-speaking delivery people.
Great history lesson, Kinnath.
My personal bike history is very limited but I went through all the trials with my kids. Letting them chose their own, for the most part. Of course they wanted the high priced off the rack bike.
We didn’t understand the tech you discussed, probably wouldn’t have made much difference if we did. Now I’ve forgotten how to ride and kids can choose their own bikes. My son was a bike guy, tells a story of Lance Armstrong riding past him, nodded and quickly was out of sight.
Dad loved biking, but he can’t anymore after his knee replacements. He got a 3-wheeled one but it’s heavy! His regular bikes were always one gear simple thingies. I’m not sure he knows how to change gears on a bike. He and Mom lived in W Virginia for a while, when he was biking a lot, but he never got one with shifters. They frighten him, methinks.
Getting back on a bike was, uh, not the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I made it work and even ran a few errands on it. (Booze is an errand!) I’d ride with the nephews if it ever came up, but I don’t have any desire to get my own. I could/may in the future, but it would totally depend on where I lived. Having said that, I live 100ft from primo Monon Trail biking territory and I’ve never had the impulse to pedal my way along.
I would love to get a trike – I don’t feel as steady on a bike as I was even a couple years ago.
I bought a trike for my wife this summer. She loves it. That rekindled my interest in getting the old bike out.
I had a rent-a-bike subscription in Ithaca before I moved away this year – they were those crazy heavy semi-electric things; riding around the limited flat areas downtown was very nice but the city is surrounded by steep hills which greatly limited my reach. I would ride it to doctor’s appointments lol.
Now with a bit more delicate bones and living among crazy traffic in New Jersey – I don’t think so.
We live 25 minutes by freeway from work. And we are half way between a small town and a very small town. There is the two-lane highway and a lot of gravel roads. Bicycles are not much value as far as commuting to work or running errands.
But we are three miles from a large network of paved trails through the Iowa country side.
I bought a small trailer and put a hitch on my wife’s Rogue. She can load up the trike and drive to any one of many nearby trailheads and then take off for the afternoon.
In Ithaca there were a lot of people riding the bus with their bikes parked on the bike rack, uphill to Cornell and such in order to explore the trails around the wider area. I didn’t do that but I get the appeal.
There was one memorable trip where I took the bus to Cornell and picked up a rent-a-bike there and rode it home downtown with a detour that took me down a hair-raising strait-away into a gorge that would have broken every bone in my body if I hadn’t been careful. My doctors would not have been pleased.
Dad’s is (to-me) all backwards, with the two wheels in THE BACK! Reminds me of Top Gear+ Reliant Robins, and for good reason. That front wheel makes it really tricky. Very easy to over steer it – to an extent I’m not at all comfy with. (Nor the others.)
I guess having both front wheels steer’d be a bit much, but at least w Dad’s version, it’s topsy-turvy even on the gentle Monon, IMO. ¯\(◉‿◉)/¯ (ooooh. these powers, I have…)
I am going to be buying an electric trike for myself pretty soon. I cannot ride anymore in a regulare sense, with the MS my legs don’t move well enough to get gyroscopic effect that you need. So, trike it is!
OK, I have two regular trikes in the back garage, but I think I have earned this.
Hadn’t noticed but the adult trikes I see are all like that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
what EV is talking about is called a tadpole trike, most often they are recumbent, meaning you pretty much are lying down when riding them. Regular trikes developed much the same as rear wheel drive cars; it is the basic development of a standard cycle, just with a second rear wheel. (cars do this, as opposed to front wheel drive, as it is the most basic layout of the components)
@Zwak: Ha! “what EV is talking about..” Ya see why I’m minorly peeved “electric vehicle” has acronymed into my name outside of work (or trouble). Ev doesn’t like EV talk. Ev talk is ICE talk. Auto-fuck just twice tried to ‘correct’ my abbreviated name into their bastardized and capitalized version. Yuh huh. You see, truly, the struggle is real.
Seriously, I’d never thought of the real-wheel drive angle on the recumbent. Well, I did, but for some reason I got to thinkin’ doing such would require more work for the rider, like ‘pushing’ is harder than ‘pulling.’
^ I just looked that up and… uh. Yeah. That’s why I didn’t ‘think’ too much. <– I think that was an odd stoned thought. I don't think I really think that. oooh!! Nope: I thought having two wheels up front, w two wheels to steer, would be more difficult or just awkward with one wheel powering the back on a bicycle.
^^I am a font of wisdom, and I make many very important decisions. Indeed, try microwaving a normal-sized marshmallow for 20-30 seconds. Watch it expand and take it out before it 'pops.' It's kinda like reverse ice cream! You have to eat it quickly while it's still hot and in melty-puff form. Wait too long, instead of melting, it swiftly hardens into glass.
Reverse trike (backwards EV) has two wheels in the front. A stable design but more complicated steering linkage bs a standard trike. I’m not sure if anyone makes such a beast.
Following up from the last thread . . . I just dropped a small fortune on magazines for my two Ruger rifles. Bikes are cheaper.
Next time I’m in town I’ll pick up A couple more mini 14 mags and a MK3. Should grad some more 25 round 10-22 mags while I’m at it.
I need some more Beretta 85BB magazines. Mecgar discontinued them only a couple of years ago but the supply has dried up.
This is super cool Kinnath. It’s doubly so that it’s been a piece of your life for so long.
thanks
Yes! Thank you, Kinnath!
I can’t wait to see how the paint experiments turn out.
Bike dismantled and old paint removed.
https://www.glibertarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/PXL_20261020_232102017.jpg
Trying to get an estimate on powder coat at this time.
The old chrome is there, but so very sad.
Did you find a local powder coat shop?
I use to ride a Dave Scott Centurion Ironman until my wanna-be hippie* college roommate Paul let some other smelly neo-hippies crash at our house one night and one of them left with it the next morning. I sometimes wish Jerry Garcia was still alive just so he could die again and I could once more feast on dirty filthy neo-hippie tears. Fucking filthy wanna-be hippies.
*this was the early nineties for Fucks sake. I get digging old music but living the whole tie-dyed wardrobe lifestyle complete with rose colored Lennon specks and dating chicks with armpit hair seemed a little fanatic.
In the 90s?
Gross.
I can barely remember some three and five speed bike but at 16 I got a car and that was the end of bicycles for me. At 30 I did get a dirt bike. Those are my two wheeled experiences.
lol Been there.
I learned to ride on a terrible used banana seat bike with giant handlebars and no training wheels. By 5th grade I had upgraded to a BMX bike.
I had a 10-speed with the curved handles for a while as a teenager, but I made the mistake of leaving it at my dad’s house for too long and my dad and stepmother gave it away without asking or telling me.
I still have the Trek mountain bike I used as a daily commuter for a while in college. I don’t ride it, though, because I can’t seem to find a seat that doesn’t make my balls hurt after about 10-15 minutes of riding.
Just get rid of them
My son had that Spyder bike with the elongated seat, when we lived in an upstairs apt in NJ. I had to take it down, bring it backup the stairs. We moved to TX, he forgot it outside (we had a garage) and it disappeared. Then on to the 10 speeds.
Looks like part two is posting Thu am.
I better start writing the next piece.
In my HS era all the cool kids had a 10-speed with that “racing posture”. Blech. I had one in college I used to ride to work. Never again. Upright, please.
That little tiny seat was not agreeable for an older gent. Racing position was a problem for me too. I didn’t borrow my kids’ bikes very often, like not at all.
A best friend in early-Korea days and I are still in touch. (Born in Iran and 7rs there, Canada til Korea, then S America, then professor in Madrid (now fluent in Spanish, English and Farsi))
He’s a dead-ringer for successful Mamdani-types, but he can express his socialism so well (and everything in general) that people just fawn over whatever he says. He’s remarkably charismatic. He just told me he got a gig at Boundless Outdoors High School in Canada.
It’s very expensive but is also heavily subsidized. (Whoddathunk?)
Mission & Philosophy
Alternative Experiential Education: Founded in 1984 and accredited as a high school in 2004, the school integrates standard Ontario curriculum credits (Grades 9–12) with outdoor experiential education.
Student Focus: Boundless primarily serves youth who thrive outside standard school systems, including students navigating mental health hurdles, disengagement, or socioeconomic barriers. Programs are heavily subsidized through donor and foundation support to ensure accessibility.
Restorative, Not Punitive: The school explicitly avoids a “boot camp” model, leaning heavily on mutual trust, community accountability, emotional safety, and small class cohorts with a tight 1:4 staff-to-student ratio.
Campus & Working Environment
The Setting: Set across roughly 600 acres of rugged wilderness, the property features riverfront access, high-ropes courses, climbing structures, hiking trails, organic gardens, and rustic modern facilities such as log lodges, a communal dining hall, and dorm quarters.
Integrated Roles: Working at Boundless involves hands-on wilderness immersion alongside classroom leadership. Staff routinely balance curriculum delivery, backcountry risk management, whitewater paddling, and evening community life.
====
No drug problem kids or disruptive mental issues, etc. So, a teacher’s dream gig. Shayans is NOT an outdoorsman. He *is* an exceptional teacher. His ability to capture an audience with his expressive abilities goes beyond his fucking retarded, boiler-plate utopian ‘ideas.’
You’re not alone: I’m concerned with him being around older high school kids with his magnetic charm. (It’s a talent he legit has.) Especially in outdoor areas. He’s also openly polyamorous, I believe w the same Main Gal for a few years? I trust him to not mess w students, but I can easily imagine them going all swoon-swoon for *him.* Students, 14-19. Nineteen-year-olds, Dude. 🧐
Has anyone thought about just how sweet it would be to see Omar deported to Somalia and in some shit brick house surrounded by chicken coups in a dirt field out in the middle of nowhere?
Realistically she’d probably be granted asylum somewhere in the Western world as a political refugee. Maybe Putin could offer her a nice state house in Siberia?
While that sounds all well and good we’d end up with Keith Ellison, the present MN SecState as her replacement.
Be careful what you wish for, you may just get it.
Wait, wasn’t she his replacement?
Yeah, now they can hope folks have forgotten the Ellison misbehavior and he can get back in national politics.
All hail King Clucks-a-Lot the First!
I have thought about it. If that happened then her husband – brother would also be subject to denaturalization and deportation.
excellent article kinnath. I too love reading how bicycles were always part of your life. I have big jumps in mine, going from childhood riding with friends, then stopping when I had to start riding the bus to school, followed by cars (cheap POS’s) and getting back into them in the 2010s for health, and of course going for a single speed hipster bike, followed by classic “real steel”, Raleigh’s, Peugeot’s, and Schwinn’s. Now I have a dozen or so in the back shed, as I love working on them. But I can’t ride anymore, not even regular trikes, so I am going to be picking up one of the electrics trikes here soon.
can’t wait to be back
thank you.
Be carefull with the etrike.
Damn things are unstable unless they are a reverse trike.
One of my neighbors crashed his coming down a curve in my neighborhood, thing went over and he hit his head doing about 35. Lights out forever.
is that there these newfangled symmetrical velocipedes?
Not much use to many around here but I have been trying to start Trump accounts for my kids the last two days.
Website is a dumpster fire. You can do it on a desktop but it has a facial ID deal that’s exactly like the one that FB used to decode I was a bot last spring. Shocked it’s decided I’m not me six times and locked me out for 24 hours two days in a row.
It’s set up so you have to have a smart phone and download their app. Unless you dig around and find the right semi Biden website to use a desktop. Which is not good. It requires you to send a picture of the front and back of your DL, of course the webcam on your desktop can focus on that, no place to upload a photo.
If you go the the site of the people that built it they claim they are saving Americans time by making better federal websites. Total grift. Their websites suck on ice and the email for accessibility issues is a bad email address. Typical Fed gov.
The feds have a billion
Dollar contract with IDme and of course you can’t log in with IDme because why would that work on a federal website?
I’m convinced the Trump account apps designed as a federal back door into your phone. I won’t be downloading that.
Sounds reminiscent of the Obamacare website launch.
I’m glad I skipped that BS.
There are several contacts listed of the people on the site build team but when you click them they are TwiX handles and not email addresses. So if you’re like me and banned from TwiX you can’t tell them how fucked up their website design is.
Good Lord- Its only Tuesday.
I’m hammered.
———–nothing follows———-
So jealous….
🎵And nothing else matters🎵
I have a nice (but heavy) Specialized commuter hybrid rotting in the basement.
I used to ride all the time but I’ve become low key terrified about riding in the city – everyone is checked-out and staring at their phones even while driving.
Add to that the fact that even minor spills I shook off in my 20s would probably hospitalize me now…
“I have a nice (but heavy) Specialized commuter hybrid rotting in the basement.”
Without context this statement might lead one to assume you’re a serial killer.
Ha ha. Yes, that does sound weird.
Definitely not a serial killer. Nosiree bob, not the sort of thing I would be into. What with the stalking, the delayed gratification but the voices urging, URGING you to cleanse the unclean from the world NOW NOW NOW and the plastic and the Sawzall and the li Rand the BLOOD, oh God, so much blood, no way to ever get clean and the VOICES starting again, so soon, so soon…
Just a bicycle. Or two.
IRL your first name is Dexter, isn’t it?
I’ve had a Miyata, Diamondback, and Trek. The Trek MTBs of the 90’s were Taiwanese frames, if I remember correctly.
I’d like a cruiser type now I think. I’m not going to be hitting any trails. I looked at bikes circa covid and the styling doesn’t do anything for me. Neither does the made in China label.
My first bike was a banana seat in the bmx era. I hated that thing.
Also, fuck Idaho stops.
Idaho stops make cycling semi enjoyable.
This brought back some memories. Looking forward to more installments.
Trump adds another National Park.
https://x.com/interior/status/2112679983336542263
Fuck that.
Sell it ALL.
50% of the western states is locked in behind some goddamn federal gate.
There needs to be parity.
Lock up half of Massachitits or some other commie east coast state and see how those assholes like it. Until then sell it. Mine it, log it. Drill it. But most importantly dead it and auction it off.
I will take one DLC please.
He’s just an 80s democrat.
Always growing government.
YouTube just suggested this.
I watch his machine shop videos from time to time. And funny thing I’ve always thought bicycle hub bearings were weak sauce and should be Timpken tapers. Cool thing he built for his bicycle.
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/uNgiI8p93Js?ra=m
Good morning grain slaves!
🚲🌾🤪
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wa8Rxzyz50
🎶🎶
Good morning, Sean, Ted’S, and U!
It’s 3:40 AM.
Why the hell am I awake?
Your body and brain would obviously prefer to live in the Eastern time zone! 😜️
Because you’re a morning person like UCS? 😆
I did once GT.
I swore an oath to never step foot in TN/KY again as long as I live.
16 years going I’ve kept my word to myself. Awful place.
3door – it could be worse – you could be in New York.
OBE has a sad….
And poor Sean is up
Way too early
Regardless of time zone.
I think the NE should be in its own time zone. One more further east, Maine, NH, VT, NJ, most of NY.
Either way the accents and bad weather would make me sad UCS.
NY to be worse on the tax and regulation front than TN/KY. I thought the latter was bad compared to Idaho. Energy prices 20 years ago were crazy down there. But again NY is probably worse.
Now, there are lovely areas of both KY and TN, though as a native Ohioan, I’m obliged to make fun of the state directly to our south.
@GT – I was thinking what the NY analogue would be and went “Why would I make fun of Pennsylvania?” Then I realized the state to our south we make fun of is New Jersey. Checks out.
“Did you hear they expanded the Cincinnati Zoo? They put a cage around Kentucky.”/very old, not very good joke
Making fun of PA would probably involve Amish jokes.
What do you call an Amish Datacenter?
A Library.
Whatever lets you sleep at night. 🙂
Rhy – You know it’s true – New Yorkers pick on New Jersey. It’s just the way it’s always been.
What goes clop clop clop BANG BANG BANG clop clop clop?
An Amish drive-by shooting.
Oh, I know they do.
I snicker at it because it’s ridiculous.
“Choose the form of your destruction!”
I’ve been to New Jersey. If anything we’re too nice.
Why the **** do we even have a “Historic Business Preservation Registry”?
So the local Karens and Ninbys have more power.
Seems to be more about giving grift to Albany, not locals.
It’s not as if the bank’s headquarters is in a historical building. When I was a kid that building was a big cube farm for MetLife.
My stupid little town has a historic district that will stop you from upgrading your windows or painting your house certain colors. God forbid you want to tear down a rotten moldy home built in 1912 and replace it with something livable. And every few years they want to grow the size of the zone.
State wide they have the Century Farm designation for my farm operation that’s been in the same family for 100’ years. If you know farmers this is fairly rare as they usually fail through mismanagement in the third or fourth generation. They get a little sign to put on their place and a writing the local paper. But someone manages the program at the state level and gets paid for it.
Yeah, historic “districts” are an abomination. I’m OK with historic “buildings” – under certain circumstances – but the districts are really just a sop to elites to prop up their land/building values. And yup they grow ever larger and the same lefties who support them bitch about how expensive everything gets. 🤷♂️
Apparently OMB is launching an assault on historic buildings and there are signs up telling people to vote on something.
Mine is at something called the “Puerto Rican Lutheran Housing Corp.” 🥴
Definitely not a historic building.
Yes, all the 19th C buildings here are picturesque, but still: the people who want to preserve them need to do so with their own money, not mine.
Let the horse set pay for it. Lord knows they’ve got the money.
Morning, Glibs.
Too early for me UCS.
Morning.
For the record I did not want to wake up.
suh’ fam
whats goody
Good morning, homey!
I’ll be making a trip to picturesque Leipsic today.
Good morning!
My last bike was a Giant Iguana that I rode for years in college, shelling out more money to keep it in a locker so it wouldn’t get rained on. It was stolen out of the locker and I’ve never replaced it.