fixed impressions

Here’s the hot link to listen in:

A teaser of winter has fallen upon the hills of VT as Mama Nature throws her weight around in a last-gas effort to remind us who’s boss. Nonetheless, here at FI we’re headed straight into riding season.

The 26″ Vulture is on the jig and progress is quick. Booyah!

I’ve got some more New Skool Vulture pics coming up in the next post.

Quality framebuilder profiles: On-deck is Solitude Cycles (UK)

Mostly I’m locked to headphones and monitors as I continue to produce good work for my upcoming CD. More on that later.

Over and Out.

G

Well, being that I’m now east coast based, I’m a little out of the loop on happenings in Bend, OR. So after I wrote Part 1 of the Vulture profile, I realized that my story was a little thin over the last year and a half. I called on all my west coast resources for an update. Here it is….

Vulture Profile:: Part II, The New Skool.

Here is a rare photo of the Central Oregon Vulture. Note its unusual light blue plume and black flamed crest. An intimidating predator. Omnivorous. Eats everything from Kippered snacks to geared scandium ‘crossers. As most of you velornothologists surely know….The Central Oregon Vulture has a brakeless tail and skinny tires, rigid suspension and simple-durable drivetrain. It can swim (obviously…) as well as puddle surf, run, and fly (well, sort of.)

Deschutes River Woods (DRW.) The Vulture is in “the country” now. It’s official. Guess that “big city living” on the westside of Bend, OR 90210 took its toll. As I previously reported, 4 generations (of Beauchamps) are now spanned at the Vulture enclave. Papa (grampa), Vulture (Wade), and Rio. Pretty cool. I guess the new era of the nuclear family is upon us. I got some negative feedback from Wade about calling his dad “Vulture” in Part 1. Word is he bristled at the notion of being called a “Vulture.” So I officially retract that, and now we have 3 generations of Vultures, and oh, Wade’s dad. Wade’s dad doesn’t live down on the DRW ranch (yet)…So I feel OK to call it the “Vulture Enclave.”

Here is a photo of Vultures in their native environment:

As if it was news to any dedicated Fixed Impressions readers, Vulture is building almost exclusively 700c bikes these days. The endless debate and discussion of wheelsize in the media and the bike forums just kills me. With laughter. And I’m not really above pissing in the wind about it myself. I’m on the list for a Vulture “Dinosaurus” retro 26″…Part of the reason I’m going for the dinky-wheeler is that I had a 26″ before and fell on it rendering a Dali like result. Course the components lived through the incident with nary a scrape. Thus, I have a near complete 26″ ready to go (of course sans frame at the moment.) Fascinating review of 26 vs 700c on cyclingnews.com: I tried to link direct but can’t do it. You’ll have to go to their homepage to find it. It’s in today’s headlines.

Here is photo of the Vulture’s current ride. Note the present derailleur hanger…The evolution is slower than the function, as demonstrated by the legacy hanger….never to see use, but still part of the skeleton. What would Darwin say?

Yeah, Vulture is stork-like. Look at those long tubes. I suppose that it’s easy to spot roadkill from his naturally high perch. The carrion are in extra danger with this predator!

Here’s another New Skool Vulture, this one in the capable hands of Nat Pellman. Nat has produced some very cool Vulture Swag, such as the team jacket, really great socks, and soon the Vulture Wool Jersey. Here is dedicated single-speeder and forward-thinker Nat’s ride:

Rumor on the streets of Bend, OR 90210 are that my frame is finally in the queue and tubing has been ordered. Very exciting, especially considering that our VT non-winter is almost over and the trails will be ready very early, considering our nearly non-existant snowpack. One great thing I’ll add about a low-snow winter in VT….it doesn’t equate necessarily to extreme fire-danger as it would in the west: sometimes it’s nice to live in a swamp (albeit a rather cold one!)

OK, back to drum programming. The final edit of Fixed Impressions will be re-cut with all-original music, by yours truly, which avoids copyright issues for web publishing. It also takes forever for an amateur like me. But the progress is there and you should see some video soon.

Time to make the donuts.

Over and Out.

G

Vermont’s winter queen really never showed her teeth this year. It’s not too late for her to lash out yet, but her time is running out. Currently, I’m zero-for-the-season on lift-service skiing/snowboarding. If I don’t get out there soon it’ll be my first zero-day year since 1995. Such is life. And it’s not like I didn’t get 350+ days in my seven years in Oregon.

The non-winter has been a windfall for my bike workshop, with my stand (last key element) being held hostage by the vagueries of FedEx and “signature required”….Once I get the stand set-up, I’ll have the best shop since I lived on 5th Street in Bend. Early season project checklist:

1. Prevent seizing of chains on Uniscorcher (fully rusted, east coast stylee)
2. Convert old Campy front wheel to track axle (quick release looks funny on a fix)
3. Add “flop” cog to Uniscorcher for commuting (a 17t opposite
the big 21t that’s on there now…and a dual-powerlink setup to quick adjust the chain length.
4. Build new Vulture 26″…starts as soon as Wade is done with it.
5. Install just-enuff-clearance-for-Panaracer-700/45c custom Vulture fork on Uniscorcher.
6. Un-seize seatpost in Gonter-X (cross-bike)…hopefully save it, not cut it out.
7. Sell off gluttonous caches of rare back-up parts (just too too many to keep)…
8. Somehow reduce total number of bikes by 2.
9. Attach wicker basket and leather-wrapped toolkit, possibly add a Brooks to the old Raleigh 3-Banger. Extra credit for getting new BB spindle, which is currently bent putting the old steel cranks at 12 o’clock and 8 o’clock! My dad must have hit some stumps….or something.
10. Post final version of the Fixed Impressions Video.

With winter just giving up, it’s been possible to get a few commuter shreds in. (I keep seeing the hardcore who’ve ridden all winter this year and are laughing at mother nature…(For the record, I’m not laughing!)

Sadly, after 9 years under my ownership, the old Green Hornet (1981 Subaru) is headed for back-up and/or special occasions duty. Despite the efforts of some skilled technicians, including Phil Meglasson, she has too many issues in her old age to continue daily work. So, after driving only 22,000 miles since 1997, I’m faced with getting a new car. Me being the way I am, looks likely to be a late model, granny owned Honda civic or similar. WooHoo! As for the Green Hornet, there seems to be a grass roots campaign emerging around to raise awareness (and money) so that I’ll keep her and possibly later restore her. I’d like to keep her. She’s such a classic and still runs strong. But she needs a lot of little things and I just don’t know….I’ll keep posting about this intriguing saga as it plays out.

FIX RADIO TUNER

I keep trying to create a “portable” version that I can use in my site, and that others can host in the sidebar of their blogs/wherever. I have some code written, but can’t get the layout the way I want. I want this new version to last for a year or so: I’m putting in extra design time to make sure that it’s right. Be patient (as always). Thanks again to those who host my tuner. We’ve exceeded my bandwidth quota for five months in a row!!! Yeah, rock that FIX Radio.

New shows are ready to be posted too, but I want to finish the new tuner first. By April Fools’ Day for sure.

Over and Out.

G

I just discovered that possibly people have not been able to get the tuner to play. If anyone has run into that problem please let me know. I can get more bandwidth, but I need to make sure the problem is what I think it is. Please leave a comment with what you’ve experienced.

I do have almost complete a new tuner for those of you who are hosting my tuner. Give me a week or so and I’ll send you the new code.

G