fixed impressions

I got my remix up on the official NIN remix site. Nice treat after putting so much work into my Cacophony CD. (Mind Control Device ON) Follow the link. Vote first for me, then download this track HERE. If you like it you can review it for them. This is my dream work and if any of you folk out there feel like helping me, I’d be much obliged.

(Mind Control Device OFF)

Cool.

New BFX#15:

Zeus are good for my eye:

Reviews? Any extra points here…hmmm

This one looks freshly returned from Trinidad (sic)….

Brand spanking new rear wheels are always a dead giveaway to the fresh gear-change operation (removal.)

This one is a Fuji:

Extra points for Brooks saddle, hanger-removed and inefficient yet cool looking Weinmann center-pull.

Pretty.

G5

The orange trim lug work is hot. This is outside of the Muddy Waters Coffee Shop. This is a very trendy hang-out for the younger fix crowd (sic) and I see a lot of cool bikes here.

Extra points for great pedals, new head tube badge and comfy Oury grips. Those grips were my fav for years.

Over and Out.

G

The weather this last weekend…It was well, very, very good.

I ran into my old friend Cliff on Friday night and it was the beginning of a world-pro-leisure weekend. Friday after I saw him, I made a great new beat. It’s going to become a killer song here at any moment.

Saturday. We rode Sugarbush with great spring snow and SPF 30! Sick fun. Got to meet his wife and beautiful little kids. Ate. Drank. Talked. Drank more. Crashed.

Sunday. I got the bug that seems to be permeating around the US this spring (coasting—-SHHHH!) I got out my GX and went for a dirt road, country road epic. My first since I’ve lived in VT. It was just great.

I really kind of lost my love for road biking when I moved from northern California to central Oregon. Well, I can say now that it might come back on me a bit. I just ride with the 35c cross tires on there, add a little jib and a such. Maybe a bit of singletrack or whatever. I know pretty well how slow I’d be if I had 23c tires and I’m not that much slower on the 35c knobbies. I’m in the process of riding them down to smooth. It was a great ride no matter, with some great singletrack riding on the 35c rubber at the end!

—at this point I let my session time out without hitting publish, for about the 5th time. Lost a very fine second half of the post…which keeping with tradition I won’t try to re-create—

Here is a pic of the GX that I know went in the second half of the post:

So, I’ll get over the lost post and write something else later.

G

As if I didn’t have enough against Micro$oft already, here are some stats for this author (on this blog) that show me where M$ and Internet Explorer are headed.

I also can tell you the OS numbers (for this week):

Winders: 63%
Apple OS: 35%…about a 50/50% split between PPC and MacIntel
Linux: 2%

So, what this says is that fixers are not representative of the larger (90% or greater M$ dependent) population.

Disclaimer: “Winders works, but that doesn’t mean it works for me. If you prefer it, you prefer it. I don’t code specifically for it and if you find my shit is broken in IE…I’m sorry, but you ought to use Firefox or something other than IE anyway.”

I think the whole OS v OS thing is highly overrated. I use OS X because it works for my needs, doesn’t use a registry hive and supports Logic (which runs on OS X only)…

So, I took Friday off to drive across VT and pick up my Carts Vermont Garden Cart. Rather than pay $68 in shipping, I used a comp-day that I earned by attending an Organic Farming conference earlier this year to save some money and take a drive across the green mountain state. Of course, it snowed about 6 inches the night before (Thurs.) We made a good trip out of it, even if there was not much to see but mud, wet snow, and grey clouds—thick ones. So, we get to work on the back yard pronto…do some hauling and clearing to get ready to build our raised beds for the season. Well, mama nature has other plans, or at least a different timeline for all this. This is new “snow” I see in my “garden” this AM:

Well, I just keep chanting silently to myself: “April showers bring May….”

One landmark we did see on our trip to the upcountry part of VT was the hallowed home to hand cream of choice for udder-strokers: Bag Balm. If you don’t know why I’m including this in a bike blog then you’ve never used it. If you do, then nothing needs to be written/said. “Thanks” is about all I can think of.

Well, not riding today to work either. Petrol-wasting I go.

Head up. Throw away winter attitude. I’m going to join a gym or something. It’s getting a little ridiculous this year.

Over and Out

G:5

In case you wondered who else is into this crazy fixed biz. Check out a visual of Fixed Impressions visitors.

This is of course the Google Analytics Geo-Overlay.

Pretty cool to know that folk all over the world are coming here for their Fix.

Thank you all for coming. Come often and remember to click on the Google Ads. I only get about 2 clicks a week! I know I’ll never get rich or even cover my hosting fees. And of course the blog is free from Google. Thanks Google.

PS Comments are back….so leave some! or not.

G:5

Ah, the City Market has now become the fix watchers’ paradise. It has all the flora and fauna that attract the wild fix. At this season, the fix are about to enter mating (propogation) season, when the often androgynous fix seem to be birthed from other species, such as the road bike. Sometimes they are born from a fairly normal cross pollination, as in animal reproductive systems. More often, a Frankenstein type birthing process takes place, where the fix is born into another race….later to undergo various treatments to change from say, a road bike to a fix. On a recent pass at the Market, I saw another fix. Again, as last time, I was on my way out and had to double park for a minute or two to get my shots.

Here we note a classic conversion from old road bike to cobbled fix. After taking the profile shot and the cog shot, I noticed the brake. One of the more intriguing kludges I’ve seen. Basically avoids the big up and over loop of cable housing using the push-housing technique put forward most recently in the various versions of cyclocross top mount pass-through brake levers. I had to think about the design overnight and only figured it out when I thought about it again this morning.

The intriguing “aero routing”:

Here’s the big pict:

BFX #10

Stylish conversion for sure. I like the trim of Motobecane’s of this era. Little bits of pinstriping on the lugs and around the decals. Very continental, yeah. I like it!

The hanger hasn’t been removed yet here.

As you may know, I’m a fan of rust. It’s just a natural product of use or disuse, evidence of the bike either being ridden or left outside. I don’t necessary endorse the latter, but isn’t it still better than a bike that just hangs from the ceiling in the garage never getting ridden? All a matter of perpective I figger.

I’ve yet to hear a story of a roadie-gone-fix-gone-back-to-roadie-with-shifting yet. Perhaps those who make such changes don’t publicize them? I don’t recall ever hearing about anyone quitting the fix, save for true roadies who trained on them in the winter and rode lots of miles and got sore knees. The day-to-day ‘muter and messenger folk I know have never reported such a regression. Well, someone will write me now with just such a story.

(“…Chris decided that it was time to go and that is what he did, he was gone, I briefly pedaled away from the rest of the group, but soon was caught and passed on a steep down hill, it wasn’t the ups that hurt the most it was the downs as my legs were forced to spin at an ungodly cadence on some of the steep hills. It is here that I started to think about gearing again….”)

I found that on Nat’s blog within a half hour of publishing the above. Full text is here. Well, it’s not like he’s switched back, only considering it. -G)
Keeping on keeping on. I’ve promised a half dozen times, but can now truly say that “Cacophony” is done, the art is done and the manufacturing contract is almost ready. With a little luck you’ll be able to purchase a CD soon through my record company: One Speed Records.

Thanks for reading

Keep it locked, I’ll keep it loaded.

Over and Out.

G

B’ton Fix #9:

This is a stylee one. Sputnik. I hadn’t seen one of these before. This is at the City Market. This is one cool store. It’s a mutation of independent health food store and urban grocer all in one. I see a lot of fix here. I just don’t have the stupid camera most of the time. This one was too good to pass up. I double parked annoying at least one person just to get my shots. Ya know, it’s all in the name of art, right? Pyaaaah!

I’m having some issues with nerves in my back and neck. Crappy. Too much stimulation and too many wrecks over the years. I knew this was coming, I think.

Feeling a little tired. Motivation low, work intensity high. This is going to keep up until May probably. I just try to enjoy the ride and make the best of it. Man, I sound depressing. I’m calling it there.

Peace

Over and Out

G:5