Raving Amicks

So I finally got a bike that does exactly what I want it to. I kinda put off ordering it, because picking the right frame is really hard. Furthermore, since I’m getting it with components installed, choosing all the little pieces can basically go on forever if you let it. Everything in the picture came installed on the bike, except the pump and the pedals. I got my shit together and ordered the bike in mid-November and the bike arrived just shy of a month later.

Things I wanted to change from my old bike: cantilever brakes, stronger rack with longer support structure (so loaded panniers don’t swing back and hit the tire), more clearance between wheel and frame (for fenders and bigger wheels), stronger and long-lasting all-steel frame, bar-end shifters, Brooks seat, and wheels that support cassettes rather than failure-prone freewheels.

I’ve almost got the seat and handlebars adjusted to where I want them, but it takes a while to find that perfect position. Every time I ride, I readjust things a bit. I’m also starting to wonder if I like bar-end shifters more than downtube shifters or not (unfortunately, I didn’t realize my new bike doesn’t have downtube shifter bosses — argh!). Still, everything I didn’t like about my old bike is gone now, and I’ve yet to hate anything about the new bike. Even the Brooks seat, which is supposedly really hard until you break it in, feels just fine to me.

A couple months ago we had some thieves come through the apartment complex and steal a bunch of bikes from the community bike racks. The bikes are hung by bike mounts and a cable hangs down from them with which you can use a lock to tether the bike. Unfortunately, the cable is very thin, so it was trivial for the thieves to snip ‘em and toss the bikes in a truck. Fortunately, my old bike looks like shit (awesome shit), so it was passed over while several other bikes next to it were disappeared. But knowing that my new bike is not likely to get passed over, I decided to invest in some precautionary measures. I got the thickest U-Lock available and a very thick chain to tie around the wooden boards supporting the community bike rack. At least now the bike rack is the weak point and not a crappy cable.

I’m happy with the bike so far. While I was getting groceries today, I even had a hot hipster chick tell me I had a “beautiful bike” and compliment the double-toptube. Yay, bikes!

From Munich, we flew in to the airport in Kiev, Ukraine, where Vlad’s uncle kindly picked us up. The next day, we wandered out to see Kiev’s Golden Gate, which was a lot of fun to climb inside. Nearby was the kitty statue pictured here with me.

To get to the Golden Gate and just about everywhere else that we visited in Kiev, we went by subway. Subways in Ukraine tend to be highly stylized, with mosaics and marble and granite used to beautiful effect. This seems to be fairly common in eastern Europe, and it was one of my favorite aspects of the trip. A few subways were also very deep, presumably for protection against nuclear warfare, with high-speed escalators just to get people in and out in a reasonable amount of time.

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Attended the NW nationals in Kent with some friends of mine who have been drag-race fans since they grew up in Chicago. Amazing! My first time and it was impressive. The nitromethane-powered engines of NHRA Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars produce approximately 7,000 horsepower, about 37 times that of the average street car (my M3 has 240 hp).  When the high-end dragsters go by, it’s like a heart attack. Chest pounding, the smell of burning rubber and nitromethane…..!

‘Twas good stuff. Man, Mindy or I should have posted these a long times ago. As you can see, we went over to the northern Oregon coast to check out this sweet wreck. Mason went with us too, and boy, was he were his clothes stinky.

Yeah, so I’ve told Mindy a bunch of times, that if she ever tricks me into marrying her, it will probably involve using the wreck like a church and having a pirate and ninja party around it. Doesn’t it look like it would be fun?

Well, Bellingham is certainly a snowy place right now… Dieter and I made it home safely at about two this afternoon (thanks again, Tyler and Mindy, for letting us take over your living room). Traffic was suprisingly light, and road conditions moderate. It was hailing for a few minutes when we left Seattle, but that was about it… Somewhere around Lynnwood we started seeing snow on the ground… By the time we got up to Everett and Marysville, everything around was covered in white… and past Marysville, the entire left lane of the freeway had disappeared under the snow…

Bellingham has a foot of snow, and they say we’ll get another six inches tonight… and it doesn’t look like it’s going to melt anytime soon… My car is stuck in the snow in a parking lot… I have no idea whether or not it is anywhere close to a parking “spot”… but I can’t move it… so it shall stay where it sits for the next few days, until I can finally go move it…

Dieter or I will likely take pictures and post them tommorrow… but we are home safe – you can all sleep peacefully now.

This is my new bike, its a Myata and it has all shimano parts and its really nice and lite and its got mavix rims with Bontrager tires. new Grip tape on the bars too.