Revenge of the Nerds Part VII: The Evolution of Perfection

The mailman comes through the double doors of Sunshine Cycles every day. (S)he generally delivers bills, junk mailers for stupid new products, promo stuff from parts distributors, and free copies of magazines like "Florida Sportsman", "Bowhunter", and Rifle Shooter". We used to get stuff that was only sometimes less horrifying but always more fun like "Maxim", "Stuff" and other dude-centric titles that we took cutouts from to line the inside of the shop cabinets. We told Obrimace (the shop manager) that it was important to protect the finish of the cabinets from the harmful solvents, degreasers and brake fluids that are stored there, but he wasn't having it and cancelled our free subscriptions. So these days, picking up the mail from the front counter isn't as much fun as it used to be. Until one day...

We recieved a small, sqaure, white envelope printed on high-quality paper with a watermark reminiscent of the pinstriping on a fine eye-talian gentleman's shirt, sealed with a shining silver sticker that I can only assume was cold-forged from the highest quality duraluminum alloy and double-anodized with meticulous attention to detail. "The Evolution of Perfection," read the front of the envelope. Dura-Ace was coming to town. Inside the envelope was an invitation and four tickets to the Dura-Ace dealer tour, which would be held on January 8th at 6:30 pm in the Centennial Room at the Duluth Marriot Hotel. As near-legendary wheelbuilders and cyclocross racers, it was only natural that the fine men of Loose Nuts would be invited to such a prestigious event, and since the invitation offered "food, drink and good company in abundance," the opportunity to check out the newly evolved Dura-Ace group, as well as some of the other fresh new goodies Shimano has Japanimated for the new year of 2009, we had no choice but to attend.

So, after months of waiting and anticipation, the morning of January 8th dawned crisp and cool, but with a ferocious headwind on my ride to work. Obrimace had agreed to let Chris and I leave work early to get down to Duluth and witness firsthand the paradigm shift that Shimano had engineered with their new Di2 electronic shifting Dura-Ace groupset. In fact, as we agreed on the ride down Hwy 316, if the words "paradigm shift" were uttered by any Shimano representative at any time, Chris would be buying a bottle of Sailor Jerry's delicious navy rum on the way home. The size of the bottle was never specified, but I would be sure that it was a big one. I wasn't letting him get out of this one so easy.  

After about an hour of stop-and-go traffic that re-cemented my powerful hatred for commuting by car, we arrived. I expected to be greeted with pomp and circumstance, with lights and banners and smiling Japanese people beckoning me to be one of the first to experience "The Evolution of Perfection." Instead, after a few moments of confusion, I resorted to asking the guy behind the hotel desk for directions, which I immediately misinterpreted. Chris managed to point us in the right direction through clever attention to the signs with arrows pointing toward the Centennial room, and we found ourselves confronted with a card table manned by nice young men in clean blue shirts asking four our tickets. This is what their legs looked like:

 

We presented our ticket, were given a bunch our "trade sales and support manuals" and two tear-off carnival tickets for some kind of raffle at the end of the presentation in which we stood a pretty reasonable chance of winning a new Dura-Ace group. "Ok, fine," we said, "but where's the food?" We found our way past the nice young men in the clean blue shirts to a second room filled with wonder. A curvy buffet table snaked its way across the center, while tables lined with all kinds of Japanese-made fancy bits lined the periphery. Of course, we made for the plates and piled them high with the delectable finger-foods that were provided for our enjoyment. I wish I had photos of the spread, because it was a beautiful sight to be seen. There were chainring platters of the finest Japanese cheeses, carbon-soled shoes filled with fresh salsa, honeycomb bashguards dripping with honey, hollow crank arms cradling fried chicken nibbles, two-piston disk brake calipers topped with black olives, straight-pull spoke kabobs, and the always delicious dual-control mushroom/sausage combos. After we had sated our hunger with the first plate, we were both left wondering "ok, fine, but where's the beer?" We had smelled and seen folks traipsing around with pints of delicious-looking beverages, but hadn't seen any available. By this time though, we were being called in for the presentation which was about to begin. "Ok, fine," we told ourselves, "but we're going to find this beer." Little did we know, that we had been baited and now were about to be switched in classic style. 

We sat down in our normal-looking chairs in the normal-looking hotel ballroom with a fancy name and horrifying carpet, and waited patiently for the magic to happen. The projection screen in front of us showed what we assumed was a computerized rendering of the magical action inside of an internally-geared hub, with several plantary gears revolving around each other, while we waited for the presentation to begin. I was ready for fireworks, japanese girls in tight clothes, flashing lights and booming techno music that would make me want to stand on my chair and shake it like 1999, but that wasn't what I got. Instead, we got a powerpoint. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a powerpoint that could have been put together by a 14 year old with a script and a spellchecker. Here is a rendering of the dismal scene:

Can't you just feel the electricity in the air? That set of brake levers you see in the far left side of the frame was about the only source of electricity in this presentation. This particular slide is showing the clever way that the engineers at Shimano managed to improve the shifting on the new Dura-Ace cassette all while reducing weight and increasing rigidity by 100%. Amazing. Our esteemed speaker went on to describe all the amazing changes made to the new Dura-Ace groups, which now use a new chain, new front derailleur, new brake cable pull ratio and new brake calipers which are not compatible with any other group. That is, if they use cables at all, which is not the case for the new Di2 electronic shifting Dura-Ace, which appeared to be the only reason that anybody showed up to this thing at all. People were crowded around the electronic shifting bike like male drone bees around the queen, just begging for a ride. Apparently, the brake lines on the new Di2 group, which are still run by archaic and outdated steel cables, are lubricated with Shimano's proprietary royal jelly, which contributes to the odd pull that Di2 equipped bikes have on the less intelligent.  

After the discussion of the updates to Shimano's road groups, the crowd rallied for a break. Chris and I were still anxious to find the beer in this damned place, and since it appeared that there wasn't any being given away, we resorted to plan B: the hotel bar. We quickly located The Button Room, named after Button Gwinnett, who was one of the original signatories to the Declaration of Independence. On a tangentially related note, an original Button Gwinnett autograph would be just behind that of Julius Caesar or William Shakespeare in a list of most valuable autographs. A free bottle of Sailor Jerry goes to the lucky reader who can tell me why. So, to the bar we go. Here's the view from the rail:

The surly and indignant bartender poured us two frothy pints of Guinness with what looked like an inch-and-a-half of whipped cream on top. But, no time to complain. We had to get back and learn about the new mountain bike groups that Shimano was offering. By this time, were were tiring of the constant parade of part numbers and gear ratios and compatibility charts flashing across the powerpoint screen and were ready for some action. Surely if there was going to be some excitement anywhere it would be in the ever-broadening downhill/northshore/freeride/slopestyle/extremecross-country/light-dutyallmountain/gravity/longtravel/bighit segment of the mountain bike market. The presentation began with what could have been an introduction from one of those new mountain bike video deals, but somehow without sound of any kind. Nothing is more exciting than watching someone do a half-topped tabletop off a log drop in slow motion in soft focus with no soundtrack. The rest of the mountain bike presentation was equally monotonous, and I should have just gone to get a refill of my painfully expensive beverage, but I couldn't help waiting for something exciting to happen. It never did. Not until the tense moments after the lights had come back on and we were all waiting to see who, by pure blind luck, would walk out with a full Dura-Ace group (no substitutions please) as compensation. Of course we were painfully close, but just 2 ticket numbers away from winning. If we had gotten stuck in just one more red light on the highway, we may have won, but we didn't. We were left with the consolation prizes of a technical DVD and a double-ended screwdrives that Shimano described as "a handy little tool" for adjusting all those flathead bolts holding their parts together.

For those of you still left wondering, we did ride the electronic Dura-Ace bike. Yes, it does shift smoothly. It feels very much like someone bolted a high-end mouse to the side of their STI lever, with one click to upshift and the other to downshift. In keeping with the mousey theme, the front derailleur makes a distinctly mouse-like squeak when it shifts or trims itself. Fantastic. Poor little Dura-Ace with plain old cables (which are not lined with royal jelly) just sat on the other side of the room like the redheaded stepchild that everybody tolerates but nobody really loves. I took pity on the poor outdated group and took it for a little spin on the trainer, but was equally underwhelmed. We messed around with the "adjustment mode" on the electronic group for long enough to get it a little out of whack, try to fix it, and then realize that the derailleur hanger on the demo bike was clearly bent, but nobody in this whole room full of tech geeks had the tools, knowledge or desire to fix it. Wonderful. We got the heck out of there, considered getting another overpriced beer in the Button Room, but decided instead to hightail it back to Athens where 12 packs of Guinness can be had for just slightly more than our bar tab. 

There was no talk of a "paradigm shift" and therefore no purchasing of delicious rum on the ride home. Chris however, seemed to be feeling the effects of having eaten one too many delicious spicy taquitos from the buffet line and had to ease the seat back and close his eyes in order to calm the stormy seas in his stomach. I coasted home on the darkened highway to a soundtrack of really weird music with my head still buzzing from the electronic interference generated by having a ceiling full of flourescent lights, a powerpoint projector, a whole bunch of nerds with heads full of part numbers, compatibility charts and gram counts, and two semi-functional electronic groupsets in one room. The revenge of the nerds was complete, and the Evolution of Perfection marches on.

News Flash! Loose Nuts delivers "State of the Stain" address!

I realized today that a huge span of time has passed since anything was published on this little wedge of electronic pepperoni pizza about the art and science of wheelbuilding, and more importantly, the goings-on around Loose Nuts HQ. Perhaps it is time, here in the freshly birthed new year of 2009, to inform our esteemed readership about the new and improved spoked, circular hotness that has been - and is soon to be - rolling out of our super-powered wheel factory in a bi-trimesterly address that we like to call the "State of the Stain" address.  

First of all, we at Loose Nuts have been greatly saddened and dismayed by the decision of MillerCoors, makers of many delicious adult beverages, to end production of Sparks and SparksPlus, the unofficial official beverages of the Loose Nuts racing team. This upsetting development came after the Attorneys General of at least 14 states came to the conclusion that Sparks and other caffeinated alcoholic beverages were aggressively marketed to underage drinkers and contributed to more instances of "alcohol related consequences." We at Loose Nuts are disappointed by this new instance of our government infringing upon our constitutionally given rights to exercise and augment our own god-given stupidity through consumption of whatever beverage we see fit, even one that comes packaged in recycled battery shells and turns your tongue a frightening shade of orange. In response to this draconian prohibition act, the Loose Nuts accounting department has dedicated a special fund to the purchase of all remaining cans of Sparks and SparksPlus (aka the Party Panther) still available to form an "Unregulated Strategic Sparks Reserve" or USSR. We are also accepting donations to the USSR from outside agents, and will gladly compensate any agent who provides viable, intact containers of Sparks or SparksPlus (aka the Party Panther) for their assistance in this very important act of civil disobedience.

Somehow, through all of the legal and psychological turmoil resulting from the demise of Sparks, we have managed to keep the nose to the truing stand and build some lovely wheels for the people in the "nice" column of Santa's informal but shockingly thorough census of humanity. Highlights include a super-light paired spoke road racing wheelset featuring used Bontrager hubs laced with 20 and 24 double-butted silver spokes to silver Velocity Fusion rims.  This set was also the first "Signature Series" wheel to hit the big roads, featuring four contrasting red alloy nipples around the valve stem. They turned out great, and lend some class and sparkle to the Tarmac they now grace. Of course, this doesn't mean that we're abandoning our old friend the track hub. We just completed a sweet rear wheel featuring red anodized hub and nipples tied together with black spokes and a non-machined black Deep-V. Few things look as awesome as an all black deep-dish rim rolling along with sparks flying off of flaming red molten alloy nipples. And, when your old rear wheel gets relegated to serving hard time on the polo bike, why not treat yourself to a little upgrade for the street machine? I can't think of a reason. 

But with all this anodization covering the world, we at Loose Nuts thought that the world needed a little more paint rolling around in circles, so we've enlisted the help of Atlanta artist and bicycle racer Nathan Tavel to produce a one-of-a-kind hand painted wheelset. We provided him with a pair of Velocity's lovely all-white Deep-Vs to have his way with, and after they have been sufficiently molested they will be returnd to Loose Nuts HQ for construction before showing at an upcoming show of Mr. Tavel's work in Atlanta. Early reports from the artist are highly favorable. He claims that whoever rides these wheels with have "baby unicorns sprouting up behind them." More information and photographs of all these projects are forthcoming, and the information ministers here at Loose Nuts HQ well be sure to tell you everything you need to know to get your hands on a once in a lifetime wheelset that will turn you into a Pied Piper of spontaneously germinated baby unicorns, or just a regular wheel to make your bike roll. 

That's all for now, stay tuned for developments.   

What's in a name?

Faithful reader, I am in a quandry.  I was informed by the Drunken Master and eternal pants-trader Ben "El Bastardo" Jones that the title of my little slice of electronic ephemera has already been taken.  Not by just anyone either, but by the two hosts of my all-time least favorite radio show, Car Talk on NPR.  Apparently the brothers Magliozzi are producing a new animated series on PBS, and seeking to indoctrinate a new generation of young auto mechanics to service the aging army of American automobiles that might otherwise be allowed to rot here on Earth or be crushed into cubes and shot into space like interstellar spitballs.  I would rather not be associated with any evil and subversive plots like this, and since they've got the money and the lawyers (funded in part by donations from listeners/viewers like you to NPR and PBS) and I'd rather not risk a lengthy and expensive legal battle in a futile effort to assert my control of the name in question, so I am left with two choices: I can either vacate the tiny slice of the giant christmas ham that is the interweb, leaving it just as I found it, unnamed and without any spirit to give it life, or I can change the name.  Well, anyone who knows me and many who don't will know that I don't just give in to leftist scare tactics so easily and will not be made to abandon my newly-claimed wireless homeland just to clear more space for a couple of eye-talians to drive their shaky old junker hatchbacks around and wonder what that funny rattling noise might be while swilling wine and wondering if the pasta is sufficiently al dente.  But, I need help.  While I may be able to use a whole lot of words to say very little, I'm not so good at coming up with snappy one liners or condensing meaning down to its very essence, boiling off the nonsense until nothing is left but some burnt-on residue at the bottom of the pot which is of course, the essence of all meaning.  For this task I need your help, faithful reader.  Help me reinvent myself and the Loose Nuts webspace with a fresh, inspiring, bold new title.  Please leave suggestions in the comment field at the bottom of this entry, and help save me from the shit storm of copyright litigation soon to rain down upon me from the two brothers who call themselves "Click" and "Clack" and their army of gasoline-addicted miscreant automotivists.   

Winter Bike League: Bowman ride report

Humbled. Broken. Left for dead on the road somewhere between Athens and Bowman. Didn't even make it halfway. Almost there, so painfully close to the halfway point store stop that I almost thought I could make it, could almost taste the cold, sweet, crisp Coca-Cola that might give me the boost I needed to finish this 80-mile festival of torture, but it was not to be. The view from the back of this pack is not a pretty one. I spent the miles I was able to suffer through in constant flux, from coasting easy to giving everything to just barely hang on, big ring, little ring, never the right gear, and always a little nervous about the sketchy guy trying to ride up the middle of our double-wide pack, or the guy who crossed the yellow line to unzip his vest and almost got creamed by an oncoming pickup truck, or the nasty unforeseen potholes waiting to eat my wheels or - even worse - the pair in front of me. And then came one particular climb, which was not so terrifyingly steep or long as climbs come, but was sufficient to cause my already bewildered legs to begin convulsing like a pair of asthmatic lungs that just slammed down a Lucky Strike. By the time we reached the top, I found myself off the back and struggling to bridge the gap. A couple of riders passed by, too fast to jump a wheel, and then came the look back, over the shoulder, to realize that there was nobody left behind me. Where was the giant group that we left Downtown with? They were somewhere out there on the road, left behind or gone another way, probably enjoying their Saturday's ride on a nice smooth road at a reasonable pace, and here I am trying to bridge the 150 meter gap to a pack of lunatics hauling ass on plastic bikes. And what for? To prove to myself that I could do it. That I could hang with the big boys out on the open road. I can't hang. This sucks. No cue sheet, no map. The only way to survive is to catch the pack that leads the way. And then comes the final pass: the sag van. "You okay?" the driver asks. I shake my head and hang out my tongue. All I can muster at the moment. She passes me by to rejoin the pack. So close, still within sight. Just keep them in sight, don't miss a turn. The gap widens. Another rolling climb. The gap widens, but not much. "I'm climbing faster than the back of the pack," I tell myself. "You can still bridge up." My left leg keeps trying to cramp. Standing doesn't help, sit back down. I'm all out of gears. Stop sign coming up, where's the pack, where's that van? Which way did they go? Up or down? Left or right? Where am I anyway? Dropped. That's where. Nowhere. No-Man's-Land somewhere in between life and death, at the corner of some road I don't remember and one with no sign at all. I roll into a driveway, take a drink, try to decide what to do. I pull out the phone, make a call to the Mapping Department at Loose Nuts HQ, try to figure out the quickest and flattest route home. If I stretch out, take it slow, recover a little, maybe I can survive the trek back to town, back home to where my baby waits for me wearing naught but a loosely fastened bathrobe with a slice of pizza in one hand and a tallboy in the other. While Chris processes my coordinates, another dropee rolls down the hill. He's got a cue sheet. His name is Greg. He figured on getting dropped. He's got more sense than me. He tells me that the store stop in Bowman is only four miles up the road. Great! Maybe we can get back with the pack, get a nice draft and get sucked along all the way home. Let's get going then! The first uphill grade is mild. I favor my right leg, try to keep the pace high. I pass Greg on the flat to do my share of the pulling, turn a corner into another hill, steeper this time. Have my legs recovered? I try to stand on the pedals, and the inevitable but still unthinkable happens. Total lockup. Both legs eating themselves from the inside, being crushed inside the black hole that this ride has punched in my spirit. The pedals won't turn. The wheels have come off the bus. I've got nothing left, tell Greg to go on, and coast to a stop on the side of the road. At least there's a street sign. HWY 172 and Corinth Church Rd. This is the end of the road for me. They broke me. I thought I could hang, and the awakening is pretty damn rude. I report in to HQ and arrange for a pickup. This has never happened before. I've never not finished a ride. But it happened today. After being dropped off at Headquarters I still have to make the ride home. On the way, I run into another Loose Nuts compatriot who missed the start of today's ride because he was sick with a hangover. I fill him in on the details and we conclude that he didn't miss much. I tell him to call me if he feels like riding tomorrow, and roll my bones on home. I stop at the corner store and pick up a frozen pizza and some tall boys. What's the point of all this hauling ass anyway?

Have the Polo Players met their match?

The future of the Athens Hardcourt Bike Polo League may be in serious jeopardy.  After a run-in with the security guard at the Butler Building, league officials decided to move the games scheduled for the evening of Thursday last to the parking lot of the Jittery Joe's coffee sweatshop, a vastly inferior venue.  The Polo League has used the Butler Building parking lot as a training ground for the past few months with no trouble, other than some confrontations with a band of unruly Greeks behind the Southern Wall of the court in conflict. Until the events of December 11, this had been a near-perfect venue for the League's weekly matches. The ground is relatively smooth and level, the streetlights are always on, and one would imagine that the roving bands of possum-slaughtering, khaki-clad, date-raping fraternitarians would be more of a concern or nuisance than an innocuous bunch of beer swilling pipe smackers. Passers-by, police, and (up to this point) security guards have been nonplussed by and unconcerned about the oddballs on bikes riding in circles swinging golf clubs and PCP pipes at a ball that may or may not actually be visible to the naked eye. But somehow, on a rainy and uninviting Thursday night, a hillbilly in a minivan with some stickers on it managed to run off the band of mallet-whackers who had just begun the first match of the evening's program. How did he do this? With fear tactics, poor English, and a mandate of power over a small chunk of cracking asphalt that comes with a meager paycheck twice monthly. A debate ensued, but the League's position was severely weakened by the arbitrary and foolish decree against consuming delicious hoppy beverages in public places, which it was clearly in violation of. Rather than risk an expensive and time-consuming court battle, the League's legal team advised bowing out, conceding a momentary defeat, and moving the matches to the next-best location. 

All we need is a fairly flat space where we can swing our mallets and drink our beers without interference from any kind of arbitrarily appointed authority figure, where the cars of the world will leave us unmolested for a few short hours, someplace in the secretive corners of Athens where The Great Eye is not casting its deathly stare upon us, but where the streetlights still shine brightly as the Christmas star beckoning the Magi, a glowing beacon for the faithful few who showed up on a rainy night in December to pay homage to the Duke of the Mallet in hopes that he might spare their souls and allow them passage to Pensacola, where all good Americans go when they die. This cannot be too much to ask, and such a place must exist somewhere.