Old Lighthouse at Cabrillo National Monument

Orchid in Botanical Building, Balboa Park

More SD VeloSwap Pics

A grab-bag post of photos from the San Diego Velodrome Swap Meet last weekend. Alas, none of this stuff came home with me.

Handlebars

Attractive Details on a Steyr Bicycle

Spotted at the San Diego Velodrome's Fall Swap Meet today:

Grandma Wigs

Whenever I see this sign at the corner of Park Boulevard and F Street, I wonder "who would want a grandma wig?" Of course, that's not what it says, but it never fails that I read it that way.

Meet the Frenchman

I finished the Peugeot project last week, and have been learning its ways the last few days. The down tube shifters are new to me, and it has been a while since I rode anything with more than three speeds, but I've been surprised how quickly I adjusted. The bike is quick, responsive, and comfortable, and I didn't even have my usual spate of first-ride problems.

All of my riding so far has been around town, so I haven't had a chance to really open it up yet, or test it on any serious climbs. My first impressions, however, are entirely favorable. I'm beginning to realize just how heavy and clunky my old three speeds really are. Of course, I still love them, though. In fact, I picked up a pizza last night on my trusty old grocery bike and it was kind of comforting to get off the thoroughbred-like Peugeot and back onto my old work horse.

The Frenchman is going to be a regular fixture on this blog now, since I think he's quite a looker and I'll probably end up taking a lot of San Diego photos with him lurking somewhere in the shot.

Construction/Destruction

One of the strangest things about San Diego is the still-functioning quarry right smack dab in the middle of one of the heaviest areas of development in Mission Valley. The development of the area happened fast, a lot of people remember Mission Valley still being full of dairy farms. Today it's full of malls, auto dealers, chain restaurants, big box stores, hotels, corporate headquarters, condo developments, and enormous parking lots. The quarry, which has been in operation for 60 years, is a fascinating holdover, especially juxtaposed with all of the surrounding development. I took the photo of the quarry above from the cliffs on the south side of Mission Valley. I was playing with the zoom on our new camera, and although the photo turned out pretty blurry, the editing created a nice effect.

Apparently even the quarry is going to be developed, however. I'm not sure what phase the development is in now, so I wasn't sure if I was looking at construction or destruction equipment, but this looks like quarry equipment to me.

It's Palm Nut Season (Watch Out!)

Actually, it has been palm nut season for a while, but now they're starting to lose their distinctive "safety orange" color, and there's a lot more of them. If you don't live in Southern California (or anywhere else there are palm nuts), let me explain why these things suck: they are a hard little nut wrapped in a slippery, slimy hull. While this can be entertaining as one's bike tire glances off them at just the right angle and whips them into car door panels, in places where they are thick, it's a little like trying to ride through a field of ball bearings covered in Vaseline. Now that they are decomposing a bit, they start to look like innocuous road debris or even just dirt, and it can be a nasty shock to find yourself skittering and sliding all over the road when you hit a patch of them. If there was ever a reason for the City of San Diego to employ street sweepers, I'd say this is it, but as you can see, this street has gone unswept.

Early 20th c. Military Bicycle

{click for big}

Although labelled "Camp Evans" I believe this photo postcard was taken at the site of what would become Camp Lewis, later Fort Lewis, in Tacoma, Washington. Two interesting things to note: this probably does not represent a racially integrated military unit, but it does seem to show black and white soldiers socializing in camp; and, of course, there's a bicycle.

Another scan sent from work by my lovely wife, who always sends me cool stuff to completely derail my own workday.

Good Advice from 1907

Assembling the Pieces

The Peugeot project is finally advancing to a stage that I can almost ride it. The first stage of the project has been replacing the old plastic saddle with a Brooks B-17, and I put on some Velo-Orange Belleville handlebars. I'm now just waiting on the Tektro inverse brake levers before it will be ready to ride, which will hopefully be next week. I'll be taping the bars with orange tape and shellacking the tape for a nice amber brown finished color. Long term, I'll be adding fenders and racks, too. This has been in the works for months, so I'm pretty excited to get it nearly road-ready.

Oh, and the photo is terrible on purpose so that the finished product will still be a bit of a surprise (yeah, right).

Now Read This

I'm currently reading the second volume of the set, American Fantastic Tales, ed. Peter Straub (Library of America, 2009) after my wife's hearty recommendation. I'm not far enough in to give a review or to list my favorites, but I already like everything I've read. The first volume goes from "Poe to the Pulps", and the volume I'm reading picks up in 1940 and ends with the present. I don't know if the first volume is as good, but it looks like people on the Interwebs like it. Especially good reading for chilly October nights as Halloween approaches. If you have a functioning fireplace, build yourself a fire, make a stiff drink, and settle in for some good readin' (if you don't have a fireplace, it's probably not a good idea to build a fire).

Give Me That Old-Time Fun!

For the upcoming San Diego Bike Union Fall Haul-In and Picnic, I used two old 27" bicycle rims to make an old-time hoop rolling game. I wrapped the rims in colored electrical tape to hide the stubborn rust and to make them a bit more festive.

The idea is to use the stick to keep the hoop rolling in a straight line. I think we'll make a two person race out of it. I haven't had a chance to take a hoop and stick out to the park and try it yet, but I assume I'll be terrible at it.

Apparently hoop rolling is also called hoop trundling, and has diverse origins. There's a pretty interesting entry for it at Wikipedia, where the photo above comes from.

It's About to Get All Local Up in Here

I did not start this blog with the intention of writing or posting much about San Diego, but this is where I live, so posts tagged "San Diego" do filter through occasionally (in fact, as of this writing, there are twenty-two).

But starting now-ish, I'd like to write more about San Diego. There probably won't be a noticeable change in content, but I will start sneaking more local stuff in, including more photos, reviews, and observations about life here.

It's a weird, frustrating, and wonderful place, and although it has taken me more than three years to really appreciate its nuances, I think I've finally arrived at a good enough relationship with this city to write something intelligent about living here.

Images: Top: Alcazar Garden, Balboa Park; Center: Under the Cabrillo Bridge near Hwy 163; Bottom: An abandoned house in the City Heights neighborhood.

Shifty Keychain

In keeping with the shifty theme of late, I thought I'd share a photo of my new keychain, which was repurposed from an old and very worn-out stem shifter taken off an equally old and substantially more worn-out bicycle. I was inspired by this much fancier one, posted by Mister Jalopy at the Coco's Variety Store blog.

Walkabout

Rode down to San Diego's best neighborhood event last night, the quarterly South Park Walkabout, and took a few practice shots with our new camera.

My LBS.

Pantone mugs @ Progress

Chain link tumblers? vases? candleholders? @ Progress

The Tail Draggers playing bluegrass in Grant's grocery/deli.

Shifty

Browsing through my bike-related miscellanea, I found this photo from a local Craigslist ad from a while back. First time I've seen a rat-rod-style shifter on a road bike. Pretty funky!

The Beater Bike: What Does it Mean?

The application of the word "beater" in reference to bicycles is interesting to me. The derogatory connotation seems evident; it's the same as a beater car, a jalopy, a rust bucket, etc. It may be functional, but it ain't pretty, expensive, or fancy.  But more often than not, the word gets applied to utility bikes or commuter bikes or everyday riders, especially older ones.

We do not apply the word similarly to our everyday "commuter" or "utility" cars. We don't say, "I'm taking my beater car to get some groceries," we just say, "I'm taking the car to get some groceries." So, while the etymology of the word is the same for both bikes and cars, the meaning and usage seem to be quite different.

My suspicion is that there is a cultural assumption that very new, expensive, custom, or high-performance specimens are the norm for bicycles, but not for cars. This, of course, is not true. There are far more "beater" bikes around than there are new and expensive bicycles. So, if the "beater" is in reality the norm, why make the derogatory distinction?

What are your thoughts? Do you refer to your commuter or utility bike as a "beater"? Would you be offended if someone referred to your bike that way?

Here's an interesting piece at the NYT about "beaters."

Bicycle Safari

Hey look, bicycle content! It's not mine, but it's pretty neat. The blog Bicycle Safari provides a globe-trotting (or Europe-trotting, at least) look at used, unused, abandoned, and wrecked bikes, with a particular focus on frame graphics, head badges, and unique or local vintage bicycle brands. There is also a tutorial on how to convert a vintage generator-driven headlamp into a battery-driven LED light, which seems useful.

See also the excellent Tel Aviv-based bicyclog for similar content and photos of obscure (Middle Eastern, Russian, and Soviet bloc, generally) old bikes on the street.

Sox, 1992-2010

Sox was the first cat that was "mine" as a kid. When I went to grad school, she took on the role of head of the household, making sure my dad did all of the things he was supposed to do, and always right on time. She also conducted regular inspections of the kitchen cupboards by flipping open the doors and peering inside. She was "Big Girl" for her whole life, and she was a big presence at home. She will be missed.

Why Bicycling Changed Women's Fashion

Illustrated in a single photo.

Dr. Thom's Gingerizing Tonic

Here's something to lighten the Friday mood after the last two posts about automobile deaths (sorry about that).

One of the by-products of making candied ginger is an extremely strong ginger tea that results from two rounds of boiling slices of fresh ginger root. I will occasionally attempt to drink this tea, but can only make it through a cup before steam starts shooting from my ears, so I usually end up just pouring it out. 

Recently my wife (I suspect indulging her husband's strange obsession with ginger and trying to figure out if something useful could be done with it) discovered that people swear by ginger as an acne cure. Since the potent stuff that results from the boiling process is just ginger-infused water, we decided to try using it as an after-wash facial rinse.

I found an old bottle to pour it into, and it looked so much like nineteenth-century snake oil that I had to make a suitable label for it. This is the result.

Well, There's Your Problem

When I got home from my month away, I went down to the garage to pump up my bike tires. I clamped my crummy five-year-old Bell floor pump into place on my first tire and started pumping. My first thought was, "jeeze, that's a lot of air escaping," so I unfastened the pump, reattached it and tried again. Even more air. I checked again, and the pump nozzle came clean off the tube, which had rotted right through.

So I sent an e-mail to my local bike shop and asked them to set aside a new pump for me, since I was already picking up some stuff for my new bike. I didn't know what kind it would be, but I trust my shop to carry quality stuff. What I got was a Park Tool PFP-6 with both Schrader and Presta heads, a more accurate gauge, much smoother action, and overall a much higher quality product than my old department store pump. I am not a shill for Park Tool, but they do make a good product.

I Believe in Comfortable Shoes

"If you're not wearing comfortable shoes, life is just chaos."

--Cliff Clavin in the final episode of Cheers

Cliff's answer to Sam's question: what is the point of life? has stuck with me over the years, and is probably one of the fundamental truths by which I live my life. Having had both very comfortable shoes and very uncomfortable shoes in the intervening seventeen years, I can't really argue with the logic.

Before I went to Chicago for the month of August, I bought myself a new pair of shoes, as my old ones had pretty much given up the ghost. I spent more on this pair of shoes than I have ever spent on shoes, but I knew I would be walking a lot in the next month, and I wanted something that was not only going to hold up to all that use, but would also take care of my feet. Living car-free and bike-free, you pretty much just have your feet to get you around. Even with public transit, you have to walk quite a bit, since no one seems to have quite worked out a way for trains and buses to deliver everyone right at the doorsteps of their destinations. My new shoes broke in quickly and performed fantastically. At month's end, there was only a bit of wear on the heel (I tend to strike my heels pretty hard).

Really the only point to all this is: if you don't have some already, get yourself some really good shoes. They don't have to be expensive, they just have to be comfortable.

PS--If you're interested, these are Born shoes, I don't remember which style.