Finally fixed the M-2!

Dedicated readers will remember that about a month or so ago Kevin Valentine, a friend, and member of the PA Loco Team gave me a Specialized M-2 comp road bike. This bike is beautiful, the frame is a very nice silvery-gold, light, stiff, Shimano Dura-Ace crankset, Shimano 105 components (except the rear dérailleur is a 600), it’s amazing. However when it was given to me the rear hub was broken, the tires were flat, and the rear dérailleur hanger was stripped. Yesterday I finally finished fixing it. I was initially going to convert to a single speed or a fixed gear, but when I learned it had horizontal dropouts and I would need to use a chain tensioner I wasn’t really interested in converting it anymore, it doesn’t look nearly as clean with that on it and if I’m going to have something dangling from the dropouts, I might as well keep it a dérailleur and keep the multi-speed cassette. I started out by buying a new hub, I got myself a nice new Mavic freewheel hub and headed home to change over the cassette. This is when I learned the dérailleur hanger was broken, I was riding to Paoli when the chain jammed and the dérailleur mangled it, I needed a new chain and hanger. I went to performance and bought a new SRAM chain but couldn’t find the hanger, unfortunately the hanger for this bike isn’t made anymore and they’re very hard to find. Fortunately, the guys down at exton bicycle had a tap! So they rethreaded the dérailleur hanger for me. I got it all adjusted and took my first ever ride on it yesterday around 7 to Gabby’s house in West Chester. We hung out there for a while, Gabby took this –> glory shot of me with the finished bike. Kate came over and we hung out for a while until walking over to Brendan’s apartment. We met some of his friends, enjoyed a beer, and then headed back to Gabby’s. Kate left and Gabby and I went to sleep. This bike is so sick, I can’t wait to ride it more. Brendan asked me to go riding tonight with him and some of his friends but my family are leaving on vacation tomorrow morning and I have to work so I can’t go on vacation with them. Their trip is in danger of cancellation though, the throttle cable snapped. My dad’s friend is machining a new one right now, I really hope he fixes it, I was looking forward to a week of the house to myself. Going to be a good week, lots of riding, and Saturday is my race, if I don’t get last place, then it’s tattoo time :).

Update: The camper is fixed! Corbo made a new throttle cable and it worked!!

AMERICAN STEEL ARE BACK TOGETHER

HOLY F’IN HELL AMERICAN STEEL ARE BACK TOGETHER!!!!!!!

source: Lookout! Records

Seriously you can’t understand how excited I am. American Steel are hands down, the best punk band EVER. Classic Bay Area punk from the Glory Days of Lookout! Records. Their first album is the most amazing punk album I’ve ever heard, it’s out of print unfortunately, so if you don’t have a copy looks like you’re shit out of luck and I bet since they’re getting back together they’ll be snapped up on eBay.  I’ve got chills man. Seriously, they better tour after this album and they better not just play new shit, if I don’t hear Fargo someone’s losing a limb.

Day at the races

Sunday was the Commerce Bank Triple Crown of Cycling in Manayunk, pa. Gabby was sick but I made her come anyway and we had an awesome time. The race was sick, I want to be a pro cyclist so badly, too bad I got hit by a car Saturday and was in a lot of pain Sunday and yesterday. The race was epic, I met Don Pollock of 6abc. He’s my favourite news reporter, even more than Geraldo Rivera, who I am very fond of. The best part of Sunday however, was wearing my new hat. Looks good doesn’t it. Also notice the camelback. I bought that a long time ago and finally got to use it. I stayed hydrated the whole time thanks to that pack. I’m not sure who ended up winning but I wish it was me. I’m going to enter the West Chester race on July 7th (note to self: register when you get home). I don’t think I’ll win but if I don’t get last I’m treating myself to a tattoo. I’m going to get a cog with the Philly skyline inside, I’ll make a gimp mock-up later. Bikes and Philly, two of my favourite things. Speaking of favourite things; I got to hang out with Zoe kevin’s daughter Sunday. Gabby and I met up with Kevin, Jamie, and Zoe Sunday. We hung out in Pretzel Parkwith them for a while which was a lot of fun, I would post some photos of Kevin and Zoe but I don’t want to post pics of someone else’s kid without their permission, the internet is a dangerous place. I’ll post this instead, it’s almost as cute as Kevin and Zoe playing on the spinny thing. After Kevin and Jaime took Zoe home, Gabby and I got back on the train and went home where Gabby slept and I watched TV. Stargate SG-1 was on. I’ve never watched it before, it’s not very good, even for sci-fi.

Great install-fest!

Yesterday was finally the install-fest. After about a month and half of planning and getting prepared, the time finally came we were as ready as we could have been. We had some complications — note to MS: STOP BEING DICKS. MAKE YOUR FILE SYSTEM RESIZE EASIER. Kevin and I ran into quite a few problems resizing ntfs partitions but we managed to get them all solved. Jim brought some awesome Ubuntu bread. He has his baker’s bake loaves of bread in the shape of the Ubuntu logo, very nice Jim (did anyone get pictures of that?). We did about 20-30 installs, people were calling their friends to come and having a really good time, thanks to everyone who came out. I made a few friends and met a lot of very nice people.

After the install-fest I went down to the Phillies-Giants game. I’m not a baseball fan but Gabby’s family invited me and I had a blast! Her cousin Alex and family friend Joe and their families were all there and it was a blast. Joe is such a cute little kid. Earlier that day Gabby’s family with Alex and Joe went to the Philly Zoo, they had a lot to say about that. Alex’s face was painted like a tiger which got him and only him on the big screen, we all kind of think the camera man thought the facepaint was ketchup and mustard. It was kind of smudged after sweating all day.

Great day, thanks pennsylvania loco team and the Eisenhower clan for making this an awesome weekend.