My Bow Cycle Blog

Riding the Bow Valley Parkway on my BBC 2-4 Cross Bike

I’ve been really busy the past while and not able to blog as much as I’d like.  So if you want more blog content don’t forget I have a blog on the Bow Cycle website as well and I post there once or twice a week.

Do what you love…

Be passionate...

I think it’s important to do what you love and so conversely to not do what you don’t love.  Sorry for the lack of posts lately.  I just haven’t been stoked with blogging as much as normal.  Not 100% sure why, but it feels like a temporary thing.  I do have some posts in mind for the next little while, but they may not be as frequent as in the past until I get my mojo back.

I’m gifted!

Regular readers of this blog have been aware for some time that my ability to spell and grammar check is poor.  Frankly it’s getting worse.  I feel bad about this since I don’t want you to think I don’t give a damn about the quality of these posts – I do!  The problem is I’m severely dyslexic and have an awful case of attention deficit disorder. No joke.   I’ll use spell check & re-read a post 5 times and somehow manage to miss 4 obvious errors.  I can’t fully explain it.  I literally don’t see anything wrong with the post so I publish it only to notice a week later I goofed several times.  I do go back and correct posts, but most of you have read the post with its flaws and moved on by that time.

I’m sorry. I hate reading poorly executed blog posts myself so I feel your pain.  I just wanted to let you know that I do put a lot  of effort into the quality of these posts however, my brain has issues!  I can read “eno” 5 times in a row and my brain sees “one”..bizarre, but true.

If you ever notice an error in one of my posts and want to comment on it feel free.  You won’t hurt my feelings and I’ll get things straightened out ASAP.

Tires for sale/trade….

Update: Continentals are still available….

Schwalbe Marathon 700c x 32mm - one set

I’ve got a few tires I’d like to sell or trade:

• Schwalbe Marathon 700c x 32mm qty x 2 wire bead ~300kms on them – they look new – $55 shipped – sold
• Continental Travel Contact 26″ x 1.75″ wire bead ~250kms on them – they look new – $65 shipped

Continental Travel Contact 26" x 1.75" - one set

I’d be willing to trade for:

• Schwalbe Big Apples – any 26″ tires
• Schwalbe XRs – any 26″ tires 2.0″ or wider
• Schwalbe Marathon Racers 406 size
• Greenspeed Scorchers 349 or 406 size

FaceBook

Got FaceBook?

I’ve resisted FaceBook for a long long time, but have recently joined…and it’s not as awful as I thought it would be…lol…=-)  If you are also on FaceBook and want to stay in touch feel free to add me [threeohm "at" gmail "dot" com] – just add a note about bicycles so I know what’s up.

Two 406 Schwalbe Stelvios for Sale or Trade

406 folding Stelvios for sale/trade

Update: looks like I have a trade for two Schwalbe Marathons…sweet…so the Stelvios are taken.

I’ve got two 406 sized Schwalbe Stelvio Kevlar folding bead tires for sale. One is brand new and the other has been used for 100kms, but looks new as well.

I’ll sell both for $80 shipped anywhere in Canada/USA – that’s 75% of MSRP and free shipping….

I’d also be interested in trading them for a set of any of the following tires in 406 size:

- Schwalbe Marathon, Marathon Supreme, Marathon Racer or Kojak,
- Greenspeed Scorcher

If you have a mixed set let me know I might be interested.

I got these as spares for the front of my Fujin, but my abysmally low bent mileage makes 2 spares unnecessary and my Bike Friday NWT could use some wider 406 rubber….

Competition

MacBook Air...so sexy....=-)

I’m going to have to put the brakes on my bike habit for a while.  My Mac is coming up on 3yrs old and I’m starting to long for something more portable than my 17″ MacBook Pro.  I’m not 100% on this, but I wouldn’t be shocked if this was my next significant purchase.  I am turning 40 soon and I deserve a nice celebratory self-present…LMAO….I can rationalize just about anything.  I suppose when you have 8+ bikes in a small downtown apartment you must have pretty good rationalization skills…=-)

iBlog-autobot

iBlog - the future of blogimation?

Don’t be fooled by the fact you see posts appearing on this blog.  I’m not here.  I’m headed to Baja to paddle & ride between taco & beer sessions.  I don’t plan on going online at all until I get back around the middle of January.  If you email me or comment on this blog I won’t get your feedback until I get back so be patient – I’m not ignoring you.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and you spend some quality time with those you love.  Adios amgios – see you in 2009!

Bow Cycle – Vik’s Picks

photo: Nick Thompson

Bow Cycle is one of my favourite LBSs – even though it isn’t really all that local! [15km ride each way from me]  I’ve been a customer since before ‘96 and bought a lot of my bikes/parts there over the years – including: Surly Big Dummy, Surly LHT, 2 BikeE CTs and Cannondale R800 – as well as lots more bikes for my friends.  They are keen to expand their on-line presence and have asked me to keep a blog on their shop website here.  Content will be about 50% written just for my Bow Blog and 50% recycled content about bikes I’ve bought at Bow.

Bow Cycle is a great shop so I’m happy to help them out and they’ve hooked me up with great bikes so I’ve got lots of Bow Cycle related ideas for posts.  They’ve agreed to let me have some bikes on short and long term loan so I can ride them and write reviews.  That’s ideal for me as I love to try out new bikes without having to deal with buying and selling them.  So if you have any specific bikes you’d like to get some feedback on let me know.  If Bow Cycle has one in stock I’ll talk to them about getting it for a test and post my evaluation.

The first bike will be a Bow Bicycle Company 2-4 cyclocross bike which is a special design/spec made for them by Cannondale.

How to find what you are looking for?

Where is that 8mm wrench?

One problem I forsee with the single Mega-Blog is that if you only want to read a specific type of content [Surly Big Dummy or Bike Friday Tikit related posts for example] you can’t just go to a blog that is dedicated 100% to that topic.  However, there are some tools to give you the ability to screen content so that you only read the stuff that interests you.

• Categories: I’ve setup a few categories to divide up content into several main types [such as Cargo Biking, Commuting, Reviews, Bike Touring, etc...].  If you look at the upper right side of this blog page you’ll see a section of links called “categories”.  Every post will belong to one or more categories.  If you just want to read the posts about cargo biking than click on that category and all other posts will be screened out.  This will leave you with only cargo bike related posts and will essentially be the same content as my old Big Dummy Blog.  Note categories will only show up when I’ve posted something in that particular section of the blog.  So at the moment you won’t see a category called “bike touring”, but as soon as I post a travel journal link this category will appear on the upper right of the blog.

• Tags: The categories above are fairly broad and may give you too many posts that are not related to your topic of interest.  In that case you can look at the lower right part of the blog page and you’ll see a list of “tags”.  These tags are more specific so you can click on “Surly Big Dummy” and only see related posts or Ortlieb and only see those posts.

• Search: A third way to screen content is to use the search box at the top right of the page.  Type in a search string and posts with that string in the text will be displayed.

I’m hoping that with these tools it will be easy for you to find what you want to read and screen out the rest.  Let me know how it works for you.

Lazy’s Feed

Okay so the feed for this site is located at this link.  [I think!]…=-)  I’ll work on getting a button over on the bottom left of the screen.

One blog to rule them all!

I’ve got more than 5 blogs on the go…heck probably more than 10 if you count even the ones that rarely get updated.  Although it has been fun it’s also a lot of work.  I have been thinking about making things simpler, but at the same time I know it’s handy to be able to refer to a site that only covers the topic that interests you – say Bike Friday Tikits.  I’ve pondering what to do that would make my life easier and while maintaining the ability to keep specialized content separate.  I’ve decided to move to a single WordPress blog that will incorporate all my bikey interests including:

• bike touring
• recumbents [particularly for randonneuring]
• folding bikes [particularly the Tikit]
• bike commuting
• cargo bikes [particularly the Big Dummy]

I’ll be setting up a wide range of categories so you can sort through the content on this blog more easily.  If you just want to see bike reviews you’ll be able to skip the rest of the content.  At the same time it will bring the readership of the different blogs together and may expose folks to other types of bikes they hadn’t previously been interested in.

As I’m new to WordPress there may be some hiccups as I get things setup.  I’ll be mining my old blogs for content and transferring the worthwhile posts to this new blog with the goal of having a one stop resource for all my bike interests. So you’ll see some posts you’ve read before – perhaps you’ll find the information useful and if not just skip ahead to new material.  The old blogger blogs will remain active although I will not be updating them.