Jaws was never my scene, and I don't like Star Wars.

I haven't been writing. I've been riding. That's pretty much my summary since we last left this place. Over the past few months, I've tried to sit down and really type about cycling, but it hasn't ever quite worked. Like the old "dancing about architecture" axiom, it just seems overwrought and silly and kind of pretentious. Spinning pedals are just too perfect on their own to let any other medium capture their essence.

Luckily for those of us who harbor these completely incompatible compulsions, we're not riding in a vacuum. Being in the saddle can bring your environment into broader scope and sharper focus all at once, and the very act of hurtling through the outdoors on the strength of your own legs gives you a whole different outlook in a society built upon compartments and automation. So while I can't really write about cycling itself, cycling has certainly blessed me with plenty of thoughts to write about, even if I haven't been. And there's one thing I've been thinking about that I can't really keep to myself anymore.

Yesterday morning, my ex-girlfriend-but-still-better-than-very-good-friend and favorite riding partner, the lovely Miss Cruz, was struck by a car on her way to work. A valet driver behind the wheel of a Benz made a signal-free right turn across her path, blocking her forward motion with the passenger side and sending her to the pavement. She is, thank gwawd, alright, accept for minor injury to the same knee that sustained minor injury just a few months ago when she got doored, also on the way to work. (The lovely Miss Cruz is, in fact, such an indestructible badass that she licked her wounds last night by going on a nice, long bike ride when her banged-up limbs should have been resting.)

Hard-swallowing my last sip of coffee over the glare of her bad news text message punctuated a realization that's been unraveling itself for the last few weeks. It's been a blazing hot summer in Austin, especially for bike riders. In spite of, or maybe as a reaction to, the unanimous passage of the new bike plan and the landslide victory of our man Riley, we've been drawing quite a bit of, umm, heat. Local FOX affiliate KVUE, in particular, seems intent on grinding an axe. First came the "hidden camera investigation" of stop-sign runners , wherein some college kid named Patrick R-I-L-E-Y (coincidence?) had the bad luck of being cherry-picked as a spokesman for scofflaw cyclists citywide. Any goodwill the nightly nonsense source garnered with their more level-headed follow-up story has been negated by their last sensational scoop on guerilla bike lanes that aren't anything of the sort. Folks running in the marathon those lines were actually painted for know what it feels like to become local media targets, as well, although the Statesman wasn't kind enough to archive John Kelso's ugly vitriol publicly. Fortunatey, Cindy Stone's ugly vitriol in a May op/ed/homicidal threat is still readily available:

Require bikers to carry an ID. That way, when some unsuspecting driver runs them off the road, police can identify their dead body. (For suggestions on tombstone wording, go to www.ButIhadtherightofway.com.)

None of this rabble-rabble-rabble makes much difference to me when I'm actually riding. I'm not so sure, though, if drivers feel the same way. Maybe it's just the brutal sun setting them off, but regardless, the shit-talk certainly isn't helping to calm down the cab driver who informed me I should "get my ass off the freeway" on campus connector Dean Keeton, or the guy who started screaming and honking at me on 51st precisely as he reached the "Begin Right Turn, Yield to Cyclists" sign. Not to mention, of course, the countless reckless speedsters and six-inch passers encountered daily. Not to mention, of course, the jumpy hand on the steering wheel that swerved in front of Miss Cruz yesterday morning.

As a result of survival instincts, many of us, especially the inexperienced ones, are more than willing to get sucked into the futile back-and-forth of road rage or, to regretfully quote Ms. Stone, "Biker Wars." I know I certainly was, back when I was still trying to find my way around on the Pabstmobile without ending the day as roadkill. But I'm not anymore. The reason is this: the time I spend on my bicycle is the most blissful I spend anywhere. I've fallen too deeply in love for even the hairiest shake-ups to ruin it for me. When I'm screamed at, when my rights are ignored, when my life is threatened, I simply can't get angry anymore. I can only think about how awful it must be to spend so much time trapped inside a little box lined with glass and carpet and leather, separated from everyone and everything else, boiling in the Texas summer like a can of sardines dropped on the sidewalk. Then I just keep on riding, towards work, towards home, towards anywhere or nowhere at all, experiencing a joy those poor bastards can't even imagine. Feeling really, fucking really alive.

But I've gone off on a tangent here, and the thing I've been thinking about that I actually wanted to say is this:

Every time I ride, I'm just a human being on top of a brilliantly simple and remarkably small machine. About 150 pounds of flesh and bone and blood on about 25 pounds of steel and rubber and grease moving maybe 20 miles per hour where the road's flat. I'm sharing that road with piles of flesh and bone and blood just like me operating two-ton tools that may be moving two or three or four times as fast as I am.

Lots of cyclists hate cars. When it gets down to it, I'm more or less one of them. Lots of cyclists hate drivers. I'm not so much one of them. Lots of cyclists can argue all lots of cyclists want over traffic laws and ticket schedules and city planning and all the rest of it, and lots of cyclists should, but when it comes down to it, the only laws we have out there are the laws of physics. No matter where we stand, we're all somehow managing to share the road with cars and their drivers. In doing so, whether we realize it or not, whether we really even possess it or not, we're showing a profound faith that people operating two-ton machines will not harm people operating twenty-pound machines mere inches away.

The kid on the BMX blowing the red light, the roadie racing on the shoulder, the cute girl crawling to the Springs on the cruiser, the weird dude on the recumbent wearing a reflective vest and elbow pads with a flag sticking out his ass, all of us. Every time our bikes hit the road, we're putting incredible faith in all the people around us. Faith in their respect for our lives.

The guy who hit her drove away. Came back a little while later. Said he was really busy and didn't have time to stop.

Wheatsville: What Happens Next?

[Editor's note: The following, written about a month or so ago, appears in the latest edition of the Wheatsville Breeze. Since many of you may not be Breeze readers, and as long as I'm throwing the coals back into my interweb engines, it seems appropriate to publish it here, as well, where I like to put these things. Enjoy. - Prof.]

Sometime between last night and this morning, our old dairy cooler was demolished. Like most things at this advanced (and quickly advancing) stage of Wheatsville’s renovation, it disappeared with little pomp or circumstance, quickly destroyed without the honor of attached onlookers to mourn its passing or dance on its grave.

That dilapidated dairy fridge was a perfect case for the pressing necessity of expansion. Out of date, inefficient, overfilled, and next to impossible to work in, it was a glaring example of our old store outgrowing itself. Stepping into its replacement is like night and day, a bright-shining-clean-new sparkle of spacious joy lighting the end of the long, chaotic tunnel we’ve been travelling down during this year of reconstruction. There are plenty of reasons to simply be happy the old monster is gone.

But moving forward also means leaving things behind. Plastered along the walls of that worn-down machine was a convoluted mess of photographs, drawings, clippings, graffiti, and oddities, a massive collage that may have been less than attractive but was impossible to ignore. It was, in a way that few other walls in the rapidly disappearing old store were, a historic monument, a physical entity that, in appropriately ramshackle manner, had captured a thousand little moments along the way from moving into an old Kash-Karry to knocking it all down and building it again. Here yesterday, gone today.

Our unfinished but suddenly visible metamorphosis has been met with wide-eyed praise over the past few days. Long-time owners and occasional shoppers alike wander around, taking it all in, travelling back and forth between the old and the new with dazed delight as though there were a time machine at the end of Aisle Four. Even someone who has never before laid a foot inside 3101 Guadalupe can plainly see right now what an exciting moment we’re experiencing. But what many of those happy customers may not realize, and what I doubt any of us yet fully comprehends, is that soon, that wormhole’s gonna close, and we’ll be left with just the one, new Wheatsville. Next week, the front end will reopen along a different coast of the store; by the time this is published, the whole project might be complete. Anyone who hasn’t stopped by in a couple months will find themselves walking into a room that’s practically unrecognizable.

The more nostalgic among us may feel overwhelmed by discomfort and despair. Our co-op is a place that many people truly love and care for; love and care are not things that most retail establishments can lay claim to. Inevitably, some loving, caring people are going to be deeply unhappy with the new Wheatsville for the very fact it is not the old Wheatsville. Unfortunately, it’s a moot point, and the best we can do is hope the shock of change does not diminish the depth of their love and care – we need it now more than ever. Regardless, not everyone is going to be pleased with such drastic alteration, and we’ll have to accept the validity of their reactions.

Conversely, though, there’s a real danger in unquestioningly embracing the newer and the bigger as the better. It should go without saying that our hugely improved facilities create opportunities to succeed on a scale we could only dream of before. However, what we all need to keep in mind is that there’s no chance to win which isn’t also a chance to lose. Lest anyone think that sounds unnecessarily pessimistic, I should point out that as I’m writing this, I’m also combing through a thirteen year-old Austin Chronicle article about a Wheatsville in a very, very different situation than it finds itself today. Growth and success have never been and will never be guaranteed, and there are multiple points in this cooperative’s 33 year history when it has teetered on the brink of failing altogether. Each time, though, we’ve managed to rescue ourselves, combining all that love and care with a whole lot of ingenuity, guts, elbow grease, and the grace of good luck.

So, the real question is: what happens next?

Walking into the addition, it is impossible not to be struck by the sheer magnitude of space. The towering walls above the delicatessen and the restroom seem so empty, the floors seem so wide, there’s so much space to fill in a store so oversaturated for so long. This space is not just physical. It’s mental and emotional and spiritual space, the kind that exists between moving into a house and making it a home, or plowing a field and planting a farm; it’s the real area that’s been vacated by those old spans of backstore-scrapbook walls. Every single one of us, as we cross into our new facility, is actively participating in filling these gaps back in. Consciously or not, we are redefining the whole of Wheatsville as completely as the contractors have redefined its infrastructure.

In the meantime, all we have are unknown quantities, endless decisions to be made, challenges to our entire constitution. The very essence of Wheatsville hangs on choices as small as whether or not to give a soda some shelf space and on legacies as large as being the grocery store where Cesar Chavez once stood. How much bottled water are we going to buy? How much are we willing to spend to certify fair trade? What will we do to juggle the necessity of profit with deeper missions and values not so readily quantified? These are questions we’ve always faced, but they now are, as we now are, larger than they have ever been before.

All this may sound awfully heady for a little old neighborhood store, but Wheatsville really is much, much more than that. The mere fact of being the only grocery co-op in the state of Texas makes us, to borrow the word from our old frozen buyer, an institution. We made it beyond the nascent stages that others did not. We predated Whole Foods and Central Market, and survived the behemoth pressures of their competition and co-optation. We have always been, and still are, on the front line of the battle for a different model of doing business, for ethical trade and ecological stewardship, for the survival of the family farm. We are the vanguard for people who care about what they eat.

Our expansion could not have come at a more critical time. While the store and the city it serves experience unprecedented growth and prosperity, the rest of the nation tumbles deeper and deeper into recession. Entrenched economic models are failing in ways not seen since the Great Depression – the Great Depression, which spawned one of the largest, most successful waves of American cooperatives, taking power away from bloated businessmen and bumbling bureaucracies and placing it in the hands of functional democracies. Alongside this financial turmoil, we are also witnessing an upheaval in our food system. Faced with an unsustainable industrial agriculture and an ever-growing litany of toxic recalls, the Obama administration is proposing sweeping policy changes, from crop subsidies to plant inspections to school lunch. Meanwhile, the First Lady tends a White House vegetable garden and serves fresh, local food to the homeless. Grassroots groups, running the gamut from CSAs to community gardens to parents concerned for the safety of their children’s stomachs, are blossoming in their numbers and their strength. It is a moment unlike any Wheatsville has ever seen. It is our moment.

Owners, non-owners, board members, management, staff, distributors, manufacturers, farmers, allied organizations, Austin, Texas, community, it’s up to us. We can go on without that beat-up dairy cooler, but not without the heart it held up. Welcome to the new Wheatsville. Long live its old soul.

BACK BY DEMAND, and BREAKING WITH THE B's! City elections and the future of this blog.

It's been a while, yeah? Yeah. Left y'all so slowly yet so suddenly.

Here's the thing: I still love ever so many things that start with the second letter of the alphabet, but I've spent little time writing about them lately. Little time writing about anything, in fact. I've been rather wrapped up in the visceral these days, from the mundane to the thrilling and everywhere in between, but my poor literary brain's been on the slide. Haven't been reading as much as I should, and those promises I made about lurking in the shadows with notebooks were quickly broken. Ain't doin' anyone no good.

So, the deal: I'm gonna rear my balding head here once more, but the strictures of B-listing are going to be, well, less strict, in the interest of being anything at all. I'm not gonna make any promises about consistency of output, but, goddamn it, there's things worth saying, right?

Anyways, our dear friend/neighbor/cashier/catcher made an important request, so, without further ado,

THE PROFESSOR'S CITY ELECTION ENDORSEMENTS!

The longtime fans out there may remember my indignant disgust with the citizenry of Austin following last year's extremely under-attended municipal polls. This is, I've come to understand, a chronic problem. So, before we proceed, I cannot implore you enough, VOTE. Why?

Because voting at the local level presents the fewest boundaries to your vote actually counting. Because the decisions made by city officials impact your life in the most direct, immediate, and readily affected ways of any officials that you can vote for within the public sphere. Because our city is an incredibly dynamic one, with an exceptionally open form of government, and the winners on May 9th are going to be making decisions that shape it for years, if not generations, to come. Because if you love Austin so damn much, you really oughta show it.

On top of that, while the mayor's seat and four council positions are up for grabs, there are really just two contests that are far beyond formalities. The few ballots they hang on, however, make yours especially important. Don't waste it on waking up on the 10th and kicking yourself.

MAYOR: LEE LEFFINGWELL

Before I moved down here, a friend described the interesting political spectacle of a shoe-in named Will Wynn up against a token conservative and a couple folks of indeterminate gender. While Leslie neglected to throw his thong in the ring this time, the '09 line-up is just as interesting, and wildly further up in the air.

First, we have the fringe candidates. Self-described "liberal libertarian" David Buttross seems to fall considerably further into the latter half of that moniker. During the KUT forums, he could hardly answer a question without stating his eagerness to erect condos on the Eastside, and in an interview with Wells Dunbar of the Chronicle, he fell in line with our secessionist Governor Rick Perry's jaw-dropping reluctance to except federal stimulus dollars. This guy could not have picked a worse city in Texas to plant his platform. On the other end of the political spectrum is formerly homeless homeless advocate Josiah Ingalls. While he has done an excellent job of articulating the criticisms of the disenfranchised and the down-and-out, it's going to take more than righteous indignation to govern the city. I suspect Ingalls' intention from the get-go was more that of candidate-as-spokesman, and in that sense, his campaign has been about as successful as he could have hoped.

I very much wish I could discreetly sweep Carole Keeton Strayhorn into the "fringe" category, but nothing's ever certain with Grandma, surnames and party affiliations included. And, seeing as how she's been in charge of this town before, I'd urge you to go back up and look at all those reasons for voting one more time, unless you'd like one of the wackiest of all the cartoon politicians in Texas to be at the helm of this city.

So that brings us to the viable and sane choices, Brewster McCracken and Lee Leffingwell. Both current councilmen looking to take the seat at the head of the table, both with accomplished but flawed track records, Leffingwell and McCracken's platforms may seem difficult to distinguish, but their approach to the job is not. While the McCracken campaign made the poor choice of trying to somehow equate Leffingwell with John McCain early in the race, it's actually the older candidate who has proposed judicious, line-by-line budgetary decision making instead of ham-fisted, across-the-board expediency. Where McCracken sees Austin's wealth and fortitude relying on a handful of of big industries (entertainment, energy, and biotech), Leffingwell has stood behind the small businesses that make our city unique, and that will continue to employ its people whether there's another big boom or another big bust - his proposal for favoring locals when rewarding city contracts is clear, concise, and refreshingly relevant to the actual scope of mayoral influence. Perhaps most importantly, in a mayor/manager/council system that grants the elected executive relatively little power, McCracken has a flippant history of alienating constituencies and allies, while Leffingwell has forged consistent working relationships and earned the respect of both his partners and his opponents. Digging below the simple slogans and the big plans, it really does look like Lee's the man for the job.

PLACE 1: CHRIS RILEY

Perla Cavazos could have run in a lot of other races and won my vote. With an appealing platform, respectable endorsements, and excellent qualifications, I'd pick her in a heartbeat over more than one sitting legislator. (Yes, I'm talking about you, Randi Shade and Laura Morrison.) I really, really hope she runs again in the near future, and not against the candidate we've all been dreaming of.

But Chris Riley is the candidate we've all been dreaming of.

This is it. This is the councilman who is going to stand up for the things that you and me and everyone we know in this town believe in, and stand up for them on a mountain of knowledge and experience that's more than we could have ever hoped for from a truly progressive candidate. Imagine if someone who listened to all the great ideas that get tossed around about this town at bars and barbecues and bike rides actually knew how to make 'em a reality. Imagine no more.

Sure, it's hyperbole, but I know who you are, dear readers, and you need to know this. Whether you love riding your bike or just wish you could get around without owning a car, whether you think it's ridiculous that we ship our recycling all over hell's half-acre or wish you could earn a wage digging through it, whether you read City Hall Hustle every week or feel like the council doesn't do anything worth a damn, whether you love live music or the library, whether you remember when it used to be affordable to live here or got here recently enough to say it still is, this is your man. Vote for what makes this city so special. Vote for what could make it even better. Vote for Chris Riley.

PLACE 2: MIKE MARTINEZ

While he's facing only the most token of oppositions, Mike Martinez is still the most badass dude on the dais. From pushing for homes for the homeless where the neighbors didn't want them to launching internal assaults on the endless failures of Capital Metro, Martinez never hesitates to go to the mattresses. Shit, I'd be afraid to run against a fighter like that, too.

PLACE 5: BILL SPELMAN

'Cause who else is there, anyways?

PLACE 6: SHERYL COLE

I have to admit that, aside from her immediate and firm rebuke of Highland Mall's racially charged foolishness during the Texas Relays, I'm not terribly familiar with Cole's record. She seems to be, however, a fully functional member of the council, which is an awful lot more than voters could expect from ultra-libertarian also-ran Sam Osemene. Dude really teaches government at ACC? That's like deputizing Alex Jones to approve handgun permits.

So there you have it. Early voting's already underway at your nearest supermarket, but if you're the kind of person who likes waiting 'til the last second to do important shit, the last second's sometime on Saturday, May 9. If you tell me you didn't vote, I'm going to tell you to go fill the potholes on Speedway by hand, so don't forget.

BACK TO BASICS! Blogospheric hiatus.

Given my spotty output over the last few months, I suppose this is coming a bit late, but I'm going to be taking a break from this particular outlet for a while. It's not forcing me to write as much as it is specifically meant to, things that I really want to write about at the moment tend to neither begin with the letter "B" nor lend themselves to formats which web-logging handles gracefully, and, all in all, every time I sit down to type I feel like I'm trying to jam strangely shaped pegs into quite regularly shaped holes. Straddling the personal and the public and the journalistic and the wholly discredited, in real time, poses some issues. Along with too many people I know reading this and not enough strangers, it amounts to exactly the awkward position I was eager to avoid.

Everything else seems to be changing right now, so hell, why not this, too? Granted, if a particularly delicious beer or an especially noteworthy ride happens to roll along, I'm probably not going to pass up the appropriateness, but, y'know. Some notebook's probably feeding me drinks somewhere. Don't wait up.

BROKEN STRINGS! Broken hearts.

Sometimes, all the words worth writing are only worth reading in private. At least there are sad songs for the sake of sharing. Attached to shitty video. Sigh.

BROKEN STRINGS! Long live Pabstmobile, be it dead or alive.

This evening, the Pabstmobile walked into the sunset. After taking one last stroll down to 12th and Salinas with the venerable Marin Kentfield that saw me through my first two years in this city, I took a good, long ride, cruising many avenues and alleyways I first met aboard ol' PBR. Then, in the most fitting tribute to that bike I could possibly have managed, I bought a bottle of Lagunitas Olde GnarlyWine, came home, and got hammered.

In that still-inebriated spirit, I bring you my very first installment of "BROKEN STRINGS!" Or, the entries in my blog dedicated to music. This one's all classics. This one's for the Pabstmobile.

BIKES! I am the hungry wolf, I run endlessly with my mate.

Sometime back in September or so, I made the decision to purchase a new bike. As much as I love Mellow Yellow, it's in a considerably limited state. It only fits clip-on fenders, which felt prone to slipping and slapping, and the narrow stay tubing combined with nervous handling on hefty grocery runs to convince me that mounting a rack wouldn't be wise. With the headset starting to go (or probably gone already by some people's standards), winter ahead, some cheese saved up, and a well-researched decision on the ride I desired, the time was at hand.

The bicycle knows many ways of testing my patience, indeed. I arrived at my preferred bike shop, the Peddler on North Loop, to discover that the last Surly Cross Check in my size was on its way out the door, and that some minor changes being made to the frame for 2009 would leave QBP out of stock for a few months. I considered checking some other shops around town, but the Peddler's treated me well, and if I was going to make such a large investment, I really wanted them to be the ones building it up. So, I sucked it up and waited. And waited. In the meantime, Surlys (Surlies?) kept popping up everywhere I went, winking sweet chromoly teases at me. Winter never really came but more drought did, and Mellow Yellow soldiered on but rattled for relief.

Well, the '09 Cross Checks finally shipped in January, and if the last two weeks are any indication, my patience is going to be paid back for some time to come.



Let the bike erotica commence.

The Build

This is essentially the stock Cross Check complete, with just a few different parts. The Salsa Bell-Laps were replaced with 42 centimeter Nitto Noodle bars wrapped in red cloth tape, the knobby cyclocross tires were swapped out for Schwalbe Marathons, and after a couple days I switched back to the scavenged Specialized saddle I've been rocking on Mellow. (The WTB saddle that's included has a shape I'd consider friendlier to female riders, with a noticeable slope at the back. That said, it's a nice, firm saddle, definitely better than the squishy seats a lot of bikes seem to ship with these days.) Surly doesn't include pedals, but since my pedals (MKS Sylvans with Soma clips and Pake straps) were the classiest component on the Western Flyer to begin with, I was all set. Additional accessories include SKS fenders and a Jandd rack I can't really tell you much about, since the Banjo Brothers panniers haven't arrived yet. I'm not sure if the photograph quite does it justice, but it is one handsome beast.

The build quality straight out of the shop was excellent, save for a couple minor criticisms and one pretty major issue. The rear fender bracket that attaches to to the bridge leaves space for the fender to vibrate and rattle: this was quickly muted with some small shims - same for the loose rear reflector. Also, after about a week or so of riding, the front shift lever slid out from the end of the bar. This was a quick fix, and I'm glad to know now how to remove and install barcons, but it's the kind of thing that might send the less mechanically inclined back to the shop upset. The major issue did send me back to the shop, however, as it reared itself when I was riding nearby on 51st Street. The back wheel somehow slid forward in the dropouts, causing the tire to sound a warning cry against the fender before things got any worse. A quick and apologetic adjustment of the quick release skewer left everything good to go, but it was a bit nerve-wracking regardless. An easy mistake to make and to fix, but nonetheless something that my journalistic integrity necessitates mentioning. Lesson being, double check the quick releases on any bike before you ride it.

Those gripes aside, the rest of the build was beautifully done. Steering is smooth as butter, the drivetrain is stealthy-silent even after a couple rainy days, and aside from personalizing the action on my brakes and dialing in perfect saddle position, I haven't had to fiddle with a thing. A glowing example of the quality you get from a shop where every hand is greasy.

The Ride

Along with my daily commute and all the other random traveling I've done, I've taken the Cross Check out on a couple good, long rides, with a little bit of the Lady Bird Lake trail thrown in with all the, umm, varying Austin pavement. Surly riders are a proud bunch, and there is no shortage of glowing reviews for their products, so to put it simply, this bike absolutely lives up to its hype. It's a goddamn tank. The bone-rattling potholes of Hyde Park get chewed up and spit out. On the smooth slopes of Shoal Creek, it glides. The Hike and Bike Trail is no longer a sketchy premise for skinny tires but instead the calm cruise it should be, and the 18 speeds have both sides of the steepest hills completely covered. The Cross Check frame has long been praised for its broad utility, and the components Surly chose for the complete build serve to further the Swiss-Army-knife reputation. It just kills everything I throw at it. It may seem odd to describe a notoriously heavy bike as sleek and graceful, but when you ride something that handles so well you couldn't lose control of it if you tried, utilitarian sturdiness takes on some much sexier qualities.

Alas, every bike on Earth has its issues, and with this one, it's toe overlap. There's really no way of avoiding a little interference when you're combining large toe clips and wide fenders, but that doesn't make it any less noticeable:



Toe overlap, though feared by many, is not a difficult issue to deal with, though it does require a little practice to adjust your pedaling technique, and plenty of awareness when making slow, sharp turns. Big endorsement of SKS: I've only had one nasty slip where I caught my foot flush against the fender. It could have been much more embarrassing, were it not for for the genius design which allows for the fender stays to release from the fork end mounts. Rather than falling off my bike, I just pulled over, let my heart make up a couple beats, locked the stays back into place and went on my way. A great, thoughtful, reassuring feature.

The icing on this cake is, without a doubt, the Nitto Noodles.



Find me a more comfortable drop bar and I'll find you a three-eyed cat. I was worried that the smallest width available might be a bit wide for my tastes; I stand corrected. There are no less than five distinctly functional, totally comfortable hand positions on these things. I was almost exclusively in the drops on my old bike; now I'm up on the hoods, relaxing on the back of the ramps, all over the place. Both long rides and quick errands are wildly more comfortable as a result, and my poor back is in love with Nitto for ever and ever.

Hell Yes

This bike has a hold on my heart already, and many, many miles ahead of it. I'm itching for my panniers, which will get the bag off my back, putting long adventures and lots more groceries within my reach. It's really the steel I believed it would be, and the folks at the Peddler made finally getting it between my legs a pleasure.

So now, it's time to say goodbye to the Pabstmobile. The first bike of my adult life has served me well, but it's been sitting sessile since summer began, and it's time for it to serve someone else. Off to Yellow Bike to pass along one set of pedals, then into the night to push the others.

BEER! Some things I've been drinking while I haven't been writing.

Having an employee discount which applies to the sweet, sweet nectar can be a mixed blessing. Perhaps in the monotone days before Jimmy Carter let brewers bloom like wildflowers, it would have been more of a straightforward asset. As it stands, though, our store is still in the contraction stage of its expansion, and the beer cooler's gotten hit pretty hard. Long minutes are often spent just standing and staring, trying to figure out which old standby I'm in the mood for while daydreaming of something more exotic.

Lately, though, there's been an impressive amount of rotation going on within the extremely tight parameters of our beer stock, and just when I think it's time to head up the street and spend exorbitant sums gambling on flavor, Shane wheels out something fresh and new. A couple of these fall into that category, another's been in and out for a bit, and still others, well... I can only be so loyal.

Great Divide Yeti Imperial Stout: What's in a name? Every once in a while, everything you need to know. As you may have guessed, I'm big on the stouts, and this one's definitely a keeper, though not something I'd advise wrestling with too many nights in a row. Filling a very particular niche - not quite the complex masterpiece that is North Coast's Old Rasputin, not quite the dangerously drinkable blackness that is Oskar Blues' Ten Fidy - it seems to fall right in its own gap. Roasty to almost burnt flavors are coupled with a hint of the Yeti's alcohol strength, but the real star with this one is the hops. I like hoppy beers, but I don't always like what happens when stouts attempt to be hoppy beers; this is a definite exception. Rather than overwhelming the Yeti's other aspects, the hops provide a nice bitterness underneath everything else before drying out the finish considerably. It makes for a slow-sippin' experience, but can also leave you a bit more beaten down at the end than other stouts with comparable ABV. Yeti, indeed.

Oskar Blues Gordon: This one went away for a while, then came back as singles instead of four-packs, a stocking decision that has been roundly rewarded. I had really forgotten how delicious this beer is, but it's been creeping back into my regular rotation. Hugely hopped in the stickiest way imaginable, yet somehow the other ingredients manage to hold up to the thick, oily onslaught. Pour it and be amazed to see such a seductive strawberry-blond syrup coming out of a can. Like the rest of Oskar Blues offerings, it's awful easy to drink for its alcohol content (8.7% ABV), so do take care. Those hop oils can also overwhelm whatever wanders across your tongue after them, so you might want to avoid putting this one down if you're planning on tasting anything more subtle afterward.

Lagunitas Ruben & the Jets: The latest in Lagunitas' Zappa tribute line, this one was... strange. I love me some Lagunitas IPA, and had really high hopes after the thoroughly satisfying "We're Only In It for the Money" tripel. Part of me wants to try Ruben again, while part of me thinks I'm better off just forgetting about the sensory confusion that came out of the bottle. Dark brown, really sweet, no evidence of the high alcohol content, no evidence of what style this is aiming for, exactly. If you're feeling adventurous, you could certainly do worse with four bucks, but if you're looking for something specific, you might not want to reach for the "BoppaDooAyDoo Style Ale." It's a limited release, so I really oughta give it another shot, but... strange.

Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA: Something about using Ralph Steadman artwork to sell beer bothers me more than it probably should, but apparently Hunter was pretty tight with the guy who founded this brewery, so I should stop it with the goddamn pinko sensitivity and embrace the bloody thrills of commerce. Branding aside, Snake Dog was a pleasant surprise. I picked it up at the convenient store purely on the basis of it being the most bang for my buck, but ended up enjoying it an awful lot. Surprisingly malty for an IPA, it's really got it's own thing going on. Another one that slides down a lot easier than it probably should, a characteristic that seems to be shared by all the beers I've been sampling while I haven't been writing. Hmmm.

Boulevard Irish Ale: The one I'm tossing back right now. This is the first Boulevard I've had since the Sixth Glass quadrupel from their "Smokestack Series" had its way with me. I have to admit, the difference between their higher end offering and this seasonal from their standard six-pack (or six-box, as it were) line is pretty clear; certainly no minds being blown here. That said, it's pretty tasty just the same, and the bottle conditioning seems to do quite a lot to reinforce a mildly sweet, summer-grass sort of flavor and malts vaguely reminiscent of New Belgium's recipes. Another one that goes down easy, but without the worrisome ABV. And here I am typing something! Imagine that.

BREAKS! Excuses, excuses.

Well, it has been a bit, hasn't it? It seems as though every time I warn you folks about my inconsistent output, I get that much less consistent. Figures.

Well, I have a couple piss-poor but entirely reasonable excuses. The laptop long held captive in my bedroom was not actually mine, but Shirene's, and as worthy a cause as granting me privacy with an internet connection may be, it certainly doesn't hold up next to donating a much-needed tool to the folks at Urban Roots. As a result, my typing time is now entirely dependent upon activity on and around the PC in the living room. Now, this is a piss-poor excuse because I usually blog from this spot anyway, but living room traffic has been pretty high lately, so I'm going to run with what I got. If anyone wants to drop a hot tip about local used Mac dealerships, I got my mitts on.

Excuse number two is much more reasonable, but equally worthy of an eye-roll: a Surly Cross Check is finally mine, and needless to say, I've been devoting a good chunk of my free time to breaking in that beautiful, beautiful machine. This excuse is made lamer by the fact that I haven't borrowed a camera to take some pictures of it to post in the ride report I know you're all not really waiting for. I'll make it up to you soon, but in case you're wondering in the meantime, it rides like this:



Sadly, the Cross Check fork lacks automatic weapon braze-ons.

Anyways, apologies for the slide. A couple shorter, lighter entries to come in the incredibly near future (tonight, even?) as a reward for your patience and giving of a damn.

BARACK and BEYOND VIETNAM! Democracy, now.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." -1963

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. -2008

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. You may or may not realize that it is only the 23rd Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, although this year will mark the 41st anniversary of his assassination. The day after tomorrow, Barack Obama will become the 44th President of the United States. If there is anyone out there who would understate the significance of this moment, they are as blessed with nerve as they are bereft of historical understanding.

If there is anyone out there who believes that Tuesday will mark the fulfillment of King's dreams, they are as blessed with simplicity as they are bereft of any real understanding at all.

Most social studies classes begin and end their discussion of King within the confines of the civil rights movement, the "I Have a Dream" speech standing as the complete rhetorical representation of the man himself. This is, of course, not at all the case, though the very establishment that usurps his name to celebrate itself would certainly prefer it that way. In reality, the time that King lived through in the latter half of the decade was devoted to much broader causes, including opposition to the war and the struggle against poverty. In retrospect, his later crusades seem like the logical extensions of a fight for equality, but while he lived, they were sharply criticized by both friend and foe, costing him the support of many of his civil rights allies while deepening the concerns of those who had always considered him a dangerous man. A year before his death, King delivered a speech known as "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence." Far less well-known than the "Dream" speech, it is every bit as moving if not moreso, and to say that it is still relevant today would be an understatement - it is a scalpel cutting into the cancer at the heart of America, which seems only to have grown with each passing year.

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality...and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing "clergy and laymen concerned" committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

And so, such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.

In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

If the inauguration was the culmination of King's dream, unprecedented billions in public aid would not have been doled out to wealthy corporations while the poor continued to starve. If the inauguration was the culmination of King's dream, a thousand deaths in Gaza would not have been met with silence. If the inauguration was the culmination of King's dream, the United States would not be the nation that imprisons more of its citizens than any other, or more of its black citizens than any other. If the inauguration was the culmination of King's dream, it would be time for us all to rest. It is not.

It is, though, a time for hope, because if there is anyone who knows that the inauguration is not the culmination of King's dream, it is Barack Obama. He's certainly told us as much, certainly wouldn't be asking us all to sacrifice and serve if our goals had already been achieved. If hope, if change, if the dream, if anything is to be realized, the weight is not just on Obama's shoulders, but our own. As he has said many times over, it must come from the bottom up.

Although he has yet to take his seat in the Oval Office, many of us are already weary that Obama will not live up to our hopes. The promise of withdrawal from Iraq is nullified by demands for deployments to Afghanistan. The staff selected by a candidate who promised something new looks eerily similar to one that let us down time and again a decade ago. The economic relief promised to the working class is already quietly being shuffled towards the same overstuffed pockets as always. There is much to criticize, and criticize it we must.

But while we should not hesitate to hold his feet to the fire, we also must keep something in mind: Barack Obama isn't Martin Luther King, Jr. He is not a preacher, he is President. He is not someone chosen to speak on behalf of our most hallowed beliefs, he is someone chosen to execute realities. In a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, he is merely the administrator. Dr. King is a hero because he would not compromise. If Barack Obama does not compromise, his administration will fail, taking all of its possibility down with it. His role, which he is eminently suited for, is a pragmatic one. The real responsibility now, the ideals, the ideas, the morality, the mind, the soul, they all lie in the hands of the rest of us, whether we are ready or not.

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on."

November 4 proved that democracy has not yet perished from this earth, but right now it's not enough to simply survive. It's time to be living.