The repair shop has been at capacity since early May, but the dam is really about to burst now. The first pleading and demanding customers of the full-on summer rush have arrived.
We know that the Fourth of July marks the first charge of a siege that will last for the next couple of months.
The occupation brings convoys of large vehicles to choke the streets and highways. I will ride in any conditions sooner than drive my car.
The locals try to plan every move around the tourist hordes. We know which stores jack their prices during the height of summer. We try to buy groceries mid-week, to avoid the locust plagues on Friday and Saturday, and the picked-over shelves on Monday.
It's time to put on the "Kiss My Ass, I Live Here" jersey and draft Escalades and Suburbans with giant boat trailers until they join the clots of other fat globules in the town's traffic arteries. Then just sprint around them and disappear. My transit time does not change.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Amphibiosity
Another work week begins with clouds gathering and a flood watch for parts of the state. Unrelenting humidity has made everything in the house damp.
We are developing the ability to breathe through our pale, moist skins. Our eyes grow larger to gather in more of the dim, greenish light.
Time to pack a lunch in the dry bag and set out on the fixed gear.
At least the weather is warm.
We are developing the ability to breathe through our pale, moist skins. Our eyes grow larger to gather in more of the dim, greenish light.
Time to pack a lunch in the dry bag and set out on the fixed gear.
At least the weather is warm.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Classic Urban Assault Bike
This fixed gear was built on a 1970's Crescent frame. It was parked in the Old Port section of Portland, Maine. 
Nice Color
I couldn't pull this out of the rack, but I loved the paint job. Even the chain used to lock the bike has been sprayed gold. It was in the pile of commuter bikes in the Casco Bay Lines ferry terminal in Portland, Maine.
What is this "chain lube" of which you speak?
On, Crusty! On, Grimy! On, Foul and Disgusting!
On, Muddy! On, Slimy! On, Rotting and Rusting!
Monday, June 19, 2006
Can You Tune My Bike?
"This has been hanging in the barn for quite a while. Can you tune it up for me?"Swallows or pigeons had been perching on this thing for years. It was so gobbed with guano that none of us wanted to touch it. We looked at it for a while, but we figured the customer would never pay us what we'd need to get to clean it and then address its mechanical problems. The rest of the bike was only slightly less crusty than the area shown here.
This is just one of the worst things ever brought in. The legendary Earwig Bike had been in a chicken house for long storage. In addition to various chicken residues, it turned out to be harboring hundreds or thousands of earwigs inside the frame and other spaces. They came pouring out when disturbed.
Tuneup: $49.99
Delousing: $99.99
Thundering Herds
New Hampshire's annual Motorcycle Week is over for another year.
My cynical emergency responder friend calls it "organ donor week." The death toll stood at ten as of this morning.
It used to be just a weekend. Some of the rowdier editions of it have been woven into tourist-season legend. Back in the day it involved a lot more open flames and public lewdness.
I had not lived in New Hampshire a year when I stumbled on Motorcycle Weekend. It was 1988. I was training for a double century. My schedule had been interrupted because I had to move from Tamworth, tucked into the southern flank of the White Mountains, to Tuftonboro, on a broad point sticking down into Lake Winnipesaukee.
Early on a Saturday morning I set out to ride around "the big lake" to try to get some kind of longer mileage before the really long ride a week later. It's only about 65 miles around Winnipesaukee by road, but it was all I had time to do.
As a tribute to the challenge of a 200-mile ride, I decided to shave my legs. I'd shaved when I was racing, but grew out the fur when I quit competing. Shaving helped me psych up for the discipline of the big ride. I set out around the lake the morning after a really exemplary shave.
When I raced, my race results were unimpressive, but I always won the shave. No razor rash or missed spots for this boy. I figured if I was going to risk being seen as a freak because I shaved my legs I should at least do a damn good job. No women would razz me. Anything you can shave, I can shave better. Anything below the panty line, anyway.
Off into the cool morning I pedaled, down into the quaint town center of Wolfeboro, out Route 28 to the south, bending down toward Alton. In addition to my freshly-shaved legs, I wore a brand-new set of lycra shorts out of the local shop's bargain bin. I'd gotten a great price because they were red. Hey, I had no money. I was hoping to earn some by doing my double century and then selling articles about it to whatever publications would buy them.
As I got closer to Alton I started to notice increasing numbers of motorcycles. I knew the state attracted a lot of them because the roads are so beautiful. I had never heard of Motorcycle Weekend.
Every motel and restaurant had rows of motorcycles parked out front. Even with all the parked ones, hundreds still cruised by me. As I neared Weirs Beach, at the Laconia end of the lake, they reached herd-migration numbers. At the Weirs they simply dominated everything. There were young studs on Jap screamers, prosperous-looking middle aged types on Gold Wings and Aspencades, BMW heads and tons of Harley-Davidsons.
Vendor tents offered food, drink and souvenirs, and probably tattoos and piercings as well. Four-wheeled vehicles were scarce and I was the only bicyclist.
Only the women -- and not all of them -- had shaved legs.
Interestingly, I never felt threatened. The motorcyclists just treated me like a retarded cousin. This proved to be the pattern through many years to follow. This year was the first time I encountered any passive aggressiveness or hostility. That's probably because motorcycling has attracted a lot of neophytes and posers. Only insecure people need to pick on people they think are vulnerable in order to feel tough.
Until this year, the most static I might get from a motorcyclist would be one of them pulling his feet off the pegs and pretending to pedal. I always got safe passing clearance and often got friendly waves.
The red shorts are long gone, by the way. I did make enough money to get some more presentable biking threads.
This year was different. I got passed close and revved at by a few riders. In one group of six, a couple of them brushed me when they could easily have made more room. Their indifference or insensitivity revealed their inexperience. I was on my way to work.
When I got to town, I found that the ongoing bridge construction had created an epic back-up out Center Street. I floated carefully down the outbound lane, which was currently unoccupied, because the construction crew had everyone stopped, both directions. It was a great time to be on a bike.
It was especially great when I saw the rude motorcyclists embedded in the traffic jam. Without comment, I rode smoothly past them.
"Hey!" yelled one, then "HEY!", perhaps as he recognized me.
Showers threatened soon after I got to work. We looked down from our windows onto the parking lot behind our building as a group of Hell's Posers loaded their shiny Hogs into a box trailer behind a chunky SUV. Real bikers don't box up the bikes and hop into a four-wheeled vehicle at the first sight of a gray cloud. It could even have been the same bunch from the morning commute.
We started coming up with poserwear for the faux biker. How about press-on greasy fingernails? Or a gray ponytail wig that hides a helmet? Stone-washed black tee shirts simulate the wear and tear of days on the open road.
So the official Motorcycle Week fades into history. Motorcyclists will continue to tour up here, because it's a great place for it, but now we'll just have week after week of Boneheads in Cars and SUVs Week until summer finally ends. At least some of them have racks full of bikes hung on the family tank.
My cynical emergency responder friend calls it "organ donor week." The death toll stood at ten as of this morning.
It used to be just a weekend. Some of the rowdier editions of it have been woven into tourist-season legend. Back in the day it involved a lot more open flames and public lewdness.
I had not lived in New Hampshire a year when I stumbled on Motorcycle Weekend. It was 1988. I was training for a double century. My schedule had been interrupted because I had to move from Tamworth, tucked into the southern flank of the White Mountains, to Tuftonboro, on a broad point sticking down into Lake Winnipesaukee.
Early on a Saturday morning I set out to ride around "the big lake" to try to get some kind of longer mileage before the really long ride a week later. It's only about 65 miles around Winnipesaukee by road, but it was all I had time to do.
As a tribute to the challenge of a 200-mile ride, I decided to shave my legs. I'd shaved when I was racing, but grew out the fur when I quit competing. Shaving helped me psych up for the discipline of the big ride. I set out around the lake the morning after a really exemplary shave.
When I raced, my race results were unimpressive, but I always won the shave. No razor rash or missed spots for this boy. I figured if I was going to risk being seen as a freak because I shaved my legs I should at least do a damn good job. No women would razz me. Anything you can shave, I can shave better. Anything below the panty line, anyway.
Off into the cool morning I pedaled, down into the quaint town center of Wolfeboro, out Route 28 to the south, bending down toward Alton. In addition to my freshly-shaved legs, I wore a brand-new set of lycra shorts out of the local shop's bargain bin. I'd gotten a great price because they were red. Hey, I had no money. I was hoping to earn some by doing my double century and then selling articles about it to whatever publications would buy them.
As I got closer to Alton I started to notice increasing numbers of motorcycles. I knew the state attracted a lot of them because the roads are so beautiful. I had never heard of Motorcycle Weekend.
Every motel and restaurant had rows of motorcycles parked out front. Even with all the parked ones, hundreds still cruised by me. As I neared Weirs Beach, at the Laconia end of the lake, they reached herd-migration numbers. At the Weirs they simply dominated everything. There were young studs on Jap screamers, prosperous-looking middle aged types on Gold Wings and Aspencades, BMW heads and tons of Harley-Davidsons.
Vendor tents offered food, drink and souvenirs, and probably tattoos and piercings as well. Four-wheeled vehicles were scarce and I was the only bicyclist.
Only the women -- and not all of them -- had shaved legs.
Interestingly, I never felt threatened. The motorcyclists just treated me like a retarded cousin. This proved to be the pattern through many years to follow. This year was the first time I encountered any passive aggressiveness or hostility. That's probably because motorcycling has attracted a lot of neophytes and posers. Only insecure people need to pick on people they think are vulnerable in order to feel tough.
Until this year, the most static I might get from a motorcyclist would be one of them pulling his feet off the pegs and pretending to pedal. I always got safe passing clearance and often got friendly waves.
The red shorts are long gone, by the way. I did make enough money to get some more presentable biking threads.
This year was different. I got passed close and revved at by a few riders. In one group of six, a couple of them brushed me when they could easily have made more room. Their indifference or insensitivity revealed their inexperience. I was on my way to work.
When I got to town, I found that the ongoing bridge construction had created an epic back-up out Center Street. I floated carefully down the outbound lane, which was currently unoccupied, because the construction crew had everyone stopped, both directions. It was a great time to be on a bike.
It was especially great when I saw the rude motorcyclists embedded in the traffic jam. Without comment, I rode smoothly past them.
"Hey!" yelled one, then "HEY!", perhaps as he recognized me.
Showers threatened soon after I got to work. We looked down from our windows onto the parking lot behind our building as a group of Hell's Posers loaded their shiny Hogs into a box trailer behind a chunky SUV. Real bikers don't box up the bikes and hop into a four-wheeled vehicle at the first sight of a gray cloud. It could even have been the same bunch from the morning commute.
We started coming up with poserwear for the faux biker. How about press-on greasy fingernails? Or a gray ponytail wig that hides a helmet? Stone-washed black tee shirts simulate the wear and tear of days on the open road.
So the official Motorcycle Week fades into history. Motorcyclists will continue to tour up here, because it's a great place for it, but now we'll just have week after week of Boneheads in Cars and SUVs Week until summer finally ends. At least some of them have racks full of bikes hung on the family tank.
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