The system cometh

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Remember the system? Yeah, it’s for real.

I was thinking about it just yesterday. Not that I have time to actually ride a bike, or anything like that in my life these days. But I did go ’round the block once on one of my fixies (about ten city blocks, in case you’re wondering) and I didn’t really plan much – just a helmet and out I went. I had been in the garage looking for something or the other that had to do with Thanksgiving/Christmas decorations. I didn’t find it.

But I did notice my bikes. They were all just hanging there. Waiting. I took down the Fondriest. Tires had air in ’em. It’s been months. A few strokes to top her off and down the driveway I went.

I realized as I got a bit farther from the house than I’d like to walk back that I didn’t have a pump, tube, patch kit, any tools or even a (gasp) cell phone. If I flatted, I was walking home. And it was not close. It woulda sucked. I hate walking. Almost as much as I hate being sober.

Man, a set of TR’s with some sealant under a big ass set of crappy clinchers would’ve been nice about then.

From: A.F.
Subject: mildly amusing somewhat cycling related photo
Hard to make out, but definitely not staged; in fact, I wouldn’t have taken the shot was I not in possession of firsthand evidence that the suspect devices are regularly deployed

Location: the world’s cleanest –and most fey– bike shop, www.arrowbicycle.com, which is owned by sometime DC readers

Also, law school sucks, you should quit.

Law school does suck. But I’m too damn stupid to quit. See “Leadville TR 100” for proof of that.

About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

13 Replies to “The system cometh”

  2. Bikes ??

    What is this “bikes” you speak of ??

    Oh wait….I remember now. It’s that orange thing sitting in the corner of my bedroom all covered with dust.

    Jar my old memory some more….what was that odd contraption good for again ?

  3. “A few strokes to top her off …”

    Are we talking about the tires, or did you need to fluff yourself before the ride?

  4. I switched to 28Cs and they are heavy and slow but I hate spending the entire ride plowing through piles of debris and glancing at my tires to see if they’re going down yet. And the roadside self-rescue is even less amusing than usual when standing in the mud and working with numb fingers.

  5. I switched to 28c systems when Tufo was promoting them a few years back.

    Soon there after, I stopped cycling completely. That shit ruins it.

  6. My opinion on this subject changes in direct proportion to how long it’s been since I had to do a hypothermic finger tire change in the Oregon rain. I can remember times that I would have sold my soul for a 5 lb. solid rubber tire.

  8. Seriously, We NM folk run the system hardcore. I recently, regrettably, left NM for TN where flatting is so rare I’d almost forgotten “the system” but your store RE: “the WAZ” completely corresponds to my personal conversation with Mr. The “Ph.D. in Physics” WAZ regarding its origins. I used to use a worn Michelin Pro2 Race inside of an Conti Ultra Gatorskin with a TR tube for *all* training. Race day on a pair of tubies was miraculous to say the least. The bike was so light, even with two bottles attached, that following any move (and promptly being dropped from it) was trivial. We’d do “the finger climbs” which consisted of about 12 steep mofo climbs followed by La Luz trailhead (2 mi of mofo climbing) on our system and were happy to be doing it… now get off my lawn!

  9. Yea, yea, yea.

    And I walked 10 miles to school every day in the snow. Up-hill. Both ways.

    No. Wait. That was Bill Cosby wasn’t it ?

    Well. I used to stand in the cold for 10 minutes waiting for the bus so Amy could blow 1/2 the guys on the way.

    That count ?

  10. Walking isn’t nearly as bad if you’re wearing real shoes instead of cycling shoes. Keeping pedals and straps on the fixed keeps me from having to go through the entire dressing ritual to simply go out and ride a bike around.

  11. For the first year o skool, whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you more boring.

    You’ll be chasing ambulances in no time.

  13. Damn ron you beat me to it. I was going to say! I was thinking, “surely this isn’t about the tubulars….”