Blagh 2 2025
I put this up a few years ago, but I am sure that 90 percent of you weren't around then, and I just remembered it, so here. It's a music thing.
Eben Weiss is the writer I wish I was. This is so good.
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We sold this for $1.00/tube for decades. Then $2.00/tube when our cost went up to $1.45 plus freight. It was the best in so many ways, which is why we sold it in the first place. And Lip Ivo was the first lip balm every be put into a tube (1903). Two or so years a gigantic Dutch Make-Up company bought Lip Ivo, and we were told "no changes," but I never believed it, and of course they shut it down. We bought 3,000 tubes and started getting calls from non-bicycle riders all over the country (the company told them we might have some). Eventually we sold out. If I were seriously rich and needed lip balm, I'd buy these three for $116. Unfortunately, I'm not that rich, but fortunately I have a personal/family stash of about 25.
Lots of things, lots of bike things, are dying out and will be harder to get in two to ten years. Mechanical derailers and normal road levers like Shimano's BL-400 (you know it as Tiagra). I know, or I suspect, that at some level we here at Riv are expected to be mellow and accepting and just do our things and let others do their things, but it's rough to see this stuff. My favorite Shimano rear derailer is their cheapest, and it's not that I think the price is so groovy and that's why I like it. I'd feel the same if it cost $250. I keep telling Spencer to get more while we can. This is a popular derailer on super hideous ebikes and department store bikes, and ironically, is Mark's favorite Shimano derailer (of the ones we sell). The ebike etc sales are keeping it alive, no doubt. I am NOT trying to sell them, and when we sense the end of them we'll reserve what we have for complete bike sales; I'm just saying, this is a bright spot. Two color options: silver or badass black.
We are so lucky to have the Velocity Atlas and the Alex DM-21 & 24 rims. These are all smart rims, with tallish braking surfaces, thickish braking surfaces, good width, eyeletted, and non-tubeless compatible (NTC)...which means installing and removing is a relative breeze--more so with an NTC tire. Most of the guys here have experimented with tubeless (some a lot), but are now back to normal, because tubeless goop often dries, it's a hassle to install it, the tire-to-rim fit can make it impossible to install and remove YES EVEN WITH GOOD TECHNIQUE and especially with bad technique and in trying conditions and with normal strength hands. So...Velocity and Alex are two companies that allow competing technologies to exist. SRAM doesn't, Shimano is gradually copying SRAM in that way, and if Campy didn't have its history to prop it up as meekly as it's propped up, it would go away in a day.
Microshift is making at least a rear derailer for us, and two prototypes may arrive today, and if they do, we'll show them. Dia-Compe makes our silver shifters, and thanks god for that. I always hesitate to write "thank god." There's the capitalization issue and the use of "god" issue. I think it more than I write it.
There are surprisingly several other alternative rear derailers, and I hope they all succeed. We bought one for $500 and sold it for $200 or something. The Madrone is one that seems pretty far along, and it's the rare decent-looking modern derailer. It's a normal-action (not RapidRise style), and it's fully rebuildable with support for doing that. I've never known of or experienced a worn-out rear derailer, but in principle it's a good thing. I suspect---based on us going down that rebuildable parth ourselves, before caving in--that the rebuildability is partly driven by the fact that the company assembles it in America, and bolts and screws are more convenient than rivets. BUT--whatever the case, I still hope they do well. They've put a lot of thought into it and are covering as many bases as possible. It's not clear from the photos whether or. not it's a slant parallelogram (considered necessary for close cog-tracking that indexing requires or at least really likes). But there's no way they'd overlook that, so what I'm NOT seeing may be the fault of my ... either eyes, which seem in good shape still, or my monitor, a recent MacBook Pro. (Whatever happened to stuff labeled "Pro-Am"?)
VIVO is another one, another modern "Battlestar Galactica"-looking derailer. It's interesting to look at these, especially since we've worked on-and-off on ours for 7 years at least. Six of those years seem to have ended in hard stop, but we learned a lot about derailer guts and design challenges, and that led us to microshift. As part of our arrangement, we agreed to let microshift sell its own version of "our" derailer, and that's not just "fine," but great. It means more people will get to try a "low-nomal" deraler--a derailer that moved the Opposite direction as a regular "high-normal" derailer, and if you try one with an open mind, it's hard to not like them. I'd say it's hard to not prefer them, but I think a lot of people will object on principle, and that's fine, too. It's just another option, and you can't object to that on principle.
When I was in elementary school, we were taught the difference between principle and principal: A princiPAL is your pal. My elementary school principal was Nicholas Barbieri, and when I was in fourth grade somebody with a pocket knife carved "Nick likes nudies," in a white wooden beam that anybody could see, and we all suspected it was Danny Appleton, a sixth grader who'd flunked fourth. I can't read or hear principle or principal without thinking of "Nick likes nudies."
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Against my better judgment I'm ordering some orange but not super bright orange wool tops, zip-T and mock-T, in two weights. Not many, but please buy one, because I really want one of each, and if they don't sell well I'll look irresponsible. We may have them by early March. It'll still be cool enough to wear them, and it's always good to plan for the future.
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Sitting around at lunch, most eating pizza, the convo turned to anagrams of the pizza boxes. One side of the box says:
Another side says:
We have a history with anagrams, challenges or contests, but it's been a while. It is useful to make blocks like this, letters on both sides. Send in your entries for each. All entries that follow the rules and convey that you gave a rodent's bum about this, and only if accompanied by your name and zip code (in case there is more than one Bert Lars, for instance...will get a one-time discount of $15 on any order of more than $40. Here's the gut punch: Entries must be sent by postcard, postmarked no later than March 20. Print legibly.
You can send multiple postcards in an envelope, if you like, to:
RBW-POSTCARD SCAM
2040 North Main #19
Walnut Creek, CA 94596
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THe words don't have to be genuine words, the subject matter can be anything ("HOS USE LICE" is acceptable, but we'll think less of you...). We get to publish notable entries, with attribution.
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For about 15 years now I've been kind of wack-a-doodle about my blood sugar. I'm not diabetic, but I monitor my glucose (blood sugar) as tho I was. It's "just good to know," and with only two exceptions, everybody I know who knows I do this thinks I'm, if not nuts, at least pretty far out there. Fifty-nine is low, but isn't (by far) my lowest. I don't try for low, I just avoid carbs except when I feel like partaking (chocolate, cheesecake, fruit, wild rice).
Whatever you THINK about it, your blood sugar is good to know, and it's cheap and easy to take. Relatively cheap. Be prepared to spend $100. Diabetic Warehouse has cheaper options.
This is a prediction and not a challenge: Only ONE of you reading this now will buy and read this book:
Almost 1/3 of adults over 50 are diabetic, and of those who aren't, probably 1/3 are pre-diabetic (80 percent of the way there). Diabetes is beatable, and it's easily avoidable if you can see it coming, and a monitor tells you that.
Gary Taubes is a great writer, but the book is dense. If "dense" doesn't bother you and you are concerned about diabetes, get it.
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I'm going into the new trout season with a newer and healthier attitude. I'm living my convictions about flies and style. I'm giving away tons of tying materials, and I'm limiting my flies to thirteen patterns for everything. I'm tying things like these:
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Have you noticed that "tinned fish" are raging back? Sergio here got a can of swordfish, and good god almighty, check out the beautiful can:
It feels good, just knowing that somebody over there in Portugal or whatever sat down and said, "We're going to have the best-looking can in the world of canned fish," and then did it.
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Pencil
Pencil
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Rear Derailer news
We're working on the box and innards of the box, what to say, how to explain, set-up tips...and microshift will have it's own official-required-standard instructions. I expect we'll be asked for review samples. It's a new derailer, it's ACTUALLY going to be available--not just five or twenty-one, but by the thousands; and it'll be affordable--around $150 for this version--and microshift will introduce its own slightly less fancy version that'll work 100 percent as well. We may sell that one, too.
If you have a perfectly good derailer, should you switch? You don't need to. I like having both styles, but if it was one or the other, I'd go rapid-rise/opposite movement—as nobody has ever said—"hands down in a heartbeat or New York minute." For any bar-end shifter, thumb shifters, or downtube shifters, for sure. Indexed shifting doesn't matter--all you do it push the lever-buttons until you hear the click.
But the thing is--getting back to the reviews—with friction shifting, as long as the derailer follows its intended inward and outward paths and is assembled correctly, then the derailer's performance is really YOUR performance. Submitting a derailer for a performance review is like sending out perfectly good paintbrushes or musical instruments to journalists to review. We may do that anyway, just as a way to spread the word that there's a new moonwalking sheriff in town. I've ridden the prototype enough now to say, confidently, that it works every bit as well as a Shimano...which is a worse way of saying I can't tell any difference between it and a Shimano.
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The following three links are not bad. You kind of have to be at least a little interested in music and/or art. I wonder how many people that rules out.
James here found this and fwded it to me.
Sorry for another. John sent me this. (I do subscribe to The Guardian, so maybe I'd've seen it eventually, but probably not.)
James he also found this and fwded it to me.
Map of David Lance Goines posters
We have our own Goines poster, glad to have it, it's $60 and we're not trying to sell them, but on request we will. Sorry if that sounds snobby; it's just that DLG died and we'll never get them again, no reprints or anything, and we really like it.
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Handlebar section.
This is what we're up against. This is not the competition.
It is hard to imagine but easy to believe. This makes us dig in deeper. Handlebars. We like the charming round ones made of metal that don't have batteries and are customizable only with bar tape, grips, or nail polish. The kind that tell you NOTHING*, so what's even the point of riding?
* I often strap a digital Casio onto mine, so I can monitor my decline as I age. But I don't use it on recreational rides, only on commute sprints that last a few minutes.
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THIS BLAHG-THING is all over the place, kind of as usual. To most of you, I am a bicycle person, and that's extremely accurate, but I have other things going on all the time, as we all do. I. have a huge variety of earworms that I think are driving me insane. I know I won't get traditional Alzheimers, because I have no family history of it, although there's not a ton of longevity to draw from. But I keep my blood sugar low, and that lowers the risk. But aside from all that, I like, among many other things, certain nursery rhymes. I used to think, as many of you undoubtedly still do, that the entirety of Jack Sprat is:
Jack Sprat could eat no fat/His wife could eat no lean/And so between (betwixt) the two of them (them both)/They licked the platter clean.
This morning I found out how wrong I was. Read on, fellow Jack Sprat fans...and ladies, too.
For audio learners, there's this.
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Derailer: It's coming along, and nothing here is locked in, but this is just how it's coming along. The derailer and art for it.
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We are also working on a better fake top tube, the kind you affix to a mixte or low-top tube bicycle, when you want to hang it on the kind of rack like this:
It's a great rack, you can take my word for it or look at those eleven 5-star reviews.
The problem is, with a mixte-style bike (we have plenty), you have to use one of these:
And in this case, despite those 292 5-star reviews, I'd give it 2-stars. And it's not just the Hollywood model that warrants 2 starts. Thule, Yakima, the same.
It needs to be strapped down like this:
up front, same loose problem:
so, add-a-strap:
Ours will make carrying our toptubeless bikes a cinch. It'll be several months from now.
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Yeah, well... Good luck to us all.
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