MOOTSpost post

My MOOTSpost is:

a. a fine seatpost that elevates my posterior approximately 28 inches above the center of my bottom bracket

b. overflowing with alien technology proving the existence of intelligent life forms on other planets

c. proof that a benevolent deity has taken an interest in my comfort by blessing the engineers at MOOTS with the mental capacity and copious amounts of creativity required to invent said post using said alien technology

d. a fine piece of functional art formed from the finest titanium in the world

e. nice to curl up in bed with in front of a roaring fire with a glass of chardonnay close at hand

f. available at your local MOOTShop for less than the cost of a Trek Madone, but with far more inherent cool points than a Lance wannabe plastic bike

g. fashionably gray with subdued white logos

h. idiot proof

i. all of the above


If you answered i. all of the above you're either:

a. very smart

b. very lucky

c. very much clued into where this self serving post is going

I don't really care which response you chose to the latter multiple choice as it was:

a. irrelevant

b. erroneous

c. redundant

d. a little bit of all the above... sorta irreloneousdant

I'm getting somewhere, I promise. You may not be along for the ride, but the train is leaving the station...

Remember back when Captain Morgan and I tried to dominate the Double Dare (a two day mountain bike adventure race in Pisgah) on fixed gears? Of course you do. Captain Morgan and I had several mishaps which cost us to miss the cut-off time on day one (just outta first place) by:

a. ten minutes

b. 1/6 of an hour

c. six hundred billion nanoseconds

d. all of the above (not the sum of all of the above, but any of the above since they are all the same thing)


If you guessed any of the above choices congratulate yourself for getting this far into the post.

Anyways, we lost time a million ways to Sunday out there. I had us hike-a-bike up a mountain for no damn reason at all when I made a navigation error. We chose to do a trail after dark that was overgrown, addled with creek crossings, and covered with slippery moss, rocks, downed trees, and roots due to poor route selection. Let's not forget our impromptu grand tour of the Blue Ridge Parkway looking for the entrance to the hike up Mount Pisgah... please don't forget that.

Then there was the self inflicted mechanicals...

I mounted up a brand new Cane Creek Thudbuster seatpost (Oooooohhh, go ahead and click over there as their website is exciting and new... like the love doled out on the "Love Boat") to keep my fixed gear butt from bouncing up and down and smashing my taint into ground beef. Lacking a cool sponsor (like me) who hands out Thudbusters to their very bestest riders (like me), Captain Morgan borrowed a MOOTSpost from future fellow MOOTSman and water bottle scoundrel Will "Proud to Be" Black. The die was cast.

Neither of us familiarized ourselves with our new posts. I had to stop and adjust my saddle tilt early on in the race, and the Captain did likewise. Later, he found himself unsatisfied with his handiwork, so we took some time to analyze the situation.

"Did you get a look at the manual when you installed this thing" I asked.

"Will said any idiot should be able to figure it out, and well... apparently we're not just any idiots" Captain Morgan snarled back in his oh-so pirate like vibratto.

There we were, on the standing still on the nasty hike-a-bike up Pilot Rock dissecting his seatpost like two third graders trying to figure out what makes a frog tick without ever opening a biology textbook.

"Unhhhh", I muttered.

"Dunnnhhh", he replied once again in his pirate voice, but more like a gay pirate with a surprising baritone quality rather than his usual authoritative yet high pitched pirate voice.

At one point we had all the pieces/parts of the post scattered amongst the rocks we were using as a makeshift work bench. We were using tools that should not come near a bike ever, and still we were perplexed with this device that was intended to connect his saddle to his frame. To us it was as if the post were some sort of Cracker Barrel puzzle intended to drive a man to the brink of insanity with its unsolvable solution. It was as if there were some element of mystery we couldn't understand... a DaVinci Code of a seatpost where turning a 5mm bolt actuated a lever which started a limited chemical reaction releasing a pressure valve in order to set a gyroscope into a balancing spin... who the hell knew???

"Why hast Satan brought this post into our lives" Captain Morgan screamed at the sky and to the earless clouds that called it home.

After a pause for dramatic effect things started to sort themselves out despite our futile efforts. Eventually all the parts fell together in an amicable manner, but suffice to say it cost us at least eleven or so valuable minutes (if I had to estimate the time we wasted, which for the purposes of validating our efforts, I did).

Before my MOOTSpost showed up VIA the brown clown I watched the Davinci Code seven times, spent a few hours in the gift shop at a local Cracker Barrel, and I stayed the hell away from any and all pirates and anybody who even sounded like a pirate. When the post arrived at my house I was sure to open up the manual and feverishly examine the contents as if my life depended on my ability to properly install this satanic brainteaser. At once I was ashamed, amazed, embarrassed, and even more suspicious of pirates than I had ever been before. Apparently we were treating something simpler than a common pepper grinder with more angst than it deserved.

It's as easy as this:

1. Remove the four fiddly bits from the post with a 6mm allen wrench. The chainring bolt looking things are made of titanium, while the other two fiddly bits are made out of the same material that the Predator left behind from his weapon after he killed all those drug dealers in Predator II (this is just my best guess, and MOOTS has asked me to quit saying it in public).

2. Place the saddle in the place where you would expect a saddle to go, and re-install the fiddly bits in a tight manner (not tight like "yo, that's tight", but tight like a pair of Jordache jeans).

3. Stick a 5mm allen in the really cool looking hole that goes all the way through the post hardware, loosen the bolt, position the saddle where you want it (not where an angry driver would tell you to place it), and then tighten the bolt.

4. Success!!!!

Photo Cred: Pete-unh

I know it's been awhile since I pulled it out, but I'm gonna have to give my new MOOTSpost the Team Dicky Seal of Semi-Approval.

Why only semi-approval? Since I spent hours loitering in a gift shop at Cracker Barrel in preparation of the imminent arrival and subsequent installation of my brainteaser of a post I ended up buying nine pounds of fudge, a macrame sweater, a potholder embroidered with "SOME LIKE IT HOT", and a set of decorative woven placemats (not meant to be used, but to be hung as folksy art). Since I'm an American I have the inalienable right to blame someone else for my inability to control my incessant need to purchase things I neither need nor can afford. Since Will Black played the part of the scape goat in 2008 and I called Captain Morgan a gay pirate who ruined my shot at Double Dare fame it's only fair that place the lion's share of the blame squarely on MOOTS. Sorry... cookie meet crumble time.

Did we learn anything today kiddies? I hope so. Hopefully you learned that you (and I mean every one of you) all need to get a MOOTSpost ASAP. When placing your order at your LBS please be sure to say "I'm only buying this because I want to be just like Team Dicky when he... I mean I grow up". While you're at it tip your mechanic or else he'll lick your post when it comes in, or maybe he'll even start a teabags on seatposts blog with your new post being the first post in his first post. Bike mechanics are evil people, and you should be wary of them at all times... just like gay pirates.

"Want some MOOTSpost?"