Thank goodness something came in the mail to talk about...

Yesterday I got Dirt Rag #160ED in the mail. Happy day.

Of course, another brilliant article by me. Not brilliant due to its content, but rather its timing. You see, I wrote an article about how I'm not a big fan of night riding, and between the time I wrote the article and the time it was published, I've gone on two rather pleasant night rides.

Whatever.

My article just happens to be justly juxtaposed across the page to an interview with MTBR.com founder, Francis Cebedo. Two industry movers and shakers, legends of the sport of making sport around our sport. He created a website that allows mountain bikers to share and shill information across the globe, and I started a blog that allows me to do all that on my own.

You have been moved and shaken, no?

Also of note in this issue of Dirt Rag, the new ad for the 2012 Trans-Sylvania Epic, featuring none other than Harrisonburg's own first lady of mountain biking, Sue Haywood.

Personally, knowing that sex sells, I woulda used the naked photo of Sue. Better yet, a themed series of ads, The Women of TSE (not Testicular Self Exam). The men would register in droves.

I also spied a nice piece on Asheville's leading maker of adult toys, Industry Nine.

By "toys" I mean "wheels", and by "adult" I mean "kids can't afford them." I can't wait for my next set of Industry Nine wheels that are being built up for the new By:Stickel. I think they're going to try to machine the entire wheel from one solid hunk of California sequoia. They've been doing some test runs trying to figure out how to make moving parts from a solid hunk of endangered wood.

They went from this:

to this:

in just the first few hours of prototyping (and only went through three sequoias in the process)

All right, those carved wooden pliers are actually from the Warther Museum in Dover, OH, a place I actually visited as a small Ohio boy. I remember seeing all kinds of cool shit like a CARVED replica of Abraham Lincoln's funeral train.

Carved.

From wood.

You can now buy the plastic version from China, $15 for a case of 100 trains.