I know, I'm sad too

Next week, the blog will go on hiatus for three to four and possibly five days. This is not an effort to drive away all the opportunistic traffic that was driven here by Fatty's post, although it will effectively bring down my readership to just my mom and three loyal stalkers (thanks guys). I will be on a non-bike related adventure that will begin with an evening spent here:

Leave it to The Pie to schedule a vacation that starts with volunteer work.

Sunday I was hoping to get the Fire Mare out to Santos (since we'll still have the rental car that we had to obtain to get our volunteering asses to GKTW), but alas a lack of necessary components will keep it from joining me on the trip.

My apologies in advance for the following photos which I took last night after riding extra miles and rewarding myself with a beer supper.

There she sits, incomplete in so far as being a bicycle one might ride. My own fault. I ordered the Twin Six Dark Horse when I was filled with the sudden urge to purge myself of the last foothold that shifty bits had in my house, the road bike. Without a real plan of any sorts, I soon discovered I did not have all my bases covered. The bike arrived accompanied by a headset with a large logo on it, a logo that rhymes with "eph esse."

I spoke with the head Dick Handler at Cane Creek and asked if this would be a problem.

"Everything you do is a problem on our end."

So I needed a new headset.

Double the lizard, double the fun.

I got my Cane Creek 40 pretty quickly, but because the fork had the lower race already installed, I had to purchase a lower race removal tool, lest I be lured into a local bike shop for a simple service and walk out with $75 in Honey Stinger Waffles.

More delays.

While I was dealing with all this (and by "dealing" I mean dragging my feet), I contacted Industry Nine. I wanted to know if my i30 wheels were up to the task of running the 700X35 Larsen Mimo's I had already purchased.

"Not so much."

My road wheels, which I removed from my road bike before I let it go for a song (and a poem), were really meant to have 23mm type meats mounted on them. Maybe 20's, perhaps 28's, but not 35's.

Meh.

So back my wheels went to be updated to the new i25's. Apparently they're all the rage with the factory Oompa Loompas that assemble the machined bits into wheels at I9 Headquarters.

But I waited too long. No wheels before heading on my grand vacation.

I have no desire to pedal my single speed mountain bike all over the urban sprawl of Florida. Well at least not a strong enough desire to pay whatever exorbitant fee the airline might charge. I woulda been tempted to take the all-terrain Fire Mare with me, what with the lay of the land being slightly similar to that of Krull...



but my own lax attitude will keep me from roosting the parking lots of the McDonald's and Super Eights of Orlando.

I have no one to blame but myself.

I so wanted to show the people of Florida that I can't stop, won't stop.

Yes, the rest of the world is going to discs.

Fuck them.

I'm going to Disney World.