It's like peas, carrots, and brown sugar

Issue #162 of the esteemed journal of all things mountain bike'esque printed on recycled paper AKA Dirt Rag showed up in my mail receptacle yesterday. Not only did I receive one copy, there was also a second copy awaiting me when I got home as well. I guess I've been stepping up my game, and it was time for a raise.

Anyways, we had a scheduled dinner date to attend, so I could only flip through the pages on the drive over and see what I had to look forward to reading today. The first thing I noticed was that not one, but two people actually felt affected enough by my writing to send a letter to the editor. There may have even been a third person, a guy named "Guy" who was just writing in to complain about cuss words, but he might have been talking about me as well. Either way, I was touched.

The next thing that caught my eye was a big one page ad for Stan's featuring non other than everybody's favorite bearded single speeder with a name that rhymes with Veejay, Dejay Birtch.

I would link to his blog, but he's another rider/writer that we lost to the abyss known as Facebook.

The funny thing is that he's known for single speeding, yet he's riding a full squish with shifty bits in an issue of Dirt Rag with a single speed theme. Such a rebel, that kid. He's going places... like Hell.

I turned the page to see a report on the Southeast Bike Expo and saw a picture of a diminutive little man getting mad air on a cross bike.

That would be Shane Schreihart, the very same guy who joined Chris and I for a half lap on the Conyers course. While he was roosting on his cross bike and showing off, Chris and I were getting trounced aboard our uncomfortable matching test sleds. Stevil's currently testing the same bike in a more official manner, so perhaps he will enlighten us with his opinion soon. I'm sure he'll be disapointed in the lack of a third bottle cage for his daily ride supplies; two Budweiser Tallboys and a 12oz bottle of cherry Pepto Bismol.

Flip, flip, flip...

Then there's my contribution,

which I only mention because I then flipped the page and saw this:

Obviously the Godfather of the 650B movement was trying to emulate my pose, but just as 29" wheels are 100% better than 650B's, my love for my chosen wheel size is just as much betterer. What's that you say? A 650B just won a World Cup race? I guess it's time to hop on the next trend and start the process of getting a custom 650B for 2013. Get left behind and get left behind. That's what they say, or as Fatty would say, "It is said..."

Give a chubby white guy a rope and he thinks he's a cowboy. He must be using that Prentice Hall Reader that I bought him for Hanukkah.

Let's see, what else...

A review of the Naked Bicycle that Karen Brooks was riding, fully clothed I might add, at the Punk Bike Enduro last year. I bet if she woulda rode it naked they mighta let her keep it, or at the very least it woulda made for a better review tagline: Six Weeks Naked on a Naked.

Then I saw this...

That's Tomi's fixed gear conversion cog getting a little press. Tomi's doing a lot more fishing nowadays, so I wonder if he's working on a way to make that "sport" more difficult. Perhaps he's created a fly with no hook or a rod with no reel, just a stick with a piece of string and a feather.

Flip, flap, flop...

A nice little write-up on the Pisgah Stage Race by Montucky Miller with photos provided by none other than Brado. Brado somehow manages to take brilliant photos one handed (his other hand is always holding a PBR) and Montucky has the ability to succinctly spin a yarn utilizing approximately 66% fewer words than I woulda used. He's also seventeen, so perhaps he just doesn't know as many words as I do at my advanced, learned age.

And the final thing that caught my eye?

A nice piece on Walt Wehner (who's real name is Justin?), the man behind Waltworks Custom Bicycles. If you look at my sidebar under Industrial Individuals, you'll see that I follow his blog. Why? Not only did Walt make my first custom 29'er fork which happened to be aboard the first rigid single speed to ever finish the Trans Rockies, he also does a fine job of showing cool shit that he builds. Out of the box thinking shit, weird shit, awesome shit... don't get the wrong impression. He's not building shit. He's building the shit. Anyways, nice to see a feature on him.

I'll have to talk to the people at Dirt Rag and see if they can't get down here to NC, so they can follow Stickel around for a few days and get into the mind of the man behind the beard. Maybe they could follow along step-by-step as he builds my new 650B? That's at least three years down the road (I gotta wait for seven more World Cup wins before I switch), so perhaps they can just come down and talk about bikes, frames, geometry, short chainstay 29'ers, and beard grooming.