This bud's for me

My knee still hurts. This has not changed. One ride into my expected March ramping up for the "season," and I'm down for an unknown period of time, eating ibuprofen and any unattended food. The best part is that I still get to go to work and irritate my knee from 8:30-5:30. I'm still getting up before 6:00AM out of habit, but just spending those useful hours on the internet and applying new stickers to my MOOTSpost.

Awesome. Time for some red cinch plates to tie the bike together since I don't have a rug.

I only rode two bikes at the Southeast Bike Expo, the RIP9 and the Origin 8 carbon hardtail. I ran across some coverage of the SEBE over on Bike198 where they had this to say:

"The disturbing? Origin bikes. I will do a full article on why this week, but the re-branded China idea is going to cause some issues in the bike industry. I really don’t like how China handles manufacturing and presenting it to US based companies (I have personal experience with this one)."

Maybe it had something to do with the sleeveless cowboy shirt wearing douchebags that were testing the bike at the time. I'll be anxious to read the follow up article, as a fellow "industry insider," although it has been over a week and the only thing that's more pertinent than timely insider information is hasty, ill-mannered snipey comments (thank my lucky stars for Bikerumor.com).

Speaking of which...

This is a very untimely review of something I picked up last Spring. Some of you don't know this, but I'm deaf in my right ear. While this works well in some situations, like pretending to not hear The Pie ask me to do things around the house, it can be quite a downer sometimes. I can not locate where noises comes from, so surround sound is wasted on me. Hunting down creaks and groans on my bike is near impossible. Enjoying music with headphones is troubling. Try listening to Crazy Train with only one headphone. I miss half of the "aye, aye, aye's."



It's a cruel world. Speaking of cruel world, listen to Goodbye Cruel World with only one headphone.



Depending on which ear you choose to stick a finger in, you either get lyrics or a constant "doom, doom, doom, doom."

This is the fucking world I have lived in since junior high. It sucks ass. I've lived like this for decades now, that is until I saw this on Bikerumor.com.

I ordered one immediately. Sure, some audiophile ripped it apart in the comments, but a Bikerumor post without a negative comment is like a flower with no smell or a camping area free of discarded tampon applicators.

Granted this product is not solely marketed at people with only half the working ears of a normal person. It is intended for people with two functional ears that would like to hear all the music, but still hear other noises... like cars, other riders, rubbing brakes, unlubed chains, chirping birds, pissed-off motorists.

I love mine. I really do. I've spent the last few years just cutting off the right earpiece and living with the results. No more.

The reason I remembered to post up about this thing that has brought such joy to my life is that I ordered another one.

Why get a new one when I'm so happy with the one I already have?

This one has a 15" cord.

No more wrapping the cord all around my bibs or tucking it down my pants. I'm either gonna mount my Shuffle on my helmet or just clip it to my bibs. It's basically what I've wanted ever since I started riding with an old, shitty MP3 player (that held like 32 compressed songs) back in 2002.

Just because it's what I do, I'll give this my....

Seal of Semi-Approval

Why? My old Skull Candy earbuds come in pink. I like pink. One Good Earbud comes in black. Black is better than yellow, but it is not pink.

That's my only complaint.

If you wanna hear other riders and all the music, this is THE earbud you need. I'm soooooooo glad someone came up with this and all the ass-hat audiophiles of the world can suck donkey dicks. This is the best half a pair of earbuds I've ever owned.