Pub Crawl 2010

It's coming up fast, yo!

January 31, Sunday.

Not sure what time. Not sure where.

But I will let you know soon.

Aged To Perfection: 1986 Univega Gran Rally

What you see here is a bike that is new to me. Jim at Hiawatha Cyclery, looking to streamline his collection, sold it to me this past week. I have been in the market for a classically proportioned steel road bike for a while, but was not interested in playing eBay roulette.

This will be my "go fast" bike, onto which I intend to hang nothing more than a water bottle or two and a small seat bag with enough capacity to hold a tube, a pump and a bottle of beer.

NO Pub Crawl This Sunday

Gentlepeople,

Due to a profound lack of apparent interest, the Pub Crawl that was to be this Sunday is no more.

We'll catch you again some other time.

Lanny

Gauging Public Support for Pub Crawl on August 30

I'm thinking of launching another pub crawl for Sunday, August 30. Short notice, yes, but check out the schedule. It's worth making time for.

Tentative Schedule
Stop 1: Surly Brewing for tour and samples.
Stop 2: Grumpy's NE
Stop 3: Pracna on Main
Stop 4: Stub and Herbs
Stop 5: Busters on 28

I've not checked with any of the establishments except Surly, so the stops are subject to change.

Email me or comment here if you are interested and can make it. I'd like to have a rough idea of how many cyclers we'd be looking at.

Lanny

Gimme Forty Acres. . .

The Family Recreation Fund was tapped this week to purchase a trailer rig for the canoe. We bought it from Wike and it seems good for the money. The wheels are cheap-ish plastic, but what the heck. The load on them is not that heavy and they will not get used more than a couple dozen times per year.

The canoe itself is the frame and a hitch and tongue assembly is strapped to the front of the boat. Likewise the wheel assembly is simply strapped on and the cushioned aluminium frame seems well thought out and easy to repair. Wheel assemblies are nylon and held together with cotter pins for easy and fast disassembly. The nylon bits are my main durability concern but time will tell.

We boogied at a respectable pace from our house in Victory Neighborhood to Cedar lake with boat (and paddles, PFD's, cooler, etc. inside) and my son and I on the bike. DeAnn followed on her road bike, completely and utterly unladen, to watch for pieces coming off or stuff falling out. Nothing untoward happened.

It takes a long time to turn this beast. Our canoe is a monster at 20' long. I figure the total length of the entire package is about 29'. Downhills are stable and nice, uphills are work but doable. I managed about 10mph average from our house to Cedar Lake, which is about 7 miles one way. Not bad.

I figure since this canoe is about as long as any out there, we will hold the total rig length record for any Minneapolis-based bike trailer combo for some time. Anyone have photo proof of something longer?

Help Some Good People Out!

I am riding the Hartford Breast Cancer Ride Next Weekend and could use your help. This ride raises money to support breast cancer research as well as to support families in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area that are struggling with breast cancer or other serious illness.

Please consider donating today. It's tax-deductible and it'll make you feel good.

http://www.breastcancerride.org/goto/lanny

Lanny

"Just like they do in Morocco!"

That's what Mr. Keljik at Keljik's Rug Cleaning said as I pulled up with this 7' x 10' Moroccan rug a week ago. Our dog had "soiled" the rug several times for some damned reason or another and it badly needed cleaning and de-odorizing. I got a lot of interested looks during the 10+ mile ride to have it cleaned and one woman actually offered to take it off my hands.

Had she seen how gruesome it was inside, she would have not made the offer.

Just another day in biking paradise.