The Incredible Lightness of Being A Clydesdale

You Think That Other Guy Is the Fat Cyclist?

Look, there is something I want to make clear: my Buffalo Status is getting worse. To call myself a Clydesdale is an insult to the equines of the world. But then again, a Clydesdale may be bigger than a Buffalo. How am I supposed to know all this stuff? I know when I was a little kid the Budweiser Clydesdales came to town for some event or another and Mom took us to see them. Man. Those things were big. Ummm, Budweiser...

Weighty Matters

Where was I? Having finally sobered up long enough to sit down and bang out a Blog post, I found myself thinking about weight. Well, I suppose that we all think about our weight pretty much all the time. We are the Fattest Nation on Earth and the Most Obsessed With Thinness. Crazy, huh? While I have always ridden a bicycle for relaxation and exercise, it wasn't until this past year that I became obsessed with all things cycling and weight related. And a funny thing happened. I found out I could increase the length and speed of my rides only slightly and the weight would start to drop off one drip at a time.

Wow! That means I can eat all I want as long as I add a few miles here and there and bear down a little on the stretches that I used to ride slowly!

Yeah, right.

And Another Thing

The other thing that happens is that the Cycling Obsession results in a lot of time looking at other cyclists on the internet. It is easy to identify with these people. I mean, we all ride bicycles, don't we? The thing is, photographers and editors of cycling magazines tend to not photograph fat cyclists. Yeah. So I spend many hours imagining myself thin and strong and fast but then the Reality of the Saddle sets in once astride my steed and I'm huffing and puffing and arguing with the speedometer and blaming my Mom for taking me to see that Budweiser Parade when I was only five years old, imprinting me for life and giving me The Thirst That Is Never Quenched.

So I Ride

So I got my holiday-enlarged self out on the bike a couple days this week, riding my old familiar 24 mile course.  I have seen the scenery on that ride so many times that looking around and goofing off is easy not to do. Instead I ride, I push and sometimes instead of downshifting to maintain my cadence I just pedal harder. I pedal a little harder until those big thigh muscles start complaining and then I back off and catch my breath and congratulate myself on my stupendous effort and then I do it again.

But Man Those Ribs Are Good!

I don't know if it will work or not but something's gotta give. In my twisted world-view I figured starting a Barbecue Sauce Empire and Rib Shack would meld gracefully with my efforts at Cycling Superiority. Since Uncle Bill and I have started having Sunday cook-outs every Sunday, guess what happened to my Sunday Centuries? Unless eating a hundred ribs and drinking a hundred beers counts as a Double Century, I'm not doing so hot.

Those cookouts are a lot of fun. They have a slight chance of translating into a late-life career change that may Save the Day. Those Century Rides were endurance events. They didn't start out as Centuries. Originally I was very unemployed and very poor and very depressed and I would ride my bicycle A Long Way and then realize I had to ride back, also a long way. Then I started measuring the miles and realized that if I did it on purpose I could brag about it online and then one day I realized that sooner or later some Young Gun would drop by to make me Prove It.

Whatever Happened To Billy the Kid?

I'm not too concerned about a shoot-out, however. I am Old and Tricky. Any Bonzai Buckaroo comes around here lookin' to Ride Long with the Old Man will first be stuffed so full of ribs and beer that his carbon fiber bike-cycle will collapse beneath him before the first mile. Besides, I am accustomed to being a Clyde and I'm good at it.

So How About This?

Today I rode 24 miles in an hour and twenty-five minutes. The wind was gentle and out of the east on a more-or less North-South ride. No hills. A really nice day. Is that a good time? I have no idea. I mean, yeah, I had a good time. But how fast is that in the real world? I know a group can generally go faster than a solo rider, due to drafting and humiliation and those slots in the helmets. But that is my fastest time on this familiar course and since I have some catching up to do, I thought it might be a personal challenge to see how many minutes I can whittle off that target time of 1:25. It might cause me to whittle a few pounds off my Buffalo Butt and get me back to that coveted Clydesdale Status.

What's In the Stand

Meanwhile, what about Bike Repair? Funny you should ask. I haven't been doing any. We all know what that means: something is due to break. Oh, I had a roadside flat last week. I fixed it in twelve minutes. I seem to be timing things these days. But I had it fixed and up and running in twelve minutes so now I guess I have another target time to try and reduce. Not that I want to work on that particular time.

Old Steel Rules

But, no, my Old Schwinn has only been mounted in the stand for purposes of worship. I haven't even squirted any lube on her for a while now. Man, I love that bike! What a machine! Thirty-plus years old and still Kickin' It. That Mavic wheel and Tiagra hub are still as sweet and smooth as they were when they were new. The chain is shiny and the SRAM cassette silent and crisp.

But now that I have jinxed myself by writing about over a thousand and a half maintenance free miles, I think I will wander over to the bench and grab some clean rags and some Armor-All and a spoke wrench and some chain oil, open a can of Clyde and do a little worshipful work.

Have You Hugged Your Bike Today?

Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Buffalo Preserve

#49

A Ride Report In Three Parts: Part Four

A Century is A Lot

I got sidetracked halfway through yesterday's Blog and started telling the heartwarming tale of the Family Life of Old Tim Joe, for what it is worth...but I also left myself stranded without beer or succor way up in Ponce Inlet, about thirty miles from the Whispering Pines Trailer Park. The ride did not end there. I had Miles to Go and there was a certain darkening to the sky that made me think I better go those miles pretty quick. The day was getting late and my business and reminiscing about Days Gone By was done and I was more that ready to leave the past behind and hustle on South to yet another little Market where there would be beer and peanuts and a quick sprint home.

Florida Climb

Florida ain't much for hills but we do have these artificial hills called bridges and the big ones are pretty big and I am on one now, climbing and spinning and going pretty quick considering how many miles I have traveled today, but it has been a segmented journey so filled with good moments and swift riding and short breaks that I don't feel a thing. I'm riding Me Little Darlin', a 1981 Schwinn Super Le Tour that I got from Coyote for twenty dollars, but there is considerably more money in her now. Early last summer, I installed a Mavic 36 Spoke Open Sport rim with a Tiagra hub. I also put on a Sram cassette and a new Sram chain and listen, those Were Dollars So Well Spent that I wish I could spend them again, but it may never happen. After 1500 miles or more they look and feel the same as they did the day they came off the truck. The Kenda Kwest tire I put on is showing just a little wear and all things considered I can only report Absolute Satisfaction with these products.

But right now I am descending on the down hill side of this big bridge and going pretty fast and there is something happening with the road surface. It is pretty rough and I just remembered that this is the original 27” front wheel with the rusty spokes and Kmart tire and is this safe?

Something New, Something Old

Sure, why not? I retained the big old wheel because I liked the way it looked and I get a kick out of doing things that might shock the purists; but also my brain tells me that this big thirty-six spoke rim is probably doing more than a little to create this super smooth ride that I get when out ramblin' about on Me Darlin.' Whatever the case, I made it just fine and cut left onto the river road again and it is only ten miles to the beer store and that blessed wind that has held steady out of the Northeast all day has cooled now in the late afternoon and has shifted slightly to the North and this will be a sleigh ride home with a cool, hard tailwind and a heart full of memories and joy of life.

Mumbles the Clown

I put the hammer down and blast those ten miles like nothin' and there it is, the Nova Road market and I dash inside to grab a Foster's and some more honey roasted peanuts. I really love those things. At the counter the cute teenage girl clerk wants to chat. I notice my hands are shaking a little and that I find it hard to speak. I am in Long Road Mode and I realize that I have not spoken out loud in hours and suddenly I feel the effect of almost ninety miles of pedaling my bicycle. I nod spasmodically and mumble at the clerk who now thinks I am a Challenged Person (which I am, sometimes) and then I step outside and I go over to the bike. I stash my peanuts and my beer into my messenger bag and I look at the sky. It is clear enough for now; there are only twelve easy miles left to go and I have a beer break coming up so it will be alright.

The Afternoon Break

I swing a leg over and hit a couple licks on the pedals and once again I am gliding. On days like this I feel more natural while pedaling than I do when I am standing and walking. The bicycle is part of me, or I am part of the bicycle;  it is a thing that is hard to define. I'm pushing hard, stroking steady and smooth in front of that following breeze and now I am crossing these three little bridges that will take me Home. Just on the other side of the third Little Bridge is a secret Creek-Side Clearing that houses the Homeless on occasion and sometimes serves as a Break Room for a certain Trailer Park Cyclist when he is Homeward Bound from a Journey to the North.

 Here it is a Quiet Spot and only six easy downwind miles to the Whispering  Pines Trailer Park and listen:  it makes all the difference,  stopping here.   Stopping here to stretch, fuel up on beer and honey-roasted peanuts is just what I need to get me through to the end. One  Hundred Miles Is A Lot.  One hundred is a lot of miles,  but not really;  today one hundred miles is hardly enough.  Right now  I'm sitting here At Peace and In the Moment;  right now I'm sitting here by Side of Stream: sitting here in the Here and Now  and being the good Zen Monkey I one day hope to become.  I am  Stopping By Stream, I am breathing, sipping the cold Foster's Beer and chomping on peanuts. I am  chewing them really good, so that they can  get in there and do their job. I need that juice now! I am  having a staring contest with a small school of fish that are just a few feet away, wondering who I am and what I am doing.

No Getting Out Of the Philosophizing

Which brings up a point that has beleaguered my brain for Lo These Many Weeks. What is a Century? It finally soaked through to my sometimes almost impenetrable conciousness that what I am calling "Riding a Century" is actually “Riding a Hundred Miles.” An actual Century is a group ride, and organized event. I guess. I really don't know. Nor do I care.

They Came From Outer Space

I saw some comment somewhere saying something to the effect about trying to finish a century ride in five hours, which of course is an average of twenty miles per hour. Now, in a group, working together, why not? But it sounds stressful to me. It makes me think of Responsibility and Concentration and a certain Regimented Procedure and it sounds like trying not to crash into the other guy's wheel and having to watch where you blow snot and worst of all, trying to “chat” and be a Good Fellow.

Not that there is anything wrong with all that. I've never done it, although I suppose it is inescapable and some day I will find myself in a group of guys wearing space-man suits and saying manly things and talking about stocks and hedge funds and carboluminum, even though I don't have any of those things and never will, by plan and design.

But What About Tim Joe?

But what I call a Century is something else. I may have to rename it. The Homeless Century. Those Homeless Guys you see out there on their bicycles are not out riding for exercise. They are not really riding to get someplace, either. What they are doing is Living On Their Bikes. They have no where else to properly be, except to sit in some stand of trees where their tents are and where they sleep. So they spend most of their day on their bicycles because once they stop moving, sooner or later they will encounter the police.

Don't ask me how I know all this.

How I Do It

 This is not a Homeless Rant. I know a lot of those guys and most of them know what they are doing, they know what they are doing and why they are living the way they are living.  It might surprise some of you to know that they like it just fine and that they see some of you as the victims of society.  But for now, let us set that aside. What I am trying to say here is that over the last few months I have fallen into the trap of being a Conscious Cyclist, of thinking about speed and cadence and carboluminum and Shimano and Sram. And while all of this thinking was made necessary by the many long miles that I have been riding in the Year of our Lord 2011, I fear that it has caused me to think of Me Darlin' Schwinn as a machine and myself as a cyclist. She used to be my Easy Chair where I would relax on Long Summer Sundays while I lounged about the countryside that surrounds my home. The casual observer would see a rather bedraggled old guy out pedaling around on quiet roads alone, but I was never alone, as you can see. I was riding with old friends who are gone and thinking about friends who are here. I was sneaking up on wildlife to whom I was no threat. I won't be making any road kill today.

The best parts of my long bicycle journeys are the moments like this one, where I pull off on my stealth machine into a small clearing at creekside and enjoy a well-earned beer and reflect on the day.  Many, many  times at this spot I have wanted to keep going.  I did not want the Ride to Stop. But the Ride never really stops.  The Ride never really stops if you are doing it right.

I think I will call it a Free Century.

And Then,  Home

So that's it! Six easy miles and I will be home. Slightly more than a hundred miles, but when you ride a Free Century, nobody's counting. I will pedal on back to the Park and hopefully Uncle Bill has stoked the fire in the Quasitron 6000 Steam-Powered Search Engine and hopefully he left me a couple cold ribs and some of the potato salad in the fridge. Remember, it is still Sunday Afternoon at Whispering Pines Trailer Park,  Where Time Stands Still. And I know those ribs will be there and I know Cold Beer will be there too, because that is how Uncle Bill (one of the friends still here) Rocks and yeah,  that is How I Rock Too.  Thanks for staying with me,  my friends!

By the Way:  Happy Birthday Uncle Bill!

Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Rib Shack
#46

Too Little Miles and Too Many Links: Blame Bill & Aeolus

What I Didn't Do

Man what a beautiful day! It is seventy-three degrees Fahrenheit out of doors, right now, the sun is crisp and the day is clear and fine. I just got back from a little eighteen mile ride on my bicycle. I am a bit disconcerted at the short mileage: there is only one Sunday left in the month and I have yet to ride a Monthly Sunday Century, a custom I have been loyally observing since I got my “81 Schwinn Super Le Tour back in April, I think it was...of course, there have been a few occasions when that Sunday Century happened on a Saturday, if I check my records I think there is a Wednesday Sunday Century also, an accidental Century...

But the point of course is to get out there and just do it, get the ride in and log the mileage.

What I Did Do

But not today. I did not set out with the idea of doing a hundred miles today. I was only planning my usual 25 mile “training” run. I didn't take any beer money or food. Also, I have been guilty of quite a bit of Practice Carousing in celebration of the changing of the season and as a warm up for the strenuous, professional-level carousing that takes place in the coming Holiday Season.

It starts with the Waiting for the Great Pumpkin down at Uncle Bill's house. Sometimes I think that dang UB likes beer as much as I do even though he is always trying to convince me that he only drinks beer when I am around. What a crock. That little rascal always has a case or two of Bud when he shows up here at the Park.

After the Pumpkin doesn't come, we start the pre-Thanksgiving eating and drinking. Hams and ribs (always ribs) and whatever else comes around. This necessitates the Drinking of the Beer and along about sundown the Rum comes out. What a bunch of sinners.

Blame the Big Box

Anybody who ever goes to Wal-Mart already knows that Thanksgiving and Christmas are all one month-long holiday and there is nothing to be done about it. Except drink heavily.

Bicycles, TJ...What About the Bicycles?

But what about the Bicycles, you ask? I don't know. I was not a roadie last year. I just goofed off around the neighborhood (and beyond) on my old Mongoose Alta Single Speed. Training rides? Hah! Training for what? The Apocalypse?  Then it happened. My Buddy Coyote brought me an old Schwinn and the rest is history. Suddenly I was Fast (a little) and sleek and geared up and rockin' and rollin' and staying up late shopping for bicycle parts on the Internet and thinking about bicycles and then I wrote a guest Post for Fat Cyclist and then I started this here Blog and started writing down how many miles I rode and what the weather was like during the ride and thinking about riding my old bicycle  to California to see my son and become a Movie Star and get a really nice trailer in Malibu...

By the way, last week  I wrote another Guest Post for Fatty called Life and The Wind. You can see it here, anybody who is interested.

What's the Point?

Frequent Readers have probably given up looking for any rhyme or reason to my posts. I just get on here and free-style type and what comes out comes out. Today, for example, if there is any theme, it is one of Confession and Expiation. Confessing for not riding a hundred miles today and all the boozing I have been doing. And preparatory confessing for the hell-raising I am planning to do in case I forget to feel guilty about it later. Feel free to join in, both with the guilt-producing behavior and the expiation. I won't tell.

OK, We Give Up. Send In the Sauce

As some of you are aware, Uncle Bill and I have hatched an evil plan of Gastronomic Hijacking and World Domination based on his Mother'sSuper-Secret Barbecue Sauce. She got the recipe from her mother, and that mother got it from  hers, and so on back in line to the first Lost Buccaneers to ever wash up on the shores of our remote little corner of Florida. I have applied my minimal marketing skills to the problem and it shows. While we produced a few bottles of sauce, shipping costs are such that we are at a loss as to how to get the Sauce to you guys without making it so expensive that it becomes impractical to sell over the Internet.

What I decided to do last week was to send out samples to my Booger friends in a kind of Betty Crocker Ponzi Scheme. If any of you will send me the price of shipping (about $5.00) I will send you the Sauce. Then you get your friends hooked and put together a case order. I figure if I send it out in 12 bottle or even 24 bottle cases shipping will be spread around and get the per-bottle price down to something reasonable.

This whole thing is at the embryonic stage and I didn't start this Booger to sell barbecue sauce. But Hey! I told UB that I would see what I could do and so far nobody is complaining. Anyone who wants to can write a review on your Blog or write a Guest Post Review on here or at the Uncle Bill's Site. My buddy Matt over at Dillon Bikes wrote one you can see here. We swapped Sauce for a T shirt.

Aeolus LOVES Uncle Bill's Gator Sauce

Not really. I don't know if Aeolus ever even tasted barbecue.   He's a Greek God and me,  I don't know any Greek Gods:  I just hang out with Uncle Bill and various Pirates and Cyclists and Boogers. But I would bribe Old Aeolus  with a whole case of sauce if he would just make up his mind and blow from one direction or another. Part of why I ended up taking such an abbreviated ride this morning was that the wind was doing that blowing from everywhere thing so that no matter which way I turned the wind was in my face and frankly, I had a gentle but persistent hangover.  I also had a nagging list of chores waiting at home so I just packed it in and pedaled on back to the Park. It's not the first time this has happened, on the same route. It happened back when Agent KAZ visited, so I have a witness.  Sometimes the best way to beat the wind is to not be in it.

Tired of Typing (How Do I Blame the Wind for THAT One?)

Blah. It's a beautiful day but here I am saying Blah. There were a lot of Links in today's post, which I don't like to do, but I wanted you guys to see some of those Other Places. This Sauce thing, I don't know. I want to shift from talking it about here and move the ordering and promoting over to the Uncle Bill's site. You can link to it from my Blogroll. I want to set up a little bit slicker package but right now I don't know how, there's no money in it and let's face it, I'm basically giving it away. I'm giving it away to you guys for fun and something to do and I also think it is Good Stuff.

That's All For Now

That's all I got right now. There's beer in the freezer and the day is crisp and clear and cool and beautiful and Old Tim Joe is gonna go out and sit in the sun and rub Miss Daisy's ears. She likes it and I do too.

Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Bierstube

#40

A Shop Is Born

Alright, then: Let the Wild Rumpus Begin!

(Maurice Sendak, the Space Cowboy)

I Get Prizes

Last Friday I got a Shipment of Wonderfulness. Now, I have ordered bike parts online before, but this time was different. I wasn't getting just bike parts: I also ordered up a Park PCS-9 Work Stand.

Now I know, this is the 'Entry-Level” home-boy version of the Park line of stands, but man, compared to the weird rigs I have cooked up in the past to work on my bicycles, anything was an improvement. But listen: This Thing Takes Up Space. How much space? Well, to put it into scientific terms: A Lot. When you live in a single wide trailer, space isn't that important, because you don't have any. But what I did have was a moldy old sofa that nobody ever sat on, except Miss Daisy. In fact, no one would sit on that couch primarily because Miss Daisy was always already on it and being pretty territorial about things. And any person who did sit on that Davenport of Despair would soon find themselves covered in more dog hair than, well, the dog. So...Out With It! The Couch, not the Dog, although she did stick rather close to the proceedings of one sneezing snorting old cyclist pulling and huffing and dragging and cussing his way to what would have been the curb if we had curbs in my neighborhood.

The Return of the Voice

Then, for the first time since I stopped riding, the Voice spoke. Why stop with the sofa? I looked around. Nobody here but me and the dawg.

“Daisy, did you hear something?”

Might as well go all the way.

“Voice!” I cried. “I never even noticed you were gone! Now shut up and grab the other end of the coffee table!” But Voices don't move furniture. I had to take the rest of my Salvation Army crap out to the place where the curb wasn't by Me My Ownself, the same way I seem to have to do a lot of things. But I didn't care. I was Making Space and Rockin' and Rollin'. I kept looking over at that PCS-9 and grinning like when I was seven years old and got that American Flyer Snow Sled. In fact, it was just like that memory and I was a little embarrassed to be so excited about a Bicycle Work Stand. But I was.

Tips

Here's why: Not just anybody is going to drop a hundred bucks on something as esoteric as a bicycle work stand. Unless of course, you frequently work on bikes and get paid for doing it. At this point, any person who pays me to work on their bicycle is in for a Wild Ride indeed. But I'm working on it, man, I'm working on it. I had searched diligently for an alternative to spending that hundred dollars. The most common oddball non-answer was to hang your bicycle from the ceiling by a couple of ropes. I wonder if anyone ever actually did this. It would involve drilling holes in the ceiling and installing anchor bolts and who knows what else. I really think this “Tip For the Home Bicycle Repairman” probably dates back to a 1945 issue of Popular Mechanics, a time when every home had a car barn with exposed rafters and lots of war surplus rope laying around the farm.

The Once and Future Pro

Thirty years as a pro carpenter-contractor taught me one thing: sometimes you gotta Bite the Bullet and Buy the Tool. And here I was, waltzing around with bulging pockets and looking for some new inanimate object to replace the hole in my heart left by my dearly departed Step Van, the very absence of whom was financing this buying spree. So I did it, I placed the order, got the stand and now Here She Was, sitting in the middle of what once was The Living Room but would henceforth be known as The Shop. I suspect some actual Living will now take place in that small space.

All My Life's A Circle

The sun was setting over the Whispering Pines Trailer Park when me and Miss Daisy went outside to do her business. I like to sometimes end my stories with the blessed beauty of a Florida Summer Sunset, but not this time. While I was sneaking peeks back through the open door of the trailer, admiring the Shrine of the Stand, Standing Outside Looking In, so to speak, Miss Daisy stiffened and gave her no-joke double-tap sharp bark that means “Look at this right now, Boss!” and I did and there they were, two people less fortunate than I, loading that old couch onto a beat up old pickup truck that looked like a perfect match for what had been the Throne of the Dog. They froze in mid-lift, having no doubt had their activities interrupted by dogs before. I barked the “Stand Down” bark back at the dog and went over to the couple.

“We figured this was free,”  said the scruffy guy on the East end of the couch.

“It is,” I said.

“Does that dog bite?” asked the woman on the Sunset end of the lift.

“All the time,” I said. “But she won't bite you guys.” They shoved the couch onto the pickup.  “Do you guys drink beer?” I asked.

“All the time and lots of it,” the guy said, smiling now. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, because I have a couple extra. Watch the dog, will ya?” I went into the trailer to the fridge. I consciously did not look at The Stand.

A Slice of Moon

This is how it really ended, my Day of Prizes. Three Down-And-Outers, happy to be there, standing around a beat up old pickup truck drinking beer. Twice now we have laughed until tears came, and once tears came without laughter. We're all in this together, we have figured out; and we ceremoniously put our crushed beer cans into a five gallon bucket in the back of the pickup. They will be recycled later. There are a lot more than a couple of empty beer cans in there by now.

Say Goodbye, Daisy.

Miss Daisy has handed out so many dog kisses and dog smiles and received so many back scratches and belly rubs that she is worn out. She sleeps completely at ease on her old couch in the back of the truck. There is a sliver of moon now, cresting the sky in the southeast. The bugs have let up a little and a mischievous breeze teases our hopes and caresses our dreams.

“Well, we gotta get on.” said Uncle Bill.

“Thanks for the couch, hon,” said Sarah, kissing me on the cheek. “And the beers!” adding a sneaky wink.

“No, thank you guys,” I say. “C'mon Daisy!” She gets up slow, steps off the couch into the bed of the truck, stretches and yawns. She walks like an Old Dog to the tailgate, looks down, then looks at me. “C'mon, Granny,” I say, not falling for her Little Old Lady routine. “Let's go! Hyah!” She gives us all a fathomless dog-look and jumps lightly to the ground. Uncle Bill swings the tailgate shut.

“It doesn't close just right, you gotta kinda angle it in. “

“Say Goodbye, Daisy,” I say.

“Goodbye, Daisy,” says Sarah, stooping down to give her a hug. More Dog Smiles.

“Goodbye, Daisy,” says Uncle Bill, “And thanks, man, really”, he says to me.

I don't say anything. I just smile and make a little wave in the air that means more than I could have said anyway and they get into the truck, start her up and leave.

And Then, Just Like That, It is Over

Daisy has to do some more business after all that beer and I join her. The moon is high, now, and so are we. We go back into the trailer. Daisy looks at the spot where the couch used to be, looks up at me, yawns, and goes into my room. I can hear her climb into my bunk and settle down. It is actually a little late for these two Old Dogs. I sneak a shy glance at The Stand.  Go ahead, says the Voice. “Why not?” I say. I had been waiting for this. I take me Old Darlin', lift her under the top tube with one hand and gently tighten the clamp around the seatpost. I reach back and adjust the angle clamp just right. This Park PCS-9 is a High Quality Tool. You feel it as soon as you put it to work. I step back and admire the art.  There it is, man!  My Old Schwinn in a Park Tool Work Stand!

It's been a hell of a day, says the Voice.

“It certainly has, buddy, it certainly has,” I say. “And welcome back. We got things to do.”


Next:  Wrenchin' Like I Mean It With A Century On the Doorstep

Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Used Furniture Emporium
#15