Monday, July 21, 2008

bikes

Giant's new top of the line road and mountain bike frames for 2009 arrived at the shop today - just one of each. We are going to build them up using thousands of dollars worth of ridiculous-grade parts. Giant is going to feature our builds Interbike again this year. Apparently there are only a handful of these frames in existence and we're the only shop in the US to have them right now. Giant loves us and all of our Gucci parts.

2009 Giant TCR and XTC frames

Going to do Alpine damn again. Setting up a backup alarm this time. Sam trued my wheels after work today, a pair of Neuvation's I bought from Alex for $50 last month. Stoked about that.

On another note:

So it seems this blog is no longer about me being a bike messenger. Some days I don't think about the job and some days I miss it terribly. I've never had a job give me so much euphoria on a damn near daily basis. How could I not miss that?

I quit my job at Speedway without really having another one lined up. I was able to bring three companies over to Jetset after two afternoons of hustling, but somehow I lost interest in doing that. Even after two years, I still feel a bit like a tourist in the bike messenger game. I knew it was never something I could devote my life to. If I had five lives, I'd certainly give it one.

I think right now it's 70/30 against me going back to work as a messenger. As for this blog, I never wanted to just write about whatever popped into my head - I wanted to keep it on one topic that I thought might interest some people.

So I'm not sure what I'll do with it now that I'm not wrestling cars for a living. I'm not sure how many people even read this shit. Maybe "anonymous" is all the same dude. My thinking right now is to keep it marginally about bikes. Or maybe just wrap it up. I'm not sure.

coming out of broadway tunnel
Lindsay, Mike "Battle-Ax" of Flash, ex Speedway's girlfriend too this shot of me a few months ago coming out of the Broadway Tunnel.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you shut this down, I'll be bummed. Let me know if you start something new.

Anonymous said...

Hey dude, as one of the anonymouses (anonymi?), I can assure you there's at least two of us. Haha.

Seriously, though, good blogs aren't about numbers. I read your stuff because it's local, it focuses on aspects of a form of transportation I have recently adopted, and you've thrown your personality into it.

I was the one who suggested keeping it generally bike-oriented. There's lots I'd like to learn about bikes and (practical) biking in SF, but the messengers and mechanics with whom I come into contact are intimidating and uninterested in discussions with noobs. So to the extent you're interested in blogging on such things, you've got at least one regular anonymous here.

Anonymous said...

write. shoot. write. post.

Jackie said...

You never really know who reads these things, but I linked you from my blog 'cause you can actually say something interesting about what you see as you move through this life.

This is good.

Don't quit now.

Anonymous said...

Well I don't know about the other anonymous lurky commenters, but I'm not them.

alexstar said...

I've been reading your blog for a couple months or so. I was attracted to it at first because it's local and it's about bikes, and it's thoughtfully written - something that's rare in the blogosphere these days. It's always interesting to see the city through somebody else's eyes.

Even if you're not riding for work anymore, I'd still like to see you keep up the blog, and keep it bike-oriented.

Ryan said...

Thanks for the comments people.

Anonymous said...

Don't shut this down! (It's good.) You should write about extremes of San Francisco bike culture. Fixed-gear crazies doing wheelies at the Ferry Plaza compared with people who ride $15k bikes from Bike Nut. You should pontificate about bikes, their owners, group identities.

You should write about bike shops and bike shop owners and post interviews about them. Include Hussein from Bike Nut and Greg from Bike Hut. That would be cool. Also you should do a style-slash-fashion post. Talk about new gear designers (CETMA) in San Francisco. Invite posts from other riders.

By the way, I don't know who came up with the word "skitching" but it doesn't do it for me. 12 years ago I was an 18-year old messenger in DC getting towed up 16th street's 16-mile hill from the White House to Silver Spring just because there was no other work. I didn't know anyone else did it but I always wondered.

I do have a question about it though - do door handles pull out and open doors or freak out drivers? Do you ask permission? Back in the day, door handles were the old latch design and didn't provide such a nice jug to hold.

Grey said...

My vote would be for keeping the blog going. You're an efficient writer; you say what you say well, imho. Marginally about bikes is good enough.

I also didn't identify as a messenger for a long time. But once I worked in Berlin and was around the people who organized the first messenger worlds in '93, people who were psyched on the global messenger community, I started to feel like a messenger. These days, however, we're a shrinking breed, but I'm only on the periphery of the scene anyway.

I'd ride alpine, or really wherever on Tam, in Marin with you. Get in touch if you're so inclined.