Oh, man. Went riding to lunch at Waffle House today in what turned out to be thirty-degree (Feels like 21! according to my phone) weather. But this is absolutely the first time in my life I’ve been able to ride a motorcycle on January 1. In the Eighties I would take my Cannondale road bike out in this weather but that was a long, long time ago and I was tougher then.
Let’s see what Bark and I managed to get written this week!
Over at TTAC, Bark brought us up to speed on the locked-in-your-own-Corvette issue. I’m particularly interested in the fact that the fellow who died didn’t think to open up his roof. I mean, that’s not something that would occur to me in the first few seconds after I realized I couldn’t get out of a car, but this fellow was in his Corvette for hours. He also wrote a greatest hits roundup.
My pal Rodney and I told the story of how his grandmother got taken for a ride at a Buick dealer. We’re still waiting for Buick to return TTAC’s email, by the way. I had the annual clip show, too.
At R&T, I talked about Climate Change And The Pointy-Nosed Car. If you look at the FB page for the magazine, you’ll see what a great example this is of people responding to the title of the article and not the article itself. About 100 people seem to think I’m a “fucking liberal faggot” or something similar. I also wrote an article where I suggested a motorcycle-powered BMW 216i.
This week Bark and I are girding our loins, so to speak, for the 2016 Detroit show in what is certain to be utterly miserable weather. I expect that our Tauntauns will freeze before we reach the first marker.
So we’ll see you in hell.
The “pointy nose car” article was good, and made a good point-nice bit of trolling with the headline/premise!
It does bother me, with the weather being such, in large parts of this country, that winter driving considerations constrain car choices. I’m not sure what can be done, aside from moving to where the weather is better or waiting for better weather to move to you, as cars are expensive and bulky-
Yeah Jack ~ you’re a worthless damn liberal alright =8-) .
Good article over there .
-Nate
I don’t have many regrets, but I sure do wish that I had purchased that 320i back in 1989 or so. This was no ordinary car: when new, Korman autoworks swapped in a 528i “big six,” worked over the suspension and added Scheel seats. It looked stock but was pretty quick by contemporary standards. That it was a rust-free California car made it extra appealing to this Cincinnati kid. Sadly, I couldn’t afford the payments (or the insurance) on a college student’s budget. Damn, that was a nice car.
Keep it up Jack. You’re my favorite writer.
Ahhh, Cannondale: as the former owner of an ST-800 sport touring bicycle along with their heretical 24/26 mountain bike, I loved their wonderful “feel all the grit in the road, but through thickly padded gloves” mix of frame stiffness plus vibration absorbency. Sadly my 2 rides suffered several instances of serious abuse at the hands of clueless gorillas who didn’t understand the importance of torque values for aluminum frames, as well as the incomparable Sachs-Huret Duopar derailleur’s set screw in the back of the hanger bolt. The mountain bicycle’s mix of Suntour/Shimano/Sugino was both a masterful workaround for and damning indictment of the poor state of mountain bike component groups in the early 80s.
Going from the pinnacle of non-indexed derailleur performance to the then-new click-shift systems in the 90s was alienating, and saw me forsake the hobby for over a decade, with a predictable ballooning in mass and girth. I’m now enjoying my low slung Linear Limo 3.0 with a RANS seat and combination of Schlumpf/Rohloff drive systems. Apparently choosing a 2 wheel ‘bent makes me a balancing badass, although hills are far more brutal than for diamond frame riders as it’s all in the legs for me. I simply summon my inner Chip Diller and start chanting “thank you sir; may I have another?!!” as I spin my way upwards.
Even though the latest “green machine” Linear is decidedly quicker, faster and better looking than its 3 year predecessor, I’m keeping both, as the original experimenter handles loose pack and dirt trails much better than the speed machine. I’m certain a lot of that has to do with the Schwalbe Big Bens on the older ride instead of the narrower Marathon Plus skins for the newer. I hope I can afford/justify an upgrading of the experimenter’s CVT to NuVinci’s latest 380% drive unit this year, and it’s deliciously ironic one of the few frame topologies compatible with cogged belts is not supported by Gates Rubber’s Carbondrive system.
Were it 16 years ago, when I was still involved with NDK’s operations, I’d snap up that Fleetwood Talisman in a heartbeat: a lot of NDK’s guest animators, artists and directors expressed a desire to ride around in “a big American car,” and the best I could muster at the time was a ’72 Olds Vista Cruiser. An undeniable icon, but strictly Intermediate on the size scale. Shinpei Itoh did enjoy the few freeway blasts I engaged in during our trip to various burger joints that weekend, but I know the Cadillac’s experience would have been an even greater treat, especially for the pickup from DIA’s terminal.
My experience with Cannondale…. no, wait, I’ll write another post about it another time 🙂
Dude, that jacket!
Zegna Trofeo 4 LYFE!