Ibert, YouBert... WeallBert

My latest addition to the LHT (yeah you know me) is the Ibert front mounting child seat. I grabbed it off a dude on Craigslist last night and took it for a test ride this morning. Installation took 3 minutes and it fits very well. I had to move some steerer tube spacers around to make room for the bracket but it seems to work out. I don't have a helmet yet for the girl so I just took a spin sans child this morning before riding to work. There is plenty of arm and handle bar clearance however being 6 ft my knees to rub slightly against the seat. Not enough to make it uncomfortable to open my legs a little more. We'll have to see if it gets annoying on longer rides.

The other benefit to the Ibert is something they must not have realized when designing it. When the seat is removed, the bracket becomes something wonderful I dubbed "The CharlieHorser".

It's great, every time you want to make a tight turn or get out of the saddle or just space out for a bit, you get a wicked painful charlie horse from the bracket. At first this made me angry, then humbled, as I realized the what was happening. I knew I liked biking, I just never knew how much. Whenever my mind would wander to something non bike related like work, or family, or beer, The CharlieHorser would snap me right back to reality saying "Malarkey! Forget all that garbage, you're on a bike, isn't it great!" So here's a Chuck Norris sized thumbs up to you, the folks over at Ibert for forcing me to "Be Here Now" this morning. Drop me a line about marketing "The CharlieHorser".

Finally, a little something for all you douche bags out there who forgot your name...

Now get out there and give this weekend a wicked painful charlie horse...

Blues Clues

I too shot a man in Weeno...

I'm A Tweaked Out Shit Head

I managed to tweak out my knee yesterday while sitting at my desk. I know, I know, I don't crash too often but yesterday I managed to wipe out while at the computer, it's a good thing I was wearing a helmet...

However I did it, by the time my commute home was over my knee was singing pretty loud. I used an Icy Hot Sleeve because Shaq told me to. Those things work pretty well but I was still in some pain this morning so my wife drove me in.

After biking everyday for so long, whenever I have to drive or get a ride in I feel like a total shit head. Looking around at all the other shit heads stuck in traffic is pretty depressing when you're among their ranks. The feeling is multiplied when one of our two wheeled brethren goes happily by. No offense to all you shit heads out there, We all spent a pretty large amount of our lives being shit heads of one kind or another. Just take the shit head who shot Oscar Freire with a pellet gun during stage 13 last week. He or she has probably spent years in training to achieve such shit headedness.

The knee is starting to feel better but I am still feeling a bit shit heady as I have no bike to ride home on.

Have a great weekend and try not to be a shit head!

Bizarro Zone

I saw this commercial for Auto Zone the other day and it made me feel a little like throwing a cat at the television.

What the hell?! Everything about this commercial is backwards. I can't tell you how many miles I've regretfully logged driving back and forth to various bike stores to keep my bikes up and running. This kid should be driving to the "Bike Zone" in order to fix his bike so he won't have to drive the damn car again.

(Please read the last paragraph aloud while doing your best Hank Hill impression)

Vacation Lessons: Breaking And Entering

I have returned from a much needed beach vacation. There were many lessons to be learned from this, the first real vacation with my daughter. How to pack a weeks worth of baby paraphernalia into a 2 door hatchback. How to remove a hook from an angry stingray without getting the Steve Irwin treatment (RIP). The most important lesson I learned on this trip was to use caution when packing up a Yakima Skybox 16. For some reason after packing it up for the drive home, the locks on both sides of the box broke and I couldn't get the thing open. I called REI where I purchased it and pleaded my case. At first they wanted me to bring it into the store so they could check it out. I told the manager this was no good because I had baby gear in the box that I need right away. His solution was to go ahead and get into the box by any means necessary and bring in what was left of the box for an exchange. This was intriguing. I get to break the box open? Tee Hee!

With visions of circular saws, guns, crow bars, and small explosive devices dancing through my head, I hurried to the basement to choose my weapons. This is what I came up with.

After a few attempts with the mini crow-bar I realized the folks at Yakima wouldn't have designed this to be easily thwarted by a crow-bar. Next up was the Dremel Tool with cutting wheel.

The Yakima Skybox proved no match for the 14 year old Dremel. A few quick cuts around the top hinge rivets was all it took.

Now it's off to REI to get another one.

While at the beach we rented bike for the week so there was a lot of beach biking going on.

Single F*cking Speed.

Yesterday, on my first commute ride in over a week I was confronted with something wonderful, a 5 bike stack up waiting for the light to cross Connecticut.

Oh traffic light, let my people go...

The last and second most important lesson I learned while at the beach was that New Belgium's Skinny Dip summer brew is ding darn delicious!

Vacation's over, time to ride twice a day again. Freakin' Sweet...

UPDATE:

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After taking the Skybox to REI they hooked me up with a brand new Skybox 18. That's right 2 more cubic feet of storage space.

Thanks REI of Rockville.