Mounting the Saddle and Reminiscing.

I got the Brooks installed on my Raleigh and I am absolutely thrilled with the results:

I have also installed some Fyxation brown tread white wall tires and some Wellgo bmx pedals (because I couldn't find any Odyssey's in an appropriate color). Unless it is brutally cold outside I only ever ride my bicycles in flip-flops and wanted a solid platform pedal to make that shoe choice more comfortable. The Wellgo(s) have conformed to that requirement quite well and were thankfully very inexpensive; only $11.

At 100+ miles the Brooks saddle is no where near broken in, but it was comfortable from day one. I did notice that to even begin breaking the leather into an ergonomic shape I had to ride at least 10 miles at a time and literally sweat my ass off on it. Hopefully I'll have several hundred miles on it by the end of summer and the process will be complete.

Though I love bicycling I have begun to long once more for the other means of conveyance from my youth, when all of my failure seemed short term and I could view my future with at least a margin of optimism. I am speaking of horse back riding and sailing. I lived in Del Rio, Texas until I was eight years old and while there I frequently rode horses and when I was six, my dad bought a beat up Vanguard Sunfish from a sailing school for $200 and taught me how to lay fiberglass and sail it on Lake Amistad part of the Rio Grande (his former profession being boat building/ repair in Cocoa Beach, FL). While in Louisiana I bought a 16' Hobie Catamaran for $400 and sailed that until college when I joined LSU's poorly supported Recreational Sports Sailing Team where I raced Vanguard 420s. Though I am a poor sailor I have always dearly loved it and am now, after 4 years off the water, dying to return to it. While in San Francisco a few months ago I fell in love with a seemingly popular local boat design from there, The San Francisco Bay Pelican:

It has a bowsprit and lug-rig that recalls, for me, a boat of much older design than the 1950s and I aspire to and consider myself capable of one day building it. However at this point the expense of it would be prohibitively expensive so I set out to find a more approachable design (I am badly in need of a win). While searching the internet for free boat plans I happened upon a cheap, race-able, home built, one design class boat called The Puddle Duck Racer: 

It may be a little bit ugly, but I am attracted to the egalitarian ethos of it as well as the freedom above the bottom ten inches of the hull and ability to run any rig you want. I could put a bowsprit and lug-rig on it to be an ersatz Pelican until I am in a position in life to build that much more sea-worthy vessel.

Tanned Hides and The Cold Shoulder.

I spent Memorial Day in New Orleans celebrating our servicemen by almost going to the D-Day Museum only turned away literally mere feet away when an NPR report came on about how busy the place was with a "record-breaking crowd."  Instead I indulged in some pure old fashioned American consumerism which is probably just as good an homage to our brave heroes and the American way of life.

I started it off on Oak St., now a beautiful example of post Katrina resurgence. In my pre-hurricane memories it was a sparsely business-ed street book-ended by the great Rue De La Course built in the marble husk of a bank on the corner of Carrollton and a (word of mouth) popular Asian restaurant, Ninja on the levee end. I would spend beautiful Saturday mornings there with an easily bored LSU med-student girlfriend that, in spite of everything, I still cherish today. A good Saturday morning, a cheap one held in the afterglow filled with (beignets which are not offered at  Rue De La Course and) good coffee is a far sweeter and more romantic thing than any expensive hotel or exotic vacation. The street is better paved now, it's roughness gone the way of the high water mark lost to reconstruction; new drywall and hot asphalt. It feels like there are more businesses there now: a comic book shop, another cool new coffee shop (Zotz), a dollar store, a bicycle shop, etc. There are even new condos; and many of these things could pre-date the storm they just aren't in my memory of it. The street is now in possession of  its very own Brooks Saddle dealer, Wallingford Bicycle Parts.

I had never been to the store in my past wanderings on this street, but had tried before on two previous trips. It is a small unassuming white storefront with an oval sign you have to be on the look out for. I was reluctantly received and shown B17 specials in Honey, Racing Green and Black. I adored both the Honey and Racing Green colors but thought the green ill suited to the light blue of my Raleigh. If I owned a Surly Pacer however there would have been no question of my preference. I looked at some Swifts and Swallows too but found them prohibitively expensive. While I was there I could not help but feel I had inconvenienced them by walking in; it is obvious by the minuscule counter front customer space that most of their business is done online and the sole associate I had interaction with seemed pressed for time. I bought a B17 special in Honey to support them anyway. It must be said of the Brooks Saddle that it does come stylishly packaged.

Supplied with its own spanner

and a rain cover.