She may not look like much now...

...but that's cuz she's broken.



Just wait till she's fixed.



There's a new ride in the stable (well, one and a half, actually). A "free stuff" post on Craigslist caught my eye a couple of weeks back. It said basically:

"Freak-sized road bike and frame. Old. Only good for rider 6'4"+. Both need work to be ridable. Did I mention they're free?"

The poster added some half-hearted disclaimer, doing a CYA in case the frame(s) disintegrated under the new owner. (Ahh, America. Land of lawsuits.)

So I made the trek into Arlington last week and picked up the new toys. The guy wasn't kidding when he said "freak sized". The first is a Sekai 2500, hailing from MN circa 1981 ("Lock your bike!").



If my rudimentary frame measuring skills are accurate, this beast is a 67cm frame (c-to-t). Bigger than even I, at 6'6" really need. It was the more complete of the two offered. All bits seemed in pretty good working order. The steel frame has some rust spots on it that I'm a little concerned about, but the horizontal drops make it my ideal fixed-gear candidate. I spent last evening giving her about a 5lb crap-ectomy. I removed pannier rack, F and R derailleurs, rear brake (may go back on), cables, cool little screw-on cable holders, reflectors, and little plastic lock holder. She looks much sleeker now. I need to shorten (or replace) her chain and she should at least be ridable as a totally dangerous one-brake-having freewheel singlespeed deathtrap.

Bonus included bits were an old set of Look road pedals (which will end up right back on Craigslist!), and, coincidentally enough, nearly the exact saddle I use on my primary bike: a Terry something-or-other, with a bigass junk-saver cutout. So my ass should be quite comfy on the new bike right outta the gate.

She came with a set of 27" wheels which may be salvageable (the wheels in the photos are from my other, ancient road bike). The rear has a busted spoke and is way outta true, but the guy said they were never abused, so I'm hoping that a spoke replacement and re-truing/re-dishing will bring it back to life. The front wheel seems a bit better off, but under my fat ass, will definitely need to be looked over by somebody more familiar with wheel physics than I am (hey Spearman, you paying attention? I'll bring the beer!).

The rest of the hastily snapped photos of her are here.

The other frame that this kind gentleman had hanging in his shed was an early 1990s era aluminum Cannondale road frame. Other than the destroyed steel fork, it seems to be in pretty good shape. It's smaller than the 67cm behemoth Sekai, so it may actually be my size. At the moment, it's hanging on the rack on the back of my truck (the wife mentioned something about '...something something another bike into this house something something divorce court something something out on your ass something...' so I figured it was safer out there. At least for now.

I can't own it...

However, I must at least blog about it:



**Update**, seems it's a real plate. Trying to configure it on the VA DMV site leads to this:

"Personalized message already taken. You can only purchase it if you already reserved this message or it is on a vehicle you own."

Bravo to you, clever license plate customizer. My hat is off to you.

Cross-post love

I posted a few photos and a write-up from my shooting of the Leesburg Baker's Dozen mountain bike race over at my TooFatToRace blog. More to come as I weed out the crappy shots and post the 3 or 4 remaining good ones.

Fox kits pt. 3

A couple more shots of the fox kits from a few weeks back. I specifically held off posting these since they kinda have some location specific features (if you're familiar with the location). Apparently the mother fox has moved the den, so there's no need to try and keep the location on the down-low (like my throngs of readers would flock to the site).

Anyway, enjoy the cute and fuzzies:

Facebook reading

The Bible and 1984? Why am I not the least bit surprised? Welcome to Washington!

(List found on Facebook.)

More Blackwater shots.

I posted a few more shots from my mid-week trip to Blackwater NWR.

This one is definitely best viewed full size



A kit checks out the big, scary world.


A (bigass) great horned owl slowly waking up at sunset.

Photo safari: Blackwater NWR. Success!

Note: The photos I've posted here were JPGs processed in about 3 seconds using The Gimp. I have a hard time getting non-harsh results with The Gimp. As such, I will probably re-process these, from the original RAW files, using PS one day soon. I think there are far better photos to be coaxed out of the originals files than I was able to do here.

After my last pathetic outing at Blackwater NWR, I was about to write that place off for few months. A Flickr post from a contact and a few emails later, and I'm glad I didn't.



I took the day off yesterday to capitalize on the news that there was a fox den and 5 kits romping around at Blackwater. The day began with my alarm sounding at an unholy 4:30am. I was out the door shortly thereafter. Two hours later, I was watching sunrise at the refuge.

About 7 hours after that (roughly 1pm), the kits made their first appearance. Ugh. Who knew foxes were the "we like to sleep in" type? Of course, I was in town grabbing lunch when they decided to emerge. Luckily I made it back before the first show was over.

I spent most of the day with a Flickr acquaintance who happened to make the trek out there too. We would sit by the den for an hour, then take a drive around the refuge to thaw out. After our brief respites, we'd meet back at the den and continue our vigil. Around 1pm, the first signs of life began to emerge. (Up to that point, we were worried that the den may have been abandoned).

The kits quickly acclimated to their human watchers. They would romp and play and chew sticks (and each other) with little regard for us, unless we made too sudden a movement, which would send them haul-assin' back into the den. After a minute, they'd come back out and resume playtime.

They would hang out and play for an hour or so before retreating to the den for nap time. Then they'd be gone for a couple of hours (during which we'd be back to our sitting around/driving-around-the-refuge routine). Around 4pm they made another appearance, after which my Flickr associate decided he'd had a long enough day and packed it in. I decided to stick it out till sunset, hoping for more kit-time. I wasn't disappointed. Towards the end of the day, they seemed to get more adventurous and/or brave. Around 6pm, they would leave their den and come up to the road from which I was shooting. I backed way off and gave them all the room they wanted, and they proceeded to wander farther from the den then they had all day.

I shot them all the way through the fading light of sunset. When they went back into their den around 7:30pm, I decided that was my cue. I packed it in and headed for home. On the way out of the refuge, I managed to grab a couple of snaps of a (great horned?) owl and a heron with a backdrop of the setting sun. I'll post those as I process them. But all in all, a much better trip to the refuge than ever before.



Thanks to my pseudo-anonymous Flicker associate for the insight provided throughout the day, and for tipping me off to the existence of the beasties.