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I believe in tyre pressure as far as “mmm nice and soft” and “does this feel flat” , but tyre pressure optimisation is an autism I do not have.
I feel if you’re into tyre pressure maxing, you’re psi champ, tubless mogging, that’s fine, love gender affirming care for the men of a certain age, I would never deny you that sense of self
But it’s not for me, I simply accept the pressure allah has chosen for me
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Thank you for the loan @amey
I now need to pack the bike for the upcoming trip to Leipzig in which me and @Belagerent will be hosted by the fantastic @Tijmen on our cycling holiday.
I want to set expectations, so I’ve included this screen shot of what training we have done
The main goals of this trip are:
1) pose with the bikes and the bags, we have riaz and myself bringing the diversity for the witslinger shoot, then tijmen will be repping the important “white dude who is somewhat good at sports but not too good to scare off the tech workers”
The bike selection will be two hulsroys and a mini velo
2) eat a lot of food, tijmen raves about the Leipzig food scene, says it’s somewhere between the northern quarter and walthemstowe warehouses, I have no idea what this means
3) I’m going to have to actually ride my bike, sad, I know
4) we need some lovely shots for Bela’s dating profile, he has quite the active profile and needs to be able to brand himself to all viable 30 something singletons, from nlog girlbosses and art school drop out enbies, to craft mums and nepo fail children. We support him in this cause
(Yes your eyes do not deceive you, those are undercover converse, the best collab of the last 5 years)
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birthday ride bump - some good people coming - i've been fighting off @BareNecessities cease and desist lawyers for "being too much like badgers" but i cant convey enough, this will be even slower
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Today started around 6am as I can never really sleep before flying. usually this is an issue as I’m travelling with someone who has such intense adhd tendencies that they cannot leave until the last moment. At which point I’m a nervous wreck that any and all delay could leave us featured on one of those airline programs laughing at people who see the gates close in their face.
Today however? I’m travelling with @Belagerent , who not only shares my tendency for early rises but my belief that the airport is part of the holiday and to be stressed through it is to spoil your trip.
“It’s just the train schedule” we said , “I’ve never bag dropped before” we argued, “well what if there is an unforeseen delay on the bus?”
There was none of this
We arrived over 3 hours early
The bus was early if anything, the train was on time, the bag drop seamless; apart from forgetting to put my Aesop deodorant in a clear bag I sailed through security, albeit with a scorn from the worker swabbing to make sure I wasn’t smuggling liquid cocaine.
To some, sitting in an airport lounge is equivalent to purgatory, a holding cell, their own personal hell. A fake town under an hunger games false sky. Understandable, I however have autism. The idea of sitting in a well lit sterile room filled with dedicated single purpose vehicles, a shopping strip which feels like a film set or a show home and a near unlimited stream of people to watch is right up my street.
Mooching the stores, discussing if it was possible to get into duty free maxxing (offsetting your plane ticket with duty free savings), going to terrible simulacrum of resteraunt’s, enjoying the big plane video viewing. By the end of it bela thought we’d got there too early, said he could have held out another hour before leaving the house. Me? I was relaxed, energised, moisturised and in my lane, reassured my decision.
If anything I’d have liked longer there, we didn’t even get to go on the monorail, or the spoons or the… before we knew it we were out of one set of gates and walking through another. Touch down Leipzig.
We didn’t have to wait long for our big blue, embarrassing boxes to be wheeled o the ones which say “I’m a cyclist” and cause parents to shuffle their kids away from you lest they grow up to be the sort who think it’s a good idea to pay £200 for Ryan air to fly them to a country quickly turning back the political clocks. All so they can do exactly what they were doing back home. Ride to coffee shops, riff off a few observational bits and nod sagely as they see a good piece of out wear or 1990s sports car.
I guess it does make you do these things tho instead of just, getting the bus to the coffee shop and going right home .
We didn’t have too much time to naval gaze however, as we had to catch the train to the town centre where tijjy was waiting.
First having to navigate the rather long sky bridge and the even longer queue at the ticket machine.
“What ticket do we get??!” We screamed as the train approaches and a rather stoic German guard eyes us up
“Fuck if I know it’s all German to me” I say in a manner of trepidation at the stare coming my way form our looking friend with the power to give us a 60 euro fine.
Bela punches in for the most expensive one under the idea it must simply not be wrong, as it costs the most [things posted in most current project threads for 10 points]
Arriving in town the friendly tijjy greets me and takes my bag, points us to the tram and says to get off at the last stop, disappearing as quickly as he arrived
Wait what? I thought, half in a daze from the day of travel I didn’t think to question it; before I could the tram was moving and me and riaz were having a conversation about how “aromanticism” and “queer platonic relationships”could be new weapons deployed by the gaslight fuck boy brigade now people have developed emotional defences to “being poly” on hinge, allowing them to continue practicing learned helplessness in a woke fashion. (My heart goes out to the fellow queers victim to this).
As we get into the finer points of problematic dating observations I notice a figure out of the corner of my eye. A tasteful 2 layer dyneema bag with xpac pockets adorning a rather ratty bike that looked like it was pulled out of the river.
TIJJY!
Our lost friend was keeping pace with the tram much like that infamous video of the Dutchman racing the train that done the rounds a few years back
Only much less spandex, a little slower and a rather hand made in Leipzig flair
Arriving to our lovely hosts home we were offered more beverages than I’d ever been offered (surprising for me, someone who’s been to @spotter ‘s house); that’s before @Tijmen said he’d make a nice chickpea curry and fire up the Oni for some flat breads.
Both delicious, especially after a day of airport food .
Tomorrow we check if the bikes are in one bit, go to a record store, some coffee shops and investigate this “2 burgers fries and a drink” offer tijmen gleefully told us about
maybe with a picture of a bike or two
(Yes viewer your eyes do not deceive you, that is Bela in a acronym x Nemen jacket, it does have the jacket sling ae, it is not waterproof)
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today was the day I was dreading to be honest. not only did I have to build my bike, but I had to ride it too. Two things I had not really done since this thread hit its crescendo last October or so.
Never the less, as 8:30 rolled around I pulled myself out of bed to approach the kitchen where I was offered espresso and some sourdough by tijmen as we awaited belas arrival. I’m not usually a morning person, I mean, I wake up early as previously discussed, but I’m not a morning person. I don’t eat breakfast and often times if someone speaks to me before 10 I grunt or nod, but something about being on holiday and free from the treadmill of holiday changes all this for me. As if I’m free to live my life of collecting rocks, running in the sea and eating berries.
Someone should look into that? Has anyone? How work and our economic conditions changes the way we see the world? Not sure, please report back if so.
regardless, it was 10 or later before we got the bags out, which some might gawk at but I would remind anyone who does that doing so is a personal and moral failure.Riding bikes isn’t about miles covered, it’s about taking time to discuss which neurodivergent tendencies each other is self diagnosed with over beans on toast while avoiding going out into the cold.
There is however only so much dsm5 to regurgitate before you have to lift a torque wrench.
“30 minutes?” Was one prediction from the group, tijjy ran calculations to see how much of his dilapidated bike he could resuscitate in the time it would take me and bela to build our croissant chariots.
Mudguards? Lofty
Fix his brakes? No chance
New saddle and peddles? MaybeI set off checking if Ryan air had destroyed my bike, but be it luck or @ameys boutique bike bag they hadn’t. unfortunate really as it was insured to the hilt and seeing the task that laid before me I was debating if I would prefer a fat insurance Cheque to cash or a bike ride round industrial saxony if given the choice.
Maybe it was luck, or maybe in 150 pages I have learned something about bikes because for all my self flagellating doomer malaise the bike just slotted together. Wheels went on, mech attached, seatpost went up. From the lack of disappointed sighs I heard from bela i could hear his was going fine too. Tijjys However? Something about non greased bolts? Standing on pedals? Stripped crank????? It sounded like hell, personally I would have binned it at this point but he pushed through bravely and proudly presented a bike which looked marginally safer.
Nice
The only real problem we had was that mine and belas rear brake pads were squealing, this irritated both of us but I tried to get us to ignore it and get on with the day. it was irking bela more however, muttering how he wanted to buy some new ones. I walked out off by this point manifesting mine would just stop and hoping he’d forget about it.
The next thing I knew was the reassurance of hope free hub clicks as we drifted down a wide German street. We had a short ride through to the southside for coffee. the weather wasn’t inspiring but it wasn’t punishing either which made those first cautious pedals back on the bike more enjoyable. That combined with the rather wide, flat German cycle paths and modern road layouts which meant you could glide around town mostly unbothered by the cars. A world away from the overstimulating mess of green lanes which I attribute to my hesitancy to ride back home. Really a reminder of what planned infrastructure can achieve
The coffee was good, I thought it would be as the person looked like they had pronouns and they were the only one in the building. That and they said it would be a while in a tone that told me “you people look like you waste your lives in shops like this often, real recognise real”. They were right of course, the other hint was them asking us how we found the drinks and if we had notes. We didn’t of course, manhattan beans pulled by someone I’d swipe year to on Feeld, it was good, they knew it and I was happy to glaze them.
Back in the street, this time for food, a swift pootle to a tex mex vegan spot for a burrito which was delicious but quickly reminded me I cannot eat onions. Riaz noted it was good, but tasted distinctly German. We rationalised this was due to it tasting strongly of paprika, being a little sweet and having no spice to it, tailored to its market rather than to its name sake. No one comes to Germany for the food that’s for sure.
Other than the allium induced bloating I was feeling shockingly light on the bike, wanting to press on, asking our local guide to seek us out more adventures and people watching opportunities.
Bahn mi?
Not now , as I was inflating by the minute, but for dinner. Pulling up at a bakery which was the “hip spot for bread” in the area. Tijmen, as noted previously, makes incredibly good bread so for him to praise it was an exciting. The excitement only increased when we arrived to be greeted by a queue which looked somewhere between a young parent’s meeting and the local queer goths, two discerning bread demographics. I stood back at this point to grab some photos but I was informed by the two lads that there was nail biting tension as they saw the baguettes dwindle before there eyes as the queue progressed, if we arrived any later it would have been Bahn-not-for-mi.
The next stop was a quick spin round the corner to the book shop, I’m not usually a book shop person but I did appreciate this ones layout. You walk in and you’re presented with babies first feminist theory, then as you walk round you’re into structural feminism, feminism in work, feminism in relationships, progressing what I believe would be your friends annoying boyfriends nightmare. You’d get post colonial feminism, race and feminism, gender and feminism, trans and feminism. The shop laid out so you could start visiting to pick up something about why it’s ok to wear trousers and if you visited enough times over a few years you’d walk out with pronouns, a sweet haircut and a polycule. I picked up a zine about queer artists in Leipzig and another about a black musicians experience cruising in the American south, both were great reads.
It’s at this point the squealing brakes had damaged belas psyche too much and he insisted going to the shops to buy some new ones, asking tijjy lead us to the big box store. I offered to wait outside and stand on my phone as the determined consumer and his translator entered what looked like a bike shop designed for people who go to centre parks and those who love to buy the latest road bike. To stand outside was doing me a favour.
It wasn’t long before they were out and bela professed “said they didn’t stock vintage components”
I chuckled
“They’re only three or four generations old” bela cried in disbelief
“Pretty much retro bike fodder now mate” I chirp in,
before tijjjy reminds us that shimano is making abs brakes so we’re not far off that being reality
Haunting
The only thing which would distract us from this and the honking was some soft serve at this lovely place which matches my bike. Tijjy informed us that he and his partner like to visit here on the cold days as it really cheers the guy up. No joke here, just a nice anecdote about a cute couple and a charming seeming shop owner I wanted to squeeze in
By this time, after many stops, in the single digits of kilometres we thought it time to return home after our adventures. Unwind, go to the rewe, pour a weird soft drink or German beer and discuss if one can be biologically adverse to winning and how all men’s motivation in life can be traced back to chasing the tactile high of stimming on an analog dial; whether they know it or not.
Tomorrow we go to the forest?
Maybe there will be more cycling but we’ve all been in this thread long enough to know that’s unlikely.
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I’ll tell you now, we didn’t make it to the forest.
I woke up around 6 to a grey sky and sleet falling, the idea of riding at all was looking questionable, let alone any distance. It seemed bela had the same feeling as my phone pinged shortly after reading
“Tram and coffee shop?”
I wasn’t expecting tijjy to argue and even if he did it was two against one.
With the pressure off we sat round for breakfast, today we were treated to some home made waffles and raspberries. Delicious, especially with the selection of refined sugar toppings to adorn them. I believe I had 3? The seemingly giant pile quickly disappeared between four. Unbeknownst to us as we gorged it had stopped sleeting and somehow dried up.
An uneasy standoff emerged as we knew we should get on the bikes but couldn’t handle the emotional hit of it started raining as we left the door.
“We need to go to my studio anyway, let’s go there and see how it goes” tijjy reasoned, promising a view of his workspace and to watch him prototype a new keychain idea he had.
This was our first turn into the more industrial side of Leipzig, old factories and recreational tram lines guided us to tijmens basement. I’m not sure what I was expecting but it felt more homely than many studios I’d been in in my time. Scraps on the floor, prototyped bags everywhere, customer orders stacked up, more fabric clips than I’ve seen in my life and multiple generations of sewing machines. It made me think of men and their analogue dials we were discussing last night.
While I stood ogling the fabric samples tijjy had gotten out his box of of fidlock. He was particularly excited by these new discrete magnetic tabs for the aforementioned keychain prototype and they did not disappoint
At risk of spoiling more about this I shall skip ahead, under threat of legal retaliation
Back on the road the next priority was food and we were promised an excellent falafel.
That promise turned out to be true, the bread was soft, the falafel was crisp yet moist and the ratio of salad and sauce was so spot on I could have eaten two right there. Even compared to the many good falafel I’d had in London this stood out. The disappointment came as we finished off the wraps and tijjy casually dropped “ah I forgot to get the babaganoush”. I’ve known bela for decades, In a full range of emotional states, but it was at that moment I saw him at his lowest, processing the thought of topping off this perfect wrap with babaganoush.
The only condolence to be found here was a short ride round to analog before for supermarket. It’s not a specialty coffee like yesterday but it’s, a consistent 2.5 wave spot with a nice cake, sweetened further by the fact they have espresso tonic on year round.
It was sitting outside a man asked me about my handlebars, adding further to my belief that 50mm rise, 12 degree sweep and 720 width is the platonic ideal for a riser bar. Although Sam from BA informed me recently that they’re at the back of the build queue for nitto so no amount of manifesting will see them back in stock soon.
Energised and getting a little cold we headed to the park to introduce tij into the world of Vietnam gravel. I’ve mentioned it before in this thread but it’s riding those nettle filled, semi covered trails in a local park, more suited to dog walking than flowing through on your bike. It’s the process of getting on, getting off, lifting the bike which creates a sense of child like joy to riding your bike, something that is often forgotten in as you get older and ride the bike
You don’t have to go far, or for hours, you can just see where that path you ride past every day goes.
Riaz however saw through this bullshit ramanticism, he’s anti mud, hates slogging through it, let alone in some bush that could rip his Albion zoah. When asked if we should do another loop he didn’t have to speak his answer, we both knew to get on the road and head home
The right call in the end, now I’m home eating a cookie and drinking Fanta and coke mixed together
It’s supposed to be warmer tomorrow, but I imagine I’ll wake up to some freak weather event instead
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About
MAJs gay bikes [she’s in her fitness era]
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@Maj
That does look fucking sick except it's in PSI and you have to buy two for the entire "fleet" (not a huge problem for materialists like myself and MAJ)