Tour De Rwanda

Here is a story from Cyclingnews.com about the inaugural Tour de Rwanda, which took place back in November.

Tour de Rwanda

New Shoes

This weekend Nonna took Sam to get some big-boy shoes. He loves to show them off (even when he is not wearing them).

Sam in Winter

What with all this winter weather we have been having, Sam is learning something about cold weather and snow (just wait till he sees Michigan in a week).

Yesterday I didn't have to work, so we ran some errands, including getting the oil changed on one of our cars (yeah, I know, real exciting). While we were waiting for Uncle Luke and Aunt Jamie to finish the car, Sam and I took a little walk, and he was really uncertain about standing in the snow.

He also got to try riding in his Moby wrap on his mom's back for the first time yesterday (again, jury is still out on that set up, in Sam's opinion).

All the cold weather has just tuckered the little guy out.

Winter Weather

We have been having quite a bit of winter weather here lately. In the last two weeks, the area has received almost 12 inches of snow, and we still have about 4 inches on the ground, and they are calling for more in the next few days.

This is by far the most snow over a long period of time that I can remember since moving down here, it even would be enough to go skiing (if I had any skis down here).

Otaru Beer. Remember that? Was it a book that Luke had or a book back in Cadillac? I just remember a crazy looking bottle and an exotic name. (Not that Otaru sounds so exotic anymore. The city of Otaru is about as far from Tomo's hometown as Alpena is from Cadillac. But I guess when I think about it Alpena sounds pretty exotic to me now.)

And here it is. Not in a crazy bottle, but most definitely Otaru Beer. The bottle with the orange label is an ale and the green is a lager. I actually preferred the latter. Budweiser and Miller have done lagers no favors and most folks associate the word lager with mass-market watery concoctions lacking in flavor and character. Not this Otaru lager. It's light, to be sure, but light in the way Darjeeling tea is light, or Mozart. I can't say much about oak undertones or hints of cherry. I can't really describe the flavor at all. It tastes like...good beer.

More of Sam

Here is the other end of the camera world are a couple of videos that I shot with my cell phone this morning, so sorry about the poor quality of the video, but still it is Sam cracking and acting up.

The first photo here isn't bike related, but I thought that all who appreciate the classic design of lugged bicycles could see the beauty of this camera & lens design. The camera I bought used last fall. It's an old Nikon F3, the last of the old school Nikon SLR designs. Purists objected to the red vertical line (that has since become a Nikon trademark) but I think this camera is just about perfect as is, a Platonic ideal of camera design. The lens I bought yesterday. Carl Zeiss 35mm f2. All metal construction (read: heavy!) and a thing of beauty. Materialism as overconsumption is certainly problematic; materialism as appreciation for the material qualities of a thing itself leads to a lifetime of use and care. I'm looking forward to many years of photography with this lens. That's a Lug Bros. virtue I would say.

The second picture speaks for itself. A friendly man with a cool bike. We talked for a while and he told me about how he got the frame directly from a retired Keirin racer. Good stuff. He says hi to all in Lug Bros. Land!

I've been meaning to post these scans for a while. They're from an Omega watch catalogue I picked up before the holidays (to recycle the paper into calendars). Don't know what George Clooney is thinking...maybe we can have a caption contest in the comments!

A few more pictures from the bike shop I stumbled across the other day. The parts weren't really for sale, since he uses them to build up whole bikes for people, and there's no question that those parts belong on a cool cro-moly frame (like my Buddi, I was thinking while I was in the shop, but frankly it would be hard to top what I've got for blending performance with retro style). You Lug Bros. out there might be more familiar with the frame manufacturers than I am (I know Colnago, of course, but the twin downtube frame?)

The name of the shop is Hip Hip Shake, frankly an awesome name on a number of different levels, some of them probably subconscious. No idea why he picked that. He was a musician and became famous, apparently, playing old pop and rock covers from American bands. And I suppose one's hips do shake when one rides (not a very efficient pedal stroke, perhaps, but still). They've got a website: http://www.hiphipshake.co.jp/

And after you check that out, head over to http://www.oldhands.jp/ to see some AMAZING frames.