Perkins, personal cycles DONE.

I'm sitting at Perkins across from my parents. This is my second meal today, and both were at a diner with egg-based meals and coffee. I ordered an omlette with "lots and lots of broccoli." It turned out great. There was lots and lots of broccoli, and the primary flavor was best case scenario. A whole lot of broccoli spilling all over the omlette, and packing a fat tight tube of gossamer scrambled egg around even more broccoli. Well, now the omlette is done and me and my folks are talking while I continue to drink a carafe of coffee.

Before getting to Perkins I finished my road bicycle. A few things might change or get tweaked, but the KHS Professional is ready to roll. It has Rivendell "Silver" friction shifters mounted on Kelly Take-offs that I purchased a couple years ago when I was living in Boca Raton for 8 months. These takeoffs first graced my custom (used / eBay-bought) Hollands 531-tubing lugged racing bicycle. I talked to Chris Kelly himself on the phone to order them, and we chatted, and he's really nice. Now - after not selling them, and holding onto them for this long, they are on my new 531-tubing lugged racing bicycle. Appropriate to the core. I can't say anything nice enough about these Silver shifters. If you need some good friction shifters for anything - splurge, go for it. They're worth it for a bicycle you care about.

And YO - I finally finished up all the changes I wanted to make to my Diamondback "City Bike" (ride everywhere, do everything bicycle). Right now this bicycle is at it's finest. I'm relieved about this, because I'm probably going to ride it really far relatively soon. Quebec again. I swapped the handlebars for cheap 'Pyramid' brand steel northroad handlebars. These cheap steel handlebars can fit bar end shifters. That's more awesome than anything else I can think of right now. To get the bar end shifters to fit, you have to line up the internal wedge section so that the space between the wedge-pieces lines up with the internal seam that sticks up along the inside of the handle bars. You also need to lubricate the inside of the handlebars with grease and smack the whole deal in with a rubber mallet. It isn't too complicated, but it required some fooling around. Running cable housing under the grips wasn't the easiest thing either. There's a trick for that too, which I'll briefly describe: use a 4th hand tool to squinch the housing into place. So my City Bike (touring, conquering bicycle) now has bar end shifters. I also swapped out the bottom bracket and cranks, replacing them with the same BB and cranks that I used on my (and Nat's till Montreal) tour to Quebec last June (Philly to Val D'or for me). The cranks are Sugino XD-300 (like the XD-600, but with cheaper steel chainrings vs. alloy - same forging). And the crowning jewel, if that's a real term?: A double kickstand by Plescher. These are expensive, but you probably only need to buy one to last your whole life. If you decide to plunk down for it, you probably won't cry about it too much. When both legs of the kickstand are flipped down, the bicycle is held straight up at a 90 degree angle to the ground. No leaning - the front of the bicycle is lifted off the ground, and the support is super strong with no hairy leaning that can get a bicycle knocked over when you even think about breeze as a general concept. This is a sturdy kickstand. Try using a normal kickstand with a loaded bicycle. I don't want to, because falling bicycles are boring and I'm a busy man.

I'll try to post some pictures when I change the basics of who I am and how I typically operate.