Cycling Odds and Ends

This company is hitting a niche hard. S&S coupler fixed gear with waxed canvas bike bag. The attention to detail on the bag may be more impressive than the frame. Leather tube protectors? Tight.

VDB brilliance from DrunkCyclist.

Handmade Bike show this weekend. Expect tons of bike porn-here is a warmup. Speedvagen track bike. Sick.

Eyes are crossing. IF carbon lugs.... must sleep. Long Ride in the morning

Belgian Kick Off

First big weekend of Belgian racing! This always gets me so stoked. Go out for a long ride and jump on the computer to read the minute by minute and search for any video. It was only a few years ago that OLN used to show Het Volk-how the times change.
Het Volk ,despite being Het Nieuwsblad (That sounds too much like News Bladder to my ears), is such an epic race-even if it is only a "semi classic". The weather is usually bad. It's got cobbled climbs, narrow roads, but is early enough in the year to provide some surpises as people are still finding their legs. 2001 win by Micheli Bartoli has always stood out to me as an amazing race.
Liquigas is sending a "done at the 1st feedzone" squad(except for Quinziatto and Franzoi) while Lampres sends no one. Ballan? I guess Sardinia and racing in short sleeves wins over Belgium in Feb! The winners of the last 4 years will all be there(Gilbertx2,Nuyens,Pozzatto). Quickstep have the firepower. I have trouble seeing a three-peat from Gilbert-would that make him the next PVP and would that be good thing? HB tips Boonen and Pozzatto, but I am picking an longshot podium Flecha,Chavanel, and Hushovd. Het Volk is shorter than Tour of Flanders so maybe some a younger rider can jump out and get it-some of my favorite young riders from last year Langeveld,Terpesta, and Maaskant will all be racing so maybe that will provide a surprise. A win here puts a lot of "next big thing" pressure on a young winner.

KBK is more of a sprinter's race and with that said Katusha and Cervelo have both been on fire and both have strong teams. I think this will come down to those two teams vs Quickstep and I give the edge to Cervelo based on their lead out peformances.
Boonen has been relatively quiet this season-and has been thwarted by the manx monkey Cavendish on a couple occasions, so he could be up to snatch a victory-or maybe he just keeps building for Roubaix and Flanders?

Death for the whole world to see CD

Death were a 3 piece ,3 brothers no less, from Detroit. This isn't the Jackson Three though. 1975. Drag City is the label. You have to grow immune to the hype that surrounds the latest "unearthed treasure" or "lost classic" and this record was getting a hype overload of MC5/Stooges garage rock blow out hyperbole.
You can tell by a lot about a band by their photos and even though their probably weren't a lot of group shot of the brothers Hackney, you can tell these guys are legit and going to rock out.
It has the odd prog/pre punk edge of say a Simply Saucer while clearly being some Detroit influence rock. Definitely grabs the energy of the stooges or MC5 but drops the hippy influence completely. You could name check Black Merda, but there is no funk influence. Definitely has the paranoid mid 70s alienation thing going on. It is melodic in the classic punk way and maybe even a touch of Thin Lizzy.
This is a killer record and you can enjoy it without having to attach a bunch of names and genres to it-so enough with the Bad Brains comparisons. I would love it if this were a Mick Collins hoax, but it it legit. How long to the

TOC-Twitter of California

Burgers and Donuts. Horner better attack on the Palomar. Twitpics are pretty good.
Basso's english is fading as he returns to Italy. Regardless this one "Im in lounge of delta with duffy and we take a coffee togheter" made me wonder which duffy? Pat? Probably not, but that would be good.