Monday, November 29, 2010

Loading the 2nd Best Tub in Town - Winter Prep

The time has finally arrived. No snow yet, but the mercury is dipping below freezing on a regular basis. It is time to awaken the mutant. Mutant Winter, I mean. Her bottom bracket sounded like hell (think broken marbles) by the end of last winter. I have swapped it out, replaced the chain, cleaned all the gunk out of the derailleur and she's ready to roll. Except for stocking the 2nd best tub in town.

Here's a little catalogue of what will go in there.

Batteries
Various batteries that fit my various lights. Especially with some of the super cheap lights that I use, this is important. They can fade to nothing super fast if they are so inclined. pic source


Zipper bags, plastic bags
A decent assortment of these will take care of all kinds of problems, from transporting wet clothes home to protecting your feet from soaked shoes or boots.
pic source

Tools
The usual assortment... spare tube, CO2 inflator things (I think I want to switch to a mini hand pump... I can see myself screwing up somehow or other with the CO2 inflator things), hex wrenches, small crescent wrench, etc. I don't even know why I bother. If I flat or suffer some sort of serious mechanical failure, I would either call Mrs. Rantwick for a rescue or throw the bike on the rack of a bus before trying to fix it in sub zero temps. pic source

Spare Socks
Even totally soaked footwear is usable if you have dry socks and plastic bags to put over them. Spare socks can also double as mittens in a pinch.
pic source




An Adorable Little Kitten
It is nice to travel with an adorable little kitten, but panniers or backpacks don't have the room to set up a comfy bed for it. The 2nd best tub in town does. If a motorist causes you to crash or wipe out, they may not care about you, but just watch their faces when you open the tub, carefully draw out this little darling and say, "what were you trying to do, kill my adorable little kitten?" Of course, it might be dead or injured, which will make them feel 10 times worse! Awesome.
pic source

A Big Bottle of Whiskey
If I am using the bike path, there is always the possibility that I will crash and break both my legs while landing squarely on my cell phone, smashing it to bits. If that happens, I am going to need access to a big bottle of whiskey. It will either kill the pain until help arrives or assist me in freezing to death in style. I don't like transporting glass bottles along with the kitten, so I go with a cheap whiskey in a plastic bottle. Using a lovely single malt scotch or something to kill pain is an insult to the whiskey anyway. Note: My bottle of Canadian Whiskey will not say "imported" on it. pic source

A Flare Gun
Once I have consumed the big bottle of whiskey, I will, of course, need something to shoot at the kitten with. Don't worry, I won't hit it.
pic source






Well, that's it! I hope some of you will benefit from my sharing. It is all about the journey, as they say, and I'm glad you are my travelling companions, because nobody else will talk to me for some reason.


Riding in Winter is Awesome. Try it.

R A N T W I C K


PS - If you were enjoying the first half of that post, sorry it went all sideways. I was looking at what I was writing and all I could see was blah blah blah blah blah. There is a ton of good information on winter riding out there without me rambling on about what I pack in the tub. If for some reason you want my specific opinion on something, please ask and I will be happy to help if I can.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Black Friday Feeding Frenzy

I have been getting all kinds of emails from my advertisers about Black Friday promotions that I should pass on to my readers (you). Canadians don't really do Black Friday as far as I know. I didn't want to cave in and do too much of that kind of thing, but I went to Donkey Tees and saw that they have a pretty good deal going.


Basically, you buy three things and you get emailed a $20 gift certificate. Most of their T-Shirts are under $20 each and they have a few cycling related ones I thought some of you might dig, including "Ride A Freaking Bike", "I can ride my bike with no handlebars" and "On A Steel Horse I Ride" among others.



Click Here to Check Them Out.
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Here endeth my Black Friday promotional activities. I'll be back to my usual programming on Monday.


-3 C this morning. Mutant Winter is getting excited.

R A N T W I C K

Thursday, November 25, 2010

The Gerber Carnivore Light and How I Changed the World

Hey, remember the Carnivore Light? Well, thanks to the awesome power of this blog and it's followers (now numbering in the tens!), the flashlight's maker, Gerber, has renamed it! I was just surfing around, following up on some old interests of mine when I found this:


A new Carnivore? I was giddy with excitement. Little did I know it would be more of a surprise than I could have dared to dream... the link went to this:


See what happened? I made fun of the name of this light and the company changed the name. I feel drunk with power. I'm sure they would have changed it the day my post came out if they could have, but I understand... you know, inventories, production runs and all that. Flashlight names can't just be changed overnight. What else can I joke about to change the world? This is awesome.

Incidentally, I found it easy to find sites selling Gerber knives and tools (those first links came from one of them), some even kind of representing themselves as the Gerber company, but finding the real Gerber website was a bit of a challenge because they weren't tops in google searches. I don't think they want to be and I think I know why.

Gerber blades, the choice of many hunters, military dudes and outdoors people of all kinds, are a wholly owned brand belonging to a company most famous for their scissors, one of the most trusted names in the hardcore sewing and quilting sector, not to mention being a favourite of xtreme scrapbookers. I'm just guessing here, but I think the people being marketed to with a website like this, using a poster boy like Bear Grylls, may not want their gear to come from the makers of grandma's good sewing scissors. Like I said, just a crazy notion that popped into my head.


Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K


quilt image from here


PS - There is a slim chance that I am not responsible for the redesign and renaming of that flashlight, but really, what are the odds? Tiny. It had to be me. Right? Right.