We Shall Not Speak Of This Again

Hi all! I have the BEST excuse for not writing ever. I had a stroke! Honest to god, yer pal RANTWICK had a scary incident involving a brain hemorrhage in his cerebellum. Your cerebellum is at the bottom, right behind the brain stem, which in my case was in danger from the bleed; I was super lucky to live through it. I am even luckier that a full recovery is likely, although it may take some time.

One reason things look good is that I'm 46 years old, which is young for a Strokie Joe. Strokie Joe is my new nickname around the house. My balance and motor skills with my arms have been affected such that cycling as a rehab goal may be possible by late summer. We shall see. At first my speech was halting and slurred, but it is almost back to normal now, so who knows, maybe it'll be sooner.

I had my stroke on March 29 under the best of circumstances. My wife and I were together at home and an ambulance took me to the best hospital in the COUNTRY for strokes, University Hospital at Western University in London Ontario. The level of competent care and compassion I got there still brings tears to my eyes when I think about it. I was there for 9 days. There was no findable cause for any of this. Scary, right?

I wasn't kidding with the title of this post. I wanted my online friends to know what happened, but I don't want this blog to be about this stuff at all. There are plenty of good online sources of online information and discussion about brain and rehab stuff. If you want to engage on those topics I recommend you try those. If, on the other hand, you have an appetite for the random ravings of an affable bike freak, I'm still yer man. My faculties, while still "special" as ever, have not been affected.

You can expect the next post to be a return to form. It may be about wheels or video or headsets, but definitely not heads. Well, I guess it could be about heads; I never really know. But not my head. Nuh-uh.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

WTF Attack - This Time Due to Strange People Sounds

Hi all! My WTF syndrome has been re-launched, this time by some sounds I and a co-worker made when she almost hit me with a door by accident:

Normal people might get a laugh, delete the video and that would be the end of it. But not me. Oh no. I heard a mouse and an owl. Once the notion to use the mouse and owl sound we made somehow struck me, WTF syndrome took over, resulting in the following adorable story!

WTF has produced much weirder and less cute stuff in the past, so I'm OK with this in comparison. Happy Easter, everyone!

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

The One True Bike - Part 3 - Fork

WARNING: Unrelenting tedious detail of interest only to mentally unstable bike freaks follows. Read at your own risk of nearly fatal boredom.


Picking and buying a fork for a bicycle  should not be a big deal. Yet, I agonized. I ebayed and online shopped and brick and mortar store shopped and big-used-bike-part-store shopped. I researched, debated and dreamed about forks (honest). That was all before I bought the thing.

Let me back up a bit. I wanted a carbon fork for this bike. That made little sense, because in many respects I wanted this bike to be a very durable. Steel would have been a more rational choice. Thankfully, when building your own bike you can do whatever you want. My fixie had one and godammit I just wanted this new bike to have one too. In the immortal words of Selena Gomez, the heart wants what it wants, y'know***?

That said, there were some pretty great steel offerings; the usual good stuff from Surly (Cross-Check fork) and this lovely chromed thing on ebay (go to ebay and search cross fork):

As you can see, this fork has canti studs and fender eyelets, a requirement for me on this build. The fork pictured above would have been $200 US after delivery, then add taxes and duty. The Surly fork was better, at about $130 US and there are some bike stores that can get me Surly stuff in London now. No matter how I slice it though, the declining value of the Canadian dollar is really hurting me on costs. Canada has almost no good online sources for inexpensive bike parts. The UK has been my best friend for most bike part purchases, and this was no different.

Where was I? Ah yes, steel forks. The steel forks available were elegant and a little retro looking and fully awesome, but somehow I just couldn't see them on this bike. My stolen fixed gear had a similar frame and a carbon cross fork from Nashbar, and I loved that setup:

I was pretty philosophical about the loss of this bike at the time, but honestly, I miss this bike like crazy. I poured myself into that build, obsessing and agonizing over every little thing and loving the result more for it. This build is about making a bike I will love MORE, so I am obligated to torture myself even further. Woohoo!

So, for many mixed up reasons, I ended up getting a fork much like the last one, but with some nice graphics on it!

The frame has a tapered head tube, but I'm making up for the non-tapered metal steer tube on the fork by doing some mix-n-match top and bottom headset stuff. This is mostly because tapered forks were pretty much all full carbon, which was more expensive plus I worry about my caveman wrenching methods combined with a carbon steer tube. I did however, search high and low for a reasonably priced tapered fork with those damn canti studs and fender eyelets for a long damn time before going with what I knew. Did I find any? I can't even remember now. I feel like maybe Whiskey and maybe one other manufacturer made one, but prices were too high for the likes of me. 

This fork is a combo of strong and sexy, kind of like Snow Face. You don't know Snow Face the ass cameo dog? You can meet him a few places on this blog if you search Snow Face, or, for adorable youtube videos, follow this link!

I bought the Deda fork from Ribble cycles in the UK, to my door all-in for $171 CAD. By the way, if you're looking for a carbon cross fork with canti studs, there's this or Nashbar's carbon cross fork for under $200. After that, expect a steep price jump and trouble finding fender eyelets unless you're willing to try some of those straight from China ebay deals. I like to think my search was so exhaustive that I am 100% on this info, but if I'm not, please let me know in the comments and I will edit this and add some links.

I know I have mentioned brand names and retailers in this post. Please know I have received nothing from anyone for writing any of this.

Now, the cost tally:

Used frame                                                50.00

Headset cup removal tool                            fear (0.00)

Deda Cross Fork                                         171.00

Total                                                         221.00

May Your Steer Tube be Ever Uncut,

R A N T W I C K

*** Google analytics has informed me that 97% of my readers are Russian girls and women 15-26 years old using Netscape Navigator browsers, so that's why the pop culture reference. For the rest of you, please replace "Selena Gomez" with Emily Dickinson for an I'm-so-smart reference or for the more mischievous among you, Woody Allen for a kind-of-ewww reference.

PS - That very same fork is now listed at 215 CAD on ribble. I think I used a coupon code at the time, but that price went up for sure. Maybe they were slow to adjust to the sliding Canadian dollar? Damned if I know. Yay me!

The One True Bike - Part 2 - Frame

Of the two or three people who still read this blog, a couple have asked for ALL THE DETAILS on this my latest bike project. Be careful what you wish for, losers, 'cause here they come, in as many tediously long parts as necessary!

On my fixed gear bike build, I bought a brand new frame. Nothing fancy, but I wanted true horizontal dropouts and they were hard to find in a local, used frame. On my light tourer build, a used 1980's lugged steel Trek 520 frame, which was lovely. Mutant Winter featured a tough-as-nails Alu Gary Fischer MTB hardtail/dirtjumper style frame. On this, the "1TB" build, I needed a flexible platform for what I am hoping will be my ultimate all-rounder. Most of the bikes I have owned in the last twenty years have been compact and aluminum.

I like Alu mostly for its corrosion resistance since I often ride in wet and even salty road conditions. I like compact frames with their sloping top tubes because they are easier to step over. My physical prowess and coordination leave a lot to be desired, and are, in general, worsening. You know how people swing a leg over and coast in standing on one pedal? I don't do that and never have. In addition, planned rear rack and panniers make swinging a leg over the back of the bike a problem for me.

I needed something with the clearances for bigger tires and mounting points for racks and fenders, and canti studs, because I love those frog-leg style cantilever brakes. I wanted 135mm rear spacing because I was planning on really strong wheels, which are more typically on 135mm hubs. Basically I needed a cyclocross frame. What I found pretty much was one, except for the "cyclocross" designation, since it came from a "performance hybrid" bike.

Behold: A used 20" 2010 Trek 7.2 FX compact Alu frame! Cost: $50

It had some pieces I didn't want still attached when I picked it up, like the crankset, derailleur and some of the headset. I removed those and put them in my spares collection, probably never to be used again. Never say Never, though y'know? I was glad to see the bottom bracket was still in it when I picked it up, because it was most likely the original bb, which meant nobody had tinkered with it and accidentally cross-threaded or damaged the bb shell. I am only wary of such things because I have done such things myself in the past, so no judgement there. BB removed, the threads were fine.

For getting the headset cups out of the head tube, I got fancy and made myself a removal tool by using an old seatpost, a vice, and a reciprocating saw. It felt dangerous/foolhardy while I was doing it that way, despite wearing safety glasses. Foolhardy, however, is my middle name and it worked out OK. 

Behold: The Home-made Headset Cup Removal Tool of Destiny! Cost: the fear of losing a finger or stabbing my jugular vein with a flying saw blade or something.

No more hammer and screwdriver method for me, no sir. I was afraid of damaging the inner surfaces of the tube, although my guess is that it would have been fine. Note: If I had it to do again I would have used a tube of thinner metal than that seatpost. My finished product wasn't as bendy or springy as I would have liked. Worked well though.

As you may or may not be able to see, the frame had a few scratches and scuffs, but that is fine with me; I simply don't care much about stuff like that. I may touch it up a bit, but probably not.

That's it for this installment of The One True Bike Build... see ya later. Please feel free to ask any nebulous bike freak questions you may have. I owe you that if you have actually read this far.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

PS - As with my Trek 520 build, I think I'll keep a running tally on costs...

Used frame                                            50.00
Headset cup removal tool                        fear (0.00)

Total                                                     50.00

The One True Bike - Part 1 - N+none

In the aftermath of my latest stolen bike stuff I decided to build one up from scratch again! Oh sweet agony! I have discovered over the last couple of decades, lots of bikes and 2 builds that I am not an n+1 guy. Does that get me kicked out of the cycling community somehow? I hope not.

Of course this may have something to do with thieves keeping me at approximately 1+1 status all the time, but I don't think so. I've always had a favourite bike that I want to ride 99% of the time. I've ridden/owned winter-specific mutant, fixed gear, classic touring, and urban practical with an IGH along with all the other typical bikes one rides as one grows up. I have loved them all, because bikes are just awesome.

mutant winter (retired / disassembled)

Summer, fixed gear (stolen)

Highway (still good)

CUBE City Touring with Dyno Hub and Nexus 8 IGH (stolen)

One type of bike I have never owned is a full-on racer, carbon or otherwise, and I'm still not particularly interested in that type.

Each kind of bike, of course, has its own set of pros and cons. Rather than seeking to have lots of bikes for specific purposes, however, more and more I have become fixated on finding / building One perfect bike for virtually Every purpose. I don't know if I'll ever really get there, but goddamn it I'm gonna try.

The bike I build this time will have the features of all the bikes I have loved most, combined just so, for me. It will take me a long time to build, because I am gonna try not to compromise on anything, which means more money than I've got to spend in one go. I have no doubt that it won't seem all that unique or special to anyone but me, and that's as it should be, since no two bike freaks are alike; we're like snowflakes, or perhaps just flakes, because as I write this I am getting so excited about this bike (that doesn't exist yet) that I can hardly stand it.

Right now I have a frame (used), a fork (new), and some wheels (new), each of which I think quite perfect. I know I am completely self-involved and this stuff won't be of interest to anyone, really, but that's OK. That's what blogs are all about, right? Wait, that's not fair. Some blogs are about being useful to others. MY blog is mostly about entertaining MYSELF, because I am the only person who matters. ME! ME! ME! Yaaayyy ME! Hey, look what I'm doing! Watch me dive! 

Thank you, online attention sources! Remember, without you there would still be ME! ME! ME! Yaaaaayyy ME!

R A N T W I C K

Ugly and Pretty

Hello hello and Happy New Year and a retroactive Happy Holidays to boot! I hope everyone had as pleasant and active a December as I did.

I have been riding to work and back as always, and had ANOTHER bike stolen off my porch (the CUBE I had written of a while ago)! Although nobody deserves to have their stuff taken, this time I did forget to lock up my bike due to some kooky distracting and routine-altering events on that fateful day and the bike disappeared overnight. Relating those events would be quite boring for you for sure, so I won't bother.

Having 2 bikes taken off one's porch might suggest to a normal person that keeping the bike on the porch is simply a bad idea. I am not normal, however. I am fortunate enough to have a nice front porch that makes outdoor storage of my bikes easy and convenient to my daily comings and goings. I stubbornly refuse to give that up; I mean, why should I? Because some lowlife bike thieving scum says so? No way. I am currently just being super careful to remember to lock up; Winter isn't exactly bike-thieving prime time anyway. Before Spring, however, I am gonna have to come up with some very strong security measures. If I lose another bike off that porch I am just stupid. Frankly, I just don't get it. I live in a nice neighbourhood. Are local bike thieves checking my lockup Every F-ing Night? Seems like it sometimes. You can see the saddle and handlebars from the street, so maybe every late night rambler who sees it takes a crack. There is a lot of pedestrian traffic around my house. Normally we consider that a nice thing.

I'm currently riding Mutant Winter IV , although it no longer features the weird fender because I had handed the bike down to my son, who does not ride in winter and didn't require mutant customization. Now that I have commandeered it for my own selfish needs I'll have to dig up or buy some fenders again I guess, and figure out a new/different bike for my son!

We in London Ontario have enjoyed the extended Fall weather that most others in North America experienced. The first truly Cold day was yesterday. It was -17 C (1.4 F) on my morning ride. We have had very little snow so far, so riding the paths by the river is still possible. In terms of commuting, the New Year has been wonderful... cold can be very pretty. These pics grabbed from my helmet cam video don't come close to showing how beautiful the river really looked yesterday (and this morning for that matter).

Just one more reason that commuting by bike is awesome.
Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

How To Do What You See Here

Hey, everybody! This is a nerd thing about how to embed a gfycat (a snazzy html5 based streaming animated GIF) in a blogger post.

If such things interest you, please go ahead and watch the following video. Otherwise just skip past it to the awesome gfycat I made featuring people I'm not going to name. I will tell you that none of them are me.

No matter what you think of the How-To nerd part, please tell me you love the BOOM part as much as I do. The look on that guy's face just cracks me up, even now after many many viewings. I am fully aware that it might just be me. Let me know.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

When In Doubt

I've not experienced anywhere near the good old need to write stuff that started this blog in quite some time. That's not necessarily bad, since when my muse does elbow me in the eye, the results rarely warrant actual reading. On the other hand, video is video, which almost always sucks too! 

Wait, what am I doing then? Damned if I know. When faced with the quandary of how to justify my online existence (aka "When In Doubt") I know I can always fall back on something that is utterly reliable and pure and worth doing: showing Canadians for the freakin' awesome people they are.

What follows is a sequel to When Canadians Cyclists Clash . It's not just cyclists who are great with each other in my mightily kind nation. It's also me and some lady with a bunch of dogs!

Stay Canadian (or at least #FeelTheBern),

R A N T W I C K

P.S. - I don't have a real good sense of what brand of politics my American friends subscribe to... I fear I may be guilty of making assumptions. Whether I have or not, I am fascinated and encouraged by the existence of Bernie Sanders. Obviously I can't vote in the Primaries or the General election. I'm Canadian. I wish I could, I really do. If any of my American brothers and sisters hate me for loving Bernie Sanders, ah well. Lighten up; I can't vote anyway.

#ithinkitsafox

Since I only received one response on Twitter (thank you Sarah) to the following question, I thought to myself, "self", I thought, "maybe the blog people would want a crack at this". And so, here is a picture, with my question and #hashtag, which I know full well has no use here:

Yup, that's the kind of gold you're missing over on Twitter. Now you know.

Please answer my question in the comments, hopefully in #hashtag form, because being annoying is the next best thing to being liked, and #hashtags in places where they don't work, like in my blog comments, are super annoying. Almost as annoying as mobile phone video taken in the upright position rather than the horizontal. Almost.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

The King of Autumn, 2015

Hello there! I'm in a rush but wanted to touch base with the old blog, you know, so I'm just gonna pay homage to the King of Autumn now that that the leaves are mostly gone.

Here's the best shot I was able to get this year:

The King - October 23

What was interesting to me was that the outer leaves were that bright orange, but the inner ones were an awesome glowy yellow green...

I wondered how that would play out, but I didn't make it back before he was TOTALLY NAKED!

The King Is Shed! Long Live The King! - November 9

I'm hoping to have the time and energy to revive the Autumn Tree Smackdown next year. I'm thinking a nice flexible name that I can use over and over without worrying about a new acronym or numbering system would be good, like the "Sort Of Annual Rantwick Autumn Tree Smackdown", or SOARATS. I think that has a nice ring, even though for me it also brings to mind high-flying rats.

Rather than leaving you with that mental image, SnowFace and Mrs. Rantwick wanted to say hi, so here they are instead:

Well Hello There!

I am SO PLEASED that Mrs. Rantwick is the one with the buggy eyes...

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

Pull Up Bar

Fridays are supposed to be fun, right? Well I think this fits the bill...

Wish me luck on actually getting fit/strong enough to do my pull up. Right now I am quite overweight, but "fit" thanks to cycling. In case you're worrying that I'm feeling down on myself, don't, because I'm not.

What follows is a quitting smoking story. If that stuff doesn't appeal to you, please bail now.

I have wrestled with smoking for much of my adult life. When I've smoked, it was typically a pack a day or more. Here's my whacko smoking chronology:

Age 16-30: smoker

Age 30-40 or so: quit and happy about it

Age 40-46: On and off smoking, often quitting for months at a time but always falling back into it.

My Dad died (of lung cancer) when I was about 40. I fell off the wagon at that time; my brothers smoke and, well, shit happens, I guess. I hate smoking, but addiction is a very strange thing, as anyone who's ever been addicted to anything can tell you.

Addiction flies in the face of reason, logic, morality, intelligence, common sense, blah blah blah. The thing is, if you've never experienced addiction personally, addicted people seem more like selfish people rationalizing their own selfishness. To a certain extent, maybe that's true; depends on the person, I would think. Still, I think it is safe to say that all addicted people would happily trade their fucked-up (and often selfish) addiction for freedom from their stupid substance ANY DAY.

In case you hadn't noticed, addiction fascinates me. Drugs, booze, smokes, whatever. Addiction touches all of our lives, like it or not. If you have never experienced addiction, you should be thanking your lucky stars HARD. For myself, I am thanking my lucky stars that I have escaped my addiction to nicotine once more, for 5.5 months so far. When you're addicted to something, your fight is never ever ever over. It gets easier over time, but won't ever go completely away, and that's alright, because every day out from under an addiction is cause for celebration. 

So, I'm overweight and can't yet do a pull up, but I haven't smoked in a long while and enjoy riding my bike every weekday. I also have a family who loves me and a pretty decent job. I am in no way down on myself, nor should you be, I bet. Look hard at what you have; if you're reading this, I'm guessing it comes to a great deal when you think about it.

Holy crap! This post started with "Friday's are supposed to be fun"! What the hell happened there? Damned if I know, but thanks for reading, for sure.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

A Lawnmower, Man...

Hello Hello! I am pleased to say that great things are underway in my small life; things like learning to cut mosaic tiles with a wet saw (which is freakin' awesome, btw) and, um, well that's it.

I continue to ride my bike a lot, which of course is FANTASTIC. My province (Ontario) also recently put into effect a 1m (3ft) passing law, which is, while good spirited, MEANINGLESS. The guidelines include the most excellent and vague-ifying phrase "where possible"! I'm over the moon that the general public now have new laws to vaguely suggest what the police might but probably will not enforce regarding cyclists on our roadways. Whew! It's about time!

Enough with my negativity and sarcasm though, because there are (as always, if you look) myriad reasons to be joyful, like, people who just make ya think:

I, of course, have already come to a conclusion about what was happening there. Since Mrs. Rantwick concurs, I am pretty well certain all has been explained. For us. Your theory may be way better (more entertaining), if less intelligent. Unless of course you've come to the same conclusion as we have, in which case we're just engaged in a self-congratulatory-circle-jerk, aren't we? How sad! Perhaps we should just ride our bikes and forget this post ever happened. Yes, I think, as always in cases of cycling ruminations, repression is the best course of action. Adieu, dear reader, adieu! 

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

Coulda Shoulda Woulda: Bike Hatin' Dog

No time to write much, so I'll make this quick. You know when you have an interaction with somebody out there and then replay it in your mind, thinking of the things you might have said or done differently? Well, the magic of video editing is allowing me to go back in time and remake such interactions for myself. I have got to say it was super fun and I hope more opportunities to do this come along.

Here's my first example of this kind of fun:

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

Encounters with Rantwick, episode Twenty Four: Rattle Snake!

Hi all, long time no write! I thought I was back in the swing with that little spate of posts in July, but I guess not! I'm not ever gonna write anything about my posting frequency or the difficulties of writing regularly or any of that from now on. Have I said that before? Well, this time I mean it, because if you're here you are awesome and don't need me wasting your time talking about this stuff for one more damn second.

Mrs. Rantwick and I got away for a bit on our own recently, staying in a cabin with a max occupancy of 2 in a fine National Park that you can only access by boat. Not 1 car on the island. Staff drove those John Deere gator things, but its not like they we were buzzing around all the time. It totally jacked up the peaceful quotient; no exhuast, no engine noise and even visually no chrome or metal or headlights junking up our surroundings.

We rode bikes and hiked pretty hard in our short time there, and saw an honest-to-god rattle snake! There is only one poisonous snake to be found in my fair province of Ontario, the Massasauga rattler. One of these guys rattled at us from beside the trail while we were walking our bikes through some deep sand. We stopped and I grabbed a little video from a safe distance:

Hah! That was fun. I love snakes. I know many others hate 'em. See ya soon, I hope! 

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

Are You #%^1n' Kiddin' Me #9

I used to think the Royal Canadian Mint was a kind of cool institution. I imagined serious, expert engravers and artists crafting collector and circulation coins that would have real cultural meaning to Canadians.

Apparently American cartoons now fit that description.

When I first saw that ad I thought it must be some kind of sneaky poser mint pretending to be the Real mint. Not so. The Real mint has gone into the cheesy licensed image collector coin business. I don't know why this seems like a betrayal to me, but it really does.

I have no doubt that the Mint employs many wonderful people with very well developed artistic, historical and cultural sensibilities. If this kind of crap pains me as a proud Canadian, I can only imagine what it is doing to them.

I guess I should be glad the Canadian mint isn't doing Disney Princess coins. They're just reselling the New Zealand mint's Disney Princess Coins:

Is this what the producers of legal currency around the world have come to? For God's sake, why? I mean, WHY? AAARRGGHH! Are You #%^1n' Kiddin' Me?

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

PS - I sure didn't think so, but I guess there's a chance that the Mint has been involved in this kind of thing for decades. If so, it doesn't make it any less repugnant to me.

PPS - Now I see that thanks to my searching on the topic to see if anyone else was incensed, there's an ad on my site (I don't exactly pick 'em) to go buy one of these damn things! Insult, meet injury and irony.

PPS - I feel the need to report that upon typing the words "injury and irony" above, the tune "ebony and ivory" sprung to mind. I am trying to stop myself from composing a full damn word-substitution Weird Al - style "Injury and Irony" song right now. Wish me luck.