While the frame for my latest bike project has not arrived yet (I’m leaning out the window looking for a brown truck as I type this), I did just receive some crucial parts and accessories mere moments ago:
This should be sufficient for you to deduce that I am not expecting a crabon road frame…though maybe I am and I plan to put a kickstand on it in order to get it up to the UCI weight limit, who’s to say?
In the meantime I was so excited about this new project that this morning I went ahead and put another kickstand on a bike I already have:
That’s a Soma chainstay kickstand (Rivendell sells them but appear to be out at the moment) for bikes without kickstand plates, one of several that Grant Petersen sent me since he’s probably the world’s foremost kickstand apologist:
I will say I’ve come to appreciate the utility of the kickstand on all but the most race-oriented bicycles. They’re especially useful on bikes like this, since if you’ve ever attempted to lean a bike with flared bars against a wall you know how annoying it can be. (I may even try one on the Jones for the same reason.) Adnd if my vintage proto-gravel bike with flat pedals and kickstand isn’t Mudbunion enough for you, check out my new van!
Just kidding!
That’s not my new van. BUT IMAGINE IF IT WAS! It would be like the most Mudbunion-est thing ever.
Finally, while I may try to cultivate a casually bearded and flat-pedaled air, the truth is I’ll never rid myself of Fredliness completely. Worse, I appear to have passed the dreaded Fred Gene along to my older son, who tried clipless pedals for the first time this past weekend. He got the hang of them immediately, despite the fact his idiot father ordered him shoes that were too small, and it was only after the ride that his idiot father discovered that his wife’s old spinning shoes now fit his older son perfectly, so he needn’t have ordered new shoes at all.
As of now I’m uncertain as to whether or not my younger son has inherited the Fred Gene, but obviously either way as soon as he’s able to fit into those shoes I’m going to force him to wear the new shoes whether he likes it or not. Because that’s good parenting.