Here’s a geography quiz:
Which Of The Earth’s Great Rivers Is This?
A) The Ganges
B) The Mississippi
C) The Amazon
D) The Saw Mill
Well, if you answered D), you’re correct–and no doubt you did, too, because the mighty Saw Mill River is instantly recognizable to anybody anywhere in the world, even now when it is muddy and swollen from days of rain from the nor’easter that has been sitting on our face since Saturday like a plus-sized commuter with a pantful of sweat on a subway train with a broken air conditioning.
Yes, from its source in [Intern: look it up] this fabled waterway flows along the bike path until it eventually finds its way into the Hudson:
Indeed, this is the very same bike path where only this past spring I ran afoul of some drunkards:
If you’re disinclined to read about it, the short version is that the winos gave me some crap, and so I did what any real man does, which is yell something really mean at them and then ride away quickly.
For awhile after I steered clear of the Hobo Gauntlet, because they really did want to kill me, and I worried that next time I saw them they’d succeed in getting a hold of me, like when the bums get their revenge on Alex in “A Clockwork Orange.” Fortunately, the pickle jars that are their brains did not retain memory of the incident for long. In fact, now when I pass them, not only do they refrain from attacking me, but they actually give me a great big friendly drunken greeting, go figure.
This is yet more proof (as though you even needed it) that there really is no problem so big that alcohol can’t solve it…just as long as you don’t consider spending your days and nights beneath an overpass on a suburban bike path a problem.
But that was spring, and now it’s fall–and very suddenly, too. Any second now the trees will start to turn:
And it’s already wool jersey weather:
I received this jersey from Wabi Woolens three years ago now and it’s become one of my most trusted cycling garments. If you’re looking for a wool jersey I highly recommend it, and don’t let my misshapen torso dissuade you, because here’s how it looks on a normal person:
It really is luxurious!
Also, if it looks a little twisted on me, that’s only because I stopped to pick up a combination lock for my younger son and I think the weight of it is causing the jersey to sag a little.
As for the fender line on the Milwaukee, I have no excuse for that:
Still, it too is luxurious.
Really, the only complaint I have about the Wabi Wollens jersey is that it doesn’t have a dedicated pocket for the pet squirrel who I trained to check my tire pressure and perform other basic mid-ride maintenance tasks:
This should not be confused with the chipmunk who changes my gears for me:
[BK Jimmy]
The Mammo-drive system appeared on this blog (or technically this one) so long ago I can no longer even find the post, but it prefigured Rotor’s ridiculous hydraulic group by many years, and in fact I suspect it’s where they got the idea:
Not only that, but this was also years before AI, so consider this image a testament to human ingenuity.
Anyway, after the ride I left the squirrel to clean the bike while I settled in for some après-cycle reading:
And yes, I always read in cycling clothing, don’t you?
That’s the fourth installment of The Farbman Chronicles, of course, which I’ve quite enjoyed:
And speaking of made-to-order bicycles, if you couldn’t get enough of last month’s MADE show…
Now there’s the CRAFTED show:
MADE, CRAFTED…what’s left, HEWN?
I guess that would be an all-wooden bike show:
As for CRAFTED, all I wanted to know was if there were any bikes with rim brakes, and it looks like there is one exhibitor who still uses them:
[Rim brakes and disembodied hands? Maybe there’s still hope…]
This inspired me to start my own rim brake-only bike show called RIMMED. However, when I went to register a URL every conceivable variation of the name was already in use by some kind of adult website. So I quickly abandoned the idea in favor of a new concept, which I’m calling the THROWN TOGETHER show:
By the way, did you know why the Homer is called what it’s called? Here’s why, from OMP himself:
Originally the A. Homer Hilsen was going to be the Honus Wagner (old time shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates, good hitter and fast runner despite his bow legs). I started collecting bits of Honus Wagner paraphernalia. The plan was to make 206 of them, only, because that was the number of H.W. baseball cards that made it into circulation back in the 19aughts. Only 206 because, as I remember from reading, these weren’t bubblegum cards; they were cigarette cards, and Honus was able to stop production, because he didn’t think kids should smoke. They didn’t instantly become collectible, and over the years most were lost, and then in recent decades one of those cards in great condition became worth millions. I think Wayne Gretsky bought the best one a while back, but I don’t keep up, OK? Google it yourself.
Anyway, I prudently looked into the legality or whatnot of naming a bike the Honus Wagner, and found out that a law firm then in Colorado was guarding his name, on behalf of two sisters, both HW’s heirs, aand one of whom was named Linda Blair, if that name means anything to you. They received royalties from HW bobbleheads and coffee mugs that sold for $5 to $15 each. We at first made a deal, where we’d pay $1,000 or so and offer the sisters the first prototype–so they could have a Honus Wagner bicycle. We’d already had the decals made and were working on the head badge. They said Yes at first (thru their lawyers), and all was going well until they sensed that we’d reached a point of no return and were so invested in this that we couldn’t turn back. So they then wanted access to our books, 24/7<–they actually used that phrase–and wanted to be able to buy as many HW bikes as they wanted at our cost. It was too weird and shifty and just too much, no thanks, so I changed the name to something I couldn’t imagine was trademarked, and that’s how it became the A. Homer Hilsen.
I don’t count sales, but I’ll guess that we’ve sold about 2,700 of them, and I still ride the prototype the sisters never got.
I think we can all agree that the name A. Homer Hilsen is a lot better than A. Habeas Corpus, which is what I would have called it had I found myself in that same predicament:
Sorry, I’m sure every time I use AI to generate an image I bring us all just a tiny bit closer to mass extinction, but it’s oddly addicting and I just can’t help it.