Picking up the pieces.
I would like to apologize for my unscheduled absence on Friday, but I was slammed sideways not attending the Sea Otter Bicycle Thing®.
If you’ve been there once, you’ve been there a thousand times, which means since my first one in 1996, I’ve been roughly thirteen thousand times, give or take five hundred.
Of course I missed the lovely evening rides with people I cross paths with once or twice a year, and I’ll have to wait until today to see what all of the new road/cross disk brake bits and pieces look like, but besides that, I felt not a single ounce of regret about avoiding it.
Truth be told, I skedaddled off to visit friends in the Golden State’s capital of Sacramento and though bicycles were certainly the primary call of the weekend, the secondary objective was to work on my truck.
I know… I missed a ‘Celebration of The Bicycle’ to work on a motor vehicle. My irony is delicious.
Before I did any of those things however, I swung by the corporate headquarters of Ventana Bikecycle Machines and took some various photos of things while I waited for the staff to dot all of their Ts and cross their eyes so we could go to lunch in celebration of Teresa the office manager’s fifteenth year there.
Lots of people (in America, anyway), are occasionally surprised to find that Ventana is still in operation. While they enjoy a healthy business overseas, they still aren’t widely acknowledged as one of the contenders in the domestic market. They’re not as visible as Santa Cruz, yet are much bigger than a random tiny boutique shop.
Ventana founder and chief designer Sherwood Gibson, (pictured here looking stoked that I was taking his photo);
-and I discussed this point to some degree. The fact that they are either the smallest of the big companies, or the biggest of the small companies keeps them in an awkward grey area.
However, anyway you slice it, there is no other company that I know of who have a proper shrine assembled to honor the legend himself;
Anyway, after hanging out with the Ventanians for a spell, I went home and prepared for an evening ride with my hosts and a few other random friends on some local river trails;
And spent some time goofing around atop piles of logs. This one pile in particular proving no match for Robert and his newly acquired SE Quadangle;
Clearly his time upon his actual trials motorcycle has served him well.
Anyway, we kept on keeping on until the sun set and I eventually found evidence that dog walkers are some of the laziest knuckleheads on the planet;
An F’s as good as an A.
Something this guy knows a thing or two about;
Moving on… A couple of weeks ago I introduced the newest product in the All Hail The Black Market Market in the form of the Colt Seavers hat, modeled here by the lovely and talented Chlöie;
As I stated previously, the embroidered phrase was laid on me by none other than Snakehawk of Superissimo fame, and was far too good to let lie in a dormant state so I spent the last little bit of money I had to my name on getting the hats produced.
For those in the know, the hats are made by Magic Brand which is the same company who has long produced the Soulcraft Bicycles line of trucker caps, which are known far and wide as being the most comfortable hats to ever sit upon a mop.
Pick one up today and share with the world this very important declaration.
And speaking of which, a number of people have made contact with me regarding the new bow tie shaped Budwesier can;
I’m not entirely sure what the point of this is, or for that matter, why they even did it.
I’m certainly not losing any sleep over it however, and will only slightly alter the aesthetic of this coming W.S.A.T.U. day;
While I didn’t necessarily care about missing The Sea Otter, W.S.A.T.U. Day is clearly an event for the ages that I shant be in avoidance of.
I’m not an engineer but I think those new bud cans are going to negatively effect the wizard staffs structural integrity.
The new cans are going from 12oz to 11.3oz to accommodate the new shape. We’re going to get shorted almost an entire beer per 12 pack.
Major cliff-hanger. How did the truck turn out?
Thank you for the concern. It turns out it’s got at least another 290,000 miles in it. http://www.flickr.com/photos/allhailtheblackmarket/8672621958/in/photostream
Yo, maing. I was looking for the “ride bikes, drink beer, go fuck yourself” stickers (on account of they sum it right up) to buy a handful, but they are not present today. Please bring them back. Those are genius.
Bam. http://market.allhailtheblackmarket.com/market/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=86&zenid=ddec8952e79989356246b338017297e8
You shoulda oughta said hi while you were in SacTown, since we were here busily avoiding Sea Otter too.
And that Chlöie, she’s pretty hot, except for being … well, whatever the opposite of cross-eyed is.
That’s called “being wall-eyed”, or if you like science, it is the condition of “Strabismus”. Just like Marty Feldman, or maybe Colin Hay…
That skimboard dude is priceless…
sell me your truk. its not even broke in yet
You just made my ride(5″ of snow and counting) home EXCELLENT!
Why is Ventana awesome? Because Sherwood has the vision to realise that nowadays tall is not 6’3″, but 6’6″+ and makes 2 frame szies that will fit to 7′. I’m 6’6″ and if it wasn’t for Ventana, (Ok, LenzSport and Zin too) a tall dude would have to stuff himself onto something that would almost, but not quite fit.
+, its usually Sherwood answering the e-mails.
To paraphrase you, I loves me my El-Rey
Thanks Ventana.
Damn, been checking the site on the reg for those hats to finally hit, and when do they come? After I had to pay an insane electric bill and am poor beyond belief. I’m going tp have to wait a week and a half now. Do you know how long that is is hairy stuntman hours?? (also, I’m not kidding, check my website, that describes me pretty perfectly, especially if you add in “pasty and portly”)