Transmissions from the other side.

Here’s to hoping that after this past Independence Day, all digits remain intact;

Speaking of lost digits, I assume most of yinzers are familiar with Mark Pauline and his Survival Research Laboratories?

If you weren’t before, you are now, and you’re welcome.

Not that I need more than my two index fingers to do my job here anyway, but it’s with that, I’ll now get today’s effort underway.

Before we get into anything, I should preface today’s post by mentioning I thought Wednesday (yesterday) was actually Tuesday, so this that you’re reading was supposed to be for the middle of the week. At noon on Wednesday (yesterday), when I actually then realized that it was not Tuesday, it was too late to get this post up, so instead we get Wednesday’s (yesterday) post for Thursday (today) and Friday (tomorrow).

Now then- What with the holiday weekend and all, I suppose it’s safe to assume that I’m not the only one who got lost in some sort of shenanigans or another.

In this post I mentioned that the Westside Invite was coming to Oakland, and to Oakland it came;

While a bulk of the weekend’s activities were going down, both my camera and I were AWOL, but for those who are interested, Ronnie has a full set of photos here.

My role in the event was to ‘organize’ a group ride on the 3rd, after the main race had come to a conclusion. For the two days before my obligation was to commence however, Sean from Soulcraft Bikes and I loaded up our whips, and got out of dodge, which looked pretty much like this;




Ultimately concluding with this;

And after a night’s Coors and bourbon inspired slumber, found us with this;

If you’ll take note of my touring set up, you’ll surely recognize the complete disfunction of it. A saddle bag containing my sleeping bad, pad, and towel is where the functionality ends. The stuff sack with a third of the rest of my crap lashed to it with toe straps wasn’t ideal, but it worked ok. However, the backpack containing all the rest of my possessions pulling my shoulders out of their sockets the entire time was for the birds. I was under no false notions that this was going to be an efficient way to travel, but I didn’t really have any other options.

All in all it was a lovely way to spend a couple of days, and got my head straight for a return to the big city, and leading a bunch of hungover bike messengers over hill and dale the following day;






It was around this point in time when I asked an assortment of individuals, all of whom were riding with impossibly huge bags, which one of them was carrying beer, when only two piped up.

Now, I realize my career as a bike messenger ended right around the time when a few of these folks were busy being born/graduating from kindergarten, but if memory serves, if you were riding with a bag, it was a cardinal rule that there should be no less than a 12 pack contained within. Luckily for my own unquenchable thirst, as well as that of at least ten of my compatriots, I was prepared, and we continued to ride, and imbibe as the day saw fit;






All in all, it was a really fun day spent with friends new and old, and I hope that at least for my portion of the Westside’s festivities, everyone had a good time.

At the very least, if they didn’t, I hope they can’t remember any of it.

In pretty damn exciting news of an AHTBM businessie sort- It was some months ago when I contacted Paul from Paul Component engineering and asked if he might have time to take on a special (albeit totally useless to 99% of humanity) project for me.

He agreed, we dilly-dallied around, I worked on other projects, as did he, when just on Friday, what should land on my doorstep but a box of custom made, anodized, and laser etched 7″ adapters;

Now, as I said before, I fully realize that about a pinch of people out of 500 will give a rip about these, and so getting them made probably wasn’t my wisest business decision. That said, I have one for my own now, and that’s all that matters.

If you or someone you love is like me, and has an unflinching adoration for potentially one of the most useless music formats known to man, head on into the store and grab one, because I can guarantee once they’re gone, they’ll be gone forever.

Then, if that wasn’t enough to blow your hair back, it wasn’t more than 72 hours after the adapters arrived, that I got a re-stock of the ever popular AHTBM Black Sole socks;


Anymore, these are the only socks I wear. If my busted-ass dogs like them, then I’m sure anyone’s would.

Finally, a few months ago I got a run of the AHTBM Stuntman Association patches made especially for a batch of Dank cüzies old Corndog up there in Seattle sewed for me. The remaining patches I had in the store, and though they sold out pretty quickly, I never bothered to get a second run of them until I got pestered a couple of times over the last two months.

So it was for those specific pesterers I proudly announce the Stuntman Association patch to be back in stock;

So there you have all the news that currently is fit to print.

Obviously it’s been a busy few days in this camp, but I’m plugging away the only way I know how.

Just imagine what I could accomplish if I had more than two fingers.

Spread this like it's sick

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5 Responses to “Transmissions from the other side.”

  1. Mic July 6, 2017 at 9:54 am #

    Amazed to see Mark still doing his thing. I watched him “open” for PIL in the early 80’s in SF. It was very LOUD.

  2. tsp July 6, 2017 at 10:43 am #

    Yo! Stevil! Can you tell me the date/time/location specs for the AHTBMSA meetings? I have a couple of SureasHellDon’tDos i’d like to share with the bag of nuts. For the good of our collective posteriority, of course.

    • Stevil July 6, 2017 at 11:24 am #

      Aside from WSATU, I don’t have anything regularly in the books.

      • tsp July 6, 2017 at 1:36 pm #

        Me and my chest hair(s) get right on that.

  3. Scott July 7, 2017 at 8:53 am #

    Love the pink Trek! A mechanic in Long Beach who let me ride his friends Colnalgo (my first on a true racing bike) had a beautiful pink Dave Tesch Trek. Great memories.