BLUG

http://www.kgnu.org/shows.php

That’s a link that, if followed all right, will lead you to the radio thing I taped. It was on Wednesday the 27th at 8:30 a.m., and a guy named Joel was the guy interviewing me. The whole spot,when you come to it, is about 1:45 or so long, but I start at around :35 (thirty-five minutes), and go for 25 minutes or so.

Self-critique: I guess I just don’t like the sound of my voice, which I think we all know is common, but right now I’m not sympathizing with you, but feeling sorry for myself…or getting mad at myself. Something negative. If I ever do radio again I’ll talk louder and faster and be more chipper. I was thinking about the answers during all of the pauses and uh’s.

Anyway…good luck finding it. I had a hard time. My wife finally did it, then emailed me the link. The speakers on this laptop don’t work, anyway.

(poster progressives shown below, one or two every day, earliest on top, final on bottom. Scroll down…)

Update late June 21, a quickie and a peek.

The poster MAY be on Goines’s site, so all of you curious-but-yellow types can see it before you order; but first listen to this plan. We have a set of 14 or so “progressives,” which are the many-or-so layers, in order, from bare paper to final poster. AAAAA plan is to show you them one or two by one or two, in order, until we show the final. Or you can go to Goines’s site and maybe find it there. He does want it up at some point, and was nice enough to wait until we “released” it to him to reveal, and that we’ve done, today. But if you want the slow reveal, you’ll stick to this site for now, and check it daily, starting tomorrow.

You’ll notice we’ve raised the price to $50. You know it costs us, including box and mailing, about $22 or so. Close to that. And, the idea is that everything we sell will contribute to rent and salaries and business in general, and therefore we have to make something on it. But now we’re considering a second printing—-DLG has agreed to it sometime in the Fall or Winter. So the plan was to raise the price to $50 and increase it as stock dwindles, but now we’re considering a small reprint run, which may allow us to sell it cheaperly—maybe $32 or so. We don’t have to firm that up now. If you bought one at $50 and we later reduce, we’ll cover you. We gotcha. No yelling.

Here’s the first progressive (scroll down for it, and watch for the more recent ones below it, as we put ‘em up):

Now you know what it doesn’t look like. The next progressive goes up later today. The colors on the progressives are a little off, owing to lack of photoshop skills and the time to monkey-to-perfection…and other priorities. Check just below here after maybe 3pm Walnut Creek time today. I’m not trying to make a gigantic crescendo out of this…just testing patience.

Second progressive:

How’s  it coming along, so far? Next progressive, tomorrow sometime. Probably late, because I’ll be talking in Austin, then riding, then eating.

Late June 23 Sat

I’m in Austin, booktalk, tons of nice people and then a ride through town. And here’s the next progressive:

Another one tomorrow, maybe around mid-day.

John was looking at Goines posters on eBay and found this, which suggests we’ve got pretty good prices on it.  The cheap ones are books of posters, not posters, by the way. The books are cool—-I’ve got one and I think John does, too, but when you see $17 or whatever on these items, note that it is a book of posters, not a poster. The tentative plan is to reduce to $32 IF we can get some more of them. Stay tuned…and if you buy at $50 and we later drop to $32 we’ll credit you $25. Too complicated? Well, probably. No harm intended, though.

Reveal 4: Scroll down for it. Small unrelated note. I’m in Nashville now, going to Ann Patchett’s bookstore in two hours, which is how much I slept last night, too. I had an early flight and was nervous about not sleeping enough. It’ll be fine. Here’s the next phase…

Progressive #5:

Next, with the blue suede shoes:

Whoa. First blue!

Below, mo’ blu..

Darker. I’ve skipped a couple of progressives that…got lost in my folder and weren’t that much different anyway.

Update June 29: I think this is close enough to the final poster…to not warrant another step in it. It’s Keven and Dynelle’s son, Milo, monkeying around with the front wheel on a Hunqapiller, bupcept the downtube decal says Rivendell, since this is a Rivendell poster. The poster is a mix of technical accuracy (the fork crown, dropouts, lugs) and artistic license. We’ve sold tons at the Early Adopter price of $20…then raised the price to $50, which is still cheap for a David Lance Goines poster, but then decided to get a few more (a few hundred more), and so we’re lowering it to $32 until further notice, and if you happened to buy one at $50, well credit your account the $18 difference.

Next posts will be less about the poster. 

Update late June 20.

We have sold too many posters too cheap, so raised the price to make up for that and make the 200 or so we have left last. It’s really the only way. This poster thing was—-I guess still is—the most unpredictable, amazing luckout shock to us, ever. Thank you. I hope it doesn’t turn sour. In an internet age, anything can happen and nothing is surprising.

The idea of an early adopter cheap price was to raise cash fast so we could make the balloon payment. At that point, all that mattered was fast cash. So these posters that cost us $15 plus time each, used a $2 box, took non-free labor to process, and a few bucks to mail. It is gratifying and fantastic that so many of you bought these posters without even seeing the image. Man, thanks a lot.

And please, you can’t get mad at the new price. This is kind of the going rate for a David Lance Goines poster, anyway. Look ‘em up. When we’re down to 100 the price goes up again. This will no doubt make somebody mad, but when we’re down to fifty, the price will go up againagain. We want the remaining 200 to last ten years. Five, at least. It’s not like it’s true advertising for us. You’ll hang it in the hall, or bedroom or den. It’s art, and only barest of barely commercial. It’s art with faint commercial undertones. There’s a brand on it; there. We are happy with how it came out, and had little to do with it.

Update late June 19, or early June 20 if you’re on eastern time

A couple of days ago in Yosemite, this happened, and it is remotely related to the A. Homer Hilsen in ways you can guess at, but won’t get right, and we won’t reveal. It is a  phenomenal story, anyway.

Update June 19: New rack update, picture of Sam with Fatty

Mark is not one of our most major rack users, although he has been on many S24O’s, and went touring with Rich last summer. But still, compared to most of us he’s a rack lightweight, which makes his rack-abilities even more remarkable. He’s working on a hub-area front rack, usually called a low-rider, and it’s coming along well. We have two sample sets. One’s here:

It works with small Chinese panniers, but part of the whole deal is Mark also developing a Sackville for it. Target: Early 2013. These things take time. Note the no loop, the nice look even when empty, and even that it can be mounted separately or with the Mini-front rack (or Mark’s rack, the sidepull version of the Mini-Front). Anyway, this is coming.

Last week we built up and will soon ship out this neat Sam. There’s a lot of neat stuff going on here, in the many photos below. The tire is a 45mm wide Schwalbe, a model without a real name, so we call it the 650B Fatty. It maxes out the sidepull, but it works. The pads don’t open quite enough to pass the tire through ‘em without deflation, but we make no claims that this frame will even take a 45, or that the brake can handle it, either. And we still won’t, but lookie this:

To me, that is flat-out gorgeous. I see a lot in this picture, and it’s all really happy stuff. Two more of the same bike:

You could force-fit fenders on it. It’s not impossible. You’re on your own, tho. We could do it here, but it takes tricks.

Here’s a bird’s eye view of the fork crown:

We are locking in this color, at least for the next many years.

YES, we are shipping out posters starting today. As for not posting the actual poster here so you can see it first: Hey, $20 thru 5pm westcoast time June 20—enjoy the surprise, and there’s no grace period. It’ll appear soon enough somewhere. The artist (David Lance Goines) shows all of his on his site, but has agreed to keep this one under the shroud until we valiantly or somebody else devilishly spills the beans. Until then, enjoy the not knowing.

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I started to apologize for not posting more often, but then I figured that’s assuming you read the posts as a gift, or fantastic, and they’re not that, either. It should just be miscellaneous news and thoughts, usually but not entirely bike-related. Lately, a lot of book-related. The last one and now this one will be partly poster-related. This is an update.

Today’s Monday and we got 100 posters in stock. We got boxes, and the posters will be mailed tomorrow. We’re getting 1,000 posters. Thru the 20th they go for $20 delivered. After that, $25 plus freight. But once we’ve sold 500, we’re doubling the price to $50, and then once we’ve sold 750, if we get that far, the last 250 will be more expensive still.

There’s a good reason for this. The poster, like many projects we do, turned out to be more of a hassle than the artist and printer (David Lance Goines) anticipated. There are sixteen layers of color. Each has to dry before the next is applied, and drying takes 24 hours. He really doesn’t want to reprint any, and so we told him we’d stick with what we have, and that’s the plan.

Nobody has seen it yet (outside of we insiders), and we’re going to keep it that way until somebody who has one leaks it, at which point we might as well, too. What it looks like will be leaked, for sure. You don’t have to be the devil to do that; you just have to have a weak moment, or a momentary lapse of memory (not remembering that we’d rather you not show your poster online); or simply not knowing and innocently posting a picture of the poster online; or maybe you just figure we should Oh, Grow Up and do it ourselves, but since that’s not happening, you’ll be the dam-buster. We don’t mind.

But we do wonder how many we can sell sight unseen, and so that’ll be our MO until it’s been leaked.

Here’s a long explanation of the poster-making process.

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Book tour update:

Saturday June 23

BOOK PEOPLE   603 North Lamar    Austin, TX   512 472-5050

Talk starts at 5pm. Thirty minutes or so, then q/a and signing, then 6pm ride with Austin Cycling Association.

Sunday June 24

Parnassus Books 3900 Hillsboro Pike    Nashville  615  953-2243

Talk at 2pm for an hour or maybe 90 minutes…then 3:30 ride to Green Fleet Hub for what is described as a “party” with socializing.

Parnassus is co-owned, and was founded, as I understand it, by Ann Patchett, a famous and terrific author. I would give anything to meet her or even see her, but I’m guessing she’ll be off somewhere. I will find her if she’s in the store. What a great writer, and what a thrill it would be to meet her. What bragging rights I’d have back home, among my wife and two daughters and mother-in-law. Plus, I really loved State of Wonder, and am reading Run next.

If you got our email update you know we have (will have next week) new posters. Poster orders thru the 20th get free shipping, (so, $20 total to the US), but our POS system (that’s “point of sale,” not what you think) won’t allow us to nix out the freight, so it LOOKS like you’ll pay $8, but not so. We delete that $8 before shipping, so…there. Now, if you order other stuff with the poster, then there’s the normal freight, whatever. But poster only thru the 20th—-free freight. Thanks, and sorry for the ‘fusion.

G

There are two events coming up for Grant’s new book, “Just Ride.”

The first happens this coming Sunday afternoon, June 10th, @ 1PM at Crissy Field.

Details at this link:
http://www.parksconservancy.org/events/retail/meet-the-author-grant.html

The second occurs next Wednesday night, June 13th, at Books, Inc. on Chestnut Street in the Marina.

The link for that one is here:
http://www.booksinc.net/event/grant-peterson-books-inc-marina

There will be an informal ride after Wednesday evening’s event. (Mostly just tooling around the Marina, and maybe over to the Presidio.) Hope to see you there….or there…or both.

Cheers,
John
RBW HQ,
WC, Calif.

I will try not to pretend that my life on the road, on this book tour, is fascinating, or facebook-worthy, but I will comment on it briefly, anyway.

I’m often kindly and sympathetically asked if the book tour is wearing me down, and my honest boilerplate response is: No no no. I don’t love being away from here and family, but as travel goes, it’s as good as it gets. I go around on the publisher’s money to meet incredibly nice and interesting and friendly people who, for the most part, are predisposed to liking me, and are super likable themselves. The hard part is leaving, when I’m thinking hmm, if this person were closer, he or she’d be a normal regular pal.

I have eleven stops, total. I am not counting, but I hear accurate estimates of books sold per talk, and it’s been averaging forty. I don’t know the cost of my plane tickets or hotels, because they’re prepaid for me, but flying’s expensive and I’m doing a lot of it. My hotels are like..Marriots, and so on. Publisher arranges that, and I have a daily stipend, which I try to be cheap with, but probably average $35 a day on food, and $25 a day on transportation (some days zero, some, $85). It’s hard to spend less than $35 a day on food if you eat out and tip decently.

Anyway, books sold on the tour can’t possibly pay for even 1/5th of the Tour. And, I imagine it’ll be a year before I see another royalty check. But meanwhile, I am having a blast, and feel so lucky to be able to do this. I don’t like the talking part—standing in front of a roomful of people who expect good things. My message, and the book’s, is that racing’s influences are more pervasive than is obvious, and they can wreck riding, and I believe it. Once you let racers be your guide, you set yourself up for a riding life where you’re never good enough (fast enough, durable enough, slick enough). Because racers can beatchalways.

Professional racers have lousy jobs. There is the glory, when it’s there, but is glory any better when it’s that kind (winning a race or a sprint) than the feeling, usually not thought of as glory, of doing something good or right in your normal life, at work or home? THAT kind of glory gets you out of having to race your bike for a living. Racers typically ride about 20,000 miles a year. Would you trade your job for that job?

Racers don’t have the luxury of being able to enjoy the bike. They don’t play on the bike, they train. They recover from training with “easy” fifty-to-sixty mile days. No thanks, man. I’d rather goof off on my bike, or ride it to work, or downtown. I still ride hard, but only when I want to, and only for as long as I want to. When I was racing years ago, I’d always figure I had to continually punish myself on hard days, because in a race, somebody’s always feeling peppy just when you’re gassed, and you have to be able to go with them, even though your body says No. Once you give it up, you can listen to the No—-it’s a good thing to do, in fact. Or, you don’t even have to reach the No point in the first place. Who cares?

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Book Tour-related: On my trip to Seattle, I had a “literary escort,” somebody to shuttle me around as needed, from airport to hotel, to book stop, to various bookstores, to lunch, and back to the hotel, and then to the airport again. It’s a real job. The woman who was my literary escort had also been one for a dozen or more super famous writers (names not included here, but you’ve heard of most or all). She had what looked like a black golden retriever, who was dying of cancer and was thin as a skeleton, had been uncomfortable for several weeks, despite all the measures you’d expect a woman who loved her dog and was of means would go to. He died a few days ago, I heard, and in the same email that announced it, I also got this link, which you should not open until you have maybe half an hour for it, or at least twenty minutes:

http://nymag.com/news/features/parent-health-care-2012-5/

Maybe don’t open it at all. It’s about one man’s experience taking care of his aging mother during the last stages and years of her life, and in it he raises good questions that may make you uncomfortable. But now that you know the topic, maybe you’re prepared. It isn’t about bikes at all.

Kind of related is “Type 3 diabetes,” which, here. Basically, there seems to be a link between lotsa carbs/high blood glucose/high insulin levels/// and brains going bad. Maybe no proof, but there is evidence.

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Gary Taubes, author of our best-selling Why We Get Fat book, wrote an article in last Sunday’s NYT. It’s about salt   Anybody can go his or her whole life and not read anything Gary Taubes writes, but will be way less informed for it. We are here because…well, this is who we are and how we came to be, regardless of what you believe started it all. We are born, grow up, sometimes pass on our genes, sometimes adopt, sometimes neither, and then we all converge again in a non-competitive pursuit of reasonable health through middle and old age.  Along the way, we get ideas on how to go about that from a variety of sources, including some seemingly authoritative bs-ers, and Taubes is not one of them. So here he writes about salt, Yes, he likes it. If you are a food-eater and occasional sweater, it it worth ten minutes.

If you are new to Rivendell-stuff and are wishing you could drop a few pounds, then read this Gary Taubes book, and that will happen.

—-

Steve Cheers, one of the owners of Mountain Sports in Virginia, has cleverly single-speeded (or three-speeded, see details below) this Atlantis by…well, see this photo:

Steve rigs a road bike brake cable in the rear derailer, the head going in the barrel adjuster. You may know that new Shimano ders lack the barrel adjuster, but SOMA makes one for ‘em, and it works great, so—-you don’t have that excuse. (But, way to go, Shimano….are you saying the derailers are improved by deleting this nice feature? Who made that call? Who approved? Anyway…)

So, back to this. Steve calls it the Rotary Shifter, because by rotating the barrel adjuster, he can span three cogs. He shifts by getting off and upending the bike, and it’s not a quick shift, far from on the fly, but with a pure one-speed there’s no shifting at all. This way, he gets the dumbed-down pureness of it all, gets to eliminate shifters and cables (practically), and in a pinch, can still shift. It seems a good way to test your own waters. Can you live with a single-speed? What cog? This way, you can find out.

Three cheers for Steve Cheers. HHH! HHH! HHH!

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This has been making the inter-rounds, but if you haven’t seen it, it’s a neat look at many foreign other bikes.

——

Did I already recommend this? I’m going insane, I just don’t know. I’m sure I did. It’s a novel but if you enjoy fiction or know somebody who does, and they say they like books and you kind of want to get  ‘em one they may not have read and that they’ll like, you could do worse than this. This is a good tip, know it or not.

All for now. I’m back for a while, and back for good after June 27 or so. I’ve got a lot to catch up to—catalogues, the Reader, a bike or two, some new things.

G