Spam, ham, and a gear jam

Folks, with your permission I’m going to turn off the CSC blog comments feature for awhile. If you have anything you want posted on the blog just shoot an email to me at California Scooter and I’ll post it. The amount of spam we’ve been receiving is overwhelming. Unless you guys and gals want to see offers for handbags, sunglasses, Viagra, search engine optimization, and the rest of the drivel that’s pouring in, we’ll just do without it for a bit.  Sometimes when you just turn things off, the automated bots that peddle this annoying stuff recognize they are no longer getting through and they stop sending it.  Let’s try it for a week or two and see what happens. We still want to hear from you, so if you want to comment, just shoot an email to me.

It’s been hot out here in southern California, and what’s unusual for us is that the humidity has been high. I was going to get out for a bicycle ride this morning, but when I went to get the papers, it was already close enough that I knew it would be sweltering by the time I returned from my usual 20+ miles.  I’ll just have to get up earlier tomorrow.

So what’s this about bicycles?  Well, like most of you I’m a gearhead, and that extends to all things mechanical.  The electrical stuff I’m not quite as comfortable with, but if it’s mechanical, it’s got my interest and that includes cars, guns, motorcycles, and bicycles.  I’m going to guess everyone reading this blog had their interest in two-wheeled things start with a bicycle, and I’m firmly in that category. I remember being a kid riding my Schwinn and imagining it was a Triumph.  Good times.  I’ll bet a lot of you have those same memories.

I started riding bicycles seriously and diligently again about two months ago for two reasons…to shake off my beer belly, and, well, for the simple joy of riding.  I’m doing about 80 miles a week now, and my goal is to get up to 100.  Miles per week, that is…although you do meet some guys who are like fine wines or Tequila…they just keep getting better with age.  A couple of weekends ago while I was riding my bike I rode up alongside a guy named Elmer.   I  remembered meeting Elmer on another bicycle ride about 10 years ago, and he was 71 then!  I asked, and he confirmed it.   Ol’ Elmer is 81 years young, and he’s out there riding his bike 100 miles every week.  I want to be just like Elmer when I grow up.

Just this past Sunday, I took a 45-mile ride with three of my friends to the beach and back along the San Gabriel River Trail. That’s a cool ride as long as you stick to the trail, but of course, we didn’t. My buddy Greg prompted us to drop down into the river bed, and that was not so cool – broken glass everywhere, super-slick algae growing on the wet spots, and no way to get back up on the trail because we couldn’t find a return ramp. We rode in the river bed for a good five or six miles and finally gave up…we crawled back up the embankment with our bicycles.  Wouldn’t you know it…less than a quarter mile later we saw a ramp!  We all had a good laugh about that one.

The San Gabriel River Trail...the Pacific Ocean is only about five miles away at this point. I'm the guy in front of the lady rider. Photo by Riverboy.

 

Another cool thing about bicycles is that you can really go the vintage route on those, too. I’m a big fan of the older Celeste green steel-framed Bianchi bicycles when they were still made in Italy, and I’m a fervent Craigslist watcher for those bikes. 

My new-to-me 1987 Bianchi, in classic Celeste green!

I found a 1987 Bianchi this weekend, and after a speed run down to Orange County last night, it’s now where it belongs (that would be in my garage).  I need to tweak a few things on it (the gear shifting is a bit rough) and I’ll keep you posted as that project progresses.

These are really cool old bikes, and Bianchi is an awesome company. They are the oldest continuous-production bicycle manufacturer on the planet. Celeste green is their signature color, and there are plenty of stories around about how that color came to be. The most likely story is that after the war, they had a lot of OD green paint laying around, and it was easy to mix it with other colors to get the sea foam green they call Celeste. That story is kind of boring, though. My favorite is that old Eduardo Bianchi had a girlfriend named Celeste (with green eyes, of course), and he developed the color to match her eyes and her name.

Even TK caught the bicycle buzz...can you picture this guy in Spandex?

I’m at home today. Just got started on a big pot of chili and the rest of the crew is going to enjoy it this evening. It’s simmering in the crock pot right now. Peppers, onions, ground turkey, black beans, chili powder, chopped fresh tomatoes, taco powder, ground cumin, a little bit of bacon for some added flavor, and it’s gonna be good. I like cooking, I like cooking in a crock pot, and I love the way whatever’s cooking adds a great aroma to the entire place while it’s cooking. I’ll start picking up on the chili scent in about an hour.

It's going to be good!

And back to the main story….motorcycles. We’ve decided to press ahead with the Mustang book I talked about earlier, and it is coming along nicely. It’s going to have tons of awesome photographs, it’s going to tell the Mustang story, and it’s going to progress into the evolution of your favorite motorcycle, the California Scooter. I am learning lots of interesting things researching this with my esteemed co-author, and we’ll be offering the book through CSC. You’ll get a sneak preview of some of the things that will be in the book in a magazine article I’m doing on this topic, and I’ll post bits and pieces right here on the blog. It’s going to be grand fun.

The bike that started it all...an amazing motorcycle demonstrating exemplary engineering talent!

I’m heading out on another secret mission tomorrow night (I’ll be in the US on this one), and I’ll make a post or two from the road. There are lots of things going on at CSC, and most of them are still under wraps.  Like we always say, stay tuned.