Friday, September 30, 2011

Interbike Indoor 4-Classic Style

After being reunited with the Reverend, he explained how we had to go see the "Jacket." What "Jacket?" The "Jacket" at the Brooks Brothers booth.  Along the way, we ran into this guy, Bruce Horton (selling a 50th edition Campy Gruppo De Rosa for $2700...who cares what size), showing off his wife's custom mixte:
Before we noticed the crease:
Wooden rims, art deco lugs, FEA modeled by the folks at Specialized, the whole story and pics can be had here (it is stunning).  Occasionally the Rt. Reverend and I run across someone even more obsessed and  than ourselves, with answers to our every question. This is a difficult path to travel, because in the midst of describing their intricate process of  their creative genius, the Rev or I will usually pop out a "How about if you are 10 ft tall and on the moon?" type question.  These victims of Male Answer Syndrome are usually the sober, engineer, inventor types. In these instances distraction, humor, threats of mayhem, actual mayhem or shots will generally bring them down to our level. At Sea Otter, it was this guy, who knew that caulking the EBB on single speeds was an effective way to stop the creaks.  At Interbike, it was definitely Bruce Horton who had an answer to every nuanced question about wooden rim care and such, which we peppered him with, until we hit upon "the crease" in the fender which we pointed out, latched onto and, which he knew that we knew was killing him.  The first and last scratch this bike will have while with Bruce:

 After we noticed, the conversation turned much less jovial as we pressed for details on the crease and crease mitigation:

The Bennotto (which, today, is a poor plastic imitation of what it used to be) booth did not want our types around, so they hid the vintage stuff on the backside of the booth:

Walking into the Brooks booth you could see a stir in the sales force, one Brooks guy smiled and nodded then turned to his companions, continuing in hushed tones.  The Reverend said something about it being the fourth time he had been in the booth that day, as the sales force stood loosely semicircular (I believe to prevent escape) around the Jacket, the Reverend demonstrating the Jacket's features and finer points. Waxed cotton, rakish angles, a color that ages well, removable wool lining, internal suspenders, vents, gaskets, reflective bits: the Reverend was clearly staring down the seventh and tenth commandments pretty hard. Taking a softer approach to deterrence, one sales person offered that the Reverend was, ahhem, at least an extra-large, perhaps long; clearly he would need to order one:
The new 101 CEN Bicycle Standards will require the use of safety jackets, of which I believe this would qualify. Will the Revvy rock a custom long version?  Answer here, though it may take a bit to play out.

Despite a $1000 prize to the first Tour De France Champion to wear one, one thing that won't be playing out safety wise, is this product, the Halo Mirror:

Halo Mirror comes in different shapes and sizes and an arcing design that, in Fahzure's experience, caused one to be constantly staring at ones own face. I'm plenty ugly to rock a full face almost all the time and despite my protests, the rep claimed the product was ready to go...sort of.  This item had all of the classics of a garage invention: bandsaw cut plexiglass, shoelace attachments, no logo or stylistic cues, no brochures or pictures allowed, patent pending, trade secrets and such.  Well, not one to want to attract attention, I scurried along, but took this spy picture of the rep taking a picture of the Rev next to the product, which is clear. Double documentation of this non-happening:
When you text someone, in order for the text to be successful they must be able to understand the meaning of words you are texting.  Apparently, Circulus was not in the common Interbike parlance.

1 comment:

reverend dick said...

LOL a disturbance in the Force. They thought I would steal it?!


They were wiser than I knew.