Question 1 asked what the blue thing hanging on the wall is. Some of the best answers came here:

“The thing on the wall is a mermaid’s fin, on indefinite loan from Danny.”

“The Blue Thing On The Wall collects your tears as you pull into the driveway at work. At least, that’s what mine does. At the end of each year, the tears I’ve collected turns into booze. I drink it, then the next day at work, the tears flow again.”

The truth was more sordid than they imagined – the blue thing is actually an old Bula headgear sent to me as a token of our enduring love by none other than Greg Herbold. Honest injun’.

Question 2 was a bit more cut and dried, except that nobody even came close. Which was to be expected since a) the picture was really bad and you couldn’t tell what the tires were (Kenda k761 in 120/80/18 and 100/90/19 sizes), and b) there are only a handful of people in the world who are privy to not only my weakness for old Yamaha four stroke singles, but also my most recent acquisition along those lines. But some people gave it a good college try:

“The Motorcycle Tires are obviously Hermann Ziskin’s, destined to be mounted on a classic Grundlefarb Super Baster. Which, not sure if you knew, were banned in China after Chairman Mao crashed his en route to a party which featured no dancing.” (this was the same guy who talked about the blue thing being a tear receptacle. good stuff!)

But still wrong. As an aside, to the guy who wrote that they are for a “scratched-up Honda 450 enduro bike from the mid-90’s”, good try, but don’t go getting pretty on us. Honda didn’t make a 450 enduro bike in the mid-90s. They had a long run with a 350cc bike through the mid to late 70s before binning that when they came out with their then-almost impressive four valve head, twin exhaust port 500 in 1979, which became a 600 some years later in 1983, before morphing all the way up to a 650 in 1993 and then getting stuck in a time warp from then until now. The new, water cooled, aluminum framed crf450r and x models didn’t come into existence until 2002 or so. Just sayin’…

As for question 3, seems everyone knows where Scotty’s bottle of Jameson’s is hidden. But the best rendering of said hiding place (even if he came up with multiple locations, one of which was correct) was this:

Especially love the line about Roskopp’s junior swim trunks. Not bad. For their efforts, Anthony Giordano, Eric Ling and Andrew McAfee need to send their addresses so that I can send them their posters. tmi@santacruzbicycles.com. And thanks for playing.

That’s probably more motorcycle and Bula than anyone needs for one day, no? You probably came here to read about bicycles, most likely that 29er we keep on hinting at, or Joe Graney’s social habits. Today will disappoint you. So, without further ado, we’ll segue into naval battle. A couple weeks ago, Mister Blacksocks alerted us to the fact that something very perverted was about to happen in New York. And boy howdy, did it ever:

Lots of pretty pictures can be found here as well. And on that note, have a nice day. We’ll get back to talking bicycles by the weekend. Promise.

Its starting to feel like fall here in santa cruz today, almost felt like sleeves were necessary on a ride. Yup, thats the sign of winter here. Though it could just be that after a warm summer weekend in Downieville last weekend the cool sea breeze was a shock. Downieville on a summer weekend is bliss. Long bike rides on some of the most fun trails imaginable, crystal clear mountain rivers to jump in afterward, and of course Wayno and the crew at Yuba Expeditions who make everyone feel welcome. They even let me win at curmudgeon, an insane rule-filled game that involves a pool table, whiteboard, only two balls, and a thousand beers.

But the fall also brings Interbike season, which brings me to the point, which is the bus. For the uninitiated, a number of years ago, for no logical reason, I bought an old 1949 passenger coach on Ebay. It was originally owned and operated by Union Pacific Railroad for passenger service in Southern California. How do I know this? Because it still has the original destination signs that scroll the cities of Orange County and LA.

But in exchange for a free awning, I said I’d bring it to some events for SCB, the first of which was Sea Otter, where we had it in the pits


And from there, we said, hey, lets take this shit to vegas too! They won’t screw with us there for bringing enough beer for a couple hundred people for four days. And the first demo day happened. And it was glorious
.
Since then, the bus has been a staple of both events, albeit relegated to campground partying at Laguna Seca). There’s been some ups and downs mechanically, to say the least, with the old girl over the years.
There was the trip with Josh to Arizona in 2005 when the transmission blew a gear out of the casing in Sedona, and then the incredibly sad time she had to go to Salinas to languish in bad company at the Diesel Doctors shop

The time that a guy almost rammed me from behind but decided instead to hit a tree beside me and put a huge dent in the side near Boonville, California

but nothing like what happened this spring. Some water made its way into the air intake system while she sat for a few months over the winter. And I was too stupid and lazy to check before firing her up. Turns out, water actually is incompressible. So you run water through a supercharger, jam it into the cylinder, and it just stops the engine. With some force.

Luckily, several years ago I ran across a guy named Ted Campbell. Ted is a one man show, who operates a shop called Coach Maintenance (catchy name, huh?). Its on I5 about an hour north of Sacramento. When I first met Ted and told him I had a UP bus, he asked “what number?”. And proceeded to tell me more about my bus than anyone ever could. He’d driven it in the 70s as it was decommissioned and used at American Bus Lines. He knew the 23. Ted is a guy someone should make a movie about. He lives in his shop, and his yard has, shit, an assload of busses in it, ranging from the 20s to the 60s.

So when this happened, that is, the engine is now useless and won’t turn over, I called Ted. He’s not the last hope, he’s the only hope. And Ted told me “I have a special feeling for 23″, and agreed to help me out.
But the bus was in Santa Cruz. And so Ted busted out the “lowboy”.




I went up to see Ted last weekend, and friends, it was a close one. Another couple of millimeters, and that rod would have cracked the block. And that might have been the end. A fully rebuilt Detroit Diesel 6-71 (thats a 2 stroke straight six diesel for those paying attention) still costs a pretty penny even if “that’s the engine that won WWII”. And God knows I’m not gonna stimulate the economy that much. But I drove it out of there, and she not only ran, but Ted fixed some of the other not exactly minor issues I was having, like not enough fuel getting to the rack, and the fact I couldn’t really shift, had trouble starting, with reverse, and turning off…
I’m going up to see Ted again this weekend, we’re gonna dial in some shit that never worked at all, and get her running like it was 1949 again. You hear what I’m saying? The bus is back!

More to follow as we get down to business. Well, my job at Interbike is to make sure there’s enough beer and charred meat, so at least I’ll cover those endeavors. Shit ain’t easy.