top of the rock

this past thursday was thanksgiving.  i will not go into the history behind this controversial day of celebration, but i will say for me this year, it was awesome, like best thanksgiving ever in the history of life.  the holiday coincidentally fell on my 30th birthday, and i got to do just about everything that a grown ass man would want to do on this bullshit milestone.  i hung out with my girlfriend and a cat all day, rode my motorcycle, saw two beavers (swimming in a pond at a nature reserve, sicko), ate steak and sausages (seriously, fuck turkey and all that traditional crap, men eat steak.), drank tons of beer, goldschlager and bourbon, listened to heavy metal, played with fire, and got free shots at the bar.  i passed out naked in front of a fire and woke up cold and confused on a hardwood floor long after the fire went out.  i consider this day seized and throttled!

beaver houses and a babe on a bike

red meat and a drunk old man

denim and leather

today was a totally bitchin' sunday up in ol' new hampshire!

waking up on my living room floor to a house spewing pork fumes from the slow-cooker full of pulled pork i started late saturday afternoon was a pretty great start.  then, instead of going to work and blasting some bikes to get a jump start on the old grind, i rode my motorcycle to a flea market along curvy back roads, up behind pawtuckaway, to a secret location in the 'shire woods.  so sketchy, the locals were selling everything from live goats to crossbows, and a midget clown was riding a miniature horse around with a super-soaker full of dunkin donuts iced tea.

i spent 30 dollars on this pile, running the gamut from bert and i to johnny paycheck, i scored some sweet shit.  and i bought a dot approved motorcycle helmet for 7 dollars from a mexican dude, so if anyone wants to sit on the back of my bike and wrap your arms around me, we can be safe about it.

34,000 miles, smells like gasoline, weighs 550 pounds dry and supposedly goes 123 miles per hour.
my 1978 suzuki GS 750EC, the best 660 dollars anyone has ever spent.  ever.

i stopped along the way to do some leaf peeping, and it was pretty awesome.

what could be better right?  how about a fridge full of molson canadian beer?

 "the best canada has to offer"

ol' tasker

our house, is a very very fine house

with two motorbikes in the yard!

i'm left, chris is right.

everything cool i have ever owned was made in the 1970s.

text book new hampshire landscape.   or as we like to call it, "the 'shire"!

A week in the life...

An insane amount of living has been been going down in this small town...  there are only two bars to drink at, and nothing else to do after dark, yet the days are just packed.

here is the first bike i completely painted!  it is a steel crown jewel in corsa red, with black and white decals, and it is going to be a demo bike on display in our show space.  pretty sweet!

here are two works in progress.  i did almost all of the masking on both these frames: a titanium planet cross bike with a 3/4 paint job and pale pearl pink stripes; and a titanium factory lightweight with its raw carbon seat tube and black panels.  Bam!

on friday night a crew of us went one town over to the Lee USA Speedway for some car racing.  it was the most white trash spectacle ever, pretty much the whole place was crammed with drunk fat rednecks and their fat kids, loud engines and the smell of gasoline.  during the small block modified feature race, 5 cars stacked into a corner and all piled up sideways.  as the excited crowd jumped to our collective feet, the drivers of said cars got out and started fist-fighting each other in the middle of the track while the rest of the field kept racing.  it was so awesome, and only ten bucks!

saturday was oyster fest and olde home day up here in newmarket.  i worked for 5 hours, saw the governor of utah, ate 15 oysters that were harvested in the local bay at the mouth of the lamprey river and got too drunk to remember the fireworks that happened at night.  a bunch of crappy old man bands played on a flat bed truck to no one that cared, and it made me be glad to be in the audience also not caring, instead of on the stage.  

sunday brian and i did a long bike ride up to york, maine.  we looped north through dover and across the river into maine, onward to york where we stopped and checked out this crazy lighthouse, ate a quick lobster roll at the beach, and rolled back through kittery and portsmouth.  it was about 70 miles in total, and two minutes after we got home the skies opened up and it has been pouring ever since.  score!

beware the ronimal !!!

ridin bikes and catchin fish

life in the 'shire is pretty sweet.  i got myself a beautiful company bike to ride around town, on loan from gary.  its a SSR (stainless steel) made with columbus xcr tubing.  its got full sram red, handbuilt chris king hubs laced to mavic rims, an enve carbon fork, and the same exact saddle alberto contador rode in this years tour de france.  

this is truly a top of the mountain machine!

here's a little dream set up down the basement.  i got some of my bikes hanging up next to my tools and my tackle box, with my fishin' pole restin up on nails just overhead.  i spend a lot of time down here just sippin' beers and rearranging everything just right.

this pretty bridge is sittin' atop the wiswall dam over in durham.  its really close to john baker's log cabin, and the site of the first fish i caught up here, a large mouth bass that was not very large at all.  i hooked him on a jointed rapala, one of my all-time favorite bass lures.

kiss my bass!

just below packers falls on the lamprey river.  apparently the fishin' here is real good, i just need to get better at fishin' the ripples and casting into a current to confirm that fact.

and finally, the whole reason i moved up north in the first place.

paintin' a bike rack for a place to put painted bikes!

live free or die

brian and I moved to newmarket, new hampshire, over the weekend, on our bicycles.   we left boston and pedaled north to newmarket, covering some 80 miles in 7 or so hours.  the original idea was all brian's, he brought it up one day at buddy's diner in somerville during our lunch break.  

we made bikes in somerville, we will be making bikes in newmarket - the hell with cars or trains or buses, lets move from one bike factory to the other, on bicycles!  

genius, i'm in!

we met up at buddy's, the site of the plan's hatching.  we arrived in full bike kits (read nerdy superhero spandex suits) and looked at maps while drinking coffee and eating eggs.  we both were ready to hit the road and get the hell out of dodge.

our chariots!  mister eddy merckx, meet independent fabrication's titanium factory lightweight.

we cut north east towards the coast and route 1A north, driving our steel horses past wretched hives of scum and villiany like somerville, everett, malden, lynn, saugus, peabody and salem.  after salem it started to de-suburbanize and get a little bit country.

1-A was one of the best roads i have ever ridden on, shredding up the coast, past salt marshes, trashy beach towns, ocean views, good roads.  the only hiccup we had in navigation was due to a bridge being out in newburyport, but it made for a good detour as we raced a high school kid on a mini bike and just crushed him.  the sound of that little craphead's whining motor topping out at twenty miles an hour just desperately trying to get past us made us put the hammers down.  

big ring davey!

3 tasker lane.

newmarket new hampshire, 03857

dont be afraid of the "weird biker gang" that dwells within, write letters and come visit!

swimming in new york city

aaahhhh, new york city...loud, dirty, crowded, and surrounded by water.  on america's birthday jenny and i rode bikes through 30 plus miles of bikepaths and greenways, drank a bunch of mikes hard lemonade and red white and blue budweiser cans, went swimming, ate hot dogs, and it ruled.

this shot is from owls head in brooklyn at the start of a rad mike tyson's punch out style bikepath.

jamaica bay, in brooklyn

jamaica bay, brooklyn

my "new" bike.  a 90s eddy merckx lugged steel racing machine, running with full campagnolo gear, including a '94 centaur ten speed group and vintage fir aero rims.  it's a tank, quick and snappy, and i can keep all with all my cohorts at IF on their fancy light future bikes.  

yeah right

j geils bridge.

watch out for repeauda the beauda hanging her gnarly hair off the edge, and beware the breezy dog stand at the other side.

fort tilden beach in brooklyn.  in new york city.  yeah, seriously.  atlantic ocean fun-time, an easy hour bike ride from brooklyn or park slope, clean sand, clean water, topless girls, no lifeguards, abundance of 24 oz coors cans - totally awesome.  get offline and go swimming right now!

bye!