Saw this bad boy today

[fishinwrench]

We rode BMX and did some wicked jumps as a kid, nobody wore helmets for any of that, and it was extremely rad.  Rode bikes to school with no helmets, nor busted heads.  Then all of a sudden one day somebody decided that it was possible to get a head injury in a bicycle crash, or maybe someone somewhere actually did.....and now you're seen as an idiot of you don't wear a helmet.  

I honestly come closer to busting my head while mowing, moving boats around, or getting a beer out of the fridge, than I do while riding a bike.  

What I really need a helmet for is getting in and out of the middle kids 09 Dodge Avenger.  

[Terrierman]

3 hours ago, ColdWaterFshr said:

My brother in-law is one of the managers there on South National  What a great shop and amazing to see from where they've come

I used to live directly above the old A&B on Walnut in Springfield.  Jesse and Naomi Tate, good folks - $90 per month rent, utilities included, and I was perpetually in arrears . . and when I finally scraped up enough dough to make payment, delivering it in person,  this almost always lead to a lecture of them trying to recruit me into their side business of selling Amway.  🤪

Anyway, they had fixed that loft up pretty posh except for the lack of AC, but Naomi wasn't cool with the downtown Springfield ghetto vibe at the time, so they put it up for rent to some biker punks and workers from the shop. We ended up with a sweet party pad.  Keggers on the roof of the bike shop, though we had constant break ins and problems with the wino's in the alley behind the shop.

Good times wrenching on our bikes, getting the latest components at cost, competing in some of the early Mountain Bike races at Ritter Springs and Busiek.  I owned several top notch bikes and one of which I still have.  mash-mash of components, Suntour XC Pro groupo, some Deore XT.  Miss my old road bikes though.  Remember my Shimano 105 Cannondale that I took up to 59 mph on that down-hill into Ponca in Arkansas on a tour, no helmet.  A buddy at the shop had a beautiful Tomasini italian bike with all Campagnolo C-record stuff - was beautiful.

That story I posted about the Felt winding up on top of me in the creek was at Busiek.  😎  Busiek is also the area that got me to give up riding bikes off road out of fear of broken bones and other similar problems.  Those shared horse trails that went straight up/down fall lines with 4 and 6 foot drops covered in rocks from apple to watermelon sized loose rock turned out to be just too much for this one, especially when I started having orthopedic repairs.  Good memories though, of a beautiful place and younger days!

I lived in Spokane at the time and my property backed up to the creek that flows from there through Busiek.  Walked and biked from the house to 65 and back many times.  Pretty valley it was and I'm sure still is.  Rugged country in the heart of the Ozarks.

[BilletHead]

             A link to Curt's ride yesterday and I see there are a couple more at the bottom of this page,

https://www.strava.com/activities/3908705875?share_sig=490339021597369142&utm_medium=social&utm_source=ios_share

     

[snagged in outlet 3]

20 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

             A link to Curt's ride yesterday and I see there are a couple more at the bottom of this page,

https://www.strava.com/activities/3908705875?share_sig=490339021597369142&utm_medium=social&utm_source=ios_share

     

Wow!   Nice.  Think of the Tour de France guys doing 2100 miles in 14 days.....   over mountain passes.  Crazy.  

[BilletHead]

34 minutes ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

Wow!   Nice.  Think of the Tour de France guys doing 2100 miles in 14 days.....   over mountain passes.  Crazy.  

   I wish he would do a little write up of what he did in Sweden or some area of the world. I have slept since then when he went over there and shot me e-mails of his movements. It was really neat.

[Quillback]

36 minutes ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

Wow!   Nice.  Think of the Tour de France guys doing 2100 miles in 14 days.....   over mountain passes.  Crazy.  

Speaking of the Tour, did you see that 30 for 30 on Lance Armstrong?  It was interesting.  

[snagged in outlet 3]

21 minutes ago, Quillback said:

Speaking of the Tour, did you see that 30 for 30 on Lance Armstrong?  It was interesting.  

I haven't yet but I will.  The dude was cruel...

[Johnsfolly]

23 minutes ago, Quillback said:

Speaking of the Tour, did you see that 30 for 30 on Lance Armstrong?  It was interesting.  

Used to love the Tour back with Lemond and even Armstrong. Felt good at that time "knowing" that the Americans weren't doping. I said to some friends that it would gut sports if Albert Pujols or Lance Armstrong were found out to be doping. Well that A*hole fooled me once. He gutted people that questioned him to find out it was all lies. I haven't watched the tour in what seems like more than a decade. I would have more respect if they just flat out allowed them to use whatever they wanted to compete and make the rides harder. 

[snagged in outlet 3]

Yeah that guy last year caught doping on camera in his trailer was just ridiculous...

[Quillback]

12 minutes ago, Johnsfolly said:

Used to love the Tour back with Lemond and even Armstrong. Felt good at that time "knowing" that the Americans weren't doping. I said to some friends that it would gut sports if Albert Pujols or Lance Armstrong were found out to be doping. Well that A*hole fooled me once. He gutted people that questioned him to find out it was all lies. I haven't watched the tour in what seems like more than a decade. I would have more respect if they just flat out allowed them to use whatever they wanted to compete and make the rides harder. 

Yeah I was let down by Lance too, and I was also convinced that he wasn't doping and the French were going after him because he was beating them and they could not stand having an American win their tour.  I haven't paid any attention to the tour since then and could not name the last winner.

Lance's self justification was that everyone else was doping so he did it otherwise he could not have competed.  I can understand that part, but when he went after Floyd with a lawsuit and publicly trashed people with his lies, that did it for me.