Monday Post 62 Mile Bike Ride...

FEVER TREE lyrics

Fever Tree
San Francisco Girls
1968

First off, I note the History Channel ran a special documentary on "Hippies," which was sponsored by the AARP...if you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some Metamucil in your hair...yet another sign of that the End Days are upon us...better get that Triumph Thruxton soon!

Oh, and...don't touch my back, my achy breaky back...or something like that. Ground off a 62-mile group bicycle ride out of Loveland with my Sweetie yesterday, at 4-5 hours. No bad, considering we're wildly undertrained...this was our third road bike ride of the season. I also have the Permanent Head Cold, which I figure cost me about 20-30 minutes overall — if I pushed too hard I had your basic coughing fit. Nice ride, too. There are two big climbs, which come at 20 and 40 miles, more of less. I changed out tires to Panaracer Sports, not my favorite tire but what was available in the tiny bike shop in the mountain town I live in...my natty Vottorias were badly worn from last season and I didn't want to drive to Boulder. The Panaracers worked fine, and I'll leave them on my everyday wheels as trainers.

DOWN RANGE NOTE!!! Marshal and I have moved the NEW VIDEO and NEW MB PODCAST day from MONDAY to WEDNESDAY. Why? You can probably figure this out on your own...we were working all week, then using Saturday and Sunday to "finish up the details." The net result of that little piece of stupidity was that both of us were woring routine 7-day weeks. Sucked....tune in Wednesday for another Ruger Rimfire Challenge video, a training tip from the SIG Academy and, hopefully, the Jeff Cooper Memorial. My weekly podcast will address two critical issues — carrying BIG guns and, of course, zombies.

I saw a Triumph Thruxton barreling out of the mountains yesterday...totally stood out against the streetbikes and parade of Harleys and metric cruisers and hammered home that the Thruxton is going to be my next bike. First thing I did with my Nortons (two Commandos and an Atlas) was toss the Prince of Darkness Lucas Electrics and replaced them with as much Japanese stuff as I could.

I rebult the Atlas from the ground up — I bought it for $200 in a box. It was a great great bike...I rode the hell out of it for years and sold it for a nice chunk of change...but, of course, it wasn't a Commando. I really liked the 750 Combats better than the more "refined" — if you can use that word about any Brit bike! — 850s, but the Combats ran hot hot hot an 11.5-1 compression ratio, and if you didn't watch the oil sooner or later a piston launched into the stratosphere. Nort engines blew up very colorfully and emphatically.

And yeah, I rode a Bridgestone 90 in motorcross...it had a weird gearbox that just kept cranking around, reslting in some fascinating surprises. It also had relatively cheesey front forks...back in high school days, I was trail riding with my friend Shelby, who had not a lick of sense (you can read a little about him in WHITE BOY SINGING THE BLUES, an earlier book of mine), when Shelby jumped a ditch on this Bultaco. I launched late and managed to hook those cheesey forks into a dead tree limb sticking up out of the ditch. The forks bent and I exited the bike in an high curving arc, landed well and was congratulating myself on my good luck when the Bridgestone, expansion chamber first, landed nearby, bounced once and fell across my legs. Yeowuuch! Miracle we survived our youth without government intervention.

BTW, we're going to do a NEW GUN LAUNCH from Ruger in June on DOWN RANGE...totally cool, and a first! You'll see it when we see it.

I do have to confess that I've been slack gunwise...cargo shorts and a J-frame. I've left the Taurus Ultra-Lite for my Sweetie and have been carrying an S&W Airweight 642 hammerless .38 (the cheap one), which actually seems like like Federal +P Hydrashocks better than the usual Hornadys. Well, to each its own. Right now, I've got a set of old-style Crimson Trace Lasergrips on it, but I'm going to change them out for the stubbier new ones...a little better for cut-away cargo pockets. I'd also like to note that CT has done a Good Thing, creating a low-cost Defender 105 Series for pocket pistols...do I have to say again that EVERY pocket pistol needs a set of Lasergrips? Remember, you can get the 642 with a Lasergrip staright from S&W.

And, yes, I suppose that one sunny morning when my ship comes in I'll get one of the uber-natty 340 M&Ps, which I still will NOT shoot .357s out of!

I loved shooting the Hans Vang 12-gauge last week. I'm headed to the range on Wednesday to film a full report. I've also got a Knoxx recoil reducing stock for it, so I'll do some before and after stuff (although I may have to juggle Hans' dome safety.