RavX Lighting Co.

Many moons ago when I first got my bike I got some lights on craigslist. I met some guy in a parking lot by state and I got a set of head and tail lights by RavX. They’ve been hanging tough for a while now but my tail light had a bracket and rubber strap mounting combo and my rubber strap broke from the years of wear and tear. Since I am a fuckin cheap ass bastard (they ARE only $10.19 on amazon AND I have glued it together since it broke a while back) I got a wild hair up my ass to look for replacement straps online. To my surprise there was no such thing. Anywhere. Not even on the RavX website. So I decided I would call them and see if they even offered just the straps for replacement. I called and they had me send a pic of my light with my address so they could identify the model and send me back a replacement rubber strap!

THAT’S WHAT I’M FUCKING TALKING ABOUT!!!

This is my second awesome encounter via phone and email with random shit I wanted in regards to bike parts. One time I called Spank to find a stem I really wanted for my bike. Turned out the stem made my knees feel like they were going to explode but it is a solid stem (destroyed my knees. holy fuck.) and they were super helpful. They had someone hit me back and send it to my local bike shop, he even sent stickers and a shop banner but the stickers were nowhere to be found (I would of done the same thing if I worked there) and the old guy who runs the shop figured I didn’t need a shop banner so he kept it haha. He was right but I just wanted the stickers.

BUT … as I was saying. RavX. Solid light. Flash Tube. $10.19. Amazon. Get one. Get two. Send me one. Hit up RavX. Ask for FREE shit. It might work.

Wait, wait. I recall at one point in time I wrote flying coffin about how their new shirts were not so great fitting. The smalls that used to fit great were now something similar to an amercian apparel shirt. The guy who runs it wrote back that everyone else thought they were great but he offered to send me mediums in place of my smalls and then never got back to me haha.

But yeah get at them lights.

Labor Day Woot

All in all it was a fairly memorable holiday weekend. The Cono-Lu came down too, which is always a good thing.

I kicked it off with buying a new phone. After going thru two tmobile dash phones and relying on a beat up razor I use as a back up phone I decided it was time to up my phone game.

I wont lie I really would like an iphone but I dont even own a mac so changing mobile service providers just to own one seems silly. So I went with what for now seemed like the next best thing- the T-Mobile Samsung Vibrant (It’s not an iphone)

It’s pretty nice and I really dig the android os. It’s kind of weird to always be connected to the internet.

Next highlight was the slaying of the San Diego bay. Conor and I were dropped off in coronado and rode down the strand and up past chula and nasty city before cutting thru down town and landing back at my place in city heights. 30 or so miles, felt great.

And Lu found me a sweet watch for $15.00 and the rest was history. It’s like time travel. A timex makes me feel like I’m eight years old! It is huge and has indiglo and I set it up to beep every hour 🙂

This is also my first post using the wordpress app for android.

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Xty & Chris go to Sonic!

So last night we got nuked and drove to the Sonic in Santee (it was seriously like 15 minutes away!) The watermelon slush ruled, and the burger was the stuff heart attacks are made of. It was pretty good, maybe cuz we ate it in the parking lot. On the way home I stopped by a porn store and bought a ten pack of Ez-Whips… from a guy who totally smelt like three days of unshowered spanking. Whip its are weird, they never change and make me think of death.

friday

In other news my bicycle, the Wildwood Flower is sporting a new look for the season with some riser bars and black Oury grips. I also bought some new pink fyxation tires for her b-day, which is my b-day (Yay us!). It’s like a completely different bicycle. It is much more upright now, and it takes me a little longer to get to work when I use them in comparison to the bullhorn bars (bullhorns = me go fast) These riser bars make it easier to do normal stuff like jumping up a curb or riding around on a dirt trail making the bike even more functional. I will post a pic soon. I’m hoping I can swing a set of fyxation grips in the same pink color as the tires in a little bit. But I’m happy with the Oury’s for now. Blah blah blah I still need a helmet.

Going with it…

So let’s just say I been getting a little roughed up in the soft spots down below since I recently adjusted my seat. However I can’t just put my seat back to how it was because it is much better positioned now and I can ride more aggressively and it gives me a better posture. I was reading around that it could be from riding with cotton, which is usually what I’m wearing. I have been commuting for like 6 months now in cut off jeans and it’s never been a problem. More reason to believe it is related to the damn seat positioning.

canari gel liner

So in hopes that the seat can stay where it is and I can get some crotch relief I purchased a pair of gel padded biking underwear. These can go under any regular pair of shorts and hopefully will work out for me. It is the next logical step (well I guess adjusting the seat would be, but hey…) They actually feel pretty cool and I can see why roadies would dig on dressing up in cycling gear. Although the gel chamois makes it feel like I am wearing a tiny diaper under everything.  I will be giving them a chance today. I may report back depending on how great or terrible the whole thing is.

Bike Part Bidness

Picked up some goodies a few days ago from… get this… Amazon. Let it be known I have never ordered a thing from Amazon, ever. First time yo! And the best part is I didn’t even click on my own link to get credit on my affiliate account (dumbshit!)

Anywhoo, I picked up a new chain, seat post clamp and a huge black… water bottle (the shit was only $2.99!!)

Spank Tweet Tweet Chain

The chain is a Spanky’s Tweet Tweet chain, I got the black one. It looks tough, has half links and is black. It looks really black like that stuff foot ball players but under their eyes or burnt cork. That being said I’m hoping that the chain looks like the one in the above pic with something of a thick black coat of paint rather than being anodized like the red and blue. Maybe the black is also anodized and it just looks better who knows. Either way my bike has been doing me well for over 9 months so it deserves a little love.

Surly Constrictor

Next is this hefty hefty seat post clamp. The Surly Constrictor is friggin massive and flat black so I’m down. I’m super into hefty, I want my bike to be a tank. Flat black everything is the way to go. I read around before buying it and it’s a good clamp if you are a fat ass and you keep pushing your seat down or if you are not a fat ass and your seat is sliding down on it’s own. I don’t really have any problems with my seat post slipping but my current clamp is dying, it is wound very tight and the screw is sticking out of it even though there is no exit hole for it. It’s a P.O.S. and needs to replaced so this part will be greatly appreciated.

water bottle

Lastly for no reason other than the fact that it was $2.99 I picked up this massive 28 oz water cannon! I believe a regular old bottle is like 11 oz so this thing is over twice the size. Really, I don’t ever see myself needing that much hydration. While the thought of aiming a massive bottle at my face while on the road is pretty awesome I really bought it because the lid on my hot pink bottle has bitten the dust and I think I can take the black one off of this one and apply it to the pink one. If toy collecting has taught me anything it’s that you can make some plastic do just about anything you want if you hit it with a hair dryer for a little bit.

And a good bye treat, if you don’t think this is funny I don’t wanna know you. I apologize if the skanky pizza girl is offending to you but I found it more appealing Howard Sterns stunning visage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7UNG8a33AQ&NR=1

Throw some paint on it

It’s taken a few months but I have made a little progress. I coated my frame and fork in hot rod black primer after stripping all the paint off. I was rockin’ the raw steel but was noticing little rust spots appearing anywhere water had been for more than a few seconds. So I sanded it down, threw some paint on it and boom. Also got the bigger pink tires in. It’s still missing a few ingredients but all in due time.

work in progress

Stripping the Frame Set

I totally dropped the ball this year on Halloween, I don’t really know why I just did not give a sh*t this year. I realized I was looking for costumes 2 days before it and just said fuuuuggit. What I did manage to do though was to take apart my bicycle and chemically remove the 6 layers of alternating orange and yellow as well as 2 layers of primer and burgundy spray paint from the frame and fork. It took a few coats of paint remover but I got all the paint off and was disappointed to see the crappy welds that hold my frame together, it’s all kind of crude. Paint remover is pretty radical though.

Paint Removal

After a while it started feeling like a tank and the anxiety I had about going in and tinkering with the bike was replaced with a zen like comfort that it is just a bike. I mean you can see it all right there in front of you. No matter how bad I screw up there’s always the local bike shops.

Paint Removal

I did all with an allen wrench set, a long flat head screw driver, a small hammer, two large phone books, one small phone book and two trips to the bike shop for a lock ring and bottom bracket remover ($30). I also had to snatch a bag of bike tools from my moms house (priceless).

Paint Removal

It was really cool to be able to get it all back together again too. Banging on steel with a phone book and a hammer was ghetto but it worked out nicely. It’s all coming along, need to get a wheel set and a new headset and then I will paint the frame flat black and probably change my handlebars. For now I just have raw steel and I’m hoping it doesn’t begin to rust.

Bike are for tweekers. The tools are all tweeked out too. Grease smells like grease. I smell like grease.

Fyxation Pink Tires!

I finally found some pink tires I can dig on. It came between these and some Tufo tubular tires. These were cheaper and I figured I’d be better off not worrying about tires with no inner tubes and gluing them down to the rim and all that good stuff. I think both tires were a similar shade of neon pink. They are a little thicker than my current tires but I figured I should get them now and worry about some new rims and hubs in the near future. I hope they fit as there is very little room in the rear inner of the frame. Getting closer.

fyxation
Fyxation tires