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| Artwork for the special poster for the C.O.G.100 |
Okay, between my daughter and I we have done some final tweaking to the C.O.G. 100 poster artwork. This limited edition poster is a joint effort between my daughter, Izabel, and I, and will be printed up in a run of 75 prints. These will be signed and numbered by myself and by my daughter. They will be given away to each attending rider at the inaugural C.O.G. 100.
I posted a version of this on Twitter and someone suggested it would be a great tattoo for the winners. Ah..........yeah........While that may be true, I am not forcing anyone to do that. But, if anyone who wins wants to go get the ink done, who am I to stop them? Tattoos are kind of.......personal. Not something one just has done to them because they crossed some arbitrary finish line first. But hey......that's just me. And I happen to be running this shindig, so...... No.
Anyway.... Course recon will be happening tomorrow. Then I'll draft cues and later on we will do the whole recon thing one more time before the event to verify everything. Doing 100 miles versus over three times that much will be......easy. In relative terms, that is. So, I'm getting off easy now. Plus, I already know most of the route. It isn't like I haven't been on the gravel roads around Grinnell before,ya know?
Just to recap, the C.O.G. 100 will hold registration on January 2nd, 2019. Time TBA, fee TBA. Think around $20.00 though. Shouldn't be far from that figure. Field limit will be 75 folks. Start will be at Miller Park, Grinnell Iowa. Pre-event Meeting will take place promptly at 7:00am and the event proper will start promptly at 8:00am. Cues will be handed out just prior to the event at the pre-event meeting. NO GPS FILES FOR THE COURSE WILL BE GENERATED BEFOREHAND. Self-supported, NO PASS THROUGH TOWNS*.
*Note- I am running the course near a town with a convenience store. An "alternative route" will lead you through this town to get supplied. IT WILL ADD EXTRA MILES. So, if ya gotta resupply, you will suffer a mileage and time penalty by default. If not, well...... Then you decide to take that chance.
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| Ooooo! Purrrrrrrple! |
While the frame and fork remain the same as they have been for a few years now, the color is new. Actually, Twin Six does fantastic colors on the Standard Rando every so often. About the only clunker in the bunch, in my humble opinion, was the white with green stripes. Otherwise...... Winning.
And the winningest color so far is the newest. Purple, of course, because.....Minneapolis. What other color could it have been?
Sometimes I wonder what may have happened if Prince had liked, yellow. Keep everything else the same, just yellow. Well........maybe not. "Yellow Rain" would not have had the same feel as it did being "Purple Rain", now would it? No. Ah......okay. 'Nuff of that nonsense.
Twin Six needs to upgrade this design though. It needs to be through axles and it needs more tire clearance. They claim 700 X 43, but trust me, this is a 700 X 38mm tire bike, maximum. 650B wheels and tires actually work really well, but here again, you should stick to 650B X 47. Lots of folks are thinking 700 X 45 and 650B X 2" now, so I think it is high time for T-6 to redesign this model. Color changes only go so far. That said, it is a fantastic riding bike. I really liked mine.
Anyway, you should get a purple bike. Salsa Cycles is doing a super cool purple Vaya as well. so, get yer purple on and look at these rigs.
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| 68 years ago this was new. |
And now for something completely different!
My boss at the shop collects a few oddball things. Clocks, old camera equipment, and of late he has been the recipient of some old tube radios. (For you U.K. readers, that would be valve powered radios) Anyway, he got one the other day and showed it to me yesterday. I thought it was pretty rad. So, he decided to let me have it.
It is a 1950 Crosley. It has 5 Crosley branded vacuum tubes in it, (Here is a blog post from a radio repair site about the guts of this if you want to geek out. Click here) . It is AM only, of course, and it does work. Anyway, I think it is pretty cool.
The knob on the left turns the unit on and you have to wait to let the tubes warm up before anything happens. Then the knob on the right is the tuning dial and that is connected to the pointer in the center by a rubber "O" ring type belt which rotates pointer to indicate which station frequency you are picking up.
Of course, there are not many AM radio stations operating anymore. But this reminds me of when I was younger. You had to have patience and sit and try to "tune in" whatever you could find out there. Now days everything is more direct. If your selected web site doesn't load instantaneously, you get frustrated. Heck, with this old gizmo you might take five minutes, or more, just to fine tune in a station to get the best reception. Thunderstorms in the area? Fahgeddaboudit! You were listening to every lightning strike!
Anyway, I hope y'all enjoyed seeing this old relic of days gone by.
Have a great weekend and as always- Thanks for reading G-Ted Productions!
2 comments:
I guess I have a soft spot in my heart for purple bikes! My stable includes a Univega Alpina Sport MTB I've converted to a gravel road/rail trail touring bike. Also, there is a Paramount PDG series 7 road bike I've converted to what I call a "mini rando" bike. Both bikes have Cromoly steel frames and the old school purple fade type paint job where the color goes from an intense purple to a lighter, almost bluish, purple. That T6 is a beauty.
Oh, and about the radio. Such a great gift to receive! There's nothing like the audio and the crackle/buzz of AM radio. I recall, as a child in the early 60s, listening to my grandparents radio while they listened to the news and "party-line show" on local radio station KDKD out of Clinton, Missouri. I recall that radio was pink in color. Also, the enclosure was plastic and it felt warm to touch when on awhile. It's design was pretty plain and not the Art Deco that was so popular in those days.
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