Minus Ten Review 2009-45

Doing the recon in the "new to me" rig at the time.

Ten years ago on the blog I kind of "soft-launched" the news that I had a different vehicle. The old "Dirty Blue Box", 1990 Honda Civic 4 door hatchback wagon died during the Summer of 2009. I finally replaced it with a 2003 Toyota Tundra. This became the "recon vehicle" for the remainder of the Trans Iowa events and to this day it is my vehicle.

I've been fortunate to have had this truck, and I have had some pretty crazy times in that truck, some of which will be covered in my "Trans Iowa Stories" series. Stay tuned for that in the future.

The other thing I was chatting about, and probably one of the most surprising things that ever happened to me, was when I got a surprise gift from George Wissel from Vermont. He ran a bike shop at the time and somehow he had gotten the last few purple anodized 1 1/8th head sets from Chris King. I remember saying something about that on the blog here. Well, good ol' George packed one up, put in some cool t-shirts and stickers, and sent the box off to me at unawares. Boy! Was that ever a cool gift.

That head set went straight on the Salsa Cycles El Mariachi I spoke of last week which was Gun Koted a kind of purple-egg plant type of color. Then I took it out in 2012 when I got the original Ti Muk and it has been in that bike since until I sold the head set and bike earlier this year.

Of course, since 2009 Chris King made purple ano stuff again. So, the head set wasn't all that odd by 2011. But the thought George had to send this present to me was not ever forgotten. Way too kind!