Pregled posta

Marketing

The letter I wrote to Tom Ritchie, the builder of this bike, upon returning home from its final ride:

I love my bike. I suppose I should start getting used to saying I loved my bike. But it's hard. This bike got me around Boston, a continent's width away from my home, where I lived for four years carless and happy. This bike I rode from the middle of the city to the relative peace of Walden Pond, to the ocean beaches, to the restaurants of diverse ethnic neighborhoods, to neglected urban forests.

This bike ultimately carried me away from the east coast when I quit my job, shipped my possessions, and hit the road pointed in a westerly direction. This bike carried me over thousands of miles, into Canada in a driving rainstorm, past a border agent who may or may not have believed me when I responded to his question about my destination by answering "Seattle."

This bike carried me through the flooded midwest in 2002, past Great Lakes homes whose lawns were looked kitsch landfills, strewn with lawn gnomes and windmills. This bike eluded charging dogs, passed grazing deer, sat respectfully by when I dismounted to save a road-crossing turtle from the fast lanes. This bike held together beautifully with a little regular care when bikes of other long-distance travelers I met were limping along tragically. This bike carried me from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, and on many roads between.

This bike has served me in all weather, in many cities, on countless miles of logging backroads and singletrack, often performing better than flashy new full-suspension bikes. This bike even once had its picture in The Christian Science Monitor. Solid, well-built, dependable...I really, really love this bike.

But this bike has carried me its last mile. This morning, riding briskly through the grass alongside a quiet road, this bike had a sudden encounter with a raised but hidden utility box. In what was surely an exciting and dramatic scene to anyone who might have been less of a participant than I was, I did a little spontaneous flying, and after I found that I was unbroken, my heart sank to find that this bike was not. Its frame crumpled, front tire flattened, it told me without words that it had carried me its last mile. In taking the brunt of the impact, it probably saved me from harm. It was that kind of bike.

This bike's name was Eliza, named after the granddaughter of a pioneer that I learned about somewhere in the midwest. She was built by Tom Ritchie in 1988, given the original name of "Timber Comp," I believe. She was 20 years old at the time of her demise, and she is survived by her riding partner, a very sad cyclist from Olympia, Washington. I will have to get another bike, but it won't be Eliza and it won't replace her.

Please tell Tom she was a great bike, dependable and loyal to the end.

a bike mount i made for timelapse camera - any camera with standed 1/4-20 threaded mount.

it's a 2 piece clamp, rather than a one piece which makes it easier to mount in the middle of handlebars/go over the brakes. possible a long flexible strap could make it work with one fastener rather than two but as is, you can really crank it down.

you can also set the tilt angle and turn the camera around to face yourself while riding. you can also clamp to various other tubes. thinking about making this into a kit. is this something that exists already? how much would you pay for such a thing?