I did something stupid.  But only because flickr did something even more stupid.

Many, but probably not all of you, know that for a long time I’ve had a flickr account that I’ve kept pretty active.  I started putting pictures on flickr in 2005.  It became a great community for me.  A great reason to take pictures even.  I think that in many ways I owe a lot of my development as a photographer to that community, and the desire to share images with its members.  When I began building bikes, I already had an audience.  Because of flickr, I have never had to advertise, and I have never been without work.  When I got sick, I had a ready-made group of supporters willing to help in any way that they could.

Over the years flickr has changed a lot.  Many of those changes made necessary by the growing popularity of the site..  Its higher visibility.  It has gotten more puritanical.  Some of you may remember my run in with them over a public art piece that involved a man peeing.  It has also changed its look a number of times, and in my mind usually not for the better.  I’ve hung in there, though, because that’s where the people were.  That’s where the community had developed.

Yesterday they rolled out a set of changes that are simply beyond the pail to me.  The best thing about flickr, visually, has always been that it is a fairly clean environment for displaying photographs.. Not all jumbled up with the social media side of things, or plastered with ads.  Yesterday that all changed.  The site has become hideous.  There are some other changes that I hate too, involving membership and what you get for your money..  but the biggest thing is the fact that I just don’t like looking at photos on the site anymore.  It’s all junked up..  jumbled and crowded and noisy.  It has none of the class that it once had.  It’s not a place that I care to look at photos anymore, and it’s not a place that I particularly care to have other people look at mine!  Please please forgive me if that sounds precious.  I’m not alone in this.  The change has sparked general outrage, and there are petitions going around with thousands of signatures begging them to change it back.

In protest and disgust yesterday, I made all my photos private.  That is to say, I didn’t take them off of flickr, I simply made them invisible to anyone but me.  And I put up a single image lamenting.. mourning.. the death of flickr.   When I made this massive batch change to my stream of over 3000 photos it didn’t occur to me (and I wasn’t warned), that this would change those photos’ URLs and that any links to those photos (including the links on this blog) would go dead.  It also didn’t occur to me (and I wasn’t warned) that these photos would loose all the favorites that they had accumulated on flickr over the years, and be removed from my friends’ and contacts’ favorites collections.  When I realized that this had happened I conceded and made the photos public again so that the blog and my website would still have images, but decided that I would no longer post to flickr..  that I’d find some other way to share photography.

Sadly, making the images public again did NOT restore the URLs nor did it restore the favorites.  All of that has simply vanished into the ether.  (My fast boy cycles website works a little differently – not by individual URL, but by more dynamic links to sets on flickr – and those have been restored).  Because the URLs are different now, it’ll be a real chore to even figure out WHAT image went with what post.  Restoring images to this blog will be several days of work (individually figuring out what image went with what post.. 5 years worth..  locating the image and making a version of it in photoshop that is appropriate for upload directly to the wordpress blog so that further changes at flickr don’t mess it all up again).  I haven’t decided whether or not I have what it takes to do it.

I apologize gang.  My mistake. I know that this blog is not the same without images.

Hey flickr – before allowing people to change the permissions on thousands of photos, how about warning them about the consequences..   Oh..  and while you’re at it..  Make the site look nice again.  It looks like crap right now, and I’m not going to use it anymore.  I’m so sad.. we’ve had a bunch of good years.  But it’s not me..  it’s you.

I had a doc appointment yesterday.  Nothing to report.  He IS ordering a ct scan so we’ll have some notion of how the tumors have grown.   I will meet with the head of “supportive care” on Friday.

Fast Boy out.

UPDATE!

Thank you all so much for your offers of help.   Hold that thought for a moment, though.  It seems as though a friend may have managed to write a little script to plug into my blog that will go find the correct URL and plug it in.  We’re testing it out now.  We might be back up and running with images before to long.  Thank you thank you…  and please stand by!

It’s been a minute since I’ve written anything up here.

This broken arm has really been making me feel tired.  Everything takes more energy.  It seems to be healing just fine.  I only wear a splint if I’m on the subway, or somewhere else that I’m likely to get run into.  But I can’t (shouldn’t) lift anything, and range of motion is pretty compromised.  Playing pool is no issue.  That’s a big relief.  Cooking is slow, though.  Trying to do anything in the shop is slow/not possible.  This week I have slid out of retirement to teach a bike building class to an old friend.  By the time 5:00 rolls around and I send him away, I am ready for bed.  Last night I rallied after an evening nap and made dinner for friends/family.  Tonight I will have to rally to go to Sam Amidon’s album release at Poisson Rouge.  If you don’t already know of our good friend Sam, you should familiarize yourself..  and if there are tickets left for the event, you should buy them!  (see you there).

I have requested an appointment with my doc.  I’m curious (and a bit terrified) to perhaps do some imaging and see how the tumors have progressed.  We’re two weeks away from the beginning of June, which will be 6 months from the time that the docs suggested that I had 6-8 months to live.   I guess it’s possible that whatever increased levels of pain and fatigue I’m feeling are purely due to the anxiety/depression of that reality.  Maybe getting some pictures and seeing that the tumors haven’t advanced nearly as much as the doctors had expected will help on that level.

On the other hand, the docs could look at the pictures and say, “we’re pretty surprised that you’re not feeling MORE fatigued than you are..  shit..  you shouldn’t be upright!  Why don’t you head home and we’ll send someone to set you up with a morphine drip”

“Um.  Doc.  That’s not going to work for me.  I’m supposed to be racing bikes in Germany in August..”

Gang.  This thing is wearing me down.  I’ve been wanting to work on getting some photos up for sale on my website, as some of you have requested..  I’ve been wanting to do some work on my website in general – make an auction page for the UTA – make it a little more clear on the orders page that I’m not looking for new orders at this stage, etc..   I’ve been wanting to work on a set of stools that are rattling around in my head (broken arm not helping with that either, really).. There ARE even some people that I’d like to spend a little time with.  But I’m not finding the energy to do any of it.

We have a couple of sets of really nice new linen sheets for our bed.

The folks from Made By Hand came to the house for a couple of days in January of 2012 to shoot a short film about me.  I had been pretty hesitant about the idea from the start, and when the appointed day(s) rolled around I wasn’t in great shape.  I was in remission.  I was cancer free, as far as we knew.  I was building bikes and trying to get on with my life.  But I was pretty depressed.  I guess not uncommon for people who have been through treatment for cancer..  AND it was January.

I opened the door expecting Keith (the film maker) and a camera man..  it turned out to be a crew of 6 (7?).  I was overwhelmed.  The two days left me feeling pretty wretched.  I said all sorts of things in front of the camera that I regretted having said.  Like the feeling you sometimes have after a night of too much drinking, when you wake up and think “wow..  did that really tumble out of my mouth?” and you think about how maybe you’d be better off if you just took a vow of silence.  I have a feeling that I may have said “hipster dipshits,” at least a couple of times during filming, and some things about the people to whom I was referring that I’m not about to dredge up and repeat here.  The guys in the crew were unbelievably nice about it, though..  and in the end, they made a film that did NOT make me seem like the bitter wretched human being that I felt like at the time.  I am very grateful for that.

Enjoy.   And as always, thank you all for staying tuned.

Perfecto!

The nice folks at NYHQ made me not one, but two gutter splints yesterday (I turned down a third..  no joke).

One for full support, and one for playing pool and cooking.

They were wonderfully accommodating.  All my gratitude.

Now.  Off to play some pool, and see how well it works.

(getting that cast off is like getting out of jail..  man oh man.)

A quick update.

Call off the dogs!  Thank you all for putting out the feelers.  Tomorrow I’ll be getting this cast off.

The doc who saw me a couple of weeks ago for my knee promptly answered my email and had the head of trauma at his hospital give me a call.  I spoke with him this morning.  It turns out that for a nightstick fracture like mine, the long arm cast is pretty old school.  He’s going to be seeing me on thursday about the possibility of surgery.  In the mean time, one of his colleagues will be seeing me tomorrow to remove the cast and fit me with a gutter splint (think custom molded shin guard, but for your arm-shins..).  This will not be bulky, and will be removable so that I can shower without the complication of having to keep a cast dry.  So I’ll have until thursday to decide whether the gutter splint is enough of an improvement over the cast.  If it’s not, we’ll be able to discuss surgery.  The doc felt that there was enough debate out there right now about the best way to treat a nightstick fracture, that it would probably be possible to get insurance to pay for the surgery.

Action!  Just one more night with this bloody cast!

I don’t have time for this shit.

A couple of weeks ago, after I blew up my ACL, my friend Seth Rosko stopped by for a visit.  He said something to the effect of, “Ha..  I love your strategy.. Fuck your body up so bad that the only way the universe can get the ironic upper hand is by letting you live!”

Those words were ringing in my ears last weekend when I had a goofy fall in the first ten minutes of a ride with MySam and dislocated my shoulder.  In some strange moment of clarity, I INSTANTLY popped it back in.  It turns out that was pretty good thinking..  the five second rule apparently applies to dislocated shoulders too!  We rode for another hour and a half without serious incident.  (It’s been pretty sore since, but hasn’t affected my pool game too much.)

Yesterday, though, I broke my arm.  Night-stick fracture of the ulna, about 7 cm from the wrist.  Complete break with no displacement.

This is all quite embarrassing.  I wasn’t even planning on mentioning the shoulder.  The thing is that after years of teaching what was essentially break dance, I fall pretty well.  Ask anyone who’s ridden with me.  For a while now, I’ve been getting away with murder.  It seems like it’s catching up with me, though.  On this particular crash, it was either my face or my forearms.  I don’t even care to discuss how those ended up being the choices.  Suffice it to say that I’m probably pretty lucky to have ended up with a broken arm..  my helmet wasn’t going to help me with this one.

We walked out.  My good friend Todd refused to let me ride.

We drove back to the city.  Bumper to bumper a good part of the way(?).  Went to the emergency room.  They got me in much faster than I would have guessed, confirmed the break, and put on a long arm cast.

“Don’t get it wet..  you’ll start to grow fungus, and we won’t be able to get in there for 6-8 weeks.. ”

“Wait..  six to eight weeks!!!??   Doc, I’m not even supposed to live that long..”

“No No” *chuckle* “you’ll be around longer than that.”

At the end of the night the same doc was taking my medical history on a piece of scrap paper..

“Any other medical issues?”

“Well.  I have stage IV metastatic rectal cancer..”

My previous statement started sinking in.

“Oh.  I’m so sorry.  Anything else?”

“Nope.  Otherwise I’m perfectly healthy.”

So here’s the deal.  I’m having real trouble finding the humor in this.  The discomfort is a non issue compared to the lack of function.  Right now, the things that bring me pleasure in life are riding mountain bikes, playing pool, making things, and cooking in the evening for my little family.  These are the things that keep me from going off the rails.  They are the things that make it seem to me that there aren’t enough hours in the day.  Without those things, and none of them are things that I can do with a long arm cast, I’m afraid that the days are going to start feeling pretty long.  I was awake for a good portion of the night last night.  All I came up with was playing darts.

I’m not looking for suggestions.  In fact, please don’t make any.

What I AM looking for is an orthopedic surgeon who is willing to plate my ulna so that I can loose the cast, and even if I am not able to do any weight bearing I WILL at least be able to cook and play pool.

So.  I’d like to do a little crowd sourcing.  This is not likely to be something that insurance is willing to cover, but I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it.  (there ARE some indications that plating the bone in my situation is a better strategy anyway).  Being able to do the things I love for the next six weeks may be worth it to me, though.

Who do we know?

I’ve already got the feelers out with some of my team, but if you ARE the doc, or know the doc, please be in touch!

Fast Boy out.

I’m fine, just fine.

The haircut worked.  A bit.
I went for a 3 and a half hour ride at Blue yesterday and my knee held up well enough that this morning’s ride at Graham doesn’t seem like folly.  I didn’t ride WELL.  But I got it done.  A little the way I’ve been playing pool..  A bit distracted, but still managing to get the job done for the most part.  I scrambled back last week, controlling the table for 25 balls, to take J’s money after it was looking a lot like he might actually beat me.

I’ve got an appointment on thursday (I think.. not yet confirmed) to get an MRI of the knee and immediately have a consult with the doc.  If there is an obvious meniscal tear that can be cleaned up easily it might be worth doing.  Recovery time is short.  I’ve done it before.. I’ve got some idea.  The MRI will confirm an ACL rupture (or maybe not), but I’m not going to be replacing that old thing!!

Simon Firth is the official repair guy in the US for Brooks.   When he heard about the UTA and saw that I was putting a swift on it, he suggested that Brooks would probably be interested in joining the list of donors.  I told him that I already had a Ti Swift, but he got me one anyway…   and added a little treat!  Brooks. Simon.  Thank you.  Too many beautiful!

Last week I had a tough string of days.

The first was a very bad Wednesday of pool.  I started out well enough, strutting to the table and running a couple of racks, but somehow I lost it. I started missing and sank into a funk.  I was really indulging in feeling sorry for myself.   Wallowing in it and for the better part of an hour never managed to string more than a couple of balls together.  I was angry, just seething, and had no idea why.  I was angry at everyone making noise..  I was angry at everyone walking by..  Finding excuses in every tiny distraction. (meanwhile, when I’m shooting well, the two guys at the next table could climb up on top of it and start having sex, and I wouldn’t even notice).  I had a realization that one of the few things that’s making me really happy these days is to be AT the table shooting well.  It is a meditation for me.  I can get lost in it.  But only when I’m playing well.  When I’m playing badly, it is the worse sort of torture.

Jeremiah felt so bad for me at the end of the day that he payed for the table (we were playing at his pool hall.. not mine).  I stayed on to see if I could work out the kinks.  The dysfunctional older couple at the table next to me, (Him trying to give her lessons on how to shoot pool..  like an EMU or some other flightless bird trying to teach a pig how to fly), had been replaced by a young Chinese guy.

“are you playing straight pool?”
“yes”
“why don’t you come over here and join me..”

It turned out that he hadn’t been playing straight pool..  didn’t know what it was..   But I taught him the rules and beat the hell out of him for 45 minutes or so just to get the bad taste out of my mouth.  (He turned out to be a nice guy.)

“What do you do,” he asked.
“Well..  I’m retired.  I used to build custom bicycles.”
“You’re retired!?”
“Um..  You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I’m terminally ill.  So I’ve decided to retire.”

He was a little stunned.  Where did I live?  Could he please give me a ride home?  Did I mind talking about it?  How did I know I was sick?

A few minutes later I found myself in the passenger seat of a Maserati doing 65 miles an hour between red lights.
“Let me ask you something..   Do you know God?”

The next day James Swan came and picked me and Matthew up to take us to visit J.P.Weigle in his shop up in Connecticut.  Peter is one of the old guard of American bike building.  He and Richie Sachs went over to England and learned the trade when they were kids back in the 1900s.  Peter’s shop is wonderful.  It is the accumulation of 40 years of building bikes.  Bits and pieces of bicycle history and ephemera lying all over the place.  Shelves and drawers full of items that would make most bike geeks weak in the knees.  More importantly, though, it is a shop with windows, and a wood stove..  like the wood shop that I grew up in.  It’s the kind of shop that I’ve always dreamed of ending up in.  I’m so attached to NYC that I think mine would be in the city, not the country. Maybe on the second floor so that I could do some good people watching but maintain a level of privacy.  I had a warehouse space in the Bronx lined up at one point.  A wall of factory windows and 18 foot ceilings.  I was going to build an open storage loft in the back third of the space..  and a slightly raised office area where I could sit and survey the shop.  That was before the FIRST recurrence.  I spent much of my second year of treatment scheming and planning..  Figuring out how to make my basement space work better for me, realizing that with the looming threat of recurrence, I really couldn’t afford to take on overhead.. a lease that would continue to need to be payed even if I stopped being able to show up for work.  What I’ve ended up with is a very nice shop.  But I don’t have windows..  or a wood stove.  Visiting Peter’s shop, I was reminded that I never will.

It was a melancholy visit.  Peter recently got a beautiful Linley jig borer.   A gorgeous old machine just like one that I was about to buy before this recent recurrence and prognosis.   The excitement of a new machine.  I wandered around his shop taking pictures, and thinking about how I won’t be getting any new machines..  Instead I’ll be deciding what happens to the machines I already have after I’m dead.  Fuck.  Depressing.

On Friday I went mountain biking.  I thought I’d test out the knee before a weekend of riding with my brother and Todd and Amy and Sam.  St. George picked me up from the train and we went up to Blue.  We started out nice and slow, but it was pretty clear to me that the knee was problematic.  Click click, grind grind.  I was so nervous about falling to the left and having to catch myself on the bad leg, that I ended up doing a lot of preemptive falling to the right.  A lot more falling in general than I’m used to.  Eventually I fell neither left nor right, but directly forward.. and hard.   The bike landed on my head.  My head broke the bike..  The ride was over.  FUCK FUCK.  It’s nothing that I won’t be able to fix.  A few broken spokes.  But it’s pretty clear that my knee isn’t ready to be out riding.  I’ve been through this plenty.  This same knee has already had an ACL replacement and TWO subsequent surgeries to clean up torn meniscus.   So I know what it all feels like.  I’m afraid that on top of the newly torn ACL, there might be some meniscus damage as well.  An ACL replacement is not a surgery that is worth doing..  If I can be frankly dark about it, I wouldn’t be likely to fully recover from the surgery before I DIE.  No point.  A little scope to clean up an irritating flap of meniscus might be worth while, though.  BUT it means waiting for an appointment with an orthopedic doc.  Getting an MRI scheduled and waiting for the results.  Getting a surgery scheduled and waiting for that.  A lot of waiting.  (I don’t have time for this shit..  it’s like a mantra..)

That’s a depressing post.  It was a rough patch leading into a weekend of friends and relatives in town for Easter (and a voice recital by my cousin Gracie..  My GOD what a voice).  I’m really tired in the evenings these days.  Having a hard time finding the energy to cook dinner (something that I’ve always been able to do on auto pilot), and an even harder time sitting through the meal once it’s on the table.  Clearly something isn’t right.  I am counting on this process being a roller coaster ride and not just a steady decline.  If it’s a steady decline, I’m in trouble.

Here’s what I’m going to do about it.  Today.

I’m going to head in to the pool hall and see if I can put my head down and focus.  Block out the rest and just run some balls.  Maybe I can play some decent pool and trigger an upswing here!

I’m going to be in touch with my doc and see if there’s a way to streamline the MRI process so that I can go to an orthopedist already armed with the films.

I’m going to order up the bits and pieces that I need to fix up that rear wheel, AND to get the back up wheels from Bobby Earle up and running so that if it happens again it won’t mean any down time.

Finally.  I’m going to get a hair cut.  Even if nothing else works, THAT should change everything.

A week ago yesterday I took the UTA out for it’s 3rd ride.  The first ride was a bit of an anti-climax.  It had happened without much fanfare on the Thursday before.  I spent the whole ride trying not to puke, and was so distracted by it that I couldn’t get any sense at all of how the bike handled itself.  Wretched feeling.  It didn’t seem at all like appropriate punishment for the 5 or 6 weeks that I had been off a bike because of weather and travel.  It felt as though something was going on besides simply being out of shape.  When I had the same nauseated feeling the next day WITHOUT being on a bike I started to put two and two together.  The amount of narcotics I need to take to keep the pain under control has gone up dramatically.  Enough that my doc has switched me to, or added I guess, a slow release version of the same thing.  A couple of pills a day instead of tons.  Thursday’s ride happened to coincide with my first day on the stuff and after day two, it seemed clear enough that it was the drug making me feel ill.  I discontinued the stuff and went back out on the bike on Saturday and felt just fine.  An amazing relief.  I had been legitimately afraid for a moment there that perhaps my body was really beginning to fail me.  And quickly!  What a depressing thought..  that I had built this amazing bike to ride out my days, but had gotten it done (and the weather had cleared) just a little too late!   Well.  Not so.  Happy to report that I feel just fine.  By Sunday I was right back on top of my game.  Even after a decent ride on Saturday, I had good legs and managed to do a 3 hour ride with a gang of 6 other riders without having to be carried once!

The fact that I didn’t have to be carried is actually significant!  We rode at Blue Mountain Reservation.  We noodled around the interior for a while and then headed out onto a trail called “Monster,” that wanders out around the far perimeter of the park.  At a point precisely as far from the parking lot as it’s possible to be, feeling quite confident on the UTA (a veritable magic carpet), I took a runner at a little rock slab that I’ve never managed to quite get up.  I stalled and rolled backwards.  I put my foot down..  a little funny..  and heard/felt a cute little “pop.”

“Fuck”

“Ez?  You ok?”  The guy behind me asking was Todd Miller.  My good friend the PT from VT.

“Well..  I just ruptured my ACL,” I got back on the bike and started riding.

“Ez?  You need to stop for a sec?”  This time it was my brother, Zach.  (I think).

“Nope.”

I had already done the math.  Took me about 2 seconds.  We were as far away from the cars as we could be.  I was the only person on the ride who knew how to get back to them (not that they wouldn’t have been able to figure it out, but then what?).  Walking wasn’t going to be possible (and would be slower than riding anyway) and if I stopped moving, I was pretty sure that my knee would start to swell.  So off I went.  Zach claims that the pace of the ride actually increased.  FESTINA LENTE!!!!

At some point we paused to let the single speeders catch up and Todd was able to verify the sloppy knee.  I had given Peter N. my camera to carry for the day (By far the most capable rider among us AND, ding ding ding!!, a photographer) and he captured the moment.  Fingers crossed to no avail.

The bike is amazing, though.  I’m in love.  When I think of what I was able to ride on the thing.. and then remember that I BUILT it!!…   I get that same thrill that I got when I first started building bikes.  The fact that mountain bikes are such foreign territory for me, both riding and building, makes it feel new and magic again!  I’ve spent the week limping around, but feel ready to get back out there!! St. George reports that there’s still snow on the trails, though.  Probably just as well to give the knee a little more time and a little more bike tube PT.

At the end of February, Hill and I went to Europe.  Our good friend Glen gave us the most wonderful gift of an expenses paid vacation.  I haven’t talked about Glen too much on here because it feels a bit like name dropping.  He’s quite a talented and successful musician.  There are times, particularly when I see him perform, that I think, “wait a minute..  I KNOW this guy??!!”  But most of the time he’s just Glen.  He bought one of my bikes early on (no 8, I think) and it started a friendship that has grown and deepened over the years.  When he’s in town, typically he comes straight to us for a nice home cooked meal, and after being on the road with him in Europe I get it!  I was reminded of my own brief touring career (dance, not music), and how after a bit you DO just long for ‘home.’   We met up with him in Rome at the tail end of his Europe tour.  (He sang for me from stage..   What a thrill!)

The trip was amazing.  Florence.  Milan briefly. Dublin. Prague.  In Florence we stayed in the most amazing hotel I’ve ever been in..  Just blocks from the Duomo.  Lying in the bed looking out the window it blocked the sky.  We went to the president’s house in Dublin.. (I hugged him!!  and thanked him for going after the tea party).  We saw the European premiere of the Once musical.  Pierce Brosnan was there (Hill recognized him by his ass).  So was the president.  He saw me and smiled.. “Michael!  Twice in one day!” I said, and got another hug (I’m not kidding..  This was a big thrill for me).   We talked briefly about the importance of public support of the arts.  Prague was amazing.  I couldn’t stop looking at the ground!  The most beautiful cobbled streets and sidewalks.  Amazing beer.

The trip was exhausting though.  I was forced to recognize that I’m slowing down.  When I asked the doc months ago what I was likely to experience in my decline, fatigue was on the top of the list.  Whether it’s an emotional reaction to dealing with the reality of dying, or a physical reaction to the progress of the disease isn’t clear, to be honest.  The fatigue is real, though!

During a conversation with Glen in the car driving from Rome to Florence, he helped me make an important decision.

I have decided to retire.

I’m not going to build any more customer bikes.  I’m sending back down payments.  I can imagine this being a decision that I go back on..  I can imagine being one of those people who was given 6-8 months and then outlives their doctor.  But, I also FEEL like this disease is progressing, and if it’s true that I don’t have much time left I don’t want to spend it doing jobs.  Working in the shop, maybe..  yes.. if I get the urge, but not filling orders.  There are some things that I’d really like to make, and I don’t want to go out to the shop to work on them and feel as though I’m cheating on paying customers.  I’m also quite sure that I can’t fill enough orders before I go to leave Hill in some wildly different financial situation than I will be.  I’m sure that this sounds sensible enough, but it’s still a pretty tough decision to make.

Yesterday, the EVER patient T-Mac stopped by to pick up his cargo bike.  Still without wood, still without rack attachments, but ready to RIDE.  Perhaps the LAST customer bike to come out of the shop.

A very emotional moment for both of us as he swung his leg over for the bike’s first ride..  and my last delivery..   and then “CRUNCH”

Nothing is ever as simple as you imagine it being.  Maybe that’s how you know it’s truth and not fiction.  After about 45 minutes of fiddling around, we determined that the “crunch” was coming from the 3 x 9 speed hub.  The cassette driver seemed to be slipping.  Faulty hub, I think.  Looks like I’ll have to build him a new rear wheel.  Looks like I’m not retired quite yet!

Hello all.

Right after finishing the bike, my wife and I went to Europe for a few weeks and had a great time stumbling over history and art around every corner.  It had been years for me, and it was a great reminder.  Man oh man is Italy wonderful..  and Ireland is REALLY some kind of spooky green..  The beer in prague is every bit as good as they say!

We came back to a wet and snowy North East, but finally this last weekend I managed to get out on the UTA.

I’m speechless.   I DID build a prototype first, but besides that nearly identical frame, the UTA is the first REAL mountain bike I’ve built.  To be perfectly candid, I nailed it.  Everyone who has ridden it has had the same reaction.  It’s a magic bike.
On Sunday while leading a ride, I ruptured my ACL (already a replacement) precisely as far from the parking lot at Blue Mountain Reservation as it’s possible to be, and the bike carried me out.  My brother, who was riding right behind me said that the pace of the ride actually went up.  I was so focused on NOT falling and having to put that foot down that I guess I just started to ride smooth and smart.

The bike allowed me to get up bits of technical climbs that I have never made it up before..  I rolled some rollers that I had never had the confidence to ride before.  What a thrill!  I can’t thank you all enough for your support.

I don’t plan on letting the torn ACL keep me off the bike.  As though stage 4 cancer wasn’t enough?  “Keep it coming, universe!!!  I’ve got some powerful allies here!!  Don’t think for a moment that I showed up alone!”
I designed a bike around what I felt was my perfect build, and to a company you all stepped to the plate with donated parts.

Sram-   XX1 is an absolute revelation.  Holy crap.  (I might need to get myself a 30 or even a 28 up front.  Then again..  I haven’t stalled yet).  Not one dropped chain.. not one chain slap!!!!!  Silent. Light. Clean.  Plenty of range. Smoothest shifting I’ve felt.  I can’t think of a down side.  And speaking of revelations, that fork isn’t bad either!

Industry 9-   I’m sure that engineering a hub with 407 points of engagement presented some challenges.  Whatever they were, it was worth it!!  Finding what feels like INSTANT engagement on technical climbs is a miracle!  The difference in some cases between getting up and NOT.

Enve-   What can I even say?  I got your “heavy” rims, and these wheels are still light, stiff and bright, and start turning the moment you put any pressure on the pedal.  I’m a Luddite and over the years I’ve said some unfavorable things about carbon fiber (often using words like “plastic” and “ugly”).   I take it back.  All of it.  At least about the stuff you guys are producing.

Schwalbe-    Egads.   Dampfs are the business.  I don’t care if they’re 240gms EACH heavier than the Ralphs..  these things GO!  No slipping, no time..  Confidence to crash right into boney sections at low pressure and not flat.. not wreck rims.  Winner!  Maybe when I take my brother to Germany for a 12 hour two man race we’ll hit you up for a Ralph/Nic combo, but I doubt it!

Formula-  he heeeeeee!!!!!!    Besides being beautiful enough to put in a jewelry box and propose with, these T1 brakes have stopping power and modulation second to nothing else I’ve ridden.  (I’m a newbie, but if it gets better than this..  I don’t need it!)

Chris King-   I can’t say anything that hasn’t been said.   There might be two or three bikes that I’ve built in my career that don’t sport your headset.  And I can’t think for the life of me why they don’t..  confused customer, perhaps?

Brooks-   If I may be quite frank, I’ve got a peculiar whatsis after 2 surgeries for ass cancer and as much radiation as they’re willing to give one person, and the swift is the saddle that I ride.  Thanks for taking part.

After the ride on Saturday, I was approached in the parking lot by someone who has been following the story.
He said, “Ezra..  I don’t want to be disrespectful, but if I can I’d like to start the bidding on this bike.  I don’t know how you’re planning to do the auction, but I’d like to open the bidding at $10K.”

Well.  THAT’S a statement.

Thank you all so much.  A rollicking success!

My best,
Fast Boy

“no joke”  was the response I was looking at on my phone to a text I had sent Hillary a few minutes before.   I had asked her if she was playing a practical joke on me.  I was looking at two neat little bundles of spokes that she had produced from her bag before leaving for the the morning.  There were supposed to be three.  It would have been a pretty funny joke, had it been one, because it was already a bit of story at THAT point..  My good friend Torsten, who kindly offered to build these wheels for me had miscalculated the spoke length, because he was working with the schematics for an earlier version of the I9 classic hubs.  Naturally the guys at I9 had sent me their very latest version of the hubs, but the schematics weren’t up yet.  Just getting the first round of spokes had taken some calling around.  At any rate, if the wheels were going to get done in time we were going to need different spokes, and those spokes were not going to have time to get to us in the mail.  Luckily, NYC velo had what we needed.  Hill and I had swung in quickly to pick them up on our way to a nice romantic dinner.  As we walked from the shop to the restaurant, hill had offered to carry the spokes for me because she had a bag and I didn’t.  Well.  That fucking bag ATE some of the spokes.  So it was friday morning, I hadn’t started actually sticking any tubes together yet, my brother was on his way down from VT to hang out with me in the shop for the day while I plowed ahead on the bike, and I was trying to figure out what exactly to say to the guys at NYC velo about having fed a third of the spokes they sold me to my wife’s handbag.

“Hi.  Yeah.  This is Ezra.  I was there last night to pick up some spokes.  I didn’t by some chance leave any on the counter when I left, did I? …  No  ..   ok.  Well.  I’m going to need some more, I guess…   yup…  right..   I’m going to send my friend Torsten down to get them.  He’s a big tall Swede..  Ok  Thanks.”

Honestly, that’s sort of how the whole thing had been going.  Things just not really falling into place as gracefully as I would hope.  Murphy’s law was in full effect.  I had shrugged off a UPS door tag that I got on friday for a package arriving from Chris King.   “Well, I won’t have any use for that King stuff until Monday, anyway,” I thought.  So I nearly had a nervous breakdown on Sunday morning when MySam said something about Monday being president’s day.  Luckily for me, UPS doesn’t take presidents seriously enough to take the day off!  A few times though I had asked myself, “what’s the rush? Finish it when you get back from Europe..  don’t force things.”  BUT I knew perfectly well that two weeks from now when I get back from Europe, everyone would still be suffering from such a NAHBS hangover that forcing people to look at another outrageously appointed custom bike would be like handing someone a martini the morning after they’ve gone on a bender, instead of a nice cup of coffee.

In the end, it did all come together.  Monday morning I got up early to braze on the housing/hose tie downs and to ream and slit the seat tube.  Then I set Sam up strap polishing the frame to get it ready for Patina (Sam admits that he has a few slightly obsessive tendencies..  He strap polishes bikes like no-one’s business.  This is something I wish I had discovered years ago, but then, I didn’t know Sam years ago) and I headed out on the nose bike to find Bobby, my UPS man.   Seth Rosko was riding up from the lower east side with a reamer for that soup can of a head tube, Dale Lord was reading the instructions for the XX1 drive train just to see if there was anything peculiar about it (besides the obvious!), and Torsten was on his way over to take pictures of the whole event.  Saint Georges was the only one with any bad news..  It was looking like the snow just really hadn’t melted in the woods, and the ride report indicated that going out there wasn’t worth the time.  That wound up being just fine.  We didn’t finish putting the bike together until around 5:00 and by then everyone was ready to do something else entirely.

The bike needs a little tuning.  Hydraulic hose needs to be cut down, saddle adjusted..  But the quick spin around the park that I did take on it was a magic carpet ride.  I’ll give a full ride report when I return.  In the mean time, a special thank you to everyone who helped out – Both those who donated the parts, and those who helped in the final push to get all those parts hung from the frame.  I think it’s a pretty special beast.   Full gallery of photos here.

For those of you just joining us:  I’ve got a pretty nasty case of cancer.  Looks like I’m not going to live all that long.  Riding bikes in the woods has been one of the things I’ve really turned to in the last little while to stay calm and cool.  All the parts for this bike were donated by the companies that make them.  There’s a full list here.  When I’m no longer able to ride the thing, I will auction it off to the highest bidder, and the proceeds will go to help cancer research.  Hopefully, I’ll get a season or two of riding it before that happens!

NOW..  Off to wander around Rome for the day!  Meeting up with Glen and Hedi tonight for his Rome show, and hopping in a car with them tomorrow to go to Florence.  It’s a hard hard life.

Big love.

(this post was written under duress..  please forgive typos and generally bad writing).