I’m feeling the same excitement as at 13 years old coming home knowing that the UPS man may have left something shiny from Bike Nashbar to keep my mongoose IBOC with Grove Innovations hardcore fork and Hammerhead bar stem Combo running smooth and looking boss. Just placed an order with Paragon Machine Works for some of their beautifully machined dropouts, inserts, and threaded bits with the windfall of my next builds deposit so I can start cutting this one next week. Once the works are under way to get all the ducks lined up for a commissioned build, the gears inevitably turn toward weighing the opportunity costs of doubling down on dropouts to secure supply of potential future essentials. The ace in the hole will come up when the glimmers of CNC supremacy I’ve witnessed from Cantibrigian Mechanics come to fruition, cutting the logistic leap to a less than a half mile for machined parts. Till then I am happy to make the call to the beautiful San Francisco Bay area to get my bits and bobs moving across the country. I was relieved to actually get in touch with anyone at Paragon yesterday as it was industry only day at NAHBS and just about anyone with a major hand in the craft bicycle industry with the where with all to get to Sacramento would be there. The friendly book keeper holding down the fort at PMW assured me that as much was true, everyone’s going to be there.
As much fun as it’d be to steel away to California for a few days I had to fold my hand at joining in the big show again this year. It is a bit like a game of odds to know weather to lay it on the line with any big investment, its even harder to know your hand when intangibles like the leanings of curatorial taste of the blog-o-sphere are involved rather than hard assets. Had I known that the next card in the draw pile would be a deposit on a complete MTB build I might have bought the plane ticket, picking up the stack to count up rummy from every encounter I’d have with bike obsessed folks from all over world. One or two of them might end up actually buying a bike or have an interesting idea to collaborate on. Not to mention I’d be having a blast riding and sharing stories with the great and fine folks I am honored to count as friends among my fellow framebuilders. It’s all fine and good though, planning a feast for the evening with my sweet one and will try for a muddy spin on the Bay Circuit Trail tomorrow with some time in the shop in between.
So, Paragon Book Keeper, say hi to everyone for me, and if you run into Mike Penzadelic, tell him to put a chip down for me with some flat bars on his BBW.
