Lewistown, MT

That's one talented baby.

Montana State Cycles

Hey everybody, this is going to be a new semi-occasional post in which I celebrate the avid cycling student body of MSU. I'll just post photos of interesting or badass bikes I see around campus.

First up, this little gem of a cruiser:



This person has skillfully decorated their bike with neon electric tape. I'm guessing it's an attempt to ward off aggressive truck drivers and/or the owners believes that the spinning visuals created by the rear wheel will somehow transport them back into the 80's. It's a neon bike time machine.

isopods attack!

visions of fruhtures past

Adam Fruh, designer at large, is a man with a fully-realized aesthetic. Completely modern, yet hearkening back to the golden age of human ingenuity, he pieces together these fragments of our industrial past into what can only be described as a vision of our possible future.
This little piece is oddly reminiscent of WALL-E, everyone's favorite little post-apocalyptic trash compactor. An assortment of failed filing cabinets have been reassembled, thus deconstructing the very meaning of storage.
Just as WALL-E's quixotic task evokes a directing of our human emotions toward the mechanized, so too do the cabinet's off-90 degree angles disarm. One can only appreciate this thing's willingness to bear the weight of our distractions. The metal exterior hides the first-growth reclaimed fir innards. Will we too maintain a kernel of organic nature as we continue to interface with the machine? Only time will tell, but lets begin our contemplation with this piece. 200$ + s&h

Angry tatonka.

These buffalo are angry. To the right of the photo is a sharp precipice that made me feel like that little kid in Jurassic Park when the t-rex is sniffing around their vehicle. The comparison between the movie and the the actual yellowstone does not end there. The question that goes through my mind is: just how artificial can we make our environment? Can we think of nature as an independent system anymore? I know I've got the mad scientist look down:

Bottom Bracket

After huffing a fair number parts per million of liquid wrench and allowing myself to the machine shop for some industrial-sized wrenches, the bb is out. A lot of rust in there, one of the bearing rings was chewed to shit, probably the initial problem, but after a quick cleaning everything looks reusable (no superfluous spending here, mom!) I replaced the bearings with new shiny and presumably perfectly spherical ones. After two exams today I'll look forward to some zen bike work tomorrow. I filed the vertical dropouts a bit to give myself some adjustability (the red line says that's not a word apparently) chain-tension wise. Lots of grease and I should be good to go-o-o. Plus the roads are clearing up a bit so I should be able to hit it. Thanks to the bike-mechanics at Summit for hooking it up with some new bearings.