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Peak Fall
It had to happen eventually. After several weeks of gorgeous riding weather, our good-weather-fortune seems to be coming to an end. I'm sitting here on a computer at work on a chilly, rainy, miserable...
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An Interesting Development
Happy Thanksgiving, folks!Just a super short post today. Readers might recall it wasn't so long ago that it was announced that Bob Jackson Cycles in Leeds, England, was closing down. Apparently, there...
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Bike Safety 101: "This Is Johnny's Car"
Covid is surging. There is a vaccine currently making its way to the highest-risk folks - but the rest of us still have a long wait. Schools are "online" again as our region has reached the "purple...
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Hindsight is 2020
As 2020 comes to a close, now seems like a good time to look back at a year like no other.It's been a while since we've had such a "White Christmas."I'm going to start this by mentioning that I don't...
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On Again - Off Again - and (Maybe?) Back On Again
As if to prove that keeping a "keeper of the flame" classic steel bike business alive in a carbon-fiber world is no easy feat (complicated further by our current pandemic realities), we have seen the...
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Catching Up
It's been a while, hasn't it?The past few months have been pretty uninspiring when it comes to writing blog posts. Combined with work, and family concerns, updating a blog has shifted lower on the...
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Brooks Imperial Test Update
I wrote some months back that I've been testing a Brooks saddle - specifically a B17 "Imperial" or "carved" model. That's the one with the big "pressure relieving" hole cut into the top. I've been...
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A Foggy Morning - and an Odd Sign
As I'm sitting here typing this, the sun is once again shining in through the window after a solid week of rain in NE Ohio. No joke - it rained every day for the past week, and seemed especially...
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Road(s) Closed
Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows that I am fortunate to live near, and to be able to do a lot of my riding in and around the Cuyahoga Valley - with its national park and variety of...
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Beating the Heat
Here in Akron we're having an early heat wave. It's unusual for us to be hitting the upper 80s in mid May like this, but that's where we are. We're expecting some days in the 90s next week. Heat like...
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Memorial Day 2021
After several days of non-stop rain, our Memorial Day Monday turned out to be a perfect day for a bike ride. Brilliant sunshine, low humidity, and temperatures in the upper 60s. The Retrokids and I...
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New Dura Ace Anticipation - And a Look Back
A lot of the bike blogosphere has been making much of the fact that 2021 marks Shimano's 100th anniversary. Much is also being made of the fact that the company's usual 4-year cycle for major component...
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100 Days
I'm in the final week of what has been a pretty unusual school/work year. At the beginning of it all, back in September, I had set a goal for myself to reach 100 days of riding to work for the...
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The Year That Wouldn't End . . . Is (Finally) Ending
It's a rare thing when my school/work year extends past the end of May - but here it is, June 17, and we're still in school - albeit for another day. Between the extra weeks added to the end, along...
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The Tour is Coming
It's almost time for the Tour de France. Okay, if I'm being honest, I will probably miss most of it. But I just saw a fun promotional ad for the upcoming Tour coverage from TV2, a subscription TV...
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New In Box
I thought I'd take a moment to share a recent find that I've added to my collection of vintage parts: a first-generation SunTour Cyclone derailleur, new-in-box - or NIB.I've always been a SunTour guy,...
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Remember 7/11
I've long been a fan of the comic strip "Frazz," by Jef Mallett. Mallett is an avid cyclist (and very competitive triathlete, if I recall correctly) and he frequently works bicycling into his comic...
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We Have Identified the Virus - And It Is Us
How long after the Covid 19 pandemic ends will we still be finding discarded masks littering the ground?It's probably an impossible question to answer, but I have a feeling we'll be seeing them for a...
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An Early Morning Ride
I haven't had a lot to post about lately - this summer has had me off the bike quite a bit for various medical things, minor surgeries, and other procedures - Nothing too serious or alarming - but it...
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Biking Historic Virginia - part 1
I had mentioned in my last post that the family and I would soon be taking a vacation trip - and that's exactly what we did. We made a drive from Ohio south to Virginia, where we would be spending...
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Biking Historic Virginia - part 2
If you read the previous post here in the blog, then you know that my family and I spent about a week in eastern Virginia, soaking up history in a part of the country that's just steeped in it. Well,...
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An Invitation to the Undertaker
Okay - I'll start this off by pointing out that this isn't exactly going to be a typical retro-grouchy, vintage-bikey kind of post. There won't be any pictures of lovely old bicycles, or photos taken...
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Saddle Relief
Well, I finished my test period on the Brooks B-17 Imperial, or "Carved" saddle. I'd put several thousand miles on the saddle in that time, but when the year-long test period was over, I was actually...
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Rolling Coal - Open Season on Cyclists
If you want to kill someone - and get away with it - it would be hard to find a better way to do it than to get the person on a bike and run them down with your car. Cynical?Maybe so - but...
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A Milestone
This blog just reached a milestone - and I missed it!A couple of weeks ago, apparently, I hit 3 million visits to The Retrogrouch. Understand that I'm the kind of person who gets a little kick out of...
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