Tommy was in town for a week so it felt like old times riding with him. Some highlights. - Hanging out at Rivendell. Checking out how Sean boxes the bikes. Apparently the Riv Folks there make a habit of drawing something on the bike boxes. Sean's only guff is that he doesn't see pictures of these drawings anywhere. Like most trips to Rivendell we hanged out ate some cheese, had some coffee and generally just messed around. Had to buy some Suspended Animation Suspenders and Harry said I looked like a lumberjack and had the right accessory to fit the ensemble, a Gransfors Bruks Hatchet! Sean and I did some photo shots. By far the best hatchet shots of me! Thanks Sean! Tommy and I ended up riding back to San Leandro on our way back I took Tommy to "The Outback" where we literally hanged out on the rope swing.
Cycling in the Bay Area has a rich and interesting history. Birth place of mountain biking, and was the place where tons of famous bike builders got their start, etc. Merry Sales is a 100+ year old bicycle distribution company that has a hold in a lot of Bay Area Cycling history. So when I asked Evan if I could stop by to check out the warehouse I was excited when he said it was cool. So i planned the date so that Tommy could come with. We decided to wing the ride from downtown but before we stopped by a Mission Workshop to see my buddy Rai and to meet up with Ely who had a bag made for me (this is a whole other post). We decided to make the route up and ended up finding some BMX pump track. After some sweet jumps we rolled up to Merry Sales and as busy as they were Evan was still nice enough to show us around. In short we bike geeked out. So much cycling stuff in such a small area. Evan showed us some cool not yet for sale stuff. Some cool new Suntour cranks, soma bars, got a snag a peak at new frames SOMA Grand Randonneur frame and the Wolverine frame. Got to meet Stan Pun and Jim Porter who talked about a little bit of the history of Merry Sales. His grandfather Paul Porter worked as a bike messenger and delivery person to the original owner, Edwin F. Merry. Super rich history in of itself. More of it can be found here. <a href="http://www.merrysales.com/history_100anniv_rev.pdf"; rel="nofollow">www.merrysales.com/history_100anniv_rev.pdf</a> Being a 100+ year old company they had tons of vintage bike stuff that Jim even said should be in a museum somewhere. He got to show us this old school crankless push bike from 1900's and the original Lauterwasser bars that they remade. Really great time amazing history of a legendary bike company. Huge thanks to Evan for giving us the opportunity for the experience. Thanks to all the folks at Merry Sales for all the support. Pictures prove that rope swings are fun. http://flic.kr/s/aHsjF4nk2k -Manny "Felt like old times" Acosta -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en-US. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
