A sad ending.

Just got the news my uncle died at the age of 82. My uncle by marriage, he was married to my father's sister(who died almost 37 years ago) He'd been in a veteran's nursing home for the past few years, it'd been quite some time since I'd seen him. He was an odd sort of guy, a true eccentric and pretty much a loner. His house burned down about 7 or 8 years ago and he really started slipping badly, my father took total responsibility for his care and managing his finances but after my dad died a couple of years ago my aunts took the torch as best as they could. He's being buried Monday AM in Brooklyn, the only people in attendance will be my three aunts, my only surviving uncle and my brother. The damn family's spread all over the place, myself included. I was gonna make the drive up but my brother counseled against it, basically the entire service will be about five minutes of talk at the gravesite by some priest. A sad ending indeed.

Take it easy Uncle Willie.

A road bike!!!

Recently acquired my first road bike since the Pierce Arrow Tour de France my parents bought me when I was 12. First, a disclaimer...the new ride is a SS, fattish/knobby-ish (are those real words?) tired, track spaced number that'll probably see as much time off-road as it will on. That said, I couldn't resist pulling the trigger on a Motobecane Fantom Cross Uno. $400 bucks complete, shipping included, how the hell could I pass that up? Swapped the stock bars, pedals, levers and saddle for some Nitto Dirt Drops, Suntour Superbe Pro trackies, Shimano 105 and SDG something or other I had in the parts bin and away I went. Not too crazy about the Avid Shorty cantis so I'll be replacing them with some classic looking Tektros I grabbed on fleaBay. I'm thinking a higher rise stem and some Ritchey Speedmax rubber and I'll be good to go.

Alright, the techie shit is out of the way, how's it ride? Pretty damn nice! I don't ride anything but steel and this frame dosen't disappoint, I don't know how they afford to deliver a bike this nice at such a low pricepoint but I'd glad I bought it. Yeah, I put some bucks into immediatly but even with that, it's still damn cheap. Not gonna bullshit here, if this was my main ride, I'd have gone for something like a CrossCheck but for what I'm using it for this will be fine.