Anyways, I’m better now and I have uploaded a few of the fotos below. Dutchman took a number of one-minute footages, see below after the fotos. One of the things I am happy about is Dutchman and I are into the same music =)
During the thirty-minute short break after the OMD introduction. A few years ago Dutchman and I were also here for the Simple Minds concert and we were standing right by the stage. Last night we were by the bleachers, far but we had a great view, I think.
Simple Minds here in action with the play of lights. The show started at 8PM and we left the music hall 1130PM. The sound quality of Heineken Music Hall is really good... videos below!
OMD's once very very popular song -- 'Enola Gay'... ah, those were the days! OMD, New Order, Depeche Mode, they began the new era of music, the synthesizers rage that has now morphed into techno, trance and house music.
Simple Minds' -- 'Don't You Forget About Me', another big hit back then in the eighties. This song just never dies, classic.
Another of Simple Minds' - 'New Gold Dream', a fast number and love the show of lights here, this is the end part.
The concert was sold out, didn't realize there are still many Simple Minds fans out there. Did you know that back in the eighties they were neck and neck with U2? In the hallways of the music hall I was squeezing my little self between giant Dutch people. Why is it that every time I am only seeing shoulders!? Answer: I am too short in this country; I swear I never felt like a midget anywhere else except here. Glad I am not one of those claustrophobic types or else I will totally freak out.
Jim Kerr is getting older, and well, heavier too. He didn’t dare take out his jacket during the whole show even if it was blazing hot on stage whilst sweating like he just did a hundred kilometer run. I bet he is hiding something inside his clothes, which many of us can relate, lol. And Andy McCluskey, oh dear his wacky dancing on the stage brought me back to the eighties! I’m so so old ha-ha.
It’s also interesting to notice that the audience is older, from late thirties to fifties. There was a group of dark looking guys smoking as if its the most normal thing to do. Argh, I was so tempted to go down the bleachers and give them a lecture. Asociale mensen. This type of behaviour, the total neglect of other people and the rules really irks me to bits. The music hall is no smoking alright.
All in all, the concert was nice except the searing headache after.
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As a (somewhat) reasonable person, I recognise that sometimes a deal is just not for me, no matter how good it is. But I can still feel disappointed, can't I? Peter Mooney is a famed local framebuilder who has been making custom bicycles since the 1970s, including his own lugwork. I love his frames and very much hope to have one of my own some day. And for a brief, dazzling moment, it seemed that such a day might come much, much sooner than I expected.
As usual, these things have a way of finding me when I am not looking, and in this case the "thing" was a second hand Peter Mooney bicycle. As soon as I learned of the bike's existence and availability, I was ready to bargain and prepared to sell or trade my other vintage roadbikes in order to get it. Going by the description, it seemed that the frame was my size - so it was only a matter of seeing it in person and test riding it.
But the stars were not aligned in my favour. Although the bicycle does not look allthat small in the pictures (compare it to my Moser), it felt very small once I tried to ride it. The size is 50cm (center of the bottom bracket to toptube), which is only 2cm smaller than the size I normally ride - so maybe there was something additional in the proportions that didn't feel right to me. Not sure what it could be, because the top tube actually seems long-ish, and the stem is long as well. Does anything unusual jump out at you, looking at this frame?
And I guess that is just the thing with a custom-built frame: It was custom-built for someoneelse,which is bound to make second-hand purchases tricky. And the fact that it was built for someone else (judging by the components, most likely in the mid-1980s?) also makes me wonder what is the story of this bicycle - why did the previous owner give it up?
The bicycle certainly has nice components - Campagnolo everything. And though it was clearly ridden, it looks to have been well maintained.
The elegant seat cluster with the white outlining is my favourite part of the lugwork. I hope the original owner appreciated it as well.
Who knows, maybe some years from now I will have a Peter Mooney bicycle of my own - in my size, in my favourite colour, and maybe even with custom lugwork (let's just say that I already have sketches for the lugwork!). But with this particular bike, I am glad that I was able to resist. It's a bad idea to get a bicycle that doesn't fit you, no matter how good of a deal it is.
If you are between 5'3" and 5'6" and are interested in this bicycle - it is in the custody of Vin at Old Roads, whose contact information you can find here. For the right person, it is a rare chance to own a bicycle by one of the great framebuilders. But what are your thoughts on getting a custom bike second-hand? I imagine that the more unique the original owner's anatomy, the more difficult it would be to find a new home. I wonder how many custom bikes get second chances, and what are the circumstances under which they switch owners.
We have been having what is called the New Mexico monsoon season. We have had more rain this year than we have had for several years. This is more like we used to have 25 to 30 years ago and more. Which is really good. Nearly every afternoon we watch the thunderhead clouds come across the Sandia Mountains or else come across the desert from the west until they turn dark and we get a bit of rain. Sometimes just a sprinkle, some times up to a half an inch of rain or so, and then sometimes the clouds just go around us and it rains somewhere else.
As you may have noticed, we are staying on the coast for a little while - our annual working vacation. This is something we've been doing at the end of every summer for the past six years. When we lived further North, we used to go to a place in Maine, and after moving to Boston we began staying on Cape Cod. I've been writing about that for the past two summers, and it's funny how over time our trips became increasingly bicycle-oriented. Two years agowe went by car as usual, but for the first time took bikes and cycled around a bit during our stay. Last summer we arrived by car again, but got around entirely by bicycle once there and attempted some high mileage day-trips. This summer we no longer have a car and really did not want to rent one just for the trip. So after discovering that Cape Ann was accessible by commuter rail, we decided to come here instead and do the whole trip on bikes. Another reason for choosing Cape Ann, is that it is a popular starting point for long rides up the coast of Northern New England. There are no decent routes north directly out of Boston, and what cyclists often do is take the commuter rail up here before proceeding north. So that was the plan: To arrive on our bicycles, to get around by bike, and to cycle up the coast as far and as often as possible in the course of our stay.
Our main challenge was figuring out how to transport our belongings. This is not a bicycle-specific trip, so we needed more than a change of cycling clothing and rain gear. We are living here for two weeks and doing all the same things we do at home - including work-related stuff. We needed our regular clothing and footwear, personal hygiene products, bedding, towels, laptops, a variety of electronic devises, some necessary books and documents, and our camera equipment - in addition to the cycling clothing, tool kits and raingear. And all of that we fit into the luggage you see here.
For a number of logistical reasons, we decided the most practical course of action would be to turn one person into the pack mule - and since I already had a front rack and a large handlebar bag on my bike, it made sense that this would be me. I had planned to eventually get a touring-specific rear rack for my Rivendell anyway, and so that is what I did. Between the two of us, we packed a total of five bags for the trip - four on my bike and one on the Co-Habitant's.
The rear rack on my bike is a Nitto Campee with removable lowrider panels, to which we attached a set of Carradice panniers, while using the rack's platform to support a Sackville SaddleSack. These bags plus the Carradicesaddlebag on the Co-Habitant's Surly contained our clothing, bedding and laptops. My Ostrich handlebar bag contained camera equipment, electronics and various other miscellaneous items. Everything was packed very tightly, and I estimate that my bicycle weighed around 100 lb when all was said and done.
The ride to the train station from our house is 4 miles through some of the busiest parts of the city. I have never ridden with my bike loaded up like this before, and the prospect of trying it for the first time in Boston traffic was nerve-wrecking. Overall, the bicycle handled fine. Once it got going, I could not feel the weight at all, and the heavy handlebar bag did not affect steering. But at very slow speeds - especially when starting and stopping - there was a fishtailing effect in the rear that took some getting used to. Also, with so much weight on the bike, the brakes were less effective than usual, which I had to keep in mind when stopping on a downhill. The frame itself had an interesting feel to it - as if it was "yielding" to the weight (mildly flexing?). The resulting ride quality was in some ways nicer than with the bicycle unloaded. Having survived this ride in traffic, loaded touring on the open road does not seem in the least daunting. Going slower than usual is, of course, a given - but the reduction in speed was not as drastic as I thought it might be. Even cycling uphill (which I got to experience once we arrived to Cape Ann and rode from the train station to the place we are staying!) was not as difficult as I expected. Thanks to a helpful reader after my description of our previous commuter rail experience, we were able to board the elusive bike train, which made the trip more pleasant still. 
Once we arrived and settled in, we removed the lowrider panels from the rear rack, transforming my bike from a full-on pack-mule into a lighter ridethat could still carry food and equipment when necessary. I will write more about this particular rear rack in a separate post; it is pretty neat and versatile.
The place where we are staying is somewhere between a cabin and a shack on the architectural spectrum and is the size of a small garage. It is situated on a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean, and there is a beach down the road. Despite the stormy weather, we love being here - just the two of us and our bikes. Yesterday the sun finally came out and we did a 50 mile "warm-up" ride, hoping for more soon. And it feels great that we were able to drag all of our stuff up here without needing a car. It was important to us that this did not feel like a compromise compared to the previous times we've gone away, and it most definitely does not. We were able to fit everything we need into our bicycle bags, and not having to deal with a car here feels extremely relaxing. I highly recommend giving traveling by bicycle a try!
Although the French aren’t the best in the cured sausage department (the Italians are in my opinion), I bought here a couple of dried French saucissons.
Here I am resting my weary feet before we hit the streets for more shopping. I did not shop a lot though. I only want to buy stuff that I really want.
The beautiful Opera Garnier (back part) on Boulevard Haussmann.
The salad was not bad, 3.8 stars out of 5.