Workin' Fer Old Man Budnitz!

As some of you may be aware, I'm a big fan of bikesnobnyc. One of his pet topics is Budnitz bicycles, a company that does "High end titanium and steel city bikes, cycling apparel, components, and accessories". Bikesnob has created a character called Old Man Budnitz. He has also test-ridden a Budnitz bike, with less than glowing commentary to follow. You would have to read a bunch of his stuff to know how funny it is.

 

Anyway, Old Man Budnitz made his presence felt on this very blog on Friday! Whether Budnitz will continue to do so, I don't know. You see, I have Google Adsense ads on my blog, among others. I don't control what shows up in these ad spots, except to exclude/filter stuff I don't want to see. Cycling stuff, of course, is always welcome.

 

Given my long standing readership of the Snob, imagine my surprise when I saw this!

Now, I'm not entirely certain of this, but I think bsnyc may not love the googly googly corp in addition to having reservations about the Budnitz corp. Does this make me an enemy of one of my favourite bloggers? I doubt it. The Snob seems pretty easy going about such things. He's a shrugger. As in shrugging off these kinds of coincidences. I hope.

If not, well, it's on, baby. I'm a Budnitz man now, chasing the mighty aesthetic titanium dream. Or, somebody who's willing to grab a few cents off anybody stumbling into said dream. One of those.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

Encounters with Rantwick, episode two: Inspector Goose's extreme pie plate vigilance

If you don't read bikesnobNYC like I do, the title of this post won't make any sense. The short version is that the snob hates pie plates, but it's geese who have been doing something about it.



Pie plates are those plastic or metal discs that come on many bicycles, and are also called spoke protectors.



They supposedly guard your spokes against chain damage if it ends up way up there. The truth, however, is that any properly tuned bicycle would never need one thanks to the limiting screws on any modern derailleur.

I commute on a fixed gear bicycle (one gear only, no coasting, no derailleur), so in my case a pie plate would be extra super duper useless. Perhaps this was why I was subjected to my harrowing meeting with Inspector Goose:

Those three quick steps still cause me to shudder with fear when I see them. Most of you have pie plates on your bicycles. I have no personal interest in your removing them, but beware Inspector Goose, man, beware Inspector Goose.

Spring is Here! Ride that bike and I'll see you next Monday.

R A N T W I C K