Brauer's Wednesday Night Ride report: Cast (in order of appearance): BrauerPower Zye toe Trevver Pete Geigle Cockleburr Corrosion Bodie Butcher (HoboCamp) Giegle rolled up to the bandshell 8 sheets to the wind after starting his adventure at the TownHall at about 1700 hrs. Upon arrival he 'gracefully' dismounted his bike as he prepares for his debut cyclocross race of the year on Sunday. After the requisite handshakes and pleasantries were exchanged, we set out to prepare the city for the HomeyFallFestival. Giegle executed another fabulous (impromptu) dismount a mere 3 blocks from the bandshell. His tireless training regimen is truly inspirational. We rode the east side of Calhoun via the woodchip trail and Irving alleyways. As we crossed Lake Street, T-Bomb took the lead and made some sweet connections around the waterways of Calhoun/Isles/Cedar. As we neared the Cedar Lake bike trail, Geigle made it magic number three with his most spectacular dismount of the evening. He wisely chose to stop with his face--its a little known technique only applied by the most elite of Belgian crossers. His remount wasn't as fast as one might like though. I wouldn't worry much though, folks, as Mr Giegle is a VERY experienced mounter and dismounter of bicycles, and rest-assured be in TOP form on Sunday. With his training complete for the night, he pointed towards the friendlier streets of St Louis Park. Somewhere around here Bodie was lost, presumably caught by one of the cougars prowling the alleys of Kenwood. From here the Cockleburr took the lead into Kenwoodburgh and up and down the finest brick alleyways in the city. The cobbles look to be in fine shape for the HomeyFallFestivalers. Wet leaves abound and the blind corners are always enticing. Down we went World's Steepest Hill and into the lovely burgh of Bryn Mawr, home of that most famous of hobos, Hurl "Hobo King" Everstone. With the Hobo King in convalescence, we took to the enchanted forest of Hobo Camp to make final preparations for the annual harvest festival in his stead. We all set to work, busily cleaning, remodeling, and repainting our beloved camp. The Butcher stealthily snuck into our midst, bringing a healthy supply of tall boys. A respectable pile of wood was produced, due to the forward thinking nature of Z-Toe as we used classic teamwork and caveman engineering skills to fell a mighty tree. While breaking the felled tree apart using the leverage offered by two adjacent trees, another tree was felled. All without the help of tools! Inspired by our felling abilities, Zito proceeded to tear down much of the forest, as Corrosion said, "like a bored gorilla." Cockleburr furiously raked (?!?!) the leaves about the camp for reasons we still haven't quite discerned. Happy with our work, we slowly went our separate ways. Cockleburr and Corrosion were first to go. Shortly thereafter, the Butcher pedaled bravely back to his beloved NordEast, supposedly for a ride through the 331 Club and onto Grumpy's. Z-Toe, T-Bomb and myself absconded to the Bryant Lake Bowl for a final brew or two, but now without stopping at the Walker for some art appreciation. All in all a fabulous ride, a perfect warmup for the bike-est weekend of the fall. We'll see y'all at the Homey and also at the Pow-pow-powderhorn Cross Up. -Studs Terkel -----

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Surlynews.cough is lucky to have in it's arsenal of whoop-ass many, many field correspondents. They send us stories from all over the globe; stories about races, stories about rides, stories about how and why they overran their (non-existant) expense accounts, stories about random crap, and those are my favorites. For example, take this very Minnesota exchange sent by Mary Gibney & Rusty Jones: (Biker hits a Pedestrian) Pedestrian: What the fuck are you doing! Biker: Fuck you! You walked right into the road! Fucking douche. Pedestrian: Asshole, you ran right into me! Biker: Are you alright? Pedestrian: Yeah, I'm fine. You? Biker: I'm alright. Pedestrian: Alright, have a good day. Biker: You too. Lyndale and 28thOverheard by Amused pedestrian. Wow. That's fantastic. They found it onOverheard In Minneapolis Dot Com. You know what else is fantastic? Here is today's short list: >New shirts >Bad ideas >Self Loathing comix >The shape of Round >The fact that there are two bands I like that share the same name and each consists of two dudes but the bands don't sound alike at all. -----

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Big Dummy without its Xtracycle goodies -----

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I woke up bright and early Saturday morning and went for a ride. It was beautiful out and I haven't been on dirt enough this year. I had one of those rides where you feel good throughout, even take a couple extra laps just because you can, and you think 'i'm really ON today!' and you don't even run into a tree. Made me feel all part of the big Whatever, made me feel strong and alive. That night, still feeling good, my lady and I went out to see a show. We were to meet up at a bar with our good friend Tammy, who this night was on a first date with Exhibit A. We were to be a buffer of sorts. We started out at home with a couple beers and some tequila, then jumped on our bikes and headed downtown, where I began to drink whiskey sours. The first one went down great, so I had another. Then water. Then I bought a round of Jameson for everyone at the table. Then I drank some more water, thinking I'd outsmarted the alcohol. "This'll be a breeze," I thought, "I'll get to bed at a reasonable hour and get up tomorrow and get a bunch of work done. I'm drinking plenty of water! I'm a genius." And that is when I found that the waitress had actually brought an extra whiskey sour, so I drank it. It just kept tasting good. No problem. And then we went to the show, where there was more whiskey. Fast forward to the next morning. For a long time I just laid there with a dry mouth and sore everything, with my sunken, light-sensitive eyes forced open in a baby-step attempt to depart the environs of my comfy bed. I have learned over time that this old feeling... and it is old, as I seldom over-drink anymore, a fact which makes being hungover harder since I'm no longer in practice... that this old feeling demands activity to abate the suffering. Luckily my strategy worked, at least to a degree. I drank plenty of water all night, including 2 big glasses before going to bed, and I kept thinking how much worse I'd feel if I hadn't had all that water. Still, the roar of unmoving air in my ears and the blinding light surging through closed curtains acted as a big slice of humble pie. I crashed my way to the bathroom and shaved my tongue. I stumbled around for a while. Did the dishes. Swept. Tried to think of more things to do. There were things to do, certainly. There are always things to be done. Only I couldn't think of any of them because my brain had called in sick. In the end, two hours later, I decided to go for a ride. Riding, I have found, is the perfect (if counterintuitive) answer to hangovers, colds, and the blues. Burns through toxins. Flushes your deal. Moisturizes your situation and perserves your sexy (I heard P. Diddy say that on an infomercial and it sounds cool, although I have no idea what it means). And you know what? It did make me feel better. By the time I got home, I felt relatively normal. Still didn't get a ton of stuff done, but didn't feel like a zombie all day either. Today's lesson: Feeling good or feeling bad, a bicycle will improve your day. -----

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The Big Dummy came back from Vegas late on Tuesday. It was photo'd as a complete bike, then stripped to be photo'd as a frameset for our catalog and website files. Photos and tech information should be available elsewhere on this site very soon. Please be patient. In the mean time, do a Google search for "Surly Big Dummy" and you'll come up with all sorts of images of the built bike accompanied by opinions and observations galore. The Dummy came home with me tonight mated to the left side of my Xtracycle via the Wideloader. The Stokemonkey battery and my messenger bag served as ballast on the other side. It seemed appropriate that this new frame should be transported by its predecessor. I simply slid the front of the Wideloader through the rearmost tube of the Dummy and into the front crosstube of the FreeRad until the sprung retaining pin snapped into place. A toe strap cinched the front crosstube of the Dummy to the rear of the Wideloader and two bungies kept the V-Racks from ejecting themselves from the Dummy in transit. Yeah, it's confusing if you aren't familiar with Xtracycle components. But if you do understand, it's absolutely mind-blowing stuff. Be careful with this powerful information. I'll build up the Big Dummy again over the weekend with parts that fit me and my riding style, so I can start using it in the next couple of days. The Dummy will be my primary mode of transport for the next 500+ km. Kenny and Swervy will ride it, too. Skip and Snacky will probably wait until they have sample frames in the husky size. It's time to find weak points and any handling shortcomings before the next round of samples is produced. When the new samples arrive, we'll collectively torture the framesets and make any final adjustments to the geometry, tube spec., and braze-ons before they go to production. That's how this game generally works. We push our frames to their limits in the real world before they are available to you. Testing machines simply cannot duplicate all of the stresses that a bicycle frame will have to endure in a typical or not-so-typical day of riding. As soon as a usable pre-production mount is available from Todd at Cleverchimp, I'll install my Stokemonkey on the Big Dummy. I've really grown to love this electric assist system. I removed the sidehack from my Xtracycle on Sunday night, and I have been rollin' on two wheels since. As you'd guess, the Xtracycle is quite a bit faster and more agile without the outrigger. The Stokemonkey moves it along at a good clip…typically 32k-36 kph on the flats with moderate pedaling. My broken ankle is healing well, and I can ride a bike without the motor assist, now. But it's really fun to utilize the Stokemonkey to go fast on a long, stable rig like the Xtracycle, so I have no reason to remove it at this point. My son Noah digs the speed, too. He's the boss, and he says it has to stay. Who am I to argue with a three-year-old? -----

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