Hurricane Remnants and Spooky Sightings

Watching the local weatherman practically cream his jeans last night one would've thought a category 12 hurricane was bearing down on this neck of the woods. The basic message was "don't go outside kids, it's gonna be crazy out there, you might get wet". Slow news day I guess. The local media had milked the recent fatality riddled car crash on 95 N to death (no pun intended), and I guess there's not much corruption going down that needs investigating. So anyways, back to the weather. It rained, and it was windy outside, and there was no one at the local pickle park known as Lincoln Woods. Just the way I like it. No scary encounters with middle aged men getting to know one another, no errant paintball shots to dodge and no angry dogs off leash. No weirdness at all really. Just the woods, the wind, and a persistent cold rain. The kind that should fall in November. The remnants of Hurricane Noel (now a tropical storm) turned out to be the perfect conditions in which to purge the accumulated detritous of a week spent in a box. It's during rides like today's that my mind really wanders, likely to ignore the physical conditions, but simultaneously stays focused on the task at hand. Whole sections of icy, slick, leaf and rock laden technical descents can slip by while I think about completely random subjects.

Not surprisingly some thoughts were bicycle related. JP Weigles frame saver came to mind as I fiddled with air pressure under the shelter afforded by Goat Rock. Today's conditions involved little in the way of mud, just lots of water, and I'm sure a few ounces snuck into every crevice of the Karate Monkey. Hooray for frame saver, right? I kept thinking about the rebirth of Spooky Cycles as well. Not sure why but I always really dug the company back when I was cutting my teeth wrenching on Schwinn Collegiates. Maybe I just liked their politics, their ideals and the music they listened to. Maybe it was how well they did while going against the grain of what was going on during the heyday MTB racing. Not that there's anything wrong with racing bikes. It certainly builds character, and it is generally a healthy endeavor. It's just that when MTB racing was at it's height the culture surrounding the sport seemed to reach it's low point, lots of folks became asshats. Everybody and their brother expected, no demanded, free stuff and a better "deal" because they raced on stuff you sold them. Back in my wrenching days I used to want to scream diatribes like the following at the countless knobs who would bring in their poor destroyed rigs: "Newsflash - no one gives a crap you came in 8th in your local Beginner/Sport/Expert race. No, you can't have a free Judy SL because you won the Podunk 400. Put down my effing tools and go away, please. We don't care if you wear our shop jersey, why can't you see you are a royal pain in the ass please go home now".

I was relatively new to the world of bike racing at 20 and did not, and still don't really, understand the mentality that some folks have when it comes to riding bikes. I was as much interested in going to shows and having fun as I was interested in racing my bike. Spooky came across as a company that made bikes for people with a love of riding, and competing, but without the seemingly required bullshit. Of course, it probably didn't hurt that everyone I ever met that rode one could ride circles around me and was really cool to boot. They were the anti - Specialized/Trek/GT and that made me really want one. Being broke and in school I never had the cash to pick up a Spooky and I ended up riding, and racing, on whatever I could EP at the shop. Thankfully Schwinn had Yeti building their Homegrown Factorys but that's a whole other post.

Where I'm going with all this is that Spooky is back in business with a great builder welding for them. If you want a nice custom steel bike that comes with more attitude than BA Baracus look them up. Dirtrag has a great interview with the man behind the new Spooky on their homepage. Check it out.