Spoiler Alert: Exciting in the Begining, Then it Gets Boooooriiiing

OK, It's Friday! Before you do anything, make a note of the biggest, bounciest, jammiest, jumpiest jam-jam that has ever happened in the history of the world.





Wait, that is not it. But expect lots of white kids in ball caps throwing their hands up at this event too:

The North Park Freeride and Skills Park is pretty cool. It is the first of its kind in this area, and the trail builders and shapers at PTAG have made improvements over the winter that will surely cause some jaws to drop. If you're about it, then get on it.

Several months ago, riding my old Trek, I felt my bicycle get a little bit squirrely, looked down, saw nothing unusual whatsoever, kept riding, knew something was wrong, stopped, squinted, stared, jumped on the pedals, and finally noticed that the downtube was cracked nearly in half.


The hairline crack was not perceptible unless I weighted the pedals, stood awkwardly off to one side, and craned my neck to look under the downtube. If I bounced my weight on the pedals a bit, I could see my bicycle frame open up and smile at me. I did not smile back.



To resolve this tube failure I put the bicycle in a corner of the basement and left it there. Until fairly recently, when I contacted Anthony Mezzatesta and asked him to replace the tube. He did.


There was a bunch of this...




And then I took it to the dusty shell of New Kensington, PA to have it powder coated. To the 3 dozen remaining residents, New Kensington must be a strange and hollow facsimile of the formerly bustling steel town that once stood in it's place. Office space is going cheap up there. And evidently so is garage space, because the guy who did the powder coating has a sprawling commercial repair center that he uses just to do his weekend projects in.

And finally (HEY WAKE UP!!!!) here is the finished product. Fully repaired, with a new columbus downtube and "Burly Man Orange" color upgrade. Hi-Viz for life, suckers. Hey, the sunshine really changes the color, ehh?




Thanks for accidentally stumbling onto this site, and have a great weekend of jumps and bounces.