Usually half-Asian/half-North-Americans have nicer rear-ends, and not the flat, square asses common in their pure-Asian counterparts, but that’s definitely not the case with the new Pontiac Vibe (thought I was talking about girls’ asses, weren’t you!). The designers appear not to have been able to resolve the design beyond the up-sloping C-pillars, resulting in an unimaginitive, rectangular rear hatch glass. Boo. Weak. Looks like a Dodge Caliber if you’re directly behind it. Wonder if it will be sold on the JDM like the Gen-1 Vibe, which was the Toyota Voltz SUV.
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Wow, Chain Reaction Cycles is pretty fast considering we’re all the way in the middle of the Pacific and they’re all the way on the other side of the world in Scotland… I sent the mismatched set of shifters back on 14 November 2008, they received them on the 20th, and shipped out a replacement set. Those arrived on 01 December! I didn’t have time to put them on before heading to Japan, but I threw them on Tuesday at McBike along with the new cassette and 9-speed chain. Shifters are quite nice. They seem to stick out more than the XTR’s, but that’s just an impression. I did have to remove the Optical Gear Displays so I could mount the shifters outboard of the brake levers. In that position, the shift paddles line up correctly with my fingers with my hands in the normal position on the grips. More on the shifters in a future review…
There’s an odd silence when you go from the creaking of compressing snow on your heel edge at the top of the run and point the nose downhill into a ghostly white void of boot-deep powder and dime-flake blizzard sky. Silhouettes of trees pass by, appearing and disappearing in and out of the ether. At speed comes the wind noise, but it is barely audible through the helmet earflaps and headgear. There is the dull thump of your front leg knee punching through deep pockets, and the low rhythm of the board surfing through the turns and rolling over the hidden bottom contours like waves. Turning into the wind brings the chatter of snowflakes against the goggle lens. Continue reading ‘Silence’
Arrived in Japan on Sunday and rushed to Immigration in order to pass through quickly and get my bags and get to the kokunai connection in the hour I’d been given. Even though I was the only foreign passport holder on my flight other than the Captain, there was a line at the single open “Foreign Passports” section from a different flight. For some reason, nobody had told these Chinese nationals about customs and immigration forms beforehand, because they hadn’t filled them out, or hadn’t filled them out completely, so the line moved gratingly slowly. When I finally got to the counter, I was in and out swiftly, and off to the baggage carousel in no time. My bags came out reasonably quickly – usually it’s “first in, last out”. Customs was fast and simple. The dude was impressed at my bringing a snowboard for some reason. Continue reading ‘Feet Dry – CTS’
Got back from Vancouver this past Sunday, and tomorrow (Saturday) I’m off to Sapporo! Had enough time to do the laundry and put everything back in the suitcase. Snow conditions aren’t really that good, but I’m taking the powder board up since the jib board came back from Whistler-Blackcomb a little worse for wear from all the rocks and krap – the edges feel like TV infomercial serrated knives, and there is a new core-shot amongst the field of new scratches and scrapes, not to mention the marred topsheet from when mister big dummy anglo ran me over from behind. Yesterday, Sapporo Kokusai looked as bad as Whistler, with dirt showing through the thin snowbase. There was a good dump last night, so there looks to be a new 10-15cm on the ground, with more to come over the next two days. With any luck, I’ll be out there poaching it on Monday morning!
Hopefully I’ll be able to keep you updated as my trip progresses, and I look forward to what Root and Fabio will put up here and on the gallery from the Vancouver trip.
Cade Roster’s Cade Roster puts the “F” in “Fine Art” show opens at Chinatown Boardroom tonight at 18:00. The show will run thru the 27th, so go check it out! The gallery’s normal hours are Tuesday thru Saturday, 11:00-16:00. From the info I have received so far, he’s painted on skateboard decks, so this might be your chance to get some sweet custom wood by a great local artist.
Stay tuned for some highlights from the show…
The skinned finger healed up in time for the Whistler Thanksgiving trip, so all was good…
That is up until Saturday, when we were out-of-bounds on Blackcomb poaching some unridden fluff. We found a nice log jib, and hung around to session it. I rode it first and cleaned it (with a slightly off-center sortie, but that’s another story). After my run, the snow on top of the log had been scraped away, revealing a prong of death branch sticking out the top. I kicked at it and busted most of it off, but there was still a nubbin of death that bugged me. I got out my Swisstool and sawed it off. While I was shaking the wet sawdust out of the saw blade, the tool slipped out of my hand and disappeared into the snow. Without thinking, I plunged my hand into the snow and found the sawteeth with my fingertip! Blood fountained forth, drenching the tool, dripping all over the log, and splattering the snow like a crime scene! Continue reading ‘BFOD V2.0’
Saw a Saabaru last week with a mangled roof rack Q/R-style bike tray. The picture from my keitai didn’t really come out that good, so I outlined the two trays in yellow so y’all can see what’s going on. Essentially, put a bike on the tray, drive, and run the handlebars of the bike smack dab into the header of your garage door! The fork bends back, but before it breaks, it presses the frame backward and downward, forcing the rear wheel to bend the thick, extruded aluminum tray (before both the frame and wheel also break). The bike definitely didn’t survive this encounter! I wonder which poor bike store employee had to hear the, “I was just riding along…” story ?
I saw this neat paint chip at the Downtown Post Office loading dock that looks like a galvanized-colored version of the popular image of what a devil is supposed to look like in Western culture.