It's Raining Jacks

Mr. Jack Gabus is going to be documenting the build of his Jack Taylor on his blog, Echolon 133. Expect some cross posting in the near future. (Nice chairs)
Link to his blog.

Coincidentally I received this from Jon Guinea within minutes after receiving the note from Jack. It belongs to a Phil Van Valkenberg, whom I don't know, but it is very nice. 

Steel Is Real Milwaukee, Saturday, September 11 Special Appearance by Jack Taylor  Itself! This is What My Old Jack Taylor Looked Like The Taylor brothers, Jack, Norm and Ken, hand made bicycle in Stocton-On-Tees, England from the 1930s to the '90s.  They crafted a total of only about 10,000 during that time.  Jack Taylor frames were noted for workmanship and finish.  Tandems were a speciality as well as touring bikes with integrated racks. Road racing and track bikes were made too.  "Custom" was the norm.  Reynolds 531 tubing was used almost exclusively. Norm made the frames, Jack painted and stripped them and Ken built the wheels and did the packing hand writing on each box, "Have a nice ride."  Norm specialized in "magic hands welding," a method of joining tubes without lugs by laying down brazing metal smoothly around the joints.  He began doing it in the post-WWII days when there was a shortage of lugs.  It's said he was so good at it he never used a file. This photo is my Jack Taylor Clubman when I got it back a couple of years ago after hard use and years of storage in a barn.  It was in pretty rough shape. I had it restored at Waterford Precision Cycles.  They matched the paint, found replica Mondrian decals and duplicated the original box stripping.  It's a total babe magnet bike - good since I'm not. I plan to ride it at Steel Is Real Milwaukee this year, weather permitting.  Otherwise I'll try to have it on display at Cafe Hollander.  Maybe some lady will have the ultra beer goggles on and I'll get lucky (lol). Not to worry, I won't be entering it in the Best Steel Bike Contest.  Riders will vote at Cafe Hollander before the start for the best Road Bike, One-On-One, Balloon-Tired Bomber, Mountain Bike, Bagel Wheels (24" or less), Extemporaneous (high degree of creativity), and the coveted "Should've Taken 'er to Ziebart" award for the best rust bucket (must be ridden) that looks a few pedal turns from the junk yard.  We might do a best tandem award too if more than one shows up. At registration everyone will get stickers for each Best Steel Bike category.  You'll vote for your favorite by putting the sticker on the bike of choice.  We'll call up entrants for each category and if you've got one entered you can do the show dog routine and tell about it.  You can also buy votes.  Beer bribes and flirting seem to work best.

Koerner, Ray and Glover

In spite of the (2005) label on the YouTube, it was recorded in 2002 shortly before Dave Ray died. John Koerner, Tony Glover and Dave Ray were part of the Minnesota West Bank folk scene in the early 60s, which included Bobby Zimmerman from up on the Range. He learned from these guys, became Bob Dylan and went to Greenwich Village. K, R & G stayed home playing traditional music for tips in bars. Koerner continued playing every Sunday at the Viking Bar until it was razed in name of "progress" about four years ago. The last I heard he was building boats and playing he can get a gig. The keyboards are played by another old home boy, Willie Murphy.

LP Cures Another Bad Habit

I have known LP all my life. I knew him as a young child. I worked with him for 30+ years. I have breakfast with him once a week. After all of these years you wouldn't think there would be many surprises left. You'd be wrong. He can still regularly throw me a curve.

When LP first started playing the trombone he couldn't reach the long slide positions. I remember visiting their home and having his father requesting a song or two from young LP and his older sister Dolly (clarinet?) to entertain the guests. As he got older he played in bands. He knew the name of every major professional trombone player who ever lived. He particularity loved Dixieland. Eventually the trombone moved to the closet, coming out only when he had had a little to drink. Late in the evening at parties he would feel the music coming on and go home to retrieve the sliding brass beast. I think the longest was a 50 mile round trip. Now that is passion.

Last Saturday at breakfast I asked him if he had seen some music program on television. He said no, he doesn't listen to any music now, not even on the car radio! How can this be? It's like an artist deciding he's not going to paint again. Okay, maybe that's a bad example. But how can a one time musician completely divorce himself from music, giving it all up like a bad habit?  Another curve ball.

One More Malmsteen, Then I'll Quit

Promise.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Yngwie Johann Malmsteen from about 20 years ago. All you non-Scandihovians out there, say "Ing-vay". For Jackson. Bless his old weathered Swedish soul.

Blazing Star Trail

Or, how I wasted my day today.

An easy two mile ride from my front door, down Highway 13 and then east on Front Street, takes me to the Blazing Star Landing, the beginning of a paved state trail.  

The oppressive humidity and heat has broken and it was a blue sky 75 degree day. I was rolling like the wind. Later it turned out the wind was merely pushing me along to set me up to pay his price on the return run. Ol' Wind has been using this ploy on me for 40 years and I still fall for it. I should know by now, I am not that strong!

The first half mile from the landing snakes around a cattail marsh before climbing up the grade and running east, a straight line wedged between farm fields and a railroad right of way. After a mile, maybe a little longer, it goes under Interstate 35, takes a sharp right turn and heads south to Myre-Big Island State Park. 

The 1600 acre park is a mixture of tallgrass prairie and hardwoods, what the early settlers called "Oak Openings" and the Big Woods timber of the island - a mixture of maple, hickory, cherry and such. A mile after entering the park the trail crosses the road. I opted to turn right off the trail onto the road which swings through the tallgrass prairie, the flowers just starting to show themselves above the Little Bluestem and Indian Grass, and heads east to the islands - Big and Little.

The road crosses a causeway and terminates at a picnic grounds on Big Island, a 117 acre wooded island surrounded by the 2,600 acres of Albert Lea Lake. The computer says the park has eight miles of shoreline. Having walked and paddled every foot of it, that seems about right. Give or take.

The gloves say "Benson". It must be the Korean branch of the Benson tree. 

I kicked back a little and tried to nap on the Laurie Sather Memorial Sleeping Table before the return trip. No luck, it requires a certain mystical quality that only Laurie seems to possess.

It was a clear blue sky, dragonfly, bobolink, white pelican drifting with the wind day. A day for bicycles and twin fawns bounding across the path, standing white tails twitching, smug but nervous in the sun dappled underbrush. Life is hard. Life is earnest. Even for first summer whitetails. They escaped the cyclist. This time.

The PGA Championship

A couple of days ago Dex Westrum was over helping me deal with a surplus of Bell's Two-Hearted Ale. The PGA was on and we started talking about the qualities of the Whistling Straights Golf Club. Dex, who is or was a member of the PGA, is the spawn of a family of club pros and in his day was a pretty good golfer, mostly of the hustler ilk - that is, in his family, golf was something one did for money, not pleasure. 

He told me about our high school classmate, Dick Jones, who won everything he touched in high school, including the Minnesota State Tournament. As an adult he continued playing amateur golf, winning 40 some tournaments. This is to say, he is a pretty fair golfer. He lives in Milwaukee and has played Whistling Straights half a dozen times. Only twice he broke 100. Twice. It makes one appreciate what the touring pros are able to do. Grounding the club in a quasi-sand trap! Oofda.

The Blaine Velodrome

The National Sports Center is in Blaine, a northern suburb of Minneapolis. The Sports Center is a large complex with indoor facilities (8 sheets of ice) and a number of stadiums and athletic fields for various sports. For instance there are 52 soccer fields! But enough about obscure sports. It also has maybe the finest velodrome in North America (which in 20 years I have never even bothered to go up and look at).

Kenneth Koch

You want a social life, with friends.

A passionate love life and as well

To work hard every day. What’s true

Is of these three you may have two.

"...please ride responsibly." ???

Lorna Berg “May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.” (sang at Geri McShane's funeral and celebration of life ceremony)

Minneapolis Nice Ride

Nice Ride