Fillet-brazed Phoenix...

...and a bow to some Belgians.

Picked up my frame a week ago from Tom. Damn, he did one helluva nice job setting up my Cross-check with new dropouts and rack spools. The quality and craftsmanship this guy brings to his work are unrivaled. Have a look at the pix and you'll see what I mean—the added bits appear to have grown right out of the frame. Top-notch, period. Tom seems to be the type of builder who treats each frame—be it a custom build or a repair job—as if it belonged to him, and the expertise and attention to detail shine through in the finished work. Can't wait to rebuild the Beast and get it back in the line-up.

After settling up with Tom, I managed to work in a short ride down to Fell's Point, along with biking demi-legend and semi-local man about town, David Blum, who met me at Palermo's shop near Baltimore.

Once there, we hit a food joint whose grill was down ("WTF?" you ask...yeah, me, too), but which managed to keep a steady stream of locally-famous Resurrection Ale flowing into our glasses. We chatted a while with a drunk and demented drifter, a Texas ex-pat, who sat down at our table to smoke, drawing us deeper and deeper into his personal padded cell with every adjective he uttered, before presenting us with a rambling handwritten manifesto of sorts that he swore was "it". Sadly, it wasn't. We wished him luck, settled up, then pedaled over historic cobblestones [injured shoulder and wrist telling me in painful (re)morse code¹ that it's not quite time] to a quiet little placed called Max's. Those of you cursed with a grotesquely overdeveloped (i.e., highly compensatory; more Athena than Priapus, get it?) cerebrum will be quick to imagine what took place within this hallowed establishment. For the rest of you, here it is, plain and simple: beer flowed, bullshit followed; both of the highest order.

Good times, Dave, thanks.

Speaking of life, beer, the escape from the former via the latter, and bikes, don't forget to mark your social calendar for the Third Annual Bootlegger's Bliss event, tentatively scheduled for Satyrday, November 1st, of this very same year. New artwork, new pint glasses, same old sots. More details to follow soon. Get brewing!

(This post unknowingly inspired by the fine folks of Brewery Het Anker, makers of Gouden Carolus Hopsinjoor, the boldly bitter, bottle-fermented, beatific Belgian blond ale pot-de-fer that fired the neurons on a crooked trajectory from axon to dendrite to more or less get this post written. I salute you, oh faux friars from a faraway land...keep up the good work.)


1. (* - *) (* * -) (* *   *) (- * -) and (* *   * *) (*   *) (* * -), to be exact (American Morse Code).