Yesterday I mentioned Tullio Campagnolo, noted Japanese inventor, businessman and founder of Shimano Bicycle Component and Fishing Pole Spinny-Thing Manufacturing Concern:
Well, relatively few people know that he also had a long-lost twin brother who played Fred Mertz on the old "I Love Lucy" program:
(When talking about an old TV show you have to call it a "program" and pronounce it "PRO-grum.")
What makes us who we are? Is it nature or nurture? Well, I say it's a little bit of both, and Tullio and Fred are a perfect example of this. Born from the same womb yet raised a world apart, both men wore pants up to their nipples and put their hands on their hips when nonplussed (nature). However, Tullio used suspenders to hoist his pants, whereas Fred opted for the belt (nurture).
Anyway, Tullio and Fred were finally reunited later in life, and the constant bickering that ensued ultimately became the inspiration for Neil Simon's "The Sunshine Boys."
Anyway, Tullio and Fred were finally reunited later in life, and the constant bickering that ensued ultimately became the inspiration for Neil Simon's "The Sunshine Boys."
Speaking of component groups, when considering which shifty parts to put on your bicycle, chances are you only think of Shimano, Campagnolo, and SRAM. Maybe--maybe--you think of "microSHIFT" or one of the various re-branded variants. However, as you may have seen elsewhere over the past few months, there's now a new player in the moving-your-chain game. They come from Portland, and their name is Retroshift:
Quickshift from Retroshift on Vimeo.
What, you may ask, is the point of a system that basically just moves bar end shifters onto your brake levers? Well, these are the ideal retrogrouchy shifter for the 99%. I don't mean 99% in the #Occupy sense; rather, I mean it in the "percentage of people who never put their hands in the drops" sense. See, with the advent of integrated shifting everyone started riding on their brake hoods all the time, so handlebars got lower, but now people are interested in old-timey shifters again because they live in Portland, ride in the mud, and have beards. However, they can't reach their drops anymore because STI bar height has become the norm, so along comes this piece of retro-kludgery to solve the problem.
Also, you won't bang your knees on them, so I suppose there's that.
Then again, I shouldn't be critical, since the people using it seem to like it, I'm lousy at cyclocross no matter what shifters I'm using, and I'm not a qualified product tester--even though Knog seems to think I am:
I pressed and pressed and pressed the sample but nothing happened, and so after awhile I just took them out of the box and stared at them:
These are Knog's new "Blinder" lights, and once I charge them I'll let you know if they live up to their name. I'm not sure how I'll do that, but at the moment I'm thinking I'll just test them on small animals. And before you get all PETA on me, just relax, because I plan to put the animals in sunglasses:
I pressed and pressed and pressed the sample but nothing happened, and so after awhile I just took them out of the box and stared at them:
These are Knog's new "Blinder" lights, and once I charge them I'll let you know if they live up to their name. I'm not sure how I'll do that, but at the moment I'm thinking I'll just test them on small animals. And before you get all PETA on me, just relax, because I plan to put the animals in sunglasses:
By the way, Bugsy rode all of last cyclocross season on Retroshift, and you can look forward to a detailed review just as soon as he learns how to read and write.
With that, I'm pleased to present you with a quiz. As always, study the item, think, and click on your answer. If you're right you'll know, and if you're wrong you'll see someone who loves his bike.
Thanks very much for reading, ride safe, and stay shifty.
--Wildcat Rock Machine
1) A Spanish professor is protesting the Alberto Contador verdict by:2) Eddy Merckx is a doctor.
--True
--False
3) Tullio Campagnolo invented the:
--Quick release skewer
--Presta valve
--True
--False
(Tullio Campagnolo and Federico Bahamontes)
3) Tullio Campagnolo invented the:
--Quick release skewer
--Presta valve
--Steam engine
4) The Next Big Thing in road bike technology is going to be:
(Behold! The Fred of the Future!)
4) The Next Big Thing in road bike technology is going to be:
I’d always thought single-speeds were an illin’ pose, but the IRO was nimble and ridiculously light. Standing on the pedals, I climbed past 15-speeders in my only gear. It was like having a skinnier, younger girlfriend.
5) The above quote appeared in:
--Yet another "New York Times" article about the waning fixie trend
--A recent "Outside" magazine article on stolen bikes
--The "Rivendell Reader"
6) The animal embroidered on this patch is:
--A recent "Outside" magazine article on stolen bikes
--The "Rivendell Reader"
6) The animal embroidered on this patch is:
7) Fill in the blank: "I wanted to get a sleeve tattoo that incorporated _______________."
***Special Automotive-Themed Bonus Question***
The advent of "connected cars" means:
93 comments:
Hello
fuck you all!!!
Podium? +1
Odium!
Top 10!
Top 10!
freshies, bro
schluff, schluff
Toop teeeeen
Panties!
Up yours!
Panties, damn it!
Toppp Twennny!
scranipplenus.
That Spockopus tat is classic.
Also don't forget that Fred Mertz was in Vaudeville (pronounced VAUD-uh-ville).
Top twenty.
Finally!
Oh and a merry tugnut to y'all.
A 15 speed is 2 gears in the front, and 7.5 in the back.
LUCY! I'M HOME!
top 18!!!
also, while working in front of the TV/Netflix i've made the mistake of watching To Live and Ride in LA. I"m now looking furiously for something to light my head on fire.
All Of The Above!
Preach it Snob. Righteously.
Top XX?
Not likely.
"Nonplussed" returns.
Where ya been, weird assed word? We missed you.
My truck has been tweeting for years.
It's a Dodge Veg-O-Matic.
Coupla weeks ago it totally tweeted right in the middle of an intersection.
I had to have it towed home.
Coulda been top 10 but I was entranced by the wrong answer video. Only missed one, but I actually liked the Italian (?) bicycle rap video. It probably helped that I couldn't understand the rhymes.
On coming drivers
blinded by the Blinders
Can't see can't see
How am I to tweet?
Opposing bikers loss of sight
Wobble feebly in the night
Shades needed nocturnally
Tilford begat this in '33
I read the whole post got caugth up in I love my bike for two whle go arounds got lost on the retro shift site for a bit and still in the top 25?
Nice.
ZOOTS.
I heard fred mertz had a huge cock? or maybe that was ethel?
Glad I missed two questions though.
Really feeling the boardwalk cycle crew session. Tight.
I think you are unfairly maligning that bicycle frame. From an engineering perspective the circle is the most round of all shapes.
How does Vito get along with the Rabbit?
An illin' pose?
Kneeling on the bathroom floor and driving the porcelain bus.
Spocktothulu's quite good.
hey nonny mouse
Top thirty; and I read it and kinda took the quiz. A good week for me.
weEKeNd.
Nipped at the line by Anonymous, 1:53pm! And for 30th place! Ouch!
Hey, Scranus, I got 100% on the quiz.
C'mon Snob, you forgot to mention my patented auto dashboard cheese fondue pot and centre-console deep fryer. Both bluetooth-controlled, whatever the fuck that is.
Tullio and Fred appear to work for the same outfit that this guy does.
Few people know that Fred Mertz was a genius who developed radar technology in WW2 and radio technology we still use to this day in cell phones.
oh, shit...wrong,..that was Hedy Lamarr.
Mertz was played by Bill Frawley...On March 3, 1966, Frawley collapsed of a heart attack while walking down Hollywood Boulevard after seeing a movie, Inside Daisy Clover. He was dragged to the nearby Knickerbocker Hotel, where he had previously lived for many years, by his male nurse — a constant companion since his prostate cancer operation more than a year before. He was then rushed to the nearby Hollywood Receiving Hospital on Wilcox Ave, where he was pronounced dead.
Tulio Campagnolo made his fortune in 1954 with the "Mamma Mia", an 11 -speed sex toy.
You forgot about Coolio Campagnolo, the rapping great grandson.
Sure, make fun of my nipple-high trousers fashion, but at least I'm not these douches.
The douche was invented by Howard Hughes, originally designed to clear out oil wells.
"Inside Daisy Clover" was not a porn movie.I checked.
Bugsey
I wish I'd been wearing Bugsy's glasses when I clicked on Commie's link. Now I'll have nightmares about Bluetooth.
...you're telling me i'm finishing over 3 hours behind the podium people ???...
...well call me the poster boy for 'nonplussed'...
Nobody likes a high bunny.
CC, I'm curious to know how you dealt with the problem of windshield (windscreen for you UK-ers) fogging when using the ADCFP wBT?
I'm also assuming that rear-facing infant car seats are highly recommended when using the CCDF wBT. Manufacturers wouldn't want to have to pay damages on too many cases of deep fried newborns...
I asked for a sprocket.
I got Spock.
Nuts.
I think this may illustrate the problem with a super good Thursday post. Low Friday quiz numbers. People are all topped off on funny.
Not even room for a waffer of humour.
There is always Saturday though.
..."And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
To call Alice, when she was just small..."...
...maybe this helps you, maybe it doesn't but i'm just sayin'...
I shift back into non-plussed where I reside by cranking the skewer out of my left rear right hydrolic brakenut. You should be jealous. These bad boys won't hit market till 2017. Booyah.
Spocktopus?
I missed that episode.
Bicycles, zombies and comics sounds like a petty good mix.
When I was a kid Fred Mertz looked to be a million years old. Now I look kinda like him.
mmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm
sploirtt!!!!
gulp!!!!
Sorry. My mouth was full.
Tullio is nonplussed simply because there is a pie plate on that wheel. Immediately after that shot he removes it and flings into the Italian countryside on his commute home(it takes awhile when you are pulling a component vending trailer) where it lies for 27 years until a young Mario Cipolinni finds it and IMMEDIATELY places it around his hard-on and starts convincing young Cicilian lasses in his village that it is indeed a shake weight. The End.
BEEF EATR
We are all Alberto
@BGW-yeah, that helped. 55th? Somebody threw a 'bow.
Vulcan Cthulhu FTW!
Well Mike...the trick was to get a $500M DOE loan, then have the car run off the fat from the deep fryer.
Eco, green, etc. I only installed the Bluetooth option to get featured on Engadget and Gizmodo, which I believe are sex toy sites.
This is no toy, I can deep fry that cute bunny or a human head in 40 seconds, then dip right into the cheese fondue.
SWIS FOOD
Getting ready to fire up the Pussy Wagon to get some Pho.
The Budnitz has just launched an Etsy account.
Commie, they featured one of your other automotive designs on tech/whatever blog BoingBoing today.
You just have to adapt. I've incorporated a tablet computer into my cockpit with an app that issues an alert if a distracted driver is on a collision course with me. An added benefit is that I can write dumb comments here while I'm riding. In turn, the GPS in my tablet computer alerts pedestrians via their heads up displays if I am about to collide with them.
Eat shit you nonplussed motherfuckers.
Were Fred and Ricky fuck-buddies?
OMG @BGW
If you borrow the Pussy Wagon put some gas in the tank numb nuts!!
I've got Bugsy's cyclocross report right here:
http://online.wsj.com/video/battle-of-the-bouncing-bunnies/6347466D-4E58-4880-B6E2-C95573B37AD7.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_mpvidcar_1
Ride like le lapin agile all!
(Sorry about the cut and paste in browser link.)
And one other thing...
Remember what the doormouse said.
22 speed is the new 15 speed - 3 in the front, 7 in the back, plus STOP.
Leroy, is that a doormouse with high visibility stripes, or did you mean a dormouse?
...ce...commie canuk's deep fryer/fondue pot dashboard 'app'...nice...
...your boy in zurich with his wood burning stove car 'app'...ya, okay...
...but hey, kids hungry in the car ???...give 'em a sandwich...they're fucking kids...
...price of joules, kilowatt-hours or kilocalories kicked out by a volvo in the snow ???...no biggy...
...but WHAT'S the one thing everybody's gotta do soon as you hit the road ???...
...yup, pee...so i mounted a porcelain toilet bowl (it's a crane - i like quality) where the passenger seat would reside & family vacations just got a little easier...
...& hey, the sunroof allows you to sit in comfort without banging your head...
...now THAT is an 'app'...
@BGW, Is there a holding tank or is it "direct drive"?
...mcfly...either/or...
...'application' depends on how polite you wanna be...
Ah, just like those old European trains where you peed into the toilet and it went straight down the hole and onto the tracks.
Jasper --
I meant "Remember what the doored mouse said. Ow, my head. Ow, my head."
The industry's failure to design mice sized helments is well documented.
As is my poor spelling.
I thought in Europe, pre-bidet, everyone pee'd into holes in the floor EVRYWHERE.
I'm making a progrum about wearing panties up to my nipples.
Anyone who has shifters anywhere besides the downtube is a communist. Or a terrorist. Or a European. Or is from Portland. Pick the one you think is worst. If you have bar-end shifters AND disc brakes, you have to pick the TWO you think are worst. If the brakes are hydraulic, you get the three-for-one discount. Unless you have a beard or ride a recumbent. Then all is forgiven, because you're clearly insane.
...speaking of european's peeing into holes, what's become of our unflappable frenchman, ant1 ???...
ant 2nd!
yes, I agree...where is ant 1? I've refrained from adding ant 2nd for too long.
Also you're thinking of Milton Berle's member. Not that I know from personal experience.
Yo dawg, we saw the size of yo ass so we put a deep fryer in yo car dawg, so yo can deep fry yo dawg, dawg.
That large mass of yellow hot furnace in moving car only makes total sense. Wish I'd thought of that instead of my passenger-side pork BBQ pit.
Well I'll be, my lil hunny bunny just walked in the house and said, "I rented HOODWINKED II for us to watch!", lucky me. I don't remember Hoodwinked 1 but I hope it has a happy ending.
...i prefer a good titmouse over a dormouse any day...
Does one have to severly flunk an IQ test in order to purchase a Surly Big Dummy? Re'TAD'ed in BossTown
Dear Re,
Purchasing any Surly product automatically renders one mentally hopeless and adrift in a sea of putrid Wall Street smarminess. Douched by your own sea smugness is no way to go through life Re.
If I were you I'd off me own self. Just Say'in
i fucked Spocktopussy.
BGW and commiecanuck. Fuck-buddies?
...wow...thank goodness certain new posters (posers ???) show such a wealth of intelligence & depth of humor...
...kinda obvious bike snob nyc was in dire need of such sophisticated input...
...just sayin'...
I'm sorry to correct you Wildcat, but, even though he may not remember himself, Eddy Merckx is actually a doctor:
http://translate.google.be/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sporza.be%2Fcm%2Fsporza%2Fwielrennen%2F1.1032060&act=url
Snobby is late. Could someone please send vito to get him out of the bathroom?
cycle
How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
Thou know'st we work by wit, and not by witchcraft;
And wit depends on dilatory time.
Where is the new FUCKEN POST!!!!!!!!
Iam fucken kill you!!!!!!!!
...ya, sure, vito...i heard he just got his sack caught in his 'uncle tullio' suspenders when he was getting dressed...
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Why are industrial Japanese corporations called "manufacturing concerns"
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