Random bike stuff on None More Black Friday

Flickr/Wikipedia, Joe Goldberg

Black Friday came and went. I did indeed work at the hostel, though I never went to that Bollywood party. Alas.

At the hostel I managed to find this:

I did also find that awesome hemp satchel with the image of a very Euro utility bike at the Hostel , but we'll be talking about the light here.

I lost this Portland Design Works Radbot 500 rear light sometime before I quit the hostel and took off for the crazy Cross-Continent bike adventure. Nowadays having another battery powered blinky light isn't that big of a deal since both my primary bikes, the Raleigh Wayfarer and Surly Long Haul Trucker, have front and rear dynamo powered lamps. But I like having backup blinkies, just in case something happens to a rear light or I really feel like I need the extra "oomph". 

On the way back to "the house" I swung by Clever Cycles. And...I bought some stuff. Yes, I know that it's "Buy Nothing Day". Does this make me a bad leftist or something? Anyways...I found these in their "Bakfiets of Bargains":*

A dynamo powered headlamp and taillamp, made by Basta/AXA, a renowned European bike parts company. And for $2 each. Sweet! The catch is these lights are halogen, not LED, hence the sooper-dooper discounted price. (As I was perusing the "Bakfiets of Bargains", Todd, one of the owners walked by and exclaimed, "Halogen is dead!") As far as Todd and I can tell the headlamp does have an LED standlight, as the package indicates there are two LED "safety" lights between the bulb and reflector. I figure we can use these lights on April's Raleigh Sports when we install the dynohub front wheel. I might also pick up an extra headlamp as backup for one of my dyno-powered bikes, in case one gets broken or a tweaker somehow yanks one.** For two bucks you can't go wrong. And now you know where you can get ridiculously cheap halogen dynamo lamps.

(I also picked up a pair of wool undies for ridiculously cheap, but that's a different story.)

And when I got back to "the house" I found this scene in the kitchen:

Why yes that is a Moka Pot in the background!

Our room-mate Donna was "baking" her Brooks. She just got a new Brooks B67 saddle to replace her worn out old one, and decided to expedite the breaking-in process by putting a bunch of Proofide on it and sticking it in the oven for a couple hours. Non-standard, yes. I'm assuming it's also "kosher", because if it wasn't, Mr. Raving Bike Fiend, aka "her husband" would have said something.

Yes, we are bike crazy round these parts.

*Yes, they actually do have a bakfiets filled with bargain-priced items. Alas, I did not take a photo of it.

**I've heard of at least one tweaker attempting to do that here in Portland.