These things find me.

 Oh me, oh my, oh Moe, where shall I begin a post after some length of time?  At first, my return to this blog was heavily based and about my experiences following hitting the ground in a bad way after a vehicle hit my bike in a bad way.  Unfortunately, these things happen, but fortunately, the human body evolved to recover from physical trauma, or more accurately, we evolved from those that were able to recover from trauma and then reproduce to pass along that ability to recover to future generations.  So here I am.  And out there I've been, riding my bike instead of sitting here writing about someday being able to once again ride my bike.  In other words, returning to being The Guy On The Bike meant being a lot less of being the guy posting to a blog.

Also, while I don't intend to forget about the accident, there is plenty of motivation to fight letting it dominate my life, and by extension, this blog.  Sure, maybe I've had some thoughts about it and even learned some things, but that doesn't mean you, dear blog reader, want to hear all about them, even my pithy quips like, "The brain injury hasn't made me any smarter, but it has made me noticeably brighter." And it's at this point that I hold up the hi-viz gear that is now part of my riding attire. See, as I said, you don't want to hear my still awful sense of humor.

But newer and bikier notes, I rode a mountain bike last Sunday.  In the woods.  Intentionally.  It was pretty OK considering I survived and even had fun.  Sure, I still have recovery left to go, but I put my riding at 92% back, not so much out of precision (I guessed), but out of a love for oddball numbers where most would round to the nearest 5.  Then this Sunday, I went trail running, sort of partly along the 7 Sisters, and on the way there, I rode down my street, and on my street, I found a pretty damn rad old Kabuki 12 speed for free on the side of the road.  For years and years, I would find lots of cool old stuff, or so I thought, but eventually I developed the hypothesis that, in fact, cool old stuff, in need of a loving if slightly strange home, it tends to find me.

Not just lugs, but what's left of a tubing decal,

and a pretty nice one at that.

The Kabuki is just such a piece of cool, old kit.  Sure, it included a slightly blasphemous aero-ish front wheel replacement, but it's a legit double butted chromoly frame with parts from my beloved Suntour.  Also, at 59cm, it is more "more" than "less" of more or less my size, but with running my bars a wee higher these days to relieve strain on my neck, well, I don't at all mind the slightly longer headtube.  What can I say, she/he/it is a keeper that found it's new loving if peculiar home.  The rest is a post in pictures and possibly pithy commentary.  Go figure.

Not just downtube shifters (LOVE!), but top of downtube shifters

If memory serves, the front shifter moves with the rear for trim adjustment,

but I of course forgot about this when I was with the bike.

Check out that tire clearance!

What we now consider standard reach brakes

were once short reach brakes.

Back in the day, people knew what "gravel" riders recently "discovered":

Big tire are cool!

And yeah, Kabuki was associated with Bridgestone (2nd love of the post!).

Possibly to make up for the "aero" front wheel,

non aero brake cable routing!

Despite the cool drilling,

I'm not a fan of these snaggy cables, so they probably will go.

And it even came with a seat bag,

complete with tire levers

and a perforated tube.

(If you use a seat bag, put your tube in a sock, trust me.)