I got the itch to add some color to my Soma last week -- and settled on the fenders. I did my pre-prep check through the internets and found this write-up by Steven Vance. I went upwards navigating through the rest of his site and he's got a lot of interesting information on bicycling for someone looking to kill some time. But back to the point, I reference his site for fair citation as I used it as a guide before dumping cash at the hardware store. The information he gives is clear and concise and thus precludes the need for me to rewrite it. However, I think he may have gone a little overkill, I'd edit his How-To like this:

1. Clean fender with water. Dry fender.
2. Wipe down fender with paint thinner. Allow to dry - this won't take more than two minutes.
3. Sand the entire fender by hand. Make sure to move to new areas of the sandpaper to ensure the best contact between the sandpaper and the plastic.
4. Spray plastic primer spray. Follow the directions on the spray can, especially regarding multiple coatings (one coat should be enough) and timing. Cover with box.
5. After waiting the appropriate time (probably at least an hour), sand down the paint clumps and other imperfections. Spray these areas again. Cover with box and wait the appropriate time (yes, again).
6. Spray color paint spray [jon edit: get some of that primer/paint combo spray paint and you can skip the two steps above]. It doesn't matter which kind of spray you buy. Just find the color you want. Follow the directions carefully, especially those regarding multiple coatings (one coat should be enough) and timing [jon edit: concentrate on spraying evenly and keep the can at a good distance from the fender and you won't have to worry about sanding between coats]. Cover with box. [jon edit: I didn't have a box big enough to cover my fenders and it wasn't a problem so use your own sense]
7. After waiting the appropriate time, sand down the paint clumps and other imperfections. Spray these areas again. Cover with box and wait the appropriate time.
8. Spray clear coat. Again, follow the directions. You may want to apply more than one coat, but be sure to wait the appropriate time.
9. Cover with box and wait a week before using your newly painted fender. [jon edit: a whole week?? I don't have this patience. I'd installed them within 2 hours of the last clear coat drying. I was just careful not to scratch or mar them with the tools when reinstalling. So far so good.]

That's it. You can either look at my list as coming from one who is lazy or, as I prefer, from one who is impatiently pragmatic. Anyway, here's the rear fender after a second coat of paint, drying in the sun.


So why did I choose sky blue? Well I missed that snappy blue from my old Peugeot, for one. Also because it fit nicely to the overall color palette of my bike. Two other websites helped me reach this conclusion too. First I uploaded a picture of my bike to this website and got the hex code of the main colors on the Soma. Then I went to my old favorite site, Colour Lovers (yes Chrome spellchecker, I too prefer not to have the British 'u' in the word either), and searched for palettes with colors close to mine -- many had some form of light blue in them. Ok, right, how boring, let's see how it looks on the bike.



Well hot damn! And the rest of the bike?



Mmm.. subtle, but I like it.

Dear gargantuan woman with porcine child in the SUV who cut me off, nearly ran me over, then had the nerve to honk at me this morning,

I appreciate your concern for my safety -- and expressing that with your unnecessarily loud horn in my ear. After all, who better to warn me of drivers' disregard for my presence than someone who can barely see over the dash of their 60 ton behemoth of a vehicle? I apologize for the indignant behavior I expressed - and with what nerve! To think I momentarily entertained the idea that I deserved to ride in that broken-glass littered, pot-hole riddled gutter that passes for bike lanes here in LA! Complete codswallop! Well, you can rest easy with your handfuls of Twinkies knowing you did your part to make the streets a little safer. I've learned my lesson.

Warm regards,
JVL

Here's a brilliant 10 minute summary of the history of the English language.

I'd say it is most often a pride of purity that gets people into an uproar (early 16th century: from Middle Dutch uproer, from op 'up' + roer 'confusion', assimilated to roar) -- lest we ever forget the treatment of muggles. But for exactly the opposite reason I have this soft infatuation (mid 16th century: from Latin infatuat- 'made foolish', from the verb infatuare, from in- 'into' + fatuus 'foolish') with English's cobbled history. In the conclusion of this video the authors surmise (late Middle English (in the senses 'formal allegation' and 'allege formally'): from Anglo-Norman French and Old Frenchsurmise) that in the future English (the strange language) won't be any more English (the shitty island) than football.

So the next time you hear a foreigner barbarizing (Middle English (as an adjective used depreciatively to denote a person with different speech and customs): from Old French barbarien, from barbare, or from Latin barbarus (see barbarous)) English with their mix of native tongue, perhaps you should stop and thank them for beautifying and enhancing this language for the next generations.

update:  i rode the raleigh to school and that cotter pin is hosed. I must have put some permanent strain on the soft metal - and furthermore it was probably the wrong diameter to begin with. the crank is clunking worse than ever. for the 0.0002% chance someone that finds this and is in the same predicament, i found the website of a machinist in Minnesota who will make a high quality pin for Raleighs.

http://www.bikesmithdesign.com/CotterPress/cotters.html

So the mystery of my Raleigh's limp has finally been solved. me and my ol' pal Max who stopped by on business, took my bikes out to westwood park so we could commence with tom foolery without keeping cindy up last night. after we poked around on the Raleigh for a while, he says to me it seems more like the crankarm itself is loose instead of anything with the bottom bracket. As he's saying this to me it flashes in my memory that when I'd last worked on the bottom bracket i'd mashed the old cotter pin and had to replace it with one that i just thought might fit.

This morning I went downstairs and "tapped" on the cotter pin with my claw hammer and encouraged the little bastard to wedge down deeper into the crank axle. wouldn't you know it? it worked like a damned charm. I'd sort of shelved the Raleigh because i absolutely loathed the idea of putting it up on a work stand and spending another 2 hours repeatedly trying to adjust the bracket cups to _juuust_ the right torque.

I also caved recently and shelled out the dough to get Park Tools's wire cutter. I shortened up all the cable housing that looked ridiculous because i didn't want to ruin the housing with my old shitty wire cutters. Hoowee, that Raleigh is one fine looking ride now.