Well the elves of Rivendell didn't get their delivery made for Christmas or even near the holidays. I was repeatedly told my Hunqapillar frame would be coming back from the painter, but it never did. I began to wonder about the problems which might be causing this delay. It took me years to find a way to justify buying one of their beautiful bikes and now I can only imagine it got caught in the middle of a work slowdown or strike by the dwarfs of Mt. Diablo. Rumors began to circulate throughout my head that they were on strike for better work conditions, new lighting in the mine, longer mead breaks, younger mead wenches and the sort. It was really kinda depressing, but Thursday I got a call from Keven at fairyland and he tried to explain that they would have to send me a more expensive Waterford made model because they didn't have a Taiwan made frame available. I have no problem with getting a more expensive anything for free so I agreed, also the orange trim on this one will go better with my hair. He was really nice, apologized profusely and tried to explain that they simply had screwed up. I appreciate all this, but, not being one to let reality dissemble the truth... I am sticking with the dwarf story.
All this is exciting as the frame will be shipped in the next few days and it motivated me to get the handlebars ready. It is no small task, I had bought some leather bar covers from Velo-Orange and it had to be stitched by hand onto the bars.
Even though the instructions are clear, the procedure is not only mind numbingly boring, it's a real pain to work around all the cables involved with aero levers and bar end shifters. But the end result is great and leather, whether full grips or tape, not only feels good it wears much better than the alternatives. My first experience was with Brooks bar tape and I thought it was an extravagance at the time. But it has an incredible lifespan compared to cork. I seemed to replace cork wrap on an annual basis on my old
Trek, but the leather has been there now for 5 years and even survived a nasty spill which would have torn cork right off the bar. Well after two hours of tedium I was finished,
and I have to admit that I am no seamstress, they'll work fine for me and be durable and comfortable but any dreams I had of a career lacing leather corsets for beer wenches at the Renaissance festival have been dashed to pieces.
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