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bikefitters can only go so far imo (this person has never had a bike fit) and a lot of the time you're relying on a white guys superstions (like a yoga coach or an econamist), so really it can be hard to feel like your needs are met. that's without the fact that when you have your measurements it might mean you have to choose from some god awful bikes which you then have to modify further to fit.

will likely be more from sunday!

hopefully of other peoples nice bikes too!

reminder to all reading and new page,

this sunday!
11am!
perkyns!
then over to the lordship pumptrack!
you can ride or walk between the two!
come meet people in the community and outside of it!
make a friend, get some vitimin D!
show off your bike or admire others!
if you ask i'm sure people will let you have a go!

ok so i've drunk a coffee and just boshed out a first round [REDACTED]

cannot stop thinking about this bike, riding it too and from the bikeshop has left me actually wanting to ride bikes again?

it's a steel bike with 26'' wheels!!

it's really all there is to it!!

i think my enthusiasm comes from how important it can be to have a bike which fits.

yes a bike which fits your measurements, but also a bike which fits your needs. the fact i can carry it up and down stairs, the fact my bones don't get shaken to dust, the fact the gearing keeps me feeling confident getting up any hill i approach, the fact it makes your brain release a feel good chemical in amongst a bleak, sun starved winter.

All of these are important and to have them fulfilled is so transformative.

while these things can be had for most people easily, or relatively easily. the more your body breaks and decays, the more you find yourself outside the vision of bike designers, your needs and fit underserved. the more magical these feelings are when your needs are finally met.

i'm the first to side eye a custom bike, but now i have two! i cannot stress enough, how good it feels to have no guilt about that, to know the choice i made was right for me!

i wish more than anything that more people could experience this feeling of being catered too without having to spend thousands, that bikes were designed to fit lifestyles of yuppie queers, aged out local dirt jump riders, families needing to collect the kids and an ikea order, people needing to get to the club in vintage comme des garcon, people who need to get home from the pub, those who have achey bones and tender muscles,

we have enough bikes for people to ride fast away from their emotions and stresses of life, to cosplay as their favourite lycra fascist. maybe we can try making bikes for all the other people.

i look forward to riding this bike more and more

and i hope everyone finds a bike which fits at some point in their life

the weight is an easy price to pay to make ones bike look handsome, good price and par, glws!

great look on the bike, great bike

I have working brakes thanks to butternut bikes >:)

AGAIN???? i don't miss living on that line at all, as much as i miss brocca

excellent bike made more excellent

you should be proud of this, there is also the ovg which will drop those in forest hill off in dalston and it's a short ride up the a10!

Found the luggage scale

12.52kg with tools and frame bag

Not bad considering the heavy bits of Japanese steel on it and the stamped cassette

Yesss

this is excellent to hear from everyone, i've just booked the bike in to have its rear brake bled and then we will be shREADY for sunday

crowd boos, bottle is thrown

Really happy with how this genestealers atv came out, the blue/ red really sets it off

Also some aggressors I finished

klean kanteen ready cage (800ml) is so key, @Belagerent come tell the man

v v good deal

yesssss, exciting project

excited for another EXCEPTIONAL oddo build

the piece from biden (more likely his aids) has only really inspired deja vu, not that anything different should be expected. he's essentially offering the same thing he offers any middleastern country the US wants dealt with, be it directly or by proxy.

talk of the two state solution in particular is like reading a piece from the 2000's, prior to the siege of 2006, here's very loose overview on the history of tunnels under palestine, and how sieges and aparthied practices of gaza contribute to their development in this thread:

https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1726517641479893070

(this is a journalist for forward, and other western outlets)

(note, tunnel employment is analagous to poppy farming in afghanistan, a lot of it is funded/ran by groups such as al queda and hamas (and the americans when they're in control), but its also employment for locals, often the only choice of employment, which western sanctions on a country, or direct invasions disrupt. it also highlights how the general populations of these western targets are mainly interested in survival rather than ideologically attached or aligned with these groups, that western agression pushes them not only to develop infastrcuture for these groups, but to be relient on them.)

(secondary note, tunnels exist in gaza, they're used by hamas, developed by hamas, no-one rejects this premise, what's rejected is often how they're ineffectively targeted by bombing civilian infrastructure on top which causes untold civilian casualties; that the tunnels exist as a reaction to israeli and western influenced policies that we could reverse)

impossible to talk of a "2 state solution" without addressing that it requires the construction of a second state, it needs to allow the autonomy of a second state without threat of sanction or collective punishment. such moves require the dismantlement of remote israeli occupation tactics and the domestic and international policing of gazas borders. this is without even looking at the west bank, the borders of the west bank and the constant infringement and policing of those borders of the westbank by the IDF and IDF backed settler groups within peace or ceasefire times prior to the 7th of october and after it which are generally supported or ignored by western states/ supporters.

the "2 state solution" is a tool to placate international pressure at the times of extreme violence in the region, wheeled out when the realities of aparthied practices become too much for western governments to hide. gaza and the west bank exist as enclaves, townships almost, within israel and are treated as such, policed as such, they do not have the autonomy of stateship, even if gaza shares a border of egypt. serious, long standing moves to reduce violence, and remove the conditions for violence, will not come until the palestinian citizens are seen as equal to israeli citizens, untill they are free to live, work and travel between gaza, the west bank and their neighbours.

to be clear this is not to say "israel cannot/ should not exist", it's to say "gaza and the westbank exists alongside israel" and not seperate from them in a meaningful or manageable way. much in the same way any occupying force or aparthied government can reduce insurgency by simply stopping their occupation or aparthied of a collective people, holding an amnesty for all sides; ensuring legislititve and legal protections of equal oppertunity for all citizens.

the insistance on "2 states" is important to western leaders and israel as it makes punishing palestinian areas easier and at times legally protected, but also obscures the responsibility western and israeli governments have in creating conditions for palestinian people. it reduces the responsiblity for destruction and violence caused, be it to palestinains or israeli's. it also draws attention away from the reality of palestinian life, the geography of the state, and how much control israel exerts over these things on both a macro and micro level.

(note 3 - i write this from the perspective of influence, we, in a a western state who sponsers and shapes israels actions regularly (so far as supplying them with the international protection and arms to do it), and has had a similar role in preserving and deconstructing numerous aparthied and colonialist government projects of their own and internationally through the same means, my writing is shaped by this. i note purely to remind others and myself when we analyse these situations we can have an impact positively and negatively, we can expect stuff of our leadership/ government even if we are not looped into the on the ground minutiae of local palestinian and israeli news)

even writing all this, it's all a moot point really, this op-ed is not to convince those who are appalled at the horror of what's being presented to us on the news or those serious about ending conflict, but to reassure those who believe the goals of the actions we see, that they still have integrity and purpose; not to doubt that. even when presented with the human feeling of horror.

the fact his tone has shifted, as subtle as it is, however, shows that he is concerned about the impact this could have to his electoral ambitions next year. a reminder that a great tool of the humble voter in this situation is the threat of withholding their vote and linking that action to a particular policy decision. that we should not stop calling for the end of aprthied practices when they try the same placation methods they have for decades.

some very kind words from you both, thank you!

just popping a reminder on this page of the upcoming coffee morning in n15 this sunday, i have some "i want to go home cycling club" stickers if you ask.

had great feedback and some names confirm they'll be there, if you're thinking of popping along leave a comment, you might encourage an admirer of yourself or your bike to come along.

I’d like to put on record, notorious weight weenie @launchpadboi has declared the build “wow, surprisingly light!”

1300 for a repurposed, xxl rinko frame, made in Denmark, by hand, to a decent quality with in-house designed parts seems like a price that doesn’t need justification

Custom bikes are an artisan good, as with all artisan goods you’re rarely paying for the materials but instead for the craftsperson.

Use of Salvage is playing it down imo, ship of Theseus etc etc

israel presenting a a handul of rifles and boots which wouldn't cover equipment for the armed police of a small london hospital and not having a translator able to decipher the days of the week in arabic, as reason they sieged a hospital, sniped patients through the windows, blew up ambulences and shelled the surrounding areas; wards. after claiming intelegence of complex tunnel networks, a constant stream of hamas using ambulences in and out of the location at all hours and a hamas command centre, really makes you think they might not be as "precise" and "informed" as they say.

might also make you doubt other claims.

one, taking a kinder reading than they deserve, might assume they've dehuminaised the palestinian people to the extent that that they're making assumptions based on a simulacrum of their own propaganda of what their oponent is/would be doing - that their military forces are far more used to a violent armed apartheid of a civilian population than it is intelegence gathering and millitary planning.

or on the other hand, the current government might be doing a 19th century style western colonialism in the present day.

shameful that our own government continues to arm these attacks, continues to allow them to justify this senseless collective punishment and ethnic cleansing under the guise of "sophisticated millitary operations".

should be noted their presenting of evidence mirroring that of the met or US police forces presenting small collections of weapons or contraband as justification for their continued harrassment and violence towards communities is no coincidence. the training is shared between all forces, the ideology, the racist subjegation that underpins the dehuminisation is shared between all forces, the ignorance towards solving the causes is deliberate accross all forces. the idf closer resembles a millitarised police force than it does an army, both operationally and tactically, which is why it is operating as such.

it also spurs images of iraq where america and the uk never found weapons of mass destruction, but they'd parade the vastly smaller, less advanced arsenals of a conventionally armed state as some form of "exceptionally violent tools" for western media. a veil to disguise why their children were dying abroard, why their children were killing the children of iraqi citizens. all so wester colonialist states could achieve their domestic interests at the expense of their own citizens, and the ones they senslessly, extrajudicially and illegally murder and invade.

shameful unjustafiable scenes, as the families of those who were kidnapped in the oct 7th attacks march for peace, make it clear a cesasfire is the only option. the violence we saw on that shocking day cannot be used to justify the actions of the israeli leadership in response. it was clear in the immidiate aftermath, and every day since it becomes painfully clearer yet.

.

came in a sticker pack from @Aroogah i believe!

also how a bike should look