Large Scale Central

Mountain Bikes and Movies

Other Hobbies
#1

Kinda an odd mix. I used to be a major off road mountain bike enthustiast, got 5 MTBs each for a different condition, but my favorites are still my Marin clunker bikes, modified Schwinn cruisers, just like the original clunker Gary Fisher built back in '77. I rode alot, then I had a bad high speed crash, we bought a house, my riding buddies all moved away and I have fallen off the horse. My wife has given me notice she wants me to go out to the pasture, find the horse and get back on it :wink: So now I’m looking to restart riding again, probably on my hardtail to start, gotta get back up that learning curb before I try rocketing down a fireroad at 40mph again :open_mouth:

I’m also a major movie buff, we go to the movies quite a lot as we both enjoy film. I have quite a large DVD selection, mostly action, SciFi, lots of classic movies, anime… and then theirs my wifes films, romance and relationship films :frowning: :wink: I tend to collect films in genres, the latest being the Toho releases of classic Godzilla films from the '60’s in the original Japanese versions with subtitles, it does make a big difference. Though I will be skipping most of the 70’s movies, I do get a kick out of the early ones and the last 3 most recent films have been great! Makes a nice bookend to my Kirosawa collection as Ishiro Honda (behind almost every G film) and Akira Kirosawa were actually best freinds in real life.

#2

Once apon a time, mountain biking was a little more than a hobbie for me:

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/old_iron/ringle%206.jpg)

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/old_iron/ringle%207.jpg)

#3

My wife and I also go to the movies a lot, often 2-3 times a week during peak season. It’s actually one of the few interests we both share.

Today we saw “10,000 BC”. It was ok but not great. Very predictable, and although the effects were good, if you’ve seen the previews, the effects are just “more of the same”.

A few days ago we saw “Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day”, which was excellent. Very reminiscent of the screwball romantic comedies of the 30’s, such as “Bringing Up Baby”. It stars Francis McDormand (Fargo) and Amy Adams (Enchanted).

Another good one we saw recently was “Be Kind, Rewind”. Very charming, off-beat comedy.

#4

Holy Crap! Geoff, I think I have some of your stuff on a couple of my bikes!!! Did you drop out of the parts biz? I know alot of the oldtimers have gone away or changed so much I dont recognize them anymore, I nearly spat out a lung when I found out Joe Breeze stopped making MTBs and was only making “town” bikes …

It sure aint the same sport today it was 10 years ago thats for sure…

#5
Victor Smith said:
Holy Crap! Geoff, I think I have some of your stuff on a couple of my bikes!!!! Did you drop out of the parts biz? I know alot of the oldtimers have gone away or changed so much I dont recognize them anymore, I nearly spat out a lung when I found out Joe Breeze stopped making MTBs and was only making "town" bikes ...

It sure aint the same sport today it was 10 years ago thats for sure…


Yep, I sold that biz in 97… took a few years off (I rode 5-6 days a week and got back into shape). Helped Christini Technologies launch their all wheel drive system for mountain bikes and MX machines. Then I started up a company that makes parts and accessories for antique motorcycles, mostly for Indians.

#6

Indians? neat! '97 was a bad year riding for me, thats about the same time I started riding alot less, too many “freeride” knuckleheads blasting down trails with no consideration for hikers, horses or even other riders, they made riding no fun because of all the angry users they created, too much emphisis on “big air” but the big turn off for me was about that time when RockShox, Marzoochi and Manitou stopped selling repair parts for their forks, if your fork was more than 3 years old, they considered it “obsolete” and you couldnt get parts anymore, on top of that every fork they began selling was $500 minimum. Well I had a Manitou 3 that was still just fine and dandy on my old bike and I didnt want to get rid of it, all I needed was a rebuild kit (seals & elastomers) not hard to find before, found out they threw everything more than 2 years old away! Bastards, when I said “what am I going to do?” the answer was buy a new fork, “OK sparky, got one for a 1” headset and costs less than $200 ?" “Oh dude, we stopped making those” “Well I didnt stop riding them” Everything seamed to go towards requiring a new bike every 3 years, they dont do that with cars or motorcycles, I dont even know if I can get parts for my older 7 speed cogs anymore, what are they up to now? 36 gears with a tiny 1/8" wide chain now? Anyway, I’m really not willing to fork out $2K for another bike, so I need to find a good supplier for them oldie parts, even ‘Third Hand’ has lost alot of their supply for oldie parts, we’ll see.

#7
Ray Dunakin said:
My wife and I also go to the movies a lot, often 2-3 times a week during peak season. It's actually one of the few interests we both share.

Today we saw “10,000 BC”. It was ok but not great. Very predictable, and although the effects were good, if you’ve seen the previews, the effects are just “more of the same”.

A few days ago we saw “Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day”, which was excellent. Very reminiscent of the screwball romantic comedies of the 30’s, such as “Bringing Up Baby”. It stars Francis McDormand (Fargo) and Amy Adams (Enchanted).

Another good one we saw recently was “Be Kind, Rewind”. Very charming, off-beat comedy.


Hi Ray, I thought 10,000 looked kinda hookie, we saw “Miss Pettigrew” that was a fun movie, I want to see “Be Kind” but the misses doesnt so it may be video for that on, speaking of Video I bought “Blade Runner-the Final cut” (found it used) which isnt much different than the Directors cut a couple years ago, but it comes with an outstanding 3 1/2 hours documentary on the history of the film from concept to production to premier to flop to rediscovery and evntual aclaim. It alone is worth the purchase price if your a fan of the movie.

#8

Hi- I also like to Mountain bike. I started late in life, at about 40 years old. I race the Az state bike races [cross country], and I raced Downhill for several years. I sort of quit downhill when Team Big Bear stopped racing there. It was close to Phx, and I had a place to stay. I do like to free-ride a lot. The drops are smaller and the speed is slower. Now that I am in my 50’s I find my healing time is a lot longer. I still enjoy a good road trip to Mamoth and Downieville. Bruce

#9

Hi Bruce, Welcome aboard. I started MTBing back in '92 at the urging of a friend. I was never hard core enough to race, besides racing in the Clydsdale catagory was really offered too often. But I managed to get to the Nationals at Big Bear, even got a picture of Hans Ray on one of my bikes! I loved watching Trials, those guys are nuts!

In my prime I did mostly cross country trail riding, no sick drops or mega jumps for me…but I did like the fast fireroad action, till I had a high speed get off that layed me up for 2 months, never rode quite that fast afterwords, stopped riding alot after my riding buddies moved away, now I’m trying to rekindle the spirit and get my ass back out on the trail, even if its just local fireroads.