Frustration Mode

I prefer to take the modular approach with many aspects of my life. When I dress to ride on a chilly day, I'll choose clothing items that are easily taken on and off. That way I can easily adjust my kit to accommodate for temperature changes or perform impromptu strip teases on the W&OD. I'm the same with food. I will usually eat from a diverse spread that is 18% Chipotle burrito, 15% beer, 38% pasta, 10% Clif Shot Bloks, 5% cookies, 5% ice cream, and 89% candy. I realize that adds up to 180%, but I'm on the Totally Extreme Diet that naturally requires extreme consumption of WhateverIDamnWellPlease and an even more extreme misconception of how percentages work. After eating 180% of my daily nutritional values, I let my body choose which "mode" to digest it with. If I'm on a bike, that means I'm usually in "Cramp," "Puke," or "Death" mode. If I'm on a couch, I'll usually be "Sleepy" mode which usually precedes "Comatose" mode depending on whether or not I feel the need to quickly transition to "Puke" mode. Additionally, I made the obvious mistake to choose modular furniture from Ikea, a mistake that I regret to this very day. It's still a very sore subject for me so I won't dive into my anti-Swedish furniture tirade, but it stands as yet another example of how the modular paradigm applies to my life.

Trying to apply this theme to building a bicycle tends to upset the delicate balance I have struggled to achieve between doing bike-related things and having a real life. I made the mistake of ordering a new frameset and had a few other parts lying around that I was planning to install on this new bike. The rest of the parts (a new saddle and Rival group) are on backorder until later this month. This is a tinkerer's worst nightmare. I've literally taken this bare frameset in and out of its box and bubblewrap an average of 6 times per day since I recieved the frame weeks ago. Albeit, it's a pretty damn cool frame, but that's a lot of wasted hours that I could've used to be a productive and contributing member of society. And it doesn't stop there. I eventually gave in and took the frame and a few parts to the shop and installed them on my day off. I reasoned to myself, these parts need to be installed anyways and it'll save me some build time so I can ride it sooner. I knew it was the bike devil pulling the hipster merino wool cycling jersey over my eyes, but I couldn't resist. With the headset and crank installed, I headed home with a pretty sweet module. I threw some rubber on the new, used wheelset I recently picked up and put them on the bike. Stem and bars came next. Those were all the parts I had accumulated in anticipation of this bike build. Having run out of parts to put on the bike, you would've figured I'd stop there, but you'd be very wrong. I wanted to know how the bike would fit so I spent nearly another hour rummaging through my boxes of bike crap. I pulled out carbon headset spacers, a torn up Selle Italia SLR, and even found some roughed up Dura-Ace pedals (which I think I might be able to salvage and use for the build). I pretty much only stopped to write this blog and scratch my man region. Now I have tools and bike parts lying all over my basement. I think I've learned my lesson, though. Next time I'll order everything together and hopefully avoid the assault on productivity that occured today.


PS:
The inciting moment of this tornado of bike parts occurred when my laptop decided to crap out on my yet again (this time probably for good). So instead of drooling over images from NAHBS, I relieved some frustration by futilely building up a bike that I knew I couldn't finish. Now, instead of being frustrated with my piece of shit laptop, I'm frustrated with a bike that I want to build and ride but can't. I guess life's funny like that sometimes.

PPS:
Broken laptop = less blog posts. Sorry.