Let out the belt—you have 6 more courses

Not unlike the semi-sweet reflux following a fantastic dinner, Part II returns to satiate the insatiable. You’ll be looking for the digestives after 6 more helpings of narcissism seasoned with desperation. I deviate slightly from the standard fare “bike stuff lust” of the last post. Finally, I end up humping a traditional new-year’s contrivance. Prepare yourself.

I ain’t got no power, but I want technology to tell me, regardless

Tying in with the previous post’s Garmin issue, I desire even more data. And by need, I mean I don’t, but it would be nice. As an early adopter of power tech I’ve gone too far w/out, again, knowing how feeble my power output is. No matter how burning the truth may be when my averaged power scores are validated by truth of specific technology, I still want that burning. So, a CycleOps PowerTap, or an SRM, or even that weird Garmin pedal dongle thing would do just nicely. Let’s make this happen.

Team Zembro! Embro/Gage Collab

I have small needs as well. One of my favorite cycling shirts of recent memory is the collaboration between Embrocation Cycling Magazine and Gage+DeSoto. Moka pots and Lemond’s legendary Team Z!—what’s not to love? We needs it, we wants it!

Glass of the gods, and a full-frame

Thanks to a generous D80 hand-me-down gift from Pa Boredom, I’ve finally been able to shoot proper product shots. But this is a sickening list of excesses, right? Why stop at the D80 when there’s full-frame sensor DSLRs to be had. I’m obviously covetous of such common shooters as the Nikon D3 or Canon 1D, but let’s take it a bit further. Howsabout a meager studio setup starting with a Hasselblad H4D-200MS, coming in at a scant $44K—w/out a lens. Or if that’s a bit much, why not the Leica S2? I’m not above lowering my standards. Lens-wise, there’s too much to choose from. I’ll just take the best from Sigma, Leica, Canon and Nikon if you don’t mind.

Drivetrain, drivetrain, drivetrain

I am in the unenviable position of owning 3 road bikes adorned with aging 9-speed Shimano groupsets. One of these bikes has a front right shifter that’s getting more temperamental by the day. I imagine that I’ll be stripping one of them (like I already am) for replacement parts. This makes me a sad panda. But what leaves me truly depressed and curled up in a darkened room listening to The Cure is the price of components today. Since there’s no backward-compatibility between 10 and 9, I would have to purchase a drivetrain almost entirely.

Gimme a Klassieker

I want a Spring Classic. I’m not paying for one, I simply want the gift. Push me along in the bunch, get my effing bottles, and tow me up the bergs. Whatever you do, just let me cross the line first.

On a serious note…

*Dons smoking jacket, stands in front of a crackling fire, lights pipe* Let us now indulge in yet another clichéd year-end tradition: the resolution. I racked my brain for minutes on end and came up with nothing more than this: get more better. Mainly, I need to get more better at posting regularly. I’ve managed to compile a massive backlog of half-written posts only to manage not to finish them for various reasons. One of those reasons is I’m lazy. Another reason is I’ve been avoiding confrontation on various fronts, but especially when it comes to advocacy issues. Rest assured that is changing for year 2012.

Thanks for reading and for choking down unprecedented levels of snaark during the 2011 season. Here’s to an unbearable amount in 2012!

Portrait images by Lord Kristof Ramon (@kristoframon) from his portrait collection on Flickr.

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