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One of the greatest clothing designers ever, Giorgio Armani, has died at the age of 91: I am sure he came into my orbit in 1980 as the person who created Richard Gere's iconic looks in the movie "American Gigolo": RIP to a legend in the industry.

My nickel - gravel gearing is fine. My Cervelo has a 40T front and 10/44 at the back. It's fine for 95% of everything and only leaves me slightly wanting plowing downhill (you run out of gear). Otherwise I don't sweat the fact that I probably ride it like a 6 speed instead of 12 speed. RE: E-assist, I'm biased. If you think it'll help you get out more, go for it, if you think you'll use it as a crutch and lean on it too much and not get the exercise benefit I think you're after than avoid the temptation.

dinosaur marathon

for Dusty

The Worst Air Disaster You’ve Never Heard Of Captain, that was a lilly dilly! https://magazine.atavist.com/2025/american-hindenberg-zeppelin-disaster?src=longreads

Dea Matrona at Royal Albert Hall:

The gear sets on gravel bikes tend to be a bit shorter than on road bikes - you can upgrade them if you are making the bike do dual duty (and swap the mud tires for road tires).

That's the one I was assuming you would look at. Too much money but the S-Works Creo 2 looks sick.

I mean, it's a nice starter system.

I think gravel is the way to preserve the option of putting wider tires on. With road tires it seems like they are slightly less efficient than road bikes. Agreed on the e-assist. I'm circling the Creo and this is the most similar to it, geometry wise.

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I don't really know much about gravel bike, but is choosing a gravel bike more limiting or does it give you more options because they are equally good on the road? If it were my first bike when trying to get into it, I would definitely want it to be comfortable as a road bike. I'm assuming that local clubs are more likely to have road rides, but I also don't have a clue if that assumption is correct. Regardless, I can't see why you would buy anything without pedal assist. Speaking from experience, it will allow you to ride more and longer, but it also will encourage you to do it more often. It looks like the Diverge is as much or more than Specialized ebike options. Just a lazy man's two cents, fwiw.

Demo’ing a Diverge Comp Carbon this weekend. I’ll take her out on some farm roads and see how she feels. Brent thinks I got the sizing all wrong (58 even though I’m 5’11”) but Brent’s bike also has been ridden maybe 2-3 times in the last year so we take his advice in proper proportion.

Perhaps this will prompt Panasonic to finally add SACD playback on a DP-UB9000PC successor... probably not.

Magnetar reveals new UDP900MKII and UDP800MKII 4K players https://www.techradar.com/televisions/blu-ray/4k-blu-ray-fans-rejoice-magnetar-reveals-two-new-4k-blu-ray-players-at-cedia-expo-2025

You had me at 'bleak'. ...but I kept reading...you had me again at 'dreampop'....but I still read all the way to the end. I will definitely be giving the whole trilogy a listen, if it's as good as the one track.

Not bad! His voice reminds me a bit of Ian McCulloch from Echo & The Bunnymen.....

Bougatsa

The Anne Boleyn rubber duck is available from the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) shop in Stratford on Avon. https://shop.rsc.org.uk/products/anne-boleyn-rubber-duck , Now £7.50 Of course if true to life, its head should fall off.

This Alien show rocks. Show of the year for me so far. Easily.

7 views? Fuck me, maybe I'm the only person who likes bleak Swedish conceptual art/dreampop. (Actually, when I put it like that ... 🤷‍♂️)

just a good song.

^^ I think I need to check out that channel! 🤣 I can't believe they actually made that song OR video! Some more fun from my machine. Best reply to this one: "It puts the Bleu Cheese on the Wings"

Speaking of fixing...