Hey,
Just chatting with alienator about a gathering like the lounge did in San Diego recently, but this time for all Moots riders. Picture it, a heap of Moots riders drooling over each other's ride. Or 20 Moots in a paceline? To get an idea of where the best place would be, we need to know where all Moots riders are from. Most of you already know where I am - northern Sweden (somehow, I doubt we'll be meeting here :rolleyes: ). I doubt that I can join you guys, but I can start the thread.
Cheers, Wayne

Just like a Canuck to stir up sumthin just so he can stand by and watch..;) But I'll play along.

Me in Tucson.

Arizona.

I might show up, but with Anneli's work situation, it'll be difficult to leave here within the next few months at least. I'd like to though...

I'll be sure to show up so long as this is held in Seattle!

Come from portland, after cross season that is. ;) I mean it's not like I can subject me pride and joy to the nasties of rain riding, now can I? I think this is a tall order for Moots nuts from all over hell and gone to converge in one place but:
I think we should meet in Colorado, we could all tour the factory, and then go on a Moo-tour ride! Display all our Moots in grandeur, and then do the Moo-pace line. (Assuming I can hang off the back) What a sight that would be! I like to eat too, any good caterers in Steamboat Springs?

I think a Moots factory tour is a GREAT idea. I've been tossing it around for some time but this is a good excuse as any. Wendy at Moots said that they do the tour thing all the time and could help plan the post tour ride.

I don't know what the weather is like there in the summer but that may work better for Wayne.

Oh, I'm in Southern Cal.

Come from portland, after cross season that is. ;) I mean it's not like I can subject me pride and joy to the nasties of rain riding, now can I? I think this is a tall order for Moots nuts from all over hell and gone to converge in one place but:
I think we should meet in Colorado, we could all tour the factory, and then go on a Moo-tour ride! Display all our Moots in grandeur, and then do the Moo-pace line. (Assuming I can hang off the back) What a sight that would be! I like to eat too, any good caterers in Steamboat Springs?

Oooooo: Steamboat Springs is a good idea. Many good rides 'round there, and many good eats there. I'll be there, in July, on the first leg of a 6 legged solo ride 'round the Rockies.

I'd sure like to be in/see a big ol' Moots paceline. Why I bet such a thing could make the catalog.......PSV could be the coverboy. And we can all chip in and pay are Canadian friend's way here, from Sweden, via a Japanese freighter and Greyhound Buslines, of course.

Oh, that is a good idea. I've been dreaming about visiting their factory ever since I got my Moots. Thanks for offering to help, but the real problem is time. My wife is defending her PhD thesis in June and we might have to move after that, depending on where she gets work here in Sweden. The summer in CO must be nice. It would be kind of cool to pick up our flags from Wendy in person, wouldn't it? I'll let you guys know. Anyway, going over by freighter and bus might take a while...maybe I should leave by the end of May...

Oh, that is a good idea. I've been dreaming about visiting their factory ever since I got my Moots. Thanks for offering to help, but the real problem is time. My wife is defending her PhD thesis in June and we might have to move after that, depending on where she gets work here in Sweden. The summer in CO must be nice. It would be kind of cool to pick up our flags from Wendy in person, wouldn't it? I'll let you guys know. Anyway, going over by freighter and bus might take a while...maybe I should leave by the end of May...

When it comes time for me to do my thesis defense, I don't want any of my family around. I attended a defense, last year, wherein the guy's mom and dad showed up w/ a video camera. Nope. I don't need that sort of pressure.

Nah, I'm not coverboy material, too short, and like my call name too fat and slow. I'm thinking TB should be the coverboy, or Zippi, Zippi is fast, or Maybe Alien? ya, Alien, he's got carisma and all that, plus fancy wheels and cranks. He could dress up like his avatar and be the covershot! Then we could have Alien out in front pulling the paceline in all his getup waving the Moots flag! Now that ladies and gentleman, I'd like to see. :p

Nah, I'm not coverboy material, too short, and like my call name too fat and slow. I'm thinking TB should be the coverboy, or Zippi, Zippi is fast, or Maybe Alien? ya, Alien, he's got carisma and all that, plus fancy wheels and cranks. He could dress up like his avatar and be the covershot! Then we could have Alien out in front pulling the paceline in all his getup waving the Moots flag! Now that ladies and gentleman, I'd like to see. :p

While I dig all my scars and the odd lumps here and there where bones couldn't be put back together quite right, most editors try to keep such things off their covers. I guess that means coverboy duties will have to borne by TerryB. He can do a photoshoot, a la BikerFox:

When it comes time for me to do my thesis defense, I don't want any of my family around. I attended a defense, last year, wherein the guy's mom and dad showed up w/ a video camera. Nope. I don't need that sort of pressure.

Hey,
How much longer do you have? Which uni? What is your research?
Cheers, Wayne

Hey,
How much longer do you have? Which uni? What is your research?
Cheers, Wayne


I've stopped thinking about how much longer I have. Getting hit by a car my first semester, having surgery to repair a shoulder from the wayward car in the spring, then crashing 1 week after shoulder surgery and breaking my hip.....well, let's just say that the first two years have been sub-optimal.

I'm at the University of Arizona, College of Optical Sciences. My research has been/is in, uhm, optical sciences. More specifically, I've been working with some new metrology techniques for characterizing the surfaces of large optics (mirrors up to 4m in diameter). My particular group seems to specialize in metrology of very large optics and also does space optics: a couple o' folks are working on a test procedure for characterizing the primary mirrors for the Giant Magellen Telescope (And giant it is: 7 8.4m mirrors make up the primary for that telescope); a couple o' other cats are workin' on a testing/alignment process for the James Webb Space Telescope; and me worked on a testing procedure for the secondary mirror on the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (a lot o' big words for a wide field telescope that'll image the entire Earth sky every 5 days and download images to a public database and will also be able to pick out near Earth objects far enough away that we'll actually be able to do sumpin about 'em before they get to Earth. It's a monster, too: 8.4m primary, 3.5m secondary, and a 3 gigapixel sensor to collect images with)....and here she is...or here is what she'll be:

Nice research, you're doing some really interesting stuff. In my work as a proofreader and translator, I read a lot of different types of research from our local university. Everything scientific comes my way, whether it's CAD related, air filtration, mathematical and linear functions, lubrication for machine elements, etc. The university is my main source of income, so I read heaps of academic papers and theses. Most stuff is written in English because if they wrote it in Swedish, only a handful of people in the world would read their research. English is the international language of research. Have you published anything yet? Which journals?

Nice research, you're doing some really interesting stuff. In my work as a proofreader and translator, I read a lot of different types of research from our local university. Everything scientific comes my way, whether it's CAD related, air filtration, mathematical and linear functions, lubrication for machine elements, etc. The university is my main source of income, so I read heaps of academic papers and theses. Most stuff is written in English because if they wrote it in Swedish, only a handful of people in the world would read their research. English is the international language of research. Have you published anything yet? Which journals?

You got a good job. Research or anything affiliated with it is where it's at: readin' cool papers; playin' with really cool, expensive toys; goin' to conferences and getting drunk on all the tech geek stuff. I luv it. All I want to do is research. I wanna be a lab rat. No teaching. No corporate job that morphs into management. Nope. I could maybe see being a research professor, but I doesn't want to teach. I TA'd last semester and hated nearly every damned minute of it.

I published a couple shortish papers for NASA about optical tweezers work I did for 'em. Other stuff is in the works.

So what's your background?

I have a B.Sc. in Management from École des Hautes Études Commerciales (the business school) at l'Université de Montréal. When I moved to Sweden, I needed to find work. Business degrees are in short demand in this part of Sweden, so I started my own language business, and I love it. I used to be a PhD doing research about the Internet, but really couldn't get into doing research. All I would do all day is surf the net. I had started my company a few years before becoming a PhD, and went at it full-time after I quit my PhD job. These days, I work regularly for about 10 depts at our local university. I really enjoy reading about the hard sciences, i.e. technology or scientific based faculties, as opposed to soft sciences, i.e. philosophical faculties. It's much easier proofreading articles than writing them, IMO. What about you? Is it difficult getting research money for your type of research? Here, it's a never ending cycle.

I have a B.Sc. in Management from École des Hautes Études Commerciales (the business school) at l'Université de Montréal. When I moved to Sweden, I needed to find work. Business degrees are in short demand in this part of Sweden, so I started my own language business, and I love it. I used to be a PhD doing research about the Internet, but really couldn't get into doing research. All I would do all day is surf the net. I had started my company a few years before becoming a PhD, and went at it full-time after I quit my PhD job. These days, I work regularly for about 10 depts at our local university. I really enjoy reading about the hard sciences, i.e. technology or scientific based faculties, as opposed to soft sciences, i.e. philosophical faculties. It's much easier proofreading articles than writing them, IMO. What about you? Is it difficult getting research money for your type of research? Here, it's a never ending cycle.

I have a BS in Physics. As for the money end...well, it can be complicated. As you've probably read or inferred, our current government is not very science friendly, except when science can serve some political purpose. Our college, though, gets a lot of money from Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Defense, and a few other agencies. We also get a lot of money from industry. Funding can still be tough. The Nat'l Science Foundation has kinda been hamstrung by the current government. Our gov't also doesn't put much money in telescopes, unlike pretty much all the other governments in the world. Cosmology and other space science fields are foundering, too, with the new emphasis on manned missions to the moon and then to Mars. It's too bad, too. I believe in the value of manned missions, but I also know that there is a huge volume of science--critically important science--that can't be done on a manned mission. For example, in order to work toward a grand unified theory of physics, physicists have had to look out into the cosmos and work more closely with cosmologists and astronomers. That's tough to do when no one will pay for it. NASA has essentially become a one trick pony. They've slashed all sorts of programs--life science, atmospheric science, astronomy--all to fund the single minded vision of that less than visionary bumpkin from Crawford, Texas.

Still, our college does well. We bring in 1/3 of the research money to the University, which places us second behind our medical school in research dollars brought in. Nationwide, UofA ranks in the top 20 in research dollars earned.

You guys are going to make a great contribution to the world. Keep it up. I am now just a retired guy in Tucson trying to ride my bicycle 4-5 times a week, help my 95 year old mom and pick my 15 year old up from High School every day.

While I dig all my scars and the odd lumps here and there where bones couldn't be put back together quite right, most editors try to keep such things off their covers. I guess that means coverboy duties will have to borne by TerryB. He can do a photoshoot, a la BikerFox:

Man that was funny! man you crack me up. laughing out loud I was.....

Man that was funny! man you crack me up. laughing out loud I was.....

Hey! I was being serious. I mean, in an old thread somewhere....maybe a different BBS....TerryB was goin' on about how trim and veiny his legs are, and it hit me: I have NEVER seen TerryB and BikerFox in the same room, same picture. Never. Suspicious, ain't it? Anyway, whether or not he admits his nom de guerre is BikerFox, TerryB has had to have the experience on the runway. I mean the way he waxed poetic about his legs, it's obvious the man's got his modeling chops.

You guys are going to make a great contribution to the world. Keep it up. I am now just a retired guy in Tucson trying to ride my bicycle 4-5 times a week, help my 95 year old mom and pick my 15 year old up from High School every day.

Good on ya for that. And thanks. There's some real amazing stuff going on in our college as well as others at UofA.

Thank you very much. At our university www.ltu.se, we've become a technology leader here in Sweden. For example, the Dept of Computer Aided Design currently collaborates with Stanford in CA, and regularly does work and research for Volvo. As for my wife's department, it's a pretty small dept dealing with air treatment, so it doesn't get the "coverage" it should. It is a pretty important subject, but these days, a lot research money is being put towards water, not air. The problem with universities in Sweden is that there are too many. Every little city with more than 70,000 inhabitants has a university, and everyone wants a share of the research money pie. Universities are constantly battling over research money from the European Union and the federal govt.

Sounds like a lot of bureaucracy, as usual. I must say, though, that I enjoy working with academia. It is inspiring to know that my language skills are helping people publish everyday, no matter what level of journal. People sometimes ask me if what I read is really occasionally really dull. Yes, sometimes it is, but I realise that if a person has spent 5 years of their life reseaching something that they deem important, then it's interesting to them. And if it's interesting to them, then I want to read it. It's all about commitment and going the distance to become a doctor, which I didn't do. I have much respect for those who go all the way and defend. As for Anneli, she will have taken 8 years to finish, including parental leave for two children.

I'm sure Alienator has already seen this, but it looks as though there will be a party in Steamboat Springs late July for their 25th Anniversary. Looks like it'd be a blast and perfect time to meet up. Too bad I can't afford the airfare/time off from school and work. Perhaps I will have to talk someone into picking me up a goodie bag.

http://www.moots.com/events.php?Event_ID=15

Happy 25th Anniversary Moots!
July 21-22

Can you believe it? Moots is commemorating 25 years of building the finest road and mountain bike frames on the planet. This summer Moots will be hosting our Silver Celebration event in beautiful Steamboat Springs, Colorado; both the birthplace and hometown of Moots Cycles. It's been a wonderful journey and we invite all of you to celebrate with us. Here’s your opportunity to meet and mingle with the Moots team, other Moots owners and enthusiasts, our dealers, and industry media personnel.

We’ll welcome everyone Friday afternoon with an introductory town ride along our river front bike path, then enjoy an early evening appetizer-social back at the factory before we gear up for two exciting twilight road criteriums. Saturday morning we’ll get an early start to enjoy guided road and mountain bike tours, each divided into two groups to accommodate various riding levels. Later that evening we’ll host our celebratory BBQ dinner and drinks party, including a raffle for a free Moots frame. In addition, each day we'll provide on-going factory tours giving you a first hand look at the intricate processes of hand-building a Moots frame. Sunday is free for you to enjoy on your own; visit our town, explore other bike routes and trails, or simply prepare for your trip home.

A registration fee of $25 includes the above mentioned activities and a goody bag. Please look for our official event registration form to be posted on the moots.com homepage in the next coming weeks. For information on lodging you may log onto www.steamboatsummer.com.

Steamboat boasts unlimited outdoor activities for the whole family to enjoy: hiking, tubing, scenic Gondola rides, fishing, golfing, rodeo, to name a few, or just plain relaxing in the high altitude sunshine at the natural hot springs. And of course, great cycling and biking! Come join in the festivities… Bring your bike! Bring your family!

Yeah, I saw that. I'll have to see if I can work my schedule out to make that. I'm gonna be in Colorado in early July for a week of riding and can't change those dates......so we'll see.....

I guess I can now attend if it works out. I picked up my new Compact yesterday evening. I am coming from a steel Land Shark. I took my first ride on the new bike this morning.

I tried to prepare my wife for this purchase about a month ago when I showed her a pinkie width dent in the top tube of the steel bike and I expressed concern about my safety if it turned into a fracture and the frame failed. (of course I had been told it would not- I hope she is not checking this forum) We just had our 26th anniversary two days ago so I thought about telling her it was a present from her. I rejected that idea as being stupid and a big mistake. But at least I told her today that I had bought a new bike and that it was a present for me from me. Suprisingly she accepted it, with only some talk of me not to complain when she purcases some new light fixtures for the bathroom. But she did not tell me what a great bike it is.

As for today's ride. The bike is about 3.3 pounds lighter than the steel bike and has a slightly shorter wheel base. I also changed from time to speedplay pedals. I also now have a compact crank. I noticed that the bike felt more alive, the bumps were muted and there was more acceleration. I am sure the carbon fork and bars help dampen. I also got a Moots seat post. One thing that I was concerned about was whether it would be twichy descending. The steel bike was very very solid on descents. So far the Moots seemes good, but I was conservative today because it was unfamiliar and I had new pedals.
So far I love the bike. On Tuesday I will take it for a 70 mile spin and see how that goes.

Since my family does not really understand, some honest affirmation of the purchase will be appreciated.

Thanks for listening.

I guess I can now attend if it works out. I picked up my new Compact yesterday evening. I am coming from a steel Land Shark. I took my first ride on the new bike this morning.

I tried to prepare my wife for this purchase about a month ago when I showed her a pinkie width dent in the top tube of the steel bike and I expressed concern about my safety if it turned into a fracture and the frame failed. (of course I had been told it would not- I hope she is not checking this forum) We just had our 26th anniversary two days ago so I thought about telling her it was a present from her. I rejected that idea as being stupid and a big mistake. But at least I told her today that I had bought a new bike and that it was a present for me from me. Suprisingly she accepted it, with only some talk of me not to complain when she purcases some new light fixtures for the bathroom. But she did not tell me what a great bike it is.

As for today's ride. The bike is about 3.3 pounds lighter than the steel bike and has a slightly shorter wheel base. I also changed from time to speedplay pedals. I also now have a compact crank. I noticed that the bike felt more alive, the bumps were muted and there was more acceleration. I am sure the carbon fork and bars help dampen. I also got a Moots seat post. One thing that I was concerned about was whether it would be twichy descending. The steel bike was very very solid on descents. So far the Moots seemes good, but I was conservative today because it was unfamiliar and I had new pedals.
So far I love the bike. On Tuesday I will take it for a 70 mile spin and see how that goes.

Since my family does not really understand, some honest affirmation of the purchase will be appreciated.

Thanks for listening.

Here-->Affirmation.

Good job. I like how you played the "dangerous, cracked steel bike" thing. Very crafty. A very subtle way to wield the guilt saber.

Of course you're not finished w/ your purchase, because you haven't yet ordered your Moots flag. You also need to post pictures.

Thanks! Will try and post a photo this weekend.