Bikes, Beer and Brunch

Centurion Elite GT

Went to the Farmers market today under somewhat threatening skies and was not too surprised when the converted parking spot bike corral where I usually park was empty.  As I crossed the street to the market I scanned for bikes on the sidewalk bike racks as usual and spotted a few nice vintage bikes, more than I have seen all year.  Above is a Centurion Elite GT, with the cool center down tube mount shifters, this former road bike has been converted to city use with north road bars and a rear rack.  I see this bike around West Seattle quite a bit, always warms my heart to see old steel getting re-purposed into useful bikes.   Next I saw a couple Fuji's, small and tall.

Fuji Del ray

This is a very tiny road bike that I am guessing by the unicrown fork is from the later 80s it also has been converted with straight bars and its sporting some spiffy new gum walled tires.

Fuji Allegro

And just down the street is the tall sibling, a nicely maintained Fuji Allegro, retaining its drop bars but adding fenders and rack for usefulness.  After wandering the market a bit I make my traditional stop at the Beer Junction.   Recently, instead of ordering a pint I have been getting 4oz pours which allow me to sample more beers, this part is for you Jim, it was a hard job but I was happy to do it.

Started off with the Coca-Fied Imperial Stout on the nitro pour from Fortside in Vancouver WA, strong and smooth.

Next was the Bottom Cutter Imperial IPA from Bale Breaker in Yakima WA, I have had their Top Cutter IPA a number of times and like this one too as you can see I got a bit thirsty before remembering to take a picture.

The gentlemen next to me recommended the next and last taste, Camp Stories IPA from Georgetown, Seattle WA.  A nice way to finish my visit, it lives up to their motto of Darn Tasty Beer.

As I headed back to the bike I realized I was a bit peckish and that one of my favorite restaurants, Jaks Grill, was at the tail end of their Sunday brunch so the Mothers day crowd had died down.  Now before you go thinking I'm a bad son I will let you know I had flowers delivered to Mom and beat the rush, and my 3 siblings, by calling her Saturday to wish her happy mothers day and tell her I love her, she also had the company of my two older brothers in Portland today so Mom was covered.   I usually can't stay away from Steak and eggs here but decided to go with the smoked salmon bene and rather than my usual 12 oz MANmosa I had my friend Mick at the bar make me a boymosa.  It was all delicious as usual.

As I walked back to get my bike I noticed that the skies were much bluer and that resulted in..

quite a bit of company for the Handsome Devil at the bike corral.

And in the next stall over was a Japanese built Schwinn Le Tour ladies bike, still with drop bars but in a very functional form with p-clamped rear rack equipped with fold out Wald baskets, an errand runner if I ever saw one.  I think the bike gods were making up for my lack of garage sale success yesterday, by showing me lots of vintage bike goodness today.  Next time I hope to have a report on bikes and ball parks, until then, Ride.Smile.Repeat.