Well, boys grow fast, and my son is going through a spurt. We were on a 50 mile ride last weekend, and it was clear that he is outgrowing everything. His bike shoes were hurting his toes and his beloved Peugeot "Leo" is definitely too small. If you know bike fit, you'll see the signs of too-small-a-bike. His heel is lower than the ball of his feet, and his head is well forward of the bars. Bigger bike shoes, that is easy enough, and done. But bigger bike - that takes more work. I built the wheels last Sunday. Started assembling the bike Monday night. Several trips to the bike shop later, we are almost done. His new bike is ridable - I've ridden it to the bike bar tonight, as a matter of fact - and we only have the bar tape and brake hoods to do. The frame is a 1974 Raleigh Gran Sport, which was Raleigh's upper-mid-range sport touring bike of the day. The International was the top-end sport tourer, the Competition was the equivalent race bike. The Gran Sport was made from Reynolds 531 double butted tubing, the best there was, at the Carlton works, where Raleigh's best models were built, save only the very tippy-top Team Professional and the Raleigh race team's Team Pros. So the frame is very nice. But the components were just adequate, even back then. Raleigh, like Peugeot, tended to save money on the boltable bits as they spec'd bikes to meet price points. The mid-1970s were an era of rampant global inflation and deep industrial turmoil in England, and Raleigh was struggling to stay afloat. So we weren't going to keep all the original components. But what just had to stay, lest we lose what makes a Gran Sport a Gran Sport, and what had to go, to make this a magic carpet ride? Gran Sport bikes, which were sometimes also called "Grand Sports", came with the distinctive GB randonneur handlebar, which is upswept on the tops and flared on the hooks. The randonneur bar is practically the signature look for the model, so it had to stay. 40 years ago, manufacturers didn't restyle their products every year at the whim of color consultants and focus groups. A successful model stayed the same for years, long enough to become a classic. So with the Gran Sport. The classic Gran Sport of the 1970s came with white handlebar tape, white brake hoods embossed "Carlton", and a black leather Brooks saddle. That is how my Gran Sport was, and how my son's will be. Today, white tape might look precious, even girly. Back in the day, white handlebar tape said "racer". The top racers rode gleaming white bar tape, which their mechanics replaced with fresh wrap every day. This was before everything turned menacing, thoughtless, paramilitary black. My Gran Sport had the standard Brooks sporty bike saddle, the black B17. My friend gave me a much cooler saddle, a Brooks Professional with copper rivets, the racer's saddle of yesteryear. It looks the same to most people, but to bicycle cognescenti, the copper rivets speak volumes. So the top of the bike - saddle, bars - will stay true to the traditional 1970s Gran Sport look. All the moving bits below, though, will be of a different era. For bike people, Campagnolo is magic. The company may be a fraction the size of the industry gorilla, Japan's Shimano. It may be conservative and slow to innovate. Its components may work no better than the equivalent Shimano group, and be barely lighter. And the "Campagnolo tax" may have you paying two or three times more, for the privilege of having Tullio Campagnolo's signature and "Made In Italy" on your bike components. But you want it anyway. You know you do. I never had a Campy-equipped bike as a kid. Hardly any kids do, unless their dads are made of money, which I'm not. But if you have patience, know your away around eBay and used bike parts, and can do your own work, you can ride Campagnolo without breaking the bank. This bike has a near-complete group - drivetrain, brakes, integrated brake lever-shifters, hubs - of late 1990s Campagnolo Veloce. Veloce is a midrange Campagnolo group, distinguished from the higher-end groups by a slightly less polished finish, slightly thicker forgings with fewer lightening holes, and no titanium bits. It looks great. So here are a few pictures of the bike in progress. The GB stem and bars. The front brakes, including my homemade drop bracket, necessary to adapt short-reach late 1990s racing sidepull brakes to a 1970s frame meant for long-reach touring centerpull brakes and larger diameter rims. Here we are, test fitting the integrated levers on the bars. I'll get the last things done tonight, and tomorrow I'll show the boy himself with his new bike, "Rollie".

I seldom get cold, I can sleep through the nightly train that runs through town at 2 am two blocks away and the light doesn't bother me either. I'm short, so the bed is always long enough, but my big travel issue is the bed. I swear that every time I book a motel they quickly arrange to send the same lousy hard bed. I doubt that I can pack a mattress, LOL. Of course, I still sleep on my old king sized waterbed, leftover from my "hippie" days. Elery says when I grow up, I'll get a big girl bed, LOL. I hope not. Clare, on another level, I wat taking some glass to recycle last week and there was a broken picture frame in the bag. Of course, the shard stuck through the bag and into the outside of my left knee. Not one bandaid or other thing in the Jeep except black electrical tape. So, I pulled both edges of the puncture together and taped it with black electrical tape and then drove to the Emergency Room. They know me on a first name basis, LOL, and now they'll talk about that black electrical tape forever. Two stitches later that electrical tape stayed on better than their surgical tape! Carol (dishesdone) tells me that's an "electrician's bandaid". Annie

Emagineer, the woman who is doing genealogy for your mama's side of the family is off base with boys in dresses being a sign of poverty. No way. It was a sign of the times. Little kids, toddlers if you will, all wore the same clothing until they were about 3. It was true of the well-to-do and the less well off. I think the change to pants--trousers as most called them then--was made around the time they were totally potty trained. It was a "rite of passage" to show they were becoming really big boys. Around the same time, the ringlets of a boy's uncut hair was also cut. Another rite of passage. Think about it. Laundry was done usually on Mondays, so wet clothing would be soured or ruined if held. A woman's work was not automated as it is today, and laundry was a heavy duty job. Diapers were part of raising babies but with toddlers they did not want to add another layer of clothing when the kid was not potty trained. Easy on and easy off, for boys AND girls, dictated an OPEN BOTTOMED GARMENT so a wet didy was stripped off without having to also put trousers into the dirty laundry. Well off families had help, but there were many other chores for them than keeping the male children of the house DRY. I'd say that economics had a little to do with the garment selection for small children, but convenience and social custom was also a factor.

Along with heated seats and mirrors, my Audi has a heated steering wheel option that I love. Both the seats and steering wheel heat almost instantaneously. Although it's not as cold here in the PNW as some places, I love having a warm steering wheel most days/mornings of the year. I also wanted a back up camera, as I'm always delivering and picking up my grandson from school and those little ones can be hard to see walking behind the car. One feature I hate about this car, though, is they placed the bright headlight indicator on the lower left side of the instrument panel and, even though I'm not particularly short, I cannot see it without raising myself up to peer over the steering wheel. Not the wheel, but the center spoke/bar of the wheel; it hides the indicator. My good fried with a newer Volvo SUV says the same is true in her car...she can't see the indicator without lifting herself up to see over the wheel spoke. It also has the radio controls on the center console, so if you bump it or set your purse on the digital station settings, it whacks everything up and you lose all your presets. It's obvious that men engineer all these vehicles as the features are often not female user friendly.