Yep, still no winner to announce in the BIKE SNOB GRAVEL SPIRIT GRAVEL DUMONDE LUBE GRAVEL GRAVEL GRAVEL SEO CONTEST because Im still too far too engrossed in the entries, which include a play in one act, featuring a delightful cast of characters such as this one:I may have to produce this, because it could be the best piece of bicycle-themed theater since the Belle of the Ball Bearings:Then theres a haiku and a limerick from Andrew in Helena, Montana, a place which sounds like it would be very gravellyand dusty:Dust in every crack,Grit settles in the scranus,Ride now, regret soon.There once was a spirit called Scranus,Who lurks in the dust just behind us.Dont ride gravel too far,Just to the next bar,Or hell sandblast your shorts and your anus.I will take this opportunity to announce that Dustin Everycrack is my new Gravel Porn Name.Oh, and heres another submission, which appears to depict Dustin Everycrack with his girlfriend, Sandy Beaver:Sure, its clearly AI, but I never banned AI from the contest now, did I?Sadly around these parts Old Man Winter continues to sit on the Spirit of Gravels face and smother it with his Snowy Taint of Despair:However, it looks like temperatures will soon increase, which means all this snow is going to finally start meltingwhich in turn means the roads will be truly wet and disgusting, and Ill spare you going any further with the taintal metaphor, apart from suggesting that the streets are going to be like Assos Guys chamois that morning he did intervals with a hangover:For this reason, a single Dedicated Fender Bike is going to be insufficient, and so Ive taken the additional step of re-fendering the Milwaukee:Note that Ive retained the WFL (Wonky Fender Line) it wore proudly before its makeover:If you look closer you can see the buboes that necessitated said makeover, caused no doubt by my toxic sweat:I thought briefly of correcting the fender line, but of the many bicycle maintenance tasks that seem like theyll take a few minutes but wind up taking a few hours, fender installation is the pinnacle. In this case I was installing the very same fenders that had been on the very same bike, and yet even that took much longer than I expected, and the more time it took the less inclined I was to futz with the length of the stays on top of everything else, eventually reaching the inevitable conclusion, that being to say, Fuck it, good enough.At this point I should learn my lesson and keep the fenders on there until 2035 when I paint the bike again. Hey, maybe they can paint around themSpeaking of the Milwaukee, in addition to refinishing it in red (I believe the actual name of the color is Flaming Sex Copper or something like that), last year I also treated it to a brand new R7000 drivetrain, which was the last time Shimano offered rim brakes at the 105 level or above. It was clear to anybody paying attention that the end of rim brakes at the 105 level was a bad signexcept for the Wankerati, of course, who are only now whining about the state of the modern road bike drivetrain:He doesnt want Cues (sorry, CUES), and he doesnt want the latest 105. He wantsolder 105, like the stuff on the Milwaukee, only the silver version:What I would really love to see, however, is a return to simple, polished metal for all the components, something like the beautiful silver option on theR7000 Shimano 105from 2018 or even the limited-editionpolished GRXfrom a few years ago.Oh, Warren. Warren, Warren, Warren. You know why its this way? Because of PEOPLE LIKE YOU:Its YOUR FAULT, Warren. You and all your Wankerati cohorts in the cycling media. YOU PEOPLE wouldnt accept rim brakes anymore, and you told us we shouldnt either. Its because of YOU PEOPLE all the high end stuff went disc, and electronic. See, rim brakes were the only thing keeping bicycle parts honest. But they werent good enough for the likes of YOU, were they, Warren and friends? So now theyre gone, and so is the classy, affordable rim brake drivetrain. Its gone because YOU KILLED IT, Warren, and its never coming back. I hope youre pleased with yourself.And still these people dont learn. Even Shimano isnt completely ruthless, so they came up with this whole CUES thingcheap, mechanical, good for inexpensive road bikesbut not good enough for Warren. Because its too chunky, even though Shimano hasnt made a non-chunky bike part since like 2012:Dont get me wrong, I like CUES. Ive tried it on flat-bar bikes and been impressed. Its also the drivetrain Ive chosen for mymountain bike to gravel bike conversion.However, its not quite right for mid-range performance road bikes. Its design is derived from Shimanos GRX gravel groupset and mountain bikes. CUES has a more robust look, which is good for gravel and urban bikes, but too chunky and clunky for a lithe-looking road bike.Right. Im looking forward to the Its Time We Dropped Mechanical Shifting Altogether piece later this year, followed by Brain Implanted Shifting Is Coming, But Where Have All The Chunky Affordable Mechanical Road Bike Groupsets Gone? in 2030.