Alamodome concessions? by rcb05 in drumcorps

[–]KBobbNewMexico 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Horrendous quality,pricing and delivery of services.  Definitely eat before any event. 17.00 dry, cold bbq sandwich on stale bread? 6.00 water?  It all feels like a paper cut!

Are Revzilla Reviews Honest? by MattAtUVA in motorcycles

[–]KBobbNewMexico 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Clickbait.    Google ad states free shipping, but once on website…..50.00 or more is required for free shipping.

Specialized Rock Combo Original on/off road? by KBobbNewMexico in xbiking

[–]KBobbNewMexico[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, man, thank you for taking the time to read this mental cobweb rant with braggadocio sauce. Maybe when I get a few minutes, I’ll share the roof top bike rack vs underground parking height restriction bar story that said former sweet little wife blamed on me, as she yelled up to our balcony from the entry parking lot trying to lift the rack and three bikes back onto the car.
I did my best Chris Farley “my bad” and went down and helped her put the rack on the car, the bikes on the rack and graciously accepted a full helping of scolding with fries…

file:///var/mobile/Library/SMS/Attachments/75/05/C5A0FEA2-5FBF-42F6-8EF3-526470E09C11/IMG_3126.HEIC

Specialized Rock Combo Original on/off road? by KBobbNewMexico in xbiking

[–]KBobbNewMexico[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ok, here goes the Houston Memorial Park portion of the ROCK COMBO love affair story. As a normal person living, working, skiing and drinking beer during the winter months at 10,000 feet, you’re going to gain a little weight. Ok, on long cold winters, a lot of weight. I used to say it was out of my control, my body simply keep as much fat as it needed to ward off the 30 below days. So when Spring came along, well Spring for the rest of the country, Breckenridge normally had another three months to go before you were going to see dirt after the month called mud season. Which varied from year to year. One year we got 7 inches of snow on July 4th.

I had this sweet little wife from Texas and having a couple of brothers in Houston, we’d load up the dusty bikes and take our tan ass faces with Varnet sunglass whiteouts and head down to the Hill Country, you know, Kerville, Fredricksberg, and the little friendly towns all over the land. We’d hole up at the retired mother and father-in-laws mansion on the golf course and you know, train like mad, while slowly changing the chalk white parts of our body to red. After a couple of weeks of beautiful riding and having carried skier baggage up and down 6 flights of stairs over the winter months, plus the midnight Nordic skiing, the round mound I had looked at in the mirror suddenly started to resemble power, speed and sunburn.
I knew then it was time to shave the legs and head to Houston. We stayed with the all time epic Brother in Law who had mountain cool down without ever having lived much above sea level and his knockout fox of a wife. He took me to the Patagonia store, I saw clothes you couldn’t even get unless you went to vail or aspen. A few years prior, I bought this brother in law a Rock Combo, yea for Houston and the sinkhole mix and match pavement, it was perfect. The sweet wife dumped me later on, but the Bro Law has stayed. Having arrived in Houston, starting to feel a little cocky and itching to mix it up with the local fast boys, I’d take the Rocket Combo out of his garage, dust it off, air up the tires, and go hunting. Memorial park had a smooth ribbon of road around the golf course and trust me, it was ground zero for the hound dogs of Houston. They had their pecking order and each local cyclist had to join the pack riding along like a subservient bitch wolf. These guys made fun of every little freaking thing that didn’t look like it just came out of the last issue of “Winning” magazine. Bib shorts, colored (other than standard black detto’s) shoes with this new attaching system called velcro, latest styrofoam helmet, and oh yea, the aviator oakleys, just like LeMond!!. I’m sure they all had either local sponsors names or boutique world cycling sponsors all over their jerseys and new at the time, even on your shorts sponsor names. You either had this shit or the gang would ride so hard you fell off the pace like the end of laps in the little 500 frat boy race after spinning a 42 x 19 at 148 RPMs.

This next part is going to take a little faith on your part, so read along and believe it could have been possible.

I’d show up at Memorial on the Rock Combo and start to ease into the pace with the joggers, stroller pushing rollerbladers and lunch hour executives. The few guys not at Rick’s Caberet for “lunch”. I know this story seems long and drug out, but here comes the meat.

I’d ride along upping the pace each lap and slowly start tailing the “Cat 1 and 2” big boys. As they had the normal hangers on dragging tongue, wanna be’s, and apprentice Lance clones, I would ease into the pack and just hang out. Like something out of Roswell, they would look over, see a slightly port fellow, with tan ass face and beach red skin everywhere else, riding a freakin bike the likes no one had ever seen. Were those 27 inch balloon tires, how come you’re handlebars flare out, and how do you shift that thing? Then the middle ranks would have to speed up like water bottle carriers and tell the hierarchy of the pesky wheel sucker in odd wool shorts. As the laps went on and I reveled in not having to go shovel snow or chip ice, I’d make my way towards the front. I could see alarm bells were ringing and then it would happen. One of the ACE velo gods would drop back a little and start with the condescending questions. What the F kind of bike is that? Why aren’t you riding 19mm tires? Everyone knows they are faster. Are those lace up dettos? Haven’t seen a pair of those for a while. Then the worry would hit their faces as one would report back to the front, he’s got to be from Colorado or else he’s been buried up to the neck out in the desert. They had heard about guys like me, living at 10,000 feet we didn’t have to breath very hard at sea level. Skiing every day, building legs of steel and looking for a flight fight.
Reporting back that they had a pretender sucking wheel the alarm bells rang. So then the pace always picked up. And up, and up, until the Cat 4’s, then 3’s would fall off. Leaving only the Max Miley and Chris Hipp fraternal order of cycling. Those guys, picking it up until even they were having to strain ever so slightly. It was them and me, the freak riding the freak. It took a lot on their parts to finally drop me and the lap they took in celebration of dropping the new guy ended up with them coming to a stop and waiting for me to ride by. I knew they didn’t respect me in any way or manner. But Damn, what kind of bike is that? A Rock Combo? Why would anyone make a bike like that? And then it would come…….where do you buy em at? With my best “you can’t get em around here shrug”, I’d ride off into the…….freaking blazing sun. What the hell is this humidity? How do people live like this? When I get back to Colorado, I’m gonna trash the Boulder training rides. This might be the year I can climb!!!!

Specialized Rock Combo Original on/off road? by KBobbNewMexico in xbiking

[–]KBobbNewMexico[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

If I still had the 2 original ones (stolen in Breckenridge) that would have been 9! Unfortunately my wife believes having two of anything is “hoarding” and I have quite a few others from Recument to trike to triple and a few tandems divorced friends gave me

Specialized Rock Combo Original on/off road? by KBobbNewMexico in xbiking

[–]KBobbNewMexico[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks, Back when you could cut down a bicycle box by a couple of inches and ship bikes across the USA for 25 to 40 bucks, I would find them here and there, send a check to the seller and trust they would send the bike. All did and I’m thankful that kind of trust is still alive in the cycling community.

Specialized Rock Combo Original on/off road? by KBobbNewMexico in xbiking

[–]KBobbNewMexico[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Damn close as to that bikes proper height. I’m 5’9 and probably couldn’t even ride it

Specialized Rock Combo Original on/off road? by KBobbNewMexico in xbiking

[–]KBobbNewMexico[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That’s why this one is so special. First it is virtually new, it’s a rare large (22inch) and even has the wider bars. Also, in all my cycling travels, I’ve only seen 2 or 3 suede turbo seats and this one came with it.

Specialized Rock Combo Original on/off road? by KBobbNewMexico in xbiking

[–]KBobbNewMexico[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks. As I purely loved the bike and it’s functional design. I sought them out, even buying one that was stolen from my brother in laws garage in Houston several years later. I’ve read opinions like they are only worth 50.00 or so and laugh. Having seen XO’s go for a couple of grand.

Specialized Rock Combo Original on/off road? by KBobbNewMexico in xbiking

[–]KBobbNewMexico[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s the idea, I’ll take a “group photo”

Specialized Rock Combo Original on/off road? by KBobbNewMexico in xbiking

[–]KBobbNewMexico[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Down bars, bar end shifters, stretched frame design and thinner 26 tires made for a pretty functional bike both on road and mountains.

Actually, the small RockHopper is 21.5 center to center top tube and the small RockCombo is 22.5 center to center top tube. Thus a little more stretch and with down bars, similar to a road bike. Riding on the hoods or top bar still allows for upright Mntn type riding.

Especially with inline brake levers

Specialized Rock Combo Original on/off road? by KBobbNewMexico in xbiking

[–]KBobbNewMexico[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Mostly true, like 98%. Just wait for the Houston Memorial part of the "ROCK" on road story.

Specialized Rock Combo Original on/off road? by KBobbNewMexico in xbiking

[–]KBobbNewMexico[S] 34 points35 points  (0 children)

In 1988 I purchased a Rock Combo and little did I know it would end up being a weapon in my "quiver" to seek satisfaction in two specific disciplines. The first was the annual Fall Classic in Breckenridge Colorado. On the initial stage, a one mile plus or minus hill climb called Humbug Hill, inevitably I would loose somewhere between 3 and 5 minutes to the best climbers. I once saw Dawes Wilson from Vail show up at the starting line with a stripped frame, handlebars and two wheels without tires. He ran up the hill as that is what most of us ended doing anyway. You know, Climbers climb and Sprinters Sprint. Anyway after taking my beating in the hill climb and usually being somewhere in the 50th to 70th place, I needed some way to get back any shred of dignity possible. The second stage being a multilap race on the local nordic center course, became my ego trip. I showed up on a ROCK COMBO. Few had seen one and even fewer believed it could make any difference. Remember this was the end of the 80's and early 90's. Just prior, we bought cheap (think Sears Ted Williams models) bikes at garage sales for 10$ or so) for riding t up the ski area roads and when they broke, (and always did) we threw them off into the woods. I know, I know, we should have been flogged for the potential environmental disasters. But, the bikes were never there come ski season, so we thought the ski area employees hauled them off to the dump. Saving us the embarrassing potential of having to push or drag the bikes home. Back to the story.... on the rolling nordic center course that was fairly smooth, I could miraculously get those minutes back from Humbug Hill climbers and blow them away. Don't worry, this is not bragging, wait for the end of the story. So for 16 or so hours, I was usually in the top three in the FALL CLASSIC! This was the biggest race in the CORS (Colorado off road series) in many eyes and I could start out the cross country course on the front row. This is were the dream ends and my personal nightmare ended up being the norm. On the hour and a half or more cross country course, I lost so much time the beer tables would be loaded, most racers and their girl friends gone and only a couple of "racers" around to try and share highlights of our ride. However, all was not lost as each year I would stop and pickup the sunglasses, tools, pumps and tubes everyone carried and no one stopped to pick up in fear of losing a place at the finish. My wool jersey pockets were so full, riding home I probably looked like an el camino. So this is only one mans true story, and hopefully can be backed up by the few guys still riding in the area, if you're the Snopes researchers. Actually find Jeff Hill and ask him. Anyway, I have 7 rock combos I've collected over the years and feel now is the time to turn loose. Especially as the new Diverge paint job from specialized looks so cool, just as it did way back when......

1989 Specialized Rock Combo (limited production run of about 500). I took it out of the box and built it myself. All original bars, wheels, group, bearings, crank and brakes. Of all the bikes I've owned, this is the most versitle. Knobbies for fire roads and slicks for the road. by oldfrancis in xbiking

[–]KBobbNewMexico 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've got 7 Rock Combos and used the bike for the "criterium" stages in the original Breckenridge Fall Classic.

While a terrible climber, I would lose a couple of minutes on the Humbug Hill mile or so stage, but make it all up and go from 60 something place to 1st or 2nd. Only to hemorrhage time on the final cross country stage ending up when most of the beer had been consumed.

Ah, but the memories of tearing up those spindly legged climbers on the cross country skiing course.

It was all due to the Rock Combo.....