Papa's got a brand new bag.

I bought a new bike bag. I don't call it a courier bag or a messenger bag, on accounta I ain't a courier or a messenger.

So. A new bag.

Let's start from the beginning. I'm not getting any younger. My legs are always sore. So're my neck, back and shoulders. I'm one good crash away from being an invalid. You might think a backpack might be a good idea. But then I'd tell you this, and you'd see that a backpack just won't work:

I sweat a hell of a lot. I'm sweating now. Typing really gets me into a lather. You can imagine what riding a bicycle does.

I've seen a million (this is hyperbole) different backpacks with "venting systems." None of them work. Anything that holds my shirt/jersey/pelt next to my skin will cause all areas of my robotic flesh to transform into salty liquid in mere nanoseconds. The whole reason for getting a new bag is that my everyday bag (a Chrome Citizen) is too big. It turns into a de facto blanket in summer time when it's got less stuff in it. I can't wear a blanket to ride in. That's just dumb.

And sweaty.

So I decided to get a smaller bag, one that, when full, would have only a small point of contact with my back. With that criteria (criterium actually...double nintendo) in mind, I looked at a million-and-a-half different bags. Nine-hundred-thousand of them were too expensive. Sorry, I've got kids, I can't spend $300 on a custom bag that is the fruit of a year of collaboration between some esoteric bag company and some kid I've never heard of before who is a designer AND a fixed-gear trick master. Oh, I would LOVE to buy one of those bags, but I've got kids. And gray hair. I ain't foolin' nobody ((double negative implies I might actually be fooling someone) probably myself).

After untold (untolled?) hours converting yen to dollars and euros to yen and straw to gold, I decided on a bag from these guys. I got the C-Scow, their smallest sack.

It has the following going for it:
1) It's the right size. It just fits my small took kit, a change of summer clothes and some food.
2) It's made of recycled materials. Sail cloth and old tire tubes.
3) It's ugly.
4) The sail cloth doesn't absorb smells (odors, if I'm honest) like canvas bags do.
5) It's very light.
6) It's water proof.
7) Cinched up tight and full of stuff, it makes a very small contact point on my back, which allows air to dive down the collar of my shirt and mitigate the accumulation of perspiration and limit the deleterious effects of alliteration.
8) It's going to take a stencil very nicely.
9) It was only $80, which is super cheap for a handmade product, if you ask me.
10) It was made in America. In Michigan, which given its national-high unemployment rate, means that I've done more to stimulate our economy than everything congress has done in the last decade.

Once I get the stencil sprayed on, I will take a photo, and you can commence to pining for a summer bag of similar coolness.