when i got home from the hospital cole told me that he had a surprise that was coming for me in the mail. when that surprise got here i found out that it was a checkered bar pad from yoncopads. i'd been talking about trying to fond someone to make one for me as a throw back to those teen-aged days when music was fun, days full of listening to operation ivy, the suicide machines, telegraph (the skolars) and slapstick. i'm still not sure why the checkers were something adopted by ska, or why i was feeling the urge to have a checkered bar pad made close to ten years after ska started taking a nose dive. yonco and liz made a bunch of hats for the fixed gear gallery's annual fixed gear symposium and they were pretty much loved by everyone that saw one and put one on their head. when cole got back from the symposium he tracked them down and got the ball rolling on getting a bar pad made that we could check out and review. here's that review:
this particular yanco pad is an end to end, velcro affixed pad. on the underside you'll find a nice little adhesive rubber patch that helps stop the pad from rotating or sliding back and forth, pretty creative. the craftsmanship is impeccable, seriously. high fives to yanco and liz for finding the time to put these together while balancing "real" jobs, graduate degrees and social lives. when i first put it on i was a little skeptical cuz i've never had a pad on there before, but this thing has turned out to be pretty rad. there's just something about cruising around the west side of chicago listening to slapstick on the headphones and track standing, leaning my right leg against that comfy pad; or knowing that i can throw it up against anything to lock up and not worry about screwing up the paint more than it already is.
check them out at yancopads.com. they're super nice folks with a love for what they're doing – contributing to the bike riding community.