A comfy place for kings and queens.



You all might recall this post when Murph from Maximo Supremo residents Minneapolis West Design Works sullied my domain on a trip through town as he spread his company’s good cheer.

One of the items he was showing off on that trip was the new PDW Dios Thronous, (which is Latin for ‘Dio’s Throne’).

I swear on my mother’s bible that I heard his pitch no fewer than ten times that day, but I’ll be damned if I can remember any of it now. All I can recall is that he mentioned they were made of an extremely light, durable and waterproof material. Beyond that, I remember fondling it and thinking to myself “huh… Not bad for a bunch derelicts.

Luckily for me and my “journalistic credibility”, PDW’s DPow! came through with a brief description;

Stevil-

Check out the Dios Thronous. It’s like Croc’s, but for your ass.

Maybe that is too polarizing? People don’t like Crocs very much do they?

Well, Erik was standing at a bike rack one day a year or so ago looking at a bunch of bikes with bags over their seats, and it dawned on him that maybe no one ever actually set out to make a saddle that was waterproof. So we started looking at materials. We wanted to hit the holy trinity of saddles: Waterproof, comfortable and inexpensive.

EVA foam jumped out at us right away. You can injection mold it into any shape, and make it any color. You can mess around with the density to make it harder or softer. And it is light weight. So we started out making some sketches and 3-D models. Once we settled on a shape, we started riding samples. We’ve been on them daily since last winter and I gotta say they are pretty sweet. I’m picky about saddles, and I like these.

These aren’t racing saddles, but Ira Ryan has one mounted on his cross race machine and he is pretty into it. The reality is that we wanted to make a saddle to replace the sub-par OEM saddles many folks find on their new bikes. We wanted to make a saddle to put on your bar bike, or that bike you ride to class, or that bike you have to lock up outside all the time because you live in a small apartment.

We think we’ve done that.


Well, lo and behold what should arrive at my home the other day but one of my very own, and in the color that most loudly screams “TAKE ME SERIOUSLY WORLD, FOR I AM NOT A FAT ASS”.

Quick as could be, I pulled it out of the box and threw it on my personal Handsome Brawler;


In the short time since I installed it upon my bikecycle, I’ve ridden casually, as well as with the intensity of a cat 6 racer when (strapped with a hundred pounds of groceries in my bag), I put the hammer down on a homeless guy riding an undersized Pacific mountain bike.

With these preliminary experiences under my belt, I can only say for now, that PDW has hit the nail on the head in providing a comfy place to sit as I travel to and fro.
However you slice it, they’ll offer a far more positive experience than these;


Anyway, speaking of traveling to the fro, I did just that on Wednesday evening as I went to San Francisco’s 111 Minna Gallery for the Cyclocross photo and bike show. 99% of the Bay Are’s beautiful people were in attendance as were a couple ugly ones, though I didn’t get any photos of them;




These individuals are three of the five that comprise Jorts Material. I’ve met them previously but had to explain that I have a condition similar to face blindness (if you haven’t seen the 60 Minutes piece on the affliction, it’s a fascinating watch), but in regard to names. I literally forget people’s names within seconds of hearing them, and it’s not because I don’t care. I’ve tried every trick in the book to remember, but short of writing the name down and a description of where and under what circumstances I met the person, I haven’t found a way around it.

Anyway, that’s precisely what I did for these folks, and from left to right are Caitlin, Vanessa, and Katie. They are all very nice people and I was happy to remake their acquaintance.

From there I continued on;




It was a fun evening filled with friendly faces during which time you can bet I used the entirety of my drink ticket on ten bottles of Budweiser. Between that and the nacho snack;

-there’s no reason at all that I didn’t spend the bulk of Thursday on an entirely different kind of throne.

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Leave a Reply

13 Responses to “A comfy place for kings and queens.”

  1. Klöven Hööf October 19, 2012 at 5:43 am #

    is that your Dirtbomb? Might be time to renegotiate my contract with Dr. Walling….

    • Stevil October 19, 2012 at 5:47 am #

      That’s his. Mine’s brown, Cheever’s is black, yours is in ‘pre-production’.

  2. pedalman October 19, 2012 at 6:45 am #

    Prosopagnosia, thats awesome! I’m definately gonna use that. Better than the truth “I find you really boring and you talk too much”.

  3. Case October 19, 2012 at 8:08 am #

    It’s not Polaroid, but this, http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=657176&Q=&is=REG&A=details, and a Sharpie in the margin take some of the sting out of those meetings. The film’s still expensive, so it’ll keep you a record of only the most important beautiful people.

  4. Jeff McFarland October 19, 2012 at 10:59 am #

    The Redline seatpost is a nice touch.

  5. Teamfubarrider October 19, 2012 at 1:24 pm #

    I’ve contemplated one of those first two saddle “alternatives” during a freak grundle injury (and really aren’t all grundle/taint/Brunswick injuries “freak”) so I understand those, but what the hell is that third plastic-cat-ribcage-taint shredder? No RS Squishy post could ever save you from that…

  6. Some Jerk from the Eastbay October 19, 2012 at 9:15 pm #

    I’m pretty sure it’s spelled “Kaitlin.”

    • Stevil October 20, 2012 at 7:03 am #

      Somebody had better notify her of that.

    • Sometimes Klassy October 23, 2012 at 3:57 pm #

      I’m pretty sure you’re dead wrong.

  7. Tman October 22, 2012 at 7:30 am #

    ‘fubar, if you were riding any of the last three saddles I would run your ass off lower Spring Creek, even tho I like you! The PDW saddle however, looks like a a very smart piece. But, does it get to smelling as bad as Crocs? No Stevil, don’t go doing a sniff test.

  8. Judy Kreiter October 25, 2012 at 1:12 pm #

    Super thrilled to see you and the gang last week at Minna. And congrats to coming back to the dark side 🙂