mark leads for winter larry, and the finding of the holy grail

Winter Larry couldn't come out to lead today's ride, so Mark led for him. Mark only found out about this late last night, so he did yeoman service considering he didn't have much time to plan a new route; he decided to go to go close to Clarksburg, as we have often done, but to stop at a fairly clean and new Wawa, rather than some of the seedy locations we frequent. Flat ride, but mostly at a good clip, despite some slower folks being along. I had fun talking to some people I don't see often, and burned a few calories riding into the wind, and everybody who STARTED with us FINISHED with us, for heaven's sake...
...but that isn't what I want to talk about.
In more than one post, I've written about my disappointment with the Selle An-Atomica saddle, and whined that I wished Specialized would bring back the now-discontinued BG2 saddle (here's the review on MTBR.COM). I despaired of ever finding such a thing again.
Well, Knapp's Cyclery has recently opened a satellite location in Cranbury. There's not much stock, and the main location must have sent up a bunch of stuff they didn't think would sell, because I found, not one, but TWO


of the BG2's in the store. I bought one right away, and came out crowing to Laura OLPH and a woman rider she was talking to. They suggested I buy the other one, too, but I got in the car and drove away... and got less than a block when I decided they had had a good idea; I went back and got the other:

One is already mounted; adjusted for height and setback according to my readings of the saddle it replaced.
Found it! I feel like the Indiana Jones of Central NJ.
I also wanted to post a bit of silliness: some time ago, I got a shorter stem for my handlebar so I wouldn't be quite so stretched out on my bike. The bar was a little loose in the stem, so I needed to make a shim, and I knew one of the best shim materials was a cutting from a soda can. Last time, I mounted it inside-out, os that only grey metal showed, but I went a bit crazy yesterday, cut a new piece, and mounted it so that distinctive Coca-Cola script shows through:

It's the only piece of corporate logo stuff I have, other than labels on parts and clothing. But that window in the stem means I can show things that are about 1" square, so other stuff may appear in that space. I'm conflicted about beer logos there; after all, it's not like beer ever treated me all that well, did it?