Movie Night...

We watched World's Fastest Indian tonight, based on a true story about an eccentric New Zealander, Burt Munro, who piloted an antique Indian motorcycle to various land speed records at Bonneville Salt Flats. Munro was a really funny guy who did in fact live in a shack, and did in fact machine up most of the hot rod parts on his bike by hand.

Anthony Hopkins played an excellent lead role, disappearing into the character he creates, as heusually does. One of the interesting things was the role that some prominent men in American motor racing played in Munro's racing, or at least in this story of it. While NASCAR is sort of the face of American racing, people forget that we bred generations of great sports car and auto endurance racers, a lot of great desert racers, and before that whole generations of great motorcycle racers. There was also a hot rod culture, bikes and cars, that pre-existed any other 'civilianized' performance culture anywhere in the world. That is, an ordinary guy could get a car, hop it up, race it, and sometimes beat the pros. Burt Munro beat us at our own game, however.

It ocurred to me, I like racing. I *love* bike racing, but when it comes down to it, I'll watch anything and anybody race. Damned if that's not one of the most interesting things in the world - I don't care if it's airplanes, sailboats, bikes, runners, or a couple cockroaches dropped on a tabletop. Let 'em race and let's us have a beer and make a bet about whose boy is faster.

Yeah, I'm a bit of a gearhead too, not sure if you are but maybe you might might like a real brief appreciation of America's motor racing past, starting with Rollie Free, who features in World's Fastest Indian. He stripped down to his Speedo because it had less drag than his leathers. He set a land speed record of 150 MPH when he did it. This is kind of a famous photo:

Speaking of brave, how would you like to roll at 115 miles per on a rough hewn wooden velodrome, thundering along rattling boards, with a pretty strong possibility of death or severe injury, getting splattered with half-burned castor oil all night long, for $50? (Yes, that's right... race, then crap your pants. We're talkin' glamor:

Erwin "Cannonball" Baker and Jake DeRosier figured prominently in the early days of U.S. motorcycle racing, but there were a lot of great (and short lived) heroes who rode big Indians, Harleys, Excellsior-Hendersons and a handful of other brands. Don't laugh, along with bicycle track racing and boxing, this was the biggest thing going in the 'teens and early twenties. Then there's the golden age of drag racing. Here's the most flamboyant pair of the era, Jungle Jim Liberman and his sidekick, Pam.

Okay, so maybe they were popular more because he used Pam Hardy as his starter, but the fact remains that Jungle Jim was a great drag racer with a lot of flair. She was really key to his routine because he didn't do a lot of NHRA bracket racing, focusing instead on "match racing," challenge races against one other racer for cash prizes. Pam would flag the race, Jungle Jim would win it, and the crowd would go wild. You don't get that kind of show today in any sort of racing - we're all lawyered up, fully insured, refereed, and hidebound.

Another great American racer was "King" Kenny Roberts. He tore up the motorcycle roadracing and dirt track scene, then moved on to race Grands Prix in Europe. He won what used to be the Motorcycle Formula 1 world championship three times, putting the fear of God into the Euros who used to dominate the sport. He was a trailblazer, and an absolute prodigy on the bike.

Then there's maybe the greatest American motorsports racers of all time, Bob Bondurant. I could go into a list of his palmares, but it's easier to just say, if it had four wheels, he raced it, and he kicked ass. He's another guy who competed against the Euros on their home turf, sports car and open wheel racing, and did well. He won races in the U.S. He has taught thousands of other racers how to race at his racing school. He's the man.

Obviously, I can't even touch on the tip of the iceberg of motor racing in the U.S. It is as deep and wide here as soccer is in Europe. But if you look at the couple of gents I've named, you'll find that they intersect with the center mass of given eras of racing. You look them up, see who they raced against and follow those trees out a little ways, you'll pick up the key details of the era. I guess that's what's really interesting about the history of motor racing in the U.S. - it's a series of webs of interesting people and stories about races that reflects the broader petroleum-based culture we live in.

Thanks.

Hey, whoever it was that bought me the Jens Voigt - "What Would Jens Do" clock from CafePress - thanks! It just showed up in the mail, which was weird, but pretty awesome. I really, truly appreciate it. I really like Jens a lot (Duh, who'd have ever guessed?) and that clock is teh kuhl. It's going to go in a place of honor in my office, to remind all my co-workers of my irritating bike obsession, and to remind me that at 6:00 every night... Jens would Ride, so it's time for me to ride. I don't know who sent it - I'll fantasize that it was one of the VanderKitten girls, for sure ("yeah, he's fat and slow except on mostly flat ground, and between the belching and ze farting, he is repulsive, but damn, the boy gives a good draft so I like him, I can't help myself, I'm a 105 pound pure climber, you know," she purred).

But if you're a reader or riding buddy, you're as good as a VanderKitten girl as far as I'm concerned. It's very generous of you, and I hope that I get a chance to give you something in return, whether it's laughs, a ride to a race, a draft on a training ride, a swig from my water bottle, or a hard time at the end of a crit.

Now here's a thing about why I do what I do, and how I think. I write this blog for myself, but also for all y'all. I get tons of fun from the riding community, and I try to give a little of the fun back, to share it and help y'all discover the fun that sometimes is lost amidst the suffering and hectic training schedules and everything else. I have a lot of fun reading your comments, following your links, enjoying stuff y'all clue me in on. But that clock... that will give me joy about 25 times a day *forever*. I'm the kind of guy who keeps kids toys on his desk at work to play with while thinking. I can't watch the Three Stooges without pulling a stomach muscle laughing. Every time I see The Big Lebowski I laugh harder than the last. I have a simple lizard brain that is constantly amused; if something is funny, I will laugh at it as hard the hundredth time I see it, as the first.

So there's simply no way I can pay you back for the chuckles that simple little Jens clock will give me.


Again, thanks. That's a frickin' awesome thing to do.

I gotta run now. The trainer's loaded up, I need to do a couple hours of zone 2, and Jens... Jens says it's Quarter to Ride, so I gotta get pedaling.

Boring @55 Commuter Crap.

Some thoughts from the commute/workout today.

- It rained the whole way in this morning. Yeah, laugh all you want about the fenders on my Surly, but I was merely damp when I got to work, and I didn't have a fricking black stripe up my white and blue jersey.

- Clammy doesn't even begin to describe how your skin feels after an hour in a plastic bicycling rain jacket on a cold day. It's dry-er than being rained on the whole time... but it's so cold and slimy a dead eel would recoil from touching you. Oh yeah, and the smell in my office with all my wet cycling clothes drying off all day long, and the heat on... it'd make a maggot puke.

- They need to put more porta-johns out on the side of the road. I got into the office and had to elevator up to the 13th floor, get my gym bag, and hobble into the locker room like Eddie Murphy playing an elderly obese lady in high heels... Yeah, sure, my time on the Seat of Repose was wonderful, I represented on behalf of Kashi with a world championship performance, but I very nearly didn't make it. And no, I wasn't about to use the porta potty they have out near the sand volleyball pits by Memorial Bridge. This time of year, in addition to being cold, wet, and rarely emptied, it is frequented solely by homeless people, and bicycle commuters on high fiber diets. Yes, that's right. It's the Crapper of the Damned. I wasn't about to go in there, not without backup.

- The fixed gear CrossCheck is nice to have when riding on mostly frozen-over dirt trails with tons of surface ice. The fat, treaded tires are even nicer. And taking the hose to the bike for 45 seconds to clean it when I got home... even nicer-er. Having a fixed gear tank for a winter trainer isn't a bad idea.

- Riding home, I heard a little brake rub on the right side of the front and back wheels. That's weird... it was dark though so I couldn't stop. When I did stop, I found softball-sized mud clumps packed into the cantilever brakes on the right side only, probably because I had been riding along in a rut, with ice on one side of the rut, mud on the other (right) side. On a caliper or vee-braked bike, that would have been a deal breaker. On cantis... minor irritation. Hooooraaaayyy Cantis!

- I was tired this morning; not enough sleep. Riding the fixie into work, I was scared shitless I'd forget to pedal and crash. Really, it was like I'd forgotten to pay my tax returns or something. Fixies remind me of a couple dangerous acting redheaded girls I dated before meeting Sainted Wife... lots of fun, some good reasons to date each of them, interesting, but there was always the lurking sense that one day I'd wake up to find a knife buried to the hilt in my sternum. No particular reason why - just a gut feeling. If either one of them showed up on one of the girl-oriented news magazine TV shows having killed their fourth husband, it wouldn't shock me. Same as if my fixie decides one day it wants to throw me to the ground and stomp on me... wouldn't be shocking in the least. I love riding fixed but it's a dangerous habit.


- Unrelated interesting story here about your cells. It seems that they make noise. It's hard to hear, you have to listen really close, but scientists have heard the noise your cells make. That's right, each individual cell makes a noise. What does it sound like? A steady scream at roughly two octaves above middle C. As one of the authors of the article put it, “I think if you listened to it for too long, you would go mad." Of course, anybody who has raced cross could have told them that cells scream... what else could be causing that pounding noise in your ears, the howling coming from your legs, and that voice that keeps saying, "Dude, you suck. You should take up bowling."

Artist's Impression:
Your Cells During a 'Cross Race*

*The two shadowy figures in black at the rear are the cells of a couple guys from Hunt Valley. They're getting ready to kick your cell's ass when he gets off the bridge and hits the runup.

Crash Monkey

I had a nice MTB ride at Rosaryville with some Coppi buddies and our good friend Mel, former Coppi and now smokin' fast Velo Bella chick, and much better half of Coppi Judd.

I was trying to take it easy - my right wrist is still buggered from the big crash at Patapsco three weeks ago, and my training plan has me going easy right now. Near as I can figure, going easy on a single speed MTB means spin easy on the flats, coast down the hills, ride the hills at the pace the bike dictates. So that's what I was doing, takin' er easy, and making sure everybody was kind of having fun. Good plan until we got through the one little technical loop with the boxes, drops, skinnies and whatnot. I had no problem with the purely technical stuff and was just coasting out at decent speed onto the main trail, when some random stick apparently got lodged in my front wheel, probably between the fork and some spokes.

Down goes Jimbo! Down goes Jimbo!

/Howard Cosell Voice

The Death Toll wasn't too bad - re-strained my wrist, skinned and bruised both knees pretty good. Nothing major but it slowed me down for the rest of the day. At 10:00, I decided to punch out. I didn't feel great, and we had started out at 8:00 - a late start for an Old Married Guy. I wanted to ride more but part of living a balanced life involves not doing obvious things to throw it all out of balance. Either way, I had to get home to Sainted Wife, who wasn't feeling too great, and in fact was real bummered all weekend long. She's doing better now but I didn't regret cutting the ride short - something about crashing just knocks the enthusiasm right out of you.

In the parking lot, on the way outI bumped into a guy I chatted with at a cross race a couple months ago - Kent - along with Gwadz. They were just headin' for some shreddin'. BTW, Gwadz may be my favorite local blogger... I don't know why, but he just puts me in a Zen state.

Apropo of that, I decided to google up "crash monkey" and use the first photo that came up as the theme photo for this post. How lucky was it then, that I found a picture of myself, communing with my own personal crash monkey? Damned lucky, I think - maybe not a coincidence when you consider how often I've consulted my Crash Monkey lately.

How to crash bike, eh? Crash Monkey say, wad

bike into maple tree, silly man. Now salute me.

What's that? Oh yeah, the yellow jacket I'm wearing in the picture - it's a new commuter jacket I'm beta testing for Performance Bikes. It's got 50% more Fung Shui than a normal commuter jacket, and 90% more Shao Lin Ass-Whuppin' content woven right in. It's comfortable, plus it is rain, wind, and Samurai-sword resistant, with pockets for your throwing stars, kubotans, and a handful of rice. It's just the thing for riding to work in bad weather, winter endurance training, or leading a band of ragtag peasants in ejecting seven rogue warriors and an evil warlord from your village. I like it better than my Assos FukYuJack jacket*, which all my friends *swear* is a knockoff. Anyhow... The Performance jacket is quite a bargain, it will sell for $59.95 - like all Performance products that's a sale price, and this jacket will always be substantially discounted from its normal retail price. Because Performance just cares for you, Babe.

*Seriously - have you ever considered the meaning behind the name that Assos attaches to their nearly-$600 riding jacket? Ever thought for even a minute maybe they are making fun of some people's willingness to shell out the price of a decent entry-level bike, for a jacket you can only wear a couple times a year in the worst weather? That maybe they might boost the price to $900 next year and call it the JoaksonYuJack? Then again, if you wear ASSos, maybe this is the kind of thought that never occurs to you at all. But what do I know. I sometimes ride in a Nashbar windbreaker, which I fondly call the FugMeJack.

God, I Love Pro Football...

If you have issues with that video, just click through the link on the embedded object and watch it at YouTube. It's worth it. I mean technical issues. If you have issues with the appropriation of the image of historical monsters to make funny jokes, well... air those issues in comments, I guess.

The funniest thing about this, is it's so true about football fans, in *so* many ways. You know how much I love the NY Football Jints? Enough that I couldn't watch their first two playoff games. Couldn't stand to watch them.

When you care about somebody so much that much of the time you can't stand to be near them because they make you completely insane... that's real love. Admittedly, it's the sort of real love that usually wins you a restraining order and a warning from your love object's older siblings, that they have a couple 12 gauge shells with double aught buckshot in them, with your name on the side of the shells. Most people aren't really comfortable with that kind of real love, because it usually ends with somebody getting shot, arrested, or stabbed... but that's how real football fans feel about the game, and their team.

The NBA is fan-tastic? Yeah, whatever. The NFL is Fan-atic. Capital F.

One other thing - Go Jints!!!! (I added extra exclamation points to stress that I *really* want the Giants to win.)

Water Bottles: Mmmm... Tastes Like Bodily Fluids Edition

- First Annual Headline That Surprises Nobody Award goes too... "Woman With Tattoo From Homemade Gun Got Sick." Evidently, some risks are attendant when one purchases body art from an improvised tattoo-age device-wielding door-to-door tattoo salesman. (Do you realize what I just wrote? A "door-to-door tattoo salesman." Did that not fry the fuses in your brain? A door-to-door tattoo salesman with a homemade tattoo gun.) There's a joke about this, actually.

"Knock knock"
"Who's there?"
"Door to door tattoo salesman."
"Door to door... hey, wait a minute, do you sell Hepatitis B too?"

It's really a cautionary tale for our age. Don't accept homemade tattoos or subprime mortgages from strangers.

What kind of a person orders up a tattoo from a door-to-door tattoo salesman? Why this type, of course:

I think her name is Lurlene Lumpkin. Something tells me this is far from the stupidest thing the poor dear has ever done in her short, poorly-thought-out life.

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- Kill a cyclist, go to jail. Kill a cyclist, laugh your ass off about it, go to jail for 2.5 times longer. Which is as it should be.

TUCSON, Arizona - A judge sentenced a woman to nearly the maximum prison term for negligent homicide after hearing a recorded jail conversation in which she made light of the cyclist she killed.

Melissa Arrington, 27, was convicted two months ago of negligent homicide and two counts of aggravated drunk-driving in connection with the December 2006 death of Paul L'Ecuyer.

She could have received as few as four years behind bars, but Superior Court Judge Michael Cruikshank sentenced her Tuesday to 10 1/2 years — one year shy of the maximum.

Cruikshank said he found a telephone conversation between Arrington and an unknown male friend, a week after L'Ecuyer was killed, to be "breathtaking in its inhumanity."

During the conversation, the man told Arrington that an acquaintance believed she should get a medal and a parade because she had "taken out" a "tree hugger, a bicyclist, a Frenchman and a gay guy all in one shot."

Arrington laughed. When the man said he knew it was a terrible thing to say, she responded, "No, it's not."

Lawyer: She's always felt remorseful
Assistant Public Defender Michael Rosenbluth told the judge his client has never been "cold, callous or flippant" about L'Ecuyer's death and has always felt remorseful.

Arrington said words couldn't express how she feels, and that once she's out of prison, she hopes to share her story with Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

L'Ecuyer, 45, was riding his bike the night of Dec. 1, 2006, when Arrington swerved off the road, hit him and then continued for 800 feet before stopping, according to Deputy Pima County Attorney Jonathan Mosher.

Arrington's blood-alcohol content was .156 percent, nearly double Arizona's .08 legal limit. She had been driving on a suspended license for a prior drink-drive conviction.

Go ahead, kids, laugh your gay, tree-hugging, French asses off about Ms. Arrington's joke. I'm *sure* she'd have a sense of humor about it. It's all in good fun, right?

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I like getting stuff from my readers. One of them, Steve, whom I met at a race last fall, shot me a link to Dave Moulton's Bike Blog - an excellent blog from an old warhorse of cycling.

Dave Moulton writes a nice summary of the career of Fausto Coppi, il Campionissimo, the man after whom my club is named. Fausto was stylish and strong, attacking with flair and winning by destroying the competition. He dated the hottest women in Italy, he was glamorous, as Radio Freddy would say he was so PRO, the very epitome of a bicycle racer.

Dave also has a great writeup on Gino Bartali, Coppi's great rival, who won in a much more methodical, determined, grinding manner. He was a real warhorse on the bike, and his rivalry with Coppi is overplayed. But his great distinction in my mind was acting as a courier for the Italian resistance, along with the Catholic Church working to save many Jews by smuggling travel papers to them. Bartali never bragged about this and only mentioned it briefly to his sons, in passing. They were shocked to discover after his death that his activities had been extensive. Bartali was also a great great rider, but to my way of thinking, he was the epitome of a man. Shit, I place within a 9 iron of the podium I can't shut up about it. This guy was a TdF winner and one of the true heroes of WWII, and he couldn't be bothered to brag on himself at all. I can't tell you how much I admire him, for his attainments on the bike and off it, and for the quality of his character.

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Finally, WHICH LOST CHARACTER ARE YOU?

Which Lost Character Are You?

Created by BuddyTV

Holy crap! Those who know me, know that description is uncannily accurate. I'll be damned... I wonder how they did it.

I know - they must have Dr. Neil Clark Warren working for them.

"Jim... You're deeply compatible, in 28 dimensions
of personality, with Sayyid Jarrah.
And three different types of Pork Rinds."

WWJD?

What would Jens do?

Grateful to my employer for the Monday holiday, I decided to work a couple 14 hour days to make up for the work I missed Monday.

Well, I didn't exactly decide to do that. I was sort of forced into it. But let's be charitable to me here, okay?

Monday was a rest day, off the bike. Tuesday I hit the trainer for 90 minutes of zone two. That was interesting considering I got home at 9:30. So I was into bed around midnight and up around 4:45 the next morning since I have an hour commute each morning, and when you're cramming in 14 hours, it helps to start the day so that you will finish your 14 before midnight. (Let no man say life in D.C. is not glamorous and fun.)

I got home last night, tucked my kid into bed, and then hung out with three buddies talking sports and big screen TVs for an hour.

Okay, fine, they weren't buddies. They were the Verizon cable repair guys.

Anyhow they finished up at about 9:30.

So I had a tough choice: hit the trainer for 90 minutes and take my exhausted ass to bed somewhere just short of midnight (can't forget to shower, or take out the trash...)

Or should I just go to be early, get a good night's sleep, and make sure to hit my workout today, Thursday?

There's only one way to answer training and racing questions. It's to ask yourself,

WWJD? What would Jens do?

The answer, of course, is simple. Jens would quit his puny lawyer job, start working out full time, get signed to a top UCI ProTour team, become a super domestique, win some races, rip the legs off the peloton at will, and become a globally beloved figure.

Unfortunately, I'm not Jens Voigt. So I went to bed and got a good night's sleep. I even slept a little late this morning.

In spite of the fact that there is some evidence Jens might have decided this question the same way, given the time of night, I have a sneaking suspicion it's not what Jens would have done.

Oh well.

A Race!

Well, not exactly a race. But it's a competition.

My friend Elden Nelson, the sometimes Fat Cyclist, the round mound of funny-profound, is competing for a Bloggy Award in the Best Sports Blog category. How he's a "sports blog" is beyond me, unless competitive eating and competitive dieting are sports.

Anyhow, do me a favor - go vote for him. He's a funny guy and deserves a good shoutout.

Water Bottles... Can't We Just Have Tap Water Edition...

- Thankfully, the Verizon HD cable box / DVR didn't go tits up until *after* I watched the Giants / Packers game on Monday morning. Then it went real bad. The Verizon guy walked me through a bunch of stuff and was real sketchy about when a repair worker would be out to fix it. My wife called back when the guy didn't show. The Verizon rep said, "let me tell you a secret. We tried to upgrade the software in a bunch of these boxes, and cooked 'em. Thousands of 'em. So we're way behind on service calls." Great. All I can say is it'd better be fixed before Superbowl Sunday, or we're going Dish Network.

- Trainer night tonight, 90 minutes of zone 2. Yay. Thrills. Nothing exciting there. What is exciting is the Library of Congress sharing a collection of color photos from the 30's and 40's. There are thousands of 'em on line. Want to feel wistful with me about some good old days, that weren't all that good, but which were really pretty good for most folks when you get right down to it? Well, stop in at the juke joint



Or at least pour yourself a nice bourbon, then check out the whole collection and enjoy the quiet dignity



of our grandfathers at work



and at war




And our grandmothers too.


It wasn't perfect. Not by any means.


The clothes and the dirt tell you there were tough times.


But the wry looks tell you that they knew a few things that we seem to have forgotten.



Go ahead, check out the whole collection. Ask yourself, "where are they now? Are they still alive? Did they have kids? What did they do? Did they live well?"



Let yourself go for a minute and think about all we've gained since then.

Think too about what we've lost.

Okay Fine

So if the story of me driving to Ellicott City to ride, but leaving the cycling shoes at home is too much of a downer for you, here, have this.

I really don't know what to make of that picture, other than to think it'd probably be easier to get that pit bull some prosthetic front legs, instead of training up hogs to carry it around everywhere.

Bonus Points if you can tell me where that event occurred. It's clearly the Third Annual Broken Down General Motors Car Convention - no doubt you already noticed the distinctive feature of that picture, which is that there are *no* Fords to be seen anywhere.

Hey, maybe these are all the Chevys that the irritating Calvin stickers peed on?

Calvin Peeing Safely - Out Into Cyberspace

Ahhhh, that's it. That's the lesson of this picture. Be careful where you let Calvin pee, otherwise you'll have to train a pig to haul your paraplegic pit bull around all the broken down cars in your yard.

See, I knew that picture had a deeper meaning.


Ps. I know it's not a hog helping out a Canine with Disabilities. I know the truth - the picture is actually a metaphor for something else. What it is, I haven't a clue.

Ride Impression: Ellicott City This AM, After Discovering I Left My Cycling Shoes at Home

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Aw, #$%*!

Apropo of Nothing...

It's a rest week for me, and with the weather, it's a trainer week too. So I have nothing original to say, other than my Kurt Kinetic Rock & Roll has met, and is actively exceeding, every expectation.

I have something unoriginal to say - ESPN's coverage of Team Slipstream is pretty damn good, if you ask me. The one salient point ESPN doesn't make is that cycling is a "dirty" sport only because cycling started to give a shit about doping a lot earlier than some other sports. Based on Fehr's & Selig's testimony this week, some major sports still don't really give a shit about doping, unless it is likely to screw up their business operations. Cycling, in contrast, is screwing up its business operations because it is at least trying to care about doping. That's a good thing.

The main article is here. If you didn't already like Jonathan Vaughters and David Millar and Dave Zabriskie, this article will help you do so. There's a good interview with Vaughters here, in which he says something I totally agree with, which is basically that you need to forgive and forget a lot of the doping and cheating that went on, just get over it, but insist on clean riding going forward. I agree with him in part because it's a practical stance, partly because it is a stance that could bring the warring factions together, and partly because the spectacle of journalists and politicians and (likely equally dirty but un-caught) cyclists leading witchunts over years-old cheating offenses is nauseating. Team owner and visionary Doug Ellis is profiled here. Yeah, I'd love to work for a guy like that. He gives a crap, backs up his mouth with his money, and is attempting to build a business model that I'd describe as noble. Finally, there are some good pictures of the team in action here.

If you're going to root for a team, to find a pro team to believe in, Slipstream is the one that probably won't let you down. In addition to their rigorous, transparent anti-doping regime, they are also packed with some of the most enjoyable guys to follow in the pro peloton. Magnus Backstedt, Zabriskie, the talented Tom Danielson and Christian VandeVelde, the burgeoning young classics specialist Tyler Farrar, popular hard man Danny Pate, and several others worth watching. I know I'll be pulling for them this year, and given that the weight of several national governments is falling on dopers, I wouldn't be shocked to see Slipstream get some good results.

Okay, enough serious crap. Here's your moment of zen. Be all you can be, babies. Be all you can be.

Holy Cow...

If it isn't Alice B. Toeclips herself, with a blog.

[Updated: For my pal Chris Mayhew, who thinks this shot is Wayyyy Kuuuhl, brah]:


It seems Jacquie Phelan - a women's MTB legend in the same league as Ned Overend, Gary Fisher and Tom Ritchey, the hard riding, product-developing pioneers of the sport - has herself a blog. Thing is, I was out of riding for a long time. But before that, I did a good deal of low quality mountain biking in the early to mid '90s. I don't talk about it a whole lot because I had really long hair, wore plaid shirts, crashed my mountain bike a lot in the Adirondacks, drove a rusted out Suzuki Samurai and could drink anybody under the table, but usually only did that to myself... wild times. I stunk it up on the bike but had fun, but it's not me any longer. I was pretty different then, and although I'm fundamentally the same person, that was sort of a different me. Those times are past. But Jacquie was somebody I looked up to then along with some other wild men and wild women (like Missy Giove, for instance)... Seeing what she has done with her life since then, it's fair to say I still do look up to her.

Y'know what... her blog, not surprisingly, is teh funny. I'm not kidding. She's kind of a whacky artsy hippie chick, so you probably would think that I wouldn't like it. But I'll let you in on a secret - I used to be a hippie chick magnet. Can't explain why, maybe it's because opposites attract and in a lot of ways I've always been an enormous square. Even when I had really long hair and was doing the English major thing and going around all stupid drunk and recklessly deconstructing the newspaper and applying structuralist theory and postcolonialist resistance techniques in my critique of liquor store discount signs... even then, I was an utter square. Maybe hippie chicks feel it's their solemn duty (as if they had any sense of duty at all...) to corrupt squareness, and that with their patchouli perfume, long (frequently unwashed) hair, and penchant for jam bands and munchies, it's clear that God appointed them to that task. So I was a frequent victim of crazy-ass artsy left wing hippie chicks in my youth. A not entirely unwilling victim, I might add.

So basically, between the bikes, the good writing and the crazy hippie chick, there's no way in hell that I could dislike Jacquie Phelan and her not-often-enough updated blog. Check it out.

Water Bottles: Man, This Don't Taste Like Evian Edition

• You may have noticed I sometimes put a little link to a product sold on Amazon below a post. The reason I do that is because there is some potential for me to make some Caish-Monee if you click on the link and buy that product at Amazon. How much Caish? Not much... but Not Much is still much better than None. I don't want you to think I discuss stuff just on a for-profit basis and give it shoutouts to try to make some of that precious Caish. Nope. I discuss the stuff I like or don't like, and basically I'm too self-indulgent and immature to say anything other than what Almighty Me thinks about something. Yep, you'll mostly hear praise on this site, and there's a good reason for that. I generally have to pay for my stuff so I research it before I buy it, or at least try to have familiarity with the brand and product line most of the time. Despite the fact you normally hear praise, if something (in my terribly humble opinion) is a piece of cheet, I will tell you this. I hope that if my impressions of an item help push you off the fence and down to your local bike shop to buy it, that my experiences are useful to you. And if you choose not to buy it from your LBS, I'd ask you give the product a look at Amazon and if you like their deal, get it that way. You see I get a commission. How much? Not much. But if you bought that nice trainer linked below, for instance, I'd be able to buy a sixer of beer. Cheap beer... but some cheap beer is better than nothing. Anyhow, that's the deal. Click or not, your call. But now you know.

• Ah, speaking of shilling products. I'm a big fan of Brave Soldier products. As you know, I take a good spill about once every six months. Then, for a month afterward, I complain about how it hurts and how slow it is to heal up. Brave Soldier Antiseptic Healing Cream is like a magic bullet for roadrash and cuts. Like Neosporin, it has all sorts of antiseptic goodness. After you've cleaned out your cut / roadrash, it will help keep you from getting an infection and it will keep the wound wet, which is a bonus if you are trying to get it to heal without scarring, cracking, re-opening, and serious itching/ongoing pain. Brave Soldier has some stuff that will help nourish your new, regrowing skin. But it also has a special, magical ingredient to ease your pain - around 3.5% lidocaine. It's a nice local anaesthetic that helps eliminate the burning and itching on the initial cut, and of the scab and nasty white blood cell crap that accumulates on the roadrash. Ive used it every day on the big reminder on my shin of my recent encounter with the Maples of Patapsco, applying a fresh bandage and a fresh layer of the ointment every day, and sure enough it's healing wonderfully. Keeping it wet, or at least damp, it appears I may be able to avoid having a huge scar. So yeah, I totally recommend it.

* Finally, check out Louis Guzman in these ads for Cabot Cheddar. If he looks familiar, it's because he always plays some sort of Latino badass villain. How'd he wind up in cheese ads? There's a backstory to the ads which is pretty funny and not at all what you would expect. I just like the ads though. And Louis Guzman.

First Impressions Review - Kurt Kinetic Pro Rock & Roll Trainer

Have I ever mentioned my slight aggravation stemming from riding the trainer? Perhaps I have.

In the grand scheme of things, I'd rather get teeth drilled and fillings inserted, than spend an hour on the trainer.

I'm a big lad even at my skinniest, and my sitbones aren't appreciably larger than most people's. In fact, on Specialized's Body Geometry seat measuring device - a pad of memory foam on a ruler, basically - my ass measures slightly on the narrow side of average, at least for sitbone width. But I'm putting 30% more weight, and throwing an equivalent amount of greater power, than the average roadie, all of this on a surface area that rivals Danilo DiLuca's.

Okay, fine, my surface area is nowhere near that small. But my narrow-ass sitbones are no bigger than, say, Maggie's, and I'm puttin' more weight per square inch on them than he is. So it hurts.

Magnus is Big... But I'm Bigger...

Yep, my ass takes a beating like it was being initiated into a street gang.

On the road, this isn't a problem. I have a nice FiZik Arione saddle, which is about as comfortable as a sofa. It is firm, but a little flexy; narrow, but comfortable. I can't explain why they work, but if you're in the 30% of the population for whom FiZik saddles work, you are in for a treat, they disappear underneath you.

Where was I? Oh yeah, on the road, you rock, hit bumps, stand here and there, and most of all the highly variable nature of your power (pushing hard, soft, middling, standing, coasting) means that your butt both moves around a lot and bears a variety of different loads in a bunch of positions that may look identical, but which vary enough to relieve the pressure.

On a trainer, you don't move around enough, the load is too constant, you rarely stand up, and you basically wear a couple dime sized holes in your ass. At least you do if you are me.

Boredom, severe overheating, boredom, and boredom aside, the aching ass problem is what kills trainer sessions for me. I can go about 10 minutes before my butt starts to hurt; by the 25 minute mark, I'm in hell with actual flames shooting out the legs of my shorts, at 35 minutes any nearby cats have been incinerated and my water bottles have steamed off, while by 50 minutes I'm looking at the clock every ten seconds to see if the clock has hit the 51 minute mark yet.

Since I sort of wrecked my early season by not hitting the trainer last winter when we got snowed in (some lung infection and travel issues notwithstanding) I vowed this year that it would not happen again. This means that I have to be ready to log serious trainer hours if necessary.

I realized I'd have to get rid of Old Blowtorch, aka my Performance fluid trainer, which was nice enough for an entry-level race warmup and short (one hour) rider, but which wasn't up to dealing with my issues.

So I decided to go with the Kurt Kinetic.

Kurt sells a bunch of trainers. The basic Kurt Kinetic is a fluid trainer with a several-pound flywheel on which your tire rests. It comes with an additional 6 pound flywheel, which gives added coast-down and gives the trainer a road-like feel. It isn't great, but the sensation of stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp for a pedaling cadence is definitely diminished. The next model in the line, the Kinetic Pro, comes with an additional 12 pound flywheel that bolts on to that six pounder very conveniently. This gives a *real* road feel. Seriously, once you get into a rhythm and keep your cadence steady, it will feel just like being on the road. It's uncanny.

Either of these basic trainer models can bolt on to Kurt's Rock & Roll base. This ingenious wide-footed base system permits up and down, and side-to-side motion as you pedal. At first it feels a little bit wobbly, especially on the very light 'spring' settings that I had dialed in. Once you get into a rhythm - noticing a theme here - it smooths out considerably and the wobble and bounce pretty much disappear.

They disappear, except for a delightful little bit of wobble and bounce that mimics road vibration and a natural, slight side-to-side rocking motion like you would have on a normal road ride.

The end result is pretty magnificent. I found that the sensation of sitting directly atop two upturned railroad spikes never occurred, and the ride was reasonably comfortable for the entire 2.5 hours I spent doing a zone 2 spin. Yes, I got a little bit itchy around the 90 minute mark, but that probably had as much to do with me wearing a pair of really crap shorts, as with the trainer itself.

Complaints? I still haven't figured out how to mimic climbing on the damn thing, but I have hopes; after all I only have 3 hours seat time on it. It's also a bit pricey, costing in the $400-$550 range, depending on whether you have friends in the industry or a good equipment deal through your bike club. But then most good bike stuff is too expensive if it isn't free, right? The other weird thing is that with the heavier flywheel attached, intervals are a bit tough. Sudden violent power pulses make the rear wheel slip, spitting rubber dust on the floor and failing to transfer power to the flywheels. (The problem more or less disappears with the lighter flywheel). With the Rock & Roll base - no relation to Michael Ball - it's probably not really race-portable. Sure, the legs come off real easy, but who wants to haul a 50 pound trainer rig across a wet field to the warmup area atop the runup at a cross race? Not I, I'll stick to my Schlockmeister 5000 Shitetrainer for that mission.

Good points? It's comfortable for the long haul. It's easy to envision doing long zone 2 rides on this when you're snowed in. It's definitely VO2 interval-capable; the only reason I noticed the wheel spin is that I actually tried a couple real sprints, something I'd never do on a Schlockmeister trainer. The base is enormous, giving it real stability; even though it feels wobbly at first you'd have to dork it up pretty badly to manage to tip this rig over. It's reasonably quiet - you can use this and keep the TV on "Cessna taking off in the distance" volume, rather than "B-52 hitting the water injection right in front of me" levels. And the final good point is that it has good road feel; the heavy flywheel gives it a natural feel, and does not encourage you to develop the trademark herky-jerky trainer pedal stroke.

The bottom line - pardon the expression - is that this is a trainer that even trainer-haters can embrace. It's comfortable enough to do your long base work on while watching Sportscenter (three times in a row) or to do heavy power intervals on. Couple it with a Powertap or SRM and you'll be in indoor, training data, why-ride-outside-I'm-only-here-for-the-dire-suffering heaven. Give it a shot if you're looking for a serious trainer upgrade, that will make your dire winter trainer sessions a lot less dire.

Don't buy it if: (1) your cycling is mainly recreational or commuting; (2) you have very limited space for working out; or (3) you seriously doubt your ability to stick to a hard, rigorous training regime with regular marathon (or short beatdown) trainer sessions.

Buy it if: (1) you need some way to wedge in very serious workouts of all sorts around your busy work and family schedule; (2) you are a serious cyclist (racer, rando rider) who *must* be in shape come spring, and your local weather frequently scrubs your training plans; (3) if you have the discipline to do heavy indoor training, which is still drudgery; (4) if regular trainers' goofy pedaling motion drives you nuts; (5) you have the cash on hand; and, most importantly, (6) if regular, non-flexing trainers simply give you a case of the ass, literally.

Funny Photos

Fellow Coppi Lindsey, whose Pro Wrasslin' nickname would definitely be The Ultimate Road Warrior, sent along an email, "Olan Mills Photos." No, it's not an old textiles town near Duluth, it's a sort of industrial-grade photo portrait studio. It's not exactly Annie Liebowitz, so the photos typically aren't exactly beautiful, and for that matter, sometimes the people aren't exactly chiseled from noblest marble, either. So the email had these captions that were funny, but I think I can do a lot better. If you can top mine, just leave a caption in comments. Refer to the number, and then make us laugh. Here's my best.

1

Some a them midwest cornfed girls is really big. It's true.
That dog is actually a full grown doberman.

2

If you look at the past through rose-colored glasses, you get nostalgiac. Do it through orange-colored glasses, you get a 70's divorcee dad down from Bismark on visitation Saturday.

3

I don't know if it's the gay vibe, I don't know if it's the scared looking girl. It could be that the whole thing reeks of a crystal meth binge. But something there pretty much screams,

"WHO THE FUCK POSES FOR A PHOTO LIKE THIS IN A WALMART PHOTO STUDIO?"

4

Clean Sanchez: The World's First Jewish/Mexican/Scandanavian
New Wave Band from Minneapolis

5

Shaped hairstyles: $24 at Supercuts.
Matching aquamarine dress shirts: $32 at Marshalls.
Perfectly groomed moustaches: free
A combination Whitefro/Mullet: priceless.

6

In spite of being followed around by a giant, disembodied floating
head, Ted was still able to laugh. Maniacally, in fact.



7

The Boys From Brazil

8

Honey, I wouldn't trade you in for all the disused law books,
beard combs and heavily tinted glasses in Olathe, Kansas.

9

I'm a pickin', an a grimacin'.



10

The early pioneers had it tough, traveling across the plains in leisure suits in covered conestoga wagons, sometimes being dragged out of their wagons to be shot by warring indian tribes, and sometimes to be shot by pushy itinerant mall photographers.

11

Either the Druids or the Aztecs would get her;
but Mary didn't care, she was tired of being a virgin.


12

Let me guess... Hells Angels, Southern Baptist Chapter?

Alternate: Scared straight? Well, scared anyhow.

13

We're smiling because we just bought a *bitchin* Camaro!
You can too! Ask us how!


14

We were poorer then, in the 70's... the entire nation could afford only one hairstyle.
Fortunately, lapels were in abundance, otherwise we might never have made it.


15

I feel pretty...
Oh so pretty...
Oh so pretty, and witty, and...
Oh, fudge! I always forget the next line.



16

Yeah, dude, it's a mullet. Business in the front, par-tay in the rear.
Aaaaah, fuck it, dude. Par-tay in the front too!. Whoohooo!


17

Bein' the only Black child in all of Minnesota made Tonisha's hairs all stand on end. And me an Dory, we're actually startin' to like Lutefisk. And hockey! Help, somebody, please! Here, take this note, go to Detroit, and give it to a man named John Shaft, ai'ight?

18

Vote for Pedro.

Shop Ride +

Shop ride tomorrow morning from Family Bikes, Crofton. Wheels up at 7:00 AM, 2.5 - 3 hours of slow rollin' base training. Your flight today will be non-stop, we'll pass over Millersville, Severna Park, and Annapolis, on our way back to today's final destination, Crofton. Coffee at the end, not the middle, we hope. See ya there, wear some warm socks.
-------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, I'll be Rollin' wit' Saget.

Gritty Water Bottles

• I really felt like a roadracer today. After the morning ride at Hains, the actual training, I went to work then commuted back home. As I left the office, it was raining. I was in full team kit, with the new windbreaker vest - a nice piece of gear, BTW. I had on my little cycling cap, brim forward, to keep the rain and grit out of my eyes. It was cold, it was windy, and the only other people on bikes were messengers, and a couple guys from other clubs. I had a 45 minute light spin to loosen the legs. The rain wasn't pelting down, but was a heavy, heavy drizzle. But it didn't feel bad. It was nice to be back in the harness, pulling a load, keeping an eye on my powertap to stay in low zone 2. The road rash - maple rash, actually - on my leg ached a bit, as did my sore wrist. Screw it - little stuff like that shouldn't get in the way of a good training day. I made sure to drink a bottle full of water on the ride - a bottle an hour, that's another training rule. So too the fenders - in mid-November, the fenders go on my black Giant OCR, which is way too nice to be a winter beater but that's exactly what I use it for. You can talk about the roadie aesthetic but the deal is that when the weather gets heavy, you do what you need to do to ride. On the way up the Cap Crescent, I did pass some commuters. Most were bundled heavily in all sorts of gear. They looked like bags of rags atop bikes. Not me - form fitting bib shorts, knee warmers, base layer, jersey, wind vest, foul weather gloves. Perhaps not pro, but wearing clothes that kept me from sweating hard or freezing, and which made some degree of pedaling efficiency possible. All in all, not a bad ride. Despite being cold, wet, and blown upon by a heavy breeze, it was okay; I submitted myself to the discipline of the training plan and it felt good. I was back where I belong, like a cook in the kitchen, or a machinist on the factory floor. It felt good to be doing this today, on a day when few other riders could be bothered to brave the weather. It felt right.

• Sir Edmund Hillary died today. If you have to ask who he was, what he did and why he did it, you should be ashamed of yourself. I suggest you celebrate his life tomorrow night after work by pounding a sixxer of Busch. Yes, that's right. I'm telling you to "head for the mountains. " I figured if I told you to get hammered on cheap beer to celebrate his achievements, it's something you might do. Whereas if I told you to drop $80 grand, hire 20 sherpas, train for 5 years, risk death at the hands of the local governments and then attempt to climb Everest and maybe die, you'd tell me to pound sand. So unless all that is in your plans, just grab some Busch, and hoist a beer for this great man. If anybody asks why you're drinking Busch, just tell them, "because it's there."
  

• Apropo of nothing, there are *way* too many commuters who ride even in very cold weather wearing heavy layers of clothes on their upper body, and nothing but shorts on the bottom half. Very bad idea, people. That's how you get really crunchy, stiff knees. Proper dress is warm on the bottom, cool enough on the top so that you are just barely breaking a sweat when riding at whatever your cruising speed is. Basic rule: if it's under 70, cover the knees. Nobody will think less of you for it. If you need inexpensive tights to throw on under your bike shorts, here you go, to Nashbar's $14 specials. The $14 polypro baselayer pant (tight) is perfect down to about 28 degrees. Lovely stuff. If that doesn't do it for you and you wear bike shorts, check out some knee warmers. They are *essential* transitional clothing for 10 months of the year. The other handy trick is to carry a rolled up set of arm warmers in your bag or a back pocket. If you need them, put 'em on, and if you're still too cold, find a newspaper box with free newspapers and tuck one inside your jersey, to block the wind. Between arm warmers and the local underground rag, you'll be toasty. Pace makes a good inexpensive arm warmer; so does DeFeet. Hey, there are more upscale options, but the fact is transitional clothing beats the heavy single item solution (e.g. commuter jackets) because the transitional clothing is so flexible and so useful in many varying circumstances.

• I've been thinking about my dream bike lately, for some reason. Right now anyways, it's an Independent Fabrication. Not sure which I'd go for - probably one of their steel frames, most likely the versatile steel Club Racer. I could see spending a lot of hours on that bike. Truth is, I could probably be talked into a Waterford... but I really, really like the IFs. What is your dream bike?

Little to Say...

Look, I don't have much to say today. I rode a lot, as much as I could pack in. It was 70 degrees. While it will be raining Wednesday, it should clear by mid-morning and it will be similarly warm, unseasonably so, despite some windy patches mid-day.

What the hell are you doing here reading this?

We're getting a respite from the weather here on the East Coast. Get your ass out for a ride. Go sit in your back yard and enjoy the lack of bugs, despite the 68 degrees and high humidity.

Sweat for a change.

Enjoy the blue sky tomorrow after the rain clears.

Enjoy the sun.

Sit on the patio or the steps, or outside at a local cafe, and have a bottle of wine or some Belgian ale with your sweetie.

But whatever you do, kick your friggin' computer to the curb. Put down your book. Get off your ass. Go outside and enjoy the weather.

Don't be a moron.

On beautiful days, when nature winks at you, at least have the good grace to smile back at her. Do not scorn her flirtations... let her know she's appreciated. She will probably be cold to us for the next 8 weeks. Do not waste the time... gather ye the Budweisers while ye may. A big part of enjoying life is learning to be cool with Mother Nature's moods. Enjoying her spectacular good moods, like today's, makes it a lot easier to put up with the bad ones.

So put down your laptop, and back away from this blog slowly.

See ya tomorrow kids. Have some nice riding.

New Cycling Togs...

I'm a little gun shy after the big crash over the weekend, so I decided to gear up a bit before doing my training ride tomorrow AM. Here's the new suit:




Admittedly, it's a bit warm. But it's very aero, and it should definitely protect my skin in case of another encounter with a maple tree. Plus the heavy lead boots will definitely fill the Route 1 guys full of dread. I got the suit from my buddy Tony Stark. He's a bit of a vagrant, but quite an engineer.

Oh yeah, and Art M had better stay the hell away from me with those Litespeeds of his... we all know what happened the last time Titanium Man ran into Iron Man.

Okay, sorry, total Simpsons Comic Book Guy inside-baseball there. ("Worst blog... ever.") But can you blame me? It was a rest day on Monday, and the publicity shots from the forthcoming Iron Man movie were about the coolest thing going. Can't wait to ride Tuesday though.

Never Mind the Suffering... Here's the Ballocks!

Suffering on the bike makes you feel alive. Suffering after a bike crash makes you feel like a cyclist. It's what binds us together.

I'll never know what it feels like to climb Alpe d'Huez or Tourmalet like Lance Armstrong. But I damn sure know *exactly* what it feels like to hurt like him after a crash. I'll never be able to ride even a fraction as good as Julian Absolon, or even local hero (& 24 hour Worlds threat) Chris Eatough. But I now know what it's like to wad it up into a tree and damn near self-lobotomize using a maple - I share their arcane knowledge.

Road rash, sprained wrists, broken collarbones, being awakened at 3:32 AM when a big hunk of scab on your elbow gets stuck to the sheet and ripped off when you roll over - it's something all racers and hard riders are going to suffer from sooner or later.

I was thinking about this lying on the sofa this afternoon. There was no comfortable way to lie on the damn thing, and when I got up to go to the kitchen to get some water, the blood rushed back into my swollen knee making it ache; the scabs on my leg got torn off by my jeans despite the bandages, it was hell.

Water in hand, lying back down, it didn't feel completely unsatisfying. I don't like the hurting itself. I'd never put up with somebody coming to my house and kicking my ass, and taking a rasp to my leg and peeling off a layer of skin. But the fact that I am hurting makes me know I'm alive right now, and the peculiar kind of suffering I'm going through makes me know that I'm suffering for the sport I love. I accept it and I don't mind it, the suffering is part of paying the dues of being a for-real cyclist, pushing myself past my technical and fitness limits. Like sore muscles after a hard workout, I'll deal with it and I'll be okay. After all, I'm far from alone in my suffering.

Interestingly, Pope John Paul II discussed suffering not long before he died. He spoke frequently against euthenasia, and noted also that he did not mind suffering because suffering is a part of life, and bearing suffering with faith and dignity is one of our great challenges as humans. Copping out from suffering, as he saw it, was a little less than fully human, and I tend to agree. While we may find dignity escapes us in day to day life, and nobility is something having to do with European royalty, we cyclists work through suffering on a regular basis the way a mule buckles down to do work - it's his nature and he's better at what he does, for having made the effort. I think Johannes Paulus was right, suffering is ennobling if we bear it properly.

Of course he never had to ride a damn trainer in the basement of the Vatican, though his holy vestments may have stuck to his knees pretty regularly, albeit for different reasons than my jeans stick to mine.

Super double added bonus feature - a great, short, easy-to-read book on political economy that everybody should read, but especially Burt Freakin' Hoovis. I think he'd like this one, Hayek's Road to Serfdom, a book about why people generally manage better if mostly left to their own devices. Even if it is a seminal work on political economy and not a Thong of the Day feature.

Fine Like Red Wine

For the many people who have emailed inquiries after my health, and dropped a line here... thanks, I'm doing just fine. I can't believe how many people went to the trouble of caring to ask after me. Thanks, that's very generous of y'all.

In retrospect, that was a pretty spectacular crash yesterday but it hurt more in the present moment, and with fewer lingering aches than my fairly epic 35 MPH wipeout at the Baker Park Crit 18 months ago. That one left me tenderized like a cheap steak, skinned a couple fingers to the bone, and left blood blisters all over my body, and overall soreness for a month. This one... it was a little slower and I'm on the mend.

Status check on specifics?

• Ear/cheek - swelling gone, already scabbed up and healing nicely. Smaller cuts than expected.
• Upper back, right shoulder & trapezius are quite stiff, not badly hurting, feels like just bruised / pulled muscles. No collarbone / shoulder separation problems.
  
• Right leg near knee is skinned, basically mildly or un-bruised.
• Left leg is just a bit bruised, seriously skinned below the knee, but comfortably swathed in a thick coat of Brave Soldier and the big swollen ball is gone. There is also a quarter-sized black mark on my inner thigh where the handlebar end apparently tried to take a core sample but that's minor enough I didn't notice it yesterday.
• Right hand - the right hand took the worst of it. I badly bruised the outside edge of my palm, probably sprained, pain radiating up through back of hand and outside of bottom portion of wrist joint (wrist / hand is actually the worst of the lot). Grip strength is okay so probably nothing broken, hurts enough to stay off the bike and to skip Family Bikes' paintball match today.
• Melon - fully functional. (I was a little shocky and slower-witted than usual yesterday, that's why I sounded like a moron on the phone last night, Jon... I'm fine today though.)

So all in all, it's pretty minor, just a lot of muscle bruising. There are times when it is profitable to be fat and also carrying probably 30 pounds more of upper body muscle mass than the typical cyclist. I suppose one reason contact sports coaches always advise guys to bulk up until their game suffers - it's because muscle mass does a good job of absorbing trauma and holding the joints together - big hits could be a lot more destructive without that extra padding.

Again, thanks for your concern, all. I'll be back with your Regularly Scheduled Hilarity tomorrow.

Jimbo Fall Down... Go Boom

I had a nice first half of a three hour ride at Patapsco with Jon and Trevor, Timmy, James and Chris. Everything went pretty much to schedule until about the halfway point - I cruised pretty nice on downhills, worked decently up the non- and semi-technical uphills, and hike-a-biked up the really technical upward stuff. Unfortunately, I was undone by a hidden stump in a really easy part of the course, and that's where the ride writeup really starts.

We were tooling along at pretty high speed down a flat, smooth section of trail near Rockburn Elementary, off Landing Road I believe. I was keeping on Jon's wheel - he's a good guy to follow - and we went over a little whoop. Jon seemed unsettled but I didn't really think anything of it and seconds later, *after* going over the whoop and keeping my wheels on the ground, I was airborne. Turns out there was a 3" high, 3" wide stump right in the middle of this long sidewalk-smooth section of trail. It was really hard to see from the direction we were traveling, and when I hit it the front wheel went sideways quite unexpectedly, and I went airborne. Unfortunately for me, the stump was located on a slight turn, so a 6" diameter maple was able to jump in my path like Willie Mays catching a long fly ball, and snag me.

Thinking quickly, I decided to run into the tree face first, and then to slam my collarbone into the trunk as hard as possible, after which I would use my remaining momentum to knee the maple with all my might.

Okay fine, I didn't decide to do that stuff, momentum caused me to do all that, and do all that I did.

Apparently I made a pretty good noise when I hit, a combination of flesh-hitting-wood noise, and a collossal "oooomppppphhh."

It hurt about as bad as a really, really bad hit in rugby, the kind where you don't play for three weeks afterward just because you aren't right. I wasn't knocked out but the sickening sound of face-on-maple violence told me I had come pretty close.

The first thought through my mind was, "Dear God, I can't move my arm, not the collarbone, not the collarbone." So prevalent are broken collarbones among cyclists, and so destructive of one's season, that I was hoping and praying it would be a separated or dislocated shoulder instead. Maybe my values and logic skills aren't all they should be.

I was really stunned but popped right up. I wanted a standing 8 count, and didn't want the referee to come over and declare a TKO. I coulda been a contender, you know. I was pretty much out on my feet right then.

Everybody looped back, it was pretty clear I was hurtin' real bad, and I asked for a minute, noting that the bike seemed to be just fine. I went and walked back up the trail a ways and then walked back. I just wanted to be alone for a second, so I could really savor the agonizing pain in my back and arm. My face hurt and I wiped it with my glove, taking away a glovefull of blood. Nice. After that I came back, sat down in the leaves and tried to breathe. My mind was racing a wee bit due to the hurtin' and my back knotted up so I asked for somebody to step on it, or alternately to rub it. Trevor manned up, hopefully not in a Village People sort of way, and worked the spasm out of my upper back, on the shoulder blade, so I could get my right arm functioning a little bit. Doesn't appear to have broken the collarbone, the shoulder probably just tucked under me, and some upper back muscles probably tore or got severely strained.

After a bit of rubby rub (which Jon naturally videotaped, making me and Trevor look totally like teh affectionate ghey couple, based on the laughter), they asked if I could ride.

Sure! Why not. So we rode for 5 or 10 more minutes. I wasn't feeling very good at that point, no upper back power on the right side, couldn't heave up on the bars or brake real hard, couldn't keep a good grip. So when we stopped and they asked how I felt, and noted that Chris Nystrom would probably be cool with housing me while some guys rode for the cars, I opted for that. Basically I'm sure I could have ridden Rosaryville or some other non-technical course for another hour, but two climbs was out of the question.

So Chris and his lovely wife Mel vectored us in on the Nystrom Headquarters, and after a ten minute ride that only sucked moderately, they plied us with great coffee, water, Vitamin M [otrin], and ice. Mel said one of the funniest things I've heard in a long time, handing me a paper towel to damp up my knee and telling me very firmly, "There's NO bleeding in this house." I think she really meant it and the knee took heed, and stopped bleeding immediately.

After 45 minutes or an hour John and Timmy came back with cars and we left from there.

I have a couple takeaways from this. One is that you have to really be alert and expect to get bitten in the ass at the worst possible time on the MTB. I had a great flow going, we were moving fast - speeds probably approaching roadbike moderate-to-fast - and I was in a sort of relaxed zen state when it all went down. Maybe I needed to be a little more on edge, just a little tighter. I know one thing I certainly screwed up is I was only looking 20-30 feet ahead, and not following my usual far/close/far scanning pattern.

Another is that I ride with a good bunch of guys. They've always been patient with my fat, slowly-getting-faster butt, and there was no griping about having to cut the ride short (particularly from Trevor and James who did lose some ride time to take me down the bailout trail). Though this is the first time I've ridden with Chris other than in races I can't say enough good things about his role in the bailout.

The final butcher's bill is grim, but not terrible. My helmet has cracked foam on the inside - guess that's going in the garbage, thank goodness it is my sucky "B" helmet rather than my sucky "A" helmet. My ear and right cheek are cut up and bruised, about as bad as if I was punched really hard by a guy my own size. Some back muscles over my right shoulder blade feel torn and the front of my shoulder is bruised. My right knee is cut and bruised, left knee has a big cut, shallow but an inch wide and 5 inches long, with a hematoma the size of half a ping pong ball and some scraping on the outside of the joint. The tights are wrecked, and the meaty part of my right hand is either badly bruised pretty deep, or maybe there's a tiny busted bone. My money is on the bruise, we'll know tomorrow if the pain subsides from sharp to dull that it's a bruise. I'm a little concussed, colors were a little too bright and I was a tiny bit light sensitive for a while, but I didn't get knocked out or have the crazy pupils problem or memory problem you get with a big concussion. There's a bit of an all-over sore feeling, like you would get after a hard, high speed roadracing crash. And the weirdest thing is my sense of smell is working really well right now. Normally it's out of commission due to my nose having been busted up really good a number of times, but sometimes when I get a good hard smack in the face, my sense of smell comes back for a visit for a few days.

Here's what it looks like when I decide to make love to a tree:


And here's the Bitter End:



Bottom line: while maples are a lovely romantic tree to look at while you are out in the woods, I do not recommend attempting to play high speed airborne kissy-face with them. They may look like they want you to hug them, but if my results are representative, they are *very* not into it.

Texas Ditch Surfing

Brings to mind an old joke.

Q. What's the last thing a redneck ever says?

A. Hey, all y'all! Watch this!

On the other hand, the rednecks were at least smart enough to use a golf cart to get up to speed. These guys... not so clever.




On a different subject... whoa, at first I thought this was two Cat 4 dudes fighting after a race, until I realized one of the fighters was smoking a Marlboro light... and racers would never smoke.

What Should You Know?

Tomorrow's LBS ride: Patapsco, from Catonsville Community College parking log. Wheels up at 7:00. Probably 3 hours easy on MTBs - the Tour de Patapsco.

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The picture in the post below inspired an interesting comment from reader JAA. Regarding the Colt M4 Carbine knockoff in Hello Kitty colors, he states:

My yr old LOVES Hello Kitty...but my wife doesn't want guns in the house...a dilemma no?

This made me laugh at first because yes, it is a dilemma. How do you raise your kids in a society where "be nice" isn't just the norm for behavior, but it's what we teach our kids is the standard everybody else will meet? My father raised me and my sisters in a house with guns; God help the man that chooses to mess with one of my sisters. That's one of many skills he taught us, and not everything he taught us was practically oriented. He appreciated, and passed on his love of architecture, literature, working with tools, and a penchant for thinking, "just in case." I'll just say that my sisters and I tend toward self-sufficiency in a lot of respects.

I really wonder what I ought to teach my son. He's four now, and the little corner of the world we live in is comfy and secure, but the world is kind of frayed around the edges; 9/11 showed us that our technology can be leveraged against us, ju jitsu style, by maniacs who like to live in caves. What would a well-rounded young man or woman be able to do today, if they were raised properly?

An old retired Marine colonel who was a preeminent expert in self defense, military tactics and a variety of other topics, thought he had a pretty good start on a list of essential skills. His name was Jeff Cooper, and I didn't always agree with his opinions; by the time I started reading his commentary, he had reached an age where some of his more "unacceptable" opinions were tolerated, because he was an old coot. But I viewed his opinions like a lot of people's opinions - just because he was old and cranky and sometimes said things I was violently opposed to, most of what he said had a lot of merit. He had lived a lot and had learned a lot. Anyhow, here's what that old prolific writer thought:

What should a young male of 21 know, and what should he be able to do? There are no conclusive answers to those questions, but they are certainly worth asking. A young man should know how this country is run and how it got that way. He should know the Federalist Papers and de Tocqueville, and he should know recent world history. If he does not know what has been tried in the past, he cannot very well avoid those pitfalls as they come up in the future. A young man should be computer literate and, moreover, should know Hemingway from James Joyce. He should know how to drive a car well--such as is not covered in Driver's Ed. He should know how to fly a light airplane. He should know how to shoot well. He should know elementary geography, both worldwide and local. He should have a cursory knowledge of both zoology and botany. He should know the fundamentals of agriculture and corporate economy. He should be well qualified in armed combat, boxing, wrestling and judo, or its equivalent. He should know how to manage a motorcycle. He should be comfortable in at least one foreign language, more if appropriate to his background. He should be familiar with remedial medicine. These things should be accomplished before a son leaves his father's household.

That is an interesting list of skills, and I think the only people as a group possessed of that particular skillset at age 21 are military personnel, or the occasional civilian of wide and varied interests and lucky enough to be born into a household where the parents had wide and varied interests. Oh yeah, Cooper aimed it at young men, but I don't see any reason why those things don't apply to young women as well. Do I hit every qualification on the list? No, I fall short on three of them. I wouldn't mind acquiring those skills.

To that list, I'd add only basic land navigation skills, and music; a young person should know how to get around on city streets or in the woods, and to play an instrument with reasonable proficiency.

What skills would you add or remove from the list?