In The Real World, Sorta

I guess it's a sign of the times, that the NY Times runs articles like this one.

It's about the Dating a Banker Anonymous (DABA) Support Group, which started out as a kinda sorta joke, but now, apparently, has earned the gals involved a book deal. It's hard to sum up their predicament, but I'll pull a paragraph from the article, and try:

Once it was seen as a blessing in certain circles to have a wealthy, powerful partner who would leave you alone with the credit card while he was busy brokering deals. Now, many Wall Street wives, girlfriends and, increasingly, exes, are living the curse of cutbacks in nanny hours and reservations at Masa or Megu. And that credit card? Canceled.

With Wall Street falling on hard times, the high living wives, girlfriends and mistresses of Wall Streeters are finding that the little ultra-luxuries of life, like $750 bottles of champagne, just aren't flowing as freely.

They're depressed. They didn't marry / date / fornicate their way into these relationships just to be left with a high upper middle class lifestyle. These guys just aren't cutting it. And to top it off, a lot of the guys are topping it - y'know, kicking the bucket at an early age from stress-related natural causes, like heart attacks, stroke, and accidental discharges of Glock .40s into the frontal lobe.

So what's a gal to do? Why, form an online support group blog, put on the perfect little black dress, and head out and get hammered, and complain about her sorry lot in life to her friends.

You see, there's always a way out... out to an exclusive club in Manhattan!

On the one hand, I feel some sympathy. I know what it's like to have ups and downs, particularly financial ups and downs.

On the other hand, I'm laughing my butt off. I know that's cruel of me, but even living deep in the heart of my middle middle class schlubdom, I know three or five things.

1) Life isn't just like Sex in the City, even if you sleep around, look hot in your Jimmy Choos, or marry a wealthy jerk. The story arc of your life isn't predestined to have a happy ending at the end of each hour, and acting like it is, is a sure way to get yourself into trouble. The only things that give you inherent value are things like a soul, character, and love, and maybe faith and family if you believe in them. Handbags, cosmopolitans and nice shoes don't show up on your life's final balance sheet, even if they do show up on the balance sheet when you file Chapter 11. But bankruptcy court ain't life - though it's going to be your life for a while if this is how you live.

2) It's churlish to complain about how once you were super duper super wealthy, but now you're only super duper wealthy. Seriously. It looks really stupid and pathetic. Upset because you don't get helicoptered out to the Hamptons any longer? Bummer, dude. But really, how out of whack do you have to be to thinkthat a slight drop in status for the super wealthy - even if you're one of the super wealthy - really matters? Four words: starving people in Africa.

3) If the loss of a few millions has you questioning the grounds on which your relationship is based, then you aren't a wife or girlfriend, you are an independent contractor. I'll leave it at that, and hope that your ex-husband / boyfriend gave you a 1099 before stepping in front of the E train, otherwise the IRS is going to be pissed. No, I'm not joking; I think the conclusion is fair, based on this:

To be honest, I’m only with my BF because I just don’t have the heart to change my facebook status from “in a relationship” to “I ain’t saying I’m a gold digger, but I ain’t messin’ with no broke banker.”

Well, she isn't saying it, but I will. Gold digger!

4) I am clearly not the average NY Times reader. I suspect this is an intensely interesting story for regular Times readers. For me, it's more like an exceptionally well-written and dry story out of the Onion.

Minor Stuff

People ask me what I've been doing lately. Working hard to make some bread, man. Workin hard to make some bread


In case you're curious, that's the sourdough bread that I make from yeast that I cultured right here in lovely Crofton. The bread is frickin' amazing. I also find I can make pretty fair pancakes with the sourdough yeast, and there's a possibility of trying a lambic brew in the near future. It isn't hard, in fact it's the easiest bread that I've ever made, and maybe the tastiest toast. You take a cup of the starter mix, stir it into a bowl with some warm water and a couple cups of flower. Let it sit overnight or all day, then come back and stir in / knead in 2 cups of flower, put it in a loaf pan, and let it rise, then bake for about 30 minutes. Simple. Ping me if you want me to send you an envelope with some dried sourdough starter culture in it and try it yourself.

----------------------------------------------

One of the reasons I'm getting worked at Work is because a key link in my local Great Chain of Being is sort of a weak link. I've learned a lesson about working as part of a team in the last 6-8 weeks or so; the lesson is pretty simple. Forthwith:

When you are on a project involving multiple deadlines and phases of work, you must communicate promptly with others, or you will become *that guy* who screws everybody else up.

I had an issue arise that meant I was going to blow a deadline. It was unavoidable. So about two weeks ago I began reaching out to a colleague - not a person I regularly work with but a distant specialist involved in the project, an expert whose wise counsel guides my decisions - to find out what to do. The answer was pretty simple, but it entailed about 8 - 10 hours of my work time and a few hours of an immediate colleague's work time, which I could have fit in at leisure by shifting some other work around. No crisis that way, right?

I didn't get my answer, however, until about a week ago, within 24 hours of the deadline, after I'd finished putting in a 10 hour day. This triggered a fire drill on my part, a very late night, and the better part of a day's work the next day, which was in theory to have been my day off. The immense stress and hassle was unnecessary; the schedule could have been re-worked and the problem resolved with two 5 minute phone calls. I would still have had to put in the work, but it would have been no big deal. That's not how it shook out though, and I got all wrung out for no good reason.

It doesn't matter what line of work you are in. You need to return calls and answer emails promptly. *Never* let something sit in your inbox for more than 24 hours. Never. You have no idea the amount of ill-will that you engender by not responding, until you've gotten all jacked up needlessly because somebody was too lazy or busy to return a simple phone call and answer a simple question.

I'm usually pretty good about answering inquiries directly and getting things done on deadline. Sometimes I blow it, but that's pretty rare. After this most recent experience, I'm much more resolved to have zero defects in my communications with clients, and to put others on the team first when they need assistance. Operating any other way is simply no way to do business.

Water Bottles... Brackish Stuff. But Drinkable Edition.

Okay, fine. I'll write some. Rather than bore you with two weeks of details as the foot/ankle tendonitis attack subsided (it hurt so I bitched... then I iced it... then I bitched about it for two hours... then I iced it... then I laid there...) I just laid off the writing. But just because my cycling was at a stop for a few weeks, doesn't mean the rest of the world was at a stop. No, I'm not riding again yet; soon I think but not today. Yet still, stuff is going on. Stuff you may laugh about. Or cry about, I don't know. Depends on you.

-------------------------------------------------

For one thing, Mexican police have caught the official "stewmaker" for a big Mexican drug cartel. No, he's not a saucier. It has nothing to do with mole or bearnaise. What the stewmaker does, apparently, is dissolve the bodies of the people the druglord has killed in a big vat of acid. The one they just captured figures he's disposed of a couple hundred people that way, more or less.

I don't even want to know where he's been dumping the "stew."

Sure, that's surprising. But the most surprising part was his companion when he was arrested. According to the CNN article, he was arrested with "a minor female who said she was contracted for a social event."

Just let that one sink into your head for a minute. "Contracted for a social event." I'm guessing the social event wasn't whack-the-pinata.

-------------------------------------------------

More great news: Daphny van den Brand, one of my favorite female cyclocrossers, wrapped up the last World Cup 'cross race of the season in Milan with a win. The ineffable (some would argue eminently effable) Ms. van den Brand led from the start, and used superior technical riding skills to take the win. She's not a powerhouse, but she is having a great season so far and has mad skillz, so she should do well at Worlds, which are being held at Hoogerheide [cough while you say it to pronounce it correctly], a somewhat technical course. If you aren't yet a fan of Ms. van den Brand, you should check out her website. I'm pretty sure it's safe for work... she's a dirty girl, but not *that* kind of dirty girl.



------------------------------------------

In other good news - Jon finished building up my Redline Monocog Flite. You may remember we discovered the rear stays were bent, and something had gone utterly awry in the track forks, the backward-facing slots that do the same work that dropouts do, except the slot faces straight backwards instead of down. The track fork problem was apparently relatively common in some of the lower-end Monocogs, and Redline very graciously replaced the frame with a 2009 model.

Now here's the cool part. The old frame was this kinda-nasty North Atlantic-in-Summer blue color - tinged with just enough green to be icky, but not cool-icky like Surly's Bean Green. Just icky. The new frame is this raging brown metalflake with a touch of purple in it, and sublime red logos. For a fairly basic, mass-produced frame it is a damn fine looking thing. This is a stock photo of the Moncog Flite frame, and you can see it's pretty but the picture doesn't do it justice. It's stunning to look at in real life.


The more I ride Redlines (my cross bike is their high end scandium Conquest Team) the more I appreciate them as a corporation; they make good stuff at a great price and stand behind their bikes. After my recent experiences with this bike and the 'cross bike, if I was looking for a crit bike that would get used hard and put up wet, I'd have to consider their R760 (butted 6061 aluminum w/t carbon seat stay). I've seen whole bikes going for under $1000, with 105 specs. Throw on an Ultegra or SRAM shifter, and you'd be in business. My sights are set on getting a wicked nice steel custom within the next couple years - maybe an Indy Fab - but a bike like that is too nice to beat the crap out of in crashfest Cat IV crits and winter training. Something like that Redline might be just the ticket.

Excuses, Excuses

Pardon my lack of recent blogging. Two things conspire against me right now - fairly crushing burdens at work, and a lack of riding inspiration due to a lack of riding. Nothing is going badly at work, it's just that there's far, far too much of it and it's about to get worse. I haven't been riding since my foot/ankle tendinitis is flaring up pretty badly and that brings with it some severe pain that precludes anything other than sitting around on the sofa, and complaining about not riding. While complaining is definitely a satisfying past time, I need something to complain about, and lacking my mediocre riding and irritating / interesting encounters on the road, it doesn't leave me with a lot of material to fuel this here bike blog.

I'm also having a bit of a crisis of confidence and wondering if I shouldn't just STFU and ride my bike for a while, and concentrate on that and work and keeping my family happy. I can write prodigiously but in an extra 4-5 hours/week, I could do a lot more situps, make a few cups of espresso for my wife, tickle my kid twice more, and donate another hour or two to work (which ultimately is a keeping-the-family-happy issue; work = providing for the family). No, all that isn't a going-out-of-business sale sign going up on the blog or me trying to solicit "please don't stop blogging" comments, just an explanation, or maybe an excuse, about where I am in the doldrums of January and why you haven't heard more from me recently.

A Real D.C. Moment

I had a real D.C. moment on the drive home today, heading east out of D.C. on Route 50.

You don't understand how Type A D.C. people are until you live here, and it doesn't hit home until you have one of these real Gen-you-Wine D.C. moments. Seriously, D.C. people are wayyy more Type A than New Yorkers. Just lunatics.

So it's rush hour, on a Wednesday, and traffic is a little slow as I cross the Bladensburg road and head out of town on 50. Just after the 50 / Balt0-Wash Parkway split, the traffic on 50 slows just a touch and all of a sudden everybody is zippering.

"Damn, it's foggy," I thought.

Then I noticed a pillar of flames shooting at least 35 feet into the air. And it wasn't fog but dense, thick black smoke.

I zippered into the right lane and whizzed right on by the source of the impromptu Olympic Flame, a late model car, possibly a mid-90's Toyota Corolla. It looked like there had been a multi-car pileup; a number of dinged up looking sport utes and sedans were pulled up on the left side of the road, and a police SUV. The cop hadn't bothered to set a flare or road triangle; I guess the flames shooting into the sky were warning enough that there were flames shooting into the sky just ahead on the road. He was just hanging out on the roadside, talking to the drivers. The owner of the car, I think, was standing there wistfully watching his hoopty do a fair to middling imitation of a Roman candle.

The point was, this didn't cause any more than the usual traffic. We just zippered into the right lane and zipped on by. I don't think anybody was actually even looking at the wreck. I don't think anybody was concerned about the blast potential.

No, dammit... we were driving home and nothing, I repeat *nothing* was going to slow us down.

People weren't even rubbernecking.

It was the damnedest thing I think I've ever seen on the road. I guess people were just more interested in getting home than in having a gander at this enormous, possibly-about-to-explode-any-minute torch in the adjacent lane. In Germany, traffic would have been stopped in both lanes until that mess was cleared. In England, they'd have been rubbernecking it to death. In LA, there would have been a huge traffic jam with people honking at each other.

In D.C. . . we kept on rollin' like the dogies in "Rawhide."

Now I know how it feels to be in a stampede.

Like Catnip to the Rouleur

Maggie Backstedt at Roubaix

H/t Belgium Knee Warmers and their excellent interview of Jonathan Vaughters.

Murther Most Fowle!

For those keeping score at home, I've just murdered another bicycle.

Since late last spring I've gotten an occasional rubbing from my rear wheel on my single speed Redline Monocog Flight. I've always figured it was a bent wheel, or conveniently enough the slider which holds the rear axle in the dropouts was maladjusted. So the periodic rubbing, which was accentuated on hard standing climbs and right hand turns was attributed to adjustment problems. I moved the axle around a bit or trued up the wheel and that would sort of fix it. But the rub kept coming back.

It was really, really killing me at Patapsco on Saturday - the rear wheel was rubbing through the whole ride. We were stringing together a long ride comprised of particularly steep and technical sections. On a single speed, there are a lot of hills that you (assuming you are a big fat non-climbing bastard) just barely clear with maximum effort. The added drag was just killing me. When I lifted the rear to spin it, it would stop after about 1 rotation. The wheel bent in and out a little during the ride but the basic problem remained. So into the shop it went.

This evening I got a call from Jon, my favorite local bike shop guy. "Good news and bad news. How 'bout the bad news first?"

I said, "I'm buying a new bike, I guess?"

Jon should have answered with Bones McCoy's, "It's dead, Jim." But instead he told me a sad tale of woe.

It turns out that in one of the many crashes I had this spring, I bent the rear sub frame. The dropout on one side was also stretched, worn and/or coming apart. A weird place for it, but breaking things in an unusual manner is my usual thing. The frame was a writeoff, at least if rider safety is any consideration.

The good news is that the dropout problem apparently plagued some of the Redlines from that model year, and Redline is happy to ship me a brand new Monocog frame. The other good news is, with a year of consistent mountain biking under my belt, I don't crash nearly as much as I did over the winter and in the spring (you may remember that as a tough time for me if you read this blog regularly), so Jon and the Redline people are optimistic that the new frame will at least make it to the end of the warranty period before failing.

The moral of the story is clear: don't be my bike.

Also: God bless Redline. No bling factor, but I know from my 'cross bike that they make some damn fine products, and like another company I'm geeked on, FiZik, they stand behind their products.

I guess this means I'm riding my old Kona Cinder Cone, rigid, 26", single speed conversion at Patapsco this weekend. That should be interesting.

Weekend Notes

Saturday was fun. I hooked up with the Family Bikes crew and we went to Nystrom's to hook up with a bunch of Howard County-ites for a little riding in Patapsco. I haven't been on the mountain bike for a month or so and thought it might be fun.

It was, but not exactly. The bad news first.

My mountain biking fitness is approaching zero and with a year of more or less serious mountain biking under my belt - not enough - I don't have enough know-how to hide it. The tool box has the equivalent of an old screwdriver and a rusty adjustable wrench in it, along with some WD-40 which can be sprayed on everything but which only helps out in select instances. Between doing very road oriented base training (steady zone 2 and tempo stuff) and just doing very little over the holidays, and no mountain biking for over a month, the legs weren't there, or if they were they they stayed on the Howard County side and never made it to the West Baltimore side of the park. Repeated trips into the red zone wiped me out pretty quick, and I soon found myself jogging and pushing up some bits that I could have ridden normally, though there were many parts I couldn't have ridden normally, or ever up to this point. Perhaps the terrain was a bit harder than usual - we descended stuff that we normally climb, which made those trails weirdly technical just from unfamiliarity. Correspondingly, we climbed a lot of stuff that I've only ever descended, turning descents like the Santee trail that are normally a little sketchy for me into hike-a-bike climbs for the weak (me). I'm afraid I tested the group's patience sorely, and I'm aware that if we all meet up in a bar in Ellicott City, the first round is necessarily on me. Sorry guys. Next time I'm heading up Soapstone or Vineyard and meeting you on the top rather than inflicting that hurry-up-and-go routine on you.

On the positive side, the ride wasn't that bad in some respects. No big crashes, probably because two thirds of our time was spent going uphill. The upper body and core work I'm doing is paying big dividends. Perhaps 15 or 20 minutes four times a week, with 5 minutes of core work, makes hopping logs and roots very easy work, and reduces the perceived exertion of highly technical sections generally. No backache, no arm pump. It appears that the log hopping skills are actually coming along - I got backhanded compliments from no less than three people to the effect that, "you no longer look so f*&#ing clueless on logs." That would ordinarily be humiliating but with just a year of semi-serious MTB'ing under my belt and lacking superpowers, I don't think it's meant as an insult. The log hop is a fundamental skill for most of the technical riding around here because there are so many logs, roots, waterbars and similar features. You have to be able to flow over them because the bash & go style of riding them will wear you out like a set of VO2 intervals. As always, the best part was getting to ride with my friends, plus some of the folks in that Howard County crew who I don't know that well but who are good guys. Mountain biking is the kind of fun activity where the fun increases exponentially by adding some friends, especially where your friends ride well and you can learn some things by watching.

On the balance, it was pretty dis-spiriting to realize how far I have to go. Some rides are like that and doing an unfamiliar ride that was more technical and steeper than I'm used to was a bucket of cold water in the face. It was still good but sometimes the good you take away from a ride is not the joy of triumph, but the more sober appreciation of knowing the truth and having a blunt evaluation of your weaknesses along with a real understanding of the situation. Riding a bike sometimes helps you get to yourself more quickly than you would otherwise.

-----------------------------------

Saturday night was fun with a party at Ken Bob's and Jean Bean's. It was primarily Coppis but included a bunch of friends of Ken's and Jeans, got to hang out with some of my favorite fellow racers. It hit me that although I know these folks through racing, I would want to be friends with many of them regardless of the cycling connection. They're just energetic, decent, interesting people, and they bring a lot of fun to my (and I suppose each other's) lives. Good company.

-----------------------------------

Sunday was a mixture of shock, horror, queasiness and befuddlement. The weather was pretty scummy with some wet roads and cold, so I stuck to the trainer during the NY Giants game. Since I couldn't do the assigned workout I did one-leg drills and what not for about 90 minutes. I watched the Giants lose their playoff game against the Eagles. It struck me during the first half that the Giants weren't really playing to win. They were playing to not lose. The defense was in soft coverage, the receivers weren't going after balls aggressively... it was a tense, tightrope performance for them and while the defense was alright, the offense never really settled down and played properly. It was like two and a half hours of listening to an orchestra warming up, but then instead of playing a concerto the crowd walked out and went home. Ugly.

The one leg drills were awful. Apparently, I mash worse than I used to because they were really hard. I don't realy have a dead spot as much as a dead region.

After all that, I spent the rest of the day with a stomach ache and nausea. I think the annual Chest Infestation is making an appearance, which really bothers me because I have some stuff at work that is on a non-negotiable schedule. This would be a really bad time to go down with the grippe. Roll in some insomnia, and that's why I'm sitting here at 4:00 AM blogging this and wondering if I go back to bed, whether I can get 90 minutes more sleep before the alarm clock comes and kicks my butt.

Old Music

New York Newsday offers an absolutely essential public service, the Long Island Mug Shots page.

No really. Here's a couple of the highlights.


That individual is Joan Tuckruskye, an official with the Baldwin, NY PTA, who is accused of endangering the welfare of a child. What did she allegedly do?

Police said Tuckruskye and a 13-year-old boy were found in the backseat of a SUV. The parked, running 2008 Nissan Pathfinder behind Meadow Elementary School in Baldwin seemed suspicious to officers Friday night, said Det. Lt. Kevin Smith. "They noticed both of the individuals were not clothed from the waist down," Smith said.

Um, it's okay. I'm sure they were just getting done with a cyclocross race, and changing out of their wet shorts. I've so been there, it's not funny.



Update: The comment that was here is hereby removed based on special pleadings of one of the affected parties. Understand something kids: If the DA agrees to drop charges in exchange for you keeping your nose clean for the next six months, that isn't "exoneration," it's lenity or leniency. "Exoneration" means proved innocent or at least found "not guilty." That ain't the same thing at all as a suspended sentence or suspension of procedings coupled with sealing / expungement of the record.

This handsome devil is Jimmy Titus, of Mastic Beach. He was

charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing of his wife in Brentwood on Saturday morning. Police say Lori Titus, 47, had been stabbed multiple times. Her estranged husband, Jimmy Titus, pleaded not guilty Sunday. But in court records, released yesterday, police say Jimmy Titus confessed to the killing. "I took out the knife and started going after her. I stabbed her a couple of times, I don't know where I stabbed her," he said in the statement, records show.

Man. Couldn't he have just hired a really mean divorce attorney like everybody else?

DEEEEVVVVILLLLLSSS!!!! Or maybe J. E. T. S. Jets Jets Jets! Hard to say.

Either way, Jerry Seinfeld warned Elaine Bettis about hooking up with face painters. He was right. Old Morgan here got popped for DWI. He's presumed innocent, but from where I sit, it don't look good.

So there you go, Long Island's finest. Oh, one other thing. If any of you are from Lawnguy Land, maybe you could answer me this: what the hell is up with Mastic Beach? It seems like most of these fine citizens hail from its friendly confines.

--------------------------------------

I got a great gift for Christmas, an IPod Nano. I've been burning CD's to it (how old fashioned is that... CDs?) and have listened to a lot of music I haven't listened to in a long time. Here's a few vids that my re-discovered CD collection put me in mind of, that you might enjoy.

Stevie Ray Vaughn with the Hendrix classic, Voodoo Chile (Slight Return).



And here's Stevie Ray with Dick Dale, doing Dale's hit (which I think is a cover of the Chantays or somebody), Pipeline.



Here's a little Dire Straits - Telegraph Road - a particularly nice, evocative version of it.



REM - Driver 8. This was the first song I heard by them, on Letterman in '82 or '83, along with "Sorry." There was just something to this that the stadium rockers who dominated the pop scene back then simply didn't have. I was an instant fan.



Now this video blows, I think it's just some Andy Warhol film, but the song is pretty amazing. It's Waiting for the Man, by Velvet Underground. Amazing band, probably 20 years ahead of their time. Like some of the Talking Heads stuff, their music doesn't seem to have aged.



The Knack. It's such an earworm, I'm not even going to write down the name of the song. Don't play it unless you want to be humming it for the next week. You've been warned. Right?



And finally, some AC DC with the original front man, Bonn Scott. One of our local Sports Talk guys in D.C. summed up AC DC pretty well a few weeks ago. He said he had to go with his teenage son to a recent AC DC concert. Apparently, it was louder than the inside of a jet engine. However, he said, "If you don't like AC DC, then you probably just don't like rock music. Even if it's embarrassing to admit you like them."



I guess I'll spare you the Loverboy and the J. Geils Band videos, not to mention the REO Speedwagon. Those were just silly.

Low Grade Narcolepsy...

Herman Van Rompuy, an intellectual with a penchant for writing haiku, was sworn in last Tuesday as Belgium's prime minister, triggering hopes that he could heal some of this country's bitter linguistic divisions.

A Flemish people

Plus fewer French-like people

Good grub, bad juju.

Lots of history,

Cobblestones and tasty beer,

No identity.

A smart new leader

With a penchant for haiku,

But can he lead them?

Small nation splinters

We have nothing in common

Let’s cheer for cycling!

And while we're on the subject of news Haikus,

Lance Armstrong's one ball,

Very very strong mojo.

Anna Hansen is pregnant!

NFL playoffs,

Men of Gotham face Eagles.

Gotterdammerung?

Stone circle youpers,

Is it the lost Atlantis,

Or playful divers?

A useful blogger,

Lifehacks to make things easy

Some prefer hard though.

Feel free to respond in comments with normal verbiage, or bad haiku of your own.

Mind Your Friends

Most people's opinions about politics are off base. Mine are too with the exception of the little areas I know something about.

I'll give you an example. You probably think you know who your friends are, and who your enemies are, politically. One group of politicos is pro-bikes, the other is anti-bikes, right?

Well, not exactly. Check out some letters to the editor from the Denver Post about recent moves to open National Park lands to mountain bikers. First the editorial:

A proposed federal rule that could open up thousands of miles of national park trails to mountain bikers is sure to cause a dustup.

But we think the change would be a good one for the park system's future.

The Interior Department earlier this month issued a rule that would give park superintendents greater say in opening up selected trails to mountain biking.

As it stands, precious few trails in the park system are open to mountain biking.

The proposed rule, which is subject to a 60-day comment period, has reopened a long-standing and often pitched battle between hikers and bikers.

Hikers accuse cyclists of creating erosion and bad karma with their speed-seeking ways. Mountain bikers say hikers are narrow-minded ideologues who see no other way to enjoy the wilderness.

We think there can and should be a way for these users to co-exist on selected trails.

And we also think park superintendents, who intimately know the parks and their users, are best-suited to make these judgments.

As it stands, national parks have been seeing an alarming decline in use, particularly in the backcountry. During a decade ending in 2007, overnight backcountry stays went down by more than 20 percent, according to National Park Service statistics.

Biking advocates say that young people would be more inclined to visit those areas if they were allowed to do so via mountain bike.

Furthermore, biking can be easier on those with aging and damaged joints so long as severe climbs aren't involved.

As far as damage to trails, that is a management issue. Trails that are overused will become damaged, whether they are traversed by humans on foot, on bicycles or on horseback.

We would expect park managers to closely monitor trail conditions, as they routinely do, and temporarily shut down those that get too beaten down.

In some ways, it's a good problem to have. The best way to build support for our precious national park system, which comprises 84 million acres in every state but Delaware, is to have citizens who know the parks and love them.

Purists who believe nature is best experienced on foot will be upset by potentially having to share trails with mountain bikers, but we would ask them to have an open mind about it.

At the earliest, the rule would take effect in mid-2009. That means the Obama administration, and proposed Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, will have the final say on the matter.

We hope the next administration will give serious consideration to leaving the rule intact so a new group of outdoor enthusiasts can enjoy the splendor of our parks in their own way.

That's about how I feel as a rider - share the trails. I think people should get out to appreciate the land, and as long as we can do it together safely, we should do so. You shouldn't close vast tracts of beautiful nature to people who don't have the time to do a 6 day roughing-it style hike to get there. I'm grateful that The First Mountain Biker sees things my way.

A lot of hikers don't, apparently. Here's the letters in response:

Re: “Hikers, bikers should share national parks,” Dec. 28 editorial.

Your editorial went badly off-track. First, there are ample opportunities for mountain biking in national parks. All roads and vehicle accesses are open to mountain bikes as well as many trails. The only issue is access to narrow backcountry trails.

There is currently a process for bike trail designation that was initiated under President Reagan. This process is not broken and allows input by hikers and others who feel they may be run off trails by fast-moving bikes.

One issue The Post omits is that the Bush plan would open up nearly 8 million acres of proposed wilderness lands in approximately 30 parks to mountain bikes. This big reversal of Park Service policy could prevent these lands from ever enjoying the permanent protections of the wilderness system.

The Post should acknowledge that this plan is really a special interest grab for what may become (through millions of tire ruts) exclusive access to many of the best lands in the national park system, with reduced opportunity for public comment and review. It is one of the several questionable parting gifts left by an environmentally challenged Bush administration and should be put on the shelf.

Jeff Ruch, Washington, D.C.

The writer is executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.


Bicyclists, pedestrians just don’t mix well

The city of Denver’s bicyling ordinance states that “riding bicycles upon or along sidewalks, whether on public property or private property opened for use by the general public, shall be unlawful except when the operator or rider thereof is a uniformed city employee riding a bicycle or a police officer riding a bicycle is a marked or unmarked official police bicycle while engaged in the discharge of his or her official duties, or when the operator or rider thereof is engaged in the delivery of newspapers or where the sidewalk is part of a designated bicycle route. Bicyclists shall yield the right-of-way to pedestrians on the sidewalks, and shall leave the sidewalk or dismount if necessary to yield such right-of-way.”

Why do you believe such an ordinance exists? It is because pedestrians and bicycles don’t mix very well. And if regular bicycles and pedestrians don’t mix well on city streets, why do you think that hikers and mountain bikes, many of which are typically operated with “extreme” behaviors, will mix well on narrow trails in the backcountry of national parks?

Bill Wade, Tucson, Ariz.

The writer is chair of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees’ Executive Council.


Bikes in parks are like roller skates in church

Mountain bike trails have no place in our national parks, contrary to the Denver Post’s enjoinders to create such moving violations within them.

Nature will be natural, if we let it be. And our national parks will be natural preserves of a world untouched by time or technology if we minimize the incursion of the artificial within it.

Mountain bikes are machines, devices of gears, sprockets, and chains. As such, they are artificial means of transportation. Their presence within a national park abrades its mood and mission as much as roller-skating in church. With the incursion of such off-road vehicles into a natural area such as a national park, it becomes less a park and more a playground, a place less for experience and more for entertainment.

Marty Tessmer, Denver

I was also standing in line behind a couple guys from a national advocacy group last week, waiting to buy lunch downtown. I knew this because they were wearing monogrammed shirts. You'd recognize the name of their group, you may have given money thinking it was a good thing to do. They were very excited because recent changes in the political landscape will probably permit them to convince the legislature to reclassify hundreds of millions of acres of federal lands as off limits to anything other than limited numbers of hikers. They were talking about getting the new rule change reversed, and then some, based on the reception they've received to their political overtures. So mountain bikers, grazing farmers, lumber companies, miners and oil drillers will all be in the same bucket. We're not talking about shutting off the local MTB trail to you, we're talking about putting enormous tracts of land off limits, and rendering them basically inaccessible to anybody except for hikers with the wherewithal to take multi-day, possibly multi-week unsupported trips.

Nice, huh?

The lineup of characters advocating one thing or another probably defies most of your stereotypes. How's that make you feel, Verne?

This situation illustrates that most of us don't know what we think we know. We're lucky if a good percentage of what we think we "know" is true, and if even a little bit of what we surmise is accurate. Yogi Berra said, "In baseball, you don't know anything." The older I get and the more I learn, the more I'm starting to believe that "in life, you don't know anything." The people you'd expect to be your friends may not be. The people you are positive are your enemies, may not be either. Life can't be simply summed up by generalities and most people can't just be relegated to the camp of "good" or "bad." Life simply has to be about a long string of particular circumstances and special cases; otherwise you simply can't get your head around situations like this one. It makes my noggin hurt to have to think of things this way, it's painfully complex. Yes, it's also a very old school Tory outlook, but I don't see any readily available, effective ways of filtering life and understanding what's happening other than to struggle to consider the particulars of any given situation and to be slow to pronounce judgment on it. I really do believe that you just don't know anything in life.

In this mountain biking / federal lands situation, you might find that if you're a mountain biker, grazing farmers, Pacific Gypsum, Exxon, loggers and uranium mining companies are your friend, and a lot of hikers and environmental groups aren't. That's a bit mind bending and it doesn't fit the usual template. I wish it was different; insofar as I have a stance on the issue, it's that American land should be used to everybody's benefit, and that entails a painstaking balancing process to permit the preservation of wildlife habitat and our beautiful spaces, responsible (e.g. good stewardship) exploitation of natural resources, and measures to ensure the public at large can visit these places. I think there's no reason we can't share, but I may be weird to think this way. I get the feeling a lot of land users across the spectrum think everybody else is a jackass and should be shut out. Careful consideration of individual cases, with a general policy of trying to serve all the people, strikes me as the best management philosophy for land that we theoretically own in common.

But what do I know. I'm willing to consider the possibility that I may be wrong about this.

Water Bottles: Listless Link Dump Edition

What's goin' on?

There's not a lot going on here at El Rancho Gordo. Looks like some cold and maybe freezing rain is going to wreck my ride plans for tomorrow, so I'll be sitting on the trainer come tomorrow night, grinding out some zone 2. That's library paste-level boredom in my future.

That doesn't mean we can't have some fun.

Let's see what some of my friends are up to.

Beth is obviously going stark raving nuts in the Upstate New York winter. She's applying that big brain, the impressive physiotherapy and cycling credentials, dealing with a few medical issues of her own, struggling to fight off the Yukon-style cabin fever that is no doubt settling in, and doing bike fits.

Dave, who is a smart guy, is determined to prove how damned dumb he is by failing to bring sufficient fuel and drink for a 3 hour tour. A 3 hour tour.

Betty Betty is finding that disciplined Zone 2 riding - your aerobic base work - is actually pretty hard to pull off. Freezing her normally Itchy Bits clean off in the Joisy winter does not make it any easier.

Fatticus is living The High Life. And, as you all know, if there is one thing the messing with of which is prohibited, it is The High Life.

Burt Hoovis is recovering from some busted up ribs that got damaged when he went mountain biking a couple weeks ago. As a roadie and frequent crasher of all things mountainy and bikey, I feel your pain, dumbass. Burt is busy posting mildly porny pictures (including one tatoo'ed beauty that even P'burgh Steevo likes), hatin' on dopers, and labeling all things triathlon with a variety of sexual preference-based slurs. In other words, he's doing what he always does, pretty much. I expect we're in for somewhat increased hockey blogging in the near future. If you have never checked out Burt's blog, you will love it, if you're the kind of person who would love Burt's blog. There's really no other way to put it.

Sven Nystrom is riding a mountain bike, drinking beers, and lovin' on his family. Not a lot of verbiage, but some good pics. I always get the feeling from Chris that he's got some things figured out.

Scott is walking with the animals, talking with the animals. MABRA's own Doctor Doolittle looks like he had fun on his winter vacation.

John is talking about riding, thinking about riding, and actually riding. And shoe blogging.

Gwadzilla is photo blogging, except without the photos because he used up all his free Flick'r bandwidth. Joel is the only person I know who can photo blog without actually posting any photos. If you know him, it makes perfect sense. Trust me on this one thing.

The Ikon is testing some bags and observing radio silence since pre-Christmas, presumably to avoid being snuck up upon, and waylaid by a sneaky case of homebrew. There is precedent for such things.

Kim is partying with family and friends, and riding her MTB.

These bastards is crazy. Crazy, and trying to figure out how to get into the 2009 Single Speed World Cup which has the coolest entry form evah, a coloring contest. Betcha that you get in if you paint the entry form with your own spinal fluid, fellas. Other than that, I got no suggestions.

The Uff Da is talking about how to improve women's cross in MABRA. She's smart, so I'd pay attention to her. She comes from a land just south of lake Woebegone, a place where the men are handsome, the women beautiful, and every Physics professor is just slightly above average.

Um, yeah. It's the off-season. People are up to some pretty pedestrian stuff. That's okay though. I enjoy their blogging about it; it's a little slice of life to go with my morning cup of joe.

-----------------------------------------

Now here's something that's not pedestrian and guaranteed to pick up your spirits a little bit. It's a bit of Medeski, Martin & Wood, doing The Dropper. In keeping with this blog's policy of More Funk in Your Trunk, this jam is certified as containing at least 50% more funk than the average YouTube video. Your Trunk will be funkified following this song.



If that didn't do it for ya, then, there's something wrong with you, and we're going to need to go with a double dose, which will get you going like a cup full of metamucil dissolved in a gallon of castor oil. It's the Red Hot Chili Peppers with George Clinton and the P-Funk Orchestra. You really need to turn up the volume and the bass for this one, and make sure nobody is watching you dance.



***No booty was harmed in the production of this blog entry, though some was vigorously shaken.

A Short Note

I know it's been dang near radio silence around these parts, and when I haven't been talking about nothing, I've been talking about underpants, which is potentially worse, at least when the subject is my underpants and not, say, Heidi Klum's.

I've been trying to recover a bit over the holiday season. I'm fat like peeg... maybe not that much worse than usual, but holiday fat, and pretty much partied out. A lot of stuff went down in my life, and the lives of some of my friends over the last two months. It's been stressful as heck, especially when you roll in the usual holiday season obligations with family, and a hella painful bit of work I've been involved in, y'know, in the real world.

This last week saw me sleeping about 10 hours a night and taking two hour (or longer) naps during the day. I also managed to fit in about 4-5 workouts per week starting a couple weeks before Christmas. A lot of these were just one hour sessions on the trainer, but I'm coming through the Christmas/New Years season in better shape than I've ever been in at this time of year. Or at least better shape than I've been in at this time since I got married, got a real job and had a kid.

Consequently, I'm feeling better than I've felt in months, more ready to buckle down with training and diet, and more ready to buckle down at work and get a couple damned unpleasant jobs done.

No, this isn't a New Year's resolution. Far from it. Those things don't work out for me. It is a promise to myself to work harder to live up to my ability. Granted, I don't have that much ability, but the bit I have will remain hidden under a layer of adiopose tissue and excuses until I do some serious suffering, on the bike in the cold and walking by the snack machine at work whilst gnawing off my fingernails and sucking down coffee. But there it is. I may fail, but I'm going to try to make the leap. Or given my ability to catch air, the modest hop, into semi-competitiveness, aka mediocrity. Mediocrity ain't a bad goal, considering where I've come from.

It's not a special goal because we've just passed New Year's Day; the only thing that makes me discuss this now rather than two weeks ago is that my training calendar starts to pick up right now. I can see the roadracing and spring MTB season from here. Those races weren't visible from my vantage point amidst the wreckage of 'cross season, and certainly not while I had my head on my pillow over the holidays. The goal is there because now is the time to set goals, when the imminent terror of upcoming races is upon us.

This is all terribly familiar, isn't it? We've just been beaten pretty soundly by the past year. There were some successes, many failures, and in general we've a year's more gray hair and achy joints to go with it, along with a harsher, crueler sense of the effort it will take to reach our goals. The goals we set last year seem innocent; if only we'd known then how hard it would be to reach even the modest ones, and how a titanic effort wasn't enough to come anywhere near our more ambitious ones.

Oh well. It's what we do. We drink a little poison with our mead, and we hope that we're healthier for it. We know we'll still fail at most of what we attempt, yet we try.

The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.

My goals are pretty modest. Losing enough weight to be a pack finisher in some Cat IV crits. (I could probably pull that off now but the resulting headache isn't worth it; I need to make life a bit easier on myself before roadracing is attractive). Doing a 12 hour solo MTB race. Averaging mid-pack finishes in Master B 'cross racing. Apply myself more consistently at work, with just as many high points but fewer ebb points where I'm nonproductive. Being a better father and husband.

Those goals are in reverse order of importance.

What are your goals for 2009?