Nice Weekend

The two best things about hanging out with friends are (1) the joy of discovery (when our suspicions about our friends being gracious and fun and interesting are proved true); and, (2) the mere hanging out itself, which is lovely in that you can just enjoy what you're doing. For those I was hanging out with - thanks for a great weekend. A seriously great weekend.

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

Lift assisted downhill mountain biking is awesome. It is amazingly amazing. Some things I discovered at Wisp on Saturday:

• My ~29 pound, 4" travel 29'er is a very capable downhill rig. It seems to be a capable everything actually. I haven't seen many reviews of Salsa's Big Momma, maybe because it doesn't naturally fit into a particular category like XC, and no magazine wants to have a review of "Bikes We Have Trouble Categorizing. All mountain maybe?
  
• I am not a very capable downhill rider. Crazy downhill technical stuff (roots + rocks + twisting down the fall line) isn't exactly my thing, though pushing my limits there will definitely help out on the trails. I learned *so* much.
  
• 40 MPH down a bumpy fireroad on the other hand, or high speeds down near-IMBA standard bench cut rocky and root trails traversing a mountain's face... very nice.
• Reading the trail at 25+ MPH is a totally different skill, and figuring out what obstacles are hidden in the grass takes on a whole new urgency.
  
• If you see a sign that has an arrow and says "feature," be very afraid. Be very ****ing afraid. It means something like "huge drop," "massive high speed jump," or "my friend Bob actually died trying to ride this."
• Skills / dirt freeride parks are way fun. And another place where I totally don't know what I'm doing.
  
• Bill B. rides with more skill in his cocyx, than some people ride with in their whole bodies. Unfortunately, Bill chooses to ride with his cocyx sometimes when other parts of his ass might be more suitable to the occasion.
• Chris Nystrom looks as good upside down 8' up in the air, as he does railing a cross bike around a muddy turn. Just born to ride. He doesn't look so hot skidding backwards down a steep hill, but two out of three ain't bad.
• A good downhill mountain is by necessity coupled with an evil, evil uphill ride. If you are ever doing some downhill, get bored with the lift and get the urge to ride up the hill prior to a run, put down the bong, go back to your car, and take a nap until the urge passes. Trust me on that one.
• XC riders seem to have a different relationship with their equipment than downhillers. Downhillers seem to ride stout cheap heavy stuff they beat the crap out of. We ride lighter expensive stuff we try to baby.
  
• The outlook between XC and downhill may be a little different. I spoke to a few random downhillers while waiting for the lift. They were horrified that we'd ride up the hill, and then ride down on high saddles set for optimum pedaling efficiency. I was horrified at the heavy, inexpensive and rugged (and totally beaten to crap) gear that they ride (extremely well over gruesome obstacles).
  
• An intermediate level downhill trail is probably what most XC'ers would consider to be a solid advanced trail. An expert downhill trail - well, you'd have trouble avoiding injury just to walk to the good places to have a big crash. I thought one of our party was going to break his leg just walking onto one trail, and as he noted (I paraphrase), "I'd crash before I could get to the place where you're supposed to crash.
  
• When you ride with friends, clean the "features," crash on them, or get dropped riding a hill that hasn't seen MTB tires in years, it's still a great day of riding. Even if you stink. It's all good. Much respect to the downhillers... even the bad ones look pretty damn good.
  

Friday at last...

Now - because I like getting FatMarc all stoked an stuff:




And, because I was flipping around the radio dial this afternoon and was surprised to hear Clutch as bumper music for a well known conservative talk radio guy:




And some Motorhead, for no reason. Because you don't need a reason to have Motorhead.




John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band - "The Poor Man's Springsteen." The *very* poor man's Springsteen.



Worst mashup ever:



Yep, you did see an ad about this. There's going to be a new A-Team movie. Can't wait to see it. Drunk.

Like the Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze

I love my new mountain bike. A 29’er with 4-5 inches of travel rides like a combination hot rod, monster truck and barcalounger. I did things on it tonight at Patapsco I have never done before, like getting dropped on uphills (done *that* before) but then catching back onto the train on medium technical downhills (*that* is the thing I’ve never done before).

She – the Salsa Big Momma with my special heavy duty fatboy Clydesdale build – is a sweet sweet ride. But I just don’t know her ways yet and it's scary sometimes.

That fact was in the back of my mind the whole ride but it really hit me as I was levitating about 4 feet up in the air over the bike. As I sailed along Superman-style, hands on the bars, full layout and parallel to the ground (but perpendicular to my direction of travel), I noticed that some things were flapping in the breeze. Those things were my legs, my testicles, and possibly my ass hairs. How they got there and what is says about how to ride a fully sprung bike is sort of interesting, in an 'at least interesting to me and maybe three other people' sort of way.

I arrived late and was supposed to meet Sven & crew down by the creek crossing below the field coming off Landing Road. They were going to hit Not Your Momma, which is my favorite technical trail *in the world,* not that I know many other than a few around here and a few in upstate NY, but I love it because it has about 45 logs that trouble a rider in the space of 10 minutes. So I missed Yo Momma but hustled to meet the crew, and bombed down the rutted path through the field north of Yo Momma, amazed to be floating along. It was frickin’ sweet not to have to worry about hidden 2"-3” dropoffs that would cause major instability on the hardtail. I just picked any semi-reasonable line and bombed along, not a care in the world. Picking a line was more about tire traction, and less about worrying whether a bump would throw me into the weeds. Sooo awesome.

I carried speed, and confidence, into the woods toward the creek crossing. It’s an interesting crossing because the rider has a choice between a 4’ drop, and a more gradual rutted 18” drop. Just for the hell of it, I chose the big one I've never ridden before.

Baaaaad mistake.

I was going sort of slow and made it off the drop pretty level, so when I landed it was square, in a downward direction. (Full boinger riders, you can skip the next part since you know what happens next).

We hit the ground pretty smoothly, and the suspension did its work, stopping the jolt. I did my work too, bending my knees as if on the hardtail, to absorb the jolt. Together, we weathered the drop.

That’s when things got absolutely bugshit crazy. The suspension – front and rear air units pumped up to “hard riding Clydesdale pressure” was not bottomed out (no “clack”) but it was fully loaded at this point. The rear shock linkage ratio – a Clydesdale friendly 2.2 or so which worked to my advantage on the downward motion because it allows the shock to be set in its midrange rather than jacked up to 400 PSI – the sweet linkage all of a sudden decided to work against me in an equal and opposite direction. Not cool.

Right as my legs bottomed out, the machine started upward. *Hard*.

Now I’ve never ridden a rodeo bull, but a couple buddies of mine were pro bull riders, and I don’t think I ever saw one of their bulls shoot upwards quite as fast as this bike ascended toward the heavens. Why, it acted as if I wasn’t even there – which I wasn’t, after about a tenth of a second.

The bike threw me skyward so hard that I didn’t have a chance to react. In fact, I was still clipped in when it happened, so 29 pounds of scandium love imitated a moon shot and rocketed upwards, with the astronaut hanging on for dear life.

Somewhere near the apex of our journey, my legs came unattached from the bike. I don’t know if it was mountain biking reflex, or if the bike threw me, or if some component or piece of apparel like my nice shorts or cruddy mountain shoes decided that it didn’t want to be a part of the landing of this historic flight. Whatever happened, I was quickly in the air, holding onto the handlebars.

Holding onto the handlebars perhaps 4 feet off the ground, unclipped, perpendicular to the bike, in a layout position.

As the bike and I traveled through an arc, we determined that one of us needed to make a decision and take action to help the two of us land. The bike decided that I would be the one to do that so I started flailing my legs a bit.

Somewhere along the downward trajectory, I managed to bash my left thigh on something, giving me a bad Charlie horse that lasted the remainder of the ride.

But then suddenly, I was standing on the ground dismounted, to the left of the bike, and only slightly hurt and slightly bent over the top tube. It was a pretty hard landing but I didn’t crash, so at least I have that going for me, which is nice.

After that I stood there for about two minutes wondering what in the holy hell just happened to me.

I figured out that there must be something about landing a jump on these springy bikes that you have to do differently from landing a hardtail, but I wasn’t sure what it was.

Most of the rest of the ride was spent cramping, and trying to keep up with Sven and the crew. Sven and Mel hosted, the Northern Contingent of the Family Bikes Shop Ride was present and accounted for, and another one or two of the Ellicott City / Elkridge locals joined us. It was pretty sweet.

Considering that I’m fat, unfit, and my technical skills need work, the ride was awesome. Your May was my January so this is right where I’d expect to be after the long layoff and the slow ramp back to vigorous riding. So all is well in the world and if things work to plan and the back holds, I’ll be half fit about midway through cross season. The main thing was I was riding with some friends and cramps and fat and tired be damned, it was fun. More fun than I can say.

After the ride, it took a couple hours to figure out what had happened to me and the rig at the creek crossing. The rig… It seems the rig is trying to teach me some things. Moving from hardtail to full suspension is a big, big change if you haven’t ridden a boinger before – and I haven’t. A 4” travel 29’er is an especially huge leap; it feels like a long travel motocross bike, except this one steers a bit slower.

It’s hard to articulate exactly what the boinger does differently from a hardtail, which isn’t a surprise. I’ve known many skillful riders but comparatively few who can articulate what a bike is doing under them and how to handle it in different ways. (Sven is one of those people who can articulate it, BTW).

So I’ll try and hope you forgive me if I fail here.

On a hardtail, when you go off a drop, your legs have to provide 100% of the suspension. You get in the habit of riding it as soft as possible. You go off the drop, and your legs compress to the maximum point, because the more flex you do, the more of the shock is dampened because you're dissipating it more gradually, over say 12" of leg flex versus 3". That's pretty easy to understand - you're dissipating the same total force over greater distance, so the force you're exerting at any one point in the landing is reduced.

On a boinger, the bike does a lot of the work. You still want to use your legs though because it’s easier on you and the bike to cushion the force of impact still further. The boinger, *however,* is going to bounce back some at the bottom of the suspension stroke. If you have just taken a huge hit – and you do the math on 280 lbs dropping 4 feet – the suspension has to rebound hard. The problem is that no suspension can completely eat up the force of that impact; you’d need to have sick, sick rebound damping to slow the bounce from that, and if your rebound damping was that heavy the shock would be useless for general trail riding, since it couldn’t bounce back fast enough between little bumps. (I’ll spare you the talk about high and low speed rebound damping, and various valving setups that that I know about from motorcycling that can improve but not eradicate this).

The bottom line is that you’d better not use all your legs’ spring when you hit the ground on a boinger, because that shock is going to bite you back, and while you can easily absorb the kick if you’re prepared, you’ll get thrown if you aren’t.

So I think what happened to me was that I did the usual hardtail thing and had no spring left in my legs when the rig kicked back; I was too low to have any “travel” left in my legs. My leg-based suspension system was bottomed out. Since I couldn’t absorb the bike-moving-upward momentum, both the bike and I took a big, big hop straight up into the air.

How or why I got off and landed safely is beyond me and basically irrelevant; what matters is the lesson learned. And the lesson is to keep the legs flexed but stiffer on the downstroke with a boinger, because what bike goes down must come up, often with vengeance.

You know, I think I like her more because she's a little bit nutty sometimes.

What The Cool Kids Are Up To

NY Times - the home of high-end, breathless Lance hagiography since 1999: "Wwwwwwait a minute... you mean to tell me that there's widespread doping going on here in pro cycling?"

UCI: "Of course we didn't take bribes to protect our business interests. We have integrity!"

Typical Four-nicator: "A real man rocks 53:39, on an 11-23 cassette. Compacts are for old men and only a woozie runs 34:26 gearing, I don't care if you're on the Zoncolan."

German Pro Cyclist: "Of course alcohol was involved in my car crash. I am a German pro cyclist and drinking heavily and crashing Porsches is what we do to soothe our existential dread. Now if I was Belgian, it'd be X and a 14 year-old girl...."

Mark Cavendish: "You stay classy, San Diego!"

Giro Organizer: Uphill 10 mile dirt road time trial? Sure! Starting the race on another continent and having a cruel 9 hour transfer? Why the hell not! Y'know, I've been thinking about including a cyclocross stage in the race... maybe a downhill four-cross stage too. Hey, pass that Dutchy on the *left* hand side, Stefano..."

[Ed. I actually like Angelo Zomegnan. He's the reason the Giro is such
a compelling race each year... ]

The Family That Shreds Together...

Greg Keller has a blog entry talking about how his kids are his heroes right now. They had a great mountain biking excursion, I guess, and had a bit of a breakthrough on the bike.

My wife and kid and I had an experience like that ourselves this past Saturday. I've taken them out for gentle rides before - 8-10 miles, keeping off the technical stuff as much as possible... gentle rides. We usually ride Cedarville but will mix in a dirt trail here or there just for fun. The boy is just six, the wife, not so keen on bumpy stuff. Or she wasn't anyhow.

A couple weeks ago, we hit Cedarville; It is a state park near Waldorf. The trails are mostly non-technical, though if you ride fast enough, or poke around a bit, you can find a few challenges. Definitely beginner territory - a perfect place to take a nervous or reluctant new rider, or smaller child - with only a little intermediate skills work sprinkled in. We usually ride the Orange loop, which is about 7 miles of mild single and double track, with some fire road and a few twisty bits of groomed single track thrown in for good measure (and a couple hundred yard-long stretches of corduroy). Nothing too tough. As we were leaving, Wife of Rouleur, who is usually a reluctant MTB'er at best, said, "You know... that was awfully fun. But I could use some gears." She had been riding my old Kona single speed conversion which is a sweet little compact steel MTB, one of the original mid-entry level cross country racers. But yeah, single speed... probably a bit much if you're not hardcore.

So dutifully - as in never passing up my duty to upgrade gear whenever possible - I got Jon to scare me up some SRAM X7 thumb shifters and derailer, and a cassette, and we converted the 1x1 Kona into a nimble 1x9.

This last Saturday, we hit Cedarville again. The normal ride down the Orange loop was going fast and everybody was cheerful and peppy, even after taking a detour down the wrong fireroad and having to double back to regain the single track. When we crossed the Blue loop, about 5/8ths of the way through the ride, the boy wanted to go on the Blue up the hill. The Wife was game, so we proceeded through the Blue, which is a twistier, somewhat more technical trail than the orange. Basically, this doubled the length of the ride, and we wound up zipping through some tight single track that was framed by trees and very close-in vegetation. The pace was surprisingly brisk considering the cast of characters. We were having great fun, and a lot of it.

All went pretty well until about mile 12 or so. At that point, Will was getting tired and misjudged this enormous root. *I* had trouble with that thing on my 29'er, so it's no shock that the root right after the big one ate his 20" wheel and he spilled. (I've crashed a hundred times on roots like that, and three times in one night on one just like it at Lodi...) But he got right back on his feet though, and soldiered on.

The last few miles were tough. The boy couldn't pedal up the steeper hills and did the hike-a-bike. (Been there, son. Been there.) But he stuck it out, didn't complain, ate his Clif bar and drank his Gatorade, and we finished up in a little under three hours of riding time. We were all really happy - Wife of- said "that was awesome, but I'm definitely getting to the end of my rope." Son of was tired too, and hungry. Me? I was actually a bit tired. It was 15-16 miles, and my way of using the family dirt ride for a workout is to sprint the short hills, then regroup and soft-pedal. So it wasn't brutal but it wasn't a null effort for me either.

There was only one thing to do at that point. Eat Mexican food. So we did that and drove home.

The really gratifying bits didn't happen right then, though riding and spending three uninterrupted hours with the family was gratifying in its own right.

On Sunday afternoon, we were talking about baseball, and the boy informed me, "I like baseball okay... but it's not like mountain biking. Mountain biking is awesome."

Today, Wife of Rouleur informed me that some of her pants must be stretching, and she thanked me for pushing her on the bike. She's looking forward to the suspension fork I ordered to update the old Kona. (Which, BTW, is still an excellent, ridiculously light footed old hardtail...so she's not exactly suffering with this particular hand-me-down.)

I feel great about this. I love my wife for sticking with it a few times and for being open to seeing the fun of zipping around in the woods on a bike. She's no longer a reluctant tag-along, but an eager participant in the group ride. And I admire my son for being brave and willing to give everything a go, willing to ride until he just can't go any further, then come back and ask for more.

This has convinced me: the only thing better than doing what you love most, is sharing what you love to do with the people you love the most.

Getting out of the ruts...

Not afraid of tight singletrack

Zipping downhill and enjoying the breeze

The family that shreds together...

Happiness = An Empty Tank

Friday Fun

It's not often that I can do a really, really topical Friday Fun Time blog entry. This week has given me a wealth of material to work with though.



That video refers to:

1) A pro-abstinence Republican Congressman who had to retire after admitting an affair with a staffer

2) A Democratic senate candidate who, um, slightly made up his combat record

3) Any one of a number of pro cyclists

4) Your opinion of most of the leaders of most of our major social institutions



With this video I'm referring to:

1) Floyd Landis

2) Lance Armstrong

3) Johan Museeuw

4) Damn near every pro who raced between 1990 and 2007.

Speaking of which... What would Johan say? I smoked some righteous clove cigarettes this morning, drank a Belgian coffee (high chicory content Maxwell House, with a tablespoon of melted medium embro drizzled in for flava), and suddenly Johan's voice came to me. Here's what Johan Museeuw's Inner Dialogue would say about this latest doping scandal:

The truth? You can't handle the truth. Son, we live in a world that has hills like walls, and those walls have to be ridden up by small men on bikes. Who's gonna do it? You? I have a lower natural Power:Weight ratio than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Damiano, and you curse Virenque. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Armstrong's doping, while tragic, probably saved time. And doping's existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves time. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want skinny Italian guys flying up that wall, you need them rocketing up that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty, CERA and Autologous blood doping. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent riding something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain these things to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of propaganda white noise that Versus provides, and then questions the manner in which Versus provides it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a needle, lose a lot of weight, and climb a hill faster than your unaltered hematocrit permits. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

Yeah, that's what Johan would say. Y'know, if he wouldn't be arrested for saying it. But I'm sure it's what he imagines himself saying.






That video is an allusion to:

1) How Floyd Landis feels riding among non-doping pros

2) What Lance's ex-girlfriends all sing after they break up with him

3) How all of us feel sometimes

4) Fuck that. It's obviously how Floyd Landis feels riding among non-doping pros.





Floyd's dope revelations have me down, not because I'm surprised but because of the way so many people try to systematically destroy everything good we love and believe in. The real crime of sin, or of "sin" if you're not particularly religious, is that it covers you and your friends and everyone you know in shit. The reason we have all this moral approbation and all these rules is not to make you unhappy, but because corruption has a stench that will ultimately make the eyes of everybody in the room start watering as if somebody blasted out some red onions through a salad shooter. You can get away with a little moral rot and it may not destroy your character but when you start to have a lot of it, you harm more than yourself. Everybody walks away from you, their faith in you and in the possibility of others being good and trustworthy and admirable, somewhat shaken.

One of the things I like about being a pretty ordinary guy with pretty ordinary friends is I don't worry about all of you turning out to be major league asshole doping liars who build a career and make millions on a lie. Hey, we're among friends here, and I know a few of you have fucked up here and there. That's fine, it happens. This being a mostly local blog I get to know most of you who read it and you're kind and decent people; I can only think of a handful of real assholes in this area who I think are bad people and wouldn't want to ride with. Most of you I've met, and many hundreds of people I've raced with who don't read this, have been solid in all my dealings with them. Maybe we're not great buddies, but y'all are alright and I know that.

But anyhow, most of us are pretty normal. Why is it we're cool, but so many athletes / celebs / politicians are so frigging evil? Maybe fame does something to screw people up; maybe you have to be screwed up to achieve it. Either way, I'm not real interested in fame and fortune. I'd rather be just makin' the mortgage payment, but out there in the woods or on the road every week riding with you guys, than to be a lying rich ass doper pro with a bunch of lying rich ass doper friends and crooked bosses.

We ordinary folks have it good and should appreciate it. Ride safe on the way into work today and I hope to see you on the trails Saturday.

Wisdom From The Mouths of Babes

Shit my six year-old kid has said in the last week or so that's frickin' killed me.

At church, right after communion when it's silent: "You see that guy over there?" [pointing to old guy with square glasses.] "I think he's the guy from 'UP'."

Upon being introduced to Ren & Stimpy tonight, during an ad: "Daddy, I'm sorry, but I'm laughing so hard I'm going to throw up. I'm really sorry so I'm apologizing now for it."

"If you're blind you have to see with your feet."

"It's okay to put gears on mommy's mountain bike so she can catch up to me but now you have to put more gears on mine so I can drop her."

"Daddy, I watch a lot of TV. Is is rotting my brain?"


Yes, it's true. My kid is smarter, funnier, and better looking than me. Good on him.

Just a reminder: The D.C. version of National Ride of Silence is Wednesday (today) at 7:00, kicking off from Hains Point. If there's interest afterwards, we can grab beers and grub after.

National Ride of Silence

Just a reminder.

The National Ride of Silence = our local part of it anyhow - is tomorrow night. If you missed the chance to register on BikeReg, you can show up at Hains Point and register at 6:30 tomorrow night. It's about a 10 mile ride, out of the park, up to the Capitol and back, 12 MPH, silent protest and demand we be treated better. Around 80 people pre-registered so I'd expect maybe twice that number to show. It's supposed to be sunny and clear tomorrow afternoon following overnight rain, so you can get a hard training ride in, and then do this Ride from Hains afterward.

I'm not a protest guy and don't think too highly of Critical Ass because of the clown antics, and I'm not a protest guy generally, but I think it's important to support the cause here. I know plenty of people who have been hit and permanently messed up as a result, and I stare at a ghost bike on the curb outside my building three or four times every day. It's time to step up and ask for accommodation for cyclists, and ask that cops and prosecutors take it seriously when riders are run down.

New Week; Fresh Start

Hey, it's Monday tomorrow. That means it's a whole new chance to screw up your diet, training plan, or job! It's a whole new chance to do well, too, and for the most part, the choice is in your hands.

There will be ups and downs, I'm thinking. Some people are getting an early start on screwing up, piling on the race refs about one a them things what just happens, only it happened to occur at Poolesville on Saturday. After a couple threads beating up on the head ref, mainly calling on her to explain herself and criticizing her for not doing so, she weighed in a couple minutes ago to apologize for not responding via email because her power's been out.

Whoops.

I guess that gaffe counsels toward a little forebearance.

On the other hand, maybe forebearance isn't going to be your best friend all the time this week. Pax Velo did a great job of re-establishing the excellent Leonardstown Crit, and the town very kindly permitted the race (yay!) but some asshole(s) decided to throw tacks in one of the corners, causing multiple crashes (boo!).

Bryan Vaughn managed to capture some great video of Keck Baker hitting the tacks and going down, using a "Homicide: Life on the Street" style spinning camera move to capture all the action. That Bryan sure knows how to suffer for his art...

Leonardtown Crash from Bryan Vaughan on Vimeo.

Not sure I'd have any forebearance on hand, if I caught somebody throwing down tacks in the corner during a bike race. I might reach into the cupboard and find a small can of whoopass though...

Crazy days.

I'm going to get this week off to a good start though. The first step was to find some good fuel for tomorrow's morning ride.

Grilled Pork Loin; Mixed Veggies

If you look and that and think "that looks tasty," you're thinking right. It was. I coated the pork loin with a rub of garlic and celery salt, chili powder and paprika. A little garlic salt and paprika on the veggies, and some chopped potatoes with skins on (miked then browned in a tablespoon of olive oil) topped it off. I think it was Rousseau who defined the good life as a joint of beef and a glass of good wine at night; grilled pork loin is an able substitute for the beef. The pork loins themselves are magic. We've taken to buying a whole loin in the cryovac from Giant when it goes on sale. You get about 10 pounds for $15. Thanks to the magic of Henckels knives, we cut it into 18 inch thick chops and a "roast," though how you can call something as lean as a pork loin a "roast"... anyhow it provides the meat for 7 dinners for $15. We seal up little 3-chop bags using one of those vacuum sealer things, and the meat keeps just fine for up to 6 months in the freezer. Not bad, and damned yummy in fact. You shouldn't eat tons of pork all the time but I think we do chops about once a week, and I usually grill them, incinerating most of the fat on the grill. In addition to my little rub, simple marinades of orange juice, rosemary and garlic or lemon and garlic work wonders. Steam some veggies in the microwave and it's a quick, cheap dinner.

Now I'm about to clean the drivetrain on the Giant, adjust the brakes, and get ready for the ride in the AM. Looks like some rain is coming later in the day, and maybe there's going to be some rain Tuesday. Doesn't matter to me though... I'm already plotting how I'll work my rides in. Can't wait to meet the week.


Don't forget the National Ride of Silence on Wednesday. The "registration" for the cost-free event opens at 6:30 at Hains, and the ride rolls at 7:00.

The Rig

Love is...

NewsFlash

Various utterly impeachable sources indicate that the elusive Schieckus Crossymanthicus was spotted at Rosaryville MTB Playland this morning. The sighting was noteworthy because this creature is normally only spotted in muddy field habitats, broken up by short strips of tarmac, short yellow wooden fences, and Belgian beer bottles littered about.

Schieckus Crossymanthicus in Repose

Like others of its genus, Schiavous Crossus and Thompson's Non-Gazelle, Schieckus Crossymanthicus appears to be adapting to this new hilly, wooded habitat with remarkable ease. We do not know if it will be able to dominate Powertapus Geekicus, or the fearful Gwadzillicus Rex, but based on its predatory behavior in its former habitat, we expect it to thrive and quickly become one of the apex predators in this new habitat.


Ps. Thanks for the ride. *Awesome* fun.

Friday Music

I'm in a pretty mellow mood tonight. Check out this song by the Magnetic Fields, "I'm Sorry That I Love You."



And another one by them, with an animation by some kid. Also a pretty seriously mellow song from the experimental pop group.



Here's a little John Hiatt, "the Love That Harms." I love Hiatt, and that love doesn't harm at all.



John Hiatt is maybe the greatest living singer-songwriter, now that Warren Zevon has run out of lawyers, guns and money. (Leonard Cohen is really a songwriter, don't much like his singing, so don't ask...) Hiatt is also a superb rock / blues balladeer. For instance... Hiatt wrote the following song, which B.B. King and Eric Clapton covered. Everybody agrees, Hiatt's version is better. Damn, as they say. Just damn.



On the topic of singer/songwriters... Iggy Pop is pretty special too. He's a lot like Lou Reed, maybe not the greatest guy in any given genre he's working in, but I guarantee you he is breaking ground. The Velvet Underground stuff *still* sounds really good. It hasn't aged in nearly 40 years. So too Iggy Pop's work with the Stooges. It was groundbreaking and it still holds up pretty well. Yeah, I know he's pretty far out there in a lot of respects. But the dude can write, and sing, a song.



And if you want to know who Henry Rollins and Jello Biafra wanted to be when they grew up, check this out.



And as long as I'm heading toward the primal... here's the song where Link Wray invented the power chord in 1958. How badass was this at the time? So badass, it was banned. No dirty lyrics, no dirty hips, no dirty models in tiny bikinis.



Good luck at Poolesville and Rocky Gap, y'all. Be badass, alright?

The Poop Stop

We need to talk about something that is a dirty little secret of cycling. I'm not talking about how the white shorts that the local women's teams like to wear are see-through, and I'm not talking about how ceramic bearings wont actually make you faster. Nor am I talking about the fact that dropping more than about $2500 on a road bike doesn't buy you any more performance, and in fact you may not need to exceed $1500 for a bike that will perform up to your potential.

Nope. I'm talking about the Poop Stop.

You best stop right here and click through to The Well Mannered Cyclist Blog if you have objections to scatalogical humor, because I'm going to lay an ugly truth on you. Anyways,

One of the advantages of regular training is that you get, well, regular. If you mind your diet, work out at more or less the same time every day, do all the right things, then the Brown Salmon will try to spawn right on schedule, day in and day out.

Unfortunately for some of us, this schedule is smack dab in the middle of the daily training ride.

I noticed that this morning as I was riding into work / Hains. I've been getting my diet wired back together, and have returned to the routine of eating a big bowl of steel cut oats every morning. "Steel cut oats," of course, is Gaelic for "Intestinal Roto Rooter."

The problem I have is that right after I eat the oats, a litle man in my belly stands up feeling energized, and starts singing the chorus to "Rawhide." "Get 'em up, cut 'em out, head 'em in, move 'em out, get 'em up, move 'em out RAW-HIDE!..." About an hour later, I'm ready to stand and... er, sit and deliver. The problem is by then, I'm usually a half hour into the morning ride. So what to do?

In my case, I've found a coffee shop in Bethesda that does the trick, and I wind up stopping more often than not. The bathroom is usually open when I waddle in, and I wave as I pass the cashier. "Double please. Ceramic." I throw three wadded up bills at her and keep walking briskly, if you can call a limping, staggering fast walk that draws looks from the other patrons a walk. I keep kidding myself that they think the funny walk is the result of my bike shoes.

I limp to the back of the shop, shut the door, rip off my jersey, yank down my bibs, and make like a non-house broken ruminant beast.

Ahhh... Sweet, sweet relief.

Maybe it isn't really all that sweet, but it beats walking into work with a load of poop in my pants. The bib shorts feel enough like diapers as it is, without having an actual pile of crap in there.

The thoughts that go through my mind whilst enjoying the throne at this little Respite Filled Retreat in Bethesda are many, and creative.

First off, it's a very nice coffee shop that I'm polluting a couple times per week. I'm sure they're hoping for a better class of customer than me, and I know that I'm damn well not good enough for the REI-wearing Active Guy / Things White People Like crowd that's in there most mornings. So the shop and I are both disappointed in each other, it in me 'cuz I don't measure up, me in it because they let people like me in there. Like Groucho Marx, I'm a bit hesitant to be a member of any club that would have somebody like me.

Second, they only have this little tiny Glade Plug-in to thwart the horrendous stench that gets left there. C'mon, people! You are serving *coffee*! It's the greatest stimulant to regularity since Metamucil. You need to do better than that. You trying to get somebody suffocated in there?

Well, unless it's true what they say, and if you live in Bethesda your shit don't stink. But still you have some outliers like me, and expecting the Plug-In to kick my ass's ass, is like expecting the Sudeten to kick Germany's ass. Let's just say it's a bit of a longshot.

Third, because I'm mid-workout and in a dire, stressed out state when I shamble in there, it's only a matter of time before I have a heart attack and croak in their bathroom. Because I have to take my jersey off to get the bibs down, they'll find me face down on the floor, no shirt, shorts around my ankles, with chamois cream smeared all over my butt. The headline in the Post the next day will read, "Pervert/Cyclist Found Dead in Cafe Restroom, Police Investigating."

Fourth, it doesn't take me long to knock one out at the Poop Stop. When I finally get to the Poop Stop, I'm desperate. So desperate, in fact, that there is no waiting, and on one or two occasions, the waiting may have ended to some small extent just a little bit prior to my arrival. But I ain't confirmin' or denyin' that.

The upside to this fierce urgency is that I spend less time in there making a monument to the evanescence of plant and animal life, than the average 60 year-old male customer spends in there attempting to pee. Although it's utterly crass of me to destroy the bathroom, at least nobody has to wait while I do it.

Fifth and finally, it's a really nice bathroom and I almost regret destroying it on a regular basis. The floor is hardwood, there is usually a vase full of (suffocating) flowers, and there's a hook on the door which holds the jersey long enough for me to sit down, whereupon it drops in somebody else's pee or handwashing drippings (I'd rather not know...). Best of all, they did away with the environmentally friendly toilet they used to have in there, in favor of a (probably smuggled) 3+ gallons-per-flush model that does a great job of getting rid of waste and never clogs. (I swear I had nothing to do with their decision). The throne is a nice low one (unlike those tall girly terlets) and they keep the appliance, and the room clean. What's not to like - at least before I get in there?

So I do my business there a couple times per week, and on the way out grab my espresso, drink it standing, and then hit the road, marveling all the while that the best Poop Stop on any of my training routes only costs me $2.05 per use, and even then they throw in a decent shot of free espresso.

Yep. It's quite a scam I got going there, and they're still not onto me. Pretty frickin' sweet, if you ask me.

So, any of you folks have a preferred stop on any of your training rides in D.C. and the surrounding environs?

Artist's Impression: Rouleur's Morning Coffee Stop

Bummer Weather Forecast

I checked the weather forecast for tomorrow. If you want to train... well, you're f***ed, from the looks of it.


No riding today. I was sick. Nothing major, just an upset stomach and world record-level weariness. It was nothing that couldn't be fixed by sleeping 'til noon, then taking a three hour nap in the afternoon. Riding tomorrow will be nice, even if it does rain.

Beard-a-Palooza

After close to 200 miles last week, including a couple moderately intense rides, my legs were toasty on Sunday, and even this morning when I got up. So I had a second rest day in a row, much to the relief of my aching pegs.

How does one celebrate a rest day?

Why, by coaching a little league game, then attending a Bay Sox game for Beard-a-Palooza.

Son-of had a nice game, banging out three decent hits. He's very much a zen hitter. Tell him what to do and he can't do it. Tell him not to worry about it, just go up there and swing away, and the kid turns into Wade Boggs. Since not paying attention to what he's doing seems to help him perform better, I'm thinking about ignoring him entirely for the next 30 years so that he can grow up to be president.

But I don't hate the kid so I wouldn't want to wish the presidency on him, or anybody else I like for that matter.

As for Beard-a-Palooza, that's an annual event at the Bowie Bay Sox where sportin' the whiskers gets you half priced admission, and the best beard wins a prize. In addition to seeing the young guys play some good ball, we got treated to cheap big beers, Louie from Bowie, and, of course, the beard contest.

That my friend, Captain Ahab [pictured below], didn't take the big prize is proof that injustice is rampant in this world.

Avast, Matey!

Friday Music Mix, With Teeth

I stole this from Newt. It was too good not to steal. As it were.


If you ever owned a Stihl - I used a Farm Boss for a while and had one of the legendary old 034's, you know what the ad is getting at. The revelation of a Stihl chainsaw after using a MacCullough, a Homelite and a Poulan, was like Paul on the road to Damascus. The damn things were - and I imagine still are - pro quality, unlike the consumer grade junk on the market. We heated the house with wood and had to put up 30-40 full cords per year when I was a kid. The cutting took weekend after weekend with the cheap saws. With a Stihl? Three or four days of hard cutting.

The splitting, trailering and stacking was another story, however.

People who have worked like that (e.g. like a rented mule) with a high quality piece of equipment remember it, and think about it like a family member. No criticism can be brooked. And you never forget it. I watch Ax Men and I think, "damn. I'd like to be out there cutting. I miss that." Part of it is watching them fire up their big Stihl MS 880's and hearing the two stroke engines wind out.

When I retire out of here, I'm buying a place with some land out in the boondocks. I may not heat with wood full time, but I am going to have a stove, and I'm going to buy a small portable sawmill and mill my own wood for hardwood floors and trim in the house. (You can buy a small trailer-able mill for $3k, a little cheaper used). I'm going to need a good saw. I know what brand I'll look at first.

But you don't give a crap and probably wouldn't know cutting a tree from cutting arugula. You're just here for the music.

I was reading about the death of an opera singer today, and her death reminded the author of the death of Alma Werfel. Nee Gropius. Nee Mahler. Nee Schindler. The gal married her way through three of the greatest geniuses of Europe over the course of 20 years. Alma is a girl worth talking about - and it gets to music in a second.

Here's her obit.

Alma Mahler August 31, 1879 - December 11, 1964, noted in her native Vienna for her beauty and intelligence, was the wife, successively, of one of the century's leading composers (Gustav Mahler), architects (Walter Gropius), and novelists (Franz Werfel). Her life reads like a Who's Who of early twentieth century Europe.

Born in Vienna, Austria to artist Emil Jakob Schindler and his wife Anna von Bergen, in a privileged environment. Her father's friends included Gustav Klimt, to whom she gave her "first kiss".

As a young woman she had had a series of flirtations, including Klimt, director Max Burckhard and composer Alexander Zemlinsky. In 1902 she married Gustav Mahler, even though the composer was twenty years older than her. With him, she had two daughters, Maria Anna ( 1902- 1907), who died of scarlet fever or diphtheria , and Anna, who later became a sculptor. The terms of Alma's marriage with Mahler were that she would forego her own artistic interests in painting and music. Resenting this, Alma began an affair with the Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius. Mahler had a single consultation with Dr. Sigmund Freud as to the causes for his dissatisfied relationship.

When Mahler died in 1911, Alma married Gropius.

The marriage was tumultuous. For two years, Alma had an affair with artist Oskar Kokoschka, who painted his Bride of the Wind to represent their love. Fearful of the passion he evoked in her, Alma left Kokoschka for novelist Franz Werfel, and even became pregnant - she thought by him - while still married to Gropius. She divorced Gropius and married Werfel in 1929, but the child, Martin Carl Johannes, was born prematurely and died aged ten months.

Alma and Gropius's daughter, Manon ( 1916- 1935), died of polio in 1935, aged seventeen. Composer Alban Berg wrote his Violin Concerto in memory of her.

In 1938 Alma and Werfel were forced to flee Austria for France to escape the Anschluss. With the German invasion and occupation of France during World War II, and the deportation of Jews to the Nazis death camps, she and her husband had to flee France. With the assistance of the American journalist Varian Fry in Marseille, they escaped the Nazi regime via a riveting journey across the Pyrenees to Spain and from there to Portugal where they sailed to New York City. Eventually they settled in Los Angeles, where Werfel achieved a measure of success when his Song of Bernadette was made into a 1943 film starring Jennifer Jones. After Werfel's death in 1945, Alma moved back to New York where she was a major cultural figure until her death in 1964.

Damn. Now that's livin', huh?

It doesn't end there though. Mathematician / satirist / musician Tom Lehrer wrote a song about her. Here's how he introduced it.

Last December 13th, there appeared in the newspapers the juiciest, spiciest, raciest obituary that has ever been my pleasure to read. It was that of a lady name Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel who had, in her lifetime, managed to acquire as lovers practically all of the top creative men in central Europe, and, among these lovers, who were listed in the obituary, by the way, which was what made it so interesting, there were three whom she went so far as to marry.

One of the leading composers of the day: Gustav Mahler, composer of Das Lied von der Erde and other light classics. One of the leading architects: Walter Gropius of the Bauhaus school of design. And one of the leading writers: Franz Werfel, author of the song of Bernadette and other masterpieces. It's people like that who make you realize how little you've accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age he had been dead for two years. It seemed to me, I'm reading this obituary, that the story of Alma was the stuff of which ballads should be made so here is one.

Pretty mildly funny stuff, and actually a bit better than mildly funny; it's downright clever. Now here's a guy lip syncing to Lehrer's 1964 song, The New Math. This is a bit straight up funnier, and one of the things you'll realize is that Lehrer was sort of a godfather, in some ways, to geek pop.




Okay. That's fine. Now you want to see Lehrer do some scathe? Here's his take on Peter, Paul & Mary, and the other folk singer / protesters of the 1960's.



That's scathing because Lehrer himself was pretty liberal; it's just he liked punching hippies and folkies too.

But wait... could he be the spiritual godfather of Cracker?



Maybe. He wasn't the only guy to take on folkies and jam bands.



So like I just put Joel Gwadz into flashback mode with that... Anyhow, Lehrer was a pretty funny guy in his time. He sort of foreshadowed geek music and geek humor - They Might be Giants come to mind as a great example of brainy geek pop. I'm partial to this Craig Ferguson interpretation of their hit, Istanbul.



They Might Be Giants are doing a lot of pop/educational stuff these days - they're still popular but all their fans are 45, or 7.

Now, for no apparent reason, have some Cake.



Wow. Okay, fine. I guess I've inflicted enough of my weirdness on you. If you've lasted this long, you deserve some of the good stuff that I keep on the top shelf. Check out the Detroit Cobras.



Pretty nice, huh?

I'll let you off the hook easy with some nice Jaco Pastorius to carry you into the weekend. It's another version of The Chicken. Damned if Jaco didn't put the smooth in smooth jazz.



Have a good weekend y'all. See ya on the road.

Just One Thing

I've got nothing for you guys today except this one thing.

I know that I have recommended that everybody switch to bib shorts. They're more comfortable in the long haul, they don't slip down (thereby avoiding the dread fissure de plombier), and they cover up a paunch rather than riding under it - an important factor for a variety of reasons, in a region where the center mass of racing is 39 years of age.

But remember, please - you wear the suspender portion of your bibs on the inside of your bike jersey. One of you has not done so - I suspect it was loyal reader Fred Frederickson, from Frederick MD. Beppo, Burns and I passed you yesterday trucking down the W&OD with the bibs on the outside. It seems obligatory that I provide this advice, since I have been the foremost advocate of paunch-covering comfortable clothes in the MABRA blogging community for several years now.

Seriously. Trust me on this. Bib on the inside. You'll have a much easier time getting Clif bars out of your jersey pocket this way. And people won't swerve toward you dangerously in the midst of a fit of howling laughter. Bibs just work better that way. Really.

That is all.

Fournication

Many of us are lifelong Cat 4's, and many of us who aren't act like we are at times. What do I mean by that? Acting stupid on a bike. Showing no sense, no class, and no judgment. Being the guy who does exactly what he shouldn't do, precisely when he shouldn't be doing it. It's worse than acting like a Cat 5. A Cat 5 probably doesn't know anything, which excuses some otherwise inexcusable behavior. You don't have to be a racer to act like a Cat 4.

Don't get me wrong here. Many Cat 4's don't act like Cat 4's at all; they handle their bike PRO-style, behave with a modicum of class, and always ride smart. No, I'm referring to the people who should know better, who don't. Fournicators.

The salient point to remember is that just because you're a Cat 4, it doesn't mean you have to act like one. You should struggle against it, even if the struggle is doomed.

I saw about fifty examples of Fournication today while I was riding into and out of work, and hittin' on a few hard efforts. It was a wealth of path[lete]-ology, low rent behavior and general silliness. The thing is, I recognized some of the people who were Fournicating. I've seen them commuting / racing / training for years. *They know better*. Maybe it is just that many people are in early season form, and completely forgot how to ride properly over the winter. Or maybe the more I ride, the more I notice bad riding. Some examples:

On a crowded multi-use path, the guys who will risk a serious accident to pull off a sketchy pass, in the oncoming direction. One guy in particular who was time trialing downhill on a flatbar commuter nearly took me out; I think we brushed arm hairs. NO, you miscalculated, pal. I really was riding uphill *that* fast. Wayyy bad judgment.

Again on a path, the two guys who were racing each other in wobbly, weaving fashion, decided to do a standing townline sprint at the Georgetown boathouse. You know the spot - where a yellow steel fencepost juts up out of the narrow path to force you to ride slow, and there are tons of pedestrians walking into and out of the boathouses? Right there. I guess the intersection of K and Connecticut was taken or something. They went weaving up to it as fast as their weak little legs would carry them, and damned if the one kid didn't nearly take himself out on the fencepost. What a couple of Fournicators.

Then there was this guy who was rocking the bib shorts through town this afternoon, but with the suspender portion around his waist, no jersey. Not a good look on a pro cyclist, horrendous on a fat 40-something slob. I will never be able to un-see that. Sheer Fournication.

There was also a bunch of guys hammering it, with no helmet on. Two words, assholes: Fabio Casartelli. Unless you have better handling skills than him, you have no business trying to ride fast without a helmet. Unless you are PRO, it's pure Fournication to drill it on a roadbike without wearing a brain bucket. Chris Regan excepted - his magnificent hair will protect him in case of a crash.

Then I saw this not-otherwise-terrible-looking-girl in a low cut jersey with an immense tattoo on her upper chest, between her boobs, with the tat originating somewhere between the county jail and the state pen. How un-PRO... totally Fournicated. Tats are supposed to make you look better, honey. What was that supposed to be... a perspiring gothic butterfly? Get a full zip jersey, and keep it zipped up, willya?

There was another guy who was cruising Hains with his girlfriend a steady 20 feet behind him, and she was struggling mightily to hang on on a big headwind. This is ghastly group ride and relationship behavior. Despite all his efforts to drop her - at a stately speed of about 15 MPH - I think she is going to wind up dropping him hard. He might have been Fournicating with her now, but he's going to lose his chance to do so in the future because he rides like a jerk. Apt punishment for a Fournicator.

Then I rode behind this one guy coming out of town, who stood up and sprinted away from every stoplight going across town this morning, and burned every second red light. A serious rider either burns every light that can be safely burned without legal or personal jeopardy, or causing problems for the sponsor, or stops at all of them. Doing it any other way is incoherent, a riding style of no style. In contrast, a Fournicator burns the lights at random, waiting too long to make the decision so that oncoming cars have to brake, and riders left waiting at the light are stuck with withering glares from motorists.

The final bit of Fournication I saw today was this guy with a blog who went home and bitched about all the stupidity, in the guise of chronicling it. Bitching about other people's riding is a real Fournicator maneuver.

Remember: Always Stay Classy Out There!

Liberation Day

Coming back from any accident, injury or other disaster, if you're lucky you have a day when it just doesn't matter any more. Let's call that day Liberation Day.

Prior to that day, whatever calamity befell you is the first thing in your mind when you get back on the bike. It doesn't matter how trivial it is. Wife of Rouleur is still terrified of clip-ons after a standstill tipover a couple years ago. I still am freaky about this one turn at Rosaryville that I overshot, to my detriment and the detriment of a small but surprisingly painful sapling.

Most of these little traumas fade over time, but the bigger ones prey on the psyche for a while, feasting on doubts and bringing a smorgasbord of negative internal monologue all their own.

No matter how trivial the trials of a given days ride, until you have celebrated Liberation Day, there is always a nagging feeling that the ride's problems are due to the disaster you suffered how-long-ago.

For instance, I was riding in a stiff headwind last week. My internal voice kept asking if my weakness was due to a pinched nerve in my back. Could it be robbing me of my power by shutting down the nerves in my leg? Could I be lacking blood supply to my lower back? Even worse, might I be psychologically holding back for fear of injury, and was my mind imposing a huge, unavoidable barrier to performance?

The actual cause of my trouble, a 25 MPH headwind, didn't really occur to me at the time, even as I was blowing the doors off other riders on the road.

Such is the staying power of our calamities. Their after effects linger on long after the body has healed. You can try to ignore them all you want, but the most abstract effects of a major individual disaster linger on even after the body is healed, and it's tough mental work to be rid of them.

This last Saturday, on the FBS shop ride, I celebrated Liberation Day.

There was only a small handful of us out for the ride, which turned out to be 28 or so miles with maybe four stretches of 5-6 minutes spent on the rivet. There weren't any monsters on the ride except Seibold, but we kept a brisk pace. The first time Jon ratched up the speed, I was worried about holding on. It didn't seem possible. Yet I did, and actually kept pace up one of the kickers on the ride that normally softens my legs pretty bad.

With that little achievement under my belt, I held on as one of the guys took a pull, took my own pull, and eased to the back. Soon enough, Jon had opened a big gap, and after killing myself to close the gap, I enjoyed another little achievment.

Again, no big thing. None of us on the ride are race shape right now, and I doubt whether anybody was working that hard. But confidence is like a brick wall, you build it with one little brick at a time.

So it went for a couple more efforts. I did get dropped after a longish pull up a false flat, but the pace of the shop ride tends toward hard effort / regroup rhythms, and the group soft pedaled just a bit as I caught the tail.

Later on, Jon and I traded pulls down Piney Orchard, not exactly setting the world on fire, but keeping the pace brisk, at or above 25. Jon finished it up with a long effort, and my legs blew toward the end of the road, but it was the end of the ride and I didn't care.

My epiphany didn't occur there though. It actually occurred after the second big effort. One of the guys asked how my back was, and I told him truthfully, "I haven't thought about it today, until you asked just now." Nor did I think about it until after the ride.

The bulged disc isn't ever going to go away. In fact, I had to walk in a parade and stand around for a couple hours, and that sure made my back hurt some later in the day. But it wasn't an impediment to my riding, and more importantly it didn't slow my riding by erecting phony barriers in my mind.

I will need to do things to take care of my back for the rest of my life, but there's no reason it should function as a barrier to my riding; not as a physical barrier, and not as a mental barrier. It's just an environmental factor now that I need to take into account and deal with, just like a little glass on the road or a quartering wind.

So screw it, man. Let's just ride.