no talking to the New Kid

Sitting here with a budding saddle sore, and my swellbow on ice, I am a fine figure of a man. The saddle sore feels like a shiny walnut dead in the middle of my right ass cheek. For what it's worth, the swellbow is on the right too. It's all right with me. But really, I feel great! It's funny, but these 2 local issues aside (and how glad I am that me swellbow can be relegated to a local issue...knock wood) I am filled with the quiet storm of heartiness. Why, just this very minute I feel so good I could let slip a ass whooping from hell on any uthaucka cares to ride a flat barred bicycle on twisty, moderately technical singletrack with lots of rollers and open areas for recovery.

You know, unless that person were a 120lb girl riding a singlespeed up and down relatively technical twisty singletrack in the dark.

There might be that.

I took a test bike from a company known for their big red S (branded even on your sleep, it's so prevalent- geez.) up some climby redwooded fire roads and down some grippy trails. I didn't like it. Rhymes with jumpstumper. The narrow saddle was very grippy- it kept ahold of my knickers (and I mean that in the 'merican way) and forced this saddle sore issue...to a head. Sorry.
The seat post was slipping on the way up. I also could not find a sweet spot to sit "in" the bike. Played with seat position,and height to little avail. I didn't like the bar- it felt like I was fighting it to hold my hands at the angle they require. I think a longer stem would help. The auto sag was cool. It climbed well, and in the long fire road sections I felt good about opening it up and giving it some stick, but the tight stuff- not so much. To be fair, I should put a longer stem on it and try it again (just getting used to the different balance points and the action of suspension bikes takes a little time), but you know how some bikes just have you grinning from the start? This one didn't.

So. Looking forward to getting that Pugsley...

Carbon road bikes have been whispering their slutty come hithers to me as well. Is it so wrong to want to ride the shit out of some potentially dangerous robot bike and then sell it every year to a square/rube/lawyer so I could (maybe) get another year's flawless porno ride from a throw away blow-up doll of a machine?

It's wrong, huh? I know it. I cannot condone a bike that requires a _ucking sticker to protect the downtube from "impacts" (like, uh, gravel?) in order to not crack and shear.
But. They ride so nice. Brief, but niiiice.

Whatever. That is back seat to the call of the fatbike, and this is all academic for now.

here's something relevant

Uma Kleppinger has some good things going on...



I polish my rivets by dint of hard pedaling.



The seat of my pants is shining like aluminum foil.

*integration NOT segregation

Full Harvest Moon was a definite winner. Clear and promising as it started out, cloud cover came in strong. It must have been all that it's cracked up to be to give as much light as it did through those clouds. We just had more time to stand around drinking beers while waiting for holes. Blessed moonlight riding. Lots of giggling as unexpected sand pits grab your front wheel and wrench it sideways or pitch you into a new angled drift. Sit back, relax and let the front end ride because the trail is what it is and you can't judge, only ride. Thank you Sir, may I have another?

Here is a picture of the fancyish King Cage gadget I mentioned. A top cap bottle mount...




You probably can't tell, but REV DICK is stamped on there. I started with the E, because that would be center and a good starting point, but I stamped it backwards and had to correct it. Which only makes it perfect. I was a little in the bag at the time.


I spent some of today realigning the Kampe Monkey back into it's camping style. Taking the suspension off. Hanging derailleurs, swapping the On One Midge (not a fan, they are too effing narrow on top) bars out for the 48cm(!) Nitto Noodles (we especially love them). Etc.


I think a little overnight down to Prewitt via Indians is in order this week. Wed-Thurs. Who's with me?

All these opportunities come crashing down

image courtesy of Golden Age Comic Book Stories!


If you have the chance to kick ass, do you take it?

Or, are you too busy or tired or "stressed" (gag)? Or, uh, lame?

Sometimes things overtake us and we can't participate. Sometimes. Other times we just can't be bothered. And that is weak.

Anyone within sight of this sentence who does not ride Telluride-Durango (date tba) pre SSWC09 is a sucker mother_ucker. Full stop. Except C_____ B____, who gets a pass for his priors and for Willingness.

That rant behind us, I seized the shit out of some opportunity this weekend. L___ and A_____ (family friend) organized a camp out at Pfieffer-Big Sur Campground for Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I rode down after work (L___'s idea!) to meet them. I had enough light/time to turn off HWY1 at Bixby Bridge and take Old Coast Road. Old Coast Road is a kickass gravel option taking the Redwooded hollers to skip the ocean watching driver's of tourist RVs and the wind at Hurricane Point, and to add several hundred extra feet of gain. (Give Thanks for the clearance to run 32mm speedy road tyres.) It was fun. It dumps you back onto the highway at Andrew Molera State Park, and it was about 4 miles further to a cold beer at the campsite. Roughly 30 miles all told.I rolled up and my wife (is better than your wife) handed me an ice cold Hamm's before I could even take off my chamois.

It may not be Jager bombs with classy SoCal in San Diego, but it is almost as good.Water balloon fights ensued. Beer was drunk. Children made lots of noise. The kids had spent the day at the swimmin holes (well) above the campsite, and were charged. 3 families+ guests= 7 kids.

Sunday morning saw me up and on the road by 8am in order to make it to work by11am. The family stayed to party in the streams. I was just congratulating myself on being "wise" and not taking Old Coast Road on the return trip since it would add so much climbing/time when the headwind hit me. Granny ring crawl for any hill, and little ring only for the next 45 minutes, as the wind brutally shifted direction and intensity with no mercy or opportunity to establish a rhythm. Now, y'all know how I feel about that. All I could do was pedal and mentally kick myself for feeling so "strong" on the way down, when it had been the tailwind sneaking me the extra push while I just believed. For real- the wind at the Western edge of this continent is silly.
Rolled up to home at 10:04am, took a shower, switched to the townie, and rode to work.



I am tired. Opportunity took, Bicthes. I would not have been able to do this were it not for the awesome support and encouragement. By encouragement, I am talking about my sweetie telling me to do it. I would have most likely poo-pooed the idea on account of _________ (insert lame excuse most likely involving timing). It is so easy to get caught up in my little head and lose sight of what is around me and available to me. I am telling you now: packing some extra adventure into your life is within your grasp. Get some.

here I sit, broken-hearted

Broken legged would be more to the point. As in crumbled, reduced, spent and achey.

photo...

Fixed crosscheck sneak towards Fort Ord. In and around, taking 50 up and down on both ends with Little Jewford (we did not find Velocache #16; though not for lack of trying- including acting like idiots and riding down the corkscrew- just for lack of paying attention to the photos...) and then solo back South Boundary to up and over back road style.

Not alot of stopping, just riding. Training. I got Mineral King on the brain. For those on the fence...GO!

shoot his right profile

So D_____ is watching all my old westerns. I found out about this when I walked into the "playroom" (the drywalled and carpeted garage, half of which is kid play and half bike room for papa play) and he was watching Red River.

"Are you watching Red River?", I said.
"Yeah.", said the boy.
"Why?", I said. Now, this is not as foolish a question as it may appear- because how did he know about Red River? and it is in black and white, and there're no spaceship chases or lasers or flying wizards or animated whatevers, etc. It is a kickass western from 1948! Howard Hawks' 1st western starring John Wayne, Montgomery Clift (in his 1st movie role), Walter Brennan...
"Because it's cool.", said the boy.

And that was true.

He has since watched The Searchers (my personal favorite, and which I warned him was sad and which he later thought was "not so sad. Everbody dies though. And those indians were not very nice.") and True Grit ( he said he recognized the guy who played Rooster Cogburn), but The Cowboys is out of it's case and presumed lost. He will be starting on Hang 'em High, A Fistful of Dollars, etc. soon.

That's one apple that landed pretty close.

...sometimes you are the bug

So hey, I have the worst saddle sores I've ever experienced! Yes, it is incredible. I should say they are incredible. Last week I wore my sh___y Voler team shorts (allright, so they're Voler and they're 4 years old...) on the long fixed cyclocross jaunt out to Fort Ord and the reward was the beginning of my current triumvirate of sores. My own private feifdom of abscessive discomfort. 2 have merged to form 1, which is actually the smaller of the remaining duo- the other is swollen and throbby.

I applied tea tree oil to my crotch (refreshing!) and laid off the riding for several days, but Sunday's commute caused a resurgence, and yestiday night I went for a sneaky night ride with a buddy in from out of town (how are you not gonna do that?) which was short and in plainclothes, but really brought the situation to a head. So to speak.

This morning it was lancing. That's hard to do: there's stuff in the way; and it's a weird angle; hard to see what's going on; and honestly, who feels comfortable wielding needles around such? I hope this gets better quick now that I've, uh, opened up? come clean? Because going to see a doctor about this is not so appealing.

Crap.