this is me being patient

People come in to the bike shop and they ask questions. I encourage this practice. We've all been to the shop that's too nice to talk to and, frankly, it sucks. Lots of PRO egos running around in amateur bodies. I try to be welcoming without seeming (or being) insincere. It really gets under my skin when people ask me questions and then interrupt before I can get through my answer. It's not that they see the end of the sentence coming, either- it's that they don't give a shit what I'm saying. Which is fine, but then why ask the question at all in that case?

This happened several times today, multiply and with different customers.

Also, if you are a team rider sponsored by a shop, you should come in respectfully and politely. !!You are NOT a retail customer!! You should be aware of this, and behave accordingly. Any interactions with you will be immediately dropped if a paying customer comes in. Your needs are secondary at best. You do not merit special attention, much less special treatment and I don't care even a little bit that you were "riding with Levi" the other day. Taking a bike off the sales floor for a 45minute "demo" is well past unacceptable, it is flabbergastingly beyond the pale.

Your part in the arrangement is representing the shop as a positive ambassador, hopefully contributing to the shop culture and ideally bringing more business. Your part is not to suck the staff's time and labor along with grubbing for every deal you can get while throwing around a PRO vibe that makes you look like a cunt and the shop like it supports cunts.

Furthermo- oh. Yes, please continue with what you were saying.

HORROR! SHAME! DESPAIR!

Well, maybe for some. I guess my higher-ups shoulda listened to my idears when they had the chance...cuz now it looks like someone else took that ball and ran with it. I will be setting up a table and settling in for some wheeling and dealing for sure. I got a lot of bicycle treasures with which I can part. And I know some of y'all have some stuff I don't yet know I must have. Who's hoarding the C-Record Delta brakes????

Oh. There's a new bike shop in town.











And, speaking of flyers and folks who should listen, FORA are a bunch of assholes:

Yeah, yeah. If you want a clearer view go to their hive and poke around. My point is that this is bullshit and if they think they can catch someone (not me) who is HOTTT like me (but is not me) let em try. Those trails have been cleared and used for as long as I've been paying attention here (~10 years) and closing them smacks of money grubbing, ass grabbing, land grabbery, and potential skull duggery. Aside from the several year stint when they were overlain with detritus from the fucking bulldozing, Happy Trails have been just that. Happy. This is an attempt to force unHappiness on the people (the people the people people the people, the people people from everywhere watching the show) and it is not Right. Fuck tha po-lice.




UNITY!




And, plus while I'm on the rant tip, I rode your little PIPELINE- MOUNTAIN BIKERS ONLY  trail over there in Toro Park. Much as it pains me to talk shit about a trail on which clearly were labored many hours: it sucked.

Y'all need to learn how to flow. Full stop.

Drive?!?! over (20 minutes minimum) there and spend 45 minutes climbing (actually quite pleasant) only to dump all that effort on riding the brakes down some poorly routed fall line drainage broken with occasional off-camber/washed-out obstacles? Hell no.

warnung warnung

Yo. Friday Night SS Ride is on (again) like Donkey Kong. In order to keep it fast and loose, below radar, and fressssh the meet up shall be:
7:30PM
San Carlos Cemetery...the Northeast corner has a perfectly situated bench for ____king and stuff.

Don't kid yourself. Route(s) to be determined on a ride by ride basis. Bring: your big boy/girl pants, a bike with lights if you got em and repair stuff, a good attitude, a list of grievances, and this paddle game, and that's all you need.

cul8tr

I don't check for fools

None of this will make any sense at all at all unless you are hearing Ali Farka Toure...



It is a rare event that the Full Moon is clear here on the central coast. I'm sorry: I buggged you repeatedly/ you were "on Maui"/ 12 times a year (only, and, if you're lucky) is no reason for exciting involvement/ etc. Bottom line? Too bad you blew it.

Yeah, you.

When visibility is so crisp, contrast so sharp, you almost lose control from the sheer immediacy of moonlight...that's a ride worth taking. Sanitized Local Loop- allowing for time constraints and low level fitness- rounds out 29.6 miles, but it feels more like 29.8. All aboard? Solo night ride.

Who put the Tecate under the caprock? Who left the Hamm's? Baw bawbubaw. De dong de dong ding dang...

no more games

Reason #6 to take your sweeties camping when you go is:

the bugs will like them (and their sweet sweet blood) better than stinky old you.

creating a disturbance in your mind

First, a great big HELLO (welcome!) to those of y'all that found this site (at, say for example, 6am) by searching for "big black asses smut pictures" or "how to ride your man if you're fat". I feel better than ever about the internet in general, and strangers in particular.

Secondly,



That there is information you can use. It is packed so full. The style tips alone are gold.

Lastly, we rode some bikes on some trails and then a long hot way on roads (punctuated by stops under bridges to cool our feets and drink our beerses) only to end up on more trails leading to a campout site. That is called "having a Good Time." It was the usual Summer retreat- no pictures cuz I have left my phone at work and I'm not going back in til I have to.

If you were not there, you were square.

And, if you are nominated as Dummy of the Year (again) you know it's because you are not doing this type of thing. Sorry the Truth hurts. For really reals.

I came away from this 90-odd miles in 2 very odd days with some new thoughts. The next time I take the kids out there we are bringing (in addition to a rope swang) several balsa wood gliders, a lighter, 3 BB guns.

Tragedy

It has been brought to my attention that the Interbike is to be held in September, such that it would conflict with the White Rim Overnight. Being as how that ride kinda sorta has to be coincidental with the Full Harvest Moon.


Maybe we can reschedule for the Full Beaver Moon, on November 10th? Or something?





And, plus this Tour day France is exciting! I have been to the mountain and come back jaded, but Thor(!) and my little Frenchman T. Voeckler are really turning 2011 into some believable fun. Hot bike on bike action and all that.

near professional skill

I am loving to hate Rivendell Bicycle Works at this time. You may join me if you lik. Now, ordinarily, I'd say they design some well-thought-out bicycle related items. But I am currently packing my ish for a 4 day trip via a bicycle, and my baggage (Rivendell made) is failing me. My panniers are at the seamstress' having their blown out seams (yes, multiple.) repaired. Those panniers have seen several years of hard use and seen it well, but now they are blown out and I can't use them. So I hate Rivendell.

More relevant to right now, is the continuing blow out of my handlebar bag. Look:

The upper fasteners there are rivets that I had previously used to fix the blown out factory rivets, which you can see as the lowers (which have recently blown). The other side, upper and lower, was blown a while ago and I "fixed" it with rivets. That's "fixed" because my rivets (yes, I used washers inside and out to share the load) have pulled through also. And being how I am, I cussed the bag and put it on the bench to repair it after the last trip...only to forget to do anything with it until I needed it.

I realize my fault in this, and that a last minute scramble on my part does not an emergency for Rivendell make, but dang. The little knobs on my quick release leather closure straps for the seat bag have vibrated loose/off as well. Lost and gone, and try to find that small brass part at a hardware store. Plus that bag ripped at both corners within a week of purchase.


Bags made for cycling ought to hold up to some actual use. I'm left feeling that Rivendell's products are made for toting your iPad and smoked salmon to the yoga studio. Let's face it: real life is rough. Scrappy. A tad wall-eyed. It falls down.


Anyways, I actually "fixed" that damned handle bar bag this time. I used the left over aluminum spacers from my useful (and designed for beer drinking and hell raising) Surly rack. I cut the 3rd hole off, filed the edges, and presto! it's a backing plate for some nuts to bolts linkage.



Thanks, Surly!


Now my shade tree workers co-operative fairy dust will not blow out my bag?





Some foodstuffs.

I gotta go pack the rest. 4 days in Henry Coe. Bikes. Ticks. Swimming holes.


Nobody break in here while I'm out there.

I TOLD you cha cha heels!

Lay off me! I hate you! ____ you, ____ you both, you awful people! You're not my parents! I hate you I hate this house I hate the interweb!






My favorite part is the mother lying under the tree crying. John Waters is a genius and he's captured just how I feel about you people.

In unrelated developments, you know that one thing I was talking about? Well I went out there, under cover of darkness, and climbed up on my bike and used a wrench and my height to my advantage. It was at least 30 solid minutes of standing on my saddle on one leg and then the other, switching hands and grunting...but I got it. Problem was, I had no means of carrying it so I did how we do and hid it in the bushes.

This was Friday evening, you understand, the day none of y'all could be bothered to ride under some moonlight. Yeah, I heard what you said. Whatever. 75% full is 100% full enough for FUN. Full stop.

Anyhow, and so, I had a go back up there today to fetch it. This is because a) the bushes are only so secure, and 2) I had a big pack into which I could stuff it. I had a big pack because it was necessary to carry all my junk for a s240 (that's computer/bike dork code for Sub24hourOvernight, where you ride out and camp real quick).



Why, yes, it did rain like hell for what seemed like all night.



Mr.S and Mr.Y went along. Because Mr. Y is a giant weenie, and hasn't ridden in a month, his "hematoma" was giving him the business to the tune of get off our bikes right in the middle of the climb and camp right then and there. This turned out to be such a disguised blessing on account of how the rain began in earnest just as we were finishing putting up tents. Really, for real, it was frantic attaching of guy lines to bikes and Manzanita in the wet. This proved to be such an undisguised bitch for me, as I dragged my tent right into a slight dip in order to anchor it.



You can guess how that went.





So, yes, I did get soaked but the bright side is that it was only on the bottom of my bag and so just that and the seat of my pants/underwear were truly sopping. And, plus, I had managed to leave my sleeping pad right on the floor at home so I saved weight and effort and got to use my jacket and empty pack for "padding"!



Literally. Right in the trail.


Orange.



Mr Y. Mr Highanddry. Mr 7lbthickashellsleepingpad. Mr. We'recampinghere.

We had been gonna ride out here:

and camp. So after parting ways with Mr. Allthosethingswhohadtogettowork, Mr S and I completed that portion of the schedule.


8:30 AM.




These are the trips that make everything worthwhile. I use them to refine gear selection, to really drive home what it is important to not forget, and to study (at length and in depth) how a solid 6 hours of torrential rain will affect my drive train. On this last, I can definitively say: it's not a good idea to rinse your chain overnight in driving rain and then to further ride it around sandy trails. Who knew? Also, a bottle of lube is a fine and potentially very necessary addition to your kit when going out for the team. Finally, a chain tool is a tool which cannot be improvised. Pack it. Every time. Dummy.


Nice girls don't wear cha cha heels. I noticed the clicking and chalked it up to a bone dry chain. At the bottom of that sweet singletrack I looked closely and saw a link coming apart. I decided to post up at the intersection and make some more coffee and see if anyone showed who was not a fool and who did have a chain tool. While waiting, I used the pocket knife/wrench combo to punch the pin back in place. This worked, but was never going to hold.

The 1st guy who blew through the turn without even glancing my way (yep. Standing there waving, next to a bike minus it's rear wheel and all.) was a road guy I recognized. This behavior seems in keeping with what I have seen from him in the past. He had headphones on, and did not hear me hollering until I upped the volume significantly. No chain tool. Then his buddy rolled up, also wearing headphones, and also without a chain tool. The guy in third was devoid as well.

The next crew to come by was some guys in Yellow Jackets of Authority; one of whom had a bar bag full of empty candy wrappers, one guy had his helmet at a jaunty angle, but the 3rd had a chain tool! He swung off his mighty hybrid, lowered the kickstand with a firm snap, and came to my rescue. Sweet, sweet chain tool.

Done. More riding up and up and then back and across. I thought about taking the road back in and babying the chain, but the trails were just too inviting. Ran into Old T___, and rolled around with him, back through CSide(!), got some lube from Joselyn's (what a difference) and then back to part ways at Huckleberry. What a glorious day.

Little trips like this are The Way. To be prepared for larger adventures when they come calling. To get some little adventures in your day to day.


Not on Christmas. Not on Christmas.

this blog poses a choking hazard

...so don't swallow the naughty bits.




This shall serve as a reminder to all y'all intuders that the 5th Annual Running Of The Drunks known as the Sleaze Otter is happening this coming Saturday, April 16th. The weather is a GO! If rumors of course routing are true, this year looks to really shake things up compared to years past...75% dirt options? Road available at all times should you be limited by knowledge or bike choice. And, plus the Full Pink Moon has been graciously coordinated for the following night, so you know it will be a good time.

I'll post the flyer as soon as the degenerates "in charge" send me one...

Don't get caught napping with your pants down and miss this.



As an aside, in the interest of medical science, please note: if you have broken (or possibly just dislocated) several ribs and they begin to feel so much better in such a short amount of time (a week? seriously? they can't be broken) DO NOT POKE AT THEM to "see" about them. Honestly. That's a terrible idea. You will hear and feel a click, and then there will be the return of pain. Trust me.

straight out a Monterey

Sorry.


Truly.
Sorry. But* that's how it's done here on the peninsula of the newly weds and nearly deads.





*can one of y'all smart computer users let me in on how I can make stuff play whether you like it or not? Please? I'd like to be able to cram this down your ear. Only, because I just have this sneaking suspicion folks are skipping the smooooooth music. That's terrible!