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.

practical considerations must finally outweigh sentiment

I'm not gonna worry wrinkles in my brow,
'Cause nothing's ever gonna be all right no how.



Christopher St. John and his posse have put the final nail in my off-road-by-bicycle coffin with their cruelly vindictive Aptos High race course. Them, and the (latest) tipsy night ride last Friday aboard the bucking (read: rigid) crossbike.

I got the tennis elbow real bad. This has been onsetting since August. I've been mostly very stupid. I kept pushing the riding and the bodywork and the wrenching (these activities obviously require a lot of hands on.)- piling a night ride on top of a shift doing massage, repeatedly. I piled a bunch of trail work (clipping and sawing) on top of that. One of these days I would give it a rest....

I have hit my bottom. I can't shake hands on this, because it hurts in a burning and unsettling way, but I am lying here looking up and wondering the usual. Where did it all go wrong? Why me? If I could transfer this injury to someone else by force of will, which of my "friends" would suffer?

This is no great shakes in the long run, or the Grand Scheme of Things, or to anyone anonymously reading a crappy weblog...but what the hell do I do with myself now? Pretty much all I like to do is ride bikes and drink beer and this elbow is needed for both.

Look for me one armed on the road and lying under the taps at Alfredo's I guess.