1) When people call their bike a "whip."
2) When the stem and handlebars are referred to as the "cockpit."
3) When people ride track bikes with flip-flops on. DON'T YOU LIKE HAVING TOES?!?!?!?
4) The term "fixie."
5) That Bicycling Magazine puts bikes that cost more than $1500 in their "new riders" review bikes.
6) Single speed mountain bikes.
7) Guys racing Grand Tours to warm up for Worlds. Guys pulling out of Grand Tours to save themselves for Worlds.
8) Race radios.
9) Cyclo-computers.
10) Not having enough money to buy more bikes.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Salvation
Is there a place called Salvation? And can I ride to it? How far? Century? Double Century? Or a wheel-spinning millennium?
How many saddle sores do I need to get in, and how much lactic acid do I need to be carrying? Is it uphill all the way? Is there a headwind? Will someone pace me? Will the echelons string across road like accordions of mercy and deliver me, just as a hole develops in the heel of my old wool socks?
Will the Earth spin under my wheels, and will all the trees blur into one, tall green spire? Will my chain run dry and my cables stretch thin, on my way to Salvation?
Can you even get there on a carbon fiber horse? I'd best run steel. To be safe.
The sweat soaks all the way out the brim of my cap and the lycra lets hold its grip. The road turns up and disappears, asymptotic in the distance. There's a rasp in my chest and a creaking in my bars, and I used my last spare tube hours ago. It doesn't matter, because the side walls of these thins tires are nearly gone. I've gone sallow in the cheeks, almost gray. I blend into the winter-bleached asphalt, pebbly and rough. And cars swish by, oblivious, the radio on too loud.
I'm near Salvation now. I know I am, but how much further?
How much further?
How many saddle sores do I need to get in, and how much lactic acid do I need to be carrying? Is it uphill all the way? Is there a headwind? Will someone pace me? Will the echelons string across road like accordions of mercy and deliver me, just as a hole develops in the heel of my old wool socks?
Will the Earth spin under my wheels, and will all the trees blur into one, tall green spire? Will my chain run dry and my cables stretch thin, on my way to Salvation?
Can you even get there on a carbon fiber horse? I'd best run steel. To be safe.
The sweat soaks all the way out the brim of my cap and the lycra lets hold its grip. The road turns up and disappears, asymptotic in the distance. There's a rasp in my chest and a creaking in my bars, and I used my last spare tube hours ago. It doesn't matter, because the side walls of these thins tires are nearly gone. I've gone sallow in the cheeks, almost gray. I blend into the winter-bleached asphalt, pebbly and rough. And cars swish by, oblivious, the radio on too loud.
I'm near Salvation now. I know I am, but how much further?
How much further?
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Friday Video - Julien Dupont
This dude is really a very serious mother fucker. I don't even give half a shit that he ain't pedalin'.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Something I love about bicycles - Part VII
Headhunters.
A headhunter is a special kind of commuter, the kind that is very, very competitive, seeking to pass the maximum number of riders during his or her daily commute. It doesn't matter whether the headhunter lives a mile from the office or twenty. Each day they set out to destroy the competition, the college kids on their rusty, old ten-speeds, the mountain bikers riding two inch knobbies on the pavement, the department store bikes and the carbon fiber dreams. The headhunter merely wishes to pass. To pass is to win.
I have been a headhunter. I have vanquished old women with baskets full of flowers. I have derived smug pleasure from passing a lycra-clad roadie and from burning past kids on freestyle BMX bikes. I don't know why. I don't know what I was hoping to accomplish or what I was proving about myself. I've certainly let all that go now.
But I love the headhunter still, even if I put up a little resistance as he tries to pass.
A headhunter is a special kind of commuter, the kind that is very, very competitive, seeking to pass the maximum number of riders during his or her daily commute. It doesn't matter whether the headhunter lives a mile from the office or twenty. Each day they set out to destroy the competition, the college kids on their rusty, old ten-speeds, the mountain bikers riding two inch knobbies on the pavement, the department store bikes and the carbon fiber dreams. The headhunter merely wishes to pass. To pass is to win.
I have been a headhunter. I have vanquished old women with baskets full of flowers. I have derived smug pleasure from passing a lycra-clad roadie and from burning past kids on freestyle BMX bikes. I don't know why. I don't know what I was hoping to accomplish or what I was proving about myself. I've certainly let all that go now.
But I love the headhunter still, even if I put up a little resistance as he tries to pass.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Something I love about bicycles - Part VI
CRASHING!?!!?!!??!!?
Crashing hurts. The older I get the more it hurts. And because I've been riding a long time, my crashes happen quickly. I don't find myself in slow-motion, "oh-no-what's-going-to-happen?" crashes. I'm riding, and then I'm down. And bleeding.
A good crash reminds me I'm alive. A good crash pegs back my more aggressive tendencies and keeps me safe for months.
Some crashes are funny and help me take myself less seriously. Some crashes put me out of commission for a while, which gives my body a chance to recover, not just from the crash, but also from the daily pounding I give it.
Crashes win you sympathy. And scars.
A crash teaches you where the edges of things are, where you stop and the asphalt starts.
Crashing hurts. The older I get the more it hurts. And because I've been riding a long time, my crashes happen quickly. I don't find myself in slow-motion, "oh-no-what's-going-to-happen?" crashes. I'm riding, and then I'm down. And bleeding.
A good crash reminds me I'm alive. A good crash pegs back my more aggressive tendencies and keeps me safe for months.
Some crashes are funny and help me take myself less seriously. Some crashes put me out of commission for a while, which gives my body a chance to recover, not just from the crash, but also from the daily pounding I give it.
Crashes win you sympathy. And scars.
A crash teaches you where the edges of things are, where you stop and the asphalt starts.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Something I love about bicycles - Part V
I love joggers. Where I ride in the summertime, part of my route anyway, runs up through a park that ribbons along a river, and this particular stretch of urban parkery attracts myriad joggers, many of them college-aged women. And what amuses me about them, other than the obvious gift of youthful svelteness, is their preference for a certain genre of aggressively sloganed t-shirts.
These are shirts that say things like: "No pain, no gain," "Don't mess with me," "Pain is weakness leaving the body," "Only the strong survive," "If you're gonna beat me you better RUN!," etc, etc, etc. They're so earnest, so positive, so playfully A-personality deranged.
I haven't the heart to tell them they'd be faster on a bike.
These are shirts that say things like: "No pain, no gain," "Don't mess with me," "Pain is weakness leaving the body," "Only the strong survive," "If you're gonna beat me you better RUN!," etc, etc, etc. They're so earnest, so positive, so playfully A-personality deranged.
I haven't the heart to tell them they'd be faster on a bike.
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