suffering vs pain

bike racing is a sport of glory, exhiliration, thrill, skill and daring - but mostly about suffering. if you are not suffering, you are not bike racing. skateboarding, has all the good stuff too, but instead of suffering, skateboarding substitutes outright pain as its constant. if you are skating, you are in pain - it is not an avoidable thing. witness, for example, this small feature pictured above, known as a "euro-gap". the idea is you pop your board either up or down off this little gap at the top of an incline, adding fun and difficulty . . maybe slip a fancy little extra trick into the opping of the board and so on. today, i was gonna get a pic of nicky going into the giant foam pit. problem being, the launch ramp into th foam pit is very steep, and 2 srories high - so, i was trying to match his speed with my own for a clear shot, ya know? i was pumping downwards 2 levels of the park after dropping in and i . . . forgot . . . the euro gap was on the last little decline. i went off the gap going fast, looking the otherway. my board stopped, but i proceeded downwards and forwards. i met the ground very quickly indeed !! that hurt. but, it is aslo skateboarding . . . . writh around a bit and walk it off is the preferred post-bail action. hello, pain.


slightly shaken after that, the best i could was this lame pic of nicky on his way into the foam pit after a a sweet grab. the ceiling above him is plastered in stickers, from him and guys before him. foam pits are cool.


on a brighter note - there is a bird's nest right outside our office door. the eggs hatched yesterday, and here are the little birdies taking a nap - or maybe closing their eyes from an electronic flass 2 inches from their little baby birdie eyeballs. hope i didn't blind the little guys.

sick ?? this where you will find the nurse. the bowl- brand new!! - sweetness !!






the kids can do all that flippy and railslide bizness on this stuff. the park is super-modern-sophisticated in that everybody can ride most everything and have fun, like a modern mtn bike trail. too cool.

making it look easy

to the untrained eye, it may appear that being medically responsible for the well being of 250 hi-performance gymnasts and skateboarders is easier than it sounds - such as pictured here. the truth of course, is that we are just that good. it is a living hell - - - - - - - really.

camp ride

miles and miles of this:


traffic was heavy:
digs for the week:

the quiver - well part of it . .

i am not much on regrets, but one is this: i wish to god i'd have held onto every skatedeck i ever owned. an original fibreglas z-flex, my powell/peralta beamer. . .etc etc worst part is i dunno what even happened to most of them. . . damn.

anyway, nicky and i am getting ready to head off for one of favorites weeks of the summer - CAMP !! i think i briefly mentioned the place in the early months of the blog. we have been going for around 8 years. i am camp nurse with one other poor sucker ( 250 gymnsatics and skaters killing it 8-10 hours will lead to a lot of injury ). we do it because we love these young people. we often sleep like 3-4 hrs a nite on average. we deal with all the usual camp stuff like bee stings, swimmers itch, hoemsickness, puking from eating nerd-ropes all day . . . . . but with the added trauma that comes from 13 foot vert ramps, and national ( and even olympic )-level gymastics, which quite frankly have to be seen up close to be believed. also. we deal with comple wack-job parents that leave us and the hosp staff astounded in their ( near lack of ) parenting approach to their young "protoges". the camp itself is beyond professional. it is an amazingly smooth and positive environment - staffed largely by younger college age kids that give me great hope for the future and are great fun to be around, headed by the most can-do adults i have ever worked with. tho i am very near dead when we leave, i still miss the place and its energy.

but i digress - and more importantly i do get to skate and the skating is very very good indeed. here we see my quiver, in various states of readiness. this is not a trifling quiver of decks my friends, no indeed. in cycling terms any one of these sticks could hold its own with a pegoretti. so then: left-to-right:

1. duane peters model from beer city, his best ever ( yes, in milw ). duane's nickname is the Master of Disaster. he was and is the baddest ass skater who ever lived. tho his era was a bit past mine, his influence and energy and attitude are undeniable in popular culture even today in so many area's, for which he receives nothing. without duane peters, freestyle motocross would have ended with evel kneivel, for example

2. original santa monica airlines longboard, from the man skip engblom himself. you are not gonna find one these, anyplace. if ya don't know who engblom is, go watch the z-boys movies, skip was the founder and soul of the youthful z-boys, who invented action sports. it is the coolest longboard ever made and ever will be. perfect for cruising camp - gotta get the big 70mm 78 duro krypto' wheels on there.

3. later alva pool deck - after TA obtained his company back for himself. if ya look careful, you can see he signed if for me. it really belongs on a wall.

4. my custom designed and built factory 13. this thing kicks ass. it is everthing - long old-scool wheelbase, narrow thin light chassis, takes modern low/fast-turning trucks . . . . it'll go anyplace. plus, do yourself a huge internet favor and go bump around the facory 13 website, this guy is one of us. if it is not the coolest websites you see this week i'll buy ya cup of coffee at the cup. or, i may decide to have nicky kick you shins for being such an idiot and/or liar - we would be doing you favour either way, so you are welcome.

gentlemen racing.

bike racing is a funny thing, ya have good years, bad years, you are perhaps planning to kill it but life gets in the way, and then years where for some reason you are just flying. persoanlly, my my ratio is about 1 decent year outta every five. luckily for me, next year is number five . . . . . .

in the meantime, however, i find myself enjoying the season immensely. mostly because i am now 2-for-2 on railing around two superfine race venues wheel-to-wheel with russell, much like we see in the gentlmen road racers pictured above. a different era obviuously, but like many things in life it is but a state of mind. note the classy machine, no quarter is ever asked for, buit it is often given anyway. the civilized manner in which man and machine react in harmony with each other and the racing cicuit. limits are reached, pushed, but never past the point of undude risk to any of the above. perhaps past what is resonable engine/body wise, but in our cases that will heal with the nearest brawurst, by and large

respect, competition, appreciation of one's rivals who are also great friends, mutual improvement, and appe\riciation a beautiful and terribly hard sport full of too many excellent people too mention anyway - all in all one the Better things in Life, lost largely to time - but still around if ya want it.

as arlo guthrie once said . . .

"i'm not proud"

this is what a 24 tooth endless cog looks like. i expect i will be seeing a lot more of it this weekend, as i walk along uphill with my sorry ass breathing the breath of ten thousand lungs, draped across my top tube. yee ha !!

tranquilo

with all that school stuff outta the way - and work easing into it's new system - time to ride !! only 3-4 months behind the Plan, but seein' as we made the Plan up to begin with . . . . . . we'll just go ahead and say starting riding in June is exactly what we had in mind.

easy miles thru the cherry blossoms. yeah we both are woefully outta shape, but with average scenery like this it could be worse.

"all you haters suck my balls"

i attended my first ever hi-skool graduation yesterday. i did not go to my own graduation - truth be told i am not sure they even gave us one. i sure wouldn't have, had i been them !! in my day ( and at my school ) the situation would have just as likely ended in somebody setting fire to place as anything. i suppose you could say that am not of the "kids of today are such a problem" school of thinking - the band of fook-ups, gypsies, criminals and worthless punks that made up any random group of youths i knew in the 1970's were indeed a greater threat to Society than the kids i know nowadays - as evidenced by the horrid mash-up of the world as we know it today. it alsways amuses me that the same people who will go on and on about "kids these days" are invariably the very same ones who gave us the screwed up world we live in . . . . . . as if the kids had anything to do with it !!

as it happens, i know quite a few Youth of Today, and at this particular gathering of them, my own daughter MK was throwing down hard. sitting there in the packed gymnasium, i sincerely doubt any other guy was in as sweet a spot as i found myself. MK was not only valedictorian, but also absolutely slayed the House as featured vocal soloist during the procedings ( far lower left ).




and indeed no other dad in the place had the experience of watching his kid stand up from the front spot in the class, stroll back to the choir, make people cry with her beautiful soulful singing, and then stride back up to the stage center with poise like michelle obama, to lay down a charming, humble, all inclusive and classy address to her peers ( no, she did not tell them to suck her balls . . . . ) anyway as for the other dads, it must suck to be them, because it flat out kicked ass to be me.

getting into their heads

there was a race last weekend, and it occurs to me that i am beholden to enter it into the blog. i sat it out, while antibiotics swirled amongst my unmentionable bits, ridding me of dis-ease. but, it is not as if i wasn't on the job !! as the defending comp SSer at this fine venue, i took it upon myself to strike fear and intimidation into my fellow competitor's souls. amy D captured me laying down a most viscious Vibe in the photo above. "fear this", indeed.

speaking of whom ( comp/open SSers ), the 09 season most-improved award has got to go to the raging mark burkholtz. holy fright that guy is flying. for god's sake even i beat him a time or two last year. but he is ripping legs off guys half his age and stuffing them down their throats this year. nice !!

also worthy of award at rhinelander was a guy i spiied along with rick W and russell. dude finishes his citizen race - rolls thru the chute - immediately wheels to a abrupt halt - vaults off his bike - and slams the KICKSTAND down with authority as if he is spiking the ball in the end zone during a superbowl. that guy ruled.

MK raced, but her lack of miles is catching up with her. she suffered and underwent a savage beatdown, which is what bike racing is all about.

if anybody has a right to be pissed at God, it's the loons

so, MK and i are lying in a fine state of Tranquilo on the pier at camp tesomas, before pre-riding the WORS race. we are watching a loon. it floats, takes a big ass breath, and disappears under the water for a minute or so, travelling 30 yards before popping back up to the surface. it does not appear to have caught any fish to eat, so it does it again, and again, etc. presumably, this is the loon's life. it seemed like a rather poor life, or perhaps a very sad Cosmic Joke on the poor loon - here he is, full of feathers, no fins, no gills, no hands to grasp with or anything and he has to try and eek out a life for himself from what he can out-swim on the bottom of a goddam lake . . . . how is bird supposed to outswim a fish, anyway . . . WTF ?? it would be like trying to catch fish while tarred&feathered with yer hands tied behind yer back.

if i were a loon, i would have to ask:

"tell me God, why exactly couldn't you have Created me in such a way that i could just eat fooking pinecones - like the ones i see sitting plain as day by the zillion on the ( dry ) shoreline over there ??"