so it's official - cyclocross is the new triathlon ??

so, it wasn't enuf when they started the cyclocross season in summer - now they are cancelled because of rain. uhhhhhh, yeah.

here is an idea, everybody get back on one of these here style bikes for 'cross for a while again, and see how it goes. if we get back to 'cross racing in summer and/or magnesium brakes stopping CF wheels in the 4/5 races we are gonna go back to the 1982 univega touring bikes again like we rode back in the day 'till we get it right, 'kay ??

triathletes out-gnarling 'cross racers. i never thought i'd see the day.

poetry on the wheel

so much depends
upon
a crap can-
nondale

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chicken.

back in the crazy melee that inexplicably passsed for hi-skool-education in the mid-70's, i had one of those english teachers who was cool. he turned us on to authors such as kerouac, and richard brautigan ( if you have'nt read brautigan, for fuck's sake go do so !! ). he had kids over to his super-cool apt on weekends for all the things you can imagine. . . . . and for that i am certain he would be thrown in jail today; but he was alright. as i recall, we may have wasted a week of time studying the actual version of this william carlos W. poem. they just do not make hi-skool english teachers like that anymore. maybe for the better, but it is a cool ass poem just the same, and one i am gonna take as my motivation to kick off my re-launch from the doldrums of 09 into which i find myself. rock&roll.

i will buy ya smoothie at the muddy cup at iola 2010 if ya know the original poem without cheating.

don't mind me

we did not go see the leadville movie last nite. i believe i am the only person who likes to pretend to be a bike rider who is finds the leadville 100 completely uninspiring. mind you, i have never been there. and of course i am certain that its grandeur and epicness is the grandest and most epic-est that ever was, and ever shall be. etc etc.

but, an out&back on bleak-ass rocky roads in the middle of noplace ?? i must say, i don't get it. and, i am not a complete stranger to doing stupid things just see what they are like . . . a series of do-one-and-be-done kinda deals . . . a marathon, an ironman triathlon, a 24 hr solo singlespeed race, and so forth. i did once meet a couple runner guys who had done the run thing there, and i admired their honesty when they reported that the race actually did suck, and was in actuality from its inception a bit of a stunt to get money into the dinky little town, and in truth nobody is sure why it took off like it did. i dunno, and by all means like i say don't mind me.

i would love to do the creampuff 100 someday, tho. THAT sounds like a cool race to me.

everything is gonna be OK

i nabbed a sweet guvmint-conspiracy h1n1 nanobot mind-contolling injection for myself today. the way things have been going it can't hurt.

parts-bin rat-bike in progress

the cold dark wet roads, and first snowflakes got me to notice i don't have a ride fit for those conditions. i mean i got the fixie, but wanted something to go ride in the crap up hills and stuff. couple options existing in the lab . . . . i hope a ridable bike emerges from this obviously high-precision operation.

rocky V

after a prolonged hiatus, i decided this AM to find the comeback trail yet again. this should be interesting.

i made immediate progress, tho !! i identified a device in the studio as bearing a remarkable similarity to this "bicycle". they say you never forget how. giddy-up.

resurrection on the wheel

allow me to introduce a close member of the family, and recent recipient of a very nice Resurrection from the dead ( only the second guy to get that sweet deal for himself in history that i am aware of ), scootie.

scootie is, externally and/or in this plane of existence, a 1962 honda 50cc step-thru. but he is much much more than that. he is a person or persona of a nature perhaps beyond human understanding. he came to me in the murky and vague period of the mid 70's. the specifics of how, and the details of legal title and so forth are shrouded in the twists of the quantum warp of the fabric of the universe which accompanies scootie, and in which he trully resides. one does not "own" scootie. he simply is by you, or he is not.

for the past 10 years, scootie was in my garage, inert and inactive to our perceptions. previous to that, he was in my brother's dank basement for perhaps 8 years or so in a similar state. prior to those spells and while awake, he was the coolest pit-bike in the world at venues such as road america, road atlanta, mid ohio, watkins glen and so forth, where he enjoyed being a star in the sports car racing world . . . before that he hung around the early years of the skateboard world. he is omni-talented.

this past weekend, as a way to avoid doing any actual work as gretchen and i cleaned the garage, nicky decided to start scootie up. 20 years of not running at all - just start him up. ummmm, yeah, ok nicky - you do that.

a splash of new gas, some fiddling with the carb ( which he knows nothing about ), and a few healthy pushes up&down the alley later . . . . . . . . . and scootie decided to awake. 20 years of quiet slumber, suddenly scootie deemed nicky worthy and putt putt putt putt - off he goes. since then we have actually cleaned the carb, and have been running a mysterious gas additive known as "sea-foam" thru him and scootie is ripping around like it is the pre-beatles days from which he came.

scootie rules. as does nicky.

now i need to go tell the friendly DMV guys to dig around in the basement someplace to find the title that hasn't been active since 1976 or so, and nicky will have the coolest commuter to ever exist in this most unworthyworld underneath him, come next spring when he gets his license. in the meantime, i need to ask scootie who was cooler to hang out with, jesus or elvis, or maybe hemingway or perhaps . . . . .well i dunno, i'll let you know.