Post Category → Cycling

Bullet Points

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I’m lacking time for my normal verbal diarrhea of a blog post, so I’m going all crap sales meeting Power Point presentation on you [not really] and doing it all with bullet points of random information nonsense. The only thing missing is a wig wearing sales director in a bad suit, bored as hell employees doodling sketches of him being chased by an angry bear with a knife and poor slide graphics (not designed by the in-house graphic artist, but instead downloaded from the web at 72 dpi and enlarged stretched to 900 dpi for that cool, “What the hell is that a graphic of?” look).

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Bad Ideas Turned Good

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As I mentioned the other day, my buddy at the shop lent me his Trek Farley* to ride for a few days and see what I thought. I did a lap on singletrack last Saturday and thought it felt a bit harsh compared to my Pugsley and made the pre-mature decision to shelve any ideas of considering one in the future. Then I got to thinking: whether I buy one or not, I think my assessment was a bit rash and not all that fair, given that while I have ridden my Pugsley on singletrack, I have only done so for 10-12 miles at a time to mix things up after I’ve done a “real” lap or two on my Superfly, or when conditions were shit.

I’ve love the Pugs in the snow and on the deep sand ORV trails, so I figured I should give the Farely another go before I return it this week, and ride it on surface that would be more akin to what I would actually use a fat bike on. The trouble is (thank God!), there is no snow on the ground and this week won’t really allow for me to head north to those ORV trails. So I had an idea– I would use the Farley for my dirt road ride today. Afterall, some of those roads are pretty sandy and pretty shit… It was a bad idea; sort of.

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Let’s Go!

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The ushering out of summer is done. Well, almost done. Now it’s on to fall and my Second Season.

The past few days have brought me nearly 60 miles of singletrack (twelve of which were on a borrowed fat bike). I have to say, for a big-boned, has-been, mid-pack racer type who enjoys beer a bit too much (and pizza, pasta and cheese even more) I am happy with that. Sure, there were days in the past that I would do more than that in one afternoon; these are not those days.

My only real goal going into the fall is to get as many miles as I can in while looking for work (I think the miles will be easier to get than the job). If I can even get 8 to 10 hours a week of riding in, while being good bout my eating and liquid refreshments, I think I’ll be happy enough. It would be nice to lose some fat off my man-hams, but I’m not going to hold my breath for that.

This fall–unlike last fall and winter–I am forgoing the gym. Yes, yes, I know, I mentioned (too) many times last year about how going to the gym helped me gain strength, added muscle, got me out of the house, etc., etc., Well, it seems (from looking at my “training” records) that my time at the gym fell off significantly after I purchased the Pugsley and realized, yet again, that being outside is way more fun than being in a gym, even if it is lacking the numbers of spandex-clad lady-types.

Fall may not officially start for another twenty days, but in my world it has.

Later.

Photo: by me. It was the lone photo taken during the second of two, 14-ish mile laps on Sunday.

Loyalty and Such

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I do 99% of my riding on my own, so I often find myself pondering a variety of things as a roll along the trails and roads: personal issues, what I’m having for lunch, why I see so many panties along the road, and of course, bike stuff. My most recent “bike stuff” thought (not to be confused with my “butt stuff” thoughts) was about the strange beast that is brand loyalty in the cycling community and how it weighs versus supporting one’s local bike shop.

None of the following thoughts apply that much to riders who wrench on their own bikes; for them, building a frame up is as easy as ordering it off the Net or direct from the builder or manufacturer, riding the hell out of it and servicing it themselves. What I am thinking applies more to someone like myself: someone who can do some minor maintenance, but for bike builds, serious fixes, or the want of having a repair done right, by someone who actually knows what the hell they are doing, knows the local bike shop is the place to go (OR to a friend’s garage who has all the tools, digs working on bikes and is happy(ish) do it for a few dollars or a six-pack or two).

And so my thoughts…

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A Weekend of Dirtz

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My plan for Saturday morning was this: get up, drink 2 to 14 cups of Bust Ass Coffee, eat some sort of lame breakfast, watch football (YES!!!) and then head out to ride some singletrack north of town. All of that was on course to happen until I checked the radar on Weather-dot-look-at-all-these-ads-and lame human interest videos-dot-com and saw that my trails appeared to be getting pissed down on with rain by the uncontrollable, loose bladder of Ma Nature.

Plan B was activated.

Plan B was to grab the El Mariachi and head out for a couple of hours or so of pavement and dirt roads. Obviously not my first choice (made fucking obvious by the fact that it’s Plan B, NOT Plan A. But dirt is dirt, miles are miles, calories burnt are calories burnt and a fat, crap cyclist is a fat, crap cyclist).

Upon fetching the El Mariachi (my current “go-to” gravel road bike that is really just a hardtail mountain bike) from the Not-So-Stankment®, I realized that in a raging fit of laziness [surprised?] I failed to rinse the bike off after Tuesday’s muddy dirt road ride. No big, I sort of like riding around with what amounts to an extra 2 to 5 pounds of dried cement on my frame. What’s a few extra pounds of dried cement on my bike when I’m already sporting at least 15 extra pounds of beer, pizza and general fuck-up-ness around my ever broadening and bouncing midriff??? Nothing!

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The Curse of Tuesday

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I’m not going to lie, I HATE Michigan winters. Of course, I also hated every one of the, slightly shorter Pennsylvania winters I experienced in my first thirty-nine years of life before moving here in 2010. On the flip side, MOST of my time here in Michigan has been blessed with some amazing summers and falls. I would have included spring, but our spring is the drunk, psychotic uncle of seasons; cloudy, cold, sunny, blustery, warm, rainy, icy, grey, humid and dry. However, this summer has been pretty darn excellent in the weather department; not too hot, not too humid and sunny most of the time. Except on Tuesdays.

It seems that Tuesdays in central Michigan are reserved for heavy rains, strong winds and storms. Tuesday also happens to be the day that Wifey has the option to work at home, which allows me to get out for a ride during the day. Sadly–more often than not–on the days she has done so, I have awoke in the morning to the sounds of rain blowing against the house. Today was no different.

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My Cycling Metamorphosis

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Lately I’ve been thinking about the magical metamorphosis that took place when cycling went from being a hobby for me to lose weight and stay in shape to something that–in many ways–defines me as a person today.

Some Background

As a kid, the extent of my bike riding was rolling around town on my black and yellow Mongoose BMX bike wishing I had the skills, speed and balls to race BMX with my friends Scott and John. The bike was cool, with sweet yellow mag wheels, checkered bar and stem pads and even though I never did race the bike, I rode around with a number plate on it. I was #4, paying tribute to then Pittsburgh Pirate shortstop turned coke-head Dale Berra. A tribute paid only after buying the #4 decal and being asked why the hell I was #4. If eleven year old kids called each other poseurs back in 1982, I would have surely been called one, and deservedly so.

After the BMX days, I sold my bike, stopped playing soccer, stopped playing baseball and turned all my attention to my new hobby; eating. Through my teens and very early twenties, I ate myself to a robust, ruddy cheeked, lonely and depressed 300 pounds. It wasn’t until I was on the brink of exceeding the maximum girth of my size 42 pants and lacked the funds to make the move up to 44s, that I finally did something about my weight (it seems it’s cheaper to lose weight than buy new clothes).

After years of saying I was going to “diet,” I finally just changed my lifestyle. I no longer attempted to starve myself, try diet pills or Slim-Fast shakes. For the first time in my life I started eating healthier foods, cut out between meal snacking (which were actually between meal meals) and started exercising, and IT WORKED!

Keep in mind, that at 300 pounds, my “exercising” consisted of long walks seeking out the biggest hills in town while listening to my Walkman, and that when you go from doing nothing to doing something, things will start to change; regardless, I was stoked to see the pounds start to come off. Then one day while sitting in my room listening to sad bastard music and flipping though a magazine I saw an ad for a mountain bike. It looked cool as hell and on top of that I remembered that this really hot girl I had gone to art school with had one. Cool looking bike… hot girl rides one…. OH, I’M GETTING ONE!

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Strange Enjoyments

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Lately I have been taking enjoyment from some strange things, and by “strange,”  I don’t mean stupidly riding around the snowless woods on a heavy ass fat bike or my born again lust for women wearing tube socks. Not that those things aren’t fun or incredibly freaking hot, it’s just not what I am referring to. Read on if ye care, if ye don’t… well… don’t.

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Par

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Oh, the 4th of July… time for fireworks, cookouts, random bad drivers sporting American flag bandanas (for the love of God man!!!) and spending time with family and friends to celebrate our founding fathers and all they did to establish this pretty darn good country. Or if you’re me: time by yourself spent sleeping in, drinking coffee, going for a better than “subpar” 17 mile ride on singletrack trails being taken over by wonderful ferns followed by enjoying the day watching World Cup football, having a few cocktails and eating alone.Not my ideal 4th of July, but I’ll take it. Better yet, Wifey and B-Man will be back this time tomorrow and all will be right in my world. Holidays are great, but having my family unit around is better. Bring on Saturday the 5th!