Posts Tagged → being an idiot

The Out and Back

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As a you may, or may not know, this is a cycling blog. Well, it used to be MORE of one, but since I seem to ride and race less and less as the years go on, this blog seems to be more of an online journal for me [a 43-year-old doofuss]. I often find myself apologizing for the blog posts that are strictly about my crap, mundane self and the goofball shit I do. But I think I am going to stop apologizing. I’ve said it before, I’ll surely say it again– I’m always happy to get some readers, but in the end, it’s no big deal. This is a hobby, it’s free (for you) and as of right now, no one is putting a gun to your head to read this drivel (although I am in talks with a small militia group of kooks that might be willing to help me out if I go against my core beliefs and post occasional, outlandish Fox News worthy, radical right-wing propaganda.

Sigh… I guess I’ll just have to continue on with my three faithful readers without help from The Brothers of Paranoid Delusions with Arms (Michigan Chapter).

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Crisp & Better Than the Trainer

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After two three days of poop [literally],  gusting winds, falling temperatures and local streets littered with drunk college kids dressed in various shades of dumb ass, green and vomit, I was finally able to pinch off [no poop pun intended] a short, hour and forty minute ride today: the Better Than The Trainer Ride (North Dirt Version)™.

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When I Say Jeans I Mean…

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Lord, fashion father almighty, forgive me for I have sinned against you and the Fashion Commandments that you have set forth before thee… in particular Commandment IX: Thou Shalt Not Wear Wrangler Jeans, They’re for Squares and Cowboys. I’m sorry my narcissistic fashion father, but I gotta tell you, they feel good and I’m sure I’ll do it again!

My faithful three readers, I also ask you for forgiveness, because I am about to bore you with yet another post that is 98.5% void of cycling and 98.5% about a pair of jeans that has me and my thighs a tad geeked.

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A Weekend With Grady

gwilsonSICKI have no idea why, but for years I have been saying to anyone that will listen (no one) that Grady Wilson from the old 70’s NBC TV show Sanford & Son is what the flu, head cold or similar ailment would look like if it took human form. I say that with not one ounce of disrespect to the late Whitman Mayo who portrayed him, but a fact’s a fact. Or at least an outlandish proclamation is one oddball’s point of view.

I bring all this up for a reason, that reason being that early Friday evening as I sat in the corner of a local junior high gymnasium watching B-Man take part in some winter soccer drills, I knew that Mr. Wilson was about to pay me a visit. In other words, I knew that illness was setting in.

Shit.

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A Small Mental Victory Over Winter

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Since Tuesday’s 30+ mile per hour wind gusts and -25˚ wind chills moved on, we here in central Michigan have been treated to a few days of brilliant sunshine and blue skies. Of course the lack of cloud cover also means that temperatures are struggling to get out of the single digits until well after lunch. Unfortunately, my time slot to ride is around 10 a.m., when the thermometer is grunting, groaning and moaning to get above zero.

Because of those high winds earlier in the week and the frigid temps that followed, I spent the first three days of this week hunkered down in the Stankment™ putting in miles running on the treadmill and riding the trainer. You would think that after forty-three years of living in the cold winter climates of Pennsylvania and Michigan I would be used to the cold and snow and would have learned to love it. Nope.

Like many of my cycling friends in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota I try my best to be active through it, but unlike many of them, I always fail to embrace or love the winter. For me the result is always the same; I tolerate winter and merely try to survive it with my mind and liver still functioning properly and my pant size unchanged come spring.

But enough of that winter hating hyperbole, lets’ get to the winter riding hyperbole…

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Rubber, Beans, Balls & Whore’s Chicken

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I took delivery of some new rubber today in the form of the WTB Nano TCS 2.1. I picked up the 700 x 40 version of the tires for the Jake The Snake late last fall and really liked the way they rolled on Michiganderburgh’s shit pavement, dirt and gravel roads. Sadly, I am less and less enamored with using a that cross bike for dirt road and gravel riding/racing and have been turning to my 2010 Salsa El Mariachi 99% of the time. So I decided to pick up some tubeless ready Nanos for the coming season of shit road riding. The wider girth and tubeless compatibility should be just what I am looking for. Hopefully they will be just as at ease on  [dry] Michigan singletrack for days when I want to roll the hardtail.

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Finding Blog Maturity (Sort Of)

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Earlier today I had the idea to take a look back at one of my early endurance mountain bike races and rewrite the race report from my current perspective to see how different I might write it now, nine or ten years removed. I still plan on doing that in the near future, but as I read over some of those old posts on the Soiled Chamois v.1 blog I found myself sidetracked with some mild embarrassment and distaste for the way I wrote and approached blogging writing back then (mostly in the ’05 to ’08 era).

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