Posts Tagged → random

Vintage Paris-Roubaix & Pornography

1910parisroubaixI may not have done anything on Monday (except make rice and beans and play basketball with B-Man), and I may have only ridden the trainer for an hour today, but I DID find this bad ass photo from the 1910 Paris-Roubaix to share, so I am pretty sure that the Cycling Gods forgive me for my lackluster two-wheeled training regime. Fuck it.

I would have rather sucked the blood from the neck of my neighbor’s ever barking dogs with my bare face after hitting them with two large cinder blocks, than ride the trainer, but I still did.

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Soiled Chamois Rice & Beans

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It’s sort of funny [not really] that nearly all of my favorite meals look like something that was scraped off the piss smelling coat of a bum passed out in an alley after three bottles of Wild Irish Rose and a “found” half eaten gas station burrito. Funny or not [mostly not], any combination of brown rice, meat, beans, peppers, onions and a bit of cheese usually results in me being fully satisfied in the gut (and more than a tad gassy).

Tonight’s rice & beans was based on what Bon Appétit magazine calls the “hottest trend to come out of American kitchens since the kale-splosion of 2012.”  Tex-Mex-Cajun-Italian Fusion.

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Newsboy Racing

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Long before newspapers (remember them) started being delivered by grizzled, cigarette smoking bald men hurling bagged papers out the windows of their muffler-less, rusted out Chevy Novas to help finance their overdue child support*, and well before Kevin Bacon created bike messenger chìc and ushered in a quinquennial wave of movies, documentaries and TV shows about the trade, there were newsboys.

Kids hawking newspapers for coin, many delivering stacks of papers via bicycles, all over cities and towns around the world. Like their great, great grandsons, some–like the lad above– apparently chose to smoke as well. Ah, what’s a lung or two, as long as you’re riding bikes.

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When In Doubt: Pinch a Loaf

The past two days have been less than fun: more ongoing frigid winter temps, a tooth filling that may need worked on for a 3rd time (probably needing a root canal), a dead battery in Wifey’s clown car (due to a certain ginger haired 10-year-old leaving the door ajar overnight) and an ongoing battle with my thoughtless neighbors over their two big ass dogs that they leave out in their yard for hours at a time to relentlessly bark as if the rest of the neighborhood REALLY enjoys hearing them bark at anyone, everything, anything everyone! Yeah, I know this all minor shit, but the minor shit is adding up and I’m letting it get to me. I need spring!! (REAL spring).

With all the dead battery drama this morning I missed out on a ride (not that I felt like riding in 15 degree temps), missed my time window for going to the gym and I had NOOOOOOO desire what-so-ever to ride the trainer. So I did what any red-blooded, stressed-out, depressed, American male who doesn’t have a real job to go to would do;  I baked bread.

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Après Race Essentials I

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OK, now shit is starting to get better in my mental dojo! I just found The Sword Black River t-shirt. This is going to be perfect to wear après race this summer and will look awesome as I wield my (yet to be purchased) Viking sword at throngs of recovering racers with one hand and hold aloft a goblet of strong ale (or reasonable facsimile) in the other while screaming “MAKE YOUR STAND WITH THE GREAT HOUND, THE FRONTIER IS LOST! BLACK WATERS LIE BEFORE YOU, TOGETHER YOU CROSS!!” as Jake The Dog walks menacingly at my side (until he falls asleep in a pool of his own jowls).

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Little In Return & Bloody Knees

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This week has given me very little and in return I have given back even less. So far, aside from two trips to the gym (with varying results) and spending ten minutes on the stationary trainer before saying “fuck it, this is like the dumbest thing ever,” I have pretty much done nothing. And when I say “nothing,” I mean NOTHING. Well, unless standing at the back door and blindly staring out the window wondering what people with real lives are doing is something, but I am pretty sure that qualifies as nothing. I guess I could consult The Idiot’s Guide to Depressive Slack & Ennui for an official ruling, but I’m way too busy doing nothing .

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Unlikely Inspirations

This week has been a strange one as far as me  “doing stuff.”  Sadly, it only allowed me one day of “real” riding: Wednesday’s hour and a half fat bike ride. The rest of the week has been a hodgepodge of trips to the gym and time spent on the trainer. Not the best of weeks, but better than many I’ve had.

I was up early today and had no problem convincing myself to get on the trainer.* The problem I had was actually forcing myself to pedal the bike on the trainer. The first minutes of my warm up were spent cursing the vile winter for forcing me to the trainer again and my belly which was bouncing off my legs like a gelatinous, beer filled, lycra covered sack with each pedal stroke. Cuss me! CUSS ME TO HELL! (or reasonable facsimile).

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