Posts Tagged → sorry attempts at humor

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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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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In Search of Ira

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A month or two back, like many of you who also follow pro mountain bike racing, I read the news that Topeak/Ergon was cutting their Pro XCO team and focusing their sponsorship dollars on marathon racing. With the popularity of endurance, marathon and stage races these days and the financial and logistical stresses of having two elite teams racing all over the world, that seems like a pretty logical move (some have argued in the past that you lose a fair amount of spectator eyeballs on sponsor logos and products with marathon format races, but that’s debatable).

However logical and/or amicable the decision by Ergon was, it still meant that after seven years, two-time World Champion, 2008 Olympic Bronze medalist and consistent XCO podium finisher Irina Kalentieva was without a team. The official press release said “Ergon will continue to work with Kalentieva and remain[s] committed and grateful to her” but after that, I hadn’t read much. I needed more…

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Not Moshing To Euro-Techno

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When I first saw this photo of Philipp Walsleben on Pez Cycling News, I thought maybe he was all sorts of pissed off and slamming his bike down for some reason or moshing to some sort of hard-core Euro-techno whilst hopped up on ecstasy. Or better yet, having some sort of mental breakdown caused by years of huffing embrocation, riding in circles and jumping over man-made barriers, freaked out and started doing a chorus line dance while holding his bike aloft and laughing maniacally like a smoked up Jürgen Klopp going mental on the touch line.

It turns out I was wrong on all counts, he just fucked up a barrier jump. I like my imagination better… I don’t think I’ll read the photo captions any more.

I can’t thank Philipp enough, because if I had not seen this photo, I would not have been inspired to Google search videos for hard-core Euro techno and I would not have discovered this gem…

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Bike Mags & Smut

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So often we hear or use the phrase “bike porn,” (or “bike pron” for those wishing to mask their digital tracks) when talking about bikes we are lusting after. So, the other day while on the trainer, I started wondering what might happen if you crossed a story that one (might) find in a smut mag with a story about riding bikes. It seemed like it would be easy and sort of a goof to do, so I did a little Googling, followed by a bit of history deleting, and found a site that, (surprisingly) I had never been on before. The site had a ton of reprinted (so NOT MTBR) Forum stories that I think were featured in a that one mag that refers to their centerfolds as “pets” (please ignore that little dose of misogyny, thanks).

At first, the experiment was proving difficult, I mean some of the stories were freaking over the top! But after perusing a few, I found one that would work well enough and have shared my “new” version below. For the record I straight up plagiarized this story written by T.P. From Austin, Texas (no, I am not going to link you to the original and I don’t really care about the plagiarizing since Mr. T.P. didn’t even give his really freaking name). The red text is the text that I swapped or added to make this all happen.

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Runishness

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Today I am jumping the gun on 2014 and sharing my New Year’s resolutions. Actually these are more like “life resolutions.” No, I am not going to say I won’t drink beer, swear, look at boobs (or butts) not belonging to Wifey or anything else so wildly over the top and drastic as that. Basically I am going to attempt to do two–somewhat attainable–things every day for the rest of my life (which I give another two years, tops):

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Locker Room Randomness

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A cold and blustery, grey Monday morning had me returning to the gym for an hour and a half sweat-fest. Believe me, my workouts are no big deal and I have nothing to write about, so I thought I would share one of the random conversations I so often find myself drawn into. Today’s just happened to take place in the locker room of my gym (Maury Ballstein’s) with two random naked Silver Sneakers.

With that, I present to you…

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Fear & Loathing Lance While On The Trainer

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I wouldn’t say that I have anything against Lance Armstrong (except the lying, cheating, megalomania, sociopathy and making me feel like a Goddamn fool for all those years I supported him and his teams as they doped themselves to the gills to win bike races). And I wouldn’t dare to say that Lance does–or ever has–smoked grass, done mescaline, high powered blotter acid, cocaine, or a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers, raw ether or amyls.

But I do think that he obviously got locked into a serious drug collection and had the tendency is to push it as far as he could. Only his drug collection had more to do with EPO and the like rather than Hunter S. Thompson’s laundry list of illegal, mild to hardcore and dangerous, recreational drugs.

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I Know A Guy (Not Denzel)

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I know some people who know some people that rob some people. – Huggy Bear

Actually, I just have a friend who was looking to unload these super fresh XTR pedals he acquired for a “Holy shit! Even I can actually afford that!” price. I LOVE me some XTR. Yeah, yeah, XT shit is good and I dig it the most, but when a good XTR opportunity knocks, I do my best to answer and fork over money.

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Vintage Motor Paced Racing

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Apparently motor-paced racing was all the rage back in the early 20th century. I’ve seen a few photos from races here and there, but this one has to be one of my favorites. I’m not sure which subject I find more interesting and/or odd; the 10-year-old kid in his underwear, racing a bike with 14 inch wheels or the steely eyed, leather clad, Oliver Hardy looking motorcyclist who appears to be on his way to a Judas Priest concert as he straddles the fuselage like it’s a giant, metal phallus.

It’s been said that racers could get up to 60 miles per hour, I’m not sure how fast this little dude was going, but I am certain he would have kicked my ass.

Now cue up the song below and imagine Oliver singing it.

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