Posts Tagged → unfunny commentary

The Circle of Death

Note: This post appeared on xxcmag.com in the winter of 2013. I really dig the post and since I’m not sure how much longer xxcmag.com will be live, I am preserving it here, so as not to let the post go to waste.

All too often modern-day riders and racers get caught up in Facebook, Twitter, message board and Strava pissing contests about their training, riding and racing and lose sight of the feats that our brothers and sisters have done before us.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not discounting the amazing adventures, rides and races that folks are doing on their bikes these days; i.e.Tour Divide, Iditarod Trail Invitational, Arrowhead 135, Trans Iowa, etc., etc., (all those races that I lack the talent, skills and man-giblets to ever attempt) I just think that on occasion we need to put some things into perspective and call attention to some past events, races and the vintage bad ass riders of yesteryear.

In the case of today’s post we are actually highlighting one of the hardest stages ever, in what is known as the hardest version, of what is arguably the most popular bike race in the world– The Tour de France. Stage 10 of the 1926 Tour de France to be exact.

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A Little Throwback

2005meNow THIS is a throwback. Probably my 3rd endurance race ever and my first marathon: the WVMBA’s Revenge of the Rattlesnake in May 2005. Happy to say that race is still going strong (now in the fall) and one of the toughest races on the east coast. I am UNNNhappy to say that I think I have gained as much weight as B-Man has since then and he’s ten now. Boo! To paraphrase Simon Pegg a bit from Run Fat Boy Run, “I’m not unfit, I’m just fat.”

Oddly enough, now it’s me that always looks like I’m miserable, crying and shitting myself… all of which are usually true. Yeah, this throwback shit is really fun. Let’s do it again next week.

Later.

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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Back To Racing (Sort of)

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As I drank a couple of beers late last Saturday afternoon I somehow convinced myself to go ahead and enter the Barry-Roubaix’s 36 mile race, a distance– at the time of entering–roughly 15 miles longer than any ride I had done in 2014 due to the relentless and brutal winter we’ve had. It would also be only my second ride not to be completed on fat bike this calendar year. “This could be bad for me, but other than a few out-of-staters, everyone else will be in the same frigid, snow, ice and shit filled boat as me,” I thought as entered my credit card information and took the final draw from my pint of Founder’s Imperial Stout. So let it be done… it’s God’s will… it is what it is. Pffft! Whatever, it’s just bike ridin’.

And with that, I now give you yet another race ride report, in a long history of Soiled Chamois race reports, that didn’t need to be written…

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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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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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Spinning & Feeling Kneady

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The stationary trainer is a strange beast. Hated by almost everyone and used by nearly as many, it allows for nothing but the vaguest feeling of actually riding your bike. In my opinion it’s WAY worse than running on a treadmill. Running sucks whether you are being chased by a gang of unruly thugs, doing a 5K, a marathon or on the treadmill at the gym… it just sucks. I respect and admire the folks who do it and enjoy it, but it sucks. When I do it, it hurts, it feels dumb and  I ALWAYS think “this would be SO much better if I was on my bike.”

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