Posts Tagged → unfunny commentary

In Search of Ira

ira_a

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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The Seven Stages of Ice

iceicebaby

Most of the paved roads surrounding my neck of Michiganderburgh are snow and ice-free. The dirt roads are however are not, nor is my driveway (seen above) or the neighborhood sidewalks.

I believe my driveway perfectly illustrates the Seven Levels of Ice that we are currently encountering (Six and Seven are not pictured above). The sixth levei is giant piles of frozen solid snow at the corner of every driveway, parking lot and sidewalk in town caused by copious amounts of shoveled and plowed snow, followed by rain and 40˚ temps which then froze solid when arctic temps and high winds returned last week.

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The Seventh Level of Ice is two to three ice cubes direct from the kitchen freezer, placed in a high ball glass and covered with 4 fingers bourbon, vodka, scotch, gin or boxed wine of your choice.

Speaking of ice and wind, the National Weather Service has issued ANOTHER Winter Winter Advisory for the next 24 hours that includes:  blowing snow, wind gusts reaching up to 35 mph and wind chills of minus twenty degrees.  I really need the weekend (see next post) so I can give myself the green light to enjoy the Seventh Level (except in beer form).

Not Moshing To Euro-Techno

cxdancefest

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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Gym Follies & Other Stuff

hugmagcov

This week has been a pretty good week of what I call “doing stuff.” Some people call it “training” but I can’t really bring myself to use that term anymore, since I have no idea what I am training for other than to not get any fatter and to ride and race my bike without looking like the complete douche bag that I surely am.

Part of the stuff I do is going to the gym for some strength training and off the bike cardio. It’s nothing over the top and it’s not all that interesting, but this week did have it’s share of ridiculousness…

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Bike Mags & Smut

SONY DSC

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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The Struggle

I got me a case of writer’s block. It’s not entirely my fault, it just that there is NOTHING going on except zero degree temps and snow. OK, there are things going one but I’m talking about things that are worth talking about. The following is a list of things that I thought about blathering on about but realized there was no real point…

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Ciao Bella

ciabellarace

Oh mama mia, I could use more traffic furniture like this on my rides.

Side note, for some reason my son (B-Man) has been using “ciao” for “yes” and “no” these days. I corrected him, but he didn’t seem to care. Now I find myself doing it. Maybe I shouldn’t do things like misuse the word “girth” when talking about speed. As in “holy shit, that kick had a lot of girth on it.” Beds of stupidity were made, now I’m lying in it (as per usual).

*By the way, I blame my old friend and current Florida Man Dave for teaching me how to misuse the word girth. Thanks.