Large Fella on a Bike

2nd Ride?

With my B-Day approaching rapido, talk lately at LFoaB HQ has centered around, "What do you want?", "Any ideas on what to get you?", etc...

all of which has me thinking, "What do I need?".

"Not much, I got lots", so it seems to me. 

But...

I must declare I have been thinking on a 2nd ride.  A ride to accessorize minimally, adorn not muchly, a "Ride It Hard, Lock It, Don't Sweat It, Come Back Outside, If Someone Has Decided To Gark A This Or That Off Of It-Not Be Overly Dark About It, Not Overly Overly Done" type ride.

And here be my list for such a bike [with Pro/Con thinkings too ~my thoughts, so no one get their shorts in a bunch, ok? ok]:

A.  Surly Long Haul Trucker or Cross Check:
Inexpensive, won't stand out in these climes, abundantly available... everyone and their Great Aunt Margie has one, TIG, paint choices leave me cold, decals & font not of my liking [however, all that is fixable].

B.  Kogswell P/R:
Inexpensive, lotta bang for thy buck [even compared to the Surly], have to decide between 26/650/700 [even though I cannot imagine picking 650 and jumping on that hype-wagon], TIG, not rare nor that common-good... interesting.  Probably shoot for 26'inchers.

So there ya go...

Birthday's on the 22nd o' September, so I need to get busy thinking some more.

Free Ride Minneapolis

We got to CRC an hour late [not too bad for us actually], and the echo was deafening.  Nobody home, empty as empty can get.  Called around, tried to find out the route, where the train was, how to hook up... finally, someone at Varsity Bike Shop hipped us to a location w/directions to get there.  But we got THERE and the Ride was already gone.  So, the nice folks at The Alt gave us directions and yet another location...

this time to Peace Coffee.

...it was precisely where we had ridden past just 45 minutes ago en route to the start point at CRC.  Urgh.  But we finally made the ride.

Had a blast: saw some new old friends, met some new new friends, had some water, drank some beer, ate a banana.  Riding with 300 or so riders has a lot of goodness in it.

Not sure who got recognized more: Chloe [actually her, herself... from this blog] or Amy's "Copper-Penny" bike?

I'll try to post some pics soon... but in the meantime, you can find a bevy of 'em right HERE.

We split off from the ride before they finished up at One on One and started heading back toward Saint Paul via University... on the way home, stopped and had an iced caffe with my girls and recapped the day.

It was there, at the caffe shop, that a very old woman with a walker, blind in one eye, shuffled by on the sidewalk-looked at me sitting by myself at a table [Chloe & Amy were inside getting the chilled caffeine] and said:

"You look just like my son... and he was a complete jackass".

Peace & Blessings...

...Keep Ridin', Always

Truth?

I've found it in:

The eyes [and questions] of Children [in particular, my daughter, Chloe]

Holding my wife, Amy's, hand

Putting on a pair of pants from 4 months ago that-now-billow on me

Thinking

Watching

Listening

Laughing, abundantly

Shutting the fuck up, as much [and as often] as Humanly possible

Not carrying a wallet, or any money on me

Standing outside big chain stores and watching folks

Occupying my eyes by watching my knees pump up-n-down while ascending hills that hurt badly / Reminding myself that the temporary ease of this big downhill gift will smack me in the ass with the honesty of climbing back out of it soon

That good books & music want nothing more of you than what you decide to give them

That it can be exhausting, if you let it, to sift through all the shitty things in Life [and that there are certain people & companies that would prefer to keep you sifting, and not Living... that is, if you let them]

...that I see more Truth while straddling my top tube, stopped at a red light, one foot on asphalt/one on the pedal, sandwiched in between cars [and their passengers] waiting for forward progress at the intersection of University & Snelling, than I have been able to glean from just about anything else.

Truth?

Truth.

Keep pushin'...

...for something

Blessings-Everyday

Pissed off, but not really...

Haven't had a good pissed off post in a while so I'm digging in.

Here goes:

#1.  People riding in full team kit... but it's Pro-team kit. 

Besides the fact that it's as silly as wearing over priced Nike, Puma, NFL [pro sports, et al], etc apparel... it's a sickening display of Madison Avenue owning societies ass.  Wake up, please??

Unless you, yourself, ride for USPS, Discovery, T-Mobile, etc... take it off.  Thank you.  I can dig that it's harmless, but it's really simple and non-clever.

#2.  People riding after dark, most of whom are on uber-xpensive carbon bikes and wearing Pro-team kit [go figure], without any lights... or, at best, a blinkie on their ass only.

Guess what pal?  I can't see you when you're coming at me, and I can't see you when you're coming up from behind me either.  Your light is only effective for cars: behind you [and that's cool and important, no doubt about it]... but not for other riders, especially other riders on paths, trails, even a dark street.

For such an enlightened [pun absolutely intended] cycling community as we have here in the Twin Cities, that's just some plain, dumbshit thinking.

I've had 3 near head-on collisions in 9 weeks [none back east], 1 very close T-bone with a recumbent dickhead dressed in all black, on a black recumbent no less at midnight with, of course, no lights/no reflectors nor even the little flag those people usually fly, and a few dozen riders come up beside me, out of the blue [black?], and blow by on a pitch black path/trail/street... and the only indicator was a pre-nanosecond of chain buzz before a whoosh to my left.  Not cool.

I'm going to start carrying a blowgun with darts.  Not kidding.

----------------------------

Okay enough of that business, onto some positivity:

Lots of Explora-Riding solo and with the familia.

Went and checked out the wind carnage out at Como after the howling wind last week.  Serious windage indeed [click for large]

Couple days later we did a nice loop from our crib through downtown St. Paul, down through Mendota, by Fort Snelling, and then up along the Mississippi river and into Minneapolis...

Stopped at Lake Nokomis so Chloe could do some lake swimming:

After that, we rode over to Gold Medal Park and snapped some snaps with the ol' iPhone:

...and of Amy's brand spankin' new Bailey Works Bag [which is fantastic and great, and she loves it too].

After that, we rode home and the gals started a fire in our firepit while I made some fresh hummus.  We sat in the backyard, ate some hummus, watched the fire and retold the days events of 34.7 miles.

Good Stuff.

Up next, and very soon, our first bike camping trip [very psyched for this one!].

Keep Riding, on and on and on...

Blessings Everyday and Always.

Things & Other Things...

New weigh-in...

Smallest loss yet, but that is cool as it was bound to happen [and I'm eating the same things, the same amounts of the same things and riding more, so perhaps it's a plateau and/or building some different muscle mass ~Amy's opinion, I'll take it].

Weight: 278.2
Loss of: 4.6 pounds
Total Loss since 11/05: 222.8 pounds

Rode over to Grand Performance earlier today to grab a new tub of chamois cream for my riding diaper.  Odd place, everyone working there [that I saw and that had shorts on] and all the customers [except me, of course] had shaved legs [and no, only one of them was a chick].  I think they thought I was odd... the salesman who helped me suggested that my goatee wasn't very aero.  I told him it was when I coated it with a couple GU packets and chamois cream.
Two guys walked in and looked at my ride.  The one guy said, "Nice vintage bike... musta got it off eBay", while the other guy mumbled, "That, or it was dumpster-dived".
But the best moment was taking my time opening/loading/then closing the chamois cream into my Carradice bag so I could eavesdrop on a salesman going large on a customer who was interested in a mid-level Bianchi carbon/aluminum bike.

Salesman:

Great bike, it'll do everything.  Of course, later... as you get fit and competitive you'll want better.  And we sell better too.

Customer:

Do I need things with it?  Like stuff to wear?

Salesman:

Of course.  And we sell all that too.  Honestly, what I'd recommend would be a basic package consisting of 3 pairs of cycling shorts, you'll want ultra-lightweight ones... this weather is HOT, and 6 or 7 micro-fiber jerseys.  The jerseys tend to smell bad, so you'll want more of them than shorts.  You'll need some nice, racy wrap-around sunglasses, a lightweight aero helmet, like 10 pair of socks and then shoes.

Customer [looking and sounding overwhelmed]:

Wow, that's a lot of accessories.  Can't I just wear... you know, regular clothes?

Salesman [laughing]:

No... well, er, yeah you can, but why would you?  Racers wear this stuff for a reason, and so should you.  Trust me, this stuff works.  And it looks great too.

Customer:

What kind of shoes?

Salesman:

We sell two kinds... one kind you can walk in, and the other, you can't.  Think you'll do much walking?

Customer:

Ummm, well yes and no.  Yes, when I'm walking to and from the bike.  And no, when I'm on the bike.

Salesman:

Exactly.  You'll need two pairs then, one of each kind.  Trust me.

At this point I walked out of the shop.

In other news...

Amy said my face has changed.  I asked, "In a good way or bad way?"  She hunted around on our hard drive and found this photo of me that was snapped 10 months ago, on Chloe's birthday, while sitting on our stoop back east:

And this pic which Amy took today upon my arrival back home after a 35-mile ride in the blazing 95 degree heat [yet again] of Minnesota:

I think she's right.

Keep Diggin'... Always

Posting from an iPhone...

As mentioned in a previous entry, I won an iPhone... and after having/using it now for a bit I thought I'd share my thoughts on it.

#1. What I like:

The piece itself feels great in your hand. Nope, it isn't ergonomic. Not even close (unless a heavy'ish rectangle is considered ergonomic these days). It feels great in the same way that a Volvo, say a 1990 or older 240, looks great. That kind of great.

I also love the interface. Everything on & in it is as intuitive as scratching a freshly planted mosquito bite: you just know where it is, and what to do with it.

Someone somewhere gets paid big bucks to figure stuff like this out... and with the iPhone they did a really solid job.

All that said, it doesn't support the Think Outside Stowaway bluetooth keyboard [it's not in the bluetooth stack apparently, yet]...

and that sucks frankly, because while the Qwerty on this iPhone is no doubt amazing, it won't ever replace a real keyboard.

That is all.

**Posted from a cornfield, somewhere north of St. Paul, Minn. on one bitch-hot day**

Keep ridin'...

Worm Turning...

The elusive Groove can be the most difficult Thing to acquire:

The more it's chased, the more slippery it has a tendency to become.
The more it's sought, the more it could care less about the seeker.
The more it's obsessed over, the more it dismisses the obsessed.

Sometimes one must turn away from Want... and through that very action All will be received, revealed and understood.
---------

In other news...

I rode the Saint Paul Critical Mass [more like Critical Smallish Mass] earlier this evening.  Oddly odd.  Like 15 folks taking up the auto lane on the [or at least, The, in my short time out here] most perfect street to be riding in the bike lane on: Summit Avenue.
I even unloaded some of my best one-liners on the short list of participants... nothing but crickets.  I'm talking complete and total silence.  Like Pope John Paul farting in the stall next to you, and you cannot laugh kinda silence.  When I then announced that I would "Shut the fuck up"... still, crickets.  Maybe it's a Midwest/East Coast thing?  Not sure.  I suspect folks don't get me.  That's cool though, I don't get me either.

Best part?  When I peeled off from the ride to go water a friend's garden, a friend who is in California visiting family, one of the cars that had been behind us for quite some time, and honking more than occasionally... also peeled off in the same direction as me.  As they passed me, they side-swiped my left arm with their passenger-side mirror, and then out of the passenger-side window came a middle-aged woman who yelled, "Serves you right, you goddamn fat fuck.  Stay on the sidewalk from now on, where you belong".   So... yeah, I'm a little unsure as to the purpose of a CM ride on streets where, not only are there bike lanes, but, in general, the cycling infrastructure is like 15 gibillion times better than anything I've ever known or experienced.

Maybe the Minneapolis CM ride will be a better fit.

Maybe not.

During the ride I got to meet Nat over at Misanthrope Cyclist.  Nice cat, wouldn't stop talking though... musta been cranked on caffeine. A real chatterbox.  Made my ears bleed, laughed, almost to the point of wrecking his bike, at all my insight and humor.

New Business Venture...

**Custom Stems For Giants and Longshoremen**
[priced to move, look for 'em at your favorite LBS this fall].

Weigh-In is Sunday... I'm psyched.  With the sheer amount of riding + elevation [compared to back East at least], should be pleased.

Keep Rollin'... Always:

Blessings.