Bridging the Gap: Watch Out

Wow, that was quick.* The Tour de France is over. I didn't get to watch much of the racing, but I didn't really mind. Watching the Tour is a lot like watching golf. You pretty much get the gist of it after an hour and video highlights are enough to fill you in if you've missed something. I don't know about you but I don't really like sitting around for three hours on the proverbial edge of my seat waiting to see if a break stays away. Also, I'm not crazy about watching these guys pain faces. I have one of those and every time I see it I get sick. For me, I spend my Tour-time reading race reports and the intermittent tech article. Oh and drinking beer, but outside of July I just call that drinking-time.


Another thing:
Watching the Tour for the crashes is lame. Just because you can say "Did you see that crash in yesterday's stage?" while you're putzing around the water cooler doesn't mean you should. Crashes happen. Sometimes they happen on television. Amazing how that works isn't it?



Endnotes:
*That's what she said

Cuts - Part Tres

I don't really think this falls under the category of "cuts" but more generally under "Painful Shit."


I crashed again. Surprise. Tour de Franzia lasted all of ten minutes for me and since no one wanted to wait around for me to fix my bike, I just went home. It lasted ten minutes because my fantastic claim to hipsterdom failed me. I haven't taken the time to completely inspect the bike myself, from the looks of it, the threads for the lockring don't go deep enough and the cog was able to spin around a little on its threads. So when I was going 20+ mph downhill in Rosslyn and tried to slow down, my cog slipped leaving me with no feeling in my pedals then suddenly caught again bucking me out of the saddle and onto my back like a turtle on his slightly tipsy Chrome bag shell. My bag has a few scratches here and there, but the worst part of the crash was the damage done to the parts of my body that weren't covered by the bag. My neck, already burdened with the lifetime task of holding my giant head up, must now add whiplash to an already demanding repertoire. And as if my body didn't have enough battle wounds, my ass got a giant helping of road rash. Sleeping at night couldn't be any more fun.

All this trouble and anger because of a stupid hub. It's not that hard to fix bikes and sometimes it's even easier to build them. But when something like a defective hub brings your ride to a premature end, you just can't help punching something. I think I'm just going to focus on building my Gunnar now. Fucking hipsters.

Cycling News Flash: Pauvre Reporting from the TDF

I usually relish the new crazy tech articles from the Tour, but it seems like someone was drunk behind the wheel when they published today's article. Thor's shoes are not Mavic's, especially considering they say 'Adidas' on them. Also, I don't think the Francais de Jeux riders are actually professional cyclist. What could they possibly need in that saddlebag? Mini baguettes? A thimble of wine? Wake me up when someone actually does something interesting with bike stuff, like if they add flamethrowers or something.

The Things That Go Squeak On The Bike

I've been spending a lot of time at the shop lately, not all of which has been spent working. Sure. During shop hours I will occasionally lift a wrench here or there, but after hours is when I have time to play(1) and work on my own side projects. Today, I finally built myself a fixie, which is why my hands hurt.(2) I might bother to go into detail about it later. For now, just know that it's a bit gaudy, obnoxious, and mega-hip.

Of the few other things that happened at the shop, bottom brackets come to mind first. It was just one of those days where you encounter several carbon copies of the same problem. Today, being Bottom Bracket Day, nearly every other customer wanted their bottom bracket fixed, overhauled, replaced, inspected, and generally fondled. I got to third base with at least three bikes today. Granted, I was in a on-again off-again relationship with the first bike, where I pulled a BB off the bike, overhauled it, put it back on, discovered that the squeaking was still there, and was forced to repeat the same procedure. This was done at least three times with the bike(3) all just to troubleshoot a 'mystery noise' that I was ultimately unable to fix. But today's work wasn't only dirty, greasy, physical foreplay. There was plenty of angry, rapid-fire phone sex(4) too. I distinctly remember one phone call from some Average Joe who thought he knew bikes better than me. While he didn't make an attempt to emulate the noise his bike was making, he assured me that he had had a conversation with a coworker, a self-proclaimed bicycle mechanic, and they had both come to the conclusion that it was the bottom bracket. Of course he didn't call it a "bottom bracket" but rather referred to the part as "arm connecting bearing spindle shaft unit" or something equally retarded. So much for being helped by his coworking mechanic pal. You know why it easy for me to ask a coworker/friend for help? Because mine are actually fucking bike mechanics. I wouldn't have been so terse with this guy if he hadn't kept interrupting me every other sentence and ignoring me when I said that I actually need to see the bike to properly diagnose the problem. I understand bikes are pretty simple machines, but when it comes to dealing with mystery squeaks, the general public has no idea what they're getting themselves into. Things that go squeak on the bike range from spokes, hub bearings, freehub bodies, cassettes, quick releases, derailleur pulleys, chains, crank arms, pedals, bottom brackets, headsets, and even shifters and hub seals. Half the time these noises all sound the same. To make things even more difficult, they can be transmitted through components, amplified at other locations, and only heard under a specific load or type of pedal stroke. This makes troubleshooting a mystery squeak highly subjective to the level of experience of the mechanic, the initial questions asked (and answered), and the ability of the mechanic to replicate the noise. Shit, I rarely solve the problem the first go around myself and I'd say I've heard a good amount of squeaks. So when A.J. calls me up and tells me that he only hears said squeaking after approximately 12miles of riding in 84-degree weather and the he and his bro-worker have put their two brains together and come up with "shaft bearing thingy" and as an added bonus is rude and ignorant, you'll have to forgive me for being a bit more abrupt with my responses. Genius phone callers rank up there with "I have an engineering degree" assholes(5) in the hierarchy of customers that are the worst to deal with. I really don't care whatever your background is, unless your last name is Shimano, Campagnolo, or Beer.(6) Please just let me do my job and don't pretend like you're a bike mechanic. The whole Step-into-my-shoes thing was so 1990's.


Also Annoying:
"I have a bike ride tomorrow can I get a tune up today?"-customers. We've been getting a lot of these lately and they've all be seemingly hybridized with cockroaches or termites or something. These new batch of super customer(7) is highly resistant to the word "No." It used to be that "No" actually meant something but as of recently a 48-hour turn around time isn't good enough to keep these pests at bay. Honestly, I may have to use physical violence to subdue these monsters. I do have my reservations though for fear that choking them out until their heads explode might lead to a Hercules v. Hydra situation and more monsters will be spawned from the carnage.


Endnotes:

(1)Drink heavily
(2)Building two high-tension wheels takes a toll on your hands
(3)Doesn't hitting third base three times at least equal one home run?
(4) Verbal abuse
(5)Not that I have anything against engineers :)
(6)As in Good Beer
(7)"Super" as in "Super fucking annoying"

Bridging the Gap: To The Moon And Back, Twice

Today was a very bike shoppy day. I woke up late and dragged myself out of bed, which took me a bit longer this morning since I still haven't fully recovered from Drunken Beatdown 2008: Rugby Chatch vs Idiot Cyclist. My neck and back are still really sore and my face looks like it got mauled by Catwoman. Finally making it to the shop, I got started on a few tickets that were due (or overdue) and it was pretty much business as usual. But as the minutes slowly ticked by, there were a few events that made today actually pretty interesting. Aside from the usual array of friendly faces, high rollers, douchebags, and beer donations, a man by the name of Freddie Hoffman took a break from his ride to hang out with some of the shop guys. If you don't knowwho Freddie Hoffman is, don't worry. Neither did I. At first he seemed just like every other cyclist nut. The kind that loves to hang out and shoot the shit at bike shops. His thunderous voice carried across the shop floor so easily it was like he was right next to me yelling in my ear. After an hour had passed, I realized that this guy was probably someone very special (this was also confirmed when Full Pimpin' brought up his wiki article). This guy has ridden over 1.4 million miles, has crossed the country 20 times,* and has single-handedly raised over $1million for leukemia research. One of the more interesting stories about this guy was when he called Richard Schwinn at Waterford from Pennsylvania while in the middle of a bike tour. He had cracked his frame and Schwinn told him to strip it and have it shipped to him for repair. As the story goes, Hoffman showed up at Waterford's doorstep in Wisconsin three days later having bike over 500 miles** to get there. I wasn't able to hang out and listen in on his conversation with FP but still find his particular brand crazy cyclist to be both inspiring and thoroughly refreshing. It was like a cool breeze of real cyclist after months of being congested with the stench of aero triathlete geeks, weight-weenie roadies, and the generally ignorant bitch ass customers who we bend over backwards to make happy.*** I wish everyone could ride a bike with as much enthusiasm and happiness as he does. How did cycling get so damn complicated anyways?



Cycling was something I could do on my own, and I needed something I could do to nurture myself. I could go off on my own little journeys in my own little world, and do what I want, when I want, wherever. I built a world for myself around my bike riding. My bike served as my playmate, my brother and my counselor. Anytime I was riding, I was happy.
-Freddie Hoffman



Endnotes:
*Take that jobless adventure-seeking youths!
**And people complain about getting to my shop from Fairfax.
***And will never really be happy because they are the cause of their own frustration.

Cuts - Part Deux

(aka Why Cyclist Shouldn't Wrestle)

I look like I got in a fight with a bear. Not a Grizzly or anything, but more like a Care Bear with scissors. I spent Friday night getting drunk and getting hurt. An old high school buddy, Nacho Libre, was there and I pushed him in the pool. As expected, he came after me with guns blazing and started attacking me with the wrestling moves that I was all too familiar with since we were both on the same team in high school. NC, being the 200lb college rugby player, had an obvious advantage and I soon found myself getting pushed into a rocky pond, a patio, and a trampoline. Fortunately, I'm smarter than him and was faster on my feet. I don't really know who won that night*, but we both lost in the morning. I woke up and even my eyeballs wanted to scream "What the hell happened?!" It took a minute for the hangover paralysis to wear off and when I was finally able to move I found that my entire body had been battered and bruised all over. I have cuts and scrapes on my torso, neck, and face and look like absolute shit. Today is Sunday and my body still doesn't want to move but I forced my legs into riding a bike this morning. The increased blood circulation helped. My limited ability to turn my head did not. Thankfully the pace was relaxed and I didn't put my body through too much stress today (aside from suffering in the incredible heat). I don't think I'll be wrestling again anytime soon. The techniques and reactions are still there, but the muscles are not. I blame the stupid cycling industry and its emphases on being skinny, light, and socially awkward.



Endnotes:
*It was me, but you wouldn't be able to tell if you saw my face.

Cuts

I am not emo I promise, but for some reason I've fallen into this downward spiral of cutting myself, my hands in particular. And it's all from stupid things like stabbing myself with a screwdriver, scraping it against chainrings, or punching a hobo in the mouth when he's still smoking from his crack pipe. It's a pretty vicious cycle because half the time I rarely notice the cuts until I drip blood on something or come in contact with any kind of salt or acidic citrus fruit. And then when it does start stinging, I lose a bit concentration and then suddenly find a frayed derailleur cable stuck in the back of my hand. Gloves don't help since they take away what little dexterity I have. Band-aids don't stick, especially when the genetic makeup of my hands consists of 28% Polylube 1000 and 9% Triflow. It's just one of those things that you have to deal with on a daily basis. All you can do is put pressure on the wound and get it to clot up as soon as possible. Or you can pull a MacGyver and fashion a bandage out of a paper towel, electrical tape, campy derailleur cable, Sram Force brake hood, and an avocado pit. At the shop we actually call that a Dragon. I don't mind the cuts so much. It's the times when little bits of cable and scrap metal get embedded in my skin like tiny rust-prone splinters. Getting those out can be a bitch. The worst part is that I don't notice them until the second or third time a particular finger or other part of my hand starts hurting, after which said shrapnel has been further embedded in my skin. At least today is my day off and I will have a lot of time to pick at my scabs and shrapnel. My schedule is jam-packed with scheduled sitting around time, drinking, and bike riding. Oh and I'm going to see Dark Knight tonight. Color me stoked.

Bridging the Gap: Tour Invitation

As usual, I have a couple of bike projects currently running. I won't bore you with all the tiny details, but one of the projects that is closest to completion is a new, old, beater, fixie. I've been on the lookout for frames that would make a worthy candidate for short trips to the store or longer, drunker trips to the bar. I finally found one and I'll show it to you soon. I'm trying not to jinx myself here since I ultimately want this bike put together before the third edition of Tour de Franzia. So for now, I'll leave you with this mysterious bike build and an open invitation to join an army of faux hipsters in an inebriated parade around DC street starting at 9ish July 25th. It's gonna be dope!


PS
I've created a twitter page to enhance the I.C. Experience. It took me forever to figure out the damn device sync thing so that's why there are a few random posts that look like DGDSGJKL. But now I can update random crap from my phone. Isn't technology great? Aren't I just biggest loser you've ever read about? Check it out if you're ever really that bored.

Tri-Mania!

I woke today at fucking 3:55am, so according to my calculations it's time to start drinking. Who cares if its only 1pm? I've always believed that if you have a reason to drink you should drink. Not only have I been up for nine hours, but the first four hours were spent catering to triathletes. I'd say that warrants giving my liver a severe spanking.

I was up so early this morning that Wawa hadn't even started making breakfast sandwiches yet. If it were up to me, I'd make it a law for any 24-hour joint to serve breakfast starting at midnight and ending at noon. Since, I'm not the president of Wawa and didn't have my trusty beating sticks with me, I settled for black coffee and a doughnut and headed off to the race with The Pinkster and Yakob. We made it to the race parking lot with plenty of time to spare only to discover that the lot was not actually next to the race site, which was at least a mile away. Finally at the right place, we pitched our tent* and began our charity work. I call it charity work for several reasons. Firstly, it turns out that our shop actually paid money to run free tech support at the race. Normally, race organizers will pool funds to have professional bike mechanics at the race, instead the shop donated nearly $1000 in cash and goods to the race. A majority of our "tech" support consisted of pumping up tires and handing out bar plugs. For you cyclists out there it might seem odd that I had to pump up other people's tires, but keep in mind that we're dealing with triathletes here. They can't be bothered with tiny details that are essential to any specific sport. We're talking broad strokes here. If you run into a triathlete, don't ever ask them to pump their tires, tie their shoes, or zip up their wetsuits because to them that's just precious time and oodles of mental concentration lost. Three whole sports?! Oh the madness!

After an hour of intense 'wrenching,' we sat around. I played some mad hackey sack, bro. Then we decided to be slightly more productive and help out along side all the other race volunteers, tri-wives, and kids suckered away from their beds at 6am on a Sunday morning. Being productive at a race entails pouring water into cups that racers will inevitably spill the majority of and pointing a flag in the correct** direction that a triathlete is supposed to go. Thankfully, these activities didn't keep me from doing what I came to the race for, ogling the few tri hotties that were there. I definitely prefer the runners to the swimmers. There's something about women with broad shoulders that I just can't get over (or around for that matter) and cyclists (at least a lot of good racers) are too wrinkly for my tastes. It would be another three hours until we left the race with our eyes finally back in their sockets and tongues rolled back into our mouths. I was even able to string together a few sentences at the end of the day. "Me...want...beer..." Unfortunately, I got back to civilization*** at 11am and the bars weren't open yet, but when I did eventually make it to getting a few beers in me it was nothing short of an amazing end to my day****.

Odds and Ends

- The first thing that was blaring on the giant speakers at the race was some sort of Braveheart symphony (with extra phony). The second thing I heard over the PA system was the announcer calling for the owner of a black BMW sedan to move his car that was parked on the race course. His license plate was "I TRI". No, I am not making this up.

-Rattail McGee took it upon himself to put his bike in one of our stands and rifle through our toolbox without asking any of us. I almost snapped and yanked that rattail off his cycling cap wearing head. Who wears a cycling cap in July anyways? It was probably to hide the fact that his head was shaved save for the rattail that was growing out the side of his head. That's right. He had a side tail...and, yes, I should have killed him.

-What's the deal with the fucking paper cups they hand out to racers? They're just supersized shot glasses and half the time the racers only use them to pour over their heads. It was like a Girls Gone Wild scene out there. Just replace "Kamikaze shots!" with "Water! Heed!" and bikini tops with sports bras and you've got a triathlon.

-The bikes ranged from atrocious to downright scary. Obviously there were to Triathlete weekender on his hybrid mountain bike and also the tubular disc-wheel Cervelo TT bike. I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer sight and broad range of bikes that were present. I could have started a bike shop with all of them and not be lacking in any category.


Endnotes

*Both literally and literally (in our pants)

**Here we are present with a connundrum; a puzzle, if you will. Is there really a correct path for a triathlete? They tend to blaze their own trails anyways, what with their crazy running the opposite direction through the transition ramp or whatever its called. Some even chose to run back through the entrance to the second transition stage and no one seemed to stop them. In my opinion, a triathlete is going in the right direction if their heading away from me.
***This was not meant to imply the Montclair, Va was rural or hickish. It was actually a pretty nice suburb, which made it an even odder choice for a race site. Rather, this was meant to imply that the situation was merely skewed version of reality after which I thankfully returned to a world where triathletes did not rank supreme and are seen for the tools that they really are.
****End of my day indeed. It ended so well that I was only able to write half of this post before getting too drunk to finish it. It is now 1am Tuesday morning. I just finished this entry and am going to bed. Yes, I am slightly tipsy right now too, but that's a totally unrelated matter.

Bridging the Gap: The Calm Before the Storm

It's been a pretty uneventful couple of days. I rode bikes, I worked on bikes, and it's all been pretty standard stuff. Tooling around on a bike got me honked at. Someone honking a horn at the shop got a pedal wrench thrown at them. I was the unfortunate mechanic chosen to spec parts out for a flat bar conversion on a Madone, but even that kind of stuff seems hardly worth mentioning when compared to the gargantuan monster that I will have to tackle tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I will have to wake up at 4am and drive to the shop where I will rendezvous with The Pinkster (shop owner) and Yakob (regional manager). Together, we'll head out to the Montclair Triathlon and provide bike shop-related services that will be mostly unappreciated. I fully expect to be yelled at and pressured into doing ridiculous repairs by stressed out, cycling inept, fake athletes. I also expect to be wasted the entire time. Unfortunately, the only beer in a 5 mile radius of the race site will probably be piss water disguised as Michelob Ultra. I guess that's why God invented flasks.

Sticker My Burrito

So the Tour de France is going on now and someone is winning. In support of the Tour, I ate a burrito. It wasn't just any burrito, it was a Chipotle burrito. The McDonald's-owned franchise is a co-title sponsor of Team Garmin-Chipotle and is celebrating the team's invitation to the big show by putting stickers on their burritos. Unsurprisingly, the stickers are shaped like bike wheels and have G-C's trademark argyle styling cues, but what I didn't expect was the slogan in the middle of the wheel. It reads "En Francais: Le Burrito," which I can only assume means "The French are Burritos." Normally, I would question the logic of such statement, but given that they're a big fat burrito factory sponsoring skinny men in lycra it all sort of makes sense. Viva el Tour!

As an added bonus and a poor attempt to spread word of this blog to other countries, I've translated the text above in to French. Granted, it's a little known French dialect from the Chipotle region of my stomach, so the integrity of the translation might be compromised.

Alons, le Tour duh France est courir aujourd'hui et un person est le champion. J'ai manger el burrito. C'est un burrito des faux mexicaines avec McDonald's s'appelle Chipotle. Chipotle donne le argent pour les cyclistes maigre mas est savoir pour donne le grand burrito a les gros gens. il y avait un sticker sur mon burrito. Il dit "The French are Burritos." J'ai rire parce que c'est un vrai rapport. Go Bicycles!

Bridging the Gap: Stems, tee hee hee!

One of my favorite things about the Tour de France is the massive amount of 'tech' articles that emerge. I don't enjoy them for their amazingly detailed reporting into the inner workings of professionally raced bikes. I can read an instruction manual for that. Rather, I relish the instances when I can make a sly and witty remark about how cycling news likes to whip out pro racers' stems and compare. 140mm? Mines ten millimeters longer, ha!

Penis jokes.
Classic!

PSA: Bicycle Detox

So I've spent a whole lot of time being a bum. Not a suburban bum mind you, but more of a rural, forest-dwelling bum, which as it turns out is closely related to a country bumpkin. Spending a few days relaxing, drinking, eating gross food, and not showering can take a toll on a cyclist's form. Fortunately for this cyclist, my form* wasn't that great to begin with so I didn't really have much to lose. I nevertheless took it upon myself to document my re-entry into old cycling habits in, which I like to call 'Bicycle Detox'.

1.Ride
The first step to Bicycle Detox is by far the easiest and the most difficult to perform: actually riding the bicycle. It's easy because you want to ride bikes. It's difficult because you physically can't ride the bike to your expectations and kill yourself to ride like you once did. The hill intervals I did today are a good example of that. I haven't ridden my road bike in at least a week, substituting multiple, daily road rides for a single, weekly drinking session under the guise of the shop's nighttime mtb rides. Taking that into consideration, and adding multiple trips to sushi buffets and bars, it's no surprise that I was in for a hurting. But I wanted to ride. That what I like to do and I had a blast. I wanted to vomit, but I still had a blast. That's pretty much the first step of BD. It clears out the toxins in your pores and sometimes your stomach via sweat, pain, and misery.

2.Eat
The second step to BD involves eating. When you're doing multiple trips to bars and sushi buffet, you're pretty much going to be eating greasy pub grub or overdosing on raw fish. Neither of these options can really be defined as eating like a cyclist. The former doesn't fit the bill because greasy food just doesn't sit well on 3 to 4-hour, stool-loosening rides. The latter is a misfit because it's impossible to be satiated as a cyclist by eating identically tasting food until you pass out into a food coma. While we typically require huge amounts of food, we need diverse flavors, i.e. ice creams, pastas, sandwiches, meats, veggies, etc,, and nutrition that doesn't conform to a meat + fryer = sell or cold fish + rice = sell formula. Stage two is all about refueling the body and inspiring the appetite to motivate the cyclist into riding more and with more intensity.

3.Shave, twice
I recently shared a deep embarrassment of mine; my inability to shave my legs properly. Today I wanted to feel more like a cyclist, which obviously meant shaving my legs. Knowing that I suck at this, I pretty much scheduled two showers into my day today, which would afford me two opportunities to clear the wounded battlefield I call my legs. First pass: Fine. I'd say that I averaged 80% of my legs, which brings my all time average up 0.333% to an aggregate mean of 38.66%. Second pass: Better. I'd say that I got 90% of what was left. Dammit! Make that 83%. I should have made room for a third shower.

4.Laugh at runners and fat people
The final element to Bicycle Detox is psychological. Cyclists are the most elite and fit athletes and it's important for everyone to know this. Laughing at runners and fat people is our way of letting them know that we participate in a healthy, adrenaline-packed, highly cardio-intensive sport that doesn't involve the the long list of injuries that results from prolonged running. Bonus points for anybody who can high-five a fat person or runner with an injury hailing a cab. Super-double bonus points for anyone who has already gotten bonus points and then after passing said pedestrian turn around and point back at them firing finger guns. Peew Pewwww!


Also:
Chapeau to Will Frischkorn today for taking second today in Stage 3 of the Tour de France. As they say where I'm from, "THAT SHIT WAS AWESOME!"


Endnotes:
*My physical form. My metaphysical form is in perfect harmony.

Bro-Week

If you haven't guessed by now, I was out of town all week. I didn't go anywhere special but rather spent my time bro-ing out in various faraway places. I spent all day Monday in Fredricksburg with a few bros. The day began and ended with a fairly simply drive on I-95. The parts in between were epic but my memory is still a bit spotty as to what I actually did. Somewhere I got wasted, played soccer barefoot, got blood blister the size of a silver dollar on the bottom of my foot (b/c of the soccer), broke into a friend's house, and rode a Bianchi Pista in the rain wearing sandals. It was pretty much one of those adventures a modern day Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer would have, except bro-ier. Tuesday was sushi buffet again but this time with a hungry posse of six. Having eaten the weight of an obese child in raw fish, I packed up a few things and went camping with J-Spanish and 'Naldo. Sure, camping with two dudes is totally bro and lame, but step into my shoes for a minute. The last time I went camping was so long ago that it was before I discovered the wonderful effects of drinking copious amounts of alcohol. Sure the booze didn't make the ground any softer or the bugs any less annoying, but I got to play with fire and grilled some chorizo thus making the trip at least somewhat entertaining. I got back into town late Thursday and slept until Friday, when I dragged my ass to work still smelling like a campfire despite multiple showers.

So that makes it nearly a whole week without riding a bike. I know. I'm in shock myself, but I'm not worried at all. I'm planning on mountain biking a whole lot in the coming weeks and my Gunnar frame finally came in, so I'll have plenty of interesting bike tales soon.

Also:
After a week of bromance and conbrosation, all I have to say is "Where my hos at?"