Fall Stuff

I love this season. At first glance, what's not to like? The gorgeous foliage, crisp air, the smell of mud and sound of cowbells at cyclocross races. It's perfect. But I realized today during my commute on the W&OD that all these great things come at a price. They call it "Fall" for a couple reasons.

There are leaves that fall. There's rain that falls. And the combination of those two wonderful Fall things creates another wonderful thing: slippery sludge. Runners, strollers, and pets all trampled across the wet leaves and it forms this slick, rotten pulp that coats the surface of the W&OD and makes it impossible to go anywhere fast, but it's still a million times better than driving anywhere. Riding a bike with full coverage fenders and 28c tires, I'm far from complaining. I didn't even fall during my commute. I'm just saying that riding at Commuter-TT pace is no longer possible. As a commuter I pay a lot of attention to how long it takes me to get places, mostly because it directly affects the number of alcoholic beverages I can consume once I reach my destination. So I was five minutes off my pace today. Which means that I missed out on two beers before class today. Which also means that I will soon be investing in a flask. This special edition USGP of Cyclocross is looking mighty fine right about now.

The cool, crisp air is another thing that I love about this season, but it is also a sign that our days are getting shorter. Not like apocalyptically shorter (though I do have several zombie contingency plans), but in terms of the amount of exposure that we have to that round, warm ball in the sky. So I spent a lot of time in the dark riding home tonight. What better than a trusty ol' Niterider MiNewt to guide me home? Well for starters, one that was fully charged would have helped. Five minutes into my 50 minute ride, my MiNewt battery's button changes from happy blue to angry red. I tried to salvage what was left in my battery by switching to strobe-mode. Not only was this ineffective at saving what would be a total of 15 additional minutes of light, but damn near gave me a seizure. So I spent the rest of my ride home going even slower than the slippery sludge pace I had ridden on my ride in. Safety, what a son of a bitch. I was fortunate enough to catch up with another commuter on the trail who had a decent headlight. I cordially said hello, told him my light was out, and followed him to my exit. You gotta love the bike trails for things like this. Even if it is riddled with triathletes, pathletes, and people that walk to get places, it's nice that people can use it as an efficient, car-free commute. However, I will note that not all commuters are as friendly as yours truly. After following through on proper path etiquette, saying hi, asking for permission to tailgun it for the ride home, and saying thank you, all I got was a gruff "Yeah. Later." from my leadout guy. Meh, teaches me to drunkenly sing show tunes on a bicycle around other cyclists. At least there's always 'cross races where I can be as weird as I want.

Efficiency

First things first:
DCCX was rockin'. Props to the DCMTB crew!

Now:
I don't know why I think drinking beer after a 'cross race is a good thing. DCCX was great, but they should have cut me off after my first beer. I didn't get drunk per se. Having only 4 small beers wouldn't have done me in, but after a race that shit might as well be poison. Dehydration and fatigue undoubtedly play a huge role in the intense buzz I get after a few sips of a delicious beer. I know I shouldn't, but the compulsion to look as cool as possible overwhelms my survival/sobriety instincts. So after the race, not only was I exhausted from my race, I pretty much had a race+beer induced hangover without ever getting drunk. How's that for efficiency?

Also:
If we can put on a grassroots 'cross race in the district, why not bring back the U Street Crit or some other race like it for the road racing season?

Football and Drinking

I like football. That might be an odd statement for a cyclist, but it's true. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some fantasy league champ nor do I know every obscure stat from my favorite 60 players whose careers I've followed closely through the years beginning with their freshman high school games. I don't know, or even pretend to know every rule, set-up, or play that goes on. I like it simply because it is a sport where a bunch of big heavy armor-clad players try to move a 400 gram leather balloon across a 100-yard field while other big heavy armor-clad players try to stop them. Boiled down to its very core, football can be very interesting. What's less interesting about the sport is the special treatment players get off the field. Sure, you expect them to drive nice cars, have sexy ladies hanging off each arm, and to generally be able to get away with anything. I don't really care about all that. They're professional athletes and that kind of behavior is to be expected. What I don't get is why these athletes can't drink from a bottle of water with out the aid of a waterboy with a giant logo bottle, towel (essentially a giant napkin/bib), khakis, and the proverbial (and sometimes literal) boner for having a gig in such close proximity to sweaty smelly professional athletes. It's not like they're boxers who have giant gloves taped to their fists. Most football players need a great amount of dexterity to handle a ball effectively, and at the very least have enough to hold and squeeze a giant plastic upside down water bottle in the general direction of their mouths. I don't know what the reasoning is behind this phenomenon is and I won't speculate since most aspects of the game cannot be explained with exploded diagrams of derailleurs, hubs, or hydraulic disc brake calipers. What I will say is that in most sports, and especially in cycling, the athletes water themselves. Cyclists can even drink and race at the same time. Oh, and we get to eat while we race too which is something I'm sure all those jocks would love to do.

Forgive Me Father For I Have Fixied

What the hell is wrong with people? More specifically, what's wrong with people who want to refurbish vintage bikes and make them into fixies or single speeds?

I'll admit that I am guilty of this. I have committed this hipster sin multiple times, both for my own fixie gain and for the gain of others. Where I stand out from the rest is in my occupation as a bike wrench. The easy of access to a multitude of parts and tools makes super hip conversions a cinch. I can build a rear wheel and setup a single-speed chain ring in 45 minutes. Drunk. In fact, I can still vaguely recall those days I buckled down for a long night surrounded by fruity-colored rims, hubs, and a six pack. It was very easy to setup a handful of rigs the night before a city ride/pub crawl. Fun would be had by all, even if we were some awful clichéd suburbanites turned drunken hipster/hobo amalgamation. But at least we were self-aware. We knew this was a new fad and how quickly it would turn lame. It didn't matter because we did it on the cheap, didn't really care much about our bikes, and were more about drinking than actually riding. That's how I justify my hipster sins.

We see a lot of hipster sins at the shop. Sometimes we're the confessional, where customers come to ask forgiveness for threading both a cog and lockring onto the freewheel side of their free/free "flip-flop" hub. It's at these moments I usual go into fire-and-brimstone mode: "Are you crazy?! You could have DIED! Did you wrench on this yourself? Have you never heard of Sheldon Brown??" Other times we play the role of the Lucifer himself; throwing Zipp track wheels onto chrome-lugged Waterfords. It's these days that I feel my soul burning.

To make up for these sins, I repent by (and get great satisfaction from) telling customers to cease and desist. It starts with an innocent customer walking in to get a crankarm removed. Usually a simple task, but this particular crank is the older cotter-pinned system that was install in the pre-WWII era. It's not going to budge. Sure we could take a saw to this piece of crap, but one look at your vintage Dutch bike's bottom bracket tells me that there's no way in hell you're going find anything remotely close to this antiquated standard. Oh, you brought in another vintage bike from the same era and it has a crank in "good condition"? Well I'm not going to be able to remove that crank either and since the second bike is from a different country, it's wholly incompatible with the first frame's bottom bracket. I'm sorry you had some big ol' plans to strip and paint your cool frame, but looks like you walked in with two hunks of junk and you're leaving with both of them.

Other things I didn't tell you:
- There's probably rust throughout the inside of the frame that threatens its structural soundness. I know. I've broken a fixie because of that.
- You're going to be spending a lot of money on that bike, especially if you plan on running brakes.
- Whatever you do, it won't be reliable. Want reliability? Buy new.
- The internet can be tricky. Sure there's FGG and forums galore, but those are all naively positive perspectives on fixie culture. The internet is also the place where you'll find highly cynical and negative voices on said culture. Your best bet is to do the due diligence before you get your heart broken by your LBS mechanic. Chances are you won't be building up that piece of scrap metal after all. Amen!


Don't Hate Disclaimer:
Fixies are still fun as shit to ride and very easy to maintain. They definitely serve a purpose for simple urban transportation. That's why there are so many of them. This post was geared (pun intended) towards those who have taken a relatively simple task of building a fixed gear and made my life at the shop considerably more of a pain in the ass.

Apple Harvest 'Cross

I got home from Winchester a few hours ago. Since then, I've spent most of my time trying to sift through the mess pile of crap that was in my car. I seriously considering doing those modifications I proposed a few days ago. It's either that or I buy a car with more space, like an RV or Semi. It's not that I have a lot of stuff, but finding what I need is damn near impossible with an overstuffed duffel bag and an undersized car. The contents of the bag usually explode all over the my car's interior and I find a missing sock or half-eaten energy gel oozing on my carpet four days later. A larger vehicle would give me more working space to lay out my crap and after the race, I could just rake all my shit out the back into a giant trash bag. But that's just me daydreaming. Even if I could afford a big truck, I'd probably spend the money buy several more bikes, tools, and race fees. (Or for that same amount of money, I could by one "nice" Pinarello).

A couple thing about today's race:

- I drove there last night, not wanting to drive through the week's cold shitty drizzle at 6am. It turns out that driving through last night's cold shitty drizzle is slightly worse. It was pretty nerve racking to drive an hour and a half solo in the rain on the highway and Winchester's country roads. I will not be doing that crap anymore.

- I didn't warm up before the race. Despite staying at a friend's place literally 7 blocks away, I timed my morning breakfast routine into a big fat FAIL. Forgetting briefly that I didn't preregister for the race left me with only a handful of minutes to pump tires, wiggle into skinsuit and put the correct shoe on each foot after I signed in. I tried in vain to warm up and was only able to do a quick sprint run through the first 100 meters of the course. Great. Also for not doing the pre-reg, I got to start in the back. I basically spent the first two laps wanting to die as I tried to jumpstart my legs, lungs, and hands. On the bright side, I was still able to make up a few spots throughout the race thanks to my lack of falls and special hobo fighting techniques (i.e. drinking Scotch).

Race Car

It's Wednesday and I've finally cleared out the rest of my the race day remnants from last weekend. Gone Monday were the spare wheels, skinsuit, extra water bottles, gloves, and food. Taken out yesterday were the helmet, shoes, pump, and socks. I thought I had gotten everything out and naturally patted myself on the back for having cleaned out my car so efficiently. But alas the celebration was short lived and I had to recap my celebratory 40oz. bottle of Steel Reserve. This morning I found a stray arm warmer on the passenger-side seat, mocking me for thinking I could have anything in my life that wasn't in some way associated with cycling. It is now time to face facts.

I don't think I'll ever be able to keep my car clean and clear of bike stuff. It's Wednesday and I'm only 5% sure that I've gotten everything out from last weekend's races. And in a few more days that car will once again be loaded up with gear for a race. I might as well embrace this aspect of my life and simply transform the car into a dedicated bicycle transportation and support vehicle.

A trip to The Container Store and Home Depot would be all I need (plus about a thousand bucks) to retrofit a storage system inside to organized clean clothes, dirty clothes, helmets, sunglasses, and the rest of my crap. Also, I'd have soap dispenser-like fitments to dole out gobs of chamois cream and embrocation. I would find some way to get a shower rigged up as well as taps for water and post-race beer. It would be pretty similar to Lance's Livestrong bus, but more Asian (because I drive a Honda Civic hatchback and because I'm Asian) and built with a lot less money. Sure the weight of such a contraption might not be great for my 1.6-liter SOHC engine and it would definitely not pass a VA inspection, but at least then I would not have to wrestle with my compulsion to blend in with other normal human beings. Instead, I'd live freely on the roads, driving where ever I pleased, content with having everyone know I was a cyclist weirdo.

Yes. I would also put dimple on the body of my car too. It could use an aero treatment.

Richmond Fun

Just finished two days of racing in Richmond. I had fun, but honestly I was just happy to be healthy enough to race my bike. As for the races, I felt fine but thought that the 30-minute race duration was a bit short. Compared to the average 45-minute length of a Men's C race, this weekend's race format meant more pain in a shorter period of time whereas I prefer to experience the pain of the cross-eyed monster for as long as possible or until I break down and cry. It (the pain, and sometimes the crying) tends to make the races more interesting, but what do I know? I prefer crits to road races, so maybe I'm just a hypocrite.

What I do know is that I need to work more on being smooth over the barriers. I wasn't botching any of the dismounting/remounting, but as I was watching the 1/2 and 3 races go by, I noticed how smooth some of those long-legged racers just float over them. But I have a plan to lengthen my legs. It includes gravity boots, a weight belt, and learning to eat Chipotle burritos upside down. I will use the gravity boots to suspend myself upside down and wear the weight belt to stretch my legs until they're long enough. Ideally, I'd like a 48-inch inseam, or roughly 3 times the height of a regulation 40cm barrier. The burrito comes into play in two ways. Firstly, it's about the only thing that will keep me entertained whilst hanging upside down. I mean, what else am I supposed to do? Crunches? Secondly, after eating the burrito I will inevitably be unable to do a single sit-up and will thus be confined to the gravity boots until the food coma kicks in. I will be able to stay in my inverted position longer and thus be that much closer to my goal of having 4-foot long legs.

I would like to add that while I might not be the best barrier crosser out there, I am far from the worst as witnessed by myself and approximately 25 of my peers at the first set of barriers in today's race. What we saw to day was a racer in the Men's A/B field eat it, tripping over the second barrier. Yes. That happens to everyone. But what doesn't happen to everyone is a subsequent hissy fit where said racer throws his bike (including his carbon tubular wheels), spikes his helmet and glasses. What came next was a red-faced and sweaty rant about how he was having bad luck in the corners, over the barriers, and no one would work with him to establish/maintain a break. To that I say: That's racing, buddy. Nut up, practice more, and bring something other than an expensive bike and a bad attitude to your race next weekend. After all, why are we doing this shit if we weren't having sick, sadistic fun?

Sick No More

I rode today. Thank God. Spending a week and a half sick and then recovering from said sickness totally gave me cyclist's blue balls. No. It isn't the the kind you alleviate with a cut-out saddle or stupid gel-filled "bicycle chair" cover. It's the kind you get when all you want to do it ride your bike fast and have fun, but can't because if you did, you'd hack up a lung covered in yellow phlegm. But alas, my phlegm is no longer yellow and while today's ride was far from the fast, it was the fastest I've been in a while. It was a gorgeous day out today and no amount of lost fitness, real or perceived, would keep me from riding. Other than that, I don't have much else to write about, but let's have a go at it anyways:

hmmm....

Um. Next Friday's my birthday. My present to myself will be two 'cross races in Richmond. My mission will be to simply not suck complete ass either day.

.... and the Steelers are winning right now. I find that frustrating, even though I know nothing about football other than those bulky pads and helmets are totally not aero.