Big Bikes

Rants and Stark Raving Rants

I haven't been racing my bike, I have begun training again, on the road exclusively...and commuting, always commuting. Obviously I haven't been blogging, I am remiss, it's just that aside from racing my bike my life is extraordinarily, profoundly, uninteresting.
Today I was riding along to work, just spinning, making no efforts, I'm sitting at a light and this, how you say? Jack...Ass comes barreling through the light on his mountain bike, veers and zig-zags through cross-traffic and hammers away. Eventually I spin up to him, we hit a hill and I gently pass him, he decides to cross two lanes of traffic and swerve onto the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. I thought, "O.k. he must be making a left turn". Nope, he appeared a couple minutes later at another light, blazing down the sidewalk, hurtling into the street against traffic, against the light, against all laws of man, and common sense, and self-preservation. Idiot. Each time I sat at a light listening to my Neil Young, "keep me mellow no matter what during my morning commute" music I would witness this prick threading the needle through the intersection like a rookie messenger, like a crackhead on a little girl's Huffy, no style, but this guy is forty years old at least. I was almost to work, I had forgotten all about Einstein on wheels, and then at the junction of Centre St. and Rt. 9 he comes by on the sidewalk, defying death like Robbie Knievel, shooting across the off and on ramps for 9 in a place where no one is expecting to see him. And that was it, I bellowed "Dude, you are a F-ing kucklehead!", and pedaled away. That'll teach me to be on the road during peak commuting hours.

I'll preface my next rant by saying that I drive a Volvo, I am not tough, I have a big mouth on the bike, but I will run/ride to the hills when it comes to a physical confrontation. We're riding up to Concord the other day and a this post-Middle-Aged Geoffrey decides to swerve his Swedish Safety wagon at our pace-line in an aggresive manner while honking his horn. As we approached the rotary in Concord center I came along side him, tapped on his window, and said loudly "When you act like a tough guy while driving a Volvo it looks like you're trying to be deeply ironic". And he went home and beat his wife an kids while I chuckled through the rest of my ride.
While I'm at it, Recumbents, they shouldn't be sold at bike shops, they should be sold at furniture stores, they have as much to do with bicycles as Rollerblades do. Don't get me wrong, Recumbents are a great way for handicapped people to enjoy cycling, I might even get one when I'm say, I don't know, seventy-eight, or sooner if I decide suddenly to entirely give up on fun. If I waved to Recumbenters while out on rides then I'd have to wave to joggers, dog walkers, and guys with shopping carts full of recycyclable bottles. They call conventional bicycles "Wedgies", a conventional bicycle seat does not give you a Wedgie if your ass isn't the size of a First Class airline seat. Maybe it's just that I wish their short shorts were longer than their long long unkempt beards.

Cadence computers, people with $300 hybrids that top out at 8 MPH on the bike path always want cadence computers. In perfect world one would get to ask then one question before they were allowed to do such a pointless thing. "What is cadence?", the dictionary wouldn't help them out "A modulation or inflection of the voice" how does that help you out while cycling? How about asking them what's a good cadence? 5?
9? 10,000? What does it even mean? If they can't answer they don't need it and even if they could they probably still don't.
This is what happens when I don't race my bike and then decide to sit down at the keyboard, badness...nothing but badness, pray that I get back racing soon, it will be better for all of us.