Big Bikes

Mixed Nuttiness

Or week's-end wrap up of random crap.

First off, take a look at the guy in the upper right hand photo. He lent me a pump at The Fells opening Day and I never found him to give it back. If you know him, let me know so I can repay his kindness with something other than the theft of his pump.

The other night I had a dream that I was working The Booth at The Shop (the thing where you are stuck signing in repairs and talking to an endless stream of people all day). A customer began walking past the counter and into the back of the service area going "Hello! Hello!". Remember - dream. But people do this pretty often in reality. They wait at the counter for about half a nano-second, then begin shouting for help. Then they walk behind the counter a half nano-second after that. Just like you would at any retail establishment.

In this dream I came walking out, almost smacking right into the customer and began waving my arms and walking like a sardonic chimpanzee going "Hey, is this what you do at Starbucks if no one's at the counter? Just walk behind there and start making your Latte? Hey look at me (pantomiming steaming milk) I'm makin' a Latte, I know how to run a Rancilio - AAH, my eyes! Oh God, I can't see!".

As I was doing this my boss walked back and witnessed my open mockery of a customer. He tried to explain to me that this was inappropriate behavior. He was upset.

And last night I had dream that a race course took the riders through a large house. I've had this type of dream before. We get lost in the house, the course markings non-existent. I'm running up stairs with my bike, opening doors, trying to find my way out. I get upset.

At least I'm sleeping enough to dream. It's been a while.

When I came home last night my mini-shop vac had taken a dive off the closet shelf. It had burst open, its dusty, gnarly contents spewed out all over the floor. I picked it up, put it back together, plugged it in and proceeded to vacuum up the mess. There's a metaphor there somewhere...running over a fireman with your car and totaling it in the process. The fireman drags himself out from under your wheels to rescue you with the jaws of life he had on him. Like I said, it's there somewhere. Maybe I vacuumed it up along with the dust monkeys.

Things I forgot to mention but meant to. Last Wednesday I went for a pre-work ride, kind of an off-shoot of my commute with IBC teammate Kevin. We hit up some trails behind McLean Hospital, The Old Met State Hospital, and took a loop around Rock Meadow and Beaver Brook. Kind of a lollipop that leads back to my route to the shop. Way to start the day totally stoked. Even belligerent Prius drivers were gentle when I rode past.

Horrible things I ate last week:

• Two Big Macs in one sitting
• A late night Cheese Steak from a disreputable sub shop
• A gargantuan meatball sub from Bob's in Medford (very reputable, so delicious, yet so horrible)
• A pile of pulled pork from Redbones
  

Somehow all that added up to me hitting another weight goal. In the past two months I have gone from Ryan Trebon Weight, to Bart Brentjens weight, to Jan Ullrich Weight (fit Jan), to Lance Armstrong circa 1999 Weight, and now I'm hovering just above Heinrich Haussler Weight. I thought Ivan Basso weighed that amount, read it somewhere...but his, I'm sure, very accurate Wiki Page says that he's a mere 150 Lbs. I Googled around trying to find a cyclist of my height and weight, Heinrich was all I got. Basso would have been more impressive.

Last Saturday was The NEMBA Fells Opening Day Celebration. I actually wrote about that over here.

Sunday, I got a beat down at the legs of Big Dan Barry. We met up at The shop and started out on my kind of suburban hill loop through Belmont and Waltham (this was a road ride). I got scared when we did one run up Bear Hill Rd. and he was asking "So how many times you wanna do that?". He did the same thing after the first trip up Prospect Hill. The dude has mad spin. He flies up steep pitches, ticking over his 39 X 23 like Armstrong. I've been doing a lot of big gear climbing so trying to mimic his more fluid and efficient style is really painful right now. It makes me breath hard. It's good for me.

OK, I have to go now. I'm really just going to go over to the IBC Blog and write something about the NEMBA thing to link to. I won't be far away, don't fret.

Racing Sunday Down in Farmington, CT. Putting a BIG GEAR on. Can't hardly wait.

-t