Pro-MO-tion

Get it? Pro-"Mo"...like Mo Bruno-Roy? That's why I didn't write what we call a "proper post" today. (Don't worry, tomorrow's post is gonna be extra-special, you won't want to miss it.) My oh so clever play on words there was the best I could do today. But hey! Don't let the fact that I'm president of the not-funny diarrhea (sweet! Only took me four tries to spell "diarrhea" right) club stop you from coming out to this excellent event. I'll be there for sure...again, don't let that stop you from attending. Mo is awesome and they've put together some pretty sweet raffle items. Oh, and did I mention beer? There's beer.

Who knows, maybe there will be some sort of poorly-organized, cycle-driven pilgrimage from say, Davis Square at about 5:30 tomorrow...maybe from the Diesel Cafe. I'm just saying. Perhaps I'll swing down there to see if anyone shows up just in case.

Speaking of swinging down to places just in case people show up — I'm riding tomorrow (Thursday) AM out of The Gail Ann Coffee Shop at 10 Medford St. in Arlington. If you've got a weird schedule like me, a mountain bike, and the strange desire to go get wet, hurt, and lost for four or so hours, then you're a friend of mine, and you should definitely come on out.

And here's all the info about tomorrow night's shindig:


MM Racing World Championship Raffle Drawing

and Cyclocross Season Wrap Up

April 1st
6-9 pm
Ride Studio Caf�
1720 Massachusetts Avenue
Lexington, MA 02421
T: (339) 970.0187

Join MM Racing along with some of our great sponsors, friends and fellow cyclists for the final event of the 2009/10cyclocross season!

Nothing brings the cycling community together like beer, baked goods and raffles, so please join us for beer generously provided by our friends at Harpoon Brewery, homemade baked goods and your chance to be one of the lucky winners of a custom Seven Cycles bike, Thule Rack System or Pedros Master Tool Kit 3.0.

Be sure to pick up the latest edition of Embrocation Cycling Journal featuring a full page Seven Cycles ad and a short piece written by Matt. Buy it here or the night of the event.

Tickets will be available the night of the event or online until 11:59PM Wednesday March 31st here: http://www.bikereg.com/events/register.asp?eventid=9927

Winners will be announced at the event but do not need to be present to win.

In Like a Jerk
and Out Like a Douche Bag

That's what I have to say about March. When people start saying: "Ah, it's almost over" about winter, in February, I scoff...audible (and they think I'm a prick). March is by far the worst month here in New England. It tends to piss sub-40° rain and damn near break the needle of the suck-o-meter. I hate it. Ya, it's getting to me, it's getting me down, and what's more, it's getting me wet and it's getting me angry. I am being pissed off and pissed on simultaneously.


These photos? They're not from today, or even this week...not even this month. They were in a folder from early February labeled "Jack London." I believe my intention was to compare my wussy commute in the snow to London's story "To Build a Fire." That never happened, I haven't taken any photos this week because I haven't ridden, because it's been deluging non-stop, so I'm posting these as a reminder of a kinder, more clement time...February.


Snow. I'll take snow over this icy liquid falling from the sky. Snow doesn't permeate your clothing and your very soul the way frigid rain does.


And snow makes such a nice crunching/squeaking sound when you ride over it, sort of like riding over hundreds of baby mice.


In the news: The OBR has connected me with a friend who has a spot for The Lumberjack 100. So unless some totally crazy-life-changing-crap happens, I will be hitting that race for the first time this year. Thanks Craig and thanks Angie (your check is in the mail) for the sweet hook up!

-t

Monday AM
Un-Characteristic
"Twit-Like" Post

What can I say? mid-terms. Reality is sucking the life out this blog.
But, in other, less whiny, I haven't slept for days, I think I'm gonna frickin' lose it news: if you pick up the latest copy of Dirt Rag, you might be in for a little surprise (unless you've really been paying attention, in that case, not so much). And I'm not just talking about how Dicky has really hit his stride with his "Wazupwidis?" column. (As a behind on training and weight loss guy myself, it really spoke to me.)

It's raining again. That means I'll be riding less and writing more this week. Which is either a good thing or a bad thing...depending on how you look at it. Still doing the "Catch-As-Catch-Can Training." I can't say it's really working out. Last week I logged a whopping 6 hours in two days. The weather forecast tells me I'm going to be doing about the same thing this week. I've come to the convenient (and warm and dry) conclusion that riding in the 40° rain is for people who get paid to do it.

Freaky Foto Friday Has Move
and We Have a WINNER!

They're over on the 29er Crew Blog today, the freaky fotos that aren't really so freaky given the week in fotos here at the Big Bikes. Got some nice shots of the BCT out in Concord/Acton on an impromptu mountain bike ride...on my cross bike. So go CHECK IT!

I call this piece "Naked Indurain With a Killer Whale"

We have a winner in the Figure Out What The Hell I was Thinking When I Created This Weird-Ass Photo-Montage Contest, it's....

Mike from Darkhorse Cycles!

He was the only person who deduced that the above image was inspired by The Red Hot Chili Peppers song: "Naked In The Rain," and the "Lyrics: "Naked in the rain with a killer whale."
You have no idea how good it felt to have someone else say the words which occur to me so readily when I hear that song. Have I ever told you about my Marvin Gaye Chapstick lyrics? Ah, but that's a long story and it will have to wait for another day.

What's important right now is that Mike gets a SingleSpeed-a-polooza themed "Mix Tape" as a reward for suffering from brain-deformities similar to my own. Or maybe it's that we share the all brown liquids and no sleep diet. Who knows.

Big T gets honorable mention and a consolation prize for these totally wrong but hilarious lyrics:

oh yeah... a-ha... oh yeah...
I'm sittin' on my couch...
a-ha.. oh yeah....
I'm holding a plush shark between my legs....
a-ha...oh yeah...
I'm naked cuz I just ate my nachos
a-ha....oh yeah... oh yeah.... a-ha.

Big T, send your address to thomp2000 at gmail dot com and you'll get a "Mix Tape" which you will probably hate an end up throwing at your cat. If you don't have a cat, I can send you one of those too.

And Endless Bikes gets a "Mix Tape" because Endless Bikes is awesome and might have gotten one anyway, just because.

Thanks for playing the Decipher What The Crap Was Going on In My Withering Brain When I Photo-Shopped This Bad Craziness Challenge.

P.S. - The totally-not-staged-I-swear crash photo is just for Rick. Hi Rick. That log big enough for ya?

If You Can Read This

it means that I didn't wake up while it was still dark out to put up a real post on the 29er Çrew site.

The good news (aside from the fact that you don't have to read 500 + words of nonsensical literary puke this morning) is that we still don't have a winner for the Figure Out What in The Hell Inspired This Photo Montage Contest. (All contest details here.) But, I ask you this...does anyone truly win in a contest where the grand prize is a "Mix Tape" of Thom Parsons rock? Although I do promise it won't be that bad. I was only influenced heavily by the music of just ONE of my famous musician parents...the good one; not the total crap one.

Yes, I was raised by two dads, and yes they were both famous musicians, but our house was divided. My sister and I showed allegiance to my dad, Gram (Parsons that is) while my brothers sided with our other dad...Alan (Parsons of course). Alan-Dad was always whisking my siblings off to England to work on his "project." Ooh, I was sooo jealous. Whatever. I had a great time hanging out with Gram-Dad. Well, let me just say that I had a lot of "freedom" when I was hanging out with Gram-Dad. While he was all hopped up on LSD, off in the desert looking for UFOs I could drink as much soda pop as I wanted and stay up watching Jonny Quest. It was awesome.

So, on the contest...
things we've established:

• The painting or "artistic bed" for the piece is by painter Lucian Freud. The name "Lucian Freud is not the answer I'm looking for.
  
  
• The head of the figure in none other than famous Spanish cyclist Miguel Indurain. His name, or part of it factors into the answer.
  
  
• Indurain is holding a whale that is known by two common names, one of which is part of the answer.
  

• The answer is the title of a song, of which I have ever so slightly misinterpreted the lyrics. (OK, I've just about written backwards on your forehead now.)
  
  

What I'm looking for is really the TITLE of the piece, which just so happens to describe it quite accurately. You can do this, I have no doubt about your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

-t

P.S. - Gee, I wonder what the UPS guy left on my porch (for three hours in my not-entirely-un-sketchy neighborhood, after he faked my signature, the dick).

Questions and Answers
(And a Contest...shh)

Yesterday I started responding to the questions in my comments section, and thought myself:

"Hey douche bag, you could make a post out of all this crap." So that's what I've done.

Oh, the above photo montage...you don't want to know about that. I just made it because I needed something to eclipse the weirdness of the naked nachos photo.

Ah yes, The Contest:

If you can guess the inspiration for the above image, you will WIN a Big Bikes Mix Tape (which is actually a CD). This won't be some MP3 massive file dump with thousands of songs on it, totaling hours of haphazardly selected music. It will be comprised of 90 minutes of well thought out music. Just like we made 'em back in the olden days. Of course the cover will be the above image (or the naked nachos photo, your choice).

Wow, that is a HUGE incentive to twist your brain inside out trying to figure out what the hell is going on in that creepy, creepy picture. But really...I make sick mix tapes, it's the only thing in life, about which, I will actually stand up and say: "Dude, I am wicked good at this shit."

This contest will run as long as it takes to produce a winner, or until I get bored with it like I did Fat Tuesday and stop talking about it. Good luck!

And now...Answers for you!

Fatmarc Vanderbacon said...

I gotta couch, and free entry if you feel the need to race Granogue down in delaware...

just sayin'

respect
fm

8:40 AM

Big Bikes said...

Fatmarc,

That event occurs while I'm still in school and working weekends; that said,
a theme of this season may be going to races where:

a.) The entry is free

and

b.) There is a couch for me to crash on

What I'm saying is — anything is possible. Appreciate the offer. I'll be in touch.

rosey said...

wasn't the darkhorse 40 less than $35 recently? are all these mtb races trying to copy battenkill? more than $1 per mile? it's a far drive for these but to top it off with the high entry fees really stings.

i guess i will stick to $10 outlaw races with all you can drink beer.

10:21 AM

Big Bikes said...

Rosey,

But The Darkhorse 40 is a race that's actually worth it. They feed you and beer you and make sure you have a good time. It's not like dropping $60 on some Kenda Cup or somethin'. And by all means, keep having outlaws races, hopefully I can make the next one.

Amanda said...

naked nachos?

i can't seem to get to reading Matt either...

10:57 AM

Big Bikes said...

Amanda,

damn, I guess Spanish isn't as hard a language to crack as say — Navajo. (I do wonder how you say "nachos" in Navajo.)
Post ride, in a bonk, couldn't wait for dinner, couldn't decide whether to shower or eat first, got halfway to the shower, doubled back for the recovery nachos, and ate them in the bedroom, hunched in a wooden chair...normal.

David Alden said...

Yo. I'm in the same boat (how appropriate with this weather) in terms of the weight loss, though I suspect I had more to lose. I'm about 20lb down with 10lb to go. I signed up for Wildcat--should be a fun one. The burning question is--gears or no gears?
http://beardedbiker.blogspot.com/
http://www.racer-x.cx/

11:31 AM

Big Bikes said...

Dave,

Ya, I'm going on a weather-based training schedule right now. I ride when it's sunny and sit on my ass and eat when it's rainy. I can't say that it's working, but I am more sane than I normally am in late March. There must be a correlation between fat cells and sanity, that's all there is to it. I'll be on gears at Wildcat, good luck with the SS if you decide to go that route.

Emily said...

this Stoopid 50... will it be fun? or just stoopid? is it like all the good parts of W101 without the fire roads? I'm bummin I'm gonna miss Wilderness this year, maybe I should come up for this one?

1:20 PM

Big Bikes said...

Emily,

I hear it's Stoopid fresh! Just like the 101 without the gravel. Everyone I know who went last year liked it a lot. And only some of them used to huff a lot of glue.

Fat Chance said...

DH40- great race and you should bring the girl. Hopefully we wont have the super strong heat this year.

The picture: one really needs to shed some light for the enquiring minds...

3:37 PM

Big Bikes said...

Georges,

Don't know what the girl's plans are. If she's racing mountain bikes this summer, I'll try to convince her to do it...because it's awesome. Mike and those guys put on a good show. The heat, wow, that was rough. I'm packing a coffin sized cooler of ice in the car, so I can dive into it after the race. Oh, and hey...when is the NYCMTB Highbridge Classic race?

Big Bikes also said (as he wiped a tear of exhaustion from his eye)...

I'm goin' to bed.

Thanks for reading youz guys.

-t

Nachos Desnudo

With insomnia riding me like it's the Kentucky Derby, and my name is "Green Monkey," I do believe I will forgo the building up of a landfill of gibberish from which to segue out of to begin the continuation of my Things I'm Thinking of Doing monologue and just get right to it.

If you're nice, I might tell you what's going on in the above photo. If you're not, I'll post the one of me standing up a few seconds after that shot was taken tomorrow.

Where was I, let's see...about to the end of May.

Hold on a second, it is, technically, Fat Tuesday, the day I normally talk about my alleged weight loss, but truthfully, I am just really bored with that premise for a blog post. I've lost about eight pounds since the start. Now that might sound impressive (not as impressive as it would be if I were a...I was going to say Capuchin Monkey, but I have already reached my monkey-reference-quota for the day, so I'll say Tree Shrew) but it's not that impressive really; I just had a lot to work with.

Another reason for the loss of impetus on the talking about my reduction of blimp-idness. Hey, that rhymes...kind of. You'd think I could do a better job of making up rhyming words, like Humpty Hump from The Digital Underground — "I get stoopid, I shoot an arrow like Cupid,
I use a word that don't mean nothin', like looptid."

Now "looptid" rhymes a whole lot better with "stoopid" than "impetus does with "blimp-idness."
Which, oddly enough and as unintentional as it was (I swear) leads me right back into the discussion of my prospective race schedule — but wait! — I was going to explain why a loss of impetus occurred. You see, the thing is...I can't read. I have no time, I read way too much for school, not to mention all the Trek University "Web-in-ars" I have to watch for work, so that I can stay current.

It's like Mark Twain sort of said:

"The man who does not read good books (because he's too "busy" watching The Pacific, Top Gear, and The Colbert Report) has no advantage over the man who can't read them (because he's so burnt out from reading stuff for school, every time he looks at the printed page, his eyes tear up with blood)."

And I'm both of those men.

My point, as obtuse and obfuscated as it might be, is that I haven't had time to read Matt Fitzgerald's book Racing Weight for a couple weeks now. That's all. Maybe I'll get back to it at a later date.

Um, ya and now for that supposed nice, clean lead in to the Things I'm Thinking of Doing discussion.

The Stoopid 50 is something I want to do this year. My back exploded at an inopportune time last season, side-lining me for that one...on the sidelines of the bicycle race, where all the bicycle race bench-warmers are, watching the starters. When will be people realize that bicycle racing, particularly mountain bike racing, sucks much less than most other sports?

Due to the timing (ooh, some folks are not going to like this) I will likely bow out of Singlespeed-a-polooza and make my trip down to Stewart State Forest for The Darkhorse 40 instead.

Doug gave me the heads up about The Wildcat Epic a while back, I do think I will check that out. Back to back 50 milers, not too far from home, out in New York...sounds pretty sweet to me.

Before I go, about the photo...oh! — Would ya look at the time, and the word count, oh my. Looks like I'll have to fill you in on that one tomorrow.

-t

Fuzzy's Dream

I ran into John Fuzzy Mylne a while back. It was the night before SSUSA in Tucson. We were at "registration" at The Surly Wench. He told me that he had just recently had a dream about me, in the dream, I was Vince The Slap Chop Guy. I forget if he told me what I was doing in the dream, but my mind was blown. I had just a week or so before sent in my blogger grant application for The Breck Epic. On the application form I was asked who would play me in the Breck Epic movie. In the past, people have told me I look like everyone from whiny wuss-bag Billy Corgan to squinty bad-ass Clint Eastwood.

Of course Corgan is not an actor, he is a washed up musician, and saying that Clint Eastwood should play me would be poor form. You can't say that you want someone awesome to play you, you have to choose the lamest possible option. It's the law.

Guess who I chose to play me.
You got it — Vince The Slap Chop guy.

BUT, the crazy thing is that it had never occurred to me at any time prior to this that I bore any kind of physical resemblance to MR. "You're gonna love my nuts!" This coincidence was just straight up eerie. And yes, the resemblance is uncanny as well. It's more in the lanky-un-muscled-cartoonish-gesticulations and twitchy-nervous-energy than anything. We also both have a proclivity for beating up prostitutes (and getting a little beat up ourselves in the process) but that's another story.

Despite all my rage, I am still just a whiny-douche in a bad sweater

I'm not sure what's up with the blogger grant thing. As far as I know it's happening (I don't know if I'll actually be a contestant). They said they were going to post the contestant entries on March 1st. I have no concept of time, but I think that date has come and gone. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though, Breck would be my big race of the summer, which segues nicely into a discussion of...

Things I'm thinking of doing.

EFTA kicks of their season with the King of Burlingame off-road time trial this coming weekend...I will not be there. Though I did it last year, and it was awesome. Here's my deal. I am in school five days a week and working the other two until mid-May. I will not be doing much in the way of racing until school's out. There will be exceptions, such as my trip up to Vermont for George W's Gravel Grinder race on April 18th.

After that I'm going to try to hold off until the end of school, kicking things off a little later than usual with Doug Peckham's demented Glocester Grind race on May 16th. This is a race I really enjoy, although it kicks my ass.

I also can't pass up a race like the Weeping Willow, which is a half hour from my house at a new venue that happens to be one of my favorite places to ride. From then on out I'll be trying to do as many EFTAs as possible. The past couple seasons I concentrated more on the Root 66 races, this season I'll throw a couple in, but the focus is on EFTA, at least as far as local stuff goes.

I'd love to do The Lumberjack 100, but just as I did last year, I completely blew it and forgot about registration and now it's sold out once again. If there's someone out there who can pull some strings or have somebody killed to get me in, I would jump at the chance to do the thing. I promise I'll write a rave review of the event...because it really needs to be more popular.

Ah look, it's bedtime and I have already far-surpassed my temporary word count cap, I will try to find an opportunity to segue back into things I'm thinking of doing later in the week.

-t

Serious

Today started off on a bit of a low note. I went on the internets this morning where I was confronted with the news of Tony Kornheiser's comments about running down cyclists. Something like that wouldn't usually get under my skin, but shortly afterward I received an email on the 29er Crew list about the hit and run accident that left Fisher rider Adam Little dead. On any other day I would have brushed aside any anger I felt toward a moron like Kornheiser and gone for a bike ride...not today. I got all worked up and fired off an angry email to ESPN:

The other day Tony Kornheiser, during a tirade against cyclists, said "it's all you can do not to run them down!" At another point in the show he said more directly: "Run em' down!"

Like this Tony?
http://www.wbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12155467

There's dead cyclist for ya, how does that make you feel? He was a good dad and husband. He was just trying to get to work and stay fit and now he's dead because of an irresponsible driver.

I ride a bike in Boston just about every day, and I know from experience that there are plenty of people out there who are ready to literally run cyclists down. I've had cars aimed at me more than once. These people don't need someone to whip them up into a frenzy or validate their antisocial, belligerent attitude toward cyclists.

Cyclists are people — humans made out flesh and bone, they break easily, and often people driving their armored SUVs forget that. Please don't encourage them to do so.

In a perfect world, a copy of this email would end up on Tony Kornheiser's desk.



So that's what I wrote. If you want to tell the ESPN management what a douche bag you think Kornheiser is you can go do it HERE. The guy is catching some serious heat though, and it's coming from the direction of Lance Armstrong. Hopefully this is the nail in the imbecile's coffin. Hell, his employer suspended him for two weeks just a month ago for saying something obnoxious about his coworker's tight skirts. He had just gotten back to work and he goes off on a rant about killing people with cars. This is guy is a frickin' genius.



Oh, it's about freedom of speech is it? How would people react if some other radio personality "joked" about killing human beings in another manner.

"Shoot drivers in the face...with a gun!"

That would go over well. How about:

"Take a cinder block and smash roller bladers' skulls in!"

Thing is, someone could joke about committing acts like that on the radio, because no one would ever do anything like that (well, most everyone). Drivers do turn their cars into weapons, swerving 6,000 pound SUVs at and into cyclists on a regular basis. But unlike picking up a desk stapler and wielding it at your boss, this behavior goes unnoticed and un-prosecuted unless it results in serious injury or death.