Big Bikes

The Weak(or so)in Photos

I think my eggs are trying to tell me something about the abject horror that awaits me at the Gravel Grinder this coming Sunday. "NOOOO! 30's and rain...GET OUT (of it) GET OUT (of it)!

Ya, ya, yesterday was kind of my photo-cop-out post of the week, but I ain't got time to shave my chest and glue the hair to my face every day y'know. Besides, I only have one chest to shave. I suppose I could shave somebody else's chest...and glue the shorn hair to his (or her...ew) face, but in most cultures that would be considered rude. In fact they'll strap you to the electric chair for such an act of malfeasance in Texas.

Years ago I was in Turkey — Please, don't confuse this with the story your buddy the de-boned duck told you. He wasn't in Turkey, he was in a turkey being served in a dish called "turducken." But I can see where you'd get confused...in speech it's hard to convey the capitalized "T" thing. In Turkey, turkeys the bird are banned, just to avoid confusion. You can do things like that when your government is no longer secular. If you get caught trying to smuggle turkeys into Turkey these days, you get sentenced to 30 years in Turkish-Man-Rape-Prison. (Don't worry, that's a safe link, it doesn't go to Sweeney's favorite website. And Kevin, I apologize, but Greg "The Leg" doesn't have a blog, or I'd link to him in a heartbeat on something like that.)

Butanyway (I just decided that's one word. You hear that Merriam Webster?) I was in Turkey. — and now this story is damn near completely pointless — and I was talking to a Turkish guy about stupid-racist-American-stereotypes about Turkey, mainly based on the film Midnight Express (guess what, if you didn't click on the "Turkish-Man-rape-Prison link, and I have no idea why you wouldn't have done that, it actually goes to the Midnight Express Wiki page. And explaining that was so much more effortless than linking to it again) and the notion that the Turks will imprison Americans indefinitely for nearly no reason (and man-rape them). I was surprised when he informed me that Turks are afraid of certain areas of the states as well. "What, like New York or L.A. or Baltimore?" I asked. "No...Texas. They kill people all the time there." He wasn't talking about murder, at least not the free-for-all disorganized kind, but state-sanctioned murder (as I see it, but I'm a knee-jerk liberal) — capital punishment. This totally freaked him out.

And that is why I was not supposed to talk today. Not a good talking day for me. Here...you...look...photos...instead...I...shut...gob...now.

McKittrick completely outclasses the competition in the shoe race
at the benefit for MM Racing at The Ride Studio Cafe.

Hey! Oh...OK, that's cool. Sorry I bristled there for a second.

Jorge "George" Cardona commuting like a madman from Salem to Newton. Jorge is the man. He is always on the bike and he only has one speed — wicked frickin' fast.

Jerry Garcia gets the most out of his 30-something-pound trail bike. "Oh ya, it was made for this shit!" That's the real live down-hilling nut-job Jerry Garcia, not the deceased hippy one by the way, in case you were wondering. Which reminds me of a quote from Dr. Bryan Philbrook: "Phish only exists so that the Grateful Dead aren't the worst band in the world." Doctor I concur! I mean, I'm pretty tolerant of other people's horrible music, and admittedly I listen to some abhorrent stuff myself, but Phish? I would rather pass one of their albums through my urethra like a kidney stone than listen to it.

Jerry is one of the best bike handlers I know. I saw him do things on my Superfly that it only does for me in my dreams. He only bit it trying to ride through this puddle because Eggleton and I had ridden through it ahead of him, muddying the waters, thereby concealing a large, submerged rock.

Due to all the time I have spent in soaking wet bike shoes lately, I actually have things like this growing on my feet right now.

Colin has a magnificent beard and rips it up on the trails.
Which is impressive for a guy riding a recumbent.

Why do we clean our bikes lil' skipper?
So we can get 'em dirty again, that's why.

Man, it just dawned on me that I'll actually have something to talk about Monday AM...I mean Tuesday AM, Patriots day y'know, I'm very patriotic. I've been invited to take part in a reenactment on the Battle Green in Lexington that day. What they don't know is that I'll be showing up as Kimbo Slice. That shit's gonna be over at one minute and forty five seconds of the first round!

-t