Um ya, I haven't exactly been forthcoming in the "reality and bikes" department lately. And during this non-communicative period, the tiny pupa that was my Superfly Single Speed has transformed into a beautiful...hulking gray Gary Fisher Collection Sawyer. I have no idea how this happened really. It may have involved my Ferrous (Dunderchee) in some way. But today's post isn't really about that...I'm speed blogging, with very little WiFi time left this evening. There's just way too much fascinating stuff to talk about when it comes to the new addition to THE STABLE...THE QUIVER. (Excuse me, I had to pause briefly and punch myself in the nuts for using those terms.)
My new thing is doing semi-longish road rides on a single speed mountain bike with 2.25 knobbies and a 33 X 19 gear. It's just the kind of training that Lance won all those Tours De France on. Saturday night Matt and Mo had their end of cross season party out at The Ride Studio Cafe in Lexington. I had plans to ride out with K-Sweat (pronounced K-Sweet), but, by the time go time rolled around, I had amassed a mountain of excuses for why I had to drive. One excuse was that the crank on my commuter was falling apart and all I had to ride was a 26 lb single speed mountain bike with a 33 X 19 gear on it. K-Sweat texted me "Let's ride mountain bikes up the minuteman path in the snow!" or something like that anyway. I said (quite possibly to myself) in the words of Shanna Powell "Hell YEAH!" and met up with K-Sweat.
We found that the bike path was not all that clear. We were doing the pedal, pedal, weave, swerve, ditch, walk dance the whole way up to Lexington. At one point we became so bogged down for such an extended period of time, that we opted to break out a couple Sierra Torpedo IPAs and drink them while we walked and talked.
I hope K-Sweat found it as romantic as I did.
The journey took way longer than anticipated. Due both to the depth of the snow and the depth of the flab around my mid-section. I am far from in shape — I was breathing hard and sweating and hurting. K-Sweat wasn't even living up to his namesake (that is, his name sake if he didn't insist, for whatever fucked up reason, on pronouncing it "sweet").
Did that make sense? Ah, I don't really have time to go back and make it work. This blog post is like a snow-clogged one way Somerville street tonight — no going back.
We got to Ride Studio in time to see the end of the musical video/photo MO-tage that Matt Roy had worked up to showcase some of Mo's exploits throughout this cross season. If you ever want to see a good example of how to rock the sponsorship thing: look no further than Matt and Mo Bruno Roy. Those guys do so right by their sponsors, it's insane.
You know what else is insane? The fact that I walked in the door and pretty much got handed a jar of Mo's signature Mad Alchemy embrocation. I never win raffle items, I was baffled. And I have no idea what to do with it. I might carry it like mace..."hold still you would be man-rapist, I am going to rub this pepper-spray ointment in your eyes!"
Ack! They're shutting us down. Quick! Look at this photo of Matt O'Keefe...he has a magnificent beard.
The turnout for the cross party was solid, it was still raging when I spun off down Mass Ave. on my slow-motion mobile. "K-Sweat, try to keep for fuck's sake. I can't go any slower, I gotta stay on top of this gear!"
The truly incredible thing is that there was actually a crowd back out at Ride Studio at 5 AM Sunday, to watch the women's Cyclcross World Championships, live from Belgium. And Mo was back there too, serving up Bob's Red Mill waffles with fruit and syrup (remember what I said about doing right by her sponsors?). Rob Vandermark of Seven Cycles was there too, acting as a barista, pouring individual cups of Terroir coffee. (Speaking of coffee...can you tell I've had a couple?) I barely made it for the men's race at 8 AM. 8 AM is my 5 AM. By then the place was packed.
Alright, that's it. Excuse all the typos and left-out-entirely words (more so than you usually do). We'll talk more about "Thom's Sawyer" tomorrow.
1 comment:
congrats on the Sawyer. I wanted one, but now that you have one... it's kinda lost it's appeal. good on ya!
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