Watt The Hell Was I Thinking? - Harpoon ITT

Hi there. There's no story here today. The big, crazy story about the Harpoon ITT and how badly I sucked it is over on the 29er Crew Blog. So go get it! Why are you still here? Get over there, GO! NOW!

The Shark and I, we don't see eye to eye on warm up techniques.

Things I'm Thinking
About Talking About

I wasn't able to find the time to put together a proper Harpoon ITT post by my Monday morning deadline. Oh, but it's a-comin'. It won't be coming tomorrow seeing as we're looking at Fat Tuesday Part III. That's sure to be exciting. I have no idea which way I'm going this week, up or down. I had a decent mid-week weigh-in, but once again, there was some weekend cheating going on. I even ate an eighth of a doughnut Saturday. Super-crazy. For the photo shoot I may have to suck in my iliac crests so that Solo won't make fun of me again.

The ITT post should be good in the sense that it was a horrible experience for me. I've realized recently that the readers of Big Bikes, how you say?...Hate me. They like to see bad things happen to me. Whether it's April Fools fabricated bike recalls or falling in poop, you want to see me suffer a maximum. I look at the webby stat stuffs, I know what you're looking at. You're not looking at the posts where I'm all like "I did really well at a race! I love life! Mountain bikes are awesome! I think that song "Use Somebody" by Kings of Leon is the best Hootie and The Blowfish song ever!"

On the subject of music that sucks, (this is really for Big Bikes reader "Cha Boy," AKA "My Cousin Sam." Hi Cuz!). My buddy Bryan posted a link to a blog post by Michael Ian Black a few days ago (you could never count on me to find anything this interesting out there in the inner-net), it's way better than anything you're gonna see here today, or any day for that matter. It is, I believe, the best thing said on the subject of musical taste since Duke Ellington said: "If it sounds good, it is good."

An excerpt:

"Or else they’ll say, “I’m really eclectic?” For some reason, this sentence always ends in a question mark. “Eclectic?” And then, without prompting, they’ll tell you all the “eclectic” music they listen to, “I like Frank Sinatra and the Clash,” in a tone that suggests “Can you believe how CRAZY I am???” Douchebag."

Other things I'm thinking of talking about this week.

I've been meaning to do a book review of David Byrne's Bicycle Diaries. It's not the unauthorized sequel to the Basketball Diaries, which I realized about halfway through. Way more talk about bikes, way less talk about heroin...kind of a giveaway.

I also have to talk about SSUSA and the fact that one of my new favorite people in the world, Wheelworks Multi-Sport racer-guy Randall Jacobs is letting me sleep in his car while I'm in Tucson. It's way better than it sounds and it solves all of my logistical-nightmare related concerns.

And you can bet there'll be other stuff to talk about like The Highlander and Toyota Highlanders). Dag, I just wrote nigh on 500 words and I was only talking about what I'm going to talk about this week.

Product Review:
Gore Bike Wear Race Power Over Shoe
(and Poop)

I've been meaning to talk about my Gore booties for months, so I'm going to go ahead and get that over with and then get back (briefly) to the matter at hand: poop.

The booty I'm using is the Race Power Over Shoe. In a word...in two words: they freakin' work. What else can I say? They keep my feet warm and dry. I guess I could trash talk the Pearl Izumi Amphib booties I've been using for years — er — I mean, compare and contrast. What it comes down to with the Amphibs is basically that the zippers suck. They are hard to zip when your hands are warm. In fact, you're lucky if you don't blow out the zipper putting them on. Then there's the issue of taking them off with cold hands. Operose is a word I would use...if I knew the meaning of it. When I'm in the dressing room at the shop, trying to take them off after a cold ride I let out such streams of profanity that my co-workers have to tell appalled mothers, as they cover their child's ears: "sorry mam, that's Tommy, he has Tourettes Syndrome, we get a big tax break for employing him...please don't sue us."

Conversely, the Gore booties utilize a velcro system. I can put them and on and take them off standing on one foot like a damn flamingo. The version I have are uninsulated, for colder weather riding (sub-20°) I'd probably recommend the insulated version. Or you could just do what I do and cut a hole in the bottom of an old wool sock and pull it over your shoe before donning your booties.


Why I'm not riding a single-speed
Oh, for Doug and the other folks who might have missed it, here's my e-xx-plantion for why I'm riding gears in 2010. I was going to try to offend every Single-Speeder in the known universe with a philosophical rant on the subject, and make all the people who read The Big Bikes just because I'm a Single-Speeder hate me more than they already do for "selling out," but I'll save that for another day.

Why I am riding a single-speed mountain bike at The Harpoon ITT Saturday
Why not? It's January, I'm totally out of shape, all the roadie and tri-guys I'll be racing against in the elite race have already logged thousands of base miles. I'm just gonna go out there and act a fool and see what happens. I will be putting a slick on the rear of the Superfly SS so I don't wreck Brian's compu-trainers and drive everyone half-batty with the rumbling of my knobbly rear tire.


Why poop is an important element of any good story
Poop was an element in the first written story: The Epic of Gilgamesh. In Gilgamesh Ishtar convinces her dad Anu to unleash The Bull of Heaven upon the land of Uruk. The Bull of Heaven descends upon Uruk, he goes nuts, tearing the place all up. Gilgamesh and his best bud Enkidu get into it with the big bad bull, the bull is apparently no stranger to fighting dirty:

"Then Enkidu jumped out and seized the Bull of Heaven by its horns.the Bull spewed his spittle in front of him, with his thick tail he flung dung behind him."

That's right. In the oldest written story, in one of the pivotal battle scenes, a giant demi-god-bull flings poop at one of the protagonists.

I read Gilgamesh for the first time about fourteen years ago, what do you guess was the only part I remembered? Of course in my recollection The Bull of Heaven killed Enkidu with poop. This was not accurate. Death by poop...can't think of a more ignominious end. Except for maybe death by injecting cocaine directly into your penis.

Never underestimate the power of poop.