I am the Nightrider!
I am a fuel-injected suicide machine!
I am a rocker! I am a roller!
I am an out-of-controller!
I am the Chosen One!
The mighty hand of Vengeance!
Sent down to strike the unroadworthy!
I'm hotter than a rolling dice!
Step right up, chum,
and watch the kid lay down a rubber road
right to freedom!

Or something like that. This would be the longest title ever anyway.

Had a good turn out for the first super-short notice IBC night ride of the year. A half dozen of us went out for and hour and a half loop of Cutler Park. The weather was excellent and the swoopy trails on the island were a hoot as usual. We'll be doing the same thing next week. International Bike 71 Needham St. Newton, MA. 6:30PM, bring lights or plan on picking some up when you get there. We got plenty.

This was the first test of the light I've been commuting with for the past couple weeks: The Nite Rider Minewt USB Mini Plus (Plus is for helmet mount). It retails for way less than it's overpowered brethren (about $120) but I've found it more than adequate for blinding drivers threatening to pull out in front of you at night. For trail riding it is definitely adequate but as you pick up speed it's limited range becomes apparent. Plenty bright enough for slow speed technical but get going good on a twisty fire road or more open trail and you may miss a turn or two.

It comes with an wall charger and a USB charger to hook up to your computer. Keep one at home, one at work. If you forget to charge at one place or the other, you're covered. Nice.

Bridge to the island. Yes, I almost rode off the side while trying to snap this photo.

Alex comes out laughing after a downhill bail.

Jon Lewis was rocking the 'Cross bike and more than holding his own. You hear that 'Crossers? No mountain bike required for this ride so come on out!

Colin had what we might call a "Proper Lighting System". The Moon actually went down when Colin showed up. It was all like "Man, The Sun showed up early...frickin' kiss ass, I'm outta here".

Miriam had never been on a night ride. She said "It was like being a little kid". This is because her parents used to drop her off in the middle of the woods at night with nothing but a pen light and a Swiss Army knife.

And then the C.H.U.D.S. came


Some construction type stuff disrupted our ride, maybe a slightly different route next time.

Jon's light went dim part way through the ride. He decided to head for home.

Follow up. Yes Greg and Miriam were both right. Donald's butt is not that offensive in and of itself. It was all in the presentation. I can hardly look at it still. Karen Allen doesn't have the same problem.

I do always put my arm and leg warmers on before my bibs and jersey. This is purely functional though, it just locks everything in nicely.

However I have had a trauma related to this practice. This was at my previous work place. One night after closing my boss called out to get my attention. I look over to the only lit area of the shop, and there he stood, spotlighted...wearing nothing but arm and knee warmers. It was horrible. All the areas that should have been covered were not while all the less offensive areas were clothed. It was like he was "Super-Naked". The horror...the horror.

Time to Get Fat

I have a thing. Even in the privacy of my own home, no one watching, no one around...I will never and I do mean NEVER put on my shirt before my drawers or pants. I will always, and I mean 100% of the time put my boxers on before my shirt. This stems from a traumatic experience I had as a child.

I was watching Animal House with my "very conservative and responsible parents". There's the scene where Boon (Some guy who never got work again) shows up at his girlfriend's (Karen Allen, Indiana Jones fame) house to find that she has a guest, her professor played by Donald Sutherland. Sutherland shambles into the kitchen wearing nothing but a sweater and scratching his backside. He then reaches for a high shelf, briefly exposing his white, doughy, sagging bum.

Severe Trauma.

During that same period of my youth I saw Jaws and a truly awful film about Big Foot. Neither of these did I find as horrifying as Donald Sutherland's ass being unveiled from the bottom of his sweater. I wanted so much to share a photo of this with you, but I could not find it anywhere on the the Inner-Nets. All I accomplished was creating the possibility of a guest user on my computer having "Donald Sutherland's Bum" auto-fill the Google search bar.

This is it. Bike racing is over, you have a winter of this stuff to "look forward to" lucky you.


Sunday I woke up from eleven hours of much needed sleep very hungry. Miriam and I headed over to Washington Square Tavern in Brookline. This establishment is owned by Gerry Finnegan, big time bike guy. The walls are adorned with vintage photographs of early bike racing. The atmosphere is relaxed, calm, and warm. Quite a contrast from the usual spots we hit which however good they might be are generally overrun with obnoxious, pajama wearing Tufts kids who think it's awesome to wear aviator shades indoors.

The food is spectacular. They make a pancake that looks like it might kill you. It's as thick as four normal pancakes, but light, fluffy, and freaking amazing.

The place looks like it's super-expensive and swanky but it's really not (the super-expensive part, swanky it is). Brunch won't cost you any more than it would at Bickford's or IHOP and it's incalculably better.

Just picked this guy up in oh so eager anticipation of another winter of New England bike commuting. It's The River City Pack by Detours. No need to stop and pull out a rain cover, this bugger is totally sealed all the time. Feels like a light Camelbak without the water bladder in. Almost like it's not there at all. Perfect for lugging lunch and a change of clothes to work. I'm trying to get away from commuting with my 1800 cubic inch, overloaded pack all the time. It's killing my back.

A package showed up to work the other day,I had no idea who it was from. Turned out to be a surprise package from Mega-Bottle-Ride. An original watercolor commemorating my place as first East Coaster at Single Speed Worlds 08 in Napa. Pretty damn cool. Georges also sent me some custom Defeet Wool-E-Ator socks, just in time to keep my feet warm as the temperature drops below 50° on my morning commute.

Thanks man, much appreciated.

Oh ya, this is important. We're starting up Night Rides out of IBC Newton tomorrow night. That would be Wednesday October 8th at 6PM. This will be a regular thing. All are welcome, this is a no drop type ride. Duration about 1 1/2 hours. We'll be hitting Cutler and Nahanton Parks. These are some pretty mellow trails. Call over to the shop and ask for me if you got any questions now.

-t

The Big Kahuna: Part Two
The Ride

A thousand pictures are worth a million words.

This is a horrible age. When you think of something which you think is immensely clever (like the above quote for instance) you know if you Google it you will not only find that it has already been said or written, it has been copyrighted and printed on T-Shirts and bumper stickers. I almost restrained myself from Googling as I was writing this, but I couldn't help myself, and yes, it's been said. Of course.

Of course it didn't take the many other authors three minutes to do the math.

I was the kid who thought he invented "Shh...it went out the window". A million other children invented that joke simultaneously and a billion children had uttered it thirty billion times in the past. It does feel good to think you had an original thought, if even for just a moment.

The idea here is that I'm going to let the Pictures lead me through the muddled story of 2008 Big Kahuna.

That's Mike, The Big Kahuna himself above. Who put this thing together? Him, that's who.

At each trail juncture we would do a 104 person head count. We wouldn' roll until everyone was accounted for. You should totally come on this ride next year!

Will was one of three guys (out of 104 riders, yes 104) on a single speed. Here he rips a Snowboarder like move, sliding his rear wheel along this rock. It was sick. Unintentional, but sick.

Early in the ride I was railing down a fire road through an S-Turn. I was in a full two wheel slide. There was a sharp, inch and a half in diameter branch jutting out in to the trail. I realized too late that I was on a collision course with the punji stick. Somehow it passed through my main triangle, connecting with my outside leg. The bike did a 180, I flipped several times, rolling backwards down the trail. Andy said it was one of the loudest crashes he'd ever heard. What he thought was my helmet smacking the earth was actually the stick snapping.

My arm was a little jacked up, my leg was throbbing, there was a hole in my leg warmer, entry and exit wound, like a bullet hole. The possibility that I had severely gored my leg was expressed. I didn't really want to find out. I was having flashbacks to Miriam's accident which resulted in hospitalization and Gangrene. Turned out the stick had glanced off the bone. I'm pretty sure that if it had hit the fleshy bits to the north or south of my knee it would have impaled me nicely. Oh, how lucky I am.

This guy went down hard. His vintage K2 Zed with Girvin Fork not the ideal set up for these woods. Not that a rigid 29er was much better. I did have 2.55 WTB Weirwolf on though. The steep rock drops would catch up with me more than once. The "Man my fork just saved my ass" feeling was replaced by the "Man that rigid fork just handed me my ass" feeling.

Bald rock ups and downs, tyical of Massachusetts North Shore riding.

Never did catch this guy's name, he was in and out of our group all day. Real good rider. Nice dude.

"Bruce Banner! BRUCE BANNER!"

Jeff Busting a sweet groin stretch.

"Yeah I won the Vermont 50 fruit boots. You got a problem with that? Seriously, if you don't stop pointing that thing at me I am going to staple your ass to your face".

"Yes, but can you distinguish my ass from my face? Ha! Um, I guess it doesn't matter since one is getting stapled to the other in this equation regardless".

This is an actual photograph of me the morning of the Kahuna. Puffy Daddy.

Glen asks this rock if they've met before. We were lost. Being lost on a Kahuna or any good epic ride is mandatory.

Wait, look for the line, see the guy in front take the wrong line, then find a worse way to do it yourself.

I bowed out of this one. Brad showed me it could be done on a rigid 29er. If you didn't mind riding a nose wheelie out of it for ten feet. He is the man.

After the guy on the Zed ate it on this move Darren showed the power of The Wraith, riding it with a rear flat.

This guy again. Hey guy...what's your name guy?

Glen Cook, his brother studies rocks, he kicks their freakin' asses.

Christopher Igleheart. One of the first guys I ever saw riding a single speed. It was rigid and he was riding these trails. Ripping.

Good thing that sign's there, this section is pretty dangerous. Jeff purposefully wanged his knee on each and every one of the guard rail supports. He is just that god damn tough.

Candy, Candy, Candy, I can't let you go...I decided at the first pit stop that I would fuel myself exclusively on candy for the day. The seven hour day. I'm full of good ideas. And sugar.

Bonks setting in. Stories already being told. People smiling so much their faces might get stuck that way.

In every photo I have ever taken of Andy he is smiling. I usually see him when bikes are involved. I don' think this is a coincidence.

Darren lost his breakfast early in the ride. He ate rock until he got his fill.

"I'll give you $100 bucks and take you out to Benihana's if you ride off that 75 ft. rock - give you 600 tries, be back next week. Laaaate."

Marc Bavineau. Cyclocross killer. He won the Killer B's 30-39 at Nats last year. He is no joke on the mountain bike either. It was good to run into him out there.

Sanidas cleaning one of the last tricky moves of the day. This about where we decided it was time to head for Lobstaland via the road.

Brad gets his Haddock. I got mine too. Jamming mine into a hot dog roll, calling it a "Haddock Dog". I'll leave it at Haddock Dog. How can you sum up a day like this? Ya can't.

Kahuna!

Big Kahuna: Part One

The Big Kahuna is a huge annual ride. Over 100 people showed up this year. Mountain biking is dead my sore ass. We traversed the North Shore of Massachusetts, riding some of the gnarliest technical trails around over the course of seven hours. This is the stuff. This is heaven to me. The absolute best riding I can imagine. More on the actual riding tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever the hell I can get to it. For now, photographic evidence that each and every one of the crew that showed up to Andy's house the night before the ride deserves a Rock Star Award.

This must be the place.

It all started innocently enough. A few guys hanging in the kitchen, having some beers, huffing cycling shoes.

A sign that things were moving in the right (meaning wrong) direction.

The Ferrous gets the stamp of approval from Christopher Igleheart custom frame builder and former Fat City employee. He said it was "Very Bontrager".

Andy's Scoot with the tool box from his old Jeep Willy's strapped to the back.

Last year Brad rode with this helmet on all day out of necessity.

Andy's neighbors are going to hate him forever. Sorry Andy.

Don't worry, those are just lines of GU2O energy drink mix. So normal.

Brad escaped from being duct taped to a camp-chair with an irrepressible late surge and the battle cry "BRUCE BANNER!".

Recently crowned Vermont 50 champion Jeff Whittingham attempted to go to bed at the reasonable hour of 3AM, exiting the garage. He returned momentarily only to be assaulted. Here he flexes his forearm, sending Andy sprawling. Darren runs away screaming "Look out! He's about to flex his quads!".

I did Jeff the favor of loading up his bottles for the next day.

Eventually Jeff is overwhelmed by his many attackers and duct tape hog-tied.

We would all wake up a few hours later ready for a day of suffering in so many ways.
More later...