XX in X

That's right, I've done gone geared for 2010. And not just geared, SRAM XX geared. That's two in the front (in my case a 26/39, SRAM has 29er specific gearing...sweet!) and ten in the rear. Whatever am I going to do with all those gears?

It's an experiment, a human experiment. Or something. Although the last time I did one of those I wound up with a prehensile superfluous nipple. But how superfluous can such a useful extra appendage be really?

I've thought this through as well as I think anything through.
That would be not all that well. Excuse me, I'll be right back. I have to go wander into the kitchen in my Snuggie (even Mr. Cool Ice likes to be warm and cozy sometimes) to make some hash browns with my Slap Chop.

An opportunity came up, it was time sensitive, I decided to douse myself with gasoline, light myself on fire, and jump off the cliff.

I struggled with the idea of going geared for a few minutes (or maybe it was seconds), then I came up with the shaky justification which allowed me to go forward with the decision. The important thing about my bike is not the number of gears it has (or doesn't have), the important thing is that it's a freakin' bike. It takes me places. I take it places, crazy stuff happens, I have new stories to tell.

I skated when I was a kid. We used to session a curb or a bank for hours. Pushing around in circles in the roughly the same space. Then I got a bike. I would ride around Wellesley College (illegally) and some other assorted town lands on my too-big orange Rockhopper with the saddle too low. There were some real woods about five miles away, over in the town of Dover, the Noanet Woodlands. I started riding over there. I don't recall ever driving over, it was always the "long haul," ten miles round trip with usually at least an hour ride in-between. I would come back shelled. I would pull a chair into a cold shower with a half-gallon of orange juice and sit there trying to stop sweating.

What was my point?

Oh ya — my bike takes me places and that's a big part of why I like it. I don't like downtime in my sports (hence my lack of interest in pretty much any mainstream sport). On a bike you're always rolling. With the right eye you can make almost any terrain exciting.

This doesn't mean I am giving up single speeding. I'll still be riding my single a ton and racing it whenever I can (hopefully "doing the double" when possible). Who knows, once the SRAM guys see how slow I am on gears, maybe they'll tell me to take a hike and I'll be back to constantly whining about improper gear choice. For the time being I'll keep the Blog subtitle "2 Dumb 4 Gears," until we see what happens out there come April.

It's actually more relaxing to think about going to a race with 20 gears at your disposal instead of one. All you have to sweat is tire choice (oh and I will be sweating it).

Don't worry, I have some great ideas as to how to make my life more interesting (miserable) even on a snazzy geared bike.

Bring on the "you're a pansy" comments. I'll have Bronski Beat cranked up so loud, I won't be able to hear you.

The Angry Fiddler Crab of Trapped Wind

So the other day, in an effort to get my pedaling like a fiddler crab issues worked out, I went to see Sara Bresnick-Zocchi at Pedal Power Coaching. But there's more to it than that. I had sent an email to Bill Peterson of We Do Feet in an act of desperation, hoping he could steer me toward someone who could do something like he does. What he does is bicycle fit from the feet up, including custom crazy foot-beds and orthotics. The only time I have truly felt great on the bike was after he got me sorted before the '08 season. Unfortunately for me and fortunately for him, he has stopped his practice of coming up to a lovely mini-mall in Rhode Island to do fittings a few times a year. He is now in Tucson full time. There was no way I could schedule an appointment during my 36 hour visit to Tucson in February for SSUSA/AZ, which was too bad.

Bill got back to me with the quickness, telling me that he had just trained someone in my area — Sara Bresnick-Zocchi, A.K.A. "SBZ" to do the things he does. Thing is, she has mad skills beyond that already with her PT training, so she is just the person to deal with me — "The Human Pretzel."



Since I last saw Bill, things have gotten all high tech and shit. SBZ had these crazy foot scanners, like something out of Star Trek. My new orthotics are going to be sick! We did have some issues getting my "go to" bike, the Superfly XX into the trainer. I have taken to running man-size tires — Bontrager Jones Xr 2.25's. They don't fit in a trainer apparently, who knew? BUT, happily enough, I now run the kooky Sram XX which means I can throw a road wheel with a Sram Force cassette on it on my bike and it will...

kind of work.

At least it worked well enough for our purposes.

My orthotics are on their way and in the meantime I am doing some muscle energy exercises SBZ told me to do. I am feeling better already.



In other news. I am heading out for a Single Speed ride tomorrow. That's right. Big day...big day. The plan is to do a couple or so hour ride with Randy Jacobs out to a couple hour ride with MKR and Cologne Rooter and company (and then drink BEER). The ride will be ridden by folks predominantly on single speeds, I couldn't be the odd man out, I had to get my SS back up and running. This was no mean feat. I was going to do a whole "how to set up bastard-bitch near-impossible to mount tubeless tires" piece but I failed. I couldn't mount the damn tires. In the above photo there I'm demonstrating how you suds up the sidewall and put a tube in and then remove it, leaving one bead of the tire still hooked. But no dice. The WTB Weirwolf that was on my Ferrous has been sitting flat on the basement floor all winter, getting too accustomed to the idea that it's not a nice, round tire.

So I gave up and put a tube in.
I will flat tomorrow and get dropped and left alone to die in the wilderness of Burlington Massachusetts. My only hope of survival will be to drag myself over to the mall so I can get a strawberry milkshake and a cheeseburger at Johnny Rocket's.

If I do post at all Friday, it's gonna be late, that's all I'm sayin'.



I won't bore you with the fascianting story of how the Superfly SS ("Precious Thing") and The Superfly XX were sharing a rear wheel. Wow, that's a good story, I think it was inspired by one of The Canterbury Tales...fuckin'.

You like that? How I make a nerdy reference and then get self conscious about it so I temper it by acting dumb and saying "...fuckin'."

Suffice it to say, I will be racing the Superfly XX on an old Bontrager Race Lite instead of on a lighter, better Race X Lite so my single speed can live again. Never mind the fact that the Ferrous ("Dunderchee") is now missing a front wheel due to this whole re-shuffling...don't get me staahted. Anyone know of a wheel manufacturer with really bad judgment when it comes to sponsoring riders?



And I know you wanted to see SBZ's assistant, Coconut without my inept, Rathergood.com-style photo-shopping embellishments. Is she really less scary? OK, maybe she no longer wants to eat your face while you're sleeping but she still looks like she's being incredibly judgmental. What Coco? What is it? What did I do now? Stop looking at me like that! I...I can't take it, AAAH!




And I leave you with the Mighty Boosh and Howard as "The angry crab of trapped wind."

No Further Questions!

Bikes, Burritos, and Breck Epicness

Man, the fact that the Breck Epic blogger grant poll is LIVE is a massive time suck for me right now — refresh page, "did I get more votes? Damn!" and repeat. It's extra-ridiculous too because there are fifteen days left in the contest, anything could happen. Right now things are looking good though, thanks to you guys I've closed down the gargantuan gap Sara Uhl had put on me in the first 24 hours. Right now she's only up by two. If you haven't voted yet, go to this link, click the little bubble by my name, which is Thom "Rocky Donizetti" Parsons, and then hit the "Vote Foo" button below. It's wicked easy kid, and word is you no longer have to "expose your privates," or give up your privacy in any way. Ya, I only have to finish top four but I don't want to get too comfortable and I definitely don't want to not bug you guys about this for a single day until the end of the contest on June 11th. It's like a public radio fund-drive except I don't have any fucking tote bags to give you. Sorry.


Way back on Monday night I went to see the Follow Me premiere at the Middlesex Lounge, it was awesome. It was just cool to hang out in a crowded bar, watching a sick mountain bike film. The place was packed to the gills and people were walking by going "what the hell are they watching in there." I felt like I was in some place like Durango, where every sub shop has mountain bike videos playing 24-7. The film itself was incredible. It had all the insane drop, X-Games type stuff, but it also had style behind and in front of the camera. I get down with the sort of extreme XC scenes, stuff where I'm saying "I could do that. Sort of. Just maybe slower and with way less style."


I meandered over to the premiere in Central Square solo (while wearing my favorite shirt), stopping at Olecito on the way to grab a burrito. They are really the only game in town as far as I'm concerned. I'm still not drinking the Anna's Taqueria Kool-Aid.

The only camera I'm using right now is my Go Pro Helmet Hero. What it lacks in playback ability or low-light capability, it makes up for with its spy-camera, I'm so damn wide angle I can shoot everything in sight qualities. I just leave it on photo every two seconds mode and let 'er rip. I might not know what I'm getting but the fact that I'm taking six-hundred photos increases the statistical likelihood that I will get something that isn't total crap.



Sometimes, if you're as awesome as I am, you forget to put the memory card back in and then you go to lead a NEMBA ride and your Go Pro stops shooting after ten shots (that's all its internal memory holds) and all you get is a couple sweet shots of the parking lot. The ride went well though, only one guy almost knocked his teeth out.

Something I was chatting about with folks at the movie premiere was that, no matter how sick the riding in a mountain bike film is, the music is almost always frickin' horrible. Ya sure, I wouldn't want to subject people the stupid crap I listened to when I was a kid, but man...the stuff they put in these things is bad. Seriously. That's why I was stoked when I happened upon this video of some dudes trying out the Sram XX out in Santa Cruz. It's a nice, little piece with lots of fastness and flowiness, but what I found particularly sweet was the Murder City Devils soundtrack. Good stuff.

Brendan Fairclough and Curtis Keene in Santa Cruz from Taylor Sage on Vimeo.

Well, I gotta get up early again to work a bike rodeo with VeloCB, and ya, it's 2AM now. Hopefully I can keep it together and not go all Shakes The Clown on the kiddos this time. That "Shakes The Clown" clip isn't really appropriate (not sure what it's appropriate for) but there's a dearth of good Shakes clips on the Youtubes. Somebody should do something about that. Screw the Breck Epic blogger grant; somebody should do a "Put More Shakes The Clown Clips on Youtube stoner grant." Just pay some thirty-five-year-old dude living in his mom's basement with a bunch of weed to sit and watch "Shakes The Clown" a couple dozen times and post the best clips on Youtube.

That's all I got, that and this one, final shot of the Varsity in sepia-tone.

Bells - Hell Yeah!

The other night I walked into the package store looking for beer in cans, and while I love me some Dale's Pale in cans, I wasn't exactly in the mood for a super-hopped out beverage on that night. For some "inexplainable" (it's a word...in Somerville) I was drawn to the Red Stripe, like a moth to a flame of questionable quality, but then I saw them: Brooklyn Lager in Cans! I let out an audible "that is AWESOME." I'm working on a treatment of this story for a children's book, anyone know any publishers?

Before I go on, I just have to say that the phrase "Hell Yeah!" should be copyrighted by Shanna Powell of Endless Bikes. And if not copyrighted then at the very least everyone else should retire it, I mean just stop saying it, because she says it the best. Of course that won't stop me from writing it (or saying it while doing an impression of Shanna saying it...that's OK).



Hey, by the way...I'm an idiot. But you already knew that. When I set up my Superfly XX, I was so amped to ride that I didn't read any instructions. Why would I need instructions? Ive been something like a bike mechanic for something like way too freaking long, I don't need no stinking instructions! Right? Riiight. Now I didn't royally screw anything up, all I did was install my lockout button for the Reba snugly and ergonomically against the brake lever. It just tucked in right there nice and perfect looking. Then it happened. I was reading the Sram XX tech manual over coffee (like people do) and I saw the bit on installing the matchmakers (the hoogies that allow you to install your brake levers and shifters to the same clamp). I realized that I had missed the fact that you can install the brake lever/shifter/lockout button ALL on the same clamp. Silly, rushing off to ride without reading the manual me.



Holy crap, now my bars look like I'm riding a single speed again — sick. I thought the knob was incredibly accessible before I moved it to its proper position, now I'm going to be off my tits with all the access I have to the thing.


There's just one little problem Sram...where the hell is the spot on the matchmaker for my frickin' bell? I've got X speeds and Zero place to put my bell. How the hell do Jeremy-Horgan Kobelski and Julien Absalon ride this crap?

Which leads me to my next point: bells, I love them.

The other day at Four Guys Bike Shop, a group of my co-workers were talking about how stupid bells are. I had to weigh in and set them straight: "Ya, once you've gone horse from yelling 'on your left!' at lapped riders, then maybe you'll understand the purpose of a bell."

OK, I've never gone horse (or hoarse) from yelling "on your left" at lapped riders, I've gone horse from yelling "you should say on your left!" at riders lapping me. OK, that's not true either, but I did literally lose my voice from saying "on your left" to about 3,500 riders as I passed them on my way to finishing top five in the Boston to New York AIDs ride. There was more truth in that last sentence than in any of the others.

Speaking of which (you decide what we're speaking about: winning charity rides, bells, other...), a funny thing happened to me on the way to work Sunday. I stopped for coffee at the Allston Cafe, and there, next to the line inside the cafe, was a beautiful white Gaulzetti. The line was long and the wait for my food was longer and all the while I'm going "where the hell is Craig?" (as in Craig Gaulzetti, owner and designer of the bike). I looked around the place, he's nowhere to be seen, and it's been over ten minutes. Even if he ate Hess station hot dogs for dinner chased with a few too many "cheap domestic pilsners" the night before, there was no way he would have been in the bathroom that long.

Eventually I called IBC and he picked up, I said "Hey dude, I just saw a homeless guy riding a white Gaulzetti down Brighton Ave." "Oh FUCK!" he replied. Unlike my wife, I was incapable of letting him squirm and writhe due to my prank for more than a few seconds. "No, it's at Allston Cafe, you want me to bring it to the shop?"

He had gone to the cafe straight from a ride, changed his clothes, and totally spaced the bike. I used to to do that with my skateboard all the time, but I have a feeling that the "Oh fuck!" associated with leaving a $60 skateboard leaning against the candy rack at CVS and the "Oh FUCK!" associated with doing it with your $6,000 bike are not really comparable. Hence the lower case on the skateboard version. I have a worse story about pulling a move like that with a bike that puts this one to shame, but I have yammered way too long already tonight. That, as they say, is a story of Thom P.'s epic stupidity for another day.

-t



P.S. - Bells, I love them, so fuck you.

I Guess I Have Angered
the Single Speed Gods

A while back, probably quite a while back, I started talking about how I would be racing on the gears this year. A couple weeks back I posted a photo of a mysterious box that had shown up on my porch, then I got sidetracked, found better, less sane things to babble about, and said nothing more about it. Well that mystery box contained my Sram XX gruppo...sort of.

I pulled out all the various, sweet-looking little bits and laid them out on the dining room table. First I noticed that I had received a IX, not a X speed chain (I'm under contract to use this vernacular when speaking of drive-trains from here on out). Then I couldn't help but notice that I had been sent a Rock Shox Monarch rear shock. This was not right, the bike I have decided to call Love Removal Machine is a hard-tail. Of course it took me a little longer to notice the direct mount front derailleur and the E2 fork (if you don't know what I'm talking about, it doesn't matter, and I'll only fall asleep while trying to explain).

It's just a box of drive-train

What I'd received was a build kit for a Superfly 100 full-suspension bike...and a 9 speed chain. I'm not sweating it at all though. I still have the Superfly Single-Speed I call Precious Thing to ride in the interim while this all gets sorted out, it's not like I'm suffering a maximum here.

My theory is that the single speed gods are pissed, and they don't want me to ride the gears this season, so they are trying to thwart the delivery of my proper geared bits. Look at the single speed god in the photo at the top of the post — he's terrifying. What's that? Oh...oops, that's a "single speed general," you say, not a single speed god. Sorry, that was the only stock photo the design department had lying around that depicted anything like a high-ranking member of the single speed pantheon. That's General Dejay Birtchside right there. My bad. Well, the design department's bad really. Maybe I'll tell them all to sleep in tomorrow, I think they're cracking up.

I've actually got a great concept for an image of a single speed god...he's got the big beard and everything. I'll tell them to get to work on that stat! Maybe I'll get to post it later in the week.

So in the meantime, while I've been waiting for the right XX parts to arrive, I have been clocking mad, I mean just plain irate miles on my single speed. Like 9 hours last week. That hurts. It hurts me anyway. Full disclosure: at least an hour and a half of those 9 hours was clocked on my Schwinn Varsity cruiser (on loan from the Todd Downs collection) and the only liquids I took in on those rides were brown in color and mood altering in entirely disparate ways.

I never feel this "in touch with the road" when I drink GU2o

Hey, Look At These

While I Try to Sleep

and Stop the Bleeding in My Brain

I have nine minutes to do this...
and GO!

My conscious mind told me it was going to go on strike and let my unconscious mind take over full time if I didn't shut it down for at least seven hours tonight. We'll see how that goes. I'll no doubt be up peeing at three in the AM and wide-eyed, anxious, and a-rarin' to go make a wreck of my day by five. But I'll be in bed by 9:45 in earnest.

The above photo? That's the right stuff from Sram. Got me a clamp on derailleur, a X speed chain, and a 1 1/8 steered Rock Shox XX fork. Wow, that's a lot of X's. I will try to get the geared bike rolling at some pint...I mean point this weekend. Actually slipped there. I was thinking about how I might have to bribe someone at the shop to stay late so I can finish building the The Love Removal Machine.

Testing the waters

It was supposed to hit 85° today. It would get there eventually, but at 8:00 AM it was a chilly 53°. That didn't stop me from leaving the house dressed like it was already 85° (because I'm an idiot and I skim weather.com like it's one of Rooter's ski-racing reports). I was damn near hypothermic by the time I got down near the river. A temperature swing like that is pretty crazy for these parts.


The fact that I had to put on my stinking swamp-soaked shoes didn't help matters. My feet were cold...and they freakin' reeked.


Rocking the 20 lb. pack. I figure if I can't drop weight off my body, I'll carry more weight on my person so I will get that much stronger and be able to push the weight of a much larger man. It makes perfect sense.

It's like the whole throw the medicine ball, throw the medicine ball, throw the BASKETBALL...right through the sky light thing. I ride the heavy bike with the heavy pack and then get on the light bike with no pack and...ride it right through the sky light. That's the theory anyway. Joe Friel talks all about it on his blog, it's called "Medicine-ball-0-dization."


This photo? Maybe I'll explain what's going on here tomorrow, probably over on the 29er Crew site.

Ya, that took more than nine minutes. My brain is going to explode.

-t