My Sap Runneth Slowly

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Life slows down for the year and I am nearly brain-dead.  The season ends with a cruel abruptness.

I peer out the front door of the shop and there is a hazy yellow sheen on everything.  I feel like I am looking through a thick fog and the space between my desk and the windows is the poppy field from the Wizard of Oz.  I cannot see straight and my shoes are stuck to the floor with the blood of my enemies…those whom I fought and who fought bravely against me.  

The wind blows like sixty screaming banshees driven mad with the prospect of a hungry Winter ahead of them and not enough meat stored up to feed the horde.  I calculate our odds of survival at 40% unless El Nino saves the Off-Season.  The bikes are gathering dust and we have now reached the season of the Middle Aged Man who is “Oh, just looking around.”  And no matter how much I want to throw him into the Sarlacc I am compelled by the will of the retail demi-gods to be kind, if not even outgoing to this creature.  He never buys anything but asks many questions and always about:  fat bikes, the antiques I have hanging from the ceiling, and Lance Armstrong, who still somehow elicits conversation.  Just Looking Around guy watches tom cruise movies with giddiness and drinks bud light on weekends and when it rains or, especially, when it snows, he comes here.  And he never buys anything.  Wait…I already said that.

Twas a difficult season, indeed.  Many of my kind lost their minds to the terrible wrath of consumer laziness and the the shit-mongering online retail wraiths like Amazon and Chain Reaction who try, every day, as their business model dictates, to kill small businesses.  And then there is Yelp.  Yelp is a bad, bad, BAD thing.  Yelp has succeeded in making all businesses fear their customers and many customers now have an abusive, contempt-filled attitude toward retailers.  Yelp can go into the Sarlacc with Just Looking Around guy.  If Yelp were headquartered nearby, I would throw bags of aged dog poop at it.

I admit I get bitchy this time of year.  Don’t take it personally.  Those of us in this business basically live on tumbleweed salad and stagnant water all winter and that makes us cranky.  And it’s difficult to see the first new rays of the rising sun over the mounds of snow and dusty fixtures at which we stare every day.  But that’s the price we pay for the right to work in t-shirts and shorts.  And of course there are bikes.  It’s all about the bikes.  From the BMX and freestyle days of my childhood to the carbon fiber road racers I currently ride and sell, I am made of bikes.  I will always be made of bikes.  And even if I seem jaded and foul-tempered at times, here at the shop, or before a race, or even on a ride, I assure you my attitude and outlook have been and are continually shaped and reshaped by a deeply ingrained and intrinsic love of bikes and the people and environments that they help to create.  So, see?  It’s not all that bad.  It’s very often good…this life.  I love the shop, I love my team (First IB set to gnash its teeth next season and eat its enemies’ bones), and I still love coming to work most days.  One day I will leave this place and I hope she continues and someone else treats her like the gorgeous gal she is.  

Oh yeah…will someone please cover for me on Saturday so I can go do the Electric-Assist 650B Di2 Fat-Bike Gravel-Cross point to point Gran Fondo Tough Mudder Cross-Fit Hot Yoga Balogna-Toss world championships of Miscellaneous Town with Seventeen Breweries and Food Trucks, USA?  That would be great.  I have to go register real quick-like so I get my call-up. 

late season musings 2015

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almost done with bikes…the Indiana State Fair, or, Hoveround Expo 2015…bike racing little league and the powerful attraction of Patrick Swayze and the Cowboy Cut

So—I guess we are nearly finished with this season of playing bikes.  It has been fun.  Yeah…I have to admit it’s been fun.  I did not win any races but was consistently in the mix and took my pulls and never sat in the bunch and raced for a top ten like a patzer and that’s good enough for me and WHAT?  What, indeed.  What a bullshit statement.  I hate losing.  I do not like it when one or two or three people come around me in the last few seconds and I end up on the red or blue step.  I have never been satisfied with second or third and I sure as shit never liked just racing for a top ten.  

Why do people come out and race if they just want to roll in a third of the way down the start list and be satisfied that they beat some other guy that they had marked as better than them in some other ZIP code crit earlier in the year?  A race is, fundamentally, an activity in which the ONLY goal is to win.  That is fact.  That is definition.  It is a competition.  If your goal is to finish in the top ten or fifteen then what you are doing is a fast group ride for which you happen to pay money.  And that, folks, is why the breakaway is always composed of a mix of the same ten or fifteen people every single time we tow the line.  Those people want to win the race.  Or…maybe I should amend this philosophy.  I really should include those people…those teammates who sacrifice their personal ambitions to help a stronger rider win a race.  And they are many.  My own team includes at least five guys, including myself, who would give every bit of their own physical energy to help a teammate win a bike race.  So I guess the real philosophy should be that a bike racer is a person who races bikes as hard and smart as he or she can so that either they or someone else on their team will win the race.  And if said person does not win, everyone who gave their all suffers just a bit of disappointment.  I realize that this sentiment may cause some to call me an unsportsmanlike dick but before they do, please read this definition of the word “race” from the Oxford Dictionary: 

noun

1

A competition between runners, horses, vehicles, boats, etc., to see which is the fastest in covering a set course:

So…yeah.  Anyway teams are a good thing.  There are many strong teams in the region.  Even the Masters crowd has enough competition to make the season interesting (though, lately, it has seemed a bit repetitive…or maybe it’s just getting to be the end of the season and we are all bored with each other).  Apologies to Boggs, Andrzej, Ben, Don, Court, Chris, Tom, Harry, etc… but for feck’s sake I want to race some more interesting courses with some more interesting opponents.  So what do you think of the following: (?)

We begin construction on the traditional crit course at Eagle Creek but add in some badass obstacles and interesting Twists and Turns.  I know this will be met with much opposition but how about a loop, ala the Vortex at King’s Island?  We could build it at the downhill section just after the left/right snakey thing just before that final downhill chute into the left turn before the uphill finish.  I think it would add some much-needed excitement to the course and possibly even some carnage.  We could install bleachers on either side of said section and sell booze and sausage and people will come, Ray…people will come.  It’s only twenty dollars per person.  They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines (curves in the road), where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes (poor people who race bikes for awful payouts and scabby flanks). And they'll watch the game (race) and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters (Sunking Osiris). The memories (mosquitoes) will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces.  (F.O.D)

And after the race is over, Fausto Coppi will stride over in his leather shoes and sloppy, pomade-streaked hair and say “Is this heaven?”  And I will say “No…it’s a place where middle-aged men come to compare the size of their dicks and where their wives make them cookies and cheer them on and then they have to go home and mow the lawn!”  And Coppi will say “whoah dude…at least in Italy I had an eighty year old man to rub down my legs after I did this shit.”  And I will reply (with enthusiastic gusto), “We don’t have a cornfield here into which you can disappear so I can drive you to one a couple miles away if you like but you cannot smoke in my truck.”  He will decline my offer, steal Harry’s Yamaha, and barrel at full-speed toward the newly-constructed loopy-loop ramp and launch himself toward the western sky where there is a legion of Hell’s Angels waiting to escort him back to whatever afterlife realm from which he came.  All he will leave is a burnout mark on the road and a bunch of waxy crud in the bathroom from fixing his hair.  We will all look at each other with wry grins and knowing winks, turn around toward the trees, piss rainbows for two full minutes (beet juice), get in our vehicles, and head over to the Clarks for some righteous karaoke and bourbon.  And I promise it will be worth it.  Harry’s man cave is the bees’ knees and he has Twisted Sister on vinyl and Bri does a mean Dee Snider impression, complete with the blonde wig and clown makeup.  Ooooooohhhh the weirdness will be awesome and I will do my best to not turn into a whiskey-soaked singing werewolf but I cannot promise anything.  These things happen.  

Now where was I?  Right…second on the list is the state fair.  The state fair is an agglomeration of wayward farmers, curious people from zionsville, carmel, and fishers, and people who cannot walk but who seem to be able to eat mass quantities of corn, kettle corn, corn syrup, sausage and peppers, funnel cakes, and a variety of fried candy, all while weaving around on those silly Hoveround scooters they advertise on television and which YOU TOO CAN GET FOR NEXT TO NOTHING through your medicare or medicaid or one of those other add-on insurance entitlements we get when we turn decrepit and decide we no longer want to use our legs.  Vote democrat, right?  STRIKE THAT!!!!!

So my beautiful wife and I went to the fair today and had a great time.  We walked around and ate a variety of terrible foods (with which I was completely satisfied), saw many miserable animals in cages or pens, waded through the six-thousand hot tubs for sale (why?) and absorbed the smells and the off-putting sights of short-shorts on people who, at best, should be wearing baggy overalls.  This is the fair.  And I love it.  I have always loved it.  I actually love all the things about which I just wrote.  I love the pervasive stink of the midway.  I love the super fine brown dust that irritates my eyes and nose when we walk close to the track.  I love eating sausage and peppers and corn and shake-ups and whatever the hell else my stomach mistakenly thinks would be good.  It is a nostalgic experience like no other in my life.  And it (the fair) is basically the same thing it was thirty years ago.  I have been in the Hooks drug store museum at least that many times and the licorice I buy there is, I believe, from the same batch from which I picked back in 1980.  But it’s till chewy so I assume it’s good.  And one of these days I will steal that bottle of laudanum that’s been sitting behind the counter forever.  That will be a fun day!  

So…the fair was good.  grimy…but good.  You should go.  Go and ride the Himalaya and listen to them blast Poison at top volume while you spin around a bean-shaped track at 40 MPH while you break a rib or two and just let the joy overcome you.  And it will.  You will begin to smile after about two minutes and then you will start to scream a war cry from the gut after another couple minutes and then, finally, you will tear off your t-shirt and spontaneously sprout a fully-formed spike-mullet and adolescent-stache and your summer will be complete.  (don’t worry, the mullet will fall out after the last day of the fair, when the rooster crows fourteen times…twelve times for midnight and two more to demand two more shots of tequila from the guy who operates the Himalaya—and who also happens to be Chris Gaines…aka Garth Brooks.  True story, man.

Okay third topic:  

It is transfer season in bike racing.  Not just in the pro ranks, but around here also.  Patrick Swayze’s legacy is attempting to seduce some of my riders away so that they can become one of approximately thirty five spokes in a wheel that has been pretty true throughout the years but has, recently, begun to realize that there are a couple of other wheels on the market that are <maybe> stronger than theirs.  It is possible to bring down Goliath, you know.  Shit…that’s two analogies in one paragraph.  But the sentiment is true.  And it’s also a bit annoying.  Patrick Swayze can acquire all the riders he wants but if he gets everyone he wants, who the hell will he race against?  Also…why is it that no one can seem to dodge his well-advertised roundhouse kick?  He does it in every damned movie he makes (made…may he RIP) starting back at Point Break and maybe even Dirty Dancing.  And, Roadhouse!  That was one of the most ridiculous fight scenes ever.  Two white guys who happen to be Karate experts (according to them) fighting to the death on the banks of a river?  HA!  Why the Karate?  Why not just shoot the bad guy in the knee or something?  Silly movie…ROADHOUSE!  But let’s think forward here a bit.  I don’t mean to downplay the success they’ve had throughout the years but come on, man!  Y’all have plenty of firepower and a great system in place.  Stop trying to steal people.  Or I might just stop eating your delicious cowboy cut sirloin steaks.  And, anyway, I hear there are some vacuum cleaner company employees who may be out of a job soon.  Go after them.  At least they are clean and their wheel decals match their kits.  And that says something.  I don’t know what it says but probably someone does.  

Anyway the point is that everyone is recruiting right now and that includes us.  We aim to have a top-notch squad next year, capable and ready to compete at the regional and national level.  The team is growing and improving faster than I thought possible two years ago.  We have amazing sponsors who share our vision and dedication and I know this is sounding like a pandering sort of screed but it’s true.  I’m super excited for the off-season and for next season and preparations are well underway.  

That’s all I can muster for now.  Let’s go let’s go let’s go, buddy-roo!  

Stuart Scott

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Sitting here watching ESPN getting ready to ride the trainer and I hear about Stuart Scott passing.  May God Damn this sort of thing!  Cancer.  Always always takes a guy like him and leaves jerks to inherit the landscape of good health.  

My hands keep going up to my eyes.  The corners of my lips turn down and quiver.  Why am I so affected by this particular death…this particular person?  Why has this tipped me over this morning?  Why am I sitting here crying while I watch ESPN’s retrospect instead of quietly thinking “another one bites the dust.”?  I can’t really say.  I did not know the man apart from what I saw on TV or at the Heroes Gala last year—almost one year ago exactly.  I don’t know what he was really like apart from what was presented to the public.  I don’t know that he was especially more important than anyone else in the world…any better person, or father, or even broadcaster.  But something is making me really sad about this today. 

Maybe it doesn’t matter how important or good a person is to the world.  Maybe it only matters how good or important a person is to you.  Or how a person positively affects your life or the way you look at the world.  And then maybe it is our responsibility and privilege to pass that affectation on to others.  The vast majority of us can only reach a limited number of people, after all.  I guess Stuart Scott must have affected me in a pretty big way.  I know I liked his presence on ESPN.  I know I liked his on-air personality.  I was impressed that he took time to come to the Gala last year, looking as thin as I’ve ever seen him.  I was impressed that he was so magnanimous and seemed to take the event very seriously.  He was passionate when he spoke and very gracious when people pressed him for autographs or photos.  Maybe it is because I sensed genuineness in him that I am so sad today.  Genuine people are, in my opinion, uncommon in these times.  And for some reason, I think he was a genuine guy.  BooYah.  

I am not a fan of celebrity, or being famous.  I think it breeds egotism in almost every case.  And I don’t think that anyone in the world “deserves” recognition for doing good things.  That is not a socialist statement, either…or maybe it is…I don’t really care…it’s just a stupid word.  I just think that people should all do good things and be fulfilled by the knowledge that maybe those things enriched someone else’s life in some way.  So—I don’t think that we should necessarily glorify Stuart for anything in particular.  But I do hope…I very strongly hope that people remember him and let his life and his work be reflected in the way they live.  

They say that cancer doesn’t discriminate when it takes people away from us.  I don’t know…it just doesn’t seem that way to me after today.  

123114 Kentucky was fun

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Nope.  No sappy end of year memoir here.  A lot of people feel compelled to take stock of their lives and publicly review them in blogs and social media posts.  I will not do this.  I will not subject people to that terrible sort of cliche.  Not that you are a subject just because you chose to read this.  Anyway, I don’t believe in socialism or plutocracies or totalitarianism or communism or any modern forms of government for that matter.  But I will tell you about a recent ride in Kentucky.  It goes like this:

I was in the great state of Kentucky for the holidays with my wife’s family a few weeks ago.  For those who do not know Kentucky, it is basically the most convoluted system of roads and hills and valleys and creeks and limestone cliffs and rivers and tobacco fields you have ever seen.  I have heard that it is also filled with secret marijuana fields and something called Kentucky Colonels.  These Kentucky Colonels are not actually Colonels in a military sense…rather they are people who have been formally recognized as contributing something significant to the state of Kentucky.  The title has it’s roots in military organization but that ended in the 19th century.  I shall speak no ill of the organization as my father-in-law is a Colonel himself.  I do think the whole notion of Colonel Sanders is funny, though.  And his bow-tie is certainly stylish and non-functional, as any form of tie should be.  

That makes me think about suits.  Why do people wear suits?  There is absolutely nothing functional about them.  They are terribly uncomfortable, they do not move well, they are normally accompanied by the wearing of a tie, which is basically a collar and short leash for a person, and they all look basically the same (despite what their makers may tell you).  But people spend much of the money they make (in the corporate world) on these restrictive woolen garments in an attempt to, presumably, impress clients, bosses, and even their equally-leveled co-workers.  But the very people on whom the impression is meant to be made actually only feel either envy or contempt when confronted with the competing garment.  Once this miniature rapport is established, and the silent judgement begins, the Dow Jones will move up or down a few points based on completely fictitious circumstances, one of the parties shifts his gaze slightly downward (this is such a small movement that only the contest winner actually recognizes it…the loser does not even know he just averted his eyes) and immediately check himself into rehab for three months before seeking work at a bike shop.  I find the whole notion to be ridiculous in the most literal sense of the word ridiculous.  The thing is…I will actually wear one in two weeks when I attend a black-tie-optional event in the name of charity.  And I will fidget the entire evening as my shirt migrates up and down and around when I sit down or stand up.  I will itch the next day from the wool collar touching my neck.  And I will wonder why in hell did people pick this form of garment for large get-togethers and corporate work environments instead of something really comfortable and conducive to productivity…like a felt jumpsuit or flannel pajamas.  

So…back to my ride.  My ride was great.  Probably one of the best rides I’ve done this year…and in December, no less.  But the thing is, I am basically flying blind whenever I do a long ride down there.  I am beginning to get a decent mental map of the four or five counties in which I ride around Beth’s parents’ town but only in a very general directional sense.  For instance…I know which way is North because moss only grows on the north side of all the roadside ditches in which the hundreds of goddam huge mongrel dogs wait to ambush me.  These dogs live at every single one of the tobacco farms and rooster concentration camps around the areas in which I ride.  They are obviously an ancient breed…probably a crossbreed of pit-bull, timber-wolf, and razorback hogs.  They are fast, huge, and nearly silent as they begin their attacks.  I have grown accustomed to them, though, and my ears have become finely attuned to the sound they make as they rush at me.  This is called sprint training.  Their carcasses litter the sides of the larger roads, killed instantly as they try to attack combines and tobacco trailers.  To effectively evade the beasts, you MUST be willing to stop and fight.  If you are not, they will sense your fear and become overwhelmed by blood-lust and crazy-eyes.  Sort of like the curious mania that develops when network or cable new stations get wind of a white policeman kicking the shit out of a black, so-called perpetrator (who in hell knows whether this person actually committed a crime because as far as selling advertising, that fact is about as important as whether or not Ndaukong Suh is playing fair or dirty when he bludgeons a quarterback…the point is that violence is being done, and violence always creates a polarized situation and that can make or break the Nightly News (or ESPN)…especially if the poles are different colors).  

Anyway my ride was great, as I mentioned earlier.  Even with the dogs.  Some of them have actually gotten to know me a bit and I think they even appreciate my presence.  I always make sure to wear blue as even the dogs are UK fans in that area of Kentucky.  Actually…it seems to me that EVERYONE in Kentucky is a UK fan and NO ONE is a Louisville fan.  Am I correct?  No matter I guess, but it is a weird thing.  I have not met one single person in Kentucky who would root for Louisville in a UK vs Louisville game.  I am sure they exist but something tells me they all live in Clarksville, Indiana.  THE RIDE!  I actually have lost the impetus to write about the ride.  Suffice to say that I went up and down many, many hills and was chased by many, many wild dawgs, as they say in Kentucky.  I even made it up Thunder Road Hill, which is a very steep road that was presumably created as a joke by the DOT.  It is approximately a 40% grade and is completely formed out of what can only be described as jagged charcoal and solidified rooster shit.  As a matter of fact, at the bottom of the hill is one of those bizarre rooster-camps I see all over the place in central KY.  I don’t know why they exist.  They are always fenced in and guarded by a Great Pyrenees Dog (huge white fluffy dog from Belle and Sebastian).  The roosters live in blue 100-gallon barrels and are sometimes on a chain and collar.  They may be bred for fighting…or maybe just to be used as Foghorn Leghorns.  Every hen-house has to have a man around to fix stuff and ward off the chicken-hawks, right?  Right…so that was the ride.

Now it’s time for New Year’s Eve which is a celebration of booze and broken dreams and Dr. Neil Clark Warren just loves it as he chugs lemon-drops and sings Auld Lang Syne and swims in his e-Harmony money.  The jails will be full tonight with mean drunks and despondent loners who only care that they just spent hundreds of dollars to be at the coolest party in Indy and ended up behind bars instead of between the sheets because they were on the wrong side of point zero-eight and probably the wrong side of the road.  It’s a rotten sham and we all ride that train in our twenties and thirties because hangovers really don’t get serious until you make over 50 grand a year.  (side note:  when you make over 200 grand a year you may drink in the morning to rid yourself of the hangover)  

We are going to a friend’s house tonight.  We actually like these people though and it doesn’t really matter if it’s December 31.  We would go anyway.  And i won’t have a hangover tomorrow.  

Time to go now….