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….

22 Lucky Years, The wheel follows the eyes, Fat and Skinny is still a Great Event, and I think I think these things…

22 Lucky Years, The wheel follows the eyes, Fat and Skinny is still a Great Event, and I think I think these things…

In no particular order:  

7.  the doctor pepper 10 commercials are my favorite.  followed by Gary Busey talking to his pants.  

3.  pro cycling is super boring.  almost as boring to watch as golf.  i have recorded a few events this season and with the exception of paris roubaix and flanders i always fast forward to the last ten k.  this is especially true of stage races.  

18.  amateur racing, like what we do, is awesome.  always craziness and never predictable (unless TRH brings a full squad) and i find myself more and more in love with this level of the sport.  it has been so rewarding to create the team (First IB Cycling) and watch it grow.  the guys and gals are doing well (the ladies are particularly impressive this year) and the diversity of personalities is super fun to be around.  

7.  cody lundeen is leaving dual survival and that sucks because that super-wanker joe teti is now the anchor and they’re bringing some desert-dwelling tarzan in to take cody’s place.  guarantee that show is toast and i liked it.  

7.  i’ve really become a tea guy…or tea person.  loose-leaf all the way with the cast-iron pot and everything.  golden assam mixed with a bit of jasmine white is a really nice blend.  i drink it all the time and i can tell that the antioxidants are protecting me from all manner of diseases and evil spirits.

1.  i hate crashing…especially when it is not my fault.  even more especially when i am in the winning break of four on a sunny day at one of my favorite events with a ton of spectators and hosted by some of the nicest people i know.

so i have been racing for 22 years (since i was 18) and have crashed maybe three times on the road and a couple more off-road.  i have had lots of stitches and had a torn rotator cuff but never broken a bone.  at masters nationals in louisville a few years ago i dislocated my finger with a lap to go when some jerk off went down in front of me and my hand jammed it’s way through his rear wheel when i went down.  but never a broken bone.  

well so much for that.  sunday in the masters crit at fat and skinny up in warsaw i went down due to the ninth-dan numbskullery of one of my breakaway companions.  the front wheel generally follows the eyes and those eyes apparently wanted to look behind after exiting a corner at high speed and just as we were accelerating on the backstretch.  why?  i don’t know.  we had plenty of gap and were working smoothly and taking even pulls…a win was assured for one of us.  disappointing and painful but…shit happens, as the pope always says.  we all make mistakes.  the key is to learn from them and not make the same mistake ten times in the same race like said numbskull.  

anyway i went to the ER and sat for an hour waiting to be seen by a real doctor.  this did not happen and after someone repeatedly came in and told me they were sorry for the wait and  that they would get me something for the pain, i was finally convinced that either i was not, in fact, in a real hospital, or that all the doctors were at another hospital.  so i walked half-naked to the nurses station and told them i was leaving.  they were very concerned and also frustrated at me because i did not appreciate their ruse.  but no matter.  i’m used to that personality type…i work in the bicycle industry.  so i know how to handle them.  in this case i just had a box of wine brought in and, while they were busy, shredded my intake forms and left silently with help from mr. mcclary.  silly old hens…

my REAL doctor back home told me to come in first thing in the morning and he would assess the situation.  so after a somewhat painful drive home and a very uncomfortable night’s sleep i went to see the doc and get an x-ray.  this confirmed the clavicle fracture with dislocation and splinters.  bad stuff.  surgery required asap.  doc scheduled surgery for wednesday and i mucked my way through the next two nights as best i could and waited for my wife to get home from a business trip in miami.  she’s great.  she takes care of me like a champ and is super helpful and would do much more if i would let her.  she even tried to mow the lawn, which i have forbidden as mowing the lawn is one of the primary outlets for my undiagnosed OCD.  but we’ll get that taken care of later.  so surgery:

surgery was super fun and i had a great time with the anesthesia as always.  here is what anesthesia is like:  

doc:  “i’m going to make you a little sleepy now while i ask you a few questions.”

me:  “okay…oh wow i can feel it starting to……”

doc:  “all done mr. richter, how are you feeling?”

me:  “ooooh you rotten bugger you tricked me again…and why the hell are my pants wet?”

doc:  “perfectly normal stuff there, mr. richter…would you like a soft drink?”

me:  “i demand to see your phone this instant!  and why are we in an elevator?  this building is only one floor.”

doc:  “hmmmmm…mrs. richter?  he’s all yours.”

that was yesterday.  they put a nerve block in my shoulder so i had no feeling and no motor control of my left arm yesterday and last night which was disconcerting but did eliminate any pain until it wore off around mid-morning.  i had fun trying to wash my face at the sink with my dead left arm just sort of sitting on the side wanting to slip off when i moved.  weird.  and when i was sitting on the couch watching tv last night with beth i kept looking over to check on it and it was never where i thought it was.  

and that was that.  it’s now the end of the second day and my neck hurts like a sonofabitch.  i guess they were wrenching around on my neck and shoulder muscles trying to get the clavicle straight (so said the PA when i asked her why it felt like i had whiplash).  hope to sleep a bit tonight.  pain meds and me don’t get along very well.  

i gotta go man.  promise i’ll write something better soon…

oh wait!  i wanted to say thank you to rob and nancy gast and everyone else responsible for the Fat and Skinny Tire Fest (version 11).  as always, this is a really wonderful event with huge crowds, a super fun festival atmosphere with loads of food and drink and plenty of diversions for cyclists of all disciplines and abilities.  and it is held in one of the most idyllic settings in indiana, the Village at Winona Lake.  just a really great event and one that i always love doing.  if you have not done it, try it next year and i promise you will love it!

Goodbye Brett

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Dear Brett,

Jesus, buddy!  What the hell happened?  I think I can safely assume that you are probably pissed off right now at the manner of your demise.  I can imagine what you might have thought at the last moment.  Probably something along the lines of “This is such bullshit!  Please, God, let me have two more minutes…just TWO MORE MINUTES so I can run and grab my .45 and blow a hole through that guy before he gets away!”

You were such a good dude.  I feel sorry for the way you died.  But I don’t feel sorry for you.  I think you had a pretty good life.  You can tell when someone is having a good life.  It’s in the eyes and in the voice…the choice of words and inflection they use when they describe their day, or their family, or even another person.  Even when you and I would make fun of other dealers I knew that you had no animosity toward them…it was all just snarky observation and silliness.  The way you told the story about Nathan and the way we embellished it together every time we recounted it.  Or the one about Whiskey Bill.  So great.  And your laugh…such a great fucking laugh.  It made me laugh.  The way you would walk in the store and sometimes we would just look at each other and start laughing.  And the way you would walk in the door, straight past me toward the bathroom for a thirty-second piss and you would just say “be right back.”  So funny.  

We were both on the road, though you were there a lot longer…a warrior as they say.  Coffee is for closers and all that bullshit.  And you didn’t even drink coffee!  But you were the most caffeinated person I ever met.  We had met so many of the same dealers, been in so many of the same bathrooms, met so many of the most interesting, ridiculous, good, bad, ugly, and awesome personalities in this beautiful and heartbreaking industry that there was never a shortage of material for a good conversation.  Sellers, Baer, Nancy, Nathan, The Time Toilet (a little inside, I know), Tom T, fucking Looney Tunes parade, man!  Overture!  Curtains, lights…  Fuck me, are you telling me I can never have one of those conversations again?  Because I know for a fact that there is not another person alive who saw people in quite as similar fashion as I.  And that just sucks.  I am selfishly pissed off at the miserable, filthy bastard who did this.

Your cars…how many fucking cars did you go through in the years I knew you?  All those awful retired police cruisers for so long!  You would brag about how cheap you got them at auction but all I saw was a piece of shit.  But you didn’t care because you were a road warrior and those were your war horses and war horses are meant to be filthy and mean and ridden to death and that is what they expect and hate and that’s okay because God has a special place for them and for the men who ride them.  Well…at least for you.  Those cars have no doubt been melted down by now.  

I never met your family but I like to imagine they meant a great deal to you.  I imagine you loved them very much and I feel very sad to think that they will miss you.  I can’t fathom how shocked they must feel.  I pray for them in wordless mourning because how can you use words ask God to assuage what they are experiencing.  To attempt to do so would do a disservice to the awful depth of despair that accompanies the violent taking of a loved one.  So I guess I just want your family to know that you were a connected person…that is to say that there are a lot of us who feel a huge sense of loss right now.

I never ordered stuff from J&B Importers.  I ordered from Brett Walquist.  Your prices were always higher than QBP and I always found mistakes in the product you shipped.  I think it was because you relied on your memory, which was prodigious, to input part numbers.  Like the time you shipped us about twenty 3-way Torx wrenches.  WTF?  Or all the times you send us the wrong kickstands…the ones with the flat plates instead of the s-shaped ones.  But you always made good…”Oh don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it, you’ll see something show up next week with the same value but there won’t be a charge!”  Shyster…  

If I still drank, I’d throw down a few bourbons for you.  It is New Year’s, after all.  Instead, I think I’ll go out back and burn all my J&B catalogs and fire off a few rounds of the ol’ 9mm to say Goodbye.  You take care now and stop fucking pacing around so much!  Relax, buddy, the hard part is over.  

-Richter

Sunday Morning Coming Down

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Can you start a piece with an interlude?  Well I will:  That pseudo-song call and response piece of dung called “Home” by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros is playing on the radio at work and it is so very awful!  That bit in the middle when they talk to each other…I just ground my molars to shards and my left eye just shot across the store.  I voiced my displeasure and the boys started laughing.  They said they were surprised it only took 30 seconds.  Shame on them for being tolerant of this auditory tripe.  

It’s slow here this time of year and I’m quite jumpy.  Music is powerfully mood-altering to me.  If it were just me in here there would be only Jazz and Reggae and maybe Johnny Cash when he did those cover albums as an old timer with that quivering old voice that was forged in a crucible of tobacco, pills, booze, and the kind of desperate longing that only a sinner of the worst kind can know.  That sort of man has hated himself for so long that the years and the “mud and the blood and the booze” have erased the memory of the original reason for that self-loathing so that all he is left with is a broken soul and a bone-soaking darkness that is never more than a half-smile away.  A man like that can never truly smile because he knows that the smile is held captive by a terrible spiritual malignancy.  He can never be reconciled because he doesn’t remember what it is that needs to be reconciled.  And so he is left to God’s mercy in the end and until that day he takes a wife like June and sings epic poetry and if he is lucky he stays away from booze and dope.  Jesus, this is me!  So it’s Cash for camaraderie, Jazz and Reggae to sooth the jerky nerves.  Sunday Morning Sidewalk.  Sunday Morning coming down…reality barging its way back into your life after you’ve done your best to run and hide and hide and hide and your mind lies raw in a pool of horror...or terror…sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference...but there is one. 

I quit drinking this year.  I haven’t done drugs for many years.  Booze was always the best for me…and the worst.  I can remember the rush, the euphoria, the acceptance.  I remember the anticipation of drinking.  I remember lying to myself about how much I would drink that night…or day.  I have derailed so many trains in my time I can scarcely believe I’m alive.  Never a daily drinker…just a drinker of vast quantities.  Ten beers would be chump change for me.  How the hell can I function around these people with only ten?  I need the walls to close in.  I need the blurry, fuzzy vortex of noise to be close enough to rub my cheeks.  The din of two hundred voices all stirred up together and swirled around and around until they are an indistinguishable boozy noise blanket.  And I wrap myself up in it and it all looks homogenous and I can pick out whichever one is least threatening and touch it.  Colors and sounds and fragmented memories of shapes of wooden floors and glasses and shirt colors and bar-rails.  That dark brownish-burgundy color of fake leather and cheap pool table felt.  

The dry mouth and twitchy sleep of 4AM and that awful breathless time lapse between the dissipation of the BAC and the onset of the hangover.  There is a period of time when there is perfect, painless clarity (or at least perceived perfect sobriety) at that point.  Chemicals being processed—eliminated…some new chemicals shoving in to fuck with your eyes and your stomach and, worst of all, your mind.  The vertigo and the acute anxiety and depression dance around sickeningly and taunt you and all you want to do is sit under the warm shower and know that it’s hot and sunny outside and maybe it will be until you feel better.  If you’re going to be hung over, do it in Summer.  Winter is worst for that sort of thing.  The grey skies are just a tombstone over your emotional grave and there is not a damn thing you can do about it but embrace the dread or drink again.  And you probably will…for twenty or thirty years until you Allow yourself to realize how pathetic it all is.  Until Sunday Morning Comes Down for good.  You pray for Sunday morning…the one that Johnny sang about.  He didn’t sing about it in a literal sense.  He sang about it metaphorically and that is what most people miss.  I missed it the first hundred or so times I ever heard that song but I get it now.  Sunday morning is God’s presentation of grace and maybe redemption to you.  Even when you think you are the worst person in the world at the time.  The smell of the chicken frying, the laughing little girl playing, even the cleanest dirty shirt.  Those things all point to something new and brilliant and maybe soul-cleansing.

But not everyone is ready for that just yet.  It takes that man whose heart has been frozen for so long that even the slightest whisper of love or even concern from another person ignites some ferocious longing deep inside his soul.  And I do mean ferocious.  That kind of longing functions as both a fire to melt the frozen heart and a protective monster to guard what it has thawed.  It is a built in Mother Bear…or maybe it is God working through us and we only think it is a thing we create.  Those who Believe tackle this question every day on some level.  It’s a tough one.  I have beaten that question back into the darkness so many times I can’t believe it still pursues me.  I simultaneously love the longing and hate it with everything I can muster.  You see, it shakes up my belief paradigm and makes me very uncomfortable while also allowing me a faint glimpse of something better and beautiful!  But I am comfortable in the dark stasis of this person I’ve created.  There is no work to be done here.  It is anesthesia.  Pure, numb apathy.  Not bad and not good.  Nothing.  Some people think that is what hell is.  But then that piercing light shoots through a crack in the ice and blasts you in the eye and you see something familiar.  You have no idea what it is, though you can see it quite clearly.  All you know is that it is familiar and warm and I’m not sure what the other thing is but it’s some sort of happiness.  Either happiness or peace I think.  

But as I was saying…not everyone is ready for that just yet.  For some people, you just have to reach down to the bottom of the well to where you think you’ll find your own damned redemption and you don’t need anyone’s help Goddammit!  And that’s what is so confusing.  You will find water down there but a man dug that well and that water probably filtered up through the bedrock from miles away.  There is nothing special about that.  It’s just plain physical processes.  Rain falls and soaks in and gravity pulls it down to the depths and heat pushes it back up.  Dinosaurs die and rot and turn into oil and diamonds.  Birds are not magic…they are aerodynamic and use their wings and thermal updrafts to fly.  But we all continue to look for the Answer in those things.  Four leaf clovers and fire and rockets and elementary particles…the Higgs Boson.  We observed all these things and we even created computers that can beat Garry Kasparov at chess.  We will continue to advance our manipulation of the observable world.  Will there be a point at which we know so much that we cross a threshold where God is plausibly deniable to everyone alive?  I doubt it.  Because I think we have all seen that beam of light every now and then and it still makes us wonder.  We still get precious glimpses of that thing which is so familiar yet so unrecognizable.  Johnny and I have something in common there.  We both sat at the bottom of the well for a long LONG time just clawing away deeper and deeper because we were sure we could find ourselves if we just dug another few inches.  He got tired and went on one last bender and woke up one Sunday morning and the sun hit him in the face and he started to climb out. 

Trainer Season...Does anyone have some really REALLY warm gloves?...Goodbye Coach Troy Forever.

I kept waking up Tuesday night and into the wee hours of Wednesday thinking I was hearing something downstairs.  A dreadful sound, actually.  Now that I think about it, I’m sure it was dogs fighting.  Dobermans, maybe…or dingos.  Or coyotes.  Whatever the hell it was it was really annoying me and I couldn’t sleep.  I didn’t get up to check on it because I wasn’t sure if it was real or a hallucination brought on by the frostbite I sustained to my frontal cortex during the previous morning’s run.  I don’t mind hallucinations…so long as they are reasonably quiet and respect my sleep patterns.  But these buggers were noisy and mean and for some reason were pissed off and probably Irish.  

So I turned up the fan and double checked my pistol and finally fell asleep around 4AM.  I slept fitfully for two more hours until my wife had to get up at 6 and when she was in the shower I heard them start up again downstairs.  Was it outside?  Something was off about this.  I looked out the window to the back yard and couldn’t see anything in the grey mist that had settled over the common area.  The birch trees and the willow were still and there was no sign of a scuffle in the mulch beds.  Were these things in my house?  The basement maybe?  I looked around the room to make sure the walls were still solid and gave my totem a quick spin on the bedside table for good measure.  It toppled over after a few seconds so I couldn’t have been dreaming.  Winston was snoring and curled up like a furry little butter bean in my wife’s warm spot and didn’t seem to hear a thing.  I heard Beth singing something from the Acousticats in the shower and I could smell the soap so this must be real, right?  But where were the noises coming from and if dogs were fighting in my house, how the hell did they get there in the first place?  

“Screw it” I thought and decided to go have some coffee and check out the basement.  Maybe the furnace was just acting up and it only sounded like canine fight club.  But coffee first.  See…I simply must have two large mugs of Café Richterissimo and one full hour of news before I even open my left eye.  So I sure as hell wasn’t going to venture down to the lower basement (we have two basements) without cranking up my CNS.  The lower basement is where we keep our exercise equipment, Christmas decorations, furnace, water heater, water softener, and wolf-spiders.  The upper basement is where we keep a lot of carpet and air and is Winston’s preferred clandestine toilet which he uses when we are asleep and he really REALLY needs to go.  But the news…the news was boring that morning.  Something about Justin Timberlake in town and a bunch of girls arrested for plotting to capture him and lick him to death.  I switched it to the History Channel and watched Modern Marvels and learned something about bridges for the rest of my wakey-wakey and prepared to go check out the furnace.  

Beth and the Winston came downstairs around this time and I kissed my wife goodbye and tossed Winston into his daytime blanket, where he spends 90% of the day sleeping and occasionally yelling at noises outside which are undetectable by human ears.  After Beth had driven away and I had waved and blown kisses at her like the charming and loveable man that I am, I decided to get down to business and check out that awful noise.  The noise was escalating by now and I’m sure I also heard chains clanking chaotically as if some trapped thing was fighting for its life while having rocks thrown at it.  I was fairly certain it wasn’t the furnace as I descended the stairs to the upper basement because I suddenly became aware of the fact that the sounds of fighting and clanking had stopped and were replaced by the hideous sound of soft, deep laughter.  “Jesus, this is ominous”, I thought as I continued to the bottom of the stairs to the first basement, which we fancy as a rec-room and around the corner to the door which led to the lower flight. I opened it slowly.  Peeking through a small crack in the door, cautiously, I uttered one of those loud whispers to no one in particular…”Hello?…Who’s down there?”  Again…soft, slow laughter in the deepest, most sinister pitch I’ve heard since I went surfing in Ireland and that evil bastard Leviathan-swell up at Bundoran cracked all my ribs and gave me rhabdomyolysis in my shoulders.  Whatever this was I knew it was not something kind.  Perseus was over in the corner playing cards by himself on my Grandma’s table, in the dark (solitaire, I guess), and I motioned for him to toss me his shield so I could use it as a mirror…in case whatever was down there was Medusa or something else that could turn me to stone or maybe something worse with it’s awful gaze.  He gave me the shield and mumbled something about being “so sorry” that he had lost the helmet the week prior in a poker game.  Perseus has a bad gambling problem and a history of holding out for trips with a small pair (huhuh…that’s what she said *wink*).  The helmet would have helped.  Silly bugger…I’ll probably kick him out soon but he is very handsome and his Dad asked me if I would keep an eye on him and “sort of be like a sponsor” while he’s getting back on his feet.  Don’t let it ever be said that I don’t have a charitable heart!  And enough about him…he’s a nice enough guy but I think he likes my wife and I’m not sure I could take him in a fight.  He has half of Olympus on his side, after all…

So I snatch the shield from Perseus and head down the lower flight of stairs and then it happened:  Fucking Coach Troy comes bolting out of the corner from behind the water heater with a stopwatch in his left hand and a DVD in his right.  He has on those patterned, baggy Zubaz-style pants and a polo shirt and I can tell he hasn’t ridden his own bike in months.  He shouts something at me about the eleven-tooth and 95 RPM and I don’t even hesitate when I plaster him in the side of the head with a wicked roundhouse kick.  He falls awkwardly down against the water heater and is out cold and I snicker to myself because I’ve always wanted to sucker-punch that patzer and here he goes ahead and gives me the sleepy broadside of the barn.  But wait…I’ve jumped to a bad conclusion here.  Because just as I finish patting myself on the back with one of Coach Troy’s severed hands (yeah I did it…trophy!), I hear that rotten laughter again.  Smaug?  Hmmmmmm…  It’s to my left and slightly behind me, adjacent to the stairwell.  I can smell the unmistakeable odor of burning tires and molten high-carbon steel.  I nearly left my body and fled to another dimension when I realized what it was.  The sound of the rattling chains confirmed it.  I had chained the filthy thing up almost nine months ago and forgotten about it until just then.  That awful smell of melting tire tread and sour, dried blood…the sort of blood that only comes from burst vessels in the human eye when the pressure is too great.  This happens only at high wattage and low cadence.  It was Kurt.  I stared at him in disbelief and dropped the shield.  It clanged noisily on the concrete floor and slowly came to rest after spinning around slowly a few times, casting a sickly golden light around the room and illuminating the despotic object intermittently like a lighthouse on an evil green Kraken.  I looked desperately out the window…it was locked securely and there was a grate over the well.  A few snowflakes had begun to float down.  Beautiful thing for most people.  But not for me.  I looked up the stairs and saw Perseus standing there with a sad smile on his face.  Judas with curly hair and a tunic.  Swine!  He tossed me a small towel and a half-full bottle of water and said…again…”so sorry”.  Then he shut the door and I heard it lock from the other side.  Rotten traitor.  That’s the last time I give you a few bucks for “lunch”.  And that pretty much did it for me.

The bike was already there with a cheap steel skewer in the rear hub and a sticky orange tire on the rim.  Kurt unfolded his terrible arms and opened his voracious mouth and I knew there was no point in resisting.  I slowly rolled my bike over to him and winced as he closed his awful mouth down and crunched.  It was terrible.  I felt utterly defeated.  I tried one last time to lunge for the door but tripped over Troy’s lifeless body and I knew…I knew I was done for.  I had beaten the gatekeeper but the monster within still ruled this dungeon and Winter was upon us.  There were a pair of bibs hanging near the window and a three year old pair of shoes with brittle nylon cleats…but all I saw were shackles…manicles.  I reluctantly put them on and mounted my bike.  Netflix?  Sufferfest?  Hara-kiri?  I pressed power on the Edge and turned off the GPS.  My cleats engaged and I threw up my arms and screamed in anguish like Elias in Platoon when the helicopters left him behind.  My legs twitched and shuddered and began to turn in slow, rhythmic circles and my arms and hands slowly dropped to the brake hoods and I looked up and saw my wife standing two steps up from the bottom of the lower flight.  Her early wake up call, the kiss goodbye, even the drive-away from the house…these had all been a ruse.  I had been sold out.  She looked at me in tears and said “I love you.”  I feigned a smile, shot a knowing look back at her with a small toss of my head upward and said…”I know.”  And it was finished.

Holding Court

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Holding Court--He is moving like a Tremendous Machine!--What month is this again?

Last Saturday at the Mass Ave Crit I saw a form of awesomeness I can only describe as sublime.  In simple terms, Court Maple lapped a very strong field of masters racers on one of the toughest crit courses in the Midwest.  That is the statement I have heard from many people who were there.  I was there also and I can tell you it was a lot more exciting than that.  You might think it an aggrandizement for me to say this but that performance/clinic/show was Secretariat at Belmont in ’73.  For me at least.  I mean...who the hell does that anymore in masters racing around here?  

I don’t race much and I never get more than one state away if I travel but I have done some hard races and I have raced with some fast guys and most of the time...and I hate to say this...it is pretty boring.  Most races I do or watch are pretty much the same thing, whether it’s a 1,2 field or masters.  Start riding--couple of attacks--bring them back--counter--long solo break--bring it back--counter--small fast group gets away and either 1, stays away or 2, gets caught--three to go and calm before the storm--one to go and ramp it up--sprint for win or minor placing.  We have all done this many times.  We all do it weekly during any of the good “worlds”-type rides in Indy.  Most of us don’t mind that it’s somewhat scripted because, hopefully, most of us race or ride the “worlds” to test our own limits.  I do it because I enjoy pushing myself to see how much I can get out of my body and my mind.  I love the pain and the amazing ability of our minds to disregard it and go harder.  Most people don’t realize how hard you can actually go if you focus and push through that pain.  We are all capable of extraordinary things...in that context.  That we all have that ability, and that the fastest guys are able to harness it is what makes cycling so addicting and in some cases compulsive to many of us.  It’s eery.  It invokes something Higher in the universe.  It is Secretariat or Pele or Bo Jackson.  These are the things that are beautiful in the world.  There are lots of other things that are beautiful but Sport is Play taken to the next level and play is childhood and what is more wondrous than that?  

To see that dude (Mr. Maple) roll down the main straight at Mass Ave in the midst of his escape was inspiring.  Head down, eyes sucked back into his brain and ringed in fire, elbows bent, forearms parallel to the ground, normal Court-smile torn off and tossed to his daughters for afterwards...wow.  Loudest crowd noise of the day and start-line daylight fading quickly to black like a blanket of war-smoke settling over some pockmarked field in Belgium.  No shit...this was the type of environment that makes heroes.  I glanced up at the roof of a building across the street, at one point, and saw Superman throw up his hands in disgust and punch Batman dead in the face before flying off at Mach 4 with Super-Tears raining down over Fountain Square.  He knew he had just lost his mojo and was now just some guy in tights and a cape...like any other hipster in that weird section of the city.  

And to think that behind Court, or at this point more like in front of him, like some sort of bicycle time-warp...a Rosen Bridge?, guys like Weaver and Cox and Boggs and Dean and Brooks and Fritzinger and whoever else were chasing HARD to get back on terms!  Some of the people around me were quite verbal in their criticism of Zipp for so carelessly letting him escape but they were on the sidelines and probably didn’t even know who the hell Secretariat even was.  So their opinions were instantly sucked into the nearest storm drain and eaten by rats.  I think Zipp did everything right.  They sent their strongest sprinter into the break that Court FELL BACK TO after dropping their strongest pursuiter, presuming that the break would stay together with a bit of cooperation by those present (Weaver, Cox, Fritzinger, Maple).  I would have bet on that all day long.  That’s a similar mistake to the one made by Sham’s trainer at Belmont.  Run him hard from the gun and he’ll never make it to the stretch.  Well.............

I have ridden and trained with Court a lot in the past few years.  I know what he is capable of and so I know what to do when I’m with him in small-group situations on the road.  I know I cannot match him toe to toe (or, rather, cleat to cleat).  First of all, he has more natural ability.  Then there is the fact that his pain-sensors were removed accidentally when he had a tonsillectomy as a child.  And if that weren’t enough, he can counter HIMSELF when he is apprehended after an attack.  It’s nerve wracking and painful if he decides it is go-time on Tuesday nights.  These qualities make him deadly in a break of anything less than seven or eight riders.  And that is what doomed numbers two through four last Saturday.  

And now that you are endowed with the proper context of the Mass Ave Criterium Masters 40+ race, you can properly appreciate the aforementioned statement--Court Maple lapped a very strong field of masters racers on one of the toughest crit courses in the Midwest.  And I’ll add this:  You all should have known!  Did you see Indy Crit?  Do you remember the State Championship Road Race?  Did you see Parkview last year?  

And Court, I promise I don’t have a crush on you, man.  Just thought it a worthy subject and a helluva show!  

As for Motion Elite-First Internet Bank, Nick Torrance was second in the 3/4 race after nearly catching Gunnar following his (Gunnar’s) last-lap flyer.  That kid is good.  Both of them.  Nick is steady as a rock in any race he’s in and I look forward to seeing what he can do with the big boys next year.  Paul, Tom, and Turner experienced the wrath of that wretched course in the Pro/1/2 field where I think only about 15% of the field finished.  That was brutal to watch.  Becker is suffering from some mystery illness and we have requested that Hugh Laurie travel to Fishers to help diagnose him.  I know he is not really a doctor but he just seems so damn smart to me that I think he can help.  Schmutte has raced more this year than anyone and currently lies quivering in the corner of the Fit Area of the store...rocking back and forth and muttering loose-associations at his bike, which is very clean.  I think he’s done with the road for this season but has been mentioning Cross during his few lucid moments.  

I am very happy with the team.  It has been extremely rewarding to create this thing and watch it grow.  The guys and gals have been great ambassadors for the sport and for the store and many of them have improved exponentially over last season.  Next season I expect more.  We will be stronger in many ways.  There will be changes.  There will be more structure.  The reigns with be tightened.  It’s been fun having no pressure this year but this is a race team and it’s time to buck-up.  Stand by for some pretty cool developments with several of the teams that Motion supports....

As for me, I am really more interested in my yard at this point than going fast.  We went fast last night (under protest) because RJ came out and decided to do MT intervals at 35 MPH, which was so very fun.  That dude is strong.  Good guy.  Sort of grew up around us and is very humble and accessible.  Anyway that’s it for me.  I would like a vacation now.