Ride Lugged

Sweat this: DC is the first city in Mmmerika to have a bike sharing program. Stockholm has had this for years already and it works quite well, though it seems to be used more by tourists than Sthlmers, who would presumably have their own bikes.

yo yo yogurt and mc stammer are hosting the first and last 24 hours big bear mtn biking ‘training’ ride in patapsco valley state park, avalon area, this saturday, from 9 am to sunset.  there will be:  four rides of about 10-8 miles each, fishing, grilling, (can we eat the fish?) beer drinking (its legal within the shelter), and perhaps, scat playing.  thats a card game not a scatological reference.  bring yo dimes.  who’s invited?  not you!  oh, no wait.  pretty much anyone who wants to try to ride fairly fast, and participate in above activities.  its a training thing sure, but others are more than welcome, joe, john, mark, ect.  whoever.  if we dont know you, but you wanna come, thats cool too.  Bring a six pack though, and a snack or 3.  No moochers.

Details:  I have reserved a shelter, shelter #1.  Ok where is that?  Here is a shitty map that might help.   In other words: if you are only bringing beer and some grub, park at the avalon park and ride, strap on a messenger bag, and ride down into the park.  take the road downstream toward the river.  Cross under the railroad bridge and turn left.  Go a few hundred yards, the shelter will be on the right, somewheres.  We’ll try to get there earlier than you.  If you are driving because you need to bring a special 17 cup holder folding chair designed for the beaches of Georgia, former satelite country of the USSR, then come in from route one, and follow the map.  That dash across the river doesnt mean the road is out, it just means there’s a bridge.  Go figure.

Time:  we’ll be there when the park opens, at 9am.  lets try to be out on the trails no later than 10.  Dont be late, or you wont know where the hell we are.

What to brang:  a bike, perferably a singlespeed.  why?  because thats what we’ll be riding, and we dont want you to have an advantage.  Why?  we’re mean.

Food:  a gallon of water for yourself.  A cooler if you want to keep it and your beer cold.   We’ll have a few coolers.  Will we have enough for you too?  Dont know.  I shelled out 20 bucks for the shelter, so I’m gunna bring my own beer and some hamburger buns, ketchup and mustard.  Someone else brings the meat, and charcoal.  Sign up also for: chips and salsa, and something for dinner.  Like what?  How about… Pasta salad with chicken?  then we dont have to cook it.  Or figure out something better.  Also good: grilled wings.  Sign up in the comments section suckas.

Questions can be directed at the comments section too.

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By the light of the day the pimp’s yellow ochre suit is plain beige. The rotting wooden trailer out front is the same emerald green as the swing that sat under the willow tree for years after the willow had blown down in a windstorm, 15 feet from the porch where I slept, dead to the sound of the willow tree’s instant death. Now, 10 years later, a small willow grows from the base of the old tree’s trunk. The porch swing became art, the emerald green lending is patina to pieces about Abraham Lincoln and satellite radio. Memories are traded for cash and endorsed checks.

The porch furniture caught in the amber are invisible behind the dirty off white curtain, the illusion reserved for night rides only. The snake smell is just musty now, like a mouse dead in some remote corner of the house, reduced to powder and bones. There are no competitors out today, just the wind, heavy and high, pounding through every turn, making even the steepest downhills into high RPM chores. The splinter in my foot throbs on difficult climbs. The wrong foot placement could lead to a limp leg, as the pain shoots to the kneecap and saps it of structural strength. The lapis lazuli cascade has 3 kids playing in it, 2 teenage moms watch, bored. Not 6 years ago they were playing in that same stream. Now they just it watch it go by, the sparkling water holds no more interest than the latest congressional race, or the biker passing by, observing their life for 3 seconds at 27 mph.

I’m building miles slowly. Today I rode to school, and back, 6 miles total, and then my short local loop, 8 miles, then to the Giant, 3.5 miles, and then I’m heading back to school, 6 miles again, riding home in the dark at 11 or so. I’m eating a spoonful of ice cream a day, and loads of salad and grainy bits. I’m drinking lots of room temperature water, and extra fiber English muffins. My sweat has cooled to a dry powder on my forehead.

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A tale of two one point fives:

I have an idea, its not mine and I don’t remember who said it, but Sean’s recent comment brought it to mind again, and I’ll put the two thoughts together to make one newish thought.

I was always told to hold my handlebars loosely, like they were 1.5 times bigger than they actually are. This way, the bike and rider could react to bumps, and small directional changes, and still sort of auto–pilot its way through stuff. In other words, a loose grip actually meant more control, less wasted energy, and a more ‘ready for anything’ stance. I took this bit of wisdom and applied it. I loosesed up and found more control, less fatigue and more power for my legs, that otherwise would have gone to my hands and forearms. I could ride rigid and not be beat up. I could ride skinny tires off road. I could descend really nasty rocky stuff with crappy brakes and be ok. I ditched my fat oury grips and got big cheeze grips. They were smaller and harder, making it easier and more nessesary to loosen my grip. On my road bikes I switched from cork to cotton. Same deal. I can ride for dozens of miles and not experience numbness or a sketchy front end, because of how I hold my bars.

Instead of increasing headset diameter on road bikes (and don’t think its not coming to mtn bikes, or comfort bikes) why dont we re-teach this old chunk of wisdom. Let’s trade 1.5 inch headsets for theoretical 1.5x larger diameter handlebars. We could start by getting rid of all that gel tape nah nah, and foam pad hooo hoo and get people riding cinelli tape, or medium density stella or (gasp) cloth.

This would also expose undersized bikes, and poor riding positions. Lots of gel and saddle cut-outs do wonders for hiding bad bike fit. Its a win win situation. Really.

In honor of a bike that I really miss riding, here is a creepy montage of Merckx crashing.

i was talking to a local rider and friend, and fellow penn state art program guy eric roman the other day. yesterday actually. and we were sitting at the table cory designed, and talking about people we knew, and found that we both knew a number of philly folks, and meg, so there meg, eric says hey. he held up his fingers, pressed them together and said “the east coast scene is still this big”, or something like that. imagine a fellow 11 years older than me but 40 lbs lighter, who only rides a singlespeed, and still races in the pro class, and has lots of tattoos, and you sort of get an idea of what he looks like. we were looking at my witcomb (was meg’s) and it has the new sachs new success cranks on it, which are sharp looking by anyone’s gauge. he told me they were made by campy using record (or was it chorus) molds, and just branded sachs, which made them sort of under the radar cool. really though, they are the most polished thing on the bike, so they arnt that under the radar. this makes me wonder though: should i be using a campy taper bottom bracket, because i am not, and have logged at least 200 miles on them, and they seem fine, stiff smooth low Q, and silver. eric said: they arnt light but butter never is, or something like that but more clever and off the cuff.

all of those thoughts stem out of me sitting here, next to mel (well she got up for something, oh a shot of slivovice, which stinks like medice, thanks cory, medice from 1932, in its original bottle. she’s back now, and reading the newest reader, with her tea and shot of czech booze. and i am looking at those cranks, which, sharp looking as they are, manage to look clunky next to my lyotard Berthet pedals. made of stamped steel, these pedals are somehow bigger, more comfortable, curvy, and lighter than any quill pedal out there, and their hollow stamped windows and swoopy lines remind me of a late 1930s roadster more than any other pedal i can think of. they look like they were drawn using a set of french curves, by a designer who only looked at war time alfa romeros. only alfa romeros didnt look that swoopy when the berthet pedal was invented in 1923ish. they make the otherwise super elegant sachs cranks look like overkill, huge cold forged arms, fat low pro spider. of course even these look lighter and more svelt than new campy stuff. outboard bearings never did anything positive to a bike’s aesthetic, which, i like to think is at least partially why sean goes through all that trouble to hide them. those ridges on the outside of the bearing shells (for external bbs not the vertigo ones) are cool like those sun shade visor things you see on the back windows of 85 iroc-Zs and mustangs. FLASH: they are called sun louvers, which makes them even more lame sauce in clown town, to combine a sean-ism and dave-ism. FLASH: mel just turned off the celtic music. thank god.

I recently picked up a cycling magazine that wasnt the reader, to prove that i keep up with the contemporary world madness of our times. in it found such treasure like 1.5 inch headsets for road bikes (ok they really didnt need to move beyond 1 inch, ok threadless if you are that guy, but 1.5 inch? functional advantages: now you and your bike can look like you dope. claimed advantages: stiffer front end for more positive cornering. now, i have to provide a disclaimer here: i’ve never ridden at 60+ down a huge mountain on a more or less perfectly smooth road on a course that has been precleared for obstacles. but i have descended down sketchy dirt roads at over 45 mph with a one inch threaded headset, a nitto stem with tons of quill showing, and 39cm wide bars that are over 40 years old, with centerpull brakes, and never once, not once, was i aware of, or concerned for front end deflection. and i am fatter than those racy dudes, and carry at least 10lbs in my handle bar bag. if anyone should feel it, it’s me. so it is at this point that i officially say: stop it. just stop it. stop it, please stop it. its gone beyond making me mad, it actually makes me tear up. i’m not planning on having kids, but this is the madness that future children will be born into. a culture that thinks of threaded steerers like you and i think about bushing chains: little if at all.

i was out riding today, just before dinner, a 12ish mile loop that takes me up some steep hills so i can get my singlespeed legs back on. i was riding my witcomb, traditional sized tubing, 1980s race geometry, 40cm bars, cloth tape, wheels that cory had on the second worst bike in the world, one speed. i was having an ok ride, not moving as fast as i was last night, when i saw the holy grail: two cyclists up ahead, roadies, climbing out of the saddle. catch them. that’s what to try to do. lately, my shape has been such that that would have been a pipe dream. but i sprinted, hard, and caught them, and blew past them, nicely, with a comment about the nasty headwind but the nice temps, and then tried to hold my lead. i had to beat them up the next climb (as soon as i passed them, they started after me, pride is a wonderful motivator) and down a series of steep, swooping descents, and then up a series of stepped climbs. I held my lead, my single speed being perfectly geared for out of the saddle mashing on this particular grade. i out descended them too, and perhaps by now they had given up. but no, right around the bend, there they were, sprinting out of the saddle on a flat. you don’t do that with gears unless you A. ‘ know how to ride or B. are trying to catch someone. Miraculously though, i had found the spin zone, and just sat and spun my tits off, as they say. held the lead for 6 miles. then i broke. my stomach developed a cramp you could sell to the CIA for interrogation purposes. my legs turned to mush. i almost fell off the bike from the cramp it was so bad. it was like getting shot with a .22 at close range but without the click bang. it was like having a guy inside of you crash his 4 inch buick lesabre into your colon. it hurt. i wobbled on my bike. i paid for my lead. i came home and did unspeakable things to the bathroom. i’m getting ready to race.

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everyone was sitting in my backyard, about to watch anchor man on the 6 foot projection screen.  yay.  so i went for a nite ride out on my local 8 mile farm country loop.  nite rides are usually 95 percent great: sometimes they are a little too cold, and you arnt ready for it, sometimes you get bugs in your teeth if it is too close to sundown, sometimes you have a semi scary run it with a motorist.  tonite it was the smell.

Everything gets sharpened at nite, no where more so than near a body of water.  Sounds, little movements, and smells become more noticeable.  Your wheels are slightly out of round,  your tires corner better in right turns  than left, your spin is only good for 50 yards.  tonite there is road kill somewhere.  And I can smell it for miles around.  Dead snakes have a particular smell, like a skunk but more pungent, less sickly sweet.  the smell comes in waves with the hills, like a radio station in a car driving through the mountains.

Away from the smell, there were moments of beauty.  The landscape is reduced to large cutout shapes, the mountains to the left are a slow moving herd of dinosaurs, the houses pass like ships at sea, the windows provide the sole definition of the house’s shape.  A cascading stream, the almost full moon catches the water and lights it up, brighter than the reflective mail box reflectors that buzz by: huge round fire flies.  The water is a beacon, a series of lapis lazuli slashes at a black velvet canvas, sparkling like the interior of Joseph Cornell’s dreams.

A barn on a hill, vertical yellow ochre aluminum siding,  a single light turning it into a pimp’s pin stripes under a street corner, Baltimore, 1963.  A house with a porch light turns porch curtains into amber sheets, the silhouettes of the porch furniture becomes the bugs trapped in the amber.  My breath is ragged from the cold air, by bottle stuck in my handlebar bag, more or less out of reach, its normal spot taken by my big battery.

The road flies by.  Few cars pass, I charge up hills, barreling down the middle of the road where the pavement is smoothest.  The stream in the valley is a neon sign, blinking fitfully as my bike shakes and lurches past, my legs unable to keep up with the pace of pedaling 25 mph downhill.  The cows are playing pinochle in their barn, the chickens have a night light on, my painting teacher gets ready to leave for NYC, I see her round form gathering objects through her massive new windows.  I see Paul in his garage, listlessly wheeling his bike around, and I think about the race, and how I will have to get up at 3 Am and ride harder than I can possibly think about, faster than I believe I can, and longer than I want to.  It will be like this, but better.

for all you lazy sods who didnt make it, (everyone) here are some pics from my recent thesis show. you know, you could make up for it by buying something.

visualization of the dirt road database: different colors of lichen (for different road surfaces) is flocked to screen captures of google maps data. you are looking into a plexi box.

impossible to shoot the entire show in one wack.  here, left to right, we see the edge of the models, the log, the photos, the huge mylar drawing (75 feet by 2 feet), the dirt data, more photos, the top of the E, and a piece i hatched on the spot that was a full scale realization of one of the models.  there is anouther wall of models with a lichen drawing, and a huge wall of drawings too.  

this was originally a video, but the messy artifact is sexier

the wodr table, cory’s design.  soon to be a dinning room table

a series of models and macro photos dealing with actions within the landscape.  the wall drawing is flocked lichen again.

who’s buyin’?

Google Maps

It’s kind of frustrating how hard it is to find decent maps of Patapsco so I figure this is at least a start.

I found this site with a bunch of GPS files that mapped some of the trails at the Patapsco Avalon Area and I converted them to google maps files and then imported them into the google map.

For those who haven’t been to the Avalon area in a while there are some really nice trail improvements. The ridge trail is really nice on a single speed because they’ve cut out some of the really grueling washed out climbs and replaced them with some fast rolling switch backs.

So I just noticed this on the BBC today…
Cycling Jacket wins design award

Which seems really like the idea that Swiss Miss came up with not that long ago.

So which came first?
I kinda like her design idea better…
no need to remove hands from bars at night for risking a hand signal that wouldn’t probably be seen.
Just thought I’d put this out there for ya’ll.
Rob

Just in case you live under or near a very large rock, which may be blocking your reception to the rest of the funny and talented world out there…here’s another reason to laugh about something that happens to everyone….but you, of course.
I now present for you entertainment, my new musical heros.

RobQ