Ride Lugged

freezing rain sucks.  so does wind, slippery roads, ect.  if this is the weather of the tomarrow, we will meet same time same place, corys house, 12ish, start drinking, maybe ride around town a bit, maybe maybe do a short ride sub 12 miles.  more drinks will be followed by more drinks, food of some sort, drinks with drink chasers.  there will be drinks, drink drink drinks.  then there will be drunks.

call me T.S.  

here it is in all its glory. one per customer.

spoke card for the ride spoken of below.

you will be there.

nick, get your ticket. or hide in cory’s baggage.

or the dscwdibmssitilmslahcibbjf78hddr, for short.

NEWS FLASH:  the ride will be dec 2, a sunday, start around 1pm, and end up back at cory’s un-shanty for grill, booze, fire and a small black and white cat.  exact meeting location to be disclosed.

as pictures from last years ride of death, aka the hardest ride ever, will attest, these rides are hard. nick died 3 times, only to be revived by alternately waving spoke cards in front of his eyes and cow crap under his nose. gary almost died, but ran off into the woods instead. cory didn’t die at all, but secretly blew a gasket. i died over 3,000 times, or everytime there was 1 foot of elevation gain. luckily there was about the same about of elevation loss, so in the end i went home mostly alive.

here are pictures, for attesting purposes: (scroll way down for semi interesting details on the upcoming ride)

gary never walks. gary is walking. nick likes to walk. he brought his walking pants.

gary has black socks. nick has black socks. gary has a water bottle stolen from a kids bike.

nick is tying his shoe while throwing up. gary looks away in disgust.

nick searches for a way out: perhaps a rock to beam cory with. i pretend like i am climbing, but really i am about to fall of my bike.

remember kids, safety in numbers.

as you can see, there was some walking. there was some crying. there was spritual enlightenment in the form of miller high life and a flask. was there? i cant remember. there was ice cream, and a ‘zoo smell’.

all of this is to mainly drum of excitement, terror and a decent period of time to make excuses as to why you wont be able to make it to the dscwdibmssitilmslahcibbjf78hddr.

i have already made commemorative dscwdibmssitilmslahcibbjf78hddr t shirts, stickers, beer steins, beer mugs, pint glasses, pilsner glasses, imperial pint glasses, snifters, flasks, patches, key fobs, a limited edition subaru outback sport ls, hoody, coaster, condom, embroidered boxers, briefs and thongs, dscwdibmssitilmslahcibbjf78hddr awareness pins, hats, thumb warmers, and coffee mugs, dscwdibmssitilmslahcibbjf78hddr blend coffee, tea, chai, dscwdibmssitilmslahcibbjf78hddr bottled water, and i have signed, limited edition ridelugged approved cory portraits, which are hand drawn on dirty white selle italia flite saddle covers. these will go fast, and at a premium, so get your bidding in now.

as for time, date and recommended stuff to brung/brang, well, i reckon, thats kinda up to cory. hell, he doesnt even know i planned this shit yet. we might even have to do it without him.

its gunna be sometime betwixt nov 30 and dec 2. i dont know when yet. sorry. fuck you. i said i was sorry. asshole. i hate iphones.

sub 30 miles, loads and loads of painful climbing, lots of dirt, dirty dirt, start in meyersville to make the environmentalists pissed off. i’m going to try to have rob go predrive it, to make sure it all makes sense. rob, sunday drive? if not, thats ok. ride profile at routeslip under why did i bring my single speed, under user name ride lugged.

” Constructed of high-modulus carbon fiber with a hexagonal honeycomb cross section”

first of all: try to look up modulus in a dictionary, or on wikipedia. if it aint there… could it be a made-up buzz word? i think the new plug in for “high-modulus carbon fiber” should be ‘chinese plastic’.

hexagonal honeycomb cross section: where? to do what? and arnt all honeycombs hexagonal? ok so: hexagonal honeycomb cross section = structural marketing non-sense.

“the SL1s is designed to be light” there are bikes that are designed to be heavy?

“To ensure your power is translated into speed, Fuji incorporates short, 405mm chainstays and an interlocking aluminum bottom-bracket shell for stiffness.”

interlocking? does that mean its wedged in like a puzzle piece and not glued?

“Adding a bit of aesthetic beauty, and a bit of compliance for comfort, according to Fuji, the top tube arcs to join the seatstays, and is pierced by the seat tube.”

ok first off, this bike looks like every other black carbon bike ever, except it has the name of some film i used to use in giant white letters. shouldn’t makers aim for a ‘bit’ more than a ‘bit of aesthetic beauty’? is that all your 6,000 dollars gets you is a bit of comfort and good looks? what a sad world. i know 20 dollar goodwill bikes that have more comfort and better aesthetics than any chinese plastic bike ever could.

“On the short and steep 12-percent grades we rode in coastal Orange County, California, the SL1s proved to be a powerful platform that practically solicited out-of-the-saddle attacking.”

luckly i am on the no call list.

‘encourages a run-and-gun riding style.’

um, are they encouraging shooting other riders while running with your bike? i like to ride my bike, and shoot cans when not riding the bike.

i do love how completely non-informative most bike reviews are.

“A proprietary technology, called Wrap, is used in the junction of the head and top tubes. A 6/4 sheet titanium is built into the heavily shaped top tube. It flares, pinches and partially wraps around the 3/2.5 double-butted ti head tube. The multishaped down tube encircles the head tube to create a highly stiff focal point for control and responsiveness. The 3/2.5 seat tube ovalizes and wraps around the bottom-bracket shell for increased weld surface and additional strength. Chainstays are asymmetrical 3/2.5 butted titanium with a V bend for solid power transfer, and the oval seatstays are designed for vertical compliance. Cosmetically, the Archon undergoes a 14-step finishing, graphics and coating process for a lustrous sheen that will turn heads.”

amazing that the writers can wank off litespeed with one hand and type with the other. this is 90 percent of the article. it is followed by more wanking, in the form of a 2 line endorsement of how the bike rides like a carbon bike. so: actual bike review to wanking ratio: 5:27. kinda like the anna nichole coverage vs the walter reed coverage at fox ‘news’.

the next review, on some kestrel chinese plastic bike, has a startling 10:1 ratio of marketing buzzwords to actual ‘analysis’. my guess; these cats don’t even ride these bikes, but rather ask the company to tell them what they think it rides like, and then they cut and past tech BS for the online catalogue, and presto! article written, paycheck received.

out of 50 bikes bicycle magazine reviewed, only 2 were not chinese plastic, and zero were steel or aluminum. none of these bikes could accept fenders, a rack, a generator light, a bag of any kind except those tiny 1 tube and a co2 bags, and only a few could handle a broken spoke. this from a magazine obviously aimed at beginners. also, only 2 bikes reviewed cost under 1500 dollars. what message is ‘bicycling’ sending

what message are the makers sending by continuing to support this magazine? speed sells, even if it doesn’t make any sense. Lemond, long a hold out on carbon crap, has gone almost totally carbon for 07. bianchi and jamis remain the last hold outs for production steel bikes.

some of the hype is so preposterous that it would function as a joke in an earlier age:

” all-carbon bike attracts attention, and from just about everyone, tech geek and fitness rider alike. During testing, I heard comments from “that red paint is sooo sparkly” to “I can’t take my eyes off those seatstays.” That’s because there’s a lot going on, with not only the seatstays, but also with the tube shapes. The Buenos Aires is built with LeMond’s new Min/Max technology, which minimizes weight by using less material and maximizes stiffness via smart tube shaping. Tube diameters are also adjusted by frame size for lower weight and increased strength.”

last time i checked, almost every quality steel bike made had tubing specific to the size of the bike. the butts would be out of wack if this were not the case. isn’t it the goal of any tube spec’er to find the lightest tube to reliably do the job?

also: ’sparkly red paint’ …are 5th graders writing this crap? no, that demeans 5th graders.

i wish these mags would start writing about how to finance these bikes. imagine if this marketing were to be applied in other, non-sports walks of life. ‘the stanley pro-ccountant desk unit account-o-typer: add and subtract faster than your officemate with advanced high modulus pressure sensative sub-static key interfaces.

just gimme the pencil and paper, asshole.

ridiculous ramblings and rantulings:

My house is surrounded by shitty neighbors. It’s like being engulfed by people who are too dumb to really hate, but you hate them anyway. Across the street we have a family who have two very much adult sons who still live at home. Their principal occupation (the whole family) seems to be occasionally fishing and hunting. Nobody ever leaves on any sort of a schedule to go to work. They are the type of family that is so lazy that they installed an electric fence to corral their dogs: they were to lazy to walk them. They just open their doors, and out the dogs come; medium sized balls of black pubic hair, incessantly barking at anything and everything. There is no exception: they see Mel and I every single day, usually multiple times, and they still bark. These are the kinds of dogs that leave your chairs looking like Tom Sellec’s chest. The pubic balls posts themselves in opposite corners of the yard, and signal each other when an unsuspecting jogger or biker approaches. Then the barking frenzy ensues.

So I’m thinking about ways to blow them up. I think land mines would be the most comically effective. The neighbors themselves wouldn’t be at risk: they never actually set foot in their 1 acre plot of dying grass. I could place bets with myself over which mine would explode first. I thought about shooting them from my attic, but Mel won’t let me have a rifle in the house. I thought about tainted meat, a bow and arrow, a slingshot, a Molotov cocktail, a hit man, a Blackwell ‘employee’. I thought about putting fireworks in sausages.

Don’t think that I am alone in my hate: I think the previous inhabitants of our house shared my sentiment. When we moved in, they had three dogs, all black balls of crotch hair. One of these dogs had 3 legs. Landmine?

Tripod was actually the most annoying of the dogs, as he would chase after bikers at an incredible rate of speed, in the days before the electric fence. Thank god he died.

——-

These neighbors are smart: they have 3 cars, and a 2 car garage. Where do the cars live? Outside. What lives in the garage? A boat and a TV room for the boys, replete with a 12 inch TV screen and shitty lawn chairs. Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn’t it be smarter to put the boat outside in the rain? Aren’t boat’s supposed to get wet? I don’t really begrudge the TV room, I too would set up one in the garage if my house was covered in a thick mat of black curly hair. (note: these people almost certainly have all off white and taupe colored furniture) They have a huge backyard deck, which they have used, by my count (and believe me, I keep close watch on these characters, as they are obviously deranged in numerous ways, as well as being gun owners) 0 times in the past year. Which really just reduces the deck to a large pressure treated tumor growing out of the back of the house.

One last note on these poor souls: the pond in the front yard. They have a blue gravel pond, which while ridiculous in itself, is made more so by the fact that is on a pretty severe slope, negating any illusion that it holds water.

Also: they like lawn sculptures.

————–

Our other neighbors can be examined in a more cursory fashion. First- they steal our raspberries. It would be one thing to come to the door and ask to pick some. No. They steal them, then! when confronted, avow that the bushes are shared property, which must be why we maintain them and mow around them, and they just steal them. American sharing.

Thankfully there is a dense set of bushes and trees between us and them, limiting our exposure to the bare minimum. Once, whilst sitting on my porch, we saw the father and son in the backyard. Hunting squirrels (why?) with a gun (illegal, we are in a friggin suburban neighborhood) in camo (again, why?) without shirts on (creepy). That pretty much says all you need to know about them: creepy, stupid, wannabe rednecks.

———–

Other neighbors include two drunks with a penchant for tie-dyed wall hangings and DUIs, and the diagonal neighbors who are outside so rarely that we couldn’t pick them out of a line up in a murder trial (which, undoubtedly we will have to do).

———–

We started at South Mountain Creamery where we parked cars next to some giant furry dogs. We got there by late morning. Ironically almost everyone is sporting a Brooks except for Johnson. (By the way Hutch observed that your bike looked “dirty”- I think he just meant beat up). Damien is sporting one of his bikes freshly pinstriped. Mark riding fixed and no helmet (there’s always a badass). Christine and Rob with their newish Bianchi touring bikes. James and his “dirty” SS Witcomb. Me and my wood fendered beaut. And Hutch in his Bell trailer which he peed in then Damien ate the wet fruit snacks off the floor. They must taste better soaked in brine.

The goal of the ride was to go 14 easy miles to Gathland State Park eat lunch and look at the weird war correspondent monument then loop back to the creamery. If it had not been for non-stop rain and the gazillion hold ups, we would have arrived at lunchtime. Of course we didn’t. Rob could barely pull Hutch up the giant hills that we weren’t aware of (thanks to Johnson since we don’t live there anymore). So Damien pulled for a while. It would have been a beautiful ride had we been able to really see. It was so rainy that visibility was minimal and some of us were getting cold. At one point Christine and I fantasized about being under a big afghan sipping tea and watching Jane Austin movies.

It took us three hours to get to the half way point and instead of eating at the park, which some of us did, we just went to Damien’s house to warm up and get into clean clothes. We snatched the Clark family’s wardrobe from them like a pack of wild gypsies. I was happy since I got to play with their new puppy and watch racing on TV. By racing I mean men on bicycles with shaved legs. What?

Overall this ride was better than Zoo ride 1 when we rode in 20-degree weather and lost feeling in all 20 of our personal digits.

Love,
Mel

mel told me i shouldnt post any more of these. but it’s important that these people be blacklisted from any public office, position of corporate power, or child care/child rearing.

what you are looking at:  clothes stapled to a tree.

words of the artist:  “I too consider myself very spontaneous, and the kiss that inspired my work was a completely random incident.”

further:  “I used the clothing from my room as well as tools to prop them up. I think this distinguishing characteristic is important because it illustrates my dependence on clothing and the material world as a whole. I am very connected to society and I don’t enjoy nature the way I perceive Goldsworthy enjoying. Whereas he gets his hands dirty to accomplish the style he is known for, I am very fussy about the outdoors. As I said earlier, my fascination with clothes permeates into this assignment, and despite it focusing on nature I still incorporate them into whatever I do.”

woo there are a series of doozies in there.  how can i objectively grade such sentiments?  answer:  i dont!

actually here is what i wrote, pretty level headed i think:

“Autumne,
I think this work would have been more successful if you had somehow implied what happened under the tree, perhaps through lighting or further props.  I appreciate that there is a narrative structure lurking in the background.  I just think it needs to be more clear to the viewer.  Otherwise, it seems you are simply trying to anthropomorphize the tree through fashion. ”

Ok here is anouther one, just a quote really:

“I debated adding some white rocks around the base of the flower to enhance to contrast. I decided against that because i liked the simple natural feel of a solitary flower without aesthetic additions. More things would have also ruined the interaction of having one object change a space.”

allow me to translate this for you.  I thought about trying harder, but I decided against it.  Here is some bullshit as to why this is.  Also, my last sentance doesn’t make any grammatical sense, but hopefully, you, the teacher, are either drunk or stoned like I am right now, and therefore incapable of reading this essay too closely.

Now: oh my fucking god!

“This tree and pom-poms incorporate both childhood memories as well as my collegiate memories. Growing up I was always fascinated by trees, mainly stemming from my love for climbing trees.  Since coming to college this passion has died out.  However, I wanted to recreate it by bringing energy through nature with the elements of my work.  This is why I incorporated the pom-poms and the blue and white dinosaur.  These pieces serve to link my past memories and passions with my love for Penn State and nature.  The different views or shots of the dinosaur represent the different perspective, memories and experiences I have had throughout my life. By placing these elements into this fascinating tree, I attempted to bring spontaneity, power and energy to this nature. ”

sorry i had to include the whole schebang, but,  um.  incredible.  future IMF president, no doubt.   er, uh, this was written by a  dude, at that.

My response:  “Eddie, Penn State propaganda is always dubious as an ‘art’ form.  I think your work would have benefited from less glorifying elements to connote your time here.  What do fake dinosaurs have to do with your contemporary conception of nature? ”

Fuck!

“These tiny yellow flowers would represent the new life that JD was starting in heaven.  I then wrapped my bundle of twigs; in a sweatshirt that JD had given me that was his at one time, which stated Lewistown Panthers, where he would have graduated this year.  After creating this amazing piece of art, I was trying to decide where in the world I was going to put it.  I then decided I would put my piece of artwork on the very road that JD lost his life, but also began his new one; Dry Valley Road in Burnham, Pa.”

How is a sweatshirt wrapped around twigs, A. fitting testament to a life, B. amazing art?  I hate it when they pull the sympathy card.