departing from the house

jay, john, dan and yours very truly set off saturday evening for some stealth camping.  upon arrival, i noticed with some chagrin that my chosen stop was kinda close to the road, a fact that went unnoted last time, cause there were leaves on the trees.  this caused mild paranoia, but we set up shop, started a small fire, cooked some grub, grilled some sausages, drank some bourbon and beer, and settled in for a quiet night.

quiet night. so far...

then the rednecks showed up.

and rocked our world.

we heard trucks/drunken shouting/music.  a tiny headlamp started to bob its way thru the woods.  we dowsed the fire by jumping on it, and killed our headlamps.  still, they kept coming.  in retrospect, they were looking for a quiet place to fire up the bowl.  in the interest of not getting beat or shot, i called out: did you smell the bourbon?  and they came running.  eventually about 10 or 12 of them showed up, one bearing a 3 gallon container full of drunkade, aka cheap cheap vodka and some sort of mango orange gatorade.  there was a mythical cooler of beer that they had supposedly tried to start a fire with, but it being white styrofoam, it rejected their advances.

soon, the drunkade was consumed.  about… a gallon of it.  this, after we had had a bottle of wine, a half liter of bourbon, and a couple few beers.  then the captain morgans came out.  thank god it wasnt flavored.  then the cheap ass weed came out.  and so the night progressed to fire jumping, and the eventual dissolution of our fire wood.

world. rocked.

after much yelling and laughing and much much drinking, they departed, and we slept the sleep of the dead.

now.  who’s up for some bob evans?

the morning after.

all fotos from jay’s excellent photostream.

the what what:

frederick city alley cat, w/ checkpoints, contests, challenges, scavenger hunting, and rad urban cyclist prizes.

Where: meet at the big bell tower in baker park downtown frederick.  you know it.  MAP HERE
all the normal crap too: skid competion, track stand comp, rapping comp.

do we all know what an alley cat is?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleycat_races

the saturday after halloween, as in nov 7th.  meet at the baker park bell tower….

extra points for rad post halloween costumes.

other stuff:
bring a cell camera or a camera
a sharpie
tail light
beer bucks
messenger bag or basket
$6.66 entrance fee

I helped put together a Rapha Continental Ride, as the spoke card below denotes.  Some editors from Bicycling magazine showed up and rode it as well, and wrote it up, and gave a shout out to not only this humble, dust cover’d blog, but also to the neglected but viable dirt road database.  We thank them for that!  Here is a link to the main article by David L’Heureux aka Laroo, some quotes, and I will have links to the Rapha imagery as soon as its up, and mine, ditto.  I am developing the B&W in my kitchen as we speak. Wait! I got some scanned in.  Here is a link to the bikely map and cue sheet for the whole shebang.  Find more delicious dirt roads @ the dirt road database wiki.

“Speeds on the descent were almost scary as we tip toed the line between in control and over cooked. At the bottom we patched flats and egos, then turned around to ride back up to the ridge for and even longer and more hair-raising descent back into the valley.”

“I’d never ridden here, so word of mouth was the only thing to go on. I’d been told the ride would be stunning. It was.”

“We were riding by horse-drawn buggies through picturesque farmland almost instantly.”

Colour shots as soon as the get developed, to tide you over here (and here) are some colour shots from past Centre Rambles.

More soonish!  Flickr set, including images above, here.

For the photo dorks:  fuji neo pan 1600, yashica electro gsn 35, red filter.

Sram shafts Super Randonneurs and tedious tweed touting tourists with wacky wonder shifter.  The new, portlier, uglier, and less ergonomic shifter adds another nail in the coffin for those who know how to shift the righteous way.  Friction of course.  Fabulously faultless and finely fine-tunable, friction is rejected by racers who refuse to reap the rewards of rebuildable and reliable shifting.  Obviously the only ostensible application for an ass-backward assemblage as this is tri and time trial travesties trying to trump the next chump’s cacophonic collection of Chinese carbon chintz.  (and to coin a colloquialism: chintziphenalia)  Riders rocking righteously ridiculous skin suits and specially situated suck stations (tri geeks holla) clearly cant concentrate on shifting when skin suit style is paramount.  Tri geeks titilate and tempt me into malovent mockery.  Paying to purify prodigioiusly lubricated chains.  (its already clean mate!) Shelling to shed sinfully slothful training tires for tubulars and titanium ten speed cassettes.  Spending cheddar to chamoix and cherish the carbon chintz, chain ring chines, and chain chamfers.  Time is nothing to a tri geek.  Prestige and proper poise propped up by perfect coifs and pedicures.  Underarmor undulates unsolicited in immoral ways.  White rimmed sunglasses speak silently about certain sidelines.  The tri time trialist take tradition and twists it to a technological terminus.  Real riders roll on, hording harems of hardly handled simplex and suntour and shimano six hundred shifters.  The charlatans who cartwheel over compatability and contextual cooridnation for convenience and contemporary con-sensus continue cajoling without carterwauling press to convince consumers to the contrary.  Carbon crap continues to cash in, function loses to form and fashion, tourists keep touring.

Sorry I havn’t written for a while.  Maybe this makes up for it.

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so we had a super good turn out for the scramble.  dave got points for driving the furthest to get here.  phil got points for riding a bike that would give a cory townie a run for its money (crappynesswise).  way to many people showed up on fixed gears and kicked ass on them.  joe, jay, john (sort of) jason and phil were all punished the roads with their insanity.  there were, if i recall, 9 flats, 4 of which happened to Rob and two of which happened to Damien.  Is that right?  Or were there more?  We made it home before blinky lights were needed, but not by too much.

Dave took pictures, which he hasnt posted on Flickr yet, so did John (same thing) but Joe has some up here.

I hope everyone had as good of a time as I did, pain aside.  That said, I rode the next day and felt 90 percent OK.

I want to not feel OK next time.  I want to be groveling on the side of the road.  To that end, I propose a mega monster ride for october.  That gives you almost two months to lay off the sauce and ride a bunch.  We could split the ride over two days, but where’s the suffering in that proposal?

I’m thinking sort of an expanded dirty sugar ferry ride, to include much more dirt and plenty of more excuses to get flats.  there would be no singletrack, but just alot of farm roads and potholes.  120 miles.  It’s totally doable.  We’d have to start early, and we’d definately end after dark.

here’s a link to the proposed ride route.  

Go ahead and call me crazy.  There will mad amounts of dirt.  Or you will be mad about the amount of dirt.  Check it against the dirt road database.  There is more dirt than pavement, almost. I’d say at least 40 solid miles of dirt.  Let’s say October 26th for now.   Image from last year’s Ferry Ride here.

Maybe someone knows someone’s yard we can sleep in down that way.

ANSA.it – News in English – Underwater cyclist sets new mark

Trying to lighten the mood after the critical mass post.

call me T.S.  

spoke card for the ride spoken of below.

you will be there.

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