What:  July 3rd Alley Kat

Where:  The bell tower in Baker Park, Frederick City MD.  Afterparty at Krugs Place, on east street.

When: 6:30 PM

How much?  8 dollars.

Prizes?  Hell yes.  Crappy Prizes?  only for the losers.

What to bring:  A cell phone, a blinky light, a messenger bag.

Last November’s Alley Cat brought people from DC, B-more and of course Frederick out to race around the streets of Frederick, doing log pulls, making up raps on the spot, getting porn clerk signatures, and betting on virtual horses at 7-11.  We have more mad ‘nanigans planned for this summer ‘kat, so head on out, bring your bling, and see what the back streets of Frederick are about.

Prizes for: Overall Winner, Mens.  Overall, Womens, Skid Comp, Track Stand Comp, and DFL.

Questions: ask in the comments, suckers.

Just to balance this post out, and since kneejerk ranting is a well know personality trait of this here weebblahg, I provide, for your grumbling purposes, Lancey Thesteriodman’s Damien Hirst Designed madone:

(Picture from the slamxhype blog)

This is the fixed gear conversion of my norweigan/italian formerly 6 speed friction downtuber.

It is 100% due to Casey’s live g-chat assistance.

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.

hi – we are fast boy cycles – GALLERY

I know I keep giving a lot of play to the Fast Boy people but their stuff is really nice. But I’m posting this because of this caveat in their ordering policy:

Your right to micro-manage the project: $500 extra.

for those who don’t remebmer here are the previous posts:

Wood Fenders
Wood Handlebars

via

395 carried me up and over Pigtown, the town that could eat a half billion dollar stadium or two and not even get indigestion. Pigtown lay low and squalid, immune to the heat, the recession, and good taste. I passed an endless series of billboards so boring and generic that they put college kids to shame.

The billboards gave way to some tired woods, and I approached BWI with an eye on the exit signs. My other eye was on my pizza bones, getting cold and coagulated on the passenger seat, keeping a pile of CDs and a soiled dress shirt company. That left no eyes for the bike shop, which I passed and had to bootleg around a median in 50mph traffic. My heart played a few bars of ‘The Flight of the Bumble Bee’ and my car laughed off my attempt to accelerate into traffic.

The bike shop was long and low and ugly and packed. I had to park a metric centry away and trudge back with the weight of a thousand maryland summers on my back. My blisters throbbed like the bass in a booty club. The greeter sat behind the obvious Apple flatscreen, with a stupid grin and sparkling, blank eyes. Maybe they let him sell the kiddie bikes. Probably not. I looked around, casing the place for clues. Hell, I should know better. You don’t look for clues. You have to let them fall into your lap like a tipsy blonde, or hit you over the head like an overzealous architectural element. There were clues everywhere, wanting my attention, but I wasn’t allow to take them in. Stupid Sparkle wanted attention. He wanted me to pat him on the head. I wanted to kick him in the teeth, and then across the alley, but that would have hurt my blisters. I gave him the run around, asked him impossible questions that Stupid Sparkle could never hope to answer.

‘What’s the q-factor on this crank/bb combo?’ I asked, looking as honest as a three dollar bill. ‘What’s the gear development on this track bike, provided I am using a 1932 Rudge block track chain?’ I could barely contain myself. I could have kicked myself across the alley. Stupid Sparkle just sparkled, stupidly, and went off to find the owner. He was the meat I wanted to meet, anyway. Pun intended. For the half minute I had the place to myself I took the place in. It wasn’t a shop so much as a collection of crap with price tags. There were tires in loose, piles, helments lay in heaps like rotting tropical fruit. Fat, drilled rims painted like Baltimore whores stood in woobly 4 foot stacks, screaming neon colors that assaulted my eyes but comforted my wallet.

I caught a glimpse of two glass cases. They had a few knicknacks in them that I thought might have belonged to a friend of mine. So some of the merch was here. Bingo? Or no go? A medium height fellow walked over, with enough confidence to sell at least 25 used cars to 25 people who liked a fellow who had enough confidence to sell 25 used cars. I didn’t want a used car. So I took his pro-offered mitt and did my digging before he could set me up with a 450 dollar Haro and a matching green brain bucket.

‘Where are the frames? The Waterfords? From Fix. The old looking bikes? One was orange and tusk, one was white and black.’ I could see already that I was drawing deuces when I was looking for aces.

‘Um maybe the other shop has them. I don’t know.’ He looked honest enough. Like the certain current president looks honest, only less so. He tried to manuevor me over towards the Haros, but I cut him off. ‘I’ve been there. Or at least, an operative of mine has been there. There’s nothing. Where are they?’ Does this creep even know what a lug is? I was guessing not. I bet there were a few other things he didn’t know too. Like what I keep close to my heart. A little down, and to the left, to be exact. I carelessly patted my Jethro Tool, close ally in good times and bad, and tried to drill holes in his eyes with mine. He feigned ignorance, telling me instead about the bath he took because of my friends. I told him he shouldn’t be bathing in other people’s tubs. He didn’t get it. I showed him the tool. It was small, palm sized, and made of forged steel. It could knock a man cold with a good swing, but it could also get my rear wheel off in a pinch, and open a cold brew. I’d like to see a roll of nickels or a blackjack do that.

I swung, but just as a I did, Sparkle Stupid dropped a fat downhill tire on me from behind, pinning my arms to my side. I could still hold onto my tool, but that was it. I couldn’t swing with it. Sparkle Stupid pulled me back against him, and lifted me with the tire. I could kick, but I couldn’t get any weight behind it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a campy pedal wrench being used for something that might void its warrenty. Then I was out. But not before the wrench and my temple set off some fire works that I could see and hear. Sparkle Stupid’s eyes had nothing on the 1 second show I saw before everything went dark. I was down for the big sleep.

I awoke to the sound of rattlesnakes. They were near me, flying by at high speeds. Everywhere, on every side of me. There were dozens of them. I couldn’t see them yet, but by the same token, I didn’t really want to. Call me Indiana Pansy if you want, but I hate snakes like I hate discussions about table linens.

Slowly the fog lifted. It was replaced by a crippling pain. My head was detached from my body, and giants were playing kick ball with it. I reached to touch the pulp that claimed to be my temple and found that my wrists were bound. In chains. 9 speed by the feel of it. Hopefully Shimano. Of course they were Shimano. My captors wouldn’t know a good chain. It wasn’t their style. I was guessing they did my chain job in a hurry, and hadn’t used a Certified Shimano Pin to reassemble it. But right now I had snakes to worry about. Getting rid of the chains would come later. I rolled onto my side and looked for the snakes. I seemed to be in a round room. I couldn’t see the ceiling, but I figured it was there. They usually are. By round room I dont mean round like a beer can. I mean round like ball. The walls/floor were/was covered in bad tags and worse graffitti. And rattlesnakes. Only they weren’t rattlesnakes. They were angry BMX bikes with angry BMX kids on them. And it wasn’t a rattle I heard. It was ACS freewheels. An angry kid with bad hair and worse bike handling skills carved at my head full tilt and tried to bunny hop my face. He missed and landed on my hip. I twisted fast, and caught his peg with my chain. I used the peg and his forward momentum as leverage, and broke the chain that bound my wrists. The kid fell off his bike, and scrambled away. I looked around at the other kids flying by. They caught the act and turned on me. It was all I could do to grab the fallen BMX bike and attempt a get away. I pedaled hard, but they were on the down slope. They swarmed in, enveloping me in tight jeans and tighter tee shirts. The curtain came down again.

I had wet my pants. Severly. It felt good though. Wet was better than dead. When consciousness returned to my tired head, and I finally opened my eyes, I found myself in a few inches of running water. My body had been dumped in a stream. And I hadn’t wet my pants, but I was wet. I had been left for dead in a tiny forgotten stream somewhere in Avalon. But I wasn’t dead. Presumably tight jeans impair the senses. I should try that rather than spending my money on beer. I dragged myself upright and puked up Tavern pizza and two PBRs. I washed it off in the stream and promptly puked again. My puke was trying to tell me something. Probably that I hadn’t won the lottery. Thanks puke, I already knew that. I washed myself again and dragged my wet blistery feet out of the stream.

Pass.

I thumbed a ride back towards my car. I wasn’t done yet. I hadn’t found my frames. I was going to find those frames. It was day two of the search. The sun that crested over Elkridge was an angry red pore, waiting to pop. I stopped by my car and fed myself breakfast from a 60z flask I keep in my glove box for such emergencies. It doesn’t have the word ‘Surly’ engraved on it for nothing. Luckily, my glove box also held other treasures. Like a chainwhip, and, for when Prolink turned to Phil’s, a 15 inch Craftsman Adjustable. I also had a small assortment of Euro-Asia Track cogs, and not the cheap ones either. I tucked the cogs into my belt, stuffed the adjustable in my messenger bag, finished the flask, and twirled the chainwhip. I was looking for trouble.

I got to the shop before it opened and waited behind a dumpster for my friends to show up. At 20 till 9 a late model pile of plastic rolled up and two men that needed to meet my tool collection jumped out and piled into the shop. I removed the valve core of their tires and started things off the fun way. The Craftsman played with the rear view mirrors and the chainwhip ruined 25 square feet of custom paint in 12 seconds. Stupid and Owner piled out of the shop, looking at the car, and not at me. I dismissed Stupid with a flick of a 13 tooth track cog, which catches him in his lower spine, dropping him like Armstrong used to drop Ulrich.

Those were the days.

Owner man whirled on me, toolless. He didn’t like the adjustable in my right and the chainwhip in my left. I understood his issue. I felt compassionate. Like a blackwidow feels compassionate for a fly. I tossed him the chainwhip. Like a sucker, he reached for it. I moved fast, and slammed him across the kneecaps with the Craftsman. His knees gave out with the sickening crunch of breaking bones. The chainwhip dropped from his hands and he dropped to my feet. The pain turned his salesman’s face into a twisted window on a tortured man. ‘Where are the frames?’ I asked, deadpan, not even bothering to threaten him with the Craftsman. He would talk. ‘The girl’s got em…’ He panted between gulps of nothing. Pain like that doesn’t go well with even breathing.

‘Where is she and why does she have them?’

‘She skipped town, and used them to buy some time, I think.’

I moved my adjustable an inch, so it hung in front of his eyes.

‘I swear it.’

So he knew all along, but held out. Why? I couldn’t guess. He didn’t owe the dame anything. She owed him, way I saw it.

‘And you don’t know where she went?’

He just shook his head.

I pulled the Euro Asia cog out of Stupid Sparkle’s back, wiped it on his fake concert T-shirt, and tucked it back in my belt.

I would have to look elsewhere.