Find it on Ebay here: Catlike Whisper Plus new in box! Black Matte Large!

Compelled to post this because:

“Sometimes the cosmic tumblers turn just right and the universe opens to possibilities never before imagined.”

So I met some of the kids from Outlier on Friday, then I found out they sponsor the blog Prolly is Not Probably, that has a weekly “Merckx Monday” post. Just seemed like a lot of coincidences related to a tiny little niche that my life is in.

Relatedly, it feels great to be back on my Merckx, getting “nice bike, man” hollar’d at me in the street again.

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.

The weather was cold but the trail was a good challenge and it seemed like everyone had a great time. We had 24 riders start and most finished Plus we had about 8 photographers. We’re waiting for more photos to show up, but click through for the ones we’ve linked so far.

I managed a respectable? top ten finish, and managed to drink a few, so all was well. Veronika survived as the chief of support staff, managing to not have our kid at the race in the -11°C (12°F) weather.

Damien was one of our sponsors, so so official race t-shirts will be making their way stateside this spring!

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.

So I met up with some czechs, belges, and americans here in Prague, made some mallets, and started screwing around on street hockey courts a few weeks ago.

Well this week-end we threw down for real. We started playing some legit games on a newly discovered marble court on a historic platform of the Restaurant PRAHA-EXPO ’58 from the 1958 World’s Fair.

It was a blast. It made me sore.
Check out prahafixed.wordpress.com for more pics and the bike polo page for more details

the apex of synergy between classic and high-tech!!

check it out at velo orange and velo news.
(unfortunately they opted out of the extra set of seatstays of the true mixte.)

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.