Songs to sprint to

I had no idea she could tear shit up like this.  An unexpectedly buh-rilliant Big Black cover.  I had 'Atomizer' in vinyl back in the day, too.  Just so you know I gots cred.

A lovely autumn night's ride

So my wife had some short errands she wanted to run tonight, and she needed her trusty pack mule - me - to run them.  We bundled up, took down our bikes from our rack, switched on our lights, and were off.  There was a raw chill skittering the wet fallen leaves before us and wavering the half-barren tree branches up above.  As we approached the first main intersection, I was up ahead and had a green light to continue through.  I noticed that the 'don't walk' orange light had just started flashing, and also that the oncoming SUV was looking to make a left turn right across my path.  So I slowed enough to let him make the turn easily.

Which is when things got a bit dicey. 

Because of course there was a white pickup truck immediately behind him who was insistent on making the same turn.  I saw him and accounted for him as I slowed, but he of course didn't do me the same courtesy - he didn't see me at all, and once he did, he slammed on his brakes in a (entirely unnecessary) panic stop.

As I continued through the intersection, I took it a step further that I should have.  I saw his window was down, so I was able to look him in the eye, raise my index finger to my own face, and clearly say "You gotta look first, man."

To which he responded, "Fuck you, you bitch."

I stopped my bike, took my feet off the pedals in the middle of the intersection, and with a rising fury and a louder voice said, "I'm just saying you gotta look before you turn!"

His answer: "Shut the fuck up, you little bitch."

At this point I'm standing over my top tube twisting backwards at the truck which had made his turn but was stopped in the middle of the lane with the driver leaning out his window yelling obscenities at me.  My wife was on the other side of the street behind us trying to figure out what was going on.  I crossed the street, got off my bike, walked towards the truck, and with the last bit of reserve I had I tried to reason that "I got the right of way here, just because you don't know what's right doesn't mean you don't have to look!"  At the top of my lungs, but still.

Predictably, I got "Shut the fuck up, you stupid fuck" in return as he sped off.

At least I was able to look the coward in the eye the whole time.  What else was left to do?  I went back to my bike and got back astride her, and waited for the light to change so my wife could rejoin me and we could run our errands.

I have to confess, I've been in this situation before.  Anybody who's ridden in a big city for any real amount of time has been there.  You're wronged, you take umbrage, things escalate, adrenaline flows and tempers flare.  And then all bets are off.  I've chased down cars for blocks that almost right-hooked me.  I've gotten into fully-fledged screaming matches with drivers who've cut me off.  I've slammed the heel of my fist onto taxicab hoods, slapped delivery van mirrors, dropped my bike in the middle of the bike lane to storm back and get in the face of someone who had almost doored me, yeah, I've about done it all. 

Not this time, though.  Maybe I've gotten a touch more reasonable.  Maybe it's because Jessie was there and I didn't want her to see me like that.  Maybe I'm just older and I know I would only make things worse.  I still can't abide with being called that, though.  As old and mature as I may get to be, the day I accept being called a little bitch is the day I become just that.  Here's what I wish happened: I wish I could have kept walking towards the stopped truck and motioned for him to pull over and talk to me man to man.  We could've both calmed down and talked to each other like human beings.  Of course, he may have pulled out a tire iron and we could have killed each other in the street like a pair of rabid dogs.  I don't know.

What would you have done?

Time to catch up...

So I've been gone for awhile, because my interweb's been down.  Kinda hard to post when you ain't got the 'b in blog.  It's been pretty maddening watching my connection flickering intermittently, much like the olden times of UHF/VHF television.  Except I didn't have any rabbit ears to reposition.  Which was too bad - as a kid I was an expert at catching the strongest tv signal, a skill I honed through my tireless devotion to the daily 'Johnny Sokko and the Giant Robot/Space Giants' afternoon block of dubbed Japanese-imported kids' action shows that played on channel 44 back in the day.

Ah, youth.  Seriously, Google image them - it's why we invented the internet.  You'll thank me later.

Anywhoo, freed from gawking at bike porn and VeloNews comments pages, it's kinda like having a twenty-seven hour day at your disposal.  So I've been riding a bit more.  Haven't been getting appreciably faster, but I'm having fun nonetheless.  And I've been seeing sights I haven't expected:

I've watched a single bead of sweat rock back and forth on the brim of the saturated cycling hat I wear under my helmet, undulating in perfect rhythym to my cranks.

I've seen a tiny Smarte car equipped with not only a hitch, but a four-bike hitch rack.  Granted, the rack itself was unloaded and folded down, but besides the fact that the weight of four bikes would probably tip the mini car back into a perpetual wheelie - much like those old penny toy cars it bore a remarkable resemblance to - the car itself is a strict two-seater!  You gotta be a hardcore cyclist to drive a car that has double the bike capacity than actual bike riders. 

I've seen a rider on a bright summer day struggling up a hill in full-roadie kit - clipless shoes, wraparound sunglasses, Euro-rated helmet, and bibs - but WITHOUT A JERSEY!  Besides the questionable wisdom of displaying the famed 'cyclist's chest', one has to wonder about the bizzaro tan-lines produced by that fashion choice.  Not to mention the fact that it's actually much more comfortable to ride with a jersey on.  People, don't ever ride shirtless.  It just isn't right.

I once rode up to an SUV that was pulled into an overfilled body shop that not only blocked the sidewalk, but the bike lane as well.  Particularly galling was the fact that she managed the last bit of this feat because she was unloading a bike from the back of her 4-Runner.  As I stopped there, dead in my tracks, waiting for traffic to relent so I could pull around her, I said cheerfully, "Well, this is ironic."  She didn't acknowledge me, but her face screwed up like she just bit into an Asian dessert.

I've stared at disbelief at two flat tires I'd simultaneously given myself by hitting a particularly nasty pothole at speed.  I ride like a monkey on a coconut rolling down a steep hill, I'm telling ya.

I returned from a ride once to find my cat feasting eagerly from the jar of chamois cream I'd left open in my early-morning stupor.  One frantic internet search of feline poison-control later, I could laugh about it, but I now make sure to screw that lid back on tight.

Songs to sprint to

Here's nine-plus minutes of delirious, frenzied jangle-rock.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Wedding Present:

Kinda like the Byrds meets Dragonforce, ain't it?

My own worst enemy

I'm gonna head back out, I promise.  But right now I'm cursing my own worst enemy.  I headed out early this morning to go on a longish ride with some people from the shop. I'm not by nature an early riser, but I've been trying to get on the bike more, and more saddle time means getting up and out on the road in the dawning hours.  Unfortunately, that also means that I have to execute many small, precise tasks whilst still groggy and half-asleep.

Needless to say, I never pull this off. 

Fumbling into a pair of bib shorts slathered with cold euro-minty chamois cream in a darkened bedroom co-habitated by a light-sleeping wife who gets REALLY cranky if you awaken her a good three hours before her alarm goes off is a challenging way to start the day, I've discovered.  After that, it's a race against the clock - I always have, like six minutes max to get out the door before I'm late - to stuff my jersey pockets with all the sundry items I need on the ride, cram a couple fig newtons in my mouth for fuel, untangle the headphones to the ipod, and dash out the door.  Then the suspense begins: will I discover which vital item I've forgotten to bring by the time I reach my bike in my storage unit? by the time I clip in? a mile from home when it's too far to turn around?

Invariably, it's always something.  My personal favorite is the time I forgot to put my contacts in.  Yeah, that was a good one.  Reached the first stoplight trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes and realized I couldn't focus on a damn thing.

Or the time I forgot my keys, which I realized just as I was closing the security door.  I'm pretty sure Jess heard me banging on the back door eventually but didn't let me in out of spite.  I didn't even blame her really.  I well deserved my forced timeout on the back porch in my team kit watching the sun come up.

Today I realized I forgot my water bottle halfway to the shop.  I actually swore and banged my bars in frustration.  I HATE when I do that.  Hate it.  The ride invariably sucks, no matter what.  Ever try to down a gel with no water?  It's like coughing up a big loogey in church: it's just gross gulping it down.  Even better, though, as I swung back up north I realized I'd left my spare tube and repair kit behind, as well.  Anybody who's ridden with me (or read my last post) knows that I may as well have left my helmet and right shoe at home, so I cut my losses and headed back.

It's still early, though.  And it's my day off.  I can push grocery shopping and all those errands I gotta run back a few hours and finish my ride.  I think I'll just make some coffee first.  And have some granola.  And I'll pull George into my lap.  Hey, there's a new Behind the barriers  video up...

Addendum:  I actually did make it back out later that day.  And of course just before my turnaround point - or in other words the farthest I was from home - I got a rear flat.  At least I found a legitimate puncture this time, but enough is enough.  I've since gotten a new set of tires and have been rolling flat-free.  So far.  :Knocks wood:

Songs to sprint to

It's a two-for-one today, boys and girls:

Because it's Sabbath.  And, God, listen to that guitar riff...
But let's not forget this amazing cover:

Gotta love 1000 Homo DJs.  Whatta killer name for a band, huh?  Yet another Al Jourgensen/Wax Trax! band but fronted by Trent Reznor (maybe).

I'm such a hack...

Went out on the long weekly Spidermonkey group ride this morning.  The last couple of rides, I'd tried to hang with the fast group when they detatched on the last leg of the ride, and had been found sorely wanting in both leg and gearing.  When my turn had come up to pull at the front, I couldn't spin the single middling chainring mounted on my 'cross bike fast enough to maintain the speed of the pack, and was slowly spat out the back.  I wasn't the tip of the spear, but more like the skinny leather strips that lashed the spearhead to the shaft.  Oh well.

So I changed my setup, installed a front derailleur like a real grown-up, and armed with two chainrings and its attendant wide range of gears I set out ready to spin to win.  Except I was undone by my own goon riding.  I might as well admit it now.  I'm a lead-footed, ham-fisted hack.  I'm a stomper.  The only thing separating me from the big ol' Baby Huey-looking guys that walk into bike shops clutching mangled wheels with broken spokes protruding at every angle is that I happen to remember to inflate my tires to the proper psi.  And even then I manage to give myself rear pinch flats.  Lots of them.

I wish I could blame my mountain biking background, where often times the fastest way through a rough rock garden is to point and shoot your front wheel and hope for the best.  But I managed to give myself rear flats even on a full-suspension bike with four inches of travel in back.  And today, while navigating the torn-up streets of the north shore, with its potholes that belonged more in Beirut than tony Winnetka, I slammed my rear wheel into a deep crevice hard enough to dislodge my water bottle from its cage.  As I pulled over to retrieve it, I heard the telltale and all-too-familiar 'hssss' of a pinch flat.  Nuts.  I waved the group on as I hunkered down to fix my flat.

I guess the upside of my hackdom is that I can replace a tube pretty quickly, and in a few minutes I was rolling again.  But I knew that I was doomed to a long solo ride ahead of me.  A pack of twenty-plus riders taking turns drafting for each other is going to roll exponentially faster than I ever could by myself, and I knew I had no chance to catch up to them.  So the challenge was to see if I could navigate up through Fort Sheridan and down to the traditional rest stop at the coffee shop in Highland Park.  I'd only been up there a couple of times, and both times I was basically following someone else's wheel.  After an interminable amount of time (I wouldn't let myself look at my watch or bike computer) punctuated by a couple of wrong turns and lots of soul-searching I made it up to the Fort and down to the shop, where the rest of the 'monkeys were off their bikes and sitting in the cafe chairs, soaking in the intermittent sun and sipping their drinks.  Judging by the progress made on the half-eaten scones and blueberry muffins, I figured that they couldn't have been there that long.  One minor moral victory for me.

On the way home, I was glad to be back in the fold.  I'd stayed in my small ring to save energy for the breakaway that inevitably happened on the way home, and my legs felt good even as the speed ramped up.  I remember thinking that I was glad I had the big ring in my pocket, wondering when I should shift up into the 52t, when true to form I caught a jagged edge in the pavement, slamming into it full-tilt with my rear wheel.  It was entirely flat before I'd even rolled to a stop.  Enraged, I dropped the bike on its side beside the road and stood over it, loudly cursing and wildly gesticulating like a bitter old Italian widow at the graveside of her long-philandering husband.  I just couldn't believe it.  I was out of tubes and CO2 cartridges and I was miles from home.

Luckily, Derek - a Spidermonkey who I'd only met hours earlier and knew I'd flatted previously - pulled up next to me while I was in the midst of my conniption fit, and had already taken out his spare tube and tire levers.  As I gratefully took them off his hands, he was already threading on his inflation cartridge for me.  "Shit happens, man" he said.  Indeed it does.  But riding with someone who carries extra gear just when you really need it makes the shit storm easier to deal with.

For whatever it's worth, I was at least able to use my big ring to pull as hard as I could for Derek as we chased after the long-gone pack.  I figured that the least I could do was kill myself in the effort to catch up to them.  So we tore through Winnetka and Evanston and I let out a half-mad cackle as I saw the back end of the pack waiting patiently at a red light on Howard,  right on the edge of Chicago.

As we latched on the back, I never knew it could feel so good to be last.

Songs to sprint to

Because Nick Cave rules all:

And because Ed "Big Daddy" Roth did the album cover.

Thoughts from the crow's nest

Sometimes, in my darker moments, I realize that being a mountain biker in the midwest is much like sitting slumped in the crow's nest on the mainmast of a ship becalmed in the horse latitudes, futilely searching for wind, or a puff of cloud on the horizon, anything that might fill the sail and carry us all away from here.  But of course nothing ever comes but the flat bright glare of the unyielding sun and the static ennui of going nowhere fast as you're forced to sit there powerless, a passenger to fate adrift on the dead calm sea.

Of course it's hard to be a mountain biker in the midwest.  There are no mountains.  Duh.  But there are trails, and some great ones at that, which makes it such a pity that they're buried under snow a good third of the year.  And when the spring finally comes and the air warms, we are forced to wait yet again, since the thawing trails are still unrideable, as vulnerable to damage as a freshly-cut wound.  The only way to let them heal and bed in is to let them dry out, which makes every single day of rainfall an excruciating lesson in patience, since every inch of precipitation on the already-saturated ground equals another couple days of waiting.

And it's been raining here a lot.  Constantly.  This spring sucks.

Last week, though, I got the chance to ride the Kettle Moraine trails in Wisconsin, a couple hours drive north of Chicago.  A pretty rare treat for me, since I don't have a car and my work schedule usually conflicts with everyone else's.  My man Zach had a morning free and offered me a ride up.  So I threw my trusty steel hardtail up on his car rack and away we went, blasting Stiff Little Fingers songs pretty much the entire way to get us in the proper frame of mind.

Now my whole objective of this first dirt trip was simple: don't get hurt.  Because I know how quickly skills erode after a winter of disuse, and I understand that the surest way to kill a starving man is to offer him an endless feast.  The longer, outside-running trail was closed off due to (what else?) rain and erosion damage, but luckily we still had the quick shorter loops to amuse ourselves with.  Which worked out great for me, since I was able to re-acquaint myself with a bike I hadn't ridden in months, and the sheer repetition of the loops sped along the process.  And man! speaking of speed: the trails at Kettle are smooth, well-built, and flowy, letting you keep your speed up with bermed turns and short punchy climbs.  After a few runs I was able to anticipate upcoming obstacles, to know the subtle weight shifts to throw the bike into a turn, to rise up from the saddle and power the rear wheel up a loose climb.  The atrophied skills slowly returned, and I remembered how sweet the sound of a spinning knobby tire biting into the ground, hunting for traction and then finding it.  There were a couple of blurry fleeting moments where I recalled why I do this in the first place, and then they were gone.

And as I write this it's raining here again.

Songs to sprint to

I know most people think of Paul Simon as a soft, reedy-voiced folkie, but this song hums right along:

The percussion obviously (pun intended) makes the song, and it's perfomed by the great Bahian samba reggae drum group Olodum.  I love that killer time change at the end.

Where the blue hell have I been?

For as much as I ride - which isn't all that much, all things considered - it seems as though I only find myself on this blog to flagellate myself about not being on the bike.  When I first started this sordid exercise of velo-centric navel contemplation, I told myself that disciplined, regular entries would be vital to keeping myself involved and evolving.  That I had to maintain my own momentum.  But now, after the last time we spoke - which consisted entirely of me whinging about the incessant cold rain and my declining to ride in inclement weather - I find myself yet again blowing off a group ride because it's wet and chilly out.

I love when things turn full circle.

So at least I have the opportunity to ask myself where I've been these past couple of weeks.  And upon contemplation, I have to conclude that I was pretty much fast asleep.  I had worked out a good riding schedule for myself, with a couple of early morning solo rides to fool myself into thinking I'm getting stronger, and a long group ride on Saturday to demonstrate how deluded I really am; sprinkled throughout the week I went down to the basement and threw some weights around, mainly because I finally figured out how to do a dumbell clean and press by watching videos on YouTube.

But I've discovered that my new, determined routine has two main effects on me: first, I find myself compelled to eat my weight daily, and second, when I'm not eating I'm sleeping.  The sofa now seems to exert an inexorable gravitational pull.  More than once my wife has come home to find me comatose on the couch, covered with a fine dusting of cracker crumbs, with my dog George happily nosing an empty Wheat Thins box around the floor underneath my unconscious outstretched hand.

Not a pretty picture, I'll admit.

Small wonder that, what with all that sleeping and eating, I haven't found time to collect my restive thoughts in quiet contemplation.  But I think I've turned a corner here.  I've got things worked out.  Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll now retire to my familiar spot on the couch with some buttered toast and coffee and watch the end of today's stage of the Giro d'Italia.

And I won't nod off to sleep.  See?  Progress!

A Case of the Blahs...

I'm typing this one-handed because right now George is sprawled in my lap with his flat muzzle nested in the crook of my left arm, contentedly snoring away.  I'm still in my pajamas, I've finished a bowl of granola, and a mug of coffee is cooling by my typing hand, next to the keyboard.

And I'm not on my bike.

I'd planned to head out on an early-morning ride.  I just put on some skinny tires to roll just a little bit faster, and changed my cassette to a tighter gearing.  I even cleaned and lubed the chain before I went to bed last night.  But when I awoke to yet another raw, rainy morning I decided to stuff it.  I'm sick of this.  I'm not going to get cold and wet on my bike yet again, not on my day off.   I'm gonna watch downhill videos on the interweb instead.

At least George is happy.

Songs to sprint to

Everybody hates the Stone Roses' second album, but I really like this song.  Their only flat-out raver:

I can pedal all day to that James Brown beat, I swear.

     

The Cassandra complex

I hate being right all the time.  If you ride city streets for long enough you get a fatal sense of predestination, where you anticipate the worst occuring yet feel helpless to prevent it.  Riding to work in yet another grey, rainy morning of this dreary April, I watched a car blithely rolling into the intersection a few dozen yards in front of me.  I knew he was looking to make a left turn, since he angled the front end of his car in my path and I could only see the back of his head as he peered intently to his right, looking for an opening to fit into.  As I slowed down considerably, I could see a steady stream of cars in the oncoming lane, giving him no quarter; I also knew that the light a couple of blocks behind me had probably changed from red to green by now, loosing traffic that would soon be upon me.  Upon us.

He was halfway into the intersection, blocking my way, but I couldn't swing around him because I knew he might accelerate at any time.  I was trapped.  I knew this would happen.  And I knew there wasn't a goddamned thing I could do about it.

So I slowed to a stop, standing on my pedals about ten feet from him, from his car in my path, from the back of his head which never turned to me.  Until I barked, "WHAT are you DOING, MAN?!"  I must have sounded like I was yelling at him from his back seat, because I saw his face then - finally - as he snapped his head around, showing me his eyes opened wide like a startled cat.  The worst was what happened next, though: he raised his hand from his steering wheel and waved me on, in magnanimity.  I took personal offense and held my trackstand and wagged my head, urging him to complete his turn or get out of my way.  Which he did, after a few more absurd seconds of us screaming at each other in the falling rain, finally reversing his car back behind the crosswalk.  I thanked him loudly in a sarcastic voice two notches above propriety, and rode on my way.

As I made my way to work, I seriously considered becoming one of those militant commuters, who mount a nightclub's worth of strobe lights to their handlebars and sport day-glo safety vests in the daytime, but then I realized that the problem wasn't just that he didn't see me.  No, the problem was that he didn't look for me.  I'm sure he probably looked to see if there were any cars coming towards him when he pulled out into the street, but he didn't look for any cyclists in the road.  He didn't see me coming right at him.  All the flashing lights in the world wouldn't matter if I'm permanently in the driver's blind spot.

So what do we do as cyclists?  How can we make them see the dancing bear?  The short answer is, we can't.  But we can anticipate that they won't see us, and hopefully avoid the worst case scenario even as it looms up before us.  And we can pray that they may someday start to look.

Solitary ride

So I'd hoped that I'd be in my first road race today, but my category filled up before I could sign up.  As penance, I got up early this morning to join in another group ride, but as I pedaled through the raw, cold wind and the stinging rain I began to wonder if this was such a good idea.  I was running late and didn't see any sign of any other riders, so I either clean missed the ride or else good sense got the better of them and they stayed in their warm beds.  Trying to ignore the wet rivulets running down the back of my collar, I veered east towards the lakefront path, hoping to get a few good miles in before my own mindgames got the best of me.  As mental exercises go, solo rides are by their nature un-complex: how long can you turn the cranks over while your mind pleads with you to turn around?

Riding by yourself is difficult enough, but it's made exponentially harder when you're fighting a headwind that feels like a fat kid on roller skates who's hanging on your handlebar, straddling your front wheel, and sticking his tongue out at you.  No fun.  But I kept surging south, as the rain slowly saturated the seams of my raingear and my feet turned to blocks of wood in the cold.  Every day on the bike isn't going to be a glorious one - but that's okay, as long as it leads to yet another day on the bike.  And so far, I haven't yet run out my string.

By the way, big ups to Mike Capello, my co-worker at the shop for taking third in his category at the Leland Kermesse under what must have been grueling and truly hardman-type conditions.  Good on ya.

Songs to sprint to

Showing my age again, but damn the Wax Trax! back catalogue is so good!

Besides, these guys are Belgian, so every cyclist is required to love them, right?

Songs to sprint to

Because how good are the drums on this track:

The guy is amazing.  Try and keep up.

I'm just the chipseal spread out across the road to hell

Now believe me, I had every good intention of writing a post this weekend, but you know what they say about good intentions, right?  As it turns out, bikes were at the heart of the events that conspired to keep me away from the keyboard until now, so I feel somewhat vindicated.  I also have an uncanny ability to justify my own bad behavior, I am a very deep sleeper, and yes the two are inextricably entwined.

But so anyways on Saturday morning I got up early to do my first big club ride.  Spidermonkey Cycling is a local club sponsored by the shop, and they graciously allowed me to tag along with them on their weekly ride.  Despite the fact that I was one of the only riders in the twenty-odd pack that wasn't wearing their kit, the 'monkeys made me feel right at home.  I had seen many of them in the shop, of course, but this was the first time I was able to ride alongside them.  We traveled along the North Shore, beyond the old-money mansions and the intricately-carved Baha'i temple, past the gates of Ravinia and downtown Highland Park, and finally turned around at Fort Sheridan, a small quiet community that looked for all the world like one of those nameless beach towns in northern California - maybe it was just all the incongruous fog and the salt tang in the air rolling in from the lake.

But I was happy to be riding with them.  Besides the fact that I would have been hopelessly lost without their leading me, it felt good to be a part of a pack, accelerating without effort, leaning into turns in unison, stringing out along the front of the group and regathering at lights.  I had fun, although it had its price: I spent the rest of the day in varying degrees of slumber, dragging myself off of the couch only to forage in the kitchen for 'recovery food' (bowls of ice cream and handfuls of red licorice) before napping again.

And on Sunday, I worked.  Hard.  It was the first truly pleasant weekend in a very long time, and the customers came in droves and many rode out on new steeds.  It was all hands on deck for hours straight, and while time flew, fatigue set in as well.  Nevertheless, many of us in the shop had made plans to meet up afterwards at a viewing party of one of the one-day classic bike races held that day: Paris-Roubaix.  Johnny Sprocket's, one of our friendly competitors, opened their doors and turned off the lights after closing and fired up the large flat-screen on their sales floor.  Add a large washtub of ice, a few cases of beer, and a large assortment of bike geeks and you had yourself, well, a bunch of drunken bike geeks.  Not that that's a bad thing.  I had a blast.  Saw friends I hadn't seen in ages, and made new friends who had room in their cars for future trail rides.  I got to marvel at a locally built handmade frame, then got to shake the hand of the really nice guy who built it.  And I got tipsy off of a grand total of three - count 'em, three - beers.  Although in my own admittedly lightweight defense, the last one was a smoked beer from a microbrewery in Wisco and it kinda tasted like bacon grease.  I did finish it, though.  Needless to say, I was unable to accomplish anything once I got home - besides deep sleep, of course.

I can always do that.

The perfect yellow Schwinn

As George and I were trundling down the street on our evening walk, I looked up and saw my wife, Jessie, riding home from work on her Schwinn.  I could see the insistent flashing headlight mounted next to the wicker basket on her handlebars, as she turned the pedals at a measured pace, her work week done. 

And I remembered how happy I was when she first asked me to help her find a bike of her own, a bike she could ride comfortably and easily, a bike she could ride to work or the park or anywhere really, and as I started telling her - just off the top of my head - of models with split top-tube step-through frames, and internal gearing, and hammered fenders, I could tell that none of the bikes were quite right.  None of them were the one.  She was going to have to find her bike herself.

Which she did, a week later.  It was in the window of the tiny bike shop nearest our house.  "And it's yellow," she said.  When we went in and were helped by a sweet old man who clearly owned the shop since the fifties, I knew the deal was done.  Jessie has a fatal weakness for little old men.  I directly went home to grab my Ritchey and we left the shop to go for her first ride on her new bike, and at our very first stop she was immediately vindicated when we dismounted next to a group of little girls on the sidewalk and they were entranced, gathering close, saying in awe, "Oooh, your bike is bee-yoo-tiful."  Jessie just smiled and thanked them, victorious.

Now she rides everyday to work, confidently and easily through the city streets, because even at a deliberate pace it's way faster than the bus.  She declines to ride in the winter, although sometimes her good sense and self-preservation are nearly overcome by her hatred of public transportation.  She patiently waits until spring.  It's simply more fun that way, on the perfect yellow Schwinn.

Songs to sprint to

Ever wonder what would happen if Ian MacKaye and Al Jourgensen played together?  Well, wonder no more:

Starts out slow, but then again so do I on those early morning rides.  Then it builds up strong and finishes fast.  Wish I could say the same about me.

N + 1 = pain and anguish

I love bikes. That's pretty obvious, I think.  But I'm starting to believe that it's not the kind of love poets write sonnets about, that my obsession with bikes is more akin to incoherent fan mail scrawled out on parchment paper and sent in envelopes containing locks of human hair.  And you're like me if you recognize the following formula: that if n equals the number of bikes you own, then n + 1 is the ideal number of bikes one could own.  It's perfectly evil in its utter simplicity.

About a month ago, I was generously given a bare frame from a friend of mine who was moving out of town.  I immediately obsessed over every part of the build, poring over distributor catalogs, sorting through any useful bits in my spare parts bin, scouring ebay for cheap parts, etc.  After hours and hours of comparing prices and hand-drawn spreadsheets, I finally worked out a viable build list, complete to the smallest detail, when I realized I had forgotten one thing - I had no damn money to spare.

Right.

So I gave it away to someone who just the other day was talking about trying to find a frame like it.  Funny thing is, I know that he now has to deal with that sword hanging above his head, that even if I gave him my entirely-worked out parts list along with the frame it wouldn't do him any good, because then the built-up bike just wouldn't be his, that he would have to compile his own list and suffer through himself.  That's just how this cruel cycle works.

As for me, I'm already onto my next project.  See,  if I sell my hardtail which I built last year and buy this other frame, then I can use this wheel I have lying around...

Off-road Randonneur

And but so I've just woken up from an unplanned and ill-timed five hour nap after dinner.  My sleep schedule is gonna be turned upside down for days, I've got a crick in my neck from resting my head wrong on the decorative pillow on the couch, and I'm still wearing the dank riding clothes I've been in for most of the past twenty-four hours now.

Man, I feel great.

Yesterday my boy Austin and I went on yet another one of our epic off-road randonneur rides, which I'm pretty sure is French for "I don't know when to turn around."  Last year, at the end of the season, we decided to spend a day riding to the suburban Palos trails, the only real network of mtb trails in the Chicago area, a trail system that every local mountain biker has ridden because of its proximity to the city.  Neither Austin or I have a car, so we decided to take our 'cross bikes there, tear around in the dirt, and ride back home.  Starting from the West Side of town, we wound our way down Ogden Ave, which was part of old Route 66 as it left Chicago, seeing sights we were never privy to in the dozens of previous car rides to south suburban Palos.  We cut through the employee parking lot of the ginormous UPS sorting center, a building which looked big enough to house the Hadron Supercollider.  We rolled past the Wonder Bread factory, which was only slightly smaller than the UPS facility and smelled nothing like a bakery, by the way.  Best of all, we discovered a shortcut away from the industrial sprawl of shoulder-less streets filled with roaring big-rig trucks: ducking behind a row of jersey barriers, we found ourselves on an abandoned, elevated access road that ran through the middle of Thornton Quarry.  We got off our bikes and took in the view, perched on the edge of a vast, unseen canyon located twenty minutes' drive from the Loop.  We also realized we were trespassing and quickly jumped back on our bikes and made our way to the trailhead after only a few wrong turns.  Riding the old familiar trails felt new on bikes equipped with skinny tires, rigid forks, and drop bars.  It was too much fun.  Quite literally.  I forgot to account for our long ride home and ran out of food and energy a good ten miles from home, which necessitated my staggering to a stop outside a crowded gas station in Cicero.  In my full kit and helmet, I wandered past groups of high school kids (it was mid-afternoon and school had just let out), grabbed a couple packages of frosted Honey Buns, dropped some crumpled, sweaty bills on the counter with shaking hands, and went back outside to share my bounty with Austin.  All in all, a great day.

So this time Austin and I decided to replicate that day, minus the energy bonk, by taking the Metra commuter train out to Palos, thus saving up the strength to ride trail and then ride back.  Unfortunately, the Metra website's schedule lied to us and we found ourselves in the Great Hall at Union Station a few minutes after the train had left.  Not wanting to spend another couple of hours waiting for the next departure, we opted for Plan B: the DesPlaines River trail, which follows its namesake northward, flowing up from Oak Park all the way up to Wisconsin, though I was determined to turn around before then.  Though not nearly as technical (read: fun) as Palos, it was still riding in the dirt, and far-flung, and away from the city.  And yet, paradoxically, its trailhead was only a couple miles away from a CTA stop.  So we threw our bikes on the el and took the Green line to the end of the line, and started another all-day adventure.  Austin's internal compass led us through the Norman Rockwell streets of Oak Park directly to the parking lot trailhead, so we set our knobby tires on dirt, rode twenty feet around a dirt embankment, and abruptly stopped.  The trail led straight into a wide, deep pond.  The river had filled the floodplain, and we were forced to take the first of more than a few detours onto the very busy River road, as well as an ill-advised abortive shortcut through a golf course (my bad), but eventually the trail rose up and we we able to ride undeterred, past expanses of prairie and groves of trees and the odd string of power lines.  Whereas the roots and rock gardens of Palos are only just ridable on 'cross bikes, the DesPlaines trail was perfectly suited for our bikes.  The dirt was smooth enough to ramp up to a good speed, and grippy enough to roost turns: yet another great day on the bike.  True to form, we rode out just a bit too far again, even though we turned off the trail at Wheeling, not Wisconsin - but this time I'd packed enough food to make it back without incident.  The only casualty was my common sense when at my insistence we pulled into the neighborhood market a few blocks from my house and I emerged with a bag of tortilla chips, some cheap Polish beer, and two half-gallons of ice cream, most of which was consumed in our recovery from the ride.

Oh, and one more thing: there's no way I could have done these rides on anything but a cyclocross bike.  They really are the most versatile bikes, period.  Fast enough to ride on the streets, durable enough to ride any manner of dirt track, and efficient enough to ride both for long distances.  I love my Surly CrossCheck because I built it up to do anything and it hasn't let me down yet.  Alright, here's a pic:

Songs to sprint to

When the lactic acid is boiling your quads, bury your head and drop the hammer and sing: "Whoa-ho-HO! Whoa-ho-HO! Whoa-ho-HO-HO-HO!"

Ladies and gentlemen, Chicago's own, Naked Raygun.

Rest Day

At least that's what I'm calling it.  Made plans the night before to join the morning shop ride and had every intention of going, but I made the mistake of peeking at the weather forecast, which predicted snow.  I knew right then I wasn't gonna make it out the next day. 

So I slept in.  Had my coffee in bed, reading Charles P. Pierce's 'Idiot America', with twenty-odd pounds of snoring pug pressing down on my chest.  There's worse ways to spend a Saturday morning, I guess.  Eventually, though, I had to get up and do something at least vaguely productive.  So I went downstairs to the makeshift weight room in the basement of our building and benched.  (By the way, don't worry - I won't bore you with the details of my workout.  No recounting of maxes and reps and sets.  I hate when people do that.  Kinda like when someone you don't even know very well tells you in great detail about the really strange dream they had last night.  I'm sorry, but I will never be able to vicariously experience anything that personal and specific to you.  I am willing to nod at the appropriate times, however.)  Bench presses being a series of exercises, by the way, which is as useful to a cyclist as a set of tits on a bull.  But I guess I did them as a means to exorcise the self-loathing I had for wussing out on the morning's ride.

It didn't take.

I should have gone out.  And I will forthwith.  Because there's a race three weeks from now that I've got my eye on.  And I've got to get some miles in these legs.

If I love my commuter bike so much, why do I treat it so bad?

A few years ago an older couple came into the shop and asked to see some mountain bikes.  Though they were both retirees, they wanted the highest-end xc hardtails we carried.  Not beginner bikes, or upright do-it-all (badly) mountain hybrid rides, but race-ready hardtails.  They'd done their research, and they knew what they wanted: the lightest, most nimble mountain bikes available.  Both of them were so agreeable and enthusiastic about getting their dream bike that it was actually fun for me to send them out on their various test rides and hear them marvel at how light the aluminum frames were, or how plush the suspension forks felt, and how responsive the disc brakes grabbed.  They ended up leaving with a matching pair of Giant XTC's and as the husband wheeled his bike out the door, he thanked me for my help, shook my hand, and asked me if I wanted to have his old bike.

"It used to be a pretty nice ride," he said.  "I loved that bike.  It's unrideable now, but if you can fix it up you can have it.  I'll bring it by tomorrow for you." 

I thanked him, figuring we could cobble a shop ride beater out of it.  But when he came by the next day, I knew it was mine all mine.  He and his wife were snowbirds, fleeing the winter in their RV for warmer climes, where they loved to ride rail-to-trails and country dirt roads, so they always had mountain bikes with them, hitched to the back of their rig.  Last month, they'd gotten rear-ended by a semi, and his wife's bike was on the outside of the bike rack, so it took the brunt of the damage - her frame snapped.  His bike looked bad, as well.  The front wheel was pretzeled, the stem was folded back towards the saddle, and both ends of his handlebar were pointed in the same direction.

The frame itself, however - a fillet brazed Ritchey TimberWolf - looked fine.  In fact, it looked like the rolling work of art that it is.  Tom Ritchey himself probably did a few of the welds on that frame.  I swallowed hard and told him he could probably still fix it up by replacing a few parts and she'd ride like new.  But he told me he'd moved on, that he was happy to spend the insurance money on new bikes for him and the missus, and that I was welcome to fix it up myself as a fun project.  With that, he kissed his fingertips, lightly laid his hand on the bike's top tube in farewell, and left.

I scavenged enough parts to ride her home as a present to my girl, but after a few rides, we decided that the bike was a bit too big for her.  So the Ritchey sat dormant until I concluded that after years of riding in the city, I deserved a purpose-built commuter.  I installed the best thumb-shifters I could find, as well as full fenders and front and rear racks.  I was going to take off the front derailleur and 1x9 her for simplicity's sake, but I saw the little deer's head embossed on it (Shimano was way more whimsical in the '80's) and left it on.

And I ride the living piss outta that thing.  I mean it.  I flog it to within an inch of its life.  I've bungeed a 25 lb bag of dog food to the front rack and a 40 lb sack of cat litter to the rear one and wobbled home.  I've gone grocery shopping while hungry and come back with the bike so laden down with provisions I could feed a family of four for a week.  I've ridden her hard through rainstorms and blizzards and put her away wet.  This bike does it all and takes it all, with little to no maintenance.  By far, the Ritchey is the most overworked and underappreciated bike in my stable.

So if I love her so much, why do I treat it so bad?  It really is a piece of history.  I should strip all the parts off the frame and hang it on a wall, or sell it to an enthusiast so it can be properly restored.  But I think I'd rather just keep on beating it to death.  After all, I think that's what it was built for - and I think Tom Ritchey himself would agree with me.

Songs to sprint to

If you want the perfect cadence to pull away from the pack, try to keep up with Bob Mould's ringing guitar on this one:

And for your finishing kick, just sing along: "Divide and conquer! Divide and conquer!"

That's right, fixie kid. I'm better than you...

...at trackstanding.  I know you didn't think that when you rolled up from behind me at this here red light.  You peered out from underneath your flat-brimmed Yankee cap and saw the bright flashing taillight, the grocery panniers stuffed to capacity hanging off the rear rack, the beat-down Ritchey mountain bike I've flogged through two winters, and me perched atop it all like Granny from 'The Beverly Hillbillies' in the back of the jalopy cruising down Rodeo Drive, with my pedals leveled, and my front wheel canted slightly as I incrementally roll it back and forth between the two imaginary quarters located immediately before and behind the tire patch which I envision as the best trick yet to keep my feet up for the duration of a traffic light.  I get it.  You thought I was just another hapless floundering commuter, which was why you thought you had the right to roll up past me and take your rightful place a bike-length-and-a-half in front of me to show me how it was done.  Except my feet are still on my pedals, aren't they?  And I can see your shoulders starting to hunch up underneath your carefully painted Chrome bag because you're tensing up your arms and forgetting to breathe as you're beginning to wonder how long this goddamned light is gonna BE, man?  Well, I can tell you that this intersection's red lasts for about twenty-five seconds and I'm not literally going to say it to you, but lemme just ease forward here and pull up alongside you as though I was so I can show you something else: I'm still up on my pedals.  And you've just shrugged and dropped one foot to the ground.

And while I realize that in the grand scheme of things losing an impromptu trackstand comp is quite an insignificant thing, here's the greater lesson: don't be a dick.  Pass another cyclist when you're both in motion.  Don't just roll up in front like you've got the right to do so, because you don't.  Ain't anybody ever issued a go-to-the-head-of-the-line pass.  It's just rude, and - aw, hell.  There you go.  Knew you were gonna do that.  Saw you put one foot back on the pedal, head swiveling around, looking for a gap in traffic.  Red's only gonna last six more clicks, fool!  But no, out you go, found your shot and you're clear, but you didn't see that oncoming car have to tap its brakes to let you through, didn't see the driver shaking his head in disgust at yet another 'damn biker', didn't see me doing the same.

Good job, my man.  Putting your foot down made you look bad.  Putting your foot back on made us all look bad.  It's more than just trackstands, son - I am better than you.

Spring is here

I awoke this morning to bright sunlight filtering through the still-bare branches of the tree outside my window.  When I took my pug George out for a walk a few minutes later I realized that for the first time this year I didn't need to wear the jacket I layered over my t shirt, and I decided right then and there that I was gonna ride the lakefront path.

I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that every cyclist in Chicago - from Cat 1 pros on an early morning training ride to moms on beach cruisers towing a kid's trailer - has ridden the lakefront path at least once.  And who can blame them?  It's the longest stretch of uninterrupted paved path in the city, it's protected from car traffic, and it's a perfectly stunning ride.  On one side is the great lake, and on the other are postcard-quality views of the city, including iconic sites such as the South Michigan Wall, Buckingham Fountain, the Museum Campus, and Promontory Point.  Unbelievable.  It's almost a pity to ride yourself cross-eyed past all this, which of course I did.  I had to.  What else are you gonna do when draped in team kit - in fact, I'm pretty sure that's why anyone wears a matching bibs and jersey.  Batman doesn't put on his cowl and cape to step out and run some errands, he gets it on to go punch some bad guys in the face.  In the same vein, if you put on a kit, you better go flat-out (or at least look completely spent from just having done so) or else that joker lurking behind you is gonna buzz right past in a primal attempt to re-establish the current pecking order.  And guess what he's wearing?

Anyways, it was an amazing couple of hours.  The conditions were perfect, with a steady headwind south that allowed you to feel that you'd earned the right to push an extra gear harder once you'd turned around back home.  I love feeling slightly faster than I am.  I love days like this.

Songs to sprint to

Because it sometimes helps to have a soundtrack in your head when you're busy burying yourself:

The song starts fast and never slows - hopefully the same goes for your cranks.

Group ride musings...

So after the "I am mountain biker, hear me roar" proclamation of my last post, I'm here today to talk about road riding.  I went on my first group ride of the year this morning.  Which isn't exactly true, because I headed out with a couple of guys from the shop a few weeks ago.  But there was still snow on the ground, and I was really tentative from an icy fall I took this winter that left me with a sore knee (again with the knee!) and a really skittish disposition on wet streets.  If that first ride was a nature show, then I was one of those unfortunate impalas nervously perched on the bank of a crocodile-infested river, while all the other braver bucks were gleefully splashing through.  And we all know which ones end up in the jaws of death.

Today the roads were bone-dry, though, and if I'm gonna count it as my first ride, then today was my first group ride with gears, as well.  Allow me to explain: as I said before, I got into this whole cycling thing through mountain biking, and my bikes have always reflected that.  I built up two full-suspension mountain bikes before I cobbled together my first bike with skinny tires, a ratted-out Raliegh Technium singlespeed whose two-tone bar tape job I was inordinately proud of.  She was a great bike for getting around the city, and when I decided I wanted to partake in the shop's early-morning group rides down the lakefront, I thought that the ridiculously high 53x16 gearing might let me hang with the pack.  Unfortunately, more often than not, I would be forced to watch everybody else's rear wheels slowly recede in the distance as I churned my only gear in slower and slower circles.

Tired of bringing a knife to a gun fight, I showed up today with, well, a two-shot derringer pistol.  I forgot what nice rides everyone else had.  I mean really really sick rides.  But I was determined to use all nine gears I had on my cross bike if that's what it took to hang, and every click of my bar-end shifter would seem like a gift from above.

And it was a great ride.  I never realized how much fun it is to actually have a conversation with someone when you're riding fast, and how spinning the right gear when you're in the draft feels as effortless as gliding.  My mind, freed from constant worry about whether I was pedaling the right cadence or not, was even able to note some minor observations:

"Some of these houses in Evanston are only slightly smaller than Downton Abbey."

"Did he even get the words 'Man I feel tired and slow' out of his mouth before he accelerated away from me?"

"There's probably smaller potholes on the surface of the moon."

"I love when the lake and the sky are the same shade of grey and you can't see the horizon."

"Small marmalade sandwiches are easier to eat on the bike than gels, I swear."

"Ooooh, there really is a fourth hand position on the end of the drops."

Which isn't to say that I didn't get my ass handed to me, because I surely did.  My only pull led us onto the short, sharp upwards burst right before the turnaround point, and halfway up the tiny hill I gave out.  Small consolation that I was able to winch my way up in a tiny baby gear instead of a great painful one, but at least I was able to catch up and latch back on to the group.  Moral victories, ya know?

This is ME!

And so for my first post I thought I'd write about my first bike.  No, not the Morrie Mages Sporting Goods banana-seat special that I learned to ride on, nor the Huffy bmx bike upon which I charged, baby teeth gritted in determination, at makeshift plywood ramps propped up by milk crates and half-full paint cans, in a futile attempt to launch myself into the air like my hero Evel Knievel.  Unfortunately, I discovered that while I couldn't quite fly like him, I sure could land like Evel.  Which is to say, in a heap.  Minus some of the aforementioned baby teeth.

No, I want to write about my first 'real bike', which I'm sure we all agree can be defined as 'the first bike you actually pay for yourself.'  I was living in that real hotbed of American cycling, Bloomington IN, the home of Little 500 and the Cutters, and the site of the canonical bike movie about both, 'Breaking Away'.  The town had changed appreciably little since the movie was filmed, all tree-lined streets with wooden clapboard houses and a picturesque college campus complete with limestone buildings and an estuary of excellence (I'm not making that up, that's really what it's called) burbling contentedly through it.  And bikes were a big part of that burg.  Co-eds cruised to class.  Group rides flicked through the streets like schools of fish.  Basketball was godhead there, of course - I moved there the year Coach Knight got removed from his post, and I believe I actually saw people rending their clothes in mourning - but that was a winter sport, and come spring people got outside and got on bikes.

Except me.  I just walked everywhere.  And I walked far, man.  I'm talking three miles each way to work, five days a week, rain or shine, all year-round.  Typing this now, I have to marvel at WHY exactly I didn't ride, why I didn't think to cut down my commute from a fifty-minute death march to an easy fifteen-minute cruise.  I guess I'm just that special kind of stupid (recurring theme ALERT!) but buying a bike never even occurred to me, even though I walked past two bike shops on the way to work.

After a number of years in a pedestrian haze, I finally tired of small-town life and, like a reddening salmon, I wanted to move back to the grimy city that spawned me.  I had some money saved up (you can live pretty cheaply in a small town so long as you don't die of boredom first - just ask the Coug', John Cougar Mellencamp, Bloomington's other celeb) and decided to pull up stakes and move back to Chicago in the summer.  So I packed up my life and waited for moving day to arrive, and a month before my friends were gonna come by with their truck and spirit me away, they told me that they'd made plans for a special trip.  A mountain bike trip.  And they were leaving next week.

I have to say, there's nothing quite like quitting a job early to go on a vacation.  And so I took some of that money I'd saved up, walked into the shops I'd previously sauntered past, kicked some tires, went on a few test rides, bought some bike mags and devoured them, along with the myriad catalogs from the shops, and finally made my decision: a Trek 4900.  Jett elastomer fork, triple chainring, plastic toeclips and straps, shorty bar-ends on riser bars, oh yeah.  I loved that bike if only 'cause she was all mine.  I bought a pair of baggy ZOIC shorts and the nicest helmet I could afford, and for a week straight I rode all over town.  Then in a fit of bravado I went and ordered a pair of clipless pedals and Shimano shoes, rode ten feet down my gravel-lined alley, and promptly fell over, still clipped in.  It didn't matter: my friends were picking me up tomorrow!  I was going to Colorado!

A buncha city dudes, three SUV's, two big-ass tents, and a mess of hardtails:  thus equipped, we were going mountain biking in actual mountains.  In lung-busting Crested Butte, to be specific.  None of us knew what the blue hell we were doing, and we were having the best time doing it.  I should cringe when I recollect what I looked like back then, almost ten years ago: white (!) Nike Dri-Fit t-shirt, those same baggy shorts (I think I only thought to bring the one pair - you can guess how that worked out by the end of the week), fanny pack containing the requisite rations, seat bag hanging from the saddle holding a tube and a multi-tool I didn't know how to use, two water bottles in cages, with a mini-pump tucked discreetly behind one of them.  And let's not forget about the bar-ends perched on the riser bars: I can't stress those enough.  So, yeah, I should cringe when I think of it now, but all I could remember was having the goddamned time of my life.

Crested Butte really is one of the more amazing corners of the world, and it really is best seen on a bike.  Trails snake through valleys of wildflowers, alongside rushing mountain rivers, and lead over ridges straight out of 'The Sound of Music'.  You half-expect to see the VonTrapp family cheerfully marching across the sun-dappled fields, away from those nasty Nazis.  And overhead, like  a cathedral ceiling, all blue sky and white peaks.  On the first ride, I found myself way out in front of everybody, zigzagging along the edge of the timberline, when I heard a loud splintering crash and right out from behind my left ear a startled deer leapt out from the brush.  I looked over, disbelieving, still pedalling, as the deer bounded alongside me - once, twice, in time with my cranks - then veered off silently back into the trees.  It was about the best thing that ever happened to me.

As it turned out, though, that was the second best thing that happened on that trip.  On the last day, we were gonna go out with a bang, planning to ride the longest, most technical trail we could handle.  The Dyke Trail was daunting, with steep ups and downs, culminating in a long, uninterrupted downhill run to the trail's end.  I was stoked.  I couldn't wait.  And on the first descent, just over a mile into the six mile trail, I washed out my front wheel and pitched over the bars at speed.  I ducked my shoulder and rolled through the fall well enough, but as my body cartwheeled back over I was suddenly stopped short by a worn tree stump making swift, arresting contact with my right knee.  Once I got the screaming-in-pain part over with and wiped off the dust mask that had adhered to the spit and blood on my face, I screwed up the courage to survey the real damage.  My knee throbbed and was swelling visibly.  I tried to stand and couldn't support my weight without pain.  Gathering around me, my friends watched me hobble about and declined to say what I already knew: that I was well and truly fucked.

But I didn't want to ride back to camp.  It was all uphill, anyway.  One of the guys generously offered to ride back with me, but that was even worse: two of us would miss out on the last day's ride.  It appeared clear to me that the only solution was to finish the goddamned trail.  To ride it out.  My leg couldn't really support me, but I was mountain biking, not hiking, right?  I couldn't really rotate my foot too well, but once I clipped in, the pedal tracks straight on its own.  The swollen knee didn't really want to bend too far, but I thought that if I wrapped it tightly enough, this wouldn't be a real problem.  So we emptied out our fanny packs and seat bags and I ended up swathing my knee with a roll of athletic tape, covered by an Ace bandage, all tied down by a short bungee cord for good measure.

And I finished the ride.  Which was as great as I had hoped, with the final descent an endless bobsled run that turned the serene white aspens into a holy screaming blur, and the grin on my face at the end of the ride stayed there for about three or four hours straight.  By then, I realized that my knee wasn't gonna get better by ice and Advil alone, and that a severe limp was prominent in my immediate future.

But it didn't matter:  I was a mountain biker.  I haven't stopped riding since.