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.