Boom Boom

This is what's on the satellite this morning. Time to pull in the horns and regroup. I have been waiting for a rain day to mandate some down time. Do some repairs to both body and bike, wash the man-o-tards, and Febreeze the van this should probably be my first priority?

I enjoyed an abbreviated visit to the north-side trails yesterday with Leon. We rode my old friend the Live Oak Connector and it was tough as ever and awesome. I don't remember the climbs ever feeling this good though, seriously. Maybe they have eroded a little? We made it halfway into Lake Overstreet when Leon got a call that sent us in the other direction. He twisted my innards out once again on the 7 mile time trial across town to his house.

These are pretty good days right here.

Juancho

Scraps

Despite the strong and appreciated showing over the weekend, our usual crew is down by five riders from last year. I have no interest in enumerating their reasons or badgering them in their hopeless situations. I am focused on practical and achievable goals. My therapists would be proud. Like the mid-term elections of 2010, (and 1994) some things are beyond my control, and according to some people riding bikes in a fantasy world with your adult male friends is not the biggest priority in life.

I can't be bothered with that. I've gone rogue. Freelance. Hired gun. Mercenary.

That, and of course my labor of love, the never-ending project, the rise of my Robot Army. Towards this pursuit, I have found recent success. I have two fresh recruits, wall-eyed in their fervor, programmed for pain, and they are responding well to modifications by the design team.

My greenest recruit does not even have a bike, but that is a small detail. I am rebuilding the 2005 Dakar for this purpose and like my crew, the Dakar is mostly scraps. I am looking for the following items should anyone have them lying about.

Shimano hydraulic brakeset
shifters
brake levers
front wheel
cranks
derailleurs front and rear

I realize this is barely a cycling blog anymore, having turned the corner toward epic story of man vs. world, but if there are a few riders still out there help me out. Be a part of something great. Support the Robot Army.

Juancho

Dance Monkey Dance!

Things got a bit ugly about 2 hours into the ride when Tommy's legs woke up from their 6 month slumber and he started laying down a beating out at the Pedrick Greenway. I figured those dudes didn't have a two hour ride in them so I squandered strength all over Tom Brown Park, peppering them with shots to kidney, then earhole. Instead they caught me flat-footed with the mid-ride extension. We picked up a stranger, or maybe a planted agent, out on the levee. Mr. Yellow Jersey with the fresh legs- he didn't help matters as he sandbagged along behind us, looming.

After a handful of pumpkin seeds though, my brain came back online and turned point over to the calves, giving the quadriceps a break. By the Miccosukee trailhead I was ready to ride all day. I danced my pained, hunching dance until one by one they fell away for home and I took the long way back to my own.

best ride in ages!

Juancho

Called Up

I'm not saying it was Bike Church, but I was the only acolyte on the ride who hasn't been on the last 200 Bike Church rides, so at the least it was Bike Wednesday Night Prayer Group Supper. Those guys were kind, taking moments to explain the scripture as we paged our way through the forest and back. Battling nerves cost me a third of the peanut butter, avocado, and asiago sandwich I counted on to see me through the event. In spite of myself though, I began to relax and enjoy myself. Upon entering the forest the weirdest thing happened. Bill turned towards me and the whites of his eyes had turned a full deeply cervine brown. I then realized all three of these guys had experienced this same transformation. I caught a glimpse of Larry far up the trail and as he bounded over a log I saw a flash of white.

When we exited the forest they all appeared normal, but when I looked back I saw in the sand my single tread and three sets of hoof prints. Bill offered no explanation, casually spitting the husks of acorns as we paused a moment before returning to the woods and home.

Juancho

Wrecking Ball

What a sandbagger. The biggest sandbagger in the history of sandbagging. The biggest sandbagger in the history of both sand and bags. The earliest Neanderthal man who accidentally kicked some sand into the first ever bag made from the stomach of a woolly rhino was a descendant of our friend, the Human Wrecking Ball. When Katrina flooded the Ninth Ward they should have called him because he could have bagged enough sand to dam the Mississippi river. Tell me I'm lying, I dare you.

Other than that little piece of information I enjoyed a brisk ride with the Bikechain Posse and some other cast-about stragglers like myself. Those Bikechain jerk-offs, they are really good guys if you get to know them.

Big Jim Slade was there shining his buckle. Big Worm crawled out of his sick bay to be there. Mingo and Mingo Jr even joined us on our once beloved Munson. Now you have to buy a day pass and get a ticket punched before riding the monorail to the trailhead and enjoying the MUNSON EXPERIENCE JAMBOREE tm. Sure it's fast, but that doesn't make it right.

Anyway, there ain't no flavor left in that bone so I need to stop worrying on it. The point of the story is that The Wrecking Ball is back. Finally and thankfully, he is back.

Juancho

Profiles in Courage # 1 Big Jim Slade

I know this looks like Chuck Norris, but this is actually our good friend and Bikechain posse regular, Big Jim Slade. BJS is a retired professional country & western (both kinds of music!)dancer who has appeared on the hit television show Club Dance on the CMT network. I am going to let this story tell itself, with only the lightest editorial touch.

We have all been in positions in our lives where we were adrift, searching for purpose and meaning, and Big Jim is not unlike the rest of us. During one of these particularly virulent existential episodes in the mid-nineties a friend reached out a hand and pulled Jim up into the saddle, and the rest goes a little something like this...

A coworker, at the time, was into country western dancing. She begged me daily to go to classes with her. I would chuckle and say something like dancing is not my cup of tea. But she was very persistent. I say OK, if I go once will you leave me alone and not ask anymore. She says OK.
Soooooo, I show up at Roosters Colorado Club on a Wednesday night with my coworker. A group of boot stomping, wrangler wearing, cowboy hat sporting redneck wannabees are hanging around the dance floor. In the middle was the hottest looking woman I’ve seen in a long time. Yep, meet the instructor. I think to myself this is an activity I might be able to get behind.

Within a year I’m a boot stomping, wrangler wearing, cowboy hat sporting two stepping, west coast swinging, waltzer who also knows a little boot scootn boogie and watermelon crawl. Within two years I have done exhibitions at the Fair Grounds, taught line dancing at local health clubs and dance studios and yes, made an appearance on the old CMT television show Club Dance in Knoxville, TN.
So how did this end up?

Well I married the instructor then hung up the boots for a pair of Sidi MTB shoes.

How about that?

Thanks Big Jim for getting us started here.

Juancho

Chomping at the Bit

Information is King in this new age. The new moral imperative compels me to just put it out there and let the people decide. There is the potential for scandal here. What if the release of these sensitive documents starts a war between the practitioners of the Electric Slide and the followers of the original variation commonly known as the Bus-Stop? We have all done things that seemed perfectly reasonable in one context, only to find out that certain events do not translate well from one culture to another. Besides, how can a man who only knows another man by the color of his tights possibly proffer some sort of opinion about what that man chose to wear 16 years ago? Ridiculous right?

So I should just delete these pictures and erase my hard drive and pretend that I never came into possession of such a responsibility.

I wish I had taken the blue pill instead.

Juancho

Register to win

I would enjoy telling someone else's story for a change. If you think you have an adventure story worth telling, nominate your story with a two word title in the comment section. Heck, we will tell them all. Pertinent details will be researched by me for veracity, although general embellishments are welcome and encouraged. It will work like this. You tell me the story, I tell them the story. All submissions will get editorial consideration until it is time to push play on this boombox.


Drop a nickel in and I will make sure you get your money's worth.

Juancho

Beef

The world is a scarier place for Water-bugs. I never realized the price they pay for speed. As a Rhinoceros Beetle I could stagger and sway through a crowd shoulder checking all and sundry. At my girthiest I could raise significantly more pounds than I weighed and put that weight wherever I liked. I had the option of the two step slam this is when you take two steps and apply all force to a person or object and that is sufficient to rapidly relocate the person or object. Sometimes the two step slam could be communicated in a determined glare whereby a person moved voluntarily the distance they would have been relocated.

Now I could take as many steps as I like and I could only call it dancing. I have to live by my wits and quick reflexes. I am lightly tethered to the earth now and this requires constant evaluating to make certain I am not drifting away. I am not small enough to evoke pity or a nurturing instinct in my potential adversaries. I am just an average sized guy of medium build, which means totally fair game for a beating, especially an average sized guy of medium build with a Clydesdale mouth.

I'm not looking for trouble. I am not a trouble seeker, but it is the thought here that counts. The two step slam glare got me through a lot of airports and Wal-marts.

Juancho

On Tour

People keep stealing my thunder.

Scotty B rode some decrepit single speed road bike from Tallahassee to Miami. It took him a long time- like two days at least. He rode right through my hometown, taking pictures of MY lake and MY citrus stand. It galls me to no end. One of these days I'm going to lube my chain, fill my pockets with cheese and toilet paper and hit the road. Don't expect a lot of blog fanfare and blog warning. For this ride I will be stealth. When the time comes to cut loose the moorings and truly go adrift on the surface of the earth, I will slip away with the tide in the night.

Nice ride bubba.

Juancho