Mythical Creatures

I truly have the gift. What you see is none other than a recent picture of Uncle "brokenface" Todd Simmler ripping it at Moab. you may remember my mention of Todd and his supernatural abilities back in a previous post. I would link it for you but I got things to do so if you are interested in the research- google Todd Simmler and my post about him will be in the top 5 (boo-ya! Going worldwide Y'all)

Missing friends sucks. The realization that "One day we will all get a big piece of land and all live on it" is really just a more painless way to say goodbye is hard to accept.

Fuck it-let's all get a big piece of land somewhere and...

Hothouse Flower officially "Man Pretty"

Pick up a copy of MTB Action magazine on shelves today and flip to page 86. That's right, that is no poseur model boy being held up by wires and rope. That is the BigRingCircus sponsored rider Todd Simmler! Joe' Bike Shop is enjoying a longer run in the national press than Senator McCain's girlfriend and Todd is being exploited in national press as well. Things used to be so quiet around here.

The real shame is that MTB Action missed the opportunity to interview and ride with an underground monster on the mountain bike scene. Todd could have told them what riding means to the rest of us- then he would have whipped their asses down the hills.

Oh well, forget about it, be like water.


What you see next is the inside of a greeting card I mailed to Dogboy. The front showed Mickey Mouse sadly sitting in despair and dreaming in his word bubble "Miss You." I saw the D-boy last weekend and apparently this is not enough to call the kid out for a bike ride. A god-blessed engraved card signed by your own mountain bike and all the trails in town. This, my friends, is not enough. I am at a loss. I have no idea what else I can do. I am inclined to take it personal.




And lest we forget: Thanks to those of you who have offered to send Joe your well wishes and support to:


Flood of Support- Joe's Bike Shop
c/o The BRC
2209 Gibbs Dr.
Tallahassee, FL 32303



If you would prefer to help in your own community, Joe would like that. Help a kid get a bike. Give away your beater to someone who really needs one to get around town. Buy them a lock, and consider Joe and Pete supported.

Come back and tell us about it. We won't think you are bragging. We really want to know. We will be proud of you.

Juancho

*Bonus*
For finishing this post I reward you with the following valuable local trail information. So- it is valuable to some.

Live Oak Connector- This brute of a technical test piece is under grave duress. There are indications of re-routes and hard work by someone. If it is you please e-mail me at loveyourbike@gmail.com if you would like help. Until further notice, the majority of the trail is not rideable. It would have been scary to be in those woods in the storm.

East Loop of Lake Overstreet is under water. North and West loops have scattered debris and a few re-routes due to falling tress, but otherwise ride-able. Take your licks, it will help clear the trail.

The Round-Up

Big times this weekend. Two of my favorite things are converging. That's right, peanut butter and marshmallow fluff! That's beside the point, I'm actually talking about Art and Bicycles. The First Friday Gallery Hop (I prefer to simply stroll it) will coincide with the blessing of the bikes and an outdoor movie festival hosted by Krank it Up, our local counter-cultural jihadi bike movement.

Saturday there will be tours and races and bikes, bikes, bikes downtown up to and including a beer tent. There will be roadies racing in the streets, undoubtedly banging elbows and yelling "Dude!" a lot. Sunday morning will see a menagerie of suckers lining up to get lost in the forest on the accursed twilight zone trail. I will pedal slowly in the back of the field muttering "I told you so" and scavenging for dropped loot.

On other fronts, a battle royale is brewing.



Maybe it won't be an adversarial conflict, but a convergence of talent. That's right, if you play your cards correctly you will be around in August to witness Uncle Todd Simmler and Pete "Huck Shins" Burchell loose in the streets. I predict that at any given time there will only be two out of four wheels touching the ground. Todd reports he is at the top of his game and he is coming back to pass out demerits to all of us who ever put a bike in a car or eat cheese.


Robot Army Update

Two riders will be launched to North Carolina today in order to take trail samples in preparation for upcoming races. The BRC wishes Torso and Bushy an excellent trip. Don't forget to bring the 10 survival essentials.

What were they again?

Juancho

BRC Captionista # 2

I pinched this image from one of my favorite spots on the web, The West Virginia Surf Report I am sure you all know what to do from here. Please bring your best game and give us your caption ideas in the comments section.

Meanwhile the Round-up! won't be that lengthy after all. Here is what I know and care about, at least a tiny little bit.

At the 621 Gallery at Railroad Square: Glitter Chariot. My friend Chuck will be hanging by a thread in the main gallery and I tied the knots so he may totally fall down. By writing this I have probably made myself massively liable. That is just one reason Art is so awesome. It is risky.

Glitter Chariot will be performing “All That Heaven Will Allow”, featuring Ryan Berg, Chuck Carbia, Kelly Boehmer, Danielle Shockley, and Lexi Braun. This new performance brings sweet and tragic melodrama together with fantastic characters and sentimental song, completing a fiercely tender yet gruesome and unfortunate story of love. This retelling of the story of Ernie and Bert is thrust into a lovers’ triangle where the love of romance isn’t destroyed; the love of friendship is. Friends in need of each other are faced with the need to continue in the wake of brutal death. Memories of a past imagined (Germany, Kirshner’s Rock Concert, Sesame Street) run rampant, and the tenuousness of their bond is destroyed

Also, I have negligently postponed announcing that Todd Simmler is wrapping things up from his mountain bike guide gig in Baja and has put the call out for a Tally to Moab trip in April. I don't know about you, but my only hope to make that is if this Recession gets a lot worse real fast, and hey, if it happens so be it. I will drive the Ford Exploder to the desert. If anyone wants to reach for the prana and have an incredible time riding Porcupine Rim and Slickrock send me a message at loveyourbike@gmail.com and I can help you connect with Todd. You can't find a better partner for this sort of thing.
He's aces.

Jill is a blogger some of you cyclists may read. She fell in a lake and got a touch of the frostbite. It's been a compelling read the last couple of days, especially because her followers are hardcore Jillites. Following her recovery narrative is bound to be good, and it doesn't take much to beat this here narrative you are reading right now.

I saw Dr. Munson for lunch today and it was a beautiful checkup. What a bluebird day. It looks like the Forest Service is fixing to burn out there. Thanks to Ken and our friends at Fat of The Land for all the raking and prep work, and for laying down a fresh bed of brown ice.

-and I don't give a rip if that's not the name anymore. Phhffft!

Juancho

Sweat, Slime, & Good Times

All rides will now be rated by the number of peanut butter sandwiches necessary to complete the trip. I packed one sandwich yesterday, but it was probably a three sandwich day.

Before I get into any details, let me clear something up here. Last week's post regarding Mystery, the Untameable Stallion,left an echoing, awkward silence in the room. Free of metaphor and innuendo I now give you the straight dope (you know, like Carlos Sastre probably uses): Mystery is getting married, in Hawaii, very soon. Yes, he is marrying up. He asked me to share the joyous news here so he doesn't have to talk to all of you people directly because he doesn't really like people so much.

The Tour de France is over and that means roadies everywhere are wandering around their kitchens this morning blinking and muttering. They click through the channels looking for a scrap of post-race coverage like a bum tossing your car in the night for loose change and cigarettes. I have a variety of doping scandal jokes to unload, but I am afraid we are at the "not funny anymore" stage so that even I, nemesis and gadfly to professional cycling hopes the winner is the winner and that is the end of the 2008 Tour.

Yesterday's ride was glorious. There were no big air fireworks really, which I attribute to the Gu-sucking, race pace atmosphere created by joining any two riders who don't pedal together on a regular basis. By the time the Johnson-measuring contest settled down the temperature was 110 and everyone was ready to bag it-except yours truly and longbow special guest Todd Simmler. After checking off the eastside trails: Fern, Tom Brown, and Cadillac we tacked north and picked off the Live Oak Connector and Overstreet. 5.5 scorching hours in the saddle.

Things sure have changed around here. I'm ready to ride right now this very minute.

Life has reached that full volume spilling over level of activity so I suffer from a bit of blog-paralysis. In my desire to capture everything, I can only manage to sketch and scribble the outline. Feel free to probe for details.

-Juancho

Sugar the bit please...

Artist Todd Simmler, Bend Oregon

As they say at the West Virginia Surf Report,
I have to lower my nuts into the vise for a few hours this morning.
in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this photograph.

You better, it's art bitch!

A few hours later-

Wow, for the last couple of weeks work has been quiet, and I was lulled into a dream in which I rode my bike, drank beer, played darts, and wrote this, this, whatever it is.

I should have been tipped off by the conspicuous lack of sponsorship money.

Not a dime from Jamis, zero from Guiness. Of course I'm still hopeful that Sam Adam's Light will want to get in on the act once they realize the extent of the mutation I'm undergoing with their assistance, but for now I have to work.

It seems like work and life are drawing the whole crew out of our manchild fantasy of chains slapping stays, conferencing with coach out on the trail, and answering the questions When do you want to ride? and Where do you want to ride? with the stock answers of Whenever! and
Wherever!

Sasquatch expects me to react with gloom and doom, fire and brimstone, hell and damnation, and I predictably have. I am drawn to the half-empty glass like a moth to a flame. I'm sure that he's right. The dust will settle, summer routines will evolve, and life in Rideville will be happy once again. Being a single man, who works from home, destined for a lonely pauper's grave, I have more time to ride, and to wax quixotic about my heroic exploits on the trails of North Florida, yet still, even I have to work.

I don't mind really, just put a little sugar on the bit please.

See you on the trails, Juancho

Mystery Solved!

Have you ever been in posession of a secret so astounding, so incendiary that releasing it to the world threatened to change such fundamental assumptions as calling blue sky blue or altering forever the taste of chocolate?

I have one of those secrets.

Mystery, the Untameable Stallion, is going to need a new name.

I don't know what he was called before 1993, but I'm sure by then he already had a litany of nicknames that pre-date the familiar: Hardman, Powder, Goatboy, and Mystery the Untameable Stallion. What do you call a gunslinger who hangs up his guns for the plow?

I'm sure you all will help me figure that out in time.

At least some things won't change. MtUS and I put our thumbprints deep in the eastside soil last night. I don't know if it was the 90+ degree evening temperatures or a mutual exhilaration over the epiphany that by God things do not just stay the same forever, but we rode wrinkles out of those trails.

Perhaps some locals will chime in and help me paint a clearer picture of what the future holds for our ornery equine.

In other important news, Todd "never going to own a cell phone" Simmler arrives today. That means the Sunday morning air show hosted by he and Huck Shins is on. If you want to join us for a special ride on Sunday send an e-mail to loveyourbike@gmail.com and I will coordinate logistics.

-Juancho