Thank you sir, may I have...

The blast furnace that we call Summer is dying down.  This can only mean one thing.  Well actually more than one, but let's face it... I like the dramatic.  Cycling.  You say, "but we haven't stopped cycling".  Exactly.   I'm talking about more cycling, cycling that involves dirt.  It is CX season.  Time to air up the knobbies and head to the parks to run and jump over stuff.  I've been riding the CX bike a lot lately, and I'm loving it.  "If you have the means, I highly recommend you get one."  -That is a Ferris Bueller quote.

I love the mindset that the CX bike puts me in, it's like a search and destroy riding style.  This bike has a mind of it's own.  Hop curbs, cut through lawns, carve knolls, and well whatever you can handle.  Pavement -yes, Dirt -yes, Snow -yes, Rocks -yes, what else you got?  YES!

If you are reading this and have not witnessed Cyclocross or CX then you need to do some googling.  Get to work!  If riding a CX bike is not for you, then maybe you like to drink beer and swear?  Well then, CX spectating is for you.  One of the best things about CX is heckling.  Heckling? You say?  YES, it's crazy fun and totally acceptable.  Motivation through degradation.  Forget all the positive bull crap that people preach, I'm talking about good old trash talk.  The worse the better.  See where I'm going here?  Oh, man is it fun.  Come out sometime and try it, it is good for the soul.  Get all that negative energy out and hurl it at someone or someone(s).  It helps you and it helps the CX racer.  True story.

Let's face it, people who race Cross are not right in the head.  Take a perfectly good road bike and "modify" it to ride it off road -that's what mountain bikes are for, Right?  Now let's find the worst conditions to ride in, add in some sand, barriers, gravel, roots, grass, dirt, mud, and just about anything you can think of -now you have CX.  Heck yeah, people!  They deserve to be verbally ridiculed on a lap by lap basis.  Ah, Cross how we love the.

I can't wait to feel the burn of embro on the skin, cold air piercing my lungs, and frozen appendages.  I long for the feeling of sand turning my bike into a slithering snake.  The feel of rims bottoming out on rocks and roots.  The pure satisfaction of just finishing is sometimes greater than the joy of winning.  (paraphrased from Pete Smith of MadAlchemy)

The miseducation of thebelllap

I'm going to break radio silence and drop some knowledge.  Open your minds.  Be smart, and use your brains.  People.

Lance.  Just saying that name right now will stir up a debate, maybe a fistfight, or even a verbal abuse session that you would not be proud of in Sunday school.  Love him.  Hate him.  Hate to Love him.  Love to Hate him.  I'm sick of it.  Sick of all the ignorance about cycling and cheating and doping and anything that makes people so stupid.  I know who Greg Le Monde is and what he did, but it did not get me on a bike.  Somehow years later the stars where in-line the planet was just right and this brash fellow Texan beat cancer and then Le Tour.  I got on a bike.  No, not a road bike, but a mountain bike.  I can't fully credit Lance with my cycling addiction, but he did have a part in it.

After my transition to becoming a cyclist, every July I was glued to the internet to see how the cycling world was doing.  Time passed and I learned more and more about cycling.  Lance became less and less the center of my cycling universe.  I learned names like Merckx, Hinault, Indurain, Museeuw, and Copi.  Lance kept on winning and I dug deeper into cycling.  Who knew there were other races other than Le Tour?  Spring Classics?  I fell in love with the Hell of the North.  I wanted to know what was up with the yellow and black flags?  The people dressed in orange?  What's a Tifosi?  The more and more I learned of the cycling world and history, the more it seemed to eclipse the Sun that shone of Lance.

Don't get me wrong, I hold a special place in my cycling universe for Lance, but he is by no means the center.  Did he?  Didn't he?  I don't care.  I don't.  You probably don't know this, but it really does not matter.  What he did Clean or Dirty, is still a part of cycling.  Strip him of his titles, he still stood on top of all those podiums, you can't take that away.  Can we just move on?  Can we let this dead horse lie?

We have the most beautiful sport in the world.  It is a sport that is also a lifestyle.  When was the last time you saw someone run a football to work?  Hit a baseball to the grocery store?  It is such a beautiful thing that people who do not participate have to try and break it down... because of sheer jealousy.  Don't let the masses soil a beautiful thing, don't stoop to their level when they ask about cheating and doping.  Remind them how beautiful our sport can be.  Tell them about cobbles, le alp, the Hoy, about your commute to work, the Saturday morning ride, the guy that lost 80lbs because of a bike.  Tell them.

Tell them why you ride your bike.

Hoop La

So glad basketball is over, sorry if I don't share your fascination with bandwagon jumping.  Anyway, had to get that off my chest.  Holy crap it is that time of year.  Grab a cold one, drink it down and talk some crap.  Yes, it is le Tour time.  The big question is...Who is going to win.  I don't care who wins, it is le Tour!!!!! Hey people can you tell me who won the Giro?  No?  Really?  Did anyone even watch the hardest stage race ever?  Man, I've given Garmin crap...but they pulled out an incredible win with one of our neighbors to the North.  Ryder killed, and how awesome was Rodriguez?  What a race that nobody talks about.  Yeah well at least you have your Tour.

Am I the only one who thinks that Bradly should shave those freaking sideburns?  Seriously Elvis is dead and very American, you can't pull it off.  Who has money on Cav pulling out early for the Olympics?  What's the Vegas odds on that?  Is there going to be anyone left at the Tour in the end?  Tom is riding Poland just to be fresh for the Games.  I don't know what the course is going to be like in London, but if it is anything close to a Classic, then my money is on Tornado Tom.  Said it, wrote it!  Gonna miss Tom at le Tour.  We do have an interesting situation brewing with Cav, Renshaw, Goss, Greipel, Oss-Sagan, Kittel all vying for the green jersey.

Wow, I can't make any predictions for this edition of the race around the French country that starts in Belgium.  I will predict that at this point it is as wide open as it can possibly be.  Teams are coming loaded for bear, and the riders are in crazy form.  If you are not excited for this Tour, change the channel and watch some baseball or extreme knitting on PBS.  Bob Ross reruns and a sixer might be the cure for you.

That's it for now, my ranting is at an all time low.  I have not been drinking enough.  Had to cut back.  As far as Andy being out of the Tour, I would much rather see Frank, but heck I've kinda given up on those two.  Evans for the repeat?  Wiggo?  Levi?  I'm not saying.  Stay tuned for either more or nothing...

What? Me? .....NO!

This has all been said before, so you can stop reading right now.  No, really you can stop... because I have said it once, twice, three times a lady.  This thing, this tool, this toy that has many names.  The bi-wheeled contraption.  What ever it is to you, it is a very important part of my life.  I rediscovered the bicycle 14 years ago this month.  The snow was melting on the Wasatch and I heard of a Texan that was racing bikes in a place called Tour de, or something like that.  I swore off spandex and decided that the fat tires were just the thing for me.  I loved to snowboard on the mountains, might as well put some rubber down on them.

Fast forward a few years and the bike moved with me to the no-mountains of Oklahoma. I was a big time mountain biker from Utah, what could I possibly learn in OK?  Everything.  I sacrificed blood and flesh to the "mountain" that we call Turkey.  Humble pie is not a tasty thing.  I was schooled every time knobby touched rock and root.  Don't get me wrong, I am not what I would consider a "good" rider, but I do have fun and I acquired the skills to do what makes me happy.  In my book that is all that maters, anything else and you are way to serious.  Have fun.

The problem with addiction is that you reach a point and you have to have more, and once you get more, you need more.  And the cycle continues.  [no pun]  [ok, maybe just a little]  I was bummed on the days that it was too wet to ride Turkey and I did not want to ride my mtb on the road.  So.  Naturally I bought a road bike.  Still swore off spandex. Then a funny thing happened. Tulsa Tough.  I was already a cycling fan, thanks to Lance, but now I had the chance to see it up close.  Close enough to feel the wind of the draft blow by like a gust front.  The sound of freewheels on a downhill, the shifting of gears transmitting through a carbon wheel, the zip of hundreds of chains being turned in anger...

I was hooked, even more so than before.  Addiction turns into obsession turns into a lifestyle.  Admittance is the first step?  I'm a sick junkie.  Get the Thorazine, find a nice "hug yourself jacket", padded cell for one -please.  I look at porn on the internet, yes I will admit it.  I go to sites like Colnago.com Cicli Pinarello Dedacciai Ridley etc etc etc.  What can I say, I have a problem, and I like Italian sexiness and Belgian prowess.  It does pain me so that I do not own a Campy groupo.  Oh, to have Italian sexiness firmly in my grasp, with a freehub that speaks "bedroom".  Someday.

This is only a few steps above shooting heroin or snorting lines.  Eat, sleep, dream.  Bikes.  I don't have room in my life for anyone who does not think the same way.  I surround myself with junkies, I try and convert "regular" people into cycling.  If you are crazy and you can get more people to think and act the way you do, the less crazy you look.  It's a cult, want to join? Would you like some cool-aid?

Water Carrier

I can't tell you how much I hate reading cyclist's blogs about how they did in their last race.  I mean seriously post some pictures of yourself and tell all of us how much you love you.  I'm tired of just the total self love out there, and really, if you are gonna write about you, you might as well tell the truth.  What happens in races and what gets transformed into words seems to take a transformation that just does not seem to equal the sum of the parts.  I'm not throwing stones at anyone in particular, I'm just being general.  Truth in journalism, I mean blogs.

With that being said... I raced this race the other day, and I was so awesome I was asked on the spot to become PRO and race in Europe.  Just like that.  True story.  Then I woke up realized I had been asleep and decided to make some coffee and breakfast.  I did race a race the other day for the first time in, a long time.  It was a un-retirement ,it's not that I retired -I just have not had the time or money.  Wait for it, it is coming... the point to this.  Don't skip ahead and spoil the ending.  You silly monkey.

Can't tell you how good it felt to turn blood into acid, lungs into barbed wire, and legs into cement.  I love that feeling of turning ones-self inside out, because one can.  It is not a self-loathing torment, but rather a rendering of ones soul on a physical level that has the power to heal.  The true feeling of goodness is when you do this with people you share a common bond, or a common jersey and bibs.  I'm talking about my teammates.  Teammates that work and suffer together for a common purpose.  Selfless teammates that know, that understand what they need to do to accomplish greatness.

Cycling is not a stick and ball sport.  Cycling is about teammates working together so that only one can claim victory.  Yes, there is only one First Place, and there can be only one winner.  Why would you enter a race and not try and win?  Who does this?  That is just so stupid not to try and win every time you toe the line.  I feel that there is no explanation as to why I would work rather than win, but it is an argument waiting to happen.  Eddy Merckx once said that a Belgian child knows more about cycling than the United States does collectively.  There is some truth to that.  There are Stars and there are Water carriers.  The true power lies in knowing which one you are.

I'm gonna flip it on you this time... in life you need to know for what or who you are working.  Going for the Win might mean different things to different people.  Knowing your station in life and doing that job to the best of your ability is true LIVIN'.  You are not what you do...

 "you are not the contents of your wallet." -Tyler  FC

Box of chocolates

Life is like riding a bike -sometimes there is work involved, sometimes you have a tailwind and you feel like a god.

I've been getting worked over right now, but I feel that there is a turn coming up and this crosswind is going to become into a tailwind.

I'm not feeling entitled, I'm just a romantic and I have hope.  What is life without a little hardship every now and then?  You have to have hills valleys, mountains canyons, or it is just flat.  There is nothing to see when it is flat. 

Here is to Livin, no matter if you are up or down, it is not always about where you are going but how you get there.

Devil is in the details

I've looked at "details" and there is no "v" in details so how do you get the devil?  Do you trade the "a" and "t" and throw in the "s" for good measure?  I think there is something to the saying, but making sure you get the small steps done in a process is the devil.  If something is worth doing, do it right.  The right way.  Enough, about that.  I think the Devil is in the Drink.  Lately my life has been crazy and turned all kinds of sideways, not upside down like everyone says.  But, Sideways.  Like any good red-blooded male I like to self-medicate and hyphenate.

Details, details, details.  You drink enough and you will find the devil, he might not be in the bottom of the first or last bottle, but he is in there waiting to come out and infest your soul.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to demonize alcohol, it is, on it's own a beautiful thing.  It's when one is not a professional in prescribing the right dosage that one will succumb the the wily powers that are inherent to the bowels of Hades.  The problem lies in the fact that the proper prescribed amount changes due to the ailment.  This becomes a problem when you reach the Over rather than the Under.

So, in my finite wisdom, I being of unsound mind am going to try sobriety.  If only for a couple of days, just to see if the world in which I am living in currently looks any different from the outside looking in, rather than from the inside (of a bottle) looking out. What does this have to do with cycling?  I'm working on that as I type and hypothesize, and to be honest it's not going well.  So I am going to keep this up until something hits me and I can try and tie this all together, or I could just leave it up in the air and just leave you with a hypothetical.

Yeah, I've got nothing.  I guess what I should come away with this, is -make the best of the situation that I am in and not eff   mess it up by going crazy.  Like getting too much rope to play with and accidentally hanging myself.  Here you go... It's like a descent that is supper fast and twisty, one that you have never been on, you want to let it out, but you don't know what is around the next curve.  Sometimes you have to apply a little brake just before the apex, but not too much or you are on the ground losing flesh at 30+mph, don't slow down and the consequences are worse, once you see the other side you can get back on it an apply some power.  My advice to myself it to take it one twisty tight curve at a time and see where this takes me.  If you are not careful the Devil could be in that corner waiting like a oil-slick or a patch of gravel.  If it wasn't for the twisty downhills the uphills would not be worth climbing.