Day one of 365 in 2013

So I'm starting of the New Year right, I'm trying to produce a metric ton of snot.  Yeah you heard me right, sounds funny, but it's snot.  I have been fighting a sinus infection for about a week and a half.  Two doctors visits, two prescriptions, a shot in the arse and I still feel not so bueno.  Enough about me.  Seriously, how much mucus can your body produce?  This is crazy, in the last couple of weeks I'm sure I have pound for pound equaled my body weight.  At least once or twice.  So, it can only get better from here, Right?  That's right... Positive.

I am not making any resolutions or changes for this coming year.  I'm just going to take it as it comes, and make the best of it.  That being said, I would like to be a little more consistent with things (writing).  Don't want to jinx things, just trying to get off on the right foot.

I haven't been on the bike much, one because of the weather and two because of being under said weather.  I really want to ride the MTB more this year, and I want to do it in other states.  I want to use my car even less this year.  Wow, this really sounds like resolutions.  Na, it's not, just being hopeful for the New Year.

Well so stay tuned, and see where this goes... I could possibly talk about cycling, life, funny stuff, gossip, dirty laundry, jokes, secrets, history, chemistry, algebra -I'm not so good at math.  Anyway keep tuned in and we will see if I can stay on a roll and continue making letters into words and stuff.

See you out there on the trail, road, and in the shop.

Lies

How many people are going to tell lies tonight.  Lies to themselves.  Here is a PSA for all of you who are planning to LIE.  Don't do it.  I know it sounds so simple to just not lie, but it is not... It is a night of lies.  For exhibit A:  I'm going to _______ next year.  That is the biggest lie that will be told tonight, it is usually made under good intentions, but mostly made under social/peer/traditional pressure.

1. be true to yourself and don't say something that you are not

2. shoot low, I know this sounds wrong, but seriously... lower your expectations

3. don't change anything, slightly modify something... stop smoking crack -switch to cigarettes

The worst thing you can do to yourself is to lie... it's ok to lie to your friends and family, but don't lie to yourself.  Someone said that "change is the only permanent thing in life" this is truth.  You can resist change you can try to change, or do nothing.  It will happen no matter what forces you apply.  So you might as well pull up a chair pour a nice beverage and sit back and enjoy the show.

I had a weird year last year.  Some of it was really good, some not so good, but none of it was a product of me trying to resolve to do something different.  I did not change my life on 12/31/11, it changed in the subsequent 365 days, no matter the influences I practiced.  So on this eve of the New Year I wonder what the next days have in store for me.  I will resolve to not be resolute in this newest of years, 'cause time will continue no matter the piles and piles of lies that are spoken tonight.

One last final suggestion if you decide to not follow my anti-resolution stance.  Drink so much that you forget anything and everything that you resolved to do... world peace, stop drinking, stop smoking, getting a real life, stealing cable, pirating movies, stealing lunch money, other bad things.

No really, have fun, be safe, live to fight another day... year or two.

Past-Present...

Ah, the changing of the seasons.

I write this as it is freezing outside, I'm supposed to be on the bike riding right now... Yeah, just don't have the motivation to get out and freeze.  Not yet at least.  It was like eighty degrees just a few days ago, give me a break, and my body has not acclimated to this brutal temp swing we call Oklahoma weather.  Plus I recently had a birthday and my age is making me old and feeble.  You know how it is...

 Last week I was in Amarillo, TX hanging with the parental units and riding my bike.  They love to chase me in the car and I like to pretend that I am Pro and have a team car.  We both win.  It's always good to go home, it's kind of a marker of life.  Like the marks on a door frame measuring growth.  You can measure yourself of where you are in life by going home and seeing your parents and the old house.  Memories seem to flood back at every turn.  Old pictures hanging on the walls, smells, and faces of the past all bring ones life into focus.  It's like seeing a movie that you have seen before, but not in the right order.  Seasons change as does life, it is cyclical.  Birth, Life, Death, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter.  One follows the other and the circle is unbroken.  We do the best we can with what little time we have, or at least we should.

The seasons are a changing, both literally and figuratively.  I am at a place in my life where winter is right around the corner and I know it is going to be rough, but I am really hoping that the spring will bring new life.  I'm trying to keep a positive outlook.  I really am.  Sometimes it gets tough, but it is like the cold, you just have to acclimate to it and everything will seem better.  And.  When it is better, it is much better.  Time marches on and if you don't watch out, it will leave you in the past.

Seasons change, time continues on.  Palo Duro Canyon is a time capsule of my life.  My Grandmother witness the birth of the Canyon way back when.  I remember the Canyon from as far back as I have memories.  It changes with the seasons, but it is still the same.  The layers of sediment slowly stacked on top one after the other erode away by time.  It too is a never ending cycle.  There are layers that I spent my childhood, youth, and now adulthood, slowly building -yet at the same time washing away.  It is a beautiful but almost horrible thing all wrapped up into one.  The trails in the Canyon have been walked by people long gone, and they will be walked by future generations.  This area is alive with rich history and with the future all contained but open.  It is a living picture of what we call life, a tactile thing that we can touch the past, present and tomorrow all in one instant.

The next time I visit the Canyon I will be the same old me, but with a new-old memories.  I will look at the Canyon walls and remember.  As I drive the road out I will be sad knowing it will be some time before I will be back, but happy with the new imprint that I just made.    

Stuff to read

This is going to be all over the place, and I'm not handing out maps.  So stick with me and we will get lost together.

A happy little story lives here

First off, I would like to give a posthumous Happy Birthday to Bob Ross.  What an awesome afro. There is no debate as to the perfectness of Bob's afro.  Legendary.  Oh yeah, and he had the craziest show on PBS.  "Let's put a happy little cloud over the mountain, where these happy trees live..."  Bob would be on my short list of people I want to party with, if he were still around making "pretty little rivers where happy fish  live."  I always wondered, laying on the couch, if there was at least one person sitting in front of their easel, in front of their TV painting with Bob?  That would be a show to watch.  Some old dude trying to go brush-stroke for brush-stroke with Bob and getting all frustrated because Bob is super awesome.  The frustration would be hilarious... Somebody work on that, a show where people watch re-runs of Bob and try and paint with him.  It would be primetime.

Doping and the Dopes

I think it is starting to become the "in" thing to do theses days, you know to come out of the "doping closet".  It's getting so bad that everyone is saying that they cheated in some way or another.  I'm just waiting for someone to come out and say they used a time machine to win.  "When I perfected time travel, I no longer needed to work on form or stay in shape..." "It was easy to win even when I smoked heavily and was drunk most of the time."  Now that is a story, please please please let me be the one to break it to the world.  It is almost to the point that guys need to come forward (all ten of them) and come clean about being clean.  "Yes, I am ashamed to say... I raced clean."  I mean really, who of who did not do something in the "grey area" to enhance their performance?  That is what I want to know.

More on Doping.... moron doping  -see what I did there?

Rabobank announced it will cease sponsorship of cycling.  What a sad day.  One of the longest and largest supporters of cycling, from the cycling mad Dutch, are turning their back on cycling when it needs it most.  Sponsorship of sports in general is crazy if they think they are putting their money into a "clean" sport.  There is not a sport on this planet that can claim it is clean.  The human condition requires that winning at all cost is the name of the game.  Cheating is and always will be an underlying factor, as long as humans are involved.  End of story.

The Good

Cyclocross is alive and kicking.  The World is coming to the U.S. in Feb.  Real CX.  The World's best will be jumping barriers, navigating sandpits, and slogging it up in the mud.  Right here.  Here in America.  How cool is that?  I tentatively have a date to see the "greats" of this sport.  I am super excited to witness the speed, the grace, and the brutality that is Cyclocross, live and in person.  More to come on that.  Fingers crossed.

over n out, good buddy, keep the rubber side down.

Missed you...

Rumors to my demise are greatly exaggerated... or something like that.  I know it's been awhile, but I have excuses.  Like, my dog ate my netbook, I have been on a mental vacation, I don't have anything to write about.  Yeah, I know.  Lame.  Doping doping doping.  If I could dope to make me a better writer, oh heck yes I would.  Cheat to win baby.  That's the 'merican way.  Tired?  There's a pill for that.  Fat?  There's a pill for that.  Sad?  There's a pill for that.  Slow?  There's a pill for that.  Soft?  There is even a pill for that.

I'm doping pretty hard this morning, I'm like on my 4th cup of coffee and it is not helping my ability to tap-a-tap-a on the keyboard.  I recently attended a Wednesday Night Ride afterparty and some friends mentioned the fact that my blogging had been lacking.  So, push comes to shove and now I am writing just to write.  So bear with me, I'm am trying to get back into "writing shape".  You gotta walk before you can run.

So, I've been working at the shop, riding my bikes and have been dabbling in some Cyclo-Cross.  Yes, it is CX season and we are elbow deep.  I have a love/hate relationship with Cross.  I love Cross.  I hate how I feel one lap into a race, the feeling that the body is failing one system at a time.  Muscles refusing to work, lungs trying to escape the chest.  My mind slowing down time so that the seconds turn into mins and 45 of them feels like a life sentence in a burning building.  This is Cross.  The dark side, the dirty little secret that is not really a secret at all.

So you ask why do you love Cross?  It's beautiful in a hard dirty way.  You take what is essentially a road bike and race it off road in the worst of conditions.  It is a test of man and machine that pushes the limits of both to the point of failure.  Not only does one need spare wheels, but it is standard operating procedure to have a spare bike in the pits.  I love the harshness of the sport, how refreshing it is to be cold, filthy, and filled with pain.  It is not easy.

This has been painful -not in a good way, but I hope it will lead to more words floating through the cloud to you.  So see you next time and maybe it won't be three months from now...

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.