Mini-Apple-Sauce

Small Children Fear Him.


Starting out at Cars-R-Coffins Coffee Bar.


IF Steel in Johnny Mohawk Black.


"Seriously, are you gonna finish that?"


Joining Johnny on his morning commute to Quality

9 Mile Spokecards

Take It and Run

I took another step toward my GED in simple bike maintence today by replacing the bottom bracket on the Niner. Last year's Giant is now simply a parts swap waiting to happen, but it had its time and that time has been over for quite a while. The bike's ready. I'm ready.

As Sam pointed out tonight, alcohol is legal in Wisconsin, so clearly they are ready too.

Dallas coined a great phrase in the comments to the last post. We do have the makings of the "Rigid Rumble." It will be interesting to see how many Solo Single Speeders are in effect and what portion of those are rigid.

Heading up to Minneapolis on Wednesday to hang with the man called Mohawk. Coffee Thursday will certainly come from the CRC coffee bar and, depending on Johnny's schedule, I may take the tour around Quality. This is exactly what a brother needs.

The Boxed Bee has your Breck 100 report. And a few bones to pick.

Bill of Sale

I'm a freaking consumer.

Bike Feed: SwitchBlade Fork. Jones XR 2.2/2.25. Giant 225.
Mind Feed: "Labyrinths" by Borges. "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" by Flynn.

Spent Saturday in and out of the shop. On and off the Trail. Switchblade is installed and ready for 9 Mile. Bearings are shot, totalled, an alien workshop constantly active as a pedal. Nothing lasts.

Spent today watching/volunteering at the State Games Tri. Wide array. One gal pulled over in front of me and could barely get "won't shift" out through her heavy breathing. I look and she can't go any lower. I show her the situation and watch her eyes go wide. I grab the pom-poms and get her back in the game. "Team Blondies." I hope they finished.

Secret Weapon.

Secret Society.

Music by Braid. Frame and Canvas.

Ballad of Jan Ullrich

The "Patron Saint of Single Speeding" needs a gig. I may joke about having a Jerry Springer Lifestyle, but holy German Soap Opera. Win the tour, gain weight, lose weight, come in second, come in second, come in second, come in second, come in second, kick it at a rave, wreck your sports car, come in second, Lance steps aside and then you get drilled for doping.

In honor of the fallen, I will be riding 9 Mile over weight, over geared and drinking German beer. (You're thinking that would have happened anyway and you are right, except for the beer.)

Pictured: Paddy talking Dallas off of the ledge.

Floyd

"I'm telling you man, I came to win the whole race. Not just a stage."

Passion.

Back

5:30am in Denver. Cherry Creek Res. in the distance.


Rental Steed. Apparently, the shop we rented from sees a lot of chumps or I simply look like one. I started to leave the shop with the bars turned sideways and no pedals because I brought my Candies and know how to turn bars. The girl behind the desk didn't seem to think that was really the case. Had she ended each of her sentences with, "you dumbass" the conversation would have been exactly the same.


"Is this thing on?"


Pretty. Boring. Pretty Boring.


(Read the following in your best Dr. Suess voice) This is Mike. Mike and his rental bike. Compared to when I met him, Mike is now Mini-Mike. Great job, Mike.


102 degrees. Nearly three hours on the bike. All this water didn't make me feel any better.


Nice camera strap, Dumbass. Love, Ansel Adams.


Other highlights.

A bumper sticker which read, "Who Would Jesus Bomb?"

Discovering a client I was visiting had a office on Pearl Street in Boulder, then having to go there twice.

Chatting with Kris, our guide during our Novice white water rafting run from the front of the boat. Hope you make it to Costa Rica.

Having Kris try to knock me out of the boat because I was always turned around talking to him.

---

Thanks to everyone who contacted me about riding. Unfortunately, I wasn't ever in a situation to really plan a good ride and get ahold of anyone. It was get up at 5:15am or sneak away at a moments notice to get some miles in.

Bandwagonesque

Mr. 24 provided his thoughts. Fat Marc mulled its effects on his soul. Now they have contacted the Snob.

Accelerade has offered the sampler platter to yours truly for a review. I am still mulling it over, but am leaning toward "why not."

Read more on thier product here.

Got specs for the frame today. Concerned a bit about the difference between the top tube and seat tube lengths. 58 and 50 respectively. I like the old school down over the bike style, but I also don't feel like breaking a lot of seatposts. Think I will give the Boys a call and discuss.

More from Denver.

More Mouse

Heading out to Denver tomorrow for SIC. I hope to have a camera with me. We drove last year and are flying this year. I'll take it. Bikes are rented, routes are planned. I think I can sneak in enough mileage to keep things going in the right direction.

"This is a long drive for someone with nothing to think about." - Modest Mouse

Rock the Vote

The Bad Idea Racing boys need your love and voting attention. They entered a Race Face Contest which would allow them to be the first single-speed team to push pedals in the TransRockies.

The Old One - Two

Wisconsin State Single Speed Championship:

1. CreepyFriendly

2. The Darkness

Then everybody else...

"More Clowns on More Bikes More of the Time"

Seven wrote that on my office white board this week. It won't be coming off for quite a while.

It pains me to miss Manawa this weekend, but this should be the last event I have to miss. There's a silver lining there somewhere. And as far as events go, I'm with Paddy.

We had a Segway hoax at the office today. I fell for it with both barrels firing. Rumor was that our CTO had purchased a Segway. This is the same guy who I helped purchase an IF two years ago. When hearing about the Segway over lunch, my initial comment was, "Well, then I am taking his fucking IF." (Pictured) As we drove back from lunch, it dawned on me that Sir Wilhelm had once used a pretty good line to me that applied in this situation.

A few of you may remember a couple of years ago when we were getting together for winter trainer sessions in the basement of D St. At one point that winter, my car wouldn't start and friends of ours offered to let us borrow one of their cars. The drove it over and the car turned out to be a Hummer.

Being a fan of irony, I drove it over to D St. one day and starting rocking the workout, when Tony came flying downstairs. "Whose fucking Hummer is that?" I raised my hand without a word.

"Where's your fucking dick!?!"

There was then a moment of awkward silence as there was probably some question as to whether or not I would be pissed, but it was all good. Tony got filled in on the deal and it became funny.

The Segway also turned out to be nothing. It was made of legos and was only a few inches tall.

Denver on the Company Dime

The work induced road trip has now been prepared to keep the mileage rolling with 9 Mile in mind. It will be road work during the week and I hope to hit it mtb style on Sunday morning. I opted to skip the "teambuilding" atv outing but did sign on for the rafting trip Sunday afternoon.

If someone can explain to me how riding around on atvs can constitute "team-building" and do it with a straight face, I am happy to retort and tell you why you are wrong.

For those of you scoring at home, that's Sunday the 16th if anyone is free out in the Denver area.

Tour Du Tick

Four more hours covered yesterday. Tried to hit a few more hills and ended up hurting a bit on the way back to Wilderness. Over-reaching leading to over and nearly out. After I returned and changed I was walking out to take my favorite punk rock fixed gear riding sitter home, when I managed to go dizzy for a second and slam into the door jam. Whoops.

Did have the usual MG siting in Wilderness the second time through and he was joined by Jesse. No ticks though. Almost disappointing.

Paint has been redialed with IF on the Cross Frame. Speaking of cross, it's taking over my brain and I can't even say I have ran a complete mtb race yet. WTF? Half the time I was riding yesterday, I was thinking of cross. I've got problems.

Corey keeps leaving sidewalk chalk messages on my front step. I am thinking of getting David Lynch to direct the movie if this keeps up. A Gimp handed man leaving messages scralled in sidewalk chalk seems quite "Lynchian" to me.

Running the Tick Gauntlet

Took off for a bit of a pedal pusher after 10am today. Wilderness to gravel grind to Wilderness and home. Tried to keep a nice tempo going but held back a bit in Wilderness to keep it safe. Some sections are grow out enough that visibility can be sketchy. Not to mention that you are running a tick gauntlet. It's not a matter of if you will have some friends with you when you finish but how many (I found three.) Saw MG and Emily out as well. Somehow I missed the little rainshower that dropped. Hope they did too.

Riding the same time again tomorrow. Most likely the same type of route too, whether depending.

Happy Fourth.

Wilderness 102...

As in degrees.

Spent about three hours on the Fascist Killer today, most of it in Wilderness. Empty. Dry. Therapy.

Opened up the legs a bit and, as the Euros like to say, felt good sensations. I like the heat.

Found a green dildo as I rolled through the South parking lot. Free is good, but not in this case.

Pic's of Matt P at the 12hr.

I Smell Tour

Aside from the spring classics, The Tour is when I really dial into road racing. I have a few things I do like clockwork as the Tour approaches.

A. Order Cable. I am too cheap to have digital cable all year. I tried it once by letting a "Tour Subscription" run long, but the value isn't there. I probably watched at total of ten channels and most of them for an hour or less a week. In fact, if I could simply get the Daily Show and the Tour as some sort of bizarre custom package, I would probably be happy. So, cable for 30 days max and done.

B. Talk about setting up and office Tour pool and then not doing it. I don't know what my problem is here. This will seem like a good idea for about ten minutes and then I drop it.

C. Start imitating Phil and Paul during the day. Never fails. Random quotes in a pathetic British accent such as, "This man is on the rivot" and "resplendant in yellow" start jumping out of my yap.

D. Crack on Jan Ulrich. For obvious reasons, though he's my pick this year.

E. Feel for Jan Ulrich. I too am a porker who can't quite get in shape.

F. Eat Brie and Apples. Pathetic but tasty. Usually done on a weekend morning during a key stage. "The Look" occurred with an apple slice sticking out of my mouth.

G. Get bummed on Doping. Wears you down. Bums you out. Pisses you off. And on and on. 22 of 58 potentially? "It's nothing to be proud of Rusty."

Would someone please rock a Dopers Suck jersey on a rest day? Rest days are boring.

I would pay for a full year of cable just to see that.

Thinking 9 Mile

I took a visit to The Scene today and see that Butch, CVO and Corey have decided not to saddle up in Wisconsin and instead rock the 162 the weekend prior. Can't blame them a bit. I plan to join them for the first 40, then turn around and ride back to Lincoln. 80 seems right the weekend before going 24.S.SS.

Corey alluded to coming with to Support. Thanks Dawg. (Next time, you've got to own the Woody Allen.)

I'll be making one change to the Niner before hand. Switchblade.

If anyone has an overview of the course, I would love to hear about it via email (or post if you get your blog on.) I plan on getting there with enough time to preride, but a good description never hurts. I know Mr. 24 has described it as fast, painfully so.

Still a little paranoid about the fitness side of life. I can't quite settle into the hurt, like you can when your feeling nicely fit. It's coming back though.

Operation Ivy is playing a little too loud for my Mother-In-Law right now. (Yes, that is a shit eating grin on my face.)

Wookin' Pah Nub

Lots of Brothers in the Cycling World are looking for an assist for one reason or another. Consider this an EnduroSnob Public Service Announcement.

Dave Nice. Some of you may remember Dave from TransIowa. He was riding the Great Divide Race, stopped at the side of the road for a sleep and someone five fingers his bike and gear. Scott Taylor from Salvagetti Bicycle Workshop is trying to gather some funds so he can continue. I believe they are setting up a PayPal account or you can email me if you want Scott's phone. I am going to be sending Dave his Epic registration bike. He's in for free.

Harlan Price. Leading the National Ultra-Endurance MTB Series can tap a person's mind, body, soul and wallet. He's sitting solid with IF in his corner, but winning ain't easy. You gotta go West at least once in that series. Harlan's got contact and PayPal info on his blog.

Speaking of the IF Team, Buck is trying to get to Stockholm to defend his XC/Go-Cart ominium victory at last year's SS Worlds. I thought I had read somewhere that Elk was putting on a bake sale to help, which I love. Attendence may be tough but you can always email Buck and Elk has more info posted on his blog (Scroll Down).

I'm beat and my saddle is sore. Snob out.

Committed

I officially entered 9 Mile this weekend. SS and Solo. We will see how it goes. I know when I pit I will potentially see Sam, Butch, Corey, CVO and possibly Cameron depending on timing. I imagine he'll be in and out while I am drinking that beer CVO is going to hand me. "Thank you, Sir. May I have another?"

A few Randoms:

SingleSpeeders, Joe needs our help.

Mr. 24 has been Mr. 12.

DNB - Does Not Blog.

Maybe too heavily referenced but just fucking inspirational.

"When life hands you a lemon say, 'I like lemons, what else have you got?'" - Henry Rollins