Real numbers?

 The googles here say maybe 9-11 people read this stuff.

Seems about right. That's like at least 7 more than I know about... 

And yeah sometimes it is true i kind of write with an audience in mind but then most of the time find myself correcting and not assuming and that helps define the words and the directions. I write here more for me getting things sorted, documenting or other maybe just for sanity. Mix in habit and that's a web log, right? Remind myself that if i really want to talk directly to someone there are good/better ways to communicate than the blog. 

Wanted to reference a joke about typos and grammatical car crashes but that's why your here anyway - for typos and grammatical car crashes? (I fixed the spelling on grammatical for you- guess it has two 'm's)

I keep trying to do stuff the old way. The whole wake up, no calories just ride bikes. It used to work a whole hell of a lot differently when I was drinking 6+ tall boy beers a night. All that alcohol slowly being converted to fuel through the night and then the excess hanging out in the liver waiting to go somewhere. Now? Yeah, doesn't work that way. Also I think the whole lack of alcohol in the system means my body has kind of moved away from fat burning. I mean I'm still able to but the the ratio of CHO to FA burning is different. I think. It is a guess. Esp based on being a stupid dumbass motherfucker like I was sunday. Dirt Church on pure coffee and water. Guess what, after about 2 hours of low cadence singlespeeding, well...  I was starting to slow down and was tired all day. Also Tired because of being tired but also the fueling thing. Getting fully depleted. Couldn't find anything I wanted to eat at the store while grocery shopping, looked at the sushi longingly (it is actually freshly made there and not terrible) but $14 for a snack is still kind past my threshold. So I bout a small container of soft looking superfancy parm rinds and ate those. 1/2 pound of fancy super aged protein source at $5.99/pound is a nice balance. Anyway.

Got home ate food but that was late. Long time to go w/o many calories and the dinner the nightbefore was light on CHO. 

Kind of leaning more towards the dogma that Empirical Cycling is pushing, and really it isn't dogma, it is more science than that, makes sense. Esp now that I'm not an alcoholic. And I really need to remind myself to EAT FOOD BEFORE RIDING MORE THAN TO WORK and to bring food with me and at a minimum have calories in the waterbottles.

The riding was great. Singlespeed in the snow is tough, the mid-fat tires help but i still had a few washouts. Not as much of a struggle as the skinny tire folks. Most of the time I was just hanging on Steve's fat tire wheel. Until the very end, the last 20 min of the ride. 20 min too long. Ran. Out. Of. Gas. Not bonked just slow. More like limp mode than impaired. Just slow. Makes sense. Maybe I need to just get in the habit of making food while I'm making coffee and mix eating and drinking coffee in the morning instead of the old well ingrained habit of making coffee and drinking coffee and THEN doing everything else.

There's a long list of shit i had wanted to get to - but also this - and the weather? and all the ice this morning.

But I have a feeling i'm getting ready for another really challenging 2 hours starting in 6 minutes.

And my eating is all off. Was too late this morning to eat breakfast between getting to work and jumping on the zoom. So I ate it after at 11:30. Now I'm still not hungry and I have the 1pm call to jump on for two hours. And I need more coffee, but don't have time to make more. Or maybe I do.

Fuck

see.

blog

less about anything other than me not having anyone to talk to about all this, or not wanting to burden anyone by talking about it so I talk about it here. certainly better than saying all this on the social medias, no one needs to hear this, hell I shouldn't bother with this here either but gonna pick up on the thread in a couple hours 

/save as draft

oh daft punk...  that too

And that went even worse than I expected. Par for the fucking day. Time to eat lunch. Time is immaterial right?

That announcement about Pocket Media becoming Outside by buying Outside...  and Active Pass now gets you everything, or you can pick one of the uncountable numbers of magazines to get specific content for not much less? AKA like BETA. Also they bought atheleteReg? AKA BIKE REG? That's one that is kind of like um, huh, how about that? Weird.

This is pretty good, but somehow I think I've seen it before. Maybe. But there's so much shit packed in my brain it is still entertaining. If you've seen it and remember it don't bother watching, although it is still predictably funny.

P to the O G aka Mad Dog Media aka the funny cycling cartoon guy - shared this. Sure it is an Edward Abbey reference but if I was a podcast listener I'd say this one looks good. Good enough to get me to click and listen? maybe. Just right now.

Dicky's good 'tainment

I am envious of these next two linkages, both in the coherence of the collection of words but also the high level of thought behind them, or at least that's how it seems. And then the added bonus of really awesome pictures interspersed in Jill's. 

Oh, i was going to eat food. Maybe the evil radiation machine has warmed it up enough by now.

Lets go over here. Read. Then watch. then maybe don't come back. If you get to the end and don't watch the T. Monk stuff you're missing out. It is f'n GOOD.

Now Jill's that I referred to a little up there (after Dicky's stuff before KF's) is here - opening line is something very familiar: "I want to talk about anxiety" Okay, I'm hooked. Except I haven't read it yet.

Gonna do this again - (i have time before the next appointment - nature of support being available is half the battle and also why, as CTodd said of me years ago, I used to read the whole internet).

Getting back to Jill's (now that i've finally had a chance to read it). Anxiety. Yes. And while I haven't figure it out I have finally found a few things that seem to help. Also supposed to help with Thyroid function (even though there's that whole fun scare that was an anxiety nightmare trigger both after the dentist and the doc but then the blood work says whatever you're fine). Ashwaganda, that's the biggest one, seems to actually make a big difference. Like noticeable. Add to it the magnesium glycinate (the other salts don't work as well for me) and the regular Vit D and I've got a stupid couple pills I take everyday. I think about stopping but this is the second year in a row my Vit D levels aren't in the dangerously low range (I'm taking 2000 IUs/day) they are now just barely in the normal range, barely - still low but at least 'normal' whatever that is. 

Lots of looking and searching esp after i kind of panicked and thought maybe the ashwa G was maybe causing the Thyroid to go nuts, nope, turns out it is supposed to help. Go figure. Damn. No. I am not a doctor. I just have to deal with them all day every day. 

It has been a long time since i've had a melt down panic attack. Gotten close but I'm too familiar with them and general daily anxiety levels and stress are kind of subsurface ripples. always there. takes work to keep it in check. Maybe that's what it is like getting old. You just get better at managing your shit if you've lasted this long. And yes I love how she detangles stress and anxiety. Add in fatigue and depression and we're all set here for a nice party. Aka normal.

I still have a lot to figure out. 

Next up is how to get home in the pouring rain. Watching the line to snow but we're in the rain side and that's kind of the worst. Like so close to snow. But it means THE RAIN IS GOING TO BE REALLY FUCKING COLD.

So now that Daft Punk is split, well that kind of sucks, go play this (maybe after Thelonius is done) https://open.spotify.com/album/7u6zL7kqpgLPISZYXNTgYk?si=06_6nM-GR6m0w8_jLgt11Q

Oh - I looked at the vaccine timeline for the state...  screwed by the age group again. Just off. Gotta wait an extra 6 weeks at least (or longer) than the people less than a year older than me. Fun times eh? Not quite the last group, just the second to last group but the biggest gap between groups. Meanwhile almost all the WA state family is vax'ed. So that. I'll just sit here waiting my turn and wearing my mask and staying away from people. Like usual.

At least the bike path should be pretty well deserted for the ride home.

heddwch
G

Oh and those fucking hubs... need to order all the pawls, replace them, and maybe see if there's a good place to order stronger springs. Although i got thinking stronger springs might wear out the ring more and the pawls faster. Just need a LITTLE stronger, or maybe not? Ugh. if you're a big guy don't run these hubs.

Circle back? or not

 Recapture the thoughts? Or just capture the links.

It is 4:20 on a friday. The user that needed help wrapped up early.

I made a pot of decaf coffee. Yeah. Crazy. But I'm hungry (ate all food in office) want something and well this was here and even decaf in the super fancy Chemex Ottomatic is gooooood coffee. So it satisfies w/o adding to the excess caffeine that has plauged my last few days. And yeah that cycle, i'm an idiot. I know. 

Okay so  where was I?

Dunno.

Lets start here:

You can go see it on the IGs and the words but here it is in all its click through glory.

This was from the other night.

I dunno maybe I should just post the photos here, only here. But then the whole point is sharing them and unlike personal rambling words I'm okay with anyone seeing the photos I like.

It is still snowing. Probably not a colorful night. Maybe another good black and white commute night though. 

There wasn't enough snow to plow when I left this morning but I took the ebike anyway. Tired, figured a semi-rest day and less time on the bike might be good.
I keep circling back to the whole training side of things and fatigue level and absolutely how horrible at being an athlete I am. Too much other shit going on and always tired. 

Gonna head out soon, flat pedals are weird btw. But to be fair i've only pulled up and lifted my foot off of them a couple times, usually I some how manage to pedal pretty circularly w/o doing that. And I still def do not like double tap shifting. really. do. not. like. But again, to be fair, I'm not a fan of shifting as it is. Singlespeed! Or three speed, hill, flat, down...  Which is the same on the single speed. 

At least I remembered to charge the battery for the ride home. Also really like the integrated lights, but wish I could aim the headlight a bit higher. Kind of low. Good for other people, not for me. 

Instead of doing the planned deep dive - i'm just going to post links, finish this cup of decaf, listen to one more Avett Brother's song (all after I hit publish here) and then head home. 

Y'all be good. And yeah, it is almost march, ALREADY ALMOST MOTHER FUCKING MARCH AGAIN CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that.

To the links and then a snowy ride home:

https://www.geoffkabush.com/post/when-is-racing-going-to-feel-right-again

https://www.greateskape.com/adventure-journals/fktthegapco

https://lisarichardsonbylines.com/2021/02/12/speak-the-wild-words/

https://www.kentfackenthall.com/passing-a-note/

https://www.betamtb.com/culture/taylor-lideen-road-to-redemption/ (yeah it is hiding behind a paywall - posting it because it is in a tab I opened when i clicked on the SM post for the article and didn't realize it was behind the wall)

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/brandi-carlile-indigo-girls-icons-influences-1128881/  

heddwch
G

Figures

 Should have waited. But no, I've got a few minutes before my 2pm session. Lets read all tabs. 

Damn it now I have ideas to work through and get out and want to sandbox here and find some clarity from the crazy mess...

But I'm out of time.

but enough time that i'm thinking... huh I really should write that down and then realized what time it is and

just so fitting, so fitting that it felt like I wanted to make note of it, kind of like the blog in the old days, write it down here for me, because posting on the SM seems kind of pointless, would get lost in the RL and TC slam dunking going on.

maybe I'll circle back later...

heddwch
G

Tire woes eh?

 So you know that feeling when you are all ready to go and then grab the bike and the rear tire looks odd? Like i shouldn't be able to see the sidewalls from this angle...

and then you're like, well that's correct because IT IS FLAT

and the whole leaving early to get down to do a bunch of stuff that has to be done at the other place, yeah about that.

Change tire, it goes on by hand (because the tire lever slid off somewhere to hide after getting it off the Tubeless rim - tire has tube because tire isn't tubeless). 

No worries right? Head down there, find system broken. Need 8mm to check coolant level. Don't have 8mm in bag, everyone who has one that you could borrow one from left hours ago, and the 1,2,3mm wrenches won't cut it. 

Get home no problem. Funny thing is the flat was just age - the presta valve just slowly worked its way loose over time (see twitter for photo). Strange but that's actually one of the more common ways my tubes fail. Just over time, years and years. Had a tube in bag, used that. Got home.

Topped up the tire with the digital floor pump this morning - nice 45psi...  get ~4.5 miles from home and it is flat. And yes - it is seagull carpet bombing season. But a really close inspection doesn't reveal anything in the casing, it looks fabulous. but it is flat, what the fuck.

Oh well, i have a tube, grabbed one this morning. I have the pump, lets do this. 

Except... Yeah that little pokey thing. I don't have wire cutters and if you've played with wire beaded tires, that wire is not the weak stuff. It is tough. And strong and I was sure as hell not going to put a good tube in there. 

Maybe I could have bent it out but that other loop? How the fuck did that happen? Or the first one? I dunno but there it is. And well. Lets just put it on and ride it in flat.

That didn't last long. Tubeless tires work for doing that - not tubed. i was walking pretty soon after. Nice, long, walk.

here's a different view, so the planned early departure (got up way early just to get my slow diesel engine running in time to get out the door) to swing through with my tools to fix the system there got foiled.

Got here late, and the work I was supposed to do, well got it started finally and their experiment failed. So that was a failure. 

I'm chasing shit left and right and now just had to pause while waiting for a few things to just get this off my chest, talk about it I guess, share because that's what I do or something.

And yes, I have a couple tires in the office. A pair of  32c CX-3s that I brought in to give to Don but he found other tires before he came to pick them up. There's also an old PDX tubular that might have worked in a pinch, maybe, not sure that it holds air. 

The rear rim got some extra dings in it walking the 2.5 miles in, but nothing a little bit of 240 grit sand paper couldn't smooth out.

Ugh. Not sure I can trust the tire anymore, also I can't seem to make either the loop or the pokey bit move. And it definitely sits on the rim differently won't stay on (tried to just roll the bike with the beads on the rim, they walked off w/in a few rotations of the rear wheel. 

There's a list of other open tab stuff that's got a few threads of thoughts I have queued up...  

And the sky last night was awesome, and there's a snow storm coming, rumor is that it will last 36 hours but only accumulate 3 inches. 

And yeah supposed to start today sometime. 

And I'm down a rear studded tire. At least I have some tread for the rear and the studs up front. Losing the front on the ice is the bad thing, losing the rear is just drifting and shit, right?

So yeah. Just one rollercoaster eh? Fun times. And only the second time I've have to walk. Last time it was a busted chain and I was able to walk/scooter over to the shop and get that fixed. 

A walk is good, right? Esp when you're wearing big heavy warm winter cycling boots and it is 25°F outside.

Maybe more later but also maybe not, we'll see

heddwch
G

okay so that didn't help

 Shocking, take one day off and well. Now I'm even farther behind than I was before and not recharged enough for it to have made a difference.

Well done knucklehead. You're officially an idiot.

This did make me smile. 

This tool is the f'n best. Also I happen to have an extra one or maybe two, need to figure out how to give them to someone who would #1 use it, #2 might not be able to afford it ... and preferably not have to ship, but, TBH I'll ship it if you want one. Let me know. email is probably best...

Dealing with the fallout from the odd tax crap last week, sucks - more to do today and then going forward. Not enjoying the addition to the work and stress mountain. 

Saw this this morning. Read it to be clear. You should also read it, as uncomfortable as it is, awareness is important. And as Nome pointed out on twitter - there are a lot of people i call friends or follow that follow the guy who did this. Also anything other than an explicit yes is a no. Crazy that this is still important but it is, and more so now maybe. How do we reign back in the rampant disregard for others both on a personal individual level and a political level? Tough question w/o good answers.

I mentioned that I am not a cat thing, and me not finding it funny, at. all. Like not at all. Not funny. Didn't even make me grin or smirk or register any emotion. But I guess I'm in the minority. Jill pulled that SM reference in to her Friday Post (that you've probably already read because today is Tuesday and it was posted on Friday and I'm slow as hell). Also I really love the word ancillary. Not sure I can use it but I like it. I wonder if the Blurred lines is meant to trigger this song? And there folks is an unintentional link between the stuff i saw nome (and then the rest of the internet) breaking the news of and something unrelated but then again, lines are getting really mother fucking blurry around everywhere. But that aside is is a masterful tale about a ride. And those are the best.

Have to say I am also enjoying Dicky's web logs. Kind of almost like the olden days of blogdom. 

And yeah, this is spot on.

Almost posted it on Faceplace, posted that link, wrote a couple words...  and then closed the tab before hitting post, and got the "Hey there's some unsaved stuff in this tab, you sure?" Hell yeah I'm sure.

All this planned ditching of the stravas hasn't happened and then today got a nice thank you comment on the stravas for the updates on the bike path conditions. Guess I keep up with both till whenever i'm ready to just pull the whole SM plug and go rogue. I mean follow in KF's footsteps. And a handful of other friends. Downside really is, esp noticing lately, that there are people I'd see regularly that I really appreciated seeing regularly that I never see, hear from, talk to or know how they are doing because they either aren't on SM or if they are not the same platform or not following and well that's the same as not being there. That void is kind of shitty and from someone socially as fucked up as I am, or as DavidB said 'as shitty as my people skills are', well i guess it sort of feels important to be there - if not so i can gain some measure of connection or keep connections going but also not feel so damn alone.

Today on the ride in I agonized about which bike to ride. It was raining, two bikes with fenders (esp since the selfish fender failure last week or the week before). The surly (Marathon plus tires) or the Crossrip+ (Marathon winter studded tires). Crossrip has flat pedals tho and then what shoes do I wear? Went with Surly and full cycling kit (if you notice there's cadence on the Strava/RwGPS - that means I'm wearing my old XC-7s - no cadence means Wolfhammers or i'm in the crossrip+ in boots or something). Cycling kit was soaked, and I think might be dry. Means the office smells like formerly wet cycling kit. Not offensive but kind of not sexy unless you are really turned on by wet camping gear smells. Maybe it was just all that wet polypropylene base layers we work skiing and ski-camping that smelled like that. IDK. The gloves are dry, the tights are dry, even shoes are dry now (I had the fan on High instead of Low today). Lights are all charged.  Heading home friday the rear light I grabbed for the MTB, well... it wasn't charged. It was dead. Oops. Was that Friday? I don't remember. Maybe the day off did some good. Purged the brain a little.

I did mange to finally finish Harrow the Ninth. WOW what a fucked up book. Good? yes, masterful. But it. was. tough. for. me. to. get. through. Meanwhile the Machine by E. Bear was fabulous and now I'm between books and all the stuff I want to read is stuff everyone ELSE wants to read and I'm still not sold on actual reading, i kind of like the whole listening to books thing. I think those nights listening to Dick Estell read books on NPR had a big influence on me. I just like em. I also like reading and reading fast so there's that but lately just so tired. 

AND THAT brings me to the other thought, I'm way too fucking overtaxed to actually be a decent athlete right now. Recover? Fuck that. Rest? Here, try just enough for months on end. Rest days? No lets take any day off and fill it with stress inducing bullshit to deal with that isn't bullshit so you can't ignore it or rest or recover. The only defense is to slow down. BUT THAT ONLY MAKES IT WORSE, but still bearable is better than not. And even boss is saying to make sure I relax when I take time off now...  as little oversight as I have i think there's maybe some awareness of how much I'm struggling just to keep moving and how worn down I am. I also may have explicitly said as much to him in the last couple weeks.

And here we are - writing this in fits and starts (as probably evidenced by the writing) and it is getting late in the day. Where has the day gone? Too late to make more coffee? Maybe not. I dunno. fuck it - afternoon coffee time, I think i still have at least a scoop of decaf left. 

I think there were some thoughts I wanted to get down in the blog about going to 140mm on the fork, but maybe that'll wait a bit. Maybe this next storm will mean I'll commute on the MTB and see if I can tell the difference there.

be well y'all

heddwch
G

Couldn't find

 Glasses, rode home w/ naked eyes. It felt weird. At least it wasn't precipitating.

Grabbed a back up back up pair (all my good ones have broken - big head problems) and promptly found the pair i've been wearing pretty much non-stop since the last every day pair busted in the office - hiding under a chair. 

Rode the SSMTB in, gearing is good for going slow, right about the correct speed for in the woods around here. But slow on the bike path. Esp in the city. It is also creaking and complaining. Need to pull it all apart. Meaning the BB mostly. Def need to pull the hub and check the pawls. I think there's maybe a few that aren't in great shape. Hopefully the hub isn't trashed. Oh and maybe the longer travel shit is at the shop and I can go a bit bigger up front. Worst case? The experiment and knowledge is inexpensive. 

Went back and forth a bit on Stech about the cranks. Seems like the FC-M8100 is avail as 180, just not on the site. Figures. I mean not like anything is available there even if it is listed.

All this snow is kind of bumming me out. At least, well last year was a good one for not being too snowy and not interrupting the MTB'n. I think Dirt Church will be on break sunday. Weather is looking rough and trails are even worse. 

At least I remembered to grab the headlight. After I left the house though, but before I got out of the back yard. 

It was a nice warm 15°F this morning (only -9C or so). Headwind too. Put some thermal bibs under the jeans. Kind of like fleece lined pants except with a chamois. Super toasty. Also yeah, the boots. 45 North Wolvhammers. So good. My Job Lot gloves are getting kind of stinky. A little gross. Might need to retire them to the garbage after the season, if they make it that long. 

Feels more like just an exercise in writing right now. had a reminder of the friends lost recently... and the struggles others are having...

well - i think it'll still be light out for part of the ride home if i leave now

y'all have a good one

amor fati motherfuckers

heddwch
G

That was good

 At least until just now when i remembered I forgot to grab the light off the Crockett when I left with the MTB today. Oops. Backup light is on the kid's bike. At least there is enough daylight - just can't leave late.

Super easy riding in on the path that I plowed.

There was a dusting of snow last night. You can see, what was (after the last storm) edge to edge lumpy walked in ice/snow, is now more untouched and everyone seems to be using my plowed lane.

Had a couple issues with other traffic. This morning two walkers just flat out refused to step off the path out of the way. Like, okay, I know you probably don't realize I did this so I'll try not to get too mad at you.

Once I got to the part where I didn't plow it got really difficult to ride. Like maybe I should have moved over to the Parkway's shoulder, but I stuck it out and it worked. Just a lot of work. Amazing how much easier it was to ride on the path with the fatter MTB tires than the skinny studded tires. I mean it is just like riding a 2' skinny for miles and miles. 

This bike took some work but made it around the walkers safely, now just to keep an eye on the clock and make sure I head out before it gets dark.

Brought the stuff to make the new lube - need a good set up to do it. Maybe that's the motivation to clean up/remodel the workspace. But then I might never make it. I'll probably just keep thinking about it for now, although I don't know quite why i put the spare quart of mineral spirits left over from the last batch in my bag and took it work. Yet I totally DIDN'T GRAB A LIGHT. Make video of making chain lube, nah, not today. Just needed extra quart of ballast in addition to the ebike charger I forgot to take out of the backpack this morning. 

Did a quick search, just out of curiosity, Nope. No more FC-M8000 in 180mm length. Well, I guess I'm going to be getting a least one Dura-Ace crankset in the future, for the Crockett at least, if not for another bike. At least I have two pair of the FC-M8000s both on bikes but still, it is frustrating having something you need to pedal w/o causing chronic pain be discontinued. Hell even Rotor doesn't make a 180 MTB crank. 

Weird deep dive while trying to check three statuses waiting for a meeting to start.

best get to it

heddwch
G

that didn't last long

cutting back on the SM is working - have been good at avoiding all but DM interactions. The anti-social use of the socials.

Saw this tho: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/10/duke-sucks/#bhpd

scary, eh? Hopefully the work around is to both livestream on a platform that doesn't filter immediately, but also directly record the live stream to somewhere in the cloud where it can't get deleted for infringement. Good link digging in there if ya feel inclined.

The not lasting long? Getting the familiar pain from short crank, but not the lower back one, the one in my right testicle. It is weird. I can't explain it but when the back is stupid painful for too long, well that's what end result starts hurting (yes doc has looked at it and yes some OMM actually clears up that specific pain).

Of course I didn't really notice till i was part of the way in on the ebike today. yeah I was not feeling 100% this am so thought "yeah one more day of easy pedaling" and this time maybe I'll get usable HR data from the ride. Well. Def not riding it tomorrow. 

Also need to mix up the fancy new batch of chain lube. The special blend. Not that I expect to see much difference in performance. BUT it does solve the challenge of my lube from the retail end. The base stock in the OG formula has always been car motor oil. Going to try a legit bike lube as the base stock. AKA finishline wet lube, formerly known as Cross Country Lube. Debating filming it to do the social media share - at least photo document it. Although I should really clean up a "workbench" spot. Actually been playing with the layout in my mind a bit, would be nice to make space in the 'bike room' for a workstand and tool wall. Would mean re-configuring it all, but that's not a bad thing. I think I can make it work. But first I have to be like the man who took the insides out except, hopefully all the inside stuff will just happily stay in the back yard. Afterall most of the stuff in there are bikes that even if very rarely (and if rarely I hope they know it is because they are so special and see that as reverence and respect instead of neglect, see - ALREADY ANTHROPOMORPHIZING MY DAMN BIKES) and they get out more regularly than the piano. Oh, btw, anyone want an upright piano? Needs tuning, has great tone, free. Come and get it.

Maybe I need more niksen time, time to let the plans roll around and my mind wander. I suppose that's not the specific idea behind it, not to target one particular problem, but by affording yourself the opportunity to just be, sometimes those problems get approached differently. Personally I find the solutions usually show up in my head when I'm writing about them, or describing them to someone else or strike on something I hadn't even thought about until then. And not all the time but frequently enough when I'm asking for help or talking it through the solution presents it self to me w/o any external input, just the opportunity to voice it either orally or on digital word form. KF has a good post about niksen (sounds japanses, no?)

Oh and read this: http://www.jilloutside.com/2021/02/the-necessity-and-frivolity-of-personal.html Not sure if I linked it or not, but I finally got a chance to read through it. Really good. Lots in there, as always. 

Watched this over lunch: 

While a bit kind of boring video relative to other freeridy stuff, the end result photos are pretty cool. 

Gonna see if I can get home before it is totally dark. Was cold last night. Colder today, but at least not snowing. 

Here ya go, wrap up with this song that just started playing.

heddwch
G

time to take a SM break?

 why? what not?

things were pretty good-  there's a lot of bad shit going on, not trying to say it was good...

it was managable tho. now? fuck this whole trial is oddly causing some serious stress feelings, waves of dread and shit, i don't like it. I'm holding on pretty well, don't need this eroding what tenuous grip I have on it all. can't really afford to let go.

I mean I just sent an email i forgot about amidst all the other meetings and work, clicked the twitter tab and two pages of quick scrolling and it is all hearing stuff. 

Bossman brought up that he's saying he's noticed all the emails about me being at my max vacation balance, I take two days off - boom a month rolls around and I have to take two more days off... Realized that the holiday/winter break, while not short was fucking stress filled - self induced (stupid Festive 500) and extrinsic (car and life BS). I felt more recovered after two days at home there at the end of January. And then i went and fucked it all up by doing a 3x20min session. 

it is snowing again.

hopefully not the full 5" potentially predicted, hopefully less than the 3" of the low prediction, we'll see...

So yeah.

Oh and I rode the Crossrip+ this morning. Was kind of scary going that fast over the bumpy ice and ruts. Scary in that 'if i crash this is going to hurt' scary. It was fine tho, I kept speed to just paint mixer bouncing not much worse, but wow, BUMPY. Except the clear spots. Those were nice. 

And the places where I didn't clear? Edge to edge foot traffic FUCKING SUCKS - all stomped down and lumpy and tough to hold your line. 

Was nice riding with the sunset last night. Needed lights once I got to riverside - snow doesn't have much contrast in the low light, no headlight and I couldn't tell where the edges of the plow berm I made were - so little difference in the snow.

Oh and riding down to the remote location today, the rear brakes were dragging. There was no lever play. Oh... shit... DOT fluid.

Remember a year or so ago, riding home with a full trailer of groceries and the front locked up? Yeah, I should have bled it all then. I didn't. 

And I should have been bleeding it annually. At least after every pad change, but I haven't put new pads in in a long time. And I put metal ones (not resin) and they are lasting nicely. Guess I'll need to do a brake bleed, haul this to the shop I guess. Someday. Maybe not this weekend. I cracked the top seal on the hoods and removed a couple good drops worth. Actually it kind of volcanoed out when I unscrewed it (T10 BTW). Now there's not too much fluid. But probably will happen again when it sucks up more water. It needs a bleed. 

I don't like DOT fluid. Why the fuck would anyone want to use that nasty shit anyway? Oh well. It shouldn't stop me from getting home.

Battery is all charged up but there's no way I want to drag the plow for 90 min tonight. Maybe tomorrow is a good MTB day. Change things up. If I'm going slow I might as well have a dropper post.

BTW Sunday's ride, all over 3 hours elapsed time was pretty much dropper down, aka standing. I remember first with this bike that I could barely make it a few minutes without collapsing onto the saddle, now I go for 5-7 miles of flowy tight singlespeed singletrack w/o ever sitting down or raising the Dropper. Big difference. There's some serious adaptation going on. Does it make me faster? Dunno, don't think so. No races to find out. But I think it helps with the core stability development. Also after all that time on the Ebike, my lower back isn't fucked. We'll see after today, but usually just one ride, and def after back to back days on it, I can't move in the morning. Maybe there's something related to it? A weakness/imbalance corrected by MTB'n? Possible. Hey - there ya go. Get yourself a Hardtail MTB with a dropper post. Ride it. 

DAMNIT - there was a thought line I had writing the above that I wanted to go into but... can't.... remember....

Oh well. 

I laughed as this song came through the playlist just now:

But then earlier this one did: https://youtu.be/gPPscelHVhA

No they aren't related - they could be I suppose..

But it was on the same playlist and hit the speakers at 11:55 this morning, on Tuesday.

okay - i'm gonna get ready to blast. Just watched the lastest Dirtwire as a prep for the pedaling home.

I'm pretty stoked to go to one fawtee on the Stache... hope the new spring shaft shows up this week...

y'all be good, take care of each other

heddwch
G

ouch... Zzzz

 Holy crap.

Weird. Friday was good, lots of energy.

Saturday? Flat, dead, tired, headachy and just off. Slept horribly Fri and Sat night.

Sunday, work up before the alarm (got up, had been waking up all night) made coffee, felt not terrible after the second cup. 

Rode some snow covered trails. Possible to ride following a Fat bike, mid-fat and skinny bike. Not possible to break trail as singlespeed. Tried it - doesn't work well. But if someone has already crunched and smoothed it out, no problem.

After shopping, eating lunch, recovering a bit and once the battery was fully charged on the eBike (Crossrip+) (plugged it in after getting home from MTB and Grocery shopping) I headed out with the plow.

I dunno what it is but the new tow strap sucks compared to the old one, some how the old one kept it flipped properly or the snow sucks for this design. Not sure. For most of the clean long runs it worked flawlessly. But on the stomped and variable snow it kept flipping over. did a few miles like that. better than no treatment but not as good as right side up.

But an hour and twenty minutes later the battery was dead and I had made it to Lyons and back home. 8.5 miles. I even spent most of the time in Eco and Tour mode (lowest assist levels) only going to sport and TURBO when it got really tough going. When I started the run it was still snowing over an inch an hour, but tapered to almost no snow by the time I was home. Mean that the start stretch was essentially unplowed when i got back, stomped on, so fucked up, but cleaned as best as I could. The important stretch as always is the run from Riverside Center to the hill up to the Vet Parkway (just before Lyons) there's no good ride around on the streets. I hate doing that commute so anything I can do to stay on the bike path I'll try.

I thought about heading back out for another run but doing it after dinner seemed a bit insane. 

So I did a run this morning. Had some coffee, made kid some pancakes and headed out on the bike, with the plow and did the same run again.

posted video on instagram stories... btw if you want some video/visual content.

Again dead battery when I got home. Used it all. Same modes as before although even more eco/tour and my legs are fucking TOAST.

Then I thought it would be a fucking fabulous IDEA to ride the studded tire CX bike, because, well, it is faster on the road than the MTB. FUCK THAT WAS A BAD IDEA. It still took me and hour but the packed snow on the trail (that I packed and plowed) was hard to pedal through with that singlespeed gear. 

Ouch. Also lots of upper body work. And if the ride home tonight also takes an hour that will be 7:15 of some pretty intense pedaling since Sunday morning. I've barely been getting ...  looks at RWGPS, damnit says only 5:38 of pedaling the last two days. Maybe I'm mixing total and stop eliminated times? I dunno... shit - either way - I checked RwGPS to see what the hour total for the weeks have been in Jan (6-8 TOTAL FOR THE WEEK) last week (feb) hit 9.5 or so (snow and ice slowed)... 

Over-reached maybe?

Legs haven't felt this worked over in a while, and this is only two days worth. So, this is gonna be interesting. Also, did I mention? the linear park WAS PLOWED!!!! NO MORE MILE LONG HIKE A BIKE!

Thinking I should head home while there's still a bit of daylight left. It was REALLY cold in the shadows this morning. 

I need to redesign the plow (or see if I can talk someone into doing that for me) keep imagining someone welding some cool shit up, or cabinet making some fancier wood version. 

Till then, I'll keep dragging this. Maybe look for an 'eye' bolt or something to lower the attachment point to the middle to help keep from flipping. 

or maybe not worry about it and just drag plow with e-bike and ride the MTB.

Snow tomorrow, more of it, we'll see how that changes it. And whatever else the extra time pedaling adds to the load on the legs.

Am I getting too old for this shit? I should be. Am I not eating the right shit? Maybe it is just too much coffee, I'll cut back... next week.... maybe...

all in all - good tho not bad, introspective maybe too much, making internal progress tho...

Stay warm and well and don't forget Amor Fati Motherfuckers

heddwch
G

two year corporate thing?

 Maybe it is just some white bro douche bag shit I overheard from some white 20 somethings a million years ago...

Maybe you've heard something similar, or watched it happen. 

Heres the thing - get a job, spend the first year figuring it out, second year kicking ass and really giving it everything. 

Then take that somewhere else. Do that for a different company but since you are already really good you get a kick ass pay raise from the different company, because you'd never get that kind of increase in salary staying at place one.

Keep doing this for a few years till you have your house, boat, vacation house on a lake, and then the next thing you know you're all set. 

Or something.

Mythology? Mostly no. I've seen it happen plenty of times. Heck sometimes you get a "we don't want to lose you bonus salary" and you stay. 

So what the fuck got me thinking about this?

Well you already probably guessed it.

We spent the last year figuring this remote work, this reduced social life, planning and all that. This year? We get to do it all but do it right, no more figuring. We know what to do so lets rock this shit and make it happen.

Except...

there are too many people who didn't do last year right, but thought they did, and won't change and will undermine everyone else's new elevated work/life mode. 

No we can't really take this coming year and trade up, but that's where the analogy sort of falls off...  year one figuring it out, year two doing well.

This started rattling around in my head a few days ago on the ride to work. or the ride home. dunno... all the ice time is running together. 

Made it in just as the rain started today, hoping maybe i can skip the rain on the way home, haven't looked at the radar tho. 

and somehow the day got away from me. no time to catch up on read-all tabs:
https://www.betamtb.com/culture/interrupting-injustice/

or that

might try and pick up later - we'll see... maybe not

heddwch

G

GET IN LINE

 Nothing quite like two broken systems you need to get up and running to happily delay scheduling all the requests. busted shit takes priority...  and man has there been a good bit of it it seems. Low use? Couple weeks of being idle? IDK.

Today it was a brand new laser problem. Coolant leak lowered the water level to the point where it couldn't keep the laser tower cool and forked itself? Finally got it running, but will it stay running and not overheat? That's the question. 

Scroll pump is dead on the SEM so that even more fun. Hopefully it shows up today. No power cycling to clear codes on a mechanically dead system.

troubleshoot and teach, and repeat. Challenges are new and that is good.

Been riding the ice bike and man, that ice beats you up and if the ice doesn't beat you up the heavy ass slow Marathon Winter tires make just pedaling into the headwind a chore. I mean w/o them it would be no riding or riding the MTB and that is slow too, in a different way.

Yesterday morning I had a few rim strikes, bang hard on the rear. Most of the time I was able to float in the saddle and avoid that. But this morning I thought maybe I should put some air in the tires, or check the pressure. Turns out there was only 22 PSI in the rear. Went to 35 front and rear using the Topeak Joeblow Pro Digital. https://www.topeak.com/global/en/products/41-Floor-Pumps/1291-JOEBLOW-PRO-DIGITAL 

Yes I use it every MTB ride to get the tire exactly the same on the Mid-fat (14.5 or 15 psi in the rear depending on where we're riding - usually 15- and 11 or 11.5 up front). I generally kind of forget about the commuter, set it at 60 and then fill it up when it gets soft in the high 20s. That takes MONTHS (tubes are plus size and have Stans in them). 

I mean I like pumps and I love that old silca and the Topeak JoeBlow Pro X was an AWESOME pump, that pro head is so nice and the gauge was great but it wasn't as visually precise. I'm sure it was just as accurate but accurate and precise are not the same and reading an analog gauge? tough to get it at 1psi repeatability. Digital gauge FTW! And this one I like. A lot.

And the tires? they work pretty damn well too.

Also disc brakes mean the reflective stripe on the tire stays reflective. That's a nice bonus.

There is still a ton of ice out there- Probably can safely make it there and back w/o studded tires, but there might be some sketchy moments and some walking. Mid-fat MTB might also be fine. 

I'm expecting tomorrow to have some morning ice still but then rain. Tough call for which bike. Full fenders and no studs, studs but no fenders... Rain is coming later, i'll wear some cycling specific clothes instead of my usual work jeans and shirt and just plan on changing at home and getting wet. 

Had an unsolicited I suppose deep chat with a friend. Okay so I sent them a happy birthday email. There are probably less than 5 people I know that I'm not related to that I can recall their birthday or have in on my calendar. This person is one of them. friends for over 30 years. Wound up kind of deep and thinking about what ifing and the like but I realized in a way that i've kind of transformed all these choices I've made that have felt negative into just what they are. removed that depressing/sad/bad aura from them, able to stop "oh man i should have...." or whatever and they have become just kind of identifiable turning points. Way markers. Forks in the road. I'd never be here where I am without having taking all those turns I did. Even if in the past I've looked back and thought I had seriously taken the wrong fucking turn. 

Maybe I did take the wrong turn. Maybe if I had had some more self confidence, less self doubt, maybe I'd have had the guts to take a more uncertain path or who knows. But that recognition that, I'm starting to be at peace with me here now is kind of not terrible. Could be also that i'm pretty much 50 and old and basically now just waiting the end out. All down hill from here, starting over or changing lanes is just something I'll look back in 20 years and tell myself I was an idiot but whatever, if I get to that point it will be a luxury to look back on now. probably will have even better perspective then.

Finally a problem resolved - disrupted me mid introspection but that's probably for the better anyway right?

Y'all take care, Amor Fati Motherfuckers

Heddwch
G

Well that was diffferent

 Had two whole days off that I treated like a fucking vacation. 

Felt rested and ready to go for the first time in FOREVER. Like it was amazing. I just woke up, made coffee got everyone ready for the day - saw them all take off and i watched TV some terrible movies, cooked up a creative breakfast and then fancy lunch, watched more TV or just did not a whole lot - kept the fire going cause it was fucking cold and well - that was good, warm is good.

So after a couple of days of just chilling, well, lets get on the trainer and do one of the more stupid exhausting workouts we can think of. 3x20 mins. While watching the Flying Scotsman (good film BTW).

Kid was also doing 3x20min on the erg. Difference? I did a 10 min warmup (she didn't) and I had longer rest intervals (she did 3 min breaks in the middle) and then I did a cool down. She was done WAY before I was. 

And then I woke up REALLY fucking tired. SHOCKING. Drank too much coffee on Saturday at the bike shop and then? GUESS WHAT? Slept LIKE SHIT. AMAZING. You would think I might learn. 

Or not.

Sunday tho? Dirt Church in the snow in Big River and it was fucking magic. Was kind of fun being the fastest dude on the ride. Sure the mid-fat tires helped, the big monster XR4 knobs, and the singlespeed was just the right gear to smoke it. It was work but man it was fun. So much fun. Even if it was cold.

Now here I am, day after a nor'easter and I'm catching up. Yesterday was a bit bananas, the ride in? Totally cool. Rode the Crockett - 38x15 singlespeed. Was great yesterday. Just solid lumpy ice or bare skim ice. Not too bad. The ride home just was that with a trace of snow over it. Well we got more snow, and then rain. Was a fucking slurpee fest ride in today. Sooooooooper slow too. The snow was pretty deep or slushy and sitting on a couple inches of ice was semi-frozen even tho temps were up above freezing and it was raining. Was pretty brutal and long. Gears might have been been nice but I'd have just been slower.

Not sure what's going to happen on the way home. Gonna be prepared for the work. Hey, doubles aren't the worst esp when they're this much work. Need to figure out how not to be so fucking tired tho.

But I did break the old Zefal rear fender from 1994 trying to jam the bike into the spot last night. Plastic doesn't last forever. Nice thing about that massive resistance in the snow and slush is I never got going fast enough to get that wet off the rear tire.

So the Bosstones have a new song out. It is good. Pick your service here:
https://bosstones.ffm.to/thefinalparade

I was over on Youtube - i like the video of it - i listened to it like four times, and then got working and distracted and instead of hitting repeat again this came on

and i'm jacked and in a good mood and all that - call it cliche or old or whatever the fuck - the Bosstones and ska and that shit has a big place in my dark black musical soul

Might have over-excitedly shared with Parsons about that Shadow conspiracy chain but then I realized we can't use narrow wide rings and thus the Endless  rings probably won't work, need to find something old school and how the fuck am I gonna do with that moronic 94 BCD 4 bolt nonsense on my 180 XTs? HOW. Guess I'll stick with wearing out shimano chains.

But one thing is true - i'm just a one cog, one chainring kind of guy

Not smaht enough for geahs dude - ah shit this just kicked on Opening with Sinead and the Fucking CHEIFTANS fuck yeah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5VMJwOSk6E Hmm DKs rank up there pretty high for me too...  bit of a chance of pace from this mornings Bones UK radio with Utep and ZZ Ward and the like.

Guess we're listening to the DKMs right now. That lamp can be replaced later. The Emails I was going to deal with after that will get some priority - all thanks to music.

oh some links:
https://xkcd.com/2419/

Yeah I'm kind of a hug guy - y'all know that right?

And that is one long lived fucking coffee maker (I've had mine since 1991) https://maddogmedia.com/2021/02/02/java-stop/ only had to replace the switch (under the lever) was a couple bucks from digikey. 

here's this:
http://drunkcyclist.com/2021/01/27/night-moves/

Also catch up on the saga of Team Dicky - one of the only others out there still web logging:
http://teamdicky.blogspot.com/2021/02/winter-shart-tarck-series-21-race-two_2.html

Not to mention AHTBM and Stevil's latest:
https://allhailtheblackmarket.com/2021/02/every-day-is-a-gift/

And one of the few others still doing it:
jilloutside.com/2021/02/the-necessity-and-frivolity-of-personal.html

Bikesnob might still be web logging but I'm just not his audience I guess, never really got into his thing.

Who else is still writing shit we want to read? I dunno. We. HAH. Fuck that - ME MEMEME isn't that what this is all about?

The most selfless engage in the most navel gazing activity? Or something. 

Gotta toss some lube on the chain for the ride home. Need to give the mineral spirits time to fuck up my brain and get off my chain before riding...

Amor Fati Motherfuckers

heddwch
G

singlespeeding some more

 https://youtu.be/pkOhzvv-4vA?t=111

and then this

https://youtu.be/OrESKEOnYEk?t=801

Same no?

got thinking about it - Thom's words there at the end and then Mike F's 

kind of the same

(pay attention to timing marks on the links so you don't have to guess at what I'm taking about)

also found geo chart to play with https://bikegeo.muha.cc/ (thanks CJ) plugged in the stache number and bumped the fork up by 20-40 mm and it is still steeper than other hardtails, other bits change (BB height goes up) so who knows how differently it will actually ride, differently for sure

https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/bikes/mountain-bikes/trail-mountain-bikes/stache/stache-7/p/23109/

https://konaworld.com/honzo_esd.cfm

it is late - i'm taking a couple days off 

it is also getting f'n cold, and there's snow

made it home, rode the mt bike today - good bike today - slow but everything is rideable, will see what it is like on the way home...

forgot the fender of course - looking like i'll have a wet butt

heddwch

g

okay dummy - checking the temp is not enough

 This morning - yesterday - whatnot, out of the habit of checking the forecast.

That's how cracked I am. I've been doing this bike commute thing for a long time, knowing what to wear for both the ride in and the ride home is important.

Today I fucked up.

It is currently snowing. Not only did I ride a very ill suited bike, I'm wearing jeans. They are not fun in the snow and the wet. 

I looked at the temp oooo 25F 5 degrees warmer than yesterday! WOO... totally didn't look at anything else. Hey it was clear outside.

Sigh.

Oh well.

Here's a run down of more exciting stuff than my fuckups - numerous today

https://allhailtheblackmarket.com/2021/01/heaving-a-reserved-sigh-of-relief/

and

watch it - i was just nodding along - bang the fuck on and very well said

I need some more all day rides

I've only been looking at the images on IG - finally read this - more in awe - good shit, cool bike

...

i'm outa words i guess

probably for the best

g

other stuff - unrelated but good

 maybe posting tomorrow but putting it here just to have it in place when I do come back.

posting this tomorrow - today's comments fall after the sigh...  hold on, read through and you'll find it

Not sure i want to add anything more to the timeline yet. Anyway:

https://citsb.com/2021/01/20/ten-years-after-id-love-to-change-the-world/

that's a long read, it is a good read, and it is true there are not many single writer bike blogs around anymore. I've never tried to stick to anything, do anything with this than just reflect me. 

I'm guess it does more accurately than I might like, and that anyone who's actually read this for any length of time probably knows me better than I know myself, certainly better than I know them.

There have been a lot of other introspective dives around lately, no? Part of the end of the last 4 years? Partly from having life so dramatically turned upside down. 

in a year we went from one known case to 400,000 dead (that are officially counted), a lot has changed, so many people have lost love ones. Some have lost maybe not their life but everything else. And some people have done even better, but not many.

Seth's post is long, it'll take a bit to get through, but worth it. Like Jill's, worth it. They write like a writer. I just kind of puke words out of my brain through my fingers on an age polished cheap dell keyboard.

More current event wise:
https://chasingmailboxes.com/2021/01/15/january-in-the-district/

Links in the phone's browser i've read or have been meaning to get around to reading:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/01/science-covid-19-manhattan-project/617262/

https://www.seattlemet.com/news-and-city-life/2017/05/the-secret-life-of-urban-crows (sooo fucking good)

how good are you at telling:
https://www.thephoblographer.com/2021/01/15/leica-m10-monochrom-vs-leica-with-film-can-you-tell-the-difference/

Kent's right - this is good: 
https://youtu.be/sAQNwS8YR_M

and it also again makes me want to shoot with a Leica Q2Monochrome (real B&W video motherfuckers like serious NOT SOME BULLSHIT POST PROCESS FILTERED CRAP) not that most of the good B&W videos look like crap, they look good but COULD LOOK SO MUCH BETTER.

Sigh...

that's what I posted yesterday

Today? Kind of funny, remove the big giant societal ending threat and all the other things kind of seem great until all the rest of the shit suddenly isn't dwarfed by it, ya know? 

Maybe it is just me. Anyway, as predicted, today is going about as well as expected. As in NOT.

Golf is dead, long live the Golf. The car model, not the tiny ball wacking with a stick, or a good walk ruined. VW killed the wagon, now they've killed the golf (in the US) to make room for the next attempt at the EV offering.

The Bernie meme is awesome but it doesn't change much, and once again last night's thing highlighted that the creatives all seem to be democrats, hmm wonder how that works that way, no clue.

I started off here trying to psyche myself up for a challenging session soon on a partly working piece of equipment and well, predictably it didn't work. Or hasn't worked yet. Been thinking about today, a day 16 years ago I called my now boss (not boss then) about an opening here...  

Here I am, still here. Spread unimaginably thinner than I was way back when. 

And feeling overwhelmed and burned out. IT HAS BARELY BEEN THREE WEEKS SINCE I WASN'T HERE FOR TWO WEEKS... 

sorry - had to get that out - it is fine, I have this quiet moment between insanity to sit and puke words through my fingers. it isn't all 100% maddeningly frustrating. Kind of impress myself with how many fucking things I'm juggling right now. Only dropping the occasional ball, but the best jugglers make that look like it is part of the act, oops, see not perfect, but i really just did it to show you that I can still keep everything else in the air and pick that back up with such apparent ease. 

Yeah, i've been around some really good pro jugglers my whole life. Life on stage, it is different than most.

Gonna work on that trying to find a positive. 

Kind of want to just get that Tallboy or Hightower and road trip, stopping to ride along the way. Ending in Downieville, CA. Or maybe Going from here to there then north to Seattle, the cascades, maybe Vancouver. Probably bring the Stache, maybe a road bike (i don't have one either so that makes this even more pipe dream).

Just me, the bike, some destinations. Riding. Kind of one of those impossible dreams that are okay to dream because they will never come true. 

But oddly thinking about the difference between  a Tallboy and the Hightower got me thinking maybe I should pump the travel in the fork. I can go from 120 to 140mm, could be hella fun. Could slacken it way too much but I think that might actually be okay. I think i finally have enough time on the bike to appreciate and notice the change. 

Something to look at on Saturday, see if the shaft is in stock or would have to be ordered.

Was cold this morning - wore the boots and heavy gloves and put a extra layer on and at 21F I was too warm, slowed down to cut back on heat generation. 

And I remembered to charge the headlight. It barely made it home last night. Should be good tonight. Hoping to get out of here while it is still light but that's never a certainty.

anyway time to get on with it all

be good, take care, amor fati motherfuckers

heddwch
G

so now what

No idea...

where do we go from here?

Another kind of failed day, hoping for different results the third day in a row (tomorrow) seems futile..

Youngest kid (a high schooler) this morning getting ready and then heard this perfectly delivered:

"Shit"

it was bad - realizing they had an early meeting a little late - but was also so perfect, my cold heart swelled a bit with pride... 

Almost as funny as their friend saying something something AF, and I looked at them and said "AF?" and they looked mortified that I knew what it meant...  it also made me laugh...

Telling stories over and over again - sign of getting old?

Send off a time capsule to Stevil this morning. The copy of Bike that was kicking around in my office (found it while cleaning up). March 2006. The buyers guide no less. Damn shit was different way back then. One for his archives, has a good bit from Mike F's Grimy column, the one about heckling.

SWEET STEVE'S POSTCARD ARRIVED TWO DAYS after the USGP cydocross race at Golden Gate Park. By then, the pictures of spectators in orange jumpsuits committing widespread mayhem-leaning over barriers with fists full of money and beer, screaming themselves hoarse, transforming one section of the course into a riotous tunnel of color and noise-had been pasted all over the internet. Speculative comments ran the gamut from indignation ( "Those assholes have no respect for racing!") through confusion ( "Is there a European cyclocross tradition that involves sticking dollar bills into beer cans and placing them on the course? Is that some sort of prime?") and topped out in the blogsphere ( "Dude, that race was sick! I made three dollars!"). 

Steve's postcard read: The orange curtain was fully represented yesterday. There were dogpiles, name calling, wrestling matches, and near fisticuffs. The cops got called but never showed. Perhaps they thought the better of it. Blick informed me that Rick Sutton caught wind of our highjinx & warned the race organizers. It truly does my heart good to know that we are still a threat.. 

Ahhh, the Orange Curtain. Rick Sutton. And the ghosts of our collective youth. This all goes back about a decade, to a time when almost everyone in this picture was either thinner, fitter, hairier and/or poorer than they are now. We were rowdy, and we believed strongly in the uplifting power of brutal heckling. At any decent-size off-road race, there would be some representatives of the clan present, howling loudly, raising Cain. The orange jumpsuits evolved into the mix courtesy of Robert Ives and the Sacramento crew, and the volume level increased. Not everyone loved it. At one particularly muddy Sea Otter short-track race, we managed to goad Gerhard Zadrobilek into such a state of foaming anger that he appeared ready to stagger over from his mudstuck bike and try to beat all 50 or so of us down. And, after one particularly mind-bending noisy Napa World Cup, Rick Sutton came uncorked and stated flatly that the Guild of the Orange Jumpsuit was not welcome at any of his events, ever. I think this might have been worded in somewhat more colorful language, however. 

Going back even further, to the dawn of the 1990s, Mister Blacksocks (who is just outside the shot in the rogue's gallery pictured here) postulated, while a knot of us stood atop a rock at the Cactus Cup and launched into an unnerving race-Jong harangue aimed solely at Daryl Price, that there was not only strategic heckling value to be found in having the high ground in any situation, but that heckling itself was something of a valuable social service. 

There are many who would not agree with this assessment. 

But, like it or not, Mister Blacksocks was dead right. Heckling, the not-so-gentle art of being loud and brash and rude while dedicated people compete at the ragged edge of their physical abilities right in front of you, is crucial to the survival of racing. Especially off-road racing. 

Look at other sports. In NFL football, fans strip down to underwear, paint their bodies, and dance the way only beer-drunk chubby white guys in sub-zero temperatures can dance. In soccer, the rest of the world's football, whole countries go apeshit over a single game. At downllill ski races in Europe, spectators line courses 10 deep, chanting and ringing cowbells and sucking down schnapps at a rate that would make W.C. Fields weep with joy. The fans lining the climbs of the Tour De France camp for days,waiting for that one chance to sprint alongside racers, screaming like madmen, often wearing nothing but a Speedo, a pair of running shoes and maybe a Basque flag. The rowdies that show up by the tens of thousand in Fort William, Scotland, for the annual mountain bike World Cup in a place that is as close to nowhere as one can get in the British Isles, are what makes that race the gem that it is. And at cyclocross events, from Belgium to Baltimore, fans show up in freezing temps, clanging cowbells, beating drums, wearing wigs and bellowing themselves voiceless . 

Meanwhile, there has been a general slagging of NORBA lately concerning the sad state of our National Points Series. I can't say they don't deserve it. The current status of the NPS is pretty sad. Pro racers get no monetary reward for standing atop a podium at the national level, yet they can go to a regional race just about anywhere in the country and bring home considerable amounts of legitimate coin. The NPS venues are more and more resembling ghost towns, and the competitive end of the sport, at the highest sanctioned level in this country, reeks of the doldrums. 

The armchair experts out here, myself included, have been watching the decline of center-stage mountain bike racing with sorrow in our hearts. Everyone has some idea of how to fix things, how to make the glory of racing appeal to Joe Spectator, how to bring some of the luster back. Procure venues that are closer to urban population centers. Make courses more challenging. Make races shorter. Make races longer. Make racers wear Speedos. Make racers ride through flaming hoops while running a gauntlet of unleashed, carnivorous and starving wild animals. Fire the racers out of cannons at the start of every event, whether it be 4- cross or the marathon .... 

Inevitably, though, what big-visibility racing needs, more than anything else, is a crowd of spectators- people like you, me and the fine, upstanding members of the Guild of the Orange Jumpsuit. All arguments about cross-country racing being boring to watch, or about how downhill time trials lack drama, and how racing pales compared to slopestyle freeride competitions are moot. Golf and baseball are not exactly adrenaline fuelled spectacles, yet they manage to pack in the faithful . And that's what we need to do, too. All it would take for mountain bike racing to go big again in this country would be for some spectators to show up, get loose and show some brash love. It isn't about team Big Rigs and corporate sponsorship. It has nothing to do with television-friendly venues. What racing needs, more than anything, is rowdy celebration. If there were an Orange Curtain at every NORBA National next year, a few dozen loudmouths with a little spirit, we'd be on the road to recovery. 

Racing needs you. Gather some friends, pack a cooler, step up and do your duty. Make some noise.

So yeah there's that. Hopefully Mike F doesn't mind me pulling the text out of the magazine and posting it here - they are his words - photo credit Chris Patterson btw.

The mag is out of print, just like Dirt Rag... 

And re-reading that i'm reminded of one of the single most amazing experiences I've had on the bike. 

Brad Ross's Clydesdale Cyclocross Championship of the universe. We, all us big guys, lined up in the dark, on a very short course in Bend, I think we were all drunk or most of the way there. An underage Danny Summerhill had a 30 rack of something cheap and was shaking and spraying every racer from his spot at the hairpin, i think he probably drank as much as he sprayed on everyone. But even in my drunk state what made it special? It was a fucking CURTAIN OF NOISE, esp after the first lap when everyone realized it was happening. And it was fucking awesome. 

Kind of like racing through the downhill chute section in Asheville. Or through the beer garden at any of the PVDCX events. Even G'ster never managed to have that same level of noise. 

And that shit is fucking magical. If the hecklers are so few that you can hear each one, well there aren't enough of them. And yeah, shit's crazy and gets out of hand, but there is an unquestionable boost to the racers and the venue when you have hundreds of screaming fans packed in tightly making noise. Racing through that is pretty fucking unique. 

Seems odd writing and thinking about it in pandemic times, but heck look at the football games this weekend. After a season of playing in empty stadiums the handful of fans in Buffalo totally derailed the B-more offense with their noise. I'm sure some of those voices were pretty fucking horrible and rude and just wrong, but it is the collective cacophony that works. Doesn't mean we can't work to not be assholes as fans. The Orange Curtain, I wonder how they'd heckle now, would it be different? Would it need to be different? There are different lines out there now, ones not drawn or imagined in the 90s...

But still, thinking about those racing experiences, those were good moments, moments before I got nearly blackout sick. At least by Asheville I was pro-enough not to get as blasted as I did in Bend after the Clydesdale race. I wonder if that guy still has his precious hat.

There's a lot of other shit going on today, that inauguration and some stuff - no i didn't watch any of it - okay that's not true- after the morning stuff failed I saw twitter timeline rolling, and the only video footage I watched was the poet delivering her poem.

That was worth watching.

Been listening to Brandi Carlile on spotify all morning, started with the Highwomen and down through there. Listened to the Joke twice tho, fuck that song is powerful.

Guess it isn't morning - feels like it. that doesn't bode well does it.

Well. Do some good, be kind, give people space and support, i'd say give people hugs but we're still in a pandemic and shit, I think, is about to get worse before it gets better so maybe hold off on hanging out for a while.

heddwch

G

picking up where it left off

 Lunch video: 

And some links:
https://theradavist.com/2021/01/finding-myself/ (can go watch the video too: https://sauriproductions.com/)

catch up here obvs:
https://www.kentfackenthall.com/

Don't whatever you do miss reading this:
https://allhailtheblackmarket.com/2021/01/is-everybody-ok/

and no - the answer is no we're not okay and no, as much as I wish there was the idea spot around here to plunk that weird ass of Stevil's in NE/RI it ain't a whole hell'lot better than out there and as much as I want to help, knowing when you can't and not beating yourself up about it is important, or so i hear, but you can share and ask around and maybe one of your smarter (all of them) friends have ideas.

And yeah - again, maybe I shouldn't be taking in so much basic becky content, but it is good content and today I realized there are some things I'm not longer mad about, and that's good.

Jill's been blogging for a while, one of the earlier blogs I followed along, she's written books and has made something out of it all, and still plugs along...  this resonates a little:
http://www.jilloutside.com/2021/01/empty-fitness.html

Okay by a little I mean a lot and it speaks to that Colorado opportunity missed with my Dad I've mentioned before. And yeah for a coastal saltwater human I've spent quite a lot of time in CO, just never with a MTB. And the experiences remain etched on my soul.

Today picked up right where friday left off. A fucking shit show. The weekend was good, different, I think, I don't remember much, oh, right, bike shop, bike ride, car shopping and then grocery shopping - three days - poof - couldn't fall asleep last night then was toeing the line of consciousness and sleep, feeling almost hot, thinking someone opened a window and the furnace was just going non-stop, i was confused, not sleeping well, finally I think i stopped noticing what time it was at almost 2am. Funny, I have been okay with sleep, getting it, getting to sleep, and then that happens. Dinner was veggie heavy and carb light - maybe brain was thinking I needed more glucose and it took a while for the liver to oblige. 

Okay so I watched another couple videos - need the distraction from the disasters, and at the same time waiting for an actionable email reply. Like as soon as I have the reply shit gets crazy again, but waiting.

here:
https://youtu.be/khhIE-bC9Ao

and
https://youtu.be/GiWJ3ILPBjo

What are your plans for the year? I wonder if 24HOGG will happen, probably not but there's no reason not to hope it'll go off as planned or modified to make it a go. What to do between now and then? 

Was asked, on sunday, a question I couldn't answer: "What is one thing that you can do that will make you happy today?"

Kind of story of my life eh? The answer: "I don't know."

Also late friday afternoon I was told to "snap out of it" it wasn't a great week and that kind of made it worse. Snap out of it? like that's possible... like someone saying "just flip the switch, be happy, you have control, just flip the switch." As if it works like that.

Buzzer, times up, life goes on, getting spread just a little thinner every day... staring at the calendar looking at it like 'how the fuck' and thinking, one day at a time...  one day... 

at

a

time

amor fati motherfuckers

heddwch

G

the best time to write

 is when you have no time to write

like right now

i have no time

should be doing something else

opened tabs, with the new ones, closed them all w/o more than a second or two of lingering

some closed as fast as they loaded

old content

i kind of admitted to myself that while the routine of riding to work and being here have benefits

the work itself is quite a bit more challenging

and not in a good way

stuff that used to be good and easy 

goes sideways really fast

these last two weeks have been sideways

it is a struggle

and the next two weeks don't look a whole hell of a lot better

but

hey

i'll get through it

one way or another

time for a deep dive into the stress box

it'll only be about 3 hrs of intensity

NBD or BFD said sarcastically 

can't believe i got suspended for the coach hearing me saying "what's the big fucking deal?" to two long distance team mates arguing about what kind of air force cargo plane was flying overhead... came back from the suspension and discovered i was much better suited to the 400M race was half a stride short of making it to states, probably best that i didn't make it... whatever 

shit

out of time

not that i had this time anyway

but 5 min...  we can all spare 5 min

right?

hahah

nope

fuck...

heddwch
G

The Process

 So about this process.

Crazy stuff, no? Blogging, web logging as we used to call it. I think BSNYC popularized calling it web logging even though that's what it was called before someone actually shortened it to blogging but those people aren't web logging anymore. And shit starting on blogspot how many years ago? Don't look. Well I know, i haven't been doing it as long as Cory D, but I saw his twitter thread of this blog post and damn that was a good twitter thread read but the blog post is better. 

BUT damn that's a huge process. Granted that's part of his thing, like he says it is his process. Honestly there are similarities. I do tend to go and open a couple folders full of tabs. But honestly I never really got into the whole RSS feed thing. That list of links on the left? Historic relic. A legacy of what the cycling blogosphere looked like in the heyday. At one point I had broken down the open all tabs folders into 6-8 folders, 15-20 links in each one, some daily news, some daily comics, some weekly update some daily, some infrequently.

I'm down to two folders now. Some haven't changed in over a year, some longer... but I keep em there, can't quite pull em out of the cue. There's something comforting or familiar seeing the dead/idle tabs. Like you know almost but not quite like seeing chip and his dead blog. Or colin and his post from last year.

Takes so little time now to go through them. I have a few aggregating sites there, the colossal, laughing squid and juxtapoz, but i usually don't scroll down past the first one or two. One thing I don't have, never have had, news sites. Okay sometimes there have been bike news sites, but those often were kit bookmark bar shortcuts. The forums were all shortcuts up there. They were a separate process but those have mostly been killed by FB. If twitter killed the blogs, FB and redit killed the forums. Now redit, or however you spell it, never something i've gotten into, that or that pin board site. 

Frustrating thing is finding a good page on the mobile device but then wanting to read it on the desktop and well i've never really worked at trying to make anything transfer between the two beyond a very cumbersome manner. I'll have tabs lingering in the mobile browser for a long time, i use the mobile browser to check FB using the mbasic.facebook interface, super nice, no adds, and able to get to messages w/o adding the app.  I mean I guess it really isn't nice, it is FB afterall.

So like today? I added pluralistic to the open tabs. But also so many dead tabs. Took no time to go through it, but I did pause when I noticed KF with a new post. Have I read it yet? Nope, but the tab is open, i'll swing back when I have a minute, like right now. Good point about the history, what we remember may not be accurately reflecting of the facts, but that's also why we have these weblogs running for a long time, and archived communications, esp searchable ones. I did that a while ago, searched some old email threads, probably shouldn't have but it gave me a good perspective and helped correct a few memories. It recentered the feelings and anchored them and helped. And speaking of history and remembers DF's email this morning was a good suggestion, will work on that. I pulled my Strava data down finally. Started uploading it to RWGPS but the bike selection field is gone and that data is almost more important to me than the total... we'll see, nearly 4000 rides is a lot to go through manually and it might just be enough to have the data just in case.

Trying to sit through a webinar right now, I know the info well enough to give it but call it CE or something...   hearing information you know really well presented by someone else is helpful to pick up ways to teach it or more effectively communicate the important parts. okay - getting interesting - time to pause and focus...

Okay so went from webinar to support scope to thinking maybe I should eat lunch before the 1pm shows up today to then queuing this up and watching while eating as it was going at 2x speed.

yeah, 2x speed

I dunno how you people listen to stuff at normal speed - books are all at least 1.5x speed and then that just seems like a normal talking pace. and these guys at 2x, yeah that's about the right pace:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL0e0RaMgQg

There's some other shit that started rolling around, but nothing new, lots to think about from listening to AB and the TGL folks talk...  deep shit and good actionable items.

Okay that was as fucked up as could be. Sample that didn't matter worked great, samples that did matter were totally blank. And then about half way through the imaging session the solonoid for the HVAC got stuck in the wide open flow (max CFM) and as cold as fucking possible. It got REALLY cold with that air blowing on me for 40 min.

had a good vent session, felt good, then scrolled through twitter for a second and boom back to ugh. Yeah, you know what, yes, I know. Take a break. TOO LATE FOR TODAY.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the rest of the day? I dunno...  should finish lunch... not sure what to make for dinner but that's a long way off - lots to do between now and then.

y'all be well, take care

heddwch

G

HFS - like - um

 There really is no end to this in sight, no slowing of the terrifying shit happening? Pandemic worsening or not slowing at least, new mutations showing up, rational people refusing to get vaccine, people thinking mask wearing is going to be over when we have the vaccine even tho they refuse to get the vaccine themselves...

stay sane

I spent a while digging through photos going back through google photos... kicked off by a reminder about CX Nats on saturday in Hartford.

Flask day. That was off the hook bananas.

Then watching this helped escape a bit.

Mostly it fanned the embers of the desire to ride around the Olympic Penninsula. I've never been to Alaska, but I think maybe to start I'd like to explore a place that is more home that I haven't, aka ride around the majestic Olympic mountains by bike. Alone? Maybe, or with someone else? Who tho?

The north of nightfall idea already messes with my head thinking about it. 

If you haven't watched it yet you should take the hour and really dig into this movie:
https://www.redbull.com/us-en/films/north-of-nightfall

So what's next with the crazy terrorists? 

Ugh, yeah, well... shit - at least work's been insane - initiated a critical response to a flaw and achieved resolution quickly. There actually have been a large number of problems, so far, kind of cool and a Huh that's cool, I've been able to resolve them, sometimes alone, other times knowing who to contact. I am good at this shit.

Also some family viewing lately has been the first season of Next in Fashion (and who doesn't have a crush on Alexa, or is it just me, probably just me) kind of think maybe i mentioned the NiF already - oh well.

back to resolving problems... 

heddwch

G

sick

 unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach

a FB post from a fellow bikecommuter that has since moved to Cali all full on indocrinated in the make you know that word and followed by another and another, calling for literal civil war that the seventy and the first f digit million people are 'awake' and other buzz words in quotes...  

seeing that pushed it a bit over, glancing at twitter and seeing the PB (yeah i like peanut butter but not that phrase for those letters) storm that place where the shit is going down... 

civil war eh? the desire to literally kill someone in your own country that has a different set of core beliefs than your own... 

i'm disturbed, as I suppose many are now, it is a sick queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, and no it isn't all those biscotti i ate after my peanut butter and jelly breakfast sandwich I ate after riding in.

But i still haven't cracked into my lunch yet so there's that bit of positive news... but how the FUCK is that positive when all that shit is going on

Sigh... 

okay I think maybe it is music and focus on other stuff and staying off the computer for now, it is good to be informed, helps prepare for what to do next, but when there is little one can do personally, and shit is bad, turning it off, focusing on what one can control, what one can do, directly, with your own hands and voice... that's what needs to happen now I suppose... 

heddwch

G

interlude

 [ narrator voice ]

Those delicious gluten free almond biscotti were indeed finished by 11 am today.

Yes, they lasted less than 24 hours.

Yes, GeWilli is having salad for lunch.

And yes, he will still probably go home and eat everything while making dinner.

<closing music>

Oh, one other point, studded tires? They are slow

[ /narrator voice ]

this working thing

 Good to be back but man there is a lot to do. 

Fortunately only a few things are busted and require critical attention.

This kind of got me stopped in my tracks. 
https://twitter.com/redsunO21/status/1346241475391213569 (yeah it is a link to twitter - should open in a browser window if you don't have an account). 

And yeah, seems that way eh? Too dam real. 

Need some tunes: https://youtu.be/aBsFCkB07Rs

Got the studded tires mounted up, rode em yesterday. SO SLOW. They are NOT on the e-bike this year. Still haven't ridden that thing. Maybe should try and sell it. (yeah keep saying that don't i)

Looking at the radar now I'm thinking maybe I should have ridden them today. WTF - forecast was clear.

UGH

fuck the weather this is annoying. Oh well. Just weather. 

Oh saw some weird ass shit on the way home. Somehow someone dragged a dead deer into the middle of the bike path on the linear park. No could have been thrown there from the road. It wasn't there on the way in in the morning, but was on the way home. Overnight someone tagged it with white paint. Was still there this morning (photo on strava).

Working hard to keep my shit together, the political drama and bullshit and amazing display of insanity is tough to even tangentially see. Music has been helping. But there's still a lot of evil out there. Ugh. Gotta keep fighting yeah? Going to be an interesting couple of weeks. 

Been waking up early, instead of trying to sleep for 30 more min I just got up this morning. Was good. Esp with the house full of people half of them having to be online and at work/school between 7:15 and 8. A little quiet coffee before heading out.

Put a book in the ears yesterday morning. Nothing this morning. Not sure about the way home. Maybe maybe not.

also someone dropped off some biscotti  - holiday gift, homemade, GF, and SO FUCKING GOOD, maybe the best biscotti i've ever had...  

gonna try not to eat them all before leaving

i've put the box away three times so far. There are still a few left. 

i had something in my head to get out but now I can't seem to find it.

torn between riding home w/o anything plugged into my ears to see if it rolls around or to just quiet the voices and get a little further into the drama in the book. 

Kind of funny Stevil echoing my thoughts,,, but i don't have anything to sell or share... but i do like the scavenger hunt idea... just need to figure out what to "hide" Kind of thinking maybe hiding it in Big River somewhere, on one of the lesser known rock trails. But it would likely just wind up being dug up by some alien archaeologist if I leave it out there. i don't have stuff of value - can't leave a hug out there.

And there went the afternoon. Time to suit up and head home eh?

be well

heddwch
G

On the second day of 2021

 i did absofuckinglutely...  nothing...

well of substance, i emailed, i did a little work, i ate some food, i exhibited some extra self restraint and did not make an aeropress coffee at 3:50pm

I did open up all tabs, Dave and Tim both have good web log posts up. Inspirational I suppose, in that it got me to stop before opening the second tab and start here.