SUFFERING BUILDS CHARACTER

THE DEMON IN THE SKY

2011-12-06T11:02:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite movies is The Right Stuff. I especially like the parts about Chuck Yeager and the other post World War II test pilots that flocked to Edwards Air Force Base to try their hands at flying experimental high-speed aircraft. In real life, the open skies of the California desert drew these fearless men from all over the country. They came in droves, yet it was the fierce, but friendly rivalry between Yeager and Scott Crossfield that stood out in the pages of Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book, The Right Stuff. In 1983, the book became a movie, and naturally, Chuck Yeager joined the ranks of Malcolm Smith, Mert Lawwill, and Bob Hannah as my childhood heroes.

In 1947, Yeager became the first man to fly at the speed of sound--supersonic speed – a milestone known to test pilots as the “demon in the sky.” In the years that followed, Yeager, Crossfield, and other test pilots would fly experimental aircraft, in a race to achieve speed and altitude records. Before Crossfield’s jets were even cooled from a record-breaking flight, Yeager would take off to set a new record, and vice versa. The rivalry nearly killed each man on multiple occasions; however many other pilots caught up in the action weren’t as lucky. They lacked “The Right Stuff.” One of the opening scenes in the movie is set at the funeral of an unnamed test pilot who met his destiny while chasing that demon in the sky.

It’s certainly not as historic, spectacular, or epic as the competition between Yeager and Crossfield, but it is space-aged and it does test man and his machine. It’s called Strava, and using GPS, it measures the speed that you descend, ascend, and travel roads and trails, compares the data to others that have ridden or ran the same segments, and then makes that information available to the world at Strava.com. The geniuses (and I mean that in all sincerity) at Strava call it “social fitness.” I call it war.

For example, I’m currently in a heated battle with any man, woman, or child in the greater Inland Empire downloading their workouts to Strava. The moment I get an email notification that someone ascended the Three Hawks trail at the Crafton Hills Conservancy faster than my previous record, I’m throwing a leg over the nearest top-tube to go win back my King of the Mountain (KOM) status. Meanwhile, over at Loma Linda’s Hulda Crooks Park, a skirmish between the people piloting trail bikes, and a couple of singlespeeders, has gotten messy. One after another, they’re taking downhill runs on trails called Jedi and Jackrabbit, and one after another, the runs are getting faster.

As far as I can tell, these same kinds of KOM confrontations are taking place on roads, trails, and ironically, computer screens, all over the country. So, thanks to Strava, the iconic rivalry between Yeager and Crossfield is alive in spirit. Strava is revealing the “pudknockers” from those who actually have “The Right Stuff.” There’s a new demon in the sky to chase. Hopefully you catch it, before it catches you.

ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT

2011-10-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

The great David Wooderson was mostly right when he said, “The older you get, the more rules they are going to try and get you to follow. You just gotta keep on livin', man. L-I-V-I-N.” What Wooderson forgot to add was that the older you get, the more likely your riding buddies will have other responsibilities, thus complicating your 24-Hours of Moab team plans.

But we are men of action, so we didn’t let anything prevent us from livin’ it up anyway. Instead of racing, Jeff Stanners, Woody Woodruff, and I ventured to St. George, Utah where we planted temporary roots in a condo courtesy of Stanners’ cousin. From the comfort of our spacious two-bedroom, two-bath, two-story accommodations, we staged three days of mountain biking on southern Utah’s best mesa trails. It was awesome. There were no lemans starts. There were no long lines at the porta-potties. There were no middle of the night wake-up calls to go ride a lap. There were no rules to follow. Just miles and miles of sweet singletrack.

Gooseberry Mesa.

Top of the Zen Trail.

Taking a break on Rim Runner.

A squishy saturday around St. George.

THERE ARE MOUNTAINS YET TO CLIMB

2011-09-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

While nearly everyone else I know is frantically trying to get their cyclocross bike up and running, I'm still in mountain bike mode. True, the SoCal Cyclocross Series kicked off last weekend, but Rim Nordic put the MTB race season into overtime by hosting the Autumn Cup XC on the same day. I raced the latter, and I'm glad I did. The weather was perfect with temps in the mid 80s, the race course was fun and challenging, and the mountain lion I saw trotting across the trail was more interested in the rabbit in its mouth than it was me. Luckily, I saw Ms. Cougar in the last two miles of race - otherwise I might have thought twice about heading back into the forest to complete another lap.

Two other Pros crossed the finish line before me, but considering I've been spending lots of time trying to get the Redlands Interscholastic Cycling Organization (RICO) off the ground and less time training, I cool with my result. So as many of my peers will be spending next weekend hopping barriers and going anaerobic in hour-long intervals, I'm headed for the high country of the Sierras for Everest Challenge - a two-day stage race with more than 29,000 vertical feet of climbing. A different kind of ouch!

A BRIDGE TOO FAR

2011-08-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

A Bridge Too Far published in 1974 and written by Cornelius Ryan documents the story of Operation Market Garden - a failed attempt by the allies in 1944 to end World War II by securing three bridges in Holland – giving them access into Germany via the Rhine River. Botched allied intelligence and two stubborn German divisions meant that the final part of the operation (the bridge in Arnhem over the Rhine) was doomed. In 1977 the book was adapted into a movie with a then star-studded cast that included James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Elliot Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Ryan O’Neal, and Robert Redford.

It’s an awesome movie, but not an awesome situation to be in at work…

My job has me shaken and stirred.

NOT PAID FOR BY THE MICHIGAN BUREAU OF TOURISM

2011-08-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

I’m willing to bet that when the average American thinks of Michigan, they think of Detroit, and that leads them to think about the auto industry. And based on the recent government bailout, they then think negatively about Michigan. Am I right?

Well, I’ve always had good thoughts of Michigan. Until Tricia and I got together, the mention of the Great Lakes State did make me think of Detroit, but instead of that thought leading to the woes of the auto industry, it instead led to thoughts of music; good music like the MC5, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, the White Stripes, and Motown. I’ve always liked the style of University of Michigan football too, so there you have it. I’ve always had fond feelings of what’s also known as the Wolverine State.

Then Tricia entered the picture and since then I’ve made two trips to Michigan to visit her family. In Christmas time of last year and for eight days this summer, I got a tour of the greater Grand Rapids area, and now I have an entirely new appreciation for the state. I love it. Yeah, the white Christmas was a little rough on this southern California boy. I’m known for getting cold in Colorado’s Glenwood Springs hot springs, however when dressed properly (by Tricia), the Michigan winter is tolerable. Of course, I didn’t have to blow any snow, scrape ice off any windshields, or dig any cars out of any snowdrifts, but I did go for a 45-minute run in the ice and snow during my yuletide stay.

We recently went on a little summer vacation where we did all kinds of cool summer-camp activities that aren’t as common in the urban sprawl of southern California. All of it was done within an hour’s drive of the Fynewever homestead. Accompanied by Ryder, we caught fireflies, went skiing in the Grand River and in Lake Murray, spent a day on the shores of Lake Michigan, went to Grand Haven’s Coast Guard Festival, made s’mores around a fire pit, toured the 126-acre Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, drove through a summer rain storm, ran on lush well-designed pedestrian trails, and the list goes on. About the only time we found ourselves in the city of Grand Rapids was for an occasional meal, and to tour the Police Station where Tricia’s brother, Nate, is a cop.

If you’re from southern California and you’re lucky, you have family and friends in other parts of the world. If you haven’t taken the time to go visit, you should. There’s a lot more out there than your video game console, Facebook, the Staples Center, or Las Vegas can ever offer. If you don’t have anyone to visit outside of this concrete jungle, at least go ride a bike. It can take you places. It might just take you to Michigan, where I’ll be taking my bike next time.

A MAN OF FEW WORDS

2011-07-27T09:52:00.000-07:00

"Peggy, can we get some ice in here?"

I became a writer partially because I’m more comfortable communicating through writing than I am communicating with people verbally. I don’t feel uncomfortable or threatened in small groups, but put me in a room full of people, front and center, and the sweat begins to flow (if the alcohol isn’t). I stutter, I can’t focus, I “um” and “er,” my voice cracks, and I ramble. I despise public speaking, I hate giving presentations, and I pretty much loathe people that talk a lot. If this sounds familiar, these are signs that you might be a writer.

In addition to all the articles, case studies, press releases, and brochures that I compose, I also happen to be the ad writer at work. I team with the graphics department to design compelling, informative, and (ahem) awe-inspiring print ads. The work is a far cry from that done at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, although it has its moments. I don’t get to take power naps, pour mid-day cocktails, and harass the females in the office like Don Draper and company, but I never pass up the opportunity to belittle or criticize my fellow co-workers in front of one another.

Here’s the irony of this writing gig: Earlier this year I was asked to present at my company’s Global Marketing Summit on the topic of “Creating an Advertising Campaign.” It was determined that because I’m the guy that pounds out the ad copy using a keyboard and Microsoft Word, I must be the guy that’s qualified to talk about it, using my voice and a PowerPoint presentation. At first, when I was putting together the PowerPoint, it seemed easy enough. Then it came time to start rehearsing the presentation, and that’s when I remembered why I’m a writer.

There’s no Spelling or Grammar Check when you’re speaking in front of a live audience. There’s no delete or backspace button. It’s in real time and when you trip over your words and draw a blank in the middle of a sentence, it’s a real horrifying, embarrassing, and humbling experience. I’m much more qualified to write about how to create an advertising campaign, but unfortunately for me, that wasn’t the assignment.

So, I went through with it. And, having to present in front of an audience has given me an even greater appreciation for the profession of writing. Now if only everyone else appreciated it too…

RACING DADS

2011-06-21T07:11:00.000-07:00

My best childhood memories are of riding motorcycles with my dad. It’s what we both loved to do and we did it a lot. Sure, there were weekends spent at soccer games and many weekends dedicated to adding square-footage to our once tiny house, but overall motorcycles defined my family.

The Freeman household back then was similar to what you saw on TV shows like “The Wonder Years” and “That 70s Show.” Until I was a teenager, my mom didn’t work. She cooked, cleaned, and was there for my sister and me. Meanwhile my dad went to work and supported the household financially, much like Jack Arnold and Red Foreman did for their TV families. And much like Jack and Red, my dad would come home from his job in a less-than-cheerful mood.

Now that I’m a father and I no longer have a job that consists of jet-setting around the nation from motorcycle race to motorcycle race and from photo shoot to photo shoot, I understand why my dad was not Mr. Cheerful, Monday through Friday. He had work stress, a household to support, my sister and me to guide, and a marriage to uphold. All of that and then some, but maybe selfishly, all along what he really wanted to do was ride his motorcycle.

That may explain why my fondest memories of not only childhood, but of my dad are of motorcycle riding and racing. Maybe that’s when my dad was at his best, or at least felt his best. No traffic to deal with, no deadlines to meet, no meetings to sit through, no mortgage to pay. Just him and me, the trail, and our motorcycles. If that’s the case, then maybe one day Ryder’s fondest memories will be of riding mountain bikes with me.

I spent Father’s Day with my dad, mom, and Ryder at the Kenda Cup West Round 7 in Big Bear where I finished fifth in the Pro class. Although my back was killing me from working in the yard the day before and I had a horrible training week due to life’s nagging errands, I couldn’t have been better than I was on Father's Day.

I SAVED LATIN. WHAT DID YOU EVER DO?

2011-06-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

My never-ending disgust for lazy people, video games, and reality TV has finally overflowed and become a flood of positive energy. It looks like me, Woody, and a few other key figures are going to jump into the SoCal High School Mountain Bike League pool and start a team for the Redlands area. First instinct is to call the team “No More Fat Kids,” but something like “Redlands SoCal MTB” would probably be more appropriate. We’d go with just plain “Team Redlands,” however some other rinky dink organization has already taken the name. They must be the entity that works with the Redlands Department of Tourism, or something. Who the heck knows.

Anyway, the official season for high school mountain biking runs from December to May, so if you’re interested in helping with weekly training rides during those months, drop me a line. Don’t send me an email telling me you want to help, and then drop off the face of the earth when January rolls around because the new season of Survivor or American Idol is in full swing. We’re looking for serious applicants only with a zest for bike life, a disturbing sick hatred for obesity and diabetes, and a strong back.

Aut vincere aut mori
That’s Latin for, “Either to conquer or to die.” In other words, this is going to be fantastic.

THE MIDNIGHT RIDE OF ME

2011-06-08T05:47:00.000-07:00

On some weekends there’s nothing good going on, but you can be sure there’s always a four-corner crit in an industrial complex within a 90-minute drive of my town. I like a nice tilt-up concrete warehouse wall and NASCAR style bike racing as much as the next wheel sucker, but when given the choice between riding over road dots lap after lap and riding on miles of rocky singletrack in the fresh San Bernardino Mountain air, I choose the latter nine times out of 10.

It’s usually a pretty easy decision to make. But on the weekend of June 4-5, there was no warehouse to go turn circles around. There was an actual road race, and a good one at that - the state championships, no less. The tragedy is that on the very same weekend, the second round of the 12-Hours of Temecula was taking place, and the final round of the Kenda Cup West Series was also running up in Santa Ynez. What’s an avid lover of both road and mountain bike racing to do?

Easy! Using an app that my parents gave me, called my brain, I concocted a complex plan to race on a 4-man singlespeed team in Temecula on Saturday, go home, sleep for a few hours, and then drive up to Bakersfield and do the Pro-1-2 road race on Sunday morning. The Santa Ynez race course isn’t much fun anyway, and besides, the report on Weather Underground called for clear skies and 70-degree temps in the Santa Ynez Valley so I knew it would probably rain instead, and of course it did.

The decision to race in Temecula was also an easy one because; A. Back in January, we won the first round of the three-round series; B. 12-hour team races are almost as much fun as flogging a 250cc four-stroke around the wet SoCal desert; and C. My teammates threatened to tarnish my good name by publishing incriminating photos of me on Facebook if I chose to skip the Temecula race. There was only one thing I could do, and that was to go help win round two. So we did, handily. Yawn.

I got home after midnight. And while Woody, Stanners, and Creed were tucked into their beds on Sunday, sleeping the morning away, I was awakened from a four-hour slumber by my wretched alarm clock. By 5:26AM, Tricia, Joey, and I were on the road to Bakersfield for a 9:00AM road race start. By 5:30AM, I was thinking to myself, “What the hell am I doing?”

When I was a younger man, I used to think sleep and rest were over-rated. Now that I’m old, I know sleep and rest is a necessity. It’s easy for excitement and adrenaline to overshadow what you already know to be correct and right. Take Congressman Weiner for example. He let the excitement and adrenaline of sending lewd photos overshadow the fact that he knew it was wrong. And surely by now, Sarah Palin must know that it’s not a good idea to open her mouth, yet the infinite knowledge in her brain gets overpowered by the excitement of seeing flash bulbs, big cameras lenses, and those funny foam balls on the end of a microphone.

So, like Weiner I kept it up. And like Palin, we kept driving. I started the race and I have to admit the campaign was going better than expected until I found myself sitting in the very back of the field going into the feedzone just before the final of three 31-mile laps. What could go wrong when you’re the last guy of 60, or so, speeding through a chaotic feedzone? What could go wrong when you’re a congressman sending photos of your “Weiner” across the internet? What could go wrong when you’re Sarah Palin and you open your mouth? I think a better question is, what could go right?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY @ALLEN_GINSBERG

2011-06-03T12:13:00.000-07:00

Today, Allen Ginsberg would have turned 85 if he was still alive. I have much admiration for Ginsberg, due mostly to the way he lived his life. Never giving up what he believed to be right and never selling out. Died in 1997, I wonder what Ginsberg would be doing if he were still alive. Would he be on Twitter? How would have this old Beat Poet functioned in the digital world? I wonder how it would have suited him.

Web 2.0 has become the double-edged sword for people of genuine talent, real artists, and actual rebels like Ginsberg, Dylan, Patty Smith, and Hemingway. New models of these types are out there somewhere, but will they be able to keep their heads above the stream of information that is over saturating the World Wide Web? Will it not be harder, if not impossible, to find the needle in this dull haystack of phonies, posers, and hacks? Like this blog, everyone has the opportunity to have a voice now. But is everyone’s voice worth your time, or are they just contributing to the bottleneck caused by an over abundance of digital trash?

Fortunately, situations similar to this one have historically resulted in an uprising of sorts (i.e. the Beat Generation, the Punk Revolution). Maybe the next generation of talent will also find a way to swim through the sea of schmucks, catch a wave, and ride it into shore. And then blow our minds like "Howl" did mine.

KICK THE BUCKET LIST

2011-06-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

I don’t believe in Bucket Lists. Why limit your life experiences to a set list of accomplishments and goals when there’s an infinite amount of adventures, large and small, to be had? I’d rather look back on my life as whole and be satisfied with what I’ve done. That seems a lot better than looking at a checklist of things that may have (or may not have) lived up to their full potential when finally accomplished. Or worse yet, look at a list of things that were never checked off.

Yes, there are some things that I’d like to accomplish in this life, but if I don’t – then, oh well. They just weren’t meant to be. The first half of my life was spent obsessing over competing in the Olympics of off-road motorcycle racing, the International Six Day Enduro (ISDE, Six Days for short). While I never got that opportunity (yet), I got the opportunity to do a lot of other cool and exciting things along the way. It was my obsession for training for the Six Days that got me into this bicycle racing thing - and that has turned out pretty damn good. The Six Days may be an unrealized goal, but I only think about it once every 24 days now instead of 24 hours a day.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’d like to race RAAM. Not solo, but on a small team with people I can rely on and trust. Thinking I might have to start working on sponsorship for that one as it continues to consume my mind. And I’d really like a national championship in bicycle racing to go along with my state championship, but something tells me I’m going to have to drop my USAC pro status to make that one happen, if it’s gonna happen at all. If the three worst things that ever happened to me are that I never qualified for the Six Days, I never raced RAAM, and I never got a national championship jersey, then life ain’t bad. Things change. In ten years, there will probably be a couple of other things I’d really like to do instead.

But, some things stay the same. My parents have been taking my sister and me to National Parks for as long as I can remember. Some of my best memories as a kid, outside of motorcycle racing, are of trips to places like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and lesser known parks such as Olympic. As a part time marketer, I know that if you can plant the seed of your products or services into the minds of youth, your chances of growing a lifelong customer are high. The National Parks Service (NPS) may not have the marketing budget of Disneyland or Coke, but it did a damn fine job of being in the background of all those family vacation photos, and not just literally. With the obvious help of my parents, NPS has made a lifelong customer out of me, and I’ll keep visiting as many as I can - some of them multiple times, until I finally kick the bucket.

Tricia and I went to Joshua Tree on Memorial Day for some hiking.

We also rode for a few hours.

And we saw a rattle snake. Look closely.

Much better than my last trip to J-Tree when I almost froze to death, but that's a different story all togther.

BACK IN THE SADDLE

2011-05-26T07:13:00.001-07:00

There once was a time, not so long ago, when a mountain bike race in Big Bear was a frequent occurrence. Counting the NORBA Nat’l, we’d race out of Snow Summit about 5 or 6 times a year. The Team Big Bear crew had several courses to serve up back then, but those days are long gone. Last weekend was round 5 of the Kenda Cup West Series, and the first of only two mountain bike races in Big Bear this year.

While it was dreary as jolly old England down the hill, the sky at 6,000 feet was clear, blue, and beautiful. We raced on what has become our normal loop up there, and while some complain that the course consists of too much dirt road and not enough singletrack, I’m just happy to be racing mountain bikes in the actual mountains. Despite going through about 3 weeks of burn-out on the bike, poor sleep, and an even poorer diet, I felt reasonably good in the race, but I think that had more to do with my positive-charged euphoria for being in Big Bear. I still had some moments of complacence during the race (my arch enemy on the mountain bike this year), yet not nearly as detrimental to my results as other recent attempts.

Do you ever get half way into a race and just quit giving a damn? There’s no desire to keep going, no tolerance for suffering, and no interest in anything at that moment. That’s how I’ve felt for much of this year, which is why I changed gears and jumped into some more road races. However, the fresh mountain air in Big Bear seemed therapeutic for me and I’m motivated again. When Sunday’s race was all said and done, I finished 9th in the Pro class. Not the greatest result, but a personal victory considering I’ve recently had more fun cleaning the scum out of the bathroom drains at home than I have racing mountain bikes. Bring on the 12 Hours of Temecula.

MAN, I NEED A VAN

2011-04-29T09:04:00.000-07:00

For as long as I can remember, I’ve never been too thrilled about cars. I’ve always considered them just a form of transportation and a way to get from one motorcycle or bicycle race to another. I don’t like working on cars, I don’t like buying cars, I don’t like paying for car insurance and registration, I don’t like going to the gas station, and I especially don’t like shelling out for parts, repairs, and maintenance.

That said, I have to modify the above statement by saying that I do appreciate a good van. A van is much more than a car. You can sleep in a van, you can travel comfortably in a van, and you can keep your stuff locked up in a van. Sure, a van still costs money, requires insurance, maintenance, and lots of gas, but all the pros of a van outweigh the cons. A van to me symbolizes freedom, security, adventure, and a rockin’ good time.

About 5 years ago I made the mistake of trading in my Ford E350 van for a smaller Mazda 5. Back then, gas prices were going up, I was driving a lot more than I am now, and I thought I’d be scaling back my racing at the time, so I figured going with a smaller ride would be better. I couldn’t have been more wrong. While I was content with the Mazda, I regretted not having the full size E350 every time I wanted to take a trip. Then about two years ago when the 2006 year-model Mazda started giving me problems, I really regretted not having the bullet proof E350. I’ve owned two Ford Econoline vans, purchased used, and both were more reliable than the Mazda, which was purchased as new.

Today I took the Mazda into the shop, yet again, because occasionally it won’t shift out of park without rolling the car back and forth. It doesn’t happen all the time - just about every fourth or fifth time I try to go somewhere. The service manager called me with the news that I needed a new transmission shifter assembly and that my power steering houses are cracked and leaking. Grand total for parts and labor… a grand!

I passed on the repairs, paid for the oil change and tire rotation, thought about it, and finally made up my mind - it’s time for another van.

I miss my old van. On this trip it took me to Saguaro National Park in Tucson.

A Nice Round Number For Sea Otter

2011-04-14T19:17:00.000-07:00

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

The Keyesville Classic

2011-03-23T06:36:00.000-07:00

What a difference a week makes. Last weekend we were racing the singlespeed a few minutes from downtown L.A. and things went pretty well. This weekend we were 3 hours from L.A. up in beautiful Lake Isabella at the Keyesville Classic and, while on the geared bike, things took a turn for the worse. Even the drive up on Friday night was tumultuous, especially for poor little Ryder who got car sick going up and over Walker Pass and had to blow junks. If there’s anything worse than buying your 5-year-old a Happy Meal from the golden arches, it’s having to clean it up after its been semi-digested and spewed all over the floor of your car. I felt horrible for the kid because he kept apologizing to Tricia and me as if he had done something wrong by throwing up. I kept reassuring him that it wasn’t his fault and silently vowed to myself that I’d make it up to him by putting in a good race the next day, even if it meant I had to vomit too.

Weather reports called for rain on race day, but we were lucky enough to arrive at the Keyesville Campground with only windy conditions. Under the cover of menacing clouds, the Pro field consisted of about 20 riders with notable names such as Adam Craig and Tinker Juarez. I started on the third row directly behind Craig, with thoughts that I’d just follow him through the field to the front of the race. Not so much. As it turns out, he didn’t ride to the front of the race like I thought he would, and it didn’t matter much because I could tell within a few minutes of the gun going off that I didn’t have the legs or the lungs to follow much of anyone. I did want to vomit, but not because I was riding hard: it was because I was so disgusted with myself. Something about cold weather and I don’t mix well. I spent the remaining two-and-a-half hours riding by myself. The only consolation was that the 8-mile course was mostly singletrack, so why not finish all 4 laps even though I was way off the back?

When I finally finished, Ryder and Tricia were getting ready for the Kid’s Race, which Ryder enjoyed much more than I enjoyed my race. Next weekend we’re back to an urban setting (or should I say ghetto setting) at round 2 of the US Pro XCT in Fontana, and I’ll be back on the singlespeed hoping for another podium finish.

Don't let the short sleeves and lack of leg warmers fool you. I was freeeeezzzzzing!

Thanks to Jeff Stanners for the choice photos.

US Pro XCT #1, Sorta

2011-03-14T22:22:00.000-07:00

For mountain bike racing, Frank G. Bonelli Park, the site of the opening round of the Pro XCT, can best be described as an ugly duckling. I first raced there in 2001/2002, and over the years the race course has matured into a swan. Bonelli was once one of my least favorite places to race. Now, it’s as good as it gets for an urban venue. Sure, you’re still about 20 minutes from downtown Los Angeles, and from some parts of the new race course, if you listen you’ll hear the 10, 210, and 57 freeways, but who has time for that when you’re racing bikes. The voices in my head telling me to suffer more or to quit being such a Nancy Boy overpower the sounds of L.A. traffic and the powerboats from nearby Puddingstone Lake.

The Sho-Air and Team Big Bear crews have done an awesome job of transforming the Bonelli race course into one that could be of World Cup consideration. It’s near Ontario and LAX airports, there are a host of hotels in the area, parking is a-plenty, and the Elite/Pro race course is tough. There’s nowhere to rest unless you’re lucky enough to tack on to the back of a group in the short road portion of the loop. This year, the Elite race was UCI-sanctioned, so you don’t have to take my word for it to know that they must be doing something right down here in Southern California.

For me, the UCI sanctioning was a mixed bag. I’ve been so busy at work, at home, and training that I haven’t been online for any extended amount of time in weeks; plus I fear spam emails like the bubonic plague so I never list an email address on anything unless I absolutely have to. What I missed out on by living in the stone age was that the UCI required all Elite XC racers to check in by 10am on Saturday morning even though the race didn’t start until 1:15pm. I arrived at 10:30am, heard the bad news, pleaded with the German UCI official, and then promptly struck-out. Lesson learned the hard way. The good news is I stuck around for Super-D and came back the next day for the Singlespeed XC race so all was not lost.

As Sid Taberlay was making short work of the Super-D race, the voices in my head tried their best to convince me that I wasn’t at that much of a disadvantage without a full-suspension bike. A few inches of suspension in the rear would have been ideal, but there were a few other rigid rear-ends that turned in really fast times, so I shouldn’t complain. I’ll be pedaling a Trek HiFi at a Super-D soon enough. I felt a personal victory in that I kept my trusty Superfly hardtail upright, and got a nice 7 minute and 35 second anaerobic workout in the process - a great way to open up the lungs and legs for the singlespeed suffer-fest the next morning.

And a suffer-fest it was. I finished third. The voices told me I could have, at the very least, finished second, but sometimes even the voices loose out to the Nancy Boy in me.

I have a blog

2011-02-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

So, there I was, drinking my morning coffee and reading my 6th favorite blog, when I was reminded that I actually have a blog of my own. Maybe I should update it once in a while. So, here goes a blog post, sorta:

Can we get Julian Assange extradited to Egypt instead of to Sweden? Technically, he’s a journalist, right? Perfect. They send him to Egypt and once the revolting Egyptians are done beating up on Anderson Cooper, they can turn their attention to Assange. Sounds like a win-win. By the way, I just realized the first three letters of Julian’s last name spells “Ass.”

How many more years do we have to watch the Black Eyed Peas sing “Tonight’s gonna be a good night?” It seems like for years now, every time they appear live on TV, they play I Gotta Feeling. Well, I’ve gotta feeling that song is way played out. Speaking of the Super Bowl, its halftime show, and its commercials, how much longer do we have to endure the likes of Ozzie and Slash? Those two need to hop the first crazy train to Paradise City and never ever return.

Beginning New Year’s Eve, my job went all Mad Men. Yep, that’s right, at the moment I’m the sole ad writer at work. How’s that for a resume builder? I know what you’re thinking; “Don Draper and the rest of the principals at Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce don’t drive economical Mazda 5s, wear clothes from the sale rack at Kohl’s, drink discounted wine from Gerrards, and ride last year’s Trek models.” Well, Redlands isn’t exactly Madison Avenue and I’m not exactly trying to sell something as sexy as London Fog trench coats, but I do see a big purchase in my near future. On pay day, I plan to buy a pallet of Zantac to cure the bleeding ulcer I can feel coming on.

I guess this blog really wouldn’t live up to its name and its banner if I didn’t throw in something about the beautiful ugliness of suffering on a bike. Another year, another 150 bucks thrown at USA Cycling to keep my UCI license current. There’s some suffering for you. The last couple of years I’ve consider just purchasing the standard domestic card, but I’m still too proud to give up that coveted International license. I worked hard for it. Who knows, maybe I’ll keep renewing it until social security doesn’t pay me enough to afford assisted senior living and a UCI license too. Or maybe they’ll have to pry it out of my cold dead hand.

I already put the 2011 license to use this year at Boulevard Road Race. The short story is this: With 5K to go there’s one dude up the road by about a minute and I’m in the first chase group of about 10. Just before 2K to go the attacks started and I was only able to respond to the first two. The third attack was too much for me to cover. I cracked, then rode into the finish, but not before getting caught by a few other chasers. Official results say I was 16th, and that number makes me ill because it reminds me of amateur basketball. March Madness is right around the corner and there’s nothing sweet about that.

The real sufferers at Boulevard were Ryder and Tricia. They drove the 2.5 hours down there with me, stood around the feed zone for 3 hours, and then drove another 2.5 hours back home. Their only reward was getting to listen to my iPod set on shuffle for 5 hours of travel. If only everyone could be so lucky.

A Good Idea for the Bad Eggs

2011-01-19T18:14:00.000-08:00

It seems like every time I get online, there’s another report of a cyclist getting killed by a car. Locally, in South Africa; it’s happening everywhere. I’ve long been an advocate of my taxes going toward bike lanes and recreational trail systems, but there’s a flip side to that. When you’re a cyclist and you’re looking for training time on the bike or nice scenery, you can only ride in bike lanes and on recreational trails for so long. Sooner or later you’re gonna need to pedal out to the sticks and it’s a little unrealistic to have a trail system or a bike lane everywhere you pedal, especially when headed to the middle of nowhere.

It’s easy to place blame on the local government for the lack of bicycle-friendly roads, but let’s face it: the real problem is that drivers have a difficult time sharing the road. Plus, there are too many cars, and the explosion of the American suburb combined with the lack of public transportation has pretty much made our road systems a mess.

I’m guiltily. I drive four miles to work. But that’s the infrastructure the man set up for us, so that’s the infrastructure we all have to make do with. If all I had to do was go back and forth to work, then commuting by bike would be fine. However, most days I’m dropping of this at lunch or picking up that after work, and when that happens to be a kindergartner, a bicycle doesn’t quite cut it. I need my car.

So, we’ve concluded that for most people living in modern America, it’s unrealistic, or at least logistically and geographically difficult to go to work in anything other than their own car. I can accept that. That means the problem is, once again, the way people drive…

Sure, cell phones are a problem and texting while driving is death-defying, but long before the world went mobile, there have been bad drivers. The impatient and angry drivers are the worst, and grouped as one, probably the most common. They’re everywhere you look, and when I’m riding my bike, they make me impatient and angry.

While I’m riding or even driving, nothing drives me more insane than an impatient or angry driver. They make me want to carry a carton of eggs in my passenger seat. When I see one of them nearly cause harm to another driver, or God forbid, a cyclist, I want to tag their car with an egg. I want that egg, splattered on their car, to be a symbol and a reminder that their impatient or angry driving can result in a smashed human being. They can think about that as they’re scraping the egg remains off their precious car.

Why are they always in such a hurry? I know they’re used to living in a world where instant gratification is the norm. But if they can’t instantly get to where they’re going, that doesn’t give them the right to tailgate or blow their obnoxious horn at a cyclist or another driver. If they’re late to work, it's because they’re lazy and they should have gotten up earlier. If they’re late getting their kid to soccer practice, it's because they're a lazy parent and they should have gotten the kid outfitted sooner. The bottom line is this: They’re lazy.

Sometimes when I’m out riding my bike and I see these angry and impatient drivers, I gaze at them and laugh. They have one of two looks on their faces. They’re either pissed off or stressed out. They wear those looks on their sleeve. What I can’t see is that feeling of guilt and envy they have inside, but I know it’s there. They have a guilty conscience for being too lazy to get out and exercise and they’re envious of me and my riding buddies because we’re not too lazy to be exercising. And so they take it out on us with their big rolling deadly weapons.

What they really need is to go for a bike ride. They’ll be less angry, less stressed, less impatient, and they’ll probably even have fun. Unless, of course some idiot runs them down with a car.

It seems the natives are restless

2010-12-29T14:50:00.000-08:00

http://onmercuryswheel.blogspot.com/2010/12/fu-monday-group-ride.html

and

http://teamredlands.blogspot.com/2010/12/double-secret-squirrel-training.html

Yet, I'm the one who suffered most no thanks to 6 hours in the germ tube on Christmas Eve. I hate airplanes.

The Opposite

2010-12-10T07:24:00.000-08:00

“If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.” – Jerry to George

Nearly every instinct I’ve had in the last 10 years has been related to mountain bike racing, in one form or another. How I spend my weekends; how I spend my mornings and evenings; what I eat; how much alcohol I do or do not consume; how much sleep I get; where I work; yada, yada, yada. I’ve had a good run at it, especially for someone who started so late in life, but the last couple of years haven’t been much to blog about. While the competition keeps getting younger, I keep getting older, and with age come greater responsibilities outside of elite fitness.

It’s not easy for me to admit, but toward the end of this year I finally realized that I was going to have to change the way I do things, or I was going to go insane trying to continue in the same way I lived in the past. As you get older, you get slower. That’s a fact of life, and a fact that I can no longer believe as fiction. Plus, it’s not easy to get up at the crack of dawn to ride when it’s dark and near freezing outside. It’s equally as challenging to get on the trainer at 6:00am when staying under the covers feels so good. And the thought of messing with a lighting system in order to do night rides seems as laborious as taking out the trash or changing the oil in a car. Who really wants to do those chores?

Basically, that’s what riding has become for me lately; a chore. Basically, I’ve decided it’s time to live a little and start doing the opposite. I’m not saying I’m done. I’m just saying that when race season rolls around next year, I’ll without a doubt be racing myself into fitness rather than being fit to race. I’m sure I’ll probably hate myself when that time comes, but right now, as I’m doing the opposite, I’m actually enjoying myself.

For example, in November, Ryder, Tricia, and I joined my entire family in Vegas to watch the final round of the EnduroCross series. Not counting a Supercross earlier this year, it was the first “off-road” motorcycle race I’ve attended in about six years. I got to see some old friends and co-workers and it even rekindled my love for riding motorcycles. So this weekend, I’m actually going trail riding with my buddy Kelly.

Until now, I’ve spent the last seven years avoiding motorcycles at almost any cost. Like a heroin addict, I was afraid that moto’ing again, just once, would cause a relapse and I’d find myself spiking a vein with a Honda CRF250. Before living, breathing, and sleeping pedal bikes, I lived, breathed, slept, and even made a living off of motorcycles. Both two-wheeled vices are similar in lifestyle, and there’s only room for one at a time if you’re going to do it right. But I’m doing the opposite now so Kelly and I will be twisting throttles on Saturday morning instead of turning over pedals.

Last weekend I played in a soccer tournament. Three years ago, if someone would have asked me to play in a soccer tournament I would have ridden away before they could finish asking. Even talking about playing soccer could result in a torn ACL, but last weekend I threw caution to the wind and played three 30-minute games. I was terrified the entire time, but I survived, and I even had fun. And when I wasn’t playing soccer, I was carrying wheelbarrow loads of dirt for the pump track I’m building Ryder. Okay, technically the pump track is bicycle related, but it’s really for Ryder and his friends to have a safe place to ride their bikes. It has nothing to do with my racing, although shoveling and carrying a dump truck load of dirt from the front yard to the back did serve as good weight training - so much weight training that I couldn’t have done it without the help of Kelly, Joey, and Destry.

So lately the opposite has been working out for me. Check back in March when I’m suffering like a dog trying not to get lapped by the likes of Todd Wells, JHK, and Adam Craig. But right now, the opposite is okay.

We scored on my corner kick. I bent it like Beckham.

Motley Crue.

That's a lot of dirt.

Update: Since I wrote this blog I spent 90 minutes on the trainer and did a two hour night ride with Woody - all in the same day...

RIP Robert Bender

2010-11-15T12:15:00.001-08:00

It seems like far too often I'm writing a blog about a friend who has passed away. Robert Bender succumbed to cancer on Sunday, November 13. I didn't know Bender well, but the things I did know about him are things that he should have been proud of. Bender was a damn fine bike rider. He was talented in all aspects of mountain bike racing; cross country, downhill, and freeride. I seldom ever saw him on a road bike, but when I did, Bender was at the front of the ride. I started calling him Tugboat because if he ever fell off the pace due to an attack by another rider, you could bet that Tugboat would steadily ride himself back to the front. I never moto'd with Bender, but I heard he was talented with the throttle, and I don't doubt it for a moment.

Whenever I'd see Bender, whether it was on a ride, at the races, or just around town, he always seemed happy to see me, and I was happy to see him. We'd share laughs and occasionally a beer. Bender was humble, and that said a lot about his character because I think everyone who knew him, knew just how talented he actually was.

Bender never knew it, but when he'd show up to one of the group road rides, I was his domestique. I guess what I really know about Robert Bender is that I respected him a lot.

I'll miss you Tugboat.

You can make kids do the darndest things

2010-11-09T12:36:00.000-08:00

I think Ryder's ready for a Team Zissou Explorer Badge and Beanie.

Speed KIlls. And so does Funny 1440.

2010-11-06T06:17:00.000-07:00

It’s been called to my attention that I haven’t written a blog lately. Duh! Like, tell me something I don’t know. Most of my thoughts lately go into 140 character text messages sent to Twitter or, worse yet, into work-related projects. I suppose in order to at least update this hack blog, I should post something, so here it goes. Random thoughts:

I love motors, specifically those found in motorcycles. I even like a little auto racing now & then like Formula 1 or rally racing. But what I don’t love (in fact, I loathe them) are the people driving around on city streets as if they were A.J. Foyt. I see it every day & I’m scared to death to put Ryder out on his bike streetside. I grew up on a somewhat peaceful street with very little traffic. I do recall every now and then someone hauling ass down Oakdale Street, but it didn’t happen often. Today, I can’t step foot outside the house without seeing Michael Schumacher or Danica Patrick out on a qualifying lap. It’s like the City of Redlands International Speedway out there (only the road surface is closer to the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix than it is the tarmac of Daytona).

And while we’re on the topic, how about people who speed in parking lots? I’m going to start carrying supplies with me & when I catch you on my built-in human speed radar drag racing from Target to Barnes & Noble as if it were the Winter Nationals, you get a speeding ticket in the form of a raw egg. I don’t claim to be a perfect driver, but at least I’m conscious of my surroundings & a parking lot & residential streets aren’t my Brickyard 400. Think I’m exaggerating or over reacting? Another cyclist got killed yesterday up in Beaumont because of some dude with a lead foot & no sense of his surroundings. Think about that next time you lazily sit around on the couch for too long & then have to throttle it in your car to get to your destination because you’re running late. Share the road. Children & bikes have been around longer than your fruity little coupe.

On a much lighter note, there’s a new radio station in Southern California called Funny 1440 AM. It plays short excerpts of standup comedy routines 24-7. The only downside is that ever since Aaron Gerth [giving credit where credit is due, or else I’m sure I’ll get a rambling voicemail message about it later] told me about the new station, I’ve found myself getting stupider because I’m not listening to NPR as much. Instead of Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne telling me about how fraudulent Bank of America business practices are, I’ve been listening to the likes of Jim Gaffigan joke about Hot Pockets & Steven Wright say stuff like, “I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn’t park anywhere near the place.”

I got an inside tip from a guy I know that the Tossers are actually going to venture outside of the greater Chicago area in June 2011 to play some shows (or a show) in the Los Angeles area. I know, it’s hard to believe, but this news comes from a reliable source. The only downside (I always have to point out a downside because that’s what I do) is I’m going to have to travel to the armpit that is L.A., but if T. Duggins & the gang are going to come all the way from the Midwest, the least I can do is hop on the 10 freeway for a few hours.

And finally, Trish & I went to see Race Across the Sky 2010 last night, this year’s documentary about the Leadville 100 mountain bike race. We had a fine time dining before the flick with the Baumas & Fulfords, although the movie itself lacked the drama of last year’s version. Still a great story though. Would have been cool to see a mountain biker win it this year instead of an alleged doper. I wish I had time to train for it, but 5, 6, & 7 hour training days on the bike are a thing of the past. Come to think of it, if I did have that kind of time still, I think I’d rather go twist the throttle at the ISDE… or maybe just the Mt. Sac Fat Tire Classic.

Biking for Bender

2010-09-27T21:45:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year fellow pro mountain bike racer, Robert Bender, was diagnosed with cancer. He’s currently in his second round of chemotherapy, and although his spirits are high, so is the stack of medical bills piling up. To help pay them, Bender’s teammate, Al Laframboise hosted a benefit ride last weekend in Big Bear. More people than I could count came out to show their support and to take part in the post ride raffle at La Montana restaurant.

With help from his wife, Bender’s family, and a few locals, Al had long and short ride loops planned with a common feed station that was stocked with fresh fruit, cookies, and liquids. I did the long loop and was pleased to be led over all kinds of Big Bear trails that I never knew existed. After the feed station, Mt. Everest summiteer, and all-around nice guy, Paul Romero, led a couple of us on an extended ride that consisted of pure sweet singletrack. Most of it has been right under my nose the entire 15 years I’ve been riding Big Bear and I never even knew it. I’m not sure I could find it on my own, but getting to ride it just once was a pleasure.

The entire experience that day made me realize a few things: I really miss racing and riding in Big Bear on a regular basis; and I miss seeing Bender at all the races here in the southwest. On more than one occasion Bender has turned the screws to me while I was trying to stick to his wheel. I hope the day comes again where we’re racing in Big Bear, and that Bender is there turning over the pedals at a rate which causes us all discomfort.

We stumbled upon this beauty on the downside of a huge mountain. How it got there in the first place, I'll never figure out. And we forgot to check it for bodies. Dang.

We all nearly lost a lung getting to the top of this summit.

Biking for Bender had a great turnout.

I'm a paper hugger

2010-09-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

I spend most of my day staring at dual flat screen monitors. The one to my left displays either Microsoft Outlook or Word, depending whether or not I’m on email. Sometimes when I’m lucky, I’m using MS Word to write something that could eventually make its way into actual print, in the form of a magazine, newsletter, brochure or advertisement. A paradox of sorts, the printed pieces are about technology - computer technology, to be exact. Meanwhile, to my right is always a web site of some sort. Right now it’s the San Bernardino National Forest web site because that’s where I wish I was at the moment – amongst the trees instead of the dual flat screens. Regardless how cheap, small, portable, and fast a PC, or a Kindle, or an iPad, or the next big thing gets; I prefer that my media began life as a tree. I’ll take paper pages over web pages any day.

As a kid I honed what little writing skills I now posses by reading mostly motorcycle magazines and Rolling Stone. I could even argue that in my junior high and high school years, I had two writing styles. One was that of a late ‘80s moto rag, with wit, humor, and passion, while the other was more of a long-winded rock ‘n roll inspired rant like you used to find in the pages of Rolling Stone. In college I began to branch out, but before I could get too far I found myself as a contributing writer for Cycle News and Dirt Rider. I thought I had hit the big time. I was, to quote Rolling Stone writer Cameron Crowe, almost famous.

But even before seeing my name in a by-line, or my picture as a test rider, when the thought of writing for a motorcycle magazine seemed like a pipedream, I took my magazine reading serious, like an education. There was no internet. It was just paper and ink and I loved it. My mom was forced to hide whatever magazine came in the mail on a given day because my dad and I would fight over first reading rights. Her method for preventing these quarrels was simple. Whoever asked about the day’s mail first got the first read. Nearly every day I’d come home and before she could ask me how school was, I’d ask her if the Dirt Rider came. Once we started getting Cycle News on a weekly basis, I knew that every Wednesday, sometimes Thursday, there’d be one waiting at home.

No matter which of the magazines it was, there was always great anticipation over who was going to be on the cover, and what stories would be inside. And because it wasn’t like the web where stuff changes hour-by-hour, sometimes that anticipation lasted for weeks.

As the internet continues to change the way writers write, readers read, photographers shoot, and unfortunately how magazines and newspapers layout, plan, and print their publications, I hope that the print media finds a respectable balance that will keep them afloat. Obviously, some of the damage has already been done. Many magazines have revised their style to more of a Web-like format. It’s not often you open up a magazine and see a page with words, a photo, and a caption anymore. Your average page now is cut up into little pieces – each piece a different “story” or a sidebar to the main story, which in itself is a fraction of what a good magazine article used to be. It’s no wonder so many people suffer from A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. Where does one begin when you open up a magazine and the layout looks like the graphic designer played 52 Card Pickup all over the page? Ever wonder why National Geographic doesn’t look that way? Probably because they’ve done an extensive story on how the human brain isn’t made to process unrelated tidbits of information that way. When I sit down to read a magazine I don’t want to feel like I’m an air traffic controller. That gives me a headache. I want the full story, not the Cliffs Notes.

I can go on and on about this topic until you are blue in the face. The irony is this: I went to school and worked hard so I can write things that get printed on paper, yet in order to do that, I have to spend all day in front of a computer.

Within the last two years more than 500 magazines have ceased publication. Doomed from the start if you think about it, PC Magazine and Computer Shopper were two that folded. Go figure.

Good old fashion paper.

I feel a road trip coming on

2010-09-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

There’s this Conor Oberst song called, “There’s nothing that the road cannot heal.” I can’t agree more. I don’t even remember the lyrics to the song, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the title itself. For me, a good road trip can fix a lot of things. Writer’s block? Go on a road trip. Cabin fever? Go on a road trip. Need a change of scenery? Go on a road trip. Emotional distress because Bank of America is making your life miserable? Go on a road trip. All of these problems can be healed by a good old fashion road trip to… wherever. Just away.

When I was younger and traveled more, there was no shortage of things in my travels that inspired me to write. Now that I spend my week days cooped up in an office and most of my weekends racing locally or taking care of life’s chores, inspiration is infrequent. This year I’ve driven and ridden the same roads, descended the same singletrack, looked at the same trees, gotten fuel at the same gas stations, eaten at the same restaurants, and bought ice cream at the same grocery stores with only a couple exceptions. One of those exceptions was a trip to Colorado, but I don’t really count that because I flew instead of drove. Flying is cheating. Flying doesn’t count unless - when you reach your destination - you spend plenty of time exploring. We explored some in Colorado this summer, but not enough.

There’s just something about traveling the country and seeing it from behind a windshield that excites me. You can stop whenever you want to get a closer look at something. If you’re lucky, you get to sleep in a different place each night. You get to eat different foods from unfamiliar restaurants. Basically, you get to experience life as it was meant to be experienced. Mankind was not meant to be so sedentary. It’s bad for the body and equally as bad for the mind. Whoever first said, “familiarity breeds contempt” must have appreciated a good road trip.

When I think about the past, my best memories did not take place at home or at other familiar places. My best memories come from places I visited on vacations, trips, and weekends. The memories are of the outdoors and of not knowing what’s around the next corner. They are memories of experiencing things that I didn’t already experience day after day. They are memories attached with photos and some of them can be found in the archives of this blog. And if you haven’t noticed, lately this blog is seriously suffering in the road trip department. It needs healing.

Did I mention I hate Bank of America?

2010-09-15T11:11:00.001-07:00

When your back is messed up, your life is messed up. I've gone about 3 weeks now with some sort of aliment in my upper back and it's pretty much made me worthless. I'm uncomfortable at work, I'm uncomfortable at home, I'm uncomfortable everywhere except for in bed, and ironically, riding my bicycles. Something about the position I ride in gives my back some relief, but the moment I step off the bike, I'm in pain again. Well, let me rephrase that, I'm comfortable on all of my bikes except for my singlespeed. Unfortunately I didn't figure that out until I was on the second lap of the California State XC Championships at Bonelli Park last Sunday. The days prior to the race, my back was starting to feel better, but on Sunday as I wrestled my way up one of Bonelli's steep climbs, my back became pissed at me once more. Not long after that, I figured I was doing more harm than good and I called it a day. I felt bad for my pit crew, Ryder and Trish, who made the trip out with me, yet Trish insisted it was just nice to be out of the house for the day. And Ryder, well, he got to do a race of his own and spend a lot of time on one of Bonelli's many playgrounds, so he was a happy camper. The only looser was me and my injured back.

I've been to see a chiropractor three times since injuring it and I've even toyed around with going back to Pass PT, yet again. I'm a regular there now. The reality is, I just need to take some time off from any physical activity until it gets better. No hard rides, no yard work, no heavy lifting, no nothing, pretty much. No nothing is difficult for me. I get antsy just lying around. I can't imagine how Trish must feel. She's been lying around with a snapped femur for almost two months now. I'd go bloody mad if I were here. My only saving grace is that it's football season. That'll keep me occupied Saturday through Monday at least.

From Tuesday to Friday, I'll likely be on hold with Bank of America trying to get information about my mortgage. I think Bank of Haiti could do a better job than those ding-a-lings over at B of A. I'm not even going to tell you what I think the "A" stands for in B of A. You can figure it out.

Thanks for All the Memories

2010-09-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

I got a text last night about Cycle News going out of business. I didn't really believe it, but I got online and checked anyway. Everything seemed to still be intact so I went to bed and didn't give it another thought. I slept well.

This morning I got up, signed on to Twitter and saw bad news from editor-in-chief, Paul Carruthers. His tweet said, "My blog on the passin of Cycle News..."

It would sound petty if I sat here and wrote about how sad this makes me and how much the magazine's passing is going to impact my life, so I'll try not to, but the truth is, it does make me sad and it will impact my life - if even in the littlest of ways.

I was a contributor to Cycle News from 1994 to late 1998 when I became an assistant editor at the weekly rag with a new office in Costa Mesa. It was my first "real job" out of college and even after I left there in 2001, I still contributed semi-regularly until about 2003. I learned a lot in that time, made a lot of good friends, got to travel to a lot of cool places, got to ride some of the fastest motorcycles of that era, and most of all, got to experience what it was like to work at the World's Best Weekly Motorcycle Newspaper.

Working at CN was one of my childhood dreams come true, and even though I left thinking that I was moving on to greener grass, in reality I wasn't. Until I woke up this morning, even though I only ride pedal bikes now, there was always something in the back of my mind that thought I would end up writing for Cycle News again one day. But I guess that's one dream that won't come true. Thanks for all the memories Cycle News.

Yeah, what he said.

2010-08-27T17:11:00.001-07:00

http://teamredlands.blogspot.com/2010/08/i-dont-know-anything.html

Radford's Inferno

2010-08-24T21:56:00.000-07:00

In these parts your will to win mountain bike races is measured by your willingness to ride Clarks-Radford. From 2N10 (aka Skyline Dr) in Big Bear, Clarks Grade is a twisty sandy road that descends to the sleepy settlement of 7 Oaks, which is mostly cabins and campgrounds. From there, you can travel to all kinds of places, but the most popular options on a bike are to head west to Angelus Oaks or east on 7 Oaks Rd or Converse Rd to Glass Rd, Barton Flats, or to the always fun Santa Ana River Trail. For those who like to suffer, there is another option, and that’s Camp Radford. The mostly abandoned and run-down camp located northeast of 7 Oaks is simply put, the entry way to Hell. Radford Camp Rd is a mostly exposed boney 5 mile road that leads back to 2N10 via Sugarloaf Truck Trail. Essentially, if you do the Clarks-Radford combo from Big Bear, you ride the final third of the loop with the Devil. If the relentless climb, oven-like heat, and gardens of loose stones don’t kill you, the army of gnats will drive you to tears. Just in the first couple miles of Radford Camp Rd, many have been found in the fetal position, but more than rocks and insects, Radford Camp Rd is littered with souls.

Last Saturday, me, Woody and Jeff Stanners raised our fists to the Devil and gave it a go anyway. Sorta. Instead of doing the Clarks-Radford combo from Big Bear, we began at the gateway, heading straight up Radford Camp Rd from the start. No warm-up (it was already warm enough); no opening shredding descent; basically, no fun. Our first pedal stroke was headed up, strangely, in the direction of Hell. I can testify that the experience was infinitely worse by the fact that Woody and I were pedaling… singlespeeds (insert menacing music here). Well, I wouldn’t actually call it pedaling. Stomping, is more like it. We stomped over jagged boulders, we stomped through clouds of gnats, we stomped under the searing sun, and we stomped up. Up, up, up. Meanwhile, Stanners spun. Granted, he had to spin over, through, under, and up the same Hell that we did, but let’s face it, on easy days no one ever says, “I’m gonna go for a stomp.” It’s always, “I’m gonna go for a spin.” Anyway, my point here is this: Stanners is smarter than Woody and me. The gears in his brain turn at a significantly faster rate than the gear (singular) in Woody’s or my brain.

It took roughly an hour to summit, and by that time my back felt like it had been trampled by a herd of wild horses. At the top I was swimming in sweat and couldn’t get warm, even in the summer heat. After re-grouping and gathering our composure, we headed straight to the reason for the ride: a singletrack trailhead at Grandview. Word on the web is that an old singletrack was recently fixed up and that it’s a fun descent from Big Bear to the Camp Radford area. Word on the web is only right about half the time. True, it’s fixed up, but I wouldn’t exactly call it fun. More than half of the trail is on loose hillside and only a few inches wide. I spent almost as much time traversing my way on foot as I did actually riding. It should come as no surprise that Woody, who is known to clear and clean most any obstacle, was able to roll significantly more of the trail than Stanners and me. With the way things have been going as of late, I was just happy to make it back to the car alive. The next day, however, my back was really unhappy. Although not on the same level suffering, and in a completely different circle of Hell, I got a little taste of Trish’s world on Sunday. I was confined to the couch mostly, accompanied by the comfort of a heating pad and this question in my mind: “What in the Hell were you thinking climbing Radford on a singlespeed?”

In these parts Radford Rd is a source of folklore and a place of legend. But climbing it on a singlespeed? Now that's just divine comedy.

The sign says "No Horses" because Radford Rd would kill all but the strongest of horses.

Radford Rd is hell on men, animals, and machines.

This is the easy part.

We survived the climb to see this new singletrack that starts near Grandview. It looks sweet. It's not.

When Life Hands You Lemons

2010-08-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

She’s tougher than the average dude. And that means you.

2010-08-03T15:08:00.000-07:00

This is the second attempt at writing this blog. I lost the original post because the “Blog This!” app on my Black Berry works like most Black Berry apps do - only half the time. But who am I to complain? My femur is still in one piece. On Thursday night, Tricia’s right femur was in 7 pieces. By Friday afternoon it was repaired with a rod and a bunch of other fasteners. She was released from the hospital yesterday and has started her recovery at home. She’s still in a lot of pain and discomfort, and is for the most part, bedridden until who knows when.

Thanks to everyone who has been there for her since the crash. From the first responders up on Loch Leven/Old Highway 38, to the Search and Rescue army, to all the family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances who have visited, called, emailed, and sent texts. I’d also like to thank my parents a ton for being by our sides and watching Ryder throughout these last few days. Also thanks to Tricia’s parents who have been very supportive, patient, and have entrusted in me to take care of her while they are at home in Michigan.

What exactly happened? Well, if you haven’t already heard, here’s how it went down. On Thursday after work Trish & I decided we’d drive to Loch Leven, ride our mountain bikes up to Angelus Oaks, turn around descend back to the car, and call it a night. We made it to the top, saw for ourselves that the Angelus Oaks store was indeed out of business (again), and then started descending down old Highway 38 a few minutes after 7pm. Almost exactly a mile past the gate, where the pavement ends and the trail begins, I stopped to wait for Trish to catch up. She made it within an earshot of me, then crashed going into a right-hand off-camber corner. I didn’t see it, but I heard a thud, and then I heard that she was in a lot of pain. Luckily, I was by her side within seconds of the crash. The get-off occurred in a fairly wide section of the trail, and as far as I can tell, it looks like she may have just lost the front end in some loose dirt, over-corrected to prevent a low-side crash, and then high-sided instead. Trish and I watch that type of crash happen on MotoGP almost every week. Only this time instead of Valentino Rossi and his Yamaha hitting the gravel trap, it was Trish and her mountain bike hitting Old Highway 38.

She was conscious the entire time, but as soon as she made the first painful roll over to her left side, we could see that something wasn’t right in her right hip and femur area. Her cycling shorts were bulging out like a water balloon. She would not be nursing this one back to the car. It wasn’t a compound fracture, but awfully dang close and I feared if we moved her too much, it might turn into a compound. Neither of our phones had service (thank you Verizon and AT&T) so I rode down the trail about a quarter mile to a clearing to call 911. I made the call at 7:28pm and a good 5 minutes later, I was riding back up to be by her side, although worried that it would be a long time before anyone would reach us.

The temperature down the mountain was probably in the 80s still, but in Angelus Oaks, it was getting cold and Trish was beginning to shiver, causing her to leg to move and adding to the pain. I didn’t want to do it, but fearing she might go into shock, I time trialed it back up the hill to get a blanket from one of the houses in Angelus Oaks proper. On my way back down to Trish I dropped the blanket and as I stopped to pick it up, a fire truck pulled up. I was relieved to see them even though I knew as soon as they ran out of pavement, it was going to be slow-going getting down to where Trish lay because they‘d have to do it on foot. I gave them detailed directions of where to find us, then rode down to cover her up.

When I got back to her, she was in the same position that I had left her - with her head facing down the mountain, on her left side, and still shivering. I covered her up and then we just waited. And waited. We waited a long time. So long in fact, that just before nightfall, I decided to take one last sprint up the hill to make sure that her rescuers hadn’t taken the one and only wrong turn that they could have. I reluctantly left her laying there a third time, but knew if I didn’t make sure she was going to be saved soon, things would go from very bad to worse. About a half mile uphill from the crash site, I found three fire fighters with a backboard trying to radio the other half of their crew who was dealing with some guy who had flipped his car on Highway 38 just moments before Trish’s crash. It was a busy night for emergency medical services in Angelus Oaks.

I hate to sound ungrateful, but when the three finally did reach us, they weren’t overly prepared. Their presence was a relief, but they had only a backboard, and a somewhat simple first aid bag. They weren’t certified to give her pain killers and they couldn’t get coordinates on their GPS in order to get a helicopter in to pick her up. While I was fumbling around in the dark trying to get my Garmin to show some coordinates, we got bad news. The car crash victim up on the highway was going to get the one and only helicopter ride and due to out difficult to reach location, we were in fact going to have to carry Trish out.

It hurt Trish like I can’t imagine, but we eventually got her on to the backboard and then waited for the medics to hike down so they could get some morphine in her. Only then could we carry her out. When they finally arrived, they had the drugs, however a communication breakdown between them and the first responders saw us with morphine, but no needle. Trish was again forced to wait as the sheriff rode down on an ATV to deliver a syringe. Once the medic got the morphine into her system, the pain was dulled to a degree, and the now group of a half dozen or so rescuers could start lifting.

The process proved to be painfully slow going on foot and physically painful for Trish so after only two-tenths of a mile we put her down, shot some more morphine into her and lifted the backboard onto the back of the sheriff’s ATV. By that time there were several members of the San G. Search and Rescue squad now on site and everyone helped to slowly guide her and the ATV the rest of the way up Old Highway 38 to where the ambulance was waiting. In her horrible state, laying on the backboard, Trish looked up and recognized Phil Naman, a friend and one of the San G. Search and Rescue volunteers and said, “Hey, I know you.” It spurred my one and only laugh of the night.

When we finally arrived to where the pavement began, it looked like a scene out of the evening news; emergency vehicles with their lights flashing parked all over the side of the road and in the middle of the road too. More than 3 hours after her crash, the medics put Trish in the back of the ambulance, shot her up with more morphine, and started driving her down the mountain to Loma Linda. Even though I was there, I still have a hard time believing what she went through, and keep thinking I’m going to wake up from a bad dream. I’ve been around bad stuff on the trail before, but none as bad as this, yet she dealt with it and endured the pain as well as anyone would have or could have. I’m not sure I could have mimicked her bravery, and I know a lot of other people, whom put in the same situation would have crumbled.

Unfortunately, getting off the mountain was only the beginning. As I write this, Trish is 4 days post-op with 8 more weeks of non-weight bearing recovery ahead. I’m proud of her, yet somewhat perplexed by the fact that at least once a day since this all happened, she looks up at me from whatever bed she’s laying in at the moment, and says, “Why don’t you go ride for a couple hours.” And for all kinds of reasons, mostly amazement, I just don’t know how to respond. Then I remember how damn tough she is and think I better just do what I’m told.

My Orange County Crime Spree

2010-07-27T07:26:00.000-07:00

National Championships left me feeling tired and flat so I sat out both Rim Nordic and San Marcos Grand Prix, one of my favorites. Instead, Trish and I drove out toward the coast to do some mountain bike riding in Orange County. That’s Orange County, California, of course. I wouldn’t be caught dead in Orange County, Florida. Actually, if I were in Orange County, Florida, I probably would be caught dead since the Sunshine State is crime-ridden. Just watch Dateline or 20/20. Nine our of 10 stories are about some murder or kidnapping in Florida. But, I digress. And, I probably shouldn’t be complaining about the miserable state of Florida right now. Especially since this blog is about the Golden State. Yesterday we discovered that it now costs 15 bucks to get into a California State Park. When did this happen? Not such a golden idea.

Our day started out with a ride at Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park in Trabuco Canyon. Although Whiting is not a state park, we still avoided the small parking fee by parking next to the Outback Steakhouse instead of the designated parking area. Sure, you run the risk of your car getting broken into by one of the Outback bus boys, but if you saw my car, you’d realize it’s not much of a risk. The ride itself was fairly successful, although some of the new trails that have been cut aren’t as good as the old ones I used to ride in ’98-2000. It did bring back good memories of riding with the Cycle News staffers, at the turn of the century. (I think that’s the first time I’ve ever referred to myself as being alive at the turn of a century. That makes me feel so sophisticated and worldly). Anyway, after doing a short loop, we hopped in our illegally parked car and headed to El Moro Canyon, which is in Crystal Cove State Park. It should be noted here that we traveled toll roads and actually paid the tolls on our way to our second stop.

Upon our arrival is when we realized the horror. It costs three Abe Lincolns for a day use pass and $125 for an annual pass to park in a California State Park! Further investigation on Trish’s smart phone (I refuse to name the brand) revealed that an annual pass for the National Parks will only cost you $80. That pass will get you into, oh , wonders of world such as Yellowstone, Yosemite, and a little placed called the Grand Canyon. Meanwhile, the hundred and a quarter California State Park annual pass will get you into places such as Patrick’s Point State Park, Lake Perris State Recreation Area, and Malibu Creek State Park. Where? No offense to Patrick, whoever he was and wherever his park is, but isn’t Malibu Creek State Park the same place that is contaminated with sewage every other week? And don’t get me started on Lake Perris. It may not be contaminated with sewage, but its waters and shores are laced with the trash of SoCal (and I mean that literally and figuratively).

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. That’s what I always say. Using her smart phone, Trish discovered that one can enter Crystal Cover State Park from its northern border where there is a small community park near the 73 Toll Road. So we did. And we rode El Moro Canyon. For free. Well, not free. It’s gonna cost us a set of Avid Juicy brake pads, but that’s an entirely different story altogether.

Our day of dodging California State Park entrance fees didn’t stop there. Oh no. We were like Bonnie and Clyde on this day. After wiping the free El Moro Canyon dirt off of our legs, arms, and faces, we drove south to Doheny State Beach where my mom and the Lanzas were “camping.” Instead of forking out the current amount of my Aetna health insurance co-pay (also a rip-off, if you ask me), we found bargain one-dollar-per-hour parking at the nearby Dana Point Harbor. A short bike ride into the state campground and we were feasting on dinner with a free ocean breeze blowing through our hair.

I’m no mathematician, accountant, or economist, but I figured that by not racing and by dodging inflated parking fees yesterday, I saved enough money to buy a National Parks Pass.

Hindsight is 20-20, or I should have ran a 21

2010-07-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

Ryder (my 5-year old, not Hesjedal) and I were met at Denver International Airport on Thursday afternoon by my parents. They already had the motorhome parked up at Sol Vista in Granby, the site of the 2010 U.S. Mountain Bike Championships. I was eager to get to race venue and do a lap of the race course since I had just come off of a one week of work conference of sitting idle in the San Diego Convention Center. By the time we got to Sol Vista I had just enough time to go hammer out a lap of the 9-mile course. The first thing I noticed was the thin air.

Riding the singlespeed with a 19 tooth cog proved pretty darn hard so I decided I do another couple of laps on Friday with an easier gear. I woke up Friday morning, threw on a 20 tooth and did another lap. It felt good and because there were a few sections of flat dirt road in the race course, I decided a 20 was the way to go. I didn’t want to be spinning around aimlessly while my competitors rode away from me. I thought about doing another lap, but thought I better save my legs for Saturday morning’s race. That’s probably where I made the fatalist of all my weekend’s fatal mistake. Had I done a second lap with the 20, I might have realized that it was just too much for this little 145 lb frame to push at over 9,000 feet of elevation. And so I rested up, ate dinner, and went to bed.

Well rested, I woke up at 6am, ate a good breakfast, got a good warm-up, and then rode over to the starting line. I started on the front row right next to Captain Ned Overend. I was also paying close attention to Cameron Brenneman because he has just won the Singlespeed Nat’l Marathon Championship a few weeks prior in Colorado, and he was always fast when he lived in California. I didn’t notice the other Cameron, Cameron Chambers, lined up somewhere else in our field, but in the end it didn’t really matter. The gun went off, I did the opening climb with the front group and entered the singletrack still attached, but as we climbed closer to the 9500 foot level, I started coming apart. It was all downhill from there, and not literally. It went from bad to worse as the race continued, and once I knew I was not going to recover and work my way back toward the front, I decided to just enjoy the ride. And so I did, not worrying about where I finished. I just would have enjoyed it a lot more if I had a tooth or two extra on my rear cog. Congrats to the Captain and the two Camerons for their podium performances.

The rest of the weekend was spent watching the Elite races (which I secretly wished I would have done instead of the singlespeed race). I think I’d be back of the pack Elite rather than mid or even front pack singlespeed. Oh well, maybe next year. On Sunday we broke camp and my parents and Ryder drove to a campground on Granby Lake. I did a lap of the Elite race course and then spun over to our new camp. Then we headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park and did some site seeing. Monday’s wakeup call was an early one as we did the 2 hour drive back to DIA for a morning flight back home. Ryder was an excellent travel partner. I can’t wait until I’m driving to the big races to support him. Let him suffer for a change.

Boats in Lake Granby

Ryder in Lake Granby

Good roads in the Nat'l Park.

Now go home.

Man in a Suitcase

2010-07-14T13:32:00.000-07:00

Lately I feel like I’ve been living out of a suitcase, backpack, or car. I’ve spent four of the last five days in San Diego at a conference and tomorrow morning Ryder and I will board a plane headed for Denver. Our ultimate destination is Granby, CO for the National Mountain Bike Championships. I’m making a bid for the Singlespeed championship, again. My bike is already at the race venue, thanks to my parents. They began driving the motorhome northeast earlier this week and they’ll pick us up at the airport when we touchdown.

Planning the logistics of the trip made me feel like a bike racer again, although as I’ve sat inside the San Diego Convention Center for eight hours a day, four days a week, I’ve felt nothing like a bike racer. My legs are all locked up, my diet is all screwed up, and my hours of sleep are down.

Whatever my results may be in the race, I’m looking forward to taking Ryder on the plane and spending a week with him and my parents. At five years old, Ryder has is own suitcase and he has already flown a couple of times, yet never with me as his co-pilot. He’s eagerly anticipating a window seat, and so am I. We’ll have to settle that dispute somehow; flip a coin, rock-paper-scissors, or inka binka bottle of ink. If I don’t win those, I’ll just have to use brute force. Are parents still allowed to use brute force with their kids? I better Google that before we get on the plane.

I’d much rather drive you know, but there’s just not time right now. With the right amount of time and the right people I love a good road trip. There’s so much to see on the road, so much to do on the way, and so much of an overall learning experience to travel the tarmac instead of the airways. Rather than a bag on little skateboard wheels, your automobile is your suitcase, and unlike a plane ticket, the value of a good road trip is priceless.

My co-pilot in the feed zone.

There oughta be a law

2010-07-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

Let me start right off the bat by saying that if you’re one of those people who think I shouldn’t complain about work because I should feel lucky to have a job, then read no further. Click your back button or read someone else’s hack blog. I’m making no excuses. This is a blog about my disdain for having to work this weekend, July 10-11, 2010.

Why, you ask? Because I’m stuck inside the San Diego Convention Center on a weekend when there is a whole lot of other cool stuff going on. For example, and in no particular order:

My nephew, Destry Lanza is celebrating his 4th birthday on Saturday with a bike-themed birthday party and because I have to work this weekend my parents had to take Ryder to the party.
The Tour de France travels to the Alps starting Saturday and my hotel lacks the Versus channel.
The World Cup Final is on Sunday.
Trish is on a lake in Michigan – a lake I was invited to.
There is a California State XC race in Big Bear on Sunday.
There is a US Cup Stage Race in Colorado Springs this weekend.

And I’m missing all of it.

There oughta be a law against working on the weekends unless that work is retail or racing.

My Best Seth Godin

2010-07-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

There seems to be two schools of thought today in the way business is done. There is the somewhat traditional (I won’t say old school because the term makes me cringe) method, which is 8am to 5pm holed up in a cubical, or if you’re lucky an office. Then there is the new mobile way of doing business where business is done around the clock from where ever and at a moment’s notice, sometimes for just moments at a time.

Granted, some businesses, such as retail and customer service requires someone to be “on the clock” and “on post” during hours of operation, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about marketing, advertising, writing, project management, graphic design - stuff like that. Why in today’s world people still require that type of business to be done holed up in an office or cubical, I will never understand. And especially when creativity is considered a job skill. I’ve been a product (or should I say victim) of both schools of doing business and I’ll tell you from firsthand experience, the fruits of the traditional method are few and of far less quality.

It's hard to think outside the box when all day long you're stuck in a box.

Rim Nordic

2010-07-01T22:02:00.000-07:00

I’ve never raced in an actual World Cup, but I’ve ridden a couple of World Cup race courses. The race course at Rim Nordic in Running Springs, CA are indeed World Cup quality. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Rim Nordic because it can be blazing hot there and the climbs are very steep, but the bottom line is, if the facilities around Rim Nordic were better, I bet it would be on the US Cup, and maybe even the World Cup short list.

All of that said, I raced at Rim Nordic last weekend. It was a shorter-than-usual race and I got a shorter-than-usual warm up, so I got a worse-than-usual placing. I’m taking it all in stride though as my sights are set on the National Championships in Granby, CO in a couple weeks. My never-ending quest for a Singlespeed Nat’l Championship continues…

2010-06-23T07:58:00.001-07:00

My roommate, we’ll call him Joe, has this annoyingly bad habit of scheduling his arrival flights for late in evening. For example, last month when Joe flew home to Washington for his dad’s retirement party, he scheduled his return flight into Ontario for 11:30 PM. And he expects me or Josh, or another one of his unfortunate friends to be curbside no matter the time. This wouldn’t bother me as much if Joe was flying in from another part of the country, but he’s coming in from the same time zone. There’s no reason why I, or anyone other than an airport shuttle, should have to pick him up at that hour. Tonight he wants me to pick him up at 10:45. Usually at 10:45 I’m halfway through a second episode of Seinfeld or I’m already asleep. I’m thinking about leaving him hanging.

The more and more I think about it, the more it annoys me. Not only does one of us have to pick him up late time and time again, that means that someone on the other end in Washington is repeatedly taking him to airport during primetime hours. I’m thinking I should rent a van tonight and fill it with everyone that has ever had to take or pick Joe up from the airport. When we pull up to the curb to pick him up tonight, we’ll let him in the van but instead of driving him home, we’ll have an intervention. This has to stop.

U.S. Cup Santa Barbara

2010-06-12T20:59:00.000-07:00

After the Big Bear round of the U.S. Cup West Series was canceled due to too much snow on the ground, the Santa Barbara Bike Festival at Elings Park was scheduled to take the place of the high altitude event. I’d much rather race in the mountain town of Big Bear, but Santa Barbara isn’t such a bad place. Of all the “urban” cross country race courses in Southern Californian, I think the one at Elings Park is the best. It’s got a few good climbs and a lot of descent singletrack. Come to think of it, it’s probably got more singletrack per 5-mile lap than the Big Bear course does.

The Santa Barbara race marked my first on the new Superfly and the bike did not disappoint. It’s a rocket ship – that’s for sure. The only things that kept me from making the podium was my lack of fitness, my poor fork tuning abilities, and the few guys that finished in front of me. I can’t claim to have won the “Old Pro Class” or “Daddy Division” this time either because Tinker came out and torched us all from the moment Larry Long said “Go” on the Team Big Bear P.A. system. But, I made the top 10 and considering I haven’t raced a mountain bike since March, I’m cool with that. The next couple of months are packed with good races, so it’s time to do some catching up.

Sedona

2010-06-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

I’ve never had a race season start this late for me, but on the bright side all the free time has given me more time to just ride my bike and not worry about getting from this race to that race. On Memorial Day weekend Trish and I took a trip to Sedona to do a little riding. Neither one of us had ever been, but we’d heard how good the riding was. The place did not disappoint. I don’t think I’ve ever ridden a better trail system on the west coast. Most of it singletrack, the trails were as technical and as fun as they come in the southwest.

Miles and miles of ups and downs, rock drop-offs and step-ups, and switchbacks a plenty. I rode the Ferrous 1x9 with 1.75 XDX tires front and rear because I was too lazy before we left to put on wider tires. Once I saw how rocky the trails were I was worried about tearing open a tire, but in three days of riding the tires held up great. I was impressed and it gave me a bit more faith in the skinny and lighter tire setup.

Meanwhile, back at Cyclery USA, Steve and Eddie were building my new Superfly. After a few hiccups the thing finally got put together and should be race ready by the US Cup race this weekend in Santa Barbara. The question is, will I be ready?

I wonder if bears have ADHD too?

2010-05-17T19:01:00.000-07:00

Where I’m from, there’s a lot of wildlife. Opossums, coons, rabbits, skunks, and coyotes everywhere. And you can’t even swing a dead cat without hitting some dead squirrel road kill. Needless to say, I see my fair share of wild animals, but what I saw yesterday up on the Santa Ana River Trail between Angelus Oaks and Seven Oaks makes those other animals look like a bunch of novices.

I stared death in the face yesterday, and if it wasn’t for one fallen tree across the trail that divided me and a Lazy Boy recliner-sized black bear, I could be dead. Or worse yet, badly disfigured.

I was coming to a stop and trying to decide whether or not I was going to go under or over the dead tree that lay across the trail. I looked below the tree and there was not enough room for even me to squeeze underneath. I gazed over the tree and that’s when I saw him. He was hauling ass down the trail in my direction. I tell ya, he was a quarter ton if he was a pound. I yelled, “Easy big fella!” (or something like that) and it startled the great beast. At that very moment, he planted his big bear paws and made a hard right turn, careening down the mountain side and uprooting the small trees and bushes that lay in his path. The ruckus sounded like someone drove one of those smart cars off a cliff and into the forest. And like that, he was gone..

Kelly arrived on the scene just in time to see the savage killer scramble down the mountain. He has seen bears in the wild before, so he seemed slightly less haunted, but this bear was my first; my virgin bear. If this sighting occurred 20 years sooner, when I was young and impressionable, maybe it would have changed the course of my life. After an encounter like this, maybe I would have dedicated my future to studying bears. Maybe I would have even gone to live among the bears. I wouldn’t mind sleeping all winter.

It’s too late now though. When I actually was young and impressionable, I was more impressed by the wild lives of motorcycle racers, musicians, and beat authors, and less impressed by wildlife. Hey, wildlife reminds me of the Van Morrison song “Wild Night.” Damn, that’s a good song.

He was this big!

Tour de East Valley

2010-05-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

It’s spring time so everything is in bloom. That’s not good when you’re trying to ride trails that aren’t ridden much and are rarely maintained. Last Saturday, I thought I’d show Trish the Lower Workout ride in the foothills of Mentone Beach. And it’s a good thing she likes flowers so much because the flowers definitely over-powered the trail. Flowers and lizards everywhere you looked. I’ve ridden Lower Workout more times than I can count and I still had trouble following the over-grown route. Nevertheless, we survived and found our way to Mill Creek, where we almost died trying to cross the creek.

Okay, we didn’t almost die, but I nearly fell in and in that instance, my phone and iPod would have drowned. After about a half hour of trying to find somewhere shallow and narrow enough to cross, we finally gave up, flipped it, and headed back toward Green Spot on a boring old dirt road. Then we rode up the levee to the south side of Crafton Hills and I tricked Trish into riding up the singletrack to Zanja Peak. It was her first real singletrack experience and she didn’t “get out of control and go plummeting off a cliff to her death” (as she puts it), so it was a success.

From Zanja Peak I descended to the regional park via the singletrack and she opted to take the dirt road back down to the college. On her own free will, she almost followed me down the singletrack, but decided she wasn’t quite ready to take the plunge. After all, it wasn’t long ago that this mountain bike transform was crit scum. (I’m sure that’s gonna warrant a comment).

After topping off the bottles in the park, we reunited at Chatman Heights and finished off the ride by rolling down in to Redlands and then back up to her house. Not a bad ride considering we were never more than 10 miles away from home. It will probably be one of my last rides on the Ferrous before switching over to my new Superfly, which is almost done being built at Cyclery USA.

It is almost done being built, right Steve?

Outtakes from work

2010-05-05T09:14:00.001-07:00

At work I started writing a story about Culver City's economic development plan, but then some stuff happened and it ended up on the cutting room floor. Since I don't update this hack blog anymore, none of my writing can go to waste so I'm going to publish the lead to this dead story here. And even though I hate Los Angeles, there's a little place in my heart for Culver City. After all, it's the home of Jeopardy, NPR West, and the filming of Citizen Kane.

As the native home of world famous movie studios, Southern California's Culver City played host to the filming of early screen classics, The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, and Citizen Kane. Culver City remained a hot spot for movie studios throughout most of the century, with more recent films such as, Grease, Raging Bull, and E.T. As the 20^th century came to a close, competing cities coaxed the production of films to other locales. Culver City found itself with a depleting film industry and in turn, a stagnant local economy.

Restaurants and shops of the once bustling main drag, Washington Boulevard, were hit hardest by the decrease in the big-spending of movie-studio moguls. With profits shrinking, businesses could devote less money to structural improvements such as building facades, landscape or exterior lighting, signage, paint, and stucco. Many shop owners called it a wrap, while intrepid storefronts grew dingy. Investors shied away, and the trickle-down effect impacted residential areas of the five-square-mile community.

Culver City officials knew they had to implement some type of redesign and area-improvement plan to encourage new investors and businesses. The plan needed to be carefully developed and outlined before it could be pitched to the city council. Yada, yada, yada…

Sadly, this is the most interesting thing I've written for work in months.

We need Rails-to-Trails

2010-04-20T15:59:00.001-07:00

I've been making an effort to take Ryder bike riding recently; only I've been running into some problems. First of all, he just recently learned how to ride on two wheels so he's not the most stable guy in the peloton. Since he doesn't ride in a straight line very well, I'm limited to where I can take him. The streets and sidewalks are not good yet because he's liable to veer off into traffic. And the parks in Redlands are less than desirable for kids to ride bikes in.

At Caroline Park you need a mountain bike with a granny gear to get from the bottom of the park to the top, or a 5-inch travel mountain bike to get from the top of the park to the bottom. It's less of a park and more of a wildlife preserve for people to walk their dogs and for local kids to go smoke a fatty. Only the sprinklers go on at the most odd times of the day so you're bound to leave there accompanied by the stench of a wet dog or with an extinguished and soggy spliff.

Ford Park won't work either because it mainly consists of an over-watered grassy hillside that runs down into the rest of the park and creates the Florida Everglades. And you all know how I feel about Florida. Plus, the entire park only has about 10 feet of sidewalk. I guess if I wanted Ryder to practice bicycle drag racing, then 10 feet of sidewalk would work out, but drag racing is for Nancy Boys.

Another problem with Ford Park is the Frisbee golfers or frolfers (which I've already covered on this blog in the fall of 2009). I can't decide whether I have less tolerance for frolfers or politicians. The irony is these two classes of people could not be more different. They're from complete different ends of the douche bag spectrum. It's been my experience that frolfers will play through on any kind of activity. A kid's birthday party - they play through. A couple of people lying on a blanket dry humping - they play through. A yoga class - they play through. I once saw them try to play thru on a dog training class, but that didn't work out so well. Anyway, frolfers are so out of touch with reality, I can just imagine them trying to play through on the mayor's ribbon cutting ceremony for the grand opening of another 10 feet of sidewalk, but I of course won't get to see that confrontation because I'm boycotting Ford Park.

From the street, Prospect Park looks like a good option for taking a kid bike riding, but once you get into the park, the buck stops there. On any given day you have to dodge the high school cross country team, the drama club pipe dreamers, any number of cranky blue hairs who think bikes and walkers can't coexist (and when I say walkers, I mean this kind of walker), and the weirdos who lurk and hang out in the bamboo (actually, they're probably the same as the drama clubbers, but it's hard to tell these days). And then there's the wine, cheese, and blanket picnickers and the never ending maze of park bench memorials. If wanted to take my kid riding in such a freak-filled place, we'd just go riding down State Street during Market Night.

About the only park I'm left with is Brookside Park, but as soon as Ryder spots the playground, he's dropping his bike and making a B-line for the swings.

My options are so bad that I'm considering looking at parks on the north side.

Citizen Freeman

2010-04-07T16:36:00.001-07:00

My mom bought Ryder and Destry each a pinwheel for their Easter baskets. I didn't think much of them at first, but then Ryder took his outside and as soon as the breeze took hold of its blades and the pinwheel began to spin, I was taken back to images of my childhood.

I don't actually ever remember having a pinwheel, but I remember them being around the neighborhood. I'm sure that at any given time, one of the dozen kids on Oakdale Street had a pinwheel. We also had an arsenal of toy guns on our street, but something tells me the site of a plastic M16 or Uzi is never going to provoke the same warm feeling as a pinwheel. When I was a kid, we probably used the pinwheels to slap each other around with, although today as I watch Ryder run through the yard with his spinning, I see innocence and I see a simpler time.

I realize I'm late to the party, but I've recently become a big fan of A Prairie Home Companion and (more specifically) listening to Garrison Keillor report news from Lake Wobegon. Make believe as it may be, listening to stories about Lake Wobegon, the little town that time forgot, gives me a feeling similar to that of seeing a pinwheel spin – a feeling of nostalgia. Obviously, that's what Keillor's radio show aims to do. I'm aware of that. I'm also aware that I yearn for yesteryear and reverie getting back to basics more than the average Joe.

In a way, Oakdale Street was its own little town like Lake Wobegon, although I regret to inform you that time most definitely did not forget the street I grew up on. The phrase, "You can never go home again," applies well. Yet as the pinwheel spins, and Keillor spins a yarn, I forget what time it is and for brief moments no matter where I am on earth, I'm home again.

Could my last dying word actually be pinwheel?

If I could be like Mike

2010-04-05T12:59:00.001-07:00

When you spend 8 hours (or more) of your day reading and writing, the last thing you want to do is come home from work and read or write more. By the time I'm off the clock, all I want to do is hang out with the family, ride my bike, or watch Jeopardy. Writing a blog even seems laborious. My eyes are tired, my brain is fried, and my daily dosage of creativity was spent on a story lead about how Culver City uses GIS software to help its economic development program blah, blah, blah…

This type of thing happened to me when I worked in the motorcycle industry. I spent my entire adolescents through college age, obsessed with motorcycle racing. It was 24-7. But then I turned it into a career and it wasn't long before I was burned out on motorcycles. I think I'm burned out on writing now.

And then there's the fact that - and this is hard to admit - I'm growing out of my angry youth. Thus, I'm not as inspired and influenced as I once was to spew thoughts and ideas all over a page. I'm still pissed off. I'm just too tired to do anything about it now. In recent interviews, even the prophet Bob Dylan has admitted that with age, he's lost some inspiration and ambition to write like he used to. At least I'm in good company.

So, here's the deal. In an effort to keep this hack blog from completely flatlining, I'm just going to throw up random stuff of interest and quotes from music, movies, books, etc. Maybe I'll even put up an occasional photo or painting too. Something, anything, to keep things fresh.

Here's the first one. Anyone who knows me well knows I love the Minutemen, the Stooges, and of course, Mike Watt. Heard this on NPR yesterday. For me, Mike Watt defines punk rock: http://bit.ly/azcju6

2010-03-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

Read about my round 1 of the U.S. Cup Triple Crown here.

And had me for dessert

2010-03-03T07:35:00.000-08:00

It never fails. Every year it takes me about a month’s worth of racing before I can actually get up to race speed. And this year it’s even worse because I was fighting tendonitis in my left knee until a few weeks ago. Plus, normally by this time of the year I have at least one or two road races in the books. Not so in twenty-ten. The only things I have in the books so far this year are two embarrassing XC results. Let me give you the painful details.

Training race number one took place on February 20 at Fontana’s infamous Southridge race course. It had rained the week leading up to this race so I thought, “What the heck? I’ll go test the waters and see what kind of fitness I have.” WTF was more like it. If that race were the SAT, I’d be headed to community college because I did horrible. I only had enough fitness and will to ride hard for about 30 minutes. After that my pencil was put down and my test was collected. To add insult to injury, as I was riding around after the failed attempt at racing, I was chased by a rabid pit bull [only in Fontana]. Since I was such a pansy in the race and didn’t push myself half as hard as I could have, I still had plenty of energy left to outrun the savage beast. Part of me wishes I hadn’t.

A week and one day later I found myself at round 1 of the Kenda Cup West Series, Sage Brush Safari. The only dog around was Dean Swank’s doxin, and in the past I’ve had somewhat successful results at this race so things were already looking up. But then I got to the starting line and what I saw made me realize that the past just doesn’t matter anymore. It’s the present that really matters and presently Sid Taberlay was lined up in front of me to my right and Jeremiah Bishop was lined up in front of me to my left. It’s not like I was going into Sage Brush expecting anything other than a top ten - I just wasn’t expecting the first climb to be at mach 5.

As it turns out, the first climb wasn’t at mach 5. It was more like mach 4, which makes it that much more sad that I came off the lead group before reaching the summit of the opening climb. I completely exploded within sight of the top and spent the two-track rollers afterward trying to recover while I should have been drilling it. The truth is, I never really did recover. I spent the entire first of two laps red-lined and hating life. I thought about how I may be getting too old to try and race with the big boys. I thought about how much easier road racing can be (I said can be). I thought a lot about quitting, but thought I needed the extra time on the bike so the third race wouldn’t be such a disaster. I thought a lot about that pit bull from Fontana and how I wished it would have caught me and had my bike for lunch.

Behind my bike, I'm dragging an anchor.

Sarcasm is no longer the lowest form of wit

2010-02-22T21:08:00.001-08:00

Yes, it seems I’ve found something that actually annoys me even more than soap operas, crowds, riding behind bow-legged people, the state of Florida, and the nation of Germany. It’s called Vague-booking, and I’m not the only one it annoys. Those vague cries for help and attention on Facebook and Twitter are so widely hated that they’ve been given a name and are listed in Urban Dictionary now. You know the half-wits I’m talking about:

So-in-so is over it.

So-in-so is having a life changing experience.

So-in-so can’t take it anymore.

So-in-so can’t believe some people.

I can’t decide if So-in-so thinks they’re being clever, is trying to coax “friends” or followers into commenting, or is actually so ignorant and uncreative that they can’t type a clear and concise thought or statement. I’m sure at one point, we’ve all been guilty of posting, tweeting, or blogging something ambiguous, but there are some people out there who have made it a hobby. And when I say some people, I think you know the So-in-so types I’m (cryptically) talking about.

Join me next time when I talk about the phonies on Facebook who have like a 1,000 “friends.”

What To Do When You Receive an ebay Question from Dumbass (or, How to Receive Negative ebay Feedback).

2010-02-17T06:11:00.000-08:00

Like Steve Berg, I too am getting cyber-bullied on ebay for not answering buyer questions in a prompt manner. Maybe it has something to do with the demanding and ridiculous nature of some of the questions. For example, “The Gary Fisher website says the effective top tube is 527mm. Does that sound right?” and “You didn’t post the weight of the bike. Please weigh the bike,” and my favorite, “I asked you to weigh the bike and you haven’t gotten back to me yet. Weigh the bike and get back to me ASAP.”

These type of questions are a lose-lose situation for me. If I don’t answer the questions, I risk losing a potential buyer. If I do answer the questions, I still risk losing a potential buyer because I’m likely to answer them like this:

“I checked with Gary Fisher himself and he has no idea whether 527 mm is the correct effective top tube length either. Both Gary and I agree that more than likely, his website is correct, but who knows for sure. I could go out to the garage and measure it myself, but I’m not completely comfortable with my measuring abilities, so who knows for sure if I’d get the measurement right. I suggest that you be the highest bidder and once you’ve paid and I’ve shipped you the bike, you can find out firsthand whether or not it does indeed have a 527mm effective top tube and if Gary's website is right or if he's just pulling your leg.”

And we mustn’t forget the weight weenie, whose question, if I did answer, I would probably answer like this:

“When I received your first message I put ‘weigh the bike’ on my list of things to do today right above 'pay bills' and right underneath ‘measure the effective top tube.’ Then I received your second message demanding that I weigh the bike 'ASAP,' as you put it. At that point I decided that if you’re that concerned with the weight of the Dura Ace, Ultegra, and RaceXLite high-end component-equipped bike, you’re probably not tough enough to race cyclocross in the first place, thus you don’t deserve, or need this bike. Plus, your ebay username contains clues suggesting you’re from Florida, and of all the Confederate States, Florida is by far my least favorite. Doing ebay business with someone in Florida is kind of like doing ebay business with someone outside of the U.S. – it’s most likely a scam. And besides, the cross racing in Florida is probably pretty lame, so consider it a favor that I did not cave to your demands. I saved you a lot of money and a lot of suffering, and myself a trip out to the garage. Furthermore, your Confederate money is no good.”

Contrary to what you may think about this blog, it actually has morals and the moral of this story is that if you send me dumb ebay questions, you’re more than likely to get back a dumber answer.

These aren’t morals, but instead, good-to-know information:

Per my Garmin Edge 500, Raincross is harder than Como. Turner’s Garmin can back me up on that. Garmins don’t lie.

The first two-thirds of the Palm Springs Century (or whatever they call it) are pretty cool. The last third is spent riding from red light to red light to red light, which is not cool at all.

Don’t eat fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and corn on the cob an hour before riding the Silver Bullet at Knott’s Berry Farm unless you want to feel like hell for the better part of two hours.

The Ghost Rider rollercoaster at Knott’s Berry Farm is wicked fast.

I wonder what Ryder is doing right now?

I'm Whole Again

2010-02-10T06:48:00.001-08:00

Read all about this here: http://29ercrew.com/mfreeman/02/10/4882/

Because Cyclocross is too Hard

2010-02-07T17:10:00.000-08:00

For Sale:Gary Fisher Presidio CX Bike size 52

Sucking at CX forces sale.

This bike (and its rider) made an appearance (off-the-back) at the 2010 CrossVegas. Only a hand full of bikes can say that in the entire world!

The frame was purchased new in September 2009. I crashed it a couple times but it was no big deal to the buyer (you) because my body took the brunt of the crashes. Iraced this bike half a southern California CX season so the bike never saw any bad weather. It was only raced half a season because I got tired of getting my ass kicked so I quit. I'm over it (it, being CX).

Email me at mattfreemanrace@yahoo.com if you're interested.

Here's the down-low...
Frame: medium True Temper OX Platinum Steel
Fork: Bontrager Satellite Carbon
Headset: Cane Creek S-3
Shifters: Shimano Dura Ace 7800 10-speed (right scuffed from crash)
Front derailleur: Shimano Dura Ace 7800
Rear derailleur: Ultegra
Crank set: Bontrager RaceXLite 50/34
Cassette: SRAM Rival 11/26
Chain: Dura Ace
Wheels: Bontrager RaceXLite Tubular (not carbon)
Tires: Tufo Primus 32c, used for a couple races (perfectly glued)
Handlebar: Bontrager RaceXLite carbon
Stem: Bontrager RaceLite 100mm 7-degree
Seatpost: Bontrager RaceXLite AC (carbon/aluminum mix)
Saddle: Bontrager RaceXLite
Brakes: TRP

So there you have it.

Did I mention it was in freezing temperatures?

2010-02-03T09:52:00.001-08:00

1 million reasons why your community should get behind a national caliber cycling event: http://kohd.com/news/local/161017

And when I say fun, what I actually mean is summer.

2010-02-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

I don’t like rodents, especially when they emerge from a tree stump and see their ugly rodent shadows, signaling six more weeks of me freezing my ass off.

If I were in Gobbler’s Knob, PA today, I would have placed a sizzling Weber BBQ over the ceremonial tree stump preventing Punxsutawney Phil from baring his grimy head. That’s what I would have done, and that’s how I would have declared that spring is indeed just around the corner and happy days are here again.

I find it amusing that the time-honored Groundhog Day tradition came to America by way of the early German settlers. It just proves my point – Germans hate fun. They’re where fun goes to die. The exception is the Schmidt family. Not only are they fun, they feed me every tuesday night. Last night we had salmon. Anyway, I digress - winter isn't fun.

Correction:

2010-01-27T15:55:00.001-08:00

Okay, I lied. I can kinda use the extra money, but in today's wintry economic climate, who couldn't use a little extra money?

Everything Must Go!

2010-01-24T10:37:00.000-08:00

First let me start off by saying I'm selling a bunch of stuff. Here's the list. If you're interested let me know. It all goes on eBay within the next week or so.

- 2009 Rock Shox SID World Cup fork (blue), used for one season
- 2009 Rock Shox Reba Team for (black), used for one season
- 2009 Gary Fisher Presidio Cyclocross bike with a Dura Ace/Ultegra Mix, RaceXLite tubular wheels, TRP brakes, Bontrager crankset, email me for the rest of the details. Used for one season.
- 2009 Gary Fisher Big Sur MTB frame size medium, one season used.
- 2007 Bontrager RaceXLite 26" MTB wheels, used for two seasons.

I think that's it, but I'm willing to sell just about anything I own right now, with the exception of my first born son. I'm willing to let a lot of this stuff go for cheap. It's not that I need the money, it's that I have too much stuff and I hate having too much stuff. Having too much stuff will make a man go mad, or weight him down. Travel light, I say.

A guy told me one time, "Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner."

Okay, well a guy never told me that, but Robert De Niro's character said that in Heat, and those, in my opinion, are words to live by. People own and save too much stuff that they don't need or never use. Guess what? We just had consecutive rainy days and I bet you didn't use any of the stuff that you are saving for a rainy day. Sell it all, or give it away.

On another note, http://www.cyclingdirt.org/ is using my image (below) for a story about the 2010 American Mountain Bike Challenge. The photo is from last year's Santa Ynez Kenda Cup and wouldn't you know it, but there's a couple of Bear Valley Bikes guys sucking my wheel. That about sums up my season. Anyway, it's a cool photo. And, coincidentally, I no longer own the bike in that photo. It was part of a pile of stuff that I already sold.

P.S. - If you're fighting tendonitis this winter, like I am, go see Leo at http://www.passpt.com/. He'll fix you up.

P.S.S. - Remember, don't let yourself get attached to anything [stuff] you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.

2010-01-12T10:04:00.000-08:00

About every 3 years I get the itch to become a good swimmer. Right now I’m just a below average swimmer. I haven’t had any lessons or coaching aside from when I was a little kid, and I’ve always just gotten by on general fitness and sheer will not to drown. Plus, it’s always bothered me that I’m such a mediocre swimmer. Some things I don’t mind being mediocre at, like video games or baseball. Video games are for fat kids and baseball is for fat adults, but swimming is just plain badass. When’s the last time anyone had to play a video game or hit a home run to save their own life? Swimming, more specifically, swimming well can save your life and maybe even the life of someone else.

A little over a week ago I started having horrible knee pain while riding. It still hasn’t been professionally diagnosed, but I suspect it’s tendonitis or what’s commonly called runner’s knee. How I got runners knee from not running, I can’t figure out, but my knee hurts like hell. I can’t ride, I certainly can’t run, and even walking is uncomfortable. For a week now I’ve been resting it, icing it, compressing it, and elevating it, but it’s not getting any better. And that’s how I ended up on this swimming kick again. Since I haven’t been able to get any real exercise lately, I opted for swimming at the gym yesterday. I was only slightly successful at it. I definitely got some exercise, but because of my poor form, I can’t swim for long before I’m exhausted, and I’m sure I look like a complete ass doing it.

I’m considering a swim coach, or at the very least someone who can help me not look like an ass when I decide to swim laps. Foist is reported to be a great swimmer, but his attention span is about as solid as backstroke so I don’t think he’d make much of a mentor. Plus, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with him reaching over me to guide my arms and hands into the proper freestyle stroke position. I’m thinking a coach more on the lines of Dara Torres or Amanda Beard.

And if I can get better at swimming, and if I can ever get my knee into working order, maybe I’ll dabble in Xterra or the occasional tri. I hear those are a lot of suffering.

In no particular order

2009-12-29T12:20:00.000-08:00

Here’s a list of things that I wanted for Christmas, but I didn’t get.

Garmin Edge 500: Every day I’m reminded at work about the importance of data integration in order to make life simpler. With the Garmin Edge 500, I can have that. And I want that. Apparently I’ve officially drunk the ESRI Kool Aid if the reason behind me wanting a Garmin Edge 500 is data integration. Never mind that I don’t care anymore that Big Brother can track my every move when I’m equipped with my new Garmin Edge 500. I gave up on trying to dodge the Man years ago, when I started carrying a cell phone. Next Christmas I’ll probably be asking for a barcode tattoo so the Feds can label me with a number, and the Christmas after that, I’ll be asking for a computer ID chip to be placed inside my body so they can even keep track of me when I’m in the shower.

Compression Socks: Every day I surf the web I’m reminded of how slow I am compared to the likes of Julien Absalon, JHK, the Dart, and especially Jens Voigt. As a 36-year-old working-class bike racing hack, I need all the help I can get. If a pair of compression socks can even make me think that I could be getting faster, then I’ll take a pair and I’ll wear them all over town. I’ll take a black pair in size 9.

Steve Berg as my butler: Well, not only my butler, but also as my bike mechanic, welder, barista, and barber. And that’s not all he’s good for. I heard he knows martial arts, can play the drums, and since he’s straight edge, he’d make the ultimate Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor. I used to think Trevor and Aaron were the Jack-Of-All-Trades, but I think Steve has surpassed them in that classification. When’s the last time Trevor or Aaron made me a pumpkin pie latte, gave me a straight razor shave, rebuilt my Rock Shox SID, and welded the crack in my car muffler all in the same day? Never. I think I’ll classify Trevor and Aaron under Master of None. Come to think of it, Steve hasn’t done any of those things for me either, but if he’s going to be my butler, you can be damn sure he’ll be doing that and then some. I’m confident his wife, Naomi, won’t even notice he’s gone.

A Frank Lloyd Wright house: If I’m going to have I butler, I guess I’m going to need a house. And what can I say about Frank Lloyd Wright and his houses that haven’t already been said on Wikipedia? The man’s house designs are right up my alley; simple with straight lines, yet elegant as hell. One summer when I was working the Honda Wing Ding in Madison, WI, I passed up the chance to tour a few of the houses Wright had built in the Madison area. Instead, I went drinking with the guys from Dunlop, which led to a no holds barred bread eating contest at Carrabba’s. Pound for pound, I won, but today I feel like a loser for not going on the Wright tour. Anyway, it sure would be nice to have a low-slung Wright roof over my head to keep my Garmin Edge 500, compression socks, and butler warm and dry during this freezing California winter ahead.

Hopefully you got everything that was on your Christmas list; even if it’s over-priced, fattening, frivolous, made in a sweatshop, can shoot you’re eye out, is bad for the environment, and can be used by the Man so he too can see you when you’re sleeping.

I stand before you today not the same man I was in Y2K

2009-12-16T21:15:00.000-08:00

You needn’t be Ken Jennings to figure out that ‘tis the season for the media and nearly everyone with a blog to reflect on the past twelve months. And because we’re also nearing the end of a decade, many are reflecting on the passing of the last 120 months.

Case in point, Rolling Stone Magazine recently listed their top 100 albums and songs of the decade. I’m satisfied to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ song “Maps” made it into the top 10. The same song made another magazine’s top 10 love songs of all time. I agree. The angst ridden song could be #1 for tunes that “stir your emotions and then stab you in the heart” if there was such a list.

Other notables, in my opinion, from the Rolling Stone list of songs of the decade are The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” in #6, my Amy’s “Rehab” in #8, and the Man in Black’s version of “Hurt” in #15. If you must read the entire list, you can find it here.

As far as their list of the decade’s best albums go, I’m content with the fact that Radiohead’s Kid A is numeral uno, and that Jack and Meg made it to #5 with Elephant, and even pleasantly surprised that Arcade Fire’s Funeral is listed as #6, but how in the hell did Amy’s Back to Black get pushed back all the way to #20, why is Death Cab’s Transatlanticism way back in #57, and why Lord, why is Plans absent from the entire 100? I’m suspect of lists like these, yet at the same time, I’m also a sucker for them. Here’s the entire list.

Moving forward, the purpose of this is not to dwell on someone else’s list, but to create my own. What can I say about the 2,000s? It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was… maybe, possibly, probably the greatest decade so far in my 36 years. The strange thing is that the first few years of the decade seem like a different lifetime to me now. In the years between 2000 and 2009 lies, to paraphrase Dickens a second time, a tale of two lives.

The motorcycles and all the fruits they once bear have ridden off into the sunset. That life and career has set sail, along with the house and the spouse. They’ve all been replaced by bicycles, geodatabases, and most importantly, a boy. If you go back through the archives of this blog starting in 2002, you’ll find the only constants are words and music. Oh, and the suffering. We mustn’t forget the suffering.

So actually, I don’t need to make a list of the decade’s best times. Here, in the lines and images of this blog, they already exist. The worst times? Just read between the lines…

The Bastardization of English Punctuation & Grammar

2009-12-09T18:56:00.000-08:00

We’ve got a problem. All over this country, and the world too, kids are learning to read and write English with more bad and inaccurate influences than ever before. Due to the internet (blogs mostly), kids are now exposed to not only violent and sexual content, but poorly written content too. Until recently the most poorly written thing that a kid could get his hands on was a comic book, or maybe some P.E. Class Rules written by the basketball coach. The scary part is that a lot of the people writing on the web are of the age that they should have learned proper punctuation and grammar with few outside influences, yet they still can’t seem to get it right. Imagine how poorly the upcoming generations are going to write if they continue to read this crap. Have some self respect people.

Some want to save the whales. Some want to save the ta-tas. That’s all fine and dandy, but in the future, how will people make a statement about saving the whales and the rain forests if they don’t even possess the writing skills to produce a bumper sticker? That’s why I want to “Save the Written Word.” Let’s get started.

Quotation Marks
Place quotation marks before and after the exact words of a speaker or writer.

Greg said, "I drank with Edward today."
"No," replied Steve, "I’m cutting hair tomorrow."
"There’s a sale at Penny’s," he said.

Use quotation marks to enclose the names of television shows, short poems, essays, short stories, and chapters from books.

Everyone should read "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Sarah Palin’s "Going Rogue" makes great kindling for a fire.
David Hasselhoff was drunk on last night’s "America’s Got Talent."

Use quotation marks sparingly to emphasize sarcasm, irony, or humor. Avoid overuse of this technique; if the irony or humor is obvious, there is usually no need to highlight it with quotation marks.

He’s a "professional" mountain bike racer.
The Saturday "World Championships" finishes on Victoria Avenue, west of Washington Street in Riverside.

Exclamation Points
An exclamation point is used at the end of a sentence or after an interjection to show strong emotion or emphasis.

Exclamatory sentence: Mark crashed again!
Strong command: Cover that break or else!
Interjection: F-word!

Beware of overusing exclamation points. Using them too frequently makes them less meaningful. Don't use an exclamation mark unless you're certain it's necessary and never use two or three of them in a row:

The singletrack was awesome!!!
Don’t be ignorant!!!

Capital Letters

Capital letters should be used according to these rules.

Use a capital letter for the personal pronoun 'I':

Why can’t I drink beer inside Barnes & Noble

Use a capital letter to begin a sentence or to begin speech:

The man did two cyclocross races in one day. Then he threw up.

Use capital letters for many abbreviations and acronyms:

P.Y.T. or PYT (Pretty Young Thing)
T.S.O.L. or TSOL (True Sounds of Liberty)

Use a capital letter for days of the week, months of the year and holidays:

Monday, Tuesday
January, February
Christmas, Beverage Day

Use a capital letter for countries, languages, nationalities and religions:

China, France
Japanese, Spanglish
Christianity, Buddhism

Use a capital letter for people's names and titles:

William Shakespeare, Chad Ochocinco
Captain Kirk, Dr Kevorkian

Use a capital letter for trade-marks and names of companies and other organizations:

Stone Brewery Co.
BevMo!
Alcoholics Anonymous

Use a capital letter for places and monuments:

London, Paris, Colton
the White House, the Eiffel Tower, the Jerky Hut
St Paul's Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, Loch Leven
Oxford Street, Pennsylvania Avenue, Mentone Boulevard
Asia, the Middle East, the Inland Empire

Use a capital letter for names of vehicles like ships, trains, bicycles and spacecraft:

the Titanic, the Starship Enterprise, the A-Team Van
Challenger 2, Sputnik, Madone, Mercedes, Yugo

Use capitals letters (sometimes!) for headings, titles of articles, books and newspaper headlines:

HOW TO WIN A FIGHT AGAINST 20 CHILDREN
Chapter 6: THE BONNIE SITUATION
ROSSI REPEATS!

Bold Words

Bold words should be use to signify proper nouns, key points and significant messages. Do not over-use bold words unless the word is absolutely relevant.

When it comes to making out, whenever possible, put on side one of Led Zeppelin IV.
Never a poster boy for sobriety, Shane MacGowan was kicked out of the Pogues several years ago for his erratic behavior.
The next installment of Save the Written Word will concentrate on sentence structure and parts of speech.

THE END

GIS for Everyone

2009-12-08T11:52:00.000-08:00

I exported the Sunday ride out of Garmin Connect into a KML file and then imported it into ArcGIS Explorer. Here's the result.

There, I just posted a blog.

Thanksgiving Day MTB Ride

2009-12-08T11:49:00.000-08:00

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Untitled

Did I tell you about this already?

2009-11-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

That would be one Shane MacGowan sitting on a rolling equipment case at the Pogues show last month. After falling on his arse three times, they finally rolled out the case so Shane could sit and finish the show. He couldn't however make it to the final encore. His legs are old and weak my friends. Plus he had a few to drink too, I'm sure.

I’m due for a rant like this

2009-11-12T09:45:00.001-08:00

Monday night I watched this documentary on the Fuse channel called "Punk's Not Dead." It started out well but about an hour in to the 2-hour program, it took a fatal dive at the mention of Green Day, Nirvana & the Offspring. From there it only got worse.

Here's the thing, those that know don't feel like punk rock really has much to do with the style of music you play. It has more to do with your general overall package - the way you live your life, the decisions you make, what you feel & believe, in addition to the style of music you do or do not play. It doesn't have to be about just the way you dress, or just the way you think & believe. It's a package deal.

I can spend way more time on this subject (and I have in the past) than I should. The bottom line is that as a performer when you start negotiating with corporate America (MTV, Target, etc.) you automatically give up your punk rock card. Period.

The only exception is when you've hit middle age. If you've made it all the way to middle age purely by just kicking out the jams and touring for all those years, it doesn't get much more punk rock than that. You deserve to treat yourself a little for your dedication.

All these other post pubescent prima donnas prancing around for MTV should be happy with the fact that they're millionaires and quit trying to label themselves something they are not, never have been, or never will be.

As for the N-word (Nirvana), if Kurt Cobain wouldn't have cowardly blown his head off, he could probably tell MTV in person all about how his over-rated band ripped off the well cemented sound of another band called Mudhoney. Nevermind. Nirvana isn't worth my time. As a "punk" band neither are pop sensations Green Day and the Offspring.

I guess I'll just sit back for the rest of my life, smile, and snicker (that was not meant as a candy bar product placement), all along knowing that I'm aware of something that THEY (sorry, but that means 99% of those reading this) will never know of. The whole world could be deaf and mute and there would still be punk rocker. It's not a sound, or an outfit, but a state of mind. I never want to live in any other state.

*This blog was typed on my BlackBerry. How un-punk rock is that?

Maybe instead of cross practice, I should practice caring.

2009-11-10T17:33:00.001-08:00

This Wednesday morning cyclocross practice thing isn't going so well. Last week it was just me and Haglund. Steve was in Kansas for a bar mitzvah or a quinceañera or something. Neither one of us felt like riding hard so we skipped the practice part of things and just went for a lazy spin.

The Wednesday before that, I woke up to a cold windy morning so I laid on the couch in the fetal position, taking sips of coffee, and watching the morning news as Steve was busy trying to track down the rat(s) who broke into his garage and jacked his MTB and PowerTap wheel. Meanwhile, the guy who is not currently racing, but is the only one to have religiously shown up to "cross practice" week after week, rode alone. That would be Haglund. He wins by default.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to turn over a new leaf and actually practice my dismounts, remounts, accelerating out of corners, etc., etc.

I'm thinking one of the reasons why I can't buy a top-ten finish at a cross race may have something to do with my lack of practice. That and the fact that 15 minutes in, I stop caring. The race in Bakersfield this weekend was no different. It had all the potential to be a good race for me – with its mountain bike-like descents, loose sandy corners, and general hilly lay-out. But I failed to get clipped in at the start and played catch up for the first couple of laps before I just stopped caring. At that point I rode around for 45 minutes trying to look pretty and not get lapped. Mission accomplished.

The Legend Continues

2009-11-09T18:41:00.000-08:00

It's about a minute-thirty in:

Find more videos like this on Cycling Is Not A Crime

But, there’s always next Wednesday

2009-10-22T14:12:00.001-07:00

If I wasn't the assistant coach of Ryder's soccer team, the Jedis, I'd actually have a photo of him playing soccer. Instead I pace the sideline and the practice field like Vince Lombardi yelling orders to a half dozen 4- and 5-year olds. Being an assistant coach comes with some serious responsibilities and taking photos isn't one of them. Maybe I'll use my authority to designate a team photographer.

Speaking of soccer, or should I say, football, a co-worker just emailed me this info: Bars in the Veltins-Arena, a major football ground in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, are interconnected by a 5 km long beer pipeline. It is the favorite method for distributing beer in such large stadiums, because the bars have to overcome big differences between demands during various stages of a match; this allows them to be supplied by a central tank. Brilliant. The Germans get it right occasionally.

Speaking of beer, I've arranged a weekly cyclocross practice on Wednesday mornings at Prospect Park in Redlands from 7 to 8 AM, or whenever you puke. The course is about a mile and takes about 4 painful minutes to complete a lap. It's also a good course for a mountain bike, so if you don't own a CX bike, you have no good excuse for not coming out. We've done it two weeks in a row already and including dog walkers no one has died yet.

2009-10-06T17:08:00.001-07:00

Finding the time to blog has been hard to come by lately. Sure, I could just spew out any mundane info about life, but I try not to do that. I've got some blogtistic integrity to uphold here. And besides, isn't that what Face Book is for anyway? Instead of writing about nothing or about my somewhat pathetic attempts at mountain bike and cyclocross racing at the elite level, I spend my time writing about hard-hitting issues such as

Wimmera Mallee Pipeline Project
Copenhagen's public transport agency
Successful Integration of Survey and GIS Produces Accurate, Enriched Data for Less
Singapore's Urban Redevelopment Authority
Libyan Land Registry
Etc.
Etc.

It pays the bills. But don't lose hope. When I have good photos to post, it inspires me to blog and Trish has been taking tons of photos with her new fancy shmancy camera. Maybe if I can steal them from her it will light a fire under my arse and I'll be back up and running again soon.

Speaking of running, at last Sunday's cross race I punctured the front tire just past the wheel pit so I had to run the remaining 2.5 K of the course before I reached the pit and could get a new wheel. Then a few laps later the casing gave out on my rear tire so I pulled the plug on the entire race all together. Pathetic? Yes, I told you so. Mundane? Not so much. Thankfully there's nothing mundane about ruining two tubular CX tires within the period of one hour and having to run a couple K in cycling shoes while pushing your bike. I wonder if Trish got a picture of that?

The highlight of the day was getting to see Ryder do the kid's race. It was carnage out on the course, but he soldiered through, kept air in his tires, and came away with a medal. I think he's almost ready to remove the training wheels…

Some of my favorite Tweets from the last couple of months

2009-10-02T16:16:00.001-07:00

lancearmstrong In my garage setting up new shoes, cleats, and pedals. Not many things I can't stand more.

michael_creed awesome, zirbel starts behind me. awesome. totally pumped. awesome

neilroad How the hell did the "Dixie Chicks" get onto my iTunes! This makes a man reevaluate everything he's ever done in his life.

Michael_Creed if this nation cared about honesty in the slightest, we'd kill all magicians.

Michael_Creed The walk of shame is far, far worse on crutches.

Slctbird Seen: A guy on a motorcycle being towed by a car at 25 mph, no lights on the Interstate late at night. Brilliant. #DarwinAwards

andyguptill In today's stage, Tyler Wren asked Jens Voigt if he was a terminator "because when you crashed in the Tour, sparks flew from your face."

andyguptill Jens answered "Yes, thank you. When I am done racing, I don't eat or sleep, I just plug myself in." !!!

slctbird It's amazing what one can accomplish when not beat-down from riding a bike all day.. Cleaned house, garage, car, myself. In that order.

johnswah Perfect example of why USA Today is a POS: http://twitpic.com/hbon1

slctbird Overheard a few weeks ago: "Bike racing is not about having fun. It's about crushing the dreams of others". Discuss amongst yourselves.

yotwells Big Congrats to the Dart taking his first World Cup win 1 week after winning U23 World Champs. Sure he will win many more.

freddreier Cadel Evans blames his loss on someone other than himself? Stop the presses on that.

neilroad Started to watch but it was so bad I turned it off. Painful RT @pjrabice: Jay Leno's monologue and jokes are killing me. Its just not funny

JeremiahBishop Kenda Booth sighning sweet new autograph cards!! Colin and Andy are here too people are taking pics of tinker as if he was a purple

Michael_Creed if @rockracing wants to shock people, they should try paying their riders. that would be nuts

velonews CrossVegas: The ProTour comes to Sin City http://tinyurl.com/y93udau%20

Michael_Creed Sometimes I like to play a little game called "Crazy or Bluetooth"

yotwells Run/hike, dirt jumps, cut down some trees, gym, driving range and now pizza, that's a good day

You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mattfreemanrace

Friday’s 9.25 mile run

2009-10-02T16:07:00.001-07:00

Game On

2009-09-17T13:51:00.000-07:00

It's time to pick up a gun and start shooting.

Kenda Cup Unification Race, CrossVegas, & State Finals all within one week. And a little soccer too.

Of course, an office window might make me feel otherwise

2009-08-21T16:55:00.001-07:00

I don't remember how, but I ran across this booked called, Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard, the founder and owner of Patagonia clothing. Even though I'm fascinated with the life aquatic, I'm not one for surfing and as far as I know, I've never owned a thread of Patagonia clothing. It was actually the subtitle of the book, the education of a reluctant businessman that sparked my interest. I don't consider myself a businessman either, but I have always thought seriously of owning my own magazine, advertising or PR agency, but have been too reluctant to do much more than just think about it.

There was that time that I tried making a go of it purely on freelance writing, but I was young, my list of clients was too small, and I spent too much time riding moto and bicycles when I should have been at home writing. Maybe that makes me the ultimate reluctant businessman.

I'm only about a quarter of the way through the book and I'm already impressed with Patagonia's business philosophy and practices. Owner, Chouinard says he's always had a problem with authority and the traditional ways of doing business, which is why he started his own company in the first place. Being his own boss allowed him the time to climb, surf, and ski – all the while testing the hardware and clothing his company would eventually sell.

I too have always had a problem with authority and societal expectations. From inside my own body and mind, I know wrong from right. I don't need someone else translating it for me. That's how or why I became a writer in the first place. It allowed me to express my own thoughts in most anyway I wanted to, just as long as it followed the rules of the English language. That kind of authority I could live with. But just as man has evolved into a TV watching, fast food eating, video game playing, lazy sports fan lump, I let my guard down and my labor of love was extinguished and pried away from me by one with more expensive tastes and stronger convictions than I. One of my life's few regrets so far.

I guess the difference between myself and Chouinard is that he likes authority even less than I do and he's also less reluctant than I am. That's why he took the risk and I haven't. As far back as I can remember everything I've ever enjoyed doing involved taking sizable physical risks, but when it comes to taking a financial risk, I guess I'm a coward. I'm only willing to sacrifice so much apparently.

My longtime struggle with authority and societal expectations only gets worse as I get older and find myself with less time to do the things that I really enjoy. Through my dealings with foreign colleagues who are constantly on holiday, one thing is apparent; this country works too much. It may be the land of the free, but it's certainly not the land of the free time.

So what are my options? What is the alternative? Maybe Chouinard's book will help me figure it out. Or maybe I should write my own damn book.

At least he didn’t say basketball

2009-08-17T17:07:00.001-07:00

Tonight at 7 pm I'm going to a kick-off meeting for Ryder's soccer team. He's only 4, so this is his first year of soccer. He recently said that he can kick further than any of his friends, and that could be because we've been practicing lately and he can put the thing pretty far. Or at least he does when his foot and the ball make the right connection. Still, I'm nervous for him. I realize that they're only 4-year-olds and there probably won't be a lot of soccer, by actual definition, being played, but I want him to feel as though he's good at it. If, for some reason, his teammates can kick further or are faster, or are more aggressive, I don't want him to get discouraged. It's easy to get discouraged at his age. Unfortunately he doesn't have the luxury yet of spending hours on his bicycle pedaling away the despair. That's probably a moot point anyway. Yesterday I asked him a simple question. "What do you like better, running or riding your bike?" He answered with, "Swimming."

Please consider history before not printing this blog

2009-08-05T16:44:00.001-07:00

I realize that the practice may not be completely dead, but you never hear about someone having a pen pal anymore. Like milk men, pen pals have pretty much fallen by the wayside. Email, Facebook, etc. can be blamed for putting an end to pen pals. Because of the World Wide Web, its seems everyone has become everyone else's superficial pen pal. In the future, actual hard copy letters from one person to another are bound to be scarce. No longer will we get to watch a Ken Burns documentary on PBS where the narrator recites a heartfelt letter penned in actual hand writing on aged paper that reads:

My Dearest Loretta,

This may be the last letter I write to you. Cholera has spread throughout our office and I fear I have drunken from the contaminated water cooler from which it lives. As I write this letter my breathing is faint, my skin blue, and hand shaky. If this is my last letter yada, yada, yada...

Since most communication between people today is through email and other forms of electronic media that gets deleted, it means we'll lack the history and record of many personal relationships. It's kind of a double-edged sword. People want to save the environment by not printing emails, but what about saving memories. For almost the same reasons, the world is going to have a serious lack of printed photographs too.

So what's worse - a lack of trees or a lack of history?

"Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you." - Bookends

This just gave me a great name for my next punk band; The Dead Pen Pals.

Dear Loyal Reader (Reader, singular)

2009-07-29T13:40:00.001-07:00

It seems that work, Face Book, and Twitter have taken away my will to blog. But, I'm getting increasingly bored of Face Book and all its invitations, games, quizzes, etc. In my opinion Twitter is where it's at, but it can only survive if people are creating content on the web to link to their tweets. With that said, I plan to start blogging again (when time and inspiration permit). That would be considered "creating content," wouldn't it? Whether anyone will actually read it; now that's a different story.

In the meantime, follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MattFreemanRace

I promise I'm not one of those twits who tweets about every mundane action throughout their day.

I'm posting this from my phone

2009-06-30T10:26:00.000-07:00

Is it too soon to point out that MJ and Farrah had the same nose job?

2009-06-18T08:14:00.000-07:00

It seems these days I can’t swing a dead cat without hitting some NKOTB who is bringing something new to the table. One of these new additions, specifically the new Very Unofficial Team Redlands Blog I welcome with open arms. I mean, in this high tech era of Face Book and Twitter, at least someone out there is still apt to picking up the feather quill pen in order to knit a roaring good yarn of a blog.

Since someone else has all the bike stuff well handled, I’ll concentrate my efforts on something that interests everyone. No, not Seven Civil War stories your teach never told you. I’m talking about show biz, celebrity gossip, and entertainment news.

I work with Matt DeMeritt, who is one of 3 people to wear the ET suit during the filming of ET. He was 12 years old when the movie was filmed, but time has not been kind to Matt. Now 39, he is a writer at ESRI and for fun he plays and records music. He has no home studio so all his recordings sound pretty bad. If you think that’s a sob story, Robert MacNaughton, the kid who played the eldest brother on ET is now a mail man. Aren’t those the guys that always go crazy and come back with a gun and shoot everybody?

Anyway, I sat down with Matt a few days ago to talk about work and instead we talked about ET.

Were you aware of all the blatant product placement of Reese’s Pieces that was going on during the filming of ET?

No. I was too busy eating them to even notice. There was an inexhaustible supply, and that's all that mattered to me.

Could you tell if Drew Barrymore was drunk during the filming of the movie?

No. I was too busy getting drunk myself. There was an inexhaustible supply of beer (from the scene where ET gets drunk), and that's all that mattered to me.

Speaking of Drew Barrymore, how did you escape the demons that usually haunt most child actors?

Demons are slow. I out-maneuvered them with my special ET powers.

Can’t you ever be serious?

I don't answer questions framed in the negative.

How many girls did you get because of your role in ET?

Surprisingly, none at all. Chicks just aren't that impressed by a runt stuffed into a latex suit.

After directing Jaws, Close Encounters, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. seemed like a directorial disappointment for Spielberg. What was the morale like on the set like during the filming of ET?

It was jovial and positive, fueled mainly by an inexhaustible supply of Reese's Pieces and beer.

In 1985 Spielberg bounced back with accolades as the executive producer of The Goonies. Are you bitter for not getting the opportunity to work on that project?

I DID work on that project. I played the mutant's (Chunk) son, but ended up on the cutting room floor.

You don’t expect me to believe that, do you? I’ve told people the same thing about my deleted scenes in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Tell me about the ET 20-year reunion cast party that took place in 2002.

There was a 20-year reunion cast party that took place in 2002?

How did you go from “acting” to becoming one of America’s leading writers on the topics of caves, karst, and coal?

A Faustian bargain facilitated that leap.

You’re going to Hell, you know that right?

I went to the Lavendar Festival. Hell couldn't be much worse than that?

You've obviously never sat through the 100 Greatest Family Films TV show or the movie Cyborg 2.

Apparently there’s no iPhone app for image stabilization

2009-06-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not know, I like blog race reports about as much as I like a sharp stick in the eye, so here’s the quick and dirty:

There may have been a round of the Pro XCT in Alabama on the same day, meaning some of California’s heavy hitters were bumping ‘n grinding in the deep southern woods instead of Big Bear, but I’ll take what I can get. And what I got was third, behind John Nobil and Chuck Jenkins. This, after I did Saturday’s entire Rain Cross ride aboard my Gary Fisher full-suspension mountain bike clad with 26 x 1.25 slicks. I’m not sure which day hurt worse.

The End.

If you squint and look real close you can see me standing on the podium in the 3rd position. Concentrate on the middle left side of the photo.

Ride Around the Bear

2009-05-29T18:36:00.000-07:00

On second thought, all of his columns were about the incompetency of the AMA

2009-05-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

A Nepalese Sherpa guide has once again broken his own record, scaling Mount Everest for the 19th time, according to MSN.com. Appa, who like Madonna goes by one name, reached the 29,035-foot peak early today, guiding rich foreign clients and accompanied by several other fellow guides.

Appa, 48, first climbed Everest in 1989 and has done so almost every year since. His closest rival is fellow Sherpa guide Chhewang Nima, who has made 15 trips.

15 trips? Is that it? Some rival that is. That reminds me of the rivalry between the Beatles and the Beach Boys where after hearing the Sgt. Pepper album for the first time, Brian Wilson threw in the towel and wouldn’t leave his bedroom because he felt that his band couldn’t equal or outdo the Fab Four’s new release. Meanwhile, Sgt. Pepper summited to the US, UK, Australian, and even the hotly contested Norwegian charts. So much for that rivalry.

Or there was the editorial rivalry I had with Scott Rousseau when we both worked at Cycle News. He’d write a hard-hitting column and then I’d answer a week later with an equally as pungent or even better column. Then Rousseau would barricade himself in his office and come out with yet another one of his masterpieces. This went on for months until he wrote one that was so poignant, so dexterous, so moving that it blew my socks off. I don’t even recall what it was about – probably some tirade about the incompetency of the AMA – but in my mind it was genius and it would never be surpassed. So, I gave up and the rivalry ended and now I write for a software company and occasionally update this hack blog.

Let my story be a lesson for Chhewang Nima. He needs to strap on that oxygen mask and crampons so he can summit at least another 4 times and make this a real race. Somebody needs to be a worthy rival for that prima donna Appa and 15 times up the mountain just isn’t going to cut it. If you give up Chhewang Nima, you could very well end up giving guided tours of the Erie County Botanical Gardens in Buffalo, NY instead of guiding the rich up the South Col.

Or mabye Appa could be doping...

Sometimes I get bored

2009-05-11T22:01:00.000-07:00

2009-05-04T21:57:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I got a bad haircut so in order to divert attention away from my pea head of bad hair, I stopped shaving my face. Due to the topic of facial hair, some old photos surfaced on Face Book (or as I like to call it, the Death of My Blog). Now that she's blown my cover, I'm going to uncover photographic evidence from the Great Mustache Ride of '07.

Exhibit A: Trevor, Joy, & me enjoy a drink (or ten) after the Great Mustache Ride of '07 at the Vault. Trevor, by the way, won the mustache growing competition. For his efforts he got shame and ridicule.

Since National Mustache Month is in November, the actual ride was cold. I remember snot running down my face and freezing to my pencil thin mustache. It thawed out and melted into my second post-ride pint. If you think this photo is creepy, it's because you never saw my beard.

This chick, we'll call her Sheena (extra credit to anyone understanding the reference), won the women's division. Her stache was made from the hair on her head. Pfff. Like I had to tell you that. For her efforts she got gawked at for the next few months. I suggested she grow a beard to divert attention from her head. She didn't think that was funny.

On the night of the Great Mustache Ride of '07 I vowed that I would only honor National Mustache Month on odd years. That means this November I will once again throw my (red cowboy) hat into the ring and grow a mustache. Ew!

Oh, I almost forgot...

2009-04-26T23:22:00.000-07:00

Tyler Hamilton! Hahahahahahahahahaha. Scum bag.

...and tomorrow is Monday.

2009-04-26T22:29:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Santa Ynez for U.S. Cup #5. It was another rough one, but at least temps weren't near triple digits. It was windy and even a little cold at times instead. The Aussie, Sid Taberlay, stuck to us all again, but Aaron Olson and Andy Schultz kept him a little honest this time, or so I heard. I was too busy duking it out for another 15th place finish. Seems to be my magic number at the none ProXCT U.S. Cup races. I think if I could have gotten a better start, I may have been good for 12th place. But hey, 12th, 15th; what's the difference if it ain't a top 10.

Ryder and Denise came up with me this weekend. I got good feeds from D and it's always really cool to hear Ryder screaming, "Go Daddy!" as I ride by. The poor little dude roughed the elements for me this weekend with a cough, which eventually turned into an ear ache. I'm a horrible father for putting my kid through a weekend like that.

Next weekend is the Idyllwild Spring Challenge and then I finally get a well-deserved break. Actually, everyone deserves a break after riding the Spring Challenge. That's one helluva mountain bike race and with a thousand bucks going to the overall winner, you can bet it will be as fast as today's race.

I feel like a huge looser after this weekend and not because I finished 15th. Because I came home, yet again, with no photos and I didn't take a single drink of wine despite spending two days in wine country. Lame.

How about Andy Schleck at Liège-Bastogne-Liège? The Schlecks are insane. And how about the Dart finishing 4th at the World Cup in Germany this weekend after flatting on the first lap? The Dart is insane too.

I got a Blackberry Storm, but I'm having a hard time getting used to the touchscreen. It takes me twice as long to send a text than it used to, so if you're not recieving texts from me, don't take it personal.

Let's see, what esle do I have to bitch about tonight? It's 11:00 PM and I still haven't showered...

I'll take mine on the rocks

2009-04-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

Four years ago last night I drank an entire bottle of wine for dinner and I remember that because it was the night before Ryder was born. Yep, the little dude turned Brett Favre's number today and celebrated with a party at school and another party tonight at Jump Zone. You'd think packing a bunch of kids into a warehouse full of inflatable jumpers woule be a bad idea, but no one bones were broken, no one bled, and I only saw two or three dozen tears shed throughout the night. Unlike my trip up to Monterey last weekend, the party was a success.

I came home from Sea Otter with no good results, no photos, but more importantly, no poison oak or no speeding tickets. I limited my chances of getting poison oak by taking bum baths in the Laguna Seca restrooms with Technu soap. And I almost completely eliminated the chances of getting a speeding ticket by driving my gutless four-banger Mazda 5 to the race. Knock on wood.

Saturday's Short Track was your usual deal only with World Champ Christoph Sauser and World Xterra Triathlon World Champ, Conrad Stoltz. Oh, and the Dart was there too. If the Dart is there, you know it's going to hurt. So 70-some of us lined up for what has become known as Frosty's Arbitrary Short Track Pulling and guess what? Frosty didn't pull me! Some UCI official did instead. Anyway, Sauser, the Dart & Wells got away early on and turned it into a Specialized photo shoot until Sauser burped a tire and had to pull out. With a lap to go, Wells rode away from the Dart (you probably won't see that happen many more times) and took the win. I got to see it all because, as I mentioned before, I got pulled.

On Sunday temps heated up, so the race was cut down from 40 miles to 30, but it didn't really matter to me because I miscalculated the amount of time it would take me to do the first lap and the amount of liquid I would actually take in under dusty and hot conditions. It's not rocket science, but for some reason I came up with all the wrong answers and spent a good 30 minutes riding without any liquids. Rookie move.

The final nail in the coffin was when I got a water bottle in the neutral feed and when it came time to chuck my empty bottle, I got caught in the heat of battle (pun intended) and ditched the wrong bottle. I know, I know. It doesn't make any since to me either. Rookie move again. Instead of suffering heat stroke like a ton of other fools did, I pulled the plug after just 20 miles. Too bad too, because I think I was running about 60th in a 155-man field. Around a third of the men's field DNF'd, but that didn't include Sauser. The rainbow jersey won with a nice cushion. Meanwhile, the carnage out on the course was a sight for sore eyes - people puking (Wendy Simms!), passed out, crashing, walking out, and crying. Elite mountain bike racing is so rad.

Thanks to Shelly and Jesse for letting me crash on their hotel floor, Shelly's dad for buying me dinner one night, and to Joy and Garnet for putting up with my music on the drive home. One of the highlights of the weekend was getting to pre-ride with Country James Williams. Those were the days, weren't they Jimmy?

The funniest thing I heard all weekend was that after Alex Boone finished, he was covered in salt from head to toe. He told Joy that he was going to be making margaritas later. I was so thirsty, I would have drank one, or ten.

Bruce Ogilvie 1952-2009

2009-04-15T06:41:00.000-07:00

I first met Bruce Ogilvie around 1997, but believe me, I knew all about him long before we ever shook hands. As a kid growing up aboard Honda XR motorcycles in the desert, Bruce was a god to me. I wanted to be just like Bruce Ogilvie.

In 1998 when I was going to make a serious attempt at qualifying for the International Six Day Enduro (ISDE) in Australia, Bruce gave me a new XR250 to take to the Idaho and Washington Qualifiers. The only catch was I had to ride the bike virtually bone stock, but to help, Bruce sent out Johnny Campbell to test with me on multiple occassions so we could get the little Honda up-to-speed. As it turned out, it wasn't the XR that needed a power boost, it was me. But Bruce was just doing his job and I was honored that he was allowing me to help with the realiability and endurance testing of the bike. After my Pacific West Qualifier campaign, I let Bruce know the bike needed a much beefier clutch. He probably could have told me that I needed a much beefier riding style, but instead he took note of it and agreed.

In the years that followed I spent a lot of time sitting on the back of an un-marked white Honda box van with Bruce talking about racing and our favorite Mexican food joint in Riverside, Gay and Larry's. Bruce was a quiet guy, but something about him demanded respect, and it may sound vain, but I think I earned his respect somehow.

Days after the press launch of the new water-cooled XR650, Bruce gave me permission to ride the yet-to-be released motorcycle as the hare at the Dirt Diggers Winter Hare Scrambles. It was a big deal because the bike was a Honda and Honda didn't want any hiccups with a long anticipated model in front of hundreds and hundres of potential customers. Not long after that, Bruce got word that I was going to let Jim Rios at BRP fit the new XR650 with billet aluminum triple-clamps. I got a call from Bruce on that one. When you get a call from Bruce Ogilvie, you best take it and you best do what he says. In the end Jim and Bruce talked and the triple-clamps got Bruce's approval. Bruce had his eye on everything and somehow seemed to get everything handled.

My relationship with Bruce didn't change any when I went to work for Honda's PR and Ad agency. He didn't treat me like a vendor. He treated me as he always had. And when I left that positition, for a new world of life outside of the motorcycle industry, Bruce told me that I was always welcome at Honda. And those were the last words that I had with Bruce O. That put a lump in my throat then and puts an even bigger lump in my throat now.

Bruce was a quiet badass.

Here's a slightly edited version of Honda's press release:

Bruce Ogilvie passed away on April 13, 2009 after a two-year battle with cancer. Ogilvie fought cancer the same way he raced motorcycles all his life: with everything he had.

Most enthusiasts know Bruce Ogilvie as a master Baja racer - a champion whose personal victories in the San Felipe 250, Baja 500 and Baja 1000 spread out over four decades. The first was a Baja 500 win in 1975, with another victory in the 1000 later that year. Bruce was the only man in history to win the Baja 1000 overall in four different decades. Bruce also earned three ISDE medals.

Bruce O's talents and accomplishments behind a handlebar are indisputable and well known. But there was another side to Ogilvie that was equally impressive. For more than 20 years, Bruce was in charge of coordinating Honda's racing efforts in Baja. He led an army of racers and support team members for years while he applied his own personal philosophy to the challenge.
In 1984, Bruce was hired full-time at American Honda. He served in many capacities over the years. In addition to being in charge of everything off-road at Honda - including motorcycle and ATV racing - Bruce was most recently the Senior Test Evaluator for Honda's Product Evaluation department. In this role, Bruce's contributions to the direction and development of all Honda's off-road and motocross products was unparalleled. If you can't imagine racing or riding anything but your Honda off-road motorcycle or ATV, it is because Bruce Ogilvie helped make it that way.
Godspeed Bruce. You will always be remembered as our leader with that calm, assuring voice in our head guiding us through obstacles you conquered long ago.

Bruce Ogilvie was born on April 4, 1952. He died on April 13, 2009. He is survived by his wife Marcia, his 14-year-old son Nick and nine-year-old daughter Isabella. Bruce's family will have a private service, and because blood transfusions were so important to Bruce's battle with cancer for the past two years the family has asked for people to donate blood in Bruce's honor.

Bruce O. was my hero.

Thom Blaine

2009-04-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

Thom Blaine passed away yesterday. I can't even begin to count how many hours the guy stood around in a hot (or sometimes freezing) and dirty feed zone for all of us.

It didn't occur to me until last night that Thom was selfless.

When Thom wasn't handing me bottles in the feed zone, he was handing me beer bottles back at the car after the race. It was quality beer too - none of that light beer junk. That in itself speaks volumes about the man.

Things are happening

2009-04-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

Stijn Devolder thinks he can do the Flanders-Roubaix double?

Stoner fastest in Qatar?

I made and stayed in the break at crit?

Manning drunk dialed Turner from Flanders?

Ben is going to follow Locke's lead?

What?

What is the world coming to?

The calm before the storm

2009-04-06T21:57:00.000-07:00

Ryder & Destry do the Redlands Classic.

I'm going to give it a go

2009-04-02T09:02:00.000-07:00

Previously on Lost…

Isn’t that lawyer the dad from My So Called Life?

That’s a crime burning up a perfectly good Volkswagen bus like that.

Sayid is rad.

Now, on to tonight’s episode.

VW buses make great ambulances.

How could anyone follow directions from a guy Horace? How could anyone name their child Horace?

Jack’s trying to take charge again. Just can’t leave well enough alone, can you Jack?

Now Ben’s drunkard dad is going to hit on Kate. Get in line Roger.

“That’s my kid.” – Roger Linus after seeing a young Ben Linus with a bullet wound. That’ll sober you up.

Now we’re back to the present with Kate and Aaron.

Cassidy is back! You know, the same floozy that Sawyer conned out of thousands before coming to the island. He couldn’t have conned her out of too much because Cassidy lives in a beautiful stucco box track home now and is raising Sawyer’s illegitimate daughter.

Take care of my illegitimate daughter!? That’s the big secret that Sawyer told Kate before jumping out of the helicopter? Big deal! What a disappointment.

Cassidy is smarter than she looks.

What do you want to bet that Kate leaves Aaron with Cassidy before she comes back to the island?

Horace needs a haircut. So does LaFluer, or Sawyer or James, or whatever he calls himself now.

Relax Roger. Have a Dharma Beer (or 12).

“Sawyer is just doing his job Jack.” – Kate. Freckles is already back to defending Sawyer.

I think Hurley wants to eat his own hand.

Decision time Jack! Save little Ben Linus’ life or let him bleed to death.

“Then he dies.” - Jack Shepherd. That’s brutal Jack.

Damn, a commercial.

Okay, we’re back on.

I’m beginning to dislike Kate as every minute passes. So is Jack now that Juliet is back in the picture. I don’t blame him.

Roger just interrupted Kate and Juliet’s conversation about Kate once being engaged to Jack. I’m beginning to like Roger.

“Roger, have a seat.” – Juliet. She can tell me what to do any day. However, what she should have said is, “Roger, have a Dharma beer (or 12)." That’s more like it.

Little Ben is still alive. His sucking chest wound hasn’t killed him yet.

Where did they get a Dharma jumpsuit big enough to fit Hurley? BTW, Hurley needs a haircut too. The island obviously needs a good barber.

Shoot him Hurley! Shoot him! Then you can eat him.

Don’t tell me Hurley is becoming the brains behind this operation.

Now Roger Linus is hitting on Juliet. I like your style Roger. Have a Dharma beer (or 12).

“Maybe there is something they (the “Others”) can do.” – Juliet. Does that mean Kate is going to take little Ben to the never-aging prince of the eyeliner?

Back to 2008 at the Marina in Los Angeles. Damn, we’ve only seen this scene like 10 times since this season started.

Of course he wants chocolate milk you amateur mother. What kid doesn’t? Hell, even I want chocolate milk.

Oh, he wants a juice box instead. I didn’t see that coming.

Aaron is lost! No pun intended. Way to keep an eye on your non-child Kate. That used to happen to me at FedCo all the time. I was always wondering off and getting lost.

False alarm. She’s got Aaron back. My God, that blonde is ugly. Is that Claire? Who was that chick?

Commercial. Carl’s Junior commercials are the worst. Nobody likes getting food all over their face when they’re eating.

We’re back on.

I knew it! Kate is going to leave Aaron with Cassidy! I’m good.

But I don’t trust this Cassidy broad any further than I can throw her.

Back to the island.

And now, a moment with Kate and Sawyer. Who cares?

Where’s Desmond? I miss Desmond.

Juliet and Jack are having a standoff in the bathroom. Take her Jack! Take her! Undress her and pull her intro the shower with you. Actually, she doesn’t seem to be in the mood.

“We didn’t need saving. We’ve been here for 3 years. You came back here for you.” – Juliet to Jack. She’s right you’re a selfish bastard Jack. Grow a beard, take some pills, and go jump off a bridge for real this time.

Back to a moment with Kate and Sawyer. Yawn.

Where’s Sayid? I could sure use some of Sayid and his killer instincts right about now.

This show is turning into a damn love story.

Thank God! The “Others” have come to our rescue with guns to interrupt a moment with Kate and Sawyer. Now I’m wide awake.

Back to L.A.

Kate is at the hotel room of Claire’s mother! Could I have been wrong? Does this mean Kate is going to leave Aaron with Claire’s mom? Kate is spilling the beans all over town.

There’s too much Kate in this episode. Show us more Juliet. We want Juliet! Remember when Juliet did that bedroom scene with Goodwin, because I do?

Yep, Kate is leaving Aaron with Claire’s mother. It’s official. Kate is lame. And I was wrong.

Richard Alpert is back! Or is that Dick Clark? I know a guy named Richard Albert. He crashed once over by the airport and knocked himself out cold. It was ugly.

Okay back to the show. Little Ben Linus looks like he’s wearing a tube top, but it’s just a bandage.

“… and his innocence will be gone.” – Richard Alpert about Ben. Wrong Richard! His innocence was gone when he stole his father’s keys and let Sayid out of the clink.

“If Charles finds out…” What? Would that be one Charles Whitmore? The plot thickens.

Now we’re back to adult Ben in the present on the island, which means either little Ben lives or… I’m so confused.

Adult Ben is waking up, but someone is there with him. Who could it be? Holy cow, it’s Locke! That’s worse than waking up next to a horse head.

“Hello Ben. Welcome back to the land of the living.” – John Locke.

The End.

This show is stressful. And documenting it like this was a lot of work. I’m never doing this again. I can’t wait to read the real Lost Diary this morning.

You knew this was coming

2009-04-01T18:34:00.000-07:00

Now that Jan is out of the picture, it's up to Jens Voigt to single-handedly suffer for the WWII sins of his German ancestors. Last weekend the big Kraut won a record fifth Critérium International. True, he's German, but how could you not love Jens? No one works harder and carries the burden of his perverse nationality than the Saxo Bank rider. Too bad he rides a Specialized. Anyway, if someone forced me to go on one of those reality shows like Biggest Loser or Dancing with the Stars, I'd choose Jens as my partner if Brett Favre, Valentino Rossi, or Amy Winehouse weren't available. Come to think of it, if my musical career ever takes off, that foursome would make a solid backup band.

Speaking of music, when I sing the chorus to Ray LaMontagne's "You are the Best Thing," Ryder likes to sing backup without being cued. Rad. He also called me last night while I was riding to ask if he and I could work in the garage together when I got home. Rad. And we did.

Let's set the record straight

2009-03-31T22:24:00.000-07:00

It's not about the music.

Punk Rock.

Obviously not Punk Rock.

Playing is Punk Rock.

Sitting is not Punk Rock.

Hole was Punk Rock.

Not Punk Rock and never was.

I have 10 reasons Dave is Punk Rock.

Jay Lame-O is not Punk Rock, or funny for that matter.

It doesn't get much more Punk Rock than this.

It doesn't get much more un-Punk Rock than NASCAR (yawn).

Iggy is and always will be Punk Rock.

These guys? Not so much.

No matter what side of the pond it's played on, football is Punk Rock.

Pfff.

Shane will be Punk Rock 'til the bitter end.

Henry is poser and that's not Punk Rock.

Simple Punk Rock.

Simply makes me sick.

Vans are Punk Rock.

Hummers try too hard.

It's actually pretty black and white.

Back to Reality

2009-03-30T06:37:00.000-07:00

On the same weekend as the Redlands Bicycle Classic, there was this other bike race just down the 10 freeway a few miles. I have to admit, there wasn't much in me that wanted to go race Fontana during RBC, but it turned out okay in the end I suppose...

Riding a brand new bike that I had very little saddle time on and getting called up about 100th in a 110-man field didn't make me feel much better at the start line. Oh, and I forgot my gear bag, so by the time Denise & Ryder had delivered it to me, I had just enough time to throw on my kit and ride over to the starting line. That turned out to be my warm-up, a whole 3 minutes. Anyway, I started on the second-to-the-last-row, but I had good company because a stealthy Aaron Olson was in the row just in front of me. It's comedy when you start that far back because you know you're about to get a good seat for all the funny stuff that happens on the first lap of a race. And with the new gnarly downhill trails and steep & loose uphills they threw in at the last minute, I saw a lot of funny stuff.

To make a long story short (my entire life is about trying to make a long story short), I ended up 66th. Olson, BTW, finished 49th. I'd say there's not much more you can do when you start that far back, but Todd Wells broke a chain on the first lap and went from near last place to 7th. What frustrates me is when he passed me, I was able to ride with him for a few minutes before I lost him in traffic. Why is that, I have to ask myself? Today I go back to work and I see on his blog, that he flies to South Africa for a World Cup. Lucky bastard, say hi to the Dart for me.

The Canadians killed it. Four in the top ten including the first two steps on the podium taken by Kabush and Plaxton. I don't think Kabush has ever lost at Fontana since we started going there for a National.

My new Gary Fisher HiFi XC is rad. I had some serious doubts about racing a full suspension, but now I'm sold. I spent a lot of time getting my front and rear end working right and once I got it dialed, it's a much better ride than those old hardtail things I've been preaching about for the last few years. Who would have thought? My legs are trash today, but the rest of my body definately feels a lot better than if I had given it a go on the hardtail.

I'm bummed the weekend is over. RBC is one of my favorite times of the year. Everyone is in town, you run into so many friends that you don't see that often, and my family was out to watch Ryder & Destry race on Saturday morning. Joey & Jamie raced the USAC Cat 4 crit on Sunday morning. On a borrowed bike, and with a lap to go, Jamie bridged up to a guy up the road and rode away from him taking it to the line with a few feet to spare, while Joey finished in the top-ten. Good job boys. They obviously didn't learn their crit riding techniques from me.

I should probalby go to work now. Hopefully I'll have some photos soon...

My Dear Amy

2009-03-24T16:22:00.000-07:00

They've gone too far.

The circus is coming to town

2009-03-23T13:17:00.000-07:00

Actually, both circuses are coming to town.

This circus.

And that circus.

I should have a new bike to race at the dirt circus this weekend. Hopefully I feel better than I did last weekend in San Dimas. The road race was pretty uneventful for me. I’m racing myself into shape, so one moment I’d feel great and the next, I’d feel not so great.

I did manage to get into a 4-man chase group that looked promising as we tried to bridge up to the winning 10 man break, but no dice. For some reason a couple guys got selfish going up to the KOM so we got picked off on the finishing stretch just before the bell lap. The effort was a big one so I pretty much sat for the rest of the race, like I did most of the race.

Since it was raining on Sunday and I had moved down in GC after the road race, I didn’t bother going back for the crit. I did a wet and muddy lap at Fontana instead. The course is getting shorter and shorter because the county (or city?) keeps putting up fences. I suspect this weekend will be the last big race held in Fontana. There, I just started a good rumor.

I wonder which circus Larry will join this weekend?

San Dimas Stage Race: Stage 1, Glendora Mountain Road Time Trial

2009-03-20T17:36:00.000-07:00

12:00:15
Do I go when he says zero or when he says go?
Man, this guy has some really fat fingers.
12:00:30
Did I go when he said zero or when he said go? I can’t remember. I hope they don’t DQ me.
This effing sucks.
Jesus, this guy’s going even slower than me.
Later dude.
This effing sucks.
I wonder what time it is?
Don’t look at your computer. Just ride. Ride fast.
What difference does it all really make anyway?
Shut up! Faster!
Faster asshole.
Where did this wind come from all of sudden?
Am I spinning too much? Push a bigger gear.
That seems too big.
I think I should spin some more.
This effing sucks.
I only caught me 30-second man. I should have caught my minute-man by now. This is not good.
That’s a big camera lens.
At least no one has caught me yet.
I wonder what time it is?
Don’t look. Don’t look. Just ride.
I hate myself. Suffer. Suffer.
You’re almost done. Faster. Faster.
Well, technically you still have three-quarters of a mile. You don’t want to ride to hard and then blow up in the last 100 meters.
Last turn.
Sprint. No, wait it’s too soon.
This effing sucks.
Now sprint.
Man, I suck at sprinting.
Thank God it’s over.
15:50-something!?!?
Maybe I should take up sitting on my ass and watching more TV instead.
Tomorrow’s road race will be better. You can make up time there.
Tomorrow’s road race will suck. You’re not going to make up that much time.
Okay, it’s time to start training. No more beer. No more wine.
That effing sucked.
I need a drink.

"You know I'm not good at apologizing, so I'll just skip it if it's all the same to you."
- Steven Zissou

Maybe some day there will be a St. MacGowan's Day

2009-03-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

I'll warn you right now. This one's gonna be a doozy. And a bit mushy too.

So it's St. Patrick's Day. Well, every day is Patty's Day as far as I'm concerned. I was going to let it go with a simple photo or 2, but then a friend from work sent me something that inspired me to write about what I've failed to write about recently. Below is what the lass Erin O'Donnell sent me, and below that, I continue my 20-plus year unhealthy fascination, addiction, and obession to all things Shane MacGowan. What? You're surprised?

Brilliant.

It's 1987 and I'm in my bedroom sitting on my black beanbag listening to KUCR on my Magnavox sterio when they play a couple tracks off of Rum, Sodomy and the Lash. I honestly don't remember which songs they were, but it was angry enough and fast enough and the music was awesome and Shane was awesome and I was immediately hooked on the Pogues. I later had a hard time smuggling the actual cassette into the house because my mom wouldn't let me buy an album with such a filthy title. And that just made me like the Pogues even more. Good work mom.

Before the Pogues, Shane was already a teenage star after some chick (it's always a chick) cut his head with a broken bottle at a Clash show in '77 or '78. There was blood everywhere, and a photo of it ended up on the cover of a London Newspaper with a headline that read something like, "Punk Savages Take Over London." A little irony is that in the early '90s when Shane was kicked out of the band, Joe Strummer actually stepped in as the lead singer during live shows. But you probably already knew that.

There is a lot of Shane-inspired art in the world today. I like this one because he's wearing a top hat, 'a la two of my other heros, Lincoln and Bob Dylan.

Never the poster boy for sobriety. I don't know why Shane bothers wearing a watch. He's seldom on time. When Denise & I saw the Pogues at the House of Blues, they came on stage so late that the audience started to think Shane was passed out drunk back stage. Actually, that's always a worry at a Pogues show.

I'm not sure when this photo was taken, but it looks pre-Pogues. Probably in the late '70s when Shane was the front man for the Nipple Erectors or the Nips. Before that he wrote, published, and printed his own punk rock magazine. There once was a time when I wanted to do the same.

Shane & the Pogues have a loyal fan base all over the world. The first time I saw them, I felt like I was at a B-list Hollywood premier.

Shane too suffers for his people.

This is a great book. Dictated, then printed by his on-again, off-again girlfriend Victoria, it's full of stories from the early days of English punk rock, soul, and reggae, all the way to the present. He even talks about his teeth, or lack thereof.

The men (and woman) they couldn't hang.

On Wednesday, October 18, 2006, I saw the Pogues at the Wiltern for the first time. It was their first west coast appearance with Shane as the frontman in over 15 years. I had an extra ticket because Denise couldn't go, so originally I was just going to give it away at the door because I didn't want to "babysit" someone who wouldn't appreciate the show as much as me. A couple days before the show, my mom called and asked if she could go.

When we got there it was an all-ages show. The kids to my left had X's printed on their hands and the people to my right were eligible for social security. As we waited for them to take stage, the Clash's Straight To Hell played in the background as a tribute to the late Joe Strummer (that song means so much more to me now and whenever I hear it, it makes me tingle). Just before the song was about to end, the lights dimmed, they took the Wiltern's Ornate stage and broke into If I Should Fall From Grace with God. No lie, I began to weep.

Shane and the Pogues can kick you in the brains, plus they're beautiful and here's why:

"I could have been someone

Well so could anyone

You took my dreams from me

When I first found you

I kept them with me babe

I put them with my own

Can´t make it out alone

I´ve built my dreams around you"

- Fairytale of New York

"And now I'm lying here I've had too much booze

I've been shat on and spat on and raped and abused

I know that I am dying and I wish I could beg

For some money to take me from the old main drag"

-The Old Main Drag

"This morning on the harbour

When I said goodbye to you

I remember how I swore

That I'd come back to you one day

And as the sunset came to meet

The evening on the hillI told you

I'd always love

I always did and I always will

He fought the champ in pittsburgh

And he slashed him to the ground

He took on tiny tartanella

And it only went one round

He never had no time for reds

For drink or dice or whoresAnd he never threw a fight

Unless the fight was rightSo they sent him to the war"

- The Body of an American

"I've been loving you a long time

Down all the years, down all the days

And I've cried for all your troubles

Smiled at your funny little ways

We watched our friends grow up together

And we saw them as they fell

Some of them fell into Heaven

Some of them fell into Hell

I took shelter from a shower

And I stepped into your arms

On a rainy night in Soho

The wind was whistling all it's charms

I sang you all my sorrows

You told me all your joys

Whatever happened to that old song

To all those little girls and boys

Sometimes I wake up in the morning

The gingerlady by my bed

Covered in a cloak of silence

I hear you talking in my head

I'm not singing for the future

I'm not dreaming of the past

I'm not talking of the fist time

I never think about the last"

- A Rainy Night in Soho

"A curse on the judges, the coppers and screws

Who tortured the innocent, wrongly accused

For the price of promotionAnd justice to sell

May the judged be their judges when they rot down in hell

May the whores of the empire lie awake in their beds

And sweat as they count out the sins on their heads

While over in Ireland eight more men lie deadKicked down and shot in the back of the head"

-Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six

"And in the euston tavern you screamed it was your shout

But they wouldn't give you service so you kicked the windows out

They took you out into the street and kicked you in the brains

So you walked back in through a bolted door and did it all again

At the sick bed of cuchulainn we'll kneel and say a prayer

And the ghosts are rattling at the door and the devil's in the chair"

- The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn

"Well Jimmy played harmonica in the pub where I was born

He played it from the night time to the peaceful early morn

He soothed the souls of psychos and the men who had the horn

And they all looked very happy in the morning"

- Sally MacLennane

How about filling some of those pot holes instead?

2009-03-16T19:56:00.000-07:00

Everywhere I go in town they're ripping up the roads. What's going on? Texas, ripped up. Redlands Blvd, ripped up. Eureka, ripped up. Stuart, ripped up. Oriental Ave, ripped up. While they're at it, they should probaby change that street name to Asian Ave just to be PC. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a detour sign. Now they've ripped up Mariposa or Dwight or whatever the hell it's called there at Caroline Park. The Obama Infrastructure Plan has wasted little time in leaving broken pieces of asphalt in it's wake. I was out on a ride today and I could figure out if I was in Redlands or Beirut.

With all the road work near Caroline Park, tomorrow night's ride should be interesting. Hopefully no one comes flying around the corner on Mariposa, sticks it into the broken asphalt and dies. That would be bad for business.

We're getting the band back together

2009-03-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

The GMR to Baldy Village Reunion Tour