Todays Ride 29-7-07

Todays Statistics:

Total: 65.8

Max speed: 29.5

Avg speed:17.4

Clif bars eaten: 2

Small children almost run down by the militant cyclist:3

Near Death Experiences:1

Taillights lost: 1

So much for waking up early. Again i manged to sleep until noon. Although i had gone to bed at a respectable hour this time. So i thought it would be smart to cook oatmeal WHILE stretching out. Bad idea. After waking up completely knackered i stuffed my face with oatmeal and currants. Promptly set out on the bike to explore the path i found yesterday. It was completely a waste but it will let me avoid riding several miles on a main road, so its good for something. Headed downtown and made a quick stop at my art studio to get a clif bar and some tofurky jerky. I carried on and stopped in at B-1 bicycles to see if Casey wanted to ride, he was too busy so i went down to indian oven and had dinner with my friend little Rupa. I ate waaaaay too much. I went over to this park and digested for an hour, and started heading home. I was riding pretty well, aroung 24 mph and a guy on a yellow FELT came right up on me, i hadnt been passed in a while and he completely dusted me. I started cranking hard and caught up with him, we started talking and he was a 16 year old kid! Fastet kid ive ever seen, but then if i had a $5000 bike id be fast too, so we rode together for a while and i got about 10 extra miles out of it, and theres nothing like riding on a bike path through the woods at night at over 20 mph…
Somewhere along the way after dinner my taillight fell off. How this happened i cant begin to guess. $40 or so wasted. I cant fathom at all how this happened, but it means a trip to B-1 tomorrow or Tuesday, a good excuse to buy other things i don’t need.

Work tomorrow…ill probably take the day off too, my right knee just doesn’t feel right.

LEG CRAMPS!!!!!!!

AT LEAST 3 F^%)#@_@# TIMES LAST NIGHT!!!!!

So much for waking up early. Noon again it is.

Todays Ride. 28-7-07

So I figure I should start keeping track of mileage and the like on my blog. Partly showing off, partly for myself. So I bought the new bike exactly a month ago today. Ive got 802 miles on it so far. Id have more if i didnt get sick from Wednesday to Friday and lose 3 days of miles. Easily over 900.

Todays Statistics:

Total: 75.2 mi

Max speed: 35.4 Mph

Avg speed: 19.5

Clif bars eaten: 2

Near Death Experiences: 1

I woke up at midday after 4 hours of sleep, ate some oatmeal and stretched out. Then I rode out to Alum Creek to ride trails with some friends. On the way there I was waiting at a red light to cross High street and some wanker, I mean man in an SUV pulled up behind me. It was a single lane on our side of the road and I was in the middle of the lane waiting in queue. He honked at me and I turned around and looked at him then turned back around facing forward. Then I hear him yell “excuse me”. I turn around and say “yeah?” He says “can you get out of my way so i can turn right? I said “would you be asking a car to move?” He said “I ride a bike and i would move so a car could turn” I replied well the laws concerning bikes are applicable to cars as well and the opposite too, so I have as much right to wait exactly as a car where i am, im not moving” I then turned back around. The light changed and I crossed the intersection he reved his engine and made his turn. I was really scared. No really.

Someone is going to shoot me one day.

On the way back from the trails (which were completely uneventful, fun but nothing exciting happened) I found a nice path along some railroad track i had no idea was there, im going to explore the rest of it I didn’t ride tomorrow. I came to a railroad crossing where the tracks are at 45 degree angle to teh (im leaving it spelled that way) road instead of a nice right angle. There was a red car behind me as i approached the tracks and I moved over to my left to get an angle at which i could cross the tracks without getting my wheel inline with the track, and falling over then being run over by said car. As i begin to cross the tracks i cut it hard back to the right and i hear the squealing of brakes behind me, i prepare to be hit and i look behind me, the red car is skidding to a stop inches from me. This woman thought she was going to pass me on the inside right not realising that i was veering to my left only to come back to my right. Evidently she has never attempted to cross tracks on a bike or she would have realised what i was doing. She was talking on a cell phone and i shook my head and started riding again. She squeals her tires, accelerating quickly and yells “FUCK YOU” at me as she passes.

Hilarious. No i love almost getting killed buy idiot motorists and then having it somehow be MY fault. Great.

I continued downtown and I ran into Casey, the owner of B1 bicycles, we might go for a ride tomorrow, I’m supposed to come by the shop before close.

Thats it, im staying in tonight, I’m exhausted, despite several invites to various things, i want to wake up early and ride.

Oh and i did 3 massive hills, and may have found the hardest one yet. I’m in love with it and it hurts. Just like love should.

An old picture i found.

This was in NYC many years ago…i was going through unmarked CDRs and generally trying to clean up and make some sense of the mess around my computer. So i put this CD in and it was from a trip to NY maybe 5 years ago in the winter time. Thats me on the bike in front of the legendary CBGB club.

Brought back a lot of old memories…aaaaahhhh NYC.

Bands i like.

Editors, iLiKETRAiNS, Bloc Party, Interpol, In Flames, God Forbid, Soilwork, Chimaira, At the gates, Dark Tranquility, Opeth, Arch enemy, Black Dhalia Murder, Trivium, Unearth, Hatebreed, Anti-Flag, Minor Threat, Shelter, Youth of Today, 7 Seconds, Proud Youth, Ten Yard Fight, As I lay Dying, Radiohead, Coldplay, Oasis, Secret Machines, Muse, U2, Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, Gang of Four, Depeche Mode, I Love You but ive Chosen Darkness, Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, The Wrens, The Stills, Sukshinder Shinda, Bally Sagoo, RDB, Godspeed, Fourtet, Prefuse 73, Immortal Technique, System of a Down, Mastadon,

Im ill.

As in sick. As in damnit.

Todays critical mass ride is in doubt.

Food poisoning? It was awful yesterday, today i feel about right again. But i dont know whether to push my luck…

Bike Knives

I carry a CRKT M16 SRT High Risk Environment Tactical Knife on my bike for a few reasons.

1. Just in case.

2. Car tyres of people who yell, throw, or otherwise direct things (such as their 2 tonne vehicles) at me.

3. Ive had a hard time opening packages lately.

I really want to buy a katana or some other large sword and attatch it to a sheath mounted on my bicycle. That would be great.

Thanks.

Fakengers.

So I’ve noticed an increase in the trend of, for god knows what reason, civilians impersonating messengers. I hadn’t really noticed it before i was thinking of returning to my job as a messenger, or maybe i did but i buried it deep in my subconscious where it wouldn’t hurt so badly. There are a shit ton of these little monkeys around university right now and its driving me mad. Actually there is a female in one of my classes who i see every day that rides a fixie and carries a messenger bag…WITH WHAT IN IT? Makeup. Yes, it is her handbag, but 10 times bigger and less handbag and more messenger bag. She dresses the part, or what she thinks is the part and gives me strange looks because i bring my machine into the classroom instead of locking it up outside. Or maybe its the spandex. I don’t know. Anyway, one of these days im going to ask her who she works for and when she answers “Starbucks” or some other trendy corporate shit I’m going to just shake my head and walk away.

These idiots are all over the place on their bikes, on the sidewalk, off the sidewalk, in and out of traffic, no helmet, and its pissing me off. They are capable of doing trackstands for a longer time than they can actually ride the damn bike, mostly outside of some emo bar or boutique clothing store, or even worse, urban outfitters. Ive started confronting them about their habits and i feel like a dad but damn it, somebody has to do something, they are the problem with cycling. When i had space at BLD art studios there were a large group of artists who were also messengers and I never noticed this happening back then. This was from about 1999 to 2004? Its a trendy thing to do at university and it will wear off someday, and they will forget all about cycling and ill be 80 years old giving myself a stroke or aneurysm trying to get up a hill whilst still trying to impress some girls in a car. I tell them that i hope they get hit by a car, and ask if they will wear a helmet then…So perhaps its always been that way and i never noticed it but i dont know. Someone suggested that they are “supporting” bicycling culture. I cant agree with this at all, possibly supporting it monetarily but i dont think that buying certain items from companies that make products for messengers constitutes support in the form it is meant to convey. Supporting cycling would not be riding like you are blind, weaving in and out of traffic, running red lights and generally being a hazard to drivers who already have a problem dealing with cyclists.

I ran into one of these kids that i had confronted outside a health food store a few days later at this marketplace thing where he was working at a hippie restaurant…i bought a small cake and some banana bread (which was really good and i needed as i rode 75 miles that day and was hungry the entire time) from him and asked if he had gotten hit by a car yet.

he hadn’t. damn.

Or maybe i’m just an ass. That is probably it.

Critical Mass 27-7-2007

I’m excited.

Ill post pictures after the ride if it is not raining…but it always does.

Editors.

Oh.Dear.God. The auditory orgasmic rapture that is Editors new album. I have no words that can do justice to describe the beauty that is “An End Has a Start”. I got the special edition the day it came out, and I have had it on repeat in every form imaginable, from my CD player to Itunes, at home, in the car, working out, wherever, whenever.

I cant take it. Its just too good. I loved the first album but Bloc Party was my favourite group from the time I heard their first single until the new Editors. Editors were my second, but this is utterly ridiculous. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. I can go on and on about this, but I wont because I’m listening to it now and typing is interrupting me.

Go buy it. Now.