Tuesday, May 27, 2008

The Story of the Saying on the back of the T-shirt

Here's one reason why this whole "global economy/internet/no borders" world we live in is kinda cool sometimes:

When we moved here 3.5 years ago I started a series of limited edition shop t-shirts. The idea was that we'd pick a quote from somewhere, make 3-4 dozen shirts and when they were gone....they were gone for good. Then we'd do another one. We've done about 10 or so @ this point.....displaying wisdom from Abbey, Merckx, Charles Schultlz and a buncha lesser known folk......even yours truly. This is the story of one of them and why we had to break our 'when they're gone they're gone" rule.

It was my buddy Chris' idea. "Brother", he said, "Next time you need a quote for a shirt I know what'cha oughta go with". There was a great article in a Rivendell Reader* a while back, written by a guy that had his life turned around for the better by a bicycle. He lost a buncha weight, met a woman, changed his life and wrote about it. The last line of the article was the quote that Chris had in mind. "Could the secret of life be so simple? Just love someone and ride your bike every day?"

Well.....that shirt was our fastest selling t-shirt EVER. They were gone in a flash and for the first time I was tempted to do a 2nd run. Especially after I started getting calls from a young lady in Boston who said that she'd seen someone in a bar there wearing one and had to have one. I tried to get across to her the concept of the whole "limited edition" thing.......she just wouldn't/couldn't understand.

Then I got an e-mail from Edinburgh Scotland. Check this out - a couple that had ridden their tandem around the world in 2004-2006 had stopped @ the camp that my son Samuel works at in the summers. Turns ouththat the camp director (my best climbing buddy KB) was the preacher @ their wedding back in the day. They saw Samuel wearing that shirt and that line became the last line of their Trip Blog. Friends of theirs in Scotland read it and got ahold of me. Well..that was enough to make me decide that it was time to break the rules and have a second run done. Thise shirts have been shipped to Edinbourgh, Colorado Springs, Tennessee and several other places so if you see one...........don't be surprised!

By the way...............for those of you that are wondering - I tried my damnedest to get the okay from Rivendell to use that line. They never got back to me.

Not that this was intended to be an advertisement, but we do have a few left. Lemme know if you want one.

I just think it's kind of cool, y'know? In a "It's a Small World" sort of way. Then again...I don't get out much and am easily amused! ( Too bad that I had finally lost the number of the persistant chick in Boston by then!)

MC

*The Reader is the best bike magazine EVER and has more good reading in one edition than Bicycling, MountainBike Action and Bike will publish in total if they last a 100 years. Join Rivendell. Get the Reader. Alas - it comes out (at most) 4 times a year. I have the complete collection here if yawanna check it out.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Paul Dunn You're my Hero!

So...........as T.O.M.* and I were goin' for the Island Lake sprint sign yesterday morning I hit a pothole square on w/ the front wheel of The Prowler. (My Co-Motion tandem) We took the sprint but I was not a bit surprised when we pulled away from the stop sign and the front tire was flatter than yesterday Pepsi.

Rats.............we were gonna make 'em hurt on the return leg too!

Anyway..........off the road, off the bike and diggin' in the seat pack for the stuff we need. "No big deal, you guys go ahead, don't wait for us." That kinda thing.

Flats happen, right?

That's when my casual aquantance P.D. did the thing that he did that got him in the title up there.

He stopped.

"You guys got what'cha need?" he asked.

Assured that we did...he was on his way.....got back to the group and no doubt rode in with them.

Pretty simple, huh?

"What's the big deal" you ask? Well...........here's the thing. Odds are P.D. is faster than you. He's damnsure faster 'n me. (No daunting challenge - that!) We're not good buds or anything - I know him 'cuz he and I are on the same rides often enough and we have lotsa mutual friends - I don' t even know if he's ever been in the shop for that matter.

Still....he saw we were off the bike and he interrupted his ride long enough to make sure we were good. Shows that he was brought up right. His momma should be proud.

Oh..........I wanna thank Dan and Mike for waitin' and ridin' in w/ us. 'Twas a nice gesture and we appreciated it.

I don't wanna make too big a dreal outta this but after all that pissing and moaning I did a month or so ago about riders that couldn't be bothered I figured that I needed to balance the scales.

It's been a good-but-crazy week.................Ted and Sarah had their baby yesterday!!!!!!!!! (Go to his blog for pix!) I got a lotta riding in.....and I'm damn tired of wearing knickers and wool base layers! I'm looking forward to goin' in shorts and such this afternoon on the Dessert Ride.

Gonna do the club's ride tomorrow - we always have the Monday Night Ride in the morning on holiday mondays.

I put about 100 miles on thiose fancy-pants Reynolds carbon wheels that the rep left here....they feel good. Greg and Ted are more impressed than I am but neither of them run wheels as nice as I'm used to! We'll have 3 sets here for about the next week or so if you wanna try them!

Gotta go, folks are gonna be here soon for the ride!

Congrats again Ted, Sarah, Sophie and little new baby w/out a name!

MC

* The Other Mike

Monday, May 19, 2008

'I Come From the Land of the Ice and Snow...."

Okay...........maybe it didn't actually snow, but doesn't it seem kinda cold for mid-May? We had a great JDRF training ride yesterday and the attire ranged from Kevin's sleeveless jersey-n-shorts to Dave w/ his ninja-issue balaclava and toe covers!

It wasn't very warm, that's all I'm sayin'.

Still...another great ride in the books, at the end of another great week. Gettin' back after a trip to the desert is always a mixed bag for this boy........a week's worth of shop stuff, catchin' up on sleep, gettin' back in the groove - it always makse the week fly by even faster'n usual. This week was no exception. The shop was busy.........the rides well attended.......we had a good gig @ the brew pub Friday night, lotsa friends came out and we kinda burned it down a little bit. Sat night was Brian and Heather's JDRF Yoga deal.......Lin and I rode the "Big Yellow Taxi" (our demo Co-Motion tandem) down after the shop closed and got all stretched and mellow. Then the ride yesterday and......................here it is Monday again!

This week it's the Ride of Silence on Wed, so I'll more'n likely skip Grattan again. This weekend there's a rumour of a Last Call reprise @ New Holland and the May Fun-Raiser @ the shop on Sunday! The "Dessert Ride" no less!

I can't wait to find out how all our racers did this weekend! Danielle slayed all down @ 12 Hours of Tsali, finishing 1st women and 4th overall. Not bad for a "training race!" Aaron raced the Owasippe ATB Time Trial and Greg went down to Memphis for a big triathlon. Big weekend!

I promised some Moab pix...............I'm still workin' on it. Maybe I can get Danielle, Ted or some random 11 year old offa the street to show me how to post some?

Speaking of Moab.............folks have ben asking me how that Cannondale Rize worked out there. The simple answer is that it worked great. It was perfect, actually. The thing is...........so was my Seven hardtail that I rode on the last 2 trips.
And the C-Dale Rush.
And the Scapel.
And that shitty Schwinn Moab rental bike that year that my fork pukked up its guts the first day.
And my Yeti.
And my Bontrager.
And both of the Trek OCLV hardtails.
And my old Stumpjumper w/ drop bars.
And both Trek "Y" bikes.
And that ARC-AS that I borrowed from the Yeti guys.
And even that Cannondale Raven!

Seein' a trend here? I've been thinking about this for a bit. (And wondering if this is something that I oughta be thinking about, let alone writing about!) The fact is that I've kind of made a habit of goin' out west to do the hardest riding of my season on a bike that I've either never ridden...or haven't ridden much. Would I be better off on my bike? Maybe.......that Seven fits me like an old pair of jeans (the kind that your wife keeps threatening to toss) and every time I clip in to the pedals it's like coming home.
But...............all those other bikes (and all the ones I forgot to mention) were fine. The thing is....every one of 'em went right where I aimed it, y'know? They all rode up every technical climb that I had the skill and power to clean and they all went downhill as fast as I had the balls to go. As much as my industry is kinda based on the notion that you can walk in here and purchase more fun or performance...........you still gotta ride 'em!

And I think that's way cool.

I was chewin' this over w/ my buds @ the guitar shop across the street and my buddy Ross-the-golf-guy and.....here's a surprise......we all have the same take! Stuff is just that..............stuff. You need good enough stuff...........a bike, or guitar (okay...or golf clubs, dammit!) that's good enough to fan the flames of your interest in the idea of riding, or pickin' or......(sigh) golfing. After that...it's icing on the cake time bay-bee!

Not that there aren't other perfectly valid reasons for buying new stuff. 'Cuz there are.

Still.....every race I enter I get my ass handed to me on a platter by some dude (or dud-ette!) on a bike that's "worth" lots less than whatever I'm riding. And that's how it need to be, I reckon.

So............it's a great day on the cusp of a great week. The forecast contains a warming trend, the rides are rocking and so's the shop. (And the band!) BikeLife is good these days!

Hope to see you around!
MC

Oh yeah...almost forgot! John Jasker ! John Jasker! John Jasker!

Monday, May 12, 2008

Today's Quiz!

I almost forgot.......I wanted to include this quiz in that last post. Oh well.

Anyway....as of this moment there are egg-zac-lee 370 pictures on the walls of the shop bathroom. Answer this question properly and be eligible for a special Moab/Fruita themed prize!

(All correct answers will be entered into a random drawing, after I decide whether the entrant is a wanker or maybe doesn't know who John Jasker is!)

The percentage of those 370 pictures taken in Moab, Fruita or somewhere in between is:

A - 17%
B - 23%
C - 41%
D - None of the above.
E - All of the above
F - Who gives a shit?

Send your answer to mike@velo-citycycles.com and put "big fancy-ass contest" in the subject line so it gets routed to the proper department. (Any ties will be decided by bribe)

"These are Days of Miracles and Wonder"

So.......my 32nd trip to the desert is in the books. I had every intention of posting from out there, just like any 12 year old could easily manage...even took that damn laptop...but as you may have noticed - it didn't happen.

Technology.......................Bah Humbug!

(Fear not...the irony of bitchin' about technology on my BLOG hasn't escaped me!)

Anyway...it's good to be back, but not as good as it was to be gone! Pal Dennis and I had a good time. We didn't ride enough, true, but I NEVER get to ride enough so what's new 'bout that? We hit the road on Sunday night, after I did the JDRF ride and he did his Sunday School thing and 23 hours later................there we were in the Promised Land. Moab was busy and our little cabin @ the Slickrock Campground was kind of a pit and we were surrounded by Jeepers (It's a Jeep thing and I REALLY don't understand!) but still...........there we were and in the imortal words of Senor Marley - "every little thing was gonna be alright". To shake the highway outta our legs we did one of my favorite short hikes out to Corona Arch and then it was time to call Monday a day.

Tuesday am we saddled up and rode out to my fav Moab trail. I knew that Amasa Back was kind of a serious way to introduce Dennis to the area but I was confident that he could handle it and I was (mostly) correct. We had a great ride, interupted briefly by my best'worst crash of the whole week while showin' off what I Moab-Monster I consider myself. As I sit here 6 days later the scars are just startin' to fade! After the ride we went up into Arches Nat'l Park for a hike out to Delicat Arch so DP could get his "serious" camera gear out.....all 40 pounds of it.

Wednesday was tough - Slick Trail time! We rode up from camp like the hard men do......it's 5 miles, 3 of which are SERIOUSLY uphill. (I'm talkin' "you need your granny gear on pavement kinda steep" here!) We did the Practice Loop to give DP a chance to see what we were gettin' into and he handled that okay so off we went to the Main Loop. Slickrock vets will recall that some of the toughest sections are pretty early in the spur out to the Main Trail (Fried Eggs/Legs! Testostorone Poisoning! Wooly Gully! Thrust or Bust!) and we didn't make it far. He crashed HARD on the tight off-camber switchback on the Fried Egss descent and that was it for the day. I mean he hit HARD! I thought for a bit that the week was over. He ended up w/ a nice abrasion all along the underside of his forearm but the big deal was the (no exaggeration!) football-sized bruise on his hip. Very impressive and before you ask...........yes, pix will be forth-coming as soon as I have them and can get TB to show me how to post 'em. Tell you what though...you won't wanna see the one of his hip @ the breakfast table! I rode a bit farther down the trail but @ that point the day was over, riding-wise. We killed the afternoon in town between applications of ice and "Vitamin I" (Ibuprophen - don't leave home w/out it!) Kind of a low point.

Thursday am he was feelin' okay so we hit the road for the impossible-to-describe sweetness of the Bookcliff singletrack in Fruita. We had a blast, rode pretty much all day after sittin' out a rainstorm in the van and then hit my fav ribs joint before high-tailing it back home to Moab.

("Back home to Moab"........damn that sounds nice!)

Friday we rode up to The Gemini Bridges and back down, then wasted 3 hours tryin' to get his rear brake bled and then went out to the Sovereign Singletrack to finish of the day (and our legs!) Nice ride but not a favorite of mine. Still........'twas a fitting way to finish of the Moab portion of our program 'cuz that was our last day.

Saturday we got up early, hit the road for Fruita and were chamoised up and ridin' up the Kokopelli TRail by 8:30am. My fav memory of that day was when I was high above the Colorade River..........waitin' for Dennis and all alone. There was a Bald Eagle somewhere below me, above the river but far below the Trail and he was screechin' and yellin' about something. Bee-yoo-ti-ful. We rode out a ways, then hit the Rustler's Loop for dessert. Climbed off the bike* for the last time /w that typical bittersweet feeling. I was ready to come home and ready to stay forever. Lunch @ the Hot Tomatoe Cafe and then the road. The drive home was a bitch - lotsa snow over the Rockies and horrible wind and rain from Nebraska all the way home.

Another trip in the books. More scars, more suntan lines. More red dust on the bike and my sandals.

More later.................especially pictures.

*Oh yeah.....the bike. My Main Man Jason-from-Cannondale hooked me up w/ a prototype of the brand-spankin'-new Rize. 'Twas way-light for a 5.5" full-susser and it was great. No mechanicals at all, it climbed like a bitch and descended as good as a bike can w/ me on it. More later. ( I got a whole 'nother post brewin' on the topic!)

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Is it true that Fillmore is just a bedroom community for Overisel?

Okay...that's a tad more "inside" than most of my less-than-serious statements. Just something that came outta my mouth as we were cruisin' through on the way back on this morning's ride.

And what a ride it was! Da've, Jan, "T.O.M." (The Other Mike), Ross, Franc, A-Ron, John-the-new-guy and I rolled away from the shop for the "Thursday Recovery Ride". We call it that 'cuz I promised our friend Jan T that she could ride w/us on Thursayd even thought her legs are usually achin' from some kinda death march hill workout she does on Wed. Works for me.......once I get back from out west I'll be racin' on Wed night so I'll be in pretty much the same boat.

Anyway...it was a terrific morning. A little windy to be sure - Hell, what ride this Spring hasn't been!?!? We rode out through Overisel and Fillmore then flew west w/ the wind and back into town on Lincoln. We lost Da've as we turned east on the way out...he had ridden in to ride /w us and was headed home... and we lost A-Ron and John as we got near town. "T.O.M." had to run but Franc, Ross, Jan and I headed over to Good Earth for a bagel.

Here's the thing..........................................I think that goin' for a ride in the morning w/ friends and then enjoying a bagel might well be the epitome of what I dig about cycling! Once again I was helpless to resist the temptation to look around and say (around a mouthful of sesame bagel) "Well, I think this is a very civilized way to start the day." If you've ridden w/ me in the morning the odds are that we've gone for a bagel and if we have...the odds are you've heard me say that. Hell - If you've ridden w/ me 4 times you've heard me say that 4 times! (Sorry 'bout that).

Still................there 'tis.

Lots goin' on...........trying to get the new website figured out. My e-mails been fouled up since we switched over and that creeps me out way too much. I tried to send out the May newsletter today but something went wrong and it went somewhere other than to everyone's inbox.

(I hate this crap!)

(How weird is it to bitch about computer-related crap on a BLOG, fer chrissakes!?!?!?!)

I have a bazillion things to do before I climb in the van and head west..........I'm trying real hard not to fall into that trap of wondering whether a week off is even worth it in light of the extra crap at either end. We have a JDRF ride on Sunday...that'll be the last thing I do before comin' home, unpackin' the van, re-packin' the van and heading out. By Monday evening Dennis and I will be in the Promised Land. A week of sun and rock later and we'll be back, like it never happened. (Hopefully by then all the web-weirdness will be settled out so I can go back to my Luddite ways.) I'm demoing a flashy new "2008.5" Cannondale Rize full-sus courtesy of my Main Man Jason so I'll be on a bike that I've never ridden. Again. Oh well...I haven't been on a mountainbike since Iceman so why not raise the stakes a bit more, huh?

So...........a couple more road rides and then a week of trails. Can't wait. I'll be thinking of you guys while I'm out there. I'll be thinking that I wish you were there....and that I'm glad I'm not here!

Later!
MC