I'll never get it.

I just don't understand what manner of insecurity evokes people to yell out of the window of a moving car toward a cyclist.

DNA and I were at some local bars tonight and on my way home I broke a chain on my fixie (try to avoid this if you can). For some reason, after retrieving my broken chain from Durston avenue, a drunken gentleman in the passenger side of a half-ton Chevy pickup felt the need to yell 'there's no blahblahblah in Bozeman, you Fuck'. In general, this would elicit a U lock thrown though the window from me, but on this particular night I only felt disdain tinged with ambivalence. The normal anger this act would elicit any other time just wasn't there. In that moment I went past feeling anxiety about cars to feeling far superior to those insecure enough that they feel the need to yell obscenities at people on bicycles. I don't really understand why people think driving a particular type of mechanical conveyance is reason to feel important. You bought a car? Great. That says nothing about your character, it only speaks to your credit rating.

I will state emphatically at this point that people who ride a bike to work every day do, in fact, think that people who drive (you) are weak. We think you are soft and pathetic, and that you have made yourselves unwitting slaves to that which makes you ripe for enslavement.

I am ambivalent to someone issuing inanity out of the window of a car because I find those who drive daily beneath my concern. So, pay four dollars for a gallon of gas America. You are weak and you deserve to reap the reward of your slovenlyness.

:)

Die cars DIE! Now, bring on 5 dollar gas!

Moab

Really, that's all I need to say, and in the minds of people who know there are images and feelings conjured that cannot and need not be expressed in words. Ok that was lame...but spending a few days riding around trails like this makes one a little euphoric.



Suz and I had an unbelievable trip. The weather was perfect. It actually rained off and on the whole time, which was the BeesKnees as far as I was concerned. We crammed the two days we had with AmasaBack, and the Sovereign Trail (which has been changed considerably for the better since I was last there), as well as spending a day hiking (actually slickrock scrambling) in Arches.



I rode the single speed down there, and while maybe not the 'best' bike for the gnarliest terrain I know of

I certainly didn't regret having only one bike with one gear. I probably would have had more fun on a big travel bike, raucously burning down epicly technical sections of broken rock. But I'd've missed the subtle satisfaction of using years of skill to flow through and over sections that will ask for everything you have just to stay upright...that, and the disbelieving looks from others after cleaning something on a singlespeed that they had trouble with on a freeride bike.



It was one of the best trips I've been on in a long time, but after a few rough days I was more than ready to head up to Salt Lake to a hotel with a shower, and then to Jen and Dan's wedding, which was beautiful, as well as drunken ridiculousness even considering strange Utahian drinking laws.

Cheers

Leaving for Moab

We're leaving for Moab today. I'll try to get some pictures posted whilst we're on the trip, so check back often...actually it would be best if you made this your homepage, just so you don't miss anything :D

Some quick math

This got me to thinking.

I commute around 10 miles a day, which is 300 miles a month. It's actually a little more than that, what with random grocery trips n such, but I digress.

My 4runner gets about 15 miles to the gallon, so that's about 20 gallons of gas per month. If gas is 4 dollars per gallon, that's around 80 dollars per month, just in gas, not counting oil changes, tires, etc, which all add to the price of driving, here's a more realistic calculus for the cost of driving a car.

My xtracycle cost me around 400 dollars back in November. If it hasn't paid for itself by now, it will have by the end of the summer.

Crap

The Suz and I are going to a wedding in Salt Lake City next week. This is going to necessitate a little side trip. It's a difficult life I lead.

A quesiton of perspective.

So I was at a get together with some peeps tonight. Someone is getting married and this necessitates a large gathering of people from out of state. One of those people is a gentleman from NYC, who used to live in Bozeman, and worked at a shop with my boys. This cat came out last summer and spent the week riding around on a fixie DNA slapped togther for him. This time around our visitor had in tow a young lady he is courting. Towards the end of the night his girlfriend was getting tired and giving him hints to call it a night. It occurred to me that obviously this time he wasn't staying with DNA and I asked him were they were staying. He replies (I promise this is actually going somewhere, just bear with me) with the name of a local motel, and I then query if they rented a car in Bozeman. To which his girlfriend replies with a 'yes' that implied that the answer was so obvious that there was no need to have asked the question in the first place.

The great part about the group of people I hang around with is that everyone in the room immediately started offering to loan this couple the use of bikes (since we all have several) in order that they could get around without being encumbered with a car. We even got into a complicated discussion about what would be the best way to get bikes to these two. It was so spontaneous that I didn't even think it was odd, until I noticed the bewildered look on our buddy's Girl's face. It snapped me back to reality and I realized that to most people this would seem completely absurd. It does, however serve as a fantastic and ironic view at the paradigm of my friends verses what you might consider 'normal' people. To us we were lending a hand to someone in need. But to this poor tired girl, who just wanted to get to her motel and relax, we were presenting her with an onerous burden.

Maybe this is a 'had to be there' story, but I chuckled most of the way home, interrupted only by calling a guy driving a red pickup a word that I won't repeat here.

In local sports news

There was an interesting article in the Chronicle today

My favorite part is the quote from the bartender. "I think that they have these all over town,” one of the bartenders said. “I don’t think anyone can beat them. I don’t know their names, but they like Olympia-brand beer.”

That's right. We are Nameless. We are Unbeatable. And we like beer.

Word.

REALLY?!?!

SO...tonight DNA and Capt. E and I were hanging out with the regional Trek rep. Now, this is unassailabley cool for a bike nerd like me, and regardless of the fact that I am smart enough to be aware that this guy isn't exactly telling the guys at Waterloo what to do, I still find a certain mystique in hanging with a rep. But, I have to say that something that came up during the conversation gave me pause. Whilst discussing Schwalbe Tires, which you should be familiar with if you've ridden a bike for more than ten minutes, the topic of winter bicycle commuting came up. Now, I can't remember which of us mentioned 20 below rides to work, but the Trek Rep's reply was "you guys only do that to say that you did"...

Wow! If the $#%&ing Trek Rep doesn't get that commuting by bicycle in 20 below weather is actually more pleasant that commuting by bike in 90 degree weather, then I've been wasting my time, because even the choir doesn't get it.

SIGH

In the interest of full disclosure, the guy seemed super cool and did buy us a few drinks, I'm just disillusioned that even a 'bike guy' with a dream 'bike job' doesn't seem to get it. Really?? The guy that works for Trek doesn't get it? We either have a long way to go (best case scenario) or, I'm wasting my time...hmm...

Fixies = BETTER

I found a really interesting link on fixed gear gallery. Maybe some of you have seen this...perhaps all of you have seen this, I would gather that most of the readers of this site also check FGG. Ether way, this is an artical discussing the physics of riding fixed. Now, I don't know all that much about classical phisics, I'm more of a quantum guy. But, I do know that John and I were on a ride today, both of us on a fixie, and about midway through we were passed by a dude on a pretty standard road bike while making a sustained push into a headwind. I was in the lead at this point, so I tucked in behind our 'benefactor'. After a mile, I slacked off a bit, but we still hung within twenty feet of the freewheeler. Coming back into Bozeman from the East on Frontage, there's a pretty good climb up what turns into Main Street. It was here that DNA and I blew past the guy on his high end carbon road bike using good old fashioned American muscle (just not the kind you find in a '69 Chevelle) and even though I was dying on the downhill, we never saw the guy again.

So when you reach into the quiver, remember, not only do you look like a badass on that fixie, but you have a ninjalike advantage as well.

C-Note

This is our latest endeavor.