I'll Take It

Spinning on the trainer is not my first, or even my second choice for riding my bike. Or would that be for NOT riding my bike? But it does feel oh-so-ephing-good when you haven't been in the saddle for 5 days.

I am on full time Dad duty all week since B-Man is off and Wifey has a real job that pays cash money, so a "real" ride was out of the question. BUT B-Man is old enough that he was content to hang out in his Man Cave off the main part of the basement whilst I did an hour on the trainer listening to the latest Kasabian release.

Today was all about getting the riding legs back and letting them know that Christmas break was just a lull in the action before things get ramped up for the 2012 season. Pretty sure the Barry-Roubaix will once again kick off my race season. I am leaning towards getting back the suffering and upping to the full on 61 mile version for 2012 rather than the 35 mile.

My friend Chris dropped by the house today to show me the Surly Pugsley that Motorless Motion got in recently. It was freaking sweet!!! WAY to small for me, but it was neat to pedal it around. I found myself wishing I had more than a thin crisp layer of crusty snow in my backyard. Not many bikes have EVER inspired such thoughts.

In my perfect world I would have the means to get my newly arrived Moose Mitts on a snow bike for the Michigan winters, but shit ain't perfect and as it is we don't have enough snow (in late December??) to make it worth my while I suppose. Even if I did have a way to get my chilled and saggy ass cheeks on one, I would got with something not steel. It just makes sense to me that a bike ridden in the snow/ice/water/sand be made of something less corrosive than steel. But that's just me.

Oh well, time to make some food.

Later.

That Was NIce....

Christmas was pretty sweet. My family and I are very lucky to have such a generous family and the ability to give B-Man a very sweet "Santa" filled Christmas. But, it's now time to get back to some basic living and routine (thank GOD!).

I am very anxious to get back in the saddle, whether it be on the trainer, the trail or on the dirt roads. I got an itch in the chamois regions, and while some antibiotic cream might clear that up, some saddle time will help even more.

Thanks again to all our family for their generosity and to Wifey for continuing to put up with a dead beat like me. Love yinz.

Later.

Merry and All That Jazz

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year and all that jazz. Great night with family tonight. Jake The Dog was a hit and well behaved, B-Man had a blast. Time to hang with Wifey, have a couple Hope Devil's and get ready for Christmas Day. Woot!!

Later.

One Foot In Front Of The Other

We headed back to PA on Thursday afternoon. The xB was too loaded down with Christmas cheer, Jake The Dog and we humans to fit any bike gear, so I needed to come up with a plan to blow the pre-holiday stink off of me. So Friday I went to White Oak park to walk a few miles. Yes walk.

The original plan was to hike some of the trails, but the ground was a muddy, soggy mess and you know I can't mess up my kicks, yo. So I strapped on my iPod and walked whilst jamming to some tunes. It was sort of refreshing but also frightening in a "my God is this what my life will be like when I'm too old or lazy to ride my bike" sort of way.

It also brought back some memories, both good and bad.

Memory One: As most of you readers know, when I was in my late teens and early 20s I was a big blob of 300 lb. human flesh. One day in the fall or winter of (1992?) I decided enough was enough and was determined to not have to go out and purchase size 44 waist pants. The problem was that I was too embarrassed with the way I looked to be seen out exercising in public, so I would head out during the the dark evening and walk a big loop hitting as many of the hills my town had. It was a LOT of work for someone my size who hadn't exercised in years. But it worked. Walking combined with watching my diet jump started the fat loss that eventually had me confident enough to buy my first mountain bike (A rigid fork GT Timberline or something like that). The rest is Soiled Chamois history.

Memory Two: December 27th, 1999. I arrived at work after a brief Christmas holiday vacation. I was the first one to the office. I made coffee and settled into to my desk. Just as I was ready to start some work (or goof off, I can't remember) the phone rang, it was my dad. He was frantic and said something really bad was wrong with my mom, to get home fast. I sprinted out of work and fired up my small Honda Civic hatchback. I drove as fast as I could, taking the little Hatchback's speedometer to places it probably should not have gone.

I arrived home to find no one there, I was sure they had gone to the hospital 10 or 15 minutes away. Back to Honda and once again I found myself driving fast and praying to God in hopes that what I thought was happening was NOT actually happening.

It was happening.

I ran into the emergency room asking about my mom and was lead into a room where my brother and sister in law were standing by my father who was sitting in chair inconsolably crying. He looked up at me with his eyes filled with tears. "She's gone, your mom's gone." I started to tremble, then cry. I think I punched something.

A few minutes later we were allowed to say goodbye to my mom who's body laid still in the room next to us. I wish to God I never would have gone in that room. Her color was gone and her skin was ice cold except for the warm tears that rolled off my cheeks and on to her. I should not have gone in there. I should have been told "no, remember her the way she was." The rest of the day was a blur of tears, rage, tears, hugs and crying with my family.

The next day it started to snow, we were gathered at parent's home. We were all exhausted with sadness. Someone, I think it was my brother or maybe it was Wifey, suggested going for a walk in the snow. So Wifey, my brother and I headed out into the falling snow. We walked around the neighborhood talking, trying (and pretty much failing) to not talk too much or think too much about what had just happened. Still, there was a peace to that walk that was amazing. Each cold gust of wind or wet snowflake in the face was beautiful. It was a gentle reminder from someone (my mom? A higher power? God?) to not take the little things in life (clean crisp winter breezes and big beautiful snowflakes) for granted and to REALLY cherish the big, amazing things (family, loving wives, the birth of a son years later).

While I can't say that going on that walk did anything to help the overwhelming sadness of losing my mother, it did help calm me down and put things in perspective just by putting one foot in front of the other.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I went for a walk because I didn't have my bike. I would have rather rode my bike, but walking had to do. I'll be glad to get back on my bike, the memories are better.

Later.

I Promised Slayer Videos

But I like THIS version way better...



Later.

It's Been 3, I mean 4 Days

I started writing this last night, but then got sidetracked with stuff...

It's been 3 days and counting since I've been on the bike outside. Boooo! It's also been 12 hours since Jake The Dog has been a pain in my ballz. Dude needs to CHHHHIILLLLLL THHHHE FUCCCKKKKKK OUTTTTTTTT!!!! Potty/Crate/House training is making my ass/ballz ache. CURSE YOU JAKE THE DOG!! CURSE YOU FOR BEING CUTE ENOUGH TO MAKE ME TOLERATE A DOG!!! He's IS slowly chilling out and being good, so I can't complain too much. But I will. Plus he makes B-Man and Wifey pretty damn happy and that makes me happy, so I'm doing my best to become one with Jake.

The week as I know it, is officially fucked for riding. I thought MAYBE Thursday night, but as it turns out we're leaving on Thursday instead of Friday now. I have been keeping up inside on the trainer, but I can only listen to so much metal before I want to

sacrifice a goat and/or virgin OR sacrifice a virgin whilst wearing goat skinned pants.

But I dowhataIgottado to get by. Now to do some work and digest some bacon. Yeah... bacon.

Later.

Frozen Saturday Goodness

After a week that I would just as soon forget do to the amount of things I fucked up, I was happy to get out on dirt on Saturday. Temps were chilly, the ground was frozen and up on the trails of MMCC a light dusting of snow made things look nice and festive without making things slow.

Temps weren't nuts, but enough to freeze the bottle a bit and freeze an earthworm to my frame. It was also cold enough that I should have worn my winter shoes. I didn't and ended up taking a short cut and aborting at mile 17 of a planned 20ish mile ride.

I should have rode today too, but I was freaking tired. A late night on Friday at Wifey's holiday party, dealing with Jake The Dog and all the shit that I had to deal with on the XXC side of life this week had me just wanting to lay around, drink beer, play video games and eat. I did all quite well, thank you very much.

The coming two weeks are the beginning of "hell" A.K.A. Christmas/NY weeks.

12.19 Open (except for work).
12.20 B-Man's last day of school before holiday break.
12.21 & 22 entertain B-Man.
12.23 Drive 7 hours to PA & a scheduled dinner party that night.
12.24 Christmas Eve day/night at my Dad's house.
12.25 Christmas Morning, Breakfast & Dinner at my in law's house.
12.26 Open, but surely something.
12.27 Anniversary of my mother's passing & drive home to MI.
12-28, 29, 30 Wifey at work, I entertain B-Man all day.
12.31 New Year's Eve (Probably at The Bird with some friends).
1.12 2012 begins, as does drying out and focusing on the 2012 season of XXC and racing.

On a positive side of things, I am looking forward to chilling, catching up on sleep and ingesting as many carbohydrates as I can. I am also stoked to start work on the next XXC. I often find myself thinking that the next issue will be the last issue, but at least for now I am just going with the stoke I'm experiencing. Nothing wrong with that I suppose.

Later.

Underestimated

Based on what a fuck up Ozzy Osbourne is now I totally underestimated how good Black Sabbath actually were. Sorry.

What's that got to do with cycling? Nothing. What's-it-to-ya??

I rode the trainer today. I listened to Black Sabbath. It didn't suck and I felt happy.

Later.

The Pains Of Growing

I got nothing. Well, not NOTHING, but not much worth reading... Today was the first day since Sunday that I could ride and it pissed down rain all day. Boooo! Such is life. I'm just riding the rest of this year out anyway. I'm holding my weight steady, on the good side of NOT having a (another?) nervous breakdown and looking forward (oddly) to chilling with family and friends this Christmas. Come January I will continue to keep on keepin' on with the riding and the training that I like to call "doing stuff," but will be getting extreme on limiting the intake of some certain fluids. I need to get back to close to normal or check myself into rehab. I joke. Sort of.

I actually found myself going through the process of applying to the USPS today. What a pain in the balls that was! I wanted to get my job info out there if something would open up near M.P.. I think a job like there, UPS or some such place is all I could really do at this point in my life. I really have no other skills other than the minute amount of design skills I have and I'm 40.5 years old. I'm also not sure my 1990s art school skills are gonna get me too far (see xxcmag.com for more of that). Plus let's be honest, I'm not the brightest bulb in the batch.

It pains me to say this (and this is just me, not Wifey talking here) I need to make some money. Right now I am caught in a tight spot- the mag means so much to me and I have put a ton of work, passion and money into it, so I don't want to give it up but I need to make more money at it to keep it and myself going. As it is right now, I have NO real retirement plan, no "plan B." if something would (God forbid) happen to Wifey there is NO way could support myself (let alone B-Man) for more than a week with what the magazine is giving me. I hate to say all that, but it's true.

I have NO plans to give it up, but I feel it needs to change or I will end up in a bad way mentally (fried) and physically (dead). I think there are folks out there who think this is my hobby or that I do it for shits an giggles. I do it because I love the sport and love giving the endurance cycling community a magazine it deserves. I also love using what talents I do have to the best of my ability. BUT I also need to survive, so I need to think more about how to do that AND keep my sanity and self out of debt.

I think I read somewhere that there is some sort of rule in business that says you should never complain or show your weakness, but I'm not much of a business man. I AM the sort that needs to write stuff out like this to either A. Look at it later and realize what a ball sack I was, or B. develop a plan to avoid more of the same. You can think me a douche for typing this stuff, fine by me. Any bad shit you may think of me is only about 1/10000th of the bad shit I'm already thinking about myself. So no worries there.

I really did not like typing that stuff and admitting that while the magazine is more popular than it's ever been, I have no business plan for success. What was that I said earlier in the post? Oh yeah... "Such is life." All I can do is keep plugging away and do what is best for me and my family.

For now here is a shot or two of my ride on Sunday. Could be a few more days until I experience such riches. Did an hour on the trainer today jamming to Girl Talk, but not sure how many more of those I got in me.


Later.

Survival Mode

Wow, I still can't believe it's 12.13 and we still have not had any snow here. If it weren't from the fact that I have been slightly overwhelmed by the recent publication of XXC #14 and all the things that I manage to fuck up every time I publish something I may have been able to ride in shorts/short sleeves on Monday.

I also Monday was volunteered to help decorate B-Man's classroom for Christmas on Monday after school and today was an onslaught XXC mistakes I made that needed fixing (fix/make eps/make pdf/upload/make download pdf/upload/make Issuu pdf/upload/then do it all again because I surely fucked something else up. I need like 2 weeks ensconced in some sort of "retreat" center. Or at least locked in my room with a couple cases of cold beer, some video games and the hi-fi blasting the Black Angels. Or not... Maybe just some exercise or something?

Oh well, someday I'll say it was all worth it. Right? RIGHT?? Ha!

I did get out for a nice gravel ride on Sunday, took a bunch of pics, but right now I'm on the lap top and ready for bed, so I'll probably post some stuff up tomorrow or so. I'm sure you'll be holding your breath.

Later.

Good, Frozen (UGGG!!!)

Wow, we have been damn lucky here in central Michigan... it's early December and we have yet to have a snow fall. I mean NOTHING (glad I didn't buy that snow bike), well at least here in MP. I'll take it. Of course it was freaking 13 degrees when I got up to take Jake The Dog out to take his 3 a.m. dump and only 20 somethin' when I went for a ride up at MMCC today.

This week has been a blur of dog shit (literally), dog pee (literally), last minute changes to XXC #14 and to xxcmag.com. In other words: UG!!! BUT I did get a couple rides in (outside) and a few inside. It's almost like I'm training for something, but I really have no idea what that "something" is. Might be more of what last year was, or I might try to incorporated something new in, like a stage race. It's looking like it will just be more of the same unless I get a (real non cycling media) job to supplement the mounting XXC debt. We'll see.

If you've been following along this week, I thought I would give up the blog for a while. Turns out out I haven't. I was fine with not blogging but then I saw that Dicky was blathering about his weight gain, thus violating the Royal Order of Aging Narcissistic Cycling Bloggers 2011 official union contract (Section A., article 21) that prohibits the copping someone else's shtick. The "aging fat dude racing thing" is mine dude, so take your gang of jack booted Dirt Rag hippie thugs (and their giant circulation)and BACK. THE FUCK. OFFFFF!! OK, OK, I'm calming down... give me some room here.

Rather than blather on too much about what I didn't do this week, I thought I would just post a few pics of what I DID do and saw. Kay? Cool.

I rode some dirt/gravel roads. It was sunny, but my nips got frozen.

I rode a smidge on Winn Road. (A.K.A. The Flattest Most Boring Road In The World)

Funny thing was, as I got up ahead there were two po-po cars with a pickup truck pulled over, a dude in the back of the cop car and a less than thrilled chick in the front seat of the pick up. I filed all that under "I'm glad that's not me" and kept on pedaling into the wind at 13 mph. Seriously, 13 MPH on this fucking road??!! It has 0% grade!!! UGGGG!!! Maybe Winn isn't so boring after all? Nah... it is.

I tried to keep Jake The Dog out of the bottle returns. It didn't work. I had to move them but not before nabbing this pic of him, the bottles and his bulldog anus. One of the few times I saw his anus this week that shit wasn't spewing out of it. UGGG!


He is cute though (does my use of the word cute make me sound gay? Hope not. Not that there's anything wrong with that). He is a handful right now. To which I say- UG!!!

Saturday I got out for some singletrack goodness at MMCC. It was only like twenty-fucking degrees at ride time and my bottle froze to slush but the trails were in PERFECT condition! The sand was all frozen, the dirt was hard pack and there was a NEW section of singletrack which added about another mile to the ride. Virgin singletrack is always good. Of course I must admit that being a 40+ year old male I get a bit creeped out at typing "virgin." Oh well, I'll get over it.


I didn't ride all that long, just about 1:10, but had fun outside freezing my aging low hanging balls off in 20 degree temps. Plus I bagged my first frozen bottle of the winter. I'm sure there will be more.


Funny thing was, this time last year, I rode at MMCC in the snow. That was fun, but this was sort of better. I'd give my left nut and right nipple for 80 degrees, sun, and some cold beer afterwards. Looks like at least a few more months ahead for that though...

Later.

P.S. I've had a few beers tonight, thus my use of the f-bomb. Sorry.

So The Break Didn't Take, Sue Me

This shot was from yesterday, doesn't mean I don't dig it. Yeah, we might not have huge climbs here, but enough of these soft dirt risers over 30 to 50+ miles is enough to make up for a few stiff climbs.

I should put my money were my mouth (or my where my home row keyboard fingers are) and race something like the Dirt Kanza or Gravel Worlds. Hmm.... I wish, turns out I just don't have that much fitness/talent. Wish I did.

No chance to ride today, so an hour on the trainer listening to Kasabian had to do. Not sure why, but I really dig that band. My alt/indie sensibility tells me that I should NOT like them, yet I do. Sue me (again).

Later.

Taking a short break from my break. Sorry. Later.

Break Time

Taking a blog vacation for a bit. Nothing too much worth talking about right now. Check out xxcmag.com for if you're looking to get a fix of MTB/gravel culture. See you in a week(?) or so. Time to regroup. Thanks.

Later.

I Proved Me Right

I said I wouldn't ride today. I was right, and it was worth it!

The week before PLANNED publishing of XXC is always the busiest and most stressful. I still have stories out and I'm still trying to tidy up the last bits of what I DO have. On top of that there is the day to day operations of filling orders, trips to the post office and blog posts. It's all good though. Except for the no riding thing. For the fourth day in a row I had to settle for the trainer while temps creeped into the mid 40s and no rain/snow. Crap-ola. I can almost guarantee you that by the time this issue publishes and my schedule calms down there will be 3 feet of snow on the ground.

But it wasn't all bad... lots of work was done and Wifey came home for lunch. And Wifey coming home to join me for lunch is ALWAYS a good thing.

On the bike side of things: I am STILL waiting for my TRP CX9 brakes and new Stan's rim to come in. Jeezuesssss! I was stoked to see that my Stan's goo fill seems to have taken and the Spearfish's wheels are holding air. Yeah-uzzz!

Less than a month 'till Christmas. Ug. Not a fan, but for some reason this year I don't have my normal feeling of utter dread. Strange. I guess there's still time for that.

Later.

As far as riding I have to say that even though I have had to ride the trainer when the weather said I should be outside, I can't complain. I've got over 4 hours in, burned a ton of calories and have been happy with the workouts. Today was a real kneecap buster doing some BIG ring climbing.

Looking forward to Saturday when I have time to get out for a ride. I'm also looking forward to picking up Mozzer the dog with B-Man and Wifey. For the record B-Man is insisting that the dog be named Mozzer. For real... I offered up Lemmy, Ozzy, Jake and Watson, but it keeps coming back to Mozzer. Not that I care. Just looking forward to getting our boy home and starting the madness. :)

Later.