Trans America bike trip

“Life is just a highway, and the soul is just a car”

Objects in the rearview mirror are closer than they appear/ Meat Loaf

I can only surmise from these lyrics that Meatloaf has never ridden a bicycle. Those lyrics and the fact the man weighs nearly a metric ton. “Life is just a drive through, and the soul is just that little clown face with a speaker that you talk into to order fried stuff”, might be more accurate in his case. I am always looking for that epic bike ride, but wonder in the end if I could pull it off. Would my suffering take away from whatever new and beautiful area I was attempting to explore? Would the ever present screaming of Social Distortion from my I-pod drown out the very solace of nature that I went seeking in the first place? The simple answer is; I don’t know. I don’t have two months off to trek across Africa and find out. Hell I couldn’t find two days to chart out “Tour de Apache Junction” if someone put a gun to my head. Yet still I persist. Is there less joy in grinding out the same 12 miles on the mountain bike when you get a chance to ride? Rolling the same 40+ mile group ride on the weekends? Pounding out the same 8 miles to and from work day in and day out? Ok that one there is some drudgery to but i digress. I took some time to read this blog about a couple traveling across the country on bikes.

Trans America bike ride

From the site:

Departing June 9, Ryan Gilhuly and Dwight Smith will embark on a journey , attempting to pedal from the Atlantic Coast, New Haven, CT to the Pacific Coast, Santa Barbara, CA with no amenities, hoping for anything the west has to offer and to raise awareness and donations for the Connecticut Burns Care Foundation's Arthur C. Luf Children's Burn Camp.

Epic.

Ride tonight

I will not, nor do I care to, disclose the location of tonights ride. Show up and roll or stay home and play rockstar on your X-box and eat cheetos. Its up to you. The SK disc will be making its debut tonight along with a recently assembled Colnago for Jackson and a newly glossed bianchi frame for XXI. Alot of new metal and paint on the streets tonight. I am sad the tour is over. I had gotten used to queing up the DVR each night, watching some real racing and enjoying the commentary (the two british guys). I usually abstain from watching TV and the thought of having to sit through even one of those episodes without having the ability to fast forward through the endless Saab commercials makes me uneasy at best. I am quite sure had i been forced to watch the entire tour without a DVR, there would now be a bounty on the three idiots from Tapout.
Even watching them speed by on triple fast forward made me want to see just one of those commercials end with the tour bus going over the edge of a cliff, on fire.

Sweet, sweet candy.

I came across this site purportedly importing NJS frames from Japan built by Panasonic and then painted to suit. The site;

also has pictures of finished frames that are so good looking they make you want to slap your wife. The two items that are making my spidey sense tingle are:

1) the site is named "Pista Poseur". I dont speak french but i assume that poser still means poser in any language.

2) the site isnt a commerce site, its a free blogspot like the one yours truly runs. A free site for high end frames? What gives?

3) The payment caveat; Only PayPal payments are accepted.
(If you live in Atlanta, GA you may pay cash in person.)All questions should be directed to pistoposeur@gmail.com Atlanta? Now a major importer of Asian goods?

The semi-custom sizing is attractive to me, looking for a track frame with road like geometry for commuting. The 60 with a 58 seat tube might be the ticket.

The little pill samplings of color only seem to fuel my addiction. I want to swallow each and every one and report back on its flavor. "

Mmmmmm, the pearl white tastes like coconut and makes my tummy feel like i swallowed butterflies."

**** Neither the Street Kings nor their respective affiliates are in anyway representing Pista Poseur nor their product. If your money ends up in a trailer park in the dirty south, do not contact this site, you will not receive a semi-custom Panasonic frame, you will receive unadulterated cruel jeering."

Some days you lose...

Thats right. It happens to the best of us, no matter how hard you try, sometimes you fail.
The good thing about failing in America is there is always someone there to tell you; "Five out of six aint bad."

I would have marked this kid six for six anyways but that is just me. Some days you lose, and some days you win! Like me smoking Bucket in the last two stages to win the all important Velogames fantasy league for the Tour De France. The final tally is in and the winner is: Suicideking by two lengths. (Or one and a half lengths depending on whos length we are talking about). The final time trial stage coupled with my teams standings in the finish vaulted me ahead of the other competitors. Final scores:

SK: 4717
James T: 4471

Bucket: 4368
Agent Orange : 3593
ST Paul: 3141

What a tour finish. The most interesting tour to date IMO.

Items of note: STreet Kings planning a ride Wednesday night. 7/30/08 PM.

Established

A few shots of my latest garage project.

The disc was in pretty bad shape when i got it. The disc is set up for the track, no braking surface. Someone had run brakes on the surface until it wore through the outer fibercoating and into the core material. I repaired the face with epoxy, sanded both sides with blocks and then shot the whole thing in automotive primer and paint. I reworked the SK logo to a more relevant 20t. "Its all gonna break" is a song from Broken Social Scene, a kickass band. SK founding member XXI had a sewup in his locker so its ready to rock. Now i just need a bike for this to go under.

New Times article on PHX bike riders

The Street Kings get mentioned and have more than a few quotes in a recent New Times article about the Phoenix fixed gear scene. The article titled: Fixed Gear Fanaticism is a good read and a fairly accurate history of the alleycat scene here in Phoenix and the fixed gear culture. The reporters were at FixEd and took some pictures of the racers and the afterparty.

Here is a shot (albeit a blurry one) of Agent orange manning his stop under the 202. Textbook handoff.

This was one of my favorite quotes from the story from Sammy Black:

"You see these guys on these huge mountain bikes with super-huge suspensions. It's like a barbarian sword. "Then you have these fixed-gears, like totally stripped down. It's like a samurai sword."

and a couple of nice shout outs to AZfixed:

You can't buy fixed-gear bikes at chain stores like Costco, but certain bike shops offer models like the Bianchi Pista (suggested as a good starter fixie) for as little as $600. But most fixie fanatics are into building their own bikes. Gearheads on azfixed.com trade tips on where to get track cycle frames, how to convert old road bikes, and where to get parts.

O'Dell says the site's "been bigger than I thought it was going to be," with about 4,000 page views a day. Besides dispensing advice on bike parts, discussing cycling news, or talking about bikes on Craigslist or eBay, a big thing on AZfixed is setting up spontaneous group rides and hangouts around the Valley

The Streetkings get a nice tip of the hat, or beer mug as it were as well: The local fixed-gear scene is "very social," explains O'Dell, who bikes around to local bars with members of his crew, the Street Kings.

Booyah! Taking this program statewide baby!

I think this picture of Trashcan from Fixed is one of those pictures that is worth a thousand words. That is if the first three words are: "What the hell...??"

Visible in this picture: XXI, St Paul, SK,

Bike theives busted!

Yes this is another story aboot Canada, this one is kind of a feel good story, completely unrelated to my arch-nemisis Macbros, also in Canada, i believe its unrelated at this time anyways.


Toronto police recover 1,500 stolen bikes from a single shop in downtown Toronto. Makes the three stolen bikes i got back look like nothing. Not unlike the social trainwreck of Mac, this story makes me scratch my head a bit at our ham eating neighbors to the North.

Damn! 1,500 stolen bikes in one shop. "...the epicentre of the stolen bike industry appears to be the west-downtown area of 14 Division, which, despite its relatively small size, recorded 587 bikes stolen in 2007. " The number of bike thefts in this one neighborhood was so pervasive, cops decided to use "bait bikes" and stake out the scene waiting for the crooks to show up. Instead of taking the bait bike, they watched two men cut the locks off of two bikes nearby. One of the two men was recognized as the owner of a decrepit bike shop a few yards away. "In the case of the Bike Clinic, reports said Mr. Kenk was arrested Wednesday evening near his store after undercover police allegedly watched him direct an accomplice, wielding bolt-cutters, to cut the locks off a pair of bicycles chained up close by." "The bike clinic" was subsequently raided and 1,500 used bikes, all presumed stolen at this point, were recovered. I hate bike thieves. I think its fantastic the police would go as far as to stake out a bike to lure would be thieves and bust them. I am glad for the people that are going to get their bikes back. However...This sounds less like a police sting and more like a bad movie plot. Let me get this straight. A couple hundred yards from the crowded city center where an unusually large number of bikes have been getting stolen is a bike shop that sells only used bikes and is described as:

" A rusty facade of nailed-together sheet metal peppered with old cycle parts, its doorway strewn with junk. Decorated with semi-legible writing across its front but no sign, the store is known as the Bike Clinic, and for years has been something of a local fixture."

What the? First off, What kind of a bike shop sells only used bikes? I imagine each time someone gets their bike stolen ominous music plays as they walk past the decrepit shop. DUHN DUHN DUHN.... Its the equivalent of the shuttered old house with a silhouette in the window and bad stories at the end of the street that for some reason the police never consider when kids start coming up missing.

Even in Canada, if i walk into a bike shop that isn't a registered and well known bicycle charity or non-profit like handlebar helpers or bicycle saviours, and find nothing but used bikes, my alert level moves from my standard Yellow to Orange quicker then you can say defaced serial numbers.

Breakfast Lunch and Dinner at Tiffanys

Old School Tiffany & Co. Fixed Gear for Sale

This 1890s built Tiffany fixed gear bicycle is pretty exquisite. The "silver mounted" lady's bike comes with a Brooks saddle and carved ivory handle grips. It's estimated to sell for between $50,000 - 70,000 at an upcoming auction at Bonhams NY in early June. According to the description "only a handful of these luxury two-wheelers were produced," one of them for turn of the century actress Lillian Russell

I would fully rock this step-over. Check out the tire/friction push rod lever actuated front brake. And the sterling silver adds to the fork and tubes dont you think? I ecspecially think the ivory handlebar grips are tits on the ritz. 50K? I think its well worth it.

Mini Tour

Due to the problems of the tour this year, I decided to create a tour of my own. How hard could it be to take over a country for a few weeks and then put together a bike race? I mean the Germans did it in a matter of days and they were in slow moving tanks and on foot. I found out quite quickly that all the clean riders and carbon fiber is tied up in France so I opted instead to go small scale. Miniature! I could form the tour into anything i desired at this point. Whittling the riders individually from maple wood, the bikes molded in scale minature from carbon fiber and then painstakingly painting each small body and bicycle took hours but i think you will agree the final product was well worth it. This diorama recreates the 195.5 km sixth stage of the 2008 Tour de France between Aigurande and Super-Besse. Although its hard to discern from this angle, I was careful to include every detail. Hincapies boyish handsome features and oversized hands, the cocky grin on Thor Hushovds face as he contemplates the next sprint and last nights conquest(s), each of Robbie Mcewens victorian era moustache hairs individually painted. I debated leaving Suanier Duval out of my mini-tour for their causing the disapointment in the first place but decided to lean towards authenticity instead and you will find the squad dispersed throuhout the peloton as they would have been on this very day. Viewers with a real keen eye will even find a miniature "cobra" as well as needle marks in and around his tiny, tiny hidden groin area. As of yet i have only completed one overweight American tourist pictured to the South side of the road. In tip of the hat to our European hosts, I will also carve her microsized rental car idling just to the side of the road where she was forced to park and wait until the tour passes to continue her vacation oblivious to the race in its entirety. The peeved look on her face says two things: "Ive been driving for hours and cant find a McDonalds" and "Why the hell would ride a bike up a goddam mountain when you can rent a car for 95 european dollars a day and drive right over the thing in an hour?" I hope you enjoy.

Say it aint so.

Ever heard the old saying; If it looks too good to be true, it probably is? Well turns out brash young Ricardo Ricco and his two stage wins after an impressive Giro de Italia three weeks earlier were exactly that. Following the script he laid out prior to the tour and holding up his end of a one sided verbal attack on the rest of the "vegtables" in the pro tour peloton, Ricco attacked in the Pyrenees and won two impressive stage wins riding away from the other riders with ease. That kind of effort so few weeks after the Giro is..well its unbelievable! And it turns out it was. Ricardo Ricco or "The cobra" as he has been named in the media for his savage attacks in the mountains, has been struck with a positive test for the blood boosting drug EPO (erythropoietin) as well as what is being called a 'new' drug, CERA (Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator). Also a blood booster. The positive test just before yesterdays stage prompted the entire team of Saunier Duval to withdraw from the tour after the cobra was led from the team trailer in handcuffs. In an ironic twist of life imitating life, Ricco has repeatedly compared himself to his idol and tour legend; Marco Pantani, also an alpine climber that ended his won life after a struggle with doping controls, dope, being bald, and having the nickname Pirate. You might expect another rant about drugs and cycling and how jackasses like this let down the sport, but lets focus on whats really important instead. I had this bastard on my Velogames fantasy team! I laughed when Buckets liquigas climber Beltran got ejected for drugs last week and that misfortune has come full circle as the star of my team whom i was counting to climb through the alps and move my team into first place, is now himself gone. Stupid goddam cobra.

I cant even bring myself to look at a picture of his stupid face long enough to draw a handlebar moustache and cheap goattee like i did the last sorry sack of cycling shit. If he wanted to gamble with his career and reputation thats one thing, but messing with my fantasy Tour team? Youve gone too far my small friend. Youve gone too far. The only good news is that Bucket and the Bucket brigade also had Ricco (sp) and Piepoli (sp) from Saunier Duval so he now has NO climbers for the Alps. Ive still got Cunego who up to this point appears to have forgotten that there is a bike race going on in France. Every team from the StreetKings has now lost at least one rider to failed drug testing. Too bad they cant test for brains prior to the start of the race.

Tour ousts its second rider.

A second rider has been taken away in handcuffs for failing a tour drug test. Barloworld’s Moises Duenas's urine test after stage four showed signs of the all to familiar EPO and he was arrested at this teams hotel room yesterday. There has been speculation on a number of online forums and sites that follow professional cycling that many riders are now turning to a medical practice employed for years as a viable means to test drugs in humans or in labratories "microdosing" or microdoping perhaps, is the practice of administering an illegal substance over the period of many months in doses so small the body can handle the drugs differently and more discretely without side effects or perhaps without detections.

This only serves as proof there are no deterents to cheating. Only deterents to being caught. If that sounds like i just said the same thing let me explain; Much like crime in general, people are only consider the repercussions once they get caught. When they are engaged in the act, their is one sole thought in their head; "Dont get caught!". The conceit and disregard for everyone else on the planet it takes to do something like this is unimaginable to me, and yet so common no one is suprised when another idiot gets taken off in cuffs. I wonder what the "take back the tour" motto will change to next year? "Take back the tour....again, and we really mean it this time."

Hot links! Get your hot links here!

Contrary to some popular beliefs, "hotlinking" is not the newest craze involving teens and pork products that you should be concerned about as a parent. Instead it is the (quite common) practice of mirroring a picture from one website to another instead of hosting the picture on your own websites storage. The problem used to be quite problematic when bandwidth was a real issue, server storage spaces were limited and expensive and dialup was the only method of connectivity. Popular pictures could be hotlinked so often that the original servers productivity could be slowed or even crashed. Then came tera-flops of storage and unlimited gigs of server space at a fraction of what a handful of MB's used to cost and the Internet got so big so fast that most sites dont require hotlink protection (pass word entries or secure storage pictures) because it is either a non-issue in relation to storage and connection speeds, or so many other websites can just "upload" the picture instead of hotlinking and quite often do. Many servers do charge based on traffic and if Amazon hotlinked a picture from my site, each time their site loaded the picture would have to be recalled from my server space and this would undoubtedly be beyond my current server needs. Hotlinking for a blog my size or his for that matter is the equivalent today of driving through a town you dont live in and "stealing the air" by breathing as you do so. So much for the history lesson. On to the problem at hand. Last week I did a simple search of "American idol" for a fourth of july post i was publishing. I came across an icon that had been photoshopped poorly and posted on a weblog to read; American idiot instead of idol. I liked the look of it, and copied the URL to my own site for my blog. I dont know if the retard that runs the site is the same creative genius that made the picture, but he is sure proud of it. His site much like this one has the ability to see if and who is hotlinking pictures to the site. He changed the image file that I had uploaded to this instead so this image showed on my blog:

The level of pleasure I find in someone else taking such an uneducated swing at me is immeasurable really. I don't know what i have done to be so fortunate that in a war of wits and words I have found myself fighting unarmed opponents so often, but I am grateful nonetheless. I lack the words to describe the look of total joy that creeps across my face in the form of a maniacal smile when i happened across this little nugget. It truly made my day. A few points on this image before we get into the good stuff:

1. Misspelling the word; your? yor. I mean come on. The least of this guys worries should be someone stealing his bandwidth. He would fail a 2nd grade spelling test for godsake. Now I am not saying i don't misspell words, quite the opposite. I just wouldn't misspell a word if i was sending a demand letter and put my name on it. Note to idiot: Have your mother look over any threatening letters before you post them.

2. He put the address of his shitty website on the bottom? It would be different if it was a recognizable site with some respect. This is a rambling blog with webcams that show his cats sleeping in his "bachelor apartment" and numerous pictures of other cats with captions across them that attempt to be cute and funny and fail miserably at both. You think i am kidding right now dont you?

Here "wiggles" shows a look of complete surprise when a non-recoverable error erases his hard drive.
Whew...too much, too much i tell you.


There is also a moving story about him begging his friends to purchase an air conditioner for his "bachelor apartment" as he is "low on cash right now". Not a dry eye in the room after reading this post.

3. I suppose the thought is that the picture once posted on my site will now appear that I said "I am a bandwidth stealing cocksucker" and "Give me your(sp) cock please!". This guy is good. I wonder how many people saw the picture and wondered why i was suddenly "gay" and begging for cock and admitting that i offended macbros.com. This mac guy is a real rascal.

4. The top link on the site is "about me" and hosts the following picture. No i am not making this up.

Never mind the haircut that appears it was bought out of a box, and the raked angle model look, that says "Im both mysterious and magical". Just look at that dazzle in the background! This is a man that wears a goatee for two reasons: to try and hide a weak chin, and as a point of fashion. How many times do you think he had to take his own picture before he arrived at this one? To the untrained eye it may appear to be just another pasty, Canadian, thirty-something with a rapists stare and a beard that looks like he was eating something sticky and then fell face first onto the floor of a barbershop. However I thought something was odd when i first saw this picture. Hmmmm, Why does it seem so familiar? Then it hit me.

I knew i had seen that shirt somewhere. Yes I will take fries with that Mac.

The site isnt all garbage, i did find this article helpful if i am ever incarcerated with no chance of parole that is...

Here is an excerpt from the link "flirting with disaster" with the same photo accompanying it.

Handsome fella isn’t he? Yup he sure is, because it is me. I naturally give off that glow when flirting with the ladies, I believe it gets hypnotic to them. A simple raise of the eyebrow, and a smirk of a smile, but not showing the teeth, since I don’t want to come off as desperate. Just being subtle enough to send the message without any verbal comments to give them the hint. As if to say, “Hey baby. You look fine tonight.” If the look doesn’t go well you can always speak up and say something like, “Awe! Dammit it all!” and when she says , “What?”, you reply with, “Oh nothing, I was just under the impression that I was the only beautiful one here tonight.” I know I’m not the Love Guru or anything, but I’ve got a few compliments on that line. Do you think you have the flirting game down? Extreme Style by VO5 has a web site that features a web game where you compete with others on the internet to see if you have what it takes to flirt with others, and if you are as good as you think you are. You can play the little applet embedded in this post, but going to the site to play Ultimate Flirting Championship is a lot more entertaining since you can play it on a bigger screen and there are more features available, like saving your own character for example.

I think the article shows just how tenuous a grip our friend mac has on reality.

Here is the fun part. The picture below is hotlinked back to Macbros site again from the Air Conditioner story. With a stern warning like "I want yor cock please" you would think i would have learned my lesson. I dont go out like that. I steal your bandwidth and your soul. Thats how i go out.

FixEd what a ride!

The alleycat was a total success on Saturday. Everyone (Street KIngs included) pitched in to help man the stops from the site and we had a great turnout. The riders from Tucson posted that they were running late, i called them in route and told them we would delay the start till they got there. We ended up with 19 teams of two. I was hoping for somewhere north of 30 participants so i was real happy with the turnout. The race was faster then I thought it would be. The first riders did the course somewhere around 38 minutes. Damn Fast! Ryan and Jesse came in about 2 minutes ahead of the STreet King team of St Paul and James T. HCD pulled up in third place by a milisecond. Wes a local Tempe rider was fourth. We had two all girl teams including Hanna (Clarity) on the bike that the community replaced for her after she lost hers at the last alleycat, and two coed teams. The best poker hand was two pair, Queens and fours. The Bike Haus provided the beer for the afterparty and we partied on top of the roof for about three hours before the night club patrons chased us out of the open spaces. It was kind of sureal, being in the open air with a whole level of a parking garage filled with bikes and friends laughing and talking. No accidents, no problems with police (one rider got pulled over in Tempe for no light but only received a warning). And the party didnt break up until the beer was gone. Brooke showed up to photograph the event THANK YOU! I was anxious the whole night but relaxed once everyone was back at the finish and drinking cold beer and throwing down tricks. The next day i was already thinking of how to put together a better event next time. Bigger prizes, longer course, more participants, more ladies prizes.

The winners.

(Yes it appears two of the winners are embracing, I know not why)

mad scramble!

Velogames

So i picked a fantasy team for the tour. As did a number of other StreetKings. At the completion of stage 9, i am still firmly entrenched in 2nd place.

1
bucket brigade

2214
2
STreet Kings
2113
3
packers

1404
4
rusty cable

1258
5
superstars arizona

1085


as you can see the competition is fierce.
Here is my team


Alejandro VALVERDE
GCE
630
Samuel SANCHEZ
EUS
115
Riccardo RICCÒ
SDV
435
Damiano CUNEGO
LAM
61
Mark CAVENDISH
THR
367
George HINCAPIE
THR
120
Christian VANDEVELDE
TSL
210
Jurgen VAN DE WALLE
QST
0
Filippo POZZATO
LIQ
175

2113

I still have one dead hole in quicksteps Van De Walle. Other than that the team is coming along nicely. I plan on taking over the GC lead in the mountains.

Spotted in Scottsdale

Spotted in Scottsdale recently at a swanky eatery.

Street Kings dont go out like that,

My response.

Bartertown AKA Los Angeles circa 2012

Bartertown was the fictional town that Mad Max ends up in during the third installment of that great film trilogy; Mad max beyond thunderdome. While the movie is fictional and does take place somewhere in Australia as best i can tell, i am always reminded that this is what LA will look like after the apocolypse. A town that uses pigshit for an energy source and is full of nothing but thieves and murderers. Too harsh you say? Obviously you havent been granted a glimpse into the future nor have you been to LA recently. Here is a story from a social commentary site entitled: "the LAist" how cute.

__________________________________________________________________

On July 4th, about 300 cyclists gathered at the Manhattan Beach Starbucks for a Holiday Ride to the top of Mandeville Canyon Road in Brentwood. The Holiday Ride is a regular event that takes place 5-6 times a year drawing cyclists from all over the greater LA area.
Mandeville Canyon, off Sunset Blvd., is a steep and challenging ride and the crowd quickly thinned out with some cyclists racing to the top while others rode socially, catching up with old friends and savoring the journey.
On the descent, a cyclist in the back fell, breaking his collarbone and injuring himself seriously enough to require medical attention and a ride to the hospital in an ambulance. Christian Stoehr, 29, and Ron Peterson, 40, stayed behind until the ambulance arrived and then they began their descent down the hill.
Christian Stoehr recounts "We were riding downhill at approximately 30 mph when a car came up behind us, must have been doing 50 mph, and the driver started honking at us. We moved to the right in single file within seconds and the motorist pulled along Ron and started screaming at him. He then pulled in front of us with 3-5 feet to spare and slammed on his brakes, giving us no time to stop. I swerved and almost made it, clipping the car and flying through the air and landing in the street. Ron had no room to move and he went straight into the back of the car, putting his face through the back window."
The driver of the vehicle stopped his car and continued the tirade, identifying himself as a Doctor but never offering medical attention.
Ron told the motorist to turn off the car and Christian sat on the hood of the car, afraid that the driver would drive off. The motorist continued the tirade, telling Christian to get his bike out of the street. Christian reported that they were afraid that the motorist would leave the scene.
A third cyclist, Chris Roberts, rode up and stepped in to make sure the motorist didn't leave. Christian collapsed on the side of the road as the ambulance from the top of the hill pulled up with the first injured cyclist. Paramedics jumped out and administered first aid.

Mandeville Canyon Motorist Vs. Bicycle Incident Deemed 'Road Rage'*

Regarding the incident reported this morning where a one Dr. Christopher Thompson*, a 58-year-old emergency room physician and resident of the Mandeville Canyon neighborhood, was involved in an alleged road rage incident between two bicyclists, Christian Stoehr and Ron Peterson, on Mandeville Canyon Rd. in Brentwood, there have been some updates.
"Captain Eaton, the commanding officer of the West LA station, reports that LAPD believes this was indeed a 'road rage' incident, made an arrest, and is handling the matter as a felony criminal assault, and not as a traffic collision," explained Mike Bonin, Chief of Staff for Councilmember Bill Rosendahl, in a comment that was verified this morning. "The investigation will be handled by [West Los Angeles division] Detectives, who are seeking a criminal filing. When LAPD updates us on the progress, I will be sure to share that information here."

___________________________________________________________________

*Note: There are other Dr. Christopher Thompsons in the Los Angeles area who work in medicine and unfortunatley some are being wrongly threatened.

(Tough shit I bet they know him)

Welcome to Bartertown.

The Tour is underway...

Love it? Hate it? hate the organizers? hate the press? hate the dopers that ruined this tour or that tour? If you are cyclist you probably have some thought on the tour. Good or bad or indifferent, you have probably invested some time to think about it. I am firmly entrenched in the camp of: "Ill take what i can get". That means I realize the tour itself may have flaws and be unfair at times and seem at times to be destroying itself from the inside out, but what are the alternatives? Watching monster trucks in Tulsa crush junked cars? Mens sand volleyball finals from San Clemente? There are only so many cycling events on TV. There is one major cycling event on the west coast if you were in a position to drive to see it live. Its not like there are fifteen cycling events on each month and i choose to ignore them to watch some scripted event with stilted performances and bad actors. Its the only choice. Do you think any football fans plan on not watching the Superbowl because the commercials sucked last year? Because their team isnt in the game? Because a prominent player they dont like got arrested last year for drug charges or animal cruelty? i dont think so. The way to get more cycling on TV is to watch the shows that are on now. Fire up the TIVO and rock the tour. leave the cynicism to me.

This just in....

No matter how much i would like to be on the Alp de Huez a little over a week from now, I cannot be. I wont be there when the riders round those historic switchbacks and crest that majestic Col. I have to rely like most of us on someone else being there and capturing that moment for us and reporting on it. Sadly, quite often a race report doesn't do the race justice. The words just don't capture the moment. Sure they tell you who won and who out sprinted who and you usually get the results with a smattering of what passes as "color commentary"these days. Usually just some guy with a British accent will do. But what they dont do is: put you on the line with the other riders in the race. They don't put you wheel to wheel ten deep in the peloton, fighting along with the group. You cant feel your legs burn and your lungs rasping with every breath. You get a watered down verison of the results is all. Where is the human touch? Where is the personal side of the race and the racers? Look how easy it is to simplify a race report;

"Today's stage was a hard climb over the alps and then a long descent into the picturesque coastal town of Blah Blah blah.... a rider from Blah, blah, blah guy was ahead then got caught and blah, blah blah to a rider from blah, blah, blah, ." The reporter accomplishes in a few words what it took the riders all day to do and a feat it took Hannibal a full year to accomplish. I would like to see him try and pedal his ass and his fancy laptop over the same mountain, then you would get some superlatives i can assure you. The Alps might have well as been one of those smoothed out bumps they place in front of Ace hardware store so you don't end up with a senior citizen holding a bag full of screws and a can of spray paint stuck in the grille of your SUV while you race through the parking lot. Rarely do you hear from the riders themselves. But when you do...well that's something special isn't it?

I came across this race report filed from the second of a three part TT series right here in Arizona. The Picacho Peak time trial. Report filed from the field by; "Jeremy" and "bobby" a man with so little pretentiousness he doesn't even feel the need to capitalize his own name.

The brutal 20k out and back time trial was the first race for either rider and they came through in flying colors in Street King style if you ask me, and not only on the road, but they put the emotion of the race on paper for all of us to enjoy.

Due to extreme heat conditions and the remote location, the riders have to set out quite early and begin hydrating and carb loading in preparation for the upcoming effort on the way down.

"4:30 am, race day."

The course and competitors must have appeared daunting but these two newcomers to the sport weren't fazed in the least.

"We were the only ones with less than $3000 between our legs. We were the only ones with less than $300 between our legs for that matter. We got many sideways looks. Jeremy rode his Trek 7200, with rack and all. "

(Notice the "pro" in the background with his number on upside down)

"I bought my first cycling jersey for the occasion. I felt a little uncomfortable, though. Most of the guys just stared at my tits. I was like, "my eyes are up here, asshole." I rode my Haro V3 mtb"

(Editors note:The yellow bike in the background is NOT the Haro V3 mountainbike)

This report skips all the BS of the race and cuts right to the meat and potatoes of the results first then backfills in the human element later. Finally A man of conviction behind the keyboard.

"We pulled a solid 18th and 19th place in the cat 5 category."

pause...

"There were 19 cat 5's. I was hoping to do the 20k in less than an hour and I finished at 44:54. 16.3 miles per hour. I'm going back on the 27th and I'm hoping to come in under 40 minutes."

"These people were nuts, man. Some of them spun for an hour before the TT and had to change clothes because they soaked through them. These people are serious. Some of the tri guys were one solid muscle...brick walls. I used the outhouse after one of them and it looked like a bear shit in there. Most of the people were cool but some were dicks"

" I asked Jeremy to take this picture as a record that I was not the fattest guy there. I wasn't going to post it but this guy was making fun of our bikes and sticking his nose in the air. "I think I've seen worse bikes...AT WALMART!" he exclaimed. Here's me mocking him for the camera."

"Disk wheels sound like toys rolling on asphalt. This sound has haunted my thoughts since the TT and is the audio memory I'll carry from this day. This, and the sound of whispers and tongue clucking as we lit up and drank some post-race beers at the car. The 70-year-old guy had 11 minutes on me. Three minutes quicker and I would have had that 13-year-old girl. There were three fixed gears there. Not hipsters, though. They looked like mail carriers or forklift operators"

I feel like i suffered right along with you my friends. Like I burned one in celebration with you and drank some post-race beers with you as well. Perhaps these two now understand what the term "Brotherhood of the bike" is all about. And perhaps now the reader does as well. I know i do. Heres to a sub 45 minute 20k my friend (toast) this one is for you...

... and one for my homies.

Ironic, isnt it?

new custom headbadge for lucky this weekend. She deserves it.

There i was, pedaling squares with the morning light at my back and a cool breeze coming off the irrigated fields to either side of me. Through my headphones Pink Floyd is offering to meet me on the dark side of the moon, my head is clear and I couldn't feel more free. I dont make the light at the 101 and instead of cheating across the intersection, i sit on the top tube and adjust the strap from my backpack. I finish the last swallow of water and for a moment wonder if i should have brought another bottle. Then I have an idea that is both true and sobering. I can just fill it when i get to work. Work. The word hits like a ton of bricks. the bag across my chest and shoulder suddenly becomes heavy and i have trouble kicking into my left pedal as the light changes from red to green. The irony of biking early to work. Normally a bicycle ride is rewarding not only while riding, but the destination is a reward as well. Not so on the commute. The destination is the anti-bike. The anti-joy some days. 10 or twelve hours of phones and TPM reports and people so stupid they make you wonder how many days they dont get their pants on right and just dont leave the house. Could it get any worse? i guess it could. I could be sitting in traffic watching the needle drop on my gas gauge and be listening to two jackasses that are under the impression that people actually enjoy the sound of their oh-so-witty voices doing a "morning show" that couldnt be less original.

Happy birthday USA

Yes today is "Happy birthday USA"
not Happy birthday "You Essay' " (this is an Arizona inside joke) and was provided by fellow Street King Agent Orange. "love it or leave it"
The ride last night was fantastic. A few stops by the local watering holes and a cruise down Mill Ave. to listen to some local teenage shit band pound out songs they thought represented the eighties dressed like Rod Stewart or members of The Cure.
I shouldn't take exception to some dropouts trying to recapture or perhaps pay homage to, a decade they were still shitting yellow throughout but somehow i still do. You could smell rain the whole evening and the thunder and lightening would remind you how volatile the weather is in Arizona during monsoon season. That didn't deter any of us from stopping at "one more place" for a few. As we unlocked the bikes to unquestionably head home, it began to rain for real. The rain with the still warm night air and the slight buzz made me happy. I could have rode all night. i got back to my truck soaked and near sober and smiling ear to ear.

Ride tonight.

Street Kings ride tonight. A dangerous combination of mid-week drinking and no work tomorrow might combine for another late night. I am planning on pacing myself.

Jesus wept

I have critiqued or reviewed a number of different bicycles. None of them touched me as emotionally as this one. I stared at this bike for no less than an hour. I don't know exactly what i was hoping to find in this tangled debris, but every time i see it i now feel haunted. Just signing onto the page today to post i knew i would be faced with the challenge of looking at and then looking away from this bike. i have given this collection of parts the title: Edward scissorframe.



No matter how long i stare at this bike i cannot make sense of the proportions. The chainring appears over sized in comparison to the wheels. The fork and stem appear much too big for the headtube and the frame must be bent like a Chinese acrobat to get the cranks that far off the ground yet i cannot determine exactly where. Using the garage door as a reference i scribbled down some guestimates on an approximate size of this frame., My rough estimates put this frame as a measured 65. Looking over this bike you would think a cynic like myself would be excited to come across a single picture with so many possible points to discuss. Traditional brake levers and bar end shifters all mounted on road bars that have the appearance of having been stretched like silver taffy from the headtube. The mountain bike fork, undresized tires. I could go on and on. I however found myself not unlike the big game hunter in Africa that stalks the majestic lion across the barren tundra for weeks. When the moment arrives that the hunter is finally in the presence of this noble creature, there is a period of awe and a moment of regret at the prospect of the hunt now ending.

Mennonite meteorite....done.

The final word on the final word on the final appeal of the anti-doping case against Floyd landis and his positive test during the 2006 Tour De France is now in. ,p>

Floyd Landis is OUT!

The highest court of sports arbitration found unanimously 3-0 in favor of not only banning Landis for two years as dicatated by the anti-doping leauge, but stripping him of his 2006 win in the legendary race . Landis has the distinction of being the first winner ever stripped of a win due to a doping test result. To add insult to injury, the CAS or International court arbitration for sport, required Landis to pay $100k towards the expenses mounted during his "unfounded" defense" of the allegations.

In a brief statement issued through his attorney’s office, Landis expressed disappointment with the outcome of the case that began nearly 2 years ago.

I now feel i am due a complete and total refund for my purchase of the "support Floyd" wristband i bought from the site; Ibelievefloyd.net.

You will find the bracelet pictured and the other dozen i was hoping to sell to my disillusioned cycling friends on Craigslist starting tomorrow.