What goes around, spins around
January 8, 2021 § 14 Comments
Some bicycles beg to get stolen. Kristie had taken incredible security measures to protect her most treasured possession, in this particular case her Fuji SL with Dura-Ace and the lightest, most durable set of FastForward carbon wheels which were 100% carbon, made fully of carbon and exclusively carbonized through various carbon procedures. To ensure that the bike would never be stolen, she had leaned it up against her garage unlocked, which faces a busy street, for a few hours.
Later that evening, when she went out to bring her beloved bicycle into the house, she was astounded to see it gone, and in its place a beat-up POS Giant hybrid bike with brakes that didn’t work, a chain that barely turned, and gears that were a transmission in name only.
Many tears were shed and many oaths uttered as she marveled at how someone could have ridden by on a broke-down clunker, seen her shiny, beautiful, expensive bike leaning against the garage, and thought “Sweet! Time for a swap-er-oo!” and then ridden off.
It didn’t help when I pointed out that anyone who cared so little about a bike as to leave it out unlocked shouldn’t be too surprised when someone rides away on it.
Fortunately she had another, much less wonderful and less beautiful bike that she was able to continue riding, and she took the junker Giant and chucked it in the garage, where it languished, if dead things can languish.
Last week, when I met Bill who was in need of a bike, I began looking around for something that might work for him. Some people suggested the Salvation Army but that was a bust. Then I remembered the junker Giant and took a look at it. It was carbon and most of the damage could be fixed by someone with a trusty wrench.
So I called up Baby Seal at the Dropout. “Bring ‘er in,” he said, “we’d love to help.” I heard Boozy P. groan in the background as JP said “we” and recounted the dire prognosis of the patient. Boozy P. loves taking horrible, broken, worthless bikes and spending hours in order to make them look simply terrible. But, sixpack! So it’s all good.
We dropped off the bike, and Boozy P. set about refurbishing this distinctly unloved bicycle. When he was done with it, it sparkled. Brakes fixed, transmission fixed, new tars, and lots of bike polish … the junker Giant had been transformed.
Yesterday we took it over to the encampment on Lomita by the 110. Bill was in his tent, and he had great news: His caseworker had gotten him Section 8 housing and he was getting ready to move into a home for the first time in six years. He was so incredibly happy.
“We found you a bike,” I said.
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.” I took it out of Kristie’s car and put the front wheel on, or at least that was my plan. However, the bike had cantilever brakes and I was having difficulty.
Bill looked on sympathetically. I knew what he was thinking: “Must be a pretty sad life to be this old and unable to put on the front wheel of a bicycle.”
I fumbled a bit before he gently took over with hands accustomed to doing, you know, work. “These are cantilever brakes,” he said. “The cable slots out of this barrel adjuster by the brake lever, and it has fallen out. You have to pop it in like this.” He popped it in. “Then the wire between the brake pads has to be squeezed just a touch so that you can connect the cable.” He expertly did just that.
“Wow,” I thought. “Dude knows bikes.”
And it made sense. For one, it’s not that difficult. For another, you have to know things living out there. You can’t really pay people to do them, and they don’t happen on their own.
I gave Bill a lock to go with the bike. He was really happy and thanked us. “No worries,” I said. I told him the story about the stolen bike swap and he had a laugh. Then I told him about the refurbishing by Baby Seal & Co., and about the various people who had donated money for me pass on to others.
“Thanks so much,” he said, repeatedly. We shook hands and left, but not before I handed out tens to the other guys standing around.
We drove up to a break in the median and did a u-turn to head back home. Bill and a bunch of his friends were clustered around the bike, admiring it. Re-cycling, indeed.
END
Back in the New York groove
October 8, 2020 § 8 Comments
It’s funny how being back in Los Angeles after close to three months of sleeping in forests has a disembodied quality to it. I see everything but it’s not really me who sees it.
For example, a guy passed so close today, a classic LA punishment pass, that only a few inches separated me from serious injury or death.
For example, I crossed a street and a Rage Rover going almost 60 laid on the horn and never slowed down at all.
This and a thousand other things remind me that this is the city. It is filled with a lot of anger but also with a lot of excitement. It has its own kind of beauty but it’s a beauty dissociated from trees, sky, water, stars.
Mostly, the city is a million variations of “Look at my money.” Car, house, business, clothes, boob job, whatever … “I’ve either made it or I’m about to.” The irony is that no one really makes anything here. They just live, some longer, some shorter, some happier, some sadder, but in the end, it’s just life.
While living, though, some people try to put good energy out into the ether. One of my first stops was JP’s new bike shop, The Dropout.
JP and Boozy P. were already hard at work buffing and putting the finishing touches on the shop. What immediately struck me was how rife the shop was with local items rather than being exclusively stocked with stuff made by multi-glomerates.
There were wallets by Fierce Hazel produced by Frankie Holt right here in LA. There were socks by Base Cartel, produced by Diego Binatena right here in LA. There were JoJe all-natural energy bars, produced by Jess and John in North County San Diego. There were Team Dream socks, there was artwork by an amazing bike artist in Colorado, and there were Split energy chews produced by Jeff Mahin, also right here in LA.
JP’s long-term presence and participation in the South Bay fuels his desire to support the efforts of the people who have a true passion for bicycles and who have a genuine interest in sharing what they have to offer with those who share that same passion. For example, talking about riding. As someone who has almost talked more about riding than he actually rides, JP supports other rider-talkers, and if you hang around The Dropout much you’ll be awash in more cyclist bullshit than a post-race fistfight over who-nudged-whom-for-thirty-fifth-place.
JP also believes in promoting the business of local riders, even ones who are utterly worthless human beings, because he recognizes that at the end of the day it’s better to be a worthless cyclist than a worthless financial advisor or lawyer. And of course JP understands that without a place for people to stand around and shit-talk, cycling as we know it will die.
However good Facebag and Instasham are for generating fake controversies, there is nothing like a bike shop for ginning out massive, whopping, defamatory rumors by the hour. And any endeavor inspired by a love of the bike, be it drawing, painting, clothing, or nutrition, will keep the local cycling community connected if it can be glued together with old-fashioned rumor-mongering and idle gossip.
At a time when participation in traditional bike racing is slowly dying like a mom and pop market in a small town where everyone knows your name and personal history, and therefore justifies outrageous prices and crappy service ’cause the next store is 20 miles down a dirt road, JP has created a shelter in the storm, a place where idle minds and skinflint attitudes can coalesce to waste time in a productive, time-honored, and meaningful way.
The Dropout is dead! Long live The Dropout!
END
Speed works
February 12, 2020 § 2 Comments
I motor paced again this morning behind the trusty moto of Boozy P. It was cold at 6:00 AM, as it has been since December, but the sun comes up now during the 1-hour session and it’s a few degrees warmer, which makes all the difference.
In addition to the added lowest-of-low intensity volume I’ve been lauding of late, the secret sauce for building the top end is motor pacing.
We do an hour at Telo, and with 20 minutes to go Boozy will beep the scooter and I’ll sprunt for 30 seconds or so. We do a handful of these efforts.
The sprunt is hard, but you know what’s really hard? Catching back onto the motor scooter, because unlike me, it doesn’t get tired or slow down while I’ve been flogging myself for 30 seconds like a madman.
It’s that “catch back on” moment where, to quote an awful sports phrase, “the gains are made.” It replicates those moments on a ride or in a race where you’ve attacked and have to respond to the counter, or where you’ve followed one attack and then have to follow another. It is the interval atop the interval, where you will only latch back on because you want to.
You can’t replicate this in training because it all happens at speed. Where’s the training partner who can go 30 on the flats for an hour?
I re-read Stijn Devolder’s exit interview, a 2-time Tour of Flanders winner who’d never used a power meter, a heart rate monitor, and had never had his VO2 max tested. All he ever did to win a classic was ride. Behind the motor.
END
The problem with Starbucks
October 11, 2018 § 6 Comments
Every cyclist, at some time or other, breaks down and gets coffee at Starbucks. There are only so many hand-picked, fair trade, organic coffee shops with a simple drip for $15.99, and when you need a quick buzz or a place with a lot of chairs and don’t want to be surrounded by people reading Sartre and Hegel, well, it’s gonna be Starbucks.
I’ve noticed that in the morning SB is how people feed their kids. Mom/Dad will swoop in with the kids in tow, order coffee, a junk snack, and breakfast for the children. Some parents will sit down at a table and make it breakfast time, replete with conversations about school and the upcoming day. What about privacy and intimate conversations between parents and children? I guess those are off the table, literally.
That kind of makes sense in a twisted way. You get up late, you don’t know how to fry an egg, the clock is ticking, and by the time you’ve gotten your testicles plucked the traffic outside is piling up and the Starbucks is on the way to school drop-off because no kid walks or rides to school anymore.
What I’ve also noticed is that in the evening, the SB inside the grocery store is absolutely jammed, as is the sugar-and-salt buffet manned by Panda Excess. These are mostly teenagers, who are at the SB for dinner, and by dinner all I mean is “calories.” They are hungry, there is no one home, and they “eat” with a massive calorie bomb and maybe a doughy chemical food substitute. Maybe.
It’s not just Starbucks
Home cooking has long been in decline, if by home cooking you mean “I picked some ingredients up at the store, and through preparation at home converted them into a meal.” This is wildly different from “I picked some shit up at the store and microwaved it,” or “We got carry-out, dumped the shit out of the box onto a plate (or not) and ate at home watching TV.”
People don’t cook less because they have less time. They cook less because they are taught from infancy that prepared food is better in every way. Schools serve big brand fast food, and parents really and truly prefer to eat out. I still remember how my mom worshiped at the altar of Jack in the Box french fries, and how, to this day, the sight of a box of greasy fries warms my heart.
Like being able to do basic repairs on your bike, however unprofessionally, being able to do basic repairs in the kitchen has value, a lot more value than paying an international conglomerate to feed you. What if 90% of the time you took your bike to the shop to air up the tires because “I don’t have time to air up my tires at home.”
That’s where bike tech has been going for decades, in fact: Making things so complex that even basic maintenance has to be done outside the garage, or in my case, the bedroom. How many people can get a disc brake working again if they accidentally close the caliper while the wheel is off?
Boozy P., my ace mechanic, might laugh at the idea of me ever doing anything serious to my bike, but he did actually teach me how to take off the bars and pack it myself in a box for shipping. I only almost killed myself once by failing to properly tighten the headset as I rocketed down a cobbled descent outside Vienna. No death, no foul.
In other words, frying up an egg won’t kill you. It’s cheaper. You got time for it. The whole neighborhood won’t be sitting around listening, and even if you totally screw it up, unlike the loose headset, it won’t kill you.
END
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The Calzone Crit
March 11, 2018 § 2 Comments
Surfer Dan lined up at the table, squaring off against Boozy P. and Smasher. Surfer was undefeated in ten consecutive food crits at Chez Davidson, having always left capable of eating more than he was served. Boozy P. was a Cat 2 eater and definite underdog, as his calzone sprints were going to be undermined by his propensity to beer dope, which took away valuable appetite and stomach space. Cat 4 racers Olive and Stanley were not considered a major threat.
The gun went off and Surfer came up on the inside on the appetizer laps, eating half a tub of hummus and slaughtering half a bag of helpless, mewing baby carrots. Boozy P., who was only on his fifth IPA ten minutes into the race, snagged an edamame prime as Surfer sat up to catch his breath and down another two bottles of San Pelligrino.
Olive and Stanley shuffled around at the back, spending the appetizer laps nosing around in the garbage can, dragging out paper towels sopped in olive oil and pieces of sausage, and staying generally unfocused on the race. Smasher opted to save his bullets for the calzone, and appeared unconcerned while Surfer polished off the hummus and the squalling carrot babies.
Suddenly the homemade calzone came out of the oven, next to a giant green salad with feta cheese and avocado, which appeared next to it on the table. Smasher attacked, hacking off a piece of calzone bigger than his head, and choking it down his gullet in two mighty swallows, one of which included a half-chew. Boozy P. sprinted hard for the end pieces and wolfed them down. Surfer followed Smasher’s attack, which had gapped out Boozy P., and countered Smasher by inhaling a double-slab.
The calzone’s homemade crust had been stuffed to popping with Italian sausage, pepperoni, ricotta, fresh mozzarella, grated parmesan, mushrooms, and basil. Stanley and Olive sniffed around the edges of the table, but were repeatedly denied by the Surfer/Smasher breakaway, and were unable to bridge up to Boozy P., who was stuck out in no-man’s land.
Just as it looked like the two-man break was going to stick, Boozy P. made a superhuman effort by stuffing his entire salad into his face with his fist, and making it across to the break. Olive and Stanley couldn’t follow his wheel, no matter how hard Stan thought about the taquitos he’d stolen off the table at the 2014 Davidson Taquito Crit in an unforgettable come from behind victory.
In the twinkling of an eye, a calzone the size of a small paper shredder had vanished. The last piece went into Boozy P.’s mouth. As the competitors eyed one another, out of the oven popped calzone number two, and Boozy P., now on his tenth IPA, suddenly found himself in difficulty despite digging deeply into his suitcase of courage, which was unfortunately filled only with dead soldiers and bottle caps.
Surfer attacked first, shearing off a calzone slab resembling the calving of an Antarctic glacier. The gap was big, but Smasher smashed the calzone with his fist, squirting copious piles of cheese and meat and crust onto his plate. In one deft move he had seen Surfer’s calzone and raised him a double slab.
Coming into the final lap both riders were cross-eyed and queasy as the cheese and meat took its ugly toll. Huge rivers of sweat poured off their faces. Everyone stank of olive oil. Surfer and Smasher began playing cat and mouse with each other, nibbling on salad, sipping on water and baby carrots, and throwing cagey edamame moves with their elbows as they jockeyed for position.
But lo! As the two experienced pros locked onto the last piece of calzone, preparing for the final lunge to the line, Stanley somehow managed to come across the gap! While Surfer and Smasher eyed each other, Stan made his patented table-grab, snatched the last piece of calzone off the table and took home the spoils, scoring another daring win for the South Bay’s champion chihuahua!
Afterwards, Stan went out onto the balcony and pooped in satisfaction.
#winning #won
END
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Dancing in the dark
November 17, 2017 Comments Off on Dancing in the dark
Yesterday was new bike day, which is always a sad day for me. It’s sad because once again I have to admit that after decades of riding on numerous bikes, they all feel more or less the same.
No, that’s not right. They feel exactly the same.
Whenever I read about some dude who has hopped on the “new, improved 2018 model” of the Whateverbike, and about how it’s stiffier and turnier and snappier and peppier and sprintier and climbier and time-trialier and aeroier, and about how the dude figured all that out in a 30-minute test ride out in the parking lot, all I can do is look in the mirror and say, “Wanky, you are a bicycling failure in every regard.”
So new bike day is always a stinky disappointment, and yesterday was, too. I had reluctantly climbed off my Cannondale Super 6 Evo All Carbon Bike Made From 100% Carbon because I had ridden it for two years and Team Lizard Collectors had an amazing team deal on a new Fuji bike that was almost like getting it for free except for all the money I had to pay for it.
My old roommate in college, Robert Doty, used to have a maroon Fuji, and we rode all over Austin and San Marcos and his parents’ home in Paris (Texas), him on the Fuji and me on my Nishiki International. My brother Ian’s first road bike, and the bike that got me into cycling, was also a Fuji, a black one. So I had some history with Fuji and was really looking forward to the disappointment.
After I picked up the bike at Veloworx in Santa Monica I took the new Fuji and the old Cannondale over to my trusty mechanic, Boozy P., for a quick swap. Boozy P. has lately gotten out of the bike business, but he was home from work and allowed as he could do a bike build for me if I didn’t mind waiting around. I didn’t.
He got to work right away, which meant taking out a couple of tools, putting the Cannondale up on the stand to haul out its guts, and then cracking open a tall boy to get him through the rough spots. Pretty soon we got to talking about bike racing.
“Destroyer wants to do a Telo Sunday, starting in January,” he said.
“Telo’s been on Tuesday evenings for the last 30 years.”
“Yeah but the course is so busy now with cars and shit. Place is empty on Sunday, and ever since Norris moved off to a log cabin and quit the Wheatgrass, there’s no decent ride on Sunday. Plus if we do it on Sunday morning we can do it all year and don’t have to deal with the time change.”
So we talked about that for a while, and then talked about some other things for a while, and pretty soon the sun had gone down. Boozy P. isn’t fast, but he isn’t slow, either. He’s methodical. And a big part of his method is working through those tall boys, because from my vantage point in the grease-stained chair it looked like he was only about halfway done with the bike but 100% of the way done with half a dozen tall boys.
Every once in a while Boozy would drop a handful of small parts on the floor and they’d roll away, completely invisible in the inky darkness, but he has the night eyes of a cat I guess and he’d pick up most of them on the first stoop.
“What about the other ones?” I asked.
“I think I got ’em all. And if I didn’t we’ll find out later.”
After a while it was plain old night time. I could barely make him out, much less the black Fuji frame, but we kept on talking, and he kept on draining the tall boys until he finally said, “I think that’s got ‘er.”
“I’m scared to ride it,” I said. “You just put the danged bike together in the dark.”
“Nah,” he said. “There’s still plenty of light.”
I held my hand up in front of my face and couldn’t see anything. “Maybe,” I replied, “but not on this side of the globe.”
We went out into the parking lot, but it was so dark I couldn’t even test ride it. “You’ll be fine,” he said. “I can put these things together with my eyes closed.”
“That’s good to know,” I said, “because you just did.”
The next day I took out the new bike and the shifters shifted, the brakes braked, and the handlebars didn’t fall off. Boozy P. had put that bike together tighter than a Republican plan to cut taxes for corporations and raise them for poor people. But I was disappointed anyway. That ol’ bike wasn’t any different from my Cannondale.
END
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Disneybicycleland
May 4, 2017 § 34 Comments
I’m leaving tomorrow for Mallorca, or Disneybicycleland as I like to call it. Last year I went with the bike rental thing. It was fine, especially watching everyone have to lug bike carriers, assemble, disassemble, break things, curse, throw shit, and realize that they’d brought everything except the double reverse half-spline Campy BB off-centering tool, and the only one available on the island cost $850. Euros.
The rental bike was fine. It really was. The tires were shitty, though. And it had been rode hard and put away wet. Except the chain, which had been put away dry.
It descended okay and passed the only test that mattered, which was beating Oatmeal and Twigmeal on the big climb that one day.
But this year I knew that Oatmeal and Twigmeal would be riding bigger miles, faster miles, uphillier miles, and they would be thirsting for revenge so I decided that this year I’d take my own Cannodale EVO Super Six Extra Plus Carbon a-la-carbone Elektroshift SRAM full carbon FastForward F-4 100% carbon wheels and new tires and clean chain and of course my boss South Bay Cycling handlebar tape.
I was going to need every advantage I could get to avoid being skinned alive by Oatmeal and Twigmeal, the avenging Norwegian norsemen from Norselandia who hated Karl Ove Knausgaard.
But first I needed a bike carrier. The Internet shattered my budget of $40 after a few hours of scouring, so I went to the next best thing, Boozy P., ace mechanic and hops specialist.
“Hey, Boozy, how can I ship my bike to Mallorca on the cheap?”
“That’s easy. We’ll use a bike box.”
“Like one of those things they have at the bike shop?”
“Sure.”
“Do they work? Won’t my bike get crushed?”
“Wanky, bike companies ship eleventy hundred thousand bikes a day in those things. You’ll be fine.”
“What’ll it run me?”
“The box, tape, zip ties, hub protectors, and Boozy P. Bike Boxing Special is only available today at the low, low, low price of $40.”
“Done,” I said.
Boozy P. packed up the bike just fine, although he had to take out my water bottle and tool bottle for a couple of minutes. “There’s just one thing to look out for when you pack it for the return trip,” he said.
“What?”
“Don’t forget the pedals or the saddle. People always forget stuff when they box a bike, and wind up at their destination missing something really important.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
I got home and called Boozy. “Hey, I can’t find my toolkit and water bottle.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot to put them back on the bike. I’ll leave them outside for ya. Lucky you’re not in Mallorca.”
Next, as part of my careful planning, I checked the KLM web site to find out how much they were going to gouge me for the bike box. My daughter had told me to get that squared away weeks ago, but I was busy with Telo.
The web site, obviously mistaken, said that “No sports equipment, including bicycles, shall be accepted as baggage on the day of departure. All such specialized baggage must be checked, priced, and cleared at least 48 hours prior to departure. No exceptions.”
I was pretty sure they were bluffing, so I tweeted them a message after wiping up the rivers of sweat coursing down my forehead. They responded, saying that my request had been received and my online booking would be updated.
When the update failed either up or to date, I called the service center. Amir the customer service specialist was having a bad week and I was apparently the exclamation to his curse-filled day. “Your trip has not been updated because it cannot be done. No bicycles except with 48 hours prior clearance. No exceptions. So please do not go to the trouble to pack your bicycle and bring it to the check-in counter, as it will be refused. No exceptions. I will also enter into your trip record the details of this conversation in which I explicitly told you no bicycle.”
So it was looking like Plan B, which was mostly identical to Plan A, that is, show up with the bike and dare them to turn me away.
In the meantime, as a bit of insurance, I got online to find out about booking a bike rental in Mallorca. What could be easier than renting a bike in Disneybicycleland?
Then I remembered that last year I’d had to book six months in advance. Surely things had improved since then.
END
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Performance enhancing equipment
August 3, 2016 § 25 Comments
Or “PEE” as I like to call it.
A couple of months ago I ordered the new SRAM electric wireless shifter thingies from my ace mechanic, Boozy P. One day he called. “Yo, Wanky, you still want that stuff?”
“Bring it,” I said. “It’s about time for me to crack the top 10 out at Telo, and what’s a couple grand if it guarantees me a placing or two?”
A week later there was a family car crisis which led to the purchase of a Chevy Volt. It was the most awesome car in the world for seven days, but after one full week of flawlessness it quit working and it’s been in the shop ever since. “Part’s on back order,” Service Dude said.
That was July 18.
So I called Boozy P. “Dude,” I said, “I bought a new broken Chevy Volt and we have some financial issues and I have to choose between the SRAM electrothingies or food.”
He waited, wondering what the problem was. “Yeah?”
“So I’m going to have to pass on that stuff I ordered unless it puts you in a bind, in which case I’ll take it and lose that last 35 pounds.”
“Nah,” he said, “I can return it; actually I got a great deal and several people have been asking about it. No worries.”
Shortly thereafter I got 2nd or 3rd in the Great Disputed Telo Training Crit Finish Controversy of 2016, which is the best I’ve ever done there in eight years but who’s counting? About that time Boozy P. stopped answering my phone calls and texts which was disturbing because he’s super responsive. Unbeknownst to me he had taken a five-day trip to the Sierras, going up to 12,000 feet with nothing but beer to sustain him.
I had no idea he’d gone Jeremiah Johnson on me. I thought he was mad because I’d crawfished on the PEE or perhaps somehow because of the Great Disputed Telo Training Crit Finish Controversy of 2016 in which I got 2nd or 3rd, the best I’ve ever done in eight years but who’s counting?
I interrupted Manslaughter’s vacation in Hawai’i to see if he could intervene. “Boozy P. isn’t mad,” Manslaughter assured me. “He’s never mad. Take a Xanax.”
Then I called EA Sports, Inc., who was excited to hear from me but not that excited. “Dude, it’s 2:00 AM and you woke up the whole family. What’s up?” I told him the sad story about how I’d crawfished on the PEE and Boozy was not taking my calls or texts because of the Great Disputed Telo Training Crit Finish Controversy of 2016 in which I got 2nd or 3rd, the best I’ve ever done in eight years but who’s counting?
EA Sports, Inc. advised me to get some sleep. “Boozy probably dropped his phone in the toilet. He’ll get back to you once he gets a new one.”
Finally I called Dawg. “Don’t ever call me at 3:00 AM again,” he said. “Even if you’re in jail. Especially if you’re in jail.” He hung up and I didn’t even get a chance to tell him about how I’d crawfished on the PEE and how maybe Boozy wasn’t taking my calls or texts because of the Great Disputed Telo Training Crit Finish Controversy of 2016 in which I got 2nd or 3rd, the best I’ve ever done in eight years but who’s counting?
After I’d given up all hope, Boozy P. returned from the Sierras. “Yo, Wanky,” he said. “I saw you called me 473 times and left a thousand text messages. What’s up?”
I went over to the shop and apologized for crawfishing and for the 2nd or 3rd Place Controversy (my best Telo finish ever, btw). “No worries,” he said. “You still want the SRAM wireless? I was going to take it back today.”
I thought about the Chevy Volt which was still in the shop at Martin Chevrolet and how the part was on back order indefinitely although they’d promised to speak with the subcontractor factory in Vietnam to find out when the part might be manufactured and how Mrs. WM was going to kill me when she found out I’d bought something that I couldn’t even explain what it was or what it did. That’s when I looked at the SRAM electrothingy box.
.
“You know,” I said, “my PEE has been grossly exceeding my dedication since I swapped a SunTour derailleur, Sugino cranks, and Dia-Compe brakes for Campy Super Record back in 1984. And I can’t possibly afford it but that box is so sweet so yeah, put that shit on.”
For all you tech heads out there, the first key performance difference between SRAM electrothingy and Dura-Ace mechanical is overwhelming, dominating, extraordinary beyond words: The second you post a picture of the cool boxes on Facegag, it breaks your fuggin’ timeline.
If you’ve always been in the running for awesome Facebag posts but have never been able to crack the podium, SRAM electro is the real deal. You gain, on average, 150 extra likes, 50-ish smiley faces, and envious posts from Ol’ Grizzles that don’t even mention guns or how our great nation was built on easy access to suicide and firearm accidents in the home.
The SRAM electro interfaces incredibly well with FB and is easily uploaded to your timeline, where it simply outperforms any other PEE, even wheelsets that are full carbon with extra carbon and photos of Charon. I’ll admit that it’s a costly Facebag upgrade but it’s worth it for the hour or two that you eclipse all of the stories about Trump until he beats up another squalling infant, calls the mother of a dead soldier a fat cow, or urinates on a TV interviewer.
When I actually got to ride the new electrothingy stuff, it was better than watching the ads in my timeline that said “Batshit Crazy Republicans So Fucking Terrified of Trump That We’re Voting for Hillary.”
Less importantly, I also got to use the electrothingies while actually riding, and got to test the PEE out at Telo last night, which kind of broke the rule of “Never try new stuff out for the first time on race day.” After 50 minutes of an amazingly brutal race, Headdown James attacked for the 25th time into the wind after Dawg had brought the break to within view. Everyone was screaming friendly advice to me.
“Pull through, you bastard!”
“You fucker!”
“You wheelsucking piece of shit!”
“Damn you, Wanky, you asshole, pull through!”
However, in addition to being really tired I am a really bad person, so I hunkered down until Headdown James launched. He is really tiny and accelerates like a gnat but I managed to latch on. He glanced back and saw that it was Sir Deadweight. He knew better than to flick his elbow, and not just because Heavy D., who was up the road in the break, had admonished me the week before.
“What is wrong with you, you nut?” he had asked.
“What do you mean?” I fake answered.
“You chased me down ten times during the race!”
“I did?” I fake said.
“Hell yes, you did. Every time I looked back you were driving the front with ten guys on your wheel!”
“Really?” I fake said. “I thought I was bridging,” I fake excusified.
“You were, with everyone else. Please don’t do that next week. It’s bad racing and bad etiquette. I’m your teammate, dude.”
“I won’t,” I fake promised. Heavy D. didn’t know that I love nothing more than chasing teammates. It’s not out of hostility, it’s because I like them and want to BE with them and if they’re up the road the only way I can be with them is to chase.
However, with my new PEE I had sworn not to chase and I didn’t. Headdown James rode like a demon and got us to the break. I was so tired and happy to see my friends that I cried. Heavy D. had been monitoring the situation and knew that I hadn’t dragged up the field. “Good work, Wanky,” he said. “For once.”
Out of the six-man break I put in an amazing effort and convincingly beat everyone in the chase group for an impressive 6th, which was three or four placings less than the 2nd or 3rd I’d gotten the week before in the Great Controversy when I was using the D/A mechanical.
“How’d you like it?” asked Boozy P. after the race, who had gotten second and scorched me on a bike and components that had, frankly, zero Facegag performance edge.
“Its Facebag game is strong,” I said. “But its on-the-road performance hasn’t translated into a Wanky training crit victory yet.” I watched as Emily pulled on the winner’s tunic, an awesome StageOne production given to the women’s weekly winner at Telo.
“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe you need some new wheels?”
My stomach rumbled as I thought about facing the next couple of weeks eating nothing but water washed down with H20. “You’re right.”
END
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Strangling the Internet softly
March 30, 2016 § 27 Comments
I was riding along, minding my own business, trying to look like a very excellent profamateur. The four riders in front of me were all very excellent profamateurs and one of them was actually a professional.
I was feeling highly excellent, as this was my second Donut Ride back after my terrible bicycle-falling-off-incident in which I tumbled off the bicycle and broke my left nutsack. We were on PV Drive North and, as I believe I have already mentioned, I was doing very excellently.
Suddenly my profamateur suplesse was shattered by a horrible grinding and clunking and thunking and greenking and scranking noise that leapt up from the throat of my rear wheel like a terrible, garlic-and-onion-and-pizza-infused beer belch that will not be denied. “Here I go again,” I panickedly thought as I stopped pedaling with excellence and my face froze in a rictus of terror as I contemplated falling off my bicycle again and re-cracking my barely healed nutsack.
The others looked back to see why I had suddenly decided to set off a string of firecrackers and I coasted to a halt. I gingerly put my foot down and saw my chain hanging limply, with pieces of my SRAM Red derailleur cage attached. I was shaking, so certain had I been that a falling-off-incident was imminent.
Destroyer began examining the expired derailleur as Holloway went back to collect the shards of derailleur. Charon somehow had an extra plastic baggie and put the pieces inside. Destroyer called Uber and in a few minutes I was on my way home.
Always wear your helmet in the Uber car.
That afternoon I got a call from French Toast Ride Director Sportif Dave Jaeger. “Dude,” he said. “I heard you broke a derailleur.”
“Word travels fast.”
“I got a brand new SRAM Red 10-speed still in the box. It’s yours. Come and get it.”
“Really? How much? I’ll need to check behind the couch cushions.”
“It’s yours. I upgraded to 11-speed and don’t want or need it. If you can warranty the broken one, I’ll take it, but if you can’t, no worries.”
I got the new derailleur and went over to Boozy P.’s. “Dude,” he said. “What happened?”
“Obviously, the SRAM Red 10-speed is highly defective.”
“It is?”
“Yeah. I’ve only had it for about five years and it’s only got about 65,000 miles on it. It’s practically new.”
“Of course it is,” Boozy P. said, putting down his morning beer. “But isn’t that the same derailleur you crashed on in November and ground half of the derailleur body off when you slid across the road?” He had emptied the plastic baggie and was looking at the mangled parts.
“Yes, but it’s still clearly defective. Plus, all the stuff that got ground off was non-essential vitamins and minerals.”
“All vitamins are essential, Wanky.”
Boozy P. slurped down a few more essential vitamins, then slapped on the new derailleur and handed me back the baggie. He paused for a second. “Wasn’t this also the same derailleur that King Harold had to disassemble for you on the Donut a few months ago because you’d been trying to adjust it with Old. No. 72?”
“Coincidence,” I snapped.
“Be careful out there.”
I got home and took out a padded envelope, addressed it to RIDE Cyclery in Encinitas, and penned this short letter.
“Hi, Brent. I bought this new in 2012 and it appears to either be defective or I crashed the shit out of it and destroyed it. Most likely the latter. I know it’s a long shot, but could you send it back to SRAM and see if they will warranty it for its defective failure not to withstand sliding 100-yards across the pavement at 30 mph?”
A couple of days later Brent sent me a terse text message. “Lovely package received. On it.”
A couple of weeks later a nice brown unmarked box not filled with a bag of dicks arrived at my office. Brand new derailleur.
So when people tell me that the Internet is killing their bike shop, I think about Brent and his shop that is doing so well in Encinitas that he opened another one in Carlsbad. Off the hook service is his standard, and standing behind what he sells is a principle, not a slogan. And when I think about standing behind their product and giving the customer the benefit of the doubt I think of SRAM.
Maybe Internet bike shops aren’t so invincible after all.
It’s bike parts, honey, really.
END
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Amateur stripper
February 26, 2016 § 35 Comments
Used to be, you could strip the bolt on your seat post without any special tools. You wanted to adjust the seat so you took an Allen wrench and loosened the bolt, put the saddle at just the right place to give you patellar tendinitis, and cranked down the bolt until it got tighter, then tighter, then you gave it one last crank “to keep ‘er from slipping” and ping! The bolt would spin freely in the bolt-hole thingy, completely stripped.
Then you would cuss and yell and kick something gently and go rummage around in your tool box and not find another bolt and then go down to the bike shop where Uncle Phil would sell you a new bolt, never saying a word but looking at you like, “Wow, you are a 14-carat maroon with chocolate fudge on top.”
You could pick the generic bolt for $4.95 or the Campy bolt for $8.95, so you always chose the Campy one, went home, and then tightened away but this time you were so afraid of stripping it that you didn’t get it tight enough and so you did your next few rides with the seat post slipping and you kept stopping to move it and everyone would be pissed off at having to wait until after about five stops you’d get it magically right so that the seat height was right and the bolt was tight.
All you needed to create this bleeding migraine headache was a little 4mm Allen key.
I said goodbye to all that when I got an integrated seat post with my fully carbon Giant TCR frame back in 2013, which was made of 100% full carbon. The seat post was part of the frame and to set the seat height you just sawed the thing off until it was right. If you cut it too short you were in the market for a new frame, but once you got it cut right it never jiggled up or down and there were no bolts to strip. When I say “you cut it” what I mean is “Manslaughter cut it.”
Then, I said hello to all that when I got my new all carbon Cannondale bike, which is also 100% carbon. It has an old-fashioned seat post with a bolt that you can strip the shit out of, but Smasher had warned me not to dare to even try to tighten it.
“Yo, Wanky,” he said, “you got to use a torque wrench for that.”
“A what?”
“A torque wrench.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a wrench that lets you measure the torque on the bolt.”
I gave him my don’t-get-technical-with-me look followed by my monkey-examining-a-semiconductor-look. “What are you saying?” I asked.
“Your 100% carbon frame that is made of full carbon isn’t like your old 95% steel frame made of 95% steel and 5% manganese, chrome, nickel, molybdenum, and niobium. You used to be able to tighten the shit out of your steel frame and only strip the bolt, but with full carbon frames that are 100% made of genuine all-carbon, if you over-tighten the bolts you crack the frame and then you have to go buy a new frame or give it to Fireman to fix for $43, which is fine except that when he slaps on a few sheets of carbon and duct tape things can go sideways when you’re whizzing downhill at 50.”
“What are you saying?”
“You need a torque wrench.”
“What is that?”
“It’s a wrench that measures torque so you don’t over-tighten or under-tighten things.”
“Like Old No. 72?” I asked.
Smasher rolled his eyes in despair. “Yeah, just like that, only completely different.”
“Where can I buy one?”
“You don’t really want to buy one.”
“How come? You just said I’d crack my frame without it.”
“Yeah, but you’re the kind of guy who can really hurt himself with tools. You know how you used to create a week’s worth of hell and misery with a fifty-cent Allen wrench?”
“Yeah. So?”
“A torque wrench set costs $40 and has about thirty sockets. That’s a year’s worth of misery and a couple of new frames at least.”
“Forty bucks?” I said. “You can get a Snap-On wrench for $40?”
“Whoa, Wanky. I never said nothin’ about Snap-On. That’s $40 for a Made in Chinese Slave Kitchen special. But you don’t need Snap-On. It’s above your pay grade, trust me.”
So we fought for a couple of hours about whether I needed a Chinese Slave Kitchen set with fifty pieces, a driver, and a cool box for $40 or a Snap-On handle and a single 4mm socket for $400.
“Dude,” he said. “You’re never going to use either one, but at least if you have the Slave Kitchen Special you can have more sockets and break more shit.”
“I only need the 4mm socket.”
“Why’s that?”
“I only have one 4mm seat post bolt.”
“You’re a nut job. Look, I’ll loan you my Snap-On and my Slave Kitchen Special. Try them out for a week and tell me which one you like best.”
“Sorry, I never borrow tools.”
“You’re not borrowing. You’re testing.”
Well-stocked Wanky tool box with toquey wrenches and stuff.
“I can tell you right now that Old No. 72 won’t want to be anywhere the Slave Kitchen Special.”
“Whatever. Just try it out.”
So I took the two items home and got to work on my seat post, which was perfectly positioned at the perfect height and perfectly snug, not slipping even a tiny amount. After five minutes of diligent work I had stripped the shit out of the seat post bolt. So I called Boozy P. “Dude,” I said, “I stripped my seat post bolt and may have cracked my new frame.”
“You idiot,” he said. “I told you not to work on your bike.”
“Yeah, but I got some new tools.”
“You idiot,” he said, “I told you not to own any tools.”
“I couldn’t help myself.”
“Seat post was too high?”
“It was perfect.”
“Was it slipping, then?”
“Snug as a bunny’s butt.”
“Then what the hell were you doing?”
I got ready to tell him, but then he cut me off. “Bring the bike by,” he said. “I don’t want to know.”
(P.S. New Cannondale Evo Super Six, size 56 mm frame with less than 500 miles on it, in almost mint condition, is now for sale for $150 bucks. Message me for details. No refunds.)
END
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Cycling in the South Bay 