I am not riding enough. My legs feel blurry. I like when these shots happen. Most of the time it is because my camera is permanently stuck on Macro (surprise) and I am trying to shoot something further away. But they still end up looking kind of interesting. As if the images were actually burned onto a negative somewhere. Which they are not.
At this point I could put up a bunch of photos about how much I have been riding, and with whom (and now that I mention it I probably will) but when I look at the photos it makes me feel like I have been riding enough, but I have not. Know how I know? Cannot sleep.
The riding on the East Coast seemed to start last week. Dan Sharp and I got in to "The City" as they say, and promptly went and picked up some bikes to ride. Simon went with us as well and we rode down the West Side Bike Highway.
Now, I have a tendency to get a little bit aggro. Or at least I always think that I am being overly aggressive, even when I do not know why. Maybe it has something to do with living on the East Coast for a number of years? You adapt. Like Ice-T did in that movie Surviving the Game. Remember that one? I sure do, because it was awesome. And that was me. Of course I have never been a homeless drunkard that turns into a deadly fighting machine, but there is still time for that.
And then got to Portland and went, "well, this is going to be easy." And it is. But it makes you just that oh so little bit softer. This is no more apparent then when some 80 year old lady with huge bags of feed (I have no idea what they were) cruises by the window of where you stand drinking Americano's (Quad.) That is when you realize that you have gotten soft. Or at least East Coast soft.
In any case, I had a good time pretending to ride bikes on the East Coast so far....Rich Bravo was certainly there. You could not miss him in that Pink Stowaway. Want. Seriously, the Rapha Racing NYC cats were out and all wearing them and the jealousy swelled up inside me. Like I had not felt before towards the pink one. Well, the jacket that is. Then it went away because the sun came out, but I am sure that it will be back.
Mr. Spriggs (the Fabs Shirt is DOPE) was there (in the Grey Stowaway) and Sam was there Hott, Hott Hotting it up on his Igleheart Conti bike. I drank some of Sam's Kelso Beer throughout the week, and in fact I have taken to asking for it. They do not have it every where, but they should know that they need to be supporting my friends if they do not have it.We also rode the the Rapha Condor Sharp guys when we were there. One of these people is Kristian House. He rode his face off at Battenkill, crashed, and then rode some more. But before that happened, we rode through Central Park. I rode up next to him and said, "I'm going to take a picture of your ass now." His response was "Yeah, that's ok, people have been doing that all morning." Well, you know what, if my name was on the back of my shorts, I would roll around practically showing it to everyone. Someday.
Tom Southam was also there. He rode his bike too. If you have not seen the most recent Rouleur, you should check it out. He penned a nice essay about the Tour of Britain. Today, actually he told me the title of his book that he is writing. Dan and I mistook it for a sex shop that we thought he was opening, it is amazing what a colloquial difference can make. If you say something to me, and I do not respond for something like 10-20 seconds, I am processing. It is not your fault or mine, just something that is happening.One of the best though? Dan Sharp. I know, you have heard it before. But he is absolutely KILLING it out here. I get a little camera shy even. Not me personally, my cameras. They do not feel as big enough, or cool enough around his Twin Murdered Out Cannon Mark 5D's. Twin meaning two, murdered out meaning black. Think about it.
And that is how it goes.
Next stop? Boston and then we do it again.
