219: Riding...

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.

193: More Riding and Rouleur #16.

Did some more riding on Sunday which was fun. Just so that you know, when Joe says "easy" what that translates to is "probably not as easy as you might think." The light was crazy as well, maybe something to do with the moisture? Although, I profess, I am not much of a meteorologist. Or maybe, and this is probably closer to the truth. Maybe Saint Valentine was watching over us. Yeah, probably not that one either, since they are not even sure he is a Saint.

Big ups to Adrian and Steven who were 2nd and 3rd respectively this weekend. Oh and KV who was something like 12th in the Men's Pro field at the Cherry Pie Classic. Amazing. AO pulled off the second even though there were, and I quote him here: "A lot of antsy dudes trying to get away early." Way to hold on and then stick em at the end.

Also did some important reading this weekend that I really thought you should know about.

Rouleur #16

I think that the newest issue of Rouleur might be my favorite so far. Sure, I might be biased because I wrote a piece for the issue on last years Tour of California (which started on Valentines day none the less.) But that aside, everything about the issue is amazing. And I have not even finished reading the issue. Which means I will try not to gush, but if you get a chance to pick this one up do so (if for no other reason than they have been selling out - and one on ebay for $122.00).

In all seriousness. The Lichtenstein tribute that Richard Mitchelson does to the cover is the best break from the ordinary that R could have done. They handed it over to an artist. Rouleur has never done wrong by us with their wraparound covers and as soon as I saw this one I knew that Zed would be featured and my bossom grew with excitement. Can they do that?


The article that I read the other night was about the Shimano corporation. Part One anyway. Photos by Taz Darling are amazing to say the least. Which they normally are when you are dealing with Taz... Now, where normally we would see the broad expanse of what might be Flanders or a Queen Stage of the Tour de France is now replaced with the electric wires and steel girders. A golden mystical Tarrentino box opening to highlight their Shimano signage.

And the (almost) about face that Guy Andrews does in his introduction to Shimano is worth it alone. To think that someone could go from dyed in the wool Campag fan to — not only considering, but visiting and paying hommage to the legandary parts manufacturer is great. And at the same time instills a great confidence in me that at some point we really are all going to get along.

From there we move into Team Z (Zed) and I have yet to read this piece but it looks amazing especially the small touch of the "Z" everywhere. I have one of the Team Z bikes, was the first bike I really did a few races on. Stored away, ready for me to fall into that old school Dura Ace group. Also, it has an Italian BB which is odd.


The aforementioned Mitchelson illustrations. He does a great job with details. Notice the Sunglasses and the pony. And I'm not talking about a regular Pony here, I'm talking a Millar pony. Something that, as well with his Oakley choices has unfortunately gone the way of the Buffalo. Sorry guys.



Also, in one of the largest photo segments I have ever seen in Rouleur — Dan Sharp pays tribute to the Tour of California. I wrote the piece associated with it, but I do not know that anyone could pay tribute to a race as well as his photographs do. I was just a fly on the wall and Dan's photos represent much more than that perspective. Plus he got a cool shot of Tim Johnson climbing and Mancebo's winning day in the rain. The whole section looks good and is also sepperated from the other articles by its paper stock, which, I'm not going to lie gives me a 'paper stock boner' in the sense that I would just love to have these options. Just the option to use different paper stocks would be AMAZING....

(ps, I'm thinking that it might be Guy's secret little jab at American Cyclists that he always puts that ad - below - with the guy having plastic bags over his feet - next to us Americans. But we don't all wear plastic bags on our feet Guy. FYI.)


And the final installment is about another topic that I have no shame in loving - food. Pretty much one of the reasons that I like to ride my bike. Because I really, really like to eat. Willy Balmat is a Chef to the stars you might say. He is currently the Team Chef for Cervelo Test Team (hi guys) but has also done a stint with Mr. Armstrong and maybe a few other teams as well.

I am ashamed to say that I did not finish the article entirely before falling asleep with the book on my chest (how cute is that) but I will peruse and report back. And speaking of sleep.