Jacquie Phelan's Weblog

Half-grasshopper

•February 19, 2011 • 4 Comments

"J's hypothermic needle" couture vest.

For several years, a quiet series, word-of–mouth, monthly informal races emanating from Occidental, CA.

My friend Emily (Thurston, team Missing Link Berkeley) has gotten me out on a hard ride a time or two, and said she wanted to do this ride, an 80-mile gnarl-a-thon, this weekend.
We’d had a blast riding the Marshall Loop (one of best in County) last Saturday, and despite the snowy hillsides and 2 inches a day rain lately, we decided to simply go…and suffer.

As it happened, I’d been mulling my old-woolens re-tooled idear: since it was down to 35 deg. Fahrenheit each night, I figured people might actually want to purchase my crashmere arm warmers, vests, etc. I created a ‘brand’ : “Jacquie’s Hypothermic Needle”, plus the Queen of Clubs.
Concept: people with hypothermia make impulsive shopping decisions, and don’t mind if the handiwork isn’t Swiss precision, rather Marin Approximatarian.

A hundred men and about 5 women were congregated at Occidental. I zipped off to answer nature’s call, and heard the loudspeaker, the gun, and the riot of automobile horns.

Within in a minute I was on my bike, chasing a peloton headed downhill on Bohemian highway.
Thus, I had a 50 mile (very pleasant) time trial along Cazadero Hwy and up Fort Ross, past Tom Ritchey’s rance, and down Meyer’s grade. I ‘caught’ a few riders who’d suffered early flats.
By noon it was time to sit down in the marsh near Willow Creek road and just enjoy my bread-pudd sandwich with bleu cheese, chased by a heavenly Bumblebar. The marsh was still and no cars ruined this 5 mile dirt section of the race, er…time trial.

At the top a man walking a pair of heavyset labs addressed me: “Jacquie? It’s Tibor!”

“Fischl?” I shot back.

“Yep” (how many Tibors do YOU know?)

Well, we yakked a bit (I didn’t remind him how starting me and Margaret and the one other woman in his 120 rider race ten minutes after the men was a major inconvenience and not totally accidental gender role ruling).

At the summit, the mechanic (Jim, long time racer/mechanic, since the earliest fat tire epoch) spied my frayed sidewall and said: let me replace that.

“but it’s a 27 inch tire–very rare. Which is why it’s frayed so badly” (the strings were separate, you could see your fingers thru the fibers, and the inflated tire had a sort of kidney-bean profile. Twup-twup-twup, ad infinitum).

Nah, it’s fine…oh, wait, you’re right.
Who has a 27″ smooth outline 1 and 3/8 fatness smooth tire?
NOBODY.

It was a Specialized 27″-er. I rode that sucker since the late 80’s. No wonder t was in ribbons.

Well…I was an hour early for Emily, but the front runners had already made it in, in about 4 hrs. You will have to look it up.

I got four hours in the saddle, zero rain, masimum velosophying whilst alone on the wheel. And when I re-connected with Emily–she’d taken first woman, having very happily nestled in the peloton, and probalby scared a few guys, casually nudging their squirrely selves out of her space when they wobbled.

It was a grand time. Hard to see myself ‘racing’ 70-80 miles ever, especially with a group of 30-somethings, but the Grasshopper was on my bucket list, and both Emily and I are no longer virgins.

I’m driving you down the hill”

I worked at least an hour chopping and sewing, then piled into bed and tried to ignore the rain drumming on the treehouse roof.

Posted in Uncategorized

Marital Glue

•February 5, 2011 • 3 Comments

"Behind every show-offy, loud-mouth woman..."

“I gotta do a real ride tomorrow, ” Charlie said hopefully.

He’s been working 10 hour days on the custom brakes, with an added hour of “farm work” yesterday, beefing up the fencing in the treehouse.
We had two baby coonyuns under the bed, playing with his workboots, and flashing light in their eyes didn’t scare them. They dropped the boots and came right up to me, face (upside down) to face.

I had pet baby raccoons in the 60’s when it was not considered Incredibly Stupid to sell wildlife in pet shops, so I’m not afraid of them any more than they are not afraid of me.

In fact, several years ago, a pair of very young ones climbed onboard my shoes when I was shuffling up to bed (in the dark, we never use flashlights). I let ’em ride a few feet before flipping them off, since momma coon would probably chew my leg if she noticed (she was fishing in the pond, oblivious to her babie’s activity).

So, rather than slaving ten more hours while the unseasonably balmy spring unfurls its rich display, he (and I) went a-ridin.

I “only” had my single speed DeSalvo, since my other bike’s in the shop. CC didn’t think I could keep up, or at least he WONDERED if I could, with only one cog, but since that bike weighs nothing, it was a piece of cake.
I just pretended I was in the wrong gear for all the climbs, and that I was on a track bike on all the descents.

Our route: past a couple dozen Novato H.S. boys (only one girl! No woman coaching, gasp) to Five Coroners, then out Bofax road to the ridge, right at the ridgetop for a very lumpy five miles in the beautiful redwoods, dozens of which seem to have fallen over, then gotten chopped and chipped.

The surface felt like the bottom of a rat cage, fragrant chips a couple inches deep, w/lots of flippin’ sticks trying to hang up the rear wheel.

Overtook a man on the 6th hour of an 8-hr run (his route was unbelievable–half the county). Being Saturday, we saw many other riders… among ’em Abbie and Bill Durkee. They looked vaguely familiar, and seemed to know more about me than vice-versa.When I reached into my bag to give them my card, Abbie said “we’ve got one” and I was so flustered, I handed it over anyway. (Psst! Cardstock makes great pooper-scoopers!)

Speaking of which, every trailhead we passed had those foolish blue plastic bags with dog feces within…some placed right on the fencepost, like the way foxes lay their turds in the most prominent possible place… We saw no fewer than twenty such bags.
Supposedly someone picks them up?
The last five miles or so were on flat Sir Francis Drone,w here I met still more lively, fun riders (in pink and black DFL kit, me want!) to banter with.

Charlie complained of “reluctant leg syndrome”, and contrary ol’ JP had to do several 30 second bouts of 100 rpm spinning to blatantly demonstrate surplus prowess.

We know we’re old now, cuz four hours used to be our Normal Ride, and now it’s about a once-a-year thing.

Luckily some things never change: the smell of the bay-trees in bloom (intoxicating), the warm air, and the legions of hopeful bike racers out there, putting in the miles.

extreme steepitude

Posted in "knobby nobility"
Tags: Charlie Cunningham, damn raccoons, de salvo bike, marital glue, Single speed

Two bikes, two pasts

•January 26, 2011 • 5 Comments

In for an MRI (Mike's Rigorous Inspection)

Today I took my 1992-era “Colomboham” (experimental Italian aluminum bike with suspension fork that is very very squeaky, tired) to be fixed at Black Mountain Cycles.

Normally, CC takes care of my three Cunningbikes, but these days he’s been too busy with outside work.

As often happens, there is an even shittier mechanic than me out there, and Chas is wrestling with his wreck, er…bike. I get a little boost knowing I’m not the only Destroyer out there….

Cunningham#36 landed on our doorstep yesterday.

The owner had probably never done (or had done) any maintenance on the machine since it was bought. Everything was rusted, frozen in place.

Not sure if he was the original owner, but if it were a puppy picked up from the pound, you’d say it had Serious Issues. Untreated wounds.

The seapost was frozen in place (it would have to be machined out, and client doesn’t have the dough to cover the hours of work). I helped CC hold the frame level horizontally to remove, inspect and replace the press-fit bottom bracket which had its own sad past. The shop is about 49 degrees all day, I gotta hand it to CC’s hardiness….

Check out dem brakes. Client told CC that one thing he really liked was the feather-touch braking action. But when Charlie looked at (and tried) them, they, too were frozen and useless.

Reality-based assessment: bike needs a proper home.

Owing to fantasy-based world the owner inhabits, the bike will continue to be chained up, the heavily oxidized treasure/investment that did not float away when times got tough.

Proposed bumper sticker: "I hallucinate braking action"

Posted in "knobby nobility", Charlie Cunningham
Tags: abused puppy bike, Black Mountain Cycles, Colomboham, Cunningham #36

How To Be A Good Correspondent

•January 25, 2011 • 5 Comments

Sunday Times of London

It’s easy: write to people.

When someone writes you, WRITE BACK!

On December 21st, a night that is way too long, a night for a genteel diversion, I was zooming around the internet. I found a cycling writer named Richard Caseby who’d penned “It’s £20,000, and I broke it” .

Caseby sounds like my kind of guy: a ham-handed mechanical ingenue, an accidental R&D guy. In short, a Destroyer.
He is handed a bike, which is too small. He raises the saddle, throws in some spacers.(Plot point #1)

The bike is an experiment from some Formula 1 team, built “with no preconceptions”. Code for “our designers have no experience with bicycles”.

He’s told it costs around $34k.

(The stakes are raised)

The seatpost shears off (Plot point #2), nearly emasculating him. They build another one. He is not billed for the damage. Jagged car-boner shards can graze the femoral artery (talk to superbike racer Eric Bostrom)….so he’s doubly lucky.

I had to talk to this guy (what? And tell him about how stupid carbon fiber is?)

Personal belief: if you use snail mail, you can reach nearly anyone on Earth.

My real mission: see if he’d race with me at trans-Wales. It’s a seven day epic cleverly spaced just before SSWC in Ireland, next door.

I’d already tried to whinge my way in (“doesn’t your race need a legendary racer…or someone to help pick up trash, in exchange for the thousand-dollar entry fee?”) to no avail.
Secret belief: if Lance called, they’d fall to their knees.

So I’m eager to do menial work, but best allowed to simply be Jacquie. BUT there really is no money in bicycles, I shouldn’t be surprised.

Come New Year’s, I’d forgotten all about lobbing a card to some guy who wrote a good column .

Why write at all?

A) it is fun

B) I will not go quiet into that (fill in the adjective) night. Folks need to know me.

My peers, Jock Boyer, George Mount, and Greg Lemond –all paved over by Lance, in a country that barely knows cycling exists except for Lance.co.

Can anyone recall the American lineage of women bike racers?

“What, you mean women race bikes?” (Oh, right, we are never on the telly).

Pity the kids that will never hear of The Undisputed Queen of Mud…A woman who never mistook her fun for a job.

Cards (collectible! Guaranteed to be worth at least .39 on Ebay!) are elegant memory aids. Priceless ephemera scattered atop the century-deep muck of bicycle history.

Would you believe: handbills trampled in the ankle-deep hype of mountain bike lore?

How about: direct-mail come-ons destined for the recycling bin of oblivion?

Two months shoot by, and I get a call and an email from Righteous Reader/rider Noah Gellner, congratulating me on my story in the Sunday Times.
“Huh?!”

“What, you haven’t seen the page in yesterday’s paper?” Noah goaded. “Normally you’re the one telling me this stuff. I just thought you were being restrained. Look in your in-box, I’ll send a scan.”

“You mean someone wrote a story without talking to me?”
Then I read the piece….he definitely never heard of me (no harm in that, easily remedied) BUT he doesn’t accept the queen’s request that he be my liege at some hellish enduro seven months off?

Humpf!

Praps he doesn’t have seven days to goof off on a fat tire bike across Wales. After all, he IS the managing editor of a million-reader newspaper.

Would you believe: a stringer for a small neighborhood weekly?
How about : the sole proprietor of a fanzine newsletter famed for its breathless celebrity gossip?

I don’t know. They used heated prose.

The term “temptress” appears several times in it over the past year or two.

I doubt I’ve seen it in the NYT or the SF Comical. It’s almost…biblical!

Might have to fling it around a little, just to bring it into the 21st century.

The term “hot” needs a sabbatical.

If my magical power is to ‘tempt’, well, then I’d sure like to brandish that talent at a publishing house AND at a sustainability-minded cycling $ponsor.

Better yet…simply point it at everyone I meet and ‘tempt’ them to ride their bicycle. It’s a big job.

Posted in "knobby nobility", Alice B. Toeclips, heinous name dropping, Jacquie Phelan, media
Tags: and you too can have my autograph!, boastcards, Correspondent, Her mudjesty is not amused, Richard Caseby, RockShox postcard, Send $5 to Box 757 Fairfax CA 94978, Sunday Times, Temptress

Ready for Spring in January?

•January 24, 2011 • 6 Comments

All those in favor say “aye”.

Posted in art

Non-union sewing job

•January 20, 2011 • 1 Comment

My pen-pal Kevin took me up on the offer of free jersey resuscitation…he had one he thought about hurling because it was too short.

(And then I think he saw my blog a couple weeks ago).

It was precisely the kind of job I knew that if I put off, would slide into my scary document- (and object-) devouring desktop pile, never to be seen until June. Recklessly I grabbed the scissors, and started to cut.

The route I was taking was going to sever the (nice long) zipper, so I put on the brakes, and “patiently” undertook a patch job under the armpit.

And re-began. A bit more carefully, until I had two halves.

It was a very lopsided cut; it looked like a graph of the global economy, but fixed that by chopping some of the the supply side off.
Maybe no one would notice an uneven hem.

No Scrap Left Behind

wrist detail

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: "No jersey left behind", Frankenshirt, Swobo

Under the Fog

•January 16, 2011 • 2 Comments

Madrone Berries

January is my low month–rotten anniversaries on my internalized, indelible life calendar.
Weather is alternately fine and foggy. Today was deeply foggy, but Charlie wanted to ride, and I suited up and came along.

On Pipeline (one of the only flat fire roads in the county) we ran into Kay and Barbara, neighbor/bikers on their Sunday cruise, then we scooted along, alone for about five minutes, until a spider web caught my eye.

In the branch of a tree, a perfect TV test-pattern orb. Dew-drops making the invisible visible.
We circled round to look again, and a gentleman named Michael pedaled up to look on with us, and told us the spider webs got even more profuse up at Azalea Hill.
My sweater’s bunched sleeves were covered with dew, as were Charlie’s glove-extensions, made from woolen socks.

It seemed that any available moisture clung in droplets to the finest fibers.

Up the hill, the cloud-cover grew thin, and by Pine Mountain, we were in bright sunlight.

600 feet above town, a sunny day was under way.

CC wanted to continue on the short one-hour trek he’d planned for.
I split off, and did the good ol’ Pine Mtn Loop, a 2.5 hour ride in my prime, and more like a 3 hr one if rushed. Just so I could avoid dropping back into that fog.

I encountered no one…until I got a pinch flat, flying along unthinkingly.

It was that serpentine rock section at the “triangle” that leads down to Boy Scout Camp and Brown Bridge.

Despite no food, no spare, no fanny-pack, I had a fine sunny 3/4 hr of repair (quarter-patches in my kit, pump in my seatpost).

But my pump seemed deficient, and then I lost the adaptor in the manzanita bush, just at the moment a rider showed up, then another.
I kept pawing thru the duff to find my brass thingie.

Without it , I’d truly be screwed..He finally said, “you haven’t looked up at me yet”.

It was Pete Blanco, a member of the Knobostocracy. And there he was, telling me his name.
Pete and his brother, Joe, created the Dead Fucking Last (DFL) team…. I just cringed, apologetically. Then I reached a hand out to his pal, saying, “and who are YOU?”

“Brent Childress, I don’t believe we’ve met”.

What a perfect response from Susan DeMattei’s erstwhile lover…

“PLease clobber me with a 2×4 you guys” I cried.

“I seem to have lost ALL my marbles…”

Never mind that I’d not seen either in three years. Could I have prosopagnosia?

Usually I ‘m GOOD at recognizing people, but only after having had a real conversation about something faintly interesting to me.

Maybe I have managed it so cleverly that I’ve fooled myself. People I meet will recall that I ask not for their first name, but their last name, too. I need a story, ethnicity, something my velcro-mind can grab onto.
Guys named Steve, Dave, and Mike are all lumpt together until I am able to differentiate, using remembered conversations (sorry Steve, Dave, etc.).

The Pine Mtn Loop is my most beloved ride….the chapparal is groomed into fascinating shapes–elephant toenails in the Little Carson Valley (I’ll make a picture someday), serpentine blue-gray rock, then reddish Franciscan formation, then back to serpentine…underfoot a layer of mashed branches.

This month MMWD sent a big old tractor-muncher to shred the verges of the fire road, undercutting the bank and thereby loosening the root systems of untold trees (which then collapsed onto the newly, ahem “groomed” fire road).

There are fewer trees overhead due to the sudden oak death…more sunlight reaches the interior of Big Carson Canyon, and already the scent of bay flowers promise an unusually early spring, just like last year. In the middle of such freezing weather!
Spring birds, spring flowers, and 40 degree temperatures. Very strange to have January be spring. Thoreau apparently told his neighbors about every little flower and bird “as if it were news from a transatlantic cable”, so I’m not the only one…

At three I arrived home, ate, suited up and dragged Geoff Halaburt to hear my friend Kevin’s band, “the Lone Star Retrobates” at 19 Broadway.
In all, a great day.
Plenty of miles, plenty of beer, and just enough food to get me through til breakfast.

Posted in "Kay Ryan", "knobby nobility", "Mental health", Charlie Cunningham, Cycling, heinous name dropping, Uncategorized
Tags: prosopagnosia, Velcro mind? Or Teflon?

Phelan Sew-Sew

•January 2, 2011 • 6 Comments

Damn, the days are NOT getting longer.

But in a major departure from my nowhere zone , I took action.

Slashed the midriff-baring, wonderfully felted BOB jersey in half, and sewed a panel in, tried it on. All wrong.

Yanked out stitching and re-sewed. It worked the second time.

Pat Leo (She Who Must Be Obeyed) corrected, and shortened the ruined circle skirt (formerly ankle-length, and formerly ivory wool! I dyed it 15 yrs ago, then left in a heap).

Suddenly, I had an ensemble.
“No, you may not scallop the edges along the bottom” Pat snarled. You ‘ll muck up its simplicity“.

I can honor that at least for a few days.
As a non-sewing fumbler, it’s very tempting to put an Extra Touch on things. If you know how to make a garment from scratch, you’d probably never want to mar the simplicity, lines, and of course flawless workmanship with some lame-ass rick-rack, lace or (ew!) scallops.

But nothing sez Sayonara, Sucka like lace flouncing past on the bike path.

A straight-hemmed skirt could just be a kilt and the wearer, a mere man.

Spiegelman poster chez Leo

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: "Cloudy with a chance of pain", Art Spiegelman, Day Length Blues, Sewing

Queasy Rider

•December 30, 2010 • Leave a Comment

First stab at Couture. It goes well with that neck.

This season is my hardest, and each year I keep thinking I’ll finally manage the One Simple New Year Resolution: Put Things Back Where They Belong.

This can mean : no foraging, or simply wash the meal’s dishes.

Judging from the clutter levels, I don’t reach 30% of that goal (assuming roughly a hundred grab/use/misplace “events”)

Digression: when did the word “event” begin meaning “sale”? Did I have my back turned? All auto advertisements make selling a car a frickin’ ‘event’.

Here’s a commercial I love.

Back to the winter of my confusion.

I’ve done Jacquie Shit since returning from the 60-day bicycle trip intended to prove to myself I can be ‘self-sufficient’. The journey, performed on an increasingly worn-out “Bruiser Lightning” (used to be a Breezer) showed me to be intensely self-insufficient.
Clueless, careless, impatient, and always adapting.

But mostly: meeting people!
My tag line these days in personal she-mail is from Deborah Tannen: “Each person’s life is lived as a series of conversations.”

It’s how I made do in darkest New Zealand. My list of sponsor/hosts/kind benefactors is as long as my leg. They’re listed on the back of the huge cardboard L&P bottle I toted around during SSWC.

But now, home again with the one who’s suffered me the longest, it’s shocking to see how my re-entry is ‘bombing’ the place.

So this morning, more than a month after returning, I swear I’ll do something. Anything. Something destructive, restorative.

Hack that gorgeous olive wool jersey Joy hurled yesterday.

Pity for objects is my problem.

Inanimate object I feel sorry for fits me perfectly–on the X-axis! But way too shortyon the Y.

Just throw in a middle stripe, I’ve always liked them.

Make exposed seams for an edgier look. The result was a mess: wool skirt material’s not the same soft stretchy jersey stuff that Bridgestone Owners Bunch made their great woolens from.

Result: a roomy midsection, as if anticipating a mid-winter spare tire. Note to Mad Dog: old guys who get fat in winter need this feature!

Then, in an attempt to feel better about the wardrobe malfunction, I carefully ripped out the seams (easy with Conrad OHO’s sew-sew stuff) and…pin back together again) this time with the seams on the inside. Slim down the middle section, and: got somewhere. Will put on next blog (feeble attempt at suspense).

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: "I actually love wattles", bike touring, clutter, couture, midwinter blues, New Zealand, phelans of inadequacy, Self-insufficient