Had to include this…since I only just found it…a blog about SSWC09 that makes my account look pretty drab….plus, embedded in it, a lovely 3 minute movie that perfectly captures the spirit of that single speed whirl last September…
(push here, dummy) Thank you for your attention.
Happy Phelantine’s Day to my 200 faithful riders (and you shiftless, spotty-ass ones, too. You’re all great).
My friend Emily Thurston dragged me around the Tomales Loop with her pals David Q. Strong and Shmoola-from-Oregon. The ride took most of the day, and Emily bought us all lunch at the “Dilly Dally Deli” in Tomales.
Out on Hwy One, we passed the wreckage of a fuel tanker crumpled in a ferny ravine on one of the very tight turns just outside of town.
This had a noticeable chastening effect on the cars, sorry, drivers, that eventually squeaked through the road block (there was another tanker sucking out the contents of the overturned one, with about two dozen Authorities standing around. It was clear the driver was munched, too, ambulances and fire trucks crowded the road).
I appreciated this ‘chastening effect’, because even though the west County is swarming with cyclists every weekend, more so after a wet week, motorists don’t drive carefully. They drive as if we’re slalom poles, if they even see us. We could be wearing neon, we could be naked, we’re still invisible. The moto-tourists are full of oysters, beer, and cheer. They are on the phone. They just looked down for a second…..there is a ‘toll’ I hear about too often: “allegedly drunk driver kills experienced cyclist (doctor, lawyer, bike bum, the gamut) on quiet road”. Rural Marin roads feature lousy sight-lines, curves, and hills that, if you’re cruising at fifty, top out with a panorama–and one teeny little inconveniently located cyclist that the motorist swears he didn’t see.
Then up goes the little flower memorial, or the permanent marker if you’ve got a determined boyfriend with a few bags of cement, and everyone somehow heads out as if it will work out OK. I practically say a prayer when I wave goodby to Charlie each time I head out on even just an errand. My friend P. was on the sidewalk when she was mowed down by someone hurriedly backing out of the local health food store. The cop wrote a report that left the motorist blameless!
We are unlikely to re-write the rule of law, re-configure policy to favor “vulnerable users” of the road because the monolithic industries which rule our weird third-world nation would prefer not to. It might make people re-think cars.
I think I’m in a bad mood.
And on Phelantine’s day. How did this happen? I sat down to write an endorphin-soaked love letter to my readers….
Or, what you can do (or have done) with all your favorite tee’s. No sense in hiding them away…
Another fundraiser, another just cause.
The event: Dirt Bowl fun ride with David Wiens, the Leadville 100 champion who whipped Lance a couple years ago. The cause: Norcal cycling league advocacy, to ensure trails for up-and-coming riders.
Wiens is my 1990’s racing colleague who now runs Gunnison Trails, and probably sits on a board or two. He’s a low-key mover and shaker with mud on his cleats, and the Berkeley, Calif.-based high school agency flew him out to inspire some largesse. Marin County’s idyllic terrain comes with a caveat–extremely restricted access. Only a fraction of the sinuous trails weaving around the mountain and side slopes are permissible Frolic Zones if you’re on a bicycle.
I doubt we’ll be legal on narrow trails this decade, but at least there will be a large cohort of youth who 
care to lobby toward a shared-use open space policy.
Forty five people paid $125 to support the two causes (with $9k raised!): Marin County Bicycle Council –proceeds will be for Safe Routes to School and Share the Road (which are getting mountain bikers safely to their rides) and Norcal Racing.
Some may have ridden the vacated (psst! Superbowl Sunday!) roads, but most rolled out onto the Tamarancho reserve to ride with event organizers Tom Boss and Matt Fritzinger, “pie-in-ears” Otis Guy, Gary Fisher, “Old Neverend”, moi, and his excellency, Mr. Wiens.
It was a sparkling spring sonnet of a day. Two months early, but oh so beautiful, the first in a week of rain. Waterfalls gushed, riders slopped gleefully on well-groomed (if slippery) trails and bonds were strengthened.
As usual, one young man–Chris Johnson–reminded me that he last saw me when he was fifteen…and now he races pro road bikes….This sort of mini-reunion does a major number on my ego; I arrive all puffed up because:
a) I rode my bike to the event–maybe the only person do do so
b) I can’t wait to tease Ned about something or other.
c) I won’t be “last”. If there are any people my age on the ride, I’m in my element. Last time I checked, the fast and furious 24-year olds are not paying $125 for anything short of rent or a month’s worth of food.
Then I overinflate, thanks to the heady mix of endor- and outdoorphins, gab, jive, and photo ops.
Mix in: a microphone. Steve Wyrostok and Tom Boss are making a film about…what? The event? Or a bigger, overarching issue (has this word gotten too much play in the last two years?)…I’ll let you know when I find out.
So I interviewed a bunch. Met: Tim McCracken. Tom Pisillo. Gia & Pat Donohue. Andreas and Chris Bosch. Cindy Glass. Tom….er…oh, darn. From Marin Cyclists. Shit.
Just prior to launching myself off the bike
My “Glob-Trottoir” (French for sidewalk snot) is getting stripped and re-done. Not for going anywhere, but for staying-put.
The fantasy: have a clean, roomy ‘womb of my own’. Tomorrow meeting with a local artisan… wish me luck…
PS this pic isn’t my little airstream, it’s Brad’s–a stranger–whose flickr picture caught my attention. That photo on the Bonneville salt flatz utterly captivates me.
Just couldn’t resist putting together the feminine response to Mike Giant’s somewhat sexist “Modern San Franciscan” (see previous blog).
I submit the San Francisco Hipster on his singlespeed.
I can already tell I forgot to mention anything about ‘sculpted calves” or “soul patch”, “un-colored hair (if any)”, etc.
Might have to do another one for us old bats….
Your feedback is precious to me…
More art! I just got this scrumptious drawing via the offices of Antonio “Bicycling Jet Setter & Art Patron” Colombo.
It’s by Mike Giant. With his permission, I submit this fine work to my reader/writer’s gaze.
I need say no more, he’s included plenty of text for you to chew on.
My first!
Up at the lakes, I came upon a man gazing into the water.
“There, look over there!” he said softly. “Three…”
My gasp sent two of them diving, leaving one looking up at us.
The gentleman in the red coat (probably irked we’d ruined the show) told us that he’d seen one of them eating a turtle.
Ew!!!
I wonder if they just chew up the meat and leave the shell, or if they grate the shell over linguini…
I incorrectly ‘corrected’ both the hiker and my companion Bob Coooper, a bona-fide journalist (i.e. truth-dealer) that this was a ‘fisher’–not a ‘river otter’. I was so sure of it.
Until I got home and looked it up. Seems like fishers look quite different.
Sheesh. Well, anyway, aquatic mammals of every type are cool to spot.
See if you can find the bikers in the watercolor.
Other wildlife: Pat Reddix, riding with Charlie Kelly, and Gary Leo on his daily constitutional with Dave New Kidneyguy.
The Bicycle Bond, one of the strongest known, derives its power from the inescapable fact that riding turns the rider into a Zealot. If the rider is already a Zealot, then they become a Major Pain In The Butt Zealot, the kind of person that attempts to create links from cycling to any other subject of conversation that might come up among a group of uncyclists, to rope the discussion back under control.
I am one of them. With much help, I have learned to rein in this urge, but I have to admit it to the world, here in my little blog.
Zealots know that
–bicycling, whether on skinny tires or fat, is a low-impact activity that alleviates the ills of mostpodern humanity.
–bicycling does not abide the mental yo-yo game between past and future that we allow to pass for reality. The bicycle obliges you to be precisely here, at this moment…Poised in perfect balance between the dime-sized oval blobs that connect the tire to the ground. Oh, all right, then : on a road bike you can often get away with the yo-yo game more easily than on a mountain bike because concrete, asphalt, pavements promise a smooth surface.
Whether they keep that promise is another thing entirely.
And lastly, bicycling is cheap bliss—the celebrated endorphins eliminate the middle man (‘big Pharm” or shady illegal pharm/ag) and put you in full control of your dose.
Liberal Use Suggested
The creator of Chain-L No.5 lube, NYC bicycle advocate and inventor Francis Bollag has stepped up to the plate the way so many world citizens have, in these catastrophic times.
Rather than gum up the gears by heading down to Haiti, he’s greasing the wheels of recovery by giving every donor of $25 dollars (paid to a reputable charity) a free 4 -oz bottle of his superb product.
He’ll send it to you free, if you send proof of the donation and the $3.00 shipping cost. Personally, I’m partial to mailing singles in an envelope because it’s so …I don’t know..subversive? Stupid? The money always gets there..
Don’t forget to include your address…and you will have helped make the whirl go roun’….
Thank you FB.
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