Boom, boom, out go the lights

It's been a bit bumpy lately. Literally. My beloved 1997 Mazda Protege was brutally assaulted by an inattentive driver on the Rock Creek Parkway last week. Now the thing about a 1997 Mazda Protege is that although it would likely have been able to go on functioning for years to come with just minimum annual expenditures, the total monetary value of the car is not worth what it would cost to replace the airbags. So, given that my airbags did in fact deploy when I made impact with the, shall we say dimwit, my insurance company determined that it is time for Bartlebones to get a new car.

Crunch.

Now I wish it were so that I could use this opportunity to re-examine my life choices, reduce my carbon footprint and rearrange things so I used a bike instead of a car. But as it stands, I have yet to figure out how to get rid of my day job which for the time being is halfway around the Circumferential Highway. So, a shopping we will go. 

The dying of the light

There is a red maple in my back yard which right this moment is at the apex of its fall color. As the wan autumn sunlight streams through its leaves at steep angles in the shortening morning and afternoon, the overlapping translucent leaves form a kaleidoscope of iridescent shades of orange and red. Soon the leaves will dry, crinkle and drop into the pond below as the tree goes dormant for the winter. But for a few ephemeral days each year the maple puts on its outrageous, delicate show, one last stretch and a yawn before rolling over and going to sleep.    

A psychedelic Japanese watercolor

Vélo moralitas

Yesterday I droned on and on about how cycling is more than a sport and how, even though the sport of professional cycling is currently mired in an agonizing act of self flagellation, there is redemption through the recognition of the value of the bicycle in leisure and transportation. I believe that. But it’s also true that I am somewhat in morning for the sport I love. I’m not saddened by the realization that the heroes of the sport are cheaters, as may be the case with many of my fellow fans. What makes me sad is that the sport has to endure this punishing mea culpa, this melodrama, this masochistic show of faux humility for the benefit of the same type of hypocritical audience for which every witch hunt is enacted.

USADA discovers doping in the pro peloton.

Though we may find it unfortunate, mere mortals are incapable of performing superhuman feats. Period. Sure, the equipment manufacturers would like you to think that their increasingly stiff bottom brackets can give any weekend suburbanite the ability to dance up the Tourmalet without breaking a sweat; likewise the marketers of training systems and nutrition supplements, the shoes with carbon fiber soles and the wind tunnel tested jerseys. But it’s all bullshit. Anybody who has ever spent any time on a bike knows that performance improvements just don’t come in exponential leaps and bounds. And anybody who can make sense of a graph ought to know that athletes long ago far exceeded the limits of human physiology.

But we Americans are eternal virgins; the descendents of Puritans, endlessly capable of re-growing our moral hymens, of regaining our innocence. We forget that the year before Armstrong started winning we had the Festina affair or that the sport has been riddled with cheating from the very beginning. How do we do it? How do we continue to believe in fairy tales despite all evidence to the contrary? And maybe more importantly, why would we want to? How can we be so naïve?

We have the same problem with so many of our societal problems, it blows my mind and makes me think psychosis is an integral part of the American character. And what should disturb us is that our false belief in moral purity, in Plato’s form of the good, causes actual damage. Our righteous moralizing blinds us to the true flawed nature of our species and as we point our accusatory fingers at the Other, we somehow manage to ignore the horrors right in our own houses. 

If we are able to pretend that people can stop wanting to get stoned, we can just spend ridiculous sums of money putting enormous numbers of non-violent citizens in jail, thereby destroying families and whole communities. Yet global pharmaceutical companies make obscene profits keeping the rest of us drugged up and we don’t seem to have a problem with it as long as insurance covers our antidepressants and boner pills.

And if we can pretend that priests and scout masters and coaches and teachers can stop abusing children, that they are some sort of rare aberration, a extraordinary satanic abomination, instead of admitting that such admittedly abhorrent behavior is well within the bounds of common human behavior and then putting processes and policies in place to actually protect children. 

We substitute a desire to pretend we’re not all perverts of one stripe or another while we let the dangerous ones, the real predators continue to diddle the youth. Why? Because we can’t admit to ourselves that wanting to get blasted and have sex is central to the human experience, but that some of us color outside the lines and we have to keep them within the limits of healthy, non-destructive self expression. Instead, we clap the deviants in irons, pretend that good and evil are absolute and wait to be surprised by the next incident.

I just wish we could be honest about the whole thing, rather than burning down the entire village to eradicate the witches and pretending the purge will make us pure again.

Vélo Versitalis

Riding a bike is many things to many people. It is a professional sport, a form of practical transportation and a leisure activity for millions of people around the world. I guess golf and baseball and ice skating and synchronized swimming all double as both sports and leisure time activities… okay, synchronized swimming is really more akin to conceptual art than sport but, you know, tell that to the Olympic Committee… but to my knowledge they aren’t practical forms of transportation. There are sports that share cycling’s versatility, but I maintain that none quite equals the accessibility of cycling. Take cross-country skiing. I presume for the people of Norway, strapping two boards to your feet grabbing some poles and shuffling forward has long constituted a sensible method for getting from Point A to Point B, but you gotta have snow to ski, which will apparently soon be relegated to isolated parts of Great Britain by global climate change. I guess when the snow stops coming you can always roller ski, but I’m going out on a limb and predict that we will not be seeing large numbers of roller ski commuters on the streets of America’s cities any time soon.

Is that you Uncle Bob? 

Likewise, though bobsledding, kayaking, canoeing, sail boating, hang gliding, wind surfing sail boarding may technically qualify as vehicular transportation, none offers quite utility of the simple bicycle. Where, for instance, can you mount panniers on a luge? 

No leisure / sport / transportation type can match cycling for efficiency and convenience; with the possible exception of motor sports, though the internal combustion engine and even electric engines are dependent on large quantities of fuel, whereas the average trip on a bicycle can typically by fueled by an apple and about 16 ounces of water. 

All of which is by way of saying that in these days in which it seems the professional sport of cycling is hell bent on self destruction, we need to remember that the profession of cycling, the sport of cycling, the industry of cycle racing is but the smallest, least consequential aspect of the bicycle. I am a fan of the sport and am deeply troubled by the devastation currently being wreaked on the sport; a sport about which most Americans will never know anything other than what they are reading in the current headlines. The association most people will derive from the current state of the sport is Cycling = Doping. What a shame.

And more’s the shame because the wounds now being suffered are entirely self inflicted. But I take some comfort in the idea that maybe now that professional cycling has decided to debase and demoralize itself and its fans, now that cycling is seen by the general public as the strict province of degenerates and reprobates, maybe the industry that underwrites it, the manufacturers and the cycling press and the event organizers will take the opportunity to reorient away from their intense focus on super humans performing impossible feats toward regular people having fun on bikes and using them for practical purposes.

No time...

No time for the old in and out, Love. I've just come to read the meter.

Some very extreme nastiness, yes?

Saucy Sandy

Picante Ground Zero

The chile pepper harvest has been accelerated this year by Hurricane Sandy. I usually wait until just a bit later in the year to take the last fruits — usually on the evening before the first real freeze of the season I find myself out picking the last of the green peppers with frozen fingers and steamy breath — but this year I was assured by the National Weather Service that the end was nigh; that Sandy’s fury would descend with darkened skies and howling winds and we would be lucky to survive the deluge even in our snug little brick house; so what chance could my poor tropical capsicum plants have out in the open? Consequently, in an uncharacteristic display of good sense, I harvested peppers before Sandy had a chance to gobble them up.

Habaneros - Yucatan green

So this year there will be lots more green sauce than usual. That should be a nice change from the sweeter sauce I’m used to focusing on. The green keeps that spicy vegetal character, the spicy bell pepper quality. So as we hunkered down over the last two days to wait for the end of the world, at least I had the warming company of some delightful Yucatan sunshine to see me through. I got through a couple of dozen 5 ounce bottles yesterday and hope to put by another couple of dozen in the next few days. Then there’s just labeling, packing and world-wide distribution.  

After the storm

Sandy seems to really enjoy carbs.

Day 2: Supplies are dwindling - especially milk and toilet paper - but the East Bethesda Command Center still has power so spirits remain high. Still no federal government, no schools and no public transportation. But no herds of marauding looters have appeared yet. So far anarchy doesn't seem so bad. We will probably be able to stave off the need to resort to cannibalism for at least another couple of days.

The good news is that the scale model of Devil's Tower I am building is coming along well (constructed from papier-mâché made of milk and toilet paper). Another day and it should be complete.

Governor O'Malley has once again reached out to me and asked that I remain hunkered down in place. As always, I will abide. We will continue to monitor events from the Command Center and will send out notifications in the event of any zombie sightings or foreign invasions.

Krödspeed to you all.

Back to the farm

Farmland, horses, apples, and wineries. What else could you want?

Saturday the Baltimore Bicycling Club (BCC) hosted an unsupported version of the MontgomeryCounty Farm Tour (and picnic) that Potomac Pedalers puts on in September. I had missed the ride in September so I made it a point to make it this time. And a great time it was.

The weather was uncharacteristically warm and sunny, so the riding was especially pleasant out in MontgomeryCounty’s Agricultural Reserve. Leaves are just starting to turn and you can smell the smoke of fireplaces and brush piles as you roll along the rural roads past horse and dairy farms, around the base of Sugarloaf Mountain, right past the winery at its base, filled this weekend with the hoi polloi sipping wine in the autumn air. A really special opportunity, given that it’s only about forty minutes from the DC line.

I did the 55 mile route, though 75 and 35 mile variants were also available. BCC seems to have a lot of tandem riders, and they were out in force on Saturday. I'm not entirely sure why any able bodied person would want to ride such a contraption, but to each their own, I guess. I suppose it helps husbands and wives avoid the inevitable grumbling. I can't help but think that the site of my ass cleavage would overcome any perceived advantage The Managing Partner might derive from going the same speed all day, but again, who am I to say?

There were opportunities for rest stops at Homestead Farm in Poolesville and Kingsbury’s Orchard in Dickerson, Md., both of which had shelves brimming with freshly picked fruit straight out of the trees. Apples always taste best at mile fifty.

Now the hurricane is blowing in and it’s time to hide down in the root cellar for a couple of days before coming up to survey the devastation. Keep your heads down and stay safe.

Acorns in Autumn

So you’re going out for a ride Saturday morning with some friends. You reckon you’ll be out for around three hours or so. When you start temperatures are going to be in the low fifties and when you finish they’ll be in the mid seventies. So where you gonna put your stuff? You know, your arm warmers, your leg warmers, your knee warmers, your wrist warmers, your neck gaiter, your thermal beanie, your long-fingered gloves, your energy bars, your gels, your electrolyte capsules, your hydration tablets, your cell phone, your keys, your lip balm – you know, your stuff.

Well, the roadies will of course stuff it all into those three pockets on the back of their Italian made jerseys and make like a domestique with a shirt full of bottles for the team. Their stuff isn’t very voluminous anyway, since they’re all on strict calory-free diets and all their clothing is purpose built with only the latest fly weight hi-tech fabrics by Italian artisans in a small factory just outside of Milan. Either that or they just stuff a newspaper down the front of their jerseys and toss it when they get too hot. And of course their team cars will be along any minute now to collect their surplus stuff anyway.

The urban, fixie hipsters can keep their stuff in one of those huge, formless messenger bags with the seatbelt for a shoulder strap. The bong and stash shouldn't be taking up that much space in there, so there should be plenty of room.  

The tourers will no doubt pack it all into one of the voluminous panniers adorning their rig. Or on their bike trailer, somewhere between the tent, the sleeping bags, cook stove and toilet paper.

The jaunty CycloChics have the delightful, flower festooned baskets on their retro mixtes, brimming with bottles of wine, loaves of French bread and hunks of cheese in which to store their goodies. Not to mention the handbag strewn over their shoulder and the pockets of their trendy cycling jackets. 

The mountain bikers have all those pockets and bungee cords on their gigantic hydration backpacks.

The Acorn Boxy Rando mounted on the '86 Fuji Allegro

But I have recently gone in a different direction. I have recently come under the spell of the old, the vintage, le retro.  I’ve started seeing the randonneurs out of the corner of my eye, and have a strong attraction to their aesthetic. It’s got a kind of Steam Punk / Victorian thing going on that speaks of whacky British explorers and faraway lands. And there’s something these randonneurs all seem to love – French Handlbar bags. After seeing a few of them around town, I simply had to have one. 

Now the classic French bags are Gilles Berthoud bags, but I have a bit of a buy American (if at all practicable) thing, so I searched around a bit to see if I couldn’t find something made by folks a little closer to home. And sure enough, there are several makers out there producing this style of bag. Most seem closer to bespoke mom-n-pop shops, and that suits me just fine. 

The one I ultimately chose is by Acorn Bags, a small two-person, husband and wife shop in Southern California. They make so few products, you have to get on a waiting list to be notified when the small batches go on sale. So you get an e-mail on Sunday night that says, “Tomorrow a batch of bags in [one of three colors offered] will go on sale starting at 9:00 AM, Pacific Time.” Then, when you go to the site, you have about 20 seconds from the time it becomes available to put the item in your cart or they will be sold out. I got lucky on my first try and scored a Boxy Rando in Saddle Tan. 

There is no denying the attraction. These boxy bags, made from waxed cotton with leather and brass, nestle neatly between the handlebar drops. Contrary to what the name might imply, they don’t actually hang from the handlebars, but are propped on a small rack above the front wheel right where you can reach it while you’re riding. And because it doesn’t hang from the bars, the bag doesn’t impede the placement of your hands near the stem. Brilliant, intuitive design, obviously honed over years of practical experience, these bags have pockets on the rider’s side, and a top flap that opens toward the rider with a map case built in. Good design is simply eternal. 

I’m currently riding it without a decaleur, the metal stabilizer typically mounted to the stem or head set with these types of bags. It seems pretty stable, but the bag only just fits between my extremely narrow handlebars (the bike, an ’86 Fuji came with 40cm Nitto bars, typical of the era) and stabilized only by the cords attached to the d-rings on the sides, the bag kind of crowds my thumbs when I round corners.  I’m still fiddling with it and will write a follow-up report as I either figure it out or get exasperated by it. 

Related reading:

http://lovelybike.blogspot.com/2010/09/allure-of-handlebar-bag.html 

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/fell/PBP1975.html

Rope-a-dope

In 2004 I went to Belgium to watch a certain man from Texas ride around Europe in his tights. I saw the first five stages of that year’s Tour de France. I watched the prologue in Liege from a bridge over the Meuse river. Do you recall who won that prologue? An obscure young racer called Fabian Cancellara. That’s right - Spartacus hisself! But as we now know, nobody actually won the race that year. Interestingly, nobody won second in the Mountains classification or eighth in the Points classification either.

There has always been cheating in cycling and there always will be. Right from the very first Tour. Hell, doping predates the Tour. It's one of the most venerable traditions in the sport! And the youngsters these days have no imagination at all, what with their vampiric transfusions and the E-P-O. 

Was there a rule against putting your bike on a train?

Now everything in the sport hangs by a thread. Money will abandon the teams (Rabobank already gone!) and the riders will all be suspected of doping. Perhaps professional cycling will somehow rise again from the ashes after several years of mea culpas in the wilderness. I don’t know.

Maybe we will forget again. Maybe we will stop caring. In the coming days of gene doping we will look back on the era of blood doping and EPO as quaint. I don’t know what can be done about it all.

I think I’ll just go ride my bike.