https://youtu.be/pkOhzvv-4vA?t=111

and then this

https://youtu.be/OrESKEOnYEk?t=801

Same no?

got thinking about it - Thom's words there at the end and then Mike F's 

kind of the same

(pay attention to timing marks on the links so you don't have to guess at what I'm taking about)

also found geo chart to play with https://bikegeo.muha.cc/ (thanks CJ) plugged in the stache number and bumped the fork up by 20-40 mm and it is still steeper than other hardtails, other bits change (BB height goes up) so who knows how differently it will actually ride, differently for sure

https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/bikes/mountain-bikes/trail-mountain-bikes/stache/stache-7/p/23109/

https://konaworld.com/honzo_esd.cfm

it is late - i'm taking a couple days off 

it is also getting f'n cold, and there's snow

made it home, rode the mt bike today - good bike today - slow but everything is rideable, will see what it is like on the way home...

forgot the fender of course - looking like i'll have a wet butt

heddwch

g

 This morning - yesterday - whatnot, out of the habit of checking the forecast.

That's how cracked I am. I've been doing this bike commute thing for a long time, knowing what to wear for both the ride in and the ride home is important.

Today I fucked up.

It is currently snowing. Not only did I ride a very ill suited bike, I'm wearing jeans. They are not fun in the snow and the wet. 

I looked at the temp oooo 25F 5 degrees warmer than yesterday! WOO... totally didn't look at anything else. Hey it was clear outside.

Sigh.

Oh well.

Here's a run down of more exciting stuff than my fuckups - numerous today

https://allhailtheblackmarket.com/2021/01/heaving-a-reserved-sigh-of-relief/

and

watch it - i was just nodding along - bang the fuck on and very well said

I need some more all day rides

I've only been looking at the images on IG - finally read this - more in awe - good shit, cool bike

...

i'm outa words i guess

probably for the best

g

 maybe posting tomorrow but putting it here just to have it in place when I do come back.

posting this tomorrow - today's comments fall after the sigh...  hold on, read through and you'll find it

Not sure i want to add anything more to the timeline yet. Anyway:

https://citsb.com/2021/01/20/ten-years-after-id-love-to-change-the-world/

that's a long read, it is a good read, and it is true there are not many single writer bike blogs around anymore. I've never tried to stick to anything, do anything with this than just reflect me. 

I'm guess it does more accurately than I might like, and that anyone who's actually read this for any length of time probably knows me better than I know myself, certainly better than I know them.

There have been a lot of other introspective dives around lately, no? Part of the end of the last 4 years? Partly from having life so dramatically turned upside down. 

in a year we went from one known case to 400,000 dead (that are officially counted), a lot has changed, so many people have lost love ones. Some have lost maybe not their life but everything else. And some people have done even better, but not many.

Seth's post is long, it'll take a bit to get through, but worth it. Like Jill's, worth it. They write like a writer. I just kind of puke words out of my brain through my fingers on an age polished cheap dell keyboard.

More current event wise:
https://chasingmailboxes.com/2021/01/15/january-in-the-district/

Links in the phone's browser i've read or have been meaning to get around to reading:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/01/science-covid-19-manhattan-project/617262/

https://www.seattlemet.com/news-and-city-life/2017/05/the-secret-life-of-urban-crows (sooo fucking good)

how good are you at telling:
https://www.thephoblographer.com/2021/01/15/leica-m10-monochrom-vs-leica-with-film-can-you-tell-the-difference/

Kent's right - this is good: 
https://youtu.be/sAQNwS8YR_M

and it also again makes me want to shoot with a Leica Q2Monochrome (real B&W video motherfuckers like serious NOT SOME BULLSHIT POST PROCESS FILTERED CRAP) not that most of the good B&W videos look like crap, they look good but COULD LOOK SO MUCH BETTER.

Sigh...

that's what I posted yesterday

Today? Kind of funny, remove the big giant societal ending threat and all the other things kind of seem great until all the rest of the shit suddenly isn't dwarfed by it, ya know? 

Maybe it is just me. Anyway, as predicted, today is going about as well as expected. As in NOT.

Golf is dead, long live the Golf. The car model, not the tiny ball wacking with a stick, or a good walk ruined. VW killed the wagon, now they've killed the golf (in the US) to make room for the next attempt at the EV offering.

The Bernie meme is awesome but it doesn't change much, and once again last night's thing highlighted that the creatives all seem to be democrats, hmm wonder how that works that way, no clue.

I started off here trying to psyche myself up for a challenging session soon on a partly working piece of equipment and well, predictably it didn't work. Or hasn't worked yet. Been thinking about today, a day 16 years ago I called my now boss (not boss then) about an opening here...  

Here I am, still here. Spread unimaginably thinner than I was way back when. 

And feeling overwhelmed and burned out. IT HAS BARELY BEEN THREE WEEKS SINCE I WASN'T HERE FOR TWO WEEKS... 

sorry - had to get that out - it is fine, I have this quiet moment between insanity to sit and puke words through my fingers. it isn't all 100% maddeningly frustrating. Kind of impress myself with how many fucking things I'm juggling right now. Only dropping the occasional ball, but the best jugglers make that look like it is part of the act, oops, see not perfect, but i really just did it to show you that I can still keep everything else in the air and pick that back up with such apparent ease. 

Yeah, i've been around some really good pro jugglers my whole life. Life on stage, it is different than most.

Gonna work on that trying to find a positive. 

Kind of want to just get that Tallboy or Hightower and road trip, stopping to ride along the way. Ending in Downieville, CA. Or maybe Going from here to there then north to Seattle, the cascades, maybe Vancouver. Probably bring the Stache, maybe a road bike (i don't have one either so that makes this even more pipe dream).

Just me, the bike, some destinations. Riding. Kind of one of those impossible dreams that are okay to dream because they will never come true. 

But oddly thinking about the difference between  a Tallboy and the Hightower got me thinking maybe I should pump the travel in the fork. I can go from 120 to 140mm, could be hella fun. Could slacken it way too much but I think that might actually be okay. I think i finally have enough time on the bike to appreciate and notice the change. 

Something to look at on Saturday, see if the shaft is in stock or would have to be ordered.

Was cold this morning - wore the boots and heavy gloves and put a extra layer on and at 21F I was too warm, slowed down to cut back on heat generation. 

And I remembered to charge the headlight. It barely made it home last night. Should be good tonight. Hoping to get out of here while it is still light but that's never a certainty.

anyway time to get on with it all

be good, take care, amor fati motherfuckers

heddwch
G

SWEET STEVE'S POSTCARD ARRIVED TWO DAYS after the USGP cydocross race at Golden Gate Park. By then, the pictures of spectators in orange jumpsuits committing widespread mayhem-leaning over barriers with fists full of money and beer, screaming themselves hoarse, transforming one section of the course into a riotous tunnel of color and noise-had been pasted all over the internet. Speculative comments ran the gamut from indignation ( "Those assholes have no respect for racing!") through confusion ( "Is there a European cyclocross tradition that involves sticking dollar bills into beer cans and placing them on the course? Is that some sort of prime?") and topped out in the blogsphere ( "Dude, that race was sick! I made three dollars!"). 

Steve's postcard read: The orange curtain was fully represented yesterday. There were dogpiles, name calling, wrestling matches, and near fisticuffs. The cops got called but never showed. Perhaps they thought the better of it. Blick informed me that Rick Sutton caught wind of our highjinx & warned the race organizers. It truly does my heart good to know that we are still a threat.. 

Ahhh, the Orange Curtain. Rick Sutton. And the ghosts of our collective youth. This all goes back about a decade, to a time when almost everyone in this picture was either thinner, fitter, hairier and/or poorer than they are now. We were rowdy, and we believed strongly in the uplifting power of brutal heckling. At any decent-size off-road race, there would be some representatives of the clan present, howling loudly, raising Cain. The orange jumpsuits evolved into the mix courtesy of Robert Ives and the Sacramento crew, and the volume level increased. Not everyone loved it. At one particularly muddy Sea Otter short-track race, we managed to goad Gerhard Zadrobilek into such a state of foaming anger that he appeared ready to stagger over from his mudstuck bike and try to beat all 50 or so of us down. And, after one particularly mind-bending noisy Napa World Cup, Rick Sutton came uncorked and stated flatly that the Guild of the Orange Jumpsuit was not welcome at any of his events, ever. I think this might have been worded in somewhat more colorful language, however. 

Going back even further, to the dawn of the 1990s, Mister Blacksocks (who is just outside the shot in the rogue's gallery pictured here) postulated, while a knot of us stood atop a rock at the Cactus Cup and launched into an unnerving race-Jong harangue aimed solely at Daryl Price, that there was not only strategic heckling value to be found in having the high ground in any situation, but that heckling itself was something of a valuable social service. 

There are many who would not agree with this assessment. 

But, like it or not, Mister Blacksocks was dead right. Heckling, the not-so-gentle art of being loud and brash and rude while dedicated people compete at the ragged edge of their physical abilities right in front of you, is crucial to the survival of racing. Especially off-road racing. 

Look at other sports. In NFL football, fans strip down to underwear, paint their bodies, and dance the way only beer-drunk chubby white guys in sub-zero temperatures can dance. In soccer, the rest of the world's football, whole countries go apeshit over a single game. At downllill ski races in Europe, spectators line courses 10 deep, chanting and ringing cowbells and sucking down schnapps at a rate that would make W.C. Fields weep with joy. The fans lining the climbs of the Tour De France camp for days,waiting for that one chance to sprint alongside racers, screaming like madmen, often wearing nothing but a Speedo, a pair of running shoes and maybe a Basque flag. The rowdies that show up by the tens of thousand in Fort William, Scotland, for the annual mountain bike World Cup in a place that is as close to nowhere as one can get in the British Isles, are what makes that race the gem that it is. And at cyclocross events, from Belgium to Baltimore, fans show up in freezing temps, clanging cowbells, beating drums, wearing wigs and bellowing themselves voiceless . 

Meanwhile, there has been a general slagging of NORBA lately concerning the sad state of our National Points Series. I can't say they don't deserve it. The current status of the NPS is pretty sad. Pro racers get no monetary reward for standing atop a podium at the national level, yet they can go to a regional race just about anywhere in the country and bring home considerable amounts of legitimate coin. The NPS venues are more and more resembling ghost towns, and the competitive end of the sport, at the highest sanctioned level in this country, reeks of the doldrums. 

The armchair experts out here, myself included, have been watching the decline of center-stage mountain bike racing with sorrow in our hearts. Everyone has some idea of how to fix things, how to make the glory of racing appeal to Joe Spectator, how to bring some of the luster back. Procure venues that are closer to urban population centers. Make courses more challenging. Make races shorter. Make races longer. Make racers wear Speedos. Make racers ride through flaming hoops while running a gauntlet of unleashed, carnivorous and starving wild animals. Fire the racers out of cannons at the start of every event, whether it be 4- cross or the marathon .... 

Inevitably, though, what big-visibility racing needs, more than anything else, is a crowd of spectators- people like you, me and the fine, upstanding members of the Guild of the Orange Jumpsuit. All arguments about cross-country racing being boring to watch, or about how downhill time trials lack drama, and how racing pales compared to slopestyle freeride competitions are moot. Golf and baseball are not exactly adrenaline fuelled spectacles, yet they manage to pack in the faithful . And that's what we need to do, too. All it would take for mountain bike racing to go big again in this country would be for some spectators to show up, get loose and show some brash love. It isn't about team Big Rigs and corporate sponsorship. It has nothing to do with television-friendly venues. What racing needs, more than anything, is rowdy celebration. If there were an Orange Curtain at every NORBA National next year, a few dozen loudmouths with a little spirit, we'd be on the road to recovery. 

Racing needs you. Gather some friends, pack a cooler, step up and do your duty. Make some noise.

 Lunch video: 

And some links:
https://theradavist.com/2021/01/finding-myself/ (can go watch the video too: https://sauriproductions.com/)

catch up here obvs:
https://www.kentfackenthall.com/

Don't whatever you do miss reading this:
https://allhailtheblackmarket.com/2021/01/is-everybody-ok/

and no - the answer is no we're not okay and no, as much as I wish there was the idea spot around here to plunk that weird ass of Stevil's in NE/RI it ain't a whole hell'lot better than out there and as much as I want to help, knowing when you can't and not beating yourself up about it is important, or so i hear, but you can share and ask around and maybe one of your smarter (all of them) friends have ideas.

And yeah - again, maybe I shouldn't be taking in so much basic becky content, but it is good content and today I realized there are some things I'm not longer mad about, and that's good.

Jill's been blogging for a while, one of the earlier blogs I followed along, she's written books and has made something out of it all, and still plugs along...  this resonates a little:
http://www.jilloutside.com/2021/01/empty-fitness.html

Okay by a little I mean a lot and it speaks to that Colorado opportunity missed with my Dad I've mentioned before. And yeah for a coastal saltwater human I've spent quite a lot of time in CO, just never with a MTB. And the experiences remain etched on my soul.

Today picked up right where friday left off. A fucking shit show. The weekend was good, different, I think, I don't remember much, oh, right, bike shop, bike ride, car shopping and then grocery shopping - three days - poof - couldn't fall asleep last night then was toeing the line of consciousness and sleep, feeling almost hot, thinking someone opened a window and the furnace was just going non-stop, i was confused, not sleeping well, finally I think i stopped noticing what time it was at almost 2am. Funny, I have been okay with sleep, getting it, getting to sleep, and then that happens. Dinner was veggie heavy and carb light - maybe brain was thinking I needed more glucose and it took a while for the liver to oblige. 

Okay so I watched another couple videos - need the distraction from the disasters, and at the same time waiting for an actionable email reply. Like as soon as I have the reply shit gets crazy again, but waiting.

here:
https://youtu.be/khhIE-bC9Ao

and
https://youtu.be/GiWJ3ILPBjo

What are your plans for the year? I wonder if 24HOGG will happen, probably not but there's no reason not to hope it'll go off as planned or modified to make it a go. What to do between now and then? 

Was asked, on sunday, a question I couldn't answer: "What is one thing that you can do that will make you happy today?"

Kind of story of my life eh? The answer: "I don't know."

Also late friday afternoon I was told to "snap out of it" it wasn't a great week and that kind of made it worse. Snap out of it? like that's possible... like someone saying "just flip the switch, be happy, you have control, just flip the switch." As if it works like that.

Buzzer, times up, life goes on, getting spread just a little thinner every day... staring at the calendar looking at it like 'how the fuck' and thinking, one day at a time...  one day... 

at

a

time

amor fati motherfuckers

heddwch

G

 is when you have no time to write

like right now

i have no time

should be doing something else

opened tabs, with the new ones, closed them all w/o more than a second or two of lingering

some closed as fast as they loaded

old content

i kind of admitted to myself that while the routine of riding to work and being here have benefits

the work itself is quite a bit more challenging

and not in a good way

stuff that used to be good and easy 

goes sideways really fast

these last two weeks have been sideways

it is a struggle

and the next two weeks don't look a whole hell of a lot better

but

hey

i'll get through it

one way or another

time for a deep dive into the stress box

it'll only be about 3 hrs of intensity

NBD or BFD said sarcastically 

can't believe i got suspended for the coach hearing me saying "what's the big fucking deal?" to two long distance team mates arguing about what kind of air force cargo plane was flying overhead... came back from the suspension and discovered i was much better suited to the 400M race was half a stride short of making it to states, probably best that i didn't make it... whatever 

shit

out of time

not that i had this time anyway

but 5 min...  we can all spare 5 min

right?

hahah

nope

fuck...

heddwch
G

 So about this process.

Crazy stuff, no? Blogging, web logging as we used to call it. I think BSNYC popularized calling it web logging even though that's what it was called before someone actually shortened it to blogging but those people aren't web logging anymore. And shit starting on blogspot how many years ago? Don't look. Well I know, i haven't been doing it as long as Cory D, but I saw his twitter thread of this blog post and damn that was a good twitter thread read but the blog post is better. 

BUT damn that's a huge process. Granted that's part of his thing, like he says it is his process. Honestly there are similarities. I do tend to go and open a couple folders full of tabs. But honestly I never really got into the whole RSS feed thing. That list of links on the left? Historic relic. A legacy of what the cycling blogosphere looked like in the heyday. At one point I had broken down the open all tabs folders into 6-8 folders, 15-20 links in each one, some daily news, some daily comics, some weekly update some daily, some infrequently.

I'm down to two folders now. Some haven't changed in over a year, some longer... but I keep em there, can't quite pull em out of the cue. There's something comforting or familiar seeing the dead/idle tabs. Like you know almost but not quite like seeing chip and his dead blog. Or colin and his post from last year.

Takes so little time now to go through them. I have a few aggregating sites there, the colossal, laughing squid and juxtapoz, but i usually don't scroll down past the first one or two. One thing I don't have, never have had, news sites. Okay sometimes there have been bike news sites, but those often were kit bookmark bar shortcuts. The forums were all shortcuts up there. They were a separate process but those have mostly been killed by FB. If twitter killed the blogs, FB and redit killed the forums. Now redit, or however you spell it, never something i've gotten into, that or that pin board site. 

Frustrating thing is finding a good page on the mobile device but then wanting to read it on the desktop and well i've never really worked at trying to make anything transfer between the two beyond a very cumbersome manner. I'll have tabs lingering in the mobile browser for a long time, i use the mobile browser to check FB using the mbasic.facebook interface, super nice, no adds, and able to get to messages w/o adding the app.  I mean I guess it really isn't nice, it is FB afterall.

So like today? I added pluralistic to the open tabs. But also so many dead tabs. Took no time to go through it, but I did pause when I noticed KF with a new post. Have I read it yet? Nope, but the tab is open, i'll swing back when I have a minute, like right now. Good point about the history, what we remember may not be accurately reflecting of the facts, but that's also why we have these weblogs running for a long time, and archived communications, esp searchable ones. I did that a while ago, searched some old email threads, probably shouldn't have but it gave me a good perspective and helped correct a few memories. It recentered the feelings and anchored them and helped. And speaking of history and remembers DF's email this morning was a good suggestion, will work on that. I pulled my Strava data down finally. Started uploading it to RWGPS but the bike selection field is gone and that data is almost more important to me than the total... we'll see, nearly 4000 rides is a lot to go through manually and it might just be enough to have the data just in case.

Trying to sit through a webinar right now, I know the info well enough to give it but call it CE or something...   hearing information you know really well presented by someone else is helpful to pick up ways to teach it or more effectively communicate the important parts. okay - getting interesting - time to pause and focus...

Okay so went from webinar to support scope to thinking maybe I should eat lunch before the 1pm shows up today to then queuing this up and watching while eating as it was going at 2x speed.

yeah, 2x speed

I dunno how you people listen to stuff at normal speed - books are all at least 1.5x speed and then that just seems like a normal talking pace. and these guys at 2x, yeah that's about the right pace:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL0e0RaMgQg

There's some other shit that started rolling around, but nothing new, lots to think about from listening to AB and the TGL folks talk...  deep shit and good actionable items.

Okay that was as fucked up as could be. Sample that didn't matter worked great, samples that did matter were totally blank. And then about half way through the imaging session the solonoid for the HVAC got stuck in the wide open flow (max CFM) and as cold as fucking possible. It got REALLY cold with that air blowing on me for 40 min.

had a good vent session, felt good, then scrolled through twitter for a second and boom back to ugh. Yeah, you know what, yes, I know. Take a break. TOO LATE FOR TODAY.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the rest of the day? I dunno...  should finish lunch... not sure what to make for dinner but that's a long way off - lots to do between now and then.

y'all be well, take care

heddwch

G

 There really is no end to this in sight, no slowing of the terrifying shit happening? Pandemic worsening or not slowing at least, new mutations showing up, rational people refusing to get vaccine, people thinking mask wearing is going to be over when we have the vaccine even tho they refuse to get the vaccine themselves...

I spent a while digging through photos going back through google photos... kicked off by a reminder about CX Nats on saturday in Hartford.

Flask day. That was off the hook bananas.

Then watching this helped escape a bit.

 unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach

a FB post from a fellow bikecommuter that has since moved to Cali all full on indocrinated in the make you know that word and followed by another and another, calling for literal civil war that the seventy and the first f digit million people are 'awake' and other buzz words in quotes...  

seeing that pushed it a bit over, glancing at twitter and seeing the PB (yeah i like peanut butter but not that phrase for those letters) storm that place where the shit is going down... 

civil war eh? the desire to literally kill someone in your own country that has a different set of core beliefs than your own... 

i'm disturbed, as I suppose many are now, it is a sick queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, and no it isn't all those biscotti i ate after my peanut butter and jelly breakfast sandwich I ate after riding in.

But i still haven't cracked into my lunch yet so there's that bit of positive news... but how the FUCK is that positive when all that shit is going on

Sigh... 

okay I think maybe it is music and focus on other stuff and staying off the computer for now, it is good to be informed, helps prepare for what to do next, but when there is little one can do personally, and shit is bad, turning it off, focusing on what one can control, what one can do, directly, with your own hands and voice... that's what needs to happen now I suppose... 

heddwch

G

 [ narrator voice ]

Those delicious gluten free almond biscotti were indeed finished by 11 am today.

Yes, they lasted less than 24 hours.

Yes, GeWilli is having salad for lunch.

And yes, he will still probably go home and eat everything while making dinner.

<closing music>

Oh, one other point, studded tires? They are slow

[ /narrator voice ]

 Good to be back but man there is a lot to do. 

Fortunately only a few things are busted and require critical attention.

This kind of got me stopped in my tracks. 
https://twitter.com/redsunO21/status/1346241475391213569 (yeah it is a link to twitter - should open in a browser window if you don't have an account). 

And yeah, seems that way eh? Too dam real. 

Need some tunes: https://youtu.be/aBsFCkB07Rs

Got the studded tires mounted up, rode em yesterday. SO SLOW. They are NOT on the e-bike this year. Still haven't ridden that thing. Maybe should try and sell it. (yeah keep saying that don't i)

Looking at the radar now I'm thinking maybe I should have ridden them today. WTF - forecast was clear.

UGH

fuck the weather this is annoying. Oh well. Just weather. 

Oh saw some weird ass shit on the way home. Somehow someone dragged a dead deer into the middle of the bike path on the linear park. No could have been thrown there from the road. It wasn't there on the way in in the morning, but was on the way home. Overnight someone tagged it with white paint. Was still there this morning (photo on strava).

Working hard to keep my shit together, the political drama and bullshit and amazing display of insanity is tough to even tangentially see. Music has been helping. But there's still a lot of evil out there. Ugh. Gotta keep fighting yeah? Going to be an interesting couple of weeks. 

Been waking up early, instead of trying to sleep for 30 more min I just got up this morning. Was good. Esp with the house full of people half of them having to be online and at work/school between 7:15 and 8. A little quiet coffee before heading out.

Put a book in the ears yesterday morning. Nothing this morning. Not sure about the way home. Maybe maybe not.

also someone dropped off some biscotti  - holiday gift, homemade, GF, and SO FUCKING GOOD, maybe the best biscotti i've ever had...  

gonna try not to eat them all before leaving

i've put the box away three times so far. There are still a few left. 

i had something in my head to get out but now I can't seem to find it.

torn between riding home w/o anything plugged into my ears to see if it rolls around or to just quiet the voices and get a little further into the drama in the book. 

Kind of funny Stevil echoing my thoughts,,, but i don't have anything to sell or share... but i do like the scavenger hunt idea... just need to figure out what to "hide" Kind of thinking maybe hiding it in Big River somewhere, on one of the lesser known rock trails. But it would likely just wind up being dug up by some alien archaeologist if I leave it out there. i don't have stuff of value - can't leave a hug out there.

And there went the afternoon. Time to suit up and head home eh?

be well

heddwch
G

 i did absofuckinglutely...  nothing...

well of substance, i emailed, i did a little work, i ate some food, i exhibited some extra self restraint and did not make an aeropress coffee at 3:50pm

I did open up all tabs, Dave and Tim both have good web log posts up. Inspirational I suppose, in that it got me to stop before opening the second tab and start here.