pretty simply that.

so much, about fire and the landscape, about the process, about riding, about working on the trails, about being there..

about so much...

One of the bigger impacts was realizing just how negative conquering is, as a word, as implication.. as a way to live.

CB's words at the beginning and end are powerful, Micheli O is amazing and impressive...

This hits hard right in the motivation and inspriration box.

It also punches me really hard in the gut. These super impactful MTB films are all from areas my Dad has strong ties to, and in turn I do. But never connected by the mountain bike, always other means and yet, they are some of the most amazing places to ride a bike, the most remote, some of  what seem like they could be the most personally rewarding places to ride...

And I haven't been able to share that with him, never had the chance connect with him both on his terms and my own but together. He knew the local endurance MTB race promoter, knew him well, suggested I come ride my MTB out there, but that was 2013-2014... a mtb was the furthest thing from my mind at that point, I was still massively in debt, still struggling in so many other ways, getting a new bike (other than that $300 surly i'm looking at right now) was not not even a dream.

Yet here I am. Probably forever haunted, but hopefully I can learn from this, somehow.

And yes, I'm still at the remote location. The sun is setting, it still isn't finished, i've managed to be productive but there's still an extra day or two of work that should have all gotten done today that has to melt into other days.

But such is life, what to do about it?

I might dump the other vids in a separate post as just links if you're looking to watch a nice sequence of MTB stuff...

heddwch
G

 nothing's going quite as well as could be hoped, nothing isn't catastrophic tho, just annoyingly taking forever to happen...

so i've been catching up, between emails. 

Only took 4 hours to get through the first round, and the replies are coming in slowly and irregularly while I sit down here at the remote location, in the lobby, w/o lunch, while the field service engineer does the stuff, and while I'm here unable to go anywhere until he's done.

So I watched some more MTB films. They were great. I'll link em all here soon enough, just not right now.

Right now I want to share this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/28/opinion/culture/grief-cycling.html?smid=tw-share\

Maybe a bit rough..  still barely processing my Dad's passing. Then was told last week that we won't hear it from my mother (but heard it from my brother) her doctor said with hear heart condition the life expectancy is 3-5 years. And that's just fucking terrifying. 

But what to do, how to keep going? Can't seem to get her to slow down much. She rests then goes and has a monster marathon day and feels exhausted for a few days and we keep saying slow down, you're not recovered yet...  tough that she's all the way over there. But I'm grateful that there isn't more than one Yuletide concert/weekend. It is tough not being there but they are all smaller shows that other people have put on and not the big Tacoma/Seattle/Mt Vernon/Bellevue weekend. So instead of heading out now I'm hoping to fly out for a bit in January. Need to work on keeping a week open though, esp as I'm already scheduling for that month.

Crossresults updated and well I beat the predictor by 5, and I didn't realize how close I was to JB in the end, but I gave all that I could and it was only just enough for what I did. I formally suck at cross. But I still like it. Was thinking on the ride in that maybe I should just take the cx bike, forget bringing the other bikes...  race the single in the age group and the singlespeed race same bike even if the MTB is the better choice and gears in race one would be a better idea.

There's still time to change my mind.

I'm sure I will a few more times.

Its just bikes but, well, you know, bikes...

Amor Fati Motherfuckers
G

 Trying something new, but since there are a lot of these recipes out there I want to get it down this morning before I forget. I made something at one point that was amazing and was told to make sure i make it the same way again and it was so simple I was sure not to forget...

and I forgot. of course. second time wasn't the same... close but not the same...

So here it is from: https://cookfasteatwell.com/cornmeal-pancakes-recipe/

Fluffy Cornmeal Pancakes

Fluffy, light, and easy-to-make, Cornmeal Pancakes are a tasty twist on classic pancakes. | One Bowl Recipe. No buttermilk. No need to whip egg whites!

 Prep Time 10 minutes
 Cook Time 20 minutes
 Total Time 30 minutes

 Servings 4 people

Ingredients
1 cup finely ground cornmeal (5 ounces cornmeal; 142 grams)
1 cup all-purpose flour (4 ½ ounces; 127 grams)
3 tablespoons granulated sugar (1 ⅓ ounces 38 grams)
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs (out of shell: about 4 ounces; 113 grams)
1 cup milk (8 ounces; 226 grams)
¼ cup vegetable oil
Nonstick cooking spray or vegetable oil for greasing the griddle

For Serving

Butter
Maple syrup

Instructions

Make the Batter. Whisk cornmeal, flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a medium mixing bowl. Add the eggs, milk, and vegetable oil. Whisk until smooth.\

Heat the Griddle. Lightly oil a nonstick griddle. Heat griddle over medium-high heat. P

Cook the Pancakes. Pour batter, approximately ¼ cup, onto griddle. Batter should sizzle when it hits the pan. Cook for approximately 3 minutes. Flip pancakes when bubbles appear all over the surface of the pancake and begin to pop. The pancake should begin to look almost dry. Flip and cook another 1 to 1 ½ minutes.

Serve. Serve with butter and syrup, if desired.

Keep Pancakes Warm: To keep warm, preheat oven to 200 degrees F. Place cooked pancakes on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Major substitutions:

Butter instead of oil (melted in pan to cook em in then mixed in at last)
Added vanilla
added flaxmeal

Soaked the cornmeal in the milk overnight.

Doubled the recipe and used 5 med eggs

Also unlike other pancakes I make, I am going to cook them all up instead of save batter for cooking tomorrow. These are pretty fluffy and if put back in fridge I think the baking powder will lose the ability to make em fluffy and then that wouldn't be good.

These are pretty fluffy, and yeah, I put the sugar in. And no, I didn't use whole wheat flour, the whole grain corn felt like enough w/o using whole wheat.

Even threw a label on the post!

 that day, the National day of Mourning, also known as Thanksgiving...

I've done the full massive cook everything myself and make it all perfect and come out just right and the timing and all that for years in a row, I've completely mailed it in, and let others do it all. It is a holiday about food, rarely focused on the actual harvest or the giving of thanks for what has been provided.

 That was yesterday, got the tires done, what a fucking difference. Wow. Amazing how they got that bad so quickly. But then again, yeah, not really surprised. Whatever, that's an easy one to move forward from.

Car is so quiet right now, amazing. Crazy really. Nice when things have an immediate and noticeable impact.

Got the Top Fuel aka Shifty Squishy bike back together. Letting the locktite on the crownrace set. Didn't want to ride it. Need to order that seat post soon. But ready to go other than that.

Hit the grocery store after, forgot a few things, kept getting distracted by checking out the window that the bike was still on the roof of the car. Yup. Still there. 

Made it home, unloaded and did something else, dunno what, got horizontal for a minute, might have closed my eyes, then got on the trainer and THEN cooked dinner. Shocking change, but then getting home at 3:30 instead of 6pm, well there's a fuckton more time when that happens.

Watched first part of a terrible movie. Got things sorted for silly early morning departure by the other two for another official college visit. Then woke up, made coffee and thought "hey i have those old Rocket Rons, my favorite old tubeless tread/tires, I should put them on the carbon wheels" 

I tried to do that. Yeah, fuck that. My air compressor doesn't have enough volume or flow to make it work. Sadly. Those were really the best tires but man are they a MASSIVE pain to install. I think I usually blew them off the rim installing them now that I remember it. It got to the point where I'd have the wheel in the workstand and not holding it and I'd turn my back on it when inflating it. There's a fine line between getting enough air in there fast enough to seat the bead and making sure the bead is even and won't blow off.

After that messy fail I put the Mamba CX back on the front and dug out the old X-One from BlancoSuave that I bought when I got those Nanos and Riddler. Thought about putting the Nanos on but not for that long. 

Got the X-one seated more easily than the Rocket Ron but only just. Def needed compressed air. The Mamba CX? Floor pump was enough to seat that thing. 

Getting spoiled with the Hutchinson and Bontrager tires. That said the modern shit is all better than the stuff even 5 years ago. 

AND since I am worried about how well it is seated I rode that bike in. Into the wind. The 2:1 gear was a very nice change from the Surly. Esp going into the wind. Rear tire has a tiny lump in it, maybe it'll sort itself out, maybe not. Dunno. But it held air (I packed the Mamba CX that came off with me just in case). Solobreak's point about the commute, and the singlespeed - the lighter gear on this one is nice and def easier on the knees...

but no fenders. I know, i know - time to change the gear on the Surly. Yeah, it is on the list.

Kind of sitting here dismayed but not shocked, the news that is splashing everywhere is just another piece of evidence in the pile. It hurts to be honest. Oh to be unburdened by all this...

Step one - close twitter.

Step two - go do some much needed and critical imaging.

I was going to write about the races yesterday while hanging out at the tire place, but that didn't happen and then Wacko showed up and we talked for a while. Short of it: over-geared is better to go head to head with geared riders but it still sucks, day two on light gear after shredding yourself on the too hard gear is even worse esp when the tires were slipping on the grease on slick from the morning moisture. It was fucking hero dirt an hour after our race. Velcro by the last couple races. Oh well wrong tires AND wrong gear. it kind of sucked.  But I saw lots of people. Chatted with others, met some new folks, introduced others to the orange jumpsuit. it was a good weekend.

But this morning? After starting the whole mess with the tires, I discovered one of the dogs had peed under the table and it had all moved under the plastic storage boxes...  wrecked a few other things but mostly just was getting stinkier and stinkier. That took over an hour to get cleaned up, once I cleaned one section I discovered it had moved over into another under the next set of boxes and on and on and on, and all that and I'm still smelling it. maybe partly also smelling Stans Race sealant... Dunno but I don't like it. 

Also if you want a pocket saw, let me know, i have a few extra, if you're super nice I might even give you one of the arborist ones. Lemme know.

I almost tossed the extra cliff bars that were in the bag i took yesterday into the commuter pack, but i thought, nah, I have enough lunch.

yeah, nope. But then again, can't work on getting rid of these extra kgs if I don't cut calories somewhere. Time to embrace being hungry? Maybe. Not supposed to do that on the day before you race twice.

In a row.

Yeah I am pulling a Griggs, racing Masters and then SSCX. Unlike Derek I'll be doing it on the same SS bike. Makes me want to get a new fancy cx bike, with gears and stuff. AKA not rim brakes and something other than 10speed. Maybe next year. Maybe there will be bikes to buy then.

probably not... so i'll just keep doing dumb stuff... and putting one foot in front of the other.

amor fati motherfuckers
G

 to skill

to the intersection of passion, talent, opportunity...

timing

life

the words written there over on Stevil's page about Mark S's passing

what is life?

what are experiences?

Shared? private what is ones legacy?

I remember realzing so many fucking years ago...  what you leave behind is you, your imprint, you gain immortality by being carried along in the memories of those you touched, few of us have an impact beyond a generation, almost none of us do, but everyone born, that grows up around others, leaves some sort of imprint, good or bad, it is something.

I was going to leave, I got my shoes on, HRM on, i think i turned the Wahoo on...

and brain just wouldn't stop. Allan via Adam, has pushed the brain into some crazy deep introspective loop...

It isn't warm outside, it is dark, I have a workout to do when I get home and dinner to make in some order or the other

but i'm sitting here thinking

but dissipating now, perhaps this was enough to be able to move forward

it needs to be, it's now later and the words aren't flowing, more or less weaving back and forth not sure where to go or what is going on...

lost? adrift? a waste?

no anchor? maybe that's everything that has always been my problem...  i don't have an anchor, no mooring, yet I haven't moved much since I first raced Eco-cross way back... heading there Saturday... racing twice... not sure what to do, how to go forward...

i want to hit play on all the voicemails i have saved from my dad, to hear his voice again, but everytime I go to look at them...  i stop, i don't hit play...

time to pedal, time to let the wind be the only sound I hear and my knee to mark every pedal stroke

heddwch
G

 I'm not much of a podcast person.

But meeting Allan Dias this weekend, chatting with Adam and Allan and hearing about this, and then having an unexpected cancellation...

Well I pushed papers around on my desk and cleaned up and sorted and listened. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/allan-dias/id1507949184?i=1000471435550

There is a hell of a lot to unpack and absorb in there. getting towards the 1:26 mark kind of resonated more than the rest... the whole bit of performing being like bike racing, to pull it in further that's where I am with teaching now, and trainings. There's this kind of all in time to go lets see what happens, and one hell of a lot of hard work going into to what can seem like an effortless and solid performance.

If you've caught any of my results this year, well my racing has been absolutely anything but that, it has been tortuous, frustrating, mechanically challenged, and life has just not stopped throwing stuff to deal with.

It is time to ride home in the dark.

Maybe i'll have a chance to write some more tomorrow while i'm at the tire place waiting... cars are expensive and unexpectedly so sometimes.

Not even two years old and the fucking tires are trash. Bad roads? maybe. Alignment? maybe... hopefully these new tires do a little better.

Time to torture my knees with a nice singlespeed ride...  i think i really need to pull the geared bike out and make it work again - this constant overgeared is not helping recovery.  go figure

heddwch

G

 to my morning packing lunch brain.

This is getting ridiculous! 

Yeah that's totally enough food. Um no it isn't says the version of me in the 2-5pm timeslot before getting on the bike to ride home super hungry, and then I'm supposed to get on the trainer for an hour? 

This is gonna be interesting.

I should write about the races this weekend and the crazy and the stuff...  the stuff after finding the frozen bottom bracket, and all the rest. 

I should also sign up for the rest of the races.

And the rest.

maybe tomorrow i'll pack more lunch

but probably not

we'll see

also waking up at 5am is overrated

i'd like to sleep in more but the last week, well, the DOGS now also think that 5am is time to wake up and go outside, and well..

sleep, it is over-rated, right?

 I just signed up for outside+ because colin pointed out there's some serious new discounts at bikereg

$50 for the year, and you get $60 of bikereg discounts/dollars.

serious no brainer to be honest.

Next year? we'll see...

 Is it monday? 

strange

seems people make a big deal out of things turning 50...

funny that, here I thought I was all over it and had put it behind me... 

That compilation fucking rocks. Well done. I mean what other rock song has been overplayed that much, what song does everyone know all the lyrics too?

Why?
it is a good song.

And it stuck around.

Made it through the weekend, wading into the fucking insane week, some good news, some disappointing but not unexpected news, but mostly just non-stop. Till now and even then I only have paused from the crazy to share that compilation.

NoHo came and went and I didn't go.

12 years ago is still fresh in my mind. Saw a facebook memory, almost verbatim what I said about my head smashing crash on my 49th birthday. "Lucky I landed on the top of my head, not my face". Seems that my instinct is to hit hard stuff with the hardest part of my body, my head full of rocks. 

At least my lights are all charged for the ride home tonight.

in

the

dark

Ugh...  

anyway i might go cue up an OG version of that song and listen the the dudes that initially performed it

and then get back to grinding away. but then i did have a thought - it is me, the job really isn't a job insomuch as it is me, a part of me, there is a seemless integration with what I do and me and that's kind of cool, but also kind of strange and I'm guessing unique..

as we wind on down the road

heddwch
G

 got home, snacked a ton, got on the bike had a decent but hard workout, short, and dinner and all that.

finished listening to a fantastic book. the new Becky Chambers, A psalm for the wild-built, worth a read - some really good quotes out of it and unexpected moments of joy and how to transform death and find joy in just conciousness.

at least i remembered to charge the headlight although i'm about ready to leave. 

got to a few things on the list, maybe a few more tomorrow

life is full and busy and not terrible..  but it is exhausting, i'm skeptical about trying to get the workout done on the trainer tonight, wish I had more daylight or time to get it done somewhere other than in the basement. Maybe one of these days i'll get a new trainer, maybe one with power so these workouts can be done with that metric instead of HR.

Rob Kramer shared something on twitter today...  i liked it, not 100% agree but in a way nearly so.

https://hbr.org/2020/11/what-you-should-follow-instead-of-your-passion i'll spoil it for you, don't follow your bliss, follow your blisters

kind of makes sense

this morning i hit play on this song getting through the start of the work load but after scanning the headlines on twitter

Hit the Mighty mighty bosstones latest release front to back next. Then just work and work.

We'll see how tomorrow goes. Running light on the coffee intake,light in the morning and shared some with another during a meeting and we'll see how the ride home goes and the workout. Guess it is a good thing there's still some halloween candy, crush some of that in the KPerham sugar window and hope for the best.

No NoHo for me this weekend. Iceman is ALSo this weekend, now that's a gravel race i'd love to do, hah yeah no it is a "mountain bike" race or so they say, i've heard mixed things, and having ridden East coast tech now, and lots of Michigan trails, well, I'd call it a gravel race. 
shit - on that list of mine is getting that dropper post ordered. Would be nice to get it on shortly after the fork gets fixed, but i probably should have ordered the post a while back if that was to happen. 

Pulling trigger on a few emails that are sitting and waiting for a moment and a re-read then i'll blast home and figure the rest of the day out.

amor fati motherfuckers

G

 Workout?

Yeah nope.

So busy I forgot to hit publish on yesterdays garbage patch.

Guess I'll try and get home and do the workout tonight. Wondering how many TSS/WS is too many for a week for someone as slow and stressed as I am. I hit nearly 500 WS over the last two weeks (in a row) and I'm guessing that's probably contributing to why I was so tired and unable to compete the workout with only one day off the bike.

None of the workouts are over 100, but commutes aren't zero and I'm still functioning in a sleep deficit (not as bad as it has been) but overall life stress isn't measured and it is pretty significant.

Case in point, dreams last night were frustration RAGE machines, hard to explain the details now but the overall feeling of frustration and rage and all was and still is palpable.

Maybe I can channel some of that rage embedded to get through the interval.

Knee has been doing better but still residue soreness. I think maybe I need a week off of the singlespeed surly, too much torque. Need more spinny. Or something else. The diclofenac sodium topical gel (Voltaren) applied at night just before bed has been very effective at reducing the inflamation.

So maybe in a bit of time it'll be resolved.

Saw this...  https://usacycling.org/article/quick-and-easy-5-ingredient-meals my brain is still broken, that's a crazy list... skratch labs cook book has better foods and better seasoning and all those recipes are bland AF

there was some other stuff I was thinking about but forgot now... 

I did try and figure out TSS load limits, but didn't come up with anything more than a category breakdown not an age one although i'm sure there are plenty of 50 year olds that can hand a cat 1 level week of 700-1000 TSS, i'm def not one of them. As evidence by my getting lapped by everyone at Fruitlands.

Trying the eat more to combat fatigue, sort of working. But not totally. Back of my brain still wonders if the thyroid enlargement (basic and specific tests said all the levels were normal) has something to do with it all. 

also go listen to this album start to finish (or not, might not be your style) but is one motherfucking iconic album and important bit of musical history

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mG7ndizgcX0QrrKh3zF9lFyU6eFzprgiE

okay -time to wrap shit up- still haven't gotten to item three or four on the list and today was pretty much non-stop back to back...

Things not getting done that need to: 
#1 - start interview process with applicants for the job that will help here at work

#2 - work through the rest of the imaging on the SEM for the gallery show opening soon

#3 - course syllabus

But those are large tasks that will take time, focused and uninterrupted. The antithesis of what I have in-between all the fixing and teaching.

Maybe tomorrow (been saying this all week)

oh well

amor fati motherfuckers

G

 what is it, why is everything so f'n upsidedown and sideways?

Shit's getting done but not easily or inexpensively. 

The car, no not the stinky Jetta, the one we got new? yeah, that noise? Long and expensive story and well, frustrating and annoying ugh - tires should last more than 20k miles. 

Mailed the fork back. No Call Tag of course. "We don't do that for warranty anymore" well shit. It is only money. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon and I can get back to riding the shifty squishy bike.

Need to get dropper post for it and some GX AXS for it maybe, I'd say I'd get some shimano for it but, that's a good joke. 

No time to start emailing candidates for the job, that will help me have more time to deal with the rest of the stuff that is keeping me occupied.

And yeah, could be doing that now but I figured taking 5 minutes to vent here after wolfing down lunch in 10 minutes is okay. 

I have 3 minutes left.

Still tired. Def not doing the workout tonight.

Maybe I can get Wed's planned workout done before heading to work, before I'm wrecked by another overscheduled and intense day. 

 A short film buy Nick Cz.

He shares a birthday with my little brothers. It doesn't take a brilliant therapist to connect the dots that having little brothers with a birthday on a NATIONAL party day does for me relative to my neglected birthday that always happened before school started right around a holiday that had the family working hard (Bumbershoot Festival). 

That doesn't have anything to with this or Nick or anything. Although I'm sure we can tie Nick into this w/o much issue.

That said.

Short film by Nick. It is on Youtube. Go give it a watch as a late birthday present to him. 

It is entertaining. worth the 20 minutes.

 Dunno, what will it be?

Dead scope opened up an extra bit of time. Downside is it is the SEM and I can't actually work on the rest of the imaging for the show.

Also so much to do but hey, I'm overwhelmed and still pretty tired. Physically and mentally pausing after the crazy doesn't feel much more than required.