An Open Letter To...

... To the guy riding his "chopper" up and down main street today:
What is your deal? Are you socially retarded, or do you really believe that beautiful women will hear the ear-splitting howl of your whatever cubic-inch engine and throw themselves at you, frothing with desire? Do you think this makes you cool like the guys from Easy Rider? You're not cruising down some lonely highway, enjoying the freedom of the road and the air on your receding hairline, you're blasting up the street, turning around, blasting back up the street, turning around, and doing it all over again. Over and over. Back and forth. The best part? You're wearing EAR PLUGS! WHAT?!!?! Are you for real? I mean, yeah it makes sense, because you're grenading around on the loudest bike on the planet, but that's what mufflers are for. If you're concerned about your own hearing but not about my eardrums bursting every time you rip by, then you are a serious dick.
Is this what a midlife crisis looks like in the era of Orange Country Choppers and that Biker Build-Off show? I thought you guys just buy Camaros and cruise around past High Schools looking awesome? Good job Discovery Channel, way to wreck my eardrums.

...To the guy walking down main street with a ten foot surfboard:
You are so my favorite person right now. This is either a righteous fashion statement saying "yeah, I don't give a rat's ass that I'm on a mountain 2,000 miles from the ocean, I've got seawater in my veins and this is my magic carpet," or this guy's a stoner who found the thing in his brother's basement and just had the amazing idea of chopping the fin off, strapping his feet to it and hurtling down a mountain. Like SURFING ON SNOW. It's stoner ingenuity at it's finest and he'd probably make a fortune if some other cat hadn't had the same brilliant idea like 20 years ago.

...To Chuck Palahniuk:
Haunted's a wicked book. One of your finest. Good work.

...To USA Cycling:
Maybe somewhere at sea level next year? That'd be cool. DT

Park City I Hate You

and your little dog too...

That crit was tough like bark and crazy like the Jacksons. Good lawd that sucked the big one from the very first lap. Last year the course was flat, huge and dangerous. This year it was hilly, huge and dangerous. I thought it would be sweet because it was in the same area, but they basically took last year's 3 corner course and moved it halfway up a mountainside. Just look at the numbers: 120 starters, 15 finishers. The top ten was almost a carbon copy of last years road race. Skinny little dudes who normally hate crits were the only ones that made it past the first half. Of the 15 that finished, probably 13 were pros.

It was hurt city: population me.

Anyway. Walker grunted it out for an hour before loosing it, the 12 TIAA CREF dudes controlled the day's events and Tyler Farrar almost jumped off his bike and strangled half the aforementioned team. Seriously, they played him like a fiddle. He missed the two man break of the day, and everytime he'd make a move there would be 4 powder blue jerseys on his ass refusing to do squat. Sucks to be him, and it's a bit of a negative way to race, but big farrRRAAAR was the strongest unit in the race, so they weren't about to hand him any favors. I wouldn't pull him around either...

Next up... the long drive home, some big training, then off to Stuipidweek.

Ballard...and Days 1 through 4 of the Six

Here's Ballard:
Four corners, drenched in rain, ice-like bricks in one corner, dry slicks on my wheels and 80 people who all want thier chunk of a few grand in prize money. BANG the gun goes and I'm third into the first corner, which is a damn good thing because all around me is CHAOS. Guys are hitting the deck like nobody's business, easy corners are becoming completely impossible, every single corner in the first five laps claims skin and carbon.
Aaron jams it at the front and escapes with a few punks. I have lost vision and most motor control trying to stay on Kenny "G Money J Lo" Willians and Russel "I Hate You" Stevensen. These jerks are on the edge of control and pushing me way past my max effort, so I blow to pieces and curse the name of Ballard and the Seattle metro maybe 20 minutes into the race.

Aaron ends up crashing cause he's a f$@king mountain biker, but he still laps the field which is pretty heavy. He gets a gut point for that one. Maybe.
Scotty survives by utilizing the brilliant strategy of being behind every single crash and sprinting to get back up to the dwindling field. This may seem impractical, but it works for him.

Meanwhile at the six day, every day is run under threat of heavy rain, 3 days of which rain out completely. Scotty gets one gut point for riding the first 30 minute madison by himself. Walker and I call truce and just follow wheels, but other teams aren't so nice and not nearly as cool, but Scott hangs tough and even scores a point in the final sprint. The following few days are a big ugly battle between the kiwi team of Scotty and Adam and the orange team of yours truly and Walker the Stalker. The pink/fred meyer team puts up a valiant effort, but can't quite work out the sprints. Walker and I win every madison and every night overall, but due to an unfortunate error in the points race (namely, not starting it ontime), we lose 15 laps and the overall. Whatever. Still came out with a few hundred bucks at local bike shops and a few days of good hard training leading up to.....


.... U23 Road Nationals.
12 hours of driving usually isn't too bad, but when it's at night and your route is the wasteland that is Eastern Oregon and Idaho, things get boring. After a good sleep on a uber-comfy couch, daybreak in Park City means wandering about town, searching for mexican food and the host hotel.
Damn this place is average.
Kind of reminds me of Vegas minus the strippers and neon. Too much money floating around, too many facades on buildings to make everything seem "natural" and "ski lodge-ish." Concrete slap-up construction covered in a plastic/wood veranda to make the local Albertsons seem like it belongs. The fact that the town is completely dead certainly doesn't help its image. Must be what most ski-towns look like in late-june. Just bare-bones staff in cafe's and pizza shops. Just enough cops to cover race duties and parking lots. Seems like most houses here sit empty untill the snow comes back and the executive accountants and retirees stop by for a weekend soiree. Places that would sell for 150k in Portland flash For Sale signs that trumpet costs reduced to 600 thousand. Crazy cost of living, but still pretty cool to take the chair lift that starts in the middle of town up to the top of the 2002 winter olympic ski slopes that overlook the town.

Crit is tommorow at 10am in front of the lavish Deer Valley Resort. 60k of sun and fun. DT

An Apology, an Update and So Much More....

If the tall blond-ish girl from the Mt. Hood circuit race feed zone is listening, I'm sorry for puking on you.

Honestly. I didn't mean it, I wasn't aiming for you, I just happened to be looking at you, trying to grab a bottle when my stomach detonated after 3 climbs and a couple hours of ouch. Not sure if it was the dehydration, or the redbull or a wicked combination of the two, but whatever the cause, I'm sorry.

To punish myself for not riding through it and finishing the stage, I lined up for Tabor this week. If you've never ridden the Mt. Tabor circuit race before, I'll give you a track-rider's perspective of the weekly event.

When you arrive at Mt. Tabor park on the SE side of town, it's gorgeous, leafy chaos. Winding roads, a killer view of the city, ancient trees, hippies smoking grass on the course, dogs everyewhere, skateboarders, mt. bikers, curious residents, laborador walkers in comfortable shoes, bike racers, punters and hecklers all mixing in a typically Portlandese way to make another wednesday summer evening in the Big P. Line up in the start shute and crawl immediately and quietly into the hurt box. It's uphill, it's downhill, it's uphill again over and over for 15 laps. Some residents and racers in earlier categories recognize the evening beer-drinking ambiance and crack open while we're on the course, so the heckling gets better the farther you make it.

Tuckerman spent at least half the race riding in the gravel, in the gutter, in the grass and generally off the road just to f*@k with people. Little freak surprised no one when he throws down a big sprint up the gutter to win the evening's glory. F*@king mountain bikers... DT

I Hate Crashing...

...especially when it's not because of some insane last corner manuever or a big-time kamikaze hook. Oh no, the crashes I hate most are the ones that can get chalked up to dumb luck. Take the national qualifier scratch race for example: Early in the dog and pony show I was rolling along, minding my own business in the sprinters lane when WHAMMY some guy comes flying uptrack from the apron and nails my rear wheel as hard as he can. I go rolling across the track, my tire comes rolling off the rim, my skin rolls right off my legs and my bars roll right into my frame, leaving a nice golf-ball sized dent.

Fabulous. Just the thing to make my recent knee problems go away, a good crash.

Ok. Fine. I'll just attack, spend the rest of the race off the front with 2 other guys and get dropped rather suddenly with 5 to go. Sounds like a plan, eh?

Sure seemed smart at the time.

After than dismal performance, only a good ride in the sprints would make my day worthwhile. So naturally I got punted out of the gold medal round by Ryan Miller, a roadie, albiet a very fast and very smart roadie. That one mostly boils down to the fact that I had the chance to close the door on him in a big way, but I second-guessed it and let him walk all over me. Damn. Next race however was against my all-time nemesis. Big Mr. Muscles had also just been beat by a sneak-attack move when he also could have had the race won, so we were on equal levels, morale-wise. This guy can do 200s at Alpensrose like nobody's business, so I wasn't about to let him do one, instead I made him do about 4 and it worked. Barely. I was so depleted after that battle and all the scratch race shenanigans that I couldn't even bring myself to line up for the points race. Man I'm a weako, eh?

On the brightside, we smashed everybody at last week's PIR. With Walker leading me out at mach 10 - jumping the field before anybody was even thinking about sprinting - it was kinda hard not to win. Magic.

You know what else is magic? Bloc Party. Friday night we kicked it old school and rocked out to an amazing show put on by these British lads. There's a lot of talk about Vice, the magazine/fashion label/record lable/marketing machine that backs these guys. Local music snobs get thier panties in a twist when the words Bloc Party are uttered because of the sheer genius of Vice's advertising strategies. Vice is in a rare position in marketing (where thier target audience actually trusts them) and as a result, the bands and the fashions that they push tend to do really well. This case in particular is a great example of why people pay attention to them, and why they are so successful. They promote great bands. Bloc Party is awesome. We had a wicked time. Say what you want about the ruthlessness of the American advertising machine, but when it exposes me to great music like this, I'm not so pissed about it. I'd rather they get behind talented artists and use whatever "guerrilla marketing" techniques they have to get said artists into the open, instead of putting more money behind Jessica Simpson or Clay Aiken.

COMING SOON: MT HOOD, and the never-ending climbs of... Mt. HOOD.
DT

"They Just Keep Beating On Each Other..."

The boys somehow made it back from the Great Middle American Adventure, and the real racing has finally started... That's right, criteriums and track racing, the true sport. Track has actually been a bit weak lately, out of 6 nights I've only made it out twice. One night I missed on account of my tendency to not pay attention to things, and the other 3 were rain, rain, rain. We have successfully completed a kilo night and a "sprint" night though, and what fun they were. Here's my thing with kilos. Kilos are a genuinely bad thing, and I can't imagine that anyone actually likes them, it just happens that certain people are naturally pretty good at them, therefore the event survives. Nothing hurts more than the last lap of said TT, except maybe the embarrasment of everyone watching how slow that last lap is. I went out so stupendously hard out of the blocks that in the last lap I was seriously considering sitting up and coasting in. I won, but it was with a pretty sad time for a track rider expecting to perform on a national level.

No matter, Friday night is sprint night! Yes! I'm a big fan of match sprints, it's one of the things that I've always been pretty good at, and it's fun to be the lone roadie in the top 3. HOWEVER. Instead of running match sprints, the organizers have decided to hold "sprint events" on every other Friday, this being one of them. "Okay" says I, "Kierins are cool, team sprints are cool, handicaps are cool, this'll be alright." But guess what, instead of actual sprint events, we're gonna do a 10 lap points race with 2 (count em') TWO sprints, a miss n'out, (which I can't complain about much) and an unknown distance, which turned out to be 3 laps.

Are you serious?
I mean, who does this?

Sure maybe I was a bit bitter about not winning the two races which rely on luck, but that's just the thing. There's a couple reasons why top-flight sprinters don't come out of Portland, and this is a big one. Riders improve by doing races that require skill, physical ability and brains, not just luck. A 3 lap unknown distance is like paying 10 bucks to play dice on wheels, it's not even that fun. I understand that the organizers want to make things fun so more people will show up, but why not run sprints on sprint night? Having a sprint night in the first place is a big step towards developing local talent, but running easy races doesn't attract top riders and doesn't do much more to develop that talent. Enough wining. On to the party.

It's a bummer when people tell a host they will show up at a party and never even bother to show up. The Godfreys put a lot of effort into preparing for a certain number of people that said they would attend, and the house was practically empty. Those who were there certainly made the most of the evening, the beer that was intended for about 30 people was consumed by about 6, and the hosts now have enough take 'n bake pizza to last a few years. Heads were shaved, cake was eaten, music was cranked and we had a wicked time anyway. So there.

On a happier note, Rubicon threw down the big one two punch at the Swan Island crit. Everyone's favorite pan-flat cornerless circuit was drenched with rain for the start, which pissed me off so much I had to take my anger out on my legs, and began an ill-advised campaign to make myself hurl by attacking from the gun. The group I ended up in was caught, and the rest of the race turned out to be a great big Rubicon vs. Bike Gallery attack-a-palooza. Halfway through I was tired and not too convinced that a breakaway would work, so I sat back and watched Aaron, Scotty, Walker and Carl stick it to the field like Tina Turner. Here's how the last half-hour went:

Aaron attacks and drags someone with him.
Then he drops them.
So he rides by himself 50 feet in front of the field for the next 5 laps.
Aaron gets caught.
Gallery dudes counter-attack.
Walker counters the counter.
Gallery counters his counter.
Carl counters the counter of the counters and starts a group that Scotty gets into and promptly tears apart.
Aaron goes again.
Splinter The Announcer Guy is beside himself and keeps saying stuff like "Rubicon and Bike Gallery just keep beating on each other. It's like Tyson Vs. Holyfield vs. Ali vs. Tonya Harding"
These cats just keep going at each other, people are yelling, the sun comes out, I jump the field with a half lap to go with Todd Littlehales and Walker The Stalker on my wheel, Walker stalks Todd, throws down a mighty powerful last 5 pedal-strokes to take him down to Chinatown, we strut across the line for a neat one-two finish, I throw the hands up like a big time champ and everybody does a happy cha-cha.

COMING SOON: PIR, TRACK THURSDAY, TRACK FRIDAY, TRACK NATIONALS QUALIFIER and maybe another boring rant or a snazzy piece about how much school is not the coolest thing on the planet. DT

TST Is A Pile of Crap And I'm Never Going Back

This one's been held up in the proccess (namely, Norrene's missing laptop) for a few weeks, but I figured since I took 10 minutes out of my life to write it, you should have to take 10 minutes out of yours to read it...

Sending bike racers into a gas station mid road-trip is like letting a group of recovering alcoholics roam around in Liquor King. We can walk through the doors knowing that everything inside does terrible things to the human body – that we should all just use the restroom and leave – but we inevitably walk out with armloads of pop-tarts, hostess cakes, donuts, candy and energy drinks.

Oh the energy drinks. Those terrible 20 oz. cans of amphetamine cocktails with names like Rock Star, (‘party like a rock star!’) Red Bull, (‘red bull gives you WINGS!’) Monster, (‘unleash the monster inside’) Full Throttle, (‘120%’) and others like Kronic (don’t ask). 3 hours of the shakes and nervous energy followed by a massive sugar-induced insulin-crash that sends you searching for the nearest aggressively named can or a nice place to pass out. This is the drink of the athlete’s summer, a vice of otherwise healthy people that takes all winter to detox from. It was only a matter of time before we dove into that evil stuff, but I was hoping to at least make it until the first track night.

But here we are, walking out of an AM/PM in god knows where, central Washington, black spaz-juice in hand.

It’s going to be a long season.

Ever had that feeling that something’s wrong despite no signs to indicate anything other than smooth sailing?

Ever had that voice somewhere in the back of your head telling you that you’re not going to make it through the day?

I thought it was just Rock Star mid-level paranoia until we rolled up to the start of the Tahuya Seabeck Tahuya roadrace 8 minutes after our group had left. So if the rain, the early morning, the drive and the freezing temperatures aren’t enough, try a $25 training ride. After about half an hour of chasing it became apparent that we were making zero ground, and my cassette made it abundantly clear that it was loose and trying to wreck the hub on my carbon wheel, so back to the van I carefully rode.

Unrelated sidenote: There is a club in Seattle that rides in poo-brown uniforms. That’s right. Poo-brown with baby-blue and white stripes. I uderstand they are sponsored by a coffee shop, but whoever is responsible for those kits should be kicked in the shins anytime they are within 10 feet of any kind of design tools. And they should receive a flying head-butt from Scott Allen, I hear those solve practically anything.

Next in line for the Scott Allen flying WWF style head-butt: Team Rubicon. No not the orange ones that are all way cool and ridiculously good-looking, but the new club (also out of Seattle) that calls themselves Team Rubicon. Now come on, I know we’re in different cities and all, but Seattle and Portland are practically the same racing scene, we’re all at the same races and there’s only room for one TR. How about Whatever Velo presented by Rubicon Finance? How about ANYTHING other than Team Rubicon?

Instead of taking our anger out on organizers or competitors, this time we took our anger out on our stomachs: Dairy Queen style. Double western bacon quarter pounder, two corndogs, extra fries, large blizzard and a coke later I was pretty convinced that Scotty wasn't going to make it home without some catastrophic gastrointestinal event, and god knows we've had enough of those in the van lately...
DT

Love And Death In the Time of Lactic Acid

If I don't find some Action soon, if I can't confront some great Evil and do battle like Xena, then I just might crack. This lifestyle of hanging out and going to school just isn't cutting it these days. Granted school has its place and I'm not ready to cancel all classes and career ambitions, but my cycling career ambitions have been pushing thier way to the front of my head lately. 20 and a half years in the history books and where do I go from here? A: Straight through school, putting racing on the three year backburner? B: Straight into racing, putting school on the indefinite backburner and hoping cycling will work out big time? Or C: Somewhere halfway, with 2 classes per term and twice the training time?

Short term goals are such: Rock the house at a few local crits and maybe a track race or two to ease the oncoming waves of ADD and maintain passing grades 'til summer, where it's all battle, all the time. SuperWeek and the AVC, Twillights and tours, BC and LA, love and death in the time of lactic acid. PIR and sprint nights at the track will have to do for now, but these dog and pony shows can only hold my attention span for so long.

Speaking of PIR, missed the first week, but still managed to get second overall. A few classy moves and a week with a 6-man killer leadout made for a quick recovery points-wise, but still not enough to get that first spot. Damn the man. Looks like this year's arch-enemy will be Nate Dills. That bastard beat me straight up last week and that means things are gonna get drastic. So untill then, DT

LINK MADNESS

Wicked cool links for wicked fun times:

http://www.mysticalball.com/ It will blow your mind.

http://scottallencycling.blogspot.com Scotty can tell a mean story when he isn't busy being such an animal.

http://www.phobiaguide.com Everyone loves phobias, especially hypochondriacs.

http://www.kcna.co.jp/ We all know what Bush thinks of North Korea (read: Axis of Evil, Outpost of Tyranny, etc.). Ever wonder what they think of us?

http://www.punchbaby.com/ Tons of crazy ads, wierd games and bizzare video clips

http://www.threebrain.com See above, but better.


I promise I'll get around to the Late TST, Dairy Queen Death, Espresso Heart Attack one. Really. Stay Tuned. DT

So I'm Unreliable

And not too punctual with the updates. Such is life on the full-time college schedule.

Anyway. Leading the competition for the worst thing of the day (as reported by www.foodfightgrocery.com) is the right-wing country/pop/shittymusic duo The Right Brothers. Oh man this is good stuff. Here's a tasty sample of some of the songs (I swear to god I am not making this up): You Can't Racial Profile, Tolerate This, It's My Money, Trickle Down, Dear Mr. Reagan, and the smash hit The Waffle House.
There's not much I can say about this that would sum it up better than thier own bio: "The music they make has been described as “a lethal weapon for conservatives”, “a moral booster for the troops and their families” and “the perfect tool for converting liberals to the right”. no artist has ever tackled the issues addressed by The Right Brothers. Topics on their albums include: the abortion debate, illegal immigration, taxation, Ronald Reagan, the melting-pot (or lack thereof), America’s right to defend herself regardless of what the rest of the world thinks, appreciation for our brave soldiers (past and present), political apathy, and more. The Right Brothers are in tune with today’s political issues and that is reflected in every word they write.

Wow. The perfect tool for converting liberals is a couple of talentless back-assward hicks who sing about Reagan and illegal immigrants? What!? Are these guys for real?

Wait.
Wait.
Is this some sick April fools joke? Go to http://www.therightbrothers.com/, listen to some samples and you'll find the terrible answer.

So back to the reality-based world we go, and as I'm sitting here not working on whatever history paper or math project is due tommorow, the rest of the young goons on the team are packed into a foul-smelling van, 12 hours into the drive to Athens Georgia. Big Jase barely had time to unpack his bike before it was repacked and ready to roll out on I-84 for the next few days. Of course it's nice to be sitting here in a comfy chair in the college library instead of cramped in the stickerbus for 50 hours straight, but part of me is very bummed to be missing out. I'm a sucker for long cross-country burns and even more a sucker for reckless behavior in strange cities, but alas, here I am. Plenty of summer to go, and plenty of crazy road trips to enjoy.

Soon you'll all be regailed with an amazing tale about how we were late to TST, almost died of Dairy-Queen overdose and nearly gave Aaron a heart-attack with a double espresso. Stay tuned folks, I gotta get to Math... DT

Man Passes Driver's Test After 272 Attempts

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7511425/?GT1=6428

Memories of the last few weeks come in flashes with loose connections. So busy, no time to relax, no time to train, no time to sit down and write. Stepped off the homecoming plane straight into full-time work and full-time student responsibilities, then ran smack into the Bike Gallery sale and I'm still a little unsure of how it all turned out.

THE SALE...

...was endlessly entertaining and likewise frustrating. It's a warehouse sale of bikes and crappy parts. What you see is what you get. No haggling is neccessary, we still won't lower the prices any more. All these things were abundantly clear to every unfortunate soul who walked through the doors, and yet no one seemed to pay any attention. "Do you have any bikes that are closer to the 50-100 dollar range?" No, man. Go to K-Mart. "Are you sure, not even in the back?" The back of WHAT exactly? This is a warehouse!! THIS IS THE BACK. "Okay, well do you think we could work something out to bring this 400 dollar one closer to a hundred?" This is when I smile politely and inside I'm going "get out of my store LIKE NOW!" and the mental image of me nocking over rows and rows of bikes and fenders and pannier racks as I run at top speed for the door, toward the light and my final escape... but no. The next person approached me, "Does this bike come with any clothing?"

POST SALE MADNESS, BIKES, CARNAGE, RICH FEARLESS BUSSINESSMEN....

5 days of this grind melt into one another, and suddenly it's all over. The last of the customers are still wandering around, but an hour and a half after closing time, we're not worried about customer convenience. Rows of bikes are re-aranged, tables stacked with components are carefully placed on the outside of corners, mechanics and salespeople rip through the warehouse at dangerous speeds, warming up for the festivities ahead.

We race $300 cruisers around slick concrete floors with reckless abandon, (damn the torpedoes) store-bikes destined for a showroom floor slide on beery puddles which appear mysteriously in every corner. This is an excercise in all-out intensity, in high speed handling on bikes never meant for more than 5 miles an hour, and the ability to accept your fate at the hands of those intoxicated fools ripping around next to you. The best way to beat your boss is to make sure he ends up sliding toward the wall of spectators on his back. The only way to win is to be ruthless and stupid.

The average blood-alchohol level rises and spectators become increasingly frenzied as the foot-down competition begins. Take an area about 10 feet square, put 15 people in the middle and the last one standing wins. Some call it circle of death, the rules say "don't talk about the rules." Just don't put your foot down and you win. Players crash to the ground in ugly piles of steel and aluminum, I survive thanks to a kid's size mountain bike and plenty of luck and cheerleaders. 4 left, but it's just me and Jay Graves now. A punk new employee versus the owner of Bike Gallery. A skinny bike racer versus a former BMX superstar, now turned cutthroat bussinessman. I had my money on Jay anyway. Things go smoothly untill I'm slammed into boxes of seats which come crashing to the floor, we power through, someone's yelling KILL over and over. Eventually my full-speed headbutts to the kidneys are my downfall as I throw myself off balance and down to the concrete. Jay is defeated in the final to an uproar, a cheer like you'd hear in an English soccer match, the crazed and rarely felt joy at seeing your boss take a fall.

Events continue long into the night. Skid contests, trackstanding, more racing, more drinking. By this time I've left, my only ride back home is heading out and I'm not one to miss the bus. Back to school in the morning, back to work after that. Hopefully back to racing soon, this work thing is getting to my head. DT



...and you thought I was done... HA. Been a while since I posted last, so I'll sum a bunch of stuff up real quick-like:

• Passing of the Pope. Anyone who says they didn't like the latest John Paul is either a staunch Protestant or just didn't know much about him. I strongly disagreed with him on a few big issues, but I respect the guy for walking the walk. Ol' JP was a genuine leader and did all in his power (while he still had some) to help people in need. He was one of those guys who actually believed and practiced what he said, unlike most modern figureheads. Big ups to JP.
• Michael Jackson. Now for the other end of the human spectrum. If we could stop paying attention to this twisted freak, that would be awesome. Granted he was a great entertainer 30 years ago, but now he's a lost and confused creature who doesn't need to be in the limelight.
• Social Security. Still doomed.
• Willamette Week wins the Pulitzer for investigative reporting. Awesome stuff right here. In this situation, The New York Times and The Oregonian were "The Man" and Niel Jaquiss from the WW proceeded to "stick it to the man" by fully scooping one of the biggest stories to come around in NW politics in a while, researching like a madman then writing a ball-busting story that prompted a full public apology from Niel Goldschmidt (sexual predator politician/power broker) and much gnashing of teeth from the Boregonian.
• Boonen unleashes the fury. So this guy hauls off and smashes the best classics riders on the planet at the front, in the hills, over the cobbles on his way to victory in 2 ProTour classics in 2 weeks. Not only that, but the two hardest belgian classics on the entire calendar. Not bad for a "field sprinter." Tour of Flanders AND Roubaix? Are you for real?

Now I'm really done for the day. I promise. DT

All Quiet On The Western Front

I hated that book. Actually I might have dug it, had it not been required reading in High School, but alas, I hated it. Anyway. Who cares?

Point is, things have been quiet latety.

I've been preparing to re-enter my other life as a college student, and have been a bit preoccupied. Books, registration, scheduling, bla bla bla.

Madness on a different stage is winding up again, and dammit this time I'm prepared. American higher education is a wierd and twisted environment full of characters stranger than fiction and more entertaining than anything broadcast over ABC, NBC, CBS, MTV or CNN combined. You can have your Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, because the people sitting two rows up in American History are twice as dense and three times as interesting, because they've got opinions, they know they're right and they are dead sure that you will agree with them. This is my other favorite crowd, the middle-aged never-has-beens, the young never-will-be's and the rest of us floating somewhere in between, just hoping to make it out alive.

Come to think of it, sounds suspiciously like the crowd in my two wheeled life... DT

Why I Dislike Eastern Bloc Countries

How do these guys keep doing this?

Seriously. How does an unknown 19 year old Russian dude bust out of NOWHERE at the Olympics and lap the field a million times then drop back to 3rd to last at Worlds where some unknown Ukranian dude busts out of NOWHERE to throw down and win. Granted they didn't just step on a bike yesterday, but most of the riders, very few of the media and none of the public knows who these guys are, but they are AWESOME at winning a World Championship or some other amazing achievement then no one ever hears from them again. So bizzare.

All I've seen for the World's points race was the results, no reports or pictures, so it's impossible to tell if this guy benefited from a crash, some wierd race condition, 10 years of daily motorpacing in a secret warehouse in the Russian tundra or slack-ass out of competition testing standards... Hmm.. Either way, Juan Llaneras was the only name on the podium I recognized, and he's on the bottom step. First place was Volodymyr Rybin from the Ukraine and second was Ioannis Tamouridis from GREECE. I mean come on, he's from Greece. The greeks haven't done squat in the track racing world since the Olympics, where they magically got much better, but were still middle of the road at best. Now this guy hauls off and beats the best track racers in the world.

Quote from cyclingnews.com: "Favourites will include 2004 Athens Olympic gold medalist Mikhail Ignatiev (Rus), Joan Llaneras (Spa), the gold medalist in the event at the 2000 Olympics and silver medalist at the 2004 Athens games, Juan Curuchet (Arg), the bronze medalist at last year's worlds, and American Colby Pearce (Boulder, Colo.), second overall in the 2004/05 world cup standings.
Lesse, any mention of Vlad the Impaler or the Greek guy? Nope. Where are our favorites? Llaneras was the only even close in third, and of 20 riders Curuchet, Pearce and Ignatev were 12th 13th and 18th respectively.

I'll hold off on further speculation and slander untill I get the full story, but for now let's just say it's f#%!ing wierd.

In other news, big props to this guy for sticking it to the man:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/24/art.prank.reut/index.html
DT

Manuevers and Impending Doom Around The Corner

Ah spring racing. Spring and summer racing are two entirely different creatures to me. Even after a winter of good training, everything before June seems to turn into an ordeal in some way or another. I have serious problems with Peice of Cake. The race. Lemmesplain.

First off, it was damn cold. 3 weeks of the best spring weather this region has ever had collapsed by Saturday and we crawled out of the team van in gale-force winds and 40 degree air. Everyone made a big show of how much clothing they were wearing, whined about the weather and talked about how we were probably going to get dropped. Dark predictions for what would become a dark day..

MAYBE 5 miles in I ran into the first Manuever Of The Day. Actually, it ran into me. So we swing around an easy right hander onto a major highway and I'm on the inside, cruising next to the gutter, nicely hidden from the crosswinds when WHAM some hubbard comes careening in from the other side of the road and slams me into the ditch. As I'm looking at the 5 foot drop I'm about to take into the ditch, I can't help but think "WHAT THE F*%! was THAT?" Really. Not sure how he managed that one unless he wasn't paying attention and didn't see the guy dressed entirely in day-glo orange sitting right were he wanted to be. Anyway. Cut to me as my front wheel digs into the gravel and it's DEEP gravel so I'm about to flip over the bars, but in some freak occurance my rear wheel just stays airborne and I roll on my front wheel only, inches away from the big ugly drop untill I come to a cursing halt. Brian drops back and hammers full throttle back to the group with yours truly in tow. I didn't get a good look at the guy who punted me, too bad because I was really itching to say hi.

Anyway, the winning break goes in the first lap as it always does, and I'm not in it. Here's where things start to get ugly. The little green beer dudes have a guy in the break (coincidentally, someone I complained about extensively last week...) so they're not doing squat. That's cool, I can dig that but then as a small group of us start chasing, a couple of these dorks decide to fly around us and sit up. We go around and they come hauling around into the wind, get in front of us and stop pedalling. This pisses me off. If your dude is in the break, go sit in the back, don't race like a bunch of cat. 4's and "block" me. After a while I got tired of A: being one of 3 people chasing in a 50 rider bunch (come on, you don't all have guys up there...) and B: The beginner guerrilla tactics of these dorks, so I go stew in the very back of the field.

This turns out to be a good decision for once, because right in the middle, just where I would usually hang out, the group detonates in tangled limbs and bike parts all over the road. Maybe 10 people or so end up in this fracas, but fortunately I saw it coming in slow-motion, so I roll around. Later I find that Curryboy pulled the second Manuever Of The Day. One of those "putting a wrapper in the back pocket while wheel overlaps" deals. Tough breaks, Curry In a Hurry loses a bunch of skin and might or might not have broken his hand (won't go get it x-rayed) but seems okay aside from that. The crash also significantly reduced the number of green dudes in the field. Bummer they had to go out that way.

So long story short, the winds continue blowing at about a thousand miles an hour across this flat, square course, so I drop the hammer in the crosswinds with one other guy and we split the field a few times and the group gets broken down from 40 post-crash to about 12. Bonus.

I pay for it later, as I feel impending doom in the form of massive quad cramps coming on 3 laps from the finish line. Damn the man. This continues for the rest of the race, eventually developing into muscle sieze every time out of the saddle. 200m from the line I deeply regret my earlier efforts and 50m from the line, within sight of winning the group sprint both legs go into full catastrophic lock and my feet stop going around. This is the kind of cramp that feels like someone simultaneously slices all the tendons connecting your quads to your knees AND shoves baseball bats in your spokes. Two days later I can still feel it. Damn. DT

Bannana Belt 3: Lemming Parade

I have many weapons in the quest to conquer Bannana Belt, that dreaded first race of the US season. This year I attacked with a potent mixture of two weeks of illness and a lack of enthusiasm. The results were un-fantastic, as expected. If nothing else, these three Sundays of furious pageantry make for amazing entertainment, like hanging out in front of the chimp cage at the zoo, waiting for the inevitable crap-tossing fights and spontaneous masturbation.

Remember that game Lemmings? If you've never played Lemmings, you're missing a huge chunk of videogame history. Lemmings is right up there with Pac-Man on the list of all-time classic games... Anyway. The point of the game was to find a way to get a large group of brainless green midgets out of a tricky situation. Lemmings couldn't be counted on to offer any help or great ideas, because (just like the real thing) all they could do was toddle around and walk off cliffs. It was both supremely frustrating and endlessly entertaining.

Cut to the first lap, 11 miles of rolling lakeside roads. I'm feeling like crap on wheels, but it's a sprint lap, sprinters are getting twitchy, and by habit I roll into a nice position close to the front. Bummer deal is, a group of 3 is just off the front of the field, so without considering consequences(thinking is for sissies) I blast out of the field with a K to go and catch the group. It's way too long to go, but choices are few, so instead of slowing down to sprint off the break, I keep up the rediculous effort and attack them as well. Now I see the green guy... He's small, and really green, I've dragged him all this way and now he's gonna try to pass me. Damn the man, I think, and struggle to the line. 20 meters past the line he rolls up and says something about how I suck because I can't ride straight, so naturally I tell him to get f*#ed. I couldn't catch the rest that he fumed through clenched teeth, I think he was a bit upset that I wasn't respecting his authority as a member of the Seattle racing community... oh well...

SO. Jump forward to the next sprint I find myself tangled in, and we happen to be in an identical position: Me bearing down on three guys at a comfortable speed with a good distance between myself and the finish, with a little green shadow glued to my rear wheel.

I have to wonder, how well is he glued there?

How well is he paying attention?

What if I yank the e-brake right... NOW!

And I did. In mid sprint, in a great position and for no good reason at all, as soon as I recognize my shadow and run the previous questions through my head a few times, I abruptly stop pedalling and hear a satisfying flurry of swearing and insults mixed with that great sound of carbon brake-pad squeal. To my credit I never touched my brakes. Just keeping you on your toes, little lemming.

So I pretty much got the cold shoulder from the rest of the Seattle lemmings after that, which was nice. If only I could get another green guy to shut up... He's on a different team that looks exactly the same, and apparently he's really smart, he's wicked fast, he's not even trying right now and he knows exactly what to do in any situation because he's "been around the block." Yeah that's right folks, here comes another former pro, watch out. Apparently one and a half seasons with the worst pro team on the continent entitles you to a king-like status that most of us could only dream of. This guy doesn't seem to get it. Some pros retire because they feel fulfilled with thier results and they're ready to move on, while others get fired because they AREN'T GOOD ENOUGH. Being a pro once doesn't make you cool and it sure as shit doesn't mean that everyone wants to hear you flap your jaw at us for three hours. Seriously. Those 8 year old pro team socks you still wear? Doesn't mean you're not irritating.

Such is the joy of the season's opener. New uniforms, shiny new bikes, a couple new faces and the same jackasses that just keep showing up... What a way to spend a sunday. More fun than TV and a hundred times more dangerous. DT

Newsflash, Newsflash, and Thank You Captain Obvious

Things around here at Voodoo Madness have been quiet lately, and questions have been raised.

Will this strange experiment continue?

Was it all worth it?

What does it mean?

Question one is inevitably yes... of course it continues. As long as there is Evil and Madness in the world to document and describe, sure. Why not? Bike racing continues uninhibited despite the change of hemisphere, as does life. As for the other two questions, well, no one's keeping score.

Back in the groove to be sure, not a week has passed in the country and I've gained employement. Damn. I tried and failed for months this fall, on the hunt for anything short of burger-flipping. Failure at every turn. And now, in this unusual spring, I get one reccomendation, one psuedo-interview and it's bike-shop paydirt for yours truly. The downside to this (or the upside, depending on who you are) is that combined with university duties and training, spare time won't be so abundant, which will cut down on the blogging. Bummer, yay, whatever.

BIG NEWS... Apparently scientists at Harvard or Yale or somewhere equally prestigious and haughty have discovered after YEARS of research that "laughter can help ease the stress of everyday life." Seriously. That's what they discovered. Wait. Wait... Wait... So you're saying that... Hang on... Let me wrap my head around this one.... So you're saying that laughter... makes you happy? Wait... no it can't be that stupidly simple can it? Or...

This is what happens when proffessors at expensive schools get piles of grant money and spend it all on psychedelic drugs and cars.

"Oh shit, Sam! Our study is due tommorow! Oh crap I forgot all about it, what are we gonna do?"
"Uuuhhmm... Wait... Wait.. I got it. Tell them we did some clinical, double blind, six-month, triple anaesthetic test that proves that laughing makes you happy or something."
"Yeah, yeah. If we just use enough technical jibber-jabber they won't think we spent all our money on weed and Volvos!"
"Yeah..."
"Yeah...."

Oh man, and the Circus of Nincompoops continues. The president is now ticked off at the AARP because they DARED to be kinda upset that Bush is dismantling Social Security. Now that he's got the older demographic's vote for his second term, he's ready to steal thier retirement plans but HEY!! DON'T GET MAD AT ME!! I'll make you PAY!! ugghh..
At least some of us saw this coming.

"yeah we'll turn social security into... umm... something kinda like a savings account... actually kinda like your savings account... cause you'll have to save a lot before I drain social security.... which is tommorow when we go to War with (I mean spread liberty to) Iran ... "

Politics is messy. Politics under the most twisted administration my generation has ever seen is pretty scary stuff. Granted my generation hasn't see that many administrations, but I was born in the Reagan era... DT

Back In Portland, Chasing The Sun Around

After 24 hours of torture-chamber plane seats, idiot passengers and screaming babies, things are back to normal. Back at home, back riding on familiar roads, drinking familiar coffee. It's been an amazing southern hemisphere summer, and I have a lot of people to thank for that. And that means a bullet list (why not).

• Although my original housing arrangement at Andy's didn't work out, Andy and Peter were still great for making it available, and Andy was an awesome tourguide, part-time chauffer and general moral-booster for my time in Auckland.
• It'd be tough to completely thank the Starrs for everything they did. Walker for coming up with a place for me to stay on no notice, then driving me around and being a all-around stand-up good guy, his parents Rick and Nancy for accomodating me in every way they could, Tom for keeping things interesting and Rico for just being Rico.
• Brei and her family were also great, putting me up in my own room, carting me to races and being generaly cheery. Remember Saul, AMERICA!!! F#*@ YEAH!!! Also, if any of you ever need a team manager, I suggest Brei, she's quite the organizer.
• Scottie for setting me up with places to stay in Nelson and Invercargill, that part of the trip would've been much tougher (and not as cool) without help.
• My host families in Nelson and Invercargill were awesome. I'm convinced that hosting multiple bike racers is above and beyond the call of duty, and I wouldn't wish it on my greatest enemies.
• The fine people at Altezano coffee shop in Auckland, for they kept me alive...
• All the random people I met and hung out with... you were all very cool.
• Troy for being angry. Don't stop being angry Troy, don't stop.
• Jenny for all the emails and conversations (and still being there when I got back).
• Norrene for her support and patience.
• Last but certainly not least, my parents who gave me every opportunity I ever needed and made all this possible. They even suggested that I drop all my classes and go be a bum, how cool is that?

I missed people, I'm sure of it. It's going to bite at me for weeks, I just know somewhere out there someone is reading this going "dammit you ungratefull little..."

The Checks Are Your New Favorite Band

Tuesday night was to be the final full night in the Big Smoke, Auckland City. Once again plans never came to pass and 4 of us were left gathered on couches looking at each other. Looking at the TV. Looking at the paper. Thinking, hmmmm... What's happening on the first Tuesday that school's back in session?

Anything?

At 8:56 someone fishes a torn flyer from the bottom of a jacket pocket. The Checks and The Mint Chicks: Kings Arms Tavern, Tuesday night, 9:00. I caught the end of a great set by The Checks at a free outdoor concert a couple weeks ago and happen to have it on good word that the Mint Chicks blow minds with thier live shows, so into a car we pile and off to the show we go.
At top speed we reach the King's Arms across town in incredible time, just as The Checks are taking the stage. Here I feel comfortable. These last few months I've had a great time out with the lads, but the norm around these parts are polished dance clubs filled with Gucci-clad trust funders and annoying blond bimbos. If I wasn't with friends and comfortable with my lack of dance skills, the whole Auckland scene would be depressing. As it is, I tend to feel out of place in a Clash t-shirt and jeans when surrounded by people dripping with money. So when we walk into the tiny, slightly grimy Kings Arms I begin to feel much better. I'm not so out of place in my Portland gear and shaved head. Things are looking up. The amps click on, guitars plug in and the last night in Auckland is underway.

I have this feeling about The Checks. I realized halfway through the first song that it would be criminal... absolutely criminal if these guys don't find some level of success in the States and beyond. Imagine the lovechild of Jet and Franz Ferdinand, then give them the balls of AC/DC, the stagecraft of The Rolling Stones and the boundless energy of The Hives, there you have The Checks. Very well crafted songs, but beyond that, these guys realy Feel It. They get rolling and the whole crowd can Feel It, because that's the kind of energy they put through the amps. The singer dances and freaks all over himself while the guitarists compete in some kind of unjudged dance battle, all the while the lead guitar is absolutely WAILING on 5 strings, broken steel be damned, with some kind of Detroit Rock City face-melting solo that would make Jack Black break down and weep. To make things worse, these guys are my age. Damn. The Checks. Remember that.

The only minus was the shortness of the set, maybe half an hour and they were out. Just enough to get the crowd frothy and amped and out the door they go to make way for the Mint Chicks.

Wasn't sure what to think when 4 guys in matching gold vinyl jackets strolled on stage. I guess I was expecting, well, chicks. To say that they launched into thier set is a blatant understatement. From the word go (there actually wasn't time for the word go, it was just ZANG!! and they're off) I was floored. If you can't get amped and crazy with the Mint Chicks on stage, you're too old or too sad, it's hopeless and you should give up. This is a new kind of spaztic energy, a bizzare hour and a half uncompromising freakout of four guys who really want to knock your socks off and know exactly how to get it done. They're not angry. They're not mean. They just play extremely fast with the amps turned up to 11, and they're not slowing down for anybody. This isn't punk or metal, it's rock for robots who like to drive real fast and break things. It's a minute of maximum effort and then a heart-stopping pause before launching right back to a bazillion miles an hour. I think everyone in the Kings Arms lost it for a while, went completely off the scales with the singer as he thrashed around with us, threatening to never stop and never slow down until one of us keeled over from a heart attack or plain exhastion. When they finally ran out of songs, unplugged and dissapeared, I was a bit lost. No one knew how much time had gone by, it was just a fizzing sea of excited people, dripping sweat and ready for a big glass of water. The Mint Chicks are musical Danger... in matching gold jackets.

Like I said before, I think the Checks will make it. I think they'll get big and a handfull of us will be able to say "yeah I was there, I saw them back in the day." I think they have the musical talent and the showmanship to go big. The Mint Chicks will always have a special place in my heart, and they could certainly make it to the States, but they're too uncompromising. Too off in thier own psychotic world for commercial success. The Checks are musical meat and potatoes, The Mint Chicks are crack and cheez-whiz. Simple as that.

Great night, great show, full of danger and intrigue. A great exclamation point on an already excellent trip. A fitting end. DT


p.s. go here now http://felbers.net/mt/ or else...

Unfocused Brainwaves... Early Morning Farewell Part II

I looked at my camera today and saw that I haven't really taken that many pictures. I have over a hundred random shots of faces, landscapes and cities, but there are so many gaps, so many things I'm not going to be able to show people back home because I either didn't have the camera, or was too busy to get a picture.

Take Nelson for example. Amazing area, ringed with mountains and beaches, very picturesque. However. I was on a mission. A mission of four-day survival. My routine (aside from new years) was get up, drink mad amounts of coffee, eat, spend the day racing and riding, eat again, watch the news and go to sleep. Rinse and repeat. I was so tired most of the time it would have been an enormous effort just to leave the house. I saw some amazing things out on the courses, but it would have been a little odd to sit up in mid-gasp, reach into my back pocket and snap a lovely photo at 80k an hour screaming down some twisty descent. Ah well.

Wanganui is mostly my fault. I have very few pictures from Wanga-Vegas because I left rather suddenly. Opportunity called, Auckland racing and training was to be done, so I jetted almost without warning one day, much earlier than I had previously planned. Plus my batteries died. The one day that I did go out with my camera, I only got of a few shots on the way to the beach before it decided to call it an early day. For shizzle.

I guess the big picture (pardon the chauncey-ism) is that I was too busy just being here to worry about cameras. Things to do and places to go. People to see. Rides to ride and food to eat. And on that note this summer/winter was incredible.

I spent the coldest months of the year, (months I'm usually unmotivated to ride and bogged down in school) racing and riding in shorts and a jersey. I wore armwarmer and legwarmers maybe 4 times: warming up for races in Invercargill, the bottom of the world. I can't say that I've ever overtrained myself before this year, but I was rotten and injured by the end of January after 2 months of solid racing. You know what they say, you never know where the line is untill you've gone over it. That set me back by a few weeks, but I'm not worried. August is a long way away, and one of the biggest things I figured out this trip was one of the simplest lessons of them all. How to be a bike racer. How to get up every day and go training. Every day. Without fail. Lack of motivation and New Years's partying be damned, time to go. I've always had some excuse to not go training, whether it was school, work, weather, being tired from school or work, etc. These last few months I haven't had any of those available, and I feel better than I ever have on a bike. The challenge is going to be carrying that work ethic over into April when I go back to work and school.

For now I'm just thinking short term. Get packed, go ride, bask in a last day of sunshine, get to the airport on time, get home, get unpacked, back to racing on Sunday. The story never ends for an adolescent-minded adult like myself. On to the next day, making some kind of progress toward idealist ambitions like professional athletics, rock star journalism, or who knows what else. I'm not worried, just packing and enjoying the day. DT

Goodbye to Piha

It's one of those Saturdays where the sky streteches coast to coast like a big blue perfect dome, and it's time to ride once again. This Saturday's a rest day, a day that I'm supposed to take easy, drink coffee and roll around for an hour or so.

Ten minutes into the ride I get hungry. I realize, hey, I haven't eaten anything yet today. SO. To the coffee shop I go.

Double flat white and an eggs benedict later a couple of local rider-types I know from races show up, drink coffee with me and chat about bike related things. When they suggest "you want to come with us?" it's a bit of a dilemma. I'd really like to ride on my own today. I'd really like to take it easy. But.... I'm not Weak... am I? Of course not, I'll go.

Four hours later I'm getting agitated. My inner self (that annoying little dork) says "dammit I'm tired, this is not what I was counting on... you tricked me." I'm on my way home, a mere hour from the couch and a PB and J sandwich, but it still feels like the world is trying to punish me. Someone (a big someone) is telling me what I can do with my impulsive nature. Long story short, my one hour easy spin turns into 5 hours of Training. BUT... Things can only get better from here...

And they do. The call comes through just after I'm home and soon after the old stationwagon full of rowdy bike racers pulls up to the curb. I'm still a little shot from the morning and pretty uncomfortable, smashed in the backseat of this againg Audi for what seems like forever. Out the windows the suburbs give way to unstoppable uninterupted green, and now I know where we're headed. Smiles all around, Piha is a few minutes away.
By 4:00 we're standing on the beach while the whitewashed sounds of Salmonella Dub (a fine NZ electro/ska/reggae act) wash over myself, my mates and a lazilly dancing crowd of several hundred. This beach we're taking over, it's the beach you see in dreams of sunny paradise. It's banked on all sides by palm and jungled hills, the Waitakere Ranges. Lion Rock stands tall just barely off shore like a hundred story tower of birds and stone. This is a place that is obviously a mission to get to. 45 minutes of driving through twisted, scary jungle roads keeps the beachgoing population well below California levels, but more striking is the surrounding valleys. Every direction your head turns, it's gorgeous. It's deep green, sand or sky blue. Even the light shorebreak waves, a perfect sky blue. Palm trees and deep ferns sway just off the beach in a light offshore breeze. Salmonella Dub has thier soundstacks pointed right out into the ocean, so we go from saltwater swims to sundried daydreams under the influence of basslines and soaring trumpets.

Another afternoon melts into lazy evening on a postcard beach, and by now I feel like I haven't ridden for weeks. Legs feel like new, lungs feel like new, brain fires at an alarming rate. Drifting in and out of sleep reclined on a driftwood log, I half people-watch, half panic. Everything familiar seems far away, as it is, and it's all at once unsettling and comfortable. I didn't know these people 3 months ago, and now they treat my like I've been here all along. I'm completely out of place, but this enormous city feels like a second home. Makes no sense, but I'm getting used to it. Just as I start packing to come home, I'm getting used to it. I'll be back at Piha someday, I'm sure of that. Only a matter of time, but Goodbye For Now, my new favorite beach. Farewell Piha, I'll miss you.

Wild Twillight Zone Happenings At Incredible Velocity

So I was checking my flight times today and found something pretty sweet. I'm flying back in time. Ever had one of those days where you go "GAWD! I just wish I could have the last couple hours of my life back!!"

I can say that on Wednesday, and it'll HAPPEN. Yes, folks that's right, I'm flying into some crazy twillight-zone vortex that allows me to leave Auckland at 10:30pm on Wednesday the 2nd, and arrive in Los Angeles at 1:25pm on Wednesday the 2nd... Sweet. International time-zones? What? Don't wreck the party, it's a International Time Warp.

What do you do in a situation like that? We're not just talking about numbers on a spinning plate here, people. What happens when we see a backwards sunset over the Pacific? Chasing down the sunset like a beast, passing it like it's standing still, then watching it catch up and fall over Los Angeles like a wasted deer with a broken back? Will some crazy beatnick hippy's head explode from some kind of awful time-thought overload? What happens when a couple hundred people in the grips of free chardonnay and warm cordon-blue entrees hurtle through near-space at a bazillion miles an hour into the past?

What's the solution? Granted, a majority of people won't give it the slightest thought, but some of us are a little easier to frazzle. So what do we do here? Simple actually:

747 TIME WARP DANCE PARTY.

That's it right there, that's the secret. You're looking at thirteen hours inside a metal tube, what else are you going to do? Read Sky Mall? Watch some evil crap like Spy Kids 2? Think about the wierdness of travelling through time untill your brain blows out of your ears? No way. It's party time. Midnight O clock, just let me hook up my iPod to the intercom systems, turn off that stupid seatbelt sign and get down with your bad self, because we're travelling through time at incredible speeds, and how often do you get to do that? DT

Fruit Golf, Sport of Champions

NEW SPORT ALERT. Fruit Golf. Who's game?

Fruit Golf was born on the tail-end of the summer in the guise of Rest Day Activity. Necessity is the mother of invention, and boredom is the mother of stupidity. And fruit golf. This is what happens when international bike bums take a day off. Rules as follows:

First. Gather a group of people who don't play golf. Real athletes work best for this. Athletes tend to be rediculously competetive and completely unskilled save for thier chosen sport.

Second. Start the grill. Large one if possible.

Third. Gather all the old fruit and vegetables that won't be missed, also taking care to empty the refrigerator and the freezer of any meat and frosty beverages.

Fourth. Meat goes on the grill, fruit goes in the yard. Enjoy a frosty beverage.

Fifth. Yard must have at least one wall of vegetation (or other similarly solid thing) at least 10 feet high. That's three meters or so for all you metric-inclined geniuses.

Sixth. Obtain a golf club and eye protection. Irons are best, go for the 5 or 6 if possible. Mirrored aviators are also key.

Seventh. As Mel Gibson said in some lame M. Night Shalamalam movie about aliens: Swing away. Shots are judged on shrapnel accuracy, shrapnel size, shrapnel distance, and swing style. If you look like Tiger back when he won stuff, more points to you. If you look like some spaztic crackhead with a metal stick (like most of us do), that's negative points. Old avocados are the cornerstone of the sport, as when struck by a 5 iron they burst into a million green peices, covering everything (and everyone) within a 30 foot radius, while the pit continues toward the wall of vegetation, acting as the perfect marker for accuracy.

Eight...th. Eat as much as possible, talk about who's faster and who plays better fruit golf, enjoy a frosty beverage.

Ninth. It's getting dark, so scour for more fruit, play another round and argue about who won over more food and frosty beverages. If negotiations fail, resort to hand-to-hand combat.

UNRELATED SIDE NOTE: In future Winter Olympic figure skating judging fiascos, I say let them duke it out. Figure skaters are built kinda like bike racers (that's sad for us), and bike racers are seemingly incapable of actually hurting each other without weapons (or bikes). Skaters have similar upper-body strength, so why not? What's the worst that could happen? What could possibly go wrong? DT

Dr. Gonzo, Down and Out In Aspen

"My life has been the polar opposite of safe, but I am proud of it and so is my son, and that is good enough for me. I would do it all over again without changing the beat, although I have never reccomended it to others. That would be cruel and irresponsible and wrong, I think, and I am none of those things.
Whoops, that's it, folks. We are out of time. Sorry. Mahalo. " -Hunter S Thompson

Last published words of the first and only Gonzo Journalist. Eerily enough these were the words I read not two hours before learning of the death of Hunter S. Thompson. Last night in his Aspen compound, Thompson put an abrupt period on the most brutally crazed life and career in modern writing. According to his son Juan, Dr. Thompson fatally shot himself. Age 65.

If you're looking for cycling news, or comments life on the other side of the planet, you won't find it today. An influential person in my life died tonight, so this rant is all literary snarl and babble. I'll be back to my normal self later, but tonight it's story time.

I first picked up a copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas at the tender age of 16. This was about the time that I discovered Fight Club by Chuck Pahlaniuk (thanks mom) and these two books had a major impact. Immediately. At the time I was struggling with the idea that I wasn't good at anything. Too small for football. Not smart (or patient enough) for Math or Science. Music? No good. Painting? Worthless. Drawing? Just as pathetic. Writing? Well, I can't write like Stienbeck or Kingsolver (nor do I want to), and newspaper writing is dry and boring so looks like that's out as well. Right?

Enter Pahlaniuk and Thompson. What initially struck me about thier work was the subject matter. Any 16 year-old suburbian rat would get jacked about the up-front, no-bullshit, uncensored manner that these guys talked about drugs, violence and sex, those taboo of taboo subjects to a pubescent lad. "This stuff is better than an R rated movie! It's so graphic!" Then, halfway through Fear and Loathing I suddenly Got It. The drugs and violence might have got me interested, but what kept it mind-blowing was the style these guys had. The way they wrote, not just what they wrote about. They didn't need "outlines" or "acts" or "proper structures." They wrote like they thought, at a million miles an hour. You had to keep up or get f&#ed, these guys weren't teaching to the bottom of the class and I loved it. I started to really enjoy writing for English assignments, purely to see how far I could push myself. I found my voice, and I spent the rest of High School seeing how hard I could write without getting failed, and it payed off. By the end of Sophomore year I could ace every single essay without fail and practically without thought. By my Junior year creative assignments and short stories became these sprawling creatures jammed out in a couple of hours the morning of the due dates, pure train of thought. Final drafts were edited down to a manageable 13 pages or so. I spent all class periods writing in cheap $1 notebooks, filling volume after volume with whatever and ever, amen. This did little for my grades, but wonders for my head.

I went on to read The Rum Diary, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail and (more recently) Kingdom of Fear. I re-read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas several times, and polished off Pahlaniuk's entire collection, moving on to Keroac, Leary and on and on. This isn't to say these were the only things I read. I would regularly be going through 3 books at a time (thanks ADD), usually instead of homework. You can have your Friends reruns and your Survivor. I'll hang out with Christopher Moore, Tim Robbins, Nick Hornby, Dave Eggers and Dr. Gonzo himself. So when it came time for my high-school counselor to ask me what I wanted to major in (assuming I made it into a University), I barely hesitated before saying "journalism." Like I'd do anything else. I passed my math classes by a thread (and by cheating). Science wasn't much better. I wasn't motivated enough to sell stuff I didn't care about, so business was out. I like writing, it's my thing, and I can largely thank HST for that.

Say what you want about his books glorifying reckless behavior, drug culture and general lawlessness. You're mostly right. To me, however, he wasn't babbling on about drugs (well, not entirely anyway), he was trying to extend what Keroac and the beat poets were hinting at. He was trying to find that free, open lifestyle of "life as it comes to you." Enjoying the moment. He was living the most he possibly could, and he didn't like the idea of being held back by authority figures and social rules. Scratch that. He loved rules, he just loved to break them, that's how he felt alive. Kept jumping out from around corners yelling "DOES THIS FREAK YOU OUT?!?" Kept telling The Man to shove it and kept going with his own flow. I certainly wouldn't choose his path, but for this basic philosophy I can at least respect him.

Hunter S Thompson didn't single-handedly change journalism (like he might claim), but he certainly did influence many a writer. I enjoyed his stuff. Still do. If I become "a writer" I'll be able to list him near the top of my influences. And that's really the point. His articles in Rolling Stone (which I ended up reading from archives 20 years after they were published) and Fear and Loathing on The Campaign Trail turned me on to journalism as Art, not just Formula.

I can't say that I'm surprised that he's dead. It's like your ancient great-great aunt finally passing away: you know it had to happen sooner or later, it's just the finality of the thing that's heavy. It's more of a surprise that his drug-addled body lasted as long as it did. Who knows how long he would have gone if he hadn't pulled the plug himself? That's something that was always consistent in his books, that question, "how long can we go like this, how long can we maintain?" Now you know. No matter how strong the body is, if the brain can't hold out, the whole thing goes down the crapper. Simple as that.

"If the greatest mania of all is passion: and if I am a natural slave to passion: and if the balance between my brain and my soul and my body is as wild and delicate as the skin of a Ming vase-
Well, that explains a lot of things, doesn't it?" -HST from Kingdom of Fear

Ok, I feel much better now. Cheers, Hunter. Your legacy's safe with us. Mahalo. DT

Friday Night Fights

Oh it's Friday night again, it's time for track racing fever, chaos on a concrete oval. Tonight's schedule of events is a beautiful thing, with Kierins and a 3 lap handicap to keep us fast-twitch freaks happy. Tim Gudsell and Peter Latham (NZ team pursuit olympians) decided to come up to dirty-old Manukau for some quality racing before they bust off to the World Championships, so the pre-race whispers and chatter was all Tim and Pete madness.

What gears are they on? What training did they do today? Are they fresh or tired? Will they sneak around and win everything or just go out for a workout? What's the status? What's the plan?

Fortunately Walker and I didn't have to sit through any of that teeth-chattering and senseless blather because 20 minutes before the races started we were still sitting on the parking-lot/freeway. Like I said before, warmups are for sissies, and it's a good thing we're not sissies, because we arrived at the track as our Kierin heats were lining up. Awesome. No problem, I'll just warm up behind the motor during the first 4 laps.
And I did.
It was sweet.
After the motor pulled off I picked a killer spot on 3rd wheel, waited for people to get tired and jetted around on the blue line to secure my spot in the Big Man Final.

Then I almost puked.
It was sweet.

NEXT UP. Elimination. I can never get the same result twice when it comes to these puppies. I can win one on day A and get dead last on day B against the same people. Chalk it up to inexperience, bad luck or stupidity (most likely), either way this one wasn't pretty. We started with a rediculous amount of people and by the time I got punked there was still quite a few, so whatever. Damn the Man.

And then.. Handicap time. Handicaps are kinda lame but I seem to do pretty well at them, so yippee ki-yay for that. Once again I benifit from looking ass-tired and hairy-legged and I don't have to ride on scratch. Yessss... I was close enough to scratch (and my start was bad enough) that the back-markers caught within about a half a lap with 2 to go, so I hit the panic button, threw down some power, rolled up next to Wacky Walker (who was leading out the final dash like a dog with it's ass on fire), pulled a sweet stall manuever on Adam Coker (big-legged sprinter guy.... we're not the best of friends) and waltzed into the final with Starr Child.

The final included some guys with over-developed quads as well as the two wee little Orange lads, the previously mentioned T&P and a bunch of other rider guys. It was hard. It was chaotic. I don't remember much aside from the thought "pedal harder." Eventually I also had the thought "Holy crap I'm gonna win" as I went for the money from about 5 back in the last lap, but got stalled and downright out-powered by two big boys of the toestrap and 11 second 200m variety. Bummer deal but beating T&P was good for the ego.

Couple minutes of breathless heaving and shivering went by and we rode back to the line for the last Kierin of the night. This would be another Big Guys vs. little Orange Guys affair, with Walker the Stalker and I drawing 1 and 2. Walker took the initiative and led it out, and I made the excellent decision of getting put in an inescapable box by some sasquatch on a scarily creaky bike. Then more big bastards went streaming over the top of Sasquatch boy and the final sprint went off without me, leaving me with power to spare and a head full of adrenalized fustration.

DAMN THE MAN!!! I bellowed.

A decent night indeed, a few dollars in the pocket and another day of training in the books. All the way home I thrashed around in my seatbelted confines, yelling about kierins and sasquatches. I was ready to fight someone right there and then... Come on man, pull the car over, I'll do it, I will! That guy right there, he's mine, he'll never know what hit him! 120k an hour back into town to a blazing soundtrack of endorphins and 80s electro, I was ready for action. Ready for whatever was bound to happen, whatever mission was left in these last few days of summer abroad. Calming slightly, I cleared up to the fact that my mission was tommorow, tonight's goal just steak and sleep because tommorow my mission is to make sure that come Northern Hemisphere summer I don't get out-powered or out-done. . . DT

Another Reason Not To Watch The Olympics

Everyone looks forward to the Olympics. The fanfare, the chest-thumping, the accidents and the women's beach volleyball... oh the beach volleyball... Right. Anyway. Sure, the Olympics are great but the last few have been absolute crap and a half and we can put the blame square on the shoulders of NBC. Those bastards. They're ruining everyone's favorite sporting event with more commercials and more 'warm and fuzzy' athlete bios than actual SPORTS COVERAGE. It's rediculous. There are pre-event analysis shows, post-event analysis shows, intermission analysis shows, specials on Olaf Tonkle the Belarussian dead-lifter, who came back to competition fro a tragic shaving accident last week, too many talking heads, and hours and hours of The Man trying to sell you Coke and McDonalds.

Because of all this very important analysis and hawking, any event that isn't a high scool sport gets pushed to the 3am spot for 10 minutes of highlights (like cycling). Because of this, cyclists haven't really been captivated by the Olympics quite as much as runners and beach volleyball players.

It's only getting worse.

Because we need room for all those commercials and analysis, the IOC seems to think that in order to add a sport (like BMX), they need to chop a huge part of the track cycling. Hope you enjoyed the points race, because word is, it's going down the tubes. It's been an ugly rumour since Athens, and now it's being reported in more and more news organizations. The announcement is supposed to be made after Worlds, and after that all the endurance trackies will have is pursuit and team pursuit for Olympic glory. Granted this is great for BMX, but this is a huge setback for track cycling, and one that I don't understand in the least. At the recent LA World Cup, the reports from the velodrome said the crowd was going nuts through the entire points race because Colby looked like he could win it. Every sprint, the crowd would be loosing it, pounding on stuff, yelling like banshees, and yet the IOC says that the points race is "too confusing." If it's too confusing, why not put the scratch race in it's place? First accross the line wins, how hard is that?

Seems to me that track racing is at an important crossroads. It's gaining in popularity, some stars are making themselves known, and if the ruling bodies do something about it then the sport grows. If they ignore it, track racing continues on its downward slide, and we loose one of the most exciting (and spectator-friendly) disciplines in the sport. Just seems to me that certain parties could make a fair chunk of change on track racing at the elite level, but no one's biting. Oh well. Guess I won't be a points racer then... Scratch that ambition... DT

Cricket Worship and The Ethics of A Night Out In the Big City

As this mad international summer/winter comes to a close I can't stop learning new things about this place, like a kid who won't go inside when his mom calls for dinner, just keeps turning over rocks looking for bugs. One of the more intersting things I've noticed recently is the way Kiwis treat thier sports stars.

Downtown Auckland after 10 lights up with nightclubs and corner-pubs pumping music and throwing people all over town. Hanging out in one such establishment with the boys one night, I couldn't help but notice a couple of big 6 foot plus dudes who looked very familiar. Are those guys in a movie I saw somewhere? Maybe in some band of unusually tall people? Maybe on the TV... wait... thats IT! Daniel Vettori and Kyle Mills were here, enjoying thier Friday night and a few frosty beverages.

For an explanationof why this is cool I'll need to go back a few months to where I mentioned that Cricket is a very popular sport here. I didn't like it at first, mainly because I didn't understand it. It takes some watching, but once you get to the rules it's pretty cool. Beats the snot out of baseball and basketball with an extra-large wicket. ANYWAY. The Black Caps are NewZealand's national team. The best of the best, and everybody knows them. These guys played a charity match against the World 11 (can you guess it?!? that's RIGHT! Best 11 in the world, ding ding!) and completely smashed them. It was all over the news, very big stuff, very exciting to watch. I watched all three games, all three hours with Breezy's brother Saul, cheering for the hometeam like a crazyperson. Daniel Vettori and Kyle Mills are two of the star bowlers (like pitchers in a baseball game) who played a huge part in winning the series. This is like if Kobe Bryant and Nolan Ryan were hanging out in the local pub in the States. They'd get mobbed.

People watch these guys all summer, buy jerseys with thier names on them, pretend to be them in pickup matches... Vettori in particular is a recognizable guy with his trademark curly frosted hair and snazzy glasses. Mills is easy to pick out because he's huge and a little neanderthal-ish. Everyone knows who they are, but no one mobs them. They're allowed to just be people. Granted a couple girls run up and take pictures (mostly with Vettori, he seems to be a bit of a hearthrob), one guy went for an autographed napkin, but there wasn't the type of star worship you might see in America where someone suddenly yells "HEY, THAT'S BENICIO DEL TORO!!" and everone pounces.

Maybe they just don't realize... Hmm... I leaned over to a couple of people who were minding thier own business and said "hey, isn't that.."
"yup."
"Oh.. cool."
"So do you watch cricket then?"
"Yeah, man. Mills is a killer, did you see how in the World 11 match how he..."

Not three days later, riding down the road with Walker, we see a couple runners jogging through downtown Newmarket past crowds of people.
"You know who that was?" he asks as we ride past.
"Elvis?"
"Nope, Hamish Carter."
That's right. Hamish Carter, Olympic gold medallist in the triathlon, an absolute hero around here, a guy people see literally every day on TV commercials and print ads, can run in peace through town like he's just another guy. Once again, I find it hard to believe that locals don't recognize him when Walker can pick him out of a group while casually glancing in his direction at 20 mph.

I dig this. This is cool. Star worship gets on my nerves and tends to turn famous people into unappreciative hermits, so seing a place where they are treated like human beings instead of circus freaks is kind of comforting. Still. I really wanted to ask Vettori, "So, what's a wicket again?"

But that would be uncool. I don't want to be uncool. Do you? DT

228 Madness... No, YOU Calm Down!

Say what you want about the great advantage the internet and technology are to our culture, computers can be retarded sometimes. I just typed up a STUNNING update on racing and training and the status of my tan lines, then the computer goes "I'm confused" and refuses to go any further.

Oh, snap.

Now it's late. I'm hungry. I'll summarize.

RACING with a capital R is going as good as can be expected in such a situation. I'm still pretty out of shape, while everyone else in the country has Nationals in 3 weeks. And yet I'm doing all right, sweet-as. The Cyco crit was last thursday (otherwise known as the Auckland Cycle-Slaughterama) and I had a pretty good ride. Instead of feeling like my chest was about to explode like last time, I felt comfortable. Relaxed. Too cool for school. At one point I even made the wicked manuever of attacking the field with a lap to go to a prime, crossed the gap just before the last corner and outsprinted the break. Nice. My problem with the finish was position, as I ended up on the front with 400m to go. I hate that. So I shoved it in gear, hit the gas, gapped the field, thought I was going to make it, then the legs said "nope" and blew all over the road with about 50m to go. Finished 6th or so. The other big "yay" was not dying in a horrific accident caused by A: the cars parked on the outside exit of one of the corners or B: the concrete median that pops up mid-way through the last corner. All in all a decent day capped by a new max heart rate (228... ouch) and a painfull ride home.

Now for the art of Spectation. The Auckland track champs were this weekend, and as it is thier qualifier for Nationals, I decided not to interfere, opting for long rides and some crazed yelling instead. It didn't help that I didn't know about it until the deadline for entries had past, but I probably would have gone for the crazed yelling thing rides anyway...
First off, Andy Small is a unit. He's an animal with a capital A. This cat hasn't been riding for a couple weeks and has been working like a madman to make the big dollars. We're talking construction in the day and table-waiting at night. Big stuff. So Andy decides he's going to race, throws on a MASSIVE gear for the points race and just rolls it like he's been training like a crazyman.
As he said afterwards, "The energy's out there, you just have to find it.... Write that down."
Richard Bowker (Titch, Titchillini, Richardo) looks like a real life bike racer or something in his NZ skinsuit and white carbon bike, and proceeds to win it in a real nail-biter of a last sprint. Quality stuff.
For the Madison Madness the dynamic duo of Walker Starr and Andy Small kit up in Orange and head to the line in style. The first half they get a few second places and stay in there while Bowker wins a bunch of sprints, then in the second half Walker decideds he's pissed and he's not gonna take it anymore, and completely demolishes all challengers in the last few sprints. Andy spent the whole time chasing down World Cup riders and National champs like they were cat 4 punters (must've been the skinsuit). In the end they end up second, Bowker barely wins again and it's on to the Scratch race, where Andy once again chases down everyone and rides like a unit while Walker throws down a sweet attack, then suffers heavily on account of the bruiser gear (95ish i think) that he slapped on.

Meanwhile I rode to the track and screamed my guts out, ate hotdogs and worked on my tanlines (which are looking excellent, thank you very much). Couple more Thursday Cycle-Slaughteramas to go and it's back on the plane, back to Portland, rain, friends and family, too many Starbucks, Bannana Belts and Pieces of Cake. DT

Night Creatures

With a weekend of heavy riding ahead, this Friday night in town will be tame by any standard, but a Friday Night nonetheless. Some friend of a friend is hosting a costume party at some shwanky dance spot, and we're not to arrive at Vanilla without a "duo" costume. Fine. Smart young lads we are, we throw on jeans, jackets and aviators and it's out the door into rain-glittered streets.

Drinks on tap this evening are ice water or Coke, but the creature inside you still comes out. It can't be stopped, it's not negotiable, it's your inner imp-child.
What's you're trigger?
A song from Thriller blasting through the room? The lasers and pulses hitting right on time to Prince's maniacal wail? The Afro-ed, the wigged, the cowboys and indians churning into your memory? Minds shut down and creatures come through, and before you can say "the night's on fire" the floor is ours, we're tearing this place apart with moves and crazy life you've never seen. Air conditioning and open windows don't help because the night isn't on fire, you are. You have no control over your feet, over your golden legs; for a few short hours you loose it all completely. Alas, lateness happens. "Morning" is still a way off, but sunrise a mere 3 hours from now. The bike racer inside overrules the manic creature and it's like Prince says, "Parties aren't meant to last." And just like that it's on to Foodtown.

Foodtown never closes. 24 hours flourescent, these aisles never sleep, they never go dark. So any hour of the night we roam. Fighting alchoholic haze or tonight's sober restlesness we travel these aisles, searching. We search for opportunity, for open containers, unintended samples of wares we wouldnt buy; for lost souls and midnight vultures. Every night worth living in Auckland gives Foodtown its shot at glory, fame and usefullness. If you keep it open we will come. We pass hair dye and skateboards, peaches, wine and racks of magazines. Maybe this one is the one youve been looking for all along, this deodorant/shaving cream/boxer shorts value pack. Open it up, see what's inside. It's a mad search, a carefull trawl for specials and sales. 3 dollar pack of fake crab meat (it's huge), buy it. Eat it. 2 dollars for a gallon of grape juice, buy it. Drink it. 4 dollars for some other chilly beverage, buy it. Drink it. 6 Dollars for a whole rotisserie roasted chicken. Eat the whole damn thing, it's from foodtown, it's 3:00 in the morning, it's law.

Have a bloody thousand.

We're not here for any purpose, there's nothing we need tonight. You pass people walking down the aisles any hour of the night with a list in hand, shopping to feed themselves, maybe even a family. They travel to this place with a goal, a mission. You pass three twenty year olds drifting down the rivers of chips and dog food, they're traveling for the sake of travelling. They're noticing things you'll never see on your way to pasta sauce and coffee. They know the store, they know it like the way home and every change is something new to take up time and stall for tommorow, because that's all that's really happening here. Maybe it's back to Univerity in a week, back to work tommorow, or just daylight and excercise but for now this Ninja Turtle skateboard holds focus, the peaks of toilet paper might somehow hold the key to the night. Stutterstepping all the way. Look around you, not ahead. DT

Waterfront World Champs...

Sometimes as I roll down the driveway fully decked out in orange sponsor-covered clothes on my rediculously expensive orange carbon bike rolling on a set of wheels that most people don't even race on, I, in my swoosh-covered cocoon think, damn I'm a geek.

Seriously.

Occasionally, however, I have a day that makes me realize, well, things could be worse. Today for example, five hours of climbing, sweating, crying and probably a little bleeding went by and I finally reached the waterfront of Mission Bay, my final half-hour cruise before showers and food. I was feeling really good about myself, I could now laze around outside a coffee shop reading magazines all day completely guilt-free. The tailwind helped, the tiny blue bay-waves helped, and seeing The Flying Helmet helped.

This guy is awesome. He's serious. He means business, and he makes sure you know it. Ride the opposite direction and wave and all you get is a serious scowl, mouth wide open, eyes fixed ahead in Armstrong-esque focus. Maybe he can't see you underneath the full-on aero-helmet he wears. Maybe he can't hear you above the whoosh of his carbon disc wheel or the swish of the tri-spoke on the front. Maybe he's just THAT serious. Either way, I saw him today and it made me smile for two reasons.

REASON 1: I was riding on my tops, going (what I thought was) slow-as after completely smashing myself for hours and I hauled past The Flying Helmet like he was standing still. I didn't even need aerobars...

REASON 2: I smiled and waved as I rode past and he goes "DAMMIT WATCH OUT!" like I nearly caused his death or something. I didn't. Just rode by. People getting aggro always makes me laugh, so I enjoyed this greatly.

So maybe I am a geek. A big one. But I can always take comfort in knowing that as long as The Flying Helmet is out there somewhere, I'm not the biggest goober on the road. DT

America... F@%K YEAH!!!

So one night in Wanganui I was wandering around town late at night with Breezy's brother Saul and some dude named Lee, and for whatever reason Saul started singing the themesong to Team America: World Police. If you've never heard this musical jem, the lyrics are... well.. the title of this post are the only words anyone knows, and Saul was yelling them at full volume. A few minutes after his voice went out, we see a kiwi girl and her boy-toy walking towards us. The girl is talking (not so quietly) about how much she HATES Americans. How Americans are EVIL. How Americans are at fault for all polution, the Tsunami, and the hairy mole on her back. She gets closer and keeps blabbering on at her poor boyfriend and the whole world, so Saul says something to the effect of "Hey I think she hates Americans"
"Hell yes" She yells.
So (diplomatic American that I am) I say "I'm an American, what do you think of that?"
And here's the part I wasn't really expecting.
"I THINK I'M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!!"
This is the part where the drunken idiot lunges at me and gets flung sideways because her boyfriend has a steady grip on her arm.
"LEMME GO!! I'M GONNA F%#K HIM UP!!!"
All because of where I was born.
Granted she's drunk and we got a good laugh out of the rediculous situation, but it threw me a little. She had to have the thought in the back of her mind in the first place in order to bring it out when she heard the word America, let's face it, a drunken stupor is not a time when people come up with political leanings. She would hate me either way, maybe in the afternoon at a kebab stand she would just give me an evil-eye and think about what swine I am, but this just happens to be how we meet. And it made me think about the question...

"So do you support George Bush?"

This is the first thing I hear when someone hears my accent or finds out where I'm from. No shit, almost without fail, every time. EXAMPLE: New Year's Eve, sweaty dancing/drinking establishment, Tuckerman says something to some girl about being here with an American and she looks at me and slurs: "WHAT DO YOU THINK OF GEORGE BUSH?"
Of course I say he's a worthless goon and she seems to feel better and goes back to chatting (well actually yelling) with Tuckie, but again, this just keeps coming up. Yesterday at the track it happened. Last week in town it happened. I can't count the number of times I've heard it. The reaction is always the same when I give my answer. Relief. Whew, he's not one of those "gun-toting war-mongering Bush-lovers" as one guy at the record store put it. Granted this is might be a bit of a harsh way to describe every republican in the country, but this is the reputation they have in the rest of the world. This is how people see Bush, and by association his voters and to some the rest of America. Even after people get to know me, the impression is there, it's impossible to destroy. "He's an American."

This is the way people view us. The brainless cowboys. The narcissistic clods of the world. Awesome. America. Fuck yeah. DT

Mayor Tom Potter, the Anarchist

So on this morning's weekly check of Portland's rumblings of news I found something pretty funny. Tom Potter, the mayor who everybody thought would be a personality-free goon, turns up on a critical mass ride. Sweet. So you mean the mayor of Portland is participating in the local event with the worst media coverage and reputation around? Awesome!

http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1107435492112970.xml?oregonian?yedcdr

If you're not in the mood to read a seething article about how evil bikes are, I'll sum it up for you in handy bullet points (These are the thoughts of David Reinhard by the way):

• Tom Potter rode critical mass last night
• Critical Mass is for idiot hippy anarchists who's only goal is to spread " lawlessness on wheels" throughout the city
• Qoute: "If they are anything more dignified than an anarchistic indulgence or an outburst to meet the deep pyscho-social needs of their participants -- and this is doubtful -- the Critical Mass rides are rages against the automobile"
• Critical Mass completely slams traffic through the entire city
• The riders damage cars and vandalise anything in thier path
• They force bus riders to wait in the cold because of the previously mentioned traffic snaffu
• They are causing Portland business owners to worry about Portland's troubling business climate (WHAT?)
• Tom Potter is a bad bad man and a (get ready) FLIP FLOPPER and Sam Adams would never do something like that

I've been on a critical mass ride and here's my take on the rampant lawlessness. I went because I wanted to check it out, see what everyone was so up in arms about. Arrived at the park blocks as the sun was going down to hang out with a couple wierd cats with chopper bikes, about 10 messengers on fixed gears (who oogled at my old-school shwinn fixie for a while), 5 hairy-legged Lance Armstrong impersonaters and about 5 normal people on bikes. Maybe 25 lawless hooligans tops. Anyway, everybody rolls out and as we rode, I made mental lists of all the anarchic behavior I witnessed: When the group rolls an intersection while the light turns yellow, the stragglers sometimes run the red to not get dropped... disgracefull. People ride outside the bike lane, forcing cars to literally line up behind them, sometimes up to 3 cars at a time... unbelievable. One dude on a tall-bike STACKED IT into a beat-up Mazda and probably broke his nose and definitely dented the door of the car... insanity...

I broke off and went on my own ride after a while, and the impression that I got was not a group of criminals spreading hell on wheels, but a group of people trying to get attention for bikes in a fully legal protest/fun ride. Granted there were two idiots who were yelling at trucks and cars and thought they were THE SHIT because they rode kiddy bikes, but idiots flock to any gathering (like I said last time, politics is no exception).

So to me, the Mayor of Portland showing up at a critical mass ride is not a sign that he's a terrible man, but maybe more that he recognizes groups and events like critical mass, and wants to lend a rational hand to them. He'll ride and talk to people, but he's not going to smash windows and taunt cops because that's what your parents call "leading by example," a rare tactic in modern politics. If more people would show up to events like critical mass and make thier opinions and viewpoints heard without being idiots, maybe they'd be able to achieve something aside from just riding around on funny bikes. Aside from maybe a hint of shameless self-promotion among a certain voting sector, this actually seems to be a rare genuine political gesture. Good on'ya Tom. Good on'ya.

4X4 WANKER

Back to the big city I am, back to coffee and bad drivers, sailboats and fish and chips.
Back in Auckland once again.
January was quite the travel-heavy, multi-destination month but now it's time to kick back, settle in and cruise to the finish line. Never worry fair readers, this doesn't mean I'll be just sitting on my ass drinking coffee and watching the populace oh no, there's still much riding and much racing to be done on top of my busy schedule of ass-sitting, coffee-drinking, populace-watching and Evil-fighting. Speaking of battling EVIL...

... Some people try really hard to fight The Man and I respect that. They write books, they write magazine articles, they make music, they chain themselves to stuff, whatever. I say good on ya if you're doing your part in whatever way you know how, HOWEVER, sometimes stupid people (scratch that, usually stupid people) loose the plot. Some people try to fight The Man by fighting the people, doing such idiot things as destroying people's property or becoming militant goons and blowing shit up. These people suck. Some of these idiots found thier way to Mt. Eden a couple nights ago and decided they would do thier part for the environment by spray-painting 4X4 WANKER all over the SUV's on the street (which is only a few, if it were Portland I suspect they would have been busy for quite some time). How lame. It's true, idiots are everywhere, not just in the White House... DT