Pinning on numbers once more.

L. vs J., c. 2001, with both running downtube shifters to save the grams.

The sun shone without heat, the wind was calm by the lake and being some kind of glutton for punishment, I went out and spent $45 to race for less than an hour last Sunday, in criterium race a five minute ride away from my place. But I had my reasons.

The course was actually our lakeside bike path, meaning it was damned narrow, ie, three metres across if that, and featured not one but two hairpin turns. Naturally the second turned onto the final straightaway and meant that good position was crucial in the final lap, as there was no breakaway group to be in.

And so it went that I found myself a good thirteen or more wheels back going into that turn, and sprinted to an uninteresting 11th place out of twenty-five. It was a thoroughly unsatifying conclusion to $45 worth of nervously sitting in the wheels, trying not to get run off the path into a tree by some over-zealous junior.

And it makes me wonder.

Alley cat races are vastly more fun, creative, and dynamic. They seem to win on every front: cheaper to enter (ie $10), you get to see people you know and like, all sorts of creative curveballs can be thrown in (ie, store checkpoint where you have to buy a can of beans, or park where a particular plaque on a statue must be found), and the sponsors' prizes are vastly cooler as well. There is also this complete lack of equipment sport snobbery and attitude that road racing is notorious for, and which I continue to find nauseating.

So why do I even think about sanctioned races, all of which are hill-less around here and meant only for sprinters anyway? Just because.

Hincapie Enigma Revealed

So I had been wondering what made George Hincapie keep ticking what with all those broken wrists and heartbreaking losses, and now thanks to the power of the Internet I know: his line of sportswear.

The man is not so busy he can't give the cycling public a chance to get inside his very own shorts, for a mere $189 + tax and shipping. And just what lies inside these specials? Why ceramic panelling no less.

Whilst you absorb the cultural implications of the leap ceramic has made from wheel bearings to inside leg, let me say this - George, you must be racing too much, because your hand looks like it is made of carbon fibre. I know carbon is all the rage these days, but really? Carbon fibre hands? That's just going too far. I'm sure they're not cheap either, a pair of those, and that's perhaps why Hincapie is selling his shorts to the general public.

G.G. '08

It was time for Global Gutz 2008 this past Sunday aft. This time I was out for racing enjoyment and not winning, and to baptize the new track bike. And I was three for three!

It was really a blast to be back in the saddle again, careening around like a semi-madman, following a few others from Lakeshore Blvd to St Clair to Dufferin down to College over to Unie, down to the Roundhouse for the big finale. I decided to ride 'within myself' as they say, and finished 10th, which was good enough for me. The fact that Hofman made this one go uphill and then downhill did not favour the track bikes, but it was still a great time.

I wasn't going for it; once you've been off the road a good while, getting the timing right through intersections becomes a whole different thing, and it was all just too committed for the bike I was riding. There was also a big east wind to contend with on an otherwise lovely day, but that only made the battle feel like a proper battle. I beat Toby anyway, which isn't saying that much.

The cameraderie of those races and afterparties is the real joy of it - a big adrenalin blast and then the laughs later on (i.e., Pete Brewer falling on his ass crossing Lakeshore on foot - a classic ciertes).
Worldwide ranking aganst 220 riders in twenty-six cities:
105 (Pappy) Toronto 0:44:06.

And I'm fine with that.

Scottish city, Cuban playa.

Untruth: R. Remembers the Beef & Calixto Garcia (Rush Hour, Holguin)

Babies, Baby Sprocket, Scotland.

Winters of Canada.

Winter, T.O.

Purple Face

Afghanada

Another coffin is loaded up in Kandahar:

What are we doing in Afghanistan?

If you look at the domestic media, you'd think we are there for completely self-involved reasons: to strengthen our military (Stephen Harper), to honour those who have already died fighting there (Man in the Street), to keep Canadians safe from terrorist Islamikaze attack (General Hillier), and to finish what we started, that is, 'operational objectives' (Lewis Mackenzie, ex- general whoes expertise consists of having presided over one long screwup in Bosnia in the 1990's).
And what exactly is it we started? There is the securing civil society angle - can't leave until little girls can go to school without threat of violent retribution - that'll keep us there for a good 140 years or so, at least. Then there is the security of the periphery, or something, that is Kandahar Province. We can pronounce it, but we can't secure it. After six years in Kandahar city, people are still suicide-bombing the place, people recruited by the Students.

The Students are our lethal enemy. They weren't our enemy until we brought a war to them. Ah, that is, joined a war brought by our friendly neighbour to the south, USA. Which brings me to the central military objective, the eradication of the Students, who previously ran Afghanada when it was Afghanistan and nobody cared about it besides Pakistani military people and heroin dealers (that is, Pakistani military people). The fun thing about a counter-insurgency war of occupation is that your presence causes the problem - the longer you are there the greater the motivation of the resister (the Students) to kill people, any people, in order to sabotage all progress being claimed on the 'security' front. Sort of like bombing fish in a barrel, but not exactly.
After six years occupying Kandahar city, we've secured a limited perimeter that is commonly called "the Wire" by our boys (I mean, media) - that is that base they live in. The governor of the province is a warlord who has been personally involved in torturing his enemies, etc. - now how can he behave this way?
Perhaps it is because he is like all the other warlords who ended up in top jobs in the Kharzai (I think that's Pashtun for 'puppet') government, as USA did not want to struggle with these guys while fighting the Students, who are hard enough to find let alone fight. Yes, what we have here is a farce, and the central motif of this farce is political, not military: the idea that we can make Afghanada last longer that a week or two after we leave, if that long. This gender equality- loving, constitutionalist-government thing we like is just not what that country is about, let's face it. The Afghans do things differently. Very differently.
The only solution we can really offer those who want to live with our rights and freedoms is simple: immigration papers for the model country upon which Afghanada is based. You know the place - the home of the Timbit. Or the home of the giant pretzel.

(By the way, I must have been in Mexico or somewhere when it happened, but since when did the French join NATO? I have been mystified about this for months, as all this talk of France sending a thousand soldiers to Afghanada has been bouncing around, then finally I saw a TV5 show about the Champs Elysee and there was the acronym, stuck on the automatic doors at Navy headquarters: 'OTAN'. Perhaps they confused me by spelling it backwards.)

Track Bike Revolution.

Yes, the track bike is now sort of ubiquitous, seen on the streets of the developed world's great cities from ___n to ____k. So what? Naturally one grows to dislike the overweening nature of fixed gear style properly mocked in the above illustration.

Yet it all came from a good, solid place, that of the working class pride of the bicycle messenger. I'm thinking of all this because I've finally got my hot-ass new track bike set up and rolling. At first I felt exactly like one of these posing twenty year old hip-ster people, over-matched by an ill-setup machine meant purely for the velodrome. Now I've got my old school toeclips on, and a proper seat that doesn't keep tipping up and down, so I'm feeling good about my totally over-the-top Blue TR250, complete w. removable dropouts and gleaming Major Taylor handlebar, set up high on a flipped over stem Hayward gave me.

If only I had a) a normal stomach and b) proper form then I would be getting the proper kick out of my riding. And c) Global Gutz 2008 is ten days away...

My Weekend of Hideousness & Ikea.

Here are two micro-shots of Cuba that I nabbed off of Google in the absence of my own. I did hire a bici-taxi, and I did ride up to la Loma de le Casa, Holguin city, for the record.

In other news, I'm in my worst physical condition in approximately two years. I will not be racing bikes any time soon. Ever since the Jet Fuel Party of April 1, the stomach has been abnormal. Then there are the legs, both of which are devoid of strength at this point. Then there is the bike, of which the carbon seatpost is refusing its seat pin since I took it apart Saturday on the advice of my surly mechanic.

My second Donut Ride this year on Sunday was how shall we say, a mitigated disaster, that is, mitigated by no crashes or parts falling off but disastrous in terms of my horrible form, and the seatpost constantly sinking into the frame when it wasn't moving from left to right. It makes me want to hang my bikes in a closet and take up walking once and for all.

The only detour from all this self-induced crap was a forced trip to Ikea from my married friends, who'd got hold of someone's car. They bought four miniature wooden pinic tables for everyone else they know with kids. Properly over-exhausted from riding, I stumbled about in a daze, surrounded by cart-wielding Sunday shoppers and playing house with their two-year old, until they took me home from suburbia.

Holguin, mi Holguin

So I up and went to Cuba 22-29 March. Yes I took a bicycle with me, my road racer no less, which got very, very dirty. El camino socialista es muy dura y sucia tambien. Half my luggage never showed when I arrived yet I forged onward, riding with the bare essentials on my back in a stinky little canvas bag, getting sunburned despite my spf 50 block. That's cycling, companero.

I had hoped to throw some photos up on the blog, but two conditions prevent me from doing so - a near total lack of interesting pictures and this damned machine, which saved the first one I threw at it as a .tif, which Blogger won't accept. Normally my personal camera produces jpegs, even from work but this time, no dice. Instead you find a scaled drawing my colleague Ms C. made of a little park in the downtown core of... Toronto. I needed to save it for work and I liked it, so be happy there is something to look at. (In fact what you see here is a special advance rendering of part of a new bike racecourse coming to this town 30 May around St Lawrence Market, final approval pending. It's the staging area.)

If it were more thematically correct, it would be Parque Calixto Garcia in the city of Holguin, pop. 200 000 +. Imagine a big rectange with a statue in the middle of a man on a pedestal and a ring of benches facing inwards. Latinos always know how to make a city park: a place for people to be in, not move through, as they are here. In Mexico you see that to the max - you can't even walk from one end to the other of some, they play out like a sort of maze. They're just not meant for transportation, dogwalking, or athletics. They're meant for socializing.

There are so many unique things about Cuba, besides just the potholes that buses do huge swerves to get around in order to preserve their ball joints. I love the advanced state of decay of almost everything, the absence of commerical propaganda, the women in mini-skirt uniforms, the bici-taxies (tons of them, sometimes all lined up w. parasols), the casual thrown-together quality of things, the uniformed airport customs workers riding home at the end of the day on their bicycles, the dignity of paisanos who really have next to nothing but are too proud to try to rook you. And the piglets boxed up on homemade racks; I even saw a mostly full-grown live cochino tied to a homemade carrier. Marvelous.

In short, I love the sights in Cuba because I am a stinking rich scumbag-person. Why else would I have such an appetite for all that decay and poverty? Because I don't live in it, obviously. When I returned I was feeling spent from my travels and I took the streetcar on its lazy route across the city to see mis padres for the first time in a while. And I was struck by what I saw and was temporarily un-blind to: slick little clothing shops, intense variety of goods for sale all over the place, well-dressed people in sunglasses and cellulars riding the public transit-thingy. All the things you take for granted living in el fabuloso rico pais de Canada.

You can't hire a horse-and-cart to take you and your oversize luggage to the airport in this town, but I did it in Holguin, Cuba for four pesos and four Canadian.

Goodbye Little Friend.

In the fine tradition of internet mourning, I post this picture of Rasmussen tearing into a sandal I got at a market in Puerto Escondido a few years back when he wasn't even a gleam in my eye.

Now he is gone, and my wretched apartment is as empty as ever with only Rasmussen's useless litter box hanging around to remind me, and the occasional busted claw.

Cat-owner's lesson learned: do not remove cat from house unless totally necessary. He most certainly had no desire to leave, I foolishly insisted and Rasmussen escaped en route to his home away-from-home to be, running into the night after my over-loaded bike trailer popped open on a darkened Brock Street over a rough patch of asphalt. I searched in vain for an hour, peering into little alleyways between houses with a bike light, to no avail.

I think of him, in the chilling cold rains that have been coming down lately, and hope for the best.

The Enigma of G. Hincapie

I've often wondered just what makes this man tick. Consider the case of George Hincapie, reigning American road cycling champion and chronic wrist-breaker.

In this sad photo dating from Paris-Roubaix 2006 I believe, Hincapie sobs at the side of the road, his hopes dashed after his bike's aluminum stem broke under the relentless pressure of the cobblestones and spilled him in a heap at the roadside. Hincapie had been in an ideal position in the race; instead he got a free trip to the hospital with a broken something.

Even though I know little about him, never search for details of his career, still I have long wondered what keeps G.H. in the game. He was Lance's loyal lieutenant for all seven Tours de France, somehow having that moment of gloire on the Queen stage in the Pyranees a couple of years ago, when he took victory in the hardest climbing stage of the Tour.

But how do you stay motivated George? After ten years + in the pro racing game, haven't you seen it all? I am reminded of the Hincapie Enigma after reading today of the closing circuits of Tirrano-Adriatico, "the race of two seas" in that sets up the early season in Italy. Needless to say, G.H. took a slam likely due to someone's bad move. There is a great photo of him I am prevented from stealing for annoying reasons, where he stands over his bike in the High Road jersey, a smear on the sleeve and a can of pop in one hand. Clearly, the day is finished for him, yet again.

Now of all people to feel sorry for and to worry about the career choices of, me even thinking about George Hincapie is pretty strange, some might say ludicrous. And yet, life is frequently ludicrous and when the alternative is sifting through a massive accounting database looking for small amounts of money attached to long tracking numbers, thoughts of G.H.'s overall wellbeing seem perfectly reasonable. While George has had plenty of victories, fame, large paycheques, and likely a fancy watch or three, I still see his career in terms of failure. Not that Hincapie is a failure. Anyone who meets his girlfriend on a podium at the Tour de France is not a failure in the world of cycling.

It's more the constant wrist and shoulder blade fractures. How does a racer stay motivated when all the work of training ends in disaster so often? George, if you're reading this, explain yourself in the Comments section. Do you read Nietsche?

The Vital Importance of Being a Suffering Bastard

Another tale of cycling daring-do: On Sunday I jumped out of bed fresh from a night at the cinema and promptly set about readying my road bike for the Donut Ride, my first since September. The Ides of March had been calling my name you see, and here I was, about to answer.

I've been doing this sort of madness long enough to know that 7am is not the time to be switching tires around, etc., but why let the knowledge years of messenger experience provides stop me from a little of the old last-minute-mechanics? (Note the bizarre-scarfwearing going on amidst the Astana team - is it Tour campionissimo Alberto Contador, his lymph glands extra-sensitive from early years of special injections at the old Liberty Seguros team?)

Well, I threw on some layers, including taping my old cheapie neoprene overbooties on over my sleek, formfitting and almost useless new Pearl Izumi overbooties. The neoprenes are so wrecked that the only way to keep them on is either with elastics (a dubious windproofer) or packing tape, and with four hours plus of 0 Celcius + windchill ahead of me I was busting out the Egyptian mummy style, no mistaking. And it did keep them from flapping into my drivetrain too much. Next step is to keep the feet warm, but one thing at a time. It looked ridiculous but frankly I didn't care.

There were 25 or so 'hardcore' people out on the sunny and cold morning ride, and I kept an eye out for wintry footwear; inevitably, some had winter-specific highcut cycle shoes (one or two even 'road' winter shoes). Most had some higher end overbooty thing happening. We had a northwesterly wind against us, making the trip up to King City a very slow and chilly affair. I stayed at the back, suffering mightily and sucking wheel as hard as possible.

There is nothing like the first 100km + ride after a few months off and in the cold too. Forget riding to work and back every day and two hours a week sweating my b-$%s off on the trainer in my apartment. All that is well and good. One hundred and twenty-two km and one post-bonk hamburger later, I was home and stretching out in the tub, invigourated to the full. They call it suffering for a good reason, by Christ. I really didn't help my case by neglecting a) sunglasses, b) a banana c) to oil my f!*#-ing chain beforehand.

A Note:

Was out for a beer with Hayward and the skin-headed trackmaster himself, Tofu, on Friday night. These two were planning a spring alley cat and swore me to secrecy on pain of dismemberment, as to the details of said epic. Apparently, I'll be manning a checkpoint all night, which sounds boring as hell. But perhaps better than the general insanity they've cooked up for the tens of people competing. Good for them.

A Bloody Sunday @ the Bike Show.

This fine piece of industrial cycle machinery is from Quebec. It's called "le Voiturier".

Now just what could we fill this cargo-carrying crackerjack with if we had ever the chance? Perhaps a fresh pile of composted material, ready for the sprintime garden soil. Or perchance a bouuet or six of your finest flowers, that would shine forth the sunlight of oncoming spring, still so distant in these wintry parts.

Better yet, why not wheel round the snowy town bearing a load of shiny new bike kit hauled down from that annual orgy of retail binging we call the Toronto International Bike Show? I had to work two shifts of this three extravaganza this past weekend, and let me say to one and all, it was 'pas grande chose', as they say in the province next door. After doing my duty, demonstrating the bus bike rack forty times or so, I wandered over to the booth of Racer Sportif to look over the 'blow-out' wheelsets, which included the 'Anniversaire' Mavic Ksyrium with that stunning red anodised spoke amidst the black ones. A steal at $890 + taxes, my inside connection, Jeffrey, informed me. My other Insider, Alberto, couldn't believe I was hesitating over mere matters of money.

"What, David Miller not paying you enough, buddy?", Alberto fairly yelled into my ear over the din of the Show, from a good four inches away, his grey toothy grin beaming in the odours. For a second I was totally confused - thought he was referring to David Millar, the Scottish Time Trial pro now co-owner of the new American outfit, Slipstream. But no, a different argyle sock-wearer was being referred to, our local anti-disestablishmentarian and sitting mayor. Of course, I work for the union-loving bastard, don't I? There's the typically graceless beaurocrat for you, eh Alberto, you son of a gun you.

Instead I threw down the ATM card for some blow-out tires and wandered over to La Bicicletta (the most high-end snobfest in city limits), where $3000 wheelsets lay strewn about the racks, secured by nothing. They were blowing out the same Ksyriums for $899 and had a slightly lower grade model of same for a eye-watering $780. I hesitated. I hemmed, hawed, and chewed the lower lip awhile. It was Sunday, last-chance day for the show, bargains or no. Finally, I walked away from it all with the most spectacular piece of my haul being a long-sleeved national jersey of Espana a pretend-deal at $80. I doubt if it'll make me any faster, but perhaps will up my chances of Spanish conversation at the Donuts Ride.

Naturally I came to regret the whole no-buy thing on the wheelsets, once home and looking at my unchanged '06 road racer, clamped into the trainer. Why can't I ever just let myself go and blow $1000 on something for once? No one else is going to do it for me, goddamit. What's point of having the Voiturier, if you're not going to fill that trunk with gilded booty?

What is the Worst Job?

There are many bad jobs in the city I live in. But what is the worst? A difficult question to answer with so much to choose from, but consider for a moment the humble cab driver. Imagine working all day in today's full-on snowstorm, cruising about endlessly on expensive gas, in slow-moving bumper-to-bumper traffic, wrecking ball-joints in fresh potholes springing up all about you as the asphalt heaves, and working on commission only all the while.
Then there is the clientele, who may be a pack of assholic drunk guys threatening you or just being verbally abusive, and let's not forget the police and parking enforcement waiting to write you up on that moving violation, the insurance issues, fares not showing up when you drive way out of the way to find them at home somewhere. And this is only a short list of their problems, saying nothing of licencing fees, criminals, dispatchers, fares who don't pay, and in some cases starting everyday $90 (!) in the hole to the cab company. Ugh. Let's face it, taxicab driver is the city's worst job for stress, hassle, and general workplace misery per dollar earned.

Amazing that a 'hardcore' winter cyclist like myself suddenly expresses this outpouring of grief over the lot of the displaced Pakistani dental technologist behind the wheel of a Buick in the next lane, but there it is. Of course bike messenger is a short step behind taxi driver in the long list, but there at least, there is no ongoing slavery to the customer involved. It's a momentary interaction, usually. And little to no regulation and no licencing at all.

So be happy you're not a cabbie.

High Road Pro Cycling

Who is this wanker and what does he do for a living? Perhaps he is a donut chef on a competitive donutmaking team. No, too healthy-looking . Or possibly a moto-cross dirtjumper guy blasting his motorbike over huge lumps of dirt no-handedly. But he's so dirtless. Or perhaps he's a road racing professional cyclist pretending he's Tom Cruise.

The subject of today's complaint is aesthetic: this name and design spat out by the entity formerly known as T-Mobile Team annoys me considerably. Of course the telephony giant withdrew their long sponsorship after the three-scandals-too-many year of 2007, having hung in there after the Jan Ullrich doping disaster/public disembowelment at the Tour launch of 2006. The complete re-jigging of T-Mob as a squeaky clean, drug-free squadra (+ Torontonian pro Mike Barry!) fell to bits last year and the German sponsor finally called it quits. It was the end of an era that saw the some of the best (if dopey) days of Ullrich, Vinokourov, Kloeden, and my man Erik Zabel, but better yet, it was the last end of the hideous pink/black uniform supplied by Adidas. I never liked it, particularly the 'magenta' aspect.
The above picture details what the new team strip looks like. White is fine, a good fresh start type colour, but what of this Fast Food bubble font in bright red and yellow? Does it mean that if this new, principle sponsorless team fails, all employees will have a leg up on Wimpy serving High Road hormone-free high protein burgers?
There is such a plethora of hideous designs in the spandexed world of road racing that it pains me to see a new opportunity to improve (and here without even the constraint of a title sponsor) basically ruined. I mean, would you go out and spend $125 on THAT jersey? Good god.

Is Elk Man Canadian?

Perhaps Elk Man was inspired by this fine government program dedicated to making the world a better place for all.

Elk Man vs. Four Wheels of Power

The Tour of California is rolling through places like Santa Rosa and Sacremento these days, chock full of the pro peloton's stars (Boonen, Bettini, even Mario Cipollini in a comeback from retirement). And Elk Man from Montana, who appears to have run all the way to California in his cycling shoes, in order to pace insurance salesman-disguised as bike racer Levi Leipheimer up super-steep Mt Hamilton yesterday.

I assume he's not working for the Rabobank rider, who seems to be ahead of him and is a foreigner anyway. No, Elk Man has his priorities straight. I only wonder if he was feeling frisky enough to pace the 'autobus' when it arrived about eighteen minutes later. Was he slapping Cipo's behind? Poking Bettini's world champion stripes with his antlers? We can only wonder.

It all reminds me of that literary giant of 1960's northern California, Richard Brautigan, author of In Watermelon Sugar, The Pill Vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster and other works I have also not read. His style was absurdist and whimsical. Every paperback he published had a b & w photo of his latest dorky girlfriend on the cover. I think Brautigan would have liked the gesture of Elk Man, who might even have heard of Richard Brautigan but somehow I really doubt it.