... or the first of their return.
Fans of rambling, disjointed commentary on small-time bicycle racing, your prayers have been answered. After a long hiatus, Bacon and Raisins has been resurrected. A lot has changed in that time -- for the rest of the world, anyways.
Your author, however, has remained untouched by the hand of time, and soldiers on in the ranks of also-rans.
Road racing, here we come.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Ode y'all
Today's ride was more epic than usual, including some punishing uphill sprints against the formidable Bruce, a rough 300-400 watt stretch at the end, and ropes of snot half a foot long. However none of that compared to the grueling test of endurance I'm undertaking right now, by trying to even get started on my honey-do list before rolling over to the shop at 2:00.
Compounding this is the stream of youtube cycling clips I've been glued to for the last hour, daydreaming of racing the forgotten days and faraway places where a bicycle race seemed to mean something. Today? You jump at the sound of carbon skittering across pavement, and accidentally solo for the win at the Podunkville All-Flat All-Oval All-Out Hammerama, while eighty other clueless men in tight clothes on bikes too fast for them cuss you, hard. Your prize? A pair of plain white Defeet socks - and of course the adulation of the four fans-- as they goggle at you, they think "His palmares - it's showing through his shorts!" Or maybe "What a nerd, nice Racing Jackets, you Crash-5 dipshit!"
But then, and there, things must have been different. You would have lined up next to bitter, sinewy men with thousand-yard stares-- men with large calves and leathery faces and intimacy problems due to a habit of leaving women in the early morning without saying goodbye. You and these oddly wound clockwork men would grind for hours over ruined roads, over real mountains - so steep you might fall over going up, you might fall off going down. You cut through villages, shut down for the day because the significance of the race's outcome outweighs any single day's happenings. The long ribbon of riders shrinks to a gnarled vein of the most hardened, still punishing themselves at the front after the others have admitted their preference for comfort over glory. The selection reduces, from sugar water to Laffy Taffy to hard shit-tasting tar. And the shittiest-tasting, hardest tar man beats his bike and his legs into submission, and then he beats the others into submission, and even the fans with things on their heads and foam hands look at his face and admit that he is the finest in the world at the bizarre, otherwordly discipline of self-suffering.
If I ever met Greg Lemond face-to-face, I would have to give up racing rather than continue knowing that I could never make a race what he could make it. Who the fuck is Tom Boonen? I want Greg back.
Compounding this is the stream of youtube cycling clips I've been glued to for the last hour, daydreaming of racing the forgotten days and faraway places where a bicycle race seemed to mean something. Today? You jump at the sound of carbon skittering across pavement, and accidentally solo for the win at the Podunkville All-Flat All-Oval All-Out Hammerama, while eighty other clueless men in tight clothes on bikes too fast for them cuss you, hard. Your prize? A pair of plain white Defeet socks - and of course the adulation of the four fans-- as they goggle at you, they think "His palmares - it's showing through his shorts!" Or maybe "What a nerd, nice Racing Jackets, you Crash-5 dipshit!"
But then, and there, things must have been different. You would have lined up next to bitter, sinewy men with thousand-yard stares-- men with large calves and leathery faces and intimacy problems due to a habit of leaving women in the early morning without saying goodbye. You and these oddly wound clockwork men would grind for hours over ruined roads, over real mountains - so steep you might fall over going up, you might fall off going down. You cut through villages, shut down for the day because the significance of the race's outcome outweighs any single day's happenings. The long ribbon of riders shrinks to a gnarled vein of the most hardened, still punishing themselves at the front after the others have admitted their preference for comfort over glory. The selection reduces, from sugar water to Laffy Taffy to hard shit-tasting tar. And the shittiest-tasting, hardest tar man beats his bike and his legs into submission, and then he beats the others into submission, and even the fans with things on their heads and foam hands look at his face and admit that he is the finest in the world at the bizarre, otherwordly discipline of self-suffering.
If I ever met Greg Lemond face-to-face, I would have to give up racing rather than continue knowing that I could never make a race what he could make it. Who the fuck is Tom Boonen? I want Greg back.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Poop Neck
Feeling regret in a big way this weekend. Found out Friday that I accidentally got Sunday free from work, but not in time to sign up for Sonny Hutchins. In my stead I sent greenhorn Wilson Hale, who seemed to be able to leverage his youthful enthusiasm into a 12th place finish. Sounds good to me. Hardened escape artist Dave Erickson was the maillot jaune virtuel for several seconds toward the end of the race, only to suffer a mechanical with meters to go. His report:
"Yeah I ended up soloing away the last lap only to get caught like 2 ft from the line by two dudes because I popped my chain off the cassette and ended up coasting across the line."
Damn. My sad story? I woke up Saturday with a sore throat-- and proceeded to go out and hammer the ride. So now I'm testing positive for Sudafed and a gang of Halls Mentho-lyptus Honey Lemon Cough Drops. Boo to that shit.
"Yeah I ended up soloing away the last lap only to get caught like 2 ft from the line by two dudes because I popped my chain off the cassette and ended up coasting across the line."
Damn. My sad story? I woke up Saturday with a sore throat-- and proceeded to go out and hammer the ride. So now I'm testing positive for Sudafed and a gang of Halls Mentho-lyptus Honey Lemon Cough Drops. Boo to that shit.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Race binge / bike pimpin'
So my lady-mate and I have been giving some serious thought to leaving behind this wonderful land of Williamsburg, which means that my VA racing career might well end by June. So, in order to experience as many pancake-flat sprint-fests as possible, I've decided to attempt every race possible within the next three months. I'm going to have to miss the Sunny Hutchins, but I think I can swing ten or eleven crits within that time. Now if I can swing top 10 each time, I'll be a 3 before I move west. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad idea-- I got the feeling that racing out west is a level above what we get here. Whatevahmang-- you only live once.
Anyways, fool school is in session March 9, at Snowball #2-- I was so stoked about Dave E's finish that I decided to bail on Camp Hilbert to race the road.
In fact, I'm so down on dirt riding right now I'm selling my bike. Local buyers get to skip the eBay hassle.
Bike shop guys get the deal, which means when they sell their shit you get the deal. And their shit is taken care of. Just sayin'.
Anyways, fool school is in session March 9, at Snowball #2-- I was so stoked about Dave E's finish that I decided to bail on Camp Hilbert to race the road.
In fact, I'm so down on dirt riding right now I'm selling my bike. Local buyers get to skip the eBay hassle.
Bike shop guys get the deal, which means when they sell their shit you get the deal. And their shit is taken care of. Just sayin'.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
For those about to rock
Let's all gather round and say a prayer for those unfortunate few who have, through some misfortune or misunderstanding, actually paid money to race the 2008 VA Beach Sportsplex Death Derby, also known as the Snowball crit.
I'm getting nervous just thinking about all the mayhem and carnage that's bound to go down tomorrow, as every Tom, Dick, and Harry with $30 and a bike blows his load over the world's most tiny-time crit. In fact, Snowball is probably a vital part of race season around here, like the way barn owls die off when there are too few mice. This is all part of nature's way-- keeping the buttmunch population down with broken collarbones, so that those less squirrelly may race unhindered.
For those about to rock (the pavement, with their faces): We Salute You!
I'm getting nervous just thinking about all the mayhem and carnage that's bound to go down tomorrow, as every Tom, Dick, and Harry with $30 and a bike blows his load over the world's most tiny-time crit. In fact, Snowball is probably a vital part of race season around here, like the way barn owls die off when there are too few mice. This is all part of nature's way-- keeping the buttmunch population down with broken collarbones, so that those less squirrelly may race unhindered.
For those about to rock (the pavement, with their faces): We Salute You!
Monday, February 18, 2008
No-one likes a Buttmunch
Golly gee has it been a while since I wrote at you folks! Top ten callers who give a shit win 650B tubes.
Let's begin from the beginning aka last Sunday morning. Reg'lar old Sunday ride, of course, with the exception of po'tentious headwinds, howlin' gales speakin' the secret language of Godhead hissing, "You should have stayed in bed." Yeah, no shit. During the windiest stretch my co-author suffered a puncture and the Mad Emperor Justinian chose this opportunity to launch one of his patented, 40-mile fruitless breakaways, accompanied by Dave Erickson. "Here we go again," we said, weary travelers on the winding roads of Justinology-- the secret and forbidden study of thighs greater than 46 inches in circumference. We spent the next hour delving into the hidden wonders of his Imperial Quadriception, and the fruits of our labors? We caught them on Riverview, so at least we could fucking relax, no more Cam all hounding my ass for 800 watts, yeeeeah right. Some of us are IV's, thanks. I guess there's not much of an excuse because Dave is a four too... Final score: Williamsburg in the form of Mr. N-B and myself one-twos the sprint. Kind of a weak sprint, about 1050 watts. Average for the ride was 209 over 3.5 hours.
The rest of the week was distressingly lacking in luster, due to not riding much. I guess we can call it a rest week, which will also help resolve, with crystal clarity, the centuries old mystery of this year's "rest winter," and may well come to shed light on predictions of a "rest summer" coming up.
The following Saturday night was mayhem as Robert and Sharon celebrated their new house with about eight hundred and twelve people. Not only did I get drunk and swear I would ride Sunday, I even slurred out the Winston Churchill quote about always doing what you say you're going to do when you're drunk, which of course was a terrible, terrible thing. I even told Barry Taylor that I was "DRAWING THE LINE IN THE SAND RIGHT NOW, OH YEAH!" Come Sunday morning, as I stumbled from bed to choke down my runny eggs, I realized that I couldn't stop stumbling, so I took three Endurolytes and went to sleep. Come 8:30, Caitlin woke me up, and the pivotal dialogue was something like this:
C: Are you gonna ride?
S: I don't feel good.
C: You drew the line in the sand.
S: I'm gonna have to eat my words.
C: There were a lot of them.
S: ... Can you give me a ride out there?
When I started down Fenton Mill to find the group, I was still weaving, but with a little help from some questionable friends I soon sweated out the wide sea of whiskey churning in my guts. In fact I was even feeling pretty good, mostly because the ride was moving pretty slow, although in conversation I still took a good three seconds to register what I heard before responding. Unfortunately, while we were cruising, a desperate posse broke away, including an interloper from the Virginia Beach BikeBeat-- the notable Rick Young, who has a history of beating hard on the innocent AKA me. Also present among the crowd of rowdies treatin' us rough was S. Simet, well known to crit suckaz as a rapidly disappearing ass, and PASCAL, who is a sentient computer sent down from 3sports to stone cold crush fools. They plug the waist toggles of his Assos Fugujack into the ports in the Crosslock seatpost joint on his BMC, and whisper into his auditory sensors: "ACTIVATE PROGRAM PASCAL. ACTIVATE PROGRAM DESTROY CHUMPS." And then, we are fucked.
It took some pretty brutal pulling, not that I did any heroic share of that-- most of that was left to folks like Steve J., who was reported to be doing 380 watts for several minutes down Newman. This, for us poor Tidewater souls, is hella power.
Unfortunately for the weaker links among the pursuit, when we hit KOA hill, Cam (who is the boss) told a minor fib, in suggesting that it would be best if we held it together on the hill, which was possibly predicated upon a different "us" for him than for, well, us. Turns out the "us" he had in mind was about half of us, because he booked it with Justin and Steve J. The Good Doctor Doug and I limped home looking sour and sad, but at least we can claim top ten-- whatever the hell that's good for. Average power for the ride was 217 over 3.5 hours. I plugged that into Allen and Coggan's chart, where it ranked me as "Buttmunch." Great.
The only consolation? Race season is almost here, and, if I try hard enough, there might be someone out there foolish enough for even me to school.
Let's begin from the beginning aka last Sunday morning. Reg'lar old Sunday ride, of course, with the exception of po'tentious headwinds, howlin' gales speakin' the secret language of Godhead hissing, "You should have stayed in bed." Yeah, no shit. During the windiest stretch my co-author suffered a puncture and the Mad Emperor Justinian chose this opportunity to launch one of his patented, 40-mile fruitless breakaways, accompanied by Dave Erickson. "Here we go again," we said, weary travelers on the winding roads of Justinology-- the secret and forbidden study of thighs greater than 46 inches in circumference. We spent the next hour delving into the hidden wonders of his Imperial Quadriception, and the fruits of our labors? We caught them on Riverview, so at least we could fucking relax, no more Cam all hounding my ass for 800 watts, yeeeeah right. Some of us are IV's, thanks. I guess there's not much of an excuse because Dave is a four too... Final score: Williamsburg in the form of Mr. N-B and myself one-twos the sprint. Kind of a weak sprint, about 1050 watts. Average for the ride was 209 over 3.5 hours.
The rest of the week was distressingly lacking in luster, due to not riding much. I guess we can call it a rest week, which will also help resolve, with crystal clarity, the centuries old mystery of this year's "rest winter," and may well come to shed light on predictions of a "rest summer" coming up.
The following Saturday night was mayhem as Robert and Sharon celebrated their new house with about eight hundred and twelve people. Not only did I get drunk and swear I would ride Sunday, I even slurred out the Winston Churchill quote about always doing what you say you're going to do when you're drunk, which of course was a terrible, terrible thing. I even told Barry Taylor that I was "DRAWING THE LINE IN THE SAND RIGHT NOW, OH YEAH!" Come Sunday morning, as I stumbled from bed to choke down my runny eggs, I realized that I couldn't stop stumbling, so I took three Endurolytes and went to sleep. Come 8:30, Caitlin woke me up, and the pivotal dialogue was something like this:
C: Are you gonna ride?
S: I don't feel good.
C: You drew the line in the sand.
S: I'm gonna have to eat my words.
C: There were a lot of them.
S: ... Can you give me a ride out there?
When I started down Fenton Mill to find the group, I was still weaving, but with a little help from some questionable friends I soon sweated out the wide sea of whiskey churning in my guts. In fact I was even feeling pretty good, mostly because the ride was moving pretty slow, although in conversation I still took a good three seconds to register what I heard before responding. Unfortunately, while we were cruising, a desperate posse broke away, including an interloper from the Virginia Beach BikeBeat-- the notable Rick Young, who has a history of beating hard on the innocent AKA me. Also present among the crowd of rowdies treatin' us rough was S. Simet, well known to crit suckaz as a rapidly disappearing ass, and PASCAL, who is a sentient computer sent down from 3sports to stone cold crush fools. They plug the waist toggles of his Assos Fugujack into the ports in the Crosslock seatpost joint on his BMC, and whisper into his auditory sensors: "ACTIVATE PROGRAM PASCAL. ACTIVATE PROGRAM DESTROY CHUMPS." And then, we are fucked.
It took some pretty brutal pulling, not that I did any heroic share of that-- most of that was left to folks like Steve J., who was reported to be doing 380 watts for several minutes down Newman. This, for us poor Tidewater souls, is hella power.
Unfortunately for the weaker links among the pursuit, when we hit KOA hill, Cam (who is the boss) told a minor fib, in suggesting that it would be best if we held it together on the hill, which was possibly predicated upon a different "us" for him than for, well, us. Turns out the "us" he had in mind was about half of us, because he booked it with Justin and Steve J. The Good Doctor Doug and I limped home looking sour and sad, but at least we can claim top ten-- whatever the hell that's good for. Average power for the ride was 217 over 3.5 hours. I plugged that into Allen and Coggan's chart, where it ranked me as "Buttmunch." Great.
The only consolation? Race season is almost here, and, if I try hard enough, there might be someone out there foolish enough for even me to school.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
CHKN 471: Advanced Poultry Genitalia Studies (Spring Semester only)
Damn but if the A.M. Mayhem ride didn't come down to a sprint despite numerous efforts by several parties to make it not so. Mr. N-B pointed out that it was, in fact, excellent practice for the skittery March crits, because right as we came into sprinting distance, I got stacked behind some questionable sprint talent and had to roll through the sand and shit on the side of the road. Unfortunately 6-foot tall Miles P. ruined my shot, because he was out to the right and I mistook him for N-B out of the corner of my eye, when in fact the dastard was right behind me. I had to Cuss him, as he came around. Going to spend the next two weeks in deep meditation, mind intensely focused on the Diamond Vajra of 1400 watts. Upon reaching the ninth level of purity of consciousness, I will awaken with the 100 Thighs of Boonen-Ra.
In other news, I have broken down on my two-egg pre-ride diet. I can't look another plate of yellow snot in the eye again for at least a week or so. Damn but it just gets nappy after four or five days in a row to plop down in your bibshorts to a plate of yellow mush that has come from a chicken's vagina. Might have to fall back on almonds, just for the sake of my self-esteem. Where do almonds come from, anyways? Maybe polecats shit them out and migratory workers of Norwegian stock roam the hills of the Dakotas, coming to know individual polecats through their brown, ovoid autoshitographies. Is that possible? Or maybe almonds are vine-based, let's try it out: "Tik-Tik was strangled by a sentient almond vine." Feasible.
Protein good, chicken vadge bad.
In other news, I have broken down on my two-egg pre-ride diet. I can't look another plate of yellow snot in the eye again for at least a week or so. Damn but it just gets nappy after four or five days in a row to plop down in your bibshorts to a plate of yellow mush that has come from a chicken's vagina. Might have to fall back on almonds, just for the sake of my self-esteem. Where do almonds come from, anyways? Maybe polecats shit them out and migratory workers of Norwegian stock roam the hills of the Dakotas, coming to know individual polecats through their brown, ovoid autoshitographies. Is that possible? Or maybe almonds are vine-based, let's try it out: "Tik-Tik was strangled by a sentient almond vine." Feasible.
Protein good, chicken vadge bad.
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