Bike Hugger 

With beard flowing in the wind and pulling important cargo…

A reward

That’s a Prime Chophouse with an egg on top and bacon on the bottom. About 1,500 calories and 100 grams of fat. A reward after riding and not eating much more than protein shakes for a couple weeks, working to get back in shape after being injured.

Afterward, I was asleep by 9:00 pm.

Bad air

Today’s weather conditions are brought to you by web safe color #999999. Riding 3 hours in that, feels like a hour of hard riding in Beijing. Meteorologists call it an inversion, I call it an Old Dirty Bastard.

Inversions are the natural result of a having high pressure over us in winter. High pressure is associated with sinking air that eliminates upper and middle level clouds, allowing the earth to radiate heat to space. … Think of them as atmospheric lids. Cold air is dense and heavy and likes to stay under the less dense air aloft. The result of this stability is lots of low clouds, fog, cold temperatures, black ice, and unfortunately air pollution.

Alone in the slop, hoping your brakes work, next time you need them

Chandler wrote this after sadly having to agree with us about mechanical disc brakes on road/cross bikes. The lack of modulation, unbalanced braking, and the sound are our reasons, but Chandler learned it’s even worse than that in the conditions when you need them the most

It’s been a week…almost. A week since surviving the Great White North that was Cyclocross Nationals in Madison WI, and all the “fun in the sun” that came with it. Its been more than a week since having my trust and opinions on disc brakes on cross bikes tested to the nth degree. A week since my being a “Realist” has unfortunately made me rethink my personal stance on the awesomeness of disc brakes in the most equipment cruel discipline (outside of downhilling) in the cycling genre.

I’ll keep this short and sweet…as possible

A couple of friends from Florida came to visit me at the shop. One I’ve known since high school in Fort Myers but she also went to the same college as me, and the other had been a member of my collegiate cycling team. I had no idea that they knew each other (same program at the university), and without warning they both show up at the shop. Man, that brought back a lot of memories.

I remember working at Recycled Bicycles in Gainesville (no relationship to Seattle’s Recycled Cycles), wrenching on crackhead bikes. I remember riding my Bianchi cyclocross bike through the woods behind Archer Road years before anyone in that area knew what the hell cyclocross was; specifically I remember lots of sand. I remember riding down flights of stairs on my road bike while delivering pizzas: I’d break rear axles at a rate of 1 axle every 1-2 months.

G-ville is a great town to ride a bike in, especially during the winter. Gotta get back there for some quality time soon.

top photo of my boss Dave and co-worker Dan at Recycled Bicycles (2001). we were probably listening to Cibo Mato on the stereo. lower photo is of my Bianchi RC cyclocross bike (circa 1998). lugged steel with Rev-X wheels. god, i wish Avid Shorty Ultimate brakes existed back then.

Hahaha, I just remembered that my old campus residence area used to have a pre-Homecoming event called “Mudfest” in which they’d dig a huge mud pit between Weaver Hall and South Hall to host competitions ranging from mud volleyball to mud flag football to the classic mud tug-of-war. After Homecoming, they’d rope off the area to allow the mud to solidify. A month later the surface would be cracked clay but if you were stupid enough to try to ride through it your bike would submerge to within 3 inches of the lower headset cup.