Ahhhh the New Year. I would like to officially give the finger to AD 2006 and welcome Two-double-Aught-Seven into my arms.
My body is currently under viral assault from whatever illness has been leveling all my friends and co-workers. Maybe the 5 nights of Jolt Cola-fueled manic activity prior to New Year’s Eve lowered my immunity. Maybe the imperial gallon of nigori sake (champagne is for the plebes) I consumed on the Eve wasn’t healthy, and maybe I didn’t need to go riding in the freezing rain the next day but I couldn’t think of a better way to start off a smashing new year. I may be bed-ridden and coughing up bits of my internal organs, but even that won’t dampen my spirits.
I guess it’s tradition to start of the new year by expressing one’s wishes and resolutions:
I have many wishes for the next 12 months. Of the ones that are printable, my number one wish is a bike tour of Japan. I wanna ride from Kyoto to Tokyo, passing thru Nagano. To live on beer and ramen for a few weeks, ride in some cool places, and mangle the language.
I also wish that people would stop calling my bike shop and asking how much bike XYZ on eBay is worth. The answer is obvious: it’s worth whatever a fool like you would pay. Let the buyer beware of himself!
I wish that a swank track bike had the same chick magnetism as a motorcycle .but just in case, I have one of those too.
Another wish would be less media coverage and more clothing coverage for Britney Spears’ crotch. Strangely, I think I once wished for the exact opposite set of conditions maybe 5 years ago, which only goes to show that you should be careful what you wish for.
I resolve to never again crash 20yds after giving a car driver a two-finger salute (the UK-style bird, it feels more natural when I’m really annoyed). In actuality, the guy ran a yield and pushed me over a couple lanes, but then my chain jumped off the cog on my fixed-gear while I was sprinting thru a turn. I ended up going down faster than a Craigslist crackwhore. Yeah, it was a full-on yard sale across the asphalt. Talk about embarrassing. Lesson: use 1/8-inch cogs and chains on fixed-gears if you are going to push the limits.
I resolve to ride two centuries this year. I’m not much of a long distance rider, so this is actually a big deal for me. I’m thinking about doing Seattle-to-Portland, so as to get it all out of the way in a weekend. On a fixed-gear, just to prove how stupid I am.
I resolve to race at least seven nights out at the velodrome. I’d do more, but several of my goals are competing for time.
I resolve to stop buying bike crap unnecessarily. Eee-yaaah, sometimes I think that me working at a bike shop is like a junkie running a pharmacy. There’s a lot of cool things on the market, but I need to be realistic about my needs. I’m putting a moratorium on bike purchases just as soon as I upgrade my 3rd road bike to 10-speed and buy a new track bike yeah, that should about do it.
I resolve to stop recommending chain lubricant to bike shop customers on the basis of smell. It just confuses people and gives the impression that I just don’t care about their crucial drivetrain issues. Really, it’s not that I assume that people are overly optimistic about the consistency and competency of their own bike maintenance, it’s just that I really like the smell of Tri-Flow. Mmmmm, smells like banana syrup. Yummy!
I resolve to not exceed more than 5 bicycles in my stable. I once declared that 5 bicycles was the upper limit to sanity, and by that standard of mental health I just have to get rid of a couple of frames and a track bike to achieve well-being. I’ll be selling the excess schwag on eBay. How much is it worth? A BUTTLOAD of money, my good man, let me assure you…