Fuxed...

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
—Ernest Hemingway

Doubtful.

Yesterday afternoon, while hanging out with some Outlaws¹ at an undisclosed SSOFT outpost in Baltimore—and freshly fueled by a few rounds of Loose Cannon—I made the mistake of calling the Disco Cowboy's bluff when he said half-jokingly that he would join team SSOFT Machines this weekend coming for the 12 Hours of Lodi Farm race, under one simple condition: that all of us ride it fixed.

Possessed of a large dose of Dutch courage,² and exuding more than my usual degree of faux braggadocio, I listened to the steady voice of reason and, without hesitation, offered up a response that was nothing less than a fait accompli: I agreed.

In the sober hours that followed that dubious commitment, I did the math. I analyzed information gleaned from countless rounds of empirical assessments, merged details of the race course from years past with the wealth of experience garnered from the one or two times I've ridden fixed off-road, assayed my current “level of fitness”, sought guidance from dirty fixed-gear legends, evaluated my bike set-up, administered more Dutch courage,² checked and rechecked the calculations, arranged the numbers in complex matrices, and ran the equations over and over again, until every error was pinched out of its margin.

And now, after compiling all of the data, I’ve arrived at one final, incontrovertible, utterly unambiguous conclusion: I'm fucked.

My Karate Monkey is already set up fixed with a TomiCOG bolted onto a Paul rear disc hub. That's the good news. The gearing is 32:18, a ratio that is more or less equivalent to a 2:1 on a 26er (my current ride of choice). The fork is rigid. There's a disc brake on the front that I fully intend to use. The thing is heavy and slow, a pregnant brontosaur with elephantiasis whose bottom bracket shell all but skims the earth beneath it like a cow-catcher, promising plenty of pedal strikes and unplanned detours. And with Lady Nature unabashedly emptying her boundless bladder upon this little corner of paradise this very minute, there’s not much time to gain experience. Oh, did I mention that I haven't ridden the beast—fixed or free—in months? It's all coming together nicely.

This is going to be fun...

...like a date with the Marquis de Sade...

...minus the happy ending.

1. This gathering occurred after a most informative and highly entertaining tour of the Clipper City Brewing Company, to which SSOFT member were cordially invited. More about the tour later.
2. Yeah, I know, not politically correct…if you’re Dutch, you're surely strong enough to handle it. There, there’s your offsetting compliment...have a beer and relax.

Fata Morgana...

There were cathedrals falling out of your eyes
And your arms were the handlebars
I held in an abbreviated dream of crushed petals
Strewn across the limpid avenues.

I said, “I have poems for you”
But my words were lost in the wind.
I said, “I love you"
And you drifted into sleep.

And so I said nothing and rode you in and out of the rooms
Where we had stretched the boundaries of the soul
Like an endless sheet
And I felt you waking up between my legs.
Noelle Kocot, "The Bicycle Poem"

"The beauty myth moves for men as a mirage; its power lies in its ever-receding nature. When the gap is closed, the lover embraces only his own disillusion."
—Herman Melville

Disillusion? Naw. Too harsh. Not even disappointment. When it's not there, accept it, adapt, move on. That, or die of melancholy. And really, what kind of a choice is that?

Wait, we're talking bikes here, right?

Sunday evening I came upon an abandoned bicycle in the underground parking lot of a government building in Clarendon. A Motobecane Super Mirage, to be exact, circa late 70s. A dark little number, a faded beauty, une reine sombre de la France, to use the appropriate language. Despite a kickstand protruding from her belly, she was leaning awkwardly against a support column, half-propped up on spavined tires that had long ago given in to decay. It was clear that she had been jilted.

Slowly I approached her, eyed her for size, for fit, noted her French pedigree, sensed an air of quiet confidence about her, as if she knew her dumpster destiny would be denied, that reprieve was imminent, that she would be rescued soon. I was being manipulated, and I played into it deeply, willingly. It was not the first time.

I promised myself—I promised her—that if, upon my return that evening, she should linger there still, in that clammy catacomb, I would take her in, I would accept Fate's bounty, she would be mine.

She kept her part of the bargain,¹ and I kept mine. Excited, I took her home. But in the days that followed, distracted by quotidian trifles, I put her down for a while, let her slip from my mind like a siren's promise. Until I began to forget what she looked like...

Now, this evening, I find myself standing in my yard on a grimy tarp spread out on the grass like a pauper's blanket. Tools—surgical instruments—litter its plastic surface. My hands are spotted (and Hell is murkier still). Nearby, a sweating bottle of Old Rasputin, lone witness, breathes silently in the dusk air, half empty.

What went wrong?

The sun is shining down with infinite clemency, but a sinister coldness stains the edges of a spring day that is giving in easily like a drunken lover to the lure of the night. At my feet lies her torso, rigid and cold. Around me, placed with the precision of a pathologist, are her many ravaged parts. Gone are my dreams of restoring her intact. I am no great re-animator, no bokor; the blood of Shelley's der gute doktor² runs not in my veins. She will live again, true. She will even begin to enjoy life anew. But in a different form; reborn like a steely Phoenix. We will tour the city streets together, she and I, for what age and abuse and neglect have wrought upon her fragile frame, I have sought to fix.³

1. That anything—even something as innocuous as an old bicycle—could remain unmolested longer than 10 minutes in the basement garage of a federal government building in this age of rampant paranoia and xenophobia is truly mind-boggling.
2. Alas, Wikipedia is quick to point out that Victor Frankenstein, as conceived by Mary Shelley (and in contradiction of the characterization in the eponymous 1931 classic film) was, in fact, not a doctor at all but a college drop-out with a cool idea and a ton of drive. Ah, the useful things one learns upon making a casual reference.
3. Paraphobics take note: all innuendos in this post should be taken with tongue in cheek.

The SSOFT Machines1...

...will descend on the tiny town of Fredericksburg, Virginia, on May 3 to roll out their rubbers² in the 10th Annual 12 Hours of Lodi Farm race.

Dave B. (pictured at left, bellying up to the bar in a Scottish pub during last year's SSWC) and I have joined forces for a duo single-speed team.

With this otherwise fantastic news comes the sad realization that The Big Meats will not be, ahem, hanging out³ at the race this year. A moment of silence, please...

Riding photo credit: Gary Ryan.

1. With apologies to the gentleman junkie, William S. Burroughs.
2., 3. Of course, this new team name still holds plenty of opportunity for humorous allusions to all things priapic, so the theme continues, even if all the players don't. Hence the footnoted gems above.

Such Sweet Suffering...

"It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure."
—Marquis de Sade

"Perhaps all pleasure is only relief."
—William S. Burroughs

"The demon that you can swallow gives you its power, and the greater life’s pain, the greater life’s reply."
—Joseph Campbell

POW!

The sound is loud and crisp, like a rifle’s report, and wholly at odds with the low bass rumble of tires on gravel my ears have grown used to in the morning hours. Instantly, instinctively, I resist the high-rep spin of the cranks and feather the front brake ever so gently. The handlebar shimmies violently in my hands. The front tire expands, swells like a glutted snake, and flaps wildly as it pulls away from the rim on one side. The wheel begins to slow as the rim clangs through the gutted tire against the hard surface beneath, unprotected by its shredded tube. In a few dozen feet, I come to a stop, as do the other riders.

I've just become victim number six of the Flat Phantom, a karmic spectre that has stalked this group of riders all day long, hellbent on extracting vengeance for some slight—real or imagined—for which it has found us guilty in absentia. Alas, the Phantom is not finished with us yet.

I pull the wheel, strip out the tube, and pass it off for inspection while I throw in a new one. Jay lends me his pump, the community pump, as it's become on this ride, and I get the job done. There is a small break in the tire bead. The old tube sports a jagged, six-inch gash, but there is no corresponding damage on the tire sidewall. It is a mystery flat, and the Outlaw speculates that it may have been heat from braking that caused the rupture. It was a long, fast downhill, true, but I stayed off the brake for the most part. Odd, indeed.

Some 37 miles ago, when we began this 1903 Adventure Ride, we were 11 riders strong. Six of us rode fixed gear bikes. Of those six, five were still riding at this point. The one gearie still with us, Jeff, was riding a vintage, multi-colored GT mountain bike with large knobbies. The five absent riders had left in two exoduses, three at mile 20, and two sometime before that. Family obligations.

During that 37 miles, as I said, we'd already managed to rack up 5 flats, the first (Jon's) not more than a mile and a half from the cars. That flat ate two tubes and one pump; Fate was knocking on our door and nobody was getting up to open it.

Still, we've had no other mechanicals; just flats. It isn't helping that many of us are on skinny tires—28s, 32s—and that the Outlaw has deliberately sought out the roughest, steepest, most pothole-laden gravel roads Frederick has to offer. And if that last bit isn't the purest of truths, it sure as hell feels like it. And now this string of flats has already pushed the ride deep into the day, guaranteeing a late finish time. It's not a concern for me, I'm a free man for the day.

Up to this point, the ride has lived up to its billing. It's been a perfect mix of gravel and asphalt, of rough and smooth, up and down, pain and bliss. And there is no sign as I flip my bike over that things will change in any direction.

Back on the bikes again, we make our way to our one formal stop. It's a little quickie mart about a mile away with the unlikely name of Gateway Market, Candyland, and Liquor. We stock up on fuel and sit outside with our bikes, each of us smiling at the good fortune we've had in the form of unexpectedly mild weather. The sky is clear. Sunlight beams down on us, its warmth a whispered promise that summer is coming. Joe picks up a six of Stoudts American Pale Ale, somehow missing the Troeg's Nugget Nectar and Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA lurking somewhere in the aging stand-up cooler...and wholly overlooking an incredible array of "exotic" offerings (how does Trappiste Rochefort 10 sound?...yeah, no shit!) occupying a nondescript wall near the back. No matter. Six beers, six riders. Perfect math. The ale tastes good; it's long overdue. Never mind the fact that some of us had shown the presence of mind to pack along a few cans of Dale's Pale Ale—those were already gone.

I'm beat. This ride has hit me hard, and I've struggled to stay with the front runners every mile of the way. Lack of sleep, a late night drunk-on, bad diet, a steep gear, a botched oblation, you name it, I'll claim it, it's mine, baby. Whatever, I feel weak. There are about 10 miles left in the ride, bumping us up close to the 50 mile mark when it's all said and done, and the Outlaw lets on with a wry smile that the last 10 are all uphill. Oh, and with a "wall" near the end.

The wall comes all right, but only after several taxing climbs—short steeps on loose-surfaced back roads and long, slow, gradual ascents alongside motorists as indifferent to our presence as to the swath of asphalt on which we ride—have wrested every last gram of glycogen from my liver stores and leg muscles. I step off, and up ahead of me, 25 feet from the peak, Dave B. sees me and abruptly follows suit in a purely sympathetic gesture. We take maybe 10 steps, then we're back on again. I thank Dave for his willful sacrifice, and he laughs it off, as if he'd needed the break. He hadn't.

At some point, we enter a Frederick neighborhood where Joe suffers the seventh and final flat of the day. He's quick with the fix, finishing up as a carload of young girls flies by, honking the horn as they pass. It is a silly moment that, for me, adds some much appreciated levity to the circumstances.

We roll off again to tackle the remaining few miles. I drop back into the fifth slot and just concentrate on turning over the cranks. I occupy a middle spot between the four riders ahead of me and the one behind, neither gaining nor losing ground as I move. Traffic passes by closely. I let my mind wander back to the last 1903 Adventure Ride, when I felt stronger and performed much better. What has changed? Just several more months of a daily commute to work by bike, 20+ miles a day, 5 days a week, with the occasional dirt ride thrown in on weekends for good measure. That, and a ton of beer down the gullet. Hell, that winning combination should mean I'm stronger now! Alas, such ironclad logic doesn't seem to figure into it. So much for hard science and the empire of the rational. I fight the cranks, and the miles limp by.

I arrive at the base of the last climb, a gravelly one that is only moderately steep. Up ahead at an intersection, Dave B. spins in a lazy circle until he's sure I see him, then heads right at the fork toward the cars. I'm motivated now, because I realize the end is near. I double my efforts and reach the fork quickly, where I repeat Dave's gesture, waiting for Jeff to appear. A turn left would mean an additional climb back up to make the correction, something I'm sure neither of us would appreciate.

Then Jeff appears, and I waste no time lingering. There is beer waiting at the cars, and my pace quickens at the mere thought of an ice-flecked bottle or can of hoppy goodness. It's all about motivation.

After we regroup, some of us head over to Brewer's Alley to celebrate this blissful bit of torture.

(Big thanks go out to Joe for brainstorming yet another brutal masterpiece! Props are due Jay, Jon, and Dave B. for hanging so tight with the Outlaw that at times they appeared to be riding a quad.)

Ride data can be found here, courtesy of Dave B., who rocked the hardest gearing with a monstrous 50:18.

Pour a Beer for Baudelaire...

"God is the only being who, in order to reign, doesn't even need to exist."

On this very day in 1821 was born one Charles Baudelaire, influential French poet and art critic who had an all-consuming passion for alcohol, hashish, opium, and all things synesthetic.

His work ill-received, largely underappreciated, and often misunderstood, his body and mind wracked by hemiplegia and aphasia, Baudelaire died at the age of 46 in a Parisian nursing home, his mother by his side.

There's a lesson in there somewhere, but I'll be damned if I know what it is...

"The Poet is a kinsman in the clouds
Who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day;
But on the ground, among the hooting crowds,
He cannot walk, his wings are in the way."
—L’Albatros [The Albatross]

Tour de Frederick par un Grand Groupe de Enfants Terribles and a Little TM...

So much for my French.

Busy weekend coming up, and it's about time I partook.

Saturday, the quiet town and surrounding areas of Frederick, MD, will witness the fourth 1903 Adventure Ride. Designed for fixed-gear fiends and puerile posers par excellance, it's the Outlaw's homegrown tribute to the original TdF(rance)¹, in which men of steel pedaled bikes of steel over cobblestone surfaces under grueling conditions, where the only antidotes to the misery and pain were alcohol², nicotine, and an appropriately steely will. With temps in the 50s and a morning deluge expected, plus a route that favors the paths most gravelled, this one is sure to bring out the epic. It all ends in beers³.

On Sunday, it's time to whip out your pick, show your ax, and get you some dirty love. I'm talking a little TM, as in "trail maintenance." If you ride in the 'shed⁴, here's your opportunity to give a little something back to Lady Nature and do yourself a favor at the same time. Gloves, H₂O, and a little muscle are all you need bring. Meet at 9 ayem at the Hamburg Road parking lot. Dig it.

Photo credits: B. Ramsey.

1. Here's a brief retrospective look at the dark and humorous sides of Le Tour.

2. Some things never change.

3. With apologies to J.J. Connolly.

4. Slothful term of affection for the Frederick Watershed.

Pedaling Pornography...

All of them milking with green fleshy flowers/While powerful pistons were sugary sweet machines...
—"Oh Comely," Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

Wednesday evening I managed to wend my way on two wheels to Asylum in Adams Morgan to take in The Pornography of the Bicycle, a flick billed as "a series of short films on the theme of Bike Porn" that has managed to travel across the country on a seemingly (but never seemly) miniscule budget.

The brainchild of one Reverend Phil—whose orange, devil's-horn wisps of hair belie his saintly pseudonym—and his cohorts from Portland, OR, along with (and this part's supposition) a handful of dudes from Vancouver, BC, and, perhaps, a few undisclosed enclaves betwixt the two regions, this collection of celluloid vignettes indirectly attempts to answer the Biblical question, Just what the hell is Bike Porn, anyway?

I showed up early at Nanny Obrien's, the one venue that had agreed to host the flick's opening here in DC¹. After hanging out for a few minutes and noticing no one whose ass looked as if it enjoyed the touch of leather (be it from saddle or riding crop), I inquired with the 'keep as to where the movie would be shown, only to learn that the venue had changed last minute. So, after putting my own ass back on the saddle, I was quickly off to Asylum in Adams Morgan.

Rolled up to the bar and, as I locked up at the racks outside along with a thousand other bikes, I was accosted by the Portland crew. They appeared to have been hovering about for a while, trying to decide where best to drink whatever was growing warm in a brown paper sack one of them clutched in the crook of his arm (silly me, I thought they were looking for a bar, and suggested The Reef across the street where, unbeknownst to any of us, a rare keg of Rogue Double Dead Guy—yum!—was on tap). I fell in with them, and we ambled around the back of the bar, settling into a relatively well-lit alley so the boys could shake down a few Schaeffers without fear of an interloping constable.

In between supping beer and talking in the vaguest of terms about the film, the crew passed out fliers for the event, trying to garner interest from passersby. A couple of crushed cans later, and we were inside, where a smaller than expected group had already gathered for the viewing. I headed up to the bar, where I was soon joined by none other than Anna K. just as my beer, a Bell's Double Cream Stout, met my waiting hand. Hung out chatting with Anna for a bit before the film started.

Not long after the flick began rolling, I got a poke in the back and turned around to see Susanna M., formerly of WABA fame and now gracing the halls of CCAN, standing there, beer in hand. I introduced the two ladies, and the three of us talked much of the time, pausing now and again for a sip of beer and to catch up on the film. I guess what I'm warming up to here is, I'm a bit of an unreliable narrator when it comes to describing the various scenes that flashed across the screen well into the night. Sure, I caught bits and pieces, but as for a review, well, the company and a few pints put the kibosh on any attempt at a real critique. Okay, full disclosure is done, here's what I got:

The Pornography of the Bicycle features all manner of bike footage, including a few loops of the infamous Portland Zoobombers. All of the clips are DIY, as they should be. Despite the lurid title, most of the scenes are unassociated with what I'm guessing most people think of when they think of pornography, which is a good thing (gratuity purely for the sake of being gratuitous has been done to death). The notable exception is the concluding clip, which features, ahem, a structurally-modified naked female bike-o-phile attempting a little paraphilia with a hapless road bike left alone in a backyard. In the end, after a bit of fruitless frottage, she hops aboard the bike and, olisbos dangling, pedals away from our leering eyes, off in search of more privacy. There, that's probably the bit you were looking for anyway, so all is not lost. While the film was entertaining enough, it's not likely to pedal away with a Palme d'Or (now there's a nice double entendre for you) anytime soon.

(Damn, I gotta get out on a real ride soon...)

1. Rumor has it that Gwadzilla was instrumental in arranging a DC venue for the film.