If I’d seen more stuff like this as a kid, I probably would’ve wanted to be an astronaut.
npr:
This is Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield, performing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” while floating around the International Space Station. You may have last seen the space station team walking around in outer space fixing stuff.
You will never do anything this cool.
— ‘Space Oddity’ In Space: Yes, Astronauts Are Still The Coolest Humans : Monkey See
So, I’m riding along and really railing some turns, driving the bike way too well for having not been on trails since December. Oh, snow, you’re a cold hearted bastard. And then, going around one turn for the third time on the day, an innocuous little stick - one of those millions that lurk on or next to the trail during the early days of spring or after storms when the trails are not quite cleaned up yet, reaches into my spokes. I hear a little ping and a twig snap and assume that, as with the fifty times this has already happened this ride, all is fine.
Then, a whoosh. A flat, and not a normal one. It sounds as if my tire has been torn asunder. As I slow to a stop and dismount I check for where the air is coming from, and it takes me a while to realize what has happened. That innocent twig has… sheared my valve stem off right above the nut that holds it in place on the rim. Bizarreness abounds.
So, I begin to pump up my spare tube, and realize it has a hole in it. And I have no patch kit. You see, when you run tubeless tires with sealant inside, you get kind of lazy about these things because flats, in general, just don’t happen. Thorns? No match for Stans.
So, it’s time to get ingenious, or I’m walking a mile or more to the trailhead (and that’s cutting through the woods, not following the trail) and then home through the non savory portion of South Bend that is the decaying industrial wasteland in the southwest portion of the city.
I begin to tear my tube around the valve stem with my tool’s screwdriver, then resort to biting it and tearing it with my teeth. Remove the tubeless valve stem, replace it with what is left of the one with the tube, tighten the nut down as tight as possible to hold it in place. Curse myself for having a tiny pump instead of a Co2 cartridge with plenty of oomph to re-inflate the tire past the difficult point of seating the bead on the rim. But, somehow, incredulously, my frantic pumping slowly plumps the tire and, after five minutes and countless times switching arms, I hear a *pop* echo through the woods as the bead seats on the rim.
That should not have worked. Should NOT have worked.
Somehow, I MacGuyvered a solution and was able to ride home. For the first time on this ride, fortune was on my side.
UW-Platteville: Favorite team in my conference. This is why. THEY LIKE FUN
Oh University of Wisconsin at Platteville Cycling team. You guys make cycling better. Last years Cowboy hotness has given way to the Ahoy-paloy, fairway psychedelics I once consumed. They were originally thought to be truffles that a house broken boar named Bertrand located in a field 130 kilometers outside of Antwerp.
I located a golfer name Francois. He had a penchant for shallots and gin.
He wore similar pants.
Bikes.
There is hardly a case of nerves like the day before the first race of the season. So many unknowns, unanswered questions, float into your consciousness despite attempts to block them out with distraction or positive thoughts or measured expectations. Have I been training well enough? What about those few days I had to skimp on because of work? And how much faster has everyone else gotten? It can be nerve wracking, even after doing this for ten years now (though honestly only four of them seriously).
Over perceptive during your pre race spin, analyzing too deeply every sensation from your leg muscles. Because though there are chances upon chances during the season to make a bid for glory, yours or a teammate’s, the first race always seems like a harbinger of what is to come. There is little making up ground once you are behind, this sport is an unforgiving mistress.
This year, the nerves are greater. I began a new experiment by racing a full cyclocross season, all the way through nationals in January. My time off the bike was months later than I was accustomed to and hence I am starting racing a month later. There is a plan, and I believe in it, but wondering how the first race will go is only heightened by this abrupt shift, even with the coolness that comes with years racing.
Tomorrow I will forget it all, focus on the race and feel the sensation of wind whipping past my face that only racing gives you that feels so odd after months of solitary training. But tonight, I am brimming with anticipation am eagerness like a small child. What will tomorrow bring?
Frustration with advisor’s comments grows. #dissertationchronicles
Zonhoven, the land of the giant sand pit. The second stop of the Superprestige series featured a classic battle between Sven Nys, the old master, and Niels Albert, the younger sand genius. Clearly a level (or two or three) above the others, they rarely looked like they were riding hard when in the lead. With only one rideable line through the sandy sections before the final turn onto the short finishing stretch, positioning was key. Albert grabbed the first position going into a steep run-up that Nys had ridden to great effect shortly before, forcing Sven off his bike and preventing him from gaining an advantage there. Then Nys took over with a strong attack, setting up one last battle for position going into a downhill 180-degree turn on sand. Albert got ballsy (and showed his crazy sand skills) here, diving on the inside and forcing Nys off his bike, then fighting back as Nys tried to run in front of him up the climb away from the turn. Best moment of the race by far.
Tricks? They are not so difficult on a bike built for them. Trick bikes are almost like kids’ toys, small and easy to whip around, an upright position that lets you use your upper body to really work the bike. But doing this stuff on a road bike? That takes skillz, dudes.
So much rad. Also, I want to go ride that trail like right now.
Will Moore, in a 1995 article in the Journal of Conflict Resolution.
It is hard to explain to people what I do and what I want to do with graduate degrees in political science and peace studies. This captures it perfectly. This is my motivation.
Years ago my parents bought me a new bike, a mountain bike with knobby tires and 24 gears to choose from. It was a Diamondback, black with white decals, nothing fancy. But it opened up a whole new world to me.
My dad has worked in the research park near the university which is nestled in woods and hemmed in by a university farm on one side and highway on the other. In those thick woods there have always been mountain bike trails that locals have cut and maintained. They switchback back and forth, twisting around hills and crossing each other a hundred times.
My dad began riding before I did, beginning to cycle regularly with my mom as they sought to boost their fitness. Rides to town and back for breakfast grew longer and before too long my dad was riding the mountain bike trails occasionally in his lunch hour. And I began to join him.
I would chase him around the woods, panting as he pulled away from me and I fought to keep him in sight. My thin legs barely drug me up some of the steeper climbs. And slowly I got faster and fell into love with not just riding or mountain biking but the whole realm of what cycling has to offer. I began racing, first at a mountain bike race (where my dad beat me, of course) and then moving onto the road where the speed was higher, the excitement heightened by thirty other riders mere inches away as we dived into a corner.
Our cycling paths have diverged long since - I became a dedicated racer and moved up the categories and he continued to ride for fitness a few times a week, a little less as the pressures of work began to eat into his time as did his involvement with the local boy scout troop and church. His mountain bike began to gather dust as most of his rides were morning commutes to work.
Today, I met him at work during his lunch hour and we played on the trails until he had to go back for a meeting. And while so much has changed with him now chasing me around while I play on the cross bike I could not help but become sentimental for days past and think about how much those early rides in the woods dodging trees and finding spider webs with our faces shaped me. Thank you, Papa, for giving me cycling.
