Even on recovery days, life in a house full of bikes and guys is interesting.
As I’ve mentioned before, I usually make dinner. Even though I’m vegetarian, I’ll usually make special requests:
Matt and Ryan always do the dishes:
They also decorate with their own personal works of art:
Ryan keeps the yard clear of sticks:
Sometimes, we just re-arrange the bikes for fun:
A few random thoughts that I’ve gathered while sifting through my recent blog stats-
To the guys on the “Dirt Dawgs” message forum out of the Dallas area- I see you. I don’t know what the context is of the link you’ve posted to my blog because you have your forum locked down like the boys only secret clubhouse, but thanks for the traffic, I think…
More people are searching for “Debbie Milne” than “Andrea Wilson”.
More people are searching for “clevages” than “Andrea Wilson”.
A lot of people are tying to decide whether they want to order Alligator I-link or Nokon cable housing systems. My advice? Yes.
Along the same vein, people are also very interested in the Uvex Boss Race helmet. Yes, it looks like a mushroom. It’s also one of the nicest helmets I’ve ever had the pleasure of wearing (nobody else comes close to beating their retention system).
The most traffic comes from people who are trying to use the google search bar as a place to enter my web address. I count these hits as “my parents”.
Getting linked from Dicky’s blog has done wonders for my traffic. While I can’t follow his advice, “go back in time and start a blog,” that might be the next best thing, however itchy it makes me feel.
That’s about it. You can get back to googling “clevages” now.
Since I’m generally surrounded by men at both work and home, I’ve been contemplating a post like this lately, and a recent thread in the MTBR Singlespeed forum sparked me to actually do it- Since I’ve got a captive audience of guys who read here, I thought I’d write a little advice here about taking care of your woman (of course, I know there are plenty of ladies that read here, too. You’re all welcome/encouraged to chime in on the comments section).
Ask or show a guy how to take care of his bike, and he’s golden. Ask a guy how to keep his woman happy, and he’ll usually reply with some sort of confused analogy like this:
Yes, you are at least half correct. Men are simple and vile creatures (note the multiple definitions for “simple”). This alone is proof that homosexuality is not a conscious choice, otherwise we’d live in a world where most women were lesbians.
Spoiler alert- men, we really aren’t that complicated.
What women are really looking for is your attention. Any form of it. This is including, but not limited to: compliments, back rubs, expressions of your feelings on days other than feb 14th, your thanks/appreciation…
All of those are important, but that last one is a biggie. A lack of this is where so many problems can start- your woman does a small task to help you, and that goes seemingly unnoticed (either you didn’t notice or you did and thought, “well, that’s no big deal, I have no reason to make mention of it”). She won’t stop doing it. In an attempt to get your attention, she might even do it more. However, each time her help goes unnoticed, she makes a mental note. She will probably drop hints that your lack of notice is bothering her. Then, one day, you have an argument over how you always leave the toilet seat up, and she slaps you in the face with, “you don’t appreciate anything I do for you.” You’re blindsided and confused.
Women are wired to take care of other warm-blooded beings- It’s that whole “mother instinct” thing. Remember- the same instinct that stimulates our desire to cook you dinner and do your laundry is the same instinct that will make a momma bear rip your arms off for looking at her cubs the wrong way. So, when we express our desire to take care of you, you’d best take notice. Estrogen is a helluva drug.
We aren’t shallow (well, most of us, anyway). I’m not saying you have to shower us with gifts and cowtow to us in appreciation. A simple “thanks” and pat on the butt to show that you are pleased that you have clean underwear is plenty. Compliment us on something. Anything. Make it a goal to give your woman one honest compliment a day and see what happens.
So, no, we aren’t a single switch operation like you are. However, I just gave you the short & easy of what switches you need to flip to keep the machine from malfunctioning and causing a meltdown.
…what?
I hear it in post-race conversation all the time. “I used to read ‘x’ blog, but then ‘x’ happened and I got tired of it and stopped.”
Lately, I’ve been noticing a falling off for page visits to this site. Maybe it’s the lull in posting as of late? Is it my breath? My hair? Maybe I should comment more often on Dicky’s blog so that a few of his 11ty billion readers wander over here. When I asked him back around Southern Cross time how to gain more readership, his advice to me was to “start a blog in 2006,” or something like that.
I’m guessing it’s a general lack of excitement and adventure that my previous posts once had. So, in sort of a “raise your hand if you’re not here” fashion, I’m open to suggestions- both from the loyal few that stick around here, as well as some of you that wander in by accident, read this post, and decide you’re probably never coming back.
P.S. “Tits or GTFO” is not a valid suggestion.
Sorry to bum everyone out with my last post. In more and more ways, I’m finding that life experience and bike experience can occasionally parallel each other. Finding out about the death of my friend was a lot like face planting into a tree at ~12mph. What has happened since then is like the remainder of my story that day.
(you should click the link above and read it right now so that the remainder of this post makes sense… go ahead. I’ll wait)
I found out last night that my uncle is in the hospital for kidney and lung problems. Finding out about this, I felt the same way that I did on the stalled out boat that day… at that point, nothing short of the boat catching on fire and sinking was going to be any worse than going face first into mother nature’s baseball bat. In a way, I feel the same now.
I’m sad. It sucks. It sucks really, really bad. But, eventually, the boat will crank, I’ll get to shore, ice down my lip, and the wounds will slowly heal to leave a barely perceivable scar.
In much happier news, RDO parts are starting to arrive. I’ve got rims, spokes, seatpost, a KMC gold chain and some other random parts waiting for me at the shop right now. I’m hoping that the order from Hope (brakes and hubs) gets here soon so I can build the wheels. I’ll post a few teaser pics once that happens.
No eccentric bottom bracket will ever be 100% quiet.
Also, death. I very recently found out that a good friend of mine whom I’d lost touch with died last month by committing suicide. She was always the type that you wouldn’t hear from for a while, but that would eventually come around and want to meet up for lunch. She was also the type that, when I didn’t hear from her for a long time, I had a very, very bad feeling gnawing at the pit of my stomach until I finally heard the news.
I feel like somewhere, something has pulled a plug out of my body and part of me has drained out. We’re all going to die at some point, and I think, on some level, everyone is afraid of dying. We can hope, though, that at that moment, however brief and fleeting, the certainty of death brings a sense of peace and relief.
I miss you.
The week off after Mohican was a fun one. I bathed my soul in alcohol and didn’t ride much- which is essentially a great time… until it’s not. Monday night, we polished off the week of not giving a f*** by hanging out with coworkers at Flying Saucer, where I wing-womaned for Kenny (successfully, I might add), and Ryan broke his iPhone
(more on that in a second)
The next morning, it was back to being serious. Intervals. Thousands of them. Ok, maybe just 3 really hard ones. I felt like breaking the cranks off of my bike, which is a great thing on your first day back to training, because it indicates that you rested as hard as possible. Wednesday, I decided that since I have a fancy powertap wheel and the rigid fork on my geared A9C, that I was going to start doing some of my long, steady rides on it rather than the road bike. I figure at some point, I’ll be racing it long distances, so I might as well train on it more often as well.
Oh yeah- remember the broken iPhone? We fixed it last night. I say “we” because Ryan ordered a screen, took the old one off, and installed the new one.
All the while, I was sitting at my computer providing life-coaching services to Matt via Facebook. Apparently, everything came apart OK, but when it came time to re-install the 500 thousand teeny electronics screws, Ryan started to get really frustrated. Like any respectable man, he throws things when he’s frustrated, so when I heard the sound of something hitting the wall from the other end of the house, I figured it was time to step in and offer up my dexterity and patience…
It eventually all came together, and, sometime around midnight, we got to sleep.
Looking ahead? Well, the Smith and Nephew Gran Prix Omnium is this weekend, and it includes the State Championship crit. I was initially planning on poaching the crit, but then realized that I didn’t feel like ditching a week of training focused on my endurance endeavors just so I could gun for another white TN Champ jersey to add to my overflowing collection (smirk). So, instead, it’ll be more intervals and more long rides on the MTB…
If you’ve left a commented in the past couple of weeks and you’re wondering where it went, that’d be my fault. This morning, I was using my phone to look at a spam post that made it past the filter. Instead of deleting just that, I deleted a full page of comments.
That’ll teach me to moderate my blog before I have coffee in the morning…
I figured the side-cheek photo would have had more comments, anyway.
Six days out from the Mohican 100, and I’m already feeling the pre-race crazies. At least 3 of the usual NUE badasses are at the TSE race, which runs from today until June 4th (same day as Mohican). This means that I’ll have the opportunity to scoop up some good NUE points if I can place well (I’m currently sitting 5th overall). Not that I’m totally discounting the current entries into Mohican or anything- BrendaLee Simril will be there, and she’s finished ahead of me in both NUE races so far. Also, I’m sure Laureen, just a couple of points behind me, will be looking for the opportunity to strike as well.
All of this, in addition to not knowing the course very well, leads to a little bit of singlespeeder apprehension. Last year, the course was a blur of mud and thunderstorm. I broke my rear brake lever off, then proceeded to bend and break my chain (two separate occurrences in two different spots on the chain). At the 3rd aid station, I said f*ckit and DNFd the race. Once I was home, I realized that I’d also cracked my Air9 in the process. In the meantime, I wasn’t paying attention to the course or giving singlespeeding it any thought.
This year, the forecast is looking good for fast course conditions (though, now that I’ve said that “out loud,” the city of Loudonville is doomed to a tornado on Saturday). I’m still not totally sure about gear or suspension choice, and somewhere, in the back of my mind, there’s a tiny voice saying “take the geared bike!” since what I do remember about the course is a lot of short, steep hills that will undoubtedly put me on my feet if I choose a singlespeed gear that will get me through the flat parts of the course without major spinout.
…fear not though. I’m feeding that voice a tiny glass of STFU with a side of GTFO.
In other news, the rule in the house on Friday was “no one under 30 can wear a shirt”…
I was going to jokingly crop this photo down to just the “bad” part and label it as “why you should purchase your Cannondale at Outdoors, Inc.” However, since I’ve apparently been dubbed “Mandrea” by the person pictured below, the gloves are off.
