In Socialist Belgium, Jonathan Page cheer you!

I wrote most of this post last month and never finished it, but in honor of Jonathan Page's national championship victory and the impending world champs in Kentucky, I cleaned it up and added a million photos. I have been a big fan of Page since 2001 nationals and supercup in Baltimore when I watched him win the Supercup race (on a Richard Sachs cross bike) by sprinting full speed around Todd Wells into the last set of barriers, barely holding it together as he tripped/ran/fell across the barriers and holding on to the finish for the win. So congrats to Page for his 4th national championship and read on if you got some minutes.

Jacob Van Artevelde discovers Gent's Socialists Dwelling

So there I was in Gent for a meeting a back in early November, I cleverly had built in two days at the end of the trip for bicycle based shenanigans, fortunately my long lost pal Jeff was living in nearby Antwerp and up for said shenanigans. On Saturday I planned on hitting the Soudal Classic Jaarmarktcross Cyclocross race in Niel Belgium. I hopped on on my fixie bike friday early saturday morning and rode 5 rainy kilometers to Gent Sint Peeters station and hopped on a train to Antwerp.

Excellent train murals in Sint Peeters Station

Once in Antwerp I hopped on the bike and rode a couple of km to Jeff's abode. Where I discovered he secretly is the man behind the evil society of the Ned Van Vlanders Flag. We talked bikes and stuff and set up a road bike for me for the next day's cobbly adventure on the RVV course. Finally, due to a cancelled ride, Jeff graciously offered to accompany me down to Niel to watch the race.

Flag of the free state of Ned diddily Van Flaandersen

We rode down on a very confusing yet well marked bike routes down toward the race. I am glad Jeff had some local knowledge and was able to steer us more or less directly down to the race. The routes varied from separated bike lanes, to sidewalk routes, to suburbs then on to skinny farm roads that eventually dumped us in Niel. The ride down featured varying levels of driving mist and rain. It was clear that it was getting increasingly crossy out there. Once in Niel, we followed the trail of welly wearing superfans, paid our fee and got into the race site just before the start of the women's race. We immediately got tiny beers in plastic cups and frites.

Frites with Diablo Sauce and tiny Primus beers

Jeff watches the women's race from the special vantage place...

The atmosphere was a bit sparse at the Start-finish line, so fortified with more beers, we went in search of mud. It was found. The course was pretty flat with one impressive off camber muddy chicane. Some of the flat sections were more or less unridable. There were sections where the mens field were running for what appeared to be 1/4 mile or more on pancake flat ground. Impressively mucky.

My feets

Deep ruts even for flyweight riders

Manual assist on the crowd barrier

Jeff and I set up camp at an area with a great view of the muddy chicane and with a turn of the head, we could watch the big screen following the race. We watched the end of the women's race, went on a dangerous mud mission to get more beer and returned to our original watching spot to watch the rider's introductions on the big screen. Sven Nys got the biggest cheer. Niels Albert got boos. Jeff and I were probably the only people at the race who cheered for Jonathan Page. The vinyl jacket wearing superclub supporters (Vantourenhout, Nys and Pauls) in front of us, smirked at our homerism.

Me and Jeff and the Bald Superfans, best photo of my whole trip really...

More superclub fans, Klaas Vantourenhout, Sven Nys and Kevin Pauwels

I really enjoyed watching the top Euro's fight it out. There was a pretty big pack at the front initially with a couple guys turning themselves inside out to stay with Nys, Albert, Aeronauts and the reanimated corpse of Bart Wellens. As the race progressed and the field split up we had ample opportunity to cheer on Jonathan Page and watch the big four duke it out. Some mild gamesmanship occured throughout the race, often playing out on the slick climb right in front of us.

Nys cleans it

Chicaney Goodness, I think Albert with Nys behind him

I know you wanted to see the giant umbrella again, note the freshly trimmed tree for TV coverage..

We spent the race cheering Page on as he slowly moved his way from a position in the 20's up to his final position of 18th. The battle between the top four guys spread out over the mud in front of us and the big screen behind us was pretty cool. At the end, much to the disappointment of nearly everyone there, Albert just plain old ran away from Nys and Aeronauts on the long muddy flat run. He opened a 20 second gap there and finished easily ahead of the rest at the line. Aeronauts jumped Nys on the finishing stretch and Wellens tailed in for fourth.

Field blows on by in the beginning

Page wings on by

Page again

Yu Takenouchi was riding a sweet steel Toyo frame with extra cool downtube

Nys hisself

After the race ended, Jeff and I wandered around the pits and checked out the mechanics cleaning the bikes, the cool giant buses and the riders warming down. Nys had a giant personal camper, a big tour bus for VIP's to drink and meet people and a small camper selling Nys branded crap. I bought an ugly ass Nys hat. Other highlights were checking out the Toyo bike and the amazing multi team battle jitney.

Only steel bike in the race

Check that Downtube

The multi team cyclocross battle jitney

Washy wash

washy washy wash

Totally typical mechanic guy

Finally, if you are still reading and are trying to figure out where the title comes from, Jeff and I left the circus of Neil and started riding home on the bike path out of town. Right at the edge of town a camper van passed us and as we looked over at it, Jonathan Page stuck his head out of the passenger window and gave us a hearty heckle or cheer. It was pretty cool that he not only heard us, but recognized us, especially given his intense focus during the race. I am pretty sure there was no one else on the course cheering for Page that day, but it was still pretty cool. Later, Jeff forwarded me this twitter exchange:

I was smiling about this for at least a week. After getting the cheers, we then rolled back through the fields and dales back into antwerp and shared some road beers on the way among the cows and misty fields. Rolled in to Antwerp, grabbed some dinner and then I folded up the mud and cowshit smeared bike and headed back to Gent. A perfect bike adventure, even including the extra few miles I rode in Gent in the dark and rain as I got pretty lost on the way back to my hotel from the train station.

Road beer on a road, covered in mud and cow shit, but it was a road

Trusty steed on the way back

Dinner in Antwerp, beef stew, more frites and beers

The crapulous bike folded up back on the train

So I recommend going to watch some cross somewhere big, whether it is Nationals or a Supercup like event or pretty much any race in belgium or upcoming worlds or something else. It is awesome. More photos from the race here. The entire set from belgium is here

Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 Challenge Wrap up

I think we had 17 total people participate and most self reporting an achievement, which is about 3 times the number I expected. I would guess about 6 or 7 people did the full 100, most everyone rode more than they would have otherwise. I was going to list everyone and how many miles, etc, but decided that doing so would more or less be counter the aims of the inclusivity of the challenge. If you participated and met one of the three achievements, and would like a pin for doing so, please email me what you did to earn it, and your address, tas at tariksaleh dot com. If you want to have a public reckoning of your achievements, please leave em in the comments.

Mr.J, MikeR, StevenS, JohnL, your pin is in the mail, JerryM if you ever ride to work, i will leave a pin on your bike. I am hugely pleased that so many people decided to take part, I certainly will do it again next year and also will certainly announce it a bit earlier. It will help get me off my butt and blog a bit more too. Anyhow, may you all have a great 2013, and ride bikes, and try not to be asses.

Super flipsy tiny bike riding on the last day of the challenge

Day 8, Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 Challenge

Got up early and snuck out for a little coffee ride on my Mom's bike again. It was actually just below 40 and I had neglected my gloves. Epic suffering ensued. I basically looped around Goleta and stopped and got coffee at a shop in a stripmall.

The suffering...

The shop had a steady streams of contractors coming in for their morning fix, I watched most of them check out the pink folding bike. I then rode over toward campus and checkout out the excellent bike repair stands with attached tools and pump.

And the wonderful views across the acres of bike parking attached to some of the larger student housing blocks.

Also spied this chevoid mid restoration

I got a solid 6.5 miles in which put me at 101.5 for the week. Hurrah! I did it, rode everyday and hit 100 for the week, and certainly rode much more than I usually would have! The total count for me was 11.5 on the single speed Pugsley in snow in Los Alamos, 17 on my Mom's 3 speed folding bike and 73 on the fixie friday. No deraillers were involved in the challenge for me.
I think there were 14 or 15 participants in the end. I am going to let you all self select on whether you achieved any or all of the three parts of the challenge. Remember though, the bar is low intentionally, so even if you did not do what you wanted to, you probably did ride more than normal this week, right? Please email me what you did and your mailing address and I will get a pin or two out to you. If you already have some pins and don't need any more that is fine too. Los Alamos Jerry, I will leave one on your bike at work. I will try to collate a summary of everyone by this weekend...

The family and I left Santa Barbara late in the afternoon, got delayed in pheonix airport for a bit and then made it back to Albuquerque around 10:30. We drove up home in light to heavy snow and increasingly snow packed roads and got back just before 1am in the new year. Huzzah, happy new year on the road!
Pheonix Airport had bathrooms for everyone

So happy new year everyone and I will almost certainly try this again next year!

Days 6 and 7, Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 Challenge

Day 6 was busy with measly riding right at the end. I started with fresh fish market and farmers market buying of stuff for a combined family birthday party.

Vermilion Rockfish, got it and eated it

Then some shopping and walking around downtown with the wife. Saw a plating shop on state street, right downtown, looks like they do lots of bike parts. Joes plating on lower state:

And snapped a photo of this old welding shop sign, and grills!

Did some massive and fun eating of scallops, thresher shark, rockfish, crab legs and such and then went home with the family. Nearly did not ride, but my wife needed some stuff from the store, so I lit out at night for a 7 mile round trip to the supermarket. These days, most if not nearly all my rides are utilitarian, usually replacing a car trip. Going to work, going to the store, getting some take out, going to the PO. Many longer rides are just taking the long way (or the super long way) on an errand. This was my first utilitarian trip of the week, might be the only one, I have nothing against riding for riding sake, but I have not really had time to do this much in the last couple years, so big thanks to my wife and family for indulging me this week. The 7 miles put me at 74 for the week.

Day seven started with my brother and mom and I shepparding the kids on a ride around campus. The cousins on big kid bikes, Aida on a way too small balance bike, the adults on foot. It was great fun and Aida went much further than ever before on a balance bike.

Later in the afternoon I road the long low route to the harbor and met the family for a walk through the marina and dinner.

A bike rack air station on campus

Good car action

the Friday fits well in old style bike racks

After dinner my Brother, his wife, Elena and I went to see the Hobbit. It was pretty good. Not brilliant, but worth watching. My bro and I started with some severe conversation, then transitioned to the dream world of middle earth and stuff

I put in a total of 21 miles on the day, which puts me at 95 for the week. The last day is a travel day, but I should be able to sneak a 5 mile short ride in in the morning to get the 100 on the week, barely. I am not convinced I will make it home before midnight to get any riding in Los Alamos before the new year, but any which way I am satisfied with the week.

Seems like we have a bunch more participants, Scott from Spokane, Mindful Mule, and SeanM. That takes it to about 13 participants, plus 14 for me. Awesome. Or as my brother says, who are all these people again? CycloTourist seems to be trying to say he is DNF as he is sick, but I am not sure if it is possible to DNF the challenge. He put a nice comment in with a SB bike trailer pic. I accidentally deleted it, but here is his photo:

For some reason the comments have been coming through in bunches and doubles, let me know if your comment never appeared or some such.

Day 5, Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 Challenge

Whoop, long day. Had some brekkie with the famly and then my brother and I took off for some Stand Up Paddle board lessons.

Which was good fun and all, I found it ridiculously easy in the smooth harbor and then fairly challenging in the (very light) swell and wake area just out of the harbor. I did not fall off until we hit cross wake, and then I fell a few times, my brother did not fall at all. Seems like I liked the longer narrower SUP than the beginner wider one, but it may be that the beginner one was not quite big enough for someone of my massive presence.

Car watching here on the streets is insane

I clearly had some balance problems that I was not expecting, maybe due to some knee issues and lower back issues, but all in all it was pretty fun and I would do it again. We got right up to a bunch of sea lions piled on top of each other on a buoy. Other highlight included paddling under some monstroso catamaran yacht parked in the harbor.

In unrelated news, I am enjoying all the rolling shamble bikes here in Santa Barbara, lots of great homemade trailers and basketed cruisers piled high with stuff. I saw this couple down by the harbor

I saw one other similar trailer up by campus. Both of these trailers were piled high with reeds or tall grass. Maybe for shelter building? Not sure what is going on, but it is a thing here apparently.
Later I rode down to my brother's house for pizza and movies for the whole family. My nephew has better hair than me, but I got him in the mustache department for now

Rode back in the dark, enjoying the humid cool weather and the peepers and abundant herons and suicide bunnies along the trail. Saw some nice crusty abandoned wheeled detritus on campus. Like these encrusted salmon brake pads on a half stripped gas pipe Bottechia:

The ride total was a bit over 20 for the day. Putting me at 67 total . Hopefully I will get a chance to sneak out for one more long day before I leave here on monday. Would also like to welcome UnkyBike MoBabo MichaelL to the challenge, riding on his fat bike up there in the artic north somewhere, he knocked out 51 miles on his fatbike somewhere in search of the a passage to warmer climes, he ate no sled dogs. JerryM in Los Alamos is holding down the fort riding his fixie in the cold. Andy Big Dummy Daddy is updating via his blog. Others are cruising along with notes via comments or email. I think that makes 10 people in on the challenge not named Tarik, so I am pretty psyched.

Mr Jalopy Sends photo evidence of some MTB adventures somewhere in LA

Well done everyone.

Day 4, Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 Challenge

Got up late, made the baby girl some fried eggs:

had a nice brunch and a belated Christmas with the family and then put together the dirtiest folding bike in the world.

Featuring a melange of (most recently) belgian mud/cowshit, marin and east bay dirt, and uniformly distributed chain oil. This bike is really the ultimate in deferred maintenance. I usually do all the work only when necessary, always on the road, usually in a hotel room. I took the time to change the brake pads that probably had a couple more years left in em, but better safe than sorry:

The whole family went to the zoo together to engage in the christmas family ritual feeding of the Giraffes.

After getting back to my folks house, I left on a daylight ride on my favorite SB miniloop, foothills to the mission. Stopping by the mission canyon Fire depot

Descending Twisty roads

To the nice ocean and island views from the mission

Met up with the family for dinner at a restaurant with a cool old skip tooth cruiser parked out front

And then skipped out on dessert to ride back to my folks house in the dark via the coastal route bike path through campus. It was a really good ride on a really nice sunny day, the ride back was a little cool, but again, noting compared to riding on snow and ice in the dark!

The days mileage ended up just a bit over 25 miles, putting me at 47 total after 4 days and 4 rides on three different bikes. Hope everyone else is having fun riding about.

Day 3, Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 Challenge

My original plan to get an early ride in Los Alamos in the snow before heading to the airport fell apart due to lack of time and organization, so we had a nice long trip to Santa Barbara, stretching over much of the day. Including lots of drawing

and some walking on the best airport carpeting in the world in PHX:

By the time we got to SB it was really late and I was too pooped to put together the Bike Friday. We had a nice dinner with the parents, put Aida to bed and I snuck out on my mom's pink flowered Dahon Curve 3 speed. Nominally, I was hoping to head to Trader Joes and get some beers for the holiday imbibing, but I could not remember where it was exactly, so I headed over to campus and down to the beach

and back

and saw this excellent bike repair center near one of the infinite fields of bike racks at UCSB

After a bit of noodling around the maze-like bikepaths on campus I emerged next to the Isla Vista Habit Burger and was disheartened to see it closed, I would have emerged with a shake for sure.

All told it was a mighty 10.5 miles on the Dahon Curve 3, which even though it was kind of chilly, (high 40's and humid), and I was pooped, and the saddle was way too wide. it was by far the easiest ride of the week. That puts the total as of Wednesday 12/26 at 22 miles. Over three rides over three days...

There are quite a few more people in on the challenge, in addition to Andy BigDummyDaddy and David CycloTourist. Now we are joined by:
Scott 5 Toed Sloth
Jason Cyclescribe
BikeWRider
JLeddy in Vt.
Someone of parts unknown named Builder,
and I think Los Alamos JerryM is also on board unless I misread the comments.

Also the original pin art creator and TSBC founding member Mr. Jalopy is in on the Challenge as well. He and his Coco's variety crew are riding around the hills of LA:

Anyhow, welcome everyone to the challenge, I am pleased with the numbers. Have fun!

Day Two, Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 Challenge

Today we got up early, did Christmas, I got a nap in, sledded with Aida a bit and then we lazed about watching the flurries for a while. Most of the day was spent watching Aida swing on her new tree swing, which I installed in the living room:

See this set for more info... I stoked the woodfire up so it was nearly 85F in the living room and we sort of lost the will to do anything. Finally it sort of cleared up and I busted out a quick(ish) 8 mile ride on the Pugs on the perimeter to roundabout to walnut canyon to bridges loop.

I took the road route (about a mile and a half) through Quemazon neighborhood to the pipeline-perimeter intersection so I could get the loop done quicker. It was a nasty climb, but I was treated with some nice views of the area from the high point of the ride. It was around freezing when I left the house, but the temp was dropping pretty quickly and I was not quite dressed properly. So I pretty much rode as hard as I could to keep warm. The rest of the ride was on snow packed singletrack, choppily packed down by peds. It was pretty much ideal snow biking conditions. 12" wide singletrack that the pugs ate up. I got up to the top at about sunset, descended and rolled to the roundabout in somewhat sketchy flat light conditions. I did the walnut canyon rim trail in increasing darkness, but the moon and other ambient light and the snow cover got me through bridges trail back to home without me needing to turn on the lights until I hit the last couple blocks on the road to home. I will add that this was a really good ride. Despite lingering sickness of indeterminate cause, I pushed it and it felt good and I returned home after and hour and a half to find the ladies napping...

So that puts me at a massive 11.5 miles total thus far. I am totally going to cheat by going to Santa Barbara for the rest of the challenge, but I will pay for it by having to travel twice between now and New Years. I will have to be a bit sneaky to get my rides in on the travel days, but I am nothing if not resourceful.

I am pleased that Big Dummy Daddy and Cyclotourist have taken up the challenge. Remember all you need to do is:
1. Just ride your bike 100 miles from 12/24-12/31/12 and you have achieved the challenge.
2. Or just ride your bike every day from 12/24-12/31 and you also have achieved the challenge.
3. Or just try to ride your bike just a bit more than you might have otherwise and you have achieved it.
You can prorate the challenge if you did not see it until after it started, or you can just go for number 3, or whatever. Just let me know how you did and I will send you a TSBC pin.

The Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 Challenge

Welcome to the Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 mile bike challenge. There are three ways to meet the challenge.
1. Just ride your bike 100 miles from 12/24-12/31/12 and you have achieved the challenge.
2. Or just ride your bike every day from 12/24-12/31 and you also have achieved the challenge.
3. Or just try to ride your bike just a bit more than you might have otherwise and you have achieved it.
This may appear like another groups holiday challenge, but the TSBC is better and cheaper and infinitely more inclusive than anything they do. I have no roundel prize but I have pins.

I am going to try for all the three prongs of the challenge and will document it here! You can document it in the comments or wherever you want. If you want an achievement prize, I will send you a TSBC pin gratis, email me with what you did to do achieve the challenge and a valid mailing address and I will send a TSBC pin out to you. Remember, club rules are 1. Ride bikes, 2. Try not to be an ass. And in this case, at least ride a bit between Christmas eve and New Years and then tell me about it.

It has been kind of cold and snowy here and we have been slightly waylaid by stomach issues and holiday stuff, so I did not ride during daylight hours, but then just around dark this started happening.

And then Elena and Aida and I went for a walk and then ate dinner, put Aida to bed, then did christmas prep, and then I snuck out for a ride.

Today, a mighty 3.5 miles at night on the pugsley in a combination of fresh snow, plowed slop, trails, sidewalks and interstitial neighborhood pathways. I felt like crap, but the trails were fun. It was around 30 degrees F and really humid for here, some sort of post storm inversion layer. It was good.