Seen on my dad's bookshelf

context
or perhaps more distinguished context

Watching the tiny bike men with Aida

A conversation with the daughter while watching the Tour De France today.
TV shows tiny bike men flying down the back side of the Tourmelet.
I am attempting to get Aida to watch the tour instead of shouting and singing louder than the TV.

Me: Aida, look at the tiny bike men racing down the hill
Aida: They are not racing!
Me: Yes, this is a bike race!
Aida: NO!
Me: What are the men doing then,
Aida: They are riding to the grocery store.
Me: Why are they riding to the grocery store?
Aida: To, um, to get tomatoes!
Me: All those riders are going to the grocery store?
Aida: Yes they need to get tomatoes!
Aida: Mad cackling

Then she ran away.


Either teaching by example really works, or Aida wants some tomatoes.

Praugles in Cobbe

Its moscaline cobbles fortnight, just not on the internet.

European Mornings

Turns out if you wake up early in Europe you can watch the end of the west coast baseball games with your espresso and chocolate pastries. The hard part is getting the espresso and pastries before 6am.

California Poppies, Finally

After a, no joke, 7 year ongoing effort to get a california poppy to flower in Los Alamos, NM. I win. The key for this one is that it was a seed that did NOT flower from a planting last year. I have tried planting in the late fall before unsuccessfully. But maybe this was close enough to the house to winter without getting too cold? Not sure. A woman down the block has them growing like weeds in her yard, she actually has to weed them out of other beds, why is she so blessed? Probably as she is right with the god. I am so not right with god, in my defense though, it said nothing about that on the back of the seed packet. I will further investigate as seasons progress. She also graciously will allow me to collect seeds from her known producers. We tried transplanting her unloved poppies to my yard, but california poppies resist transplanting and seem to even resist starting them indoors in compostable pots and then just plain old planting the whole pot in the ground.

So the new plan is to monitor the poppies planted this year to see if any succeed, and then to sow seeds in october or november this year.

Roulers

We ride hard many miles for you.

Thank you Tyler.

And so it comes full circle. I think all my doping posts started with the initial Tyler Hamilton doping bust in 2006. I have always been a big Tyler Hamilton fan, but have never believed his innocence. Big thanks to Tyler Hamilton for finally spilling his beans. Watch the video preview for a 60 minutes feature this coming week:


That is some fairly unambiguous stuff. I need to watch the full video, they sure cut to a grimacing Tyler often for a 1 minute clip. I don't think he is a particularly credible witness what with the 5 years of denial and ruining himself defending his "honor". But I don't think people just make things up when they come clean, especially multiple years of chronic doping. Lance-y-pants is on the highway to vast conspiracyville at this point. Floyd and Tyler had millions of dollars of incentive to lie when caught doping. Not sure what all encompassing conspiracy would give them the incentive to lie now. I am sure we will start to hear more first hand doping reports come out in the next year. Lanceipants should have retired for real the first time. I think the whole Federal case against armstrong (and Barry Bonds) by Jeff Novitzky is a huge waste of taxpayer money, but due to the grand jury subpoenas that many riders received, there is big incentive for telling the truth. Hamilton appeared before the grand jury last year, I would suspect he started spilling beans then. There is at least one other (not yet caught for doping) US cyclist out there who reportedly provided first hand accounts of Lance doping to the grand jury. (see this Aug 2010 NYT article.

I wish Tyler came clean in 2006, but I was pretty sure that there was imminent confession coming down the pipe from Tyler, see the end of my last two Floydtosterone posts (1,2). Anyhow, I am now officially tired of the doping. My doping writing has been ongoing for 5 years. Which is a long freeking time. I do I am pretty sure we are in for some more confessions from prominent American cyclists who decide to confess and retire before getting caught, or at least confess their past doping. I welcome it all. I will still watch them tiny bike people, but I probably am not going to write about the doping no more. There are a sea of other bloggers doing a much better job at covering doping in pro cycling (boulder report is my favorite), and the mass media has been coming around to reasonably non-hysterical bordering on intelligent coverage of doping. My work is done.

So thanks Tyler, thanks for telling the truth, and thanks for setting the Moscalines free.

Bad Bicycle Drawings 1

A new occasional series documenting bad or notably wrong drawings of bicycles.
The first is from the children's book Little Pig is Capable.

While Aida seemed to enjoy the book, I found it a bit odd and disjointed. The bicycle barely features in the tale despite the prominent cover picture.



Stunning really. The frame angles are forgivable. The chain leading to the rear tire is not. The front training wheels are just confusing. Even from a stylized point of view there is little excuse for this. I imagine the author, Denis Roche, has not ridden let alone seen a bicycle in decades. This being the internet, I look forward to a response from Ms. Roche.

A May commute

On May 10th, I got up very early and watched the sun come up as I did some data analysis for a tight deadline. I then got ready to ride to work around 9. I watched a storm front hop the mountains and roll over town as I had one last espresso. It was probably about 40 degrees and overcast as I rolled the mountainbike down the block. I took the long way in. Over the neighborhood, on the trails.

At the highpoint of the ride, I paused to watch a small coopers hawk in an aerial battle with a much larger raven. Then it started spitting snow.

I rolled on toward the Quemazon trail, watching a coyote scurry away ahead of me. Did a small loop through the woods on the edge of the canyon.

Crossed the bridge, hit the trails on the opposite side of the canyon and looped around the tiny connector trails before dropping into the canyon for the final leg to work. I was warming up, but the day remained grey and cold.

Startled one more coyote, followed fresh elk track through pine needles, paused again as I was enveloped in a flurry, and then popped up on the road and headed to the office to continue my working day.

Moscaline-Mastastico fishing adventure

Finding myself in the wilds of long island last week, I met up with Mr Lentini of the fine blog, Mastastico, and had some beers and did some early morning fishing. Highlights were falling into the long island rabbit hole and learning much about the little known conspiracy scene in middle long island, aliens and mutant deer and industrial waste abound! Having grown up an hour south of Manhattan, I don't remember ever being further east than JFK airport, so I was not sure what to expect, but I learned much. I recognized the sandy terrain and the perpetual fog from my earlier life living on the east coast. I did not see the sun for three whole days while I was there, something that never occurs in New Mexico.

mastastico game face, moscaline not so much


Fishing started very early one morning, especially considering the two hour time change I was experiencing. Based on sound intuition, we headed out to the more sporting "not catch fish" area of the Carmans River.

trackside access


I was a bit surprised to find such a nice trout stream in the middle of Long Island, but it was good. In typical fashion I caught nothing, but I did see lots of little troutlings in the shallows. Despite unsporting dropcasting, I did not even get a nibble. I did lose a couple flies to overhanging trees.


Nice rail road access singletrack through the piney woods.


After Mr. Lentini left to catch his train, I still had an hour or so to fish before I needed to get back to work, so I kept wading downstream looking for fishy prey. Not 100meters from where we parted ways, I caught a flash of something running through the woods on a high bank of the river. I stopped casting and waited and watched. I heard nothing for a while, and then just as I resumed fishing, I saw another brown flash and heard hooves thundering alongside the stream. I saw what appeared to be something between a dog and a horse rush off in the distance and then I could hear the thundering hooves turn to splashing up the river toward me. The splashes stopped. I looked around for anything or anyone, but is was just me, the river and the splashy mystery beasts just around the bend.

Mastastico fishing the RR bridge


Honestly, my first thought was to just start running upstream and see if I could catch Mr. Lentini, but I considered it unwise in waders. I then flashed to the previous night's tales of alien landing in this very location, wondering if there were mutant alien warthogs with tenticled mouths patrolling these parts. I dismissed that and, as the beasts were running back up the bank and into the woods, I caught a glimpse that lead me to believe that these were the imported sitka deer that ran rampant to these parts. As they rushed back and forth in and out of the stream I wondered what would make them run like that. Then I realized that Mr. Lentini was sporting an orange hat. Shit!?! was it hunting season? Was I going to get gunned down in the middle of an unlikely trout stream in long island? I paused and watched and looked for chasing hunters, but nothing. After a few seconds/minutes/years of heart pounding silence, the deer took flight up the bank again and off into the woods, not to reappear again.

darn nice, if infested with insane deer



I continued casting less enthusiastically for another half hour or so, but enjoyed the misty early morning on the river. It was a really beautiful spot.



I hiked back to the car and remembered my previous fishing trip this year. A January hip deep snow hike along the Rio Chama after a cross country ski race. I could not find an ice free area close enough to shore to cast to, so I did not even unsheath the mighty bean fly rod. I did see bobcat track in the snow. It was also a good day fishing.

Frozen Rio Chama



Anyhow, big thanks to Mr. Lentini for providing the bar, calzone, local history and fishing information that improved what could have been a deadly boring trip. Next time we challenge the seagoing fish and further explore the depths of the local knowledge base!

Good times in Oakland

Perusing Flickr today I was delighted to see this photo from one of my contacts:

click photo for source

That was my view upon walking out of my apartment in Oakland for two years starting in 1996 or so. This iconic coin laundry is located at the corner of Telegraph in 59th in what was optimistically advertised as "Lower Rockridge" when we looked at the listing. It probably is better described as "Upper Temescal" now. I spent many a quarter there at the 'lectric washouse. The manager was a mailman and he would often be there late at night sweeping the floors and collecting quarters in his US postal service duds. I think it was open all night.

I spent the first year in that house frantically riding a couple miles up Telegraph to campus to TA 8am labs. The second year I spent frantically riding down Telegraph, around Lake Merrit and down through the flats to my job at a foundry near the Oakland Coliseum. It was at that corner that I lived with the first of the epically round cats in my life, mighty Cymba.

Anyhow, it was a nice 10 minute walk to the Rockridge Bart and the glories of North Oakland's eating and coffee, so it was a pretty nice place to live, if on the transition to weirder and worse neighborhoods. Our upper flat was burgled once by an athletic burgler who shimmied up the side of the deck, through a unlocked window and cleaned us out of our meager valuables. We kept the bikes heavily locked up in a detached garage, so no worries there. I think 75% of the residents in the house had their car stolen in the 2.5 years I was there. The JW temple on the back side of the house meant that the streets were usually well swept, but the well muraled but very cheap apartments next door resulted in many disturbing overheard conversations often escalating to police involvement, the most memorable being an argument that left a very tall older man with a pair of scissors inserted in his leg. These were the post-crack-wars dotcom boom salad years in Oakland, so I thought living there was interesting but relatively safe, I can't say what it is like as a neighborhood now. I would guess now that Temescal is super hip, the neighborhood should be even better, but I don't really know.

Just on the other side of 59th from the washouse 'lectric was Williams liquor, whose liquor I never remember buying as they did not really cater to the microbrew set, more to the cheap hard liquor in tiny bottles set. They did however sell some adequate to excellent ice cream sandwiches, depending on how hot it was. It was disturbingly difficult to get fresh ice cream sandwiches in oakland, but a few places had enough turnover on the stock to make it worthwhile, william's was one of these. They also had the nice blinky heart sign, which in my memory never really was firing on all cylinders. According to adventurous friends who grew up in Oakland, they would sell liquor to underage women with low cut shirts, guaranteed. Finally, I do not have fond memories of the deli part of Williams.


click photo for source

Big thanks to Todd of Telstar Logistics for snapping these pics.

Ubikequitous 8, Bamboo

In the midst of the fairly awful cat and the hat cartoon, a song about the many uses of bamboo, there appears a bamboo bike. Damn hipster pandas and their homemade bikes.

Fun with slow motion

Cobbles




Freak



Both available in 720 or higher if you can process it.

I can completely relate to what I am seeing in the cobble video. In my inability to relate to Timmy's throwing motion, I realize why my fastball topped out at 70mph.

Normally I have been tossing posts like this over at the Velocanoose check it out for an aggregation of images and videos.

A year of Pajarito Mountain

Last year I took about a picture a week riding into work. Sometimes riding at lunch. Photos are taken about three quarters of a mile from my house on my bike commute. I used my 3 megapixel cellphone camera.

I left it pretty much in its unedited glory, crooked shots, badly backlit, etc. But you get the idea. 1/4/10 to 1/3/11. Pictures with brief comments on my flikr set bridge photos

The Roshambo 29er lives

Man, that was the slowest build in the history of mankind. I watched the ronde ned flanderseses and then went out and hit all the trails within a 2 mile radius of the house. Maybe 7 miles total? Build details:
Kelly 29er singlespeed frames, lots of Pauls bits.

It rolls and rolls good. Initial impressions:
1. Holy crap! are our trails dry for this time of year, the fires season is going to be a doozy.
2. Man! is it fun to ride.
3. Boy! am I out of shape.


Big thanks to the Team Tarik sponsors that helped make this bike happen and work:
Mellow Velo bike shop in Santa Fe, Paul Components, and Kelly Bike.
No thanks to me for completely freezing up when it came time to build the wheels and extending the build for at least 4 months. This is the first time in 3 years that I have a race ready mountain bike earlier than the night before tierra torture. I may actually race socorro this year! Although that is apparently in two weeks, so lets not be hasty here...