Tuesday, March 16, 2010

To Live and Train in L.A. #8 AFTER ACTION REPORT


These are my tools. Obviously fucked up. I left them on my back porch for the last couple months locked in a plastic toolbox because what possibly could go wrong with that? You think tools will rust here in California? It so also happens for the last couple months that my bikes have been running fine, only maintenance required being lube on the chains and air in the tires and the occasional squirt of WD-40 into the guide holes where the shifter cables pass across the bottom bracket.

Sometimes I think about starting up cigarettes again. After the occasional squirt of WD-40 into a guide hole, for instance.

A couple of months ago we had a huge, huge rain event in Los Angeles, a few inches a day for almost a whole week. Dudes were whitewater kayaking down my street, pretty much. It was intense. These rains were so intense that enough water seeped through the cracks of my plastic toolbox to fill the insides to the rim with rainwater and the resulting misery is my goddam tools have turned into undersea relics some guy with a beard and a degree from Stanford might find on a submarine salvage mission to the Bermuda Triangle of Craftsman Tools.

They’re in the sun now. If I clean them and grease them and treat them with respect they’ll return to their former glory.

ANYWAY:

Since when is Monday Jackass Day in the cycling world? I thought everybody was supposed to have raced on Sunday and would therefore be too blown to do anything on Monday but easy spinning. Even if you don’t race on Sunday, you’re supposed to simulate racing on Sunday, which means either you go long or you go hard, preferably both. Or on Monday you act as if you actually did go long and hard on Sunday even if you didn’t. In any case, Monday means the same as take it easy. Don't matter who you are or where you're from.

My testimony (obligatory act): Temps were 80 degrees. No wind. No humidity. Plenty of California sunshine. Bad conditions for easy spinner. I was on the path not two minutes when I noticed a guy in full Castelli kit pulling up behind me. I ushered him past me and said, “Mind if I catch your wheel?” Meaning maybe we could ride together for a while and perhaps engage in some Monday-style conversational cycling fellowship. He was like, “Sure, but I’m taking it easy. My hip is trashed. I have bursitis really bad.” I was like, “Cool. I’m just out for spinner. Let’s trade pulls and keep it mellow.” I was elated for about two-thirds of a second but then as sure as shit emerges from the mouth of Glenn Beck the guy took the lead and held his pace steady at 23.5 miles per hour for the next four miles, never once flicking his elbow, never once ushering me through to take my turn at the front. When we reached the end of the path, he said, “Thanks for pushing me, man.” He went on his merry hammering way toward Griffith Park. I turned around and clicked into my little ring and started spinning back another 4.4 miles and this guy thought I pushed him? I was on his wheel.

At while later, at the Fletcher Street Bridge turnaround, where of course I turned the fuck around, I saw a blinding blue flash approaching, a rider I had seen a number of times before, middle-aged, head down, grimace and gray stubble, hands on the brake-lever hoods, enough menace and unhappiness in his face to make Stalin seem like Rachel Ray taking a bite out of a flourless dark chocolate brownie. My inner Stalin-hater came out. I waited for him. I clicked into the big ring. I was ready. Fuckin-A the guy blew by without saying hello – sure sign he was to dickheads what Anita Bryant once was to Florida oranges – and I dove into his draft and caught his wheel and announced I was there, I was on his wheel. This guy? He didn’t acknowledge me and didn’t change his hammering position even in the slightest, just kept pedaling like the evil Stalinlike machine that Joel Friel and his training bible has created in those among the general populace whose intelligence quotients drop forty percent when they ride a bicycle. This guy had all the Stalinlike gear, too: the PowerTap cranks, the full Assos kit, the custom carbon bike. But to give him his due, he ramped it up and ramped it up till he was piling along at 28 miles per hour, which I don’t give a fuck how fast you think you are, that’s pretty fucking fast (my buddy Professor Sherkat would insist that 28 miles per hour is actually slow). I hung with this guy for a while, for a couple of miles, then exposed my inner Oscar Mayer Weiner to the world and dropped off his wheel. Fuck.

Welcome to Los Angeles, I guess.





3 comments:

  1. Yeah, but I think 17mph is fast on Monday...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Monday (or "Jackass Day" for LA cyclers) seems to have been strange for many people--strange and terrible. The Ides of March made itself felt once more, though on a smaller, more personal scale.

    Just ask Riana.

    ...Yes, it's one of your fantasy writing students from the WashU SWI. Every so often, Riana and I get the itch to see how you're doing. So...California, huh?

    -Kathleen

    ReplyDelete
  3. Monday (or "Jackass Day" for LA cyclers) was strange for many people--strange and terrible. The Ides of March made itself known once more, though on a smaller, more personal scale.

    Just ask Riana.

    ...Yes, it's one of your fantasy writing students from the WashU SWI. Every so often, Riana and I get the itch to see how you're doing. So...California, huh?

    -Kathleen

    ReplyDelete

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