Archive for the ‘Bike!’ Category

Weekend Bike Accounts

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Finally, it hasn’t rained for a few days and the humidity has dropped a little, so the trails are starting to not be the mucky-muck. Saturday I made the quick trek out to the Alpha trails/ Crystal Methridge.

Twas Good.

WORBA was out there setting up for a race. So I got to rip trough their course for a while and get passed by dudes who were way faster than me. Whatever. Jocks.

In proper form, I didn’t get any photos. But I should mention that from the top of Crystal Methridge (which I’m pretty sure is an old garbage dump) you can see all the way to the bottom. Whoa.

Sunday I rode the small section of the river trails that is worth riding. If you try to do the whole loop you’re most likely spending more time carrying your bike over fallen trees. The best kind—too high to jump over, too low to slip under.

The floods ruined this trail. Trees down, trails washed away, garbage all over the place. and constant slop. I don’t mind a bit of mud, but at this point, I’m just looking for a dried out dusty trail. Plus, somehow the flood didn’t wash away the busted glass on the trials. I honestly believe there are 120 years of busted glass on some parts of the trails. I’m positive in 1900 kids would go down there and smash shit because Miller and Pabst were paying them $.01 for each busted bottle. It was there recycling program.

Fuck even 2000 years ago teenagers would go down there and bust up clay pots.

Now I bike over it all, and hope my tires survive.

Flood Damage:

The extent of the Milwaukee downhill circuit:

Apart from bikes I think we need to pass judgment on this track:

And don’t forget to get your asses to Schlitz Trivia at the Red Dot tonight.

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This One Slipped By Me

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

I attended a Meeting of the Minds last night and Mike dropped this knowledge:

“Did you hear about this indoor mountain biking course they are opening in Milwaukee?”

Whatever bro. Whatthefuckever. I was tempted to tell him about a few simple things you need to know in life:

  • Virginia is for lovers.
  • Work from the outer-most fork in.
  • There ain’t no party like a west coast party.
  • Soylent Green is people.
  • Mountain bikes are for outside.

Then this morning Keylo drops this bomb on me:

I guess I was too wrapped up in things like trivia and trying to get Laura Hadar’s phone number, and this one just slipped right by me. But you know, never late then never.

And at least now I have this thing to play with  when the joint opens up:

And please don’t comment on the toe clips. Thems is gone.

Big thanks to EDK for the handstand hand modelingmanship

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Bike

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Suburbanite extraordinaire, @goosefeather, and I were riding bikes a  for minute this weekend. Because we were checking out this circuit of trails near his house. The trail is kind of short and  could certainly use something to get your bike off the ground for a couple of seconds, but it was fast and incredibly tight in places.

Apparently some dude already built a KML or KLM or lufthansa or whatever page for it and you can see it here: Harley Woods Trail.

Later we were cleaning off the rigs and talking about how lame the suburbs are, he told me he was expected to weed the flowerbed in from of his house. I told him to hire some Canadiens to do that work.

Apart from that, I went to Ghicago and my growing-up friend LB made sure we all have fancy drinks.  It was great. She ever made sure we didn’t have to wait in line. She’s tip top. She also makes art that makes me think of Katamari Demachi.

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Posted in Bike! | 3 Comments »

Weekending

Friday, August 13th, 2010

I am merely hours away from NEW BIKE. I can hardly even wait on that shit. Here’s proof:

And for those of you who are still driving cars, like troglodytes, here’s a tip that came to me from the internet today:

IF YOU HAVEN’T HAD A DUI, YOU’VE NEVER EXPERIENCED TRUE HAPPINESS!

IF YOU HAVEN’T HAD A DUI, YOU’VE NEVER HAD A REAL DUI!

IF YOU HAVEN’T HAD A DUI, YOU’VE NEVER LICKED NECTAR OFF THE TEET OF LEOPARD.

IF YOU HAVEN’T HAD A DUI, YOU’VE OBVIOUSLY NEVER GRABBED LIFE BY THE REIGNS AND RIDDEN IT FOR SIX DAY INTO THE OPEN WEST WHERE YOU FOUND SOME WHORE, YOUNGER THAN SHE LOOKS BUT OLDER THAN THE DREAM THAT BROUGHT HER PEOPLE HERE, WITH WHOM YOU SETTLE DOWN AND START A FAMILY, JUST LIVING OFF THE LAND AND KEEPING THE SAVAGES AT BAY WHILE YOU LIVE OUT YOUR REMAINING YEARS, BECAUSE MUTHAFUCKER, THAT’S LIVING AND YOU AIN’T NEVER HAD THAT IS YOU HAVEN’T HAD A DUI.

WTFUck is that ad saying?

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Posted in Advertising, Bike! | 2 Comments »

Hollyshouldn’t have.

Monday, August 9th, 2010

I watched “The Limits of Control” last night. Well not the whole thing, I fell asleep several times throughout it’s run. And I get it, it’s a movie that is a study of movies that have already been made, and it’s study in color, and it’s a study of who we are as viewers. Whatever.

It wasn’t enjoyable. I like films the melt my mind a little bit, but I also want to enjoy them. I want to have some desire to dig deeper into the story. Fuck, I just want to care. I’m just going to toss this one onto Bill Murray’s insomnia correction collection. Ghostbusters 3 better get made pronto because I am growing weary of sleeping through Murray’s mature works.

Now, I’m not saying there is no space for non-mainstream cinema, but a few things have to be done.

  1. Make it interesting.
  2. Make it interesting.
  3. Make it interesting.
  4. Make it Korean.

And there it is. Movie making success in four easy steps. I bet those dudes who made The Waterhole hit at least three of points of advice.

Kind of reminds me of Wes Anderson movies and snowboard flicks. The premise is rad, and the music is going to be good, but until they start speeding those things up I’m going keep sleeping through them. Even the dudes over at the Dangerzone know what to do. They swoop in, drop some fucking shrad radness on you and get the fuck out. Plus when vids are under 10 minutes it’s way more acceptable to watch it whilst you are working. Of course ELud is the exception to this rule because I heard the dude watched the entire Ken Burns’ Civil War series while at work last week.

Then there is this sonsabitch, parking like he owns the place.

Actually, I think that is the most considerate parking I have ever seen in Milwaukee.

Trivia tonight, MFers. You should be there.

Also consider yourselves warned, the advent of a new bike is upon us.

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Vacation week recap

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

Sorry about that. I should have warned you. Anyway, I was in northern Wisco doing some relaxing. The Internet is still a pretty new thing to people up there, so there was no blogging going on. But, what they lack in reliable internet access they make up for in lakes and trees. This is roughly where I spent the week:

I rolled up on Saturday, the day was hot and sunny. It looked like the perfect kick-off to vacation time. Little did I know know that it would be the last I saw of the sun for a few days. I woke up to thunderstorms Sunday morning and people chanting USA! USA! USA! Because that’s what we ‘mericans do on the 4th of July.  The rain ruined the plan of parking the boat in the middle of the lake with 12er of Pacifico, a pack of smokes, and tanning naked. Instead I stayed inside and finished reading Norwegian Wood, then started reading The Possibility of an Island, again. American authors are for chumps, even on America Day.

By early afternoon the local TV station was calling the day a waste, it was going to be raining all night and through the next day. Fireworks shows everywhere were being cancelled. Americans were pist!

The next morning I was antsy by the time I woke up. I really needed to get out of the house. It was still raining on and off, but I decided to go do some biking anyway. The local bike shop hooked me up with a sweet Trek 4300 hardtail with a garbage barge shock up front. So I immediately took it out to some trails and sloppied the bastard up. I also found this Mountain Bike Skillz Zone which was 75% rad. There were teeter-tottery things like this:

And some larger ones like this:

Then there were the warm up drops. Which were pretty fun to be screwing around on.

After I worked on my skillz, I took it to the trails and rode the shit out of them, getting all sorts of lost. While I didn’t really need to use my skills I did get to rip through the place on some fun-ass single-track. At one point I rode into an area that The Lorax obviously never made it too.

It seems that the people of this area have never read my dissertation, Of People and Trees: Life in Wisconsin’s Northwoods and the Relation to the European Settlers of New England. Do I need to remind people that if you remove the forest the evil gets loose?

Then while leaving this once hallowed area I saw this sign:

But it seems the term “steep” is relative:

By this time the rain was starting to let up. I wrapped up the ride, returned the rental machine and went back to the lake house. The weather cleared for the next couple days and I spent the rest of my time sitting on the dock making fun of the wakeboarders. Man, now I know how skateboarders feel when they see snowboarders. It’s a good lake though.

All of these images were taken with my slackberry, so I will disregard any comments you make regarding my photog skillz.

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Posted in Bike! | 1 Comment »

Dance with me Wednesday

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

The choice has pretty much been made that I will be building a mountain bike this Spring. I’m kind of looking forward to the challenge, and the excuse to hang around bike shops more often.

I’m leaning towards a frame by Transition or Commencal. They appear to be legit bikes for the price. The Commencal seems like it could handle most of what Wisconsin could throw at it, but the Transistion seems a bit burlier. If you’ve got any insight into hardtail frames please let me know.

Most of the responses I got from people we pretty supportive. And a lot of people seem to think once you build a bike you never regret it. Apparently it’s like dating jewish girls, or buying a Mr. Bungle album.  You might not reference it everyday, but you cannot shake it.

Come to think of it, Faith No More’s Angel Dust album was killer as well. Plus you couldn’t even fuck with that album cover in 1992.

And now that you dwelt on that please get this. It’s the kind of shit that makes the Olympics great:

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Posted in Bike! | 3 Comments »