12.23.2015 | 5:30 pm
Oh no. Christmas is almost here. No, wait. It is here, if you happen to be reading this on the 25th. Or it’s come and gone, if you’re reading it after Christmas. (I like to cover all my bases.)
My point is, Christmas has been approaching at a constant rate for months now. It’s not like you couldn’t have predicted that Christmas would be coming. Furthermore, you could have predicted the time and day on which it would arrive, with some accuracy. But you have just let it come, without doing anything about it.
You are an incredibly slovenly, ungrateful person, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
However, even though you don’t deserve it, I am going to help you, by presenting you with this inspired — yes, inspired! — list of things you can still get for the cyclist friend / family member / neighbor who bought you something and now you feel obligated to get them something, too.
Idea 1: Portable First-Aid Kit
Cyclists crash and get hurt a lot. More than you’d expect, even if you consider that we perch atop a latticework of plastic and spinning metal, the sum total of which has approximately one-quarter square inch of rubber actually in contact with the ground.
And when we cyclists get hurt, we need to patch ourselves up, pronto. By assembling the following items, all of which are likely readily available and laying about in your house, you will seem much more thoughtful on Christmas morning than you actually are.
- Box of Bandaids: just whatever you have left over in the box you’ve got open already, even if they’re those weird-sized ones that aren’t any good for anything
- Turniquet made from a pencil and a no-longer-working mini-USB cable
- Percocet left over from that procedure you had a couple years ago, but the pain wasn’t really as bad as you thought it might be so you still have these lying around, just in case
- Nyquil, just in case your rider gets the sniffles during a ride
- Ambien, in case your friend winds up needing to spend the night in a cave and is having a rough time dozing off
- Alcohol swabs or salt or acetone or anything else that really stings if you get it on a cut. Becasue if it stings, it’s probably killing bacteria, right?
- Liniment, even though I don’t even know what liniment is.
- That crinkly half-full tube of Neosporin you stole from your parents’ house when you moved out about ten years ago. Technically, it expired back in ’05, but it still works. Honest.
Put all of these items in an orphaned sock, and then wrap the whole thing up in multiple layers of duct tape. The entire thing should be the size and shape of a largish duct-taped avocado when you’re done. Put a bow on it and tell the lucky gift winner that it’s a first aid kit for them to always carry when they ride, but that you can’t remember what’s in it, but that it’s guaranteed to be super helpful.
Idea 2: Cycling Upgrade Kit
Cyclists are always wanting a newer, lighter, faster, more-prestigious bike. And if you were a better person, that’s what you would have gotten me. But you didn’t, and now it’s too late.
Or you could have gotten nice new parts to put on their old bike, if you were a cheapskate, but you didn’t even do that. (You are a lousy excuse for a human being.)
But you still have time to make the bike your friend / loved one / cell mate feel like the bike they have is better, lighter, newer, and more expensive.
All you have to do is go get a couple of Sharpies and then write “S-WORKS” on every available space on the bike frame. Up and down the downtube. On the top tube. On the saddle. On the water bottle cages. Everywhere. Technically, this only makes sense if the person is riding a Specialized, but statistically you’re safe with that bet.
Once you’ve done that, it’s time to upgrade the drivetrain. If it’s a road bike, write “DURA-ACE Di2” on the pedals, cranks, and derailleurs. If it’s a mountain bike, write “XTR Di2” in the same places. If you’re not sure which it is, just write both.
Congratulations. Their bike is now worth $18,000. Easy.
Idea 3: Certificates for Bike-Related Services
Sometimes, the very best gift you can give someone is the gift of your time. And since cycling pretty much takes up every spare moment of every cyclist’s life, the gift of some of your time will definitely be welcome. So, create little certificates (or coupons, if you don’t have much spare paper laying around) for any (or all) of the following items:
- A free bike wash: Don’t worry, your friend will never take you up on this, because you’ll let them know that they way you’ll wash it is by taking it to the local car wash and spraying full-tilt into their greased and moving parts for ten minutes.
- 5 free shuttle rides: If you’ve got a downhilling mountain bike friend, this is maybe the best gift you could ever give: saying you’ll be the one to drive them and their bike to the top of a run, then meeting them at the bottom. But what a drag this will be for you if your friend has the audacity to redeem this coupon. Luckily, you can get out of this boring day by simply giving them a ride to the top, dropping them off, and then going home (turn off your phone). When (if) they eventually get home, just look confused and say, “If you didn’t want to pedal at all, why didn’t you just buy a motorcycle?”
- Bike theft: This is an awesome gift to give a cycling friend, on the sly. Promise them you’ll steal their bike whenever they want, then will discretely sell it and split the funds 50-50. I know, I know, that doesn’t sound like much of a gift. But most cyclists really want to buy a new bike, but can’t justify it to their mom or spouse because they already have a perfectly good bike. But if that bike were stolen, well…they’d need to buy a new bike. And since you’re going to secretly give them half the money, they’ll be able to use it to upgrade that bike beyond what they’d otherwise be able to get budget approval for.
Merry Christmas, you rotten, no-good, failure of a present-giver.
Comments (5)
12.21.2015 | 12:31 pm
I am fully aware (although I find it very distressing) that very few people come to FatCyclist.com for late-breaking news about the important goings-on in the cycling world.
Today — accidentally and very briefly — that all changes. Because the latest episode of the FattyCast (which is available on fattycast.com, on iTunes, directly downloadable, and playable from a little lower on this page), I talk with Neal Rogers. It’s a fantastic conversation with one of the top cycling journalists in America…and it has actual news.
The News Part
Until about a year ago, Neal Rogers was the editor-in-chief of Velo and is currently at Global Cycling Network, the entertaining new-media cycling show. The “actual news” part is that Neal is announcing today that as of January, he’s moving to CyclingTips.com as the US Editor-in-Chief, which we discuss in detail about halfway into the podcast: Neal talks about how this change came about, why he’s making this move, and what he’ll be doing.
Neal also reveals James Huang — well-known for his extraordinary reviews at CyclingNews and BikeRadar — will be joining him at CyclingTips.
CyclingTips had already made a pretty big play in the cycling news world by bringing Shane Stokes aboard last year; with these two additions, CyclingTips will no longer be under anyone’s radar.
[Note: If you feel like you need to skip straight to the news-y part of the podcast, it begins around the 51-minute mark.]
The “Let’s Talk About Bikes and Writing for About Two Hours” Part
While Neal’s new job — and all it implies — is interesting stuff, it wasn’t why I wanted to do a FattyCast episode with Neal. In fact, I had no idea that he’d be changing jobs sometime soon when I reached out to him.
I wanted to talk with Neal because I think of him as a fair-minded, thick-skinned, highly-accessible cycling journalist.
We talk about his first mountain bike (a Gary Fisher Hoo Koo E Koo). We talk about his lack of regret for being a surf / cycling bum for five years after graduating from college. We talk about the surprising lack of respect he got as a bike messenger.
We talk in great detail about his time at VeloNews, from when he moved to Boulder to work as an overqualified intern, to working his way up the ladder, to the very dark times when a lot of the staff was fired and he didn’t know if the magazine would survive.
We talk about how he brought the magazine from a very bad place to the very good place it’s in now. We talk about his move to Global Cycling Network, and the (big) difference between writing for magazines and writing (and presenting) for video.
We talk about how he’s had to develop a thick skin. And why he makes himself so available on social media. We talk about asking hard questions, and Neal even answers a few questions posted for him on Twitter.
We talk about Leadville. And cramping. And Strava. And getting time to ride.
It’s a great conversation. Listen in any of the following ways:
Comments (5)
12.18.2015 | 1:04 pm
A Note from Fatty: Today’s 100 Miles of Nowhere race report comes from Nick, whom everyone should follow on Twitter. For reals.
Also, I should mention that I’ve been hoping someone would send me a completely insane race report.
This is that report.
I’m not a cyclist. I’m a bike rider. I’m not even an athlete. My idea of “getting serious” about an ultramarathon was to switch to light cigarettes and to go from whiskey to beer.
I’ve missed out on the 100 Miles to Nowhere the last several years and finally was able to register for it.Sure, I could ride 100 miles on the bike at the gym but that’s not funny enough. I live in Chicago and we have a bike share program called Divvy. And what’s funnier than attempting #100MoN on a bike like this?
That’s a $1600 piece of high tech machinery with three — count ‘em, three —gears.
Look at that sexy not-composite frame! I pay a yearly fee for unlimited rides — providing they are less than thirty minutes. And being a cheap jerk, I’d want to swap bikes every thirty minutes to avoid getting extra charges. I honestly figured that I would do 25 miles on Divvy and then finish up at the gym because my butt hurts after two miles on those bikes.
I figured that my best bet for doing the #100MoN course-wise was Chicago’s lakefront path: eighteen miles of nearly-flat asphalt, in pretty good condition. I’ve biked and run along it hundreds of times over the years and I can close my eyes and describe every quarter of a mile.
What could possibly go wrong?
I set out at 4:30am without the benefit of coffee and proceeded north from Navy Pier. As I proceeded north and finished my first mile, I realized two things that I had forgotten about:
- No matter which direction you ride or run, you’re heading into the wind. Someone should probably consult a scientist about this.
- I’m less than 30 feet away from an angry piece of glass 50% larger than Switzerland. Waves, water, wind. In summer there’s no finer place to be, but after Labor Day it becomes your cruel mistress.
Right now I hate my life – and I just left my house.
I hit the top of the lakefront path for my second bike change after about an hour of total time. I knew the distance but wanted to live in denial. But I glanced at my watch anyway and saw that I was a bit over 8 miles.
In an hour.
Heading south was wonderful with the wind to my back. At 5:30am on a Saturday, I had the path to myself except for the occasional solitary runner. It was in the low 30s and windy and I was getting a bit cold.
Two more bike changes put me back to where I started:
I’ve only gotten 17 miles under my belt after 2 hours of cycling, with no snacks or coffee.
This is going to be a long day.
It was nearing 7am and I was enjoying the stillness. By my count I’ve only encountered 4 runners and some late night pot smokers who wanted to get lifted and watch the sun come up. But I hit my favorite stretch of the path – from Monroe Harbor to the Museum Campus that houses the world famous Field Museum, the Adler Planetarium and Shedd Aquarium.
I felt my body kick into an instinctual mode and reacting to the terrain, unconsciously shifting gears.
The further south I went, the more people I encountered. Generally the reverse is true — head south and once you’re past McCormick Place, the path is a ghost town.
But it’s Saturday morning and the runners come out…but I didn’t see the slender runners; I saw the Clydesdales. Those are my people. I would rather encounter and support those grinding out 15 minute miles than deal with Boston Qualifiers.
An hour later I made it to the Museum of Science and Industry – the famous Hyde Park institution a stone’s throw from the University of Chicago. For the last 2 hours I’ve been making good progress – over 9 mph! But the weather and the bike was taking its toll.
I looped around Jackson Park – about a mile and a half south of the MSI and headed back north and ran into the dreaded wind. It immediately killed my optimism about making it back to Navy Pier so I could get above a total of 35 miles on Divvy. After all – this is like the Olympics with the “degree of difficulty,” right? Surely 30 miles on a horrible bike is worth like 70 on a proper road bike? It’s about 10 miles north back to Navy Pier and I was huffing and puffing to stay above 7 mph.
But more importantly I needed coffee, so I found the nearest Dunkin with a close-by Divvy station for a recharge and a sit down. 30 miles in and my butt hurts. It made me realize that my road bike seat was worth every penny.
Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood is rather interesting – awesome architecture and home of famous people like trumpeter Louis Armstrong.
So I eventually got back on the lake, feeling better but running into a headwind. I just wanted to cross 40 miles on the Divvy for the day. As I got back near the Museum Campus, I realized it was close to 10am. I did the mental math and realized in the time it’ll take me to do the full 100 miles, people do triathlons.
The stretch between Roosevelt Road and Navy Pier was a lot more crowded – tourists, Weekend Armstrongers, fashionable runners and other assorted characters. I looped around Navy Pier, vaguely aware that my butt at one point had sensation to it.
Heading north, I was on my least favorite stretch – between Navy Pier and Oak Street beach. Less than a mile of pure torture, with intense wind, waves that will splash you – along with the path being at a sideways angle.
At this point I gave up and powered through a few more miles and dropped my bike off at Fullerton and decided that brunch and a nap is in order. I’ll do the rest tomorrow at the gym.
Total damage: 45.29 miles with 20 bike changes.
I’ll get you next year, #100MoN.
But in a funnier way that has me avoiding the lakefront.
Comments (14)
12.17.2015 | 11:08 am
A Note from Fatty: If you’d prefer to skip straight to the links to the podcast I’m talking about today, here you go: You’ll find the episode on fattycast.com, on iTunes, and as a downloadable MP3. You can also play it directly on this page, but you’ll have to scroll down a little bit to see the player.
When I decided I was going to do a podcast, one of the first things I did was start making a list of people I wanted to talk with.
Bill Strickland, Editor-in-Chief of Bicycling Magazine (shown here kissing the statue of Tullio Campagnolo at the top of the Croce d’Aune,where he, according to legend, got the inspiration for the quick release) was right at the top of that list.
Why? Because I identify with him in a lot of ways. We’re about the same age. We both love bikes. We both love writing about bikes. We both have written books. We both have made our living for most of our careers in magazine publishing. We both have been through some very tough times.
But also, because we’re really different in a lot of ways. Specifically, Bill is insightful and wise and sought after for thoughtful analysis, while I’m…ridiculous.
So I thought it might be interesting for us to get together for an hour to chat.
Then we wound up talking for almost exactly two hours.
Yeah.
As it turns out, Bill and I had quite a bit to chat about.
Here, have a listen (or subscribe in iTunes):
What We Talked About, With Links and Stuff
A couple weeks ago, I read Bill’s book, Ten Points. And it was an extraordinary book. A great story. A tragic story. A beautiful story. It was one of those books that made me think, “Hey, I need to be a better person.”
So of course I talked with Bill about Ten Points, in spite of the fact that it’s been published for almost a decade.
We talked about magazines in general, and about his favorite writing from Bicycling in particular. And about writing about riding. We talked about Lance Armstrong — Bill’s history with Lance, my history with Lance, and about the time I was super angry with Bill about what he had said about Lance.
We talked about his quest to have no more than three bikes (we did not talk about how many bikes I have, which is for the best).
We talked about where he has ridden, and where he’d like to ride.
Basically, we talked all over the place. It was a great conversation, and I think you’ll enjoy listening to it.
Here are a few links to things we talked about:
A Note About Podcast Fever
Earlier this week I talked with Burke Swindlehurst and Diane Lees; I will be editing and posting these conversations very soon. Today, I’m recording a conversation with Janeen McCrae (aka The Noodleator). Tomorrow, I talk with Neal Rogers. Saturday, I’m talking with Sonya Looney.
That’s six interviews in one week. And there were two more interviews that I would have done but need to be rescheduled.
Why am I suddenly podcasting like a madman? Because I enjoy it. A lot. I’ve been writing about riding for about eleven years now, and I’ve covered a lot (most?) of the ground I can cover. But having long conversations with other people who love riding (and focusing on them instead of me) — that’s new, and it’s fun, and I’m loving it.
I don’t have any plans to abandon this blog, but you can definitely count on me featuring more of this kind of conversation. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Comments (6)
12.16.2015 | 12:16 pm
A Note from Fatty: This review contains lots and lots of spoilers about the new Star Wars movie, which I have seen, and which I hated.
I was ten years old when I saw the original Star Wars. Now I’m pushing fifty. I’ve grown up a lot in the intervening years. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the latest film in the Star Wars saga.
Boring Plot
The title of the new Star Wars film, “The Force Awakens,” can only have been penned ironically. A more appropriate title might have been “Forced to Stay Awake.” As in, the only way you’ll possibly stay awake through this snooze-fest is if you are forced to, through liberal ingestion of amphetamines, frequent dunking of your head in water, and occasional electric shocks.
Don’t believe me? Fine. Here’s what happens, from the beginning of the film to the end.
The movie starts with a closeup of a stormtrooper named Finn, who isn’t even Finnish (I have lived in Finland, speak Finnish, and am pretty darned good at recognizing Finnish accents, so I’m not just speculating here). Inaccuracies like this make me so mad.
But anyways, back to the story. “Finn” (who isn’t Finnish) has crash-landed on a desert planet. He looks scared. Fine so far. Who’s in pursuit? What danger is he running from? How do you even put that outfit on, and how much work is it to get off when you need to use the restroom?
Unfortunately, two of those questions are answered in short order. He’s not running from anyone. He’s just lost, and is prone to anxiety when he gets lost. And the uniform is fastened in the back, with laces (which is pretty disappointing, not to mention difficult to properly adjust).
For the next thirty-two minutes he just wanders around in an ever-widening circle, yelling “Hello?” in an increasingly panicked voice.
Not Realistic
And then he finds and enters a bike shop. Now, I can apply suspension of disbelief as well as the next guy, so don’t have any problem accepting that bikes might exist in science fiction movies. Frankly, in fact, I have always wondered why bikes (or wheels of any kind for that matter) hadn’t shown up in the previous Star Wars movies.
I can even believe that Finn might want to buy a fat bike, to make it easier to get around on that sand dune.
But when it turns out that the bike shop had the brand, build and size this Finn character wanted, and that the bike was built and ready to ride…well, that strains my credulity past the breaking point.
Anyway, by now we’re about forty-five minutes into the movie, and I’m getting restless, but Finn pays (using ApplePay, in only the first of an astonishing number of blatant product placements) for his bike (a Sidious Fat Bantha or something like that) and rides out the door.
Bad Message
And he’s not even wearing a helmet, which is a terrible message to today’s children.
After a while, he runs into a decrepit Chewbacca. As it turns out, the near-complete lack of ergonomic accomodations for Wookies in the Millenial Falcon have done terrible things to Chewbacca’s back, and he is forced to ride a recumbent, which is even more embarrassing to Wookies than it is to humans.
And that’s the only time we see Chewie for the whole movie. One stupid cameo, on a recumbent. Sheesh.
Confusing
After this, Finn enters a bike race, where he meets Rey, which would be fine if not for these three facts:
- Star Wars keeps giving its characters confusing names. Like, Darth Vader’s nickname is “Annie.” (And in the first movie he’s a little orphan. Yes, George Lucas made Darth Vader into a sly “Little Orphan Annie” joke.) Now we have a woman named “Ray,” and she’s doesn’t even remotely look like one of the hosts of Car Talk.
- The movie never accounts for the intense discomfort Finn would feel while trying to ride a bike while still wearing that Stormtrooper outfit.
- They don’t even try to explain why there’s a bike race happening on this planet (which is called “Ratatooine” or something equally ridiculous), unless they did that during the opening all-caps yellow crawl, which I missed because the popcorn line was long.
Anyway, during this race, predictably, Supreme Leadeer Snoke (played by Gollum) catches and passes Finn and Rey (who are working together for no sufficiently-explained reason), riding a bike made of lugged light sabers. Which totally would not be UCI-compliant, I can assure you.
Predictable and Confusing
And then Snoke takes off his mask and it turns out he’s Kylo Ren. And then he takes off that mask and it turns out he’s Luke Skywalker. No big surprise. But then he takes off that mask and it turns out he’s Lance Armstrong.
Okay I admit that caught me off-guard, because I’m pretty sure Armstrong would at least have been wearing a helmet.
Then Armstrong pulls off that mask and reveals he’s actually Hayden Christensen. This was the best moment of the movie, to be honest, and explains a lot.
They then have a light saber battle, but the batteries drain before it really goes anywhere.
More happens, but someone had posted a funny video on Facebook and I got caught up in watching it on my phone, then I read the comments. By the timeI finished and went back to the movie, there was a space battle going on, intercut with a musical number for some reason.
I’m pretty sure I saw Han Solo in there somewhere, but it was just for comedy purposes. He just yelled at Princess Leia to “get those kids offa my spaceship” and then went back to watching Larry King, which is apparently available throughout the universe. Strangely, Larry King looks just as old in this movie as he does right now in our galaxy, even though this is supposed to have happened a “long time ago.”
Conclusion
I’m glad Star Wars (finally) brought bikes into their storyline, but am vastly disappointed by the movie.
Four stars.
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