I’d Write a Long, Clever Post Today, But…

11.3.2006 | 7:16 am

I’d write a long, clever post today, but in ten minutes I’m leaving to go Racer’s bike shop. There, I’ll gather with about ten of my best riding buddies, and we’ll head on out to Moab.

Yes, the annual “Fall Moab” trip — the group ride I look forward to above all other group rides — begins today.

What does that mean?

It means three days of mountain biking, watching the technical geniuses among us (everyone but me, pretty much) do crazy, foolhardy moves on their bikes. I may even try a few myself.

It means two nights of boasting about what we did during the day, describing–down to the minutiae — what everyone already knows. What you were thinking at the approach. What the bike felt like as you committed. What the penalty was if you failed. How much it hurt when you whacked your noggin on sandstone.

I have been able to think about nothing else for about a week, and I know others in the group feel the same way.

I expect to have stories, pictures and video clips to share when I return.

Have a nice weekend. I know I will.

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Wherein Dug, Full of Righteous Indignation, Challenges Me to a Duel

11.2.2006 | 1:02 pm

A note from Fatty: Yesterday, I (considerately) wrote a letter to my good friend Dug, in the hopes of dissuading him from his ill-conceived plan of riding the Leadville 100 on a rigid singlespeed (click here to read it).

Dug, alas, took offense.

In the interest of fair play and equal time (for I am a generous person, as well as fair and just. Oh, and handsome. I’m handsome, too.), I have posted Dug’s reply below.

Elden, you are my friend. In fact, you are one of my oldest friends, and by old, I don’t mean that you are old (although you are), but that I’ve been friends with you for a long time. So long, in fact, that when I met you, you were a retarded, floundering rollerblader. I took you to the bike shop to buy your first bike. And your second bike. I think you’re now on your eighteenth bike, but I got bored helping you buy them and lost track.

In short, Elden, you are a flibberdigibit, and a poor judge of Leadville finishing times.

You are also a dipweed.

Challenge
Rather than list all the reasons why I shall not only finish the Leadville inside of 12 hours next year, not only finish inside of 12 hours on a singlespeed, not only a singlespeed but a RIGID singlespeed, not only finish Leadville on rigid singlespeed, but in UNDER 10 hours, rather than list all the reasons why I’m confident that I will do this, I will simply offer you a wager.

• If I finish Leadville next year in less than ten hours on my crappy, “Brad Keyes maintained” Surly Karate Monkey rigid singlespeed YOU will give ME whatever bike you ride in Leadville.
• If I finish in Leadville in more than 11 hours, I will give YOU the bike I ride in the race.
• If I finish between 10 and 11 hours, we’ll call it a push. You keep your bike, I keep mine. But, in this case, since I’ll have finished (and you contend I won’t finish), you’ll have to maintain my bike for me for the rest of calendar 2007.  

Pick up the glove, Ricky Bobby. I will enjoy haphazardly training all next year, eating Pink Cookies and Twizzlers and cookies, drinking Diet Coke during the race, and collecting your $4,000 bike at the finish line. After which I will celebrate my 42nd birthday, and as a gift to myself, I will ride your (my) bike on Hog Hollow after a rainstorm, and never get it tuned up.

Fatty Responds
Fool that you are, Dug, I accept your challenge–in spite of the fact that you’re oh-so-courageously betting your $400 bike against my $2500 (not $4000) one–as long as you agree to the following stipulations:

1. If you do not finish at all, you give me both your Surly and your Gemini. I will use the Gemini for parts, or donate it to charity, if they’ll have it.
2. If I decide to do the race on a singlespeed (and I do not at this time commit to any such thing) and finish the race an hour or more faster than you, you must wear the “Fatty Rules” jersey on at least one ride per week for the following 12 months (Botched will be happy to loan you the jersey, I suspect).
3. If I decide to do the race on a singlespeed and then successfully finish, but you do not, you must live with the shame of that memory for the rest of your life.

PS: If you’d like to place your own Fatty v. Dug bet, I’ve created a topic in Fatty’s Forum for just that.

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An Open Letter to Dug, Who Evidently Does Not Realize He Is Slow and Middle-Aged, and Therefore Has Announced He Is Riding Next Year’s Leadville 100 on a Singlespeed

11.1.2006 | 2:05 pm

A Note from Fatty: My good friend Dug has recently announced his foolish intention of riding the Leadville 100 on a singlespeed next year. As a concerned friend, I feel it is my duty to dissuade him.

Dear Dug,

I take no pleasure in what I am about to tell you. No, that’s not true, because I guess I do take a little bit of pleasure in it, but my somber tone of voice is meant to convey the seriousness I want you to think I feel, regardless of whether I in reality feel it.

I know that you have chosen to ride the Leadville 100 on a singlespeed next year, Dug, and it’s important for you to know what everyone who knows you knows:

Dug, you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of finishing the Leadville 100 on a singlespeed.

It’s questionable, in fact, whether you’d finish the race on a geared bike. But that’s not the point I’m trying to make.

Poor Memory
Dug, I can see why — before thinking about it — you might think you could do a 100-mile mountain bike race on a singlespeed. After all, you have ridden White Rim on a singlespeed, and that’s 100 miles, right? And you’ve ridden the Leadville 100, so you should be able to do it again, right?

Unfortunately (for you), they’re vastly different rides. White Rim is a mostly-flat basin with two short, steep climbs. Leadville has 11,000 feet of climbing, with five excruciatingly long, steep climbs, each of which is miles long (and one of which is about ten miles long. You’ll have to walk all of those climbs, Dug. And don’t forget that the whole ride happens at or above 10,000 feet.

Night will have fallen before you roll into town, Dug.

If you don’t believe me, try to dig back into your own recollection. The best you’ve ever done at this race is 9:45. And that was when you were much, much fitter than you are now. Do you really think that with your decreased fitness, increased weight, advanced state of male-pattern baldness, increased age (your best time happened eleven years ago, man: eleven!), and your haphazard training style, you can do this race in only two more hours than that? On a singlespeed?

Let me give you an example, Dug: the Powerline trail. Remember how, after 80 miles of riding, riding that in your granny gear was all but impossible? How are you going to do that on a singlespeed?

How are you going to ride St. Kevins, Dug? How are you going to ride SugarLoaf? How are you going to ride eight miles of Columbine?

If you’re serious about riding the Leadville 100 on a singlespeed, Dug, I have a piece of training advice for you: bring a bike you’re comfortable pushing. ‘Cuz that’s what you’ll be doing the whole day.

Poor Fitness
Let me ask you a question, Dug. When we rode together this past summer, did you find yourself holding back for me? No sir, you did not. In fact, did you perhaps notice that you had to push yourself pretty damn hard to stay with me?

And what was my finishing time at Leadville? Ten hours, more or less. On a geared bike.

I figure you would have been an hour behind me, had you raced. Or, if you had been on a singlespeed, you would have finished the following Tuesday.

It hurts me (though not much) to tell you this, Dug, but I must: you are middle-aged, out-of-shape, and feeble.

In Summary
Dug, I want to see you succeed, but you can only succeed if you give yourself attainable goals. The Leadville 100 on a singlespeed is something Kenny and Brad can do. You, my friend, are no Brad. And you’re even less of a Kenny.

Don’t be a fool, Dug. Know your limits, and race the Leadville 100 on a geared bike. I look forward to cheering for you at the finish line (which will happen, I suspect, roughly ninety minutes after I finish, shower, change, have a nice meal, and return to the finish area to watch for you).

Kind Regards,

The Fat Cyclist

PS: If you would like to use my blog for an acknowledgment of the foolishness of your decision, I hereby extend the opportunity.

Comments (51)

What I’m Doing During My Time Off (Warning: Navel Gazing Ahead)

10.31.2006 | 9:06 am

Hi, Fatty here. Yeah, I know I said I wasn’t going to do any writing for a while, but I am perfectly comfortable with the idea of breaking promises.

When I decided to take my first extended break since I started this blog, the reason I gave was that I was (disproportionately) grumpy at what seemed to me an increase in commenting snark aimed in my direction.

But that was really only a small part of why I wanted a break. The bigger reason was that I had — for the first time since I’ve started writing this blog — run out of ideas. I’d sit down to write, and have nothing to say about biking.

That freaked me out.

The biggest reason I felt I needed a break, though, was that I felt like “Fat Cyclist” was at a sort of crossroads. I saw four choices.

• Keep on keeping on. Do I keep doing what I’ve been doing for 18 months (write something funny about biking every weekday, more-or-less), pretty much forever? That didn’t sound appealing.
• Good night, everybody. Do I shut the blog down, and focus my writing efforts on writing a book or for print magazines? Well, I like the idea of writing a book and writing for magazines, but I don’t really think writing “Fat Cyclist” and pursuing other writing efforts are really mutually exclusive.
• Cool it. Do I go to a “once a week” model, posting every Monday? Nah. That’s lazy, and you’d all fall out of the habit of visiting here.
• Counterintuitive option. What if — instead of doing the same thing, or not doing anything at all, or doing less, I really ramped up “Fat Cyclist” into something bigger?

The more I thought about it, the more I decided I liked the idea of turning Fat Cyclist into more than a blog.

FatCyclist.com Now Under Construction
So, for the past few days, I’ve been spending a moment here and there to write down ideas and install software for www.fatcyclist.com. Here’s what I’m thinking the site will have.

• The blog. That’ll be on the home page. I’m happy to say that my “idea list” (a Word doc I keep with a bullet list of things I want to write about on my blog) now has a nice buffer of 15 items. So the writer’s fatigue thing should be over.
• Comments. I know a lot of you readers don’t currently comment because it’s difficult to sign up with Microsoft’s Live Passport. I’ve (for now) set up my blog at www.fatcyclist.com to not require registration. Just type and post. If spam or abuse gets to be a problem, I’ll rethink that later.
• Fatty’s Forum. I’d like to be able to have ongoing conversations with you guys, and the comments zone is kind of a weak way to do that, so I’ve got a forum at www.fatcyclist.com/forum. Please register and post something there, because it’s currently entirely empty.
• Epic Rides Library. Long before I ever did the “Fat Cyclist” blog, I maintained a little website called “Epic Rides,” where anyone who wanted could contribute stories about long, difficult bike rides they had taken. I loved writing and reading those stories, so I’m going to make that part of the Fat Cyclist site, too. Start thinking about (and writing) your stories.
• Training / Weight Loss Bets and Competitions: One way I’ve been able to force myself to stay on track with diets and training is by having a bet or competition with other people. I think that’s probably the case with others. So I’m planning on having an area on the site where you can either compete with me or with other Fat Cyclist readers to see who meets their goals.
• Stuff to Sell. I’m thinking of selling T-Shirts, stickers, jerseys, and other stuff like that. I haven’t actually started getting any of that produced, yet, though. Soon.
• Ads-for-Schwag: I’d like to put some ads on my site. Not to get money, mind you (though I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to money). I’d like to do barter-style advertising, where small companies can advertise on my site in exchange for giving me stuff which I can then give away as competition prizes.

I’m just getting started, but the site’s now live. Leave a comment and tell me what you think of this idea.

Oh, and I’m no longer feeling fragile, so feel free to be honest.

Comments (53)

Mugged

10.20.2006 | 5:25 pm

Comments (17)