Fuck Gas

It’s 76 degrees outside, this Friday, October 30 2009 of our lords year. Is that how that goes? Anywho… seventy six degrees motherfucking Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit! What a day to stand around in a cold, dark bike shop drinking beer, eating peanut butter (crunchy mind you) and wrenching on some pile of shit that I still don’t feel right about releasing back into the hands of some care free not giving no fucks customer. Got get down the road right chief?!

In regards to gettin’ down the road as it were, there is some talk on the interwebs about legislation along the lines of… “A bicycle shall not be operated on a highway or highway shoulder without brakes adequate to control the movement of and to stop the bicycle.” How fucking vague is that? This all coming after a friend of a guys son or some shit smashed into the back of van on his fixer bro and laid in a coma for four days. My biggest argument is to just stop trying to protect people from themselves. Shit’s old, fuck off, I’m over it.

Lastly, I’m skipping the cross race this weekend due to feeling like a slug pedaling around in all this beautiful weather and for some reason I noticed an uncomfortable achy hurting painful sensation between my sholder blades this morning. It’s killing me. Guess I need the weekend off so you won’t be seeing this dude at the Gun Club this weekend.

Try and it enjoy it anyway I guess…

The Rock Paper Scissors Collective has issued a call for entries to their Beyond Bicycles Exhibition. By art they mean human-powered machines, bicycle-based inventions, and interactive kinetic sculpture. Deadline is March 15, 2010. From the RPS Collective site:

In May of 2010, Rock Paper Scissors Collective is hosting BEYOND BICYCLES a celebration of the art, science, and politics of harnessing human power.  Our inspiration is the bicycle, a simple machine that has transformed our experience of moving through the world.  We see the bicycle as possibility, the tip of the big ol’ iceberg of human potential energy.

BEYOND BICYCLES will be an exhibition documenting the many ingenious uses of human power past and present.  The Gallery space at Rock Paper Scissors Collective is limited so large works will only be displayed during opening night.  Our month long exhibition will consist of a collection large color photographs of works, accompanied by a printed zine.  There will also be a web zine which will be more extensive than the printed version.

On Your Left Cycles will be premiering the new NWD film Dust and Bones November 6 at 7:30pm. From the looks of the trailer below there’s some badass riding in it so it should be worth checking out and the price is certainly right.

I’m beat and fending off leg cramps so I’m just going to provide you with links to a handful of pics from the weekend… I did manage to make it into VeloNews.

Ben’s pics from day 1 & day 2

Jess’s from day 1

Marcia’s from day 1 & day 2

Thanks to Marcia for capturing my athletic prowess on the digital. If you can’t have fun then what’s the point right? I’ve got girls pajama pants I’m throwing in the mix for the next race. Quite fitting I think considering our damn race goes off at 8:30am. USGP4/Derby City Cup2 starts in about 9 hours and it’s gonna be a fast one. That means I get left in the back. That’s okay though, more beer for me. If you’re in Louisville make sure to get out there and heckle us idiots.

I snatched that pic from Joan Hanscomb’s twitter, hope you don’t mind Joan. She’d be the fine putter onner of the USGP. Speaking of which… USGP day 1 is in the bag for me as I had to high tail it to work right after my race. Tomorrow the party happens. Anyway, the race… Suited up with a Mexican wrestling mask which seemed to be a big hit and I started I believe to be 91st. Not exactly sure the total number of entrants, but it was a big ass field. Right after the first turn some asshole decided to go down and mingle about instead of actually attempting to get out of anyone’s way. Not sure what was up with that, but oh well. As I mentioned before, the course is awesome and it was muddy as muddy gets today. My race consisted of some High Life thanks to Zach and a nose diving chain removing tumbler in one of the 3 sand pits. No idea where exactly I placed in the end and since I know it wasn’t top 10 or DFL I could give a fuck less. I had fun as always and am really looking forward to tomorrows debachle.

It’s here and so is the rain! Pre-ride on the course happens today at 2 pm and I’m lucky enough to have some fellow coworkers relieving me for a couple hours so I can go play in the mud. Sure, I have to come back to work soaked and dirty, but fuck it. I hardcore like that yo. So, uh, yeah. Two days of cross for the weekend Make sure to come out and yell something stupid at those that don’t have the sense to not be doing what they’re doing. Enough about the future, let’s discuss the past.

Went to the Race Across the Sky “event” last night and while it left me in no way wanting to take on that race, the film was pretty awesome none the less. Lance is a monster as is anyone else that completes that thing. My favorite racer was the local guy that has done all 15 of them, on the same old 80’s mountain bike, in a button up shirt and old ass skate helmet. OG baby! There is talk of another showing later down the road and I would say it is worth it to check out. Good stuff.

This one came in from Michael in NC. Claims he races this behemoth and tends to kick ass while doing so. Sounds like a good plan if I ever did hear one. He also sent in the one below. Now that’s just silly.

As for “normal” bike news… finally got my ass registered for two days of pain, a.k.a. Derby City Cup or the U.S. Gran Prix of Cyclocross if you will. John, being the good father and husband he is has persuaded both his wife and daughter to take care of the handups. Dolla dolla bills ya’ll and beers beers beers! Additionally, I was asked to provide a short bio for the announcer being associated with the fine Rogue folks… this is what I came up with:

jimmy, a drunken cyclops and author of the internationally syndicated blog fuckgas.org, leans towards pacifism, is genuinely disgusted by both competition and bicycles and is actually only here for the beer. hand ups appreciated.

And speaking of Rogue folks, looks like I’ll be joining a few of them and taking in all that is this supposed epic event, Race Across the Sky tonight. If you don’t know what in the hell I’m talking about, you need to read this blog more. Here’s the trailer again…

The U.S. Gran Prix of Cyclocross series is in Louisville this weekend for the Derby City Cup. Considering we should be getting rain Thursday, Friday and Saturday it should be an awesome weekend of racing. Elite women take the course at 1:45 and Elite men take it on at 3 pm both Saturday and Sunday. More importantly as you may be wondering, I have an 8:30 am start time both days f which will be followed immediatly by work on Saturday unfortunately. Sunday however the festivities will be in full swing… for me at least.

In all the seriousness I have in me however, you really should come out for this race. Granted you wont be out there at the ass crack of dawn to watch a bunch of cat 4 slugs sloshing through mud and sand, over barriers and up and over the Green Monster, you should surely make a point to get out and watch some of them faster dudes and dames. Physically fit people in skin suits and covered in mud - what more do you need? Beer you say? Come find me and I’ll have you covered.

Paul from Blaq sent this one over today. Looks like the race goes down on Halloween, Saturday, October 31, at Professors Pub up in Kent, Ohio and sounds like a good one. Facebook event page here. Details below:

Professors Pub
110 E. Main St.
Kent, OH 44240

$10 Pre-Registration
$15 Day of Race

Registration: 2pm
Race: 3pm
Free Food: 5pm
Tricks / Skids / Trackstands: 6pm
Prizes: 7pm
Music: 8pm