Cycling odds and ends

I want a set of these, even if I am questionable on the logos.
Velonews Giro tech coverage has sucked so far. Pictures of the outside of the team buses and mechanic's vehicles??? We care about what is inside. And pictures of hacksaws aren't gonna cut it no matter how cool the home-made truing stands are. Step your game up Zinn!
Giro so far has been good LPR are going for the thoat with the Pettachi to DiLuca pink jersey hand off. How long can he hold it? The next couple days look good for breakaway hunters and opportunists. Sprinters are hanging on for dear life to get to Sunday. A big crit in Milan in the middle of the Giro? Why not. Tuesday's stage could be the big GC upsetter. Next week will be decisive due to Tuesday and then the eually tough ITT on Thursday. The stucture of this year's race has definitely become more interesting. Not the traditional week of sprinter's stages followed by a week of mountains. Never mind the mix of very short and very long stages.
Menchov vs Leipheimer vs Basso seems like the battle. THey are all strong with strong teams. Maybe Rogers in the mix too. So far so good.
Saxo Bank sent a GC leaderless team which seems to put a lot of pressure on a Schleck come Tour time. Garmin is not having a very stellar year and it might be time for Millar to hang up his cleats.


Gonna ride the Wakefield century this weekend. Have always had fun on this one-even if it rains every year.

Took 5 days off the bike. That felt strange. Hopefully a mid season break is a good move an not just an inertia starter.

Beautiful Machine by Graeme Fife

Got this out of the blue for my birthday.Wasn't really sure what to expect, but I needed a new book to read so off I went. Right of the bat it's like Ham on Rye with a bike (or maybe Ten Points-which was more like Natural Born Killers with a bike). Tough childhood leads to escape and illumination through endurance sports.
The author is a veritable quote machine and he had me turning page corners to mark especially good ones.
"I knew what that bike promised. It promised freedom
"The true measure of gradient is what it does to you and what you have to contrive to do back to it"
"I am inhabiting the gap between the mental image and the reality, treading the gulf between what I had nursed as possibility across to the insuperable fact of my own limitations"
These two are just examples from several dog eared pages. I could really imagine Paul Sherwin or Phil Ligget narrating this as a book on tape. He captures the suffering on the bike-the indecision, the pain,the self doubt and also the solo meaningless accomplishments that make it all worth while.

It took me until mid way through to realize that this was the guy who did the Great Climbs of the Pyrennes book-an item I lust after, but haven't purchased.
This guy is deep in the cycling game and has a pretty much perfect view of life on the bike-not racing, just riding.
The sections about riding in Africa are pretty amazing.
As an added bonus,as I was almost done he has a couple chapters where he is on the East Coast-Cape Cod and Boston area. He does rides we all do every week. Small world and a cool surprise.
This is a book that is about all the places the bike can take you and all the lessons it teaches.
Well worth you time. He has a website (thankfully no Myspace!)

Tool TIme

As a suburban man with lawn care issues, I have really come to love this device. The Hound Dog. We are against pesticides up here in the Heights, but Dandelions suck! Wasting your day bending over to pull them is a sucker move. Let's face it the bike is priority number one, so yard care needs to be done fast and furious and this bugger makes it happen. It is especially good if you have some OCD like tendencies.
It is hard to be a aging post punker and realize how much your life is resembling this Rollins tirade,but hey at least I have a well stocked garage.

JJ

John Joseph New York City Urban Warfare Cro-Mag Training from Polygraph Productions on Vimeo.

Frank just made my day. Tell JJ titanium is for dentists! Saxo Supporter??

El Michels Affair Enter the 37th Chamber

Wu Tang covers CD by El Michels Affair is out. Get it. Wu Tang is for the children.
Instrumental covers of Wu-Tang classic? Sign me up. Definitely not adult contempory. Put this on and cruise. El Michel Affair are a legit group with an album out, but if you missed their Wu-Tang 45s here is a chance to get to get 15 servings-including Shimmy,Shimmy Ya, Uzi(pinky ring) and classics like Bring da Ruckus and Criminology.
Truth and Soul is the label.

Old Wainds Death Nord Kult CD

Old Wainds
are not afraid of riffing in the vein of classic slayer while still
delivering some klassic kult black metal. Production is solid (not unlike the
newest Nachmystium and this disc shreds.
Not total overdrive like Marduk or Immortal, but still
this could be the first "black thrash" record that lives up to the genre's
potential. The breakdown on bloodstained is sick. Have slept on their
previous releases mainly due to being burned by too much sub par russian and slavic black metal(nokturnal mortum for example). This is described as glacial, nordic,and frezing, but it sounded pretty good blaring on my car stereo one a warm sunny day.
Supposedly their previous records are in the more demented black metal vein
which receive high praise from aquaruis, but this is a harsh, straight
forward punch in the face. This is harsh enough to satisfy the most
orthodox black metallion, but is produced well enough to survive outside
the basement cavern in which you subsist alone.
Moribund gets the pleasure of releasing this klassic.
not Old Wainds, but kult and klassic none the less