Tacos for breakfast

Today was going to be a good day on the bike. Not epic, not legendary, but a good day out. Until I got doored. At first it looked like just the front wheel was demo'd. I was fine. Nick played rescue crew and grabbed my car, so I could swap wheels and keep going. If only it could be so easy. Throw on a new wheel and as I ride away realizing my shifter feels funny. Well it feels funny, but how does it shift? Not so good as my rear derailleur explodes!!! Nice. Luckily I can roll down hill to my house again and examine the bent rear derailleur hanger that helped give the rear derailleur the impetus to self destruct.
So now I am looking at new front wheel, new rear derailleur, new shifter, new rear derailleur hanger (hey maybe a frame and fork too -why not go big?). Bike is in the shop now getting examined for the damage report that I will probably have to chase the idiot who doored me across Arlington to get paid.
I think the best part of the whole thing was when the lady said, "I can't believe I doored a cyclist" and I looked down at my bike and then back at her and said "I can". I think that went over her head.
So another weekend another incident. I need to get the curse remover going on this bike thing.
I have to give the Williams front wheel a lot of credit, it absorbed most of the force of the impact before imploding.

PS
Day later. No word on bike til Monday. Took a 2 hour ride on my single speed cross bike which as much more fun than I expected. Guess that's the silver lining. Can't cry when you have more bikes to ride.

The Education Of Sonny Carson

I mentioned this movie in another review and it is so good I had to post this. This clip was made famous by Ghostface, but the movie is well worth your time.

Marzio Brushegin Appreciation

12 years as a pro, 11 Grand Tours, and 3 wins. that is a lot of days in the saddle. The man owns more donkeys (by a factor of 5) than he does wins. The ulitmate domestique, gregario, grinta, whatever you want to call the guy who rides tempo for hours only to get shelled and drag his ass across the line to do it again. He has always ridden for strong Italian team (Fassa,Lampre) who had clear leaders and media stars.
Well yesterday was his day. Wins the first ITT in the Giro. He puts the screws to Visocnti and Ricco and the other pretty boys who get the limelight.
The effort it takes to be a great cyclist is pretty awe inspiring-hours on the bike and denial of anything that can compromise your peformance(food,desert, fun, etc) for example. It is truly impressive when a man can stick to that life style for over a decade while gathering so little glory for himself. Even winning doesn't ensure you stick to the plot(Dario Pieri!) Imagine how many hours of training separated those wins!
But maybe Brushegin is sick of the shadows, Check out these quotes
"'This pink jersey is not by chance,' said Bruseghin.
'I am not wearing it because of one solo escape. Those of my rivals who underestimate me are wrong.'" Take that Visconti. Looks like Marzio is ready to be the leader of the Lampre squad in this Giro. It's hard to see him triumphing against Menchov or Contador. But maybe he can put the hurt on Visconti,Ricco,DiLuca, et al who have been getting all the glory. It would be nice to see him on the final podium however unlikely that is.

Time Trial didn't upset the overall contendors too much. Ricco got hosed by a fall and Simoni did better than you would have expected, but all the favorites are within a few minutes with one tough mountain stages to shake things up before this weekend's sufferfest.

Friday Night

Another wild Friday night. Twin Towers here was my art project. Almost as good as pickles and hardboiled eggs.
Up first an oddball, Straightedgeracing.com???? Who knew. If you like that check Doublecross which is a killer edge nostalgia blog.
Next up, The Black Oven. You know I don't cook, but if I did black metal baking might be it!
I could probably throw in some Visconti/Carrotop/Gotti kids separated at birth, but I predict Bettini's protege will out perfrom his manscaping. If not this year,soon.
Last up, if you liked "emo" before it meant mall rats in make up, check out Usedbinforever which has some nice downloads of some obscure vinyl nuggets.
Good news is the Gazzetta della Sport has a new translation feature so you can get all the Giro coverage translated way better than babelfish.
Big news is Pettachi getting sacked. If he could get wins without a dedicated lead out train, maybe he would have kept his job. Sounds like a bunch of lead out men will be in search of work next year. Sprinters who can get it down on their own are always more impressive-McEwen, Freire,etc.

Flying Felts

What a bum out. Probably not the publicity the sponsors want! Slipstream Blog is pretty good. Check it out. They need to come clean about Maggie's Zipps though. Where is the Zapruder footage????

Tonka -forgotten heros

There are thousands of bands who put out a couple singles and disappeared. Some of them manage to throw some petty amazing songs onto those 7"s before they fade away.
Tonka were a band out of SC back in the early 90s?
They had this one song that recently got stuck in my head. Early mornings getting up to ride have made me obsess about getting some coffee and getting motivated so it's no surprise that a song with a lyric like "my first cup of coffee.." would swim up from the dark recesses of my mind. Was it on this record or the "southern by the grace of god" comp7". There was a cool bunch of bands from this area that all had 7"s out on a label called Assorted Porkchops.
Their myspace profile gets it right-kinda Rites of Spring mixed with Jawbreaker. I would add a heavy dose of Crimpshine/Cometbus as well. DC meets East Bay via South Carolina. Think skate vidoe soundtrack-back when they were good! Half the band went on to Assfactor 4, who were a little more popular, but Tonka will always be tops for me.
Apparently you can still get the singles here and a discography CD is in the works! Nice, but so much for it turning up on "Killed by Emo" vol one!

Raymond Pettibon vs Lance Armstrong

Stumbled across this on Velonews today and sprayed my coffee across the keyboard...
"In describing the impressive painting, Armstrong, who has become an art aficionado since retiring from racing three years ago, said, “It’s technically a collaboration. The main part is by [Spanish graffiti artist] Gomez Bueno — whose from [former cycling teammate] Chechu [Rubiera]’s hometown in Asturias — and on the left side, Superman and all that, is by Raymond Pettibon, who’s a very important contemporary artist now. They did it together, I bought it at auction. It’s kind of wild, I like it. And there was nowhere else to put it. So I’m going to incorporate more and more art in here … as I’ve already run out of walls [at home].”

"Very important contemporary artist"??? How about fucking genius who helped define SST and American Hardcore in general. What is funnier Armstrong the "art aficionado" or Pettibon and Armstrong coincidentally crossing paths like a tragicomic section of "coffe and cigarettes"? "It's kind of wild" probably sums up 95% of Pettibon's work, but a collabo mural with a graffiti artist doesn't sound wild in comparison to what he pumped out in the 80s. Maybe Armstrong should track down some Tripping Corpse zines. He could have a sweet book collection too, if he didn't hate books.
Pettibon is the man and so is Armstrong(I am only a semi-hater 99 and 2000 were pretty inspiring to watch then and on repeat on the trainer), but together it is almost as lame as "CEO rock bands" which is today's second annoyance.
How the fuck can bad middle aged rock bands make the front page of the Globe when we have earthquakes, cyclones, fires , carbombs, recession, and the Hillary vs Obama show???? This puff piece would have been embarrassing in Boston or the Improper Bostonian, but is inexplicable as front page news. The Globe raises it's prices and then puts shit like this on the front page?? Get serious.