MLK

Ernesto's Folly

Fruity.

I was over at the Ebay earlier and came across the above photo. The catalyst for grabbing the photo wasn't the use of the "vintage" label on the nine year old frame without sarcasm, but the ghastly sight of a serpentine zombie, with clenched fist in mid-swing, about to clobber what looks to be a flux capacitor.

As I came out of my shell shocked haze I soon realized that I had seen this ghoulish figure before. My brain had simply resorted to the defensive measure of blotting out past sightings and replacing grim reality with something more comforting, like a fried chicken leg.

As it turned out, what I saw was the Rider of Clubs-"Bastard of Ernesto". A stain that blighted legions of Colnagos and caused great gnashing of teeth back in 1998-2003. They were dark times.

I'm not sure what possessed Ernesto to go Rocky Dennis on nearly a generation of perfectly good bikes for six years. Whether it was the intoxication of too numerous Mapei victories, a twisted prank on his adoring public, or something more perverse. I don't think I want to know. I get the feeling it would be depressing.

The adrenaline and bodaciousness of the VHS tape I got at Interbike '96 with the mullet maned and fat fingered tough guy building frames in Cambiago will never dull, but the whole damn episode blew the myth for me. I became a little more jaded and suspicious of all the fairy tales the companies were weaving and I began to ask "Why?"

I didn't accept the existence and packaged rationale for "new and improved". I needed proof and justification. Sometimes I was satiated, but usually, the stuff left me cold. Thus my cruel tutelage on Bike Shop Wit and Criticism had begun.

As for Ernesto, it took awhile, but he seems to have a firm grasp on the reins again and his house in order. He's still one of the few that maintains a respect for nearly all frame materials and makes many of his bikes where he always has. He offers alot of cool paint options with nary a RoC to be seen.

I hope he can hang on to that. I'd hate to face the fact that the well coifed stallion I saw so long ago in analog glory has had his legs cut beneath him relegated to rubber stamping mediocrity. That would be a shame.

fin.

The Pegoretti's been done for awhile. I've been lazy. Sue me.

The Testacles of Winter

Old Man Winter has set his grip firmly around the neck of Chicagoland. There is a faint whiff of burning Michelins in the air. If you listen closely, you can even hear the collective whir of wattage spewing indoor trainers on salt stained concrete floors with Phil Ligget's voice serenading the bulging eyes and dried up lungs while mis-identifying riders on old Giro videotapes.

The stubborn are still out there in their moose mitts masked with defiant smirks of derision to the smarmy world of indoor training. "Yes, Johnny, you will surely strangle your balls and likely never sire fine whiney bastards to take your money and ignore you" is a common refrain among the bike shop pillars as they advise their larvae about the hard-knock reality of give and take. " But don't take my word for it, learn for yourself and buy this one." He points. "One-fifty." Smooth.

I used to ride an old cateye that clamped at the bottom bracket and fork. It was loud, obnoxious, and you couldn't store it anywhere. It strangled my balls too. The longer I rode it the more retarded I felt. Paul and Phil calling the Nissan Tour couldn't make the inanity a less bitter pill. Neither did Breaking Away or Zepplin. I threw in the towel twelve years ago on indoor training. Still, no kids.

I decided then to ride outdoors year round. It's an inconsistent mess of water, salt, hypothermia, and the feel good warmth of being bailed out by Jack Frost. It's as relaxing as it is hardcore. "Omigod! You rode? No. Way." Yeah, that was me, but not the two weeks before that, because I also lean on the crutch of laughable commuting distances as I loaf, eat, and get jilted by those damn Bears again. It feels good. Besides, everyone knows that an hour outside is worth two and a half indoors.

Well Met

One year and seven months ago I ordered a Pegoretti Responsorium with the incomparable Ciavete paint option. Shortly thereafter, Dario Pegoretti was diagnosed with lymphoma.

Long story short, Dario is doing ok as far as I know, and I, just today, unwrapped the splendid thing from its bubble festooned sheath. Naturally, I was out of town when it arrived, so I was tortured for over 100 hours with the knowledge that it was home and I was not. I was callously left to wonder what this mysterious ferrous beast looked like as I wallowed in the dinge and gray of Detroit. Rain, sleet, and snow moaned and snarled as I sat in a dank Motel 6 saddled with the unknowns that made deep contemplation on a plethora of build possibilities an orgy of lunacy.

And now, after all that time...

My lofty expectations have been far exceeded.

More soon...

Ill Timepiece of Yore

I lusted after the Tag Heuer Formula 1 watch back in the day. Veltec-Boyer used to list them in their catalog for, in hindsight, balls cheap prices along with Concorde frames and Ultima clothing. But, like a lot of things back then, it was one more item I couldn't afford because I was living on my own with the meager means of a paycheck to paycheck existence on bike shop wages.

Veltec had multiple colors available, I don't remember them all, but black on yellow and red on black seems to come to mind. Regardless, the others didn't interest me. They weren't nearly as flat out bodacious as the orangish-red on green of the Team 7-11 model. Sean Yates had one. So did Dag-Otto Lauritzen. Bobke too.

It would be several years before one found its way onto my wrist and I've treasured it ever since. When I first got it (bought from CP for $50) it was proudly flaunted in perpetuity. Most people probably thought it was a Swatch, but a few had a keen eye and saw it for what it was: The illest cycling related time piece ever.

The photo above shows it in all its storied glory. The band isn't the original, but I recently managed to find someone that scared up the OE style for me all the way from Switzerland. The bezel was ground down by a crash in a bike race that also destroyed the crystal. I should have known better than to be so cocky.

When I strap on the rubberized band I think of Sean Yates skipping his wheel under tremendous load up St. Patrick's Hill in Cork. I think of Dag-Otto suffering on mountain passes with camera loving Norwegian panache. I think of mad style, swagger, and brazen euro pedigree.

Dag-Otto sports the oh-so flavorful green on red.
Luscious!

Long Strange Trip

Where the hell have I been? There are a shitload of dustballs collecting on this god forsaken blog for crying out loud. Well, fear not dear severely declining readership, I hope to right this ship and set sail once again with weekly posts.

The past few months have been nothing short of a barrage of North American globetrotting and time strapped weekends. I like the adventure, but the airports, road food, and maybe even a lingering dislike for Indianapolis have taken a mild toll on my psyche. Regardless of all the time away, I managed some good riding and photographing. Updates will be following shortly, though the Interbike insights are now about as old as down tube shift bosses (and not nearly as "hawt".)

Speaking of Interbike...aww hell, I may as well divulge. In short, it's the same sausage party I attended back in the 90's, except the cool people have floppy hair and a boner for all things deemed dorky and lame by yours truly. In '96 I was the opposite, a dorky introvert that was into stuff deemed "cool" by yours truly. Funny, how things change in all sorts of ironic ways.

Things I liked:

- Pegoretti bikes. They still get the blood pumping below my navel
- Maurizio Fondriest. He's elegant, classy, and don't speaka the English.
- Eddy Merckx. As if I even had to say that.
- Phil Wood stainless steel outboard bottom bracket cups.
- SRAM Rival. Looks good, feels good, priced good.
- CROSS VEGAS! Awesome race and atmosphere...the free beers helped a bit too.
- Deda Supernatural handlebar. Fit and finish is second to none.
- Campagnolo wheels. I still think they make 'em best.
- DT Swiss white hubs available separately from the Mon Chasseral wheelset. White is PRO even if you don't think so (When asked about 32 and 36 hole availability, I got the standard non answer, but what do I care, I'm 130 lbs for christ' sake)
- Seeing old friends, comped beer and meals.
- Mavic rims. Still the best.
- Time carbon frames. If I only had a shitload of money...

Things I wasn't so crazy about:

- Chris King might make some ingeniously cool stuff, but he's kind of a dick.
- Shimano DI2. It works as advertised as far as I could tell, but come the fuck on.
- The douchebag mafia. Is it so hard to be civilized?
- 11 speed. Really? 11? Really?
- Still no Open 4 CD reissue in Mavic's line. Shame.
- The outer fringes. Still lame, lame, lame.
- Fixed gear realness posturing. I throw up in my mouth when I see those flashy catalogs touting gritty urban zen underground roots.
- The death of the polished silver gruppo.

Until next time...

Workin' For The Weekend

After a trip out to Vancouver, Whistler, Victoria, etc. I was home for a few days and then headed out to Interbike in Las Vegas. Now it's a weekend worth of rest and off to Indianapolis and then Moab. The wife and I may try and get away to Nova Scotia for a short vacation...though hanging out on my couch sounds awful nice after being on the road for so long. Anyway, I'll recap some of the events after I get some rest. My head is all up in there, if you know what I mean.

I added some photos from the Cross Vegas race as well as some select Interbike hooey on the Flickr account. Dig it.

Hardcore Ride

Young, stupid, and bikes go hand in hand. In October 1993 I rode out to Dekalb, Illinois to see a hardcore show with my friend, the inimitable CP. Playing that night at the Union Hall, was Integrity, a hardcore band from Cleveland. At the time, I loved that hard as nails, tooth chippin' thrash shit. So, needless to say I had proper motivation.

Dekalb was about 60 miles due west from the bike shop, the old BS, our starting point. The weather was typical for autumn in Chicagoland. Typical in that it sucked major balls. 45 degrees, rain, and a departure time of 18:00 ensured that this ride would leave us either cold, wet, and dead or cold, wet, and miserable. Either way, we were determined, and full of the indestructibility of youth.

We harriedly strapped our pathetic Cateye halogens (four AA batteries for a tepid beam of yellowish light that lasted about 6 hours...3-4 if it was cold)to our handlebars, clipped on the Vistalights, strapped in the helmets, donned our backpacks, and soon found ourselves pedaling out of the parking lot down Ogden avenue into the darkness. I think I saw Bob and Oury shake their heads as they watched us leave the parking lot.

In our naivety and exhuberance to always be somewhere else faster, we determined that Route 38/Roosevelt road would serve as our best route to see some Cleveland hardcore in the corn fields of Illinois. Route 38 was a nearly straight line due west from Chicago to Dekalb, thus popular with the cars. And semi trailers.

Our first flat came at mile ten. Glass. CP fixed it under the yellow light of a streetlamp as speeding traffic went by. We were back on the road just in time for me to start shivering. At this point we were drenched from the rain and my shoes were small rivers whose current ran back and forth and back again as I pedaled. I wasn't quite miserable yet, but as the steady stream of hungry semi trailers rumbled past, I was seriously wondering how we would make it to our heavy metal shangri-la alive.

Flat two came at mile 18. A large staple was sticking out of my tire that clicked on the pavement as I rolled to a stop. I replaced the shriveled rubber carcass with my one and only tube, a rookie mistake that I fretted about the rest of the way. There were no streelamps to huddle under, so I changed the tube by the dim glow of CP's headlight. A few hundred pumps of my Zefal HPX later, we were on the road once again. Colder, wetter, and pretty much completely miserable.

In an effort to warm up, we pedaled harder and harder. Thus began our midnight timetrial. It was a smooth operation at first with equal rotations and sweet feelings that we were finally getting somewhere. Slowly, my turns began to get shorter and more labored. Eventually I wasn't taking pulls anymore, just staring numbly at the flashing red Vistalight in front of me lamenting my sorry situation and in awe of the diesel power CP was propelling us forward with under cover of night.

After a while of staring blankly at the red strobe flashes in front of me and willing my tired legs to push harder I realized that the flashes were getting smaller and smaller. I was slowly getting dropped. I felt both anger and self pity rise up within my chest. I was disgusted with my pathetic form and wrestled the steel Gitane below me as it seemed to resist my demands of speed and comfort. I was humbled and humiliated. I vowed to myself that I would ride more, ride harder, never get dropped like that again. I vowed to learn how to suffer better.

Just when my heart was at its lowest, a small spark ignited a fire under me in the form of what looked like a smoldering ember in the distance. The Vistalight of CP's bike was no longer dancing, but was now static and looked to be laying over on its side. I found the strength to push harder on the pedals than I had over the last six or seven miles. As I closed in on the flashing beacon, I also saw the faint glow of a hazy cloud of light hanging above the tree line that is the harbinger of civilization. I felt newfound strength returning to my legs and a grim determination well up within my spine.

As I rolled up to the crippled Vistalight, CP was pulling the last of our tubes from his seatpack. In a blur of tire bead seating, frame pump strokes, and quick release tightening, we were back on the road with a literal light at the end of our cold, dark tunnel.

We rolled into town joking to each other with a quiet confidence and sense of accomplishment. We threw our bikes onto the roof rack of a friend waiting in town, and were soon mellowing out to the frantic jams of Integrity while eating Powerbars and drinking Cytomax. "Riding bikes to far away shows is so cool", I thought, comfortable in the fact I knew I had a ride home.

Dark Skies, Furrowed Brow

As the photograph above makes abundantly clear, my morning commute was fraught with peril. Thankfully, I had my trusty miniature picture taking device so as to document the macabre forces through which I had to pedal. I rode through the bowels of the wind monster, dodged rain bullets, and dextrously maneuvered iron mesh bridges to valiantly face another Monday at the office.

Chicago's manic motorists did nothing to help my cause. They blindly switched from lane to lane in vain attempts to leapfrog the slower masses being shepherded along by red, yellow, and green lights strung watchfully about Adams, Des Plaines, Grand, Milwaukee, Halsted and Division avenues. Which really isn't out of the ordinary, though on Monday mornings they are predictably less predictable.

A few other commuters rolled along the other side of the road, standing on their pedals to fight the wind beast and propel themselves ahead of the deluge being hurled at them from the ominous clouds above. The clouds were, dark green and full of rage. As I hunched lower over my shitty-yet-remarkably reliable bicycle, a wailing wind whipped carelessly tossed debris about the city into a swirling wall of angry paper and plastic toxicity. I bobbed and weaved like that man with strange similarities to floating butterflies and stinging bees.

Try as they might, those mysterious forces once again failed to impede my way.