Dear Assos,

I subscribe to Velonews magazine, and have noticed that your ad (shown below for your convenience) has appeared in the premium inside-front cover spread for the past…oh, I dunno… maybe five thousand issues.

 

 

Assos, please believe that I have your best interests at heart when I beg you to pull this ad and replace it with something less ridiculous, such as a photo of a chimpanzee wearing a tutu.

Oh, you'd like justification for why I think this ad needs to be pulled? Well, if you insist.

 

Meet Derek Zoolander

Let's start with the model. I have no problem with companies using models in their ads. But the model you have selected for your ad—and used throughout your website—clearly does not ride a bike. At all. He does not have the cycling jersey tanlines. He has a chiseled upper body. Most tellingly, however, is he has silly little stick-like girly legs.

 

 

It's possible, Assos, that I'm actually complaining about a conscious decision you made in picking a non-cyclist to show off your cycling garb. After all, your website seems to indicate that you're really focusing on the non-cyclist part of the cyclist demographic. I quote:

"The less you ride, the more your body is fragile. The more you need garments that sustain and protect your body when riding your bicycle."

So, if I understand correctly, your point is that people who ride a lot don't need good bike clothes. People who rarely ride, however—or better yet, never ride at all—should buy your off-the-charts-expensive biking clothes. That's a very original point of view, and you should be commended for it. Sadly, the originality of this point is offset by being one of the stupidest things I've ever read.

 

Luxury Body?

Assos, I admit: the heading in your ad, "Luxury body," drew me in.

 

 

I think I can safely say, though, that it drew me in for reasons other than what you would like. Essentially, it perplexed me. Here are some of the questions—questions I have no answer to—storming in my mind regarding your heading:

• What is a "Luxury body?"
• Why is "Luxury" capitalized, but "body" is not?
• Will your clothes make my body luxurious?
• Do I want a luxurious body? After all, I tend to look for luxury in my furniture. Having a "Luxury body" makes me think that I might be a good ottoman.

In search of these answers, I went to your website. Your explanation—if I can call it that—of Luxury body is:

"Assos is designed to give you the look, the style, the elegance & exclusivity. Assos enhances and makes you a luxury body!"

Assos, your explanation just leaves me with more questions. What look? What style? Who do I want to exclude? And that final sentence, ironically, gives new meaning to the word "meaningless." Assos enhances what? And, I repeat, what is a luxury body? Please tell me, Assos. I must know.

 

Lorem Ipsum

Assos, I wouldn't have taken the time to write to you if your ad problems were limited to a silly model and a ridiculous headline.

It was your ad body copy that sent me over the edge.

 

 

One quick read-through convinced me that up until five minutes before this went to press, this was "lorem ipsum" text, used as placeholder whenever an ad designer doesn't know what the body copy ought to be. Then, at the last moment, you realized your error, and hired the first non-English-speaker you could find to write "real" ad copy. Let's take a look at that text, sentence by sentence.

• It's now! What's now? I'm not asking just because this is vague, because if you actually described what is now later, I'd be OK with it. Or maybe you're just pointing out a fundamental truth: no matter when you read this ad copy, you are reading it now. In which case I apologize.
• You've finally made time to get on your bike and do something for your body and soul. Assos, do you realize what magazine this is in? It's Velonews. Most people who read this magazine don't "finally make time" to go ride. We go riding all the time, often at the expense of our careers and family life.
• These days it's a luxury to have time for yourself. Fair enough. I don't see where you're headed with this, though.
• This time is your own, it's about you and it's your choice! Assos, this copy might work better in Cosmopolitan magazine. They're really into the psychology of making a personal statement, or of having stuff be "about you." Most people I ride with, on the other hand, go riding because it's fun.
• These moments are precious and should be treated as such. Here's a tip, Assos: the next time you want to do an ad, get a writer with experience outside the Geriatric Birthday Greeting Card business.
• Don't spoil it by using ordinary equipment, which limits you and the entire experience. First off, Assos, I'm going to let you off the hook on your usage of "it" in this sentence, even though it's a pretty jarring switch from plural (moments) to singular (it). And the reason I'm going to let you off the hook is because you clearly outsourced your ad copy writing to whoever writes those wacky quasi-English phrases for T-shirts in Japan. But are you really suggesting that ordinary equipment limits me, and my entire experience? Isn't it at least possible that what's limiting me—as the non-cycling cyclist you've identified as your prime demographic—is the fact that I only ride my bike when I can find one of those precious, luxurious moments, when I've finally made time to get on my bike?

Your ad copy problems aren't limited to your ad, Assos. Check out some text right on the home page of your website (if one is willing to wait for all the Flash fireworks to finally die down):

"The Assos Mission is total comfort regardless of price. Definitely not for everybody, but maybe for YOU."

Which is almost immediately followed by:

"Who needs Total Comfort? Everybody!"

So, if I read you right, total comfort isn't for everybody, but it might be for me. On the other hand, everybody needs Total Comfort. Maybe the difference is in the capitalization?

 

Additional Questions

Assos, I have a few other brief ad-related questions I hope you can address:

• Could you please change the name of your company? I know you're Swiss and all, so you may not understand that you named your company something that reads and sounds just like an angry, obscene epithet. My young children are forbidden to pronounce your name.
• What is a "Cycling Body? Is that what a Luxury body aspires to become? Or is it the other way around?

• They can ask anything else? In your website, you say, "When the development phase of a new Assos product begins, the one question our engineers, technicians, and tailors are not allowed to ask is: "How much must this product cost in order for it to sell in volume?". [emphasis, punctuation SIC] Is that really true? Like, it's OK for them to ask, "What if we used a lot of sequins to make our jerseys really pop?" Or, "How about we make a chamois using nothing but magnesium rivets and barbed wire?" Or—and it looks like someone answered 'yes' to this last question—"Should we make a bike outfit that makes the wearer look like he just stepped out of an 80's vintage Michael Jackson music video?"

Thank you for your time, Assos. I look forward to your resolving this matter in a timely manner.

 

Kind Regards,

 

The Fat Cyclist

 

PS: This doesn't have anything to do with your ad, but I thought you'd get a kick out of an experience I had with one of your products, Assos. I once purchased a container of Assos Chamois cream, then applied it to my chamois just as I was about to begin a day-long mountain bike ride. Alas, I did not realize that one of the main ingredients in Assos Chamois Cream seems to be menthol, of approximately the same concentration as Ben Gay. My nether regions were simultaneously aflame and freezing, which is nowhere near as nice a feeling as you might expect. Wanting to make sure that I was not having a reaction nobody else would have, I hid my pain (exquisite though it was) and offered the container to everyone in the group, many of which thanked  me for my generosity and applied your Chamois cream to their chamois's as well. Their subsequent yelps of pain let me know that I was not alone in my reaction. I probably don't need to tell you that I did not finish the jar.

 

PPS: Assos, my weight today is 161.6 lbs. Would you say that makes me more of a Luxury body, or a Cycling body?

As I should have expected, less than 20 minutes after I put up yesterday's tantrum of a post, I got a call from the bike shop. My Bianchi Pista had arrived, had been built, and was ready to ride.

I tell you, it's not easy to keep working when you know you've got a new bike waiting for you.

After work (yeah, I finished the day), I suited up and biked over to Sammamish Valley Cycle. I figured I'd leave the road bike at the shop, and ride the track bike home.

(A quick aside to readers who don't know what a track bike is: A track bike is a very minimalistic road bike, designed specifically for racing on a velodrome. It doesn't have gears you can shift, it doesn't have brakes, and you can't coast.)

The bike shop had done a bang-up job on getting my bike ready. They had remembered what kind of pedals I wanted and had put them on. They had remembered that I wanted a front brake added so I could ride hills and city roads even before I got good at stopping via backpedaling. They had remembered that I wanted the lever on the left side.

 

First Rides

Let me be perfectly clear: to this point, I had never ridden a fixed gear bike in my life. So maybe biking home (about 10 miles, the first 3 or so through city traffic) as the first spin on my track bike wasn't that brilliant of an idea.

That said, here are my initial observations on riding a fixed-gear bike:

• Getting started: One thing I hadn't thought about at all turned out to be probably the single biggest difference between fixed-gear and freehub riding: starting. You can't spin the pedal back to your favorite click-in position (unless you lift the rear wheel). And if you click in at the bottom with your first foot, it's tough to get any momentum off the line because that foot's in a dead spot. I can see why learning to trackstand is going to stop being a "would like to know" and will become a "need to know."
• No breaks: I had never realized how often I—without thinking—stop pedaling for a few seconds when on a ride. The fixed gear bike reminds you forcibly that you don't get to do this anymore. If the rear wheel's turning, so are the cranks.
• No brakes: I thought that learning to use backward force with my legs to slow and stop would be awkward, but it came pretty naturally. Even after just a couple rides, I am using my brake only on steep downhills or when I come to an unexpected stop (a light changing).
• Always in the drops: On a regular road bike, I keep my hands on the hoods about 75% of the time. On a track bike, riding in the drops seems to be the only comfortable position.
• No urge to shift: On a regular road bike, I am shifting almost constantly. I was worried that I'd always be reaching to shift gears that aren't there on the fixed gear bike. I don't know why, but the habit hasn't transferred.
• Quiet: Without the cables, derailleurs, and varying line on the chain, this $500 bike is the quietest bike I've ever owned.
• I am not a seat snob. I have gone out of my way to keep this bike inexpensive. I went with the cheapest version of Speedplay pedals you can get, and I didn't upgrade anything else on the bike. But I nearly bought a different saddle, because I am so used to a certain saddle make and model, I didn't think I could ride anything else. I resisted, though, and went with the saddle the bike came with. And you know what? It's just fine. It makes me think I need to reconsider a bunch of my "knowledge" gained from my expensive bike snob days.
• Hard climbs are harder: By the time I got to Inglewood Hill—a 12% grade climb—on my ride home from the bike shop—I was feeling comfortable. I had planned to skip that hill and go up one of the longer-but-less-steep routes, and turned onto Inglewood Hill. I had to stand up for the entire thing, and at one point thought I could no longer turn the cranks—I very nearly stalled. But I made it. It worked my quads, biceps and triceps in a way they haven't been worked in years. I can tell that this bike is going to be good for me.
• Flats are smoother: On a flat, wide-open road, the fixed gear bike enforces a smooth cadence. I got into the "biker's rhythm"—and stayed there—more easily than usual.
• Track bikes are good on the track: On the way in to work, I stopped by the Velodrome (I can't get over how cool it is that I have a public-access velodrome that is literally on the way to work) and did a few laps. I can tell that I'm very slow right now, and felt like I had my heart rate pegged well before I had the cranks spun out. The "I must be going slow" feeling was reinforced by the way I didn't really feel like I needed all the banking provided in the corners. I think I can look forward to a season of being beaten badly and consistently on the track next year. Still, the bike felt really good on the track.
• My legs are cooked today: I rode the fixed gear bike to work today, too. As part of my commute, I go up a good-sized climb alongside the 520 freeway. Just before it, I ran into Eric, one of the two guys who beat me on the Zoo climb last Saturday. He said "Hi," and then flew on ahead of me. I don't think I could have matched even on a road bike, but on the fixed gear, I didn't have a prayer. After my commute today, as I climbed up the stairs that lead to my office, I noticed something I haven't noticed in a long time: it was not easy to climb stairs. This fixed gear bike is punishing me, in just the way I need punishing.

Bianchi, all is forgiven. Just don't let it happen again.

 

Today's weight: 162.4 lbs.

 

PS: One last note with regards to yesterday's post: As I've mentioned before, I have no gripe with bike shops. For that matter, I don't have a problem with small bike and custom bike manufacturers when they take a long time—that's to be expected, and should probably even be regarded as part of the boutique bike experience: you want a home cooked meal, not fast food. My complaint yesterday was simply directed at large corporate bike manufacturers and their apparent inability to forecast, maintain, track, or deliver inventory.

Interbike—the biggest annual bike business trade show in the U.S.—is in full swing right now. I suspect that while there, the bike manufacturers will proudly display their latest 14-pound road bikes, and their latest 36-inch-travel mountain bikes. I wouldn't be surprised if both Shimano and Campagnolo announce (coincidentally, natch) that they have innovated a new 11 cog cassette. And I would be astounded if these same two companies did not announce that this year's cranksets are (at a minimum) 30% stiffer than last year's models.

If I were in Las Vegas attending Interbike, I would make a special point of walking up to the bike manufacturers, giving them a firm handshake, and saying, "Well done, bike manufacturer."

And then, once I had them comfortable and feeling good about themselves, I would grab them by both shoulders and shake them soundly while I shouted, "But your stupid-light, crazy-expensive bike innovations don't mean a thing if you haven't mastered the very simple task of actually shipping that bike to your customers." I would be very careful to become red-faced while I said this, and I would foam at the mouth a little, too.

 

I Am a Patient Man

About a month ago, I got really excited about buying a track bike. I looked at what I could afford, and decided on a Bianchi Pista. I then went to my local bike shop and pulled the trigger. They said I would have the bike in a week. That was August 29.  A couple days later, the bike shop guy called and said that Bianchi didn't have the bike in the warehouse they thought they had it; it would be a couple weeks before I got the bike, instead of one.

And then nobody called ever again.

So after three (not the promised two) weeks elapsed, I called the bike shop again. He apologized, and said that Bianchi didn't have its act together, that it turns out they didn't have any 2005 Pistas anywhere. They'd be getting me a 2006 model instead, and it should be here at the end of the week.

And then another two weeks elapsed.

Yesterday, I called the bike shop again, and he said that this time he has a tracking number, and that the bike would arrive and be built sometime today. I have elected to not hold my breath.

 

But Not That Patient

Meanwhile, Bianchi is two days shy of taking an entire month to ship a bike. Let me rephrase this so as to make my astonishment and frustration clear: Bianchi, a company whose sole business is to sell bikes, has taken a month to sell me a bike. During that month, the great weather of September—during which I had planned to ride my bike—has come and gone. I'll get it in October (if I get it at all), which is not exactly a prime outdoor velodrome riding season here in the NorthWest.

So there goes the Cyclingnews series, "Track Racing for Absolute Beginners" I was going to write. Too bad for Bianchi.

I'm pretty sure it's not just Bianchi that's doing this, either. If you don't want what's in stock at the bike shop—and if you're looking for anything special, that's going to be the case—you're going to have to wait for it. And wait for it. I don't know any other industry that keeps its most important clients dangling like this.

OK, I'm nearly done venting now. I mean it, though: Bike manufacturers, stop spending quite so much time telling us about the wonderful bikes you make, and consider thinking about how you can actually deliver them on a reasonable timeline.

 

[Update: 20 minutes after posting this, I got a call from the bike shop. My bike is ready to go. I should point out that I have no gripe whatsoever with the bike shop that sold me this bike -- they've been very good to work with.]

 

Today's Weight: 163

 

PS: If you've had a good or bad experience with ordering a bike, post a comment. I'm riled up enough right now that I'm thinking of emailing a link to this post to a number of different manufacturers. They should know who's doing well, and who's not.

 

PPS: Why I am I so grouchy today?

 

 

 

 

As my stomach slowly recedes, I'm starting to see other things where my stomach used to bulge out. My ribs, for example. I haven't seen those in some time. Or ab muscles: those are still buried pretty deep, but I can at least tell they're there. And what's this? I do believe I have pecs! Waddaya know.

About a month ago, I noticed one other thing: a lump in my chest. On the left side, just below my rib cage. And as I lost weight, it became more noticeable. And it wasn't going away.

 

I Do Not Panic

There's been enough cancer in my family (my wife, my sister Kellene, my stepmother, my stepfather, my paternal grandmother) that I was pretty sure I had cancer. I did not tell anybody. I also didn't call a doctor for a good long time. After all, what if it was just one of those really-deeply-buried zits that take forever to go away?

But it continued to not go away.

 

I am Twisted

Finally, I decided I'd better go learn the inevitable, so I could begin my treatment. On Tuesday, I made a doctor appointment for the following afternoon (Wednesday, for those of you who have trouble with math).

Once I had made the appointment, my mind kicked into overdrive. I started thinking about the implications of having cancer. Here are the predominant themes of my thinking:

• I felt bad for my wife having to take on the extra burden of watching the kids while I'm sick
• I decided that I would try to continue to ride my bike during treatment, even if just around the neighborhood
• I thought about what great stories I'd be able to make from this experience. I would be courageous, good-humored, and encouraging to my fellow cancer-havers. I would be the model cancer patient. People would be so inspired by me that they would buy yellow wristbands, cross out the "Strong" in "LiveStrong" and change it to "LiveFat."

I should point out that if you're a little bit bothered by the fact that part of me was looking forward to cancer treatment — even after I had seen the hell it put my wife through — you are not alone.

Strangely, I did not worry about whether the cancer would kill me. In fact, that thought did not even occur to me until after my doctor visit.

 

I am Fine

Of course, you can tell from the title of this post that I do not have cancer, or the title of this post would have been, "I HAVE CANCER!!!!" The doctor checked out the lump and said, "You have a Lipoma."

A Lipoma, which I am capitalizing in a desperate attempt to salvage some seriousness out of a very trivial thing, is a benign tumor, made up of fatty tissue.

It is, in short, a lump of fat. In other words, my tumor is a metaphor for me: An initially alarming — but ultimately harmless — lump of fat.

Perfect.

 

Today's weight: 162.0 lbs. Which means I have hit my target weight for the week a day early. Just think how light I'd be without that lipoma!

 

Late-Night Update: I've decided to run this topic into the ground with a little context. Basically, I've talked with a few people, read a few comments, and have decided I have some explaining to do.

First off, you'll note that I never explored the comic possibilities of this lump until I knew it was safe. That's because I didn't see any comic possibilities in it until I knew it was safe. Only then was I able to cast the silver lining I had created for myself -- "Well, at least I'll have some good stories to tell when this is over" -- into a wacky boast: "Hey, wouldn't cancer be a great conversation piece?" Which is to say: no, I wasn't really looking forward to chemo. I've seen it up close, and it's not something I liked to think about at all. Which is why I waited a couple months after I discovered the lump to consult a doctor. Those of you who have been reading the blog long enough that you remember the story of how I waited several hours after suffering partial paralysis to consult a doctor will recognize this as in-character behavior.

The second point is one my wife made, and which I ought to have considered: not everyone comes away from that doctor appointment with the sense of relief that I did. Some people come away knowing that they've got a whole bunch of hell in front of them. To those people, this isn't a very funny story. And to those people, I apologize.

I ride my bike a lot. I ride about 250 miles per week, in fact. That's enough that I should not have to worry about weight at all. And if I ate like a normal person, I probably wouldn't.

But I don't eat like a normal person. My appetite is enormous, and my taste in food is lowbrow, as well as occasionally bizarre. Which means I like cheap, bad food, I like lots of it, and I like some odd combinations.

If you were me, then, here would be your favorite foods.

• Cold cereal. I am entirely serious when I say that I could happily live on nothing but cold cereal and milk. Honey Bunches of Oats. Cap'n Crunch, in all its incarnations. Honey Nut Cheerios. Count Chocula. Reeses Puffs. Fiber One (yes, really). Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
• Tortillas. As you will see below, tortillas play a prominent role in many of my other favorite foods. However, let it be said: I like tortillas just plain, too. Warm in the microwave for 20 seconds and serve with Cholula hot sauce. Yum.
• Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwiches. I have thought — more than once — to myself, that if I had to eat just one thing for every meal for the rest of my life, it would be peanut butter and honey sandwiches. But that's only true if the bread is from Great Harvest. The white bread, I mean. Don't pollute my bread with whole grains or sunflower seeds.
• Burritos: From El Azteca in Provo, UT. Specifically, the Chicken Chipotle burrito. You know, it's very difficult to have one of your favorite foods be location-based.
• Peanut Butter, Banana, and Mayonnaise Sandwiches: Everyone wrinkles their noses at this one, and I don't try to convince anyone to try it. My mom made these for me when I was a kid; I liked them then, I like them now. I can't get my own kids to try them, though. I think, though, my mom used Miracle Whip instead of mayonnaise. My tastes have since matured and I am confident in asserting that Miracle Whip would more appropriately be named Abomination Whip. This is good with a tortilla instead of bread, too.
• Spaghetti: I eat spaghetti at least three times per week. I make it in enormous batches. For a long time, angel hair was my favorite pasta, but I've been favoring bowtie pasta lately. Served with a big spoonful of cottage cheese on top, and more black pepper shaken on it than you would think healthy.
• Spaghetti Sauce Burrito: Take a tortilla, spread some spaghetti sauce on it, add several dollops of cottage cheese, microwave for 25 seconds, wrap, and try to eat without it spilling all over yourself. Really, is there anything that isn't good with a tortilla?
• Bananas. Bananas are the fast food of the fruit and vegetable world. While most fruits have skins, bananas have packaging. They have no hard hidden objects inside you can bite into. And while they don't have an expiration date per se printed on them, a quick glance tells you when a banana is not yet ripe, when it's too ripe, and when it's perfect. Bananas have a mild flavor and soft texture that make them perfect for toddlers, octogenarians, and triathletes. Bananas are good alone, good on cereal, good with ice cream, good in pie. When they get old, they're good as a baking ingredient. Really, the only thing a banana needs to be perfect is a creamy filling. Bonus banana fact: Most people peel bananas the wrong way, starting at the stem and peeling down.  If you try peeling from the other end, you'll find two things. First, you can now use the stem as a handle. Second, it's easier to start peeling at this end. I promise you, your life will be 3% easier if you use this technique.
• Golden Delicious Apples: Most people think of apples in a very general sense. This is wrongheaded thinking, and must stop immediately. Granny Smith apples are so hard and tart they are generally only eaten on a bet (good in apple cobbler, though). Fuji apples are nice and crisp, but have no more flavor than paper. Golden Delicious apples, however, are both golden and delicious. And while bananas have their own removable packaging, Golden Delicious apples let you eat the packaging. Just polish the apple on the leg of your pants — this is a very effective way of ridding the apple of any germs and pesticides — and enjoy.
• Scrambled Egg Burrito: I'm proud of the technique I've developed in making this. Spray Pam into a cereal bowl, crack a couple eggs into the bowl, pour in a tiny bit of milk, sprinkle salt and pepper in, whip with a fork, and microwave for 2 minutes (1 minute per egg). Flop onto a tortilla (of course) with a little cheese sprinkled on top, microwave for another 10 seconds, add lots of Cholula, wrap and enjoy. My 11-year-old believes this is the best food in the world.
• Mayonnaise: I may as well admit it: I love mayonnaise. It's good on everything, and not half bad by itself. I apologize to everyone I just creeped out.

Special Instructions on Eating Like the Fat Cyclist After a Really Big Ride

Eat everything, in any combination. Do not worry about taste. Just fill the void.

 

Today's weight: 162.4 lbs. I have been showing remarkable restraint this week.

It occurs to me that I have been spending far, far too much time in this blog on the "Cyclist" part of "Fat Cyclist." So, today, I'd like to present what has been determined by Renowned Scientists and Certified Dessert Experts around the globe as the Best Cake in the World.

It is a Chocolate-Chip-Oatmeal cake. It is not a fluffy, airy cake that collapses away to oxygen and a whiff of chocolate when you put it in your mouth. No. It is a substantial cake, something you could make a meal of. The oatmeal keeps it dense and moist, and the chocolate keeps it chocolatey.

Do not put frosting on this cake. Frosting is what most cakes need to hide the fact that they are dry, over-airy, and flavorless.

I promise you, if you make this cake, you eat will three pieces before nightfall. You will gain three pounds before dawn. And you will look for reasons to make this cake again soon. You will make this cake whenever you are asked to bring a dessert over to a picnic, and you will be invited to an increasing number of picnics when people learn that you will bring this cake.

Your enemies will approach you to resolve your differences, just so they can have some of this cake.

I will, by coincidence, be making this cake later this afternoon for my wife, for it is her birthday. I will also give her an iPod, onto which I will copy our entire library of music — importing this library into iTunes has been a tedious labor, and ordinarily my wife would appreciate the work that has gone into it. But when she sees that I have made this cake, I expect she will toss the iPod — now forgotten — into a box and will throw her arms around me, grateful that I have gone to the effort of making her The Best Cake in the World.

I only hope that I have not undersold this cake.

 

Recipe for the Best Cake in the World

(note: I made mistakes when I originally typed this. These mistakes are now fixed. I am a fool, and apologize for any botched desserts I have caused.)

Ingredients

1 3/4 cup boiling water — do not put your fingers in this water, for it is hot!

1 cup oatmeal — regular oatmeal, not instant, you cretin.

1 c. brown sugar — how come it tastes so good?

1 c. white sugar — I have no clever comment to add to this ingredient, unless you consider this comment clever.

1 stick butter — No, don't use margarine. Use butter. Margarine is gross.

1 tsp baking soda — I tried brushing my teeth with baking soda. Once.

1/2 tsp salt — Or go crazy and put in a whole teaspoonful.

1 3/4 cup flour — Warning: flour may contain wheat products.

2 eggs — From a chicken; ostrich eggs are too big, and taste nasty.

1 pkg milk chocolate chips, or semi-sweet if you think you are too good for regular milk chocolate chips.

 

Instructions

Pour the boiling water over the oatmeal and stir. It's best if the aforementioned pouring of boiling water over said oatmeal occurs in a bowl. Stir and let set for 10 minutes. Put the butter in about 5 minutes into this ten minutes, so it can melt.

Meanwhile…

Stir together in a different bowl:

• Flour
• Baking soda
• Salt

Once the 10 minutes has elapsed…

Stir the brown sugar and white sugar into the oatmeal mixture.

Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, then stir the eggs into the oatmeal mixture.

Mix the flour mixture into the oatmeal mixture. You should now have one mixture. If you have more than one mixture, you need to reevaluate some life choices you made in your childhood.

Stir half the chocolate chips into this mixture. Do not snitch more than 5% of the chocolate chips as you do this.

Grease and flour (or, in my house, just spray with Pam) a 9 x 13 pan. Note that this is an update. Originally I said that "you should use a 9 x 9 pan. Or an 8 x 10 pan. Or a 40 x 2 pan. Something that comes out to about 80 square inches." I was guessing. I was wrong. I regret the error. I have other regrets as well, but another time, another time.

Pour the cake batter in, then sprinkle the other half of the bag of chocolate chips on top.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, or until the center of the cake is not a gooey mess. Let cool at least a little bit or the molten chocolate will burn the living daylights out of the roof of your mouth.  

Serve warm, or at room temperature if you must. With vanilla ice cream if at all possible.

Eat.

Rejoice.

 

Today's weight: 163.0 lbs. I'm treating this as this week's Fat Cyclist Sweepstakes weigh-in, just a day early. I'm absolutely not going to not eat cake and ice cream with my family tonight.

I like living in the Northwest. I like riding in green countryside. I like the incredible forests. I like the big evergreens that surround my house. I like all the lakes around me. I like that it never really gets unbearably hot, nor unbearably cold.

But today as I rode my bike to work, I started thinking about Tibble Fork, and now I miss Utah something awful.

Tibble Fork — the reservoir and the trail that starts at the reservoir — is at the North end of American Fork Canyon, in Utah County. It is all singletrack and is, from a purely objective analysis, the best mountain bike trail in the entire world.

 

Wrong Way

Most people — in fact, everyone I've ever seen, except my own little group — rides Tibble wrong. They take a shuttle to the summit of the Alpine Loop and ride their mountain bikes down. There should be a law against that. In fact, I hereby decree: henceforth, all descending on mountain bikes must be earned by corresponding climbing on said mountain bikes. So let it be written, so let it be done.

There, I feel much better now.

 

First Mile: Ow.

That said, there's a reason most people ride Tibble Fork down, not up. It's because it's unbelievably steep. The first mile, in particular, is pure agony (but it's the good kind of agony). It's steep and often loose, with a couple of near-impossible switchbacks at impossible angles, followed by a quick maze and climb over roots and rocks. When / if you clean that first mile, you haven't had just a good day. You've had a red-letter day — the kind of day you talk about in your Christmas letter to friends and relatives.

Please, allow me to illustrate. A few years ago, my college-age niece told me her boyfriend would like to go out mountain biking. I tried to get a sense of what he could do as we drove out toward the Ridge Trail network (of which Tibble is a part). When he said, "Oh, whatever you can handle. I don't want to put too much hurt on an old guy like you," I made up my mind: Tibble.

Instead of riding behind a guest as a good host normally would, letting the guest set the pace, I took off at race pace up Tibble. I was seeing purple spots, but it was worth it, because "the boyfriend" as I now called him in my head, was dropping off the back, fast.

I got to the end of the first mile, which is where we usually regroup and rest for the next third of a mile, which is considerably steeper than the first mile.

I waited. And waited some more. After about 5 minutes — remember, I had only gone a mile so far — he rolled up, got off his bike, knelt, and threw up.

It was my proudest moment ever.

 

A Brief Respite

The next third of a mile is about as severe a climb as can be ridden on a mountain bike. It's also very muddy in the Spring. Horses tromp through it, churning up the trail and leaving postholes with every step (yeah, it's the bikes that are ruining the trails). When the mud dries, this section of trail is pretty choppy for the rest of the year. And there are a couple of logs and waterbars you've got to wheelie over. And some boulders.

Once you make it past that climb, though, you're in for a treat — a beautiful mountain meadow, with a beaver pond at the far end. A thin line of singletrack cuts through it, and your legs stop burning for the first time since you got on the bike. And that's one of the things that makes Tibble great: intense climbs are always followed by a little flat spot where you can get your air back.

I've snowshoed up to this meadow in the Winter at night, during a full moon. I was the first person up there since a big snow. I tromped out to the middle of the meadow, flopped onto my back, and for a little while was the only person in the entire world. I apologize for any inconvenience I caused in making the rest of you disappear. My bad.

Anyway, a couple hundred yards later and you're climbing again — in fact, you've got two more miles of climbing. It's still small ring climbing, but you can ride parts of it in second and third gear.

 

The Blair Witch Move

Next up, the Blair Witch Move. This is a jumble of embedded rocks and a big root ledge. There are basically two ways you can try to ride up: the rocks or the ledge. The jury's out as to which is better. Sometimes I can clean this on my first try, sometimes I can't clean it no matter how many tries I have.

Why is it called the "Blair Witch Move?" A group of us were riding at night, trying this move, when we heard the most hideous screaming/yelling/dying-by-murder-most-foul sound I have ever heard. Human? Animal? We couldn't tell. It sounded close, though. "It's the Blair Witch," someone said. We finished our mandatory three tries at the move, and got out of there.

Afterward, we decided it must have been elk calling, or something like that. The thing is, I've heard lots of elk in my day (my dad's big on hunting), and this sounded nothing to me like elk.

 

Crux of the Matter

Immediately after the Blair Witch Move comes the Crux Move. It's a brutally-steep hill, about 50 feet long, littered with loose rocks. You can't bring speed into this move, because the approach is littered with loose dirt and fist-sized rocks, followed by an off-camber left turn. From there, you've got to pick your line and keep enough weight on the front wheel to steer, while keeping enough on the back to not spin out. Adding insult to injury, it gets steeper at the top. If you clean this, you have earned the privilege of thumping your chest and standing at the top of the move, shouting bad advice to the poor saps below.

In the hundreds of times (have I really ridden Tibble hundreds of times? Maybe not. I'll bet I've ridden it close to 100, though, and you get three tries at any move) I have attempted the Crux move, I have cleaned it exactly once.

You know where I said earlier that making The Boyfriend barf at the top of the first mile was my proudest moment ever? I'd like to take that back. Cleaning the Crux Move was my proudest moment ever.

 

Endless Move

A quick zip through another meadow brings you to the last move of Tibble: Endless. This move isn't especially technical, though there are parts that will throw you off your line if you're not careful. But it is long. And since you've been climbing an unbelievably steep mountain for 2.5 miles, you're probably not at your strongest anymore. I have never measured it, but I believe you are climbing in the red zone for just about a quarter mile.

And then there's a little more climbing, a few switchbacks, and you're at the top of Tibble, the best climb in the world.

 

Joy

At this moment, you could turn around and go down the way you came up. I've done this dozens of times. Or you can go down the other side, down South Fork of Deer Creek trail, which is the most unimaginative name for a trail ever. Instead of using this clinical name, we call the trail "Joy."

You'd have to ride this trail to really understand why it's called Joy. It's a little like being in that scene in Return of the Jedi where Luke and Leia are being chased through the forest on their motorcycle-esque landspeeders. Except it's real, and it's downhill, and the trails are banked to perfection, and you're threading through the aspen and evergreen trees knowing — but not caring — that if you fall right now you will wrap around one of them, and then there's a little jump on the side of the trail (you need to know to watch for it), and you're pedaling in your big ring, not quite spun out but oh-so-close and then you're suddenly in sagebrush, still flying, and the trail's banked just where it needs to be so that you can just open it up on your mountain bike like nowhere else in the world.

And then it's over. It ends at a little campground, where everyone regroups and tries to describe what just happened. But it always comes out just giggles and big sloppy grins to match.

Joy is the only trail that has ever brought tears to my eyes. It is perfect.

 

Mud Springs

Now you've got more climbing to do — up to the summit of the Alpine Loop, and then across the Ridge Trail — in order to get to Joy's opposite: Mud Springs. Actually, "opposite" is a poor word, in some ways, because both are spectacular descents. It's just that they're spectacular in opposite ways. Joy is smooth, open and fast: a perfect ride to get someone to love mountain biking. Mud Springs is twisted, technical, and treacherous (I swear, that alliteration was not intentional): a perfect ride for someone who is already hooked and is ready to be challenged. Rocks, ledges, roots, chutes: Mud Springs has them all, in such a perfect combination that one is forced to conclude that God is a mountain biker. Or at least that the Forest Service guys in UT care deeply about the trails they maintain.

 

Back Where You Started

I've said before that I'm terrible with maps and location in general, so it shouldn't surprise you to know that I'm still a little surprised every single time Mud Springs drops me back onto Tibble, about two thirds of the way up. I mean, I've just been riding all over the place, and I'm here again? How is that possible?

And yet, it is. You're back on Tibble Fork, and get to fly down as fast as your courage will let you go. Usually, we would race it — Dug and Rick would give me a head start, because I'm the slow guy going downhill, and they'd catch me with about a half mile to go.

Flying downhill Tibble is totally different than going up it. (Yes, well, duh). What I mean, though, is you see different things, get a different perception of how long a certain part of the course is, think of different parts of the trail as the "good" stuff.

If you think about it, the people who shuttle — not just Tibble, but any great mountain bike trail — only see half the trail. Climb it, and you get to see it all.

 

Wrapping Up

Whenever I get to the bottom of Tibble Fork and am packing up, I feel like I'm one of very few people who knows an incredible secret. Consider: everyone in the whole world was doing something right then, but only a few of us were mountain biking at the best place in the world.

Note to my friends back in Utah: If you aren't riding Tibble today, you are complete idiots.

 

Today's weight: 164.4 lbs.

Lance, have a seat. We need to talk. No, not later, son. Right now.

Lance, your friends and I have seen news stories about you coming out of retirement and racing in the Tour de France next year. To tell the truth, you've got us all worried.

No, we're not worried about whether you could win an eighth Tour. The fact is, none of us care. Well, that's not true. Your friend Al Trautwig cares, but he's not really the guy you want to impress, is he? The truth is, you've definitely hit the point of diminishing returns on Tour wins. Not a single person in this room — put your hand down, Al — will think you're a better man for winning eight times instead of seven.

I know what L'Equipe said. Yes, I know it was rude, and you're striking back the only way you know how. But you need to start looking at the bigger picture.

Think back for a minute, Lance. A year ago, you were hinting that you wouldn't race the Tour in 2005 — that you'd take a year off. You milked the "will-he-won't-he" publicity for all it's worth for as long as you could, then went on Oprah — Oprah, for crying out loud! — to reveal the stunning news that you'd once again do the exact same thing you had been doing for the past six years. And you said you'd be done after that.

And now you're doing the same thing, Lance. You're coyly telling us maybe you'll race or maybe you won't. Your reason may be different, but if you show up on Oprah again, nobody will be on the edge of their seat about why.

You know, Lance, it's not even so much that you're coming out of retirement. It's why. If you had said, "I thought about it and I love racing too much and I don't want to quit after all," we would have understood. But racing for revenge? Lance, you're not in high school anymore.

Think hard for a second, Lance. A magazine in a different country said it thinks you took EPO. So how will racing again prove them wrong? If you win, they'll say you're doping. If you lose, they'll say you lost because you finally came clean. And meanwhile, you'll have demonstrated that all anyone needs to do to get Lance to jump is write an accusatory article. That's hardly a position of power, Lance.

You know what we think really bugs you about that article, Lance? It's that the article isn't about what you're doing now. It's about what you did — past tense, Lance — six years ago. That article made you realize that the only Lance they care about is the one who's racing. That no matter what you do from now on, it won't matter to most people as much as what you've already done.

I think that you're not afraid articles like this one are going to continue to be published. You're afraid articles like this are going to stop. And then, sometime after that, articles about you will stop altogether. And you know what? They probably will. This year, next year, whenever.

Unless you come up with that cure to cancer you keep talking about. I suspect you'd get a fair amount of publicity for that. Maybe you should focus on that for a while.

And there's one more thing, Lance. You kind of wore out your welcome last year. It's not like by the end of the Tour last year anyone was saying, "I wish we could see Lance do this one more time." (Al, now's not the time. Sit down, Al.) Phil and Paul were exhausted from saying your name nonstop. Your teammates were exhausted from riding for you nonstop. The American public was just glad that the Tour was over and that now they could forget about cycling forever since no other Americans race bikes at a top professional level.

Oh, they do? My bad. What are their names?

Huh. Never heard of them. We're getting off-track here anyway.

We threw you a retirement party, Lance.  You see Jan standing over there by the lamp? He was there. See Phil and Paul by the window (cute of you to wear matching shirts, guys)? They were there. See George in those wacky Oakleys he wears? He was there. We were all there. We let you give a speech.

We gave you presents, Lance. It will be awkward if we have to ask for them back.

 

(Lance, my weight today is 163.8 lbs. Just thought you should know.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kool-Aid Dose #1

On Labor Day, Matt and I went on a 20-mile ride along some of the country roads around Sammamish, Redmond, Carnation, and Fall City. The weather went out of its way to be perfect, and I had hand-picked a course that was almost ridiculously scenic. By the time we had gone five or six miles, Matt was going on and on about what a great time he was having. And then at the end of the ride he talked about how great it is to go biking and see the country and how we've got to go again soon.

That's a good sign.

 

Kool-Aid Dose #2

Flash forward to Tuesday evening. Matt e-mails me saying that things have come up, he won't be able to bike in to work with me the next morning. Then, at 7:30 the next morning, right as I'm about to take off for work, Matt calls. He's managed to juggle his schedule, so he can ride in after all.

That's a really good sign.

 

Kool-Aid Dose #3

Yesterday, on the ride home from work, I started talking to Matt about trying to make it up Thompson Hill Road — a very steep hill about a mile long — with just one stop, instead of two. "Go slow, use a low gear, try not to go anaerobic," I advised.

Matt churned up the hill in a low gear, and got past the first point where he usually needs to walk it. I expected him to get off between there and the second place he'd been dismounting, but no. He kept climbing toward the second place he usually stops. Matt wanted to clean Thompson Hill.

As he got to the final third of the climb, Matt started wobbling. That's when I told him something important: "You've still got one more gear you can go down." Matt shifted into his granny and pulled to the top. He was suffering, but he put his head down, and he cleaned it.

Matt's hooked.

 

Today's weight: 164.4 lbs.

Even as I did my best to make my wrecks in yesterday's post sound spectacular, I was acutely aware of one glaring fact: I've never wrecked really badly. I've never had to stay the night in a hospital because of a bike wreck. I've never had to wear a cast, or have a blood transfusion, or have more than a few stitches.

I may be jinxing myself by saying this, but I've gotten off easy.

My sister Kellene, on the other hand, has wrecked pretty darn bad.

 

Watch that first step.

Kellene lives near Fruita Colorado, which means she has easy access to a mountain biker's paradise. High-desert riding, canyons, and (cue ominous music) cliffs.

A few years ago, Kellene and a friend went out riding on a popular mountain bike trail called Mary's Loop. It's not an especially technical trail, but there are lots of rock ledges, and there's definitely some trailside exposure. And in at least one case, there's a rock ledge with trailside exposure. Here, Kellene clicked out with one foot — leaving the other one in — and used her foot to boost her bike up onto the ledge.

And that's when she lost her balance.

Tipping over toward the foot that was still clipped in, Kellene was unable to click out. It's happened at one point to pretty much every mountain biker that's ever bought clipless pedals.

For Kellene, though, this meant a fall off an overhanging cliff.

She dropped eighteen feet, straight down, and landed on a large, flat-topped boulder.

 

Damage report

If you're the squeamish type, you may want to skip the rest of this post. My daily weight's posted at the bottom, and tomorrow I promise I won't be talking about wrecking bikes anymore.

OK, you've been warned.

Kellene broke her right wrist, and ripped opened up her knee so you could see everything. She smashed her jaw. She broke 14 teeth, and put her lower row of teeth through her lower lip, nearly severing it.

I swear, I still get sick just thinking about such a fall and the resulting carnage.

Amazingly — and let's face it, cruelly — Kellene didn't lose consciousness from this fall. In fact, Kellene's day had just begun.

 

Help may — or may not — be on the way.

Luckily, Kellene's friend had a mobile phone with her and made a 911 call. Consider, though: how do you tell an ambulance where you are when you're on somewhere on a trail that's known mostly by its nickname? And how do they find you? In this case, they didn't — the ambulance searched, but never found Kellene.

The second call Kellene's friend made was to her husband, Rocky, who works at a bank. And wears a suit. Rocky, unlike the ambulance, knew exactly where Kellene was and drove out. I'm tempted to say something like, "Rocky broke all kinds of speed limits getting to Kellene," but the fact is Rocky breaks all kinds of speed limits when driving to church. So I'm guessing Rocky's rate of speed in reaching Kellene cannot be expressed with conventional mathematics.

When he got there, Kellene had been at the bottom of this cliff for about an hour. Think about that for a second. Rocky took off his leather loafers and climbed down the cliff in his banker's suit, then helped Kellene use her non-broken wrist and non-split leg to climb back up that cliff.

 

Recovery

They sewed Kellene up, gave her a cast, and wired her jaw shut. This, she says, is what nearly drove her over the edge. Sometimes you feel like you're suffocating; sometimes you feel like you're drowning. Once her jaw healed, she had endless trips to the dentist to reconstruct a set of teeth for her. Which, by the way, now look considerably better than most people's real teeth. Having your dentist be a mountain biking buddy, a close friend of the family, and the most anal-retentive person in the whole world is a good combination, if you need a whole new mouth.

They wouldn't finish finding and extracting broken pieces of Kellene's teeth from Kellene's lips for six months.

 

My sister could kick your butt.

Amazingly, Kellene seems just fine now. I can't see any scars on her. She says her lower lip is pretty much permanently numb, but all things considered, things could've gone a lot worse.

So: does Kellene still ride? Yes, she does. In fact, she's headed over to Vail, CO today to go mountain biking for a week with some friends.

And does Kellene ever ride Mary's Loop? Yes she does.

And does Kellene ride the part where she fell off the cliff? No. Are you crazy?

 

Today's weight: 164.8lbs. Frankly, I don't trust today's weight. How could I lose 1.4lbs in a day? Am I extra-dehydrated or something?

 

Bonus Cyclingnews article: Cyclingnews has published my satire piece, "Lance Armstrong to Come Out of Retirement." Click here to read it.

In my last post, I breathlessly recounted how I had failed to clean a technical move while mountain bike riding on Friday. A couple commenters got right to the heart of the matter. Kenny said, "You, crash? I can't imagine." Steve wondered if "maybe that bike committed suicide. It looks like it's had a long, hard life."

Yeah, I've taken my share of falls. And I've taken your share, too. Here are a few of my favorites.

 

My First Ride

I managed to get a concussion the first time I ever rode a mountain bike, which put enough fear into me that I didn't try again for several years. Really, I suppose I should thank Stuart for saving me from all the crashes I would surely have had during that time period, had I been on a bike.

 

Face Plant

The second time I tried the Leadville 100, I did something very stupid: I tried jumping my bike 85 miles into the ride. This is stupid for two reasons.

1. It's stupid because 85 miles into a race, I didn't have the coordination or strength to do a jump properly.
2. It's stupid because I never have the strength or coordination to do a jump properly.

So I landed hard on my front wheel, bounced off the side of the road, and plowed a furrow with my face. The effect was horrific and I admit I loved the attention.

 

Dislocated Shoulder

A few years ago at the Leadville 100, I was very close to getting the sub-9-hours time I've wanted so badly for so long. I had lost time, though, due to a bad case of the barfs for about 45 minutes.

I was feeling better on the descent, though, and was pushing myself. I took a gravel patch with too much speed, washed out, and went down. I caught my full weight plus some momentum on my right arm, which dislocated with a nasty-sounding schkrukkk.

I sat up, yelping in pain, and then in fright at the fact that I could not move my arm at all. I was convinced my race was over.

Not having any idea of what I was doing, I used my left arm to lift my right arm, which settled back into place with a fwop. The sudden and complete transition from agony to relief was so intense I started giggling, and couldn't stop. OK, maybe there was a little shock and a lot of adrenaline in there, too. In any case, I finished the race (9:20), and my shoulder swelled up impressively before the end of the day. It's never been the same since.

 

Fall at Gold Bar Rim

I knew I shouldn't try this. Everyone I was with knew I shouldn't try this. And yet, I tried it. Basically, I was tired of being the guy who couldn't do technical moves, so I took a shot at a double ledge drop on Gold Bar Rim, in Moab, Utah.

Everyone else I rode with made it, no problem. I approached too slow, hit with my weight too far forward, my front tire blew, and I flew forward over my bike, landing about six feet below on my face, wrists, ribs, palms and forearms.

For what it's worth, I surprised everyone by finishing the six hour ride. (I may be clumsy, but I'm also remarkably stupid.) Plus, if I hadn't tried that move, I wouldn't have this, my all-time favorite photo of me:

 

 

Unexplainable Faceplant

This next wreck is hard for me to talk about, because I don't have a legitimate reason for why it happened. I was just zipping along downhill — alone — on the trail I rode more often than any other trail. One second I'm consciously happy — actually thinking something like "I'm so happy riding my bike on a perfect trail on a perfect Autumn day" — and the next I'm sliding on packed dirt, gravel and embedded rock…on my face.  

Later, I would explain to friends that scree washed into the trail from a recent rain was the cause of my fall. They didn't believe it, and I don't either. I just fell off my bike at 20mph. I'm stunned, I'm bleeding profusely, and I don't know what I ought to do. OK, I should get home. What's the fastest way home? I don't remember. No, the best way home is to just keep going the way I was going anyway — finish the ride.

The bike was OK, so I got on and finished the ride, my face bleeding onto my top tube. The whole way home I never checked to see if I had all my teeth, because I was certain I had lost some (I hadn't). I got home. Nobody was there. I looked in the mirror. My lip was split all the way up to my nose. I called my wife and told her to come get me, but to drop the kids off at the neighbor; they would be freaked out if they saw me this way.

Several stitches later, I was all fixed up, though the resulting scar means I will never look quite as good in a goatee again.

 

Fall coming down Alpine Loop

This fall's different in that it was not my fault, and it's the only time I've fallen while on a road bike. I was flying downhill on a mountain road — the Alpine Loop, above the Sundance ski resort in Utah — when a Geo Metro trimmed a corner, coming into my lane and forcing me off the road and into a ravine.

Luckily I was wearing gloves, because now they — not my palms — were shredded. I was bruised and bloody, and my front wheel was taco'd. To his credit, the guy in the Metro was horrified at what he had done. He apologized over and over and insisted on giving me a ride back to town. This meant, sadly, his girlfriend would have to wait on the side of the road for him to come back; the car was not big enough for the three of us and my bike to fit.

On the way down, the guy apologized several times more, then confided he was distracted on the road because he was taking his girlfriend up to a scenic spot to propose to her. I had him drop me off at Sundance so he could get back to his proposal appointment.

My wedding gift to them was I never called to take him up on his offer to pay for damages.

 

Fall Asleep, Fall off Bike

When Brad and I did the 24 Hours of Moab as a 2-man team, I was cooked by the final lap. I didn't realize how completely cooked, though. I had noticed for several minutes that my head kept drooping and snapping back up.

Then, suddenly, I was skidding on the sand and my bike was 20 feet ahead of me. Of all the places to fall asleep on this course, I had picked a pretty good one. I was unhurt, and my bike was fine, too. As a bonus, I was once again fully awake.

 

One Beautiful Moment

From the accumulated clumsiness, one could reasonably conclude that I have no business on a bike, or at least that I should have very high insurance premiums. And yet, one time — just once — I did a move nobody else would try, and I stuck it.

We were at the Timpooneke parking lot after a great ride. Everyone was jousting, fooling around. People had been eyeing a drop — about two feet — between two levels of the parking lot. But you couldn't just drop it, you'd have to jump over the curb, then land on the flat pavement below. People rode up, then turned away. Finally, everyone went back to their cars to start putting their bikes away.

That's when I rode up to it, jumped, and landed perfectly. (Okay, really I landed front wheel first, but it was no big deal.)

Nobody could believe it. The cautious guy who nevertheless stacks it up regularly had just casually done a high-consequence move. Better yet, nobody followed my lead after I showed it could be done. It stood unchallenged.

And that — the hope that I will once again, some day, surprise everyone with a moment of agility — is why I keep trying the technical moves.

 

Today's weight: 166.2lbs.

 

Bonus Fake News: Tyler Hamilton's appeal begins today. I cover it in Cyclingnews.com.