playing the game
Thursday, July 24, 2008
I’ve never really played the interweb game well, and after years and years of blogging and blahing and blathering Anne Rock tagged me with a meme.
I had to go look up what “meme” meant in Urban dictionary--THAT’S how uncool I am.
Anyway--I cut and pasted the questions from FM’s site, and as much as I adore and worship and respect FM, I will taunt him with my first answer. Here goes.
If you could have any one — and only one — bike in the world, what would it be?
While I think my Giant Anthem Advanced is the most amazing mt bike I have EVER ridden, if I had only one bike available to me, I would choose my Hot Tubes CROSS BIKE.
Yes FM, my cross bike. I really can’t explain the magical feeling of that handmade steel frame. It hums; It sings; It grooves; It fucking ROCKS. I am prepared to be smacked with a glove--with a glove that has the seat of a national champ, and I’m okay with that. I don’t know why FM is so anti those of us that love our cross bikes most.
MY cross pig isn’t a pig on the road. MY cross bike could easily take V brakes on it, and since I’ve only had disc brakes for three months, and I’m not spoiled like FM, going back to V brakes wouldn’t really bother me. Riding a cross bike on singletrack is the MOST fun--although I will admit to not rocking the singletrack with my new cross bikes with their silly light carbon fiber steerer tubes on their forks. But my old cross bike? I raced the Susquehanna Scorcher on it. I raced Fairhill on it. I rocked the crap out of the Avalon area of Patapsco State Park on it. I crushed people at Loch Raven on it. In fact, DG often said I rode my cross bike off road better than I did my mt bike. FJ Hughes commented on that as well. Oh, and I have raced the Winding Hills mt bike race on my new cross bike too.
So bite me Marc. I’m not a dirty liar. I’m just that badass.
Or maybe your cross bikes just really suck. Isn’t C3 riding Blues? I hear they’re assembled in a basement in Atlanta by a creepy mustached guy with cankles that likes to dress in 1970s fitness gear and work out in front of his friends.
FM, here’s a link to my builder, Toby Stanton.
Tell him I sent you, and he’ll build you something nice.
Do you already have that coveted dream bike? If so, is it everything you hoped it would be? If not, are you working toward getting it? If you’re not working toward getting it, why not?
I would love to have Toby build me a magical road bike too. But I can’t afford that right now, so I just ride my non-pig-of-a-cross-bike on the road.
If you had to choose one — and only one — bike route to do every day for the rest of your life, what would it be, and why?
I think I’d move to CO so that I could ride miles and miles and miles over mountains and dales and meadows and still have it count as one trail. I don’t really have one route here.
Do you ride both road and mountain bikes? If both, which do you prefer and why? If only one or the other, why are you so narrow minded?
I ride both, but I entered the sport via the mountain bike. I don’t really prefer one over the other, but I do go in phases of massive dirt riding or only road. They serve distinct purposes in my little world--I seek the flow of the trails to empty my brain of the jibber-jabber of the day. You can’t think and worry on the mt bike or you’ll hit a root and eat shit. The road, though, is a fabulous place to run from your demons or rage about your boss and kill kill kill the pedals in order to exhaust yourself and purge the ugly that sometimes builds up inside.
Have you ever ridden a recumbent? If so, why? If not, describe the circumstances under which you would ride a recumbent.
I have ridden a recumbent--several actually. I worked at a really great bike shop, College Park Bikes, (which apparently has a really ugly website. Ew, sorry.) and we sold tandems, tri bikes, road, mt, folding bikes and recumbents. I tried them all! I even tried a tandem recumbent! We used to do hot laps on the bikes around the display bikes in the shop.I’m not super good at the recumbent, I still try to lean forward as if I’m riding a traditional bike.
Have you ever raced a triathlon? If so, have you also ever tried strangling yourself with dental floss?
Most of the folks I worked with at College Park BIkes did tris, so I did a year of them too. We would meet at 7 a.m. to swim for an hour, ride 8 - 9:30, open the shop at 9:30, work 9:30 to 3:30, then run from 3:30 until 4:30 and eat or cook together. It was a wonderful wonderful little group. They all moved to Washington state together and rode bikes/drove out there alternating turns. I was too chicken to join them. It was truly a missed opportunity.
I’ve never strangled myself with dental floss, but have often felt like doing so when surrounded by arrogant road racers, singlespeed cool guys, fixie hipsters or new 29er converts. I have only, however, felt welcomed and encouraged by the tri community. And downhillers too. Whoa. Dowhillers and triathletes have something in common???
Suppose you were forced to either give up ice cream or bicycles for the rest of your life. Which would you give up, and why?
Ice cream. There are so many ways to get around actually giving it up. . .frozen custard, gelato, ice milk, Soy Delicious, sorbet, etc.
Can you conceive cycling without racing?
Of course! Riding is about riding. Racing is about proving something to yourself and/or others. I’m so over needing to prove things to other people.
You’re riding your bike in the wilderness (if you’re a roadie, you’re on a road, but otherwise the surroundings are quite wilderness-like) and you see a bear. The bear sees you. What do you do?
I actually worry about this on a semi-regular basis. Hawley is big time bear country, and I will not ride there by myself. I don’t know what I would do. Scream?
What is a question you think this questionnaire should have asked, but has not?
Also, answer it.
What kind of facial hair will FM sport at his first cross race of the season?
The Trucker.
Now to keep the chain rolling I think I have to "tag" people:
You’re IT. HA HA!
