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11 Dec 2006

I'll start off with a real life craigslist classified ad (from the washington DC craigslist; as seen on the best of craiglist series):

"You're riding down 18th street on a cool fall afternoon. You notice all the women aged 21-35 are standing along the sidewalk, all staring at you. As you stop for a red light, one approaches:

HER: Pardon me, is that a Campagnolo bottom bracket?

YOU: Why yes... it is.

HER: [blushes] Wow, you must be a man of true discernment... tell me big boy, how big IS it?

YOU: 111mm.

HER: [stammers, begins to twitch] E-english threaded?

YOU: ENGLISH threaded...

HER: [tearing off clothes] YOU TOTAL HUNK OF A MAN, TAKE ME NOW!!!!

YOU: [under your breath] Thanks, craigslist!!

Seriously dudes, it could happen to you. This thing is BRAND-FREAKING-NEW! Reduced price!"

Today, I drove up to Marin to go ride. When most people hear Marin, they think of hot-tubbing liberal hippies. That's pretty accurate, except they're incredibly wealthy to boot. In addition to hot-tubbing, they enjoy fine bicycles. I've heard the rule of thumb out there for figuring out how much to spend on your next bike is to subtract the monthly nanny bill from the cost of your wife's most recent boob job.

I rode around the Mt. Tamalpais/Stinson Beach/Point Reyes area. This area is recognized by UNESCO as being representative of an ecosystem type. There is a reason why mountain biking was invented in this area. The roads and scenery are amazing. To start my ride, I was doing a long, switchback laden climb through a fog-drenched redwood forest. The road was red from all the redwood needles on the ground. After hitting the coast ridge, I eventually emerged from the redwoods to grasslands. On the ridge, on the right, you could see the heavy ocean churning at Stinson beach; on the left, you could see thick fog enveloping the bay, with the higher mountains jutting out of it. Once I descended next to the ocean, there were migratory birds all along the bay. On the way back, I was following a creek where Steelhead salmon go in the winter.... Enough scenery-porn. The plan was to go climb Mt. Tam, follow the ridge and descend Muir Woods down to the ocean (highway 1), then climb back to the ridge via panoramic highway, then descend back to the ocean on fairfax bolinas road. this route would ensure a ride with ~1.2 million banked switchback turns. Instead, after climbing Mt. Tam, I saw that highway 1 had been washed out (again), so I had to rework things (ed note: the tour of california goes along this section of highway 1, so I don't know how they're going to re-route it-- the only way I can think of involves some pretty awesome descents, though) .Despite the changes, and the rain, the ride was still awesome. Ended up doing 55mi, with 5000ft of climbing.

A couple of side tidbits: 1) Descending panoramic highway, someone had spraypaint stenciled on the ground "biker outfits suck." What an astute observation. 2) Going up Mt. Tam, I had zoomed past a group of cyclists. On the way down, I had asked them about the road closures. Below is a snippet from the ensuing conversation:

Biker guy: How old are you, by the way?

Biker girl, interjecting: He can't be that old, he has dartmouth stuff on

Me: Uhmm, i'm young enough... 22.

Biker guy: that makes me feel better about you passing me so fast

Me: Oh, don't worry, I do a lot of drugs.

Biker guy: Really?

Me: No.

Biker girl: Do you have any drugs for me, I could really use some.

Me: No (and I leave)

rock out, and do drugs, matt

ps-- rudy, toby, jen-- nice results again. i'm still waiting for a race report....

10 Dec 2006

To start, some random items:

1) Greg Lemond once said, "It doesn't get easier, you just get faster." A common misconception is that he's talking about biking. In fact, he's referring to avoiding getting shot by your brother while hunting.

2) Don't know what to get your biking friend this holiday season? how about a "BRILF" tee-shirt, hoodie, trucker hat, man-thong or shimmel? (ed note: BRILF is the bike racer equivalent of a MILF. Sadly, I still don't know what a shimmel is). Available at http://www.cafepress.com/brilf

3) This blog now has fans from 2 continents, ladies and gentlemen. Fans from 2 hemispheres. Toilets flushing water in the clockwise and counterclockwise directions. I will soon be master of all media-- kind of like Howard Stern, but without the black female cohost. Or the syphillis, for that matter.

Ok, back to business: I didn't ride today, so I can't regale you with tales of epicness. Woe is me. I can, however, congralutate Toby, Rudy and Jen for excellent results in the cross race on saturday. I'd love to hear a race report.

matt

09 Dec 2006

First, some links for your consideration:

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

Secondly, a lot of people have asked what riding in california is like. This article explains it well:

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=4551&status=True

Well, probably more supermodels are involved in my rides than with this ex-pro hack.

Which reminds me of a true story: I was riding up Wildcat Canyon a couple of years ago, and honest to god, some Oakland Raider cheerleaders flagged me down and asked me for directions. They were going to a private party (editor's note: cheerleaders in fact get paid very little money from the squads they cheer for. They make most of their income from attending private events). I think they knew where they were going, and just wanted to check out my bulge. They didn't invite me to the party, so I guess they weren't impressed. Needless to say, ladies and gentlemen, I am still all that is man. I swear.

Speaking of all that is man, I will now channel my inner Timdoud (which will be a regular feature of this blog):

Dear Readers,

    The time has come. In a few hours I will stroll through the UC Berkeley campus here in Berkeley

and ponder many thoughts. However, the most prominent of those thoughts will be of finalization and conclusion, as tomorrow is my final day of regular classes for a whopping 4 weeks. To most of you, that seems like no big feat, but to put 4 weeksk into perspective, thats ~100% of a month, or for the more mature crowd, if tonight were the night, you'd have to sent in another rent check in roughly about the same time I come back to school. So its definately a long time. The past week or so has been actually pretty rough, not only in physical matters such as school and weather, but also in my mind as I prepare for this life changing shift from college student to full time athlete.

Ok, enough of that....

I did a 70 mile ride today, starting with Sproul bike gang. It's mostly a group of Clif Bar Team riders in their 30s. Good times. Well, not really. I was pretty tired today, which made the ride long. Other things that went wrong: 1) my powertap hub gave out yesterday. the bearings are shot, the wheel hardly spins. luckily I have another wheel for now. Without powermetering, I was more or less lost. I rode around till someone passed me that was roughly my weight and aerodynamic profile and had an powertap. I followed him for the next hour, but then he said he had to go home. I told him that wasn't a possibility, as I can't ride without power. When he got surly, I frame-pumped him on the head and took his wheel. Ok, that story isn't true, I just stole it from Rudy. After my ride today, I had to choose between the 7 bike shops in my immediate vicinity to get the hub overhauled. It's tough to be a biker in the bay area... 2) I got a piece of barb wire through my rear wheel today. It went through the top of the tire and out the sidewall. Pretty sweet... Not so sweet was timetrialling forever to catch back onto the group (they don't ever stop for anybody). 3) I got hit by a car. A minivan driven by an old grandma slapped me with their rear view mirror. She didn't even know she had hit me. Normally, I'd be pretty pissed when something like this happens. But I didn't really care, I just wanted to get home.

So after 3 big days of riding, no riding tomorrow. Yeay. Which works out well, cause it's supposed to rain. I get to see my brother, too. Yeay.

Matt.

I've received a lot of fan mail about the website (editors note: this is bullshit), its nice to see. To clarify, you need to talk to my agent about hiring me for private parties, bar mitzvahs, magic shows etc... I do very little pro bono work, as I need money for all the drugs.

08 Dec 2006

A lot of you commented about spelling erros in the first entry. For one, I don't read over the post before sending it out, as that process would remove its stream-of-consciousness vibe. For two, fuck you, everyone makes errors, I'm early Phi beta kappa, i'm allowed to make spelling errors (I made a self-call, are you happy now Jen?) . For three, I don't believe in the prescriptivist school of grammar (which says that there are correct and incorrect ways to do grammar/spelling). I believe if a mistake is perpetuated by enough people, it should become the law.

First of all, before I go any further, please go to timdoud.net and check out his new post. It's a comedy of errors, and for some reason reminded me of explosive diarrhea.

Ok, are you back? I'm really trying to understand the psyche of this guy. I think what it comes down to is fear. He's afraid that he's not making the right decisions about his life, and thus needs to tell himself a lot of BS to reassure himself.

Which comes to the next topic-- self-serving bias. this is the common tendency to take credit and responsibility for successes, but blame others or external factors for failures. To a large extent, everyone is guitly of this, as it is hard to think objectively about oneself, and it is also a good coping mechanism for ups and downs of life. I think it's pretty obvious how self-serving bias applies to cycling. When we "fail" in cycling (whatever that means) you get feedback about an approach not working, but often we don't listen to it because we blame things outside our control for failure (I wasn't feeling well, I missed the break, I was having an off day,...) At the same time, when we "succeed" we often end up chasing the memories of what that success entailed. But who knows if we are even chasing the right memories? Do we not overemphasize the things that make us look good to others (smart racing, a specific training/nutrition regimen, etc...), while discounting the things that were out of our control (i.e. luck)? Like apple cider, something to mull over....

It was another nice day in the Bay Area (60 degrees, slightly cloudy), so I did another big ride before the rain moves in this weekend. I started off riding with my dad and his buddies to the coffee shop. For some reason, they take (and have been taking for the last 10+ years) the absolutely steepest route possible over the hill to get the coffee place. I don't understand. Anyways, after getting some coffee, I headed off for my ride. I decided to go to Mt Diablo, and focus on doing a very even pace up the whole thing.

For those who don't know, Mt. Diablo= the cycling equivalent of liquid sex. From the south gate, it climbs 3300 feet over 9 twisty miles. From the north gate, it climbs 3600 feet over 12 twisty miles. It is God's gift to cycling.

The whole ride ended up being 85 miles, with ~8000 feet of climbing. Anyways, back to the climb. I was pretty happy to climb the south gate (athenian school to the observatory) in exactly 1 hour, averaging 270W. It was the easiest it ever felt climbing it, and one of the fastest too. I guess the tailwind helped. Also, even pacing really is the way to go, ladies and gentlemen. I couldn't help but notice how beautiful the sky was that day. It was crazy, all striated with clouds, and at the horizon the clouds were red. Amazing.

Oh yeah, when I got to 4 miles to the summit, the road had been newly repaved. This was really exciting, but unfortunately I pied myself badly out of the excitment. woops. I hope nobody skids out on the puddle.

so now, I'm back home, lying in bed (in cyclist terms, I'm "recovering"). I'm going to take my performancing enhancing drugs (EPO, IGF-1, extract from the urine of a diuretic pony, etc...) (in cyclist terms, I'm being "pro"), then some opiates (in cyclist terms, I'm being "belgian") , and fall asleep. Sweet.

rock out, matt

One more thing-- a preview of the next installment-- I will take about the neurobiology of drug use. You'll understand, if you read the next installment. To all the people who emailed me asking to be off this list-- I told you, I don't care. I'm a big deal, you have to read what I write, and enjoy reading what I write.

8 Dec 06

Hello all,

This is a test run of my new blog, MFPeeonyourface.net Since the site isn't quite set up yet, I'd thought I'd first go for the email update, as this is the easiest thing for me.

About the blog-- It is a bit masterbatory of me to think you guys are interested in what i'm up to. But whatever. If you want to be taken off this list, I don't care, I'm still going to email you. Suckers. This blog will be loosely based on my life, and loosely based on reality. Hopefully you can tell the real parts from the bullshit. For this, I have for inspiration timdoud.net, master of self-delusion. if you haven't gone there yet, it's worth a visit, though I guess it's all a big inside joke so it may not be funny.

It's 545 in the morning as I write this. fucking time zone changes.

got back to california two nights ago after a pretty quick flight. nothing of note, other than the manch-vegas airport spilling a bunch of jet fuel right next to our plane, them spraying a shitload of foam on said jetfuel, and then taking forever to scoop up the foam BY HAND WITH SHOVELS. real smart.

the bay area, and i guess california in general, is a pretty weird place. I have a lot of time to observe and think about it on my rides. Everything in california is.... more. More of everything. More cars, especially more blinged out cars. I still don't understand why people put fancy rims on a shitty car. More people commuting on bikes, riding the hills on fancy bikes, riding around town on hipster fixies. People love bikes around here. I guess there's a general fascination with transportation, as it combines the primal thrill of moving fast with the ability to see and be seen. And california is, at its core, that kind of superficial place. Back to more. More panhandlers, more rich people, more hills, more scenery, more twisty roads, more change.

Yesterday, after building up my bike at a ridiculously early hour, I went to the berkeleley bowl with my mom. As somewhat of a foodie, I really like going to this grocery store. Why is it cool? They sell squid ink. They swell the normal, the organic, and the handpicked wild version of some fruits. I count 20 different varieties of apples on sale. The produce section is bigger than the hanover coop. Lots of crazy people go there. One thing that struck me was how little of the produce was organic. I would say 90% isn't' organic, versus say that coop, which is more like 60-40. And no one really cares. It's not because they aren't earth-hugging hippies, because they are, and of the most virulent strain. It's because, I think, the produce is so fresh, and grown correctly, so it doesn't need the organic label to be good.

Soon after coming back, I went on my ride. It was 65 degrees and sunny, with a refreshing breeze, but to fit in with local customs I wore knee warmers. I passed some people on the ride who were dressed like they were going skiing, ridiculous. I ended up riding for 65mi, 5000' climbing, 200W avg, 2700 kJ. I rode of some of last years Tour of California rodes, which was kind of sad because they're not coming this way next year, instead riding through sacremento and fresno. WTF? there doing a tour of methlabs this year. those places suck.

end of transmission. I'm going to go put back a 11-23 cassette on my bike. There was a 12-25 on the work bench at 17C that I tried to use. The one gear that I wanted to work, the 25, skips. I bet this is Jen's old cassette... I am all that is man so my 11tooth is really worn... By the way: Rudy: if you haven't given up on this email yet, try sticking a cassette in gasoline. It comes out super shiny and clean. What a wonder fluid...

rock out, mfp