Monthly Archives: October 2007

He’s 58 years old and stands 5-6 at best on tiptoes. By his own description he looks like Charles Manson, but he’s more Old Testament prophet eccentric than homicidal hippie crazy. His take on politics and religion will send you scurrying back to the safety of the weather, or asking him to whip up another plate of pancakes and soy sausages as a diversion. Better yet, get him to tell you about his adventures at Paris-Brest-Paris or Boston-Montreal-Boston, or one of his 27(!) assaults on Mount Mitchell.

Here’s to Michael Davis, who runs a corner of road biker heaven called the Bicycle Inn of Bakersville, North Carolina. Show up one afternoon for a three-night stay. He’ll take you on the “Frankie and Charlie” tour of Bakersville, which ends in a screaming descent down the main street of town. Spend the evening on the porch trading war stories with the other guests. After breakfast the next day, let Michael shepherd you around to the Tennessee side of Roan Mountain for a 5-mile climb that starts after he’s already (respectfully) kicked your ass for 45, and mercifully crests with only 8 miles of rollers and downhills back to the Inn. He’ll also snap your picture a mile from the top and make it look like the whole climb was like Sunday afternoon on the St. Mark’s Trail. Day 3 is a tour of the Toe and Cane Rivers, concluding with a fast and scenic run through the farm fields of Jack’s River Road. As Sasquatch learned on our visit in August, Michael will even true your cantankerous rear wheel between rides.

I’d nominate Michael for the Clydesdale Hall of Fame, but substitute blogmaster Sasquatch, at 6-3 and 240 and a snob about the category, says he’s too small. (Come back, Juancho! Sas’ is drunk with power.) So call this a Hitops Profile, like the Dewars ads that used to run in the mags. All that’s missing is Michael’s favorite Scotch: a protein powder shake spiked with ambrotose, which he calls the “best shit in the world.” Oh, and by the way, The Bicycle Inn does NOT take Visa.

Guest Blog by HiTops

Sasquatch here, playing Ed McMahon in Juancho’s absence. Juancho asked me to organize a few guest spots while he’s away. Rumor has it Big Worm has a thing or two to say, and I may have a post in me if I can find the time. Aucilla Sinks always has a shiny two cents, HiTops is steady at the wheel, and Fat Lad could throw a nugget or two at us from across the pond. If these folks, or any of the other fine circus crowd wants to cue up for a post in Juancho’s absence, shoot me an e-mail at yosasquatch@gmail.com and we’ll have a sit-down. I’m already a little drunk with power.

Today’s guest blogger is our own Wrecking Ball, who’s got a thing or two to say about fighting the good fight. Tuning in to W.B.Z.N.:

Climbs are good. You hate them when they are happening, but the ride back down wouldn’t be as sweet without the pain. Some master force is after our climbs. We will all be weaker for the loss.

Many years ago, a random guy on a bike had informed me, that the Winn Dixie hill on the Fern Trail was going to fall to progress. I had been riding a scant ten months and it took me most of that to master that hill. It took six months for me to ride the 2×6 crossing the creek. I cursed that hill every time I rode it. Still nothing could have prepared me for when John Harvey and I had the last ride before the bulldozers. The next day it was gone.

People have their eye on the Oak Tree climb out at Tom Brown. Sure it’s a good cause and the city needs a disaster command center, but I say it’s all part of the plot to weaken us as a group. No will to climb, no will to fight. They will jerk the leash and we will have no wolf left. The poodles we become will yield to the master.

Today I was riding the Greenway or as we call it “up hill both ways”. That God cursed climb has given me more beat downs than I can count. They were cutting in the new road for the development I have been hearing about for a couple years. Is another climb in danger?

I have been accused of building houses on the grassy knoll, but consider what I am saying. Without the climb we are nothing and the act of bombing down is meaningless.

W.B.Z.N. (sitting in)

Thanks for stopping by, the Big Ring Circus will re-open shortly.

-Juancho

No bugles, no fans, no drama. Tommy the Torso just came over, loaded my lethargic ass up and took me to the Northern Woods. A couple of times I felt like I knew what I was doing.

We may have found a pulse.

-Juancho