Monthly Archives: December 2008

The Comeback

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Call it an ill-fated retirement, like Jordan and the Wizards, Lance and the Tour, Favre and the Jets. Sometimes these things work out better than others.

At least now I know. I am an unrepentant dirty blogger. The cumulative result of my brief absence is exactly one poem- and here it is, for your reading pleasure:

The shit-can knight
It is winter but I live for summer-
nothing broken just the frozen ether.
Time on my side nobody lives for never-
just little girls skipping rocks on the sand.
Summer comes and then I live for fall,
and by spring nothing matters at all.
Hammers look for rusty nails and
shit-can knights search for tin-can grails.
The hands only want for chopping wood
but guts boil over spill and ooze.

BRC Unlimited is open for business.

Juancho

Pomp & Circumstance

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It’s all just a stumble stagger down a shadowed trail for me really.
You work with the frame you got until it no longer handles the pressure, and then you chuck it.

Like my first mountain bike, the ’88 Dakar, It is hard to retire the old BRC. I rode that bike for years though, in denial that it took more and more to make it go.

It was my wrinkled lover with yellow hair.

Now it lives in a laundry sink in the garage, with a bottom bracket full of mildew and stress fractures like varicose veins in the chainstays.

There is no need to let that happen again.

I just want to write for a while.

It has been four years– time to bloguate and move on to post-bloguate school.
I am turning the comments off for a while because I am establishing a new dress code. No more robes and slippers. No more “Hi Sam, Hi Ralph.” There are lots of convivial spots to gather so I’m pulling all of the backstage passes. You will most likely find me at Wrecking Ball’s yucking it up and making a real time of it.

Maybe it is a winter thing. I crave the peace and quiet.

I appreciate a great dialogue, so thoughts and feedback are always welcome at loveyourbike@gmail.com same as ever.

I am not going anywhere, I am just building a better frame.

Juancho

OCUPA!

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The BigRingCircus has been occupied. This blog will be released unharmed when Senora Mirian, of the Dominican Republic receives a loan in the amount of $150.00 in order to grease the wheels of her butcher shop.

Click the link below to help save this blog from certain destruction.

SAVE THE CIRCUS!

Do whatever they say, these people mean business!

Juancho

The Grand Re-Opening

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Despite tough economic times Joe’s Bike Shop survived the Lake Ella flood of 2008. Many of you deserve credit for helping in whatever way you could when the chips were down. This Saturday from 5-8 (but really much sooner and likely much later) we will be celebrating all of the things we have to celebrate this year, especially the new four-door, open-kitchen atmosphere of Joe’s Bike Shop and Bistro.

There will be food and good cheer, and maybe some Procol Harum on the jukebox. Bring the kids, or a bottle of hooch if you prefer. We don’t care, bring both! It wasn’t long ago that Joe and Pete were knee-deep in muck with those vicious Muscovey Ducks swimming through the shop.

Tell Everyone. Bring anyone. Joe would love to see you there.

-Joe & Pete

The Round Up

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Until I can decide how I want this site to evolve (or die) I am going to take it back to the early days, starting with the Round Up.

I saw Trouble the Water on Friday at the All Saint’s Cinema. If you aren’t still upset about Hurricane Katrina, and actively trying to hold some people accountable, then this movie will get you back in touch with that angry, hollow, place I call conscience. Nagin, Blanco, Bush, Brownie- they all need the dogs sicced on ’em.

FOTL Weekend

Some kid at Tom Brown Park asked me if I knew where everyone was for the scavenger hunt race yesterday. Poor dumb bastard.

San Felasco

Let’s do it today. I’m ready. I’ll ride the damn course twice. Saturday I rode with my old friend S’quatch, who now considers himself a novelty rider as in,

“You will never guess who I rode bikes with yesterday!”

“Danny Bonnaduce? No. Tonya Harding? No. Dee Snider? No.”

“Sasquatch!”

“What! No way! I remember that guy!”

We rode out Old Bainbridge to Orchard Pond Road, Lake Jackson, Overstreet, and whatnot. Very San Felasco it was.

Yesterday it was East with friends, except Mystery, who also joined us. That guy fed me a bad oyster last week. It tasted like I swallowed a nickel. Then I shit my pants. Other than that, and his devious tactics, he’s a great guy. Lucky for me he doesn’t know about the internet so he won’t read this unless someone prints it out and gives it to him.

Yeah, I agree. I think this blog’s days are numbered.

Juancho

The Grind

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I gave Cupcake the brush-off due to a conference call yesterday and then saw him on the trail as the day was disappearing into dusk. I was riding back to town with Paul Mac whom I ran into quite coincidentally. The shock on Cupcake’s face was visceral and pained. That will teach him to push me over while I’m clipped into a pedal. Still, I wish he would stop all this calling and texting, the whining and crying.

You would think the man has never been dumped before.

It is true. I think this blog format is starting to ride a little tight across my shoulders, but I don’t have a better option. The whole situation is a nice allegory for the local mtb advocacy movement.

Sometimes sucky friends are better than no friends at all.

I don’t mean you all, it is just a metaphor. As long as I’m trotting out the tired metaphors when it comes to the Bigringcircus I have decided to just keep twirling the date which brung me to the dance.

Who’s riding today?

Juancho

The Sacred Cow

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Things are getting a little too “robes and slippers” around here. I believe I now understand the limitations of the blog as Art.

I need to take spin out of this cul de sac-

Juancho

FOTL MUST DIE

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Nobody stiffs Betty’s Beauty School.

Tallahassee’s premiere punk rock band for the over 35 set has been done wrong.

I have learned, quite randomly via the internet, that our local MTB advocacy organization, The Fat of the Land,
has cancelled this weekend’s festival events, which included a performance by BBS. This band has been rehearsing in lycra with bananas down their shorts for months in preparation for this gig, billed as an outdoor extravaganza at Tom Brown Park. Now, without so much as a courtesy call, I learn the entire festival has been flopped like New Coke.

I am the Press, and this is Accountability.

The logo: All manner of hand-wringing was wasted with concerns over whether mega-corporation Coca Cola might sue barely existent mtb organization FOTL for creating a satirical logo in their image. It looks like the FOTL lawyers can finally relax.

The ride: From a brutally inspired 70 mile tour of the forest to restricting the ride to the existing 25 miles of trails to no “official” ride at all.

Signage: Stupid Studios creates materials that would mark our trails with a unique flavor and character. Result? Denied by ambiguously identifed “Officials?” Better to go with the random brown sticks that denote nothing which we already have. Added bonus: an insult to a local cycling icon. Unforgiveable.

I smelled a rat from day one, and now it stinks to high heaven.

Join me in boycotting this fascist junta.

Juancho