Ursa Major Problems

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Taco got his new bike, and it has a lot of problems. It is a Santa Cruz Tallboy, carbon fiber, full-suspension, 29’er. I know right? That’s what I said too.

For starters it goes too fast. On the single speed I could count on him limiting out like a U-haul truck at about 13.5 regardless of terrain. Now that is more like a minimum expected speed, like 40 mph on the interstate.

If that is not enough it hardly requires any skills. It just rolls right over pretty much anything in front of it. Taco doesn’t even notice the challenging technical sections of the trails. His skills are totally going to atrophy now.

It’s too light too, like way too light. He is going to get all weak from a lack of effort.

Those are all minor problems though compared to the serious flaw which is that it is not mine. That is a major problem.

We rode from our east side neighborhood across town via the Dogboy’s house. After collecting the Dogboy he put us on a leash and dragged us through the Live Oak Connector (meanest mile in the south) and then little Cambodia and the Silk trail. Everything was wet, slick, and bone-rattling. I think I had a tad much air in the tires, but I’m afraid to give up a lb. of it. 3 hours and 20 minutes counts for a pretty solid day this time of year. I think we stopped for a couple minutes so I could get a tissue for my snotty tears.

I have a new bike out there somewhere too. It is trying to find me, probably lost and scared in a warehouse somewhere, or maybe a pile of unassembled materials on a factory floor in Taiwan. I’m getting my Zen on, and appreciating that every day I don’t have it is a day my drive train isn’t being ravaged by this Tallahassee summer.

Juancho

Aurochs

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I titled the last post “Beast it” because I intended to write about the movie Beasts of the Southern Wild. Every few years a movie comes along that I get excited about and I transfer everything I am feeling or experiencing into my viewing experience and make the movie be the movie I need at just the right time. I’m predictable. I fall for all of the indie darlings. Once, Half-Nelson, Little Miss Sunshine, at the time they came out they spoke to both the times we were living in (they call it the zeitgeist, but that is such an overdone word, devoid of flavor) and they also speak to my own states of being- heartbreak, redemption, disillusionment, idealism, hope. You know, the same exact shit that all of you feel that you assume is unique to you too. It is unique to each of us, and of course it is all the same.

“Beasts” came through for me tremendously. I came away from it with one clear message- self-determination, the opportunity to write our own story, is our greatest treasure and our biggest responsibility. You don’t have to explain it to anyone, or justify your actions, or even understand the urges that compel you to not get that CVS card (but it saves you money!) or to grow your armpit hair out (gross!) or to go to church or not go to church, you just have to bend to the little tiny voice that whispers to you, cajoling you beyond the levee, beyond the easy answers, where the beasts await you to tame them.

Juancho

Beast it

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On the way to the south trails for another mundane trip around the hamster wheel Taco remarked that he wanted to scout a route to the western edge of town. He plans to ride his bike out to the forest, shoot a deer, then haul it back through town across his handlebars. Something different, anything, sounded better than the safety of the known.

We rode through the south-side neighborhoods, back through our very early twenties. I easily pictured him on his yellow Giant ATX 760 that he bought with the money he got from an insurance settlement involving a Taco Bell drive-through.

Out the Cascade Lakes area, dry as dust, with the Cypress trees planted like spears, we found the deep sand. The sky was overcast and I was able to nurse my half-filled water bottle and empty stomach until pain gave way to elation and my legs found the deep reserve.

Juancho

Round Up

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Let’s wrap this week up and put a bow on it all right?

For starters, Happy Birthday LOPO! (That’s my mom in case you didn’t know. She is awesome and we are great pals as well as being close relatives.)

Other highlights-

Why are those two American male swimmers such idiot frat boys, and the American female swimmers all well-adjusted and nice? “I have 20 Olympic medals, it is so awesome. Young Jeezy tweeted me.” That is called failing to podium in Olympic soundbites. Give me Kayla Harrison sobbing to the national anthem for my Olympic moment. Good thing NBC spared us that boring event in primetime. Of course we stayed up too late to watch that little sister Gabby Douglas do her thing. Ain’t she something? If she plays her cards right she might make something of herself one day.

Bushy and I had a blast riding single track through the steam last night at Tom Brown and the Cadillac trail. We went too fast to allow me time to whine about the trails, but I’m sure I will get another chance. In truth, they were awesome, really fast and grippy and only about 30 recreational walkers in the technical sections.

In full disclosure, I drove to the trail with a geared bike in the van. Bushy rode from his house on the single speed both ways. That’s bad news for the rest of us.

If I don’t get to see Beasts of the Southern Wild soon I am going to throw an all out hissy fit. The first dollar I spend at the Whole Foods Market that is replacing our independent theater will be depressing, but I’m sure my hypocrisy gland will kick in and I will forget all about the Miracle 5.

I have enjoyed deeply meaningful conversation with my wife about the importance of fairness and not being mean, so I would like to thank all of the fascist bigots out there for bringing us closer together this week. She is amazing and smart and I am a better person for having her counsel.

It’s First Friday at Railroad Square, so suffer the heat and go see some art.

I’m so sorry we can’t get to ATL tonight to see our friends opening at the Cube Gallery in Cabbagetown. If you are in the area, go see them here.

Art, friends, bikes, and equal rights, not necessarily in that order.

have a great weekend,

Juancho

Bad Apple

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It is one of the great joys of my life to encourage and support friends with talent. For me, art is the pinnacle of humankind, unless it is service, so when those two aspirations come together I feel like we all have a chance of making it out of here with some grace and dignity intact. I learned a great phrase yesterday during what will be known forever as the Great Flame War of 2012.

“When I know better, I do better.”

Ed Hemingway knows better. I had the pleasure of knowing Ed during my magical Bozeman, MT years, when we were young and the future lay before us like the vast Montana plains.
Back then, Ed hosted the Poor Richard’s news stand where we bought cigarettes from a jar for a dime. Ed painted back then, and my cousin and I ended up with a couple giant canvases depicting headlines from the Weekly World News. Those, and our red pleather couch, made us feel like the Soho of Bomo.

Now Ed has created this little book. A modest story of friendship. In a week where the value of standing with friends means a little bit more, I hope you will consider buying a copy for your own little friends because it is better to be a bad apple with friends than a sad apple without.

Click here to order Bad Apple

Congratulations Eddie!

Juancho

Tradition

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I find myself sniping at the local trail advocacy group more and more, and it is not a quality of my character that I admire. Whining all comes from the same place, a desire for attention. I’m no different. I feel that certain issues were not given proper attention, and until that balance is rectified I will just have to sit on the sidelines and spit in someone’s soup.

This might get boring, being a mix between “Ain’t it awful” and “It was better back when” but nobody pays me to write so I am just going to satisfy myself.

I can’t follow a group that doesn’t recognize its heritage. If you don’t know where you came from, then how do you know where you are going?

Learning to ride in this town there have always been certain names that stood for cycling. Local legends who macheted through urban seams and forgotten parks to carve out gnarly trails and pioneer connectors that opened up huge swaths of territory to mountain bikers. Some of them just rode, and tackled ever more challenging feats like riding to the end of the land at St. Marks then swimming their bikes across the river and riding further into the salt marsh. Riding mountain bikes was not a sport, it was a statement. Classic lines like the Park Ave gazebo run or MLK Jr through Frenchtown were run like downhills at Whistler, and stairs were de riguer to the culture. Cross-forest epics that ended in glory at a sinkhole, or defeat at a barbed wire fence filled Saturdays and Sundays, Thursdays and Mondays.

Many of those early pioneers are still around. In the push to organize, they failed to adapt. Being individuals and visionaries, they lacked the bureaucratic skills to survive on the reservation. Like Crazy Horse, they fought a doomed battle and lost.

That culture still thrives in Tallahassee. Anyone with the guts can show up at 8:45 A:M at Lafayette park on Sunday mornings and get their legs ripped off. Don’t make dinner plans, or expect your spouse to be able to come pick you up. Cars might not be able to get there. You might have to carry your bike, ride over a log, outrun some dobermans, and get chiggers. It is understood that there is no obligation to wait, such grace is a courtesy. It is the most inconvenient of rides.

Some of these pioneers anchor a bicycle culture the recreational rider knows nothing of, keeping regular folks rolling on thirty dollar bicycles. They complete 900 mile round trip rides in a week and draft semi-trucks on Immokalee Highway. No sponsors or support team, they do it for love.

Others took their vision and skills to big cities, where a machete is wrapped in oilcloth somewhere in a cedar trunk.

Maybe with some of them in charge less would have happened. We might not have a roly-poly thing at the Cadillac trail, and I might still hate the rooty mess of Tom Brown park. Munson would be over-run by horses and motorcycles.

Perhaps I personally am much better off as a rider in this town now, but reservation braves still dream by the fire drinking government whiskey and singing tribute to the fallen and free.

FOTL!

Juancho

Breaking Summer Down

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If there is one lesson I have learned from the era of social media it is that you must get out in front of scandal in order to control the spin.

This is my Apricot Poodle.

Her name is Summer (Chanel) and she will flat out bark you into a shattered, whimpering hull of yourself. She doesn’t bark all of the time, only when it is necessary.

When you open the door she barks: THEDOORISOPENTHEDOORISOPENTHEDOORISOPEN!

When you see people walking on the street with a quarter mile, she lets them know: YOUAREWALKINGWITHINAQUARTERMILEOFME!

Sometimes she barks:ITISTHEMIDDLEOFTHENIGHTANDITISTOOQUIETINHEREWENEEDMOREBARKINGANDIDONTLIKETHATCAT!

Other than that she is a good dog.

As someone with a poet’s heart, I tend to experience life as a series of metaphors and symbolic events. The elevated trauma of an event renders it greater significance and therefore the associated symbols loom large. Hoss Cartwright, Turpentine, Barbed Wire, and THE CRASH OF GREAT CLARITY are touchstones on the epic journey of our protagonist, Juancho, a slightly fictionalized version of myself, Juancho.

Summer (Chanel) is no different. I now realize her name is no accident. Given to her by my beloved, a woman who suffers little nonsense and reveres straight-talk, this name is a direct challenge. In order to conquer summer, with its death-threatening humidity, mosquito-infestation, dysentery-covered gloves, sloppy smilax covered trails, and chafing chamois- I must conquer Summer- the Apricot Poodle with the big voice.

We have tried good cop/bad cop (I’m bad cop) and that does not work. We have tried positive reinforcement, force-feeding, isolation, inclusion, toy-motivating, food-motivating, and completely freaking out on her little, barking crazy ass.

Nothing seems to work.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the metaphor, I am out there riding with Taco, barely treading water. Slinging my extra 10 lbs over my shoulder (or wherever it settles) and suffocating my way around the woods. Every ride is a grim undertaking, barely survived. My new bike, paid for 6 weeks ago, languishes as a financial transaction, coded in pixels.

I am in need of some elegant solutions.

Summer (summer) must be broken.

Juancho

Exclusive!

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You all have been so good, such loyal readers, I wanted to give back today.

Enjoy!

Juancho

Docked

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The day is soft and warm, and it calls to me this morning.

Last night I rode the sun down with my lover through the sticky, wet clay and cloying green grasses of her first mountain bike ride. We heard the train rush by after crossing the tracks and I felt anxious, and jealous of the conductor. We turned around then, so as not to get caught in the dark, and slip-slopped our way back up the hill to the car. After a shower, and a walk of the little dog we stayed up too late.

I have been a lot places.

I once rode the E line from Queens to Manhattan outside, between cars in February, my feet slipping on the corrugated stainless decking. I have climbed a rope 90 feet out of Big Horse Cave after 10 hours underground, to see the Northern Lights wavering beyond the sub-zero winds. The streets of Mostar, all buildings reduced to dwindling sand castles from bullets. Underneath the Burnside bridge smoking cigarettes on my bike watching the skaters grind coping and smoke cocaine. I spent the night on a paper map in North Carolina, stranded on the trail at dark. Drank Kalimotxo and watched the sun rise from the parapet of the Sagrada Familia. Bean Point watching a hurricane blow by in the Gulf. Overheated in Amboy. Parliament in Missoula.

My advice? Don’t come in from the cold unless you must.

Juancho

Options are for Losers

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Hybrid is just word for double failure.

Anything that attempts to please all of the people all of the time is a lie. Whether it is a politician, a toaster-oven/microwave, or those ridiculous barefoot shoes anything that serves two masters is a disappointment to both. Please, prove me wrong. As evidence I cite:

Hybrid bicycles- fails on both road and trail.

The Shandal- the hotness of a shoe with the vulnerabilities of a sandal

Goober Grape- Do you put it in the fridge and let the peanut butter get hard, or the pantry so the jelly gets warm?

Rap-Rock Music- see Linkin Park, Kid-Rock, Rage Against the Machine
The moped- shitty motorcycle, heavy bike.

The Ganoe- loud, slow, with mechanical issues.

You see my point, or maybe you don’t.

The reason I come back to this old saw of mine is because of a recent conversation regarding the nature of Tallahassee trails. I will pause a moment while most of you scoot your chairs back and exit the room. Continental breakfast is provided in the foyer.

So- a log fell across a trail, as some of you remember, and the world was brought to a halt while we, as a community of cyclists, discussed what to do about this emergency.

Do we keep the log? KEEP THE LOG, KEEP THE LOG, KEEP THE LOG!

Do we remove the log? NO LOGS, NO LOGS, NO LOGS!

Before some coward removed the log under dubious circumstances one of our professional trail stewards was working on an appeasement plan. Leave the log, cut a notch in it to for ease of clearing, take a slice out, for those that choose to ride around, and leave a portion natural for those who know how to ride mountain bikes. It was a solution that served everyone, a perfect hybrid.

My recent ride at Hannah Park in Jacksonville, by far the best sorry trail in Florida, crystallized my ill-defined feelings about the proposed solution. Without the logs, that trail is no challenge. With them, it is a cardiac beat-down and a technical test.

Humans are weak. When given the choice, we gravitate towards ease, especially when under pressure. Given the option to ride around the log most of us will do that. To choose the obstacle is to take the stairs when the elevator door is open.

Bail-out options breed mediocrity. There is no walk-up route on The Eiger. There is no risk-free way to drop in on a halfpipe. There is nothing remarkable about having something for everyone. I am only talking about a 24″ round log, and our coddled bottoms squeal and blubber to be saved from the challenge of learning. Shame on us.

Mountain biking is hard. It has challenges. We try. We fail. We muster our courage. We get stronger. Life is made of do or do not moments.

A challenge that can be avoided will never be confronted.

LOG UP Tallahassee, it’s all we’ve got.

Juancho