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Thread Box:
Story minute
Thread started by rev106 at 10.9.14 - 7:36 am

Share a bicycle story.

Here's one from me:



Almost Got Me! Well, it was so close; I was nearly gotten, married that is. I have had some wild things happen to me in this life like having knife wielding Cholos try (see failed) to rob me, encounters with bears, struck by cars, had guns pulled on me, lots of very scary soapbox derby moments but nothing compared to nearly being captured by the shackles of matrimony. I guess I should have seen it coming but just like my normal ride home I had no idea what hit me. My girlfriend at the time, Dr. Baker (names not changed as there are no ā€œinnocentsā€) had been going out for a while for me, meaning about 6 months. Thatā€™s a long time for me not because Iā€™m awful, in fact Iā€™m a total softie and super romantic, however in the Gen-X sense Iā€™m not willing to pay a personality tithe to be with someone. What this means is Iā€™m not going to change who I am or what I do, I am who I am and I guess itā€™s a little idealist of me to want some one to like me for who I am, bike grease and all. Shouldnā€™t we all aim for what is ideal? I think so, and by having convictions you do surprise, confuse, shock, and eventually alienate people, mainly any lady that enters my bike laden realm with dreams of matching furniture not found on the curb and bikes hung from the ceiling. Anyway She had mentioned the M-word to me before and my response was ā€œFuck You!ā€ at the top of my lungs. I know it was not nice, but when an animal gets cornered they tend to lash out, and thatā€™s what I did. I am just an animal after all. In the early days of our relationship Dr. Baker was against procreation, matrimony even co-habituation. I had though Iā€™d finally hit a home run, well one out of three was not so bad I guess, and normally they want all three. I donā€™t know why this happens to me but it does nearly every time, but the whole next step thing is lost on me, there is only step one. Weā€™re together, just like riding a trail you are just discovering. Every new twist and turn, every new curve is seen and felt, you get to experience it for the first time and does it make you want more? Sure! But when the ride is over do you look for more or are you happy to just ride again, and again right? I've ridden the same trails for years and years and each time I get a new little discovery out of it, a view I did not see before, and new way to clean a difficult section that I had not thought of the 999 other times I rode it. I view my relationships the same way, it may be a familiar path but I was willing and wanting to take the same journey over and over again as thereā€™s always something new to discover. I can ride the same 8 mile out and back I use to keep my chops up and get something new out of it every time, it is always good, always fun, always interesting, and always worth doing again and again. I guess some people want more or canā€™t see nor enjoy the subtle nuances that one finds on an often-traveled journey. Which leads me to the event. I was riding home on my 1950 Olmo carrying a piece of a 80ā€™s diamond back viper that I was making from a 20ā€ bmx to a 26ā€ BMX cruiser in my hand. Then I came to in the Hospital. Apparently the frame had gotten in my front wheel and I bashed my head in, giving myself a concussion. I had a gash over my right eye and was covered in blood. Dr. Baker was at my house when I arrived carrying my bike (I was told it was my chief concern whilst dazed, even concussed I have my priorities straight!) as we were supposed to go out that night. So we went to the hospital instead! Fun! Now, if you've ever had a concussion you are not to mobile for a while, things donā€™t work that great or at least they did not for me. I felt weak and had little control over my body, I had trouble moving. However while I was awake for the near whole thing I donā€™t remember about an hour of my time, after that things started to be remembered. I see my girlfriend shoo away people with machines as they are all trying to get in on the action and hook me up to a bunch of stuff I did not need to rack up a huge bill. Then she got the hospital Chaplin. In my dinged up mind I could see what was really going on, I was being caught. I had run free for so long and now it was coming to an end with me laying in a hospital bed covered in my own blood. Since things weren't working too well I could not do much except make a few groans of disapproval. I knew what was going on though I could see it in her face like a dog who'd just crapped behind the couch; the gears of Suzy-Home Maker were turning. All I could do was lay there, doomed. The Chaplin went over the details with her, she was saying it was for insurance purposes, I think the Chaplin had experience with these sorts of things in the past and as a result she managed to dissuade Dr. Baker from getting me in her clutches. Anyway, you should just enjoy the journey and enjoy what you have, in trail riding and in love both are the same. Sometimes for trying to get more, you wind up with less.


reply


Can you make a comic version of this story for your next zine? Thanks!



the reverend dak
10.9.14 - 12:12 pm

reply


Mazel Tov!



Joe Borfo
10.9.14 - 6:43 pm

reply


no. I already have it in the zine.



rev106
responding to a comment by the reverend dak
10.12.14 - 10:47 pm

reply


facebook as ruined this site....



rev106
10.14.14 - 7:59 am

reply


are you still dating her?

If no, is she a KISS fan?

what the morale of the story anyways?
A)Don't date a Doctor,
B)strap your project frame on your back,
C)have medical insurance so they can hook you up to all those neat machine
D)have a advance directive?

how long was Atomic Cycles close because of your injury?

If it was longer then seven days did you sell all the repaired bike that where not picked up because they where in shop too long?

are you still doing the Halloween event?



sexy
10.15.14 - 1:48 am

reply


are you still dating her?

No. I am now with the most amazing woman that I have ever encountered, I leveled up so to speak.

If no, is she a KISS fan?

Don't think so, doubtful.

what the morale of the story anyways?
A)Don't date a Doctor,
B)strap your project frame on your back,
C)have medical insurance so they can hook you up to all those neat machine
D)have a advance directive?

E) none of the above. The moral of the story is you should not try and force things, nor should you put expectations on others especially when they lay out what not to expect right from the get go...

how long was Atomic Cycles close because of your injury?

It was not, I went to work loopy and dealt with it. I'm a trooper.

If it was longer then seven days did you sell all the repaired bike that where not picked up because they where in shop too long?

I usually wait a few months to do that, I understand while bikes are very important to me, they are not to most others. I like to be fair.

are you still doing the Halloween event?

yes, check the calendar. 14 years and running....bring it sucka foo....



rev106
responding to a comment by sexy
10.16.14 - 7:28 am

reply


Wageing the Unwinnable War.

I remember a scene from the movie Excalibur: Merlin is talking to Arthur while trying to catch a fish and he says ā€œRemember! Thereā€™s always something cleverer than yourself!ā€ That is a rad movie by the way, there are all these bad ass battles with swords, people fuckinā€™ and killing each other, it reminds me of Reseda. OK, it is the same what Merlin said is applicable to riding bikes, you will always be beat. Not today perhaps, today youā€™re strong, every rider you pass soon becomes a speck in the distance. Youā€™re lean and mean and every ride is a race and every race youā€™re winning. For now. One day it happens you get passed by someone and they drop you. If you donā€™t know what that means it means you canā€™t stay behind them and draft off of them. In the draft you have to work less to go as fast as the guy in the front cutting the wind so If the guy in front who has the hardest job pulls away from you, you cannot hold their wheel (another bicycling term you shouldnā€™t care about) and thus you are ā€œdroppedā€ and become the spec in the distance. Sooner or later it happens to everyone. I spend a lot of time in the hills riding around and I pass lots of people, every rider is a target to chase and surpass, I am guilty. However over time I have learned to just know my limits and not become a snot-covered sweat monkey just to pass some guy that will most likely never see again. It is hard not to bristle up when you see someone ahead of you or hear someone coming up behind you, it is competitive and rife with manly posturing, tens of thousands of years of breast-beating has come to a duel on a fire road with some guy who has matching lycra on his Niner and me on a 1955 Monarch cruiser, I donā€™t know which one is dumber. I ā€œman upā€ which is gay but I canā€™t help it, I have a wiener. He sees me; I stand up, the Nitto road stem creaks in the mild steel frame. He stands up; he needs new pants I can see way too much. He shifts. I breathe hard, the whole bike sounds like an old pickup on a bumpy road as I press my attack. Iā€™m winning! He looks down at my bike and is destroyed; some guy on a beach cruiser just left his 4500 worth of bike in the dust. Before I can revel in my victory I get smoked by some girl on a cyclo-cross bike. I am neutered. A bicycle riding eunuch. A clod. As much as I try and just take it easy and enjoy the ride, I cannot. The war is unwinnable and yet I wage it time and time again. I win a few battles and then I lose a few but I solider on. I know my actions are pointless, macho, childish even, perhaps stupid. My attitude is pervasive however, we are all waging this war against each other at will knowing full well that we will never win the war, only a few battles here and there. It is sort of like a bicycle Valhalla where we battle all day and be slain only to rise again to battle all over again, sort of like trying to argue with a Dave Mathews Band fan that their band of choice sucks. Pointless. We take the war and itā€™s war stories wherever we go to share with other fighters. Now, if you wage this war in its totality against strangers, you are completely ruthless when it comes to your ā€œfriendsā€. The advantage of riding with your friends is not to have camaraderie and enjoy an activity together, it is to crush them on the tail/road and then rub salt in the wounds during and after. You clean a section of trail and your friend goes over the bars, you beast up a climb and they blow up trying to hold your wheel. What joy it is indeed to watch your friend try to enjoy after ride drinks covered in road rash or they are so tired that their speech is slurred. ā€œMan, you ate shit!ā€ you say while they are picking pebbles out of their skin. ā€œThatā€™s just like the time you tried to clean that jumpā€¦ā€ oh you know I could go on but I think you get the point. It is all in good fun right? However such things to help each other aspire to better themselves but lets be real here we know that is a side effect. Now if that was not enough there is this website out now that allows you to compete against people on the same trails that arenā€™t even there when you are. This website is called Strava. What is does it allows you to either set up a segment or section of road/trail or do one that someone else has already set up and using your dumbphone gps you can rank yourself against all the other idiots that are on there. The fastest person gets the title KOM or King of Morons. Oh the drama! Iā€™ve actually had grown men come in looking for a Tom S. or whatever because they beat their Strava time on some trail and are convinced that they are cheating (perhaps) because no one I mean NO ONE could beat their time on blabityblahā€¦ Lame. Not only does it take the caveman chest thumping to a new level, people get hurt or even killed trying to get this KOM title. The internet kills. I thought cycling or running was healthy. Iā€™ve seen them, the Stavites tm. Nary a nod of recognition as they blast past you on the trail, knocking small dogs and children aside (not necessarily a bad thing) to get those precious 1/10th of a seconds to beat some shmoe that they have never met. And what then? One day you look at your dumbphone and see that bastard Tom S. beat your time! It was only 3 days of glory and bragging, now gone. Furthermore, Iā€™ve seen people blast a straight line through switchbacks to get a better time. Now, switchbacks are rad, period. Why would anyone willingly deny themselves the total radness that is riding switchbacks? That is like ordering a cheeseburger and not getting the cheese, why? Do you hate yourself? Iā€™ve never seen a Goth on a trail so no, it must be something else. Regardless, if one spent Ā¼ of the energy spent fighting these pointless battles on improving themselves they would more than likely have a better life and things to show for it. By that I mean they would have more bikes.





rev106
10.18.14 - 9:47 am

reply


This site can still be great



imachynna
10.20.14 - 6:36 pm

reply


I can't do all the work here...bring it already. :)



rev106
responding to a comment by imachynna
10.21.14 - 5:27 am

reply


Going Solo

No one can make it, Iā€™m in the parking lot alone with no one to hold me back, I canā€™t help myself, I leave early, the trail awaits. I like riding with people. You get that whole shared experience thing going on, if something out of the norm happens you have the story from all these different perspectives, I think this give your ride experience some more depth. Not like riding bikes is or should ever be considered ā€œdeepā€ thatā€™s just so pretentious. As meaty creatures at this point in the humanity time-line I think we are on constant alert and constant sensory over-load. Every day we live in a heightened state of stress manufactured by our modern world and we are in constant bombardment by television, phones, the web, and other people, so many people. So while I value the camaraderie of doing a group ride it has itā€™s problems. Either you are waiting for someone or youā€™re desperately trying to catch up. Bikes brake and you have to stop and fix them, not just your bike but every one in the group. Now the larger the group the more waiting/panting/braking/fixing you have to deal with and the flow of your ride is disjointed. Sometimes that is not a bad thing, but that is another story or idea. After itā€™s over you can swap some details to further enrich your experience, talking about who cleaned what section or what you saw who heckled you etc. Did you get chased by that dog? Or did the lady tell you to SLOW DOWN! too? All part of the fun that is the group dynamic. These things are all good and great, sometimes though you just need to take off on your own. I came to this realization years and years ago simply because I had no one to ride with and spent most of my time riding alone. As time went on I used my solo rides as a way to get away from everyone and everything and just have a chance to process my life. A few hours of some pedal assisted alone time did more for me than any psychological analyzing and self-absorbed navel-gazing at 300 dollars and hour could ever do. Perhaps Iā€™m not like most people but some alone time is very important to me, I think most people spend so much time processing all the vast array of human and technological inputs that we have to deal with every day that they have no time to process themselves. In that train of thought, people are more and more becoming directed by the inputs of others and outside things then learning to look inwards for insight and direction. What this means is people in general spend a lot of time feeling overwhelmed, confused and have a patented inability to make decisions for themselves. Doubt me? How many times have you been in a line for food and the person in front of you has to call someone to decide what they should eat? Exactly. Those that know, the trail or road ridden alone can do wonders for cleaning out the closet of oneā€™s mind. Iā€™ve used it to fight depression, sort out a brake-up with a girlfriend, or just to work out a hard day at work. At the end things are better than they were at the beginning, even a little bit is better than no improvement at all. In fact, when Iā€™ve really been troubled I go for a ride. On these sorts of adventures, I want to be alone; talking about anything is just pointless really. I just need to put some miles on my bike and just focus on the ride instead of talking about thins as talk often falls short. This is the part where even when things are going good as they often are, you still need to sort things out. While being a bike rider can invite socializing from other cyclists, you can choose to isolate yourself and just be myopic on your ride, not paying attention to others. I find the trail to be the best place to do this sort of two-wheeled catharsis. I used to just go out somewhere far off the well ridden trails and just lay there looking at the sky, the plants, the trail, my bike, my feet, sometimes Iā€™d bring a book. I used to get smothered with too much attention I guess, I still get way too much attention but I have no one to blame for that but myself for that mess. So back to the start and I just took off 10 minutes early and just rode at a good clip. We do this 18 mile loop and in a group itā€™s around 3 hours to complete with all the stops, re-gathering of people, fixing this and that along the way. Just me and my 1955 monarch coaster brake bike, I just sort of zenā€™d out and rode at a good pace. I was trying to see if I could do the whole thing in 2 Ā½ hours and wound up completing it in 1:45. Not too shabby! The ride was so more memorable to me, every nuance of the trail was brighter and in more detail, I was more focused on the connection of myself with the bike and nature than distracted with the snarky comments of my friends (not that snarky comments are a bad thing). I could just shake the mental dust off my mind; it was so different than riding with others. I like both for different reasons, I realize that I need one to make the other good though, only doing groups or only riding solo youā€™d be missing a lot from your riding experience. You should try and do both.





rev106
10.28.14 - 10:08 am

reply




Might I suggest you also try using some of these things? ...



Joe Borfo
10.28.14 - 12:48 pm

reply


No.



rev106
responding to a comment by Joe Borfo
10.28.14 - 10:16 pm

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Chasing Aaron

ā€œDid you puke yet?ā€ ā€¦ā€¦ā€No.ā€ā€¦. Almost. I wanted to puke, to die, to fall over and not move, weā€™d been riding for hours and hours. I was bathed in sweat my heart was trying itā€™s best to remove itself from my chest, Aaron hand not had a sip of water in hours..he was an animal. Funny how you meet a former Pro cyclists at all places, a car show. I was rolling around on a muscle bike and saw Aaron and one of his friends on customized Sting-Rays. We talked bikes, sure I ā€œrodeā€, haha I had no idea what I was talking about. I had (still have) a 1964 Schwinn cruiser that I was using as a trail bike. I knew nothing about mountain bikes or trail riding except I was doing it or so I thought. Anyone that thinks they have what it takes to be a pro, good luck. Aaron had not raced professionally in over a decade but his thighs were nearly as big around as my legs put together, he climbed every climb in the big ring on his bike, a speck in the distance always and me dying just to keep him in sight. I would chase and chase though and nearly die/vomit/wish for death on every turn: ā€œdivoishā€ There, a new word to describe what I was feeling. There was no winning, I thought I was getting faster but he was just holding back. The faster I got the faster he went, there seemed to be no upper limit to how hard Aaron could push himself. After all this is a guy who would duke it out with Overend and Tomac in the seminal days of off road cycling, you had to be a beast to even run with those guys, so how did I really expect to match up? Yeah right. After a while I got a ā€œrealā€ mountain bike and that only seemed to make things worse for me, we went farther and farther, faster and faster, I think the shortest we ever rode was 3 or 4 hours the typical ride was a bout 5 hours at an all out pace. We went everywhere, Aaron had a child-like mischievous tone in his voice as weā€™d go to some secret spot or poach a trail. ā€œGo here!ā€ Here say. Heā€™s look around to see if anyone was watching and then weā€™d traverse a spot to where the sickest single track awaited us, Aaron new every trail in the LA area and we rode them all. I learned to use clip in pedals with him and since have discarded them, I watched in awe and he climbed a super steep hill on his Cook Bros cruiser with 44/18 gearing and did not even break a sweat, I had to walk. Down hill was no different, a mad scrabble to keep him in sight, a near death experience at every turn. I learned a lot. I got thinner, faster, learned how to crash and did so often. I climbed the closest trail to me house and watched as I went from using the granny gears to graduate to the middle ring (this means it is harder) and eventually after a long time climb this climb in the big ring on my bike (harder still). While we rode Aaron had stories, crazy stories about the pioneers of mountain biking and his career as a racer that I dare not repeat. He told me about the early days of mountain biking in LA, the nor-cal guys did not have the only group out there, it was happening all over they were just the first to market it as something new however. Aaron told me how someone was trying to sell him a new 30 pound Ritchey (a hand made bike) and he turned it down because he got a Schwinn Varsity down to 28 pounds (A Schwinn varsity was a very heavy bike). The stories were amazing. I donā€™t think Aaron knew that he was quite the bard, like many people in cycling he possessed a keen mind, and was always full of energy and intelligence. After heā€™d beat the crap out of me weā€™d get pizza or something and heā€™d spin a tale. It was the highlight of the experience, trying to hold down vomit was not. Aaron was a hard teacher, he taught me all Iā€™d need to know about riding trails, how to suffer and smile though it, how to put on the long miles. He also paid me the highest compliment Iā€™ve ever gotten from someone who on two wheels was vastly my superior; ā€œYou can do this, youā€™re the toughest guy Iā€™ve ever known.ā€ It still makes me less ā€œdivosihā€ and all fuzzy inside when I think about it. In addition weā€™d go out at night on Sting-Rays and ride all through the city all the way to down town LA from the SFV. We did some cruising, not every ride was all out. Mainly we explored and really saw things that most people never see because they are driving. After a while he said that once I could catch him it was over. One day I did and it was.





rev106
10.31.14 - 2:52 am

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I got something for you to play with. Kinda shaped like that, too.



PC
responding to a comment by Joe Borfo
11.5.14 - 4:33 am

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The transformed man

Change is a funny thing, things never change, change is the only constant in the universe, the more things change the more they stay the same, change comes from within, got any change? I think about change often. Iā€™ve been told I have never changed, Iā€™m still the same person I was 10, 20, 30 years ago, still a child at heart I guess thus my love of two-wheel conveyances. While eternally 12 to most I felt I have changed a lot over time, I have, I hope gotten a little wiser, a little faster, a little better than I was before. As a cyclist I have gone through many changes. First you have the re-discovery of bikes as transportation. Riding a bike is a simple pleasure that many forget when they turn the legal driving age. I can say I only did not ride a bike for a brief period where I chose to skate instead, my Diamond Back Viper was stolen a few weeks after purchase and that was that for a while. I did ride my Dadā€™s Diamond Back Accent for a spell and got a 70ā€™s era bmx for 20 bucks somewhere along the line but I can say Iā€™ve been lucky enough to be on two wheels most of my life. However, I did not really have a true re-discovery of the bike until my mid 20ā€™s when after a night of band practice the guitar player and myself made a chopper bike. All of my hessher friends were doing a Sunday bmx ride and I showed up on my glorious 7-colored machine. They laughed. It was white and blue with black, pink, brown, red, chrome wheeled with one white wall tire and one black wall tire. The banana seat was blue with clouds on it, very un-manly. As we went along, I got lots of comments and many of the comments were from ladies. Itā€™s funny how female attention can shatter a guys image of whatā€™s cool and what is not. We quickly formed a chopper gang, got a welder and went from there. At this point I began to really have passion for bikes and the doors they could unlock. I just loved getting around on a bike, need I relate those feelings? Iā€™m sure if you pedal you know and if you donā€™t then Iā€™d say give it a good try before you decide if itā€™s right for you. I was one of very few. I remember doing LA critical mass on a tall bike and there were ten of us total. I have a vivid memory of us going into a parking lot and jamming everything up, our small numbers be ineffectual anywhere else in the cityscape. One rider decked out with a helmet and rear view mirror at the peak of our disruption squeaked out in a high nasally voice, ā€œWeā€™re a force to be reckoned with!ā€ Looking back now I see how we were just being jerks but at the time I felt empowered and a massive chip began to develop on my shoulder, the angry commuter began to emerge.
I went to war with vehicular traffic. I screamed, I yelled, I smacked hoods and doors, flat-palmed windows. I dented hoods with my fist, slapped mirrors this way and that, my lock was always at the ready to come off my shoulder and be used as a weapon. When someone would yell or throw something at me (Yes it happens. it is LA after all, fool.) I would give chase and in doing so the driver would have to on many occasions risk all to get away from me, I was after all at war, and for some reason super I was pissed off. Rarely if ever would I catch the attacker, perhaps once or twice. This still happens but not so much anymore. Are there more bikes and more bike awareness? A minuscule amount, I think my confrontations with motorists became less frequent because I just got over the whole thing and stopped looking for confrontations. I was part of the problem, a cycle-jerk. Once I began to see cars as just a force of nature and went with the flow I got along a lot better. Also, I realized that my antics were not engendering any good will towards cyclists from motorists, in fact the opposite was occurring. That snarled, angry ā€œI dare youā€ devil-may care attitude I had while on my bike was common amongst my bike riding brethren and myself, while toting the mantra popular at the time, we as a group were losing any brownie points with people in cars, some of which do ride or were at least thinking about it until they encountered me fangs bared and all. At the peak of my cycle rage I even fashioned concealed weapons in my bicycle handle bars and painted my 1950ā€™s double bar cruiser to look just like a German Panzer tank. Grrr! I can laugh now; I had my head up my ass for sure on that one. Iā€™m glad I grew up a little and realized that all my anger would avail me nothing. Raging at cars on the road was like raging at the sky for raining or raging at golf because it exists; the only one that is affected is you. In the end you lose or run out of steam.
In time I just stopped thinking about it. I was no longer a ā€œcyclistā€ there was no ā€œUsā€ or ā€œThemā€ I was just simply riding to the store or riding to work because I wanted to, there was no longer an agenda. I still advocate cycling very much but I do it now with an event flyer and a smile than with a frothy mouth and u-lock held overhead like a Katana. Oneā€™s best contribution to cycling is to simply cycle. To ride, to enjoy it, to do it because you want to. Agendas and attempts to sway others about how bikes fit into traffic for me at least now donā€™t seem as important. I can say Iā€™m more happy for it and so is everyone else that is in a car next to me.






rev106
responding to a comment by PC
11.5.14 - 11:48 pm

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On cursing someone out.

ā€œNice helmetā€ Again. Every Thursday I get to hear this from the same guy. Why? Wellā€™ Iā€™m not wearing one. Yeah, yeah I know. I know. But you look nothing like my parents and neither did this guy. I was doing a not too long ride in the mornings with my girlfriend at the time, weā€™d hit the trail, neither she nor I liked to wear helmets so we exercised our right as Americans and chose not to. I had got her on the bike, she went from gasping on a few mile street ride to climbing up the tallest hills in the Santa Monica Mountains, it was fun for a time. By the way, this is not about bikes; it is about cursing someone out.
The guy may have meant well, but after being in earshot of him on several occasions I gathered he quite relished in being the answer guy, Mr. right, the I told you so guy, so I think I was just another in a long line of people that he had to comment on. We live in the age of comments. I canā€™t remember the last time I ever heard someone say to me they donā€™t know about a given subject or had no idea; I was just trying to get away from all these ā€œexpertsā€ by riding up in the hills. I used to hear this a lot from people, the call: ā€œHelmet!ā€ What? Do you have one for me? If you care so much then give me one. Sometimes I ā€˜d yell back ā€œdickhead!ā€ or if I was in a real foul mood (often at this time) Iā€™d tell them to mind their own business! Expletive, expletive, and then roll past them. A few scattered curse words is not a proper cursing out mind you, there is much more involved. This thing is I started wearing one later just to get people to stop trying to mother me, I hate that. And yes, Iā€™ve had a couple good knocks to the head, one of which I think was instrumental in making me the person I am today (another story not about bikes). However I still ride without one often (Gasp! Quickly, go cancel your subscription because you canā€™t control me.)
This guy I will call Sparky because I donā€™t know his name, also Sparky is a term that I employ for someone who is always voicing their opinions, often, with no prompting. You may have been in college and had a Sparky in one of your classes. Usually an older person than the average student or rider who thinks that they by virtue of more years of life experience can impart said experience upon those that lack it, by this I mean everyone else. Sparky would say how he liked my helmet and I had a nice helmet over and over again. Iā€™d tell him I heard him. ā€œI heard you.ā€ Iā€™d say as we made our way past him, we were not going fast but this guy was older and with older riders thus a little slower than we were at the time. Usually a normal person would see after a few times of trying to get a rise out of people and not getting said rise, they would stop trying to antagonize their target. But for Sparky, the shower of sparks never stop. Iā€™d say for a month, time went by where he would comment on my not having a helmet every time heā€™d see me and I would say that I heard him or haha very funny and ride on. The next two months of him making the same comment I just rode by in silence. In this silence my anger slowly smoldered into a red rage. I was out in the hills to relax and unwind the tangled mass that was my mind, this was no longer happening. It was like being a child and having to be chased by the same dog on the way home every day, something pleasurable had become an ordeal. My rides became a course in anger management, every pedal stoke I would envision myself nudging closer and closer to Sparky and then heā€™d be bouncing down the cliff still talking not even understanding why he was going to be eating the next six months of meals through a straw. But I banished such acts from my mind and simply resolved that the next time Sparky said something to me he would get cursed out proper.
I was on the fire road when it happened. It was an overcast day and there was Sparky with six of his riding buddies. I exploded. At the top my lungs the cursing out began, I wonā€™t go into the gory details but the string of profanities that came out of my mouth would have made Hitler blush. Now, to properly curse someone out you have to meet three criterion: Criteria number One: You must completely and thoroughly character assassinate the target. Your attack must be unrelenting, and very loud; you are after all pissed off. So I want to say I spent near two miles riding uphill on a fire road adjacent to Sparky giving him the cursing out of his life. It is fine when doing this to repeat the same attacks, your beating the point to death, it is supposed to be complete and total, no stone unturned, no insult left unhurled, over kill, like having every alloy part on your bike be violet anodized, too much is just right. So I do this until the big climb to the spot we call the Hub where the trails go all different ways. I pedal up to the Hub and wait for Sparky. His friends show up, he shows up. He could have had it stop right then and there but no, he had to make a comment. So I picked up right where I left off, my voice ringing through the canyons and hills. In completing Criteria number one, you move to Criteria number Two: You must loose your voice in the cursing out of the target. This shows that youā€™ve given it your all. Violet spoke nipples? Sure why not! I was losing my voice I and at this point his friends tried to intervene and then they get some too. You see (Cosby inflection) once the cursing out begins it has to run its course. Anyone that gets in the way of my machine-gun of hate gets mowed down, there are no innocents, just those that ran and those that got sprayed. Well hell they want to stand there and take it so they do and then Sparky does what would complete the cursing out thus fulfilling out Criteria number Three: You must, with the power of your cursing out, drive them physically from the space where youā€™re at. Being that we were up in the hills where can you go? He could of got on his bike and rode away but no, he hides in a porta potty. Once Sparky is gone but still in ear shot I empty the clip into his friends. Sparky does not come out. The smoke clears. My Girlfriend was there for the tail end. ā€œReady?ā€ I say in a froggy rasp and we roll back the way we came. The next time I saw Sparky he wouldnā€™t even look at me. Good.
Iā€™ve only done this three times in my life. Iā€™m not looking to blow up on people I put up with months of this guys mouth be he got a dose. And his friends? I see them all the time; theyā€™re all really nice!





rev106
11.18.14 - 7:11 am

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