Where's this thing going?

To answer some of the questions from yesterday's HUGE announcement:

Will you be keeping your Moots frame and doing some fresh decorating as Big Dave mentioned above (Make yourself a custom headbadge for the Moots, remove the decals, put whatever decals you want on it)?

Adam B

I will not be riding the MOOTS next year. The Meatplow moniker will be shifted to the next rig which will be here shortly and announced slightly less shortly thereafter. Why replace the MOOTS? It seems weird to ride the same bike I rode last year while I was sponsored when I'm no longer sponsored. Call me a spoiled brat or just a dumbass, but I am choosing to buy something that is a little more... unnnhh... more.... all right, less MOOTSy. It will all make sense sooner or later.

you busy this this weekend?

Peter Keiller

As of yet Peter I have no plans. I was thinking about heading to the Cheesecake Factory, but I found out last night it is NOT a strip club. What a stupid name for a restaurant.

(re: new sponsor) Condom Warehouse?

Joshua Stamper

No, the new sponsor would not be Condom Warehouse. I was sterilized in a home economics accident back in the late 80's, so I have no use for condoms other than keeping the rain out of the barrel of my M-16 assault weapon.

All the cool kids are whoring themselves in 2010. Hope you'll still be on that frame though. Yikes, I'd sell my wife into slavery for that thing.

Jason

Jason, you're offer is pretty sweet, but since slavery has been abolished I will consider a period of indentured servitude in exchange for one ti frame. Can your wife degrease a chain?

And now back to me and my world...

I'm sure there's a perfect explanation for my decision, though I have yet to pin it down. Perhaps I'm just dropping my sponsor so Tomi will get me off his "Oh so pro" blog list...

Nah. Tomi's a cheater, so why would I care what he thinks? Cheater? Well, I found this photo that was taken after the last stage of the Breck Epic:

Apparently Tomi had a beer swilling midget packed away in his Bento Box (right behind his stem). When it came time to coast his fixed gear bike down the road he would kick his legs up in the air and the drunk little man would hold them up for him so he could relax. Sad indeed.

Some of you might be wondering if I'm quitting my job now that I'm an unprofessional journalist. Perhaps I might be going full time with my magazinistic ventures and quitting the messenger/racer thing for good. No, that is not the case...

photo cred Big Worm

The folks at Dirt Rag Headquarters said I couldn't wear my orange shorts at the office (apparently Maurice is distracted by bright objects), so I have to keep my old job if I wanna keep it real.

Speaking of magazines and keeping it real and strippers...

The latest issue of XXCMag came out last week while I was too busy mourning the loss of Wally to mention it. Once again Jason has put together something worthwhile to look at... well except for an article on running by Andrew Brautigam that included the following:

5. Never, ever, EVER run in either short-shorts or with your shirt off. No one wants to see your cyclist hair-shorts (if you shave over the winter) or your skinny, emaciated bird-chest. See: Schleck, Frank, and Dillen, Rich.

Hmmm... how ironic that just the other day I as out shopping for short-shorts, and then I read this fascinating piece of advice. Sorry, but Run Club Part Duh has been heating up, and I'm sweating up my UnderArmors while I'm running. When I head back outside in my sweaty drawers to hop on my bike and make deliveries I'm freezing my....unnhhhh... package off. I must admit though it's nice to be lumped into some kind of group with Frank Schleck.


I'm off work tomorrow, so I'm not getting up to blog. I promise there will be more news next week, and perhaps just a bit more Tomi bashing if you're all good little girls and boys.

Merry Christmas... even you Tomi

It's not you, it's me

I think sometime ago I announced that I'd be riding for MOOTS in 2010, but so help me I can't find the post even though I looked through the archives for at least three minutes. I made that announcement (or maybe I didn't) following a phone call sometime back in way early October. During that conversation both parties expressed a certain level of interest in continuing our relationship through next year. All the particulars would be sorted out in November, and by December things should be rolling right into the new year.

Well December came and more discussions were had, and for better or worse I've decided to not go on with MOOTS in 2010. This may not be one of the best decisions I've ever made, but I went with my gut and that's that. I didn't have something lined up or waiting in the wings, and there wasn't a better option at the time. Something told me it was time to go back out on my own again and go old school in 2010.

It was not an easy decision to make. Without getting all sappy I'll just say that I was a bit conflicted since I got to know some of the people at MOOTS, and despite being such a misanthrope I actually liked them, and I wouldn't want my decision to reflect poorly on them.

Just to quell the rumors...

MOOTS did not drop me because I wrecked my Escalade into my neighbor's tree while my wife was chasing me down the driveway with a floor pump threatening to kill me for my wayward transgressions.

This is not about money or the fact that someone forgot to remove the yellow M&M's from the candy dish at the MOOTS guesthouse when I stayed there in July.

Peter did not offer me a gold plated Misfit diSSent FE if I would leave MOOTS and run off to Moab with him so we can dumpster dive and ride all day for the rest of our lives whilst placating our primal urges by having brief flings with passing trailer trash females that are left alone in the campgrounds while their husbands are out 4X4'ing.

I did not lose my MOOTS Mooto X in a back alley poker game, although I mighta risked it and let it ride a few times on a shitty hand counting on my bluffing skills and fast feet to see me clear.

Hopefully by going out on my own a certain lack of professionalism will return to Bad Idea Racing. Gone are the MOOTS team kits, and there will be a return of an old favorite and perhaps something new for 2010. What exactly I'll be riding on next year is still not 100% determined, but I assure you it will have pink Industry Nine wheels, a Cane Creek headset, some genuinely innovative products awesomely strapped to it, and it will travel all over the place attached to a Raxter Rack. I plan on being out there just as much as ever, and I'll be announcing a very loosely put together schedule soon enough in accordance with my usual "Commit early and often" plan. This year I will go back to e-scribbling the words "Team Dicky" on the race entry forms in lieu of having a title sponsor, and the plan is to stay that way for at least the next twelve months.

As shit comes together over the next few weeks I'll update the blog accordingly. There is a new sponsor (not a frame sponsor or a title sponsor or a beer sponsor... meh) that I'll be announcing sometime early next week... someone I've wanted to work with in the past, but it's taken years to work our way through all the paperwork and legal stuff.

If I need more money to make it through the year maybe I'll just convert my blog to an online jewelry store like Dejay did...

FYI: Bad Idea Racing jerseys are in the works. When I know more you'll know more. Keep in mind that I'll be funding the 2010 "season" in part with the proceeds, but given recent circumstances I will be donating a yet to be determined percentage of my take to the Charlotte Humane Society.

Don't tell me it's too soon

Thanks for bearing with me over the last few days, and thanks for the comments, emails, Facebook messages, phone calls, smoke signals, telegrams, and strippers. It really helped ease the pain (although The Pie did not take too kindly to the stripper at the front door). Not blogging was the right thing to do since I would have been going on and on about grieving and loss. Topics like "Top ten ways to grieve when you're on the go" and "The moral implications of euthanization" we're hardly gonna go over very well. We've really been missing Wally around here lately, but...

I'd like to think that I don't believe the whole "everything happens for a reason" thing, but sometimes it's hard not to. The Pie and I wouldn't be together if not for a series of incidents that put us in the same place at the same time years after losing touch with each other while we were attending YSU. Without getting into all the sappy details if I hadn't been student teaching, hadn't taken my kids out sketching in the local park, hadn't been walking back to the school with a student who lived next door to The Pie (at that time just "Kim"), hadn't seen Kim drive by as we were crossing the street... my life would be totally different. I wouldn't be living in Charlotte now, wouldn't be a bike messenger, wouldn't have gotten into endurance racing, wouldn't have The Boy and Fajita... you name it. All these things happened because of one fortunate moment in time.

Anyways...

The day after Wally was put to sleep Cheese showed up at the Humane Society.

Cheese was left locked in an apartment after the tenants were evicted. She was alone without food or water for at least ten days before the landlord found her. She had started to chew on her legs and was pretty emaciated when she was rescued. She was taken to Animal Control, then the Humane Society saved her from her possible fate there, and she is now staying with us so we can help put some weight back on her (she's sitting around 5lbs and should be closer to 8 or 9lbs). We've got two weeks to get her fat and happy, and yes, she has made Wally's absence a little easier to deal with.

I promise this blog will go back to being bike related tomorrow. As a matter of fact there's some big news tomorrow, so be sure to check back in for the first bike specific post in a week or so.

Happy shortest day of the year fellow bike commuters. We win again!!!

Goodbye Wally

Yesterday Wally the long term foster woke up for the last time. His congestive heart failure had finally caught up with him, and his quality of life had been reduced to nothing.

Wally came into our lives at the right time. Just days after my father passed away The Pie got a call from the Humane Society. She called me right after she hung up with them and asked me if I would mind it if we took in a chihuahua that was probably going to die in a few months (more than likely a few weeks) in order to let him live out his final days in a happy way. I reluctantly agreed, and she brought him by the uptown on her way home to introduce him to me. He was a timid looking piece of shit little dog, but I couldn't see the harm in letting him stay with us.

Wally ended up at the Humane Society in the most unusual way. A very nice citizen saw him at a garage sale in a cage for $15 (the owners were selling everything they had since they were losing their home). She bought him and took him to the Humane Society where they looked him over and diagnosed his condition and gave him his sad prognosis.

Wally defied the odds and lived another 20 months. He was grumpy at times, but sometimes all the wheezing and hacking got to him and made him sore. Other times he was happy and loving, crawling under our covers at night and demanding attention when he needed it. Our two other dogs (a found Shelty and a found medium sized mutt) got along with him swimmingly and treated him like he had always been there.

We knew this time would come, but it didn't make it any easier. I never, ever, ever thought I could love a chihuahua, but I was wrong.

Sad post, I know. I've read plenty of similar posts over the years on other blogs, and I realize it's just a cathartic way of dealing with it.

So let's do some good with it...

Support your local Humane Society. Give them a bag of dog food, take some time to short term foster some cute kitties and puppies for a couple weeks, donate cash money, give them your time and scoop poop for a few hours... whatever it takes. Dogs don't start wars and cats don't run Ponzi scams. They're like little people with slightly more fur and less evil tendencies, but they don't have opposable thumbs which makes it hard for them to find gainful employment, so they most definitely could use your help.

I may be taking a day or two off, but I'll be back Monday for sure.

More Run Club Part Duh

I'm now entering the third week of Run Club Part Duh. I've been going to the YMCA at least four days a week, and I actually found time for one trail run two weekends ago. I'm pretty comfortable with running for up to 40 minutes... at least from the standpoint of mental stability, exhaustion, and endurance. I am having "issues" though...

The toes that I smashed with the case of canned cat food protesteth too much on every other stride. They get all shoved up in the front of the shoe, and they let me know with every step just how they feel about Run Club Part Duh. The pain is a two on a ten scale, and so I am able to ignore it just fine.

This has turned into a problem...

The lump has been replaced with a bruise that covers most of the side of my foot. Right now it's a very autumnal shade with greens fading into yellows and the dark gray and purple shades of winter offsetting its colorful glory. At first it was tolerable, but as of late it has become a problem, and after yesterday's 30 minute run I am now limping around the house. I think that because the YMCA enforces NASCAR rules (all left turns) on the majority of the weekdays at the track I'm putting uneven stress on my feet as I'm making turns every 1/36 of a mile. The pain is closer to a six on the ten scale, and I'm not gonna be able to go back to the Y until it subsides.

I've had a lot of time to think while I've been running. I write blog posts in my head that may never see the light of day, I compose emails that need to be written, and I listen to the music over the YMCA sound system. I think they chose a satellite station that plays music that forty something year old people (might) wanna hear, as Bruce Springsteen, KISS, Van Halen, Power Station, and U2 all got some play time yesterday. I even heard the song from Lost Boys with the greased up sax player...

Ewwwwww...

While I'm running I look down at the people below using the machines, playing basketball, and lifting free weights. I tried the treadmill the other day, and I only lasted ten minutes. It was something akin to torture, putting forth so much effort to remain stationary while the news of the world was displayed before me on a large flat screen TV. Sometimes I see people using large balls to exercise. I used to go to the weight room back when I was attending YSU eons ago, and I don't remember these large balls being used back then. Now people are using them for everything. People are doing sit-ups with balls, they're lifting weights with balls, they're even using the balls as their solitary piece of equipment, and I think I saw one guy carrying a ball into the shower (of course he was naked on the way to the shower save for the towel nonchalantly thrown over his shoulder). I'm trying to figure out how I can use a ball when I'm running, since apparently these balls possess some magical fitness powers.

I won't be running today since my foot will probably fall off if I do. I gave some thought to doing some weight training or "core work", but I think it would be pointless. Even if I did some free weights and spent some time on some fancy machines I'd lose any benefits I might gain when I stop doing them as the "season" approaches. Besides that, it seems to me that you spend more time recovering then you actually do exercising, and that seems boring given the music selection and lack of scenery.

Speaking of scenery, I still haven't figured out the blatant male nudity thing in the locker room. The other day I saw a guy doing the Winnie the Pooh.

Yes, he was walking around with a t-shirt covering his upper body and not a scrap of cloth covering his nether regions. I thought that was illegal unless you're a harmless, sexually ambivalent cartoon character. Sometimes I wonder... I really, really wonder.

And the winner is....

apparently not me

In the past month I have hyper extended my thumb, smashed my face into the ground, dropped a case of cat food on my toes, cracked the side of my foot with me mar's sliding board, and now this incident. I was on a harmless social paced ride with Scott T at Francis Beatty Park in Charlotte just having fun when all of the sudden a tree decided to shift over six inches to the right and directly into my path. I now have a nice, loose flap of finger skin and there is a decent sized piece of skin missing, but I didn't bother looking around inside my glove for it.

I've had a rough off "season". My mojo has turned into a no jo. Only two of the incidents and accidents happened while I was actually riding, and two of the others occurred while essentially doing laundry in a most dangerous fashion. Based on these facts I have concluded that doing laundry is just as hazardous to your health as mountain biking or maybe even smoking, so I think next year when the "season" starts I may have to avoid washing my own duds. I don't think I can risk it.

Oh yeah, most of you are probably here to see who won the ultimate grand prize from last week's That Butt Stuff poetry contest...

Well, the winner is:

Blair said...

My Haiku....

Dicky's wife is great
Her beauty is unrivaled
She puts up with lots.

The Pie read all the entries last night while I was away at the brocery store buying beer under the assumption that my absence would help to keep her selection process legit. She picked Blair's entry because "This is a Bad Idea Racing contest. Why would I reward people who put out a lot of effort or follow the rules? Besides, he's right and ass kissing goes a long way... you have to know who your audience is.". The Pie did mention that she was impressed by all the effort that some of you folks had put into your entries, but then again she was also surprised to find out I had been writing a blog. Blair knows how to get a hold of me to claim his prize since we have occasional contact with each other (I recently asked him if he'd be my snuggle buddy at the Pisgah 36 Hour Adventure Race... he declined). He's already sacked up and entered the silly race, so I know he'll probably be able to put his tube of That Butt Stuff to good use.

I wanted to be with you alone...

I hate when people talk about the weather. I hate hearing conversations about the weather while I stand by as a casual yet trapped observer in a crowded elevator. I hate being asked about how I "like this weather" when I'm trapped in an elevator with someone who never gets outta the uptown habitrail long enough to see for themselves.

Maybe I just hate elevators...

Anyways I've got to talk about the weather since it's been having a great effect on my life as of late. Since I got my new Bagaboo messenger bag less than two weeks ago it has endured four heavy rains already. Tuesday night's commute home was one of those soakers accompanied by upper thirty degree temperatures that turned my hands into blocks of throbbing wood that are useless for the first few minutes after I walk in the door. I've left my house countless times in the past few weeks prepared for the temperatures to warm up later in the day, and then it just failed to happen. Dark, wet rides home where I know people are looking out at me from the safety of their dry car seats thinking "Poor man", "F#*king idiot", or "I'd hate to be him". I'm not sure which one I agree with, but I guess it depends on whether or not there is beer in my fridge at home (there usually is). Hell, I'm looking over at them as they sit in a seven times longer than normal line of brake lights, and I'm thinking to myself "I'd hate to be one of those poor f#*king idiots". Last week the rain kept me from getting on my mountain bike all weekend, and that's the thing I rely on to keep my sanity the rest of the week. And it's only December 11th.

Welcome to an El Nino season in Messengerville. It's been awhile since we've had a rough one, and from the way things are going this might turn out to be the best (worst) yet. Yeah, I live in Charlotte, so I can hear you saying "Quit your bitching" from here. I wouldn't say that I'm complaining. I somewhat enjoy the change...daily hum drum work life becomes slightly more challenging, commutes become and adventure, and I get to test my restraint as more and more people that share my elevators will want to talk to me about the weather.

I smell change on the horizon, or maybe it's just the pile of stinky clothes in my locker at the Y.