What's the matter with all you gloomy pussies?

I can't say that I accomplished much over the four day weekend. I did watch Sound of Music with Fajita, and the title of today's post was a quote from Max (the greedy, but in the end helpful Austrian promoter) that made me burst out in laughter.

"These gloomy pussies are everywhere I look."

Interesting thing about the movie? At one time I picked up a book (and actually read it despite it's lack of colorful pictures) about a successful Austrian sub commander (I told you I like submarines). He was quite the bad ass fucker. His name? Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp.

Another strange coincidence? His naval career was the inspiration behind Accept's biggest hit, Balls to the Wall, a song that has no submarine references but does borrow a riff from The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music.



Obivously I did a whole lot of nothing my first two days of holiday vacation. Gloomy weather kept me indoors quite a bit more than I would have liked. I did get a chance to watch the Race Day video starring Irina Kalentieva that was being plugged everywhere I looked.

I couldn't get on facebook or MTBR without seeing links to the movie (that's what you get when you are facefriends with Sonya, Jeff, Yuki, Nam, Eddie, Ergon, Topeak, and Rush Limbaugh), so I went ahead and watched it. It was one of the better made videos I've seen in awhile with nice shots and a pretty cool unspoken story line. I am quite childish and a bit of a closet pervert, and this scene, I regret to admit, stole the show:

I know, I know... sex sells, but my addled brain isn't buying. This scene did make me want to re-create the video in a more Bad Idea Racing fashion. Perhaps open my short movie by flashing between images of muddy singletrack and me sleeping. Pan back and find me in a tent with my head stuck to the pillow with drool. I awake, rub my eyes, crawl out of the tent, and turn to a profile shot as I gaze up at the rising sun sporting a less than modest case of morning wood...

Men can be objectified too.

At least I hope one day I will be objectified.

I have a marvelous penis, and I am not afraid to exploit it in my not-so-humble quest for sponsorship dollars.

With so much indoor time on my hands I decided to swap the Meatplow around a bit. Although I just changed things around months ago I was not very happy with the end result. The Kodiak is just more tire than I want to haul around, the steel fork just doesn't compare with the crabon, the 8" rotor was overkill 99% of the time, and all the spacers I was running below and above the stem looked janky. I had only swapped everything around when I decided I wanted to save the crabon frok from any cosmetic damage before I get my new frame, but now that the new frame is going tapered the point was moot. After the crabon to steel fork swap I got heavy handed with tools and put shit I knew I wasn't thrilled about on the bike, but I've hardly been riding it since I purchased the Superbeast. Last week's ride at Kitsuma left me feeling "meh" about the work done that now needed undone.

I would say everything went smoothly, but that would, of course, be a lie. While swapping the rotor one of the torx bolts snapped off.

Saying it "snapped off" is hardly an accurate account of the event. As I was torquing it down the head twisted off with the amount of effort it would take to twist the top off of a chocolate chip about a minute after the cookie comes out of the oven. Very confidence inspiring.

I also did some tire swapping that had me scratching my head. I mounted up the WTB tire I used on the rear of the Meatplow at the Trans Sylvania Epic last June, and although it sealed up fine (then) and worked in an exceptional manner for over a week (then) it refused to hold air this time (now). There's more to that story, but that gets into my two final days of holiday vacation which will be further discussed tomorrow.