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Thursday, March 3

People will never cease to amaze me


First of all, I got an email from the folks at Backcountry Research last night. Sales of the new Awesome Strap Race were impressive. That was expected. What I did not expect was the overwhelming amount of people that bought the new Awesome Strap Race in the rainbow trout colorway.

I'm thinking infected penis for some odd reason. Segmented freckle worm. I guess the whole Tomi inspired bike/fly fishing lifestyle is catching on. Whodathunkit?

Secondly, Jeff Schalk has been keeping busy during the off season, but not as he had planned. I'm piecing the story together, but apparently he violated the Trek corporate policy regarding porn hording*...

and has now been served with three months of community service cleaning up roadkill hedgehogs in Waterloo, WI.

I could be wrong on this one, but I doubt it.

My third amazement with the human populous was found over at my arch nemesis in the cycling media world, cyclingnews.com (they loathe me over there). They have chosen another select few racers to blog on their site to join Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjaa and America's world traveling sweethearts Mike Broderick and Mary McConneloug. The new bloggers are Sam Schultz, Lea Davison, and Alex Grant. I know none of them, I wonder how well they can photo shop heads onto things (very important to a successful blog), and I wonder why I was once again not selected. The only thing they've got that I don't are successful racing careers... that's it. Cyclingnews.com snubbed again.

Pffftttt...

And fourthly my amazement is at myself and this guy:

photo cred: chines37

This is Brian Toone. I saw him on the front of the start line at the Southern Cross race this past weekend. I looked at him, and then I looked at his equipment. He was riding a 1999 Rockhopper with V-brakes, an old Manipoo with shock boots, 9" long bar ends, and his feet were shod in some lace-up shoes (photo annotated by Brian himself). I thought to myself "What the hell is this guy doing on the front row?"

Moments later, the race started, and as I mentioned I was in second place going into the first turn. I wasn't lying.

Photo cred: Jason Kohrt

Who's that in first? Brian Toone on his hoopty. What was I thinking at that moment?

"What the hell is this guy doing up here?"

Well, now I know. He was busy taking fifth place, fifth fucking place. Honch.

I was an ass. I should know better than to judge a guy by his bike, but almost twenty years of racing later I'm still doing it. Brian handed a lot of people their respective asses that day, and he did it on *urp*... that bike.

Kudos Brian Toone, even if you are a super computer geeked out roadie.



* The Trek corporate policy regarding porn hording simply states that a Trek sponsored pro athlete can have no more than seven subscriptions to subversive porn publications. Grass roots racers can have as many as ten, so long as there is no animal porn in the mix. Back issues can only be saved for a period of one year, after which they need to be disposed of by placing them in the dumpsters behind the Specialized facility in Morgan Hill, CA.

5 comments:

Andrea said...

I showed Ryan that photo, and all he had to say was "That guy terrorizes road races int he Southeast."

John said...

Brian stayed in our cabin with us...he was up at eight the next morning to do a long ride! Oh, and I am perfectly irregular enough for a slot on that Metamucil list. Thx.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to point out that Schalk's facial expression in the 2nd photo is a dead ringer for Dicky's "Semi Approval" expression. That is probably some sort of copy right infringement.

mr rogers said...

He terrorized me up that 2nd climb. He put 10 minutes into me in the last 20 miles. Sheesh. And you are not the only one who cramps in a 3-4hr race.

wv: towde
What I wish mr toone had done for me

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the shout out. Definitely an awesome race and very fun to be back out on the dirt again after so many years. Best of luck to you this season!