Pages

Thursday, February 14

Bad Idea Racing is Ded

There used to be a somewhat legitimate reason for the name Bad Idea Racing.  It dates back to before the blerhg started in 2006, the pre-'09 blerhg that is no more than dust in the wind at this point.  Don't know what happened to it, but I can't even find it anymore.

Probably for the best, although many of my best "bad ideas" are in there, as well as my "World Championship" and some great Viking content.

Way back when, no one was really doing stage races on a single speed.  In '04, La Ruta promoter Roman Urbino told me he didn't think anyone had ever done it on a single speed.  In '05, someone on the Trans Rockies forum told me that racing it on a rigid single speed would be a "bad idea."  The promoter of Iron Bike (which I ended up not doing) said "impossible..." that is once I got done explaining what a "single speed bike" is.

Now we're here.  People are single speeding all kinds of events.  Stage racing (for the most part) has evolved into a week of longer XC style stages as opposed to the insane back country slogfests we were treated to back then.  I can remember an eight hour day at the '05 Trans Rockies full of mud and hypothermia and waist deep creek crossings and some people finishing even while most of us were sitting down to dinner.

Also, I used to be way more into dumb feats of endurance.  Trying to ride 200 something miles solo and fully loaded to the beach on Thanksgiving morning on an almost functional road bike with a hand scrawled cue sheet.  Taking on the Pisgah Hush Hush ride, a 100 mile self-supported route of mostly singletrack that only one person finished in 23+  hours.  Both of those were failures on my part.

It's been a long time since I've attempted something that I didn't know I was 100% capable of finishing (aside from my taxes).  Riding while sleep deprived or to the point that I'll destroy my physical being so much so that riding for pleasure just won't happen again for weeks (let alone, make commuting and doing my job awful)... that just sounds like some things I don't wanna do anymore.  It's been a very long time since I've ridden until my taint turned into hamburger.  I'm glad I lost that loving feeling around the same time that Amateur Homeless Personing really started taking off.

I've also come to an unfortunate conclusion.  Thanks to the fact that I've easily banked at least six hours of saddle time every week since late 1996, I can just about fake my way through most events.  Not nearly podium level performances, but I can turn the pedals for long periods of time... assuming I can convince myself that there's some reason to do it.

"Unfortunate?"

Yeth, because armed with such knowledge, things like last year's PMBAR happen.  You know, when Watts and I just rode around contemplating the meaning of life and taking a less "meh" route, despite how little sense it made to be out there any longer than we needed... because we had figured out the meaning of life in the first hour of our day.

Bikes.  Burritos.  Beer.  Friends.  Solid bowel movements.

So, Vague Idea Racing... because... burritos... and also solid bowel movements, despite the fact that those two things do not necessarily go hand in hand.

Vague because I don't really know what I'm doing.  The decision to give racing 50+ a serious try, despite the fact that I only have a single speed, and I'm not really picking races that lean towards my skill set and equipment choice is ill advised.  I don't want to train, eat right, shy away from beer, or basically "try" too hard.  Most of the races I'm interested in the near future (or I've already done) don't even have a 50+ category.

We have a calendar at work where we all post up our days off.  I usually have 75% of my PTO figured out for the entire year already up there by the end of January.  Right now, nothing.  Simply put, it's because my ambitions and direction keep changing from the time I wake up until I go to bed.

All I know is that I'm not content with being content, and I can no easier explain it to you than I can myself.

There is one event that has no class(es) that I'll do no matter what.

Best part is, everyone wins.  Watts Fappening 4.  The biggest thing ever since Watts Fappening 3, I promise.*

*
I mentioned this last because who really cares about this non-event event anyways?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I noticed the missing old blerg the other day, quite unfortunate...some of the posts were my favorites...oh well

Anonymous said...

So we're moving from a promise of bad ideas to a place of simple cluelessness? WTF Dicky, where is your purpose in life? What's next? Good ideas about how to stay dry, warm, sober, and making sure you have plenty of gears to choose from? Good god man, where are your standards? Watch, next year, the blog will get renamed again to "Fuck it, lets just ride bikes, drink beer, and make fun of people who think winning is important". Slippin man, you're slippin. ;-)

gregclimbs said...

Nothing on the internet ever dies, it just gets harder to find...

https://web.archive.org/web/20060425064153/http://teamdicky.blog.com/

g