Right there with you. There is almost no street bike traffic in this town. Cars are openly hostile and the cops could care less. It's every one for themselves.

today i am recovering from a nice 60 mile ride to LA yesterday, took the metro back to my city so i kinda cheated lolol. was still fun tho.

Today I'm going to tell you a story that happened two days ago.

I was out on a bike ride with my sqrlfriend and we were unlocking our bikes at a thrift shop. I notices some really burly dude staring at my bike as he was getting out of his car.
"Do you know what you're riding??" said the Dude.
"Umm.. Yeah." epic replied
"I bet I know more about that bike than you do!" says the Dude with conviction.
"Really?" says epic skeptically since he built it from the frame up and did plenty of research.
"Where did you get that?" says the Dude.
"I ordered it from SomaFab, a frame fabricator from the bay area."

Dude proceeded to tell me that he used to race and that he was an olympic qualifier in sprints and the kilo time trial or something. Apparently one of his bikes is hanging up in a pizza shop in spokane. He seemed to know a lot about tracks on the west coast and said he had a piece of the Burnaby track from its construction. Other than coming off as super condescending (I think he assumed I was a rich young guy who bought a fancy bike without knowing what it was) it was an interesting encounter. There are pretty much no people who ride track bikes in Spokane and as a former racer I'm sure he was just surprised to see one out and about.

I wish I remember what his name was so I could see if he was a legit racer or if he was a pathological liar with a bike fetish :P Maybe I'll go to that Pizza shop and check out the bike. He said it was built custom by Elephant Bicycles - a frame builder in Spokane.

that's pretty cool.

not that he was boarderline dickish to you, but that he raced and whatnot. btw, going to an olympic qualifier is different from qualifying and i wonder what happened inbetween qualifying and competing that he didn't just say he raced in the olympics for sprint and kilo tt... ? injury?

Big ****ing deal. Someone who is a dick to me for any reason doesn't deserve my respect, regardless of what "cool" things they've done in their life. You should have told him to eat a box of cocks.

today i am back in an airport again.

Today I did about 50 miles of hilly biking, got third in an alleycat that I happened upon randomly and won a jersey, got the battery for the camera, went to a bacon cook-off with a local friend, and am about to shoot a Peelander-Z show. Today has been awesome.

Deets for the alleycat: $5 entry, 5 mile course that was mostly hills on the outskirts of town, field of 20 including myself. When I signed up, it was a bunch of old beater conversions and a couple mountain bikes, so I thought I had it more or less in the bag. Then two dudes roll up in aero helmets and full kits. One guy is on an Orbea TT bike and the other was on a Cervelo road bike, both full carbon. After the first mile I couldn't see them any more. Turns out they're Cat-2 racers that sandbag alleycats and use them as training rides.

Sound like great guys.

Today was a build session at the pumptrack, then followed it up with a fun 32 mile road ride(pics in ride pics.)

Did 30 miles.

Which is a first for me, I normally do 20 miles daily, however I felt good so I kept on riding it took me 2h 45min door to door including stoppages etc.

Since I'm a Clyde who quit smoking and started bicycling about a month ago, I'm happy with the result :-)

Great job, coming from an ex-clyde myself :)

10mi round trip fast/hard ride. felt good to be outside again.

only got yelled at once for not having a bell, even though i always yell "coming up behind you" when i'm about 40' away...

Did a hard ~35 miles. Really pushed myself to keep a high cadence the entire time. I am pretty beat.

Also, got yelled at by a driver, and they did the brake-check thing, and also the swerve into you thing.

Congrats.

a five mile alleycat? wtf that's ridiculous. that's what seattle calls a sprint event. i think even the dead baby downhill is always longer.

and yeah, road racers that sandbag alleycats slightly annoy me.

sandbaggers suck.

Thanks,

Cycling really helped with nicotine cravings, now its helping with weight loss...
I wish I have taken it earlier in life

Thanks

Hell yeah man, it did the same for me. I quit smoking and lost a ton of weight thanks to cycling. Keep it up and you'll be an ex-clyde soon enough! I still remember when 20mi was killer for me, now 40~50 is no big deal. If you have a chance, record your rides (maybe with Strava) it's really nice to be able to look back and see how far you've come.

I record with "PedalMyBike" recently started using endomondo however for strava, I guess I need to get a GPS first.

Cant wait, to be able to do 40 - 50 mi w/out a problem. Maybe by summer ??

Hell yeah, if you keep at it, I'm sure you'll be there in no time.

As much as climbing sucks, try and do some, it'll make you stronger. If you have an Android phone or iPhone, there is a Strava app available for both.

Worst weekend ever...

when sh*t hits the fan, sh*t hits the fan.

Today I rode another 13 miles, half of which with headwinds again.

Any time on a bike is better than sitting on the couch though, even with wind.

Was riding my clipless fg on a climb and was 60+ miles ino a 66 mile ride. I couldn't turn the crank over, do a switchback or unclip...I fell. The worst of it in that moment was a young family lived at the top of that hill and saw the whole thing. The father asked if I was ok and I replied to the affirmative.

He asked me about my bike. We had a nice conversation and show 'n tell about geared bikes, single speeds and fixed gear. He wrote down 'fixed-gear' on a piece of paper and said he was going to do an internet search straight away. Funny how nice things happen when one is open to people.

So, I rode away w/a bruised ego and a renewed determination to climb that sucker again this week.