NYE ride Baltimore to Westminster, MD

This ride was the result of a need to find some peace during a chaotic time for me. I decided that NYE in NYC would be a bit overstimulating for me. Luckily I had an alternative venue with much to offer, including a marriage proposal by a good friend to a great woman, so I hatched a plan to make it happen.

The Plan:

1.Take the SARS Express from Chinatown to Baltimore.

2.Ride my bike through the city into the countryside.

It’s not a complex plan, but it took some doing. Most of all it took getting out of bed at 7am on a Saturday to make the trek to the bus. I love the Chinatown bus companies. Where Greyhound insists that the bike be put in a box and only loaded and unloaded at stations with “baggage” service, Chinatown companies don’t give a damn if you’re loading livestock into the baggage compartment, so long as you have the $20 for the ticket.

The second biggest obstacle was getting from the Baltimore Travel Plaza, which is on the Southeast side of the city to the Northwest side of the city where I could head into the countryside for some better riding. Needless to say, I saw some of the best industrial sections of urban riding that Baltimore has to offer. The ride was somewhat unremarkable, but there were a few highlights ie. poaching the Clifton Park Golf Course and rocking The Alameda north toward Towson.

I finally got a disposable camera as I got to the Northwest corner of the city at a 7-11 across the street from this joint.

From there it was up Falls Road to Greenspring Valley Rd. to McDonogh Rd., which was just gorgeous and where I actually saw another rider on this final day of 2006.

Next was Painters Mill Rd. where I turned around to go back down a hill to take this shot in front of the 1813 house.

From here on in, it was sweet riding and goofy picture taking.

The party was, of course, a raucous affair, complete with:

and

Miles – 40ish

Beers – 40ish

Happy New Year.

jury doodie!!!

Lovely. I’m doing my duty. Funny how jury duty comes up whenever you are least prepared to deal with it. This one was extra tricky; it was scheduled to start on the same day as my court date – talk about a sweet excuse for missing jury duty. So I never even tried to postpone it, figuring I would have an easy out. However, at the last minute, my court date was moved back, so I had to go.

So, here’s the part where I discuss the case online, violating my oath and rendering the justice system ineffective.  The problem with the whole thing is that the case involves an automobile accident and I’m not a big fan of cars, or drivers in general, given our contentious co-existence on the street.

Ok, I’m not actually going to write about the case. Not because I’m not supposed to, but because it’s really friggin’ boring. It’s not anything cool like this.

or something horrific like this

er, I guess that’s a train wreck.

block party

Observations on Dave Chappelle’s movie.

Tell me Ben Roethlisberger isn’t the white Leonard Hubbard.

Why isn’t her name Jill Scott-Heron?

New Terms!!!

Barrage Obama: A likely side effect of the Dem. Prez. primary in 2008. Particularly as it pertains to the second definition below.

Barrage

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A barrage may be

• a weir at the mouth of a slow-flowing river such as the Murray River to maintain a separation between fresh and salt water or reduce the risk of tidal flooding up the river
• barrage (military), a large amount of coordinated artillery or depth charge fire
• barrage (game), a game for computers running the Linux operating system
• a deluxe Insecticon from the Transformers Universe
• Barrage (band) is a Canadian violin/fiddle troupe notable for their covers of Bridge over Troubled Water and The Irish Blessing (Under the title Until We Meet Again)

Cyclofiend

Big fan of this site. Especially the working bikes and practical hardware gallery.

The break in BreakAway

So this ongoing saga almost has come to an end.

I purchased (on the family plan) a 2004 Rictchey BreakAway Bike and immediately fell in love with it. First of all, it was my first “real” road bike. It was fast, light, smooth and delicious. Everything I wanted in a bike. I rode it to Nyack, I rode it to Ft. Tilden, I raced it on Sunday mornings in Prospect park. We weren’t monogamous (this in NYC after all and one must not ride this beautiful bike to the bar in Hell’s Kitchen and lock it up until 4am) but it was close.

In early 2006, I hatched a plan to take the BAB to England for a week+ trip through London and along the South Downs Way. Given that the BAB is supposedly airline friendly, it was the natural choice as a traveling companion. Aside from almost leaving Brooklyn without the bike, things were all well and good until we reached London’s Heathrow Airport.

Upon arrival at the baggage claim area, I immediately noticed that my square bike case was now fairly well rounded at the corners. Of course I panicked. Long story short, I found this.

It’s almost poetic, isn’t it?

Needless to say, I exploded, threw things, seethed, cursed, threatened to kill and plummeted into a deep depression all at the same time.

Things worked out. They always do. The trip was a complete success, eventually.

Once I returned to NY with my newly-sculpted BAB, I set about to try to get it fixed. My sister suggested I send it back to Ritchey and ask if Tom didn’t want to take on a little repair job just for fun. Miraculously, he was into it and he brazed a new top tube onto it and realigned the frame. It then went out for paint (to my specifications) and after several months of separation anxiety, the frame was back in my hands.

It is more beautiful than it was before. I’ve almost completed the build-up and am looking forward to my second inaugural ride. It only will have been seven goddamn months.

Characters

Aside from the uncategorized category, I figured out how to add a category called characters. Characters! I know a few. Don’t we all? Plus, I figured I’ll be referring to several of these nutjobs from time to time, so, not unlike one must do with the Jose Arcadio Buendia crew, please feel free to use this category as a family tree whilst reading here.

Header picture

How do I get this fucking picture in my header?

A little OCD

When one really latches on to some new thing, one must take care to not let that thing take precidence over everything else in one’s life. Especially those really imortant things like masturbation and walking your dog. Once one has decided to create a blog to let others know about that new thing, one is walking a very thin line.