Looking for a new look

Hey folks. Gotta say, I've been pretty happy with the way things have been going on Mt. Shredward. I've put more stuff up here in the last few months than I did the previous couple years since I launched. But these days I look at this site and think, "Christ, Beach. Nice site. What's with that shitty photoshop stuff you've got going on on the banner? Ohhh. Bad photoshop. How ironic. Very clever. It's funny becuase it's so bad. Awesome. Hack."

So, I've blown up the old mountain and am on the hunt for a new one. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be leaving squarespace, which is my current blog service. The main reason is that it's 15 bucks a month and totally not worth it. The templates are just not that great, and there's so few of them. Not a good combo. I'm leaning toward either getting a free site with wordpress.com, or I may even take it a step further and get the wordpress software and get a web host. 

In the meantime, Mt. Shredward will look like this. But my plan is to get shit swapped over in a shortly.

Shimano's tree murdering instruction sheets

2nd UPDATE: With a new sense of calm, I got the derailleur installed, no thanks to you, Shimano instructions. The inspiration and tips came from the humans at the Passion forum. You guys rock. Shimano instructions, with all due respect to your fans on the forum, I still think you make out with crack whore butt.

UPDATE: According to the folks that the great, always super positive (seriously) MTBR.com Passion forum, it's me that sucks, not the instructions. I can buy that. But I still think they should be more dummy friendly, dammit. Anyway, I'll keep my original rant up because it was fun to write. Hopefully it'll be fun to read too.

I’m a Shimano guy. Why? I don’t know. I’ve just kind of always had Shimano stuff and it worked really well. Boom. Andy Beach: Shimano guy. I guess I could have just as easily become a Sram guy if my first mountain bike had come with Sram stuff and it worked really well. Boom. Parallel universe Andy Beach: Sram guy. I do have to say, however, that Shimano makes way better looking stuff. Take rear derailleurs. Though Sram stuff is looking less clunky as fuck than it used to, next to XT or XTR gear, X-7 or X-9 stuff…I’d much rather bang the Shimano stuff. But who gives a runny turd. Both companies make really great gear that works smoooooth smooth.

And, ironically (or maybe not technically ironically. It’s tough to figure out when you’ve had a few drinks), I’m taking grease stained fingertips to keyboard right now to bitch about Shimano. But I’m going to digress a bit first. Let’s see if I get anywhere. Sometimes writing/reading is like taking a trail for the first time. You’re like, “I think this is going to get us through to that trail we want to be on.” And your buddies say, “Alright. Let’s go,” even though they probably don’t fully trust you, but they follow you anyway because hopefully it’ll be fun even if you end up out-and-backing. That was a digression of my digression. Here’s my original digression.

Prosperous and wealthy countries get to kick ass in many things lame countries don’t: Caring about stupid shit. Having poor, yet super fat people. Celebrity manufacturing. Rad food that we don’t even finish. Roller coasters. TV flatness. Now, I’m being ironic because it’s fun. But there’s also a part of me that’s saying, “Fuckin’ A. I’m glad to be first world.” And I’ve taken full advantage of being first world. I haven't been killed by rebels. I've never pulled a worm out of any part of my body. I make more than a kick in the teeth per hour. I've been upwardly mobile. I come from a really modest background and have worked hard to be less modest (If I’m being honest, and I always am on Mt. Shredward, it makes it hard for me to relate to a lot of what the Occupy protesters are saying). I have a bike that cost about $4000. And I ride with a ton of dudes in the same boat. How crazy is that? A bike! I could by like 8000 of those bikes everyone wobbles around on in Vietnam.

Photo courtesy of whatever that watermark says

We got it good. But I think we earned it by building a relatively good society and enough of us don’t shit out kids we can’t feed. But here’s one thing that pisses me off about the gotitgood set: we get a bit careless when it comes to waste. Which brings me back to Shimano. They waste more fucking trees than bark beetles. Anyone who has put Shimano gear on their ride knows what I’m talking about. And if not, they will shortly as I go off on these knothole rapists. 

The same company that provides some of the most flawlessly engineered stuff around ships their wares with the most taint licking, elephant ass wiping installation manuals ever.

Translation: bleh blotty blah blah bleeppy bleep blah blah da dee

They’ve always mystified me, but I’ve never really had to rely on them until tonight. I’ve got a couple bikes. My Blur LT that receives the majority of my love because it’s what I hit the trails with. Then I have my old Gary Fisher Tassajarra hard tail, which was the bike I bought to replace my first mountain bike when I started getting serious about mountain biking. This bike, beyond having a place in my heart, has a place in my life. Over time I’ve put some decent components on it and some Kenda slick tires, and it’s become my street/road bike. Recently the last original component on my Fisher, the front derailleur, gave up the ghost. The spring was no longer springy enough to drop me down onto the granny ring. Not that I hardly ever use the granny on this bike, but regardless, the thing was shot. So I found a good deal on a Shimano XT to replace it. It came in the mail today.

My mechanical chops are so-so, at best. But I figured I could manage to install a new front derailleur. Hell, it’s only 3 gears. Turns out, it’s actually trickier than installing its rear cousin, which I've pulled off. A lot trickier, actually. There’s not only horizontal stuff to deal with, but vertical. So I went for the instructions. But I quickly sagged as I was reminded, oh yeah, this is Shimano gear. Hence, it comes with a folded bed sheet of multi-lingual schematics of worthlessness not written for humans. I want to know how to put a bike together in the real world, Shimano eggheads, not see a freeze frame of what it would look like if you detonated some C4 in the bottom bracket. When I ordered my Blur, the folks at The Colorado Cyclist were good enough to ship me a whole ziplock full of these folded up maps to Frustrationville.

And I know why they did it. They didn’t want all that engineer porn around. Actually, that’s a stupid joke. Engineers whack off to youporn or redtube, like the rest of us. Sorry. No one could get hard within spitting distance of these absurd seizure-inducing posters.

So getting my new front derailleur right comes down to an endless game of trial and error. Or I walk sad Charlie Brown style into a bike shop and have them finish off the job. Either way, good grief am I’m a dipshit.

I just don’t understand who the fuck these scribblings are for. If you know your shit, then you’ve probably been trained by someone else who knows their shit, so you don’t need them. If you don’t know your shit and don’t have a great head for mechanics (read: me), then they’re as useful, practical and readable as pubic hair. They’re in four languages, but even the English may as well be enscribed in Ancient Fucktard.

Upside down. Or is it?

So, Shimano, here’s what I recommend: clean up your act, and put some human beings on the job. Do some R&D on real people trying to learn to install gear. Put Joe O. Cassional-Mechanic in a room with a naked frame and your stuff, and see where he gets stuck. Don’t forget tips on fine tuning. If you’re going to kill trees, make their sacrifices count for something. Or here’s an idea! Put videos online that explain it to me like I’m an idiot, because obviously, I kinda am. But I'm not dumb enough to know that your instructions are the shit that comes out of a dog after it eats shit.

Today in, "guys who remind me I'm not that good of a mountain biker" and some other stuff

So, it hasn't been that prolific a couple weeks here on Mt. Shredward, and today isn't going to change that non-momentum much. But I ain't sweatin' it. It is interesting to note, however, that my lack of entries is correlating with a lack of good riding. We've had some rainy weather out here in Californ I A, I was on vacation for a week and I've been fighting a sinus infection (which my WBCs have about won). You should have seen some of the slimy green munitions I've been firing out of my double barreled snotgun. So even though I have been out for a couple rides, the quality has been less than epic due to retarded oxygen intake and processing.

The last ride I did was on Saturday in Henry Coe State park outside of Gilroy. I hadn’t ridden there in years. It’s a place notorious for brutal climbing, and it totally lived up to its rep, putting before me two-miles of wrong-facing gravity—much of it very steep—in the form of Lymann Wilson Ridge trail. It would have been a motherfucker in any state of health or fitness, but with respitory issues? Sheesh. Usually I'm way into a devastating climb, but in my weakened state, the hill was at a distinct advantage. I went all mother bird and fed the woodland creatures with my stomach contents three times. Bummer. It was a great sandwich. I can’t remember the last time I puked on a ride. But I’m stoked to get out to Coe again. There’s soooo much trail out there. The park is so huge, and the trails so many, that the maps are actually broken into regions, otherwise you'd have a bed sheet sized map to deal with. 

Anyway, I don’t really have much else to say, nor a topic to dig down into at the moment. Right now my Blur is getting a long over-due spa getaway, consisting of having its forks into Fox for service and a total drive train replacement, chainrings and all. Not cheap, but it’s been three years since I’ve even had even the chain replaced. I’m sure I’ll have something to say about all that when I get my bike back.

But until then, I’ll do what I usually do when I can’t think of something cool to explore in the wilds of Mt. Shredward: steal someone else’s content and let you bask in the greatness of someone way better than you or me at mountain biking. Not only is the riding awesome in this one, the production value is super high and the Moab scenery grander than your great great grandpa. Coulda done with a bit less of the motion sickness inducing, constant forward and backward dolly shots, but really nice stuff. Credits are at the end of the vid.

The Post-ride Buzz

“Reporting from his couch, for mtshredward.com, I’m Andy Beach for mthredward.com…oh wait, I already said that, the Shredward part. I've hadda couple. Anyway, I’m Andy. Peace.”

Yes, I’m out on the beat. Let the pretty, empty-headed puppets, anchored to a laminate-covered and light-bathed set get all the glory and pay by mindlessly regurgitating from the prompter. I’m a true journalist, risking life and brain cell to give you—the readers who demand the grittiness and honesty that comes with uncensored, on-the-scene reporting—the real story.

I’ve been meaning for a while to do a piece on the glory that is the post-ride buzz. So, like the legendary war correspondents whom are rightfully hailed by journalism historians, before composing this article I did a nice little ride at Waterdog in Belmont, Ca and then some post-ride drinking. You can trust me, dear readers. I wouldn’t have written a piece about running over human shit unless it had actually happened. Nor would I betray your trust and write a piece about how much I enjoy drinking after a ride on a day I didn’t actually take to the hills and was sober. The results may be poorly written and disjointed, but they will be authentic.

And as this is a special occasion, this particular drinking session features a special guest: a 22 oz bottle of Hop Stoopid Ale from Lagunitas (my all time fav brewery). Before today, I’d never actually bought a 22 ouncer (which I’ve affectionately dubbed a “Yuppy 40” seeing how the bulk of those 22 ouncers cost way more than most six packs). But my wife had texted me during my ride, asking me to pick up some stuff at the store after I was done. I went to the beer cooler at Lanardi’s, saw a Lagunitas brew I’d never tried before and put it in my basket next to a can of black beans, a white onion and a bag of frozen corn nibletts. Along with the fact that my palate was a virgin to this brew, it had the word “Hop” in the name (I love hops!), so I was sold. It did not disappoint. Petaluma’s most well known creation is probably Winona Ryder, but I’d argue that Lagunitas’s body of work has brought the public much more enjoyment.

Now that the Hop Stoopid is in my belly, I’m currently working on an “import” I brought back from my recent trip to the east coast (NYC and DC). A Founders Dry Hopped Pale Ale, brewed in Michigan. Nice stuff I’ve never come across in California

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, the post-ride buzz and how great it is.

I don’t know what it is. Maybe the combo of having your body feeling beat down, but also up beat with booze fueled humming. Some kind of S&M thing. It could also be the elimination of guilt. It’s no secret that alcohol has very limited long term benefits for the body. And you may be surprised to learn that conventional wisdom actually leans towards the effects being negative. But if you’ve ridden your ass off and left it all out on the trail, well, what’s it going to hurt? At worse you’re back to square one. I’ve definitely noticed that the harder I’ve ridden and the more dead I feel after a ride, the more I look forward getting home and cracking open a craft brew. So maybe my body, in its infinite wisdom created by millions of years of evolution, is saying, “Hey bud, you’ve done me a solid with that ride. Give me some microbrew or one of those fine anejo tequilas you’ve got and I’ll make it worth your while.”

Or maybe I’ve got a problem. Uh oh.

Nah. Far from drinking being an issue, I’ve always considered myself a “buzzaholic” at worst. Fortunately I have no problem stopping once I’ve started, and actually have rarely been totally fucked up. I just don’t dig it. And even on those rare evenings when I have been really drunk, other than the occasional stumbled-over word, it’s pretty difficult for people to even tell I’m impaired, so I don’t cause trouble. I really like drinking, but don’t need it (although my wife, who is living in Squaresville, likes to tease me otherwise). But post-shred libations, if I chose to fight the urge, it would be a bit more of a struggle. There’s an alcoholic dwarf in my head that always chimes in when I think about a ride, and he’s got those really stocky, strong arms that I just don’t want to tangle with.

“Oh, maybe I’ll do Skegg’s Point. That’d be nice. It's amazingly beautiful down in that canyon, and there's a ton of climbing that would be great for me,” I think to myself.

“And man, how great will a few beers feel moving through those tired legs. Nice! Let’s do Skegg’s,” says the little guy.

And I agree with him. For one, he’s right. Also, he’s like a Tolkien dwarf: super wise, bearded and not to be fucked with. So why fight?

Man, mountain biking never ceases to amaze me in its salt-like tendency to enhance stuff that’s already pretty fucking good. Experiencing nature. Not working. Hanging with friends. Moving fast. (And smoking out. Though I’ll have to take my riding buddies’ word for that, as I don’t enjoy the herb like I did in my younger days, which is kind of a bummer). Exercising. On and on.

Oh mountain biking, is there nothing you can’t do?

Okay, I’m empty. Time for another beer.

Watch out for the gimme

The human memory is a very interesting and extremely varied thing. I like the interesting and varied. At its best, memory steers societies in positive directions. A remorseful people will say, “Remember when we did that one thing and as a result life for everyone turned into this metaphorical daily gorilla-fisting we’re enduring? We probably shouldn’t do that thing again. Actually, someone write that down. Right now. We don’t want our great grandkids making the same mistake after we’re all dead from gorilla fisting related maladies.” And hopefully things are better for future generations, which is for the greater good.

At worst, the memories of horrible experiences can infiltrate your psyche and turn you into one of those dudes who does something that makes national news, complete with interviews where your neighbors tell reporters that you seemed nice enough, but kept to yourself. No one learns shit from that and innocent people end up as the guest of honor at funerals.

I’m a lucky enough fella that as of this writing I’ve had 38 years and about four months behind me that have produced no memories that make me sleepwalk and pee in my closet nor think that the best way to solve disagreements with my wife is by slappin’ a bitch. And since I’m living this pretty good life and am a relatively happy guy, even the memories that are pretty embarrassing I can actually enjoy. Like this one that popped up out of nowhere the other day:

When I was in high school, I lost a wrestling match to a one-armed guy.

No, it wasn’t armwrestling where you really only need one arm. And not thumb or Indian leg wrestling. We’re talking the kind of wresting where a guy with two arms has a considerable advantage over a guy with half as many arms.

Not the kid who beat me, but I'm sure this kid would have beat me too. Click image to read article on Michael Husar.

Now, to this dude’s credit, I actually wasn’t a totally hopeless wrestler. I really enjoyed wrestling, and probably won about as often as I lost. But I didn’t really have the build (I was lanky and not real strong) or temperment to be great or, apparently, one of those guys who has no trouble with opponents with one arm.

I should also defend myself a little and say that this was before this cool, extreme era of “handicapable” (damn, I hope that’s not an offensive term now) that we’re in now. Awesome stuff like athletes with no legs flying around the track at incredible speeds, like Oscar Pistorius weren’t as common as they are today. Yes, a lot of that has to do with massive advances in prosthetics, but there’s been an attitude shift. Maybe it’s because we see so many videos of people missing limbs totally bringing it on YouTube. My parents raised me to be very open minded and accepting, and I was. But I certainly wasn’t personally experienced with the fact that just because someone looked to be at a serious disadvantage, that didn’t mean they weren’t fully able—and maybe even likely—to prove otherwise by way of totally pimp slapping the odds against them—and me.

I actually don’t remember the details of the match. But I remember it was at a tournament, not a dual meet, which was for the best since my match wasn’t the only one happening. I recall also that I went into the match nervous because of the obvious unusualness of the situation. But despite this, I was also feeling confident that I could totally beat a dude minus not only a hand, but also a forearm, upper arm, as well as a shoulder to connect the whole works to his body. I mean, HELLO?! 100% more arms over here.

I also remember that I didn’t just lose by points. My dead-fucking-wrong-to-think-I-was-going-to-win ass got pinned.

And now that I think about it, him beating me wasn’t even that big of a deal to everyone. It wasn’t like in the movies where everything went into slow motion as the ref’s hand slapped the mat with a thundering, echoing crash, only to return to regular speed as the crowd roared and rose to their feet, triumphant music swelling. He and his mom weren't weeping, overcome with emotion as she rushed from the stands and hugged him and he kinda hugged her back. This dude had obviously beat unjustifiably confident assholes before.

By contrast, on rare occasions a girl wrestler would show up at a tournament. I’m sure there are some great female wrestlers out there, but the few that I saw always got their asses kicked. Just sayin'. (And there was one time that a guy forfeited a match to a much-deserved showering of boos from the crowed.) But the one match that I saw a girl win, well, it got noticed, big time. Poor Jared Worm. Lost to a girl and also was named Jared Worm. Actually he was a cool guy. Still did okay with the ladies too, if I remember right.

Now, even though it was a total nut-stomping at the time, I was glad that this memory popped up the other day. For one, I’m always pretty stoked by opportunities to drag myself over the jagged slopes of Mt. Shredward. It’s funner than a motherfucker (and also it's hard to keep coming up with stuff to share with you people now that I get more way more than zero visits a day). Consistently, we’re experts on one thing more than anything else: ourselves (I know I am), so I can comment on myself with more authority, dexterity and sheer joy than anything else. Losing to a one-armed wrestler? Well, material like that is just a fucking gift wrapped in beef jerky. I’ve been really busy this last week and have had this piece rolling around in my head and I’ve been dying to get it down on pixels. I couldn’t make something this great up if I tried. Lost to a one-armed wrestler. Wow, do you ever suck, Beach.

Also, there was a little riding/life lesson in it. It wasn’t one that I didn’t already know, but more of a reminder: watch out for the gimme. I’m not saying that the kid with one arm was a gimme that I just wasn’t ready for, he beat me like a prematurely balding step child, but the memory did make me reflect on the danger of stuff we don’t sweat out on the trail. I don’t have to take a scientific poll to figure out that it’s rarely the totally burly, scary-as-shit stuff that knocks us off of our saddles and into the grit—or worse—into the ER. Like all of us, I’ve had wrecks, but have actually never had a bad wreck on anything that I should have wrecked on. Going down steep cement steps in the trail. Chaparral trail in Joaquin miller at night. Done and done, many times. I kid around about what a pussy I am because I don’t bomb the big stuff, but I’ve ridden my share of potential broken limbs, and have never had that major wipe out on that stuff. Nossir, it’s the moves that we think we can take in our sleep that usually produce scabs and pissed off joints that keep us out of commission for a couple weeks. At least that’s been the case with me.

And it’s kind of a conundrum. You can’t ride around paranoid. That’s no fun (and actually being tight leads even more crashes). But you’ve got to always be vigilant too.

Maybe the real lesson is one of acceptance: if you put yourself out there, from time to time, we’re going to get a humiliating ass whooping, and that’s just the way it is. No, that’s the way it should be. And after all, the memories of those good old fashioned, unexpected, yet occasionally needed, ass whoopings make us better at moving down the trail.

Ridin' and Killin'

Ah, we higher-monkeys and every other animal. ‘Tis a complex co-existence, son, and one that’s evolved a lot recently. We used to get tore up in a windmill of claws and teeth and eaten on the regular back in the old days. But I guess you could say humans have definitely become the top in the relationship since one of us figured out that gunpowder + a tight space + a spark + a projectile = some totally fucked up organic matter.

Sure, there’s the occasional animal on man beat down (or eat down) like in this viral smash hit (hey, that works on two levels) below, but the numbers stack up overwhelmingly in our favor.

One could argue that a guy (or girls named Sarah) shooting a big scary animal that pre-gun would have turned us into poop isn’t the intended natural order of things. But I, though I’m personally not a big hunting guy, would have to argue that, logically, it kind of is the natural order of things. We hairless, lanky gorillas thought of these bang-powered lead projectile tossers with our very natural noodle. It’s really not much different than when our hairy Great Grandpa Chimp thought, “I bet if instead of just staring at that rock, I picked it up and hucked it at the head of the guy-chimp who keeps banging that she-chimp that my chimp nards tell me I should be banging…well, I bet it would make it a lot tougher for him to make adorable baby-chimps with her if my well-aimed rock rendered him silly to the point where he was more interested in why his face gets wet when he stares at his dick too long, and less interested in getting balls deep in my favorite gal.”

Now, before we proceed, I'll say that the argument on the rights and wrongs of killing our fellow animal is just way too heated and eventually boring as shit to get into on this blog. I mean, I just made a joke about a newly retarded monkey stupidly pissing into his own face. I skim the surfaces of the philosophically challenging questions here on Mt. Shredward, but I certainly ain’t gonna dive deep into the Marianas Trench to figure stuff out. And besides, when you go to a place where everyone is blind and you’re surrounded by absolute darkness, there are no clear answers. Everyone just bangs heads and it gets totally annoying. This is just a place where I give my take in a ridiculous manner, raise a few questions in the hopes that you have a few laughs and fire off a couple of synapses in the process. I'll just say that I'm anti-Andy Beach going hunting, not really anti-hunting under all circumstances.

So, you may or may not have seen this in the news a week or so ago. The sons of the global leader in blowhardedness, Donald Trump went on what was surely, the classiest, most exquisite, top of the line, luxurious hunting safari in the world. The photo accompanying the article certainly stopped my eyeballs in their tracks, causing my brain to send signals to my mouth, which a blind lip reader could have told you was forming the words, “What the fuck?”

The particular article I read on this briefly hot story (I read about it on salon.com, a definitely left leaning site, which managed to connect The Donald’s boy’s hunting trip to the no-longer-media-darling and unfortunately dumbshit-infested, Occupy movement) explained how the fellahs left Africa feeling pretty good since they’d risked themselves to feed the local savages with the meat of the geriatric elephants and stuff whose asses they’d bravely capped. Anyway, millionaires getting out into the wilds on guided tours and blasting animals so they feel less pampered blah blah blah old news, so whatever. What really struck me, however, was part of the Spawns of Trump’s statements on the matter:

“We are both avid outdoorsmen and were brought up hunting and fishing with our grandfather who taught us that nothing should ever be taken for granted or wasted. We have the utmost respect for nature and have always hunted in accordance with local laws and regulations. In addition, all meat was donated to local villagers who were incredibly grateful. We love traveling and being in the woods — at the end of the day, we are outdoorsmen at heart.”

It’s such a weird take to me, saying you love and respect the outdoors, yet there’s a photo of you holding up a newly ventilated leopard. And honestly, it’s pretty clear they know deep down that even they’re not totally comfortable with what they’re doing. If you’re copacetic with stuff, you don’t go over the top making your point. If you’ve got a friend who out of nowhere says, “Man, you know what I love? Girls’ pussies and vaginas. And their tits and butts too. I just can’t stop thinking about doing sex with women all the time. I wish I was making out with a woman and feeling her big boobs right now!” then maybe you start thinking about how to have the, “look dude, I’ve got no problem if…” conversation with him. An elephant could count on its fingers how many times a ridiculously hyper-anti-gay polititian or preacher eventually ends up getting caught at a rest stop picking up a woman or hiring a female prostitute.

I mean, how can one be a full on “outdoorsman” and also kill the fuck out of one of the main things that makes being outdoors so great: wild animals that you’re lucky enough to spot? It gets especially odd to me if you don’t live in outdoorsy areas, like the Trumplings. When you leave the human areas and go into the animal area, don’t you feel like a guest? Don’t you extend courtesies to the hosts who are good enough not to eat your soft, pink, easily killed ass? I guess there’s population control stuff (which nature totally took care of before we moved in), and I have absolutely no issue with others killing for food out of necessity. And I don’t think hunters are bad people. I just couldn’t do it. How do I know? I shot a blue jay with a BB gun when I was in junior high. Ouchy, did it ever hurt my soul.

I know I feel that sense of courtesy and responsibility when I go out riding. I feel bad when I run over stuff with my bike, no matter what it is: from little snakes down to beetles. It can be especially challenging when there’s been some rain and then it warms up. Everything hatches. Suddenly there’s a bunch of millipedes all over the trails. I remember one night on a ride there were California Newts absolutely everywhere. Thank jeebus I never ran over one of those cute little buggers. It would have totally ruined my ride. 

“Wook how cute and fragile I am. Only a total dick would run me over” Photo courtesy of the dude whose site you'll go to if you click on it.

But, I guess that’s the complex situation we humans find ourselves in. If you decide you’re a hunting guy, you’ve got to own it totally. No amount of over-explaining your comfort level with vaporizing Bambi’s dad’s ventricle with a lead slug is going to make you actually feel totally at ease. And if you can feel totally fine with it, cool, and mail me some of your venison jerky. I love it! Then there’re folks like me, who don’t personally dig on hunting, but chow down on a bacon cheeseburger and don’t give much thought to the fact that an air propelled bolt scrambled the brains wired to the piggy and moo-moo flesh I’m washing down with a Lagunitas IPA (I’m sure some people have thought by now, “Whatever dude. Unless you’re vegan, you’re responsible for plenty of carnage you hypocrite. Yep, I know it, and couldn’t argue to a definite resolution on my favor) Yet I feel shitty when my WTBs squish a bug trying to make its way to the other side of the trail where a girl bug is sending out fuck-me scents. Like I say, complex. And hardly logical.

Wow. Life and death and killing and live-and-let-living and all that can be such a quandary for us hairless monkeys. Seems like it would be easier to be one of those animals just running on instinct. But then again, we’re the only animal that can truly internalize how amazing the natural world is to the point that we sweat and toil to form trails through it, and then design self-powered, two-wheeled vehicles to take in as much of it as possible.

How to get your dream bike (warning: title misleading)

The dream bike. We’ve all got one. You know, the ride you’d have if one morning you sat down on the thrown after your second cuppa joe and pushed out half a dozen Ho-Ho sized rolls of hundreds instead of worthless brown stinky yams, and this new ATM ass thing kept working until you’re a (very rich) senile senior, filling your Depends with da’ Benjamins. If you’ve literally got money coming out of your ass, you’re going to have the exact bike you want down to the most expensive shifter cables (and probably a really plush, custom made seat).

I always say I’ve got my dream bike. But I think it’s because the bike I wanted was rolling around in my mind for over a year before I got it. It took me a while to have enough money around that I felt comfortable dropping the serious coin the purchase required. But a Blur LT2 with a full XT build, though an amazing and pretty damn expensive bike, would not be what I’d be riding if I was pinching off tens of thousands of dollars in C-notes two, sometimes three, times a day.

Yeah, I stole this image. So sue me. I shit hundreds.

So I started fantasizing. What would my dream ride be? But, because my mind wanders, my fantasy got derailed onto another related thought: what would be the mostest funnest way to obtain this dream bike? 

A genie or some other magical powered wish giving thing? Save the life of some hot chick in a Beemer from a Trucksaurus attack and have it turn out that she’s the daughter of the CEO of Every Bike Company In The World, Inc (you know, EBCITW, Inc). Sounds a’ight. 

But for some reason I arrived at this: break into a bike shop (owned by an asshole who mistreats employees and puts out cigarettes on puppies), and do a midnight shopping spree.

I’m sure I could have got much more elaborate and imaginative in terms of scope and storyline. But instead I opted for something a lot less Boy Scouty than girl saving heroics, and a lot more simple. I don’t know. It just seems like it would be really fun to go through a bike shop—one of coolest places for window shopping and dreaming—and snag anything my pedal powered heart desires. Plus, It does feel pretty goddamn good to be bad sometimes. And for a generally boring, good citizen like myself, my mind is the only place I’m going to have the rush of a felony. And that’s a good thing. For one, I consider stealing pretty messed up and beneath me. Also, I know I’d get caught and probably pee my pants before I even hit the floor with my hands on my head, cop Maglite beam in my face. This would be made even worse when I got cuffed, the gravity of my situation set in, and I started crying. It’d be a shame when this intelligent, fairly successful family man became a hilarious story down at the precinct. 

“So this fucking dude…oh fuck…this dude has already pissed his pants because he was so scared once we busted in and grabbed his sorry ass… 

“Jesus. He pissed himself? Was he a crazy homeless guy or something?” 

“No, just some white dude. Thirty-nine. No record or nothin! Pissed into a pair of them stupid expensive queer designer jeans. I’ve got no idea what this guy was thinking. Anyways, it gets fucking better…aheheeheeeheeeee…I put him in the back of my car, which I don’t want to do because he stinks so bad, both from the piss and also he starts this fucking rancid farting, because he’s so nervous and scared, I guess. Don’t know what he’d been eating but I shoulda grabbed a rope, tied him to my bumper and made him jog back to the station…or just dragged his dumb ass if he couldn’t keep up. Anyway, put him in the back, I get in my car to take him in…oh man…eheheeeee…I get in my car and the fucking guy isn’t only sitting in his own piss and cloud of ass, now he’s fucking crying! Big fucking infant with a dirty diaper. On instinct I almost yelled for my wife that the baby needed changing, like I’m at home…Poor sonofabitch. I should have let him go.” 

Yeah, I’ve never been much of a criminal type. I’ve done some shoplifting—candy when I was a kid, razors when I was in college—and I went absolutely crazy during the Napster days. But a B and E? Just not in me. I was raised better, and more cowardly, than that. But as I said, this is fantasy, where I’ve pulled off all kinds of shit.

So, I’d pick the lock faster then Dexter. Disarm the alarm by cutting the blue wire, and then the red, not the other way around. I’d grab all my dream gear, get home with my frame and box of components and work all night to put the bike together (in my fantasy I could actually do this without totally dicking things up), drinking beers and doing pure, addiction-free fantasy blow the whole time. Then sleep in until my wives woke me up around noon, begging me to ravage their Kate Uptonish bodies. Five and a half minutes later (seems about right. C’mon, I’m stoked about my new bike. I’ll do a better job after my ride, I promise) I’d get my gear together and head out to the trail.

Kate Upton (apparently after having her areolas and nipples removed). Photo courtesy of nature at its very best.

So, back to what I’d steal to create my dream bike. I have to admit I’m not one who reads reviews of every new component that comes out. But I think I know enough that I know what I’d get.

Frame: I’m a sucker for a Santa Cruz. I love my LT2, so I’m boosting an LTc. Carbon booooyeee. Maybe a carbon Ibis or something else would fit me better, but I’ve never ridden one, so I wouldn’t know. Santa Cruz sings to my soul for whatever reason souls are attracted to stuff. I’m really intrigued by the Tall Boy too, but let’s pretend I haven’t had the chance to demo a 29er before my burglary, so I’m sticking with what I know. I can’t carry two bikes out, unfortunately. 

Drive train: Shimano XTR all the way around. Who knows how accurate it is, but from what I’ve read, Sram XX stuff has durability issues, and there’s no way I’m returning to the scene of the crime. I’ve been rollin’ Shimano for ages and have never had a reason to touch any of it. But I’m going to also steal an XT derailleur. One of my riding buddies has busted a couple XTRs that he eventually replaced with an XT and has had no issues since. I’m going to grab a couple extra hangers and magic links too, because no pack should be without them.

Brakes: I loooooove my XT brakes and I hear even better things about the XTRs. And also, those suckers are so sick looking. I love how Shimano doesn’t only make their stuff work great, but also easy on the eyes. It seems like they lock their engineers into a room with industrial designers and they have big, hot make out sessions in front of their CAD software. They come out all sweaty and satisfied and say, “Check this out.” I know I’m talking about brakes here, but Sram derailleurs have always just struck me as purely utilitarian looking. If Shimano gear was like a vapid model, amazing looking but wouldn’t pick up a dish with gun to her head, it’d be the first to make the all-style-no-substance call. But I’ve always found Shimano stuff to be absolutely precision and it lasts forever too.

Fork: I’ll never ride a fork without an adjustable travel again after having a TALAS for the last few years. So I’ll go with the 32 TALAS 140 fit RLC. Though I’m not sure why they only have two travel settings now instead of three. I like being able to drop to 100 mm before taking on technical uphill or really steep shit. Now 110 is as low as they go. Forks is certainly one of those areas where I could know more, and maybe there’s a better XC fork out there, but I’ve never had any reason to not love the TALAS I have now, so I’m pocketing another one for my dream ride.

Seat post: Rock Shox Reverb. Supposed to be awesome. Can’t wait to try it out (for reals. I’m going to pull the trigger on one really soon). 

Bar: Imma Monkey! Imma Monkey!

Saddle: Something kind of squishy and gentle on me bum, please. Maybe get one of those really wide-assed padded gel mom seats, complete with visible springs on the underside. Kidding, of course, but I do need a little padding. Maybe a WTB Speed. As long as it’s not rock hard and is a quality brand, I don’t give a shit about seats.

Wheel set: Cards on the table: I know dick about super high-end wheel sets since I’ve never been in the market for those four-figure fuckers. I know I’m not into King hubs because they make that racket like a tarpon stripping out line on a Florida charter. Some think it sounds cool. I think silence sounds cool. If anyone reads this, feel free to put a suggestion in the comments. Or don’t. This is all make believe horse shit anyway. But I like being ready if I ever strike it rich.

Pedals: Lovin’ the look of the new XTR trail pedals, so I’m tossing those in my burglar box. I could really use some new shoes, so maybe I’ll try some stuff on while I’m there.

Tires: I’m not super well versed on the various tires either. Probably get some Continentals or Michelins. I’ve always had WTBs before and they’ve served me well, but I like the idea of trying something new. There’s also something burly long haul trucker feeling about having tires from a company that makes big tires too. 

Grips: Who knows. Whatever the coolest looking ones are. Ergonomic, but not overly ergonomic.

And then all the cables I would have bought the day before. Who wants to fuck with that stuff when you’re snagging more fun stuff?

So that’s my stealing spree to get my dream bike. It was fun. And remember this, if you rat me out, I’ll cut you man.

Today in, "guys who remind me I'm not that good of a mountain biker"

This video totally reminds me of this time I was riding with my buddies...in that there was dirt and we were on bikes. 

I haven't done a "Today in, guys who remind me I'm not that good of a mountain biker" segment in a while, so I thought I'd go digging through the YouTube to find some vid. Obviously I can only speak for myself, but I'm pretty confident that this one has something for everyone who likes to be reminded of their shortcomings when it comes to skills and courage on a bike. I know it did for me.  

Nice job by whoever put together this collection of downhill and stunt lunacy (Though I don't know what's with the couple random motor driven vehicle shots in there).

Spinning-Guy-Andy

I gotta say, I love a good spin around a humid room full of deep bass and sweaty people on oddly designed stationary bikes with big metal fly wheels. Of course I’m talking about Spinning. And despite the lack of trail, trees and actual forward movement, I totally dig it. I get geeked about it to the point that I almost turn into one of those overly smiley (or intense, see below) people spinning on a commercial for a gym or in horrible stock photography. I don’t think I look like them on the outside, and I’m certainly nothing like this guy who got his ass kicked for being annoying. (UPDATE: Here's how the case turned out. I don't condone violence, even toward the irritating, but I do have to laugh that jurors went to the, "Well, if he didn't want to get his ass kicked he shouldn't have been annoying as fuck" presedent.)

Click to read more ...

Holy crap! It's my first mountain bike.

Today I got on BART (the SF bay area's train system), and there it was. A '95 Specialized RockHopper, AKA my very first muthafuckin' mountain bike! The only difference is that this one actually had a suspension fork on it. But not mine, son. I can't believe I don't have arthritis from the year or so I rode that stiff bastard. Other than that (and the seat and extra handle bar thingies), this sucker was identical, down to the crank set and even color.

The funny thing is that I just responded to a post on mtbr about first bikes. I think a buddy of mine still has the bike. I need to get it back from him if he's not using it. For a long time I didn't really care what happened to the bike, but not that riding is such a big part of my life, I'd love to have it around.

I actually had the bike for about 7 years before it even touched dirt. A buddy of mine had a friend who had gotten him into riding. Eventually I joined them. We were somewhere in the east bay. The ride started with a fire road descent. Up we went...about 200 yards when I stopped to puke up the pizza I'd had for lunch. But I cranked on. I would not be denied the peak that taunted me from about...oh, a mile and half up, if I'm remembering correctly. Eventually, gravity and friction lay defeated at my quivering feet and I joined my friend who had been waiting for me at the top for about two weeks. We went on to climb some more, and eventually did some fun single track downhill. My first ride was not an epic one, but I was hooked. A decade later, that friend no longer rides and I'm the stunning, hill slaying, riding at night, going to Moab, mountain bike blogging, getting mountain biking articles publshed, going to Downeyville, never shutting the fuck up about mountain biking, fat tire humping fellah I am today.