Next time I see a hipster, I'm punching him in the nuts.

Since my last post, a lot of stuff went down. Most of which I won't bother to describe, but I was on a road bike ride on Sunday (YES, outside! Spring is coming...). I thought I'd go out and see if my early morning escapades on the rollers of inconvenience are helping me.

The short answer is yes, the long answer is who the hell can tell. When I started out on my normal "you've got an hour and a half or s0, A.K.A. my Summertime morning road loop" I was bucking a headwind the whole way up the "climbing" portion of the ride. I took a few minutes off of the last time I rode it, which was at the beginning of my training, so I think I have gotten stronger/faster, but I didn't get a good feel for it since I was going against the wind. I felt kinda whipped at the top of the climb, but again, the wind was fairly strong.

Anyhow, enough of my excuses. Without getting into another boring diatribe recalling the minutia of my ride, on the descent portion of my ride, which I can get well above 40 mph, I was almost hit by a fucking hipster-wannabe driving a PT Cruiser. WHAT THE HELL? First,

I thought there was a rule that all hipsters bummed rides or rode their fixies. Second, no, and I mean NO SELF RESPECTING MAN would EVER, EVER DRIVE A PT CRUISER. Third, the car had Montana plates on it. Really? A hipster, driving a PT Cruiser from Montana? I guarantee that he was kicked out of Montana for being a pussy and he's just driving around until he finds a commune of hipsters that will take him in and make him one of theirs.

After the incident, I pulled in behind said PT Cruiser into a parking lot. The little fuckin' puke got out of the car with his girlfriend/sister. Immediately, he started in that I was too close to the road. I barked back that I had every right to ride down the road if I wanted. There was a little back and forth between us and he realized that getting his ass whipped by a guy in lycra in front of his girlfriend wasn't very "hip", so he turned around and took his girlfriend into get his cigarettes and PBR.

This interaction made me start to wonder what the hell is up with these "hipsters"? Do they not see how they look? I am sure a few of them get the irony of their look, but most of them are following along. Like check this out... these hipsters are RUNNING FOR PUBLIC OFFICE! WHAT THE HELL? I can almost guarantee they are running under the Tea BAG Party. Serious. These two are running a real campaign running for Mayor and City Council somewhere down south. I bet they'll win.

But, I get the feeling while the whole hipster movement is winding down country wide, and it is just getting wound up here in South Dakota (we tend to do stuff a bit behind the rest of the

country). I got this pic of a hillbilly-hipster and I'd bet he is from SD. How fucked up is this cat? He's got a Juliet Lewis/Where's Waldo/Eddie Vedder circa 1990 look going on, carrying a Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and a thing which tells time, wearing his size "0" girls jeans. Yup...you're cool. About as cool as a douche bag left in the freezer over night.

All right. I am done bashing hipsters. I guess I am getting old. I don't get it, which sounds like something an old person would say. But, sculpting your facial hair, wearing super-tight clothing and having the androgynous look isn't something I get. I didn't understand it when David Bowie and Mick Jagger did it 35 years ago and I don't understand it today. Oh well, wait around long enough and the giant shirts and pegged pants of the '80's will be back in fashion. And then I'll dig through the closet and get my old clothes out. THAT will be cool...

Like a stein with a hole in it, I can't hold my liquor anymore...

OK, so I have to preface this whole conversation with a bit of backstory. Every year I quit drinking. Alcohol that is, as if I quit drinking all together, I'd dehydrate and die. Anyhow, I quit for about 40 days, resetting my tolerance for alcohol. I used to quit for Lent every year, not because I am a good Catholic (actually, I am a tree-hugging-atheist-liberal according to the Princess) but because it is a good time frame to do it. BUT, smack dab in the middle of Lent is the grandest of drinking holidays, St. Patrick's Day, and not drinking on this day is, well, sacrilegious. My great-grandmother Murphy would not approve of not drinking one in her honor on this day. I must mention that usually on Easter Sunday, I am READY for a beer. I crave one. I want one and when I have one, it is a delicious, epiphany like experience. The wait makes the beer taste all that much sweeter.

This year I had the great idea, "I'll quit drinking from January 1st until the Superbowl. That is 37 days this year, close enough. I can reset my tolerance-meter, still drink on Superbowl and drink on St. Patrick's Day. Perfect." Only I added one thing this year that I never had in the past. I added a fairly serious workout regimen which will play in later. When Superbowl rolled around, I had a party at the house and was looking forward to having a beer. And when I did, to quote Homer Simpson, "It was gooood...but not great." But, I thought maybe it was because I just was running around, prepping food and making sure the party guests were having a good time.

So, now that I am back on the juice, I made one more "rule" for myself. No beer Sunday through Thursday. Only on Friday and/or Saturday nights. This kinda sounds like I was a lush before, which I wasn't, but I didn't mind having a beer or two at night with my dinner.

Now, on to the real part of the story. We had our monthly Queen City Rambler meeting last night at a bar/restaurant in Sturgis called the Knuckle to hammer out some details of the impending Spring bike trip. This year we're planning on buying two 15 gallon kegs for the trip. Last year, we ripped through a 15 gallon keg in a little over 2 days. But, therein lies the rub for me. I don't know if I'll be getting my money's worth this year.

Last night I had two beers with my dinner. Now, I'll admit the first one was in a vessel the size of a damn coffee can, but there were only two lines for beer on my receipt, so I only had two beers. And this morning, I feel kinda pasty. What the hell?

In the past, those two beers wouldn't have phased me, even after my Lenten abstenence. Now, this morning, I have a ever-so slight headache and I shit a cubic yard of something out, though that could have more to do with the jalepeno/swiss burger I had at the Knuckle, whose latest Health Department certification could be highly suspect. I attribute this to the "training" I have been participating in since the first of the year.

I am highly disturbed by this development but I know, with some extra training, I can work through it.

I've Made a GRIEVOUS Error.

I think that when I die and swing by Heaven to get my sentence to Hell, I am going to find out that God is a comedian. I have a problem that most don't ever have to worry about, much less act upon. Have you ever seen a skinny dude with a hairy body? Nope. At most, they may have a hair dickey, which they can crop, shave or otherwise wax off if they so desire. BUT, have you ever noticed, the bigger the girth of the dude, the hairier they are? See, I think God thought "Well, odds of them taking their shirt off in public is slim, so lets fuck it up all the way and ensure they NEVER do and make them hairy. Hairy enough to scare little kids. I know there will be those few odd balls that will do it anyhow, but they'll be the exception."

Me...I am class 7 hairy. Robin Williams is class 9 hairy, which is equivalent to SPF 50. Due to this fact, A BIG mistake was made. You see, Sunday was "hair-cut" day in my house, which is where the problem began. Since I just buzz my hair with clippers, there is no sense in paying a barber $15 to do this when I can do it myself (with the help of my lovely wife). While she was trimming our son's hair, I got the clippers out and got them ready. As I looked down, I thought "you know, it is getting damn hot to ride the rollers of inconvenience with all this hair, I should give myself a trim." And boy did I ever.

I realize the old adage that "the difference between a good hair cut and a bad hair cut is 7 days" is fairly true, but try ITCHING like a mother-fucker for 7 days. SHIT. I now look like some cancer-patient-monkey, that has some sort of mange, with all of his body hair falling out and itching all over like he's got lice. What was I thinking? Well, truth is, I wasn't. It was definitely spur of the moment and now I am paying for that.

I will say the rollers of inconvenience were much more tolerable this morning...but have you ever tried to ride rollers with no hands while itching your back and chest at the same time? No, of course not...you're not a caveman throwback like me.

Is he my relative?

A few weeks ago, I came across this article where they found some frozen cave dude in a big chunk of ice. They thawed him out and extracted some DNA and found out how close he was to us. I personally was hoping they would thaw him out and he'd come to life like Brendan Fraiser in Encino Man, but then I remembered that was a really shitty Pauly Shore movie, so maybe it's best that they only were able to extract DNA. But I digress...

So, they put the DNA in a bowl during the full moon, with some chicken feathers, did some sort of VooDoo chant and figured out what this ancient man looked like. And it was this...

DAMN. He looks really, REALLY pissed off. Maybe it's because we thawed him out. OR, more likely they got a picture of him with a mullet AND a mouth mullet...a goatee. A double whammy of outdated looks. I guess in 19,850 BC, when you went for a haircut and a shave that is what you got. No choice. If Tuk (that is what I named him...don't ask me why) asked "Me need modern look. Cut me hair off in back", Grog would grunt something like "Why you want cut hair in back...look good in your IROC. Lana think you hot. Want you to hit her on head and drag back to your cave...ugh."

But the reality of this whole thing is I ran into this cat at the Rushmore Mall last weekend. We grunted a few things to each other and I found out he is some sort of ten times removed cousin of mine. He thinks the mullet is hot and the fur collar makes him look sensitive to the fairer sex. The last I saw him, he was climbing into his monster truck in the parking lot and heading off to the East.

Either way, I KNOW this dude spent some time in South Dakota. We're always a bit behind the rest of the country when it comes to trends. I just don't know for sure how behind we are...

The Reason We All Should NOT Be So Serious

So, on the morn after Tiger Woods pleads with the world to like him again after humping everything with two holes between it's legs, two days after Scotty Lago gets sent home from the Olympics for taking some quasi-sexual, but not risque pictures with him a couple girls and his bronze medal, on the weekend I find out the French government has issued an arrest warrant for Floyd Landis, I read a lengthy article in Outside about WADA and doping and I realize that we, as a society, have gone completely insane.

We put so much emphasis on sport in this country, and every industrialized country in the world, that we lose our minds when someone cheats. And why do people cheat in these sports? Because we have held them up to such a high place of prominence and esteem in our society that they feel entitled to do all the nefarious things they do AND they want to keep their place of prominence and do so by winning, so they'll do anything to keep winning. If we strip away the money what is left? For most of these athletes, nothing. They'd dry up and go away. But some of them would keep on for the love of the sport. You can tell by how they approach their game. Shaun White, for example. You can tell that he'd still be sending it huge if he were just another 20 something flowing down Terry Peak on the weekend. That is why we should NOT be so serious. I bike because I love it, not because I get paid for it. We need to return the love of the sport.

So, on to something a bit less serious. I actually got out on a ride over the weekend. A true, off-road ride. It was pretty damn cool, both literally and figuratively as it was 22 degrees and snowing lightly at the time I took off and it was a fun ride. I rode the singlespeed and despite the fact that the snow was energy sapping and too deep to clean on a few corners, I rocked up the mountain, which says my indoor roller program is working.

Speaking of the indoor roller program, I was thinking about what my wife sees every morning when she comes downstairs when I am riding my rollers. A big, sweaty, hairy dude on a little road bike riding like some weird hamster on a wheel. My son calls me his "hairy bear" so, I think the picture fits, don't you?

Random Thoughts

I've been in a blogging funk lately. A lot of my best (blog) ideas come when I ride my bike. Actually ride my bike, not ride the rollers of death. And I said my best ideas, which are not necessarily good ideas...they are at best a Venn diagram, possibly overlapping at some point.

I can't really complain about the rollers of death anymore, they are kind of rollers of inconvenience now, since I don't really ride off of them and I don't feel like puking too much anymore. Riding the rollers of inconvenience isn't as boring as riding a trainer (there still is a bit of excitement when I get close to the edge, almost riding off), but I have to get up early every day to ride them. I rode them the other night with my friend JT, (no, not at the same time, it wasn't some sort of bicycle spooning session), but I'd rather do it in the morning, thus the inconvenience. When I get home at the end of the day, I want to just hang out with my son and wife and not worry about riding. But, since the rollers aren't as exciting as they were in the beginning, meaning there are very few chances of flying off the rollers having a catastrophic crash into the back of the couch, I don't feel like talking about them so much. I don't know why "reporting" on myself looking not unlike a Russian Circus Bear on a tiny bike riding on ice was funny to me, but it was.

I could complain about being able to ride outside and the shitty weather we've had lately, but on Friday there was snow in 49 of the 50 states (lucky bastards in Hawaii...have fun there Princess, you better get on a bike once while you're there), so just about everyone in the country is in the same boat as me. Plus, I can't do a damn thing about the weather. I can do something about my conditioning, my riding gear, my bike, etc., but the weather is not up to me. If it were, it would rain between the hours of midnight and 4 am every day and be 74 degrees for the high and about 55 for the low every day. Sure, it'd be boring to some, but I'd ride every single day.

Of course, if I could ride everyday, I probably bitch about that too, so maybe this weather isn't so bad after all. It makes us appreciate our days we do get to ride now. I just wish it wasn't so long between times of riding outside.

I Hate That Little Bastard Puxatawney Phil...

You know, that little rat-bastard-fuck oversize rodent, the groundhog, saw his shadow this week. That means 6 mores weeks of winter. And based on what that bitch Mother Nature did last night, I don't think I'll be riding outside anytime soon. I realize that it is South Dakota and it is winter, but c'mon, a ride or two outside would be pimp. I rode once outside in January. ONCE. That's BULLSHIT.

The rollers of death have been acceptable and definitely more acceptable than riding a trainer, but riding outside would be nice. I know when I actually get to ride outside, it will be that much more sweet, but riding the road to nowhere kinda sucks. Kinda like a gerbil on a wheel. Not much unlike that bastard Puxatawney Phil.

But, I'll keep riding the rollers of death. The podcasts I watch while riding give me a workout that isn't much different from modern medieval torture, like the rack. Feeling like I'm gonna puke, pass-out, shit my pants, or maybe even die when I am done with my ride is the norm. And I am doing this for good reason. I had a dream the other night that we (Teamfubar or the modern variant of it) got 2nd place at the 24 Hours of Moab. What a glorious, beautiful, terrifying, freaky nightmarish dream.

If we're going to even think about finishing, much less 2nd place, I better get my bubblegum ass pedaling...