Once upon a time…

… there was a guy named Dave. Dave spent years toiling in shops, and on the race circuit due to the simple fact that he had a long and passionate love affair with all aspects of the bicycle machine;
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Photo courtesy Bicycle(dot)net


Dave was a unique character, as over his lifetime, every single bit of random cycling trivia that crossed his plate was instantaneously squirreled away in his labyrinth of a brain. Eventually, he started doing race announcing, and along with Richard Fries, became known as the voices of American bike racing.
Dave and I became friends sometime in the late 90s, and I enjoyed watching his career develop from a distance. Anytime I was able to sneak up to him at an event to say hello, no matter what he was doing, or how busy he was, he always stopped to give me a hug and have a conversation. If I happened to accost him at a party and shower him with affection, he hardly ever socked me in the eye for doing so;
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2002 San Franciscio Grand Prix, or maybe 2003 or I guess it could have been 2004. What year did Trent Klasna retire? It was that year.
That’s just the sort of fellow that he is.
After having a handful of years with very little contact, I recently gave him a phone call to catch up and to see how life as a rock star was treating him. Besides going a million miles an hour in ten other directions, at the moment he was busy getting his ducks in a row before departing to the Amgen Tour of California.
Though this race pales in comparison to next year’s Flaccid Classic;
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– it’s still the biggest bicycle machine race since the Coors Classic, the Tour Dupont, and the Tour of Georgia. Anyway, at one point during our phone conversation, Dave very generously invited my better half and myself to today’s fourth stage, complete with V.I.P passes. Never one to turn down the opportunity to make an ass out of myself in environs that generally are not suited for such hijinx, I enthusiastically accepted his offer and assuming I don’t wind up in the ToC jail, will have some semblance of a report of the fourth stage here.
Until then, I have posted but one solitary Tweet on the matter.
Anyway, we of course all know what they say about assumptions, so should I go missing for a few days, you know what the story is, and we’ll all meet up here eventually.
In business news, of course you are aware that I just took delivery of like, a billion AHTBM water bottles;
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and if you haven’t ordered one, I urge you to do so, if only to help me get rid of some of these boxes that are talking up so much room in my house that I actually have to go into the backyard in order to brush my teeth.
However something that you might not be aware of is that the manufacturer of the baddest decals (or deckalls if you’re Canadian) on the planet, Sticker Robot have joined the party over there in the list of heavily endorsed, and AHTBM supported businesses.
If you by chance find yourself in the market to get some stickables of your own made, might I recommend that you head there with quickness. If you tell them I sent you, I can almost guarantee that they will have no idea what you’re talking about.
Beyond the manufacturing of custom goods, they have an assortment of stickers for sale, all of which are awesome, my favorite being the pop culture parody pack;
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Think of them as stop sign beautification supplies.
DPow! from Portland Design Works (that’s Minneapolis West Design Works for the rest of us) got in touch with a bit of exciting news regarding a project that has been cooking with gas on the Pedalr site among other places;
“Yo Ess Kay,
I’ve been appointed to the Bikes To Rwanda Board of Directors.
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Last week, the new site went live. I hear that you run a “bicycle themed weblog” and it would be kind of a big deal if you could post a blurb and a link about it and the work that BTR is doing.
Thx”

That’s great news, and I’m very happy that so many good people are being included in this. Keep your eyes peeled on the BTR site for updates, as I’m sure the coming months will see many.
Moving on.. Last year Tobie from the North Central Cyclery sent me a link to what became one of my favorite clips on the interwebs;

Everything, and I do mean every single aspect of this clip spoke to me and my particular aesthetic. I had it on regular rotation for weeks after and liked it more each time I watched it.
Lucky for me, he came though again last week with his and film maker Seth Deming’s latest effort for the upcoming round of the same event;
“Howdy.
If it’s higher than than the high bar, or lower than the low bar, please feel free to share.
tanks
t”


Tobie and Seth have rightfully earned their spots as two of my favorite creative forces in the bicycle underworld and I thank them for their efforts.
As tends to occur when immersed in a long and dirty, the words of an invisible announcer occasionally ring in my head, encouraging me through the final miles. I don’t hope the participants of the Gravel Metric hear the voices of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin in their heads however, but rather that of someone else.
Maybe someone like Don Pardo.. Or even Dave Towle perhaps.
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5 Responses to “Once upon a time…”

  1. Felix Maximus May 18, 2011 at 7:44 am #

    Yeah I just looked on google maps to see if I could make the drive the for the Gravel Metric solely based on those films. I would however probably ruin the ride for everyone.

  2. Two Acre Lou May 19, 2011 at 1:03 pm #

    Were I to vote on what my high minded style sense prefers, with choices being Danzig logo versus water bottle logo, I’d say you have a nails-on-heads, bulls-in-eyes, middle-dab-smacking winner with the water bottle logo design. Make that new logo your beyatch, Stevil.

  3. the brown guy May 19, 2011 at 9:57 pm #

    sweet video, killer music… really make me want to go out side and get some crunchy rocks for breakfast. We all can use some extra fiber.
    And nothing like friends that never forget how to be your friend. You are blessed somehow, from somewhere.

  4. Herb Endotone May 20, 2011 at 6:53 am #

    axe Diamond Dave Towle about the time we outran the Canadian Mounties in a late night Mte. St. Anne flag heist. Good times, even if I did roll my ankle.

  5. Edgar Allen Poe May 24, 2011 at 11:34 am #

    David Towle and Fries scream too much – not ever lap is the final sprint.
    Also, he’s a little too doper chummy for my tastes.
    That being said, I’d take him over Eustice 8 days a week.