Clocking in again.

Clocking-Out.-E.1-68

I would like to momentarily once again thank folks for their understanding of my absence on Monday. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years making my way on the internet, it’s that if you leave your post for a maximum of 72 hours, everyone forgets about you and you are suddenly out of a job.

Thankfully the audience who frequents this place are more forgiving and will generally allow me up 144 hours before they write me off completely.

So as I’ve noted in other parts of my interweb, I stepped out of town for a spell to help celebrate my mom and dad’s anniversary, my mom’s birthday, and Father’s Day. Since I was a young fellow, this time of year has always been a bit of a quagmire for me starting in April, and ending around today in terms of remembering all of the days that are necessary for me to remember, and I thank my family for giving up on me in this regard.

I generally just have always dumped a pile of presents and cards on a table somewhere in the middle of it all, and told the concerned parties to pick up their gift on their particular day.

Anyhow, these last few days have been filled with food, and laughter, and food, and laying about, and reminiscing, and food.

The time for me to get back to brass tacks is now.

In news of “roads were made for cars, and not for bikes“, one of the first things I learned upon my return is that pedestrian and bike paths are apparently also made for cars;

Oh, and if you care, here’s an update.

The lesson here is to always look forward, and never back.

That, and if you ride a bike and you’re hit, no matter what, it’s your fault.

In other news of mountainbikecycling, (an activity where you are almost guaranteed to never be run over by a car), a fellow who is my mainline to local trail development and maintenance days named Jason runs a website called Bermstyle.

Over the weekend it seems as though he was among the first (on my radar) to ride newly opened sections of a flow trail that have recently been built in the Soquel Demonstration Forest;
Bermstyle1
bermstyle2
bermstyle3
bermstyle4
The fruits of this labor have been a long process which has occurred thanks to a great deal of cooperation on the part of local trail advocacy groups, land managers, and local industry.

I’ve spent a lotta time in those woods, as they were effectively my backyard during my time living there. It was certainly a fun place to ride, albeit a challenging one considering the fact that before any descending was done, one had to pay the tax of a fourteen mile ascent though Nisene Marks State Park.

It’s possible to drive to the trail head and skip the climb, but with the exception of only once, I always opted to (sometimes begrudgingly) ride to my ride.

Anyway, if Jason’s initial encounter with the newly opened sections of the trail is any indication, I look forward to an eventual trip there and taste the goods for myself.

And while we’re on the topic of sampling the goods, Mr. Biscuit sent a note that was both short and sweet;

Stevil-

I knows ya seen it but I still sends it;

Keep up the great stuff.

Mr.B

Adam Hansen continues to uphold the Lotto Team’s legacy of being the most awesome.

In other corners of the mail bag, Benjamin Rainbow from Seattle’s Back Alley Bike Repair got with the contact making;

Ahoy Chef-

My boy Donglecorn crushed the ole Oregon Outback with me and we had exactly one homecoming ride till he flew over some bitch car. As the summer sun comes crashing into our rainy days party, I cannot imagine what it’s like to be so sidelined from two wheel therapy. Here’s a pic for perspective;
brokenDonglecorn
Hope you had a Master Blaster of a time in Mpls West.

One last thing, as I put together a couple of summertime funtime events, are you gonna be miffed if I call on you for a lil pizzaz?

Whiskey on my breath, beer on my mind.

-Brainbow

Here is to wishing Mr. Donglecorn a speedy recovery.

I would also like to publicly respond to his inquiry about various parties calling for, as he said, ‘a lil pizzaz‘.

To reiterate- While this here is an amplification device for my own array of topics, it is by no means exclusive to just that. I am always more than happy to spread whatever word folks have an itch to spread. So please let it be known that if you have an event, a fund raiser, a shop opening, a series of new paintings, a reinvented mousetrap, a trail work day, or whatever, I’m always very happy to polish nearly whatever turd is sent to me and make it available for broadcast here.

Case in point? This here email from Derek;

Hey Stevil,

First off I have to thank you for your contributions to the internets and the bicycling community. I have been reading your blog since way back when it was HTATBL. Now that I have my compliment out of the way (phew) I have a favor to ask.

I work at a small shop up here in Southern Oregon (land of beers and beards). On of our own, a little guy twelve years of age has been dealt a bad hand and is battling cancer. In an effort to help him and his folks fight the good fight, Mike DeSalvo has stepped up big and donated a hand built bike that has been painted by Land Shark and assembled by our shop (Flywheel) with donated parts. The bike is being raffled off at the Humbug Hurry Up next week 6.21.14;
HHU Shirt design front 2014
Although there are only 500 tickets being sold, and they’re only $20/ticket there are still a lot left. So I figured I’d ask if you could spread the work on
your blog, since you do nice things like that.

The bike is a way cool steel 650b hard tail with good components and a sweet paint job. Tickets can be purchased at right here and you don’t need to be present to win;
alexfundraiser
To read about Alex go to www(dot)team-alex(dot)com;
Team-Alex-1
I apologize for the short notice and thank you ahead of time if you get around to posting this.

Any other question can be sent to jill(at)shastarcf(dot)org. Thanks a bunch man!

keep it real,
Derek

Short notice is certainly better than no notice at all. I would encourage people to throw twenty dollars in the pot to assist young Alex, even though I clearly will be the one who wins the bike.

And also- For those who don’t know, The Humbug Hurry-Up is one of the hardest, yet most fun bikecycle races of all time and still stands as one of my best finishes of any race I’ve ever done.

I think I still have the award and hyperextended back around here somewhere to prove both points.

Finally, before I take my leave, it was in this post that I recently mentioned Rebecca’s very expensive, and very custom Moots baby was taken nearly right from beneath her;
rebecca'sbaby
In a crazy turn of events, and thanks to tireless efforts on the part of the bike community, (both local, and national), her bike was returned to her safely and intact just a handful of days after it was initially stolen.

On behalf of Rebecca, I want to thank everybody who sounded the alarms and helped to both keep the visibility of this and as well as (presumably) the pressure on the offending parties.

The pride I feel to be in this community is a strong one and one that I love quite a bit.

Nearly as much as I love clocking out.
newlittleskull

Spread this like it's sick

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8 Responses to “Clocking in again.”

  1. trama June 18, 2014 at 5:56 am #

    Man o man I miss the Soq dem forest! I used to live up off Highland Way, for me the tax was to descend and play all day, and then crawl home back up. I lost so many lights and pumps and bottles and sunglasses over the years in them woods!

  2. Sarah June 18, 2014 at 6:06 am #

    So, they built a “pedestrian bridge” so bridge employees could drive to work? Why call it a pedestrian bridge? They don’t know who has jurisdiction? I am so confused by the things cities do in the way of pedestrians and bicycles. Like the town that installed bike paths so cars could safely park and drop their kids off at school. That makes so much sense.

  3. Crank June 18, 2014 at 6:52 am #

    Congrats Rebecca. Tis a beautiful build.

  4. Loudass, Esq. June 18, 2014 at 8:50 am #

    Note the Official Patagonia Jacket of White People, just like in olde Boulder, CO.

  5. Trailer Park Cyclist June 18, 2014 at 2:59 pm #

    Man, I actually DID forget about you! I can’t remember how…but I was looking at B. Gordon’s page about some ride Mike Varley was talking about and there you were on his bloglist…weird. Whatever the case, glad that I remember you now.

    I guess. I wonder what else I forgot…

    tj

    • Stevil June 18, 2014 at 4:10 pm #

      How could you have? And with the late birthday cards I send every year and everything…

  6. Mike June 18, 2014 at 3:03 pm #

    SUPER STOKED she got her ride back.

  7. badler June 19, 2014 at 1:22 pm #

    Had to enter that raffle. Good cause & a nice bike.
    Thanks for this.