Happy Hump Day.

Humpday

Good morning and welcome to the middle of the week, or what I affectionately call ‘Air Hump Day’.

In news of stuff and things and things and stuff, I just purchased two monumental sock orders from everybody’s friends at Sockguy, both of which are probably my most favorite socks ever. The problem is, I still have a smattering left of the S/M Department of Awesome sock;
doasockssm
-and S/M Roubaix (Mr. Blacksocks) socks left;
downzigsocks
When I say ‘S/M’, I’m not referring to like, Barbie feet or anything. They are size 5-9 mens, and even on the bigger end of that spread, they’re not maxing out.

I’ve even gone so far as to knock the price down a couple bucks, and offered a sticker of your choice per pair. Just make a note of which sticker you’d like is in the Pay Pal comment field, and I will most assuredly put the wrong one in.

I need room for the new socks, but more importantly, I need money to pay for the new socks.

And for drugs.

Your feet will be happy though, and end the end, that’s what matters most.

Shifting gears from happy and fashionable feet, to sad and walking ones, from Lynne I got a mini heads up about a thing I first heard about through Lucho of Cycling Inquisition, being Pittsburgh’s ‘Dirty Dozen‘;

Hey there Stevil,

Greetings from Pittsburgh!

Thought you may be interested in this for All Hail the Black Market…

Wanted to call your attention to the Dirty Dozen Bike Ride in Pittsburgh. It takes place annually, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and now is attracting hundreds of cyclists, as they endeavor to ride up 13 of Pittsburgh steepest city streets;
DDbyWESA
Pic by WESA

Check it out.

Lynne

That looks really hard, and doing really hard stuff is not a thing I’m interested in, but I am certainly glad that there are those who are.

Now, I guess it was two weeks ago that the SSCXWC thing happened out there in Louisville. It’s been all over the internet ever since, so I’d be surprised if there was anyone who wasn’t up to speed on it. However on the chance that there’s not, the Colonel got in touch with a few final thoughts;

Stevil,

So the race is in the books and we almost completely emerged unscathed. I hated to have you miss it, so I wanted to forward this video from Kevin Niedorf. He really captures what it was, an unspeakable mess.

Big thanks to Sally, without whom none of these ridiculocities could occur. Sponsors were Raleigh, ABUS, Sierra Nevada, Industry Nine, Kuat, Endless Bike Co, ProGold and most importantly my attorney who wrote the best waiver ever. EVER. If you can share with your worldwide following, it will probably land me in jail.

Worth the risk. Totally worth the risk;

Cheers and see you in BC, for sscxwc15Vic

Colonel Segal

So, the funny thing about this, is that for years, Canada repeatedly tried and failed to get the SSWC. At one point after the 2002 race as we were sitting around a bar, and had just passed the torch to Australia, I had a young, drunk Canadian scream in my face “WHO DO YOU THINK?… WHO ARE YOU, MAN? LIKE, THE FUCKIN’ SINGLE SPEED ILLUMINATI?

I told him that yes I was.

I’m happy to see after what is effectively fourteen years of attempts, Canadia finally got their shot.

Moving on to matters of Minneapolis, just a few days ago saw the whatever-teenth Homie Fall Fest, which was expertly documented by Lucas of Bunyan Velo;
HFF14_Winzenburg_13-1
And conversely, not very expertly altered by me;
HFF14_Winzenburg_31
Certainly I was bummed to miss it this year, but it seems as though this was the year it went all mainstream;
ohlookatthat
I hear next year it’s gonna be sponsored by Target.

And while we’re on the topic of Minneapolis, Morgan from The Hub got in touch with some unsettling news;

Stevil-

I’m not sure if you are aware that over here in Minneapolis some slick-haired politicians are trying to pave a large section of our beloved river bottom and a larger group rapscallions with less political pull are trying to stop that initiative. Don’t know if your readership will really care but anything we can do to get out the word is worth something. The Facebook page is over here, and our local cycling team made a fun little video the other morning to help get the word out right here;

Thanks for all that you do!

Confused as to why anyone would want to develop the river bottom, I emailed him back and got the following response;

They are claiming that paving them would allow for more access to the trails which in turn they could use as tourism dollars. The problem with this is that the other areas they have paved which aren’t accessible for most of the year now due to flood clean-up (since the river bottoms are a floodplain). I’m under the impression that they want to be able to pave the trail and then start allowing the private market to set up business ventures around it but this may just be my complete distrust of most governments. Here is a link to a local article, there are more on there as well.

Everyone I’ve talked to down there (hikers, walkers, runners, bikers, and fishermen) all seem to think it is a bad idea – tax money down the drain to build a 12.9 million dollar trail on a flood plain. Hopefully the numbers will help stop the few who probably have some construction company pockets to grease.

So there you go- Just another Example of The Man pulling some shifty shenanigans, and a bunch of discombobulated dirtbags (I mean that in the best way possible) taking a stand against it.

Finally, in closing, I’d like to note that I am taking a few personal days to get my head straight and will be returning to my post on Wednesday the twelfth of November.

Because I’m apparently not very good at traveling with a computer, I won’t be updating the site, but because I’m a wiz with the telephone, I’ll be regularly updating the Twitters, the Instagrams, the Tumblrs, and even the Facebooks.

If you get a hankering for the AHTBM steez, for the next few days, it will be happening over there.

If not, then I’ll catch you next week, and we can once again hump the air in unison together.
newlittleskull

Spread this like it's sick

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4 Responses to “Happy Hump Day.”

  1. Devin November 5, 2014 at 5:38 pm #

    Say no to pavement..

  2. AC Crosswizard November 5, 2014 at 6:36 pm #

    Thanks for the AHTBM bump, Stevil! We started with like, four really old dirtbags who wanted to take a stand against paving a trail no one wants through a wildlife refuge in a floodplain, and now the good people at The Hub are making videos for the cause, amazing. Anyone who thinks this paved trail is a bad idea can help us by sharing our Facebook page above, and signing our petition that will go to the politicians who can stop this disaster. Thanks man and you better make it to HFF 2015.

  3. Mark Sirek November 6, 2014 at 5:47 am #

    Hey Steve

    I put together a thing about the riverbottoms the other day too. It’s what happens when you give a early man a keyboard.
    http://fat-bike.com/2014/11/religion-on-the-river-a-mpls-tale/

    Bi-Curious George

  4. Knuckler November 7, 2014 at 6:34 am #

    What Devin said. The world is always better when the pavers stop.