The best laid plans.

OMAM

If you get the reference between today’s opening image and the post title, congratulations. You’re real damn smart.

If you don’t, don’t sweat it. You’re in good company.

Not having so much to do with Steinbeck, the title came to me in reference to a comment I made on Wednesday regarding the possibility I was to bugger off to the mountains with GoPro and a bunch of fancy pants mountain bikers and BMXers, like for example, Aaron Gwin and Mike Escamilla to name (drop) a couple;
GWIN-SKIDZ130
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(via.)

But alas, it was for not. It seems as though from my little house in a village all the way up to GoPro’s empire, none of us can find our asses with both hands.

It feels good to know I’m not alone in my search.

We’re gonna have some kind of shenanigans cooking up with one another soonish, so sit tight and all will eventually be revealed.

Now that that has been addressed, let’s get down to business.

Does anyone remember a couple weeks ago when we had this post detailing most of all that went into the production of the very limited AHTBM/NWVSF skateboard deck?

Well I’ll be damned if they didn’t land on my doorstep two days after I got back from Las Vegas;
ahtbmnwvsfdecks
The top stains vary. So far I’ve seen green, pink, grey (shown), yellow and orange. I’m shipping them as I’m pulling them out. If you happen to absolutely hate the idea of a yellow stain under your grip tape, then I might take a special request to send a different one, but unless you were tortured by a yellow psychopath when you were a child, you’ll get what you get.

And I misspoke in the previously linked introductory post. Every deck doesn’t come with a red ply I’m afraid. A few do, and I’ve already pulled two for myself. If you happen to get one, consider yourself very lucky.

Also, and because I don’t have quite enough other shit to do, (with the exception of the first four that shipped), I’ve put custom stencils on all of the outgoing deck boxes;
deck boxes
Not only do you get your very own piece of custom ‘art’, and you get a AHTBM/NWVSF crushed can decals made by none other than The Sticker Robot, but you get your very own copy of the All Hail The Black Market ‘zine #3.5, which nobody but Smelly Curb Donny, my parents, and Amanda Batty have copies of;
zine and sticker
You might even get some other goodies tossed in your box as well, as my studio (where I’m doing all of the packing) is jam-stuffed full of random crap.

How sweet is that?

If you’d like to get one of these extremely limited decks for your own self with which you can go out to do a bit of curb barging, alls you gotta do is go here.

In bike news, which I know this audience is particular partial to, this year marks the 21st of the dfL’s cross-dress series;
2015 DFL Cyclocross-print
That’s twenty-one years… It occurred to me the other night that in some form or fashion, I’ve been attending these events for sixteen years, and even after all that time, I still don’t have the herp.

Last year’s Oakland race was noteworthy, because I’d ridden there from a physical therapy appointment and beat my old nemesis Devlin.

This year was note worthy because I was actually able to ride my bike there- A ride that was longer than any I’ve done in six months.

Like I’ve said before, any victory, no matter how small, is still a victory.

Anyway, we all arrived, milled around, and slapped hands with folks, and while I was waiting for the race to begin, snapped off some shots;
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This is Papa Joe. He is, for all intent and purposes, the black heart of the dfL.
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This is Phil. I met him skateboarding in Berkeley in 1988. He crashed a couple months ago in a pick-up crit, and destroyed himself. Now he’s walking again, and that’s pretty sweet. After high-fiving about the fact he didn’t die, there was a bit more milling;
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At that point, I took the best photo ever;
damn, man
And then the race started, and this woman’s personal color palate and general vibe made my heart swell;
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IMG_4518This is Devlin. He and I have known, and raced with one another for going on twenty years;
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And then in a super strange turn of events, this guy;
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took the following photo of this guy;
Minnaar
Both of whom I was very surprised to see.

The fellow on the bike of course is three time World Downhill Champion Greg Minnaar. I hadn’t seen him since I worked at Santa Cruz bikes, so it was nice to catch up for a while.

The fellow who took the photo is named Steve Blick. He’s some kinda muckity muck at Oakley, and I hadn’t seen him in at least twice as long as I’d seen Greg. It a pleasure to see them both, and as the sun set, and the cool night air got even more so, the remainder of us made way to our respective corners.

But I wondered… Why the hell was a World Champion, or an Oakley Super Corpo at some random, off-the-map outlaw cross race in the deepest part of West Oakland?

Sometimes mine is not to question why…

Is that how the saying goes?

And really, now that I think about it, what does it have to do with best laid plans, and either mice, or men, anyway?
newlittleskull

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One Response to “The best laid plans.”

  1. pedalman September 25, 2015 at 2:28 pm #

    Was sorry\stoked to see you posted today. I lost what little intellect I might of had several TBI’s ago but I still likes me some Steinbeck. I speak affluent Lenny. ‘I did a bad thing George. ‘ Cheers!