On this day in history.

Belgian hard man, Rik Van Looy was born 80 years ago today;
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It was also forty five years ago today that Betty Lou Jenson and David Faraday were killed by The Zodiac Killer in Vallejo, California.
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Have you seen the movie/read the book?

Goddamned creepy.

Anyway, that’s all of the fun and not so fun facts I have in my head about the day, so why don’t we get on with it?

On Wednesday I posted a couple of clips from All City, featuring the outlaw cross races that the little company’s Jeff Frane has for the last hand full of years been organizing. It was on Thursday when he emailed me a heads up with something pretty special;

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Looks like the fever is catching on in Puerto Rico.

I don’t mean to get all sappy on you, but I really feel like we have the opportunity to shape our corner of the world’s take on cross racing and influence it for the better. We didn’t invent it, but we have the power and influence to promote it.

Bandit Cross belongs to the people and is a universal force for good. It consistently reinforces the concept of human nature as inherently good, which can be a rare thing in this world.

Jeff

The way I see it, the more that various governing bodies choke the life out of race series, (Ahem, NORBA, UCI), the more frequently underground and/or independently organized races will occur. Why, right here in the Bay Area, the dfL has been holding its own annual outlaw cyclocross series for twenty years this past September. Likewise, the long gone, (but not forgotten) California Crusty Cruiser Cup one speed mountain bike series was a highly preferable alternative to the cost prohibitive mainstream races here on the West Coast, starting with the Sea Otter and ending with Mammoth.

Truly all one needs to successfully pull an event of their own off is a bit of motivation, a tract of land that isn’t over run with bureaucracy, and land managers, and a bunch of people with bikes.

It might actually be easier than lemon squeezie.

Moving on- It was Wednesday night when Jeremy sent me the following email;

Remember that feeling… When you were in math class and you were sure you had the right answer and then you find out that you were wrong the whole time?

In response I told Jeremy that it was emails like that, which remind me why I like my job so much.

Maybe it was the nonsenseicalness of it, or simply because my entire life has been one long math class in which I had my hand raised thinking I had the right answer.

Or maybe it’s neither and I love it just because that one lady had a little white afro;
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In news of friends getting beat up by the police and then having charges pressed against them, you might remember the ongoing saga of one Kachusha “Chuey” Munkanta of Chuey Brand. If not, You can catch up with this piece in the Uptown Almanac from last year, or re-read the short version that’s contained within the first sentence of this paragraph.

Thankfully, Chuey has got a lot of friends in low places, and hip to hip we all assembled at San Francisco’s Pushbike last evening for a Chuey fundraiser;
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Despite the reason we were there, spirits were high, and we circled the wagons a bit tighter for this very important part of the community;
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If you, dear reader were unable to be in attendance, yet would still like to throw a handful of shrapnel towards his cause, you can still do so right here.

On behalf of Chuey, our community and all of those in his corner, I give you thanks.

Finally, from Frank at I.M.B.A., (who by the way is currently offering a damned dream job), I got this very important video clip;

I don’t care if I took this directly from your site. It’s still funny. Like funny, “Ha-Ha” funny.

Frank and I go back and forth quite frequently- Him sending fodder, video clips or what have you that I (in my abundance of time spent on the naked lady box) have either already seen, or have already posted. This however was not one of those times.

So besides the two initially mentioned noteworthy dates, we can also mark the date as one when he sent me something new.

Which is big, ’cause I’m never gonna let it happen again.
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Spread this like it's sick

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5 Responses to “On this day in history.”

  1. JP December 20, 2013 at 6:11 am #

    that CX in PR was rad. very cool to see. i gave up on “racing” long ago because for some reason they got mad when i yelled FUCK in front of the spectators.

  2. kimbrolio December 20, 2013 at 6:50 am #

    I’m laughing way too hard at that duck video.

  3. pedalman December 20, 2013 at 1:10 pm #

    If you give the ducks margarita’s first then they’ll be more likely to eat your bread(not that I know from personal experience thats just what I heard).

  4. Davey Simon December 21, 2013 at 4:14 pm #

    As a former participant of the Crusty Cup. I kinda agree with your sentiment on outlaw bike races. What I enjoyed was the 5 dollar entry fee, the fact I could ride my cheap ass single speed and the donated food at the end of the race. This was a big deal considering I was a broke ass 19 year old. It wasn’t like things got better for me financially for the next few years the series was going on for me either. So hugs to the dudes that put all that on.

    What I don’t agree on is the lemon squeezy deal. Last April the AFR ride in Marin pissed off just about everyone who is involved with managing the the China Camp State Park. A very stupid thing. Considering it ruined our only chance to interact and try to get a few small trail building victories in the park while it was being run by a private organization.

    The interwebz reach pretty far but California isn’t exactly the kind of place to publish that kind of nonsense. Land managers and the bureaucratic overlords that rule over nearly every part of the state of California are not always there but they generally over react to anything they don’t approve. While the world is filled with meaningless tales of caution, please think before you make a lemon squeeze despite what Uncle Stevil says…

    • Stevil December 21, 2013 at 8:30 pm #

      I look at the Soil Saloon events or the Cross Dress series as an example of how outlaw events can happen with little impact or recourse. I’m not familiar with the AFR ride to which you’re referring so I can’t comment on that, but in a place like Minneapolis where All City’s Bandit Cross events typically occur, there’s more flexibility than there is on the West Coast. My conclusion was a super abbreviated way of saying these sorts of events are better done in a place where you can get away with it. High profile and widely used state or city parks aren’t a good choice. You are absolutely right, and I do stand completely corrected.