Let’s get cracking.


Today we have a little bit of a lot of news to cover. So as to not delay, let’s get right down to the business.

After watching part of the third, the fourth, and the beginning of the fifth quarter of the All American Sports Ball Championship the other night, (and ultimately what was the Falcons channeling George Hincapie in every Roubaix he’s ever lost), I then finally watched the 2017 Cyclocrossingcycles World Championships.

Of course everybody else watched them over a week ago, and though I didn’t, I even wrote a post about them. So the thing I learned is that I can’t chime in with a conversation on Twitter about a race that everyone has already watched.

I was curious about two things that occurred in the knock down, drag out fight that was the Elite Women’s race, neither of which I’d seen addressed anywhere up to this point.

For your convenience, I’ve cued up the two exact moments in the race of which I speak.

Clearly Cant’s victory over Vos was an amazing one, but it sure looked to me like Vos sat up and let Cant take the win;

I mean, it looks that way to me.

And secondly, (and to the point about which I was inquiring in the midst of people losing their minds over the Stupid Bowl)- did Brand actually spit on Nash’s back at the line?

Embiggin and watch closely at forty-four minutes, fifty eight seconds, (again- which I’ve cued up for your convenience);

Or you can watch this gif that Lucho from Alps and Andes made for me;

Why, I do believe she did.

Spitting on someone’s back at the end of a race isn’t very nice at all, while at the same time being cringingly hilarious. Clearly Lucinda Brand takes cyclocross as seriously as they do in Boulder.

As if we all didn’t have enough reasons to adore Kateřina Nash before, I was actually able to reach out to her and get her thoughts on the matter directly, to which she replied thusly;

I’m not sure why she did that… Maybe that means ‘congratulations’ in Dutch.

© M. Hilger / Cyclocross Magazine

The long and the short of it means Nash is a total baller, and Brand gets the gas face.

Now that we got to the bottom of that, let’s get on with some big doings in the world of AHTBM merch, which I’ll preface with a story because, of course I will.

Shortly after I graduated from college I worked at a clothing store in Berkeley where I managed the music merchandise department. Because I was a huge fan of screen printing/t-shirts, artwork, and music related merch, and though the job wasn’t ideal, I got to kinda run my own show there, which was pretty ok.

One thing I did thoroughly enjoy however was having immediate access to all the goods. Slayer socks? I had those. Fudge Tunnel and EYEHATEHGOD long-sleeved shirts? I still do.

The specific commonality about all long-sleeved metal shirts was the fact they were printed on nearly every surface they could have been.

For example, I offer you this Pungent Stench shirt;

Not only do they love screen printing all over everything, but (at least in this case) apparently they also love using a Joel Peter Witkin photograph (most likely) without his consent.

Intellectual property laws aside, I’ve long wanted to do a tribute shirt to the metal shirts of yore, and after hashing a plan out with Matt Loomis for the last forever, I finally got my act together;


Because as you’d imagine, A) the shirts are gonna be pretty pricey to produce, and B) because I’m always financially treading water, I had to do these on a pre-order basis. We’ll shoot to place the order on the sixth of March, and it should be a relatively painless turn around after that point.

If you’d like a shirt of your own to wrap up in on these long cold nights, or perhaps to wear under a different short-sleeved metal shirt while you sit on a gross sofa in your friend’s basement and separate seeds from stems as you break the volume knob off on whatever Venom album you prefer (‘Welcome To Hell‘, duh), then all you gotta do is go here.

Moving on to a bit of do-goodery that I touched on in this post, I’ll once again announce that for this week, the good humans from Portland Design Works are donating 100% of their sales to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Between February 7-14th, we’re donating 100% of our sales of the ACLU.

The bicycle is a simple tool – a couple of circles and triangles that enable self propulsion. But those of us that ride them know that they’re more powerful than their design suggests. We know that the bicycle can power revolutions – those in our legs, in our hearts and minds and in our communities. We’ve witnessed their positive impact in the past and are hopeful for the change they will bring to our future. Bicycles are machines of freedom.

The American Civil Liberties Union is also a machine of freedom, a non-partisan organization that works to protect and defend the rights and liberties which have been guaranteed to us in our country’s Constitution. In support of the important work the ACLU is doing we’re donating 100% of our sales to the ACLU for the next week – Tuesday, February 7th thru Tuesday, February 14th;

Want to help? That’s easy – over the next week, shop for something for your machine of freedom and we’ll donate your purchase to the ACLU machine of freedom. It’ll be a beautiful cycle of support! Or, you can choose to donate directly to the ACLU Foundation.

I’m proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with PDW, and am grateful they are doing more than their fair share to help combat our current government’s insanity.

Finally, as we close out today’s post, and in regard to standing up for what’s right, I bullied a little bit of information out of Kenny Kaos regarding a photo that he’d recently posted that might be of interest to some east coasters in the audience;

Stevil,

So it looks like there was some development for the natural lands generally known as Beaver Valley, which also buts up against Brandywine Creek State Park which is a state park in northern Delaware.

One of the first articles I can find is from March 2015, where an approval for a developer was granted to build more retail space in land that I believe was quasi-parks land. Then it looks like the people that live in the area were(are) opposed to it(duh) and a judge shut down the project.

In November there was a deal reached between a couple of the conservancy groups in the area and the township. Now at this point they’re looking for donations to help pay the amount of money needed to cover the costs, which I think in my quick reading over is $8 million. But they’re looking for 1000 people to donate to show the interest in the people living nearby;

Hopefully this helps, if you or anyone wants a little more in depth reading on it check out the site at Save The Valley(dot)org . Thanks!

Kenny

I swear developers won’t be happy until they have their schlocky, sprawly garbage covering every inch of open space there is.

And when and if the day comes, the world won’t be happy until it cracks open, and swallows it all up.

Spread this like it's sick

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7 Responses to “Let’s get cracking.”

  1. Largo February 8, 2017 at 7:06 am #

    I’m saying nay to the spit. Angle was all wrong. Good solid bar thump though.

  2. reverend dick February 8, 2017 at 8:03 am #

    Magmanauts.

  3. Brian February 8, 2017 at 8:32 am #

    A 3rd Bass reference… The day strangely now seems a little brighter.

  4. Trama February 8, 2017 at 12:32 pm #

    M.Hilgers’ picture of Nash is awesome, and man is that one totally flat front tire or what??!

  5. Grandpa February 8, 2017 at 1:11 pm #

    I like the shirt but can you make some without the back lettering? I drank beer and almost died a couple times. Maybe that’s what it’s saying.

    • Stevil February 8, 2017 at 1:17 pm #

      Maybe. That would be an additional order, and I’m barely keeping up maintaining organization of the current one.

  6. Dirty Cyclist February 8, 2017 at 2:21 pm #

    MF DOOM!