Regurgitation nation.

Years ago, when sharing a link to the AHTBM web project with a therapist I’d begin talking with in order to give him an idea of what I did for a living, and maybe to share my perspective on life, he responded with “so, you just copy and paste things people send you?” I’ve thought about that a lot in the years since and periodically wonder if it appears as though I extend more effort than just operating the command C or command V buttons. Granted, while copying and pasting is a component of keeping this broken ship off of the rocks, I have to at least write clever transitions from one topic to the next, and that by itself ain’t nothing.

Case in point, this past weekend’s ‘One For The Weekend’. For the most part, the videos I include there are the fruits of endless searching, scouring, and glazed-over watching so that you, the viewer can spend more time watching cool stuff, and less time not. But occasionally, a reader will shoot me off something that I’ve not previously seen, and resonates so loudly, I wish I had found it myself. Snakebite did this himself when he sent the Nicholas Maher video titled ‘You And The Thing That You Love’;

I adore this story, and on the occasional day when I don’t feel like I have the gas to continue, I’m going to think about Nick, and his drive, fight, and fierce dedication to never throwing in the towel.

And then probably will conclude all of that with the recognition that with two totally dysfunctional eyeballs, is a better skateboarder that I could ever hope to be.

And while we’re on the topic of balls, anyone who’s spent a fair amount of time on this site knows well and good that I have an unwavering passion for the tennis kind;

Well, I’m happy to report that after an exhaustive couple minutes of Twitter scrolling over the weekend, I came to find that they are safe from Covid transmission;

While this makes me feel very good, scrolling through the comments of said tennis balls post and seeing one from Graham in which he said by writing it, I’d jumped the shark, and that I never had any good ideas, or relevance anyway, hurt my remaining feeling.

Of course this was eight years, and two inclusions into the Smithsonian collection ago, and I’m still maintaining a directive with the AHTBM web project, so I must be getting something right. There are always other parts of the internet that welcome nims, so I hope he’s found a home in one of those other corners.

It’s a long shot, but if the aforementioned commenter happens to be reading this, I’ve got your relevance right here, champ;

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s move on to other topics.

Do you all recall the piece I penned about the venerable Shitbike piece for The Cycling Independent not so very long ago? If not, that’s ok. It’s still on the website, but if you’d prefer to wait until you have a version of the story you can roll into a tube and beat your kid with, then you’re in luck.

It was just last week when I got an email from Justin and Steve from Adventure Journal, and they said they wanted the piece for actual, real live print. This was most welcome news, as I feel that the Shitbike’s legacy is an important one for us as a community to remember, not to mention the fact that I haven’t had anything in print since DirtRag folded.

I don’t have details, or print date, but I’ll certainly keep my ears to the ground for any details, as I truly love that hunk of junk;

As long as I’ve brought up The Cycling Independent, I should once again mention that they’ve done me the kindness of offering a monthly advice column. If you or a loved one have a question you think only I might have an answer to, please fire it off to stevil(at)cyclingindependent(dot)com, and maybe editor Cush will like it enough to send it to me. The adage goes that the only stupid question is the one that goes unasked, but I’ll be the judge of that.

Now, I will present to you an ear worm I found yesterday. It’s rare that I find live recordings of songs that (to my ear) are better than the studio versions. It’s not an impossibility, mind you. It’s just that often times I prefer the original the best. This of course was absolutely not the case with PJ Harvey’s performance of ‘Rid Of Me’ at the 2001 Big Day Out concert, which I still marvel at on a regular basis. Anyway, while hunting around for electronic fodder, I found the following clip of Deadboy and The Elephantmen playing ‘What The Stars Have Eaten’ in 2006;

Great Peter Murphy’s ghost, that is good.

Moving on, closing out today’s effort, let me now push a video that my overlords from the Shimano Gravel Mothership requested I pull my weight and promote;

They call it ‘The Path Less Paved’, though I quite prefer ‘The Pant-less Depraved’.

I don’t know about all this ‘gravel’ nonsense. It’s riding a cross bike on trails, which is a concept I’ve been on board with for years and years. Riding road bikes on dirt is ok, and riding dirt bikes on the road sucks balls, and that’s the hill I choose to die on.

You know what’s real great though? Riding a hybrid (or a ‘comfort bike‘, if you will), both places.

You can regurgitate that all the way to the bank.