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Bici Verano

What is Bike Summer?  Well, they've got a webpage and a blog to help figure it out.  Basically, between June 3 and July 4, LA will be overtaken by cycle-freeks.  Viva!

More Ozzy

More reasons to visit an island colonized by criminals:

This swell kicked our ass in the best of ways.  Cali ain't got shit on Australia for waves.
Cooper's Pale Ale.  Forget micro-brews, this is the tastiest beer, hands down.
Arthur's Pizza on Oxford St., Sydney; best pie ever.  And I'm from Chicago.
Most food joynts are BYO (bring yer own).  See Cooper's and Bottle Shop for further information.
Hank's Jam & Jam Lady Jam.  With flavors like pear-vanilla-ginger & blood orange-rhubarb, how can you miss?
Southern Hemi baby.  Our winter = Aussie Summer.  Get some!
Lennox Head.  Quite possibly the most beautiful right point in the world. Mali-boo-hooey.
No fatties.  Everyone of every age is up early and running, swimming, riding, paddling, surfing or otherwise aerobically challenging themselves.  Aussies are healthy, concerned about the environment and good food.  They better be - thier hospital system sucks and the hole in the ozone layer ensures a good fry as soon as the sun breaks the horizon line.

On the downside; Nimbin and it's related feral backpacker trustafarian druggies are everywhere. Sun induced cancer is a real concern.  Bars close at midnight.  John Howard is a GWB wannabe, and his government is pretty farking racist.  There are more deadly reptiles and insects here than you want to know about... but hey, it's a lovely spot - great wine, beer, food, people, waves, roads, parks and coastline.  Go experience it for yourself - we're back in Los and cultureshocking hard.

(The wheelchair and crutches are works by Mona Hatoum at the MCA in Sydney)

Oh You Ozzies

On a wander in Sydney Australia, A few things come to mind.  Aussie's love cycling - witnessed two septegenarians rolling strong, up hill, in traffic on full race Merckx rigs.  Gas, parking, insurance and repairs for motorized means of transit are mad expensive, keeping the proletariat on bikes n' buses.  Nice.  Lots o' folks seem to love the dual slalom, beefy bmx style rigs here - they call'm pushie bikes.  Whatever.  Guess it's cause they're such pigs you end up pushing them on the hills instead of riding.  There's a downhill run that everyone talks about where you take your bike on a train out to the Blue Mountains and bomb downhill all the way back to the city.  That's like an hour of DH on mostly single track and some road.  Haven't done it yet but if I can get the right bike sorted, maybe later in the week.  On the weekend, the local highways and streets are chockablock (oz slang for packed) with weekend warriors kitted out in lycra and spinning like mad.  Everyone seems to know what a Madison is and has a favorite track racing star. I've only seen two monocoggers and neither was fixt, so that craze has not caught on here yet, which is weird since they love the trackies so much.  There's a beautiful park here called Centenial Park that has great loops and paths for riding.  We rented some super heavy Giant commuter bikes and rode around the park all day, then later that night we rode to the best Indian restaurant in the world - Oh Calcuta in Darlinghurst.  Australia is beautiful, great food, great people, fairly affordable and lots of good riding, so pony up the airfare and go!  Viva.

Lancelot Punks NYC?

The Post, that venerable source of quality news, is reporting that Big Tex has given the nod to Paris for the 2012 Olympics, and not New York.  C'est la vie, or C'est la merde?

Why Run?

Today was the eleventh running of the LA Bike Tour, a ‘fun ride’ event preceding the LA Marathon.  Since the streets are closed anyway, they open up the course to cyclists three hours before the runners’ gun goes off.  You get to pedal through neighborhoods that wouldn’t usually be on your training route, like Compton.  If the event is entered the straight way, you register in advance, pay a chunk of change, get assigned a number and show up at 4:30 to stand around with a bunch of other sleepy bikers, waiting for the mass start.  Mass in this case means a reported fifteen thousand people, so start is a misnomer until a few miles in when the pack thins out enough to actually pedal yer rig.  Now, if you wanna do the event in a slightly less ‘official’ capacity, that’s possible but frowned upon.  Frown on; I didn’t want to stand around all morning so at 5, under a beautiful crescent moon, I rode over to the Bicycle Kitchen, where Chef and a bunch of other Kitchenheads were assembling a commando mission to infiltrate the event.  About ten of us mustered at the padlocked gates of the new improved Kitchen.  At least two had yet to sleep, choosing instead to continue their Saturday night with a hearty Sunday morning roll along the closed off streets of our fair city.  I was not much further off, having pulled around three and a half hours of z’s.  Of course there was a funny smell in the air as part of the group engaged in ritual, and it wasn’t just the stank of Chef’s smelly gloves.  With those who choose that path of enlightenment suitably christened, we sped off on what I expected to be a course that would converge with the third or fourth mile of LA Tour.  As we flew into downtown and towards USC, it became quickly apparent that the head of our snake had decided to roll right on into the mass start area.  So much for infiltration tactics.  Splitting into small bunches, those of us at the back of the pack hesitated before entering the fray.  Vontz and I especially needed to shed what were now obviously too many layers of warm gear.  We also needed to get the helmet-cam working for some video surveillance of our fellow rolleurs.  Finally wired up and weather-adjusted in our attire, we picked our way through the crowd.  It was apparent that no officials were checking numbers – they were busy with flats, falls and frozen cramps.  Unopposed, we worked up to a decent clip and cruised it, though Chef and friends were long out of range. The sun was boiling up into the haze and another delicious California day was unfolding. By 8 we were at the finish, with bad music blaring and thousands of exhausted looking newbie’s chattering on as if they had just finished a Grande Tour.  Folks wuz stoked!  And that’s how it should be.  We were stoked to not have been taken down by greenhorns in any of the sketchy turns along the course.  By nine I was home, not really having planned to put in forty miles of riding while most of the world was still asleep, but feeling all the better for having done it. Anyone who drives to the start of a big ride in his or her hometown is a wuss, even if it is LA.   Mass rides – hoo-hah.