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Eli on the slab

Ok. Something. Please forgive the long absence. I still have nothing exciting or particularly clever to write but, death before blog idleness. My new environment is proving to be capricious indeed. Three weeks ago I was lighting fires in the potbellied stove morning and evening and now it's 95 at midday. At this writing, 8:30-ish it's still 85. But it's a dry heat! Typing at the keyboard inspires sweat. Mostly one just lies still, or runs down to the coast where it's still hot but pleasant. I've been getting in some great rides up the big hill and along the foothill routes. But not these past two days. Don't want to cook my brain. Much of this wooded enclave is still a little 19th century and setting up reliable internet connections is a royal pain in the butt. I'm currently "poaching" a signal to blog while I wait for newly ordered gizmos to arrive.

Speaking of butts and bicycles, my greatest compliment this month came from my new massage therapist (Saint) Jacob who informed me that it wasn't the painting position that had tweaked my lumbars but the fact that muscles in my butt were growing so fast from the sprinting I've been doing that my lower back couldn't balance them and gave up. HA! My back is tweaked from my massive, hard-training cycling muscles! Badge of courage. I know K2 will have something Pilates-wise to say about this...

My one pro cycling comment: Amgen in bed with ASO - Hmmm....

Kudos go out to Liz for moving her blog to Missing Saddle. And Tim for his sweet gig on Velonews' At the Back page, and Len because his writing is just consistently so damn good!

I just brought my cat up from cool, coastal Del Mar to his new home in the sweltering hills. Poor thing must think he's being tortured and that I don't like him. And now for your moment of Zen:

Eli on the rock - so glad I don't have fur

I promise something more interesting, clever and/or deep and bike related when I can get my computer down off the stack of pillows by the window and onto my desk where I can THINK!

To all my dear friends who are gleefully getting marriage licenses this week and making hasty plans to tie the knot before friends and family, a tearful and exulted CONGRATULATIONS! It's been a long road.

Yay Doug and Perry!

Peace and Love, Y'all.

And Suddenly... BIKE ART!!

"1 km"
© Kathleen King 2008

While the memory of exactly when Crayola's Big Box of 64 entered my world is lost in the fuzzy recollections of the toddler brain, the day I savored my first taste of freedom is clear as an early spring day.

On my fourth birthday I received a grape purple Schwinn 'big kid' BIKE! It came with training wheels... I tooled around on the driveway for about 20 minutes, marched into the kitchen and demanded they be taken off. My mother all flustered, my dad with a knowing grin stood 20 feet apart on the blacktop and pushed me back and forth standing farther and farther apart with each pass. After about 15 minutes of that I circled the drive a few times and rolled off down he hill. I was FREE. I yelled to my mom that I'd be back before dark.

I went to explore the canyons and visit all my little friends. To her credit, Mom, instead of freaking out and shrieking at me to come back ( I was only four) simply got on the phone to all my little friend's moms and proceeded to track my progress through the neighborhood with the accuracy of NORAD, as I flew by kitchen window after kitchen window. It was 1968.

I became a professional artist at 19 when I sold my first painting, quit my day job and later dropped out of school (oops). But it's taken 25 years of painting and 40 years on two wheels for the love of cycling to make the trip from my heart to my brain where it finally trickled down my right arm and hit the canvas.

So here it is, my first ever bike painting. It does have a precedent in my body of work, for those of you who are serious art enthusiasts. It follows from a series called "Scribbles" (for obvious reasons). You can see more Scribbles on my website if you like.

I'm serving it up here for 'my people', my bike people, like my first born. But don't feel you have to tell me the baby is pretty. Please express whatever you'd like. The point of ART is neither to be 'good' nor 'bad', 'right' or 'wrong', but to make you think and ultimately feel in a way that you hadn't thought or felt before you looked at it. If you happen to enjoy it, well heck, that's gravy!

Yes, there will be more joining this one soon, pedaling hard on his heels about to catch...

BaaaaaD Valve Stem!

Gooood bike mechanic!

Remember when you were a kid how a parent would tell you that after the big test/game/doctor visit/show etc. you were going for ice cream, pizza, or whatever treat? Then when it came time to go something went awry; the place was closed, they were out of your favorite flavor, or you had car trouble? You had tasted the flavors of your favorite food for hours in anticipation and when you couldn't satisfy the craving it just about drove you out of your skin? You know you're in deep when you feel that way about a bike ride.

I had run some errands earlier on the bike. Stopped at home to drop off the odds and ends and add more layers of spandex before taking on a series of hill climbs. I was really looking forward to the workout.

My front tire seemed a little soft so I grabbed the little hand pump to top it off. I hit it wrong somehow and emptied the rest of the air from the tire. Now the stem (which was bent to begin with) was stuck too far down and all efforts to grab it sufficiently failed. The pump itself appeared to be working improperly so I disassembled part of it and put it back together. No luck. I was crazed at this point. I futzed with it like an orangutan for about fifteen more minutes before admitting defeat.

Crouched on the patio all suited up, helmet and gloves, my fiery steed crippled, I felt just like a little kid staring through the glass at a vat of Jamocha Almond Fudge where the Peppermint Fudge Ribbon was supposed to be.

Now a normal person would just deal, put their sweats back on and find something else to do. A bike nut on the other hand puts on street shoes, throws the bike in the pick up truck and drives (in rush hour traffic) to the LBS IMMEDIATELY!

The muscles in my legs bitched and cursed the whole way like horses stuck in the starting gate.

I rolled into B&L ten minutes before closing where the crew were just putting the shop to bed. Elliot saw my pooh face and asked what was the matter. I held out the falling-apart-pump... Of course it was a tiny problem and all was made right in a blink. I caught up on the news and found a shiny new pump.

What struck me as I meandered around the half darkened shop and chatted with the grease flecked guys was how much I felt welcome and at home. There was no question why I had to have my bike working RIGHT NOW! No one was looking at me like "oh god another customer before closing!" I asked about some of the new toys and no one was in a rush to get me out the door. If the problem had been bigger they would have stayed without hesitation. As I wheeled the bike out to the truck no one hurried behind to turn the locks. They are cyclists. They get it.

It was dark by the time I got back so I ended up at the gym consoling myself with the fact that the bike would be ready for me in the morning.

Today dawned with the howling wind on the edge of a storm front that is moving in to town so I didn't get quite the laps in that I had anticipated... But the warmth of the previous evening's adventure stuck in my heart. I feel truly blessed to be a member of this crazy bike tribe.

The storm will pass soon. It's the little things that make life sweet.

And now for an Ed update: here he is back on the tele pole watching the sunset.

2008

From all the water fowl on the marsh and the creatures on two wheels,

a PROSPEROUS and PEACEFUL NEW YEAR to all!

Don't dream it, BE it.

L'chaim!

Psychic Gifts

It's always thrilling when a gift we have secretly wished for magically appears under the tree or on a birthday, bestowed by a thoughtful friend. Even more rare and dear is the gift a friend thought to give you before you were aware you wanted it.

Such is the case with my new "The Cyclist's Training Diary" by Velopress (with an introduction by Joe Friel).

My heart leapt with glee as I peeled back the paper to see cycling helmets in the picture on the back cover. It was a BIKE GIFT! I gasped when I turned it over. A training diary! I didn't recognize the kit but that even looked like my fave, Robbie McEwen on the cover (now know it's Tim Johnson).

You see, what is so remarkable is that the friends who gave it aren't into cycling. I'm usually the only one in our circle who talks about it. You know the feeling, you're rattling on about Disco and Astana vs. Chipotle while eyes glaze over and you think 'oh jeez, shut up already, no one cares but you...' But no, this meant that they had been listening, listening to how important it was to me. Those are real friends.

When I set big goals I normally keep them to myself and prepare quietly until I'm reasonably certain I can make them happen - then I tell everybody. But this fall I decided that I would race in 2008. This goal scared me. I've participated in endurance events where the only challenge was to raise money and finish alive. I've never tried to compete and be fast. This would be a BIG stretch. So as a counter measure I started telling everybody because I knew it would prevent me from backing out.

I was so excited as I began leafing through the crisp pages. Then I started seeing things that confused me. It spoke of setting goals for hours per week, measuring distance in kilometers and logging my maximum heart rate... I always set training goals in miles and distance - 50 miles on the flat on Monday, hills on Tuesday, 60 flat on Wednesday...If my heart was beating and I didn't feel like I was gonna throw up or die, I was doing great!

I closed it sharply, put it down literally on the floor and circled it warily as if it were a porcupine with PMS. I was suddenly struck by how different a world I was about to enter into. Just who in the hell did I think I was? How presumptuous of me! How NAIVE! I took a few deep breaths and picked up the book again, sat down. It says: '500-700 annual hours of training for Masters 35+...' Yeah, OK, not so bad, I've done that in a year before. Another deep breath. I guess this is real.

I started making friends with it and found it has spaces for every possible notation. There are grids in the back if you want to graph your progress and charts to note how you've modified your bike as needed. It doesn't just say 'log your heart rate' it tells you how and what you should be looking for. In fact it's not just a logbook it's full of tips that although not the same as a live coach take a lot of the mystery out of developing a comprehensive training program for yourself. Most importantly it introduced a notion that hadn't occurred to me before: tracking my progress in detail after the ride, as opposed to just making a check mark on a list that, 'Yeah I did my fifty miles and I feel pretty good. Time for a trough of lasagna!'

I have a feeling I'm going to grow to love this little diary. And what's really awesome is that every time I look at it I see my friends who cared so much about me and my goals that they searched for something that would help me achieve them. Now when I ride I roll with an invisible posse of friends who believe in me and are already proud of me just for getting out there. COOL!

For those friends I represent spandex and toeclip cycling. I won't let them down.

SUBLIME

My neighbor's 12-year-old son made me a sandcastle menorah for Christmas. Apparently, there is a way of baking the sand in the oven with baking soda that turns it into clay. He had it all decorated with shells. It sounds funny, I know, but we lit the whole thing and with candlelight glowing on the sand it was really quite beautiful.

I can see the menorah candles burning down as I sit on the patio in a tank top and shorts, spread out on two deck chairs munching on maple bacon and drinking Green Machine. Breakfast part deux. On the patio side the other neighbor's child has obviously received a Billy Joel songbook of sheet music. An accomplished pianist, she is ripping through the highlights of the Turnstiles album, a personal favorite, such as Summer Highland Falls and Miami 2017. The kid is really GOOD!

Moreover it gives me a cozy feeling. These days when I say "I'm going home for the holidays" I mean my uncle's place on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He's a concert pianist. By the time a jet-lagged Southern Californian wakes up in New York it's damn near noon and my uncle has started practicing. He usually warms up with jazz standards and oldies from the fifties before launching into Franz Liszt. Closing my eyes I soak in the warmth of the sun and the melodic sound of live ivory. The clear winter sunlight is glinting off the blue water of the marsh and the dense eucalyptus and pines on Torrey Pines Hill look soft as green velvet.

Ahhh contentment. Peace. Is this not what Christmas Day is about? To be at peace with all and HAPPY with what simple pleasures are provided?

Life is GOOD today and I am LUCKY.

My cousins are playing tennis together in Brooklyn, it seems for now the sun is shining there too. Another friend informed me he had already ridden his bike a hundred miles today - in 4 hours! Stud. I know I should get out there too. It's criminal to waste this gorgeous day while my north-eastern brethren and sistren are shivering and riding trainers in their garages to stay in shape...

But, Dayanu! - 'It is enough' what I have right now.

'Thank you for sending the beautiful blue pigments. I cannot pay you because the Pope has not paid me. I am penniless, therefore I cannot be robbed."

-Michelangelo, from a letter to his brother Buonarroto.

Ok. I'll go for a walk to the beach.

There, Tim. I bloggeth therefore I am (self absorbed. tee hee hee).