i'll be out of town all weekend, and from the looks of the forecast, most of you will be cooped up inside.  don't fret.  make a nice "stone fence" and sit down and read some wild bike stuff...

http://howtofixbikes.blogspot.com/

exceedingly cool.  post the stuff you've been surfing in comments and we'll bump the best stuff up into separate entries. 

-sg

p.s. maybe this will finally convince mikhail to turn over and make public his special exploratory photojournalism work into alternative bicycle geometries of the revolutionary liberal arts colleges of the midwest.

p.p.s.  if you do go out for a long ride, be safe.  bundle up, tell someone how long you'll be gone and where you're going.

our brothers and sisters abroad on two wheels throw a nice party and what happens?  the man mucks it up. 

http://www.periodico26.cu/english/sports/byke021207.htm

so.  god.  damned.  typical.

i have to admit that this makes no sense to me on any level.  even assuming i wasn't a radicalized revolutionary, i'd assume people would want to spread their own personal gospel and help facilitate change.  self-indulgent capitalists could go over there as ambassadors of the efficiency of free markets and distribute publications by the university of chicago school of economics.  assuming you're some sort of american nationalist zealot, sending people over there as spies and subversives (the classic james bond meets pat buchanan fantasy paranoia psychosis) to distribute copies of the u.s. constitution and ronald reagan's autobiography couldn't hurt and might help.  maybe you're just not big on socialism and want to politely engage them on their system.

no matter where you're coming from, wouldn't sending people over there as ambassadors be more effective than pouting and sulking and doing the whole "passive aggressive i'm not talking to you because you said hurtful things in a hurtful way" routine, which even my five year old son has mostly outgrown be an improvement?

next year.  cuban training camp from december through march.  you heard it here first.

 

 

 

yesterday, one of the many union stewardship and advisory committees met at an undisclosed location, and the meeting went well, with the exception of mikhail’s obsession with a split screen car chase on cnn which caused us to re-arrange our seating in the midst of a nuanced discussion of the differences between comrades mao’s and comrade lenin’s vision of how struggle and conflict precipitate revolution.  a small amount of re-education is likely in order, but that’s not the point of this communication.  one of the topics discussed was prayer breakfasts.  i got to wondering what the opposite of a prayer breakfast would be?  my answer, after careful thought, was sitting around in my boxers, drinking whiskey and watching the colbert report.  and along those lines, i offer this news, the only thing that could make the colbert report better….

 

http://entertainment.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=251651&affid=100055

 

this is union approved, and i want to offer, in advance, an indulgence.  any racing union rider this year who cannot fulfill their assigned duties in the course of a race and who indicates that consumption of this product was directly responsible for their inability to support the glorious cause will be held harmless.  that may not be expansive enough.  any rider, on any team, who succumbs to fatigue when engaged on two wheels on account of this confection will be considered a brother or sister of the union and will be welcomed and supported by us.

 

now, on the other hand, failing to support the glorious cause that is the revolution in cycling and the social order because you couldn’t train because you were sitting around in your boxers, drinking whiskey and watching this:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjIfaMwIFxU&eurl=

 

will have you on the trains to the re-education camps so fast your head will spin.  forewarned is forearmed.  that is all.

fred hiatt is clearly a jackass, and when the revolution comes, he will be told that he’s got some ‘splainin to do.  but after reading this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/11/ar2007021101170.html

i am forced to initiate the garry kasparov death watch betting book. 

method of death:
just happening to fall out of a car while on a highway.  it happens all the time.  7:2
just happening to fall out of a eighth story window.  could happen to anyone.  9:2
finding rare radioactive isotope in the beef wellington.  increasingly common.  5:3
the elmer fudd: shot in the head by your own shotgun.  not just in cartoons.  8:5
drowning while swimming in river.  hey, these guys are like polar bears.  15:2
chess board suddenly explodes with force of a daisy cutter.  less rare than you would think. 3:2

time frame of death.
before arrival of foreign dignitary: 5:2
during meetings with putin if foreign dignitary: 8:3
before protests of leaders autocratic management style: 7:6
during protests of leaders autocratic management style: 5:4
2 hours before a press conference announcing candidacy: off

i probably don't need to add this, but it should be clear that kasparov is a hero of the union.  for those of you who are unfamiliar with the real uscf, and incidentally the one that pops up on google well before the one you conformist lemmings kowtow towards, you know what sort of impact this man has had.  unlike american bobby fisher, he is using his celebrity powers for good.  listing kasparov's palmares would burnout an inkjet cartridge.  he will be sorely missed.

i think the union should initiate the uscf biathlon.  all contestants will compete in a 40k time trial.  they will then play a timed chess game, with their allotted time being the difference between their finishing time and 70 minutes.  Finish your TT in 54 minutes, you get 16 minutes on your clock.  finish in 1:07:00, you get 3 minutes on your clock. 

- - - posted by scott

Bicycling at Hains Point, 1942:  Hey, take Back the Streets!

Periodically, DCist runs a short piece that in some way advocates cycling as a means of commuting, along with a modest plea for some mutual respect between cyclists, motorists, and pedestrians.  Usually, this results in an unbelievable amount of vile hatred spewed at cyclists.  It’s like Lou Dobbs and immigrants – blame ‘em for all ills, and demonize those who disagree.  The only thing missing (a la Lou Dobbs, and frankly, most local politics in DC) is a little injection of race (clearly, they’re not trying hard enough!).

Today’s installation is, thus far, modest by comparison.  But it does have this beaut:

“In my time here I've found cyclists to be more annoying and deadly than cabs, buses or even muggers. They are a people with no laws, no rules and no sense.”

Hey, we are “a people”!  Cool!  Maybe we can have a homeland given to us too!

If you want to waste your time and get your blood pumping a little (like I did), you can find more crap here (and, to be honest, I find the original article not really worthwhile – some good thoughts are contained therein, but they’re certainly not comprehensive, balanced, or even with any particular sense of priority):

http://www.dcist.com/archives/2007/02/02/dcists_rules_of.php#comments

-- posted by Chris

Some great women have Texas roots.  Barbara Jordan.  Ann Richards.  Sadly, neither of these great politicians are with us today.  Now, another one of my favorite Texans has been lost to us.  I was so saddened to see in the obits this morning that Molly Ivins has died from breast cancer.  A few quotes to remember her by:

"Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful."

"The first rule of holes:  when you're in one, stop digging."

-posted by Chris

there was good feedback to yesterday's post, so before you know it, it comes back with a second helping.  however, this course is a bit spicier than the first.  angela davis is another person whom i look upon with great admiration.  she is like francis perkins in many ways: she rejected the idea that the status quo was something to be accepted and insisted on questioning it, she led by example and didn't just talk about how things should be different, she lived during a time when she needed to struggle for acceptance of her beliefs, and she was a fiery advocate for her point of view.

some will undoubtedly feel that she went too far in her advocacy, and that she does not represent a proper role model for today's little lenins.  i disagree.  she built a career rather than resting on her laurels.  she continued to "play consistently", studying and teaching and advocating the things she felt strongly about.  she met criticism head on with factual counter-arguments.  she will be remembered by many as someone who never stopped struggling to bring justice to the people.

not much time for a post today so I'm going back to the mail bin and the chance to provide a shout out to someone who was a hero of a previous revolution.  the unholy roleur sends me a lot of very interesting and provocative pieces of mail.  all of them inspire thought and are interesting, though i secretly think some of them are trolls, the email equivalent of poking someone with a sharp stick.  i suspect the latter in this particular case:

Conservative wonk ponders whether feminism did in revolutionary socialism:
 
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjJiYzE2YTM2Y2NhZDFjNGQ4NDE5YjViNmRhYmJjNTg

 
Conservative commenter seems to think so: 
 
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmU3N2NhZDM0YWRmNjAwN2VkYmZlNmU3ZjRhMGY3ZTU
 
Me?  I think it was the plastic shoes.  How can you have a world-wide revolution wearing shoes that catch fire when inadvertantly stepping in some cigar ashes dropped by some deranged capitalist plutocrat will catch your shoes on fire?

But didn't socialism change with the introduction of feminism? It became more touchy-feely, more holistic, more Mommy Party and less concerned with Soviet-style posters of muscle-men with jackhammers

since a goodly number of you academic, latte drinking, suv driving types will be spending a fer bit of time in siberia after the revolution anyway, you might want to give this a good close look...

http://www.rctc.ru/gring.html

the revolution is it's own reward.

this very moving documentary of class struggle is an approved piece of racing union thought.  and even though it's oscar season, you won't see the establishment showing these guys any love.  down with the haters.

http://www.mouthrevolution.com/index.html

-sg

on wednesday, i got to do a little bit of outreach with bruce from fairfax advocates for better bicycling.  we headed out to george mason university and talked with students, faculty and staff about commuting on bikes.

the most common questions we got concerned safe routes for riding.  we gave away a lot of maps and highlighted preferred routes.  most people had bikes and wanted to ride, they just were not sure what the safest way to go was.  we plotted routes from as far away as reston, alexandria, seven corners, and fair oaks with a lot of people also coming from the burke/wakefield area.  while these distances aren't notable, we're not talking about hard core cyclists here, we're talking about recreational riders on hybrids who want to give it a shot.  and it looks promising.

people had a variety of other concerns as well.  are there enough bike racks?  where can i shower once i get to campus?  are the bike racks safe and will my bike get stolen?  I'm now more convinced that ever that what is needed is an ambassador program: volunteers who will go to people's houses in the morning, meet up with them and accompany them to where they need to go.  either that or a bike to work day type approach where you designate a few satellites away from campus and then gather a few people and ride in together as a group.  people have bikes and they have a desire to ride them.  what they seem to lack is a knowledge of safe routes and the confidence to just try it out.

another benefit of this event was that we got a chance to talk to some of the facility gurus from gmu.  they are currently planning on putting in more bike racks.  we also discussed with them the idea of adding bike routes to the current cue bus map for the city of fairfax and putting out a guide to commuting by bike or just simply a GMU bike route map for people who were interested.  they were more receptive than I thought they would be which is a positive sign as well.

- - - posted by scott

This guy built a generator powered by a homemade recumbent bike.  It seems to be a mixture of proof-of-concept relating to alternative energy, and a fun way to use up old junk parts.   He manages to get a peak electrical output of 203 Watts @ 550RPM at the generator (my wild-ass guess is the generator is about 40-50% efficient) and decides that 6 or 7 cents per KW/H from the power company is a "fantastic value." 

--posted by roy