If you are not a cyclist, it’s a bit of a shit country, but I think it’s wicked.
Indeed. Who could disagree with insight like that? Full quote here.
Archive for the 'Bollocks' Category
You shall know them by what is not seen: neither a pump fitted to their frame, nor a bag to their saddle. These things are hidden in their raiment.
This I have learned today: their drinking vessels exceed not one-and-twenty ounces, except in the most extreme heat of the desert sun.
And they are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.
Thanks to my long-departed grandfather, I took one small step away from O’Dirty dependency this week. My single-speed commuter, a brushed aluminium 2007 Specialized Langster, needed a new chain and freewheel. I’d successfully replaced the old stretched chain without bleating for O’Dirty’s help, but the old freewheel, wound tight on the axle by daily Mount Street ascents, wouldn’t budge. The worn sprocket teeth made an ugly grinding noise against the new chain. I needed more leverage to undo that freewheel; I needed a vice, so I could clamp the freewheel removal tool and use the wheel as a spanner. At last I had found a use for the vice that had belonged to my grandfather, and that my father had passed on to me with Grandpa’s workbench. I bought some nuts, bolts, and washers, and fixed the vice to the bench through the existing holes in the wood top. With the removal tool clamped in the vice, the old freewheel came off easily.
The Langster is now running smoothly again; I’m wearing new 2010 Specialized S-Works shoes (no velcro, just two BOA dials) connected to Speedplay Zero pedals, and an Ay Up system lights the way ahead. This is the sweetest commuting setup I’ve ever had.
So, my ride is tuned; the weather is fine; my nearly-two-year-old son has begun to sleep through the night and has learned to say “bikyll”; and yesterday his mother got up early to go riding on her new road bike. The rain will come, as it must; but for now, life is good.
The art of juggling is a strange one. To the uninitiated the cascade pattern, where a ball remains in each hand at all times except at the moment of exchange, is mesmerising. The more difficult yet intuitively more obvious shower pattern, where the balls are passed from hand to hand and two are in the air most of the time looks curiously less impressive. It remains to be seen which pattern we have in motion with Uno Coglione, Due Coglioni, and Tre Coglioni teams turning out in York, but it is worth taking a moment to reflect on this goal finally having been achieved after three years of juggling, sometimes two balls in one hand, sometimes one in the air, and occasionally one lying forlorn on the ground.
Credit is due to all who have ridden, and especially to those who have helped to organise and captain teams - O’Dirty, Spunker, Stuey, Digger and Karen deserve recognition for York, but no doubt I am forgetting others who have contributed in the past. Paddles deserves a special mention for seeking out and vetting the new recruits that have bolstered our numbers to the extent that we easily fielded two “A” teams in the Lancelin and York events this year. Hopefully we’ll get ride reports from the Due and the Tre for York - meanwhile here’s my pick of the photos of the three teams from that event, and let’s see if we can have three teams again in the Swan Valley.
I have no idea what the relevance of the revised title of this post has to do with anything, but I am in haste to withdraw the aspersions I mistakenly cast on O’Dirty and Babel and the now absent post detailing alleged dabblings with the Debbil. Being a parent is the only excuse I can offer, for somehow I recalled from O’Dirty’s excited ramblings on the phone after the purchase had been made that Mrs Babel’s new ride was equipped with Ultegra, when in fact the Force is with her. I must therefore humbly apologise and endorse their work, for no finer choice could be made for the money.
Those who missed the shortlived post will need to live in wonder, get the story from O’Dirty, or extract it from me with a beer.
Recent Comments