Dear, Asphalt. You are fucking boring.

So, it’s been well over a year since I wrote Mt. Shredward. Why the long absence? Is anyone asking? No. So no need to answer. More important is that over the last year there’s been no absence of dirt mixed with in my eye boogers. My cherished night rides have been happening regularly. My crew and I even did a week in Moab. I'm happy to report that the trip didn’t just live up to the hype that is mountain biking in Moab, it pooped in Hype’s brown lunch bag and then gave it a red and weltty mushroom print with its John Holmes when Hype had the audacity to complain about its caca covered Lay’s and carrot sticks. The trip was that beyond expectations.

Yes, my riding life has been good.

But unfortunately, goddammit, because of a recent injury, the trail and I are having some time apart. My right elbow was already giving me some trouble thanks to a playing-with-my-daughter injury. Then a flight over my Monkey Bar, courtesy a baby head that was taller than I anticipated, finished off my beer levitator, rendering it pretty fucked, medically speaking. Bad baby head. You’re a bad bad baby head. I landed right hand first and knew immediately that this was no usual header. Boy was I right. For a couple weeks I couldn’t ride, period. Handlebar position elicited a chorus of pops and hitches. Bad news. But fortunately there has been progress and I can at least ride again.

But I’m still limited. I don’t dare ride anywhere that is going to jack hammer my still tender joint. I certainly ain’t ready to ride anywhere where there’s a risk of me bailing. So I’ve had to look into options.

I’ve never had much of an interest in road riding. But I'm even less interest in not riding at all. After tiring of riding up a paved (but challengingly steep) two-lane hiking/biking trail and fire road above my place in San Bruno, I decided to venture out with my old converted-for-the-city Gary Fisher Tassajara and do some road riding. At the time of the crash I was in the best riding shape of my life. At 39 years of age, I’m pretty stoked about that and have no interest in taking a step back. So I drove down the San Francisco Bay Area peninsula (a beautiful area) and found some asphalt.

Meh, I say to you, road riding. Double meh.

I have riding buddies who mountain bike and road ride both, and every time a call goes out on the crew email list asking if anyone is into a road ride, I think, “Really? But, we live close to so much sick mountain biking. Why?" Then I think, "Okay, guess I can’t cast aspersions until I’ve done some road riding myself.” But now that I’ve done some road riding myself I gotta say my “Huh?” level has gone up even more. Holy shit is pavement ever boring. It’s like being given the choice of spending the night with an 85 pound woman who has no need to own a bra or getting crazy with 135 pounds of womanly heaven and saying, “Gimme the boney flat one.”

Mountain biking’s got curves, man. It’s soft and hard at the same time. Nasty, but oh so sweet. Goddamn do I miss her so. I need to call Tim Tebow and get him to dip a knee into the grass and ask the baby JC for my elbow to heal faster. Daddy needs to get dirty.

Sigh.

I try to be one of those guys who learns from every experience, no matter how lame: don’t touch hot pans. It hurts. So what have I learned from my current injured state? All it’s done really is reinforced what I already knew in my boner: Mountain biking is best thing going on two wheels and that asphalt is ass.

A brief shredward sighting.

It's been a loooooonnnng time since I've ridden on Mt. Shredward. Honestly, it's been a long time since I've ridden anywhere. Besides one trip to the Marin Headlands, a perfect storm of actual storms and a lot of out of town work (mostly in Seattle, where the rain is as fucking ceaseless as everyone says) has limited my riding to the 4 wheels of various office chairs. Bummer (though not working, which for about a month I was doing a lot of, is also a bummer. Especially when it's raining the whole time, so I couldn't ride during my unemployment). But, this sad streak is just that: a streak. I ain't sweatin' it. I'll get back on track once I get back in town (I'm writing this from LA). In the mean time, check this shit out. It's fucking bananas and is another reminder that I'm not that good of a mountain biker, and in general, a total pussy.

VCA 2010 RACE RUN from changoman on Vimeo.

Exciting news! Shredward is now on twit...oh who gives a fuck.

Hello to my faithful reader. In an attempt to better stay in touch with you and let you know what's going on, I've just added a twitter account. I'll toss out the occasional tweet. Not sure what I'd tweet about at this time. Not sure why you'd care, but I'll try to make them worthwhile. Hmmm. What kind of stuff should I tweet about? I can post some photos from the amazingly beautiful rides I get to do in the bay area. That's a natural. We have ocean views. We have redwoods. All kinds of good shit. Maybe I can tweet about my recovery after I eat shit. But then again, I don't crash that much. I'm kind of a pussy. I would tweet about how I do in races, but Team Shredward is against racing. Wow, maybe I shouldn't have started a twitter account. But I'll give it a shot. Click on the button on the right to start following me.

Getting Knocked Down Doesn’t Hold Up

A good friend of mine, John, is way into music. He plays in a band—a few bands, actually. He DJs and has the waist-high wall of vinyl-crammed milk crates that goes along with the lifestyle. He also loves going to go see bands. I’m not as into going out and seeing shows as I used to be, but I like hanging out with John a lot, and I enjoy his band, The Tempermental’s music, even though it’s pretty hardcore punk, which I usually find as noisy and shitty as most people do. Even though I have pretty non-mainstream musical tastes, I need music to have something melodic going on for me to enjoy it. Call me crazy. The Tempermentals have a little melody mixed in with the madness, so I dig it. Going to see The Tempermentals regularly has also re-sparked my interest in checking out other shows a bit (I used to go to see shows constantly in my 20s), so when John invited me to take an extra ticket he had to see punk(ish) rock old timers, Bad Religion, I accepted, even though I’ve never even come close to buying one of their albums.

As I expected, they put on a fine show. It was the last show of their 30^th anniversary show, and that experience manifests itself in the form of polish as opposed to sleep walking through a show. The best way to describe them is “total pros.” Their bald singer, (who looked like Bruce Willis, circa ’98 from where we were watching the show), Greg Gaffin’s distinct rapid fire, yet oddly melodic tones are 100% intelligible and easy to listen to, which I think has a lot to do with their mainstream appeal.

As a grown up, I’ve come to admire bands like Bad Religion. Let’s face it, despite their noisy first years and their once edgy, but now relatively innocuous no religion logo, Bad Religion hasn’t been much more than a gateway band in the punk genre for a long time. They were the first punk band your fucked up, out of work, tattooed, 89 lb cousin loved when she was 12, before she got serious about music and started listening to and emulating the rabid punk bands that would steer her toward making poor decisions.

Bad Religion staying true to what they are and perfectly playing their role in punk is pretty cool in my book, and is, beyond their obvious musical talent, a key to their longevity (I think it’s also why the guys don’t give off the “pathetic aging rockers” vibe on stage). We’ve seen acts like MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice and other highly digestible, mainstream artists that float around the periphery of traditionally hardcore genres get sick of being considered pussies and decide that they’re going to show everyone just how fucking hardcore they are. The results are always laughable. As far as I know, Bad Religion has never started doing pissy interviews and put out a, “Fuck you, haters. We’re totally hardcore!” album.

So what do my probably inaccurate thoughts on Bad Religion have to do with mountain biking? Not a goddamn thing, but I got really stoned at the show and I had a few thoughts about the show that I wanted to put down. Although there is one tie-in.

While the tragically fucking horrible opening act was playing, John and I went up to the balcony area of the Regency Ballroom. Looking down on the poor bastards whose ears were being clumsily finger banged by Off With Their Scrotum, or whatever the band was called, I noticed a mosh pit. Mosh pits always look kinda funny from above, almost like an invisible tornado has touched down in the crowd. Man, I used to love me some moshing. It was a must back in the day and always a topic of conversation after a concert. But I’m happy to say, those days are behind me. It’s always a satisfying moment for me when I see younger people doing something that I used to do and I think, “That just looks fucking miserable….and painful.” Why satisfying and not sad and depressing? Sad is what it would be if I still felt I belonged in a mosh pit at 37. Moshing is one of those nutty things you do when you’re young and then outgrow.

Mountain biking, however, is something nutty that holds up, which is why I love it so. It has elements of moshing and getting crazy at a concert: There’s adrenalin. You can get hurt. It’s fun to do with friends and talk about after the fact. But it doesn’t hold that same potential for someone saying, “Did you see that fucking old dude? What the fuck?” I used to say stuff like that in my teens and early 20s. I don’t want it said about me. And if I were still in the pit, I’d totally deserve it.

But with mountain biking, I don’t have fears of ever deserving the stinging shit talking of a snot nosed kid. Even though it’s the younger guys who kick the most ass at the sport (like any sport), no one who mountain bikes into and past middle age has the appearance of pathetically clinging to some piece of their youth. That’s a good activity to get involved in. On the contrary, I feel much more pathetic when I don’t mountain bike. 

A night to remember/forget

Hello Mt. Shredward, it is I, your creator. It’s been a while since I’ve visited you. Looking at the website traffic overview, looks like I’m not the only one who doesn’t give a shit about you. God you’re a loser.

We’ve had some absolutely lovely weather out here in San Francisco over the last week. Some would say it’s been too hot. I say, “stop yer bitchin’ and enjoy it.” I sure have.

I love this city with all my body parts, but when it comes to the weather, the summers suck the part of my body that poops. It’s especially bad where I live, out at the beach. It’s cold, often windy and permanently overcast. And for some reason—maybe el nino or la nina or some other latin rugrat—this summer was particularly worthless, and not just out in my neck of the woods. Despite the fact that the rest of the country got absolutely broiled this summer, things just never got cooking anywhere in the bay area.

I do a weekly night ride with a group of buddies (which, coincidentally, you can read about in my latest published piece here) in the east bay hills. Normally the east bay has much better weather than we have just a few scant miles west. I really look forward to night riding during the summer months. Once the sun goes down, the temperature + the wind rushing by while you bomb a hill = a sensory experience that’s just…man, it just makes a brotha’ smile his ass off and feel happy to be alive and on a bike and living in such a great part of the country. It’s freakin' optimal. But it can’t happen if the variable of the temperature is off. And this summer, it was off damn near every night we hit the trails. It was always chilly. I’ll never complain about any time I spend on my bike, but as far as enjoying warmth, we got dicked this summer.

So when we got this unseasonably warm weather, I sure as hell wasn’t going to pass up a chance get in a night ride before the agreeable temperatures passed (which as I write this, has done just that). So after work I headed out for an impromptu solo ride from my place at the beach, through Golden Gate Park and up onto Mt. Sutro. And man, it was an amazing night. It was warm. The view from Twin Peaks was crystal clear. The riding gods were even smiling on me to the point that I had a slow leak on the way home that was just slow enough that I didn’t have to change the tube. I can’t complain about shit…oh wait…yes I can. Unfortunately, I mean that literally.

As I was about to hit Twin Peaks, I spotted…oh god…a little puddle (yeah, it was pretty much a mini cow pie) of shit right in the middle of the trail. And when I say the middle of the trail, I mean it was like someone measured the trail width, did some quick calculations, scratched an X in the dirt and covered it with their feces. Yes, I said someone. And unfortunately, try as I might to make a last second trajectory adjustment, my back tire rolled right the hell over the leavings of some degenerate with digestive issues. Fuck. Fuck and double fuck. I thought dealing with horseshit on the trail sucked.

Stubborn stuff, human shit, especially when it gets to hunker down in the complex tread of a WTB. I tried dragging the befouled four inches through some dry grass. All it did was give my tire a little goatee and create a scratch and sniff effect. Friends, human shit doesn’t smell good. Especially when it’s not mine and it's ON MY FUCKING BIKE!

But, despite my best efforts, there wasn’t shit I could do about this shit. So I calmed myself, leaned my bike against a rail, put about ten feet between me and my stinky wheel, and enjoyed one of the most spectacular panoramic views of city lights in the world (thanks to whoever I stole this great photo from).

After eye humping the sights for a bit I headed back down the trail, turd tire and all. And, as it often does, the trail cured all.

I remember seeing a show on PBS or some other smart person network I watch because I’m so smart, that showed that the Great Lakes are actually naturally breaking down and reversing all the bullshit we’ve unleashed on them.

By the time I got home, after the dirt of Mt. Sutro and the sandy trails of Golden Gate Park had done their thing, nary a speck remained. Oh trail, is there any problem you can't solve?

But despite the natural scouring, me and my bike still had major Silkwood showers when I got back home. I mean, that was some dude’s shit. That’s seriously nasty.

Andy Beach: Dumbshit.

First of all, I want to apologize to my 2 readers for my prolonged absence. No excuse. I just haven't had anything I wanted to write about. But, I can always depend on my stupidity, lack of confidence in my riding and absent-mindedness to put me back on Mt. Shredward with something to shout from its pixilated peak. Hopefully this will jar something loose and I’ll get the fingers flying for the sake of Mt. Shredward. I like writing about this stuff, but I don’t do it just for the sake of filling in space. I want to have something I deem worth writing about. Whether you deem it worthy is up to you.

So, on to my stupidity with some other thoughts mixed in.

I have a Toyota Corolla. When it’s just me, rather than put on my rack, I just drop the back seats to make my trunk space extra big, take off my front wheel, load in my bike and the wheel, slam the trunk closed and I’m on my way.

So I went through this routine last Wednesday morning, as I had a night ride planned after work:

Open trunk. Lean the seats forward. Take off my front wheel. Load in my bike. Slam the trunk closed. I’m on my way.

Oh wait, a step is missing; a step I didn’t realize I had skipped until I opened my trunk after driving all the way across San Francisco and parked. There I stood in a downtown parking area realizing that I had joined the ranks of the truly lame.

I called my wife to go to where I had been parked to see if there was a wheel there. No dice.

I was the now the not-so-proud owner of a Santa Cruz Blur LT unicycle. And some fucker who didn’t have the decency to leave a note on a nearby tree letting me know where I could get my wheel, was now the owner of my front wheel.

So, what did I learn? Not that I have a tendancy to go brain dead. I already knew that. I've proven it to myself many times. Not that many people are greedy dicks that would rather try to make a few bucks than help out someone who has screwed up. Everyone knows that. I actually didn't learn anything.

But I was reminded of something that is so cool about bikes.

One of the main thing that makes bikes so special—so pure—is the fact that there’s no bullshit. Save suspension (on some bikes), the padding on your saddle and handlebar grips, every piece is essential (let’s leave gears out of the conversation. For most of us, they’re essential. Personally, I don’t get the whole single speed mountain bike thing). Unlike the ten thousand extra odds and ends on a car, you need every single piece of a bike for it to work. No handlebar, you’re fucked. Missing a pedal, you’re fucked. Broken chain? You got yourself a cumbersome scooter, not a bike. If you put your bike back together after a repair and you’ve got a hex nut left over, friend, you got yourself a mystery that better get solved before you hit the trail.

Bikes are perfect machines. Higher end parts are available for more durability and decreased weight, but in terms of basic construction, a bike is like a gator or a roach. It’s the same now as it’s been forever. There’s no need for evolution. Perfection. That’s why we love them.

But if I had to do a Greg Fitzsimmons rank ‘em, I’d say there are no parts as essential to the operation of a bicycle as wheels. You lose a wheel, you don’t even have the option to roll anymore. You’re not pushing your broken bike home, you’re carrying the bastard.

When I fuck up, I go all out.

Special thanks to my buddy, Lee (Buddy Lee. That’s funny) for loaning me a wheel and thanks to Colorado Cyclist, where I bought my Blur, for giving me a sweet deal on a replacement.


South Yuba Trail vs. Strippers

Ahh, how priorities, wants and desires change with time.

I’m getting married on May 8^th, less than two weeks from the day I’m typing away on this little story. It’s my second marriage. My first marriage happened 11 years ago, when I was 26. Back then I had a pretty memorable bachelor party. My brother/best man planned a trip to Reno, and a group of buddies had bachelor party-type fun. It wasn’t law-breaking debauchery, but we drank a lot and did bachelor party stuff that involved women whose lives probably weren’t going exactly how they (and especially their parents) had planned. Pretty typical stuff.

This time around, I’m in a different place. And honestly, I’m glad about that. If, at 37, I were still looking for the same type of bachelor party I had at 26, I’d probably say my life wasn’t going exactly how I had planned; in terms of emotional maturing, anyway. But that’s just me, and how I see things for myself.

Case in point: for the second bachelor party of Andy Beach, my brother/once-again-best-man and I opted to take the biking route over the boozing and boobie ogling route. As fortune would have it, a riding acquaintance of mine was planning a big ride along the South Yuba Trail. Woo and hoo! My brother paid the check for lunch before the ride, dinner after and paid for the gas that was burned during the 6 hours of driving to and from the trail. Boom. Best man’s bachelor party obligations are done, and the bachelor is content.

Don’t get me wrong. I still love boobies. But these days, an epic ride is way more enjoyable to me than a night shoving hard earned cash into the thongs of topless women who may be simmering with projected hatred for me.

It was a ride well worth the long drive. It was also nice to wake up with sore legs and little energy as opposed to a really sore cranium and little money.

And my fellow partiers couldn’t have been cooler, even though they had no idea they were playing a role in a kinda special day for me.  I hadn’t met the vast majority of my co-riders, and those who I had met, it had only been once on a ride in Santa Cruz. But wow, what an awesome bunch. They were all strong and dedicated riders and really nice folks. I hope to ride with them again one day. And damn, what beautiful country we pedaled through together. The Yuba River was crystal clear. Wild flowers were everywhere. Even the poison oak was in its gorgeous red-green state. And to top it off, the temperature was right in that sweet spot for hard riding: low-to-mid 70s. Thanks to all the people and natural forces for making my bachelor party a great one that no strippers could have matched.

Here are some pictures. We did something like North Bloomfeld Road, Rim Trail, into an old mining town called North Bloomfeld, Missouri Bar Trail and then up and down and up and down the stunning South Yuba Trail.

About to bomb Missouri Bar Trail

Spectacular moss covered cliffEven the poison oak was pretty

 

Riding on Groundhog Day

“Groundhog Day,” staring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell was on the other night on TBS or TNT or TNA or TBD or one of those cable channels. Damn, what a great movie. It remains one of my all time favorites. I think we all have those few movies that just never get old. If I come across “Groundhog Day,” it doesn’t matter if it’s 47 minutes in, I’m watching it to the end. I’m trapped by its brilliant comedy goodness and the amazing performance by Murray. Even Andie MacDowell’s L’Oreal TV spot caliber acting chops don’t bother me that much.

Anyway, during the movie, Bill Murray’s character, Phil, eventually takes advantage of his maddening situation (if you’ve never seen it, tough shit. I can’t go over the plot. And you should watch it, anyway). He realizes there are no consequences for his actions. This includes the consequences of massive bodily trauma. No matter how fucked up he gets, he just wakes up the next day, totally intact. In other words, Phil can’t die.

In one scene, actually hoping to die and end his miserable deja vu gone mad life, Phil drives a truck into a quarry.

As I was watching this scene, it suddenly hit me: how fucking rad would it be to do shit like that on a mountain bike with no concerns about what happens when you hit the bottom (and how cool would it be to be friends with Chris Elliot)? You could really take your riding to another level. Launch off El Capitan? Why not? Try to see how far you could ride down the Luxor in Vegas before you wipe out? Sign me up! Two or three times.

And that’s just the suicide moves. You could practice insane moves over and over again until you nailed them. Break your back. Fuckit. You’ll wake up the next morning. Spill your brains all over a rock. No worries. And no reason to wear a helmet. In the movie, Phil uses all his extra days to learn to play the piano and speak French. Not to question such a great film, but fuck that. I would be a bit more active, and that activity certainly would include my bike. I would also try all kinds of crazy non-bike stuff too. Maybe try to track and bone a mountain lion or eat my own arm or something extra mental like that. Why not? That’s a lot of days to fill with new experiences. And I’m not going to feel like riding everyday.

But, alas, consequences will always be the enemy of ultimate riding and mountain lion rape. At least they are for me. I know there are guys out there who jump on their bikes and defy consequences and end up in the videos I post on the site from time to time. I guess it’s how close we live our lives to “Groundhog Day” that separates the men (not me) from the boys (me).


Today in "Guys Who Remind Me I'm not That Good of a Mountain Biker."

So, I gotta say, before I watched the first 45 seconds of this video, I didn't know that the Douche Bag Virus (aka The Greico Virus) had invaded Canada. But the statement, "I'm Dylan, and all I wanna do is shred," and the other epically douchey introductions, all delivered with hand gestures flying and without the slightest hint of self-effacing irony proves otherwise. Jersey attitude by way of BC. But, the opportunity to rip on guys a little too into themselves, the fact that the dudes are awesome riders and the high production values prompted me to post this instalment of guys that remind me that I'm not that good a rider. I especially dig the side by side course.

F'reals!

The Marin Headlands were heeeeehhlllllaa beautiful this weekend, dog. And even though I stayed off the dirt, cuz it's all sloppy and shit, and, like, just did a road ride, it was da bomb!