Steve Coogan

Another Steve Coogan pic by the incomparable Erin Cunningham

Lost in Hidden Springs Idaho

Appropriately. I guess that is what this intentional community intended - you can ride in but you cannot ride out. 

Up until yesterday's Cartwright Rd loop, I always rode around Hidden Springs. This neighborhood always had a bit of a "Stepford Wives" feel to me. But to my delight the first business I noticed was a cafe with a logo of the letter A with wings (notable only because I often frequent a cafe called the Flying M). There are two choices when stopping for an espresso on a bike ride: espresso or macchiato. I chose #3: iced mocha. It was delicious by the way, and now that I know how to exit Hidden Springs I will make that cafe a part of my ride. 

After my coffee break, I rode around the neighborhood, trying various left turns that I presumed would take me back to the main road. But they mostly led me to right turns that led me back into the labyrinth. Eventually I encountered a trail that led me to the dead end pictured above.

The dead end turned out not to be quite dead yet. I found a small path that led into the dry stream bed above. Note the electric fencing.

Suddenly, I broke out of the gully, formerly referred to as the dry stream bed, and followed the trail through the black-eyed susans and back to the main road.

Now I have a pleasant detour on dirt to take the next time I ride the Cartwright Rd Loop.

The Heroes love this movie

Cyclocross season is almost here

Dogs in France

I have a heroic ramrod in my pants

over my new racing bicycle

Stuart O'Grady

Computer semi fixed and I am just getting a chance to look at my photos from france. I thought this looked like it was done with a Green Screen.

A Few Things from the Blue Mounds

A trip to Blue Mounds Wisconsin is a Tenspeed Hero Favorite. Yesterday Ben Hero and I made our way out from Chicago. In additon to the world class cycling among "undulating emerald-green farm fields under clear azure-blue skies" a few things happened.

 

The first notable event was a Tenspeed Hero christening. As a church bus drove by us,  we named a particularly agonizing set of hills "The Holy Rollers." In the style of a former post, I have illustrated the elevation profile for The Holy Rollers above.

*the figures shown do not necessarily represent the distance between Ben and myself or myself and Ben

Another notable moment was finding this grass on my knee after stopping for a quick deraileur adjustment. Notice the Tenspeed Hero socks.  Shortly after this, while riding by myself I heard a tree fall in woods. I thought about the old kōan, but quickly realized it didn't apply.

As we enjoy philisophical discussions on these rides, it usually continues through the car ride home. Somewhere between Madison and Chicago Ben filled me in about internet Memes. He told me about some old favorites but we also pondered the meaning of this seemingly trivial phenomenon. Iphone Internet research told us a Meme is "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture"; an internet Meme is one of these ideas located and transmitted throughout the internet. This prompted the final and most formidable question of the day: Is a Meme a Meme?

Bye Bye Team Highroad...

One of the interesting aspects of professional cycling is the often-short life span of the branded team. Their funerals are a regular occurrence, as the teams are composed of temporary sponsors and temporary owners. Though many individuals make a career out of team management, their advertised brands change with the prevailing winds of yearly advertising goals, and wealthy industrialists who adopt cycling as a hobby for four to ten years. There are of course the Moltenis, the Mapeis and the Rabobanks, but make no mistake; they are not cut from the same cloth as the Yankees or Manchester United. Of course, if George Steinbrenner had to rely only on income from renting advertising space on the Yankee pinstripes, there would be no Yankees as we know it today. George needed Yankee stadium (and the TV rights that go with it) to craft a franchise that stuck it out through two World Wars and one Great Depression. The pro cycling team in its genesis is a modular affair with many movable parts, but with essentially no property except for the odd team bus and a few jerseys captured along the way. Their demise is oft celebrated with a yard-like sale of used bikes, water bottles, and well-used espresso machines, in the parking lot of their “home base” known as the team service course. And unless the peloton stages a major coup of profit sharing and management, history will know ASO, RCS Sport, and Uni Public and the races they organize......Read on

Competition for Tenspeed Hero