The Bacon Strip (sizzletitts!)

Hello!

The Bacon Strip has moved. Don't worry! The disgusto-shred-venturing you love is still going on at the link below.

www.TeamBaconStrip.com

Love and kisses, Wolfy

Saline Valley Road

The Saline Valley Road/Superbowl Challenge, was awesome!

It was a late night for us, but we managed to be riding by 11:00 AM on Saturday. Here's Smithers loading up the pig.



That thing yanked his chain pretty good on the way down the washboarded bomber into the valley. There was a fair amount of snow over the road that was dificult to negotiate at speed too.



We thought briefly about hitching a ride out for more beer.



In the pic below you can see the aluvial fan that rises out of the valley just to the right of Mark's head. We could see the road cutting up it as we were bombing down.



Smithers took a beating on the way down from that Sibex fork in the front and the Bob in the back. When he got to the turnoff to the Springs he'd found his happy place and wasn't leaving. It was a nice camp. A little kit fox left us chicolate kisses around in echange for the drippings from our cans of turkey chili.



The first hour on Sunday was killer with smooth roads and a fast pace. You can find good conditions on the shoulder that last for miles at a time down there. not as bad as your would think driving it in a car.



Riding past the Saline Dunes.



After riding up the fan for an hour or so we were pretty high above the valley. The cool thing about riding in the desert is that you can see how far you've come. The perspective of distance over time is a trip when you're going maybe 5 MPH.



Grapevine Canyon.



And then we were at the top and celebration became necessary.



It was a pretty mellow ride from the top of grapevine canyon out to 190. Rolling hills and nice smooth DH. A Joshua tree forest and some nice streches of pavement. I'd driven the broken pavement the night before, and again I noticed that what is rough and crappy with 4 wheels, can be nice and smooth with only two.



Great touring with McD and Smithers. Thanks! What's the Superbowl Challenge going to be next year?

-M

ps here's that pic I promised:



See Japhy Rider's Blog for his write-up and his smugmug for his pics.

Tenacious D

This is the greatest, and best, song in the world.



-M

ps stay tuned for the SVR tirp report featuriny photos of the great Wolfy stewing naked in a tub with several dirty hippies...

Watch the little daisies grow

Japhy Rider, Smithers and I are about to go down and tear a new A-hole in the Saline Valley Road. This cheerful ditty should make the hours of bowel-inverting washboard twiddle by like a pack of brownies sewing on their merit badges for yammering, gossiping and gum chewing.



-M

Daily Gross-Out

During my last sesh as the Midnight Bathroom Remodeler, I removed the tub drain and associated hardware, the better to protect it from the caustic rain of mortar while I was tiling the showerhead area. I was prepared to find the overflow drain covered in hard water deposits, etc. but what I wasn't prepared for was the fact that it was nearly clogged with 55 years worth of sludge, undifferentiated glottz, toxic funk, and 5.8 million of the previous residents' PUBES. I found an old cooking pot in the attic disinfected the whole works by boiling it in 5% bleach.

Just thought you'd all like to know that.

AZ RoadTrippin'!!!

After meeting El Garro I can understand why Fed Ex would be reluctant to insure his packages against damage. Steve’s opening technique is to bludgeon the box with his knuckles until it submits. Chris King has to wrap his headsets in bags of coffee beans to protect them from his awesome power.

Here he is truing some wheels. I observed closely. Here’s his process: lace, true, dish, tension; true, dish, tension... He uses the Spokekey with four sided contact, and tensions right with right hand, left with left hand; checks tension by squeezing four spokes at once. No tensiometer. He said you want the crosses hard to separate (with his hand strength that means a lot hard to separate). (correct me on any of this)

After a while Dr. Shredmor wandered out of the woods where he hibernates for various interminable lengths and proceeded to prepare us some killer tacos made out of a strange other-worldly carnage that tasted vaguely like chicken can't recall what exactly he called it. It was delish. Dogs were walloped, cats were tortured with a makeshift riding crop, pictures were viewed. Thanks Steve, and Dr. Shredmor! Sorry we didn't get to meet Denise. Hopefully you have to stop by on your way to/from the handmade bike show.Would have posted a photo of Dr. S, but they all had this freaky lens flare in them…

Saturday we rolled down to Sedona to investigate the alleged “shredding” there. Reports are completely accurate! Perfect dirt, rolling trails, tough rock ledges, and tiny bits of mud. We rode the Bell Rock path to the Little Horse Trail, to The Llama trail back to Bell Rock. It was perfect.

Camped near the Desert museum that night near Tucson. I was going to get up at the butt crack and ride up Tucson MTN, but about 12:00 AM I woke up from a dream… WITH AMAZING STOMACHE CRAMPS. Started walking the ¼ mile to the toilet. About half way I started wondering if I’d make it. Couldn’t walk faster due to the pressure. Stopping and doubling over didn’t help. The light on the side of the outhouse seemed to me moving farther away, but it was just my vision getting blury and vague. I made it. It wasn’t pretty. I made Smella drive me the next time. By the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th trips I was able to drive myself.

But I’m ok now.

When I got back to RTO my bike was right where I’d left it, with enough air in the tires to get me home.

-M

Fabulous Floyd's

So a few years back Smella and I were at this weird little junk shop in Hazen Station NV, which is on alt 95 between Ferntucky, NV and Fallabamma, NV. We were poking around and talking to the owner and his little 10 year old son was running around.

These two strange older gentlemen came in and poked around and chatted a bit. One was extra strange wearing super short cut-offs and running shoes w/o socks. We bought some stupid piece of junk and moved on.

Got a call from the sherif when we got back after we'd gone to bed and had been asleep for an hour or so. Seems old-weird-cut-off dude was having a little private personal artifact showing with the owner's 10 year old son while no one was looking. Aparently he hadn't anything on under those cut-offs...

Long story short: as Soma was leaving after we had Paninis this afternoon at Michael's Deli next to College Cyclery, old-weird-cut-off dude sat down at the next table.

Floyd's not feeling so fabulous right about now.

-M

Bacon Strip Balderdash

This game kicks ass.

-M

60-Hz Hum

Disclaimer: The following post has nothing to do with cycling, skiing, climbing, or any other outdoor pursuit, and has everything to do with the poster being an incurable, 7075-alloy, four-star geek.

This is a 1947 model General Electric clock-radio, poached from the House ofWoe in suburban Denver (a.k.a. my late and not especially lamented grandfather's house). The clock is completely functional, including the annoying buzz alarm, but the radio hadn't worked for years. I took it upon myself a few weeks ago to see if I could get the radio working, took the back off the thing, and lo and behold, there resided no less than four (count 'em) glass vacuum tubes. I felt like I'd just walked through a time machine. I removed the tubes and took them down to the local electronics supply store, which, for some reason, had a tube-testing machine. One of the tubes proved faulty, and to my unending surprise, the shop had a replacement for sale. $12.95 later, I reinstalled the tubes and powered up. The tubes glowed a faint, warm red-orange, and a moment later, the soft, nostalgic background hum of 60-Hz AC power issued from the speaker. A flip of the tuner, and -- shazam-- KCOL, broadcasting at 610 kilocycles, was heard through faint static.

There is no reason save geekiness to have fixed this thing--there's absolutely nothing on AM radio that's worth listening to, unless the Broncos ever make the playoffs again. But--ya gotta admit, having a vacuum tube AM radio that works is pretty damn cool.

SphincterBoy

A Scanner got me

i was reprimanded by my supervisor and it's been a rough day here in the Lab. good thing I've got the fix-gear urban shredder to spin the angst out with...

on a lighter note, we did make an effort to watch A Scanner Darkly, twice for me now. i'm ready to go into hermitage.

Japhy rider

ps- if this no-snow pattern doesn't break, the TBS header is misleading. verbage could read " '06-'07 the winter that wasn't"

Letter to the editor

Once again the RGJ pisses me off. I'm writing an article next month on alternative commuting, so I gess that's what they call "put-up or shut-up" (piss of get off the pot?).

I guess I'll post the letter I wrote. You should also note how one of the proposed routes looks like it goes right through Hidden Valley park!!

-M

NOTE: I just got an email saying that I can't submit more than one letter every two months. So one of you needs to get something in too! Maybe we can meet at the GB on tuesday and scratch something out.

Dear RGJ,

Once again the you fail to dig deep enough to see the real story behind your story. Your cover article today on the North/South connector claims that more roads (automobile-centric commuter routes) are needed to avoid “southern California style gridlock.”

Metropolitan Southern California is gridlocked because of sprawling low-density development and a lack of effective public transportation or commuting alternatives to the automobile, i.e. bicycles or trains. That means that people live a long way from work and have to drive to get there. If we want to avoid the same fate here more roads and the influx of automobiles are not the answer.

Driving is a choice. Our freedom to choose alternatives to cars is being curtailed by our own inability to plan beyond our current tank of gas.

-M