Yeah, we’ve had a pretty bad string of Tuesdays. Today was the first time since January that I was able to get outside and do some decent mileage on my day off. After running a bunch of errands, I hit the road toward Princeton. It’s one of my favorite rides when I just want to go long and easy. Nice and flat, very few cars, and a landscape that makes me feel like I’m riding the Tour of Flanders. It was windy and warm-ish, around 56ºF, not unpleasant at all. It was nice not to have to wear long gloves, shoe covers, and tons of thermal gear. The Tarmac Pro was sailing along smoothly, effortlessly at 19-20 mph. It was wonderfully quiet along Canal Road, not a single car passing me the entire way. I caught up to a guy named John from the Somerset Wheelmen and chatted with him for a while before he turned off.
The rain began just after that, lightly at first, but steadily. I refueled with a cookie in Princeton, but didn’t stop for long, not wanting to cool off and get chilled. I had been overheating just a bit earlier in the ride, but now I was glad to have my Pearl Izumi Gavia Vector jersey and thermal pro bib knickers. I stayed pretty comfortable. I finally rolled into Middlesex, where I stopped for some hot coffee and good company at Gourmet Expressions. A few miles of spinning to get home, and I’m done. I was hoping the rain would get me off the hook from running with Jen, but she really needed a boost, so we headed out for 3.5 miles, nice and easy. I guess it was a good thing, as we came across an elderly lady trying to catch her runaway dog, Bailey, who was sprinting in circles around the neighborhood. We managed to lure him over and grab him before he got hit by a car, much to everyone’s relief.
With a beach vacation fast approaching, Jen and I agreed to be good for the next three weeks. No beer, no snacking on chocolate, cut out the sugar, only drink on weekends. So far so good, but for me the most important element is just doing the training time.
No beer . . . that’s going to be tough, especially because we sampled some fantastic craft beers on Saturday night at the Philly Craft Beer Festival. As festivals go, it’s small, very crowded, and some notable brewers were absent. Surprisingly, Iron Hill, Blue Point, and Dogfish Head weren’t there, even though they’re both not far from Philly. There were some real standouts, though: Lancaster’s Milk Stout, Rogue’s Shakespeare Stout, Brooklyn’s Extra Bruin and Chocolate Brown, Unibroue’s 15, 17, and Fin du Monde. The next morning, after waking up without a trace of a hangover, we calculated that the total number of samples poured into our 3 oz. glasses totaled only about 3 pints.
We had met Jeff and Craige in Philly earlier in the day at Standard Tap, a good beer bar with great food in the North Liberties section. Apparently it is also the epicenter of hipster culture in Philly. The place was overrun with shaggy kids with sideburns and Elvis Costello glasses who exuded the “I’m cooler than you because I rode here on my fixie” vibe. Jeff, who was recovering from a hipster-induced rage at the Manhattan Apple store, where the customer service was slacker-hip retarded, was in a froth about the hipster element. We termed him a “chipster”: having a chip on his shoulder about hipsters.
Honestly, I can’t blame him. Hipsters manage to steal elements of cool from everywhere and make them disposably trendy. Somehow, fixed gear track bikes in various incarnations have become the fashionable mode of transportation for hipsters. They are difficult to handle in traffic, wildly impractical, obviously limited in gearing, and duh - no brakes. But riding one apparently means that you’re cool in an esoteric, elitist, vintage-styled way that can only be topped by wearing wool jerseys and slinging a Chrome messenger bag. (This also means that you don’t have a job, otherwise you would be riding a Vespa). If you are an actual bike messenger, my apologies. It makes sense - almost - to ride a bike with no parts that can be stolen easily, like derailleurs and brake levers, especially if that’s how you make your living. However, it seems that there are fewer messengers than ever, and a multitude of messenger wannabes that try to look the part while milking their trust funds for all they’re worth. I have some good friends who are messengers and make messengering an honorable profession. They earn enough to pay rent and buy their own beers without whining (and even tip their bartender!). They work hard at it, in all kinds of weather, and if they do well they get lots of repeat business from law firms, medical offices, the courthouse, and legislative offices. My buddy Dave in Columbus is the king of the messengers; he has tons of accounts, but it took a long time to get there. He does fine for himself, and supplements his earnings by winning alleycats and messenger races every weekend. Next time you’re in Columbus, look for a black, non-descript fixie with duct tape on the top tube, bullhorn bars, and a sweet Campy seatpost I gave him, which will be leaning against the statehouse steps, or blasting down High Street to the law offices in German Village and back about 40 times each day. That’s Dave. He works for a living.
I’ve done my share of track racing, and once upon a time I could ride my Gitane Kilo no-handed on rollers with my eyes closed at 150 rpm . . . while warming up for a track race, which was the whole point of it all. And while learning to ride a fixed gear was a unique challenge, the coolness quotient was approximately the same as learning to ride a unicycle. If you can do it, great, but an unstoppable fascination with it labels you as a massive dork.
So anyway, by the time we left Standard Tap, Jeff was pretty riled up. Jen and I got in her car and followed Jeff and Craige down 2nd Street toward downtown on the way to our hotel. Immediately, as we were rolling up to the first red light, a dude on a blue fixie with righteous sideburns, a funky hat, Chuck Taylors, and pants two sizes too small so that his hairy red ass cheeks and most of his freckled crack were spilling out over his Brooks B72 saddle. He spun past us, then began to ride past Jeff and Craige’s Honda. This dude really couldn’t stop, so it was good that the light changed at that very instant. In the next block, he almost collided with a car that was backing into a parallel parking spot, going around it to the right and nearly smacking into the parking meter before swerving suddenly into the middle of the road, right in front of Jeff and Craige. Jeff slammed on the brakes, and from 30 yards away I could see the steam coming out of his ears. Fortunately, the hipster dude turned down the next side street where there was less stuff to crash into.
Thankfully, we were in Philly to drink beer. Beer has the ability to erase hipster-induced anxiety. Craft beer festivals are a good place to avoid hipsters, too, since hipsters are too cheap to drink beers more expensive than PBR.
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- where? - at the end of next week. 6 days of terrific beaches, quiet, rest, and margaritas. Our skin can enjoy some humidity, healing salt water, and sunshine.