On some good advice that these days of winter are for relaxing a bit and letting the muscles grow supple, I spent last week riding to the Metro, taking the Red Line downtown, and reading my book for a little while in the morning and evening. I figured it wouldn’t be as frantic over the holidays as I remembered, and it wasn’t. In fact, it was pleasant enough that I’m doing it again this week and reading some more. This is the first time in two years I’ve taken the Metro to work instead of riding my bike. It feels a little bit like I lost something, but that something might have been a chip off my shoulder rather than anything important.

Other than that… what’s to say? It’s not that life hasn’t been interesting, after all the holidays have been a swarm of family and friends and events and food, the kids astonish and nourish me in new ways just about every day, there’s some bike and non-bike projects in the works, and there’s no shortage of current events to ponder aloud (or at least to ignite vehement reactions). I just haven’t been interested in writing about any of it.

Unless I become suddenly inspired, this right here’s the year-end wrap-up:

• I should finish the year with about 4050 miles and 131035 not-feet* of climbing.
• Number of rides is a less precise stat, because I’ll list a ride like “Farmers’ Market and Back” as a single ride, whereas the ride to work and the ride home are two, both because they’re broken up by a whole day of sitting and because it makes it easier to use different routes. The number of rides I’ve recorded for the year stands at 558, but there’s a few days left yet to cross 560 for the year.
• My weekly averages came out to approximately 10 3/4 rides a week for 77 miles and change. The biggest week was 189 miles and a little over 11400 not-feet of climbing, which was the week in August of the Livestrong Challenge. That month was my biggest with almost 625 miles.
• I put over 1575 delightful miles on Cledus (the Long Haul Trucker) this year, which is pretty cool. Cooler still was that Nigel, my Trek 930 based Xtracycle, racked up 1925 miles, and logged over 61k not-feet to Cledus’ 54k. No wonder I had to replace his Fat Franks this year, they got all wore out from kicking everyone’s ass all the time.
• I’m not sure how many miles we put on the car this year, but I’m almost positive it was well under 4k miles. Gotta verify it, but that’ll definitely deserve its own toast on New Year’s Eve.

* MapMyRide.com’s elevation statistics are horribly inaccurate, I’m certain that a year’s worth of GPS data from the same rides would yield an entirely different number. But since MMR was my method of measure throughout the year, it is at least consistently inaccurate. Or it’s not.

So there’s the tale of the tape. Pretty good year! I don’t know if I’ll beat those numbers next year, or if I’ll keep numbers for that matter, but this was worth doing and knowing. Even though it sure felt like I was piling on miles before and during the century, those only accounted for 500-600 of the total. The vast majority of the miles I rode this year were just to work and back, with a regular ride to the market on Saturdays. Pity the cyclist that thinks of those miles as “junk”!

Other things to remember and be thankful for this year:

• I lost a good bike. I miss you, buddy.
• I gained a couple more. I love you all.
• The Bike Clinics at Mt. Pleasant Farmers’ Market (and then at Bloomingdale, 14th and U, and H St.) were incredibly successful this year, more than anyone could’ve guessed. Estimates indicate we may have helped as many as 800 people get their bikes back on the road, and that’s pretty darn cool.
• Every day my wife proves to me how smart I was to marry her, and my children demonstrate to me that there’s nothing that could have adequately prepared me for the experience of raising children.
• And then there’s y’all. Or yinz. Or youse guys. Whatever ya call yourselves, thanks for tuning in. I’d probably write this stuff down somewhere, and bookmark these Internet oddities, but it’s much more satisfying to talk to you than just to myself, and there’s less annoying reverb.

I think that’s enough to call it a year, don’t ya think? Feel free to drop a comment about something awesome or not so awesome that you did, or were just in the path of, this year. And when it gets close to midnight on Thursday night, when I raise a glass to the end of this year, consider it hoisted in your direction.

Cheers!

I think progressives have multiple reasons to be pissed, and it sucks that Ben Nelson and Evan Bayh and the rest of the moderates get to force-feed them shit sandwiches. But there isn’t much that can be done about it.

This is the part where I stop valuing John Cole’s opinions on this issue. Same goes for Drum, Marshall, Yglesias, Klein and the rest of the Reasonable Realists. I’m wiping the political blogs off the read list for now.

I am sick to fucking death of hearing moderate liberal “realists” sigh wistfully, concede that our government is owned top to bottom in every branch by corporate interests, and that this is both horrible policy and horrible politics, but lament that “there isn’t much that can be done about it”. I wanna hear just one fucking insurance company CEO say, “Man, this bill just puts my fucking balls in my throat, this is going to be really rough for us, but that’s what the American People want. There isn’t much that can be done about it.”

There’s a lot that can be done about it, we’re just not doing it. I may not have a vote, shit as a DC resident I don’t even have a Senator to yell at. But I’m not about to be resigned to this, and I’m sure as fuck not going to be lectured by those that are.

[UPDATE]: Just to be clear: yes, I realize that, much like the rest of content that graces this little slice of Internet heaven, this means nothing to anyone, and will have all the impact of throwing lint at the sun. My fists are tiny. I shake them anyway.

Honk my hooter, look at what happened last night on the ride home from work.

Pardon me, I’d like to make a couple points about domestic political current events for a moment, then I’ll stop. It’s not what this blog’s about, but I feel I need to speak about something.

The honorable, admirable, and astute John Cole posted a warning about the Health Care Reform bill working its way through the legislative lower intestine we call The Senate:

So it should be clear. If you are thinking that you can kill this bill and come back with a better one, you are fooling yourself. It is this, or it is nothing for decades, and that is why folks like Rockefeller and Sherrod Brown and Ron Wyden and other folks are sucking it up and still supporting the bill.

Okay, so the message is clear, it’s this or nothing. Now, I certainly understand that nothing is bad news. We’re in dire straits here as far as health care in America goes. But, I’m sorry, it doesn’t mean that I automatically have to support this, whatever this is.

And here’s the thing about what’s left of this: they’ve taken out any chance of a public option or expanding Medicare, but they’ve left in the mandate, the part that says that I’m legally obligated to purchase health insurance. It’s not that I don’t understand the concept of risk pools, and that it only becomes financially viable to insure everyone if everyone, healthy and sick alike, pays into the pool. But here’s my problem with this arrangement.

If I want a cell phone, I will have to enter into a contract with a giant bastard of a corporation that will fuck me in a heartbeat if it means they clear an extra fifty cents. But it is still my choice whether or not I want to have a phone. By the same token, if I want to own a car and operate it on public roads, the law requires me to purchase insurance from, again, a company that wouldn’t hesitate to do me wrong if they thought it was legal and in their best interest to do so. But I don’t have to buy a car if I don’t want to.

But the thrust of a mandate (without providing a publicly administrated alternative) is that I, by virtue of my existence and citizenship, am legally obligated to throw myself into the maw of an industry that’s been proven time and time again to be one of the most immoral, unethical, exploitive, parasitic industries in the corporate world. And, sure, it will make health care accessible to folks that currently can’t afford it… by way of a framework through which the American Taxpayer can subsidize poor and lower-middle class families. Isn’t that snazzy, how it creates a second pipeline from the pockets of those of us that aren’t bankrupt yet into the coffers of private health insurance companies. How awesome is that for a “reform” bill, thanks Democrats!

The answer is obvious, and it’s not to make the Health Insurance Industry work better. Congressman Weiner is absolutely correct on this score, health insurance companies give no value to the system. If we’re going to make healthcare available to everyone, then let’s make it a goddam public utility. And if we need everyone to chip in, then take it out of my check with the rest of the fucking taxes. And if these sorry sons-of-bitches in both parties can’t come around to representing the best interests of the American People because they’re all too dependent on revenue streams from the Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industries, then they all deserve to burn.

But the bill that’s coming out of the Senate is no more a “reform” of the Health Insurance Industry than are the “reforms” being crafted by Obama’s Economic Team of Rubinite Wall Street Gangsters. And I’m supposed to be scared of Sarah Fucking Palin? With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans!

I swear to God, if this steaming shitpile of a bill becomes law, I will dedicate all the money, time and effort I can spare into throwing as many different size wrenches as I can into every political machine that helped bring it to pass. If this thing fails, it fails, but I’m not going to support this goddam thing, and I’m sure as hell not going to be a pawl in the Rightward Ratchet. Fuck that.

[UPDATE]: Evidently, Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias wish that lots of us that are potentially going to have to eat this shit sandwich would learn to go along to get along and pass the fucking thing. John Cole & Co.are apoplectic that anyone would decide that this thing has crossed a line over which they can’t get behind it.

But here’s Kevin in practically the same breath saying:

The individual mandate was a way of getting support from the insurance industry. The backroom deal with Big Pharma was a way of getting support from the drug industry. The change in Medicare reimbursement rates was a way of getting support from doctors. The gutting of the Medicare commission was a way of getting support from hospitals. Provisions related to biologics, home healthcare, and the prescription drug doughnut hole were a way of getting the support of AARP.

So all these interest groups get huge concessions, that ultimately entrench their power even more deeply while giving Americans a bigger, harder punch in the face, so that they’ll get on board. But I’m supposed to sit on my hands and ignore the fact that the parts of the bill that would have enacted real reform have been decimated, and that what’s left includes a provision to feed me to private insurance companies like so much shark chum, without bothering to so much as inconvenience said companies with a strong, strict regulatory framework. Huh.

Again, fuck that.

[UPDATE AGAIN]: Just so.

I was just reading a post from a normally indefatigable friend of mine who’s struggling with motivation to keep racing. My guess is that, rather than a surrender, this is a small crisis of conscience that will burn off whatever doubts she has about taking it to the next level, because she’s a bad-ass and everything she’s written about it thus far has been excitement and fire and joy.

But it did get me thinking about my relationship to cycling, and the things I’ve accomplished this year, and where I want it to go from here. I’ve logged about 4000 miles this year, most of them commuting miles, but at least a thousand of them were training for and riding my first century back in August.

As I began training for that ride, I’d thought I might be taking my first step towards getting into serious road riding. I put in pre-dawn miles and went after hills and thought about how heavy my bike was and how thick my tires were. I ate little blocks of gummi caffeine and sugar, occasionally found someone else going fast to trade drafting duties with, and wondered if I should get serious and trade the pedal clips for real cycling shoes and clipless pedals. I thought about joining a club and riding a featherweight bike in a paceline on Saturday mornings, and derided myself for having a triple crank.

Some things have become clear to me since then, most notably that performance road riding’s not my cup of tea. Occasionally I take on something that seems big and challenging out of curiosity or to prove something to myself, or in the case of the Livestrong Challenge because I wanted to do something good and difficult. But the truth is that I just don’t have much of a passion for pushing the envelope, my competitive fire doesn’t burn all that hot, and that anything that starts feeling like Serious Business loses my attention. I’m bliss-driven.

For example, I’ve gone weeks without making it out to a disc golf course, but I’ll still get up at 5:00 a.m. a few times a week to head out to a field with a stack of Rocs or Teebirds for an hour or so before work. There’s a peripheral motivation to become a better disc golfer and a stronger competitor, but that’s not really why I do it. I do it because I love throwing discs, I love shaping lines in the sky and watching the disc follow them. If there were no courses nearby, I’d still get out to a field because I love the snap of the throw and the shape of the flight, and I experience a lot of perfect moments doing it.

The perfect moments I have on bikes are blissful and joyous, very few of them have involved much suffering. The best rides I’ve had this year have been on partly cloudy days in the mid-60’s, flying down brick alleys on 60mm balloon tires with my hands wrapped around a pair of Albatross bars. I love riding my Xtracycle with my daughter to her school. I love wrenching on our bikes and building wheels and tuning drivetrains until they’re quiet and smooth. I love bunny-hopping and off-street bike trails and saying Good Morning to crossing guards on my way to work and cranking and rolling and flowing with traffic and breathing the air and having nothing but the sky above me the whole time. My brass bell is one of the prettiest tones I can think of. Sometimes, I like to go slow.

There’s a hundred things that make me smile about being on a bike, but there’s not a single one of them that a heart-rate monitor would make any better for me. Sometimes I wish that weren’t the case. Sometimes, I think it would be awesome to be driven to achieve peak performance, to measure my effort by my perseverance and endurance, to conquer and win. And I enjoy watching folks with those qualities struggle and grind and endure, I’m amazed by their superhumanity (as well as their humanity) and take delight in their performances. But the only measures of my cycling experience that really motivate me are grins and laughs.

I realized that I wasn’t dissatisfied because my Long Haul Trucker was the wrong bike for how I wanted to ride, but rather that I wasn’t doing the kind of riding I truly love doing (for which the Trucker actually is perfect). I put the fenders back on, the clips came off the pedals (though I may pick up a pair of these or these for traction), and it’s getting mustache bars at the earliest opportunity.

I also picked up a beautiful Paramount Series 3 earlier this year, and had plans to outfit it for road riding. But I think I’m going to put riser bars, platform pedals, and 28’s on it instead. I may not have room for a serious road bike in my stable, but I can make room for a zippy street bike. Especially if it’s fun to ride.

I need a little boost to hit the holiday with a running start. You can have some too.

Have a great holiday!

[UPDATE] I need some more.

KING OF THE ROAD SAYS YOU MOVE TOO SLOW! KING OF THE ROAD SAYS YOU MOVE TOO SLOW!

Of the things I find it hard to believe, despite the fact that I’ve experienced every second of their truth, is the fact that five years and a day ago I was doing my best not to completely lose my shit while my wife nonchalantly managed, after a couple days of Labor, to give birth to my daughter.

It just doesn’t feel like I have to look very far back to see her first roll over, her first all-fours crawl, or her first steps. I can still hear, plain as day, her beautiful gibberish and remember what it was like to lift her feather-light body up into my arms and to have her small arms and small face tuck into my shoulder as she fell asleep. The look of her face as she built up the scream that followed her tumble off the front porch steps is still clear as day. The first day she went to preschool she seemed much too small and much too young to be in a classroom and it brought tears to my eyes to think of her entering an institutional process she wouldn’t see the end of for at least 15 years. If we’re lucky.

The years are feeling like a ball of snow that started out small and light, rolling slowly downhill. It feels much bigger now, faster, and unstoppable. It doesn’t feel like I get to hold on to the days long enough, now, to savor them as much as I’d like to, and their passing is a little sad. But every one is better than the what’s come before, so it’s hard to be too down about today, every day.

What a splendid young lady my daughter is. I’m so goddam lucky I can hardly stand it. Happy birthday, sweetheart, I love you.

21 year-old Nikko Locastro wins the US Disc Golf Championship. Here’s some film of Nikko nailing the drives and putt to earn a birdie 3 on hole 11 on the final day, as well as interviews with Nate Doss, Dave Feldberg, and Nikko. Just outstanding.