Bike courier vs. car commuter
Links a-plenty in this caught-on-camera report of a litterbug-psycho-car-asshole assulting a bike messenger (who assulted back, reportedly). Psycho-car-guy then decides to come at the citizen-photographer with a baseball bat when he notices he's being photographed. My kinda guy.
Image from The Cellar's "Image of the Day".
Original link via BoingBoing.
Link to the original post (by the photographer?). I haven't seen this link yet. It seems to be down at the moment, probably due to this story spreading around the net.
a good cause... a good opportunity
Where you at?
I ran into the Windows Local Live
mapper stuff last week. Have you seen the Bird's Eye View images on it? Yowza! Coupled with
zabasearch, it is more perfect than you can believe it for stalking, er, seeing what your old girlfriend is up to, er, mapping out that trail, nevermind... ;)
The "Why" Chromosome
Must a caveman always be a caveman? Must he always show off to the fairer sex that he is virile, strong, and capable of anything, no matter how old he gets?
On yesterday's ride with my wife at the local trails, we approached a rock garden. We stopped and looked for a line.
"Y'see babe, there are two lines. You can go up to the right and go between those rocks. Me? I'll go left on the steep side because the rocks are bigger. Besides, the right side is too easy."
Hopped back on the bike and lined myself up. Go. Over one, ok. Lift. Lunge.
ZIP ZIP. BLAMMO!
Tire met rock, and there was no cooperation between them. Rear tire slips - no problem - but my foot doesn't come out of the pedal - problem! I wack my bent elbow into a hard pointy rock. Butt cheek also hits another pointy rock. I'm sprawled on the trail, and she approaches, eyeballs rolled up in tandem with a slight grin, "Uh, yeah. Nice."
snowbird, utah
in keeping with the photographic bent the site's taken recently, here are a couple of panoramas from the trip i took out to snowbird in utah last week. they were shot with my little casio exilim and stiched together with a little utility called photostictch that came with a canon point & shoot. they've been up on
my blog for a couple of days, so you might have already seen them, if not, click for a bigger version (some browsers will auto-resize the full size versions, so make sure you're zoomed in to see them full size)
the view from top of the tram
and from the bottom of mineral basin
Heron Now...
Snapped the pic above on Sunday whilst pedaling along the C&O Canal Towpath with my girl on our way to meet up with the Disco Cowboy and his cowgirl just before the truss bridge that lets the
CCT (Capitol Crescent Trail) pass over the C&O Canal. I dig the fortuitous arrangement of otherwise commonplace colors in the shot, made possible by their reflection in the less-than-pristine canal water, an effect analogous to the smog sunsets of car-clogged cities like LA. Looks more like a painting to me. Of course, that could have more to do with my trademark blurriness than anything else.
We took the CCT into Bethesda, then on to Silver Spring, to see where the
AFI SIlver Theatre and Culture Center was located with reference to the "future" leg of the CCT. Dialed in the theatre location (very close to the trail, BTW), then headed back toward Bethesda, stopping on a bridge that overlooks what appears to be the Rock Creek Park trail to snag a pic of the Mormon Magical Kingdom, its alabaster-esque facade resplendent in the sharp focus of multiple spotlight beams.
Once in Bethesda, we pedaled on to the Rock Bottom Brewery for chow and beer. Ran into Markie Mark there, who, along with his girl, promptly snubbed our polite little quartet by grabbing a table somewhere far away. The bugger even had the nerve to travel there by
car!Nice little ride in unseasonably mild weather, and the barleywine on tap at the brewpub treated us quite well. My girl and I racked up about 34 miles by the time we reached Clarendon.
Hope everyone is getting out on the bike while the temps remain above freezing.
gwadzilla images
|HAPPY NEW YEAR| |have a good year on the bike| |gwadzilla|
Free your heel...
...your mind will follow. I've always loved snow. That's why I plunked down some student loan dough on some XC ski gear 10 years ago. Since then, I've only seen just a handful of significant snow falls. I no longer live in the Cleveland snow belt but when it snows I'm on it faster than you can kiss a duck.
That's the great thing about XC skiing. You can practically ski out your front door. All you need is a good dump of about 4 inches. Any place there's an open area like golf courses, state parks, soccer fields, you can have a great time playing in the snow.
Last week I hooked up with my buddy and spent 3 days skiing the Canaan Valley in West Virginia. The first stop was
White Grass Ski Touring. White Grass is an XC ski playground with a full line of XC ski, backcountry and skating gear rentals. It was originally a tow rope downhill ski area with over 30 miles of trails with 1200ft of vertical. Some of the trails are groomed and there's a small area for skating as well. There's no elitist BS like you see at allot of ski resorts. These people really make you feel at home. They cook up some out-of -this-world viddles too. Veggie Chili, Bacon Corn Chowder, homemade oatmeal cookies are just a few samples of their kick-butt kitchen selection.
The first day was about 40+ degrees, a little warm for my liking. Luckily there was a dump of 2 inches the night before. The snow was wet and grippy which made it nice for the climbing. We decided to take the long route to the top of Bald Knob. At the top of Baldy we attempted to climb Weiss knob but turned around after half way up the steep slope. The going up part wasn't the problem, it's the going down part that's nerve-racking. Building speed downhill on skinny XC skis is a frantic experience. We skied down the mountain curving not-so-pretty telemark turns to the bottom where we chowed down some of the best veggie nachos I've ever had.
The next day I woke up and looked out the window to see allot of melted snow so we headed over to White Grass to check out the conditions. Although the forecast called for rain it snowed all day long. We decided to rent some downhill telemark gear, fatty shaped skis with big plastic boots, and headed over to Timberline. This was the first time I tried downhill telemark skiing. I've always thought it was the coolest way to ski. I was mesmerized by people dropping down to one knee to make a graceful looking turn. It's kinda like the singlespeeding of skiing. It turned out to be a great day for skiing. The snow kept falling and the temp never went above 33 degrees. I was surprised how easy telemark skiing was. The big plastic boots really helped out.
The next day there was about 4" of fresh snow so we headed back to White Grass for some more kick and glide. Conditions were great. We skied for about 4 hours then headed down for some bacon corn chowder. I would've loved to ski longer but I had to get back on the road for the 4 hour drive back home. I can't wait to get back to White Grass.
