Time for a reality check.

I think everyone needs to sit back, and calm the fuck down for a minute.

By now everyone has heard that only hours after the Olympic cycling time trial competitions, in which Bradley Wiggins and Kristen Armstrong won the men's and women's fields respectively, a 28 year old male cyclist was run over and killed by a double-decker bus carrying some Olympic journalists.

The incident was described on reddit.com by another cyclist who witnessed the entire thing first hand.  I read it last night and it was harrowing.  Essentially the cyclist rode up along side the bus when it stopped at a light, instead of waiting behind it.  When the light changed, both the cyclist and the bus made left turns (the equivalent of the right turn here in the states) and the cyclist got pinched between the bus and the curb with no where to go and was dragged underneath the tires.  The bus stopped and the observer rushed to the aid of the trapped cyclist.  The individual who witnessed all of this and originally described it has subsequently taken down the description for fear of offending the killed cyclist's family, however did leave the following partial description:

"I crawled up to him and tried to talk to him.  I asked him his name and told him he was going to be alright.  He didn't say anything because I don't think he could, but he looked straight at me.  I did my best to look him straight in the eyes and tell him he was going to be ok.  He was so afraid."

Naturally, the media turned to Bradley Wiggins for a comment on the incident:

"...if you get knocked off and you ain't got a helmet on, then how can you kind of argue."

Immediately, Twitter erupted with such vitriol toward Wiggins that you would have thought that he pushed the poor man under the bus himself.  And out of context, his statement does sound pretty ridiculous, making it all the easier to make Wiggins the target here.  BikeSnob NYC was already amongst those taking shots at him on Twitter this morning. 

But I'm asking myself, why did anyone in the media think that asking Bradley Wiggins to comment on this incident moments after a fierce competition was a good idea?  Did that gold medal he won suddenly make him an expert on bicycling safety?  Does anyone really think Wiggins commutes to work through the busy city streets every morning and night?  Will Wiggins be training for his next race by riding the streets of downtown London through city traffic? 

And even if you did want Wiggins' take on the situation, who thought it was a good idea to ask him literally hours after he just competed and won one of the biggest races of his life?  I'm guessing his head was probably somewhere else at the moment, and he may have already had a few of those vodka tonics he was suggesting he would be consuming after the race.  In his defense he goes on to clarify that he is unfamiliar with the city these days:

"It's dangerous, and London is a busy city.  I haven't lived in London for 10 to 15 years now, and it's got a lot busier since I was riding a bike as a kid round here.  But at the end of the day, we've all got to co-exist on the roads.  So there's got to be a bit of give and take."

I'm not defending Wiggins at all - honestly, I have no feelings for or against the guy.  I'm merely saying that to praise Wiggins one moment for his great achievement and then crucify him literally an hour later for a singular uninformed reactionary response to a situation he knew precious little about is stupid. But it is so typical for the cycling twitterati that Wiggins has already referred to as "bone-idle wankers," and to be honest, I couldn't agree more.

It's similar to those that are incessantly bitching about the supposed failures of NBC to adequately cover the Olympics resulting in the increasingly popular #NBCFail hashtag.  According to one report, the number of #NBCFail tweets was 212 on July 27 and had increased to 20,000 by July 29th. 

Granted - I think Bob Costas and Ryan Secrest are as much a couple of ass-munches as the next guy.  But this level of whining is worthy of becoming its own Olympic sport considering that all anyone has to do to witness the events is sit their fat ass on the couch and flip through one of 5 different NBC affiliates to see virtually any Olympic Sport 24 hours a day.  I watched fucking PING PONG the other night at 1:32 AM just because I could!  My thought is that if you don't like the way NBC covers the Olympics, fly to London and watch them live!

Bradley Wiggins rides his bike for a living and isn't a hero for winning a gold medal, and he certainly isn't a spokesman or expert on bicycling safety or infrastructure.  And I'm quite sure he knew very well that a helmet wouldn't have helped this individual.  But he isn't a villain either.  He is an entertainer.  Period.  He is also a husband, and a father and he wants the same thing we do:  to ride his bike, and get home safely to his family at the end of every day.  So everyone just take a deep breath and calm down and ride a little safer today - OK?

2012 Tour de France: The Best and Worst

For the two or three of you that actually read this blog, you may have noticed that I didn't post anything last week.  That is because the GEEC and I decided to skip town with the COMO CYCO dog in pursuit of cooler climates which were happily discovered far, far away at a much, much higher altitude thankfully.  But what we gained in more pleasurable weather and scenery, we lost in Tour de France viewing, unfortunately.  So today I'm left trying to pick up the scraps of everything that went down in the past week.  Perhaps you missed a thing or two as well.  Just in case, let's catch up with some of the best and worst moments of the last week of the 2012 Tour!

Biggest prick in the 2012 Tour de France peloton?

That would have to go to the Stage 17 fan on the climb to Peyragudes....(credit)

Egoi Martinez was amused....passenger on AG2R motorbike - not so much.  But the man in the hat and little else prompted hashtags ranging from #dongstrong to #ricardo montaldong on Twitter.

Most aggressive former cyclist in the 2012 Tour de France?

Easy - Bernard Hinault on the final podium in Paris - chucking a trespassing hipster off stage and into the front row!  The Badger still has it!

Most unsurprising Tweet sent by a cycling spouse during the Tour?

Mark Cavendish's frequently half-naked girl informing the world she forgot her knickers.....shocker.

Biggest cycling news distraction from the 2012 Tour?

Lance Armstrong using Livestrong money and personnel to lobby against USADA who is currently charging him with doping.  Livestrong's purpose is supposed to be to raise cancer awareness isn't it?

"If I hold my thumb like zis, and speak wiz a German accent, I look a leetle bit like Hitler, ya?"

2012 Tour Team which invokes the most love-hate feelings?

RadioShack Nissan Trek...

Love: Jakob Fuglsang.

Despite not being paid by his team, then being removed from the Tour roster and any other UCI World Tour competitions by bossman "Hog" Bruyneel, Jakob still goes ahead and wins every other race he enters this summer...(incluing the Tour of Austria and a giant sausage) while the man who attempted to shackle him awaits formal doping charges.  Suck on that salami, Hog.

Hate: Chris Horner

(credit)

Way to cover what was supposed to be George Hincapie's solo ceremonial break-away and then awkwardly suck his wheel 100 meters in front of the peloton on the Champs Elysees, stealing his glory for riding in the most Tours de France of any cyclist, you ass-munch. 

Cyclist who breathed the freshest air into the 2012 Tour?

Sagan, of course.  Not content with three stage wins and invoking the likes of Forrest Gump, a chicken and the Hulk during his victory salutes, Sagan attempts to steal more hearts by boob-raping female fans with magic markers.

Most insensitive photo posted on Twitter during the 2012 Tour ?

Richie Porte of Team Sky, crashed out on the couch in his tighty blackies and teddy the day after the Tour.....photo taken and posted by his girl Tiffany.....very not cool.

T-shirt with the least-veiled double meaning worn by a significant other during the Tour?

Christian Knees' girlfriend's shirt reading: "I heart CK."

Worst execution of a stoic game face in a period of great suffering during the 2012 Tour?

This one is a tie between SaxoBank's Chris Anker Sorensen literally every single day....

....and Bradley Wiggins' expression while on the podium in Paris during the singing of his National Anthem by Lesley Garret:

I'm giving this one to Wiggins because, as painful as that performance of God Save the Queen was, Anker Sorensen actually shaved two of his fingers down to bone when he reached his hand into his own moving spokes to retrieve some stuck paper, yet still finished the tour as "Most Aggressive Rider" while Wiggins only contemplated shaving his ears off in spokes during the performance of his national anthem.

What was your favorite Tour moment?  Discuss!

Getting defensive: the flatulent and the hairy

By now, much has been written about Tour de France leader, Bradley Wiggins', response to skeptics regarding his performance resembling that of the former US Postal team, now allegedly having been doped to win.  His response has been censored in almost all American news outlets including Cyclingnews:

"...after a pause, Wiggins replied: "They are just f***ing w*****s."

I think I know what he actually said - but only because I really like the comedic works of Ricky Gervais.  However, perhaps there are some readers who have been left clueless as to what Wiggo's eloquent phrase really was.  And I'm left wondering how the Cyclingnews editors decided how many letters to omit from each word.  Because with 8 asterisks in a two word phrase with 14 letters total - there are more asterisks than letters.  This might as well have been a game of hangman!

Some various possibilities:

"FAILING WASHERS"

"FALLING WILLOWS"

"FARTING WITCHES"

I'm kind of partial to the last one, myself, as I have it on good authority that Wiggo might actually be the proud owner of a Farting Witch.

I fully admit to being a very skeptical cycling fan, and thus would also be considered a 'farting witch' by his standards, I suppose.  I'm not saying Wiggo is loaded - but who is to blame me for questioning anyone really, as the day after Wiggins went on his defesnive tirade, a rival Tour team's hotel was raided by French police and Cofidis cyclist Remy De Gregorio taken into custody by the gendarmes for doping.  So in all fairness to Bradley's defiant response to cynics, I say:

And speaking of doping, the Lance Armstrong saga has now boiled down to what will prove to be an epic battle between two animalistic forces.  Let me explain what I mean.  First, in response to USADA's charges that Lance Armstrong both used and trafficked performance enhancing drugs in a conspiracy that spanned many years, Lance's attorney have recently filed two lawsuits against USADA and its "Kangaroo Court."

Of course, the reason why he had to file this suit not once, but twice, is because Federal judge Sam Sparks tossed out the first attempt less than 7 hours after it was filed stating,

"This Court is not inclined to indulge Armstrong's desire for publicity, self-aggrandizement or vilification of Defendants, by sifting through eighty mostly unnecessary pages in search of the few kernels of factual material relevant to his claims."

"Armstrong's complaint is far from short, spanning eighty pages and containing 261 numbered paragraphs, many of which have multiple sub parts," Sparks wrote. "Worse, the bulk of the paragraphs contain 'allegations' that are wholly irrelevant to Armstrong's claims - and which, the Court must presume, were included solely to increase media coverage of the case, and to incite public opinion against the Defendants."

Among many other "irrelevant" facts listed in the original version are the results of the Texas youth swimming championships which Armstrong entered when he was 12 years old, and finished fourth in the 1,500-meter freestyle. (See it here, page 8, paragraph 28.)

This, of course, is a brilliant scheme concocted by Lance and his attorneys, and is better known as the Chewbacca Defense.  If you've not heard of this style of legal defence, I refer you to its inception:

Who can really predict who will win in a battle between a kangaroo and Chewbacca.  I mean - sure Chewbacca is 8 feet tall and apparently possesses human-like intelligence, but let's not forget that in the Empire Strikes Back, he was ultimately unable to repair the hyperdrive on the Millenium Falcon in their highest moment of need, and R2D2 had to save the day.  But let's also remember that some think Chewbacca is nothing more than some dude in a fuzzy suit.  And have you ever seen what a kangaroo can do to a dude in a fuzzy suit?

Call me a farting witch, but my money is still on the kangaroo...

Pedalling: Soft, back and long....

Yesterday, we spoke a bit about how sexy and pleasurable handlebar tape can be.  It has been brought to my attention that this is not a new concept at all as demonstrated in the book titled "Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape" by Paul Howard about Jacques Anquetil, seen on the cover autographing the exposed thigh of one very excited fan.

Anquetil, of course, was the first 5-time winner of the Tour de France.  Speaking of the TdF, it is still 5 months away, but is already impacting the current racing scene.  I think it's safe to say that the 2010 road season is now in full swing.  It wasn't the Tour Down Under that kicked it off, or even some early Belgian spring classics like Omloop Het Nieuwsblad...but rather the initiation of smack-talk.  Case in point:  About a month ago in the TimesOnline, Jonathan Vaughters described how he felt jilted by the departure of Bradley Wiggins, which was estimated to be a 4 million pound buyout by Team Sky.  During the interview, Vaughter commented on Wiggins' potential in the Tour de France:

"Vaughters thinks Wiggins has further potential, even if it may not be realised in 2010.  "The 2009 Tour route was suited to Brad, but 2010 is less so," he said.  "In 2009, the tactics worked in his favour and Astana were soft-pedalling a bit to not embarrass Lance [Armstrong]...."

Uh-oh.  Did everyone who read this article suddenly and simultaneously cringe?  While everyone else was cringing someone else was virtually pouncing on Twitter.  Any guesses who?

Well, if Astana was soft-pedalling, Vaughters now was back-pedalling as he tried to quickly retract his comments in an interview on Versus.

"A more correct way to say what I was trying to get across is that Astana was riding a defensive game on the mountain top finishes in the Tour," he explained.  "They were upset with Alberto [Contador] in the Pyrenees for attacking solo.  They had Kloden ride tempo for Lance on Verbier.  Then on Ventoux, Alberto was visibly at ease and chatting with Lance in the last kms."

Nice try, Jonathan, but methinks Lance just loaded another bullet in his gun of anger ammunition with Garmin's name written all over it.  Of course, Vaughters has other things to worry about as one of his spring classics riders went down in the Tour of Qatar with a fractured collarbone: Steven Cozza.

copyright Graham Watson, VeloNews

Cozza's girlfriend (and Tour of Missouri podium girl, Jennifer Caudill) is now blogging about his recovery which includes using a homemade riding harness he fashioned to keep himself suspended on his bike while on the trainer, thus helping to keep weight off the fractured bone.  This involved wrapping a belt around his chest and slinging himself from a pipe overhead with a used intertube.

If this isn't pure dedication, I don't know what is.  Not only is Cozza relying upon the women he loves, and some old-fashioned ingenuity, but he apparently is also seeking inspiration from former porn star, John Holmes, who he bears a striking resemblence to these days.....at least from the belt up.

He could also consider wrapping whatever is ailing him in HandleBra bar tape, as I hear it is quite the pleasurable experience....Whatever works, man!

Pedal on!

Dropping the hammer: A tale of two temperatures.

I'm aware that some of you out there may not live in Columbia, Missouri (midwestern Mecca of the bicycle), so I thought I would update those non-COMO residents with a few things we here in mid-Missouri are dealing with.  First, the current weather situation.

If you follow the green arrow to its tip, you will see a rough estimation of current wind chill factors for COMO.  Makes for some tough cycling to be sure.  But does it?  Standardly, if one braved this weather on their bike, say, to commute into work for example, it was only a subjective guess of how 'epic' the ride really was...or how much 'suffering' truly was incurred when one was bragging about said ride with their office mates around the proverbial water cooler.  But this problem has now been solved by a handy chart provided by the good folks at cyclocosm.com which allows you to calculate, and thus objectively determine your cycling commitment and level of suffering in cold weather taking into account both sustained wind speed and temperature.  The weather conditions are stratified into "Jens Factor" units and range from 1 to HC (hors categorie).

For your benefit, I calculated what the Jens Factor would be if you rode in to work this morning and marked it on the chart with a green 'X'.  We are definitely in the midst of Jens Factor HC territory which states:
Overview - suicidal heroism.  Apparel required:  Spacesuit.  Conditions: Apocalyptic, biblical, hardcore.

Secondly, non-COMO residents may also be unfamiliar with the regular column in the Columbia Tribune newspaper called 'Trib Talk' which allows COMO citizens to rant and rave about whatever they like.  On Sunday, Tribune editor Jim Robertson assembled the best-of-the-best Trib Talk comments for 2009, and  not surprisingly, many had to do with cyclists.

May 2:  "Do we have two diametrically opposed ideas going on here? We've got $23 million or whatever for the pedal group, and now we've got a $15 million parking ramp going up for cars.  Now, which do you want? Do you want me to ride my bike or drive my car, or should I just do both?

July 30: "I am tired of all this ranting and raving about bicyclists when it's pedestrians who are the real problem.  Nothing gets on my nerves more than when I'm driving downtown and have to wait for some gawking walker yakking into a cell phone and dawdling across the crosswalk when I have places to go.  Even families, no doubt groggy from a heavy meal of macaroni and cheese and hamburgers, can't get the lead out and get across the dang street.  Don't they see my signal?  It's even worse when you're two cars back and some tramp slows to a crawl while scoping Elly's Couture at 100 yards and you know you're not going to get through the light.  Don't get me started on the handicapped.  Don't they have buses to take those people where they need to go?"

Nov 18: "I have a question.  Us drivers can't honk at bike riders, we can't honk at pedestrians or grandmas in wheelchairs.  Can I honk at a deer looming at my headlights when driving?"

The last one I've chosen for you today has absolutely nothing to do with cycling.  I just couldn't resist.

April 24:  "This is for all you anti-gun, bleeding-heart liberal Democrats: I don't know about gun lovers, but mine is for self-preservation, be it human or animal.  I'm not going to be a statistic for anyone.  Six things I believe in:  I'm a Christian, I'm an American, I'm heterosexual, I'm pro-gun and I'm a conservative.  When the hammer drops, the bullshit stops.  Any questions?"

To which Robertson replies:  "That's five things."

So what are we to learn from this?  If these comments represent the sentiments of the average COMO citizen then people here seem to be generally frustrated that they (in order)

1) do not have access to parking ramps for their bikes,

2) are not allowed to run over the handicapped with their cars

3) are unclear about the civil rights of Cervidae

4) are having difficulties counting to six

That said, they do appear to be quite certain that when the proverbial hammer drops, the bullshit, indeed will stop.  Speaking of dropping the hammer and then stopping to shit, I thought it was time for a Lance update.  Aside from getting to winter train in Hawai'i (which, incidentally, has a Jens Factor of minus 10), one of the many other perks of being Lance Armstrong is that you have access to state of the art equipment in virtually every area of cycling.  Take for example a new direction of physiologic monitoring that he and Allen Lim are exploring involving the regular examination of his core body temperature.  Now if either you or I or members of say, Team Astana, wanted to monitor our body temperature during training, we'd be forced to go old-school and pop a thermometer under our tongue - or maybe use one of those ear probes.  Not Lance.  Lance is going inside on this job by swallowing a sensor in pill-form which will travel deep into his intestines and send back the vital data to a receiver.  Here's Lance about to pop the pill.

But the pill is only as good as the receiver reading the results, so they called in exercise physiologist, Dr. Stacy Sims to do the honors.  Now, one would think that with all of this fancy technology, the data would be able to be uploaded to a satellite and  fired around the planet so they could read the results back at RadioShack headquarters on the mainland.  Not so, and in fact, poor Dr. Sims still has to go backside.

Ok, so maybe she didn't have to go all the way backside, but still....

So I'm left with two questions...

First - Does another PhD have to fish the little pill out of the toilet when it's made its way through LA? Second - If the little pill had a camera on it - what would it reveal inside LA's stomach?  Perhaps a tiny, half-digested action figure of AC that Lance uses like a dog's chew toy for inspiration?

And out of curiosity, I contacted the people at Cyclocosm.com who have provided me with the information for training in Hawai'i at a Jens Factor of minus 10:  Overview: Sheer delight.  Apparel:  Board shorts or bikini, flip flops.  Conditions: Chance of warm, sunny day=95% - don't forget your sunglasses.

The boys over at Team Sky are also dropping the hammer on some new technology of their own which they revealed yesterday at the team launch party.  For 2010, they will be testing an alternative to current bicycle helmets.  It comes in the form of a new kind of hair shellac which forms their own hair into a protective shell, stronger than currently produced bicycle helmets, thus obviating their use entirely.  Here's a picture of Wiggins, Lovkvist and Boasson Hagen demonstrating them at the party, courtesy of Cyclingnews.

Stay warm everyone...

Pedal on!

Wiggin' Out: Sex (Pistols), Lies and Twitter

I have been watching the road-racing pro-tour news with much interest over the past several days as some major shake-ups have recently occured and still seem to be evolving.  Most of these changes surround Bradley Wiggins, who finished in 4th place at this year's Tour de France.

Wiggo is an interesting character who got his first start in professional road racing on a team meant to promote vegetarianism and Linda McCartney brand Foods.  Hence the name, the Linda McCartney Racing Team whose jerseys were apparently inspired by boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.

Unfortunately, this project went belly-up after about a year with massive financial losses.  Wiggins then went on to race for a number of French squads before ending up last year with Garmin-Slipstream, where he truly established himself as general classifications contender.  After his break-out performance at this year's Tour, he has been a marked man, with a number of teams attempting to lure him out of the remaining year on his Garmin contract.

Amidst the swirling rumors of his early departure for the newly formed British Sky Team, Wiggo has still found the time to do a little trash talking, or so Cyclingnews.com would have us believe:

In an article published Monday, CyclingNews reported that Wiggins was "talking tough" regarding the 2010 Tour de France and quoted him as saying,

"I've looked at some of the Tour stages.  A lot of people think it won't be a great Tour for me but that first week if anything is advantageous to me....those cobbled stages could have big gaps to the guys like Andy, Contador and the guy from America."

Later on in the article, he had a few additional words regarding "the guy from America",

"It will make for an interesting race and I still think I'm a better ride than Lance and a few of the other guys."

Almost immediately after CyclingNews released this story, the Twitter lines started to buzz from the Wiggo camp in the UK.

Apparently Wiggo didn't think a Tweeted disclaimer was quite good enough to appease the awakened giant, thus prompting an email to il padrino of the peloton himself to which LA responded, publicly no less, on Twitter, just to let everyone know that Wiggo had come begging for his forgiveness.

What would possess Wiggo to make such brash comments?  Who knows for sure, but if we backtrack Wiggo's tweets, we can see what music he was listning to shortly prior to when the poop hit the fan.

Public Image Limited, or PiL, was the experimental punk brainchild of Jon Lydon after the Sex Pistol's demise in 1978.  This could certainly explain Wiggo's seemingly anarcharistic actions.  He got ramped up on a little classic punk and went all Johnny Rotten on us.

It then occured to me that Wiggo and Rotten bear a remarkable resemblence to one another and the source of Wiggins' inspiration now seems all the more clear.

Despite LA's reported forgiveness of Wiggo's brashness, Bradley still may have been scared to the point of performing a childish act in his pants, however, because not long after the incident, he reported on Twitter that he needed some new underwear.

Or perhaps this was code for something else, since he remarked that he was actually changing to a different brand of underwear all together, and that he didn't want regrets 20 years down the line.  Sure enough, CyclingNews is reporting this morning that Wiggins has switched teams and will be joining the British squad Team Sky next year.

New underpants indeed.

Back at Team RadioShack headquarters, LA was demonstrating the change in the appearance of their underoos as well.

Not quite what I would consider epic, but apparently The Shack is all about brand recognition, evidenced by the integration of the logo graphics into the paintjob on the team's new Trek Madone 6-series and even onto the Bontrager Wheels.

I wonder if Wiggo will try to integrate a little Johnny onto his new Pinarello?

Pedal on!

Dear PooBah

What the hell?

I'm not sure, but I think somehow, someone in COMO has seriously pissed off the weather Gods.  As I sit and write to you from COMO CYCO home base, I've got three buckets on the floor and two on my desk trying to catch the water that is leaking through the ceiling.  Still, the floor is becoming a swamp and I need some help keeping up with it.  I called a custodial service who sent a guy over, but good help is so hard to find these days.

And all this comotion around HQ is poorly timed as we have cycling stories coming in fast and furious.  First of all, Astana, among other teams, have failed to comply with an October 20 deadline to submit an application for registration, which may give disgruntled Alberto Contador his free ticket out of Vinokouroville for 2010.  Lance Armstrong was asked to comment on the possibility of AC getting to go to a much stronger and well-organized team.  He declined to comment but the expression on his face was difficult to read.

Vino was also asked how he felt about the possibility of losing what some say is the strongest man in the peloton from his Team Astana.

Interestingly, he has chosen to remain fairly reticent as well.

---

At any rate - it's Friday - and therefore time for reader mail.  Let's get to it.  Our first letter actually comes in the form of a Tweet from professional cyclist Bradley Wiggins who placed 4th in this year's Tour de France and is fresh off of an overall win at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour:

Wiggo-

As you well know, many cyclists have a penchant for adopting nicknames.....It was popularized in the golden age of cycling with Eddy "The Cannibal" Merckx, and before him Fausto "Il Campionissimo" Coppi, but continued with Marco "Il Pirata" Pentani, and more recently with David "DZ Nuts" Zabriskie, and Danilo "The Killer" Di Luca.  As most amature cyclists like to emulate their heroes, they too want to take on nicknames, thus frequently write into cycling forums under a pseudonym.  But no one wants a boring name - like Bob "The Grassmower" Johnson, or Linda "The LunchLady" Smith....so they come up with something more colorful as you have indicated in your Tweet.  You may be interested to know, that I too have experimented with derivatives of my name "PooBah" to come up with a more clever nickname.  At first I tried just a shortened version, "PooB" but it sounded too much like "pube" so I abandoned that in light of one of our previous discussions.  But a reader recently wrote to me and addressed the letter with a mispelled version of my name which kind of acurately describes the entire blog - so it just may stick:  "PooBag".

---

Next up are some comments from readers 'melalvai' and 'tina elizabeth' from a post this week that I thought were worthy of addressing.  In reference to the area highlighted in this photo which was originally posted earlier in the week,

they commented:

Melalvai and Ms. Elizabeth:

For the record - you are both correct.  I'm not sure how you figured it out, but I was in fact sitting in the pizza joint at the BikeMo ride to observe and cover the event.  I was amazed that you could somehow see me through the dark and dingy glass of the pizzeria windows.  Concerned that my true identity may have been compromised by my own stupidity in posting the photo initially, I sent the picture to some friends at a photoanalysis forensics lab to see just how much of my image is potentially visible in that photo.  What they returned was a highly magnified and digitally enhanced cropped area of the original photo, focusing on the window in question. 

Wow. That was a close one.  The image you both saw was NOT in fact me, but rather a young William Shatner, also wearing a fez.  I don't have an explanation for this, as I was in the pizzeria at the time, and did not see Bill there. I think I would have noticed him, as I was the only other person in the place wearing a fez, and as hats go, they seem to be a fairly good conversation starter.  Alas, we'll have to chalk this one up to some odd paranormal activity since we are getting close to Halloween.

---

Dear PooBah,

I rode my bike to WalMart the other day to to pick up a 40 of Olde English.  I locked it to a pole in the parking lot before I went in, but when I returned this is what I found.  Who would do such a thing?

Thanks!

Pimped out Pyrite

Pyrite:

You've got a bigger problem on your hands than that English 40, my friend.  Are you familiar with the 1964 film "Goldfinger" starring Sean Connery as James Bond?  In the film, the evil Auric Goldfinger kills a woman who betrayed him through having an amorous encounter with Bond, by painting her naked body in gold paint....head to toe.  She died of the dreaded condition referred to as 'skin suffocation.'  Her golden corpse was left for Bond to find, as a kind of calling card and warning to back off of Mr. Goldfinger's affairs.

My guess is that you have crossed paths with a nefarious Bond-movie copycat villian, who is leaving you a warning sign.  It's interesting that he took the time to cover your bike seat with a plastic bag before rattle-canning on the gold paint JUST LIKE the unsuspecting Jill Masterson's rear was covered in a bikini bottom prior to her shalaquing.  This kind of re-creational accuracy only speaks to the depravity of this individual.  My advice?  Get the hell out of COMO, Mr. Pyrite, and don't look back, or the next thing you know, you're going to be on your back with a laser pointed at your twig and berries.

---

Dear Mr. PooBah:

I met a wonderful woman last week at the grocery store.  We went out for coffee a couple of times and really seemed to be hitting it off.  We're both avid cyclists and seem to be obsessed with our bikes.  Last Friday she asked me to come over to her apartment for a home made Italian dinner.  She told me that I could ride my bike over, and to lock it to the bike rack outside her building.  She then told me to check out her ride which she said was the only bike parked out there.  She really wanted to show it off to me, I think.  When I arrived to the bike rack outside her place, this is what I saw.

I was so perplexed by this, that I called her on my cell phone and told her I was sick and couldn't make it - to give me time to try to think if I want to pursue this further.  But she is starting to wonder what is going on and has asked me to come over again tonight!  What do I do?

Please help!

Confuzed.

Confuzed:

No need to call me Mister PooBah - that was my father!  Anyway - listen, first of all calm down.  You met a great lady who is 1) into you and 2) into cycling and 3) maybe can cook Italian food.  These are good things.  I admit - riding a unicycle is a little different, but choosing to lock it up to the bike rack with handcuffs is definitely fringe.  Let's analyze the situation:  First of all riding a unicycle is HARD - and it requires excellent balance and impressive core strength.  Secondly, the fact that she used handcuffs as a bike lock could mean any of a number of things.  Maybe her Kryptonite U-lock got bic-penned.  Or maybe she's just really into handcuffs.  Hang on....excellent balance + impressive core strength + into handcuffs + cooks Italian.  You know what Confuzed, why don't you email me her name and number, and let me check this one out for you.  I will do a little homework and get back with you....

---

Dear PooBah:

I have wanted a fixed-gear bike for so long, and just finished making one up for myself from some spare parts laying around my garage.  I'm a little worried about the chain ring I used though, because I have some hills I need to get up for my morning commute.  Can you take a look at this and tell me if you think it will work?

Thanks!

Mr. G. Masher

Mr. Masher:

Wow!  What's that chainring - like an 800t?  I've done some quick estimation of the gain ratio of this baby over at Sheldon Brown's gear calculator and think you must be running about a 66.4 on this bad-boy.  Impressive!  With respect to the hills - I don't think you have a thing to worry about.  But you may want to invest in some larger pants...because if you keep with it, you may end up looking like this guy.

P.S. Your seat's too low.

---

Happy Friday everyone.  Remember to get your costumes ready and get registered for the MidMO Bike Ride to Rocheport going down in one week!

As ever, thanks so much for reading and for all those who comment.  See you on the road or trail this weekend - be safe and Pedal On!