Word of theDay II

Black Ice

Ok, that's two words, but the result is still the same ouch...
At least I have a nice blue mark down there for show and tell.

Word of the Day

INDICATORS

Could you, please o please with sugar on top, use 'em? It wont hurt you, and it definitely won't hurt me. Au contraire as the French would say.

Thank you.

Pillow Talk

Me: What are you reading?
L: This is a really strange book... very weird... you?
Me: ... oh I'm reading this story of a sentient row boat that is having a fight with an uplifted coral reef that just tried to kill two divers by bombarding them with dead parrot fish.
L: ... I see...

Dr. Ruth

I may have talked about this before but the past couple of days I have been thinking whether this whole blog is nothing more than a self-fulfilling (ooh difficult word) prophecy.
Mr. Exhaustbreather thinks all cars are homicidal maniacs whose only goal in life is to mow him down whilst biking, as a result drivers start to act like selfish bastards with no respect for anybody. There you have it, a self-fulfilling (bloody hell here's that word again) prophecy; you think everything is sh*t and as a result everything will go t*ts up.
This morning I decided to check this theory, I left home convinced that I would have a great ride into work, without any car-related incident whatsoever. By the power of the self-fulfilling (this is the last time I promise) prophecy I should have a great ride into work, right?

Guess what! I did!

Almost...
At some point I reach a crossing and the traffic lights are red. I am no red light jumper so I drive past the queuing card all the way to the head of the queue, and I wait patiently for the light to turn green... The light turns green and I start riding. I swear to Glycon or any deity of your choice, that I am mashing those pedals the split second the light turns green...
Next thing you know there is this lady behind me in a silver Renault Clio who gives a fantastic multi-tasking demonstration; she revs her engine like a full-grown rally pilot, flips me the bird like a gangster rapper and gets foul mouthed like a Tourette patient all this while squeezing past me, almost colliding into oncoming traffic...
Two hundred (200) meters further and she's standing still in front of another red light... I ride past her laughing out loud, I stop and wait for the light to turn green...
Once more I am witness to the same complex multi-tasking ritual, only this time she needs to break like mad not to crash into the back of the queue fifty (50) meters further... I ride past her singing and smiling, she almost chokes in her cigarette screaming (rasping) more profanities... I don't see her again.

What made the poor woman act like that?
Was she late for work? I can't help with that, I didn't tell her to drive her car into work.
Did she need some coffee? My advice; French pressed coffee is the best, one spoon of coarse ground coffee per mug of coffee, it takes no time to prepare and it tastes like Heaven.
Was she unhappy about her sex life? Hey! Easy now! Hold it right there! I am Mr. Exhaustbreather not frigging Dr. Ruth.

Visdom Part III

V this morning rummaging around in L's handbag:

V: What is that lying in your handbag?
L: That's a mandarin orange.
V: Oh I thought you were taking a clown nose to work.

Traffic and anatomy...

Only two 4x4 incidents on my ride into work.

1) Mrs. Blindcow in a Landrover decides to turn to the right without using indicators and almost drives me of the bicycle lane.

2) Soccer mum in a Volkswagen Toerag decides to cut my priority and almost mows me down. I continue my way but Mrs. offroad starts to yell after me. I brake and turn around to ask her what her problem is. She gets out of her car and goes berserk. I suggest her to turn down her volume since it was her who was blatantly at fault for cutting my priority and I tell her to learn thing or two about the different traffic signs before driving a car.

Unfortunately her knowledge on traffic signs is up to par with her knowledge on human anatomy, as she climbs back in her thank she tells me to suck her d**k.

Let's play a game...

called suicide...

I am Zombie...

I think I lost my passion for cycling, I have no longer my heart in it.
At least that's what it looked like this morning. As I started my journey my heart rate was around 215, then dropped to a 127, jumped up again to 198 and then I flat-lined...
Strangely enough my legs kept going, keeping a good steady cadence and my wheels kept rolling. I can only see three explanations.
1. Cyclists are like 'roaches (the legs keep going even if you cut of their head)
2. The chest-strap of my heart sensor was maladjusted (too boring to be true).
3. V would find this probably the coolest explanation... I am Zombie...

Cause & Effect.

It started raining this morning as I was about to leave for work.
Just my luck, I forgot my rain jacket at work last night.
Next time I'll forget a T-shirt and swim trunks at work...

Visdom Part II

"Look papa, the clouds are burning."
"Papa, do you know why Gargamel keeps Smurfs in a little cage? To make soup..."
(V being dropped of in kindergarten)

"I really need to get a haircut, I start to look like a German."
(L getting ready for work)

Bloody wind...

Mr. Exhaust breather was home alone last night, should be fun. I kicked up my feet, I popped "Earthed 4 death or glory" in the DVD player and got myself ready for some sweet downhill and freeride action...

And then the phone rang.

"Hi det er M, hvordan gaar det?"
"Hi M, det gaar godt nok, men hvordan har I det?"
"Ikke saa godt, F er døde..."

The rest of the evening passed in a blurry haze. I called L to tell her that M's father-in-law passed away, called my parents, went to bed...

The ride into work this morning was quite hard; memories of F were my co-pilot.

PS: If anybody asks me whether I'm OK I'll just tell 'em it's the bloody wind that makes my eyes so red and swollen.

Bad idea...

Legwork...

Yehuda for president...

Check Yehuda Moon for more goodness.

I feel kinda bad...

but not really.
This morning on the ride in I pass a queue of cars on the right (normally I will pass queues on the left but traffic was so dense and I did not feel like getting crushed by the oncoming traffic) and this lady just decides to drive even closer to the parked cars the moment I pass.
I can not move any further to the right, slam my right hand against the rear-view mirror of a parked truck and pull a little endo. My rear wheel touches (scratches?) the woman's car as it bounces back (the wheel, not the car).

And I ride on.

What was I supposed to do? Ride illegally on the side walk and endanger pedestrians? Vanish in thin air? I am no bike ninja. Commute by car? I am not THAT desperate.


PS: I got My new electronic ID last night, L says I look like a criminal on the picture.

It's not that different from a ride in the park...

Why...

is it always the fat stinking lard brain, who does not know how to read traffic signs nor masters his own mother tongue, and not some young fit Swedish nanny who will stop to lecture me on where to ride my bike? Cyclists are allowed to ride against traffic in a one-way street if the appropriate traffic sings tell you so. I am however not allowed to ride on the side walk as Mr. faeces-for-brain helpfully suggested, even if that means that he has to leave some room for a stupid cyclist.

Why do you engage your car onto the crossroads even when it's obvious to everybody that the crossroads are already completely blocked and that you're just adding insult to injury? Is it the excessive use of hairspray that caused brain necrosis or are just just a selfish c**t?

And last but not least; Why do I even bother?

Business Proposal

Good Day,

My name is XIE XINGHUA, I work with BANK OF CHINA,LONDON.

I have a Business Proposal of $17,300,000.00 for you to handle with me from my bank.I will need you to help me in transferring the above funds from my bank to your country. I need to know if you will be able to handle this with me before I explain to you in details.

Should you be interested please send me your:
1,Full names,
2,occupation,
3,private phone number,
4,current residential address.

Finally after that I shall furnish you with more informations about this project.However I shall be waiting your response and assurance.
Your earliest response to this letter will be appreciated.

Kind Regards
Mr.Xie Xinghua

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Xie,

You are clearly mistaken, I am an exhaust breather not a Muppet.

Regards,

Mr. Exhaust Breather

Visdom

When I help V to get dressed to go to school we have these deep conversations about the meaning of life...

V: There are no toilets in the jungle are there?
Papa exhaust breather: Not that I know of...
V: That's OK Tarzan does not go to the toilet.
Papa exhaust breather: Of course he does, he would get sick if he didn't...
V: Nooooh! Tarzan does not go to the toilet. Tarzan does not eat.
Papa exhaust breather: I'm sure he does, otherwise he would get weak...
V: Nooooh! Tarzan has strong muscles.
Papa exhaust breather: I see...

Lance vs. Mash SF

Making a difference

What if...

dogs could drive cars?
A barking mad idea you say? Think again.
The advantages are numerous.

- No more flagrant hostility towards pedestrians and other cyclists, after all dogs are man's best friend.
- No more blind sorry-I-did-not-see-you- driving. It's the dog leading the blind and not the other way around.
- No accidents caused by female dogs putting on make-up while driving. Did you ever see a dog wearing lipstick?
- No more answering cell phones when driving. How would they do it ? Dog have no thumbs.

And last but not least; dogs learn. Remember Pavlovs' dog? That clever canine learned in no time that a ringing bell equals food. Humans on the other hand are still having trouble to understand the relationship between cars and traffic jams.

Woof!

PS: One might object that dogs are colour-blind but it seems to me that the same goes for a lot of drivers... and cyclists... and pedestrians.

I wonder...

what went on in the head of the driver (stuck in the traffic-jam from Hell) who was looking at me all misty-eyed while I was waitng for the light to turn green. (Yes I am a boring law-abiding citizen like that). Was he admiring my bike? Checking my outfit? Ogling my hairy legs? If so I am of course very flattered and everything but L and I are happily married.
I guess I read too much into this; the poor guy must have been standing there for the last half an hour, breathing carbon-monoxide and diesel fumes, turning his brain to jelly.

Wake Up! Take a hike! Even better; Ride a bike!

ps: The extra time I get by not queuing along with all the other gas-guzzling sheep was well spent making french toast for breakfast (LL loved it, V stuck with cornflakes). French press coffee and French toast; a champion's breakfast (it surely beats black coffee and cigarettes).

Check your head...

and your bike(s) on a regular basis. Here's why.
Last night while preparing my bike for another week of bad-weather-commuting, i noticed some play on the big chain ring. It turned out that one of the 4 screws that fixes the chainring to the cranks had decided to run off without even leaving a letter or anything. The other 3 screws were also ready to f*ck off 'cause they were pretty loose as well. Luckily I could recuperate a screw of some old crank set that I have lying around (No I don't throw that 'junk' away it will come handy one day...). So I tightened the chainring bolts, cleaned and lubed the chain and re-installed my fenders.
According to Belgian traffic rules, installing fenders on a sports bike (like my MTB) makes it mandatory to run reflectors as well. The fact that I have working lights on my bike does not help, the law says reflectors... Befehl ist befehl.

So I am, as of today, riding an illegal bike...

Welcome to moronia.

All hope is lost...

Me: I'm pt3r I'm 37 years old and I bought my wife an iPod classic for her birthday.
Everybody: Welcome pt3r!
...

Talk of the day...

Disgruntled colleague: Traffic was completely crazy last night; It took me more than an hour to drive home.
Exhaustbreather: Why don't you come by bike?
Disgruntled colleague: That's crazy talk! I can not do that; I live almost 10 km from work.
Exhaustbreather: Eh... I live 17 km from work...
Disgruntled colleague: Yes but your legs are trained...
Exhaustbreather: Do you think I was born on a bike? If you don't ride your legs will never get trained.

How do you ask...

Are you driving a bus?
Why did you cut me of?
Are you blind or just plain stupid?

in Polish?

Google claims it's something along the lines of:

Czy kierowcy autobusu?
Dlaczego mnie wyciąć?
Czy niewidomi lub po prostu głupi?

No translation was found for lardbrain.

I is not a clown...

... nor a circus artist who can trackstand for half an hour while you block my passage deciding on whether to drive or not. Please o please with sugar on top; when I stop that means you can drive and or cross the road. It's not necessary to just stand there and watch how long I can keep my balance before I need to put one foot on the ground. It's not like I block your way until you turn off your engine or take of your shoes, do I?


PS: Mr taxi driver, do you really need to race me when the light turns green? Is it that important to you to reach the traffic jam before I do?

Call me whatever...

...but these dimwits must realize that religion is a purely personal thing. That means; keep it to yourself and more importantly DO NOT BOTHER other people with it (and especially not me), nor think that it is a useful tool to run a society. Idiots.

Exorcism and nordic walkers...

As I get older I seem to develop more and more this sense of self preservation, up to the point where that stuff takes over my own free will. It's not like I ever was a Josh Bender (extreme freeride mountain biker not pornstar) but I am not a complete chicken neither.
Alas, the past couple of years I noticed that I am not that confident riding steep descents on my mountain bike. There are a few sections on my local trail that plainly scare me. Whenever I roll up on top of those sections I will chicken out and come to a grinding halt, unmount my ride and walk down. Trust me nothing looks as stupid as a guy in riding gear inching down a slope holding on to his mountain bike. I might as well install training wheels again.
So this weekend I put on my gear took out the full suspension bike and decided to exorcise the demons. It was now or never. I rode to my first scary section of the trail, a not so steep but quite narrow descent with barbwire fence on the left and a concrete wall on the right and a few steps and loose stones. A bit technical but nothing extreme. I have tried to ride this section a gazillion times before on my hardtail XC race bike with the same result over and over again; I arrive on top of the section and I brake, my brain will refuse my body to do it. Until this weekend, I just rode it! Ha! Stuff that in your pipe and smoke it!
I continued my ride feeling like king of the hill. On my way home I took a piece of trail I never rode before and all of a sudden I end up on top of a steep section that rides out to a small river, you miss your turn and you end up in the water or you hit a tree.
And the demon was back in full effect and pulled my brakes. I cursed turned around, gained some momentum but to no avail, the demon just laughed in my ear and pulled the brakes. I tried 2 more times, always the same result. Luckily I was alone, any passer-by would have laughed his ass of. Look at the chicken on the mountain bike what on earth is he up to, riding in circles on top of that hill?
And that was that, I kicked my demon there and then and rode down that hill, feeling all stupid it had taken me so many attempts to even do it...

Does this mean that I'm no longer afraid when I go riding my bike? Hell no! It will take much more practice to convince myself that I can ride down steep sections without an OTB or worse, but at least I feel already a bit more confident.

Nothing to be afraid of, except dogs running loose and nordic walkers.
The dogs is an easy thing to explain; the small ones are more than likely suicidal and will invariably try to jump under my wheels, making me look like a vicious dog killer in the eyes of their owners (old grumpy looking men and women). Whereas the big ones well, they want to show me who is the faster one, and who has the sharpest teeth.

The Nordic walkers are a whole different ballgame.
Imagine a couple of determined, pissed-off-looking grannies on a mission, marching in the woods on a sunny Monday morning, wielding ski sticks. They are clearly out of their mind and no one can guarantee me that they won't come after me, convinced that it was I who crippled their poodles and stole their skis.

Sodom and Gomorrah.

Spring is in the air, the sun is shining, traffic is completely blocked and the birds are coughing in the morning light.
Senor beamer seems to think differently 'cause he honks his horn violently as I ride past the queuing gas guzzlers.
I always accept these invitations to dialog so I stop and ask him what the problem is. Now senor gets a bit shy; he clearly did not expect to have success with the fit-looking cyclist. So I ask him again what the problem is. Finally, senor beamer lowers his window and starts babbling furiously.
I master a few languages but his tirade leaves me clueless so I repeat my question emulating his babble language, this seems to get him even more excited and all of a sudden he displays his (rather poor) knowledge of the English language by advising me to go and have sexual intercourse with myself. I thank him for the invitation and continue my ride.
I hope that senor does not spend the rest of his day inciting every cyclist to display such promiscuous behavior; this could turn traffic jams into a 21st century Sodom and Gomorrah.

Our Hero.

No worries

The usual stuff this morning; busy traffic and slippery roads. I got almost doored by a car as I rode past. Nothing new really, business as usual.

A group of around 40 toddlers brought traffic to a halt as they had to cross the street. This sight will always put a smile on my face.

Mr Volkswagen Passat behind me did not see the fun nor the charm of this and almost knocked me down when traffic started moving again.
That's ok; he was probably distracted and he did not see me nor did he realize he was riding on the bicycle lane.
No worries it could happen to anyone.

200 meters further swerving from one lane to another without use of indicators, whilst racing a van, he almost knocks this lady on her bicycle of the road.
That's ok; he was probably in a hurry, had more important things to do than her,and did not notice the fluorescent high-visibility vest she was wearing.
No worries it could happen to anyone.

500 meters further and he has to break like a madman for the cars who are queuing at the red light. As I ride by I spit the greenest and stickiest loogie on his window.
That's ok; I probably got distracted by his excellent driving skills.
No worries it could happen to anyone.

We will not yield.

We will not yield.

Ever since Satan invented the combustion engine, we have been losing the war.
We have been run off the road by buses, construction trucks and debutants in SUVs.
Rednecks in big trucks have belted us with beer cans and called us hurtful names.
We have been bullied, barraged and besieged until all we have left is the broken shoulder that sparkles which shards of green glass, fast-food wrappers and condoms.
We've been labeled freaks and treated like second-class citizens.

Bikers unite.

It is time to rise up and reclaim our roads and trails.

We will mount our steeds, be they steel, aluminium or featherweight carbon, and ride into the battle of the carbon monoxide-spewing masses.

We will fight the big oil Goliaths with nothing but a twelve-tooth cog, a Teflon-lubricated chain, a pair of watermelon-sized quadriceps and grapefruit-sized calf muscle pistons.

We will break our enemy down, one revolution at a time.
We will ride to save ourselves, our species, our Mother Earth.
We will no longer pretend we are in a civilized disagreement.
We will no longer give ground.

Make no mistake.

This is war.

And we will not stop until the day that bikers rule.




Disclaimer: I am in no way related to the company that created this ad campaign, I just believe they sum it up pretty well.