me and Joan Murakami and the irrepressible Jain Light

haircut day

Last night I hit the sack with Charlie at nine, as usual.

After five days of shivering, sweating, feeling horrible and doing even less than I normally don’t do, I was gonna kick this winter sickness. Alas for Charlie, I’d passed it to him, despite my almost stellar 88%  sneeze protocol adherance.

Sneeze protocol: when the urge strikes, drop any tools, implements, and grab collar of shirt/sweater with both hands and cover face up to eyeballs, then emit a sneeze but don’t let ‘er rip because even a real JP -force sneeze laughs at mere cloth.

We’ve never gone to a New Year’s party.  I have been to ONE in Marin, about five years ago.

No, Mr Party Pooper prefers not to, and I would just “not to” right along with him, until…the millenium.  Just to be able to do something unusual on New Year’s Eve, I signed up for folk music camp (Camp Harmony).  Everyone, even the children , stay up past midnight every night  but especially on the big final night, Dec 31st.   It was such a blast, I promised myself to do this for the following year, and the one after that… on and on ..until that awful  Norovirus Year, where EVERYONE was puking and pooping, sick as dogs. 2005-6 I believe. I just never went back, and resumed the ol’ nine-to-bed, waken to all the firecrackers, mumble ‘happy new year, dear’ and roll over.

But the firecrackers were off at ten. Then again, at eleven. I kept being woken up. There was merriment going on Out There!

I remembered that one party, very near by, and wondered if it would be on again this year. “Hell, she’s only five minutes away by bicycle” I goad myself.
“Haven’t you been riding in the freezing cold to go swimming for ten weeks?” my nagging self taunted.  Five f finger-numbing minutes later, u nder a perfectly clear halfmoon starry sky, was there. Cars crammed around her little cottage. Not a lot of noise.

Inside, I can see the party has wound down, there are only fifteen or so folks, being given rattles, gongs, trumpet, noisemakers…

I picked my instrument (a kazooo) and followed everyone , led by  a child in a New Year’s Dragon head,  up and over the hill in the (usually very) quiet San Anselmo neighborhood.

What’s impressive about Linda’s annual ritual is how ready her neighbors are for this occasion.

Kids rush outside and do a jig. Their parents smile from the doorway.

One woman leaned out her window, saying “Thank you! Thank you!”

A  silhouette behind venetian blinds waved feverishly from a second -story window. Straigh out of cinema cliche, the shut-in lady.

I feel so lucky, even at the advanced age of 56, to be able to hop on a bike and scoot somewhere without much thought, even if it is “amateur night” out there (we heard lots of firecrackers and Young Men Yelling).  It’s not to be taken for granted.
My most animated conversation later, in the apres-spirit-warding-off ceremony, was with Victor Zaballa, a Mexican artist who had a lot of stories about being in his car, and having “weekend warriors” smash into him on their bikes. This, after I proudly bragged about being a bike racer. At this party, every single person (save the 9 yr old girl) is Someone Professional, and even though I’m seriously washed up, I have to uh…profess.

As I rode home at about one-thirty, I recalled with a giggle how, in 1979, at a New Year’s Party, I bragged about being a bike racer–without ever having seen a race, let alone be in one.

I plan to lie about being an author this year.

While the  bread pudding with prickly pear syrup warmed up, I pumped the tires of the still quite new DeSalvo 29r up nice and hard. Fingers barely functioning in the frosty dark, and owing to the strange configuration (= ‘mollification’) of the pump hose, I had to hold the nozzle on the valve with my left hand, while pumping with my right hand. My head was in the way, so it had to tlt off in a bizarre angle (reminding me of mammogramography, where the poor victim has to have body facing forward, and head, neck cranked well away in the other direction. Ow!)

Headed out with three layers of wool, ski gloves, a four-foot cashmere muffler, and my huge down jacket tied around my waist. Hot choc in my backpack, and a stencil, spray paint to put “50!” all over the mountain.

An hour’s ride, and the black sky finally reddened…

Mollified Pump

to put the top back on the toothpaste,

wash the dishes within half an hour,

and put things away

rather than permitting Mount Clothing to build up on the couch.

I got up on b.d. morning at 5, hustled up to Sky Oaks to see that lunar eclipse. Alice B. Totality. It was there. I had it to myself, though I could hear cars motoring up Bolinas Rd, doors slamming, and murmuring.

There is an upside down rabbit visible on the rusty-brown surface. I didn’t pack hot choc (nobody to impress). I didn’t howl. I simply sat next to my bike and stared, and was grateful for fifty six fun packed turns around the sun, nearly all of them spent hunting for moons.

Reward if returned

This weekend I lost my cherished choco-colored guitar, and I’m hoping that by posting a note it will somehow find its way back to me.

It’s a mahogany instrument that has been played only a few months, although it’s over ten years old, and has new strings, a capo with my name taped to it, and all kinds of stickers on the inside with my name and address. My guitar journal, a hand bound fabric mini-book, was also in the little pick storage box. Oh and lots of Neil Young songbooks.

The thing weighed at least twelve pounds, with the heavy fur-lined case, and can’t have gone far.

Worst-case scenario: it was taken to be sold for drugs, and never gets played at all, just cycled around among the methamphetamine crowd for drug money.

Best-case scenario: the instrument finds its way back here.
In between case: someone who will take much better care of it than I did gets it, plays it, loves it.  It has an incredibly pure, rich tonality.

Even just tuning it was a thrill.

Varley's attention to detail is second to none

We’re having warm gusty wind (just like autumn) and brilliant low-angle sun. I have been swimming, not cycling for exercise these past weeks. I leave the house in the dark for a 5:30 a.m. swim. Home by 7, then indoors alllllllll day. Crawl into bed at 9, which means climbing a long stairway outside in the dark.

So I gave myself permission to hop on my ol’ crossingham  and ride it in the ‘filet o’ day’ (one to four) t My excuse? The bars look so ratty, and the Grab-On™ grips so compressed, I needed a change. It had probably been five years or more, and that great bike deserves to look decent.

Reminds me of the time in 1991 or so, when racing the beloved Chihuahua Desert Challenge, in the day when all us pros  (well, the ones with cheap-ass sponsors, or privateers like myself) slept in a giant single room bunkhouse.

Rishi Grewal would come in super late the first night, around 3 a.m. and put all his clothes on hangers in the little cardboard wardrobe with the squeaky metal bar, then rattle his dial-a-vitamin jar for five minutes or so….with irritable, freshly-awakened riders grousing from their beds. Well,  maybe not the passed-out Herbold & co.

Me, I just thought: this deserves to be put down on paper….to this selfish brat, there’s nobody else in the room who matters…

John Tomac (definitely living in style in his own condo, no doubt) took a look at my bike, rode it around and pronounced it “a really great bike” (he’s my size). Then, the next time I saw the bike, the ratty old cloth tape had been meticulously replaced with expensive cork-backed tape (very 198o’s  neon-colored geometric flecks).

In marked contrast to Dave Weins taking my saddle and seatpost ransom because I’d hidden the co-axial cable. (note to reader/rider: I loathe T.V. being on all day long, with no one in the room).

Oh, man those were the days.

Anyhow, a peaceful ramble out  west to Black Mountain Cycles of Point Reyes Station, where Mike Varley the ace mechanic, designer, frame mfgr, beer brewer and popular local deejay would remove two yards of tired, droopy  cat-eye bar tape with all the threads hanging off, huge gaps and stuff, and put it all to rights.

Nearly no traffic getting out there.

I took the low route, the Tocaloma bridge, rather than the dreaded Olema hill. Alas, because there is a blockage on said hill, all the traffic took my back route, too.

In the thrift shop (had to go there, even before visiting Mike V.) I found the sort of Phelan holy grail:
cashmere-silk leggings (by Jennifer Tyler, never heard of her) in an unfortunate “I’m dealing with cancer” pink.

Which of course  I will dye –would I pun?– brown because I am so bloody sick of this ocean of pink…

Thence to the shop, where Mike stopped work on Robin William’s bike  to do a while-u-wait on my bars.

I felt like a proper star.

Mike, you rock, with that wonderful Tom Russell music playing, with a West Marin afternoon unfurling just outside your secret little shop.

Beautiful, but dead

.

Tim Woolard snapped this in 1990, at Shuss Mtn, Michigan. Missy, me, and Cindy W.

Missy’s mom called Nicole Hahn to tell her Missy’s out on 5 yr probation.  Her time served for that marijuana trafficking offense  was proabably about two years at some Montana facility. By the way, Hahn’s the videographer who took up downhill racing to better understand the subject of her documentary, Hardihood.  It’s a good one, starring  Missy, Marla, Lisa Sher, and a handful of others, including me. The movie might get a second life, watch this space.

JP "logging", captured by Carson Blume

Another World Championship in San Francisco Last Sunday. I’d marked my calendar, but didn’t think about heavy rain (my plan had been to ride into S.F.  as a warm up for a 47 minute gutbusting race).

Mandy Isbell and John Butera of  Colorado were in town for the race (and his 50th  b.d.)– I’d met ‘em  in Ireland a couple months ago at the other singlespeed world’s.  Mandy thought nothing of coming in a downpour at 7 am to get me, and bring me back into town.

Which she did.

Then we rode a few miles to the races in Golden Gate Park, with negligible traffic and barely any rain–John helped carry my ‘merch’ (cashmere armwarmers, embroidered badges, all of which were ignored the entire day, as usual).

Single speed cyclocross is a splinter group off the single speed splinter group  I’ve been racing with the last seven years.

The promoter, Murphy Mack, and the title sponsor, Sheila Moon, are both friends, and I’d crawl over broken glass to take part in anything they are producing.

I knew costumes were ‘strongly encouraged’ but didn’t realize the visceral effect of seeing 60 women in  full regalia–showgirls, ‘more cowbell’, a St. Pauli girl with armbands of overflowing bier steins, a Spielbergian  shark, chickens galore, ballerinas, airplanes, in fact, out of the pack, a mere four women declined to wear a costume.

They were not evident at the front, either. At the front was Julie Krasniak, a Frenchwoman of impressive grace and power–she finished her race of three laps in the time it took me to have a couple of laps (including beer stops). More importantly, she was minutes ahead of second, and in a cute  Rapha outfit with a  “I love Wieners” message on the shirt.

Having arrived three hours before my one o’clock start, I busied myself meeting every woman I crossed paths with, including Gnat, who took pains to get the feathers, nylon, and sequins exactly right, and Mary McConneloug, our cherished Olympian from Fairfax.

Hypothermia almost claimed me, but I got some fortification: cocoa from the sneaker company, wieners from Paul components in Chico, and warm oatmeal from a very stylish gray bread truck piloted by Rapha people.

So I did a lap. My feet and hands  thawed.  I actually felt warm. The bike, my ‘ham crosser with bald “Expotition” tyres rolled through the mud like they were on a rail. No slips, no slides.
Dollar bills were tied to low-hanging branches.  I even saw one muddy bill on the track, next to a peacock feather. I got them both–nobody was near, no one impeded by the inveterate pack rodent.

“Another lap would’t hurt” I told myself.  “Maybe the nice guy will hand up a full beer this time”.  At the second most popular spectator spot, I swam the water hazard, instead of prancing it like a real racer.

Backstroke.

After the first lap, it became clear that three decades of riding gave me a certain  Nerve that allowed me to fly at the three-foot diameter trees lying across the path, or the four-foot height fence we had to scootch under without banging our head….I knew my (Mafac canti’s) brakes were perfect. I even passed some riders, only to lose time when I sat down for a beer.

Please look at the Flickr, Bookface, etc. of all these people. Incredible fun. A tribe I can relate to…

When I look at the great pictures by Carson, Wil, and John, I notice how almost every rider is grinning–visible proof of the excellence of this event.

La citadina

My winnings:

Winnings, SSXCWC2011

Yesterday a bunch of Bicycle Works people (Jelani and Shannon plus a dozen others) fanned out over the county to eight supermarkets to shop for ‘non perishable food’ (a thought that strikes fear into my heart, since food should perish), then donate to the Food Bank. See story.

Over a decade ago I devised a  Cranksgiving of my own–namely the Appetite Seminar followed by a free meal at a local hostel. Only the hostelliers failed to tell me that their annual tradition of free food had been discontinued, so I had five people to feed–five surprised, starving people whom I’d told would be well fed.

This may  have marked the beginning of the decline of my so-called organizational powers. The old Youth Hostel host had moved on, and the new one saw little point in feeding the guests on Thanksgiving evening–since more and more homeless folk showed up each year.  I never checked.

WE went to San Francisco and ate  at a restaurant.
Still makes me feel rotten!
So this year, I did something for those who have not the luxury of a four hour social ride…but I didn’t haul in the most food. The cargo bikes did that.
Still, under sunny cool skies, the twelfth of November was a great day to zoom around buying food for the poor.

It was more or less the first time I’d purchased food (other than on foreign trips) in years….Big fun to see how prices have changed since 2003.

Glad I don’t HAVE to buy food.  I only buy when there’s no butter in the trash bin.