Rather than pretending that I know how things work, I’ve decided to spend this cyclocross season writing about shit I don’t understand. Things like math. Or road racing tactics. Or satisfying women sexually. So let’s just add embrocation to that list. As far as I can tell, embrocation is a fancy word for Bengay and cross racers use it to to create a burning sensation on all of their cold-weather-exposed extremities (ie: the parts that your bathing suit doesn’t cover). People have “recipes”. They create “blends”. Then they “win” “races”. ...

I’m a pretty lousy cyclist, and like to find excuses why this is the fault of someone or something else. Like Sarah Palin. Todays excuse is my diet, which is 90% bread and cookies and 10% ice cream. Or “gelato” if I’m feeling fancy. My diet lacks protein. Luckily, I’ve discovered One Whole Chicken In A Can. I think that this is both the product description and the brand. Judging by the label, this product was designed in the 70s. I expect that it may have also been packaged and ...

Sports movies are better than other movies because sports movies know that you have to put an awesome song right before people are about to do something awesome. Like when the Karate Kid is whupping some surfer dude ass, and they’re playing that “You’re the Best” song by someone that no one has ever heard of. That is a song for winners. Movies about asteroids or relationships will put a power ballad in to make the audience all weepy. Weeping is for losers. Sports movies are about winners. If you ...

Batter Blaster is a pressurized organic pancake batter gun. Imagine Han Solo. Now imagine Han Solo concerned about the effects of pesticides both on the environment and in the food he consumes. Now imagine Han Solo making pancakes for Leia on a Sunday morning wearing Boba Fett underoos. That’s pretty much the whole thing right there. Also, I think that you can use it for whippets. New Seasons had it, but then they sold all of it. To me. And never restocked. You can still buy Batter Blaster at Fred ...

This is a review of gin, written in the style of a drunken middle school book report. Gin is alcohol that tastes like delicious pine trees. There are many types of gin, but only some of them taste delicious. Aristrocrat brand is an example of a gin that does not taste good. It does not taste like a delicious pine tree. It tastes like a rotten pine tree. My favorite gin is 12 Bridges. It’s made in Portland and it has a fancy bottle. The quality of gin is ...

Since purchasing a bike with the rumored-superior SRAM components, many people have asked me how I like it. The girl I bought my bike from raved about how great it was. More and more people seem to be switching over to it. And the SRAM chains cost more than the Shimano ones, so they must be doing something right. But as far as I can tell, it’s not really such a big deal. Am I crazy? In order to answer that question, I decided to write a half assed product ...

As I continue my fool’s tour of bicycle anatomy, let me guide you to the next in a long line of misunderstood components: the bottom bracket. While its job seems to be a pretty simple one (connect the two crank arms and spin!), the bottom bracket acts like that crappy employee that we all have at our respective jobs, the one who makes themselves indispensable through complexity. They use a bunch of fancy words until we say “Fine! You can stay. But only because I don’t have the time to ...

I love my Garmin GPS thingy. I kinda like it because it tells me how far I’ve gone and how fast I’m going and what time it is. But I really like it because it lets me map out my ride, just like that kid in the Family Circus. And unlike the kid in the Family Circus, I can make my route spell out swear words if I plan it well. I know a GPS is a silly bourgeois thing to have, but I don’t care. It is really cheap ...

I like to talk a lot of shit about the Powertap, but I think I need to make my motivations clear. I don’t hate the powertap; I just don’t know how it works. It’s new and scary and confusing. And rather than learn how this devil tool does it’s voodoo magic, I’d rather treat it the same way that Joe the Plumber treats democracy. Or the media. Or international conflicts. Or plumbing, for that matter. With brazen and boastful ignorance. So in honor of Joe, I will now spout off ...

It was the existentialist poet and avid cyclist Donald Rumsfeld who described in his magnum opus, Press Briefing Feb 12, 2002, that there are things that we know and things that we don’t know. But “there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” As the war in Iraq rages on, I’ve come to realize that he was not talking about military intelligence at all. He was talking about road bike pedals. See, I knew about pedals. I’ve used them almost as long as I’ve been riding ...