I'll Have an Order of Golden Dawn With a Side of Baphomet

  

Photo courtesy of Justine Jopp

   Things are looking up.  Our Svengali-like neighbor has retreated to the inner chambers of Castle Neurosis, and my lungs once again absorb oxygen.  The mahayaga was a success, I hear, although during that time at least three people I know had major heart attacks.  Mahayaga - Valentine's Day - Heart Attacks?  I'm a firm believer in the notion that there are no coincidences, but that doesn't mean everything makes sense.  Just ask Aleister Crowley, one of the most confusing people to have ever existed, credited in no small part to his excessive use of symbols and jargon.  Um, kind of like cyclists.
   Alas, my occult initiation into higher levels of cycling esoterica went "tits up", as they say in Aleister's home town, as I was passed over as a "Brand Ambassador" for Pactimo Apparel.  I guess I'll have to put my epaulets back in their velvet-lined drawer.  This guy also didn't win, and he's taking it way better than I am.  But he's from Wisconsin, where there are people living all over the state, not just in one little southeast corner of it, if you get my meaning.  Yes, there were 1800 applicants, and yes, they picked only 25 of them as ambassadors, and yes, I don't have a Twitterpinfaceplant account with a quadrillion followers, and yes, I look like a hobbit on a bicycle when I ride so maybe Pactimo's cool free kit wouldn't necessarily be well-advertised - But. All three winners from New York State were from New York City.  So everyone in Colorado (where Pactimo is based), like everyone else outside of NY State, thinks that New York City is New York State, and that everything north and west of Manhattan and Long Island is uncharted wilderness full of raccoons and gnomes, and maybe a few human settlements.  Oh, and like, a lake or something.
   Being the westernmost outpost of our "state", Buffalo takes full umbrage to the above presumption, in the form of Making Everything About Buffalo.  Regardless of how embarrassing, laughable, or downright creepy something is, if it has farted somewhere near North Tonawanda, every news station will carry the story for a week about the Amazing Buffalo-Based Farting Thing.

"This guy's from Buffalo! Yeah! Go Buffalo!"

 

 Timothy McVeigh was from Lewiston, which is 30 miles north of Buffalo, and hadn't lived there since he was a baby, but BUFFA-LOOOO!  We do not discriminate - mass murderers and chicken wings are FROM BUFFALO.  Period.  Some people think Aleister Crowley flapped his cape here in Buffalo once, too.  You know, because.

   And here's some good news from the world of women's cycling apparel - Giro has definitely gotten it right with their New Road Collection for men and women.  High-quality stuff for commuting mainly, everything is wool-blend, in grey, black and orange color schemes, and clearly designed for total function and comfort and perfect fit.  They even have chamois underwear, and managed somehow not to mention sex even once!

   Here is also another new line out, by Vulpine.  Similar deal - really smart commuter wear, and no pink and blue.  You can read an in-depth review here.  Just remember it's a UK company and things can get pricey (but not pear-shaped).

   Quite by accident, I also came upon a brand-new clothing company called Velocio, started by one my favorite women in cycling, Kristy Scrymgeour, the founder of the Specialized-lululemon women's team, and indefatigable supporter of all things woman-with-bicycle.  These items are more cycling/racing-focused, and look to be top-notch in quality.  And if you're looking for Specialized-lululemon's famous kit, you can get it here.  If you've been pussyfooting about spending the money on this one, you'd better just do it now and cry later, because the team has a new kit for 2014, and unless you are really into floral patterns, it's not as cool as the old one.  Do what thou wilt.

When Beauty and Breathing Don't Mix

Warning: There is a hefty dose of irony in this post.  If you find yourself aggravated beyond belief, please feel free to take a break and relax with a photo of Robert Goulet located in the previous post.

   It has been over 3 weeks since I last rode a bicycle, and my feelings about it are complicated.  There is the longing to ride (which is pretty much always present except when I'm riding), a huge amount of guilt and the sensation that I'm hurrying the apocalypse along every time I get in my car to drive a couple of miles - and then there's a great sense of relief.  Up until the point at which bronchitis began its yearly slash-and-burn tour through my lungs, I had ridden almost 400 winter miles, and felt like a Superstar.

"Yesss!"

I had my studded tires, my skills were improving, I was getting nods of appreciation from pedestrians and drivers alike, I was doing outdoor healthy stuff, I felt like I was Making a Difference in Buffalo...and so of course I had the delusion that this time, for sure, even though it has happened every year for over 30 years, I would not get bronchitis. Wrong. Cold, dry air became the Enemy, and so I had to stop doing anything outside that might cause me to want to inhale air, including riding a bike.  

   And so there is where the relief comes in, although it's bittersweet.  Because the irony is (here we go) that I love cold, dry air in the winter.  My favorite type of winter is precisely the one we're getting - average temperatures of around 15° F, snow on the ground, dry and sunny and gorgeous.  This kind of winter makes me want to ride, to run, to cross-country ski all over the place like a silly freak.  My lungs, however, are completely against such conditions and winter frolic, and rebel with a Victorian oppressiveness.  While the rest of me sits staring out the window, my wet nose pressed against the glass, my lungs plot escapes to tropical islands, dripping bayous, verandas under a July-like sun. I will admit, running away to one of these types of places is starting to seem like a great idea, especially after a coughing fit. And especially after a winter spent with our next-door neighbor.

   In our neighbor, what appeared at first to be just a personality leaning toward obsessive cleanliness has now revealed itself as full-fledged psychosis, but I might be biased.  You see, we (my other half and I) spent a bazillion dollars on a new boiler and hot water tank, to replace the barely functioning system that came with the house.  Before you could say, "Grown ups", our neighbor was protesting the abuse (his word) he had to endure from the new pipes coming out of the side of our house.  That's right, the air rushing out of and into the pipes when the boiler was running was abusing our neighbor.  His solution to all of this horrible treatment caused by our mean-spirited purchase of a boiler that worked was to try to kill us in our sleep by building a wall that blocks the flow of air through the pipes, especially when it's frigidly cold outside - as in, all winter long.  The irony of this is that his creepy wall not only endangers our lives by filling the basement with gas and bringing the internal temperature of the house to 40 degrees, but causes the pipes to make more noise as the boiler tries to turn itself on over and over and over.  His name isn't Tony Soprano, and probably when he isn't on his throne in Castle Neurosis he seems like a normal, stand-up guy. And he keeps his sidewalk clear.  Really, shiny, scary clear.  But when I'm climbing over his fence in my pajamas at two in the morning in a -30° wind chill to clear the obstructions out of our intake pipe, coughing until I puke, several thoughts are going through my mind, "I hope I can get this working and my glove back on before I get frostbite", "Maybe if I still have hands left I can use them to strangle my insane neighbor", "Wow, it sure is amazingly beautiful out here!"

   So my lungs are whispering (they only have the power to whisper right now) in my ear, "In a warm playsss your boiler won't have to turn on.  Your car and your bikessss won't disintegrate from sssalt.  Your houssse won't need so many repairssss.  You can ride your bike all year lonnnnggg and not coughhhh."  Doesn't that all sound wonderful?  All I have to do is move to a warm, humid place, and everything will be okay!  Well, most of the tropical locations outside of the U.S. are unaffordable, so that's out.  Ok, there's the American South...uh...no.  Hawaii is looking good (even though it's perilously close to unaffordable).  The people in that state seem to have an irrational fear of homeless people, however.  Uh, I guess that's it.  Move to Hawaii and get hit with a sledgehammer if it becomes too expensive, or stay here, possibly blow up in a gas explosion, cough like Keats, and admire the magnificent beauty of winter (and I don't think it gets any more beautiful than this, anywhere).  I just have to remember that if I ever start to think the whooshing air of someone's heating vent is actually a complicated plot to torture me, I should seek help from a therapist immediately.

I Am Climbing the Hill, the Hill is Lifting Me Up

   Sometimes I think the reason Zen Buddhism exists is to remind people of the laws of physics.  So we can do what?  I'm not sure.  Maybe so we can stop running against the invisible wind, stop hitting the invisible wall.  There's all that real wind and those real walls to contemplate and experience and test our behavior with.  It seems the invisible obstacles are given far more substance than their atoms would allow were they real. Alan Watts has said our perceptions fly in the face of hard science, as well as Eastern religion:
   "...the prevalent sensation of oneself as a separate ego enclosed in a bag of skin is a hallucination    which accords neither with Western science nor with the experimental philosophy-religions of the East."
   I think I agree with him.  People tend to want a direct line to God, but how can you do that when you can't even partner with gravity?
   As you can probably tell by now, I like to ride my bike.  I also like to run and walk.  The farther and wider afield, the better.  It seems to bring me into partnership with things like gravity, and life; REAL life, not the "separate ego in a bag of skin" life. I love to read blogs like the oatmeal, and bikesnob NYC, because, like me, the authors realize how silly it is to run ultramarathons or ride your bike obsessively when one's survival doesn't depend on it, and how there are people out there truly struggling every day while we whine and moan about our "gear".  And yet we still do it.  The wanderlust, the sufferfest, or whatever you want to call it - it makes the food at the end more delicious, the bed softer, the house (that you're not fixing because you're out playing on your bicycle) more like home.  It shows you, in intricate detail, what the invisible winds and walls are all about, and what world is there when you can move past them.  David Goggins, a Navy SEAL who began running ultramarathons with no training in 2005 in order to raise money for wounded veterans and their families, and who now has run some of the hardest races in existence, as well as competed in the Ultraman triathlon (all with a congenital hole in his heart), said it very simply, "At around mile 75, I start to find out who David Goggins is."

"The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego."
                                                                                                                    -Alan Watts

 I started to accept physics as a reality fairly recently.  And I mean, I've accepted it as a phenomenon whose existence I am actively a part of, not just as something that happens to me from the outside.  Perhaps it's because of age, or I've just partially snapped out of my fantasy world.  It never occurred to me after about 30 years of running, but the revelation came quickly once I started cycling.  One day, blammo, "I'm not propelling my body through space, I'm spinning a wheel.  Just spin the wheel and let physics take care of the rest - why do you think you have to do everything?!"

"Why not sit back, have a drink, and let Physics do the work?"

   What a wonderful circumstance, not to have to force everything around, like you know better than the Universe where to put stuff!  When I think back on all that wasted energy, I'm embarrassed. 

 "The world outside your skin is just as much you as the world inside...There is a feeling of the ground holding you up, and of hills lifting you when you climb them."

But I'm glad the ground and I have come to an understanding.

Madame Blowhard Reveals Her Secrets

  Well, so much for the quick follow-up to my last post.  I'm sure you were all bouncing on your toes with anticipation....Or really, who cares?  For those of you who do care (sniff), I was taken by surprise by the flu, which promptly turned into bronchitis, as it always does.  I distinctly recall not having bronchitis so much when I drank more.  Hmmmm.  As my 100-year-old uncle used to say, "Drink scotch!  Beer will kill ya!"  Our Christmas tree had a lot of those little white plastic horses hanging from the branches when I was a kid.....

  So, ahem, now you've waited two weeks since the pink/blue freakout, and you're wondering what's next.  Being someone who is unable to handle all the empowerment that comes from riding the latest gran fondo looking like a stripper in diaper bag colors, I have searched, and cajoled, and whined and obsessed until I found quite a few clothing options for us less spicy hot sexy lady cyclists.  Some sources are more reliable than others, but you're guaranteed to walk (or ride) away with at least a few decent kits and your dignity intact.
  One item that I'm sure you've noticed is in short supply (besides high-visibility clothing - we like it dark and sexy, like cats) is bibs.  For roughly every 30 pairs of men's bibs, in all different colors, lengths, team replica patterns, levels of quality, etc...there's one rather bland pair of women's bib shorts, priced higher than 29 of them.  One could speculate endlessly as to why cycling apparel manufacturers don't think women would want to buy the Most Comfortable Shorts Ever, but then again, we're babies, and don't express ourselves very well.  As babies, we also don't seem to notice that when we buy bib shorts, we always spend between 20 and 50 dollars more for them, whether they have a special "pit stop access" feature or not (and really, does a buckle or an extra flap of fabric really cost 50 bucks?). Case in point - here is part of the glowing review from one of my favorite online stores, Team Estrogen, of the women's version of the Louis Garneau Elite Lazer bib shorts, a nice high-end pair of bibs (many of Team Estrogen's employees are avid cyclists, and give the products a good run for their money):

"...At the end of the ride, my sit bones were in good shape, I had no discomfort farther forward, and no chafing to speak of. I like that the center of the chamois tapers as it widens towards the leg, as that goes a long was towards making the chamois feel less bulky. The split back with the vented mesh not only eliminates the diaper-y feeling, but also helps aid in an overall better fit of the short. While not a compression short, the fabric is supportive, the feel of the fabric against my skin was wonderful and the lack of leg grippers made the shorts sooooo comfy on my large quads. No squeezy bulges! As mentioned in the FIT NOTES above, the straps are LONG. As a shorter person (5'4") I definitely needed to shorten them. I did that by hand, but with a sewing machine it would be accomplished much more quickly."

  So, these bib shorts, which still cost $200 over a year after they came out (you can find the men's on sale for $50 less), still have to be tailored once you've spent all that money.  At least Louis Garneau acknowledges that women cyclists have athletic legs.  Unlike some other companies we know of.

  Has this Assos model ever ridden a bike in her life, or supported her own body weight for longer than 10 minutes?  This is probably what I'd look like in these knickers:

Uh....

This brings me to Madame Blowhard's Biggest Secret of All.....
Women can wear men's shorts!  Because our Lady Thighs are more muscular, and there is generally more hip, a men's size is almost identical to the corresponding women's size in shorts and bibs.  I wear a Small in women's shorts and bibs, a Small or X-Small in men's.  And, I might be unusual, but I have found absolutely no difference in chamois, except that it won't be pink in color.  I've heard similar reports from other female cyclists.  In cheaper shorts, in better shorts - no difference in chamois.  A cheap pad is always a cheap pad, no matter what gender it's intended for.  Same for the good stuff. Ahh, enter the Inner Sanctum, my precious - you can go on nashbar and get the discontinued cheapo men's bibs and still look a hundred times better and be as comfortable as if you spent a whole week's paycheck on the dreaded Rube Specific.  I mean, Women's Specific.
  Now, for jerseys, or if you want a kit, things get slightly more complicated.  A lot of women would have a hard time fitting into a man's jersey properly, especially if a race fit is desired.  Luckily, there are cycling apparel manufacturers whose business is comprised mainly of custom orders.  These companies are used to making kits for teams of both men and women, and have a more realistic understanding of what a cyclist of either gender is looking for.  Most of the time you can buy from a limited line of single items in an online store capacity, but also these manufacturers will offer wonderful goodies like sizing samples and leftover team kits, as well as their own "brand kits".  Voler, Pactimo and Champion System are three well-known manufacturers in this country (the US).  Voler even makes everything in the US.  Yes, they still have some pink and blue (gads!), but not much.  I have seen Voler sizing sample jersey and bibs (stuff tried on by teams before they placed their order) for 10 and 30 bucks, respectively.  Champion System has a "brand kit" - bibs, jersey, vest, arm and leg warmers, shoe covers, for less than one pair of Women's Specific bibs from a more commercial retailer.  Pactimo has taken things further, and offers a "designer gallery", with eye-popping stuff like this, or this.  And yes, these are for the women, signature designed.  They are race-fit, full zip, with higher-end fabrics and still are very reasonably priced, with matching shorts and bibs.
  Some online retailers/clearing houses will develop their own clothing lines, and pass the savings on to you.  Performance Bike has been offering a "performance" line since 2013, for both men and women, that is pretty impressive.  They call it Ultra, and it features a race fit, coldblack fabric, compression, decent chamois, and power band legs and sleeves.  Both the men's and women's are black or white, with lots of reflective accents and subdued graphics.  The bibs and jersey are currently running under $130, which is pretty excellent.  Reviews of this line have been extremely favorable, and hopefully Performance will continue to carry it.
  Another way to get a kit that will definitely fit right is to buy your favorite LBS's kit ("favorite LBS" being the store that didn't tell you 650 wheels were "slower").  You can try everything on right there for size, and when you're riding your really fast road bike with the 650 wheelset, you can advertise that awesome shop with pride.
  Remember Team Estrogen?  Their prices are always closest to the MSRP, but they know what women are looking for, and manage to find the XS and XXS of any unisex cycling gear.  These sizes are often not even available on the manufacturers' own websites, so I suspect they make the smaller sizes just for sale on Team Estrogen.  I haven't contacted the company to confirm this, though.
  There is also ebay.  This is really hit-or-miss, but sometimes a search for "women's cycling team" or "women's cycling kit" will bring up someone from a professional or college team trying to get rid of her unused (or used) team gear.  Usually the bids are reasonable for these items.
  Lastly, if you want the high-end stuff, I still say, Get the men's version if you can!  All those fancy schmancy women's bibs have a male equivalent for less money, and probably in the right size.  If the company is based in a country where there are tiny French or Italian men, like Louis Garneau or Pissei, then there will be an XS pair of bibs (or even some jerseys) just waiting for you to enjoy.  If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, dammit!