026: okay that's a little odd

So Friday night I found myself standing in Victoria's Secret shopping for underwear with my wife, and LWeb, talking on the phone with Mike Kuhn.
weird huh?

maybe this giraffe is even more weird.

maybe not.

riding Wiss tomorrow with the Queen of Rock.

Details to follow. Or not.

thanks for reading.

respect
fatmarc vanderbacon

025: rolling with the unholy rouleur

Jim kinda nailed it (again)

"I'm more sad about it than angry when somebody with a doping conviction shows up at my race; I don't bear any malice but it's a rider whose results I can't fully exult in thanks to what they did to themselves and their peers in the past. I forgive, but don't see how a promoter or a fellow racer could ever forget."

this makes me feel better:



I'm not a nike guy. (see last weeks post) but this ad gives me goosebumps.
I'm a sucker for the verve.


thanks for reading.
respect
fatmarc

024: it puts the lotion in the basket

I sure as hell hope the my epitaph isn't "good husband, decent cyclist, wrote angry emails..."

I'm sure I got it from my father. He taught me that we all have a voice and the ability to impact change. He taught me if you care about something, you have to help foster it, and give back to it.

you're probably saying,"WTF did fatmarc go and do now?"

I got some news last weekend that upset me, added to recent years of frustration, I voiced my opinion. Well, you could just go here and read it.

All I am saying is that we need to have a little freakin' diversity.
Maybe one of these days, I'll just get asked to leave. "thank you Mr. Vanderbacon, your ass can go home now." UGH.

Our camera is still totally dead. New one is in transit. More crappy photos from my phone.

two great rides this weekend. Monkey hosted the sturdy girls Saturday as we have 16 people, 13 of which were ladies, come out for a three hour tour of fairhill. It was one of the most enjoyable rides I have ever done. Anne Rock, has a little more on her blog.

Sunday was a day spent chasing Buddy, Jay Jay, Benny the Jewlar and Leo around fairhill. Buddy picked a fun loop, but man I think we climbed the entire day. Fun was had by all.

Photo Blog;

You mean to tell me Baltimore, MD (murder city USA) can have a street festival with out any Chaos,

But Newark Night has three of these? And yes, I can't believe she caught all of that on tape.
tape!? how old are you? Do you even really know what tape is?


Can you really have too much Rock? Me? too much Anne Rock is never enough.


Sweet Johnny can't get enough of the chocolate covered bananas.

After 20+ years of riding, I have to admit, if I'm gonna be redlined, hanging on for dear life starring at some one's butt, I'd sure as hell rather stare a these butt's.

this guy is really sick of AT&T dropping his calls...


thanks for reading.

respect.
fatmarc

023: join me and we can rule the universe

That's right two passions, okay obsessions, of my youth have joined forces.

Star Wars

and

Adidas


pictured here are my over 20 year old Adidas wrestling shoes. Although I haven't wrestled a match in almost 20 years, I haven't coached a wrestling team in over 15 years, and I have no plans to ever coach again, I will not EVER let these shoes go.
look closely here at the tongues on these:
yup that says made in WEST GERMANY.

a couple of days ago I saw this:



and since then I have been on a mad quest for these:
It fucking says skywalker on the side of the shoe!!!

or these:
low top storm troopers, with shell tops!!!

everywhere I go, every website: SOLD OUT.

fucking fan boys.


they'd probably never take the bastards out of the packaging.

UGH!

anyway, I rode my bike tonight. I did efforts. They were hard. My legs felt better after my ride than before. More efforts in the morning. I like to ride my bicycle.

thanks for reading.

I'm going to fall asleep with visions of orange high tops in my head.

respect.
fatmarc vanderbacon
supernerd.

022: hanging out in the streets

So this is the California Taco dude.
So Saturday afternoon, I'm standing in "Newark night" with my wife, my brother and his kids. This young woman, somewhat buxom, a little rough looking, but still not horrible on the eyes, comes up to the California taco Dude, and well begins to molest him.

it started with her, shimming back to him and shaking her ass, giving him a little lap dance.

My brother poked me, " are you seeing this?"

Diane spoke up, "oh my god..."
Next she spun around wrapping her left leg around his torso and flinging her head back smiling at her friends...

"as you videoing this?" my brother asked.

"fuck, my camera is broken. I got nothing, this is hilarious!" I replied.

Finally, the young woman, all the while being photoed by her friends, spun back around dropped to her knees, and thrust her face into California Taco Dude's Crotch.
we lost it laughing out loud.

As Breyla-la, Heidi and Tab came back to our little group, my brother suggested that we follow these girls, "i just have a feeling where ever they are going is going to be where the show will be..."

Aside from the molestation of California Taco Dude, the night was much more family oriented, and we had a great time. My niece and nephew even got a little face time with Lord Vader.
Sunday Monkey and I loaded up the cross bikes and headed out to Philly to enjoy the big bike race. We were lucky enough to have Ann Rock as our tour guide as we rode around the city to check out the different vantage points. We cheered for friends in the race, cheered for drivers in the race, and enjoyed the Morgan's bbq. In addition to Anne we were accompanied most of the day by Naomi, Steve, M, Nishat and Dave. We wrapped up the day at lemon hill. It was awesome.
Coolest thing I saw all day: So this jelly belly kid took a big flyer and was on a solo break most of the day. Of course the peloton caught him as the race was wrapping up. He was hurting, and had the final 3 trips over lemon hill in a small groupetto off the main pack. One of the Jacques Mayne boys, pushed him over the top. Total classy move. that was cool to see.

As I mentioned before, our camera is broken, so most of these pictures are stolen from facebook, the internerd or my phone. Anthony got the nice shot of Rock, Monk and I.

Our camera has been on a slow path to death since getting caught in a pocket of water at Gloucester last year...

great weekend

thanks for reading.

respect.
fatmarc

021: tired

Coming in to this week, the legs felt good, riding well. Feeling great. Mentally on point. 4 park ride last weekend was super fun.

Original Plan was to race Ironhill. Why not, I feel good, got good form, know the course well, why not?

Then Anne Rock came along with a better offer. That's right, I sold my soul for Anne Rock and Roll.

I went a little harder than I thought I would this week. Proceeded to get dropped on the peoples ride last night. Mentally tired; just not into it. blah. Blair and Wilson are sick fast. I am not.

here's some skateboarding:




I'll be at Ironhill 9:00am Saturday to set up the course if your interested in helping drop me a line...

thanks for reading.

respect
fatmarc

020: Where do I start?

Well, I guess I have to start by apologizing to Bad Andy and Bad Kat. They came down for a ride this weekend and arrived a little early. I was in the garage tinkering with the bikes, in pretty much just my PJ bottoms.

It was only fortune that their eyes were burnt out of their heads as they got a full blast of my man boobs and belly. Sorry guys, Friends don't blast friends with their man boobs.

After kitting up, Diane and Bad Kat, accompanied by their teammates Heidi and Anne Rock headed out for a three hour tour of fairhill.
Bad Andy and I were joined by Buddy the keg breaker, Michigan Matt, Fort James, Keith (Bobby's boy), Acura Matt, Andy Green, Skin Colored Bianchi John, Rombach the slayer, Fuzzy, Ted Logic and Dennis Bike. We set off for one of our 4 park rides.

These 4 park rides are one of the things that bring out the community. We link together all of the parks between Fairhill, Carpenter, Middlerun and White Clay. We of course throw in a beer stop along the way. The rides are generally pretty epic, and lots of fun.
We usually have 6 or so of these rides a year, but for whatever reason, this year we haven't. Finally, we nailed down our first for 2010. At the end we got just shy of 40 miles in just shy of 4 hours. Up the two final climbs, Romback slayed everyone. Freaking monster.
It was wonderful. Thanks for coming out kids.
Monday was memorial day. It was hot. Diane and I did the amnesty ride. Mark the Shark kept a kind eye on Monkey and kept her out of the wind. We had a great time, thanks to everyone who let us sit in.

Later that day, some kids came over to watch the Fantastic Mr. Fox, and hang out with Tauntaun. It was a nice end to a great weekend.

thanks for reading.

respect.
fatmarc

019: blog post no one will read

So last week I took Diane out to her first group ride since her injury. It’s usually a pretty big group of masters dudes on bikes. The group is generally a very diverse crowd and draws a big group. In these parts it’s probably be called a “b” ride. The key factor is that there are lots places to hide from the wind.

Still Diane was pretty nervous about getting in the group. I assured her it would be fine and the group would be huge.

We rolled out of our house, rode 30 minutes or so and met the group. The group was much smaller than normal, may be 10-15 guys. It was a little faster too than in the previous weeks when I had met up with them. I encouraged Diane to get into the pack, and not hang off the back. Diane cautiously worked her way up through the group eventually settling in around 3rd wheel. I rode behind cautiously keeping an eye on her.

I began talking with some guys I knew from the ride. I told one fellow I was there with Diane, and she was coming back from an injury. I commented that I wanted to keep an eye on her in case she got in trouble.

The dude asks, “ is that your girl up there in the front?”

I replied, “ yup, that’s her.”

We crested a hill, Diane was out of her saddle and climbing at near the front of the group as it strung out on the hill. She was hurting, but made it over the climb at the front.

My buddy says to me, “ man, your little girl is doing great, she’s really hanging in there…”

Wait a minute, “ did he just say little girl!?”

I nearly crashed my bike laughing as I realized he thought Diane was my daughter and not my wife.

Diane and I dropped off the ride a few minutes later as it swung near house. She was smiling like a Cheshire cat and laughed out loud when I shared the above story. Diane was tired, but totally stoked about the ride. We’ll be back next week, and maybe try to hang on a little bit longer. Gotta convince Diane to not try and take pulls at the front yet… baby steps…

Have a great weekend.

respect
fatmarc

018: random type stuff

Farewell Rotten Robert.

Sunday there was a little barbecue down at Rotten Robert’s. It seems that Robert will be leaving us in a few short days. The lure of the mountains of Colorado were too strong, and sadly he’ll be leaving our little community. I will admit to you that I kept Rotten at an arm’s length when I first met the guy. My first reaction was, “who the fuck is the hipster and why is hanging around us?” Later, as I got to know Robert, Diane and I became HUGE fans. I love this guy. I also learned that his goal was always to end up out west. The lot was already cast. At the end of the day, I know have another couch to crash on out west, but our community certainly loses a great guy. Although the nickname that stuck for Robert was Rotten, the truth is that the guy is pretty damn awesome. You’ll be missed.

Frank Zappa Kappa Forever.

Be a better mechanic.
So in the last year, I have been working very hard to learn to be a better bike mechanic, and to do more of my own work on my bikes. I have always been spoiled by having great mechanics work on my stuff, and as a result I became pretty inept. Diane used to laugh when I asked where are the wrenches? But in the last year, I have been working hard to be better at wrenching. I recently read the Bike Snob Book. The thing that stuck with me most was when he said don’t be afraid of working on your bike. Sure, you’ll break something and have to go the shop, but who cares…

So currently, I don’t have an air compressor so as I was trying to set up a new wheel with Stan’s, I flew down to the local gas station with a handful of quarters and the wheel. Try as I might, I failed to get the Stan’s to take. I did however give the folks at the Gas Station, attendants and customers a hell of a show, as I tried to shake, soap, and pet the tire all in the hope of getting the tire to take. One brave customer asked me, “what is that white stuff pouring out of the tire?” without thinking I answered, “Stan’s Goo.”

The customer looked at me perplexed.

I just uttered, softly, “ Stan’s goo, a tire sealant.. aw never mind…”

Musical Stylings.
Picked up a couple of CD’s recently. Normally I’d got the MP3 route, but my current MP3 player doesn’t get along with our lap top too well. So I’ll have to work on that in the future. But I digress, I picked up the new Black Keys, Dead Weather and the LCD sound system. The Black Keys has kinda been dominating my listening. The Dead Weather is right up my alley. Only given the LCD sound system one listen. It’s good, but fighting for listening time right now. I’ll have to throw it in the drive at work and give it it’s proper listening…

Grocery Shopping with Mom Mom.
My grandmother in law lost her license a few weeks ago. Diane and I have been taking her to the grocery store on Fridays. Sometimes, I’d mix in a few beers. Truth is I had a great time shopping with her, it was so much fun. I will say this, I have never seen anyone molest the cabbage in the produce section like my grandmother in law. Last week, she was able to get her license back. Good news is that she is mobile again. Bad news is she doesn’t need my help grocery shopping now.
Ah, life styles of exciting masters bike racer.

Thanks for reading.

respect.
fatmarc

017: Goosebumps

this just gave me goosebumps.

what can I say? I heart Shatner.

turn around bright eyes.

respect.
fatmarc