Ｊｅｅｓｈ

Breakfast Adventures from Underdog Pictures on Vimeo.

I have been trying to hold my tongue for a while, despite the people in my way, so I should hold it a little longer. I will let them tell the story. No experience on a bike = crash = put it on the web? Experienced bike rider = crash - brakes - speed= web? Let me know because, now and only now, Osaka is looking bad.

watch this!

I want to see it there.

A gear wheeled complaining device

Jamming Gear / free demo from So KANNO on Vimeo.

Seeing the jamming gear live is pretty cool and I wish I were smart enough to make stuff like that but no go there so I end up doing stuff like drinking beer and riding a roller while the Cub naps. The humidity was 87% that day because it had been raining all before the sun broke through the clouds. I didn't mind the fact that the past two weeks had been overcast because it meant that everybody would be riding the train not their newGarneu road bikes. It makes you wonder how may track frames there are rusting to death on verandas. The only thing wrong with commuters leaving their bikes at home is that I actually going to run into people who ride all year long so I have to race. This is where I have to question the eternal pissing contest that is being a man. When do you know you're racing and when are you just commuting? For me the answer is simple: I am racing when I pass someone and I am commuting when they pass me. Sounds alright in theory but what if other people have the same point of view and they change into race mode when someone passes them, as most guys do. Now that I have passed them we are racing but if they pass me then I am commuting until I catch them again. Maybe I have thought about this a little too much but it came down to tactics. You both know you are racing when you start to employ "tactics". Now I am sure you are wondering "what the fxxk kind of tactics can you have on a 25km commute, riding on 700x32?!?!?!". And that is a very good question but there are several aces, or as like to call them TURBOS(!), you can drop.

The trap you do not want to fall into is running reds because it is a dead give away that you are racing the other guy and he will know that you don't have legs to race so you are riding like a dick. It's like slapping a wolf with red meat. Once he has the scent of blood you are done like linner. This was the case in Sanja when the road bike kook ran through the crowded crosswalk and the other night when the fixster ran a crowded 3 way. I knew we were racing and reacted appropriately by passing them while coasting picking my nose. It's the Gee glove slap.

Another, slightly more innocuous, trap you can never step into is taking the sidewalk. This has been the downfall of my last two opponents. On my last two rides home I have been racing and the fallen opted for the sidewalk as we came through the construction heavy Seijo area. Their momentary indiscretion told me two things about them. One was that they were keen to get ahead of me and the the second was that they weren't used to commuting by bicycle or that they were unfamiliar with the area. By taking the sidewalk they had to go in front of a 711 in front of a campus, always crowded at night and that they had to wait people coming out of the apartments that just went up. They were trapped and I was very happy to wait the extra 30 seconds for my turn to go because it gave me a full two minute lead. Lead to what, I am not sure but a lead is a lead and I was like Colombo in this race s I took it.

The more disturbing of the two rides was the one against the TREK rider because, at the slightest hint of traffic slowing down, he would veer off onto the sidewalk in hopes that I would be caught and he could speed by. The only reason I am sure of this is that he was checking where I was when passing. My decision to remain on the road and stay in same gear proved to be sensible while I could hear him frantically changing gears and looking over his shoulder.

It was super to have someone to race against but I had to drop one of my TURBOS to maintain my lead. The TURBO had been building for some time and it came in an audible BROMP almost forcing me out of the saddle. Ask the lurker and he will testify to the potency of my TURBOS. Noxious gas dispelled and I was raring to go. Unfortunately, as we were nearer to home his strength began to wane, no doubt the effect of my TURBO had taken it's toll and he just plain gave up. I looked over my shoulder and was just in time to see him stop and check his cell phone in an attempt to look nonchalant.

The next day was a good chance for me to refill my TURBO reserve.

I hope for more of these

I look forward to this and I hope that the posts keep a lighter, make you want to ride your bike, vibe. Either way it's good that we have more to read at work.

Happy Yender

To what could be the next best thing to a Kosher holiday. The rainy season has started early and someone was nice enough to have stolen a shopping bike and left it in our bike park. Bless those who steal other people's modes of transportation just so they don't have to walk 1.5kms from the train station. The bike that had been left in our frontarea was moved over to the bike parking where it was roped off because it didn't have an apartment number sticker on it which meant it was rogue and would be removed. But not before the lurker and I removed the fenders. The way I saw it, and this is a justification for all my acts of theft, was that someones $100 bike had been taken and they had already given up so they went out and bought another one. It eases my pain. After some scraped knuckles and some beer the fenders were on the ground. The fun didn't stop there as we inflated the tyres and oiled the chain. If this bike was going out it was going with a makeover. Now comes the hard part. All of my plans carried out while under the influence start off like the road to hell........with alcohol (not good intentions). I would actually have to mount them on my commuter so they would be of use and not be thrown away under my wife's " if you ain't using it, it's gone" rule. Without hardware and experience I set out to mount them working under the delusion the sun would cleanse me of my hangover. It takes a certain kind of person to be Bond and they are rare. James Bond is the kind of man my Father always hoped he could be, alive. I am a different kind of man from a different generation and that is the Macgyver generation (or Airwolf). I was daunted but not unstoppable so I set out to work with only my wits and shit load of junk that I had refused to throw out. The skateboard hardware was an easy choice because it truly does fit everything. I used a shoelace to secure the fender to the fork crotch (new t-shirt to replace urine burn) but I ran into trouble when I tried to mount the thingy to the end of the fork. The skate hardware would hold but it was sliding out. I remembered the Japanese industrial revolution and the coins that they stamped out to commemorate it so I grabbed some. The 5 yen piece fit like a charm and I am happy to say that the fender mounting only cost 20 yen plus beer and shoelace. And, yes, I was still hungover at 6:30am but there was a tallboy hanging out in the fridge.

Japantani!

Hit PLAY and listen for a few seconds just to understand how the beginning of my daily commute feels. Good from the beginning but you know it gets worse from there on in. To understand how today's ride felt you need to click the next link and let it play while you read. Now that we are warmed up after our ride next to the Tama river we are going to head out onto Setagaya Dori where the going gets rough. Rough as in very very old asphalt begging to eat your tyres as you roll. Here is where the trucks come into play and we can roll by Bexisoya (Becks Osoi ya!) where they only know about Trek bikes. Coming up there is a little hill where my handle scratched that car last X-mas and he never contacted me so I guess I am in the clear. And that is where we see him. Now I really did toy with his name for a bit because I didn't want to have some nameless enigma ruling in my head. Ruling by being faster than me. So I came up with two names, Japantani and Jipantani. Jipan is Japanese slang for jean pants and that is what he wears. Pretty much every time I see him he is in jeans and has his ponytail, yes ponytail, a flowing. I kept pace with him, not an easy task on 700x32's, until 246 which is the hill into Shibuya. That is where he earned his (P)antani. He moved into his drops and upped the pace. He up shifted as he climbed and I almost puked. I got the top, where I turn off and he kept flying along on his nondescript road bike, ponytail a flowing. After that everything at work seemed boring and mundane BUT I got 2 bagels.

I am still riding

I guess it is safe to say that pinch cycle went through some introspection and came out alive. Worried about taxis but alive, thine ego hurts.

Rainy Friday

I know that, at least, one person will have a bone to pick with me about the weather tonight and the previous Friday.Rain. I am the rain guy and every time I plan to leave work early to go riding the spitting turns to downpour and I am soaked to the bone by the time I get home and I am happy to see two very cute faces waiting at the baby fence. Riding is great but chicken stew, crusty bread and beer are awesome when you can enjoy them with your family. I took a few weeks away from this blog because I felt that I was kind of spiraling and, after reading a few posts, I really started to wonder if it just sounded like pointless ranting that turns people off instead of on. Not saying that they should be compared because we know that both people love cycling. I am just wondering if I let what I read influence me too much so I end up detracting from my own enjoyment of writing down what I think is funny. I had to find out what I felt wasright and wrong.

That blurb aside yesterday's ride was a shocking look into how bad other riders are and how far the grail is from thine ________ tips. I had to head to the embassy to renew my passport before heading into work and, thank god, they are only open from 9am till 11am.　I would hate to think that the embassy staff had to work an entire day. On my way in I had the pleasure of riding through, what could arguably be one of, the world's busiest intersections. It was then that I wondered about how other cyclist would negotiate the crowd. The pursuit frame(with BMX handles) fixster tried to skid but just bumped into people and another fixster ran his zen feeling right into a guy on a scooter who was waiting for the light. There were no injuries because fixie riders are never traveling with enough momentum to do anything other than go backwards. Another rider opted to dodge through the crowd pissing off people heading too work minding their own business. Whenever I see these riders I think of Mr. Magoo who manages to survive at everyone else's expense. I made it safely to the embassy and had a much better ride home where I encountered the BMC grail. I have only seen him a few times but he is eerily fast and aggressive. He takes the lane and holds it because he is going faster than 40kmh fo sure. Cars can't beep because, in order to pass him, they would have to go 10 over the speed limit. I kept a respectable gap of 20 metres until he turned off. The rest of the ride home I had that "don't look over your shoulder" feeling because I thought he might be creeping up behind in boogy man fashion. He haunts me and that is the most recent account of riding to work. I am looking forward to going home next month and I am debating on taking my bike or setting another one up in TO where large frames aren't an oddity.