Son of Upstate

feelin' home

2009-07-01T01:19:00.000-07:00

I've tried the French press and the stove-top Bialetti. I've drunk an espresso, americano, latte, cappuccino, and koffie Each provides caffeinated relief, but none remind me of home like the coffee drip. Yes, the machine sitting on almost every kitchen counter in America. This machine makes coffee, american style, meaning mass quanitity. Every machine houses mold and stain, disgusting, yes, but using it daily and not succumbing to any sort of viral infection empowers the coffee drinker.
European caffeinated drink is so small. So small. The cups barely change the topgraphy of the table, quintessentially european, keeping to themselves. Maybe thats why most europeans seem to talk so freely with their hands at the table, unafraid of spilling blackness all over their companion.
Either way, I'm american, I want big coffe, I want mass quantity coffee, I want to spill coffee on everyone at my table and all those surrounding. I like my coffee: big, black, bitter, with no critics or connoisseurs. It doesn't taste good or bad. It takes american with an emphasize on quantity and caffeine. I love my coffee drip and I love my home.

This is how my spine feels

2009-05-10T06:16:00.000-07:00

A little dirt road riding....

2009-05-10T06:14:00.000-07:00

Book Smart

2009-04-14T01:34:00.000-07:00

I've spent time studying, reading, memorizing books, solutions, and lesson plans. I might even lead others to believe I have a photographic memory. I aced tests (thank you high school), just passed tests (thank you physics regents), and failed tests (thank you all of college). Memorize, forget, repeat- a statement that pretty much sums up my academic career. But when Bernard said he prefer riders rode in the drops when the pace was up, that was a lesson plan I wanted to explore further. Should I follow it blindly like all the other information and knowledge I previously absorbed.... "no!" I would test it, probe it, and decide when and where I should ride in the drops.

Hello. Riding in the drops refers to the hand position of a rider, he places his hands in the lower curve of the handlebar, but can still reach the brakes with his/her fingertips.

Get it?
No.

Scene select. How about the one where Dieter's crying.
O.K.

"Did he crash too?"
"No. He has some stomach bug or health problem, something?"

I'm thinking, "Is he crying?

Rewind. Pause. Play.

Me.
Hands on top of the hoods ( the speed had not reached my interpretation of a "pace that was up")

Me.
Submitting to the grand toss of gravity. Amazingly, I managed to land in the grass. Thankfully, I managed to land in the grass. Or maybe, thankfully I managed to discipline the sod with a fierce throttling. Either way you look at it as I right this at least I have the excuse of sighting head trama (it really wasn't that bad).

Back to the lesson plan.

Or maybe back to Dieter crying.

No, no I will continue with my transition from smooth mobile bike racer to boy in lycra saying, "like American football" everytime someone pointed at the dirt sod stuck in my broken helmet.

"tell me what hurts."

"air." "air."

"tell me where it hurts."

"breathe, breathe."

How quickly these bastards start speaking english, if only it was this easy to get a loaf of bread.
The baker always looking at you like "what?"
And I'm always thinking, "you definitely know what I just said."

I breathe.

The ambulance drives me to the traditional place where the official medics wait. The back patio of an old woman's house. I sit on a chair. An old man and a young girl, who I flirt with ridiculously, greet me. My skinny ass strips down too nothing but a chamy, the flirting contiunes. I must fulfill the sterotype. New Yorker with all the wise comments, despite landing on my head doing 45k. I pursit.

Then I black out.

No. Not really.

I shake their hands and thank them for their service, really taking it over the top style wise. I just crashed on my face, and one of the first things I said to everyone was "thank for coming out" so, needless to say my adreline is still going. And being that I only was in the race for 10 minutes that means I have a substantial amount of training left.

The old guy cleans all my wounds. straight euro style with the specail soap, the ancient plastic bucket, and the glove someone in america would use to wash their car.

Bernard. My wheel is toasted.
New wheel.
"Would you like mix?"
"Why I believe I would, thank you sir."

Dieter crying.
His mom tells him to go inside the van.

He's crying inside the van.

I go and ride another four hours.
100 miles total for the day.

"Belgians are born with a brick in their stomach"
Belgians are born with a brick in their stomach?
Well...Upstaters got rock tongues.

Acts 20:24

Dropped...

2009-03-15T02:08:00.000-07:00

117 km kermis in Deluwe, Belgium. Drove to Deluwe accompanied by a drizzle of rain and a strong wind. Arrived. Hopped out of the car and went to registration (the Belgians call it inscription) and waited about 30 minutes for the registrars, incripitars, to file the team into the Belgian computer system. Apparently, it takes that long. Back to the car. Grab backpack. Follow Dieter around for 15 minutes looking for changing room. I laugh as he ignores my warning and begins to change in room with no door that connects to a gymnasium full of teenage girls. He would have change, probably slowly and methodically, in that rooom if not for the old Belgian abuela who came tearing through the locker rooms to stop him. " Na Na Na" she tisked, or something to that affect. Grabbed the boys and pushed them, Dieter and another belgian, back into the locker room with a door. This locker room with a door also happenned to contain two americans and an aussie already shit scared straight by the whole environment, not to mention the 7 km circuit of road with over a dozen corners and road full of cow shit and mud, and beer, and belgian boys who scream things. A circuit unridden and unseen by these three boys, unridden by all three until the belgian announcer screams something in flemish like "strat", I think that means street, but for the story's sake pretend it means start.
back to the belgain boy screaming.
You cannot tell if he screams for you to continue, to pursue, to chase, or if he believes you are worth nothing, his flemish, rough, coarse, shreds the final threads preventing despair, preventing humilation, or at least its realization.

We Pray. "Lord...."

We walk out to the car. Are cycling cleats scraping, clicking, and grinding against the pavement. No one smiles.
I smile, but only because fear has reached a humorous pitch. Its shaking, everythings shaking, but, nothing's moving. "A bomb ready to explode", says the 30 year old from Pittsburgh. tick, tick I think later, tick, tick, tick...
Each bike rests on a seperate stand, shaking, but not moving. Tick.
I take the bike off the stand and pretend I care how it looks or what it does, but I don't. I look around.
Dieter laughs that I wear knee warmers during a race. "no, no", he says.
No time for warm-up, to much time spent.
I hop on my bike and roll towards the start line.
10 or 15 minutes before the race starts.
I roll past the start line, in the reverse direction of the race. I ride 3 maybe 4 minutes, then turn around.
Everyone in colorful kits.
Many pissing on the side of the road.
the belgian boy preparing to scream.
I ride, frozen faced.
Melting...
Riders fill the road, a 5 year old with crayons.
Overflow the road, behind barriers, crisscrossed, mixed up.
The belgians stand in coasts, black, brown, black, brown, grey...
stifling, forcing the riders closer together the colors painful collided, no room, no room, no room.
the bomb.
I sit in the last 20 of a field of 145 riders.
Cold legs, melted face, waiting for the inevitable.