The comments to yesterday’s Banjo Brothers contest were some of my favorite, ever. It was not easy to choose a winner. Dug wanted to give the award to someone else — specifically, himself —so I had to take matters into my own hands. I finally went with phade33:

Oh, I could most definitely hang all right. Given a year to train, on a flat/downhill stage, a slight tail wind, two IV bags filled with a little plasma and some spun out red blood cells, the use of a barometric chamber, a daily testosterone/insulin/HG/adrenaline cocktail (with and EPO chaser), some of those amphetamine tablets they use to give the fighter pilots, a six pack of Red Bull dehydrated down to powder then reconstituted with a concoction of honey, coffee and MT Dew to wash them down with, six feet of copper tubing, a platinum rod exactly 1.3 meters long, two rolls of duct tape, one roll of masking tape, 9 feet of twine, 6 feet of lock wire, night vision goggles, a grappling hook and 50 feet of bungee cord and I’d be kicking some spandex encased tail all up and down them Alps.

It was the grappling hook that sealed the deal. I’m a big fan of grappling hooks. E-mail me with your address and what you’d like, Phade33.

Show a Little Love to the Banjo Brothers

Just in case you haven’t noticed, not many blogs give something away every week. But I get to, because the Banjo Brothers – a not-very-big company with not a lot of money for giving stuff away — suggested doing this.

One of the nicest things you could do to thank them for doing this would be to visit their site, get to know what they sell, then let your local bike shop know about this cool company with cool products.

For the first time in my career, I have finished the year with more vacation days in the bank than I can carry into the next year. I’m in a use-‘em-or-lose-‘em situation. Obviously, I will use ‘em. Which means that last Friday was my last day of work for the year.

Why am I telling you this? To gloat? Well, yes, a little bit. But mostly, I’m telling you because I’m so excited to have a couple weeks in front of me where my daily ride isn’t a commute. I won’t be packing a messenger bag. I’ll be both starting and ending the ride while it’s light outside. If it’s raining, I’ll wait until it isn’t. Unless I feel like riding in the rain, which has been known to happen.

And I will be riding my fixed gear bike every single ride. I swear, this Bianchi Pista has gotten a hold of me unlike any road bike ever.

Yesterday

So yesterday, I rode around Lake Sammamish. It’s a perfect ride for a fixie: about 30 miles, sometimes flat, sometimes rolling with short, moderate ups and downs, with a big climb at the end. And it’s no bad thing that for big stretches of the ride, you’ve got a beautiful lake on your left (or on your right, if you choose to ride it clockwise).

The first couple miles of winter rides are usually the worst. That’s when you’re warming up, getting used to the feel of the saddle, finding a rhythm for the ride. By the time I got down Inglewood Hill (squeezing the lone MTB brake lever at the top-left of the handlebar all the way – I’m nowhere close to able to use my legs to keep my speed in check down a 10% hill for half a mile), I was warmed up. I settled down into the drops, and cranked away.

My Best Show of Skill Ever

I cruised along East Lake Sammamish Parkway for five or so miles, cut across Marymoor Park, and then started spinning along the length of West Lake Sammamish Parkway. I was feeling good, enjoying the smooth, solid feel of a fixed gear. Somewhere along the way it occurred to me that so far on this ride, I hadn’t felt the “kick” a fixed gear gives you when you try to coast. I’m getting used to pedaling full-time.

I crested a hill — standing to pedal — then sat back down and spun lightly down the other side. I’m learning to turn fast circles on the downhill, applying no pressure to the pedals. In this way, I’ve learned to go fairly fast on downhills — maybe 28 mph — without my butt bouncing on the seat. So I didn’t move my hands out of the drops. No need for the brake.

And that’s when a big ol’ Grampa-style car (a Buick? Oldsmobile? Tuna Boat?) pulled through the stop sign at the intersection to my left, going straight through. With an uncanny sense of timing, he was driving in such a way that I would broadside the passenger side of his car almost exactly in the middle.

I yelled at the top of my lungs, hoping he would stop before he got to the intersection. Nope. So I cut hard right, turning into the intersection he was going through. Riding in parallel with him.

I missed him. A clean getaway.

I Confront the Driver

I pulled over to the side of the road, actually ahead of the car, and looked back, my hands raised in what I would describe as a “What are you doing?!” gesture. The old man in the car smiled at me and waved as he drove by. He had no idea.

Later, it would occur to me that I had just showed the most riding skill I have ever shown in my life. Namely, I had just executed a 90-degree right turn, on a fixed-gear bike, with my hands in the drops, without touching a brake, at speed (I was coming off a downhill, remember?). Which means that I kept pedaling through this maneuver, and I didn’t instinctively grab for brakes that weren’t there. And I stayed close enough to the curb that I didn’t touch the car that was rolling through.

To tell the truth, I’m still not sure how I pulled it off.

At that moment, though, I put the bike down on the sidewalk, then paced back and forth, unable to think straight, my whole body shaking. It would be another five or so minutes before I’d get back on the bike and start riding again.

First, I needed the rush of adrenaline — compounded by the rage of having been absentmindedly waved to by the guy who just nearly killed me — to subside.

I think I could make a case that humiliation is the most motivating of all sensations. Last Friday, for example, as I rode into work, I hit a patch of ice as I was turning left through an intersection. I went down, hard, whacking my left knee and banging up my left elbow and wrist. My left ribs are pretty bruised, too.

The thing is, though, I didn’t notice any of the pain for several minutes, because of the nearly blinding sense of humiliation I felt — I pictured how I must look, still clipped in, trying to get untangled and upright, all while holding up traffic.

Yeah, I’m the perfect advertisement for Not Riding Bikes.

But the embarrassment of last Friday was nothing compared to the humiliation of when I first bought clipless pedals.

New Pedals

I had ridden the mountain bike into the shop and bought the shoes and pedals together.

Excited by the positive, locked-in feeling of riding with my feet mechanically attached to the bike, I rode around the parking lot for several minutes. I practiced clipping in, riding, and clipping out.

I became a little bit disdainful of the people who had told me that everyone falls when they first get clipless pedals. These were easy.

I started riding home. The road the bike shop was on was all torn up, in the process of being re-paved. Perfect for riding my mountain bike on. I rolled along on the dirt road, enjoying myself. I then rolled up to a stop light and put my foot down.

Except my foot wouldn’t go down.

Instantly panicking, I completely forgot about the numerous times I had calmly twisted my left foot outward to unclip. I yanked straight back and up — the way I was accustomed to with clips and straps. Once! Twice! No luck.

So I did what gravity demanded I do. I fell over on my side. With several cars behind me, and traffic zooming by in the other direction.

I then thrashed around, trying to separate myself from the bike. My panic grew as I realized the light would not remain forever.

Finally, I remembered: twist. I clicked out got up, and — being careful to not look at anyone — waited for the eternity it took for the light to turn.

Really, the only things missing for this to have been a Keystone Kops film would have been for me to have a waxed mustache and be wearing one of those derbyesque helmets.