03.24.2014 | 11:49 am
Dear Mark,
I have been reading your latest autobiography, At Speed: My Life in the Fast Lane. What a fantastic book! With every word I read, I cannot help but think to myself, “How is it possible that this 28-year-old has only written two autobiographical volumes? And how is it possible he let a full 2.5 years elapse between books? Mark Cavendish is so interesting that I want a book from him each and every year!
“No, that is too long!” I then exclaim to myself. “I demand a Mark Cavendish autobiographical book-of-the-month club!”
Heck (I’d say “Hell,” but I know you’re offended by coarse language), I feel like I’m not getting enough Mark Cavendish if I don’t get a new book about your latest reimagining of what would be perceived as childish, bad behavior in most adults every single day.
With that in mind, it is no surprise to me your latest book is currently #52 in the “Cycling” book category on Amazon.com, and #14 (!!!) in the “Bike Repair” category.
(I am totally stoked, by the way, to get to the part in the book where you tell me how to repair my bicycle.)
And that’s where we get to the problem, Mark: what is the world to do while we wait for your next book? I’m sure it’ll be coming out sometime within the next few months, but your fans can’t wait that long! We need something to tide us over. Something that captures the passion, joy, intensity, and insightfulness of your writing.
What we need is At Speed: The Musical.
I’ll pause for a moment while you let that soak in.
OK, let’s continue.
I believe that only in this format can the pathos, excitement, and lyrical quality of your most recent book be truly captured and shared with your fans.
I am pleased to present a sample script for your perusal, based on the opening scene in Chapter Two (“Five Stages”) of At Speed, because that’s as far as I’ve managed to get in the book so far.
FIVE STAGES
Scene 1: Trauma and Treachery On a Bus
The stage — the interior of a bus — is empty and dark, except a single CHAIR, a spotlight tightly focused on it. Mark appears onstage, pensively holding a HELMET. The spotlights converge as MARK sits on the CHAIR, staring down at his helmet.
MARK looks into the audience, who can now see there are TEARS running down his face.
A lone piano accompanies MARK as he sings:
Lost
I have lost
I have lost a sprint to Alessandro Petacchi
How could I calculate the cost?
Dreams
I had dreams
I had dreams of winning another stage
Now all I want to do is scream
MARK stands up and places his HELMET on the CHAIR, then throws his head back and screams.
The HELMET falls off the chair and skitters across stage, a spotlight following it. As the HELMET exits the stage, the spotlight reveals the PRESS CHORUS, which sings to a cacophonous string arrangement:
CLUNK!
CLUNK!
CLUNK!
His helmet bounces everywhere
We’re not the only ones who thunk
This madman, this madman
Who’s raging like a drunk
We must eviscerate and castigate
Cavendish, obnoxious skunk!
The echoes of the shrill chorus fade into silence, then MARK sings.
Lost
I am lost
The emptiness and silence
On this bus tear me apart
Alone
So alone
The tumult in my mind
Is echoing my heart
BOB STAPLETON enters stage left, wearing a TOP HAT, a black cape, a sinister MUSTACHE, and a sneer.
MARK: Oh no, not Bob Stapleton.
BOB STAPLETON circles MARK, leering, snapping his fingers, always facing MARK.
MARK sings.
Say something
I don’t know what
But
Say something
Anything
You’re freaking me out
I can’t think of what you could say
That would help
But
Say something
Not just anything
So many things you could say
That would hurt
So no!
Don’t say something
Don’t say anything
I don’t like that look in your eyes!
MARK runs off stage, while BOB STAPLETON twirls his mustache and laughs.
BOB STAPLETON sings.
What you don’t know
Can hurt you
What I do know
Will hurt you
And if you don’t know
What I do know
Well…
I’ve got a plan
Oh it will hurt you
Another man
Yeah, this will hurt you
Another horse
Rogers of course!
I’ll leave you twisting in the wind
And you…you’ll never feel safe again!
Muaaaah ha ha ha ha!
BOB STAPLETON flourishes his cape and runs offstage.
END SCENE
I’m confident, Mark, that this play will be a huge hit. I look forward to collaborating with you further on this project.
Kind Regards,
The Fat Cyclist
PS: Pages 47-48 of At Speed, from which I have adapted this scene, are shown below for your reference.
Comments (51)
03.20.2014 | 7:07 pm
“Your elevated PSA levels would indicate that the prostate cancer has come back and this time it will be terminal.”
A few days later the bone scan confirms that the cancer has metastasized to the bones. The radiologist explains, “its everywhere.”
This is the news that my dad and our family was faced with this last week.
As I reflect on the past few months, the signs were there: weight loss, along with increasing discomfort in his back and legs. Signs that you want to ignore and explain away as stress, or growing old.
I keep telling myself that we are lucky. Receiving a terminal diagnosis of cancer at age 82 is better that receiving one at 40, right? Everyone has to die sometime.
Then why do I feel so sad?
Maybe its because he’s my dad, and dads are always supposed to be there.
I remember how I challenged his patience when he taught me algebra, or when he taught me how to drive a stick shift. I remember how he challenged me on our summer vacations that always included hiking some mountain or canyon.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, he was passing on his love of hiking and of the great outdoors to me. That explains why he and I have ascended the 3000ft climb to the top of Y mountain every month for the past 12 1/2 years. A lot of advice, laughs and tears have been shared while climbing that trail with my faithful hiking buddy.
He may not be a man of many words, but he always lends a listening ear.
Now that I know that my time with dad will be cut short, I will cherish the memories and make new ones. The questions that need to be asked will be asked. My gratitude and love will be expressed more freely.
I will make the time count.
So as the ominous black cancer strikes again, we are reminded that life is short. We all eventually pass from this life. Let the ones that are important to you know how you feel.
Don’t hold grudges and bitter feelings. Say you’re sorry.
Say those “three little words” that can be difficult for some to say.
Thanks for letting me unload.
Comments (70)
03.19.2014 | 8:48 pm
I wanted to say a huge thank you to the 165 people that have joined Elden and me in our quest to lose weight. The last few weeks have definitely been a challenge for me! Whether you have a lot of weight to lose or just a few pounds I want to thank you for making the commitment with Beeminder to publically acknowledge your weight loss goals.
Not only are we making a difference in our lives, but we are also impacting young girls in Africa! What an awesome thing: a situation where everyone can win…by losing! As a result of the $19.95 the 167 of us each donated when we began this challenge, we have raised enough money to buy 24 bikes. So, even by just starting something good for ourselves, we have essentially already changed the lives of 24 young ladies in Zambia. Talk about win-win!
This happy young lady is Emily. We met Emily when we traveled to Zambia with World Bicycle Relief. She was one of the teenage girls fortunate to receive a bike through the efforts of WBR.
Emily and her new bike can now make the six-mile round trip to and from school in a quarter of the time it takes to walk. This allows her more time to study and take care of the chores around her home. Your small sacrifice of a few dollars to join our weight loss contest will have an impact on a young girl a half a world a way. I cannot say Thank You enough!
I’m also excited about our weight loss potential as a group of Fat Cyclist Fans! Losing weight is not easy, and knowing that 165 people are suffering right along with me is a comfort! The end result of our weight loss struggle will be worth it in the end–at least that is what I keep telling myself! I’m hoping to come away a little faster for my racing endeavors this summer.
I’m curious why you decided to join Elden, Beeminder, and me in our weight loss contest. I would love to read about it in the comment section.
And If you have any good low calorie/low carb recipes I would love to have them.
You see, Elden is out of town this week and I have temporarily taken control of his blog. It’s our secret. Lets see how long I can go before he finds out.
Comments (26)
03.17.2014 | 9:57 am
A couple years ago, I wrote about how I used egg whites and avocado to lose weight. A couple years later, people still ask me if I continue to be on the avocado and egg white diet.
The answer is, “Yes…sort of.”
The problem, as you might expect, is that this particular diet works only if you actually stick to it. And even a person who doesn’t particularly need or care about variety in food — e.g., me — eventually gets tired of eating the same thing over and over.
So, as The Hammer and I work on our respective weight loss efforts in the FatCyclist / Beeminder weight loss challenge, we’ve adapted the recipe a little. And it’s working out great (I’m at 167.6 pounds today, down from my initial weigh-in of 173).
Essentially, we’ve started scrambling the egg whites with a lot of mushrooms, onions, and zucchini. And some cheese. And often, some chicken or steak.
And — even for The Hammer, who’s down to her last couple of pounds to lose (and I’m down to my last twelve or so to lose) — it’s working.
It’s delicious, it works, and — once you know a couple tricks we have been using — it’s really fast and easy.
So let’s get started.
Prep Work
It sounds like too much work to chop and sauté a bunch of onions, mushrooms and zucchini before each meal…and it is.
So we do a huge batch of onions, mushrooms, and zucchini, all at once, and then refrigerate it, using some whenever we cook.
There’s no recipe, no correct amount of what to use. But we chop up a couple onions and then enough mushrooms and zucchini to fill the biggest frying pan we have in the house.
And instead of butter, we sauté using chicken broth.
Sure, this takes a little time, but then we’ve got this mixture that turns our very boring batch of egg whites into a meal that has some bulk (which means it looks like more food and takes longer to eat, which is pretty important when you’re dieting), and it tastes good.
Without, I should add, adding any significant number of carbs or other calories.
Prep Work, Part 2
The Hammer and I have been grilling a lot of chicken and steak on the outdoor barbecue lately. This is of course for the family dinner. As long as we’re doing this, though, we’ve started grilling — and then refrigerating — extra. Which we’ve then been chopping into our scrambled egg whites.
Adding It All Together
So, between five egg whites, a few big spoonfuls of our pre-saute’d onion/mushroom/zucchini mix, several bite-sized pieces of steak or chicken, and just a tiny amount of shredded cheese, we’ve got a really nice-sized (and good-tasting) meal, which can be made in just a few minutes. We then chop up some tomato and a quarter of an avocado (per person) on top of this, add some Cholula (for me) or Chipotle Tabasco (for her), and you’ve got something that doesn’t remotely feel like you’re dieting.
But you are.
Because that’s all lean protein, good fats, and hardly any carbs.
Try it. You’ll (probably) like it.
Bonus Tip
As a cyclist, I would never ever say that you should live a carb-free life. If you’re going to exercise for more than an hour at a stretch, it just won’t work.
But, if you skip the carbs during most of the day and then have some carbs (I like to have the egg white scramble described above, but wrapped in a tortilla) in the meal before you exercise, you’ll have the energy you need to get in a good workout, and (this is important to me) you appease the God of Carb Craves that otherwise will eventually overpower all your willpower and leave you eating an entire loaf of bread at a single sitting.
PS: I tried taking pictures of what the egg white scramble looks like, but I lack the gift of photographing food, and scrambled eggs are pretty gross-looking anyways.
Comments (29)
03.13.2014 | 2:21 pm
Sixish years ago, I wrote An Open Letter to Delta 7 Sports, Maker of the Arantix Mountain Bike, where I related my impressions of the then-new Isotruss frame. It’s one of the most popular posts I ever wrote, in spite of the fact that it’s possible I made an occasional sarcastic remark therein.
To my surprise, in spite of the considerable attention I brought to them, the good folks at Delta 7 never invited me to come take a ride on one of their bikes.
And then Delta 7 became known as much for the way their bikes self-destructed during the 2008 Interbike Outdoor demo day as for their exotic-looking (with pricing to match) spiderwebbish frames, and went out of business. Imagine that.
I wept bitter tears, knowing I would likely never get a chance to ride something that looked like a bike mated with a Hoberman Sphere.
Well. Never say never. Except for when you’re saying “never say never,” in which case it’s perfectly fine to say it twice in a single sentence.
All of this is, of course, the nonsensical preamble to the fact that a new company—Razik Bicycles—has emerged, rising from the ashes of Delta 7 like some unholy latticework-constructed phoenix. (And I mean that in the nicest possible way, naturally.) And last Saturday, I got to spend an hour or so riding one myself.
And this is what I thought.
How It Looks
Let’s start with how the bike looks, because–love it or hate it–there’s no getting around the fact that the Razik Vortex is eye-catching.
Heath Thurston of Razik lifts the Vortex.
The frame, up close. Yup, took this shot with my phone. Steady hands, eh?
There’s an exotic geekiness to the look of this material, and you’re going to make your own decision as to whether you like it. In photos, I don’t. Not really. It’s too “We’re doing this because we can” for me. But when I looked at it in person, the wildness of the material kind of grabbed me. I was drawn to the rough, Klingon-y look of the Isotruss weave, and I thought, “Well, that looks pretty darned cool.”
Let’s Ride
Heath at Razik was awesome enough to let The Hammer and me take a couple of the demo bikes and ride them for half an hour or so. Which, by the way, turned into 90 minutes, since neither The Hammer nor I have anything that resembles a sense of direction; we got lost and rode around the industrial warehouse maze for quite a while. In fact, it’s only due to a rare piece of luck that we aren’t still out there now.
Foolishly, as The Hammer and I began our ride, Heath did not ask what I was carrying in my jersey pockets, which I figure he’s going to regret in about three paragraphs.
I tooled around for a few hundred yards, getting a feel for the bike, then I stood up and sprinted, wanting to see whether these airy tubes made for a flexy frame.
Nope. The Vortex sprints great. Stand up, grab the drops and fly. Not flexy at all. Which brings up the question, is it too rigid? The answer is easy: it’s not. The lousy chip seal roads we were riding on are buzzy and harsh, but the Vortex smoothed it out.
As far as handling goes, the Vortex corners nice and tight. In fact, it’s a little too tight for my taste, with a shorter wheelbase than I’m used to. Riding hands-free takes more concentration than usual, and turns can feel just a little twitchy. Part of this, granted, may be that I had to ride a 56cm frame, which was too big (I usually ride a 52).
To be honest, though, the ride characteristics of the frame material — the Isotruss carbon weave — are almost impossible to tease out. The frame is light, sure, but no lighter than other carbon frames. It’s stiff when you pedal, but frame stiffness is absolutely a choice nowadays, not a material characteristic. It dampens out some chip seal buzz, but adjusting your tire width and pressure affect that ride attribute way more than your frame choice.
There were a couple of things I thought might be a problem that turned out to not be problems at all. It was a windy day when we rode, and so I listened for whistling from the frame. I confess to being disappointed that there was none.
I wondered if rocks would get stuck and rattle around in the frame, so I stopped at the side of the road, picked up a few pieces of gravel, and dropped them into the frame. At which point I found that anything that falls into the frame easily also falls out of the frame easily. Which, alas, deprives me of getting to say, “They should have named this the Razik Rattler.”
Dammit.
There were two things that bugged me, however. First, the tubes—including the top tube— are thick, and the Isotruss weave juts out. So the inside of my knees and legs grazed the top tube pretty often.
Did they graze the top tube more often than they do on my own bike? I honestly don’t know. But I certainly noticed it more often.
Next, the brake cable comes out of the frame at an odd place, so it extends out (to the left) rather than up. The inside of my (admittedly massive) quads bumped this cable dozens of times during the ride. Would I eventually adapt? Probably. But should I have to?
So, do I like it? Sure. Does it ride well? Sure (again), but some will like it more than others…which is true for every bike in the world. Was the ride life-changing? No.
Is it wild-looking and eye-catching? Yes. In fact, for the first time ever, a couple of guys on recumbents going the other way actually swiveled their heads as I went by.
Although if I were the Razik marketing guy, I might be hesitant to go with the tagline, “Even wackier-looking than recumbents.”
Bonus Features
To think of the Razik Vortex simply as a bike—something to ride—is a mistake. It is so much more, as I took the time to discover while on my test ride.
First and foremost, what other frame allows you to do this?
The ability to grate some cheese for a mid-ride picnic cannot be overestimated. Nor the ability to strain pasta with your bike.
And what if you and (up to three) of your riding companions (ages 4 and above) gets bored of riding and wants to mix things up a bit? Well, with the Razik Vortex, a handful of gravel, and some coffee stirrers (or, in a pinch, twigs from a tree), you’re all set for an afternoon of KerPlunk-style fun:
And don’t even get me started on what a cool tanning pattern you might be able to give yourself if you were to lay out in the sun with this bike on top of you.
Other Things That I Should Probably Mention
What haven’t I talked about yet? Well, how about the fact that Razik bikes are fabricated and handbuilt in Utah. Check out this in-process, pre-baked tube:
I only wish they’d leave that metal tube in the completed bike. Now that would be Klingon-y.
And the whole handmade-in-Utah thing is at least partially where the price comes from: a frame costs $3999. That’s a lot. And once you build it up, you’re going to be looking at a $10,000 bike. [UPDATE: Heath at Razik tells me you can get a Shimano Ultegra build for under $5799; this isn’t yet on the website but he tells me it will be soon.] If you want to go top-end electronic (Shimano Di2 Dura Ace, Campy Super Record EPS), you’re looking at $15k or above.
Which is not unheard of. For an exotic builder, in fact, it’s not even outrageous.
But Razik has some Delta 7 baggage it’s automatically saddled with, and if I were them (which I’m not), I’d focus on getting those prices down and on making it clear that this is not Delta 7. I’d be clear that Delta 7 was focusing on the novelty of Isotruss, instead of focusing on being a good bike manufacturer that happens to be using Isotruss for a frame material.
And I’ll be interested to see what else Razik builds — Razik says they’re going to build a FS mountain bike, as well as a 29er hardtail.
Is the Razik Vortex the new dream bike, made with a new dream material? Well, ninety minutes of riding in a flat industrial park (fifteen of which was spent taking ridiculous photos) is probably not enough to answer that question.
I will tell you this: I’d be interested in riding one built my size, on a big climb. I have a feeling the Vortex might shine there.
And if not, well, at least I’ll have the wherewithal to make a nice cheese and pasta dish at the summit.
Comments (40)
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