Yesterday I was out on a ride with my bike club / race team. We are beginning our training for the 2009 race season. During these early season training sessions I am told that we are supposed to keep a sustainable pace or keep our riding at a level that you can hold a conversation with the person riding next to you. I love that idea but everyone has there own definition of what that all means and most riders on my team do a way better job then I do at keeping a conversation going 24mph. I have really fallen in love with cycling over the last few years but for me none of the rewards come easily or in a timely manner no matter how hard I train.
We meet at our local sponsor's bike shop (Idaho Mountain Touring) at 10am to start our ride. The temperature was 32 degrees and overcast and my rear tire decided for the third time this week it was time to go flat again. So while everyone was waiting on me I frantically tried to get a new tube installed on a rim and tire that love each other so much they never want to part. I have broken three tire irons trying to get my tire from the rim over the past week. I don't know if that is due to the temperature (COLD), my mishandling or crappy plastic casting. So with a little help from the bike shop dude I was on my way just as my teammates had given up on me and started to ride away. No big deal I caught them at the first red light they hit on there way out of town. Now my heart rate is already elevated due to the stress of holding everyone up and hauling A to catch them before they made it out of town. Just as I got comfortable and got my pace set so that I might start a conversation you wont believe what happened next. Rear tire went flat again. Do you ever have those moments where you don't know if you will be able to hold it all together even know you are standing on the side of a busy road. This was one of those times I honestly was on the verge of picking up my bike and throwing it under the next oncoming truck, SUV or big rig, anything large enough that wouldn't take notice to the slight bump they might feel with my bike under there tires. I waved my teammates on because I couldn't bare to have them wait while they watched me wrestle with that damn stubborn back tire again. Just as I was feeling like calling it a crappy morning and heading home my good friend doubled back to give me a hand prying my tire apart again and lending me a little moral support as well. 15min later we were on the road again and not at conversation pace this time. We decided we were going to do everything we could to catch the group before they finished there ride. 45 very hard minutes later we caught them when some other unlucky bastard got his first flat of the week.
Now I have had a few moments to catch my breath and thoughts while someone else wrestles with there stupid tire for a change. Under way again and 15 miles to home, now I'll try to hold that conversation at 22mph+. Now we are getting closer to the point of this entry. I do hold a few conversations over the course of our journey back to Boise. The conversation that puts us here is with my biking buddy Mike (The Angry Cyclist) Elmer. In my opinion Mike is one of the funniest guys that I have had a chance to read on the web, his Blog ( http://theangrycyclist.blogspot.com/ ) or his emails he sends out to the race team weekly are hilarious. I razed him a few weeks back about writing a book, I told him if he wrote it I would illustrate it. So this week as we were rolling back to Boise I jokingly asked how his book was going. He stated that he hadn't started yet but he was in the need for a logo. I threw a few ideas his way and we joked about a few of them but one stuck in my head. You know the view that someone gets as they look in there rear view mirror just after they piss off or scare the shit out of a cyclist. This could happen a million ways, pass to close, honking of the horn in the ear, shouting obscenities, throwing objects out the window at the cyclist, etc etc. I didn't mention I would get to it any time soon but as we finished our ride I couldn't get the idea for his logo out of my head. How perfect it would be after a cold shitty ride (tire flat, catch up with the group, tire flat, race for 45min, catch up with the group) to make a logo based on a pissed off cyclist, it was perfect! I couldn't wait.
I got home had some lunch and asked my wife if she would stand outside in the now 39 degree overcast afternoon while I rode my bike in circles and proceed to flip her off for the next 15 minutes. She did it and only complained a little after I rejected her tenth picture, man I got a good wife. I cant even imagine what my 92 year old neighbor must have thought as she looked out her front window at us. We got a few good reference shots and headed back in to the warm house.
I woke up today and decide to get my inspiration out while it was still fresh in my head from the day before. This is what I came up with. One angry cyclist giving someone the big bird. Besides the unkind gesture he is giving and the really pissed off look on the cyclist face I wanted to somehow illustrate the frustration that wells up inside someone to the point that they have an outburst as this cyclist does. So I decided that the heat bubbling or boiling up inside as it reaches the point of explosion would help to convey what he is feeling at that moment. I spent about 6 hours total on the logo today and will send it off to Mike tomorrow to see what he thinks.
I will post after I get some response or maybe Mike will let us know himself.
