Cursed

The new rear wheel is out of true already and the new inner tube won't hold air. It seems that the more I enjoy things, the more fucked up they become.

I really enjoyed bicycling, too. I probably had the right idea in California. Lower expectations=Less disappointment. I'm done.

Bikeless again, but only for the day.

My newfound homies at Pedalocity in Lufkin have new, thicker inner tube on order and scheduled to arrive in the AM. So, I'm going to make a quick run to pick up some paperwork, grab the tube on the return trip and book it back to test that bad beast out. I only hope I didn't damage my tight-fitting tire with the multiple tube patchings the other day. If I did, I'll just grab another tire and be done. I like this bike shop. My old bike shop in Madera was crewed and owned by asshats. These people here are cool, informative and don't look at you like you're some leperous jawa if you don't own a $5,000 road bike.

In the meantime, I'm going for a walk. It'll be nice, but frustrating. The Mongols used to say that a legless man was more useful than a horseless man because at least a legless man could ride.

I am definitely feeling that right now.

The long, hard road out of Hell.

Worst. Ride. Ever.

No kidding, this was one of the most excruciating experiences I've ever had on a bicycle.

So, I get my fixed bike back from the nice folks at Pedalocity in Lufkin. New rear wheel, new cassette, new chain and new inner tube. I even sprang for a new set of bear traps to replace my aging El Cheapo stock Giant pedals. Life was indeed good. I disassembled the bike, stuffed it into my Yaris and sprinted home as fast as the three crack-addled squirrels under my hood could carry me. After reassembling the bike and snapping on all my assorted technocrap, I was ready for the open road.

Everything was great. Yesterday's crappy weather had been replaced by clear skies, gentle winds and very agreeable temperatures. The new chain and cassette were almost silent compared to the popping, grinding cacaphony the old ones produced. The new rear wheel was silky smooth. Redbuds were blooming, blue jays were calling to one another across the road and startled squirrels were running for their lives before my near-silent approach. It was one of the most beautiful riding days I've ever had. I headed east on FM942 towards Champion International, then headed south-ish on FM62 towards Highway 59. The plan had been to ride to 59, then head south to the hamlet of Seven Oaks. This was to be an approximately 35-40 mile ride, no doubt full of personal records. As I pedaled along, I fantasized about top speeds, new high averages and the longest single ride I'd taken to that point. I made it about 14 miles before spying a country cemetery at Shiloh. Shiloh is a largely vacant area that is home now to a church and a cemetery. I like country cemeteries. They're usually spaced about 10 miles from one another and give me a great excuse to dismount, cool down and rest my aching, seat-battered ass for half an hour or so as I walk among the monuments. Would I say that using old, disused cemeteries as rest stops makes me a strange and/or morbid person? No. I was a strange and/or morbid person before I started using cemeteries as rest stops. For other connoisseurs of old country cemeteries, I would highly recommend Shiloh. The monuments are mostly falling over or covered by the constantly migrating East Texas soil, but there is an interesting collection of names belonging to north Polk County's oldest black families. There's also an ancient old church building that, if you don't mind a little personal risk, is pretty damned spooky inside. The doors are either wide open or non-existent, so I don't think that entering it counts as breaking and entering. Of course, it could fall over and kill you at any moment, so I recommend standing outside to snap your pictures. Anyway, after a leisurely walk around the cemetery I was ready to depart for Seven Oaks.

The problems began immediately.

I was leaving the church and powering up for a final short hill climb before reaching the highway when I swerved to avoid a piece of debris in the road and noticed that my rear wheel had gone squirrelly. A glance down confirmed my worst fear: My rear tire was damned near flat. Now, I'd had an inkling that this would happen. I normally roll on thick touring inner tubes with Schraeder valves, but when the bike shop replaced my old rear wheel, the only alternative was drilled for the more narrow Presta valves. And instead of using a thick touring inner tube, they used a thinner tube. Hey, I don't blame them. I would have done the same thing. But blame aside, I had a flat and I was about seven miles from home. So, the bike goes tits up on the side of the road and I go to work. Getting the tire off the rim was a stone bitch. Maybe it was the rim or maybe I was just out of practice after going a year without a flat (use the thick tubes, kids). Whatever. I got the bitch off, found the leak and patched it. Hey, these things happen, right? Running my digits around the inside of the tire found the source of my troubles: About a quarter inch of tiny wire from some redneck's balding steel-belted radial. Again, these things happen. What were the odds of it happening again on the same trip?

About two hundred damned percent. That's what.

Fortunately, I decided to cancel my Seven Oaks plans and head north instead of south. I shudder to think of what would have happened had I not done that. About a mile from the site of the first flat, I had my second. And third. Ain't life a bitch? Well, in the words of the great warrior poet Snoop Dogg, one has to keep the pimp hand strong. Besides, my nearest backup had flown to D.C.. I was screwed in the most complete way that doesn't require lubrication. So tits-up the bike goes again and I set to patching. I like to sniff out punctures by pouring water on the tube, then wiping it with my thumb and looking for bubbles. Unfortunately, I'd already consumed all of the water in my camelback, so I had to dunk the partially filled tube into a conveniently-placed mud puddle. Hey, it works. Back into Corrigan I limped. Of course, I can't just go home. That shit would have been way too simple. I had to go shopping. While shopping, I ran into an old high school alumnus and was deep in nostalgia when I noticed a commotion in the parking lot. Apparently, an elderly lady had gone ass directly over tea kettle in front of the doors and here I am wearing a uniform shirt with my name, skill level and employer's name on the front and a big honking "EMS" on the back. And everybody out there is just staring at me.

Really? Did this just happen or am I finally getting a flashback from all those hallucinogens? Damn!

Old Lady has a minor cut on her head but she's showing some small memory changes. Is she just senile or does she have a slowly developing bleed in her brain? Of course, I stood out there with her and the rapidly expanding crowd of redneck Quincy M.D.'s that always flock around that sort of thing. One in particular just could not shut her big mouth about the uneven-ness of the parking lot. Hey, dumbass. We can't pave the entire universe. If somebody's too old to walk with out becoming suddenly gravitationally challenged, then maybe they should just accept that shit happens to everybody and happens to old people with an even higher frequency than most. Anyway, when the cavalry showed up, I went all 'Peace out, ya'll!' and booked it. In that time, my buddy had disappeared like my stock portfolio profits. Eh, I can't blame him. Had I not been wearing a t-shirt that proclaimed my identity and employment status, I might have pretended not to even have seen anything and gone about my business. Sure, that would have been a dick move. The world is full of dick moves. Anyway, I did The Right Thing and when the situation had been handled by people who were actually being paid to handle it, I went about my shopping, packed my bike with loot and rode off into the sunset with one paranoid eye on my rear tire. There was a small loss of pressure, but nothing I couldn't handle. I even nailed an on-the-fly high five with the local Crazy Guy who was obviously perplexed at the bicycle-mounted madman shouting 'Hey, Willie! How's it hangin'?' as he zipped past. Still, Willie had the presence of mind to snap up his hand and slip me some skin. I made it home without any more flats, thank the Imaginary Friend In The Sky.

In summation, I would have much rather had my old, thick-assed inner tube. I'll have to fix that ASAP.

Invest in wool socks, ya'll. Hell just froze over.

This morning while hunting for breakfast, my partner and I saw snow falling. Snow. In East Texas. On the 21st of March. Where the hell was all this cool stuff when I was growing up? I was 25 years old the first time I remember seeing real snow fall. When I was a kid, 'snow' was anything made of frozen H2O that fell from the sky. Ergo, sleet=snow. Every try to make a snowball out of sleet? I thought that Hollywood was lying to me. Now, we've had snow four times in the same year. It didn't stick this time, but I'm still halfway convinced that The End Of Days is upon us. I'm almost glad that I'm bikeless and at work because sitting inside with a freshly-repaired bike, staring out at nasty weather would be torture. I can handle the wind and wet, but cold is like kryptonite to me. Hopefully, this madness will have passed by the time I pick my bike up tomorrow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c0Q_PSKxkk

Cabin Fever and Busted Bike Blues

Due to inclement weather and a busted bike, I'm basically going to be stuck inside all day. My original plan was to go for a nice, long walk in the woods. Mother Nature changed those plans by materializing a fairly nasty storm front on the horizon, then moving it toward me at a disturbingly quick pace. That bitch.

I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. Probably housework. I'll certainly avoid cooking up more monstrosities like this one:

It's a pork tenderloin that I seasoned with a dry rub (1/2 Slap Yo Mama seasoning and 1/2 dark brown sugar), then wrapped in about a pound of bacon. Then, I smoked it with oak. I don't know what to call it yet. Possibly 'The Jarvis' after the guy who designed the first artificial heart or 'The Chong', for obvious reasons. Yes, it was good. Yes, the pictures are in reverse order because I'm new to blogging and halftarded.

Yes, I resisted the urge to crouch in a corner and scarf the entire thing while growling at anybody who came near me. We even had leftovers.

Gah, bad weather sucks. Fortunately, my bike should be out of the shop just in time for the front to clear, so I can go on a ride with my new and supposedly fatass-proof rear wheel.

Welcome to the jungle.

My name is Kase Jackson. I am quite possibly the only 290-lb bicycle commuter in East Texas. I was born and raised here and recently moved back after a 2 1/2-year stay in the meth-addled tweaker Nirvana that is central California. There is but one positive thing I have to say about that ugly, diseased place and that is I started my bicycle commuting endeavor there. My goal is simple: Never drive a car when I can ride a bike.

I began bicycling as a way to lose weight, improve my general physical health and reduce stress. Apparently, this has been successful. My weight is down from an all-time high of 360 pounds, I certainly feel healthier and I haven't had the urge to climb a bell tower with a high-powered rifle in at least a month. Oh, I tried several different weight loss/exercise scemes over the years. There was the 24-hour gym where I could go and jiggle off the fat in the dead of the night when the rest of the general population was asleep. Of course, the rest of the general population eventually had the same idea and wound up jiggling away in there right next to me at two in the morning. There was the upscale gym in California with row upon row of gleaming exercise devices. In addition, there were always dozens of image-obsessed meathead roidasauruses hanging on the equipment jawing about whose junk they stuck their junk into the night before. I even tried simply walking on outdoor tracks. That loses its charm when the ambient temperature and humidity levels meet in the high 90's. Obviously, exercise does not endear itself to me. Nor does dieting, for that matter. With apology to the nice people over at the Quaker company, rice cakes are not food. Rice cakes are synthetic, marginally edible foodlike objects which taste like something that would get the food replicator repair guy on the USS Enterprise flushed out an airlock by his disgruntled shipmates in the dead of night. So I needed a form of exercise that was entertaining, solitary and burned enough calories to let me eat normal portions of normal food.

I started riding about two years ago. I bought an old, badly used Raleigh SC-7 from a coworker's kid for $55 and rode it like a rented mule for a year and a half before buying a brand new Giant Cypress DX. There have been problems, sure. I got so frustrated with a perpetually busted rear wheel on my Cypress that I stopped riding it for months at a time. For a while there, I didn't do anything but work and sit at home. But I always came back to the bike. I never went back to the gym or the track, but I eventually would find my way back on the bike. That's when I decided that bicycling was for me. It was great exercise, allowed me a relatively liberal diet and best of all, it was fun. Even in California, where the dominant color is 'dirt' and the most-heard songbird is a Mexican fighting cock. Moving back to East Texas took my riding enjoyment to an even higher level than it had been in California. With the exception of a few well-known tourist destinations, California is a wasteland. Especially the central valley. It is a brown, blasted, postapocalyptic dust bowl. An ugly place filled with ugly things and ugly people. There, I would just put my earbuds in, crank up the mp3s and zone out until I got to where I was going. I didn't want to think about where I was or what was going on around me. My time in California was dark. I was almost completely isolated from everybody. Every day was the same: I closed my eyes tight, turned the music up loud and tried to imagine myself somewhere, anywhere, but there. Here in Texas, it's a different story. I like this place I like the feeling of gliding silently through the living world. On a bike, you become an observer. When passing through neighborhoods, I hear television programs floating out from houses, halves of cell phone conversations about babydaddies from front porches and laughter from backyard barbecues. Farther out in the country, I hear cooing doves, hooting owls and the thumping rush of fleeing deer. It's an almost voyeuristic thrill. I zip through the world alone and relatively unnoticed, listening in on thousands of living creatures as I pass by. There is lush green all around me. I smell flowers and the spice of pine needles. And every crested hill just brings more beauty. Here, I have yet to listen to music while riding. Here, I want to be tuned in to what's happening around me. This is my place and I love it.