Columns: We Now Return...

After a two-month hiatus, it looks like the web site is beginning to stir again. Which means I should now quit wandering around in the wasteland of my own mind and write some columns. So be it, starting with this one, Mouthtrap goes weekly. This means that things might sway toward the three-dot lounge, Herb Caen infobite school of writing from time to time. Bear with me when that happens...

Oops. It just did...

Got chased by brutal weather through Nevada last week on my way out to the Volvo-Cannondale team camp in Sedona, Arizona. Left a snowstorm in Tahoe and arrived a day-and-a-half later in high 70s red rock. With time to kill before the Cannondale secret police took us and applied the tattoos post-brainwashing, I sneaked in the back door of Mountain Bike Heaven and got corralled into some cactus bushwacking. They called it a ride, but to my car-dead, singlespeeding legs, it was a hike. Realized two things: 1. Driving 10 hours at a stretch is a sure way to feel old and creaky. 2. Shops like Mountain Bike Heaven, with its quirky blend of anarchy, used computer sales and a multicolored staff, are becoming fewer and farther between. Whether this is a good or bad thing probably depends a lot on how you feel about the whole customer service experience. I'm happy to see freaks like this still have a place to call home...

So, after a weekend spent getting brainwashed by Scott Montgomery (see the news piece elsewhere on the site) and his efficient minions, not to mention railing some insanely fun trails on squishy bikes with good brakes, I got cut loose. Drove about a mile up the road and turned into Alan's driveway, where the mutants from Flagstaff were waiting with the next ride. Two days later, I was sunburned, cactus-scratched, dehydrated and back in the car pointing west...

There's something deeply satisfying about doing hard rides with good friends that is difficult to put into words. It shows up better in the salt crust on helmet straps, on peeling skin, in the bone-wearying ache and hollow-gut hunger, in the way my pants hang looser after a few days of this. This is the stuff that makes me feel complete. Five days in the desert just did more for my state of well being than all the beer and vodka I sucked down during the darkest part of winter. I returned home lean and tan, just in time to run headlong into the next storm. Rode yesterday for a couple of hours, temperature in the low 40s, feeling like some sort of gassed-up, rolling beer keg the whole time. Something eaten yesterday morning went down horribly wrong, and I had so much gas pressure in me that it was difficult to even breathe, let alone flow into any sort of groove. Kept missing my corner apexes and farting noisily every time I tried to bunny hop. Welcome home.

Right now it's in the low 30s and the temperature is looking to plunge throughout the day. The voice on the radio just mentioned that the snow level is likely to drop to 1,000 feet, which means we will probably get hammered here at 2,500 feet. Now Neil Young is playing and the sky is a moody layering of purple and gray. And the feisty legs that wanted so badly to pedal fast in 80-degree weather are already aching in protest at the prospect of being made to get out and turn circles in sub-freezing temperatures. Too bad for them-the wake-up call toward a race season has begun, and there will be far uglier things in store than cold weather if they don't get in some sort of shape. So we will ride. And pretend that the red mud is just as easy to roll through as the red rock was. Legs are stupid and easily fooled this way...

Parting note. From here on out, every week will include a bonus quote from Mark Weir. Weir works at WTB and is known for being something of an over-muscled jolt of testosterone. He breaks bikes, rides about 200 miles off-road every week, mostly on downhill bikes or one-speeds, likes to call himself a fat bald guy and tends to get a little obsessive about racing once a year in Downieville. That's not to say he only races once a year; he actually races all the time. But he only races once a year in Downieville, which gives him only one chance to try to win back the 10 seconds that he lost the course record and win time of the Downieville Downhill to local kid Henry O'Donnel by last year. Just reading these words is likely to throw him over the edge. Ten seconds, Weir! Ten seconds!

Anyway, here is your Weir quote of the week: "Yeah, I weigh 180. But I'm filled with 250 pounds of rage..."