Dan Action

What a world. May 31, 2007

Riding alone lately has been a complete chore it feels like. Last Sunday I got out for 5 hours on the ‘cross bike just hammering and railing turns, having so much fun, even after I broke a spoke and had to disconnect my front brake. But yesterday and today I was just brooding. Couldn’t keep my focus for more than an hour. I guess I’m just stressed out. Gainesville has much to offer as far as riding and general clean living goes, but the big thumbs down goes to it’s job market. Being a university-centered town service industry is the name of the game, and wages are low. The market is just saturated with young people willing to work cheap, and the other side of the sword is that when all those people take off for summer or vacation the town rolls up. Bike shops are no exception. I was taking a 6 dollar cut to come work down here. It’s one of those situations where the owners are not to blame per se, but neither are the folks willing to work for whatever they can get, it’s just the landscape of the city. There are 7 shops in Gainesville, a city of less than 150, 000 people. There used to be even more, most are within walking distance from each other. The industry standard for wages is pretty set. It’s not pretty.

Oh well, I need to quit brooding and take a nap to get rid of my financial stress. I mean, thew shed is still standing, I’m eating well, and even with the stress and brooding feelings, I’m riding well, so what’s to worry about too deeply? Take care.

A little more recent history…

Oh my god.…So the beginning of April brought me closer to en event I was very much looking forward to. This was the Tour of Gainesville; a 65+ mile off-road ride on trails built within the city limits exclusively. The work the folks in town have done to build these trails in the first place is staggering, given the fact that a good number of them are parents or business owners, and in more than a couple instances, both. Which is to say nothing about the work done to organize the ride itself, which is completely non-sanctioned, non-sponsored, and totally, totally rad.

I had ridden most of these trails on the Tuesday/ Thursday night rides with Lex from Villin Cycleworks, and the Mr. Goodbike crew when I still had my mountain bike and a decent light, and even more of them from Lex’s help and hand-drawn maps during the days. I was confident in my ability to tackle this ride on the ‘cross bike. Most of the trails flow really well with not too many interruptions like log crossings or other more technical ephemera, at least not much I couldn’t make it over, on or off the bike. Hey, sue me for wanting to showboat a little and give a little exposure to ‘cross here where it’s next to unheard of outside of winter issues of Velo News.

Well, long story short, I found myself being picked up by Chris and Ted Lincoln because my right shoulder felt it needed to take a hard dive into a decidedly un-checkable tree and seperated. Coming over a log, my front wheel dug into some sugar sand and the tree came up faster than I could recover. Thanks Chris, thanks Ted. This was about a third of the way into the ride, I was a little heart-broken. Not only had I ridden that very trail a ton of times, but now I was going to have to take an involuntary break when I was just getting into shape. The good news is symmetry has almost returned to my upper body with my clavicle popped up close to the height of my left shoulder now. Time to go back to modelling now, y’all.

Other news is that I will actually be entering another road race while I’m down here. It’s the Florida State Champ race next weekend. It’s really close to here and rumor has it that it will feature some hills. Hannah K. is going to come down here and visit. To expound on that a little more, she and I are talking pretty seriously about coming back down here after ‘cross Nationals and renting a small place of our own, so the invitation is out for folks to come visit, stay, eat well, and ride this coming winter (it’s coming.). Fourth World is going to play our second show tonight and I’ve got nothing to wear. It’s at Wayward Council and it’s a rent benefit show for said space. I kind of fucked up my wrist somehow either playing drums the other night or digging holes in my friend Dave’s yard yesterday, who knows. Fooling around, this is a little video.

So, did I mention I live in Florida now? May 24, 2007

Well, I do. At least for the next few months. I’m waiting to go on the group ride tonight. They have evolved somehow from a nice hard interval day to a weekly training race. Not that I’m whining, you see, because given my reluctance to race the road season down here I could use a training race to keep me even a little sharp.   Thursdays, especially, are so much fun; it’s a 30 mile course with a couple rises in the road you kind of have to embellish to even call “rollers”.  Since it’s such a short ride, it’s been just a flurry of attacks and breakaways within the first ten miles through to the finish under the highway.  What had once been an organized rotating effort earlier in the year; smooth, fast and efficient,  has now turned into a perpetual chase group.  All heavy breathing.

Been Gone, Yall. May 20, 2007

Whoa, let’s just pretend I’ve been in space for a while. You know Carl Sagan would. Now that some nice weather got up to New England, I don’t feel too bad about writing about being in Florida.

I’ve been down here since the week after ‘cross nationals. January was a hectic month. Dru & I were trying hard to get the shed I was to be living in done pretty fast since I had company in the from of Frenching Action with Hannah coming down from up north mid-month to begin our deep-south tour. Tour brought me away from Gainesville for two weeks or so. We played shows in Tampa, Pensacola, New Orleans, Cleaveland, MI, Chattanooga, TN, Asheville, Valdosta, GA, and here in Gainesville. Tour was soooooooo rad! It’d been quite a while since I’d been on tour, and I ‘ve got to tell you, it was our first tour, and even our first time playing shows outside New England, and it went so well I kept expecting the disaster to wash over us. It never happened, we just kept playing either awesome or weird shows and had a ton of fun.

Hannah stuck around here in town for a few weeks afterward which was so nice. After a couple weeks in a van we were pretty sluggish when we finally started riding. No matter, I was so excited to be able to show her some of the routes I used to ride down here. Like so many roads in the south they are lined with live oaks making a canopy over the roads as they wind on through horse farm country. Winter is also the time where a lot of Gainesville ex-pats come back to town, either their folks live in FL. still, or they, like me, know how to get away when the cold comes to their newest adopted home. Either way it was super nice to see so many folks and get to ride with some old friends like Suko and Elly.

Training Races.

January in Gainesville also brings a four race training series. Hannah and I figured “What better way to whip ourselves into shape?”, so we went out. Now, you might think that living in Fl. there is no winter, therefore, no reason to stop riding or get off form. Well, that’s the fucking truth. I raced the 1, 2, 3 race and pretty much hung on for dear life as the pack careened around another somehow familiar industial park crit course at 30 mph. I went for as long as I could, which wasn’t too long really, then dropped out. Hannah fared better than I, actually finishing her race; the 1, 2, 3, 4 women’s. Having our respected asses handed to us got us out riding way more miles. I was damned if I would let the next race play out the same way, base miles or not. When the weekend rolled around again, I was feeling a ton better and able to make some moves in the race. I managed to stay with the lead group for the majority of the race, but I kept hearing a weird rattle on the bike, it was definetly me, too. I pulled off and checked everything out. Lo and behold my front brake had worked its’ way loose and was shaking around in the fork. Totally fucked up. I tightened it up while getting to say Hi to an old riding friend and took a free lap which put me in the chase group with five laps or something to go. I realized I had been working pretty hard before I stopped, because when I went to put the hammer down to try to bridge up I didn’t have that much left in me. A few of us were working together well, but stopping really seized the old legs up or something. When we got 1 to go I quietly pulled off and rolled around for a while. Hannah’s race went even better for her. They were starting categories off staggered, so with her being a four, she started first off. When she was caught by a couple of threes, they made a good bid for trying to stay away. They held off the rest of the pack until four to go, then were caught. Hannah recovered and stayed in for the sprint. Not to mention she won some grocery gift certificates in a preem. Ice cream time!Well, I’ve got to admit, I’m not to good with navigating this blog.

Let’s see I guess that brings us to February. Hannah took off somewhere in the first week to prepare for her trip to Nippon. I was pretty sad to see her go, but I’m pretty sure that’s the way to maintain a healthy & rad relationship; letting each other go do what they need to do. I started working at Recycled Bicycles down here and upped my riding time a fair amount. I got on the ‘cross bike pretty often, as there are a ton of trails within the city limits, and they rule. There’s sand everywhere down here. I still hate it, but I know it will do me good to just keep riding it for when ‘cross season comes around. The shed got pretty well finished after some long problem-solving weekends, so I have my own room now, it’s super cozy. Come check it out, we’ll make dinner. I’m getting pretty tired, so I’ll have to catch you up on the past few months later. Some good current news though, I just got back from a week long trip to Providence. It totally ruled the school. Travis Magoo and I played our first show last night under the title Fourth World. It went so good. We’ve gotten an awesome dialogue going between us lately when we play together. The show went well. I’m the MUMMY!