The Bicycle, the Car, and the Big Ride
Turnagain Pass, Alaska. June 26, 2009.
I sold my car to buy a bicycle that I’ll take apart and paint as soon as I get it home because All-City Bikes likes colors that I don’t but we seem to agree on all other aspects of what makes a decent bicycle and part of bicycling is nutrition which I’ve been learning a lot about from Brenden Brazier’s book “Thrive” on eating vegan for athletic performance not that I’m an athlete but because I keep getting bonked for lack of food on rides in the foothills around Boise so more veggies please and I’m so glad that Mike and Thomas who now own The Bug named it “Oliver” which is my name too and also the Oliver Bicycle Works project that I’ve been quietly working on for a couple of years and I always joked that if I ever sold The Bug I’d buy a new bicycle so today I’m picking up my first new bicycle since 1993 which was the Gary Fisher Hoo Koo E Koo that I love and ride today as the Hoo Koo E Kommuter which isn’t Opus One for the OBW project, but definitely maintains that spirit that a bicycle is always more than just a bicycle just like a car is more than just a way into the Chugach Mountains at Turnagain Pass on June 26, 2009, for a day of backcountry skiing.
You’re going to love These Things that inspired me recently:
“Thank You Lance, But It Really Was About the Bike” - What inspired you to ride a bike, not for fitness or exercise, but for the feeling of riding a bicycle? This is a really moving “open letter” to Lance about one guys discovery about himself in relation to Lance Armstrong and bicycling.
“Becoming Ruby” - If you have to calendar it, put 18 minutes on your calendar to watch this super inspiring short film about Brooklyn Bell who created a character, “Ruby J,” to help her come to terms with her identity as a mountain biker. Very cool story produced by Patagonia. This will literally make you so happy.
“Recording Artists: A Podcast from the Getty” - Helen Frankenthaler is one of my favorite of the Abstract Expressionists and season one of this podcast from the Getty Museum focuses on what it was like to be a woman making art during the feminist and civil rights movements of the 1960’s and ‘70’s. If you’re missing being able to cruise through a museum as much as I am, you’re going to enjoy this.
“Danheim” - means “Danish Home” in Old Norse but in modern language it means “that band that plays really cool ambient Nordic folk music with amazing videos.” It’s amazing how much meaning some words hold.
“The Listening List” - This is not a curated list except that I’m fascinated by all the music on this list. As I find new music, I usually try and add it here on the date I find it as a journal to my introduction to new music.
Hey folks, we just have to remember what the Monty Pythons always say:
“Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition!”