Lapsed Veloquentia Meet on Start Line

First I was on the starting line at SSWC09 in Durango.

Then Jacquie coalesced next to me.




Then I said, "you know, we both sort of blog on veloquent."
And she said "whats veloquent?".
And I was all like "that blog that Kent set up."
And she said, "oh yeah, I should write more for that."
I said, "me too."

Anyhow, it was a pleasure meeting Jacquie for real. I think we had met 13 years ago at the Marin Fat tire festival, but she was busy playing the Banjo and selling naked posters of herself and I was busy saying, "holy shit that's Jacquie Phelan." But that was then. This time, she was busy being fabulous and I was busy saying, "holy shit that's Jacquie Phelan."

My SSWC09 race report
Jacquie's SSWC09 race report

Proper bike usage when confronted with shovels

Things seem to have been a bit slow here at Veloquent of late. Hopefully this will get the creative sparks a flying.



Via Chris C on the boblist

Its the little things

I just returned from a short trip to france and the streetside bike scoping is outrageously fun. The nice part is the sheer volume of 50's-70's era production city bikes with nice details that make looking at the bikes more fun than looking at, say, thousands of schwinn varsities.

I can't get over the number of stamped dropout seventies city bikes that had details like these headlight reliefs in the front rack:






So so so so good.
Lots more french street bike pics:
in dijon
in paris

Coupleafewthings Monday

Go go go go go:
ok, well don't go, the image is gone, torn from the internets like a $1 off burrito coupon from the student paper. Stupid internets...
(was once an image of a guy riding a bike on a line of soda bottles)
Next:

My race bike racked for the ride home.

I have been waiting years to do this well. A decade ago I occasionally carried frames on my back to customers when I worked at a small frame builder. Many a times I have steered another full bike down the road, one hand on the stem, whilst riding another. But I think I this is the apogee of swellegant bike on bike hauling. That was 9 miles and 800 feet elevation change each way to get to the race.

Lots of reasons to hate pro cycling right now, here is a reason to start watching again:

click for source
Go read this nice fluff article on Taylor Phinney and family over on Sports Illustrated. If you don't know who he is or who his parents are, go read it.

Taylor is 17 and one of the top five pursuit cyclists in the world and will be representing the US in Beijing this summer in the Olympics. He rides for the Slipstream Chipotle team and with any luck, will be doing one day races in Europe flying the plaid colors and possibly a tacky mustache within a few years.

Calling me down to their watery graves

This post first appeared on moscaline 4/1/2006

One of the nicest things about riding in Knoxville is the third creek greenway. A twisty strip of asphalt wending its way through a riparian zone, an urban oasis sandwiched between railroad tracks, old neighborhoods and crumbling industry. A healthy dose of hobo singletrack leaves and joins the paved path at frequent intervals. While I am generally no fan of cycling on mixed use paths, this one is special.

Particularly pleasant is riding the path at night. There usually is just enough ambient light to guide your way as the path morphs into a shimmery silver strip through the forest. However, it can be slightly disquieting. As you crest a small hill and drop into the low spots on the trail next to the creek that gives the path its name, the temperature drops noticeably. Then you hear it: the call of the peepers. From the swamp on either side a cacophony of calls emits, growing to a deafening crescendo.

As you ride along the peepers on either side grow quiet as you pass until you are enveloped in a rolling enclosure of brief silence between frog cries. But woe be the traveler who stops on their way. At first you are in a temporary silence between the far off peeps, but slowly the nearby frogs, sensing your stillness, begin to call out to you. Impelling you to follow them into their stagnant inches of dank swamp. The call is irresistible to some and many a weary nomad has been called to their watery grave by the siren cry of the peepers.