Sasek RULES

Can't help but notice that over to the right there is a book by one of my FAVORITE AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATORS OF ALL TIME.
How amazing to have him there, next to me.
Back in the day when I had "Life In The Fat Lane" (BIKE magazine in the mid-1990's, when we all were awash with cash and bonhomie) my 'neighbor' ad was SIMPLE shoes....I rather liked it...despite the fact they were made in China, and smelled horrifically of rubber for the duration you kept them in yr closet, they were a shoe company with a very interesting way of supporting at least two artists, me and the much more talented creator of Moonlight Chronicles, a sort of sketchbook/diary that was if anything, a print version of a blog.
A chapbook if you will.
The makers of Simple shoes paid him to keep on drawing...and the man, (forgot his name, twill arrive in my head tonight) would duly observe his very richly arrayed surroundings...he lived in a hut, or a tree stump, I forget which...had a son, not a baby but not grown either...very very interesting...
So anyway eventually 'my neighbor' changed from Simple to....a switchblade knife manufacturer...then....a gun!!! I complained to Rob Story...
Then the coup de grace: a Porsche ad, right next to my story about how cool our magazine is, because WE DON'T TAKE AUTOMOBILE ADS.
Well, I guess they DID take that ad, but they sure didn't tell the idiot that had written that column for the previous five years, month in, month out...
Profiles in discourage...
BUY ANYTHING by M. Sasek (I have "this Is Edinburgh" and have borrowed all the other dozen books, Hong Kong,London, New York, Ireland, San Francisco, Paris, even TEXAS .... from our library which has the sense to keep these classics, only just now re-issued by Universe, a subsid of some other big house.
Really. You deserve to learn what mid-century cities of the world were like through that man's eyes...

Mumm's in your eye

Who here has ever sampled aged Champagne?

Sounds like an OXY(dized) MORON, huh?

Well listen up you Urban Gleaners....
Two years ago, in a neighborhood dumpster, I found some seemingly nice bottles of booze…the kind you put aside for a special occasion.

They'd been forgotten by the original (and presumed dead, judging from the contents of the good in the rubbish tip) owner.

….Evidence that life is indeed too short!

Having dessert first–and perhaps even Champagne for breakfast in ones’ later years wouldn’t be completely off the mark…

I dug around and found some 1970s port, this single Champagne from Reims (no date on it) and a few reds. None had shattered.

All were hot from laying in the summer sun, and had to be sped home to the Taj Mahovel Recovery Room (the crawl space under the house where we hide in the 100-degree days that will become more numerous in the coming decade).

Since then, I enjoyed each from that trove, save one.

Until now I was too scared to try it.
I ‘d never heard of ‘antique’ Champagne, and like your average person, understood that super-young was the only way to have it. Crispy, light, dry with very little fruit discernible.

Turns out that the stuff can age, as long as it's lying on its side (”on the lees”) in a carefully controlled environment, away from light and vibration.
While Champagne makers have an economic interest in selling more wine by convincing us it’s best consumed within the year, much Champagne improves with some [cork] aging.

Jancis Robinson notes that some Champagnes can become significantly more complex with aging on the cork–”if properly stored”.

I imagined the jolt inflicted on the stiff-upper-lipped Mumm’s, hurled over the dumpster’s edge and coming to rest atop sofa-cushions, baling wire, wood chips, shoe boxes, golf clubs, plastic flowers, dishware, shoes and other junk.
That bottle was meant for me, and intended to be enjoyed despite its sketchy background.

For the slimmest of reasons I decided to open it up today: as a budget tribute to the great and ever so humble, complex and intense Sheldon Brown.

Ian (”evolnollidge”) and I did our Sheldon Ride earlier in the afternoon, though we attracted no other ‘Sheldonysians”.
Four year old Kai braved the rude winds in the ten mile Get To The Start Of The Ride portion, and entertained himself in the back seat of dad’s Dutch bike by doing a reasonable imitation of our prattle. I presume he was a trouper in the (headwinds both directions) ten miles home.

I like to think Sheldon would have appreciated the toasty maderized (doesn't mean ruint) notes in the bottle I literally broke into.

A crumbling broken cork meant no dramatic pop; the color was amber with superfine bubbles racing in thin lines up the glass. A candy aroma hovered over the surface and I realized I was going to be amazed with my ‘find’.
So this is “maderization”? Is a Maillard reaction likely to improve what’s left during the years on the cork? Or am I just trying to type words here than might then brand themselves into my mind, since I'm pretending to know what they mean?
I gotta learn how to do links...

For once Charlie didn’t make a face after one tiny sip. I can offer no greater accolade from a non-drinker for whom everything one imbibes and ingests must have a Nutrititve Purpose.

Burnt bread, raisins and even some brandy flavor dwelled in the ruddy liquor.

It was a revelation….complex and rewarding.

Heaven knows the price was right…here’s Mumm’s in your eye, Sheldon!

Toe Clips Gains a March

When I was racing, one of my few talents was getting a great start. A skill especially valuable because so many of my cohorts (thanks for that word, Kent, "grown together" I think is the origin of the Latin) used to complain loudly (at the finish) how they'd been doomed by a rotten start.

In a fifty-lap race.

I decided that I would practice a bit, and maybe beat THOSE PEOPLE in the next race.

Worked pretty well.

The payoff came at the Chico Criterium in 1981. That was my inaugural year of bike racing. Chariots of Fire was in the theaters, and politics-wise, women (for the first time in Olympic history) were at last allowed to straddle a bike and go for the same Olympic glory. In LA, no less. My hometown.

Digression: it is customary to visit the Olympics upon the hottest, filthiest possible cities in the world: Tokyo, Mexico City, Atlanta and Beijing. Centers of commerce. The health of the individual athlete is...a smaller priority.

Looking back at Chariots, the lesson I retain to the present was the one about difficult moral choices. The dude 'couldn't' race on a Sunday, remember?
Well, along with selection races, the (male) Olympic coach enjoyed a timeworn team selection technique that took place between the sheets. Since Olympic glory was just a fantasy goal for me, I didn't succumb to any official coach's 'charm', nor could I ride for an automobile company (it's against MY religion).
But back to Chico, California.

Criteriums are those lung-ripping lap races around a city center, minimum four turns per lap.... there are prizes given after a bell rung mid-race. They're called 'preems' (spelled P-R-I-M-E), and their function (along with promoting certain stores and services) is to keep the riders' speed up. Lest we just parade lazily around for most of the race.

The announcer, I believe, was Jeff Lindsay (local frame builder of the great Mountain Boat bicycle). From our spot on the line, we heard him say "the first woman across the line wins a pair of Birkenstocks from blabhblah bootery".

I was off, with no chasers.

Those German-made sandals cost SIXTY BUCKS ( that would be about two hundred clams in today's money).

I had wanted them for years, but I never found them in the thrift shops.

I solo'd across the line, and in few seconds Cheryl Lloyd drew alongside. Over the next lap or two, we discussed how to split up the remaining primes....odd ones for me, evens for her and the last lap was up for grabs.
Somewhere behind us were eighteen young women putting in some miles, perfecting group-cornering, and duking it out for third.

One lap, I won a sack of groceries.

The next, Cheryl won a bouquet of flowers.

We agreed to swap since my fridge was full and my table could use some glam.
Chico is bicycle mad, so every imaginable retailer was donating stuff.

At the last lap, with a summertime crowd cheering so you couldn't even hear your own roaring breath, we both charged the line blindly.

I 'd read somewhere that flinging your arms up in victory never hurts, if it's a close call.

They gave me the win.

And I've been ashamed of "dirty racing" ever since (I have no idea who was in front. I doubt there was a camera...).

The Birkenstock sandals I chose for my Lap One Prime were those ugly sort of flesh-colored leather two strap sandals. The nice store owner opened the store just so I could pick 'em (between races).

Still have them. They've been re-soled (at sixty bux a pop, funnily enough) a couple times.