Stolen Roof Rack: Big Trouble In Silver Spring

So I woke up Saturday morning to find that some shitholes had absconded with my Thule roof rack. This rack was locked to the car and doesn't seem like the casual theft of opportunity by some kids passing by. So the douche fuckers knew what they were doing when they picked or pried the locks and removed the rack without making a scratch on the car.

So rather than go over the details of what happened I'm going to illustrate the finer points using images and gifs from the 80's classic, "Big Trouble in Little China".

So I looked out the window and saw this:

 And at first I was all like:

And then I was like:

And my next thought was:

And I thought, Man! If I had seen the crooks I would have walked out the front door like:

And I woulda been like:
And then I would have dealt with their leader like:

But I'm not that cool or tough so I would probably have walked out and said something like:

Which leaves me with this:

So I'll wrap up by saying that having to tell your 4 year old that there are bad people in the world and the roof rack is never coming back to us is a bummer. 

If anyone in the DC area sees or hears of a Thule roof rack with a notch cut out of the driver's side tray so a mountain bike with front disc breaks can fit you know who to e-mail.

Her First Bike Ride

This is a short compilation of footage from my daughter's first bike ride. She's on the iBert and I'm shooting with a GoPro Hero on widescreen and I used windows movie maker to put it together.

Music by The Flaming Lips

Several figs were destroyed in the making of this film.

Cool Tool: BikePlanner.org

From the bit I've fooled around with this tool seems to be pretty accurate. Check it out,  Bikeplanner.org

Good Thing The IT Guy Is A Cyclist

On morning's like this when the DC humidity is justifying it's infamy, I'm thankful that the IT guy is a cyclist. A fellow sufferer who took pity on me and offered up one of the industrial back-up fans from the server room to cool my man parts.

For 5 years I've been the only cyclist in my office of about 40 people. The only one on the receiving end of barrage of weekly questions about how crazy it must be to bike into work.  We recently had a round of hiring and now we have a 4 man team and weekly training rides. My company is awesomely sponsoring us so I designed some jerseys and sent them off to Giordana for printing. We're doing the Seagull Century in October witch should be pretty fun.

Motivation is a good thing.

My Commute Stinks!

At least it does this week. Last week the DC region was ripped a new one by a storm that came down from the Ohio valley knocking out power to a kagillion people. Being without power for close to a week has some ill effects on the community especially when the highs were in the 100's. One effect that is now making itself painfully clear to me is that everyone without a generator had to throw out everything in their refrigerators. Riding through neighborhoods this week on trash day has been pretty disgusting as at the end of every driveway is a trashcan filled with rancid meat and dairy products. Another ill effect is the state of the Capitol Crescent Trail. Here are some photos of the storm damage taken this morning.

State College Diaries

I went to State College, PA. and took this picture.

State College is just as awesome as this picture.

Friday Inspiration

This is a great story from VeloNews. A must read.

Two years ago, Ernest Gagnon weighed 570 pounds. The 30-year-old lived in self-imposed exile in his Massachusetts apartment, leaving only to go to work and to the grocery store. He was depressed, lonely and suffering from crippling anxiety.
Then the doctors gave him the news and two choices: Gagnon had type 2 diabetes; he could undergo gastric bypass surgery or die. 

Gagnon chose a third option — cycling.

Read the Full Story

This story (like most stories) makes me want to grab my bike and make a break for it; even today when this is happening: