The Manx Missile? What’s Wrong With Cuddle Comet?

Unless you’re in Europe, The Manx Missile nickname for Columbia HTC sprinter Mark Cavendish leaves more questions than answers. It took 2 hours on Wiki pages and a bottle of scotch before I learned what Manx actually is. Then I passed out.

Manx is a breed of cat with a spinal mutation that causes them to have short or under-developed tails. Really! It’s true. Check out the little nubbin' in the picture. They are cute and cuddly, which does bode well for Cavendish’s spirited post race teammate hugging. However, I doubt any man wants to be nicknamed after something with a short tail. Additionally, I do recall, while watching the podium presentation, a female in the room pointed out that Caven-dash did deliver quite an express package to the finish line. Seriously, Cavendish is from the Isle of Man, which floats in the water off the coast of England. Locally the island, language and people are known as Manx.

I’m sure Manx is a wonderful place, but it might as well be the moon. That’s coming from someone who’s probably more traveled than most. Traveling to Scotland, Germany, and The Netherlands, I’ve probably flown over the Isle quite a few times and didn’t even know it. Till you read this, I’m guessing you didn’t know much about Manx and might be consulting your World Atlas right now. Secondly, I don’t think Manx Missile has the same panache of Petacchi’s Ale-Jet or McEwen’s Pocket Rocket. May I suggest the following nickname idea’s for Mark Cavendish:

Cannon-dish (or any knock off’s of his name such as: Kickin' Kavendish, Caven-dash, Caven-dart, Cannon-flash). While not as creative as Manx Missile, they are all more understandable without consulting the World Atlas.

British Bullet. Sure people from the Isle of Man probably prefer Manx, but nicknames need to cast a wider umbrella. Plus, a bullet with a British flag would make a killer logo or bike paint job.

Space Shuttle Columbia. He’s fast like a rocket. His team is Columbia. Uh…what? Oooh, forgot about that. Nevermind.

Marcus The Tank Engine. Fun and kid friendly, could make for great merchandising.

Highspeed Hugger or Cuddle Comet. Take your pick. They’re both gold baby. GOLD!

Expeditious Cavendishious. Okay I shouldn’t have opened up the Thesaurus.

Juvi Jet or Jumpin Juvi. What? He’s fast. He’s young. C’mon.

Okay. Maybe Manx Missile isn’t all that bad after all.

Cavendish Wins Stage 3 - Calls The Best Bike Blog Ever

Huckin' With Huck: So Long Delta Queen

Unless you seek out the things that make your town unique, you might as well live in Anytown, USA. Cincinnati is definitely not Anytown to me, so when I can, I like to get out and do Cincinnati things, be a tourist in my own hometown. One of the things that make the Queen City the Queen City is its rich history as a rivertown. The historic wooden paddleboat, the Delta Queen, built in 1926, made its last stop in it’s homeport of Cincinnati today. Designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1989 but unable to continue operating due to fire regulations, at five o’clock today the Delta Queen will steam off to it’s final resting spot down river, possibly in New Orleans. Maybe it’ll make day trips in the future, maybe there’s a tiny chance she’ll come back for the next Tall Stacks festival, but its days as an overnight passenger ship are numbered. As a transplanted Cincinnatian, it was my chance to see a bit of the history in the making. To get as close as possible, I rode my bike down to the public landing on the Ohio River to see her off and take a few photos with my crappy phone camera.

The mood was sort of somber. The 100 or so journalists and people taking pictures were pretty quiet. Alone or in groups of two or three they snapped photos of the big red stern wheel (pictured left), pointed out details of the ornamental wood work to each other, and one couple nearly went for a swim while posing for a the perfect photo with the smoke stack wafting in the background. From what I’ve read, the bell on the Delta Queen is the same bell from the boat that Mark Twain rode on in his travels. The boat is enormous, standing on shore it towered over 4 stories above my head and stretched 176 feet from bow to stern. I couldn’t get it all in one picture, especially with my crappy phone camera.

So, today’s blog isn’t so much about cycling, as it is the things you witness on your bike. Today it was history, Huck Finn type history. So long Delta Queen.

To learn more, here’s the Delta Queen’s Website

Joe's Meet The Pros

Joachim Parbo nice guy, fast in the mud. Guessing he didn’t operate a toilet brush Monday night. Katie Compton, national champ, newlywed. However, something tells me she didn’t vacuum two floors of cat litter littered carpet this morning. Barry Wicks, too tall, too fast. He probably doesn’t know that the green bottle is the kitchen cleaner and the purple bottle is the polish for the counter tops.

It’s at these times, when I should be grateful to have the opportunity to polish my very own stainless steel kitchen appliances before I rush off to my career job in hopes of punching out in time to eek in an hour and a half of intervals at night, I get a little bitter. Sometimes you think the pro’s got it soo easy. All they have to do is ride their fancy new Sram Red equipped carbon bike day in and day out, travel to cool places every week and sing along with happy Disney songs on thier Ipods.

Then again, with sweat dripping into fresh road rash after the 15th 10 minute lactate threshold interval in the pouring rain on Monday’s four hour ride while wondering how lumpy this weekend's host housing stow-a-bed is going to be, I’m sure Joachim Parbo would probably rather be discovering a cat turd under the dryer or practically losing consciousness from the fumes of Lime-Away while scrubbing the mildew out of a steam shower.

This weekend the Joe’s meet the Pro’s at the big UCI 3-Day International Cyclocross Festival in Cincinnati. Details here.