The Myth, The Legend, Mister Sudsy Butt

Seen on ride: a wicked case of sudsy chamois.  Ala comedian Daniel Tosh, let’s see how many jokes we can get in 30 seconds.  (Tick Tick Tick)  Where do you put the bleach?  It looks like your load is off balance.  Wash and wear?  No.  Wear and wash.  That’s obviously not the delicate cycle.  Thank God I’m only seeing the rear.  I'd hate to see what extra starch looks like?  If the suds turn brown I am so leaving a gap.  That’s one way to keep your white saddle white.  Stop by after the ride and sit on my car.  Wonder what’ll happen if he farts.  Looks like someone ran out of quarters.  I hope that’s Tide and not Pantene.  (BUZZ)  And, that’s time!

Sudsy Butt Can Be A Good Thing

Laughing, I almost got dropped, twice.  LOL indeed.  We misjudged the weather Saturday morning, already a half hour from home, we were committed for 3 ½ hours in the rain.  Luckily the temperature setting was switched to warm.  It started with one bubble, but as my teammate's legs churned through the downpour and road spray his but started to froth.  Somebody either has a bad rinse cycle on an aging washing machine or can’t read the measuring lines in the detergent cap.  Detergent left in his shorts was reactivated with the rain.  An hour and a half into the ride he had a rabid dog foaming at the mouth in his shorts.  I lost two wheel lengths laughing when the suds balls caught the wind floating them in the air like a seeding Cottonwood.

Photo proof: Courtesy F2BBlog.com

I’m upset I didn’t get video, or at least a photo.  This (left) is the only photo I could find online.  Riding a paceline on the Saturday Morning Beatdown in a downpour was hard enough, let alone trying to pull my phone out of my pocket to snap a photo while trying to hold a wheel at 21mph with spray in my face.  This is precisely the reason photos of sudsy chamois are so hard to come by.  Catching a photo of Mister Sudsy Butt is like Bigfoot.  You’re so terrified at the moment, concrete proof remains elusive.  

Where's My Yoga-Butt Ass Slap?

Naively, I immediately ranked my achievement in yoga class right up there with winning a bike race.  I wanted immediate recognition.  I felt somewhere between like I did earning a silver medal in the state championships and being king of the mountain on a group ride.  I looked for a high five, a golf clap.  In a class of 25 people, it was as if it was invisible.  Last night, I performed an unassisted full-on redwood-solid 20-30 second headstand in yoga practice.  I posted my slight frustration on Facebook, asking for a Gong of recognition, and a friend sent this video. 

Maybe its coming from a background of competitive sports that I kind of expected something to happen when I did a yoga headstand on my own for the first time, but nothing.  No chimes.  No cheers.  I wanted to run around the room for high-fives and chest bumps.  Out of the 25 women in the class, not one snapped a photo with her phone to commemorate the occasion with a post to my Facebook wall.  I couldn’t believe it.  Where was the love?  It was like spiking a football in the end zone of an empty coliseum or Tour De France winner Alberto Contador shooting off his finger pistols at the end of an abandoned dead end street in France.  I didn’t expect a Tibetan monk to drape a silk shawl over my shoulders and ring a gong (see video), but this brother craved at least a slap on the yoga ass. 

Now, I get it.  I bow my head.  I take in a full deep breath and let all the air out.  I have the prize right here at hearts center.  Namaste.

I expect some rolled their eyes right there on the word Namaste.  People like to poo-poo yoga as weirdo hippie crap.  What’s with heart’s center, all the words ending in “asana,” the chants of “OM,” the weird loud breathing, hugs of gratitude and a thankful Namaste at the end of practice?  It’s cool to think that.  I did.  Now, I realize, they’re all pieces of the practice, the stones that built my headstand.  It took me seven months to put the pieces together.  Even still, I probably don’t even fully get it.

As a core building exercise for cycling, I’ve been doing yoga for months, seven to be exact.  I remember my first time, too shy to let the “Om” escape my lips.  Like coming up a wheel short of a town line victory, along the way there were sensations of strength and points of poise.  I remember when my heels first touched earth on a completely flat-footed downward dog.  I wobbled, teetered and gritted my teeth.  I scorned the flexibility of the ballerinas in class.  I concentrated on my breath, only to catch myself red-faced and holding it. 

Eventually, my chants of “Om” became louder and more confident.  I tried the harder options.  Accidently, I once kicked the instructor in the head while she spotted my headstand.  Later I learned she had asked the front desk at Revolution Fitness for a bag of ice.  I was embarrassed.  The next time I tried it, I fell, but smoothly.  I tucked and rolled, like an expert building demolition.  I downloaded the “Yoga To The People” podcast from I-Tunes and practiced at home, when I couldn’t make the class at the gym.  Seven months later, I did a headstand.  Gong!

I’m excited.  Maybe I’ll learn in another epiphany later that, since yoga is a personal practice, there’s really no reason to shout it from the top of the mountain.  A true Yogi wouldn’t brag about it.  I’m not bragging.  (maybe a little) I’m just really happy.  Along with my smile and a nod of gratitude, I write.  Like getting my heels down on a downward dog and doing a wobble free shoulder stand, last night’s headstand is just another step on an infinite staircase that only today I realized I have been climbing.  Now I understand yoga is a practice, something you’ll get better at, but never be judged at.  That’s pretty cool.  There are no golden yoga trophies and sadly no yoga ass slaps.  I started doing Yoga in July.  I started practicing today. 

Banning The Butt-Pat

Without a doubt, there’s one thing that scares most bike riders: looking totally fat in bike shorts.  No.  I’m sorry.  The one thing that scares riders is that they one day might feel compelled to buy a jersey with a psychedelic red eyed tree frog on the back.  No.  Really.  The one thing that scares most riders is carnage.

Which brings me to my next point, the one thing that most club and new riders have in common is looking as flamboyant as Cameron on Modern Family in a XXXL Primal jersey.  No.  Seriously, the one thing that most new riders have in common is the butt-pat.  Now I don’t know what numb-nut started this whole butt-pat paceline pull-off thing, probably the same douche that invented the tree frog jersey, but it must stop.  Dear Ricky Bobby and little baby Jesus it must stop.  Don’t make me print up anti-butt-pat t-shirts and jerseys and sell them out the trunk of my car at the next club century ride, because I will.  You might think the reason I disdain the butt-pat is because it’s totally Cameron and draws attention to your fat thread bare Lycra covered caboose.  In all reality, it’s what could happen after the butt-pat that gives me the heebie jeebies.  The butt-pat could lead to four men sitting cross-legged in Lycra sipping espresso at the café while discussing last night’s episode of Cougar Town.  It could, but aside from that, the butt-pat, like a 50% off Nashbar tree-frog jersey, is pretty much a disaster waiting to happen.  Think about it.  If I really wanted to get some pro-looking road rash scars and maybe a nifty shoulder bump the first thing I would do is get in front of a group of riders, take my eyes off the road to look back, let up on the pedal cadence, contort my body to throw off my equilibrium and center of balance and attempt to pat my own ass at 25mph. 

A wise veteran rider and regional pro level racer once told me, “Always hook your thumbs.”  It’s Guinness Beer type “brilliant!”  Notice that he said thumbs, not thumb…but thumbssssssssss.  Secondly, notice he said hook, not rest or gently curl, but hook.  The one bit of latitude is that you can probably get away with hooking fingers if you’re on the hoods, unless you have gangly baboon thumbs that can reach around a hood.  I can’t say how many times this has saved me from certain George Hincapie with a broken steerer tube type death.  If this is too hard to imagine, the key is to actually…physically…hang on to your handlebar. 

But you’re a good rider, you couldn’t, wouldn’t possibly crash by not hooking your thumbs or fingers.  That’s silly.  I ride around all the time just resting my hands across the tops and hoods.  I can pat my ass when I ride.  Well if you look closely at the following video, you’ll notice the rider looks super cool in the first bunch across the climb with his hands resting on the tops just before he, Saxo Bank super star Jens Voight, goes all silly rag doll down the road at what appears to be 900mph at the top of a mountain in the 2009 Tour De France. 

When that first aired, commentators remarked and pointed out as French television rolled back the wreck footage over and over and over again that there was a bump or raised crack in the road that caused him to crash.  Really?  It’s the Tour de France.  It’s like 2500 miles long, with I’m pretty sure, an equal number of bumps in the road, not to mention the fact that the ten or so guys in front of him all seemed to navigate the pit-fall without incident.  I’m sorry, but I’m darn tootin’ certain that the reason Jens, one of the most respected riders in the pro-peloton, crashed and ended up in the hospital is because he wasn’t holding on to the handlebars.  Thumbs, fingers…not hooked.

Now, I’m not one to use scare tactics or make light of tragedy, but I am one to point out the ridiculous things that irrationally filter from one rider to the next, like horrible looking theme jerseys, 30 cubic foot seat bags, and patting your own ass while in front of a bunch of your best riding buddies.  If you want to signal to the closet Cougar Town watching tree frog jersey wearing guy behind you that it’s his turn to take a pull, flick your elbow.  The pro’s sometimes do that.  Even still you’d be missing out on one of the most beautiful parts of group cycling: a buttah smooth look back and butt-pat free zenlike flowing paceline.  I have found no better example than this video featuring one of my favorite riders, Danny Pate in the Tour of California.  It’s so awesome to watch, that I could delete every episode of Modern Family and Cougar Town from my DVR and replace it with a six hour loop of this.  Enjoy and keep your hands off your fanny.

Brokeback Saddle: Fizik Arione Meets Booty

Dear Joe Biker,

Your ass is colossal. 

Love,

Fizik Arione

Is it a sign that I actually “got some back?”  That’s a photo of the underside of my Fizik Arione wing flex Ti railed saddle.  It’s cracked, humorously perpendicular to where my crack would be.  I didn’t crash, nor did Jackie Chan karate chop it.  Even though I haven’t been a fan of the Arione, I did not beat it with a baseball bat so I could rationalize another new bike part to my wife.  I was “just riding along” and broke it with my own enormous arse.

However, if there were a warranty left on this 3 to 4 year old saddle, I’m pretty sure it would not cover slamming my massive booty into it while bunny-hopping a double set of railroad tracks at probably 30mph.  It was a nasty set of tracks at the bottom of the hill somewhere northeast of Cincinnati, out in the rollers between Loveland and I’m guessing Goshen.  You know the type of tracks, ones where the asphalt is all topsy-turvy, the wood is rotten between the tracks and the uneven surface jiggles your arms like a handshake with a WWE wrassler no matter which line you pick to ride across.  So, I opted for flying.  I figure, the name Arione must have something to do with being airborne.  In fact, Fizik does brand the saddle as having “wing flex” technology.  For the record, I cleared ‘em…on a carbon Jamis Xenith road bike.  Upon reflection, I’m glad I left the beefy winter Thompson seat post in, or I might still be picking shards of carbon out of my taint and hamstrings.

I kind of heard a whump when my immense caboose made contact, but the saddle held up.  Remarkably, I got three more rides in before the crack I inflicted finally worked its way completely through the shell.  Note to self: “wing flex” and “Arione” have nothing to do with flying.  Road bikes are meant to stay in contact with the road.  While I thought about keeping it as a trophy of my particularly spectacular bunny-hop, I tossed it ceremoniously in the shop trash bin.  I replaced it with a swanky new orange Fizik Aliante that’s all matchy-matchy.  Butt bling.

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