Ain't Nobody Sing Like Me.

At Brunswick Cycling Club - like most cycling clubs, I suspect - there's an old bloke who has been around forever and who knows more about cycling than I ever will. His name is Alf. He's seen me, over the past six months or so, go from an E grade rookie who can barely be trusted to ride in a straight line to a B grade rookie who can barely be trusted to ride in a straight line. Needless to say, his opinion means quite a bit. So I was kinda taken aback on Tuesday night when he started giving me shit about not placing. "Seems the run of Brendan Bailey is over! You let yourself get boxed in," he said. It didn't seem to matter to him that I'd spent the week previous riding from Sydney to Melbourne, or even that I'd won the points race immediately previous."What's that they say? Use your head for cycling and your feet for dancing," he continued.

Nath, who has been around the club a good deal longer than me, later explained to me that this kinda critique from Alf is a good thing. "It means he's watching you, taking an interest in how you're going."

I thought about this a lot at Ryan Adams last night, mostly because I'd publicly bitched and moaned about going, but was secretly pretty keen on seeing him. And you know what? Despite an opening band of truly horrendous proportions (a song about Kylie Minogue's ass was a particular low point), I had a really good time at that show. I've talked before about how much I like classic rock, and let's face it, despite pretensions to Alt-Country, any Cardinals song would fit nicely into a Gold 104 playlist - especially their cover of Wonderwall. And the fact that they started their set at 9pm and were done by 10.30 didn't hurt either - my alarm was due to go off at 6.30, after all.

St You.

I have, contrary to popular belief, returned in one piece, in full possession of all the faculties I had when I departed. When people ask me how the ride went I find it difficult to sum up in one word, but 'alright' seems to be doing the trick for now. When people ask me how my ass was feeling on day 5 and 6, however, they get a significantly different answer. And perhaps a little too much detail.

The question I am facing today, however, relates to music - a welcome return for some readers. Tonight I'm going to go see Ryan Adams play. Word on the street has it that last time someone asked him to sing a Brian Adams song, he took his bat and ball and went home. I can't help but wonder, if the show sucks, how I will find the moral integrity to stop myself from requesting Summer of 69.

Oh, Sinnerman.

I don't like leaving Melbourne at the best of times, but on Saturday I'll be flying up to Sydney, staying for a couple of nights. On Monday morning a bunch of raggedy-assed courier types, fixie kids, McNabb and I will be gathering together at Cheeky Monkey in Newtown, then beginning to ride back to Melbourne along the coast. We're hoping to be back on the 25th, which averages out to about 180 kilometres a day. As much as I'd like to blog continuously throughout the trip, I get the distinct impression that I'll simply be too buggered to do so. But Sarah will be taking photos, and I'll post some of them up here, just to let you share the pain.

Everybody Want To Be An MC.

I was talking with Nath the other day about a cycling event he was putting on. He was mostly doing the promo through a particular website frequented by fixed-gear aficionados and other assorted hipster-biking types. His event was to take place at the Brunswick Velodrome, and he didn't expect a great turn-out. "This has been the problem with the website from the start," he said. "Events that involve riding never do all that well, whereas events like the swap meet, which are about making your bike look cool, are always really well attended." It just so happened that I'd been thinking about this issue a lot - mostly when people give me shit about wearing lycra. "That's because they're into bikes, not cycling." I said. And I feel like these days, when bikes themselves are treated as fashion items or objets d'art, it's a distinction that is growing in importance.

Strangely for me, I don't think either one deserves any heirarchical ascendency over the other, just so long as people are clear about where they stand. If you're into bikes, and having a sweet looking bike that is only ever ridden to Atomica and back, that's just dandy. And if you're into cycling and punish yourself on the hills every weekend, well that's great too. Sure, the two can be combined occasionally, but ultimately when it comes to choosing between form and function, then you gotta figure out which side you're on. This doesn't mean, however, that you get to look down your nose at those who have taken the opposite path. You're not any better than them because you smashed Donna Buang in 1'07", or if you have a set of sweet old school Shamals. You're just doing something different. And that's ok.

Hell, maybe it's even possible to go one step further than this. Maybe we should encourage one another. When people are into something, really passionate about it, then we should be stoked for them, right? You know, unless it's heroin.

Chosen Strong.

As I think I've written previously, when I'm out biking I listen to my ipod on random. This always makes for interesting listening. Interspersed amongst the usual punk and hip hop classics there are French lessons, obscure bebop outtakes and hour long noise soundscapes. It also often throws up records I'd forgotten I own. Such was the case yesterday, when a song came on that was rocky and punky like Hot Snakes, but a bit rougher and more melodic. I couldn't figure it out for a while, before I eventually remembered that it was a song from the Grenadiers demo that Jesse gave me last time they were out. The songwriting and structure is surprisingly mature, given they're still quite young, but I guess when you've been around the Adelaide scene for so long then you get old quick. Myspace tells me that they've recorded a new album. Here's hoping we get to see it soon.

Determination.

2008: The Year In Review.

It didn't totally suck.

Love Brendan.

I Am The Rain, I Am The New Year. I Am The Sun.

Last New Year's Eve it was hot, damned hot. A bunch of us bummed around the house for a bit, then when it had cooled down enough jumped on our bikes and went from party to party until we found ourselves, at around 4am, at the annual gathering in the park next to Fitzroy Pool. I felt pretty good about going home at that point.

This year it ain't so hot. We're going to be riding our bikes around again, with a few ideas about possible destinations. There may be fireworks at some point, but I doubt I'll make it til 4am. What with Public Enemy playing at the Espy on New Year's Day, and a ride to Mt Donna Buang looming on the second day of the new year, the significance of tonight is fading fast. But even when everything else seems more important, we must remember this: tonight will be our last chance in a thousand years to wear those glasses with the two zeros in the middle. Bring on 2009.

Not Growing Up

This came a few days ago from the bikesnob:

"One of my favorite things about cycling is that it can reward suffering with joy. Another thing I love about it is that it often rejects those who don't understand this. Cycling teaches you that there's such a thing as necessary suffering and such a thing as unnecessary suffering, and that sometimes a short cut is a dead end. I'm sorry the hardships Mackey encountered while cycling and blogging made him "feel awful about the world." If he'd looked at them differently, they would have made him love it."

The Universe Is Shaped Exactly Like The Earth.

The most beautiful song about abortion ever:

My Time Is Up.

Last year, for pretty much the whole year, I woke up with the Constantines song Lizavetta in my head. This year it's the Constantines again, but these mornings I'm all about Million Star Hotel. Though they're a fucking great live band, this video doesn't really do the song justice - on record that riff is bludgeoning, sharp and heavy like a cleaver. I've tried, repeatedly, to convert people to the Cons, with limited to no success, and I have no idea why.

Are You Holding On?

Apparently riding your bike doesn't always have to be about pain, suffering and going really really fast. Picture used entirely without permission. Sorry Genevieve.

Soldiers.

I was talking to this American cyclist the other day at DISC. She had been here for the track world cup, and was sticking around for a bit in order to prepare for the next round in Beijing. It's perhaps needless to say that she knew what she was talking about. I listened hard (you know, playing cool at the same time). We bantered a bit, she gave me good advice for my next races and I asked her about training. "It was so tough today," she said, "I spent most of the day in the pain box." I'd never heard this expression before, so rolled with it, making jokes about the only pain box I know being when Home and Away comes on the TV. And then she dropped something into the conversation that, despite a good three years of serious athletic training, any number of stupid hill rides and a human art gallery of bodgy tattoos, never really occurred to me before. "That's really the main difference between a good athlete and a great athlete," she explained. "The great athlete knows how to cope when they're in the pain box."

Let me tell you, I totally slaughtered people on the commute home tonight, thinking about the pain box.

Play Us A Song You're A First Here.

These days I'm pretty much throwing myself wholeheartedly into biking, and the long hours I spend alone battling hills give me a lot of time to think about things. The thing I seem to spend the most time thinking about are the differences between my first real love - punk rock - and my newfound infatuation with two wheels and the truth. Cycling, for me, represents the polar opposite to what I used to love about punk: it is easily quantifiable, whereas punk and music in general is about quality; it is individualistic, whereas punk, for me at least, is all about community; it's competitive, whereas most punks seem to prefer co-operation; it's physical whereas punk is mental (and, at best, emotional); and punk is messy whereas cycling is simple. In my head I know that punk - and that activism that, for me, accompanies it - is where I should be dedicating my time. But I'm not. Instead of staying out late discussing the anarcho-syndicalist revolution while listening to Crass, I'm waking up early to ride out to Kinglake. I don't really have any justification for why. But I know I'll be doing the same next weekend.

Wasting Your Time.

I sometimes wonder if when I'm typing the acronym for the Bureau of Meteorology into Google a little warning light doesn't go off at the Defence Signals Directorate under the big sign that says "Illiterate Terrorists".

The Time It Takes To Make A Cup Of Tea.

I gotta confess, the first time I saw Cuz Bro I didn't think a whole lot of him. There's a lot of kids getting into riding fixies these days, and when I saw him rolling around the meeting point for the Wednesday night ride I wrote him off as just another newbie. He was wearing short stripey shorts and a V-necked t-shirt that screamed the wrong side of the river, and had a bike that looked like it'd been cobbled together five minutes ago. But he was a mate of Matt's, so I gave him a go. It wasn't til the ride ventured up the Punt Road Hill that I realised how wrong I'd been. The kid didn't just beat me up that hill. He fucking destroyed me.

I've ridden around with him a bunch of times since then, including in his first alleycat, this Halloween just passed. He was dressed up as Spiderman and had no idea where he was going. I was dressed up as a rapper and was lugging a five kilo boombox in my messenger bag. I sucked his wheel and yelled directions at him over the hip hop blasting from my back. Matt was in the mix, dressed as Superman, and we both latched on. We thread our way through the traffic, weaving impossible lines and creating space from nothing, and eventually took first, second and third place.

This last Sunday, racing again, he got away from me a little bit, and I was able to watch him in amidst the chaos. Smashing it down the Collins Street Hill he didn't stop at Russell, didn't slow down, didn't even pause. He just thread the eye of the needle between two cars, with about five centimetres either side. I was keeping pace with Andy White at the time. The bloke has ridden - and won - alleycats on three continents, including a handful in New York. He knows his shit. So when he turned around and gave the international sign for 'crazy', index finger circling his ear, it was obvious that he'd seen something impressive.

And Cuz is impressive to watch. Thinking about the ride later on that evening I felt like Kerouac thinking about Neil Cassady, who later appeared in On The Road in the guise of Dean Moriarty. One bit in particular sprang to mind - when Kerouac is talking about Dean's driving, and how the gaps he found were so small, so non-existent, that he must have somehow factored in the moment of hesitation on the part of the other driver. As if he has made every possible calculation in a fraction of a second, and somehow come up with the precise answer. Remembering Cuz in the traffic that Sunday afternoon is to remember so many factors at play, and all of them coming together at once. Even if he did get lost and come in pretty close to last. Even if he did bin it. He may not have won, but fuck, either did Cassady.