I decided to start this endeavor to try and have my genius recognized and properly remunerated since it does not seem that I will be having a career in comedy due to me neither being funny nor having an act.
Except for some stretches in the late 1990s, I have been a cyclist since the late 1980s. The name of this blog is a bit of a joke since “racers” mock “coffee riders” and I now embrace who I am. Although I rode a lot, I was at-best a mediocre Category 3 racer. I am probably being overly generous to myself if I say I was mediocre. I lacked talent as well as the ability to adequately disregard to prospects of serious bodily injury generally required to race.
I accept who I am as a cyclist and am much better for it. While I have never been a good racer, I have a track record of one marriage and zero divorces. Even better, I enjoy spending time with my wife and dogs such that letting too much of my life revolve around riding in circles around industrial parks in the greater Los Angeles area to be unappealing.
One of my last races was the 2010 St. Valentine’s Massacre Criterium in Brea. My wife actually came up with me (voluntarily, I might add) and afterwards, we went to a 24 Hour fitness, showered and changed, then went out to dinner at a Persian restaurant in Irvine before buying some rose ice cream at the market next door and brought it home in a bag of ice so it wouldn’t melt too badly. The most significant event of the day was neither the race nor the dinner, but the decision as to what the dog’s name would be even though we were just starting the process of moving forward to having our own baby.
It was at some point in the following month after we had adopted our first dog that I found myself at the Murrieta Criterium. My biggest accomplishment of the day was not crashing after a close call. While never good at the racing part of racing, I was generally good about not crashing and not getting hurt. I realized even more that day that racing was no longer fun and that it was not important for any sense of identity. More so, I found myself looking forward to being home so I could spend time with the dog, who was very much a puppy at the time.
Although now a coffee rider, which I would generally just define as someone who is a recreational rider (regardless of the speed) whose cycling life revolves not around racing, but rather riding with friends and hanging out at coffee shops. Post-Covid, this is a bit different, but I work to find enjoyment where I can. I am still very much a bike dork and love bikes, so I am going to write about bikes and bike stuff. In this regard, I am going to focus on what interests me and there are plenty of other people writing about the mass market stuff. What interests me the most are the bikes by small builders and others that are part of cycling history and that generally are not popped out of molds in Chinese and Taiwanese factories.
The picture of me in the gold luchador mask of from the Breakfast Burrito Ride (“BBR”) prior to the 2019 Belgian Waffle Ride. Eliel Cycling did a run of fuschia kits and called it the Fushciador. I thought it would be fun to do the BBR ride in a Luchador mask and it seemed like gold would just take it over the top. If you are going to be silly, you need to go all the way. If you disagree, please consult Will Ferrell (the actor, not my cousin) about what can happen to you when saying “yes” to crazy ideas.
The Coffee Ride Reporter 