Category Archives: Rhetoric

My Ramblings, my soapbox as it may be. My views on popular culture and what’s happening with our world.

Coors Classic part Deux

Coors Classic part Deux-5, originally uploaded by Xvelo Designs.

Pedaled downtown today to check out the announcement of the new Quizno’s Pro Cycling Extravaganza or whatever it’s called. Then went and pedaled to Wash Park with Lance Armstrong and Governor Ritter (and 10k other people) This should be wicked for the state and I promise not to be one of the fruit bags in a thong with horns on my head fucking with the racers, I’ll be obnoxiously drinking beer and cussing from a far.  More info here it sure is funny to see how many ignorant morons live in this fine state.  But luckily for us they’re all unemployed and only have time to post to semi-literate news sites.  It keeps them off the streets.

Cheers

Cycling the food chain

OK so a minor rant today about cycling etiquette.  I ride multiple bikes and pedal as much as a suburban work-a-day stiff kind find the time to (I’m also quite lazy).  I would consider myself a cyclist foremost as the riding and thoughts of cycling comprise 90% of my non-family thoughts.  If I had to narrow what kind of cyclist, no real reason except to banter on the interweb, I would say I’m a mountain biker closely followed by a bicycle commuter.  Though I ride a bicycle during a commuting or getting somewhere circumstance more than I ride the MTB, I like the mountain cycling better than pedaling to work in 10 degree temps.  In my opinion, mountain bike enthusiasts are the top of the cycling food chain as far as humans who pedal bikes go.  We are friendly, we say hello on trail, most of us are not assholes who ride wet trails and don’t yield to other trail users and a we work on the trails we ride.  When is the last time you saw a roadie in tight pants and an orange vest doing road work?  Any way I digress.  Maybe it’s the nature that should chill everyone out and make people have fun at what they’re doing or it’s just the hi-low tech (doesn’t matter) love of the cycle.

The next on the cycling food chain I used to think was the bicycle commuter.  I could smile at cars stuck in traffic with my self-assuring glare that I’m better than them because I caused zero emissions on the way to the office and I’m in a hell of a lot better mood than them.  But now, oh now, I commute along a rather traveled stretch of bike lane everyday in Denver.  20th street runs from west to east and is safer than some of the other streets that go through as far as it does.  I feel we are unique as commuters and we should share a certain camaraderie amongst our superiority complexes, but my fellow commuters are assholes.  Or as preoccupied as a 17 year old texting the passenger in her car as she runs over old ladies in cross-walks.  I’m all for the zen and solitude of a nice bicycle ride but what the fuck?  Say hello!! Be Polite!  Any way, again I digress, I can rest assured that we are still better, even though impolite, than people who drive cars as a lifestyle choice.   Any ways, there are the hipster dufus guys in tight jeans and fixed gear bikes, nothing to complain about there, natural selection will take care of that.   Roadies would come next, they are the epitome of the superiority complex.  They are fast, or at least look that way, and they are building lean muscle and have no time for the plebeians.  What ever, they suck, don’t say hi when you pass them going up big hills.

Wait I think I’m rambling now.  I meant to make some point about how bicycle commuters are higher on the food chain than the recumbant riders and the trials riders.  We were way higher on the chain than the unicyclists.  Even higer than the recumbant unicyclists who ride trials, the are the dregs of cycling.  No one really takes us seriously.  We are the hood-ornaments of the cycling world, the yellow jacket, peg panted army that will always be made fun of by the “serious” cyclist.  OK, still rambling (I’m Old and Bitter) anyways, fumbling through the interweb this evening after work, a way better blog than mine posted a video of this amazing kid riding street/trials and us poor commuters dropped under the trials guys in the food chain.

It’s five and a half minutes of your life that will not be wasted…
Fruita Fat Tire Festival is this week, we’re leaving on Thursday AM and we’ll rock and drink through Sunday morning/afternoon. If you’re going and unfortunate enough to read this blog, leave a comment and we’ll see you there.  I’ll have the low-down, photos, and random rants about them dang kids with their streamers and fancy bikes.  All for now.

Recap of the week…

Yeah, a whole lot going on in the world today.  I won’t complain about our president’s (Pelosi’s sp?) stimulus package until we hit the depression stages.  I’ll be out at Walmart with my credit cards until then!  The US is heading to shit and quick but atleast it’ll be on a gravy train with biscuit wheels for the big banks taking us there, we’ll ride under the tracks.

Did go riding on Thursday night with the fast boys.  Did Buffalo Creek as slow as I possibly could and kept my lunch in.  Seems like the more I ride the weaker I get.  Might have been the blatant misuse of food and booze in Dallas early in the week but excuses aside, it was still fun.  Guys without brakes, freezing fingers and toes, crashes (including one by your author)j, the slickest ice ever made and great single track through fire ravaged mountains.  Cant be beat.  The photos below were taken with the Canon G10, I keep meaning to take some action shots but while I cant keep up with anyone I might be lucky to get an ass shot.  Anyway not much to look at but still it was a fun night.  Here is a link for geeks to the particulars…LINK According to the other GPSs on the ride, the milage is right but the overall climbing is off by +900 feet, but it still sounds good.  Speed and heart rate is for me, you can multiply speed by 2 and divide heartrate by 2 for the other 9 guys riding.

Starry Starry Skys…

The boys at the trail head

Pre-ride readiness

Anyway, off to France for this week.  Hopefully will sell my house over there and I’ll come back a better man.  Stay tuned for full report next week…

An Ordinary Day…

Most days in our lives pass through as an ordinary day. We wake up do some stuff, eat something and then go back to sleep. Seemingly pointless…unless you have a blog to tell other people about your pointless day. Does that give it a point? Could someone else be even more bored to waste braincells reading about a strangers ordinary day? Who knows…

My ordinary day begins as any other day, wake up, drink coffee, check photos on JPG Magazine and begin the day.

Look in the mirror to see the broken blood vessel in my eye.

Broken blood vessel in my eye

No changes, so I decide to go for a bike ride in the forests surrounding our region. It’s amazing, we’ve lived here in central France for almost 3 years and I’m just now going out on these old forest/logging roads to see if I can get lost. Had a great ride, no photos though, the rain has been coming down and I had no idea how the trail conditions would be so better safe than sorry. Here are some after ride shots.

Glad I threw some big tires on the Orbea for these roads, most of them are butter smooth but the mud, oh the mud is like cement, and sticks to the bike and body worse.

The ride was only 10 miles today but I did get lost, bled and had to walk through 2ft deep mud for quite some time. Not epic, but certainly good times on an ordinary day.

Back at the ranch we’re cleaning up the borders that have been overrun by nasty vines and scraggly bushes, we worked on the front border outside the mill house today.

Where to begin??? Input from the whole family is necessary.

Michelle hard at work while play with the Nikon.

The border is still a work in progress, I may or may not post some finished pictures when it’s done. We worked until about 6:00 pm or so and had our obligitory soak in the hot tub. Michelle made an amazing Quatre Saison pizza for dinner and we all went to bed content that another day had come and gone.

Until the phone started ringing. Michelle had been in contact with the family in Denver all afternoon, Laura had gone into labor and baby Bianca would be born today.

Welcome to the world baby girl!

Congratulations to Laura and Aurturo for another perfect child on this planet! We send our love and wish we were there with you now!

The ordinary day had turned extraordinary, the family has gotten larger and happier!

As a new day starts, we have no idea what it will bring (though I have images of plumbing and painting) I’m sure that something will happen to make this day memorable. Enough of this post, I’ll be back with something else some other time.

First Post…

Welcome to the first post of Xvelo Design…

This is a site for my narcissistic side to feel published and like I’m a contributor to the waste and slaughter of trillions of zeros and ones per day.

I will post photos from my world along with my soapbox topics of the day, so in short we’ll talk about photography, see my gallery, I will update that way more than I work on this but it’s good to have hobbies, right?

Anyway enjoy, for nobody that’s watching, I’ll be going to France next week to join my family and for an excellent summer of cycling and eating.

 Have a nice day!

 Some Photos to get you through:

Seeing if it works

These photos are from a shoot we did at a clients of Rocky Mountain Remodeling Resources

Kitchen View 2