Depressed monkey

Today was a big day for my Karate Monkey. The other day I noticed that more and more things on it were becoming blue. Since I replaced the perfectly functioning FSA headset with a much nicer blue Chris King headset, the entire theme of the bike went from multi coloured anodised bits, to blue anodised bits. So, in a fit of fashion conciousness, I replaced the cranks and chainring with the Middleburn set which sport nice blue bolts.
I put the new Egg-beaters on that have a blue spring as apposed to silver. The Salsa Rasta coloured skewers had to go and on went the blue Hopes. Then all that was left to do was liven up the bars by wrapping them in some blue bar tape. I suppose now i need to find a blue seat post collar.

Home alone

Between myself and Pia, I’m usually the one who travels all the time, leaving her at home to do her thing; so her being away this week has been a new experience for me. For a few reasons, this week has proved that I must really enjoy my time with her.
1. I don’t even look at my watch when I'm at work in order to count down the remaining minutes before knock off. I don’t care how long I hang there because Pia isn’t home. And I ride home at a liesurely pace, what's up with that?
2. I keep seeing her in crowds she’s not in.
3. I’m bored because the things i want to do would be better with Pia.
4. The garden is getting out of control.

Friday

6:55am, Friday 4 May 2007. My commute to work, Hermit Park.
There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

Morning Worship

Things I like doing no. 2: Morning Worship.
They are a strange breed, I like to think of them as somewhat mysterious. Those people that fly past in the shadows before the sun has even begun to fill the sky with colour. The only real sign of their presence being the sound of thousands of synchronised parts meshing, tyres hissing on the road and a small head and tail light acting as beacons to unsuspecting
travellers.

Getting up at 4:55am to go for a long ride before work or on the weekend is probably one of the most masochistic things I do. I don’t love the act of getting up but I love the result, a long, fast and generally social ride through the city streets at dawn before all of the cages begin to take over the roads like a plague, auto-commuting like robotic rats.
The virtues of such a ritual cannot be explained to those ignorant to the joys of cycling, even some cyclists wouldn’t understand the freedom that can be found on the city streets before the heads of those uninitiated have risen.
Akin to outlaw biker gangs we travel in packs; our leathers made from synthetic moisture wicking materials; our weapons made from carbon fibre, metal and rubber; and our ideals simple and somewhat selfish: to speed through life with the wind in our hair and the world behind us.
It’s kind of Fight Club-esque, when later in the day, dressed in suits, behind desks, behind counters, in laboratories, office buildings or cafeterias, we can only be recognised by our bulging quads, funny tan lines and distant glances; our bikes hidden in corners of homes and offices, poised for another dawn raid on the city.

Killing MySpace

The other day I decided to cut my ties with MySpace and let my page run free; I wont check on it anymore, wont feed it new info or change it's background. It will be free to thrive on comments, hits and messages; getting larger and larger until one day it will be destroyed by an automated system that will detect the fact that its owner no longer loves it. I was pretty sick of a few things, here's just a few:
1. The people who exist on MySpace to portray an image that they can’t back up in real life. I’m pretty sure most real gansters don’t give a crap about whether or not someone has left a comment on their MySpace site and a ‘hit’ probably means something completely different in their world.
2. I’m more of a get on the internet, do my business, get off and go do something else with my time type person. For that reason, browsing and searching aimlessly doesn’t usually work (except for nice new woollen jersey or some beautiful leather bar tape).
3. Many, many, many (but not all) of the people on there are weird and slightly scary to me. The latest was a girl called Rennie who lived far too close to me and wanted to know how my night was going when I was by chance at home alone!!!
4. If something makes me feel slightly embarrassed to admit to, then I probably shouldn’t be doing it. Admitting I have a MySpace page was equivalent to my admission that I watch Ugly Betty.
5. I don’t understand the concept of getting an email telling me to check my messages, only to have to then log in, click, click, click, click and click and then find what strangely resembles an e-mail anyway lodged deep in the bowels of MySpace.
Don’t get me wrong, some aspects are worthwhile and some of my good friends find it a great tool to meet people and keep in touch, I think that's great, but I prefer to ride my bike somewhere and meet people when I get there, the same thing really, might call it MyRide. Do gangsters ride bikes?