There is a country down to the South and the East of us called Texas.

Ahhhh Texas..

"God's spur..."

"Where the heavens meet the earth...."

"The blueprint for the West.."

"The state that Austin's in..."

(By the way, as far as I know, I just made all of those slogans up. If anyone who reads this blog happens to work for the Texas tourism board, caaaallll mmeeeee...)

Anyhoo, James lives there, and he just sent me an email about showing up to a gun fight with a pencil;

"Stevil,

I present to you a story of a man (me). A man who went on a ride with Independant Fabrications dudes and whose assumptions about the ride were not accurate.

Sometimes you don't belong

p.s. I've also relayed my story to Jonny @ drunkcyclist as my love for you two is not prioritized.

-James"

First off, I would be shocked and dismayed if any of the good people from I.F. even considered a stink eye for someone who showed up to a bike ride, regardless of what kind of bike they were on.
Of the individuals whom I've met from that organization over the years, there is nary a single one that wasn't a true blue, salt-of-the-earth type.
Good people. Every one of them.

Except that Steve Elmes guy. He's as shady as they come, but I guess thats why they shipped him off to Boulder.

Where they take cyclocross seriously.

And secondly, I'm honored to be lumped in with Jonny. He's also extraordinarily shady, but out weighs me by about 250 pounds and will pop my head like a zit, so I have to be cordial to him.

Another individual who resides on the internet, and would just as soon plunge a shiv into my back as look at me is the The Bike Snob, pictured here, who as you all probably know has recently concluded a photo contribution contest of epic proportions, which I eagerly included a prize pack for.
The Snob sent me the victor's shipping address, and aside from the coozy (or, for the heavy metalers in the audience, a cüzy) and my lucky elk tooth, I broke out one of my very most prized possessions.

A near mint copy of the highly acclaimed 'Welcome Back Kotter' comic book;

While we're on the topic of people winning things, I of course cant hesitate to mention Dan's victory in winning the motivational poster contest here on HTATBL. For his efforts, and though it's not nearly as awesome as the comic book, I picked the very best of the best off of my desk and sent it out to him, post-haste;

Two note worthy items contained therein are the little red van and the black balled up thing in the opposite corner. The red van has a little window in the back that if you look into it, you'll see three very clean cut men, one straddling a dirt bike, while the other two appear to be gazing into his shoulder and groin. The black thing, as near as I can recall is a pair of used panties I bought off of the internet for $250.00 and only wore like, a couple times.

It's good to be a winner.

As Hump day settled its way into my world this week, I got an email from renound frame builder, and ping pong player extraordinaire, Rick Hunter to join him in a mid-day jaunt through the woods, while atop our mountain bicycles.
As I had completed my floor sweeping and garbage taking outing duties for the first part of the day, I enthusiastically agreed, and met him (where else?) at the donut shop.
We rolled away, with high hopes and light hearts and were soon zipping along under a thick canopy of folliage, only stopping occasionally to procure what the Canadians call 'footie';

I was so taken by the french twist in Rick's mouth when shooting this 'footie' that I recoiled slightly and made a blury photo.

Totally unprofessional.

Within minutes, Rick had crashed twice, but undeterred, we traveled on in our quest for rad getting;

We had nothing before us but opportunity, when I heard Rick call out from the woods that he'd torn the sidewall from the bead on his front tire;

Rolling slowly away from the scene, we made silent pacts to emerge from the woods intact, when suddenly, on a small uphill grunt, my chain broke, sending my man parts one million miles an hour into my stem, and then over the handlebars, my right hand planting solidly on top of a short retaining wall post, catapulting my body in a perfect front hand spring over the wall and into the abyss.
Being the boyscout that Rick is, he pulled a master link from his pocket, and again, we rolled steadily, albeit bruised and battered back into civilization.

Finally, back at the safety of the bike shop, we began taking a tally of our mishaps. Roughly one hour on the bikes, three crashes, one destroyed tire, and a broken chain.

I'm glad we got that out of our systems.

As a last punch to my psyche, Rick, the consummate fabricator, the man who designs bikes and bike parts sought after the world over, the never ending source of fantastic new ideas that have the capacity to change bicycle technology as we know it, lifted his shirt to reveal his inspired method with which he keeps up his pants;

There isn't an alarm clock made that will wake you up early enough to get one over on this guy.

Finally, while I'm blowing all remaining stock of sunshine up his proverbial skirt, I should finally mention the annual ho-down that he's throwing this coming weekend;

It promises to totally suck and totally rule, all at the same time.

I guess the only way to wrap this post up is to include a bunch of unicorns that I have had sitting patiently (they're a very patient animal, you know) within the chaos that is my inbox;

First up, Daniel writes;

"The new Swobo team mascot?"

Yes, Daniel, if I have anything to say about it, it will be.
Unless of course it's a white power unicorn, and in that case, we'll have to show it the door.

Or, if it's like the one that was sent to us by Charles and surrounded by a boner rainbow- (perhaps a rain boner?)

"Hey Stevil,

DK Bikes sent us this, they had a tattoo design contest. The winning design would then be forever embodied on this guy named Catfish.

As you can see this one was a clear winner, and is now on Catfish's knee. We thought you would enjoy it as much as we do."

What's gonna be not to like about having that on your knee in forty years?

All I know is that in forty years, I hope to find myself in this situation;

... Raging with my pants down, surrounded by loved ones and being entertained by my grandson, Jedediah Machine Gun Blitzkrieg Kinevil.

He's gonna be a star.

So you know, back a little earlier on, I was talking about Austin...

Ahh, Austin..

"The jewel in the crown of Texas...."

"The place where Lance lives..."

"A city with a heart as big as the state in which it exists..."

"Austin- The only thing wrong with it is that it's in Texas..."

(Remember tourism board... calll meee..)

Well, El Gato sent in a bit about a bad guy there getting his just deserts;

"Hey Stevil,

An amigo (General Patton) in Austin mentioned how the local bike crew corralled a real life Bike Rustler.

Apparently the whole investigation got kicked off after the bad guy complained about a local CX course not being Euro-enough ( just another reason to be friendly with the local promoters).

Here's hoping he makes lots of new friends in the Big House.

Score 1 for the good guys!

El Gato"

As far as that story goes, and seeing that we haven't had a Friday Hero in a while, why not offer it up to the good people in the Austin cycling community who blew the whistle on this nefarious character?

Works for me.

Alright then... Would you all pack up your goods and kindly step the hell on to the good times?
The weekend is not waiting and most assuredly wont forget itself...

In this posts conclusion, I was inspired to include a link to the Urban Dictionary definition of 'radtarded' that I sent in to them that said the following;

"Radtarded-

Getting totally awesome and totally not awesome all at the same time, but with totally awesome results.

"I was playing wall ball with Gary Busey this weekend and then we drove a dragster to the bar and drank a ton of beer. I barfed but then I found a suitcase full of money, so the next day we went sky diving.
It was radtarded."

Sadly, somebody beat me to the punch, but what is even worse was their super stupid definition.

Oh, the humanity.

*Update* It looks like I squeezed into infamy after all. It's good to have powerful people in powerful places.

Anyway, I'm off to get radtarded. Might I suggest you do the same?