Pantani cometh. Oh shit it's only a week out.

Dave sent me a message last week that began with "Humor the media, podium contender..."

Either Dave is on the really good stuff, or he's talking about the Smelly Armpit of podiums, the podium for which the award is a very ill-fitting though quite soft and warm pair of Pink Socks, which smell faintly of cigars and the crushing reality of an optimistic gearing.

The Calzini Rosa are a noble tradition, dating back I'm not sure how long, but probably before I was born. Seen here, they adorn handlebars like vestigial grip warmers, from the previous generations when we didn't have inventions like the bar mitt. I wanted to make a pogie joke, but couldn't figure one out.

Those with very big monitors or the highly specialized skill of "zooming in" will notice a few things about this picture. Number one is what our friend Quadsworth McHusband calls a drooper, and what I prefer to call my office chair, though that's quite hyperbolic concerning the money I make riding my bike. Number two is that I am very very bad at making a bike look good. All black bike with a white saddle? Nope. Blue top cap, gold bolt, and purple seat clamp? Grimace. Pink AND Purple on the same bike? Call Stacy and Clinton from that horrible TV show, How Not To Be Pro.

Speaking of pros, I'm going to stir the media pot by posting never-before-seen photos of B-slow (where did that name even come from?) racing a 'cross race on a mountain bike. He decided that he would be like every other cocky mountain biker in the 'cross scene and stick to his flat bars and fat tires in America's Must-Not-Be-Muddy-Or-Endanger-Trees Pastime. Seriously though, it seems like the vast majority of mountain bikers that enter the highly regulated and often mocked world of cyclocross racing just give a giant middle finger to all the committed and totally serious cross racers on skinnier tires. "Hey, let's not train and gain bike handling skills on skinny tires, lets just give ourselves a giant handicap and who cares about real cross racers.

Let's be clear though. The writer of this blog rides his mountain bike in cross races on a regular basis. However, this writer/rider needs the handicap, as evidenced by the way he attacks off the gun, mixes it up at the front for a half lap, then promptly gets dropped harder than Wrong Turn Charlie at Pantani IX/X. After getting dropped thusly, the mountain bike allows him to do dumb/radical things like hop barriers one-handed while wearing the Calzini Rosa on his face.

When we toe the line in approximately 5 days and 17 hours, we'll all be looking at each other's ridiculously tall gearing and be shaking in our Calzini Rosas with the fear of Simmon's in us. Oh wait, I'll be the only idiotic asshole (courageous hardman?) on a singlespeed, so I'll just be looking at everyone's shifty bits and shaking because I just peed a little.

At least I'll end up with some dirty smelly pink socks to hang from my mantle next Christmas.

A parting picture of Gordon's Butt and my Big Unit right next to each other.