1. 

1. Cool is always cool..
2. Awesome is respect
3. Bling aint Bling anymore
4. things aint gonna change for awhile
5. Be nice to people
6. Arguing with people is waste o time
7. Shut up more often
8. Change your bar tape often
9. Change your under wear more
10. No one cares un less they ask
11. Stop using the letter I so often
12. Treat people more than they treat you
13. try doing intervals instead of group rides
14. dont over analyze is it
15. complaining is to adults as crying is to little children
16. trust animals
17. Text a friend
18. proper fit will override the next senseless purchase 
19. Phart-Bikes are dead
20. Killed by Zwift
21. Stop expecting soo much out of people
22. Your not great everything accept it
23. Don’t talk with your mouthful 
24. If your spouse wasn’t a porn star..chances are she ain’t gonna be one alls quiet on the hatin front
25. wonder what the WIZ is doin
26. I miss Danny
27. That Kid that looks like that kid from remember the Titans heads west for some CX base training
28. CX yea..thats not happening this year
29. Michigan will soon lobby to be its own Country..
30. Nice pull
31. Jaws three ain’t so bad
32. Martyrdom is overrated 
33. Did covid kill the Death crit?
34. The Maumee Valley wheelman keep critin. Despite the virus
35. Vegas oddsmakers are betting against the Iceman 
36. Tarmac killed the Venge 
37. Tits are underrated 
38. Ass is over
39. Wonder what Johnny Utah is doing
40. Anyone remember Rick..well hung Lung
41. John Rigdon...why did Lathrup pick that guy up bitd
42. Ever-wresting records continued to get smashed
43. Garmin caught a bug and suddenly everyone’s activity’s don’t count 
44. Where’s my two-dollars?
45. Most Manufacturers cut there CX bike line to two models 
46. Florida..Covid..Hurricanes..now UFOs
47. Warbasse still carrying the US flag in Europe 
48. Anyone remember the Milford crit
49. The scene needs more Joberon 
50. Let’s come up with an alternative if the iceman gets cancelled 
51. I’m TMS n I hate TMS

The Grind: Svein Tuft rides to the start of a 2,000km race — from Andorra

The retired WorldTour racer is signed up for GBDuro, a 2,000km self-supported race across Britain. And of course he rode to the start — from three countries away.

The Grind is a weekly column on all things gravel. 

During his racing days, Canadian Svein Tuft impressed fans with his feats of strength on the bike, and impressed his fellow racers with his life outside racing. Things like fighting off a wolf with a hockey stick, riding to team camp in California — from Canada, or riding to Alaska — from Vancouver — on a $40 mountain bike while pulling a trailer with his heavy dog and camping supplies.

Related:

Svein Tuft and the Zen of Retirement
Parsing truth from fiction in Svein Tuft’s legendary ‘hobo’ adventures
The oldest Tour rookie of the modern era, Svein Tuft is a rider like no other

Now retired from WorldTour racing, Tuft has signed up for GBDuro, the self-sufficient 2,000km race across the length of Britain, from Land’s End in the southwest to John O’Groats in the northeast. Last year EF Pro Cycling’s Lachlan Morton won it. Beginning August 1 this year, the route includes road, gravel, and singletrack, but no outside support or even provisions of any kind. In short, it’s perfect for Tuft.

“I really like the format this year: You can’t buy anything, you can’t stop anywhere for shelter or to get food anywhere,” Tuft said. “That is right up my alley for sure.”

One little side note: The man is currently riding to the start. From his adopted home in Andorra.

“It’s been a funny little mission,” Tuft said from France. “I rode across from Andorra up to northern France, up into the Bretagne region. The plan was to take a ferry across and then ride down to Land’s End. The trip across France was great, and allowed for some time with the family.”

Once at the ferry crossing, however, coronavirus complications ensued.

“They know don’t allow for walk-ons because of covid, and I couldn’t even buy a scheduled ticket without a vehicle. So I rented a car just to be able to get on the ferry, and now I am going to take the ferry across and just park the car on the other side, which is just ridiculous,” he said.

I asked him how long he expects the actual GBDuro event to take.

“I don’t know, man. This is not my specialty in racing these things,” he said. “I am out for the experience. Just going into unknown territories, I like that. The logistics and all this other crap, I didn’t sign up for that. But at that point I had put a lot of resources into it, so I was like, I’m fucking all in.”

A total of 14 people have signed up for the event, which was modified this year to forbid stopping at stores for food. Last year racers could buy provisions along the way, they just couldn’t have a support crew. The event also banned riders from flying to the start this year to reduce pollution.

“Who knows how long it will take,” Tuft said of the GBDuro. “Filtering your own water… these things can all add some proper time to your day. The extra load of all the extra food. By the second half of the trip, things should start going faster.”

The GBDuro has a real-time tracker that currently is tracking the racers as they commute to the event. You can read about the race and the non-profit promoter, The Racing Collective, on the club’s website.

Belgian Waffle Ride founder says likelihood of 2020 edition ‘keeps eroding’

"We are using this time to better prepare ourselves for conducting events in 2021 and beyond," says BWR founder Michael Marckx.

When organizers of the Belgian Waffle Ride announced in mid-March that they were postponing the May 3 event in San Diego until November 8 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the new date seemed like a lifetime away. Most of the 4,000 registered riders saw their race entries automatically roll over to the rescheduled date. They penciled the new date in on the calendar and hunkered down, hopeful that the health crisis would improve by then.

Now, November 8 is only 102 days away, and ‘better’ is not exactly the way things are going.

While BWR plans to make an official announcement regarding the fate of the 2020 event in September, the continued uptick in coronavirus cases in the United States is putting the event in jeopardy.

“We’re spending all sorts of time and psychic energy to figure out what would be the best practices for such a large event,” said race founder Michael Marckx. “We do this as much with optimism as we do to be better ready for 2021, as the likelihood of a mass event in San Diego in November keeps eroding with the pandemic’s spread in neighboring counties, cities, and states.”

A shift to November
When the great gravel calendar reshuffle began to play out in March and April, September race dates quickly filled up. In fact, Marckx said he would have liked to reschedule the May 3 event in San Diego for September, “but at the time there were so many other events that month, we didn’t want to step on top of another promoter’s event.”

Because they already had city and county permitting for a different event in early November that had to be canceled, Marckx and his team slotted BWR into the November 8 date. It seemed like the lateness would turn out to be fortuitous, as events that had either originally been planned for September, such as Rebecca’s Private Idaho, or had been rescheduled until then started to cancel outright, like DK.

Nevertheless, the cancelation of every major gravel race since the Mid South on March 14 does not bode well for BWR, even given its mid-autumn date. Not only does holding an event pose a major risk to both racers and the community where the event is held, there is currently no blueprint for how to safely hold a mass-start event of BWR’s size and scope within a COVID-19 hotspot. When I asked Marcxk if he had seen any examples of bikes races whose COVID-19 mitigation plan he found reasonable or achievable, he didn’t give the answer I was expecting.

“I haven’t seen any,” Marckx said. “Have you?”

Utah event likely to continue
If there is opportunity for a test run for BWR, it’s in Cedar City, Utah on October 17.

In February, BWR’s production company, Monuments of Cycling, announced that it was expanding from the original San Diego location to include events in Asheville, North Carolina and Cedar City, Utah for 2020. The August 3 race in Asheville would commence the ‘Tripel Crown of Gravel’ series. While the Asheville event was canceled, the race in Cedar City is still on the calendar. Marckx says that although the local government and business partners in the southwestern Utah city are very keen to have the race come to town in mid-October, he and his team are reticent.

“We have a few items on our minds that we are grappling with, as well as a large checklist of things we need to do to make this safe for the riders and the community,” he said. “This includes the fact that we will not host any indoor functions, that we will require temperature readings, riders to wear masks during the expo/registration (including during the opening neutral section of the race and after), there will be social distancing in practice, food will be served in individual wrapping (including at aid stations), and we will have aid stations that are manned with people there to clean up and constantly sanitize.”

The laundry list of COVID-19 mitigation measures that Marckx would apply to the Cedar City event seem much more manageable due to the size of the field: there are only around 500 riders registered. The city is taking its COVID-19 cues from Dr. David Blodgett, the director of the Southwest Utah Public Health Department; Marckx says the physician “remains open and encouraging.”


The race organizers plan to announce whether the race will happen on August 17, which is 60 days ahead of the event’s October 17 date. Although going through the motions of revamping the race so that it’s safe for everyone involved requires a massive amount of time, resource, and energy, Marckx says that it’s not just 2020 he’s thinking about.

“Our desire is to create a blueprint for events that the county and cities can use for all events,” he said. “We want to be added value in the process for all stakeholders, including other race promoters who aren’t as engaged as we are in this process and dilemma.”

So what about San Diego?
While smaller field sizes have been the saving grace of local bike events, and social distancing is made more easy on high alpine mountain bike courses, neither of those qualities apply to the marquee BWR event in San Diego. The race unfolds primarily on paved roads, and the legendary pre-, during, and afterparty at the Lost Abbey brewery has thousands of participants and community members passing around pints. Even with the measures Marckx mentioned for Cedar City, the scope of the San Diego BWR seems too wide to modify.

“It seems a massive event would be too much to conduct properly,” he said.


Despite the early morning start, the crowds were thick for the rollout of the 2018 race. Photo: Brett Rothmeyer/@pinnedgrit
No matter how clean the port-a-potties, how many hand sanitizer stations, or how many small wave starts, there are certain things that will elude the control of even the most hypochondriacal organizer. Currently, that is the state of the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S., specifically in California. In the end, Marckx says, local authorities and health officials get to make the call.

If a blueprint of best practices for how to hold an event safely in the future is what comes out of the pandemic, then Marckx feels like his time will have been well spent. And, if that blueprint indicates that hosting events in either Cedar City or San Diego this year would create too much cause for concern, that’s OK, too. The most important thing, he says, is that BWR has a plan for the future — even if it seems like a lifetime away.

“Obviously, it’s a strange time and we are just preparing as best we can for the eventual day we can put on an event with minimal concern,” Marckx said. “This may be further off than any of us want.”

You Might Be a Strava Turd

You got those slick new Enve Wheels
You wear those killer  Pit Vipers..
You got a rig for all occasions
Tall socks
DTE is your bitch
You've been down to the Velodrome..
done the D ride
survived Barry Roubiax..
and even Palmed your ass across the state
ICEMAN finisher ...check
Make Wish for good..yesir
Rarely step foot in a bike shop..
uno it
Do that thing with your fingers that people that like metal do..always
Drink real Beer..
A long with all the other cool shit...

You are a dedicated pay your dues Strava User...
Not just your average run of the mill Strava Users...
Your might even be on the local legends score board...

But...

You have been known to leave your Wahoo on numerous occasion as you speed away in your 70K pick up...

of course fuckin crushing any KOM in your path for the next 48 miles...all the while completely fuckin oblivious to what you have just done..
And to add insult to injury you keep them hard earned KOMS never once even acknowledging the tons of shade that gets tossed your way..

Because you my friend are..

Wear the crown proudly...

See Ya Next week Jeff..

https://themichiganscene.blogspot.com/2014/10/

The Way We Were

Just another day at Waterford

Be Cool

Hey Nerds...whatta ya know i got bored so i thought AYyyyyyy what the fuc..id stop by the offices of TMS on this hot July night and see whats cookin...
Much to the Fonzes surprise..it was almost stone silent..
cept for a few lights left on a random vinyl record skipping the Doors "the Love Me Two two times.."


there was nuthin..
So i hung out for a few

fingered through some random images and  thought id fill the empty space between Sunday nite and the The Way We Where...

The Fine art of color placement...

makes this rig cool..

and the Fonz luvs cool rigs 

Holy Jerry lee Lewis shakin all over this gall is thin..

Rumor has it..Yeti is dropping the tribe from its shtick

AYYYYYYYY

The whole world is erasing itself..

UFF

This is when Yetis were cool..

Im gonna have to a long ride on my motorbike to decide if Yetis are true 

Kids are cool

if you dont have kids you dont understand..

Kids are direct reflection you..

Kids on bikes are waaaay cool..

The Fonz misses this gal

SJD the OG original TMS super-mod

KIDA aint to shabby either 

You might be a metal fan..or you may not

you may never never listen to SLAYER 

or 

even understand the importance of Black Sabbaths first four albums..

but dam the world..

the word metal is cool...

tell someone you love there cool...

1971 Derek Bell, Surtees TS9Ford during practice

Silverstone, England.
Ronnie Peterson (March 711-Alfa Romeo), in the pit lane at the launch,

the World Sports Car Championship in 1963, this 275 P, saw incredible success for the factory team in period. What makes this Ferrari all the more special is the recently revealed fact that its first official outing as a Scuderia Ferrari entry took place at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1963. It went on to be the overall winner of Le Mans that year, where it was driven by Lodovico Scarfiotti and Lorenzo Bandini

One night you will wake up and discover it never happened. It’s all  turned around on you. It never will. Suddenly you are old. Didn’t  happen, and it never will, because you were never going to do it anyway.  You’ll push it into memory and then zone out in your barco lounger,  being hypnotized by daytime TV for the rest of your life. Don’t you talk  to me about murder. All it ever took was a down payment on a Lincoln  town car. That girl, you can’t even call that girl. What the fuck are you  still doing driving a cab

SEGWAY DIRT E-BIKE

Segway has added a new mode of two-wheeled transportation to its expanding lineup in the form of the Dirt e-bike. While Segway calls it an e-bike, the Dirt seems to split the difference between a traditional mountain bike and a dirt bike. The Dirt comes in two models, the x160 and the x260, each with swappable batteries. The difference comes in power and range, with the x160 topping out at just over 30 MPH and 40 miles of range, while the x260 can hit 47 MPH and go 75 miles between charges. All the features of a dirt bike are there, with hydraulic disc brakes and a rear monoshock suspension, along with the seamless power delivery of an electric powertrain. Both models are available for purchase now.