exit17

This is gonna be bad.

1. I would enjoy bike racing so much more if I could do it dressed as Mega Man. I’d settle for a Mega Man helmet, though.

2. Another sweet racing accessory would be a Daft Punk helmet. Don’t know if that’s UCI legal though.

3. Cross would be a lot cooler if the winner got to take the souls of those he defeated, like Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat. But only if he says it in a very campy style with horrible techno pouring out of Richard Fries’ PA system. Side note - after watching that trailer, all I can think about are parallels between Mortal Kombat and cyclocross. And Powers is definitely Johnny Cage.

4. Why don’t cross bikes have rims? Big, spinning rims? I NEED THAT. I NEED SPINNERS ON MY BIKE. Cannondale, you’re innovators in the industry. Get on that shit.

5. I wonder if I can become a cyclocross hitman, and get paid to crash “real” riders out as they lap me. And, if so, how much I could make, and how quickly it would take the crashed rider to remove his crankset and bludgeon me to death with it. Even through my Mega Man helmet.

6. Of the 50 people registered for the Elite race, I have beaten maybe five of them through my cross career. There is a very solid chance that I could finish dead last. But, at the very least, if I am finishing dead last, I’m going to make sure I have a giant fucking pile of fun in the 30 minutes of racing I do before I’m lapped.

Oh, hurry up and make your signs to heckle me. It’s almost Saturday.

Last night in the debate, McCain said “Until we stabilize home values in America, we’re never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy and we’ve got to get some trust and confidence back to America.” His basic plan is to buy up bad mortgages and finance homes with government money in order to stabilize home prices.

My plan?

In order to stabilize home prices, and also to make home prices increase, you have to enact a little bit of supply economics: A smaller supply of homes, and home values will go up.

So, we need less homes. My solution to this quandary is to just destroy as many homes as possible. A simple, inexpensive and fun solution that also creates jobs. Bulldozers don’t drive themselves.

Gloucester is this weekend.

As if you, who is probably a New England cyclist, didn’t already know.

I am doing the Elite race. Which is something that I am grossly unprepared for. My only two cross outings this year have ended in failure (second to last at Bedford, DNFing at EcoCross because I was nearly double lapped by Luke Keough and lapped by Colin (from the internet) which broke my spirit).

But, I like to think on the bright side of things. I like to think that my suffering can bring others joy, so that even though I am mentally broken and emotionally destroyed, those around me can take pleasure and find humor in watching a 23 year old manchild openly weep while racing his bike.

With that in mind, consider this an open invitation to heckle the shit out of me at Gloucester.

I’m sure that a lot of you didn’t need an invitation to do it (I’m looking at you Austin and Bob), but for everyone else that wasn’t planning on demoralizing me as I struggle up the barriers, this is your invitation to make signs proclaiming how much I, Ryan Kelly, suck. I know that there are a lot of you out there who have been the target of my heckling in the past - this is your chance to exact your revenge. All those times I told you to go faster? Those times I just chanted your name? Those times I screamed at you to suffer? Oh man, payback for me is going to be a bitch - especially when that payback is going to be scented with PBR breath and half-digested Johnsonville Brats.

So, when I’m at the back of the field getting lapped by pretty much everyone, I hope to look up and, through the blood that is pouring from my eyes, see you standing at the top of a hill reminding me that I suck.

The first time I saw some ad about “clean coal”, I almost shit myself laughing. Clean coal? Are you fucking serious? Then, I heard real life politicians talking about it as a viable energy source. I continued to laugh…but then I was scared.

Anyway, Radaronline posted two interesting links about clean coal, one from Slate and one from The Washington Post. You should read them and join me in being scared that people actually think this is a good idea.