Monday, March 31, 2014

Good Things Happen To Those Who Bike . . .

Well, it finally happened people -- guess it was inevitable.  No, I didn't submit the "Billion Dollar Bracket" (I know, I know, hard to believe), so I can't retire from blogging quite yet.  However the next best thing happened -- someone is going to actually pay me to blog!  No kidding -- The San Diego Reader beat Mr. Google to the punch in sending me my first bonafide check for blogging.  That's right, I'm a fifty dollar-aire!  Just think of all the good I can do with fifty whole dollars!  The world is about to change for the better.

My first post as a paid member of the digital media appeared this week at The Reader's "Blog Diego" page:


And they want to use more!  I always thought The Reader had excellent taste, now we have incontrovertible proof!

Hope I'm not blowing anybody's mind here.  Yes, this is a blog post about another one of my blog posts appearing in The Reader's blog section, with links to and images of the Reader page that links to my other blog post (that first appeared on this blog site).  Be careful what you click - it may just cause the universe to collapse back in on itself . . .

Anyway, now that I'm a legitimate, paid, member of the press corps, I need to figure out where I pick up my press credentials -- can't wait to start using the Press Entrance at Petco!  I promise to ask the players only bike related questions -- just like I did at the Super Bowl.

Speaking of sports, I may not have submitted the perfect bracket, but biking DID get me into the Elite Eight. 



No kidding.  As any of my thousands (upon thousands) of loyal fans are well aware, I start every Saturday morning with the Crown City Cyclists who domestique for me down the Strand to IB, where I break off and loop around the bay to Little Italy for breakfast and cappuccino before heading up and around UCSD or further up the coast.  Invariably, when I arrive at Caffe Italia for my pit-stop (coincidentally, right across from The Reader's main office), I'm greeted by my buddy Chuck who is usually holding court with passersby and other regulars.  I hit it off with this semi-retired Physics Prof the very first time I pulled up to the cafe on my Secteur.  He was sitting there with his own Specialized (a vintage Allez, one of Specialized earliest carbon frames, with an aluminum fork - the mirror of my aluminum Secteur and its carbon fork):


Chuck may just be the original San Diego Bikeist, riding long distance and trekking for years with Mission Hills as his home base.  He, too, uses Caffe Italia as a pit-stop for his Saturday rides which also take him to the Y for his daily work-out.  Any given Saturday morning his throngs of groupies and admirers (me included) engage with him on world events, bikes, the cosmos, working at Google, the advantages of penning your own obituary, solving decades old murders, or an almost infinite array of other topics.  As March approaches, though, one topic tends to dominate conversation -- college hoops, especially Chuck's beloved Arizona Wildcats.  He has followed them to three Final Fours and multiple other Tourney games and this year he had the good fortune of having them seeded #1 in the West where they played four games in San Diego and Anaheim.  His good fortune translated to mine as well when Chuck wound up with an extra ticket to 'Zona's Elite Eight game against Wisconsin.  The first person he reached out to was the guy from the coffee shop with the Specialized.  That's right, my passion for bikes and biking has not only earned me fifty big ones this week, it also landed me a ticket to the Big Dance!  Here I am with Chuck right before the start of the second half:


Damn, I'm looking good these days if I don't say so myself!

It was a great game that went into overtime and came down to one final, desperation, Arizona shot.  Unfortunately for Chuck and the thousands of other U of A faithful, it just wasn't meant to be.  I hope they all took some solace, though, in the fact that I had the time of my life (I'm sure they did).  Chuck, of course, took the loss in stride.  Disappointment is always a less bitter pill to swallow when you know a bike ride awaits you the next morning . . .

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