I saw this on my way to grab lunch the other day. I love old pickup trucks. This one was in great shape but it wasn’t all “restored”-looking. The wood planks in the bed were roughed up like it was still in steady use but the whole thing was clean, like the guy who owns it knows what he has and he keeps it up.

This being the last Whiskerino, our fine curator Mr. Eades performed a little background magic that made everyone King Beard for a day. I’ve been Whiskerino-ing for a while and I’ve never gotten a KB. There are some crazy-talented and motivated guys that take photos for this thing and I completely understand that I just don’t have the chops to win the KB. I’m cool with it. But I have to say that my morning got goosed into full-blown Awesome for just a moment when I saw my big mug in the King’s Frame.

Thanks for making my morning, Mike. That was a nice surprise.

Here’s a shoutout to my buddy Daniel, a lifelong Saints fan, on what was an awesome Super Bowl last night:

Saints Superbowl Victory Celebration from Cottage Films on Vimeo.

This damn snow has turned me into quite the homemaker. I made a yellow cake and frosting from scratch. The hardest part, by far, was creaming the butter and sugar. The cake came out pretty well. It’s not crazy dry or anything but it isn’t very sweet. The frosting, which is just butter and sugar and vanilla, is sweet. I’d call it a success. The fruit filling in there is strawberry preserves from Faith Farms we got at the farmer’s market.

This all ties into something I heard Michael Pollan say when asked if he ever ate “junk food”. The gist of his answer was, “sure, but I make all of my junk food. It takes a good amount of work to make a cake from scratch or to make fresh french fries so I always feel like I earned it. And because I don’t always have the time to do that work I don’t have that stuff very often.” I really like that idea.

I just spent the morning booking spots in some fun Springtime events:

Pedal Power 2010, March 20, 2010: Pedal Power is an event that promotes moving to a more sustainable lifestyle and taking simple steps to reduce energy consumption coupled with an electricity-generating contest among 2-person teams of cyclists. There are demonstrators on site with information about sustainability and conservation as well as promoting fitness through cycling. I did it last year and it was a lot of fun. Ethan Seltzer, the guy who came up with the idea and puts on the event, is a good guy and a pal of mine.

Monument Av. 10k, March 27, 2010: With over 35,000 entrants and prizes offered for best costume, this is much more of an event than an actual race. Yes, there are real racers that sign up and compete but the fun of the morning, for me, is in getting out for a good run and taking in the sights along Monument Avenue. I used to run this alongside Michelle as pace support but I made the switch last year to see how fast I could run it at my own pace. This year, I am spending some time training and I hope to cut a good chunk of time off of last year’s result.

Cycle North Carolina Spring Ride April 9-11, 2010: I rode this last year for the first time and it was an absolute blast. CNC sponsors a Fall ride that runs from the Western mountains of NC to the beach on the East Coast. It’s a bicycle tour of the state stopping in small towns for the night along the week long tour. The Spring ride is different in that there is one host town and all of the rides begin and end from the same place. It’s a 4-day, 3-night weekend of camping and riding and nothing else. It’s a pretty exciting feeling to wake up in the morning and not have anything to do but eat, drink, and ride bike. I’m looking forward to this one most of all.

I have a pretty ambitious event schedule I’d like to follow through on in 2010. This is the just the first leg. It’s going to be a good time.

I’ve been a fan of the “hey, here’s a nice scene” photos over at Eco Velo for some time now and this is my first meager attempt at one. I forget where I read it, but someone suggested that you should leave for your commute 20 minutes earlier than you think so if you see something cool you can stop and take a photo of it. Tonight I saw the nearly-full moon and a good spot to get my bike in a shot so i stopped and took it because I had time. I should start taking along a better camera.

It’s everything you could ask for in a Valentine-themed screenprint of an octopus on an harpoon.

Mine was delivered last night and it’s very nice in person. PXJ does nice work. You can get one here.

I finally finally caught some serious road bike time this weekend since it wasn’t raining here in RVA for the first weekend all year. It was tough going for a couple of reasons:

1) I haven’t been on the bike for any meaningful miles in well over a month and I am woefully out of shape. This was surprising because I didn’t realize I had gotten into any kind of shape that I might fall out of. I have a feeling the first 100 miles of 2010 will be the toughest.

2) it was cold, and riding when the temperature is wearing a 30-handle isn’t necessarily conducive to strong, deep breaths. Luckily for me, I ride with some good people so the conversation is usually a great distraction from the cold air freezing my lungs and the snot running freely into my moustache and beard. You’re welcome.

While I was suffering up one of the lesser climbs yesterday, and swearing liberally between wheezes, I took some solace in the fact that time spent climbing in the January cold will mean strong legs and lungs in May. There isn’t a short cut to getting better at climbing. Or, as the Noob says, “To get better on hills — ride hills!”.

This point was reiterated, along with another good one, when I read this post over at the Bike Noob.

The other notable fact being “The quickest way to lighten your bike is to lighten yourself”. I joke all the time about how I could eat salad for a month and make as much of a difference to my GRW (Gross Ride Weight, and I do mean gross) as I could by switching to a carbon frame. I just don’t like salad enough to commit to it for a month.

My takeaways from here are to have an occasional salad and to embrace the hills.

These are great! I love that The Pigskin Doctors use Tecmo Bowl to rate current players. The categories are spot-on and are definitely worth a click-through.

From left-to-right those are Ronnie Brown, Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson, and Sebastian Janikowski.

I would love to take a 4- or 5-day tour along the length of the Great Allegheny Passage that runs from Washington DC to just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. It’s 300+ miles of old coal train route that’s been converted to bike trail. I’ve only been on a couple of multi-day rides but I have found that having nothing to do but ride bike makes getting out of bed very easy.

Here’s a good read from NYT on the route.