Ok, here comes another goodie that has little to do with the bike……….

Let’s start this post with: That was probably the most embarrassed I’ve ever been……..

Ok, now allow me to elaborate on that. First you must ask yourself the question, is it possible to shake your head at your own self? The answer is “yes”, and I’ll tell you why.

Tuesday morning I was dropped off at Sky Harbor International Airport for a flight to Atlanta to join up with the Jittery Joe’s team for this weekend’s US National Championships. Everything was going as planned as I checked my bags, cleared security, and then made my way to Gate 17. Upon arriving at the gate, I decided I wanted a nice cup of coffee so I headed off in search of a warm cup of joe. No problems there……and I thoroughly enjoyed my cup. As soon as I finished they began calling Zone’s 1 and 2 to board. I figured now would be a good time to use the restroom because I hate airplane “lavatories”. The ferocious flush worries me a bit. It shouldn’t flush hard enough to cause a gentle to moderate breeze in the restroom. Write that down. Ok back to my story…..so I looked down the terminal to my left and saw an overhead sign that read “gentlemen” and it had an arrow pointing to the right.

“Perfect, that’s me”, I thought.

I got up and headed that way and entered the restroom. Once inside, I looked for a urinal and didn’t see one so I decided a stall would work just fine.

“Hm, that’s odd no urinals”, I thought. I hadn’t flown out of Delta’s terminal in a long time so I didn’t think too much of it.

I entered the stall, did my thing and left. After leaving the stall I saw a woman washing her hands at the sink.

“Whoa, looks like she’s in the wrong restroom……hehehe” was the first thought that popped into my head.

“She must be helping her little son use the restroom”, was the second not-so convincing thought that popped into my head.

As I rounded the corner and headed for the door, I filed in behind two women doing the same thing that had come from the other side of the restroom.

“Holly shit…..” was my simple and completely petrified third thought.

Somehow, in my own country where I’ve successfully used millions and millions of men’s restrooms, I had just walked into, and used, and was now walking out of the women’s restroom.

That’s me, 2nd stall on the right…..

“Please don’t turn around, please don’t turn around”, I thought as I followed these two women down a seemingly never ending 20 foot corridor that led back into the terminal.

As we entered the busy terminal, they went left and I went right. Might I add that I did so at a rather brisk pace…. Fearing someone might have seen me, I walked down the terminal a bit and then figured it was best to turn around and make a beeline for the gate and board the plane as quick as possible. So I turned around, put my head down and ran the proverbial gauntlet…..right back past that bathroom and everyone who might have seen me and straight for the gate. Luckily, the line was short and I made it on the plane rather quickly. Once on the plane, I scurried back to seat 37F and was unpleasantly surprised to see I was sitting right in front of one of the women I had just followed out of the bathroom. I quickly sat down in my seat and pulled out my USA Today newspaper. I pulled that newspaper up real high and began trying to concentrate enough to read it. Every 10 to 12 seconds I’d pull it back down just enough to peak over in the direction of the door, petrified and wondering when a police officer would come around the corner looking for the man who’d just been seen in the women’s restroom……..all the while shaking my head at myself.

Take care and please don’t forget to carefully read all signs before making any crucial decisions.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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This post has very little to do with bikes, lycra and the world of cycling. Honestly, sometimes there’s far more important things in life than my two-wheeled, carbon fiber friend. There comes a time where credit must be given where credit is due and in this situation, it surely is.

Last week, many of you read about Pluto losing his (or her….it’s your call) job as the ninth member of the Milky Way. To make matters worse, Pluto didn’t just lose his job but was instead offered a demotion to simply a “dwarf”. After 76 wonderful years of dedicated service to his galaxy, it must be difficult to except this kind of change in the workplace and now be known by a much less flattering title. One minute you’re famous and being mentioned in every classroom and kids book ever published and the next minute your new job title is quite harshly stated as: “dwarf”. Wouldn’t it be little planet anyway? To me, this is bad news and just another sign that corporate downsizing has gone beyond the business world and has now reached celestial levels. I mean, it’s not good when the economy is so questionable that even the solar system is effected and forced to downsize. What’s next, Heaven can’t afford to keep running the pearly white gates and Hell cools down because heating costs get too expensive?

Officials cited many reasons for Pluto’s “down grading”, one of which was the Milky Way’s profits falling short of it’s 1st quarter projections. Another strong reason was the fact that he’s lost a bit of his gravitational pull and often times doesn’t even clear the neighborhood around his own orbit and overlaps with Neptune’s orbit. When contacted by akingslife.com, Neptune refused to comment on the situation.

Pluto or Melanoma? You be the judge….

Another planet in the Milky Way, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told akingslife.com “What a bummer this is, I mean, how can you blame Pluto? He’s way out there on the end where it’s cold and lonely. Not to mention how dark it must be. You can’t blame him for losing some of his gravitational pull. 76 freaking years in the industry…..He poured his heart, soul and heterogeneous surface into his work. I challenge any of the IAU board to come out here and do our job. It aint easy….Dang it.”

Another unfortunate casuallty of the downsizing was Pluto’s moons Charon, Nix and Hyrda. While the large and more diverse moon Charon, has expressed interest in pursuing Black Holes, it’s unsure at the moment what the others will do next. With other celestial bodies gravitating to newer and younger masses in the workplace, it’s unclear if any offers will be available to Pluto’s two smaller sized moons. As of yesterday, their resumes were available on Monster.com but didn’t seem to have much interest. It seems like after 76 years, nobody’s interested in having a moon follow them around.

On a personal note, I would like to thank Pluto for his dedicated service and for the wonderful horoscope’s he’s given me for the past 25 years. I knew him as the planet way out there with the same name as Mickey Mouse’s dog but with a heart of pure silicate rock. Hang in there Pluto, you’re gone……….but not forgotten.

It felt good to not talk about the bike…….

Take care.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
7 Comments »

Before we begin, lets get one thing straight. I don’t mind riding my bike in the rain. Most of the time I oddly enjoy it. After all, I did spend the greater part of the last 5 years pedaling away in one big Belgian rainstorm. What I don’t like about the rain is riding my bike in it here in Phoenix. Allow me to explain….

Phoenix has traffic. Lots of it. I estimate it to be somewhere between 7 and 8 billion cars and that doesn’t even include SUV’s……a breed reproducing at a faster rate than even rabbits are rumored to be capable of. Now, training on a good day in Phoenix involves sharing the road with cars. Anybody who’s ever trained here knows that. I don’t mind this because I really have no choice but to try and peacefully co-exist with my much larger 4-wheeled friends. Now, in contrary and for the record, I hate garbage trucks, city buses and cement trucks. Write that down. I believe these vehicles have some sort of predisposed manufacturers programming that forces the steering to pull towards the white line of my bike lane. That white line also happens to be my comfort line…..Now that we’ve discussed Phoenix’s heavy flow of traffic we can now get into what that flow of traffic is like in the rain.

One word: brothel

Phoenicians don’t often see rain to start with so when they do they’re not quite sure of how to deal with it when behind the wheel of an automobile. Combine this with the already existing danger of cycling and training on public streets and it makes for one nerve racking day of training. A nerve racking day of training…….well, kind of like today.

When I left at 6:00 am to go and train the sky was clear with only a few clouds to the south. Damn….it would be a hot one as I headed out in an attempt to get 5 hours in before the sun punched my ticket.

As I pedaled north up towards Cave Creek and Carefree I noticed a few clouds heading towards the sun. When this sometimes happens on a hot desert day I tend to get excited because it allows me to not bake and possibly train longer. I encourage and cheer the cloud on just as you would a horse at the track……”Ah, yeah thats the stuff, there you go Mr. Cloud, come on now, you can do it, move left, now hit out, go, go, damnit go you stupid cloud….”

On this particular day he went, and so did a bunch of his friends. Before I knew it the clouds had invited along their friend Mr. Rain and his two step sons Lightning and Thunder, and they were both creeping up behind me. Now, in most cases this isn’t a problem. But you see, in Phoenix when it rains its a thunderstorm and since the streets weren’t build with consideration to handling large amounts of rain, they always flood. So, when I turned around and decided to head back into town I was confronted by a wall of black clouds illuminated with lightening and serenaded by the rumbles of thunder. It was going to be a wet one.

“Son of a b$%@&”, I thought.

Why did I think this…….well….. THUNDERSTORM + PHOENIX x BICYCLE = SON OF A B$%@& ………that’s why.

As I hit the outskirts of town, the rain decided to do it’s thing. Before long I found myself riding tempo on the sidewalk because the busy streets were all flooded. A few miles later I found myself riding in the middle of the flooded street, cautiously looking back for cars, because the sidewalk was now so flooded I couldn’t actually see if there was a sidewalk there. In the middle of this freakish downpour, I stopped for a light and I wondered what all the motorists were thinking when they saw me? Crazy bastard? Idiot? Glad I’m not him? Lightning struck a few blocks over and the light turned green……Eureka! No more thinking time, it’s tempo time.

After about 30 minutes of riding tempo in 1 foot deep water I threw in the towel. It made no sense to fight the tides anymore so I just relaxed cast my sail and drifted home. It wasn’t humanly possible to get any more wet. In the remaining 30 minute ride home I saw many cars stuck in the flood waters of the local washes. I saw two cars stuck in the same wash…..so I decided to hit it with some speed. I fishtailed, slowed down, wobbled and barely made it through the shin deep water. Good thing I made it, the motorists would have enjoyed watching me take a digger in that one…..

I finally made it home and was happy to climb off my mess of a bike. In all my years of riding, today may have been one of the worst rain storms I’ve ever ridden through. The only weather I can think of that was worse was the German Meinfranken Tour I did in 2001. The commassare neutralized the race amidst a ferocious and painful hail storm. I’ve never heard European racers scream so loud and willingly dive off the road and head for cover in the middle of a race. Meanwhile, with the field in shambles and hidding in the bushes, all six of the Rabobank Espoirs hit the front and drove it…….crazy bastards.

Alright, I’ve got to go tend to my bike before it rusts over.

Cheers.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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Well, well, where to start? Its 7:30 Monday morning and I find myself already on a flight back home to Phoenix after this past weekend’s Downers Grove National Criterium Championships. First of, as I sit on this flight, I find myself wondering who in the world ever buys anything from the airlines Sky Mall magazine? Its 195 pages filled with pure crap. Example: A solar powered self cooling baseball cap. Who needs one of those anyways? Alright, back to the issue at hand. I’ve written a little diddy about last night’s race in Downers Grove. Since I haven’t really raced much in the States, this was my first go around at this particular race. It really wasn’t as mind numbing as I had suspected a 100 kilometers of riding lap after lap of a figure eight would be. Not nearly as boring as some of the SuperWeek stages I did back in the late 1900’s and again in 2002. Contrary to first glance, the Downer’s Grove course is actually a fairly challenging loop. While there is no tough climb or super tight corners, the entire course is up and down and includes 8 corners per lap that all add up to make a fairly difficult race. Factor in the long 100K distance and it makes for a tough day at the old criterium office.

Historically, a break never really materializes and the race ends in a bunch kick. This year would be no different. Basically, an attack of riders would go, gain a few hundred meter advantage and then be brought back a handful of corners later. Then some guy in blue would counter attack, a green guy would go with him, so would a red guy and they’d be brought back a few corners later only to be counter attacked by an orange guy, a red, white and blue guy and another green guy. With most of the strength in the bunch uninterested in riding in a breakaway, it would come down to a sprint and make for a rather uneventful race.

In fact, I can’t really think of a super exciting part of the race except for when Mike Creed touched my butt and the other time when I saw 2 Rite Aid riders crash together in the same corner. There was one point in the race when a dangerous break did materialize and Jittery Joe’s missed out on it so Trent Wilson, Neil Shirley and I hit the front, swapped off at a good clip and brought it back. I, in the process, nearly went blind from the effort. It took a few laps to get over that one….. So, to make a long story short, Hilton Clarke took out another Illinois criterium win and Brad Huff ran second claiming the US National Champ jersey. As for Jittery Joe’s, Jeff Hopkins was running 4th going into the last corner only to get t-boned by another rider in the typical brothel of a finish that Downers in known for. Hoppy got back on top of his gear and still ran 6th, which was a nice ride for him.

On a side note and to my error, I didn’t include Brad Huff in my website’s Downers Grove Poll. The first person to e-mail me and point out my mistake was in fact my dad who also said he’d bet the farm on Huff. In order, to not hear the “I told you so” comment for the next month and a half to a year, I figured I’d mention that and give credit where credit is due.

That’s pretty much all for now. The next round of US National Championship events begins with the time trial on Friday, September 1st.

Take care.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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This is something I wrote back in the summer of 2004 while racing and living in Europe. It was featured in the At The Back section of VeloNews a few months later. Enjoy….

It’s not easy being him. He doesn’t like hearing that it is. Cycling is not just a sport to fill his free time. It used to be, but not anymore. It’s not a hobby or a way to travel the world and meet new people. It has become everything that is familiar to him, all he knows. It’s not easy for a 23 year old to pack their entire life into a suitcase and head off to a foreign land for seven months. When he lands in Belgium for another racing season, he has no return ticket, no idea when he’ll cross paths with his next burrito. He never got to see the final episode of “Friends.” Want to talk about current events, new songs and movies? Don’t ask him, he has no clue. It’s the simplest things that are often the most difficult. All winter he makes new friends, and just as he begins to find his comfort zone, March arrives. Time to say goodbye. Now he’s not even sure where they live and doesn’t have e-mail addresses or phone numbers. All that was left behind for new friends in a foreign land. His new friends become his family. They don’t know each other at all, but they share the same dream. Like him, his new friends have no idea which direction is home, but they need each other’s support more than they openly admit. For the next 7 months he lives a methodical life and struggles to keep in touch. He shaves his legs every three days, counts calories and isn’t self-conscious about wearing Lycra. There are no parties, late nights or girls. He’s grown to appreciate the rewarding taste of a nice cold beer, but stops after one. He’s covered in logos, likes training hard, compression tights, taking naps and watching his weight. His life is filled with long car drives, tofu, vegetables and early nights of stretching and reading. He gets a thrill from making other people feel pain and loves being compared to a machine. His goals and dreams are his fuel. They get him so fired up he gets diarrhea. If he lets his thoughts wander, it’ll be another sleepless night. Nobody but him truly knows how many sleepless nights there really are.

He has no one to share his war of emotions with but himself. There hasn’t been a steady girlfriend as long as he can remember. “Women weaken legs,” he tells himself in a convincing manner, because for the time being his companion is a bicycle. “Bicycles never complain and are always on time,” he chuckles, covering up something hidden deeper. Despite the lonely road, he hangs tough all year. Through injury and illness, rain and hail, he never loses focus, never shows emotion. He handles the ups and downs of European cycling better than most. Most crack, he doesn’t. Cycling can be an evil bitch one moment, the sweetest angel the next. There’s no hiding, no bench to sit on, no timeouts. People never talk about the mental strength it takes, only physical talent; that upsets him. The odds are against him. Some make it, most don’t, but he tries not to think about that. Along the way come the results and the other small reassurances that put him one step closer to his goal, but they only make him dig deeper, sleep more and eat less. There’s still a rib he can’t see.

Before he knows it, the weather and his form have turned for the worse, which can only signify one thing: October, time to leave. Most have either cracked and gone home or packed their bags a week early. He packs at the last minute and leaves things behind. While most can’t wait to head home, he’s sad to leave. But that’s okay — before he knows it, it’ll be time to return.

At home in America, his second life begins, that of a normal 23 year old. He likes cold beer and attractive women. He doesn’t give a crap about your retarded Von Dutch hat. He likes how his cowboy boots make him a tall glass of water. He fears no beer and loves a good late night. He blends in with the crowd, but without his bike something’s missing. He can only go a few weeks without it. Somewhere between the time that the fifth and sixth extra pound find his ass, he begins to grow restless. He feels out of place at the bar and begins finding himself thinking about his fitness, his training and his competitors.

Let a dog roam and he’ll find his way home.

He observes the attractive girl’s mouth moving but doesn’t understand the words. All he hears is, “Wah-wah-wah [I wonder how many watts I‘m putting out right now], wah-wah-wah [I could drop anyone in this bar], wah-wah-wah.” He starts thinking of cobbles, fighting for position and the Roubaix velodrome. They’re more familiar than her words. And that’s when it begins. John Foggerty’s raspy voice wails out, “Some folks are born made to wave the flag, ooh they’re red, white and blue.” “Fortunate Son,” he just loves those lines. They excite him so much he gets diarrhea and has to leave the bar. Goodbye attractive girl, maybe next winter.

Every night his dreams find their way into a new breakaway, just killing it. He won the Tour of Flanders seven times last winter.
The sleepless nights start back up as he lies awake thinking about the Kemmelberg and the Olde Kwaremont. So he does what he knows best and begins working hard. Sacrifice and suffering are his closest friends. His focus and dedication are matched by few and admired by most. George Patton’s words fill his head, “I do not fear failure. I only fear the “slowing up” of the engine inside of me which is pounding, saying, “Keep going, someone must be on top, why not you?“ Before long beer and women get a back seat to long rides on lonely roads with only his close friends Bob Seger, Biggie, Led Zeppelin and The Doobies to keep him company. They’re the best friends he’s never met. The glycemic index now has more appeal to him than Pi Phi’s Date Dash. The obsession has begun all over again, just as it did last year. Each winter he puts more miles on his bike than he’s ever put on his car. With a small impersonal wave to his neighbors, he rolls out at 9 a.m. When he returns at 3 p.m., he’s exhausted, too tired to wave back. There’s no time to worry about their feelings, it’s early March and they won‘t increase his lactate tolerance. With Spring on the horizon he knows his moment has come. It’s time to pack his life back into a suitcase and board a plane to join his new friends. Soon he’ll be on the attack, turning dreams into reality, leaving the Euro’s to wonder what the hell got into the cowboy. Another long season of echelons and cobbled roads is about to begin.

Categories: Austin King's Chronicles From Across The Pond.
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First off, my site got a face lift, a tummy tuck and a squirt of botox thanks to the webmaster himself, Curtis. I think it looks mighty nice. We were having a problem with my site looking perfect when using Firefox as a web browser and like an absolute brothel when using Internet Explorer and Safari. While there are still a few fubars, this new theme helps out a bunch.

Alright, back to business. Late last week, the team and I drove 13 hours from Athens, Georgia to Chicago, Illinois for the USPRO Crit Championships. I decided to periodically whip out the trusty digital camera and document what a cycling team’s drive is really like, all for your viewing pleasure. Fortunately, Jesse does a great job with our travel logistics and our van time has been very limited this season. Thank you baby Jesus. Van time with a bunch of cyclists isn’t much fun…..or exciting as you’re about to see.

Part 1……Begin trip.

Part 2…….Uh oh.

Part 3……Same old song and dance.

Part 4…….Hallelujah!! The hotel at last.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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