In honor of Waffles

My ma and I biked to a holiday fair in honor of the cats and kittens and pups and dogs and birds, probably, who needed care and keeping throughout the West Side and Suburbs. We got there, eventually, after we realized it was in Berwyn. Outside a volunteer in a Santa Hat ambled over as we locked our bikes.

“Hello! Welcome!” he called. He looked at my ma’s bike, my ma. She had my bike gloves on, and I did not. He glanced at my seatpost. “Are you a year-round biker?”

Another man appeared out of somewhere and b-lined for the bike. Santa Hat said, “That’s a Salsa?” My ma, upright, pointing.

“She got it for me.” 1 But he didn’t ask, and neither did the other man, just floating around the bike. “From her Job.”2 Somewhere around us the man started talking about gravel bikes. I politely said Palos was pretty fun. In reality I hate Palos. Also, I don’t have an actual mountain bike these days and I guess I’m just jealous.

In honor of Waffles, died 1988 in Oak Park, IL, we donated some money for a paper ornament and I printed this as such. Got some cookies. By the time we rode back, I’d truly put up with my own incompetence and laziness with a backwards seatpost-saddle set up, pointed up with me slouched on my top tube. I wished I’d spoken up more when the men circled, said, yeah, My Ma’s gonna do the 300k Unbound in 2022. Yeah, my ma’s getting ready for the Great Divide. And these dudes would’ve chattered about the randos in the Animal Care League Rummage Sale parkinglot. A 60-something with a gravel bike and commuter basket, and some version of a gal on a 90’s Trek, some expert dirt jumper, saddle nose pointed to high-heaven. I should’ve said I’m a champ, catch air like crazy, and find me down at the Marsh.

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If I do the math, I’m almost caught up to Advent calendar type shenanigans. Still taking advice type questions or suggestions here!!! Locally: Chicago: If you haven’t recently been to the Leather Archives and Museum, go for a visit! The art there is terrific. Brought to you by being back in the world. Anyway. This has been some quality bicycle content. Here’s some sort of trying to be poetic thing from a couple months ago.

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ojo malo (10.15.21)

Bless the yt men at the bike shop who console you as you truly dissolve into tears that spill wildly out & truly you blubber hitch in and out to keep a shread of Not Sad Bless definitely the man who sadly acknowledges you on Telegraph and says I’m So Sorry you seemed so happy to fix it and like you loved it and maybe you could take the afternoon off Bless trauma-bonded kin the ones in your mind’s eye you will roll a spliff & drink a beer with & call on the faithful too soon departed and Bless their daughters with books and toys and maybe reconsider the tricycle Bless curry goat and rillettes and a double double extra pickles and what distracts you Bless fam who got your back Carlos who sends you the donated bikes you could find & his bro at the community shop & Sam who offers you a whole bike No Bullshit & everyone who puts out an APB up and down the 101 for a small anything with two wheels that work & Ally calling straight east and into the future Texas & each stranger at a shop with a welding hookup and warning Bless your people who do something and especially Bless the fambam and the flowing wine and gay TV on couches and mimosas and boilermakers bars up and down Piedmont, the old redwoods over your good haircuts you out-howl techies in whatever is more than Anthropologie (that’s racist!) laugh so hard you lose your voices and throw out your necks & you forget & don’t believe me but you forget you forget honest to god you forget & wake up the next day missing the drunk of forget and yet somehow no hangover, not anywhere Bless B-Town boys who say what are your two feelings right now and it’s good to find Just Two Bless the ease with which you hop into a cargo bucket and they ride to the taco truck and & Bless their hearts for saying you are a natural Bless every scam we scheme to slit the pockets o those who only fuel race fee ease Bless shoes we ride in Bless knowing who sucks & knowing we don’t suck & knowing we share the word & at least try to proetc each other Bless all those who love bikes despite their shittiness despite how it sucks despite powders positivity and powder meters Bless those stories that are good & knowing there sure as shit isn’t the great bike creative book yet and realize there’s a reason for that Bless folks who believe you & see you. Bless these kindnesses.