little north of ordinary ...

... lies plain vanilla. Nothing fancy, but a set of ordinary incredients, that creates something that can be regarded as sublime


morning dew on a highway

jeans and t-shirt making an evening wardrobe

guitar, bass, drum, voice interwoven to sinister sounds

not riding a usual cheap taiwan race rig and knowing it

race day morning fog & and fresh coffee

just sayin
b.

...

COMMITMENT

ist ein ganz schön schwieriges Wort. Zumindest wenn man sich um eine gute deutsche Entsprechung bemüht.

paint your frontdoor red and white/fill your pockets with lead and silver

Who is this James Truslow Adams?

another american author, i should have a closer look on? Maybe?


There are two educations!

There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live. Surely these should never be confused in the mind of any man who has the slightest inkling of what culture is. For most of us it is essential that we should make a living...In the complications of modern life and with our increased accumulation of knowledge, it doubtless helps greatly to compress some years of experience into far fewer years by studying for a particular trade or profession in an institution; but that fact should not blind us to another—namely, that in so doing we are learning a trade or a profession, but are not getting a liberal education as human beings.

Good guy!

b.asti

Nothing happened since a while.

And this won´t change for some time probably. This is because all the stuff that really keeps me going happens over here



"I" mostly means "We" these days. And WE are CRITICAL DIRT: Your one and only chance to join the cool side in german cycling culture ...besides 2 to 3 other only chances maybe.

We did a sunny sunshine shorttrack-bmx-cross country-cocktail race thing in 2008. We hang loose in 2009 and we are now doing this sunny sunshine cyclocross-endurance-feast of friends kinda thing. You see, we still have freeride-road-downhill-singlespeed-stageracing-epic-muddy water stuff on our to-do list. Expect us to held the next UCI track world champs in some garage in Leipzig/Germany ;-)

Have fun with all the content at www.criticaldirt.com

wishful/sinful
b.asti

5 month of Chromag Sakura ridin

Well, someday around summer I stumbled across chromag bikes and was kinda sold. I was always flirting with BC bikes and biking. At the same time my dear friend and ex flatmate showed up with his selfmade steelframe that ended up as a coproduction between him and me geowise. And the final result made me nearly as proud as the builder when it comes to riding characteristics.  The Chromag Sakura seemed to be something very similar in the numbers and intended abuse.  So I finally ordered. And although I thought about some customizing I went with the regular one. A decision that was mostly about trusting Ian@ chromag and his partners to have it dialed in perfectly.

In mid september my frame arrived here in Zuerich and I built it up quitely the way I though it´ld be appropriated. The first ride was somehow a little disappointing. Although I do not have general problems with flat pedals, the flats felt anoying inefficient every time it got fast and rough. (and uphill of course too) and the 90mm stem felt wrong. So I had to go back to clipless pedals, switched to a 70mm stem and stick with the massive way to heavy Tioga DH tires. 

Well. After very few rides it was perfectly clear, I payed some serious money to get an incredible bike. Something I could not have asked for, because I didn´t knew.

My riding grow with that bike, It feels completly right. After longterm trialsy slow technical riding I rediscover speed in the same sections.  It is my goat till the top of the mountain. It is my well balanced trusty fellow in the rollercoasters. It is my DH rig on my way down (and for some huckers on bigbikes a reason to cry). 

But for some reason I don´t give it names.

bottomline: Don´t get yourself a chromag. It can spice up your ride, but I don´t want you to become that fast´n rad.

b.asti

kinda teaser: few minutes ago...

I had a controversial discussion with my flatmate. He very much put the finger on my left aside blog and told me it is time to post something new to my probably not so big but hopefully nice audience.

No, I won´t till february. I responsed imediatly . No. Although there are few thing worth mentioning and some kinda thought a ´ld like to share. No. Not yet.

"But you have to tell people that you ´re not going to post things and thunks right now" he (an experienced long term blogger with more than ... hm, lets say ... 3 followers) insisted.

Dazed and confused I was left alone. Maybe, he is right and I´m going to loose the last person interested in my foolish stuff.

So here I am, lying to you when saying, I won´t block till feb.




And after some more blues

I ´ll come up with a bike ride report full of pics for those visual oriented guys, some grinning ´bout economic situation and the terrible suspection, that even obama won´t save the world for those economical/political oriented folks, some love for literature for those artsy partsy intellectuals still livin derriere la vitre and some respect to a not so well known thinker and the man who introduced me to his work.

thanks for your patience with me

b.asti