Theodicy is said to mean “vindication of God,” in Greek, but really it is an attempt to justify gearing systems on bikes. It is better not to think of this as a defence of gears but as a way to show that if gears exist, then they are compatible with evil happening; gears do not resolve the problem of evil; they possibly just cause pain and suffering.
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mycelium cycles – A Tracklocross Bike Company
I have finally put my money where my mouth is and started to put together little parts kits to make your voyage into tracklocross that little bit easier. I don’t even want you to buy a new bike; if you have an early 90’s MTB, then you could be on an easy and cheap street to build your first tracklocross beast.
Alfred Jarry – The Supermale of Tracklocross
Alfred Jarry is responsible for modernism; without him, we might not have had Dadaism and surrealism. Much more importantly, though he loved to ride around Paris on a fixed gear bike and use pistols to keep people out of his way, truly a great way to get about. He may be best known for the play Ubu Roi, but he wrote a book called The Supermale, which deals with a 10,000-mile cycle race and, as far as I am concerned, inspired Le Tour de France, which appeared the year after the book came out.
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Tracklosalmon -Tracklocross Race
This Sunday at Cathkin Braes, we will run a dual slalom tracklocross race. The meetup starts at midday, and here is the What 3 Words for the location. There will be prizes, there will be skids, jumps and rad times, so grab a friend and come and hang out.
Madame Bovary- Against Cycling Media
Gustave Flaubert was one of those writers who can make the most mundane parts of our existence seem like we are part of an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie; he truly was that good, like Predator good. His debut novel is the book that many aspiring writers wish they had in them; it is Madame Bovary. In it, there is a character that reminds me of the average GCN viewer.
Cogito, ergo sum. With one Cog, I am
René Descartes is the person we will be looking at today and how he formulated “Cogito, ergo sum,” which is often translated as “I think, therefore I am,” but it really is “With one cog, I am.”
The Alchemy of Tracklocross Riding
Recently, I decided to read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I wanted to read it because I had heard he wrote it in two weeks, and I wanted to see how a book written in such a short period could hold up. It is a beautiful allegorical tale about an Andalusian shepherd that made me question my own life and about finding my path through tracklocross.
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Why Strava KOMs Don’t Matter
Getting a KOM on Strava is a lifestyle-changing moment. You get a luxury penthouse apartment, a Bentley arrives in a big ribbon, the people you fancy will all now reciprocate those feelings, and a suitcase of cash is delivered to your new apartment. Wait, none of these happen? It is unbelievable that people get so caught up in gathering KOMs. They will be even more pissed when they discover that time only exists inside their head.
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Simplicity is Perfection
Antoine de Saint-Exupery stated,
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add,
but when there is nothing left to take away.
Sadly, he did not write this concerning tracklocross, even though he should have. There is nothing we can take away from your standard tracklocross beast without it not now being up to the task; by default, tracklocross bikes are then the closest bikes to perfection.
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Tracklocross Is the Sisyphus of Cycling
Albert Camus suggested that being condemned to an eternity of fruitless labour was a hideous punishment to be bestowed upon Sisyphus; he had obviously never raced tracklocross.