SART Blockage!

Me, this morning, in my garage, not feeling it

I'm not going to lie, I didn't feel like mounting Serena and riding the SART to work this morning but I'm bound and determined to ride this entire week.  Luckily for me, Mark was riding with me this morning so I didn't have the option of being a quitter and driving to work.  I was leg weary, bitter, and suffering from intense gas, but I still managed to climb aboard and make it happen.

I realized yesterday that riding every single day to work AND going to the gym at lunch requires an alarming amount of clothing so, since I was totally unmotivated last night, and didn't want to do anything this morning, I packed the same gym clothes I wore yesterday.  Screw it, who cares if I smell like a dirty asshole when I go work out at lunch, that's everyone elses problem and they should respect the fact that I'm barely hanging on here.

Mark and I took off and were having a nice ride when all of a sudden, we came to the First Street bridge and saw that the SART was closed on both sides of the bridge.  Some salt of the earth, blue collar dude approached us and said "YOU GUYS CAN'T RIDE HERE TODAY.  THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A SIGN BACK THERE SOMEWHERE.  WE'LL LET YOU GET OFF HERE BUT YOU'VE GOTTA HEAD OVER DOWN THERE TO JACKSON AND RIDE THAT WAY!".  First, why was he yelling?  Second, there was no sign and 'back there' is entirely too vague.  Third, I have no clue whatsoever where Jackson is and how I was supposed to get to it.  So we got the hell off the SART, and onto the busy congested street and looked for Jackson.

Upon finding Jackson, we discovered that it runs through a shitty neighborhood and right past a school where apparently all the parents completely ignore any and all traffic rules.  I could tell Mark had had enough and he just took off, weaving through the cars, wrong side of the road, kicking school children, trying to get back to the SART as quickly as possible.  It was a bad scene and we needed to get the hell outta there.

Finally we found our way back to the SART and got to the gym so I could sit in the steam room and listen to Mark rip farts and make comments on them.  I have to admit, for whatever reason, when someone comments on their own farts and they have an English accent, its more amusing than a regular American guy commenting on his farts.  After a quick steam, I took a half assed shower, didn't shave, and rode on to work.

I guess life just has a way of balancing out because yesterday was a great day for a ride, the stuff that riding dreams are made of, and today was pretty much a giant shit sandwich.  Such is life.

Back in Town and Back on the SART

Ahh yes, nothing like being back home, waking up in the morning to a delicious fruit smoothie and taking to the SART.  Since I've been on the road quite a bit, the wife decided to make a super charged super food breakfast with spinach, goji berries, cinnamon, mango, strawberry, banana, and my good friend Mr. Spirulina.

After I powered down my breakfast beverage, I hopped on Serena and started riding.  As an added bonus, my buddy Jed decided he's going to ride the SART with me from time to time and today was his first day.

Here's Jed, making it happen, on his virgin run on the SART this morning.  Jed's been off the exercise circuit for quite some time but he seemed to enjoy the ride and the sights, sounds, and smells of the SART.  He's got to ride about four miles before we meet up so I'm interested to see how he feels about the ride home this afternoon.  That's the thing about commuting by bike, once you get on the bike and start riding, you're fully committed for the day.  Whether he's in pain or not, I'm sure he's feeling good about burning several hundred  calories, being green, and saving a few bucks in gas all before work even starts.

On the ride, we kept at an even pace and didn't try to go full Tour De France on his first ride.  A couple of times along the ride I stood up on the pedals and crop dusted Jed but I don't think he noticed since he was focused on pedaling but hey, nothing says friendship like a nice fart in the face when you're taking in lots of air!

Well done Jed....well done!

Monday Musings

It was a gorgeous but cold morning on the SART today for my ride into work.  I'm feeling good about my exercise levels but my nutritional issues persisted this weekend...sort of.  Here is some rapid fire thoughts on this fine Monday morning:

• I'm planning on slowly mapping much of the SART on Google Maps through some program who's name currently escapes me.  You submit photos and in a month or so, they're posted on Google Maps street view (unless its a shot of your balls and then they won't post it because they're all prudish).  This shot is of the First Street underpass which I will call 'Flat Tire Gulch' because its the location where I've gotten two of my three flats.
• After my flat tire incident last week, I kept noticing a slight wobble on Serena's rear wheel.  The wobble wasn't huge so I didn't want to take Serena into the bike shop because I was afraid they'd laugh at me and think I was a total Nancy so I got on YouTube, saw an instructional on how to do wheel/spoke adjustments, tried it out, and within five minutes, Serena's back wheel was once again, straight as a honeymoon hard-on.  I rule!
• I wore the GPS watch this morning to see how fast I go, etc. on my ride.  I was surprised to find that I'm averaging about 17.5 mph on my ride in.  That's about a 2.5mph improvement over a month or so ago AND this was on a day following a five mile run!  BAM! My strength grows by the day and soon I'll be ready for the tour!
• Last but certainly not least, after my shower at the gym this morning, I scared some old timer away with one of my massive farts.  The dude was sitting on the bench next to me, just starting to take his shoes off to change, and I ripped one of those long and loud low growlers about a foot away from his head.  The old dude stopped changing, hopped up and quickly walked away like a dog who's been scared out of his sleep.  He shoots, he scores!

Sweet Mother of Gas

I'm just going to get right to the point here, yes, I am making a blog post about my farts.  If you don't like it, I'm sure Oprah or Rachael Ray or someone else has a blog you'd like about decorating your cats or something.

For those of you still here, I think its important for you to know that I had the worst gas in the history of the human (and bovine for that matter) species last night.  According to my internet machine, the average human produces four pints of gas per day and rips roughly 20 farts on average.  Before I go on, it should be noted that a pint is a way to measure liquid and that does not apply to my farts because they are as dry and crisp as the mountain air on a winter's morn but for the sake of consistency, we'll stick with pints and whatnot.  As I was saying, there are eight pints in a gallon so if the average person produces four pints per day and 20 farts, that would mean that yesterday I was excessively above average because I'm estimating I produced 67 GALLONS of gas and floated 392 highly audible air biscuits.

I'm a guy who normally farts more than the average person because I like to keep it classy, but yesterday's fart level was so off the charts that I really started to get worried.  What in the name of sweet merciful zingers could have possibly caused such extreme flatulence?  Here's what I ate yesterday:

Green smoothie for breakfast
Handful of raw almonds before workout
6 inch subway with turkey, Swiss, avocado, and mustard on whole wheat
Turkey stuffed bell pepper for dinner
Crackers and wine as a snack (I know...weight loss killer)

How the hell could relatively healthy eating like that cause killer farts?  I don't get it!

I did some research on the subject and, as usual, looking up anything that has anything to do with the body or bodily functions online is completely useless.  According to the Mayo Clinic, excessive gas could be from high fiber foods or it could also be a sign of Crohn's disease (not even going to look that one up).  When I went on to eMedicine.com, it made sure I understood that a fart is 'an uncomfortable passing of gas from the rectum'.  First off, I'm pretty sure we all know what a fart is.  Next, the only people my farts are uncomfortable for are the people around me...I on the the other hand feel ab fab when I let one rip.  Finally, it cracks me up how eMedicine's website has the word 'rectum' hyperlinked, that must be for fetish freaks or something.  Back to eMedicine...they go on in such great detail about farts that they offer this little passage:

"In the mid-1800s flatulence took center stage with the French entertainer Joseph Pugol ("Le Petomane"). Pugol was able to pass gas at will and at varying pitch, thereby playing tunes for sold-out shows at the Moulin Rouge. Such was his success that lesser competitors began to appear, including the Spaniard "El Rey" and the female Angele Thiebeau (later revealed as a fake using hidden air bellows)."

Are we serious here?  Does anyone have any questions about why the French aren't taken seriously?  They're a nation of people who are the descendants of folks who used to pay good money to go watch some guy fart tunes.  I can just imagine the conversations they had:  "Sacre Blu Jean Pierre!  Did you see ze Pugol last night?  His fart!  Ze are AMAZING!  I could barely smell my own B.O.!"  I wonder if you got your money back if he Pugol accidentially $hit his pants or if they just did a quick change, sent him back on stage, and quickly announced a special on chocolate mousse.

So, eMedicine health and the much esteemed Mayo Clinic were zero help whatsoever so I went to Wikipedia and discovered the same process your colon (asshole) uses to produce feces ($hit) is the one it uses to produce farts.  Really?...facinating....I never knew that my butthole supply chain is multi functional.  Additonally, Wikipedia gave me this little tidbit of information:

"Flatulence-producing foods are typically high in certain polysaccharides, (especially oligosaccharides such as inulin). Those foods include beans, lentils, dairy products, onions, garlic, scallions, leeks, turnips, rutabagas, radishes, sweet potatoes, potatoes, cashews, Jerusalem artichokes, oats, wheat, and yeast in breads. Cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and other cruciferous vegetables that belong to the genus Brassica are commonly reputed to not only increase flatulence, but to increase the pungency of the flatus"

Really man?  There's some guy who knows all these big words and at a minimum knows how to sound like a scientist who took the time to post technical details on Wikipedia about how cabbage makes your farts stink?  I could ask my six year old about the effects of cabbage eating and she'd tell me.

So really, what I discovered in my quest to figure out why I had such a surplus of atomic paint peelers last night is that there is a bodily function that on AVERAGE comes out of every one of us 20 times a day and there is virtually no medical certainty or meaningful research about it?  I don't get this, there's research done on horse$hit like restless leg syndrome and parental alienation syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome but when I want to find out why my ass is playing Yankee Doodle every ten seconds all I can find is that cabbage gives you sow ass and there was once a guy in France who made a living on his farts?  Folks, we need more research on farts and we need it now.  Write your congressman.  Below is probably the best fart research done to date.