Los Stories


	Los Bike Stories. Stuff to amaze and humor the masses. As Ed would say: "I don't do it for the glory, I do it for the story." Spoke Protector (as told by Dave?) So Mike Pauli and I are working on Sara (his girlfriend)'s bike. We are putting the rear wheel back together and are working on the freewheel (yes freewheel) and Pauli is telling me about how he had to find a shop to get the thing off since it was kinda old and weird. As we throw the chain whip on it and wrench it down we look over. Damn! We forgot to put the big shiney spoke protector on. So, not wanting to look like fools, we got to a bike shop other than the one Pauli went to originally. We get the thing off and start working again. We get the rear axle back in and centered and whatnot and put the freewheel back on. Pauli doesn't really wrench it down, so I tease him about it. He says "fine" and cranks it on there. Just as he applies the first bit of force, we look down again. Shit! We forgot the spoke protector again! Cheese Cake (as told by D?) Just to forwarn you, this story is a humorous anecdote about bodily functions. So fall 1998, Los Bike is gearing up for the big Moonlight Ramble in STL. We are hanging out at Los Bike HQ (ed's house) having some dinner, his family is there, it is nice. Ed has a cheesecake sampler, so I have several slices. After this whole experience, we figure that I ended up having about half a cheese cake worth. So we do the Ramble ride, it is an easy 15 miles of flat road. Lots (tons) of people, most of whom are very recreational riders. Quinn has his dad and brother along also. We get done with the ride, and are waiting around for Quinn plus family to show. About 20 minutes after the ride I can kinda feel the cheese cake starting to push the rest of the food that I have downwards. Not a problem though, we are probably only going to be a little while. After waiting an hour we finally decide to check back where we parked, and sure enough, thats where they have been waiting for us for basically and hour. So by now, I need to take a large doke (bowel movement for those who aren't up on the latest fecal jargon). We take a good long like 45 minutes or so to finally load up the bikes and get going. About halfway through all this I start to remind people that I really have to go. Now I can't say, "hurry the hell up or Im going to drop a load in my shorts", since we are in mixed company. We finally leave and by this time, I have to go so bad that I can't even load my own bike. I end up riding with Pauli, and as we near Ed's house we pass a Hardees and I make Pauli stop. It turns out that the drive through is open, but the lobby is closed. So I wadle across the street to a gas station. I get inside the door, and wait for a minute or so while the cashier does whatever with another customer, just to find out that someone had locked the keys in the bathroom about an hour previous. Pauli pulls up, at this time, Im almost crying I have to go so bad, Im in a cold sweat. We get to Ed's house, I have to get the keys from him. I get up to his front door and try one key, nope, try another, NOOOO!!!!! Im so close, sooo close. So I finally get in and go. The relief is so huge its almost grossly sexual. So, just a word of warning, cheese cake is NOT a good pre-ride food. Gin Tuesday (err, Thursday) (as told by D?) your friendly neighborhood Los Scribe here. So, last nite Ed and Jenn Duff and I went to the High Pointe for drinks and next door chinese (kinda like backdoor sushi). We had a good time, as usual the g&t's were stiff, the beer was good and the soundtrack appropriate. We leave the bar about 11:30 ish and decide to head next door to Del Taco for some food. Rather than get in a car just to drive across the street, we decide to walk through the drive thru. We stand in line for a while, and finally its our turn to order. We'd like blah blah and bl... "You have to be in a car to order food. This is a drive thru" says the taking-her-crappy-night-manager-at-Del-Taco-job-to-seriously night manager. Huh? We are of course crushed and are thinking how stupid this is when about half the line of cars behind us say "they won't let you order? what a crock". The really cool guy in the car behind us offers to order our food for us. Fuckin A. So he orders we pay him and we are waiting at the tables outside for him to get our food. The black guy in the car behind the nice guy (who also offered to order for us) pulls up, "Yeah Id like a blah blah, a large pleh and a big ass chicken taco". Right on. The car behind that guy had about 4 guys in it listening to bad english punk. They pull up to the micro phone and turn down their stereo. After waiting a little while (it takes about 3 to 4 minutes from the time you get to the order spot until you can atually order) the driver raps on the box with the mic in it. From inside "I know you aren't hitting the mic". "Um not we aren't". "If you are going to be a smart ass you can just get out of my drive thru". "No, we'll be cool, sorry, sorry". Bwaa-ha-ha, Ed and Jenn and I are dying at this point since we are a little drunk, kinda hungry, and just loving the drunks at the drive thru and the crazy lady inside. Moral of the story. Drinks, food, friends, good. DelTaco, good post drink eats. But if you want food, you damn well better be in a car and don't fuck with the drive thru lady, cause she don't take no shit. New Fork (as told by D? and JK) I was looking at buying a new fork. Being that my fellow members of Los Bike were always willing to give advice, I decided to see what they thought. kids, i need some advice. (especially from you josh). Since my Indy on my bike sucks, and because i financially can, im going to get a new shock. Based on quality and testimonials from pauli, josh and tom, Im going with a marzocchi. I was going to wait until spring to do it (i have to commute on my mtn bike over the winter, no sense getting a nice new fork covered with winter goo), but i don't like the look of the 2000 line. So, im trying to get a 99 before they are all gone. I was going to get an atom bomb like pauli, but since they are almost impossible to get, im going with the slightly more travel (70mm to 85mm) plus disk brake hanger, z2 bam. 2 other mitigating factors. I want to buy through the shop and am likely going ot put it on layaway so i can slowly pay it off through the winter months. Also, when it comes time to put it on, Im likely going to put a king headset on. Advice? Dave? Other members of Los Bike and I banter back and forth about the whole thing. JK, being the punk ass skater bitch that he is sends out the following: hey guys, i've been looking to put a few new stickers on the frame of the lead sled, and i've been wondering if it would be worth it to fork out the $1.50 for new stix when i know they're just going to get dirty if i ride in the winter (winter/rain dirt-goo and all). i've only been putting free stickers on so far, and once i start committing to putting top-quality store-bought stickers on it, i don't wanna fuck'em up, ya know? should i haggle with the guys down at the skate shop and see if i can get the stickers for maybe $1 or $1.25. i've seen them in mail order catalogs for about that much. i really want to support my local skate shop too, though. any advice?... jk I guess I deserved that. I must say his reply was well done. I was so involved in the whole thing that it took me a couple of seconds to realized I was being slammed. Damn. Sick of it All Show (as told by D?) Pauli, JK, Josh, Sarah, Pous and I go see Sick of it All at the galaxy in St. Louis. Not quite as many people there as I thought there would be. It turns out that the Family Values tour was in STL that night also, that probably kept a lot of the young lunk heads out of the show. All the bands where good. Indecision with its growly very heavy hardcore, Hot Water Music, a bunch of damn good musicians, AFI just about the only band from the Berkley punk scene, their lead singer looking just a little too much like the lead singer to The Cure, and Sick of it All, the band that defines hardcore punk. We were all standing off to the side of the stage admiring the rock, and sometimes watching the antics of the crowd. There were lots of kids moshing and stage diving and such. At one point this kid lands on the stage just as the song ends. He kinda squats down and hopes the band gets going into another song. The lead singer for Sick of it All notices him, "Look who got stuck on the stage with no music." Sick of it All is so cool, they are a damn good, just plain hard band, but they are up there to have fun and don't take themselves too seriously. There was this chunky, spandex clad trashy chic who somehow kept getting up on stage, she didn't surf up there, I think she managed to climb up there from the front. Everytime she got up there she would shake around a little, play some bad air guitar and then try to dive off the stage. Her dives where both painfull and funny as hell to watch. She would waddle towards the edge and then just fall in. Half the time she would get caught up in the singer's mic cord and take it with her. There was this bald headed, missing a few teeth, hoohj (as in hoosier) type who got on the stage a couple of times. But everytime he dove in, he didn't go back or stomach first, he would kinda go knee first. Needless to say we saw some good rock and some damn funny people. Josh falls on his ass. - by Mike Pauli It was a bright, sunny spring day. My friend Chris and his wife, Jen were in town for one reason or another. It just so happened that the stars were aligned just right and most of Los Bike was also in town. So we figured, hey... lets ride. Since we had kind of a mixed group, we decided we would take it easy and head to Castlewood. For whatever reason, Josh didn't have a bike to ride. I think it was because UPS has gotten his frame wedged under a delivery truck or something. Anyways, I had just gotten my old Barracuda back into off-road condition, so I was kind enough to let him ride it. The pre-ride rituals began. Everyone was tuning up their bikes, stretching (well....Chris and Jen were, not us), and making sure everything was in working order. Since it was kinda new to him, Josh was taking the Barracuda for a spin and jumping around and getting the feel for the shifting and all that. After that was done, he started doing his hippity hoppity shit on some railroad ties. Last time he did that on my bike, he stretched all my cables out and fucked up my shifting, so I told him to knock it off. He didn't listen, and kept on doing it. Eventually, I got aggravated and yelled at him. After that, he realized that I wasn't just messing with him, so he stopped. Since I had raised my voice and kinda made a spectacle of myself (imagine that), everyone was looking in Josh's general direction. A couple seconds afterwards, he hopped back on my bike and went to ride away, probably to hop around somewhere else. Anyways, still in his look-at-me mode, he tried to ride a wheelie out of the parking lot. As soon as he got the front wheel off the ground, he pulled back waaay too hard, couldn't clip out of the pedals in time, and fell straight off the seat onto his ass. It was the funniest fucking thing I had ever seen. Usually, when someone fucks up like that, they're embarrassed and they usually start laughing at themselves. But Josh wasn't laughing because I imagine it really hurt. He probably came really close to breaking his tailbone or something. He easily could've done some spinal damage. Aside from all that, none of us really cared if he was hurt, because it was so damn funny. Luckily, he didn't really hurt himself. So that's good. And about a half-hour later, he did get a little sympathy, but not from me. I told him not to do that shit on my bike. Pukeboy - by Quinn (aka Pukeboy) So it's new years eve 1998. We have a vast array of alcoholic delights. Michael Danger Pauli is designated bartender for the night. At the suggestion of Ed, I start off with a whiskey ginger. didn't like it too much. So then I started on Gin & Tonics. I honestly cannot remember how many I had. I'd say between 6 and 8, but who knows? Realize that all the while I'm drinking, I'm also eating mad food as served up by Ed. And if you know Ed, you know that he deosn't play around when he makes hors d' ouvres. Stuffed mushrooms, dips, I think there was potato soup (or was that another night?). Anyway, all stuff that tastes really good, but probably shouldn't be mixed wtih too much alcohol (kinda like white castle hamburgers). So it's late and I go to get a new drink. Pauli suggests a change. I say "OK." So I get what he calls the mulatto (I think Gretchen called it the John Johnson). It was a White Russian with Bailey's in it too. So I think I drank 2 or 3 of those. So then all of a sudden it's time to go to bed. Everyone else was crashing / passing out. So, earlier in teh night, I had called the front bedroom (Amy Jones's kid's bedroom - she wasn't there). But unfortunately, a friend of Jones' and a friend of someone else's hooked up and were doing some sort of stuff in there all evening so I kinda lost that room. SO I ended up in my sleeping bag in the sunroom. The sunroom is basically a back porch that was closed in and made into part of the house. Needless to say the floor was damn cold. So I was drunk as hell, freezing my ass off all night. Most of the night, I felt mega-nasueous. But I fought it as I usually do when I feel like that (I hate throwing up). But finally, about 6 or 7 in themorning, I lost the fight. I felt it coming and so I bolted straight up, busted through Ed&Amy's bedroom into the kitchen. Being the quick-thinking person that I am, I very quickly reasoned that the best place to do my job was in the kitchen sink, since there was a garbage disposal. So I puked, waking some people up who were probably only half asleep at the time. But then, of course, you can't leave fresh chunder in a sink, so I turned the water on and then turned the disposal on to get rid of the stuff. Well, that woke most of the rest of the people up. I think I scared the shit out of Ed. "Oh my God!" was what I heard from his room. So from then on, I've been known as pukeboy. Los Bike Spring Break '99 aka Choad Rules Alpha Test '99 [ what follows is the entries from the trip logbook ] 19 march 1999 - 9pm pousson takes a nyquil 19 march 1999 - about 10:40pm leave Rolla 20 march 1999 - 1:30pm we finally arrive at the Pous house. Interesting things said / seen: Don't Drive Into Smoke MONO-Brownie Mercury Pillager that hot redhead chick at the big statue the big ass statue so, the van is cool, the rock in the van wasn't too bad (6 disk changer). The weather here in Houston is nice, kinda sunny. I wish I had brought my bike. 15 hours in the car, too many stops. Wouldn't want to buy a villager. too small for most families, but not too bad for the trip. JK & Rich, those tall bastards, don't help things. 21 march 1999 - 8:00am holy shit it's 8am. "JK is a stranger." We watched 'Mercury Rising' last night. This morning we had *biscauge*. Momma Pousson made it. Deer sausage wrapped in biscuit dough. Good, perhaps a little severe for morning. Eggs would help out the spice. Official quote for the day: "Missy is like the Tasmanian Devil" Doug and Ellen got here about 10pm last night. Everyone else is boring. No one else is writing anything. 20 march 1999 - 20 march 1999 - 20 march 1999 - 20 march 1999 -