I Call Dibs!

Are you a pro cycling fan?  Well, if so, you'll no doubt be disheartened to learn that the Pope questions your morality:

Pope Francis warns cycling over ‘doping, dishonesty and corruption’ https://t.co/60VLLceHem

— Indy Sport (@IndySport) March 9, 2019

Speaking at the Annual Congress of the European Cycling Union, the pontiff praised cycling as a discipline which promotes “virtues such as patience, integrity, altruism and team spirit. In road cycling we can see how the whole team works together during races.”

But he added a warning over the ongoing questions of cycling’s moral compass, when “prestige and profit” lead astray. 

Oh, gimme a fucking break:

Behind a disguised offshore company structure, the church's international portfolio has been built up over the years, using cash originally handed over by Mussolini in return for papal recognition of the Italian fascist regime in 1929.

Though I suppose Pope Francis is feeling smug because he never accepted a Golden Colnago:

See, pontiffs with integrity only accept DIY bamboo bikes:

It's what Jesus would have ridden.

Meanwhile, I'm still smarting from the suggestion that it's stupid to live in New York if you like to ride bikes, because the fact is we've got it pretty good:

Indeed, from my abode all I've got to do is head over the George Washington Bridge (that's the span you see looming in the background there) and the riding is quite lovely indeed.  I've also recently rekindled my love affair with my "stainless" steel Ritte Rust Bucket, which pairs quite well with the crabon wheels from my Renovo:

As you can tell, I'm in serious training mode, since I've got to prepare for Eroica California, where on Saturday April 6th I'll participate in the Nova Eroica:

And on Sunday, April 7th I'll do the Classic Eroica:

Flights are booked, accommodations are secured, and, most importantly, a minivan has been rented.  (And yes, the passive voice has been used.)

Moreover, both the bikes I'm riding will be completely new (or at least new to me in the case of the bike I use for the Classic Eroica), and as soon as I'm done with them I will give them away FOR FREE to another lucky Eroica rider, since I head back to New York the very next day and I like to travel light. And rather than curate some sort of contest or other overly complicated mechanism for determining who gets each bike, all you've got to do is find me at Eroica California and call "dibs:"

Yes, that's right: if you see me riding and you call "dibs" the bike is yours after the ride--assuming of course that you're the first person to do so, since that's how calling dibs works.  (Also, only one bike per dibs-caller, you can't call dibs on both.)

By the way, if you're wondering what I'll be riding I have no idea yet, which is sort of the point.  Just figure both will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 56cm--and, once I'm done with them, invaluable pieces of cycling history.  In fact, if you want to turn around and sell them go right ahead, and I can only imagine how much a bicycle ridden by arguably the world's greatest cycling writer the world has ever seen in the world would fetch at a Sotheby's auction:

I am keeping the pedals and bottle cages from the Nova Eroica bike, though, so there.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted, and if you're looking for me during the ride I'll probably be changing near a porta-potty.