These crazy kids today. Riding the goddamn bicycle used to be good enough for us — it was painful, and unrewarding, and we liked it! — but in these days of modern times it has to come wrapped up in organic, free-trade hemp paper and PBA-free ribbons with a non-GMO cherry on top.
You got your sportives, your 24-hour mountain-bike events, and your gravel races. And now you got your Roll Massif, which sounds like Bob Roll in the off-season but isn’t.
What it is, is a Colorado combo platter with all three main items, but without beans, rice and tortilla.
I gotta admit, it kinda sounds like … sounds like … like … OK, all right, fun! It sounds like fun! There! I said it! Happy?
More fun than sitting indoors in Albuquerque, watching the wind blow the rain to Kansas, anyway. That shit is boring.
When we got bored on the copy desk we’d start making stuff up. Not for publication, unless the slot man was drunk, asleep or both, but just for giggles. Bogus horoscopes. Fake AP stories. That sort of thing. It was the journalistical equivalent of a cup check. Occasionally someone’s cup runneth’d over and that shit made the paper, but it wasn’t our fault. We may have been drunk, but we weren’t asleep.
So, since the slot man took the buyout, bought a van, and relocated down to the river, here are some Roll Massif riffs for anyone who thinks wax is for chains, not moustaches.
I mean, Jesus, what’s next, hipsters? A 24-hour gravel sportive for e-bikes? Get the hell off my lawn, sonny.
The Droll Massif
• Roll Massif. What’s hidden, and not very well, either, under a master racer’s Assos bibs.
• Jelly Roll Massif. The Fat Guy on a fat bike.
• Raul Massif. The Fat Guy’s Mexican alias, used when he sneaks over the border for some pan dulce auténtico. Incidentally, he thinks a “Roll Massif” comes from Cinnabon.
• Rule Massif. “Bring your own food on the ride,” sayeth the Fat Guy. “I’m serious. I need all six of those Clif Bars just to get out of the garage.”
• Bull Massif. A bunch of Mad Dogs bragging about how they could crush the Roll Massif if only some generous forklift operator would pry them off the couch.
• Bowl Massif. A “Lebowski” sequel featuring The Fat Guy, who would consider playing Walter Sobchak a Role Massif.
• Troll Massif. Ridiculing someone’s Roll Massif performance on Twitter before the ride has even started.
• Droll Massif. Not taking the Roll Massif seriously enough to placate a Troll Massif.
• Hole Massif. A puncture in your 650b x 2.1s that the sealant won’t resolve.
• Stroll Massif. A double Hole Massif with no spare tubes.
• Toll Massif. Ask not for whom the Massif tolls. It tolls for thee.
Mad Blog Media 
Yep. Everybody drive to Colorado, just to show that bicycling is a low CO2 endeavor.
Hey, watch it buddy! I try to get folks to fly to Italy to ride bikes. Toughest part is if you’ve never done it you don’t know why it’s so great and the airlines these daze make such a trip not-much-fun in the “gettin’ there and back” category. I know this well since I just arrived in LA Tuesday night after about 24 hours in-transit from Milan. Once I get back there it might be a looong time before I do this again!
Sorry about that, Larry. Its the old think global, act local demon on my left shoulder. I tried for several years to get a Los Alamos Half Century going but no one was interested, since everyone up there is already sucking on the Federal teat and don’t need no lousy tourist bicyclists driving here.
Well, at least flying to Italy means going to a foreign nation, riding in a country that extols cycling, and eating real food. My personal ironic moment was that the year we went to Italy on our honeymoon I was recovering from dual patellar tendinitis and could barely walk, so I got to watch all the Italians riding their bikes. That included watching a criterium through the heart of Firenza. Talk about frustration. And back then I was actually competitive rather than the fat bastard I am now.
Nicely done, PO’G!!! A wee bit of free association done magnificently. 🙂
And what a website the Roll Massif folks have. I’ve done a few of their events……lotsa fun! How’d you discover it?
Re the weather: Blizzard due here in the Bibleburg environs starting late tonight. 10-14 inches of snow, low temps, and wind up to 70mph. May be an indoor trainer kinda day Wednesday…..and Thursday…..and………
Thanks, JD. An old colleague of mine is the communications guy.
You ever ride Elephant Rock? I lost interest in centuries after the Hardscrabble Century went away. That was a fun ride, save for the section of Highway 50 between Texas Creek and Cañon City. If you could find the right tandem to wheelsuck you could really blaze that one.
That weather. Awful. Turble bad. I’ll take the rain. We don’t gotta shovel that.
PO’G: I’ve done the Sunrise to Sunset at Elephant Rock and a 25 mile MTB as well. Never did the road stuff…..too many people and many weren’t shall we say “adept bike handlers”.
A’hole Massif. Current occupant of the white house.
Rain and wind all night here. Still going on. Was going on a short road trip with a bud to Rainbow Guitars to sniff around in the acoustic guitar room for an hour or two. But, they are already having some minor street flooding, so we killed the trip. Shit.
Heh. Good’un. Bummer about the trip, though. Playing other people’s guitars is even betterer than playing your own.
Update. Alan and I said “let’s light this candle” when a small patch of blue appeared, and off to Rainbow Guitars we went. There is a new Rainsong Orchestra Model hanging on the wall. We spent two hours in the shop. Great way to pass a rainy day. Humidifier? I don’t need no stinkin’ guitar humidifier.
Here’s a link.
http://www.rainsong.com/concert-hybrid/chom.html
Charity Massif – walk with your dog. At the park adjacent to the start.
Half Massif – isn’t there always?
Roll Massif The Board Game.
Miniature Golf Massif – for the whole family. Indoor and outdoor courses. The lynchpin of the franchise.
A half-massif? Isn’t there a little blue pill for that?
Good one!
Drool Massif: the online mobile device version, which you can play with one hand while the other chases his Taco Hell $5 combo box with a diet Monster energy drink.
Comes with a wet wipe in Team Katusha colors.
Poll Massif – the day when all of the people eligible to vote show up at the polls and do so.
Ho, another good’un. When that one shows up it will be riding a unicorn.
I’ll be the one flying over on a pig.
Mole Massif: the guy who rats out everyone who is doping or blood boosting on the ride.
Omerta Massif! Shhhhh…..!!!!!
If they’d just add an “E” to that abbreviation up top we could go off on another tangent.
Well played, O’G.
Why, thank you, sir. Looks like you folks have a fine lineup there. Should be big fun, if nobody slides out and augurs in on all that moustache wax.
Back to weather for a second. I was going to bitch about our windy day today, then I looked at the Duke City forecast. Yikes! Batten down the hatches Patrick, it’s going to blow today.
Could be worser. Check out the forecasts for Bibleburg and Mile High. Ho. Lee. Schidt.
Worser is right! Blizzard, huh? I can live without that.
Grew up pretty much everywhere east of the Mississippi, so it still throws me for a loop when they close the interstates out here.
Up here, State Route 4 is closed from Los Alamos to the 126 turnoff to Cuba due to downed trees. Its been interesting.
Don’t even ask up here in CO!! Stay safe all!!!!!
Denver gives birth to a “bomb cyclone” which is heading to Herb so he can enjoy another this winter. Stay warm and safe Herb!
If you used to say “never trust anyone over thirty” and now you call thirty-somethings “sonny”, you may be a Geezer.
#JeffFoxworth #BackintheDay