By Jason Giacchino     

Feb 05
Entertainment Winter Style

   Truth be told, winter is finally catching up to me in terms of inspiration.  At the very least, the reality of beautiful riding days is steadily becoming more of a distant dream than a future possibility despite a higher than ever surge of collecting print magazines, frequenting web sites, and browsing through parts catalogs.  The potential is everywhere but the fact that winter forces such drastic changes in one's daily routine, it trickles down until ultimately riding is about as realistic as believing tomorrow perhaps you'll go swimming, outdoors, naked (thankfully there aren't many magazines floating around here devoted to that!)  Its only natural to desire a hot cup of coffee and a decent magazine when one's day consists of shoveling, spinning tires in the driveway, shoveling some more, getting a mouthful of dirty snow (with a few stones thrown in for good measure) then realizing you have no heat in the car when its -4.  And all this just to get to work.

   The end result, of course, is an ever increasing amount of time being spent at my local coffee shop, sipping on coffee, spinning yarns about last season like grandpa's outdated tales from his rocking chair.

   "Ya know kids, I remember a time when the ground was green with freshly cut grass, and you didn't even need four sweaters and a jacket to mail out your bills. Oh those were the days I tell ya."

   And people are taking notice too, just the other day I was rambling on aimlessly as I've been suddenly known to do, when I realized I was sitting alone.  I suppose a good conversation with one's self may be better than a bad one with someone else.  Thankfully I was able to cover by  pretending my ear muffs were headphones with a few well timed snaps of the ol fingers.

   Although one positive development that has materialized out of this new-found definition of entertainment is that due to a fresh collection of parts & accessories catalogs and brochures, I have been able to devote more time to dreaming about the bikes I'll never own.  It seems there is some kind of rush associated with selecting components and mentally assembling a dream machine, if even only strictly fantasy.  I personally begin this objective the same way every time- That is by selecting components that are actually in my price range.  For whatever reason, the fantasy has to at least start out achievable.  Then like clock-work, I begin to feel the rush of thinking to myself, it would only double the price to go from forks like the ones I have now to this year's cream of the crop.  Things get ugly real quick once the process begins as all of the budget equipment that made this fantasy worth wasting mental energy on in the first place becomes replaced with more and more unobtainable items.  By the time I actually calculate the "new" investment cost (rounded down to the nearest dollar)- I wind up mumbling under my breath and shaking my fist in the air. Come to think of it, that's not too unlike grampa' either.

   As the sun sets (shortly after lunch time) I feel the day was wasted in staring at parts in catalogs, fantasizing instead of productively staring at the parts on my current bike in the shed, fantasizing, as I commonly do in the summer months.  Hey, at least then I'm getting some fresh air! Long story short, I can only hope that mentally building dream bikes holds out as entertainment for the remainder of the winter months before I'm mistakenly admitted to a retirement home.  And if that's the case, keep the new parts catalogs coming you young whipper snappers!

JayMoney@peoplepc.com