Four More Years!

Really? Halfway through my ride today, I realized today was the 15th, meaning solobreak.blogspot.com turns four today. It also means that special 2nd anniversary nodcast is now two years late. Great artistic vision can't be hurried. But the blog rolls on, 729 posts including this one. It's become a lot more difficult, and I'm doubting there will be 729 more in the next four years, but at least I haven't let it die - yet. I was just a lad of 44 when I started this thing; it seemed like a good idea at that time. Anyway, I've got nothing today, except for a little memorial for all the blogs that have gone before this one. I almost titled this post All the blogs who died, died.



First and foremost, the great Zoo, and Cycling Obsessions. His was the first blog I ever read. Before that I don't think I even knew what a blog was. Zoo was a southern NH kid who somehow was unlucky enough to stumble upon our team of miscreants, looking for guidance in his quest to become a bike racer. How that worked out is another story, but he kept a blog or two about his misadventures in training. Zoo couldn't really decide if he wanted to be a bike racer or a triathlete. I don't think he could swim much further than the length of a backyard pool (neither can I) or run a 5k without stopping to rest, but the boy wonder quickly figured out that bike racers are 88% male, whereas triathletes are closer to 50/50 male/female... Our hero linked to a lot of triathlete blogs. Hell, there are a lot of triathlete blogs compared to bike racer blogs. So some of the first other blogs I found were those.

Zoo linked to the Iron Kahuna, Bolder in Boulder, and Iron Wil. His comments on the latter earned him the moniker "Milf-Hunter" back home at the club... The Kahuna was pretty funny too, and he was a real writer with a gig at the LA Times, but then he wrote a book and for some reason that was the end of his blog. But Bolder in Boulder was my favorite, and I really thought we had a chance of bringing him over to the dark side of bike racing. And just like that his blog was gone too, I suspect a victim of personal or professional consideration. I'm pretty sure he's still lurking though, unless somebody else wants to fess up to the hits from bluebird.ibm.com.

Then we had the fun boy three, 3bicoastalboys, led by MoveitFred, who occasionally still surfaces. These motherfuckers had one of the best blogs on the planet, two English profs, and a paramedic, go figure. I know these assholes still read this, so how about a comeback? Heywood, the tour of Cali is running right through Auburn this year, where's the party?

OK, who am I forgetting? Oh yeah, Josef B. Author of the all-time best blog comment ever, a simple "civil rights struggle, meet bike race" in response to one of Willi's rants on some imagined registration table injustice. Then there's the Automaton. He let his blog degenerate into a picture or two every three months, then abandoned it, I think. Maybe I just stopped checking. Dude, did you ever get a job other than being Jen's laundry boy? Then there's the kid from Maine, good rider, had race reports and occasionally some emo ramblings. Name of the blog escapes me now. Last but certainly not least, we have Feltslave and his numerous blogs. He's started and deleted so many that I've put him on probation, not linking to his current offering until I see him keep it going for six months or so.



I pity the fool!

Hate doing this, because I'm sure I (unintentionally) left some out. Here's where you come in. I'm sure you've seen the ad for the new A-Team movie (with Jessica Biel!). All the old TV shows get brought back as movies. What blogs do you want to see come back? Let's have some nominees. We all know that we need more, as you can't survive on just this crap for another four years. Thanks for reading, really!