Last Chance to Vote!

Cast some ballots or I might be forced to break the tie myself. And where's the love for Al?

In other news, the new blogger still sucks. Thanks for your continued support.

Valley of the Dolls

Now that I've been forced into the new Blogger along with everything else new Google, I see that solobreak has had just over 50,000 pageviews in its 6 year existence. Worth trying to bring it out of the coma? Not sure, but if it is, what better way than with a poll? After all, who doesn't like to take a pole? Huh-huh. Pole jokes. And what better kind of poll than a popularity contest among bike racers my faithful blog readers might know? Knew you'd agree. So without any more bullshit, I present the First Annual Solobreak Favorite Rider from the Valley Poll.

Why the valley? Well, first of all, it's in Massachusetts, and you know I love Massachusetts. Other than that, I'm not really sure. But there's lots of riders out there. And lots of great riding. In fact, since I'm not racing much this year, I'm hoping to do more just plain riding in western Mass. Background, this started on, where else, twitter. I noted that Uri Halevi had displaced Al Donahue as my favorite rider from the valley. @uhalevi as he's known, had won me over primarily by being less of a dick than @resultsboy, racing the road, dropping all kinds of knowledge about cars, and having unusually good taste in music for a dude probably born when Ray-Gun was president and vetoing implementation of the metric system. Of course, I'm not sure if either of these two "clowns" (more on that in a second) are actually from the valley. In fact, we know Big Al is from the South Shore someplace. Let's just hope it's Hull and not Hingham. Because if you're going to be from the South Shore, it had better be Hull. Weymouth maybe. But not Hingham. Likewise, Uri has some online bio listing his home as Chestnut Hill. This I did not know when I nominated him, but it's too late to revoke now. Hopefully he was going to school or something and he's not really from there. But anyways (not a real word), they both live in the valley now, meeting the residency requirement. I "met" both of them at last year's Grand Fundo. Uri had a really non-bike racer beard thing hanging from his face, not becoming at all, and I talked with him for about three beers before realizing I "knew" him from twitter. Al's name I recognized as the Garneau guy who won every friggin' race in New England a few years back. I'd heard good things about him. Then he tells me that he started racing at Wompatuck on Wednesday nights when I was with the Bicycle Link and we helped newbies learn how to be mediocre. I guess he moved on...

This would have been a two person race, but of course, the ever-opinionated @shopengarten opined that "those two clowns got nothing on @Francestastic." Dedicated readers might remember @shopengarten as the guy about which Jonny Bold once quipped "too bad, your name sounds like a delicious Belgian beer, what a waste!". At least that's what I remember him for. From what the other Davis Square dicks tell me, nobody will remember him for his race results. But we won't let that stop us from yielding him the floor to put forth a third and final nominee. To be honest, I don't know all that much about @Francestastic. I don't even follow her on twitter. She rides for the same team as Al. He may even be her coach. &^%$#? Another masters racer I know (who does not want his good name associated with this trashy blog) cheers for her at the races. Probably because she looks about 15 18 and wears a clean white skinsuit. She races elite. So there you have it, a three-party party.

Voting will be in the comments. Do your civic duty! Duty. Huh-huh. This is no simple ballot either. You're not even limited to 140 characters. Write a comment. If you tweet about it instead of commenting, you're not only a jackass, but you're a dumbass (a little @gewilli-esque name-calling there). We will come up with some kind of prize. Thanks for voting.