The WOMBATS towel review

I could tell by the sound and feel of the mailbox door opening that this was an especially bountiful mail delivery. I looked inside and caught my breath-- a lumpy envelope, pregnant with possibility and mystery lay inside. The large mailing label declaring WOMBATS confirmed my hopes-- it was here!

The WOMBATS towels had arrived.

I could draft a detailed and giddy description of my shaky hands and sweaty brow as I opened the envelop and gingerly, and with great reverence, removed the towels from their envelope.

But I won't. That might be kind of silly. No, instead I merely yoinked the towels from the envelope and immediately slung one around my neck as a non-functional cape and made "whooshing" noises as I ran around the room.

Without any further ado, here are some photos that document just a few of the towel's supreme usefulness (in no particular order):

A whip.

A stylish (and sweat absorbing) cravat.

If you find yourself sans chapeau-- it's a hat!

Tucked under your cap-- a sunshade for those hot 'n' sunny days.

A non-functional cape. (Does not allow you to fly)

If you'd like to score one of these fantastic, functional, fashionable towels for your own bad self, just head on over to Jacquie's WOMBATS site. (Link takes you directly to the WOMBATS merch.)

Share and enjoy.

My cyclocross season gone by, I miss it so.

Last weekend the USGP came to town-- the Portland Cup.

I raced on Saturday (USGP race #5) as a sort of last hurrah. My 2008 season has been really awful so this was "just for fun". Like last year, I just wanted to be a part of it-- to race in part of a national series, to race on the very same course that the pro's race on; ask a few burning product questions and mooch freebies off the exhibitors; eat a waffle; ring the cowbell; take a few photos of the "big guys".

I would have eaten at least two waffles, but I forgot the gigantic $10 late entry fee imposed by the USGP-- thanks-a-fucking-lot you money grubbing bastards. So I was left with a fiddling seven bucks. After I tipped the Cyclosportif guys for their wafflery, I was down to a dollar and that don't buy you nothin' at the USGP.

Anyway, to sum it all up (and to borrow from Heidi Swift) , I "raced in the name of cyclocross love".

It was a fun course they had layed out at PIR. I found myself curiously overjoyed to see that they had included the motocross track this year (last year they didn't). I don't know why I was so happy about that-- reminded me of all the barfy feelings from lst summer's short track MTB races. Good times.

Anyway-- the day dawned very cold (for these parts) and I finally got to put my Pearl Izumi therma-fleece bib knickers to good use (the reason why I bought them in the first place). I gave my DeFeet wool Blaze sockses and Ironclad Cold Condition Gloves to good use too.

The gigantic icy-cold, firey-cold... no. Plutonian-like. Frigid planet Hoth-like. The damn cold gigantic mud-puddle in the middle of the MX course was an icy bitch-slap from Jack Frost. The Blaze socks were no defense and my toes went AWOL immediately and didn't check back in until well after the race.

The second lap I decided to take a lef-hand route around the freezing puddle. It was a doughy mess that skewed my bike this way and that. If I stalled and had to get off and run the alternate route would have been worthless.

The next lap I just gave in and plowed through the puddle-- at least under the water was firm ground and I was able to hold my line much more easily. But this time a great gout of ice cold water splashed up on my back side and ran down my butt. "Brrrr" does not even cover it.

As I passed through the finish on my third lap I heard the announcer saying that "everyone was finished". But I could also swear that I heard a bell. The guy that I had been chasing was still going. After a few moments of uncertainty (quit? sneak in another lap?) another racer caught up with me and asked me if "that was it?". I shrugged and told him that I wasn't sure either and that I thought I heard the bell. Then I announced "Screw it. I'm getting another lap." And off I went, to see about catching #301.

I almost got him, too. Very close. But not quite-- a bike length or two, maybe.

In the end I wound up sprinting for 83rd (or 85th?) place.

For the love of cyclocross indeed!

May I direct your attention...

... to the WOMBATS towel at the left. Yes... over there.

Now, one maybe not be eligible for WOMBATS membership or even drink tea, but these towels are massively useful. Just ask any Hitchhiker.

Partly it has great practical value - combined with a few zip-ties/toe-straps/course marking tape you can fashion a loincloth out of it to protect your modesty as you change out of gloopy muddy kit after a cyclocross race; you can sit upon it at the sidelines of the course and ring your cowbell for the poor bastards still slogging it out in the soupy muck; you can soak the corners in various flavors of carb gels to sustain you in emergencies; use it as a non-functional mini-cape (remember it's 8"x19") during the Halloween CX race at Astoria; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat or to heckle racers from the sidelines; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious beer fumes emanating from certain segments of the spectators or avoid the gaze of the OBRA officials glaring at you for accepting a beer hand-up; you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. Although this is highly unlikely at a cyclocross venue.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a fellow racer (fellow racer: one of those other poor bastards out there with you) discovers that you have your towel with you, he will automatically assume that you are also in possession of a toothbrush, Hammer Gel, soap, patch kit, flask of non-OBRA-compliant booze, compass, map, ball of string, pit wheels, wet weather gear, pit bike etc, etc. Furthermore, the fellow racer will then happily lend you any of these or a dozen other items that you might accidentally have "lost". What the fellow racer will think is that any man or woman who can navigate the length and breadth of the race course, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where their towel is is clearly a cyclocrosser to be reckoned with.

With a WOMBATS towel, one will always know where one's towel is.

WOMBATS founder Jacquie Phelan has a stash of these fabulous towels for sale. Head on over to her site jacquiephelan.com and drop her a line to get your bad self one (or two or three) of these fabulous, 8"x19, purple and pink, jacquard loomed beauties.

So go do it.

It finally happened to me...

I schnoobled myself.

I was pulling up my arm warmers. Just a little more. A final tug and then POW.

I laughed my butt off. Only the cats were around to wonder what the human was going on about.

What's a "schnooble" you might ask? The Ironclad cycling team crazies have the answer.

Noted with raised eyebrows...

BEHOLD!

The "crotchless bib short" from Selle SMP. No, it's not actually crotchless-- it's got a zipper that goes from the front allll the way to the back. Looking at their site, the short appears to be designed to be compatible with their own split saddles. Is it a solution in search of a problem? Tying shorts to the use of a particular saddle doesn't seem like such a hot idea.

And the idea of having a zipper so close to one's crotchal region? The folks at Selle SMP have obviously never seen "There's Something About Mary". Just imagine: you hang for as long as you can because you don't want to kill the pace... you're with the front. But finally your back teeth are floating and you just have to pull over. Whipping over to the side of the road you pull a CX step-through dismount and hit the nearest bushes. Every rider that passes is one that you're going to have to chase down and pass again. You take care of business at lightening speed and -- bzzzzz-ip! -- You black out only to come to moments later as a concerned team-mate is asking you "Oh man! How'd you get the beans above the frank??"

Go check out Lennard Zinn's report from the Milan Bike Show for more. No horror stories, though.

Flying my freak flag...

Cut me and I bleed orange and green, take off my socks...

I love cyclocross and I love the Cross Crusade series especially. Over the summer my toenails were dark blue and light blue-- something to match my MTB. Much more subtle and I don't think many people really noticed. Or perhaps they thought that I had managed to catch all my toes in a door jamb or something.

I switch to Cross Crusade orange and green, but with the colder weather I hardly get a chance to air them out.

Still, dyed-in-the-wool, painted toenails cross fanatic.

Update: For fun I posted this pic in the Cross Crusade forums. Jeesh! What a bunch of dorks! Much gasping and freaking out ensued. Apparently I threatened too many male egos. Pfft. Chill out, guys. It's just paint. Toenails are kinda ugly anyway-- paint 'em up!