Chicked by a Girl

I was chicked by a girl, and I liked it

If the phrasing of the above sentence sounds familiar, that is because it’s an altered line from Katy Perry’s song, “I Kissed a Girl” [actual line: I kissed a girl, and I liked it].  I do not like this song.  It is annoying and cheesy.  However, that sentence so succinctly summarizes what happened on Saturday.  I also couldn’t get that line out of my head no matter how hard I tried.

I hate the word “chicked”

Cycling is known for a somewhat elitist subculture amongst the upper echelons of athletes.  I am in no way implying that all of the people up with exceptional abilities are this way, but there certainly are a lot of them.  Triathlon has this issue as well, but in my opinion, it is not as pronounced of a problem.  This subculture is a lot like stereotypical high school jocks that never grow out of that phase.

I encountered quite a few of those types of people on Saturday.

Getting chicked occurs when a woman passes a man.  The word has been a derogatory term I’ve known about for several years.  I don’t know how long the phrase has actually been used.  I have only heard it used in the context of cyclists and triathletes.  Every time I hear it used in a casual manner – that isn’t making fun of the word – I automatically lower my opinion of the speaker.  If used in a more formal manner, my opinion goes even lower.

On Saturday, I was participating in an aptly named Horribly Hilly Hundreds near Madison, Wisconsin.  It is a ride that is on a bucket list of many cyclists.  The ride was fun and went well for the most part, but as the name implies there was a lot of hill climbing.  This ride gives you the choice of 63 miles, 100 miles, or 124 miles.  I chose the 100 miles.  I likely would not have been able to complete the 124 mile course.  On the 100 mile route there was 9,300 feet of vertical climbing – only uphills count, not downhills.  A normal century ride would only have about 1/4 of that.  On top of the regular hills at normal grades, there were quite a lot of hills that had extreme grades of 15% to 20%.

It was right after the first major hill of the day where I first heard someone razz a guy about getting chicked.  I was struggling on that hill because of the grade.  This one was 15% at times.  I was in my granny gear (the smallest (easiest) chainring in front on bikes that have three chainrings – not considered a derogatory term, all cyclists use this word) and struggling along at about 4.5 mph just to keep the bike upright.  I was passing a few people and getting passed by a few as well.

I then had a serious mechanical breakdown.

My chain slipped off my back gears – called a cassette – and got itself wedged between the spokes and the gears.  I stopped pedaling as soon as heard it but I was putting so much power into the bike just to stay upright that the chain got really wedged in there.  Normally, when this happens I can just yank on it really hard and the chain will free itself.  I did that to no avail.  Thankfully, one of the sag wagons came by within a short period of time.  The helper had a hammer and a massively long screwdriver, the kind long enough to stir a paint can.  Those tools combined with a couple minutes of pounding finally got my chain free.

If you have ever had to start a bike while on a steep incline, you know how tough it is for those first few pedal strokes.  Once I finally got started again and had regained my momentum I wanted to jump for joy, but that would have defeated the purpose and made me stop again.  All that exertion made my adrenaline really spike, which actually tends to make things easier after a little bit.

I was feeling good with the blood rushing, but that also means that my heart rate was through the roof.  Nobody had a chance of knowing what my heart was doing at the time.  They had an incredibly easy time knowing what my lungs were doing, though.  I was rapidly taking in massive breaths and I sounded like a freight train.

Then along comes three women who were acting as if this climb was like a walk in the park.  Everyone else on the hill was likely in the 4 mph range somewhere.  These three ladies were holding a conversation amongst themselves while in the high 5’s or low 6’s mph range or so.  They were doling out compliments and encouragement along the way to everyone they passed.

I had nothing but admiration for these ladies and their abilities.

At the top of the hill there was a guy just standing there waiting for his buddies to finish their climbs.  I passed his buddies close to the top of the hill.  I heard him yell something like, “You guys suck.  You got chicked by THREE girls! On the same hill!”

I was not pleased with that comment at all.  I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, but I showed some restraint.  It’s been a long time since high school; I am much better at being able to control the adrenaline.  I didn’t need to get into a petty argument.

They all stopped for water.  I don’t like to stop immediately at the top of the hill, so I soft-pedaled for a bit to let me catch my breath a bit before I stopped.  I didn’t stop for as long as they did because I wanted to push onward.

I think the chicked term is quite demeaning.  It makes it sound as if all of the effort those ladies had obviously put into getting better at climbing hills was just plain expected.  They are the same chauvinistic ideas that say that men must always be better at sports than women.  This is patently false in all individual sports.  If a woman puts in the time and effort to her passion, of course she should reap the speed and strength reward.  I am proud that there are women that are much faster than I am.

I was chicked by three girls (and many more along the route) and I liked it.

Panhandler Musicians

There has been a real explosion of panhandler musicians in the skywalk system of Des Moines over the past 7 or 8 months.  I see them all the time on my way to lunch.  They are always on the portion of the skywalk that is over the street.  I guess that portion is considered public area, so they can’t be kicked out by the businesses.

The people you see are often the same but in different places every day.  The regulars are mostly solo acts with an acoustic guitar.  They are always male.  They usually appear to come from the lower socio-economic classes.  They all have an open box seeded with a little starter money to encourage tips. 

The musician I like least I have nicknamed Bob.  Bob only knows one musical phrase.  I think this phrase is from a Bob Dylan song.  It is at the most maybe 10 bars long.  The good news is that the end of the phrase repeats into the beginning of the phrase easily.  The bad news is that I hear THE SAME THING FOUR TIMES FOR EVERY SINGLE TIME I NEED TO WALK BY HIM.  My evidence for saying it’s a Dylan song comes from the Dylan shirt that he wears about every third day.  He tries to sing a few words but it never comes out as anything more than a whisper.  He has the look of an old Vietnam vet with a long, scraggly white beard.

The musician I like the most is quite friendly and always has a wide variety of songs to play.  He seems like a guy who is always happy.  His look is more like a mid-50’s Native American who has no reservations about his heritage and is proud of it, but is firmly integrated into the rest of society.  He looks people in the eye and will give you a smile while he is singing.  He also briefly interrupts the singing to thank everyone who gives him a tip.  The guitar playing doesn’t stop though.  He does the guitar equivalent of marking time during that.  I’m sorry to say I don’t know his name though or have a nickname for him.

I do have a personal policy of not giving money to beggars on the street.  Many times you know they are just going to waste it on some personal vices, whatever they may be.  I have broken that policy several times for my favorite musician though.  I don’t think he is one to waste what he receives.  I think he does it mostly for the enjoyment of his craft.

Neil Diamond and Turducken

We’re Coming to America

I had a real Neal Diamond moment on Monday.  I’m sure you are all familiar with Diamond’s hit song, “America”.  I had it during my French class I had referenced in a previous post.  It was actually quite refreshing to be in a class where people were actually excited to be there.

There were people from all backgrounds and ethnicities.  All but one were adults.  The one kid was 10 and was there because her mom had made a deal with her.  They are going to visit Paris sometime, but first they both had to spend the time in class to learn the language.

Another student was here from Ghana.  She said that English is an official language there but all of the surrounding countries speak French so that is why she wanted to learn.

Another student, likely from Indonesia by her looks, was having troubles speaking in English.  She could actually use ESL classes first, but she was right there with everybody trying to pick up as much French as she could.  Her pronunciations were terrible, but it was enlightening to know that she cared enough to try and get better.  There was one point where she and the teacher were going back and forth on how to say a specific sentence.  The first time through I couldn’t even tell if she was trying to speak French.  By about the tenth time you could actually make out what she was trying to say, but it was still with a heavy Asian accent.

Turducken

In almost every French class you take, at some point the teacher will instruct you on how to use the phrase, “Comment dit-on _______ en français/anglais?”  This translates as “How does one say ______ in French/English?”  They do this so that you don’t have to break into full English just to ask for a translation of a specific word.  Of course, the more you can force a student into using only French the better.  As a part of this class, she went to every student and had them ask for a translation of whatever word they wanted.  She was also using this opportunity to hear the pronunciations we used and to correct for other small things.  Other students were asking for simple things like peach, horse, neighborhood, ice cream, and others.

I took the opportunity to ask the same thing I have asked with every French teacher I’ve ever had: “How do you say turducken in French?”  I have always gotten the same response, “Je ne sais pas” – “I don’t know”.  Despite never having had turducken, I like the word.  It perfectly describes what it is through word play.  It is a chickEN, inside of a DUCK, inside of a TURkey – TURduckEN.  The same word play in French would be something like poulet inside of a canard, inside of a dindon, so maybe a “dincanlet”?  This spelling doesn’t show up in my massive French-English dictionary, and neither does turducken translate directly, so I guess I just made up a new French word. 

I did definitely make a mistake towards the end of class. In general, I was trying to fit in with the theme of what the instructor was trying to teach.  For a beginner course you usually just stick to the present tense to begin with.  We were discussing the Eiffel Tower using simple sentences like, “I like the Eiffel Tower”, “I go to the Eiffel Tower”, and “The Eiffel Tower is beautiful”.  We were then talking about Gustav Eiffel.  The teacher asked if anybody knew what role he played in its creation.  Nobody was answering.  I had been waiting on others to respond first to many of the open-ended questions.  I did this since about half of the class had never had a French class before.  I didn’t want to be dominating the class because I had a lot of French classes before.  They needed the practice.  – I’m not trying to sound arrogant here, my French needs a lot of work as well, but I would be better suited for an intermediate class which is only offered in the spring and fall – The silence lasted for a while so I responded with “Il était l’architecte” – “He was the architect”.  I used the Imperfect tense and I used a pronoun other than I or we.  Until then we had been repeating the noun many times.  Also, I think the teacher was looking for a response in English.