This episode has three parts. I want to cover a bunch of topics. The stories start out tame and then quickly take a nosedive into debauchery. Enjoy.

Bike Racing: The Big Moment.

Today I was asked a question: "What was the one big moment in cycling that motivated you to take it to the next level?"

For a few moments I sat in silence. My mind reeled backwards through the five years I had been racing bikes. Various emotions and visceral moments trudged their way to the front of my brain where I could look at them with mixed feelings of excitement, satisfaction, and ultimately: confusion.

Bike racing is such an integral part of my life; I just can't narrow it down to one moment. Though it may sound odd, I see bike racing almost as a relationship. A relationship full of hardships, trying moments, doubt, and broken expectations. And, like any long-lasting relationship, there is a tremendous amount of commitment and dedication I have towards racing that allows me to work through the hardships and helps me make compromises in order to "save" it. 

And, like any long-lasting relationship, “saving” it requires a tremendous amount of commitment and dedication to work through the hardships and help me make compromises. My life mentality is simple: that which takes the most effort is the most rewarding. Effort usually consists of commitment and hard work. This mentality holds true for every aspect of life. When I was in school, homework never bothered me. It boggled my mind when my peers would complain about essays and tests. My reply to their complaints was, "You do realize you are in school?" It seemed obvious to me that if I were to enroll in a University, then I would have homework; so why complain about the obvious?

This dedicated mentality holds true for my other passions in my life as well: my artwork, my music, my lovers, friends and family. The more effort I put into a relationship with a drawing or a lover, then the more rewarding the outcome will be. Going further, if I keep on putting effort into these relationships over a long period of time, I will learn so much more about myself and the person, or object, or sport I am involved with.

I know I am going on a bit of a tangent here, but this is the point: there was never a big moment in racing that brought me to the next level. What has kept me racing is my willingness to dedicate myself to racing even during times when it seemed absolutely pointless.

You see, I have another life theory: one must dedicate themselves the most when everything seems hopeless. Every relationship would fail if it were not for dedication, because, as I mentioned early, every relationship will have struggles, and dedication to the relationship will sometimes be the only glue holding everything together.

For many years I struggled with being an unorthodox bike racer. I was not gifted with the narrow and intense focus necessary to be a life-career professional racer. Ever since I was a kid I had always been distracted by other facets of life I find interesting. Art, music, traveling, adventure, and a lot of chaos has always captivated me, and trying to enjoy all this while being a pro racer is not possible. Late nights with loud music and too much alcohol, long rock-climbing trips with bonfires, 40z and hallucinogens, and pro bike racing with 100% form just don’t mix well. Personally, I find nothing wrong with this. I believe there is something to be said about exploring life when one is young. No regrets. Experience is never regretful.

Last summer, I found this out the hard way. I was trying to juggle many life passions and I was dropping all the balls everywhere. At the Tour of Utah, one of the USA's most challenging professional stage races, I gave up. The months of traveling on the road, the years of having to go to bed at 10pm every night while my friends were partying, the years of training for hours and hours in frigid temperatures all caught up to me as I raced in 100 degree heat at 8,000 feet elevation with the fastest riders in the world. I cracked hard.

But, instead of quitting racing all together, I found a compromise.

I realized that I needed to re-evaluate WHY I race.

The only answer I could come up with was typical: I love racing.

I just love racing my bike. And, even if I don't have the personality to be a career pro racer, I can still race my bike because I love the sport, the adrenaline, the healthy lifestyle, and the people involved within its community.

Upon this realization, I actually began to excel for the end of my race season. In a matter of months I went from "breaking up" with bike racing to "convincing" my bike that it should get "back together with me." Three months after I broke up with my bike at the Tour of Utah we took a trip together down to L.A. We went down to L.A. to compete at the Elite Velodrome National Championships. All the fastest guys in the USA would be there. My bike was a bit nervous about my fitness. Everyone there was second-guessing me and my commitment.

I did not want to let myself down. I did not want to give up on the five amazing years I had racing my bike. After all, bike racing has taken me all over the world, it has given me my amazing job as a coach, it has given me a healthy body, it has given me five National Championship Titles, and it has taught me so many life lessons. With this in mind I raced my heart out and took 2nd place at National Champions.

When I look back and remember all the experiences racing a bike, it is not the happy moments of winning and traveling that have kept me going. Rather, the tumultuous moments--the moments where I wanted to give up and quit it all, the moments where I wanted to walk away and never look back--these are the moments that motivate me and make me appreciate so much more that I am still on my bike racing stronger than ever. Racing is my lifelong love.

Debauchery: A Black Eye, Relationships, and talk of Panties.

I have a black eye. It was not because of a fight. Do you want to know how I got it? Well, you will, so hold on, because you first are going to have to plow through a bit of my relationship history for any of this to make significant sense. 

In many ways my black eye is a symbol for my relationship life. In the previous “Big Moment” story I detailed how commitment does not scare me.  This is true as well for my love relationships to a detrimental point. Because dedication is so essential for me, I rarely become involved in relationships since I see no point to a relationship unless there is a strong level of intimate connection and dedication. Make sense? Maybe?

Hook-ups, casual dating, and one night stands all have their purpose, and I have definitely been distracted by their appeal on memorable occasions; but, in the end, none of them work for me or ultimately give me any type of long term satisfaction. Thus, I tend to avoid them. I have been single for almost 14 months after a very hard break up and though the loneliness creeps up on me, I would rather be in single than in a half-ass relationship that goes nowhere.

After the break-up, my intentions to be single were purposeful. My former girlfriend claimed I was one of those guys who “had to have a girlfriend to feel secure.” I knew that was bullshit, though at the time there were hints of truth in the claim.  The ironic part is that I have not dated anyone in over a year, and she had a new boyfriend a few months after breaking up with me. I don’t know what that means. All I know is that I have spent the last year working my ass off to become emotionally self-reliant.

A few weeks ago I met the most incredible girl at a dance party. We exchanged numbers and hung out later that week. After much conversation with her I realized that after over a year I finally had a legitimate crush on a girl. This girl happens to be smart as a whip, self-confident, have amazing taste and fashion, and, of course, is a gorgeous as all hell. Her name is Lauren. She is 19. I am 24. She just started college, I just graduated. Ooops. Bad news Bears.

The other night I was on the phone with her. She was a bit drunk. So was I. We were talking for a long time about relationships and I confessed that I was worried about the age difference between us. She was as well. I tried to play it cool and smooth the situation over by saying that I just wanted to get to know her. In response she said, “If you are trying to get into my panties you should just hang up the phone now because I am very skeptical of you, Dan.”

How the fuck do I respond to that? I was silent for a bit and then said, “Lauren, that just made you tens time hotter.” Having a spine is hot as hell.

Now, I couldn’t give a damn about age differences, but there is something to be said for matched experience levels.  She is an in a completely different stage of life. This presents a problem. How do I solve this conundrum?

Before I solve my problem I should finally tell you how I got my black eye. Here we go:

Every Monday night I have dinner with bunch of bike racers. One of the roommates at the house is a Stripper and thus there is a stripper pole in the living room. After dinner, when I was good and liquored up, I thought I would have a go at some advanced pole dancing techniques.  I grabbed the pole, threw my legs up in the air, hung upside-down, and started to seductively glide down the pole headfirst, and then promptly lost grip. My head was the first place to make contact with the ground. Lights out.

When I came to my head obviously hurt. There was a little bump and nothing else major. A few days later my head still looked fine. No black eye, yet.

Alright, so here is where all the connections are going to be made: Lauren’s birthday was four days after my stripper pole accident. I wanted to make her a really rad gift. I think buying gifts is dumb. Too easy. I like making presents for people because the time and effort reflects your affection for the person. I decided to make a very intricate sculpture by gluing together shells of porcelain to make this kind of abstract piece that resembled some alien creature. It looked really cool in my imagination. To do this I would have to use very toxic adhesives to ensure the sculpture did not easily fall apart.

The night before her birthday I went into my art studio and began piecing the sculpture together. I have a tendency to work late into the night, and after five hours of solid work the clock read 2am. I began to feel really dizzy and figured I needed to go to bed. As soon as I stood up I began to pass out. My head was swirling. Sounds of high-pitched bells were chiming all over the room.  I needed water. In the bathroom, I thought I was hallucinating as I poked my head in front of the mirror and saw the face of a Troll. The entire right side of my face had swelled up and stuck out about an inch from my bones.

It was then that I realized, ”Dan, you fucking dumbass, you have been poisoning yourself with toxic fumes.” I was on the verge of calling 911, but didn’t because I didn’t want to fork out the insane amount of money for the doctors to merely say, “don’t do that again.” I decided to drink a lot of water and sleep it off, which was really asinine because I could have died in my sleep considering how poisoned my brain was.  The next morning I did awake―thankfully―and all the swelling had settled, leaving gnarly broken blood vessels all around my eye. Thus my black eye. Caused by a stripper pole and blood rushing to my dying brain, all for a 19 year old who is thinks I am just trying to get into her panties.

The best part of the story is that the whole fucking sculpture fell apart because the paint I used chemically reacted with the adhesives and destroyed the bond. Awesome.

So how does the story end? Well, I still have a black eye, I still have no girlfriend, and I still have not gotten into any panties. Too be honest, I am nervous about dating her. At first I tried to convince myself I shouldn’t date her because I would “detract from her college experience.”

But, in all actuality I just don’t want to run the risk of getting attached to someone who is in a whole different realm than me. Perhaps, I am analyzing the situation too much; perhaps we aren’t in two different realms and I am just making excuses. I tell myself that I need to date someone older than me. Yet, aren’t relationships supposed to form on mutual attraction? Does age, or any other factor really matter if there is a connection and similar interest? Answer me this, because I can’t.

 After my past experiences I learned that rushing into a relationships is never a good approach. If I had to reach some ultimate conclusion I would say that this relationship has potential for anything to happen. I think that it is legitimate to be conscious of the age difference. Relationships are all about equality and trust, thus, for right now, I am content taking it slow in order to make sure we are on the same page, even if it means that a black eye is the only action I am getting these days.

After much deep thought and introspection I decided to not pursue dating Lauren because we are at two completely different places in our lives. I am in a whole different world and I don’t want to prevent her from enjoying her new college experience. Regardless of the fact that she is the coolest girl I have met in the past literal year, I think this decision was the most mature and respectful one to make even if it means a black eye is the only “action” I am getting these days,

Art: 5:AM launch. A Funeral for the Viaduct.

Alright, this is going to be short and sweet; I have been telling stories for far too long today. The posted video below will be more accurate in describing this event, so make sure you watch it.

For the previous First Thursday art walk my two friends and I--who are opening up an art gallery together--decided to throw a huge art party consisting of

Death

Light

Fashion

Art

Dance

Music

Destruction

Specifically: My floating art gallery, 5:AM, wanted to throw a crazy fashion show dance party showcasing a huge light installation where we projected massive cracks growing on the decaying viaduct. It took a huge amount of work arranging this party, and I began to become terrified when the space was completely empty an hour before it was supposed to begin. Failure was creeping in.

But, the gods saved my ass. Twenty minutes before the fashion show started a whole throng of people began to file through the door. With five minutes before the first model was planned to swagger onto the catwalk the crowd was so immense it was literally spilling out the door and onto the streets. From then on the night just got crazier and crazier. Within the hour the keg was drained and the music was shaking window panes.  I was DJing the music along side my musical partner in crime, Lyle, aka ‘Buoyant Brain,’ and we worked the crowd into an absolute frenzy. More and more people came and soon the entire room was just a sweaty mess of throbbing people.  I could not have asked for more.