On and on and on. On and on and on. It’s quickly becoming a problem — or is it? I really can’t even think of doing anything else but to reach out for that wondrous mix of quiet time, mental and physical well being and traveling man motivation that comes with nothing but a long ride. Still in the grips of a Western New York winter that Never… Fucking… Ends… I’m bailing on all this bullshit, Howard Beale-style*. Yup. I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore, so I’m heading to the warm, sunny and generally mentally inept glow of America’s diseased appendage, aka Floriduh. I’ll soak it all up for a few days before I hit the road, heading north up the Atlantic Coast on a solo ride through Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia and into Washington DC, where I’ll then pedal up the C&O/GAP trail or train it toward Lake Erie for the Slow Roll Cleveland season opening bike ride on April 29. A cool 1,200-1,500 mile ride. Fuck. Yea.

Words and pics will be abundantly forthcoming, insights and/or ignorance may be provided, fun will be had and coddled minds will most certainly be offended. For now though, settle in with the mighty vibrations of A Tribe Called Quest… You on-point Tip? All the time Phife.

*”I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot – I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad. You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!’ So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’ I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: “I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”“