I’m glad the message board isn’t too busy this week, because I just got an e-mail from Raisehellfrida the Mud Maiden, Iceland’s most fearless female mountain biker, and I need to post a thread here to help her.
When I rode across Europe to my home town in Montenegro, Raisehellfrida accompanied me, along with Maurice the Marxist Cyclist. Now, according to an e-mail Raisehellfrida sent me from an Internet café in Dusseldorf, she is coming to New York and she needs a place to stay.
Unfortunately, me, my Colnago, my dog Junkyard and my girlfriend, a NYCC member who doesn’t want me to mention her name on this website, are already more people than our tiny studio apartment can hold. So I have to turn to you, my fellow New York cyclists, for help in housing Raisehellfrida. However, there are some things you should know about her:
On the good side – Raisehellfrida the Mud Maiden is one tough mountain-biking dudette. She has heart. You should have seen her, her muddy blonde hair streaming out from under her helmet, racing up those hills in Montenegro ahead of me and Maurice. She could climb a vertical wall without getting up out of her saddle.
Of course, she claims she is not a hill person. She insists she is a muddy valley person. She calls herself a mud biker. She says, “I love mud. I love to ride through mud. I love to play in mud. I love to wear mud. Mud is my whole life.”
She isn’t kidding. Which leads to the….
Not-so-good-side: Raisehellfrida loves mud so much that when she gets a good coating of it on herself, her jersey, and her bike, she won’t wash it off for days and days. She just admires her mud-covered self in the mirror. But there are disadvantages to keeping the mud plastered on for days and days, even if it means passing up a few showers. For one thing, Raisehellfrida is one of the few A-riders on the planet who you never, ever want to draft.
Some people with sensitive noses might also object to having her in their home. Right now, Raisehellfrida is sharing an apartment on a back alley in Dusseldorf with four male bike messengers. They let her sleep in a spare walk-in closet, provided she keeps her door shut. And they make her keep her bike outside.
The other thing is, Raisehellfrida isn’t sure exactly when she’s going to get here. Maybe May, maybe June, Maybe August, depending on which seaport in Europe she decides to leave from, and how long it takes her to get there. (If they have a rainy Spring in Europe and things get pleasantly muddy, it could be a very long time.)
Anyway, if you can help, please post your notice on this thread. Don’t send it to me. I’ll only read it and then gossip about you. I don’t want to be Raisehellfrida’s postmaster. I told her the old Montenegrin saying, “A postmaster may have ‘master’ in his name, but he is a mistress to the mastery of the mail of other people.” (It’s easier to say in my native language.) But if kind readers like you, who are reading this right now, got back to this message board fast with an offer, Raisehellfrida could see it and reply directly.
Okay. That’s it. I’ve done my duty.
Your pal,
Etoain
Icelandic mountain biker needs bed in NY
... and she can sleep in the yard or the shed. With her bike.
When the minds of men aren't turned off their bikes, they must turn to women playing in mud? Maybe Raisehellfrida needs another mud maiden to play in, then smell or no she'd have more offers!
now if we had a thaw.....
"You are a very nice person, Lynn, and usually a thoughtful and scholarly one, too. I could tell by the way you were listening so intently at the last club meeting to a lecture on centifugal and centripital forces and the effect of those and the moon's gravity vectors on the probability of falling off your bicycle and getting road rash. So I will not flame you for your...alas!... inaccurate comment about male minds.
I will, however, quote my late uncle, the great Montenegrin brain surgeon, Professor-Doctor Cepec Shrdlu, who often advised his medical students, ""Do not assume you know what is inside a man's head until you have sawed off the top of his skull.""
Your Pal,
Etoain"
"Thank you, thank you, kind sir. But, as you know, no one can live being only nice and scholarly. So, the last comment was an effort exactly to ""saw off the top of the skull"" and get to see more of what's inside!
Lynn"
As I get older, as time marches on for all of us, I am more and more convinced that the male/female dichotomy is limited to reproduction and the few hormones and bits plumbing that support reproduction.
Vive la difference for sure …
… but, were you to lop off the top of someone’s head, I think it would all be the same, men and women alike. Do we all not bleed? This Mars v. Venus stuff is just to make $$. It took a few years (centuries, ha), but women and men are much alike, with both sexes having similar goods and bads.
And Frieda, you do not have to use the hose. It’s off now anyway.
And, WTF am I not riding my bike this early Saturday PM??? Because it’s 22F with 9F wind chill.?!?! The trainer beckons! Perhaps thoughts of Frieda will motivate me … no! No mud for me. And low carb too! I can't wait until it warms up - and I can really carb up!! Cavatelli with tomato basil sauce, garlic bread, pick a protein ... uh oh, hunger beckons too!!!!
">>And Frieda, you do not have to use the hose. It’s off now anyway.<<
I just got a frantic e-mail from Raisehellfrida the Mud Maiden,"" sent via an Internet cafe in downtown Dusseldorf. She asks who this ""Frieda"" is that John P. refers to.
She also asks when all of you people are going to stop carrying on about the philosophy of Mars and Venus and find her a bed in New York.
Don't blame me. I'm just passing along the word.
Your Pal,
Etoain
"
... it's Frieda, no, Fried!
One of the funniest and wittiest pieces displayed upon this board. Keep it up. . . if you can. . .
Raisehellfrieda is not that funny, nor witty. But the piece does rate a couple of chuckles.
On this board, as in life, Fact is stranger than fiction.
Likewise, on this board, the facts (real events & people) are funnier than fiction pieces.
>>Raisehellfrieda is not that funny, nor witty. But the piece does rate a couple of chuckles.
>>On this board, as in life, Fact is stranger than fiction. Likewise, on this board, the facts (real events & people) are funnier than fiction pieces.<<
I quite agree, which is why I post the doings of real people like Raisehellfrida and Maurice the Marxist Cyclist.
Incidentally, Chris, I loved your act at the comedy club the other night. My sides are still splitting. I think your current post, above, reflects that same wonderful sense of humor.
Your Pal,
Etoain
"I have just been rousted out of bed (it is 11:30 p.m. Sunday) by a fellow club member alarmed that my previous post contained no ancient Montenegrin folk saying.
Egads! Cannot a man have some privacy on Sunday night?
Very well, bleary eyed though I am, I know I must come up with something, so here is what my old Montenegrin grandmother used to say, ""Never point to the weakness of another person when there is a booger on your finger.""
There, are you satisfied, Mr. Gloppy Chain?
Your Pal,
Etoain"
Shrdloy, sir,
What we really want to know from Raisehellfrida is what she does now that her mud has turned to permafrost and her legs are in danger of turning to rust.
She waxes them!
"No no no! Raisehellfrida is a mud maiden, not a permafrost freak. When mud turns to permafrost, the going is too easy, not at all muddy, and she searches for more muddy ground in more temperate climes.
Right now she is planning to make it to Ireland by late winter or early spring. Her plan is to bicycle across the peat bogs.
It was not an ancient Montenegrin, but the British novelist and parliamentarian Sir Benjamin Disraeli who said, ""When one has been bored upon the land for a long time, it is sometimes a pleasant change to be bored upon the sea for a while.""
Similarly, when not bogged down due to permafrost, one can simply move on and find a bog. But let us get back to the original topic. Does anybody in this formidably distracted town have a spare bed for Raisehellfrida?
Your Pal,
Etoain"
