Casserole, hotdish, terrine, one-dish meal … mmm, mmm! While these certainly were not staples in the Mid-Atlantic environs of my youth, I have had the opportunity to enjoy, savor, if at least experience these entrees. They all seem to share low-cost simplicity, being filling and with little flashiness or fanfare.
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It is in this setting I want to take a brief look at some leftovers, so to speak, that I routinely employ on nearly every ride. They do not have anything in particular to do with one another on their own. However, mixed together I end up with a foundation for a great ride casserole. Add cheese to taste.
First, how about some cheesy goodness for your ear holes….
Music Selections: Yambag: The Psycho. I cracked up reading a tag at the bottom of the BC page for this release having never seen “not melodic enough.” Uh yeah, this is warp speed, face-melting fun. The entire eight-song ep is a blink, and you’ll miss it after clocking in at just over seven minutes. It harkens back to grindcore foundational bands like Siege and Napalm Death and more modern successors like Dropdead. There is all the speed and mayhem you could desire to be found here, and I especially dig the distorted bass tone Yambag plies. Yambag (don’t look up the NSFW slang definition of their moniker), however, has a refreshingly funny vibe that compliments their noisy terror. This stuff is sticky, bad-for-you candy that I find endearing, probably more than I should.
No/Mas: Banned in DC. Not enough grind for you I hear you saying? DC’s NO/MÁS can quickly (pun-intended) change that. If you are hoping for anything like the most well-known DC output, you will not find it with NO/MÁS. Not unlike the aforementioned Yambag, this quartet plays at million miles an hour, adding a more metallic seasoning including some occasiona. Cookie Monster vocal stylings. Yet to keep you guessing, NO/MÁS bangs out two covers here from DC’s Bad Brains in a fairly straight style. That’s fine, as they still sound just as incredible as when I first listened to the original ROIR tape in my Walkman and went skateboarding on the boardwalk. These are free for download and nearly forty-five years later the fury is still present in these updated versions.
Let’s get cooking….
Dakine Catch-All Tote. I am neither a chef nor gourmand, but I do know if you intend to make a casserole you are going to need something to put it in. I’ve mentioned that my bikes and related gear are not stored at my abode and instead live a mile down the street in a storage facility. I do my laundry at home and keep my water bottles there as well, so I am routinely transporting items between these locations. I have a larger gear bag that has all my basic ride gear, tools, salves, snacks, insect repellent, blah, blah, blah. It gets loaded with my helmet, armor, gloves, etc. as I head out to drive for a ride, but this one is either at my storage or in my vehicle’s trunk. It too is a Dakine bag. The linked tote at the paragraph’s onset is a more recent acquisition that I nabbed to replace a smaller worn-out Tyvek bag I had used for the intra locale shuffling. It is at least twice the size of its predecessor (you could probably stuff a medium sized stray dog in it) and is made of waterproof tarpaulin. I don’t think it’s worth spending 85 clams on, but Dakine stuff is always on sale somewhere. Here’s the thing, I believe this bag will outlast me and you might say, sure piece of cake for an alter cocker like yourself. However, my experiences with Dakine products have been stellar for years. They remain my go to for knee armor and my bike and snowboard bags are of their provenance. I’ve found their cost to be always more than reasonable for their performance and cannot recommend them highly enough as a solid vessel for your hotdish. My children will be thrilled to inherit them after they get over not being able to disappear to Belize with a family fortune.
Burt’s Bees Vanilla Bean Lip Balm. I’ve mentioned my admiration for lip balm previously so I’ll be brief. However, I felt inclusion in our recipe here was valid due to recent experiences. Lip balm is rarely considered outside of colder months. However, I have been employing it of late during the balmy rides I’m engaged in. Guess what? It works just as well keeping your kissers feeling nice in the pudding-thick humidity vs. more widely accepted uses in the winter. I remain a Burt’s fan, but whatever you like, bubbeleh.
Xpand Laces. I’d like to counter the old chestnut that “Youth is wasted on the young” with, “Old being wasted on the old.” Two examples of this that always cracked me up were: First, a pal I had in high school who would wear thrift-store business suits, dress shoes, a fedora and carry his books in a briefcase. To top it off he’d purposely gray his temples and unlike the other weirdos and delinquents I knew, smoked a pipe instead of the de rigueur cigarettes. Years later one of my cycling pals always would say that he looked forward to dressing in one piece jumpsuits complete with the built-in d-ring belts, a captain’s hat and slip-on boat shoes like an old salt hanging around the wharf. Only the slip-on shoes have come to be a thing though. I know what you’re thinking, “Why Dr. Sweets would we want slip-on shoes for cycling? Why?!?” Well, if you are diehard clip-in pedal rider just skip ahead to the next segment. However, when I began riding flat pedals again half a dozen years ago, I was delighted, if not dumbfounded by the fact that my shoes need not be vein-crushing tight. As you do not pull up with them ever, you can have them fit comfortably and still provide all the performance. It is here that I was clued into Xpand laces which otherwise are the provenance of little kids and the elderly (well, older than me at least). These make any shoe including all standard lace-up flat pedal shoes into slip-ons. So much fun, so easy, so comfortable and in fun colors. Captain’s hat optional.
Maxima Waterproof Grease. The final ingredient for our dish is simple and ubiquitous like garlic in any good kitchen. I will say right now that it may be the number one thing to have for any home mechanic. Maxima Grease is an industry staple for a reason. A seventeen-dollar tub is basically a lifetime supply unless you are running a shop. The places on one’s bike where you shouldn’t use it are far less than where you should. Headset bearings, crown races, threaded bottom bracket bearing covers, pivot bearing covers, axles and a zillion other places are prime candidates I go after with Maxima grease.
Now perhaps this may be old news to some, but allow me to share a recent experience chasing down a rather vexing creak on my bike. I had an intermittent creak develop that would only occur when I was seated pedaling and placing lateral and fore/aft torque on the saddle. It was not present when cycling the suspension nor pedaling standing up. I pulled my saddle off and seat post out cleaned/regreased and torqued everything to spec, but no luck. I then came across an old thread on empty beer dot com wherein the OP had the same issue. The solution was to only use a small amount of friction paste at the top of seat tube and prior to post insertion then take a long brush to spread a generous amount of grease as far down as the post could go. Most seat tubes flare from the collar down and the tiny amount of flex in that location can cause a creak. Often you can see wear marks on the base of the post where it rubs from this movement. I did this exactly and voilà! Silence!!! I cannot really communicate just how amazing the feeling was to have achieved victory in this noise battle. So, so satisfying, less filling and tastes great.*
*The lovely blue color looks like it could be blueberry icing, but do not consume.