I’ve caught kitties eating my cycling food before. I got a random flat tire the other day and couldn’t figure it out; just caught my cat CHEWING ON MY BIKE TIRES!! DAMN RAT!
So I quickly put the bike on the bike rack, knocking some cycling clothes onto the floor in the process.
What does rat-face then proceed to do? Roll around and snuggle my nasty bike clothes in all their glory.
After I caught my kittens eating my cycling food, I cleaned up the bike room considerably of any consumables, hiding them in the kitchen cabinet. They are safe for now, until the kittens learn to open the cabinet, which will probably happen soon. Damn pesky kittens!!
This morning I hear yet a new sign of Kitten Trouble coming from the bike room – the orange baby is sharpening her claws on my camelbak! She has already demonstrated her prowess of destruction by murdering my best brown pair of heels, as well as multiple flip flops that have become rendered into swiss cheese. Maybe this is why my camelbak had sprung a leak!!
The baby kitten in question is sitting next to me as I type this, attempting to look innocent of all wrong doing. I shall not be fooled!
Have you had a pet chew on your sports equipment? How did you protect your gear??
Do not be fooled by it's cuteness. This thing is LETHAL.
This picture was taken yesterday by my sink. This is what it looks like all the time. Multiple water bottles, drying off, remaining gunky. Well, hell. There is a product that solves this issue. The Clean Bottle. The name says it all. These water bottles can actually be CLEANED.
How does it work, you ask? THE BOTTOM SCREWS OFF! Therefore, no more nasty icky moldy water bottle bottom that you just can’t reach. Viva!
Bottom screws off. The banana was just an extra touch.
Do you even put your water bottles in the dishwasher?
Also works in the dishwasher. I always feel like a FAIL when I put a water bottle in the dishwasher because really? It can’t clean all up in there. The steam just gets caught in the bottom, resulting in more soggy bottom.
I took the Clean Bottle on a date on my bike and around town in the car and guzzled from it often. A few notes:
1. Does require an extra tug to get the nozzle open all the way
2. The bottle is very firm/high quality. Not easily squeezable like run of the mill water bottles
3. Top of bottle is not interchangeable with run of the mill water bottles, so don’t lose the top
4. I like that it is clear – then you can see which liquid you have in there (ie reaching for the water vs. electrolyte bottle)
And of course, you can’t have a product called Clean Bottle without being involved in some kind of green-conscious efforts. Following text stolen from the website:
The Clean Bottle is made with 100% non-toxic, BPA-free plastics, making it safe to use over and over. And 10% of all Clean Bottle™ profits are donated to eco and cycling friendly charities that you vote for.
Water bottle is about as tall as a kitten
I was super blessed to receive two water bottles for this review from Clean Bottle. One for me to review and another to give away to a reader!! I will have a separate post with details on Saturday, July 3rd with details on how to win a Clean Bottle from ThrownChain.com (Hint: You’ll need to be a fan of our Facebook page).
Want to learn more about this product, or buy one? Check out CleanBottle.com. I’d also like to mention the kitten in the picture is sitting right next to me as I type this, purring. Yay for kittens and water bottles that can be gunk free.
While sitting around, nicely showered and blogging about my ride of the day, I noticed The Kittens in the Bike Room lurking around the Food Box (my box of biking foods, mostly powerbar gels, Bonk breaker bars and electrolyte drink mix).
Now, this is not normal Kitten behavior. Generally there is romping, snoozing or eating. I quickly realize that… they ARE eating! MY GEL! One of my gel packets was torn enough to get gel oozing out, kitten bites all over the packet.
Below is a re-enactment of the crime. I believe the older Kitten (Spot) is the perpetrator. Snap, the baby, was an innocent bystander.
Re-enactment of the crime
The box has now been moved off the floor and into a cabinet. Below is a closer image of the Criminal Kitten. Do not let that look of extreme innocence fool you. He would murder you in your sleep for a pack of Powerbar Gel.
Wut iz this jell u speek of and how do i get it?
Have you ever caught a pet (or loved one) stealing your workout food!?
While doing interval training on the evil sandy bike path of doom (no stop lights to interrupt intervals, though), I came across a stretch that borders a pier (Manhattan beach pier for those who know Los Angeles). During the weekends, there is a mandatory ‘walk your bike’ thing going on for this stretch (yet another reason NOT to bike on the weekends on the bike path). As this was around 5 PM on a weekday, no walk your bike and not a lot of foot traffic.
THE ENEMY TO CYCLISTS EVERYWHERE
I was in the middle of my ON interval, so I was doing about 17 MPH (hey, there was a strong headwind, ok?) and going hard. Watching the pedestrians, I see a guy saunter his way as slowly as possible across the bike path (which is what, five feet wide?). I could gauge he would almost clear it by the time I got there, unless he stopped. Regardless, I could still go around him.
I get within 15 feet, and all of a sudden a runt ass pre-teen starts to go out onto bikepath!! Now I have BOTH father and kid (or however they knew eachother) ON the path, completely blocking the way!!
Too close to stop, I screamed something at them twice. I don’t recall what it was. Something like ‘MOVE IT’ or ‘WATCH OUT’. I think I screamed MOVE IT (with a follow up of BIKES ONLY!!) at the couple that was walking DOWN the BIKE PATH holding hands.
Now, I narrowly avoided crushing the child with my Trek5200 by going in between kid and father (it was a close shave). Treat a bike path like a road, kid! Apparently his father never taught him to look both ways before crossing!!
This is not the first time I have almost murdered children on my bike (usually on the bike path, where they like to dart out of nowhere at the last second).
It’s definitely possible to be killed by a cyclist, where penalties for bike-slaughter may only be a fine. Granted, if you Google ‘killed by bicycle’ you see a billion more articles about cyclists that were KILLED, usually by our evil metal brethren, the car.
The more hard core cyclists (read: not goobers on beach cruisers) are easily doing over 20 MPH. It’s gotta SUCK to get hit by ANYTHING doing over 20 MPH. Hell, I clocked myself doing over FIFTY miles per hour going down a really long hill in Palos Verdes. That was awesome. I knew if I hit any kind of serious hole/rock/etc, I was gonna get splattered. It was sooo awesome. That is like..suicide by cyclist, right??
Apparently you can also use your bicycle during drive by shootings, which is giving me a lot of ideas. Trust me, I often thought about packin’ some serious heat and/or a crowbar in my bike jersey to smash car windows of those who dare to get too close (and then are stuck at the stop light up ahead) and little children that scamper around the bike path.. or beach cruisers doing 5 MPH three abreast… the possibilities are endless! Yes, I suffer from extreme road/bike path rage.
And I will have you know that the entire time I wrote this post, a kitten was on my lap, purring and snuggling and trying to prevent me from typing with it’s truly murderous cuteness. I was not able to find any incidents of ‘death by kitten’, but the Google images for that term are adorable.
The Kitten
Click kitten pic to enlarge. Kitten’s name is ‘snap’. Kitten is orange.
