Lent

"Lent is a forty-day period before Easter. It begins on Ash Wednesday. We skip Sundays when we count the forty days, because Sundays commemorate the Resurrection. Lent begins on 22 February 2012 and ends on 7 April 2012, which is the day before Easter."

-Some website

"During Lent, many of the faithful commit to fasting or giving up certain types of luxury as a form of penitence."

-Wikipedia.org, aka the e-hobo that sits on the side of your screen with a cardboard sign begging for your money and making you feel guilty




Giving things up is a big part of Lent. As a form of fasting, it focuses the mind. Some people give up chocolate for Lent, other people give up fast food, and in the popular movie "40 days and 40 nights," Josh Hartnett's womanizing yet endearing character chooses to give up sex for Lent while serving on a battlefield in Somalia, only to find out that Ben Affleck is the father of his girlfriend's child, right before he flies the mission to bomb Tokyo. On the return trip from Tokyo, his friend played by Ben Affleck runs out of gas in his helicopter and dies in a tragic crash just miles from friendly territory in Mogadishu. Subsequently Josh Hartnett finds the woman of his dreams and has sex. True story.










It's a great movie.






Anyway, I had this great idea to stop hating on people on Team Robot for Lent. I was going to be positive for 40 days, and it was going to be ironic, uplifting and hilarious. I was going to change the background from black to pink and change all the images and the banner at the top to unicorns and rainbows and smiles. I was seriously going to do it. I had started saving pictures of hearts and rainbows and smiles, and I had decided that this would be a great opportunity to use Team Robot to encourage people and acknowledge the good in the world. The goal was to be nice for 40 days.






Then I saw this BLopes video, and that plan went right out the window.

X-Fusion and Brian Lopes Part 2 - More Mountain Bike Videos

Going back to the comfort zone for TEAM ROBOT, here's what everyone knows sucks about that video but no one will say:

1. How to do an easy Brian Lopes imitation: plug your nostrils, take your shirt off, and talk about your training regimen, or anything else that no one cares about. As a bonus, put posters of yourself and the number 55 on literally every surface in your house.

2. I came to a bike website to watch bike videos, but what I really wanted to see was your old washed up overpaid self making espresso for what feels like the entire video. This just in, if I wanted to wait around and impatiently watch someone else making espresso, I could go to any Starbucks.

3. Blopes and Jon Hauer are the same person. And speaking of Blopes and Hauer, there's a special moment shared between the two of them over an awkward, gentle shoulder caress at 4:13.



4. Wow, you really ripped it up going down those hills on your trail bike. It seems like you've really got a knack for it; lots of natural talent. Imagine if you were on a full-on downhill bike. You'd go way faster! And then imagine you're younger, and in your physical prime. Big improvement! Then imagine that you're getting paid to travel to every major downhill race in the world and sponsors are giving you everything necessary to win at those races. You would have the skill and support necessary to be the best downhill racer in the world! Then imagine you quit racing downhill after a year and just rode 4x for the rest of your career and tooled around shirtless on other people's pumptracks.


Racing downhill: highly competitive and mentally difficult. Blopes out of his comfort zone.



Gated racing: just do a bunch of squats and practice gate starts. Still somewhat competitive and mentally challenging. Blopes more in his comfort zone.


Travelling around to people's backyards and using your years of professional experience and training to crush random locals who don't race. Blopes totally in his element.



5. I didn't make that up. That story from #4 happened.


6. TEAM ROBOT does not understand your pathetic request for peace, Blopes. No peace. Never peace.





That Blopes video inspired me to embrace our hating ways, but to be honest, that wasn't the only factor that made me write all this and go back to hating. For one thing I had to write a big long post so that the first words people read when they came to the site weren't "Anal" and "C***." Thanks Patrick.




Don't worry, Team Robot is still in the game.





-Chaz