And if NIBU had a couple million dollars from a corporate sponsor, we could all don our fancy race kits and go travel around the world and sign autographs and race our fancy bikes and weigh our food and get massages from some guy named François then write a few words on Twitter and then fall asleep in a model’s skinny arms in a hotel in Spain.  But we aren’t.  We’re a bunch of smelly guys (and girls!) drinking beers and riding bikes on rollers in a bar on a Wednesday night. 

And, really, that’s pretty cool.  In fact, that’s all I’d really ever want to be. 

Not because I don’t have a proper scale to weigh my food, but because I like drinking beer that doesn’t say “Light” on the bottle. (I usually drink from the can anyways.)  And not because I don’t want to race a fancy bike, but I’d rather not have to race a fancy bike and win to support myself and my model wife’s adopted Vietnamese children with finely sculpted Mohawks. 

Naw, I’d rather drink from a can on a Wednesday night and race for thirty seconds then spend the rest of the time giving fist-bumps and talking about the greater philosophical questions in life such as steel versus carbon and Campagnolo versus Shimano with my friends.  It’s just more my “speed.”  Not to mention I can’t ride a bike that fast anyways, and models find me repulsive for some reason. 

Such is the beauty of The Underground.  For you all know perhaps a Softball Guy, Open Gym Basketball Guy, Weight-room Guy, or, at the very least, Roadie Guy.  The kind of person that believes every little contest must result in a shouting match, or must be contested to the absolute limits of physical capacity, if it means calling “foul” over and again or screaming in your face for those last couple reps on the bench, or copious amounts of eye-black for the church-league softball contest in order to better see the balls and strikes which will no doubt result in a shouting match about the proper distance from the mound home plate must be.  In my humble opinion, this kind of over-zealous enthusiasm can sometimes serve to ruin the game.  Such is the downside of competitive endeavors. 

That said, there is certainly nothing wrong with competition.  In fact, there is also nothing wrong with pushing one’s self to the absolute limits of physical capacity.  It’s needed.  It lets us know we’re alive.  Shows ourselves (and others) what we’re made of.  It is for these endeavors we have racing teams.  North Iowa Spin is a fine example such a team which has produced winning riders and allowed people to further themselves through competition.  The Underground applauds such efforts and hopes to add to those efforts and help in any way we can to continue that tradition, not to compete with it. 

You see, NISpin has their purpose as a racing team, and NIBU has our own purpose as a group that drinks beer from a can.  Therefore, both can coexist while encouraging and expanding upon each other’s efforts. 

Then why, the astute reader might ask, is The Underground now ordering “team kits” if The Underground is not a racing team?  To which I reply, as Bluto would, “WHY NOT?!” 

Can The Underground not have jerseys too?  Can The Underground not also feel the heat of competition on the roadways and singletracks of the Midwest, in order to feel the fire in our lungs and acid in our legs just like anyone else?  So, if you would like to pick up a jersey or a whole damn kit, or a jacket, or whatever and race with it, feel free.  If you race for North Iowa Spin but still want a NIBU kit, you won’t be breaking your contract because NIBU isn’t a racing team.  Or, if you’d like to pick up a jersey and wear it in front of the mirror while playing air-guitar to “Born in the USA.”  Knock yourself out.  If you think this whole thing is for wankers and you’d rather wear your Primal Wear muscle jersey with your Camelback as you pull Pee-Wee wheelies on your fixed Softride while trying to pick up girls in front of NIACC on Tuesday night, rock on dude!  What would The Underground care?  We aren’t a team and we don’t have sponsors to appease, so have at it.  Again, such is the beauty of The Underground.  One can, at the same time, feel a part of a greater group, yet not have the constraints and rules of a racing team. 

It’s sort of like the canned beer of the bicycle racing world. 

And that, dear readers, is just my speed. 

Proofs of the NIBU kits will soon be right here on this blog when the people of Champion Systems finish them.  Order forms for the kits are also available here and at the roller races for your examination.  We hope to have all of the orders in by the races after next, meaning January 6^th, if possible.  If not, we can always push it back another two weeks if we still need to get a few in there to meet the minimums. 

See you the 23^rd. 

-Henry Thompson, Jr.