Bill Strickland

[e-RICHIE]

I guess the answer to why I write personally is because it is the way journalism is evolving, but also the way I best know how to get to the things that matter.

this ^ resonates with me atmo.

[jerk]

Bill-
What's in the works for you? Can you give us any hints on any books or projects you are working on now? And as a second question, in your experience, how does one make it as a writer?

[bill strickland]

Srenda —

The only thing I think I probably know, so far, is that expression seems likely to keep having some value. I don’t know if that value will be monetary in quite the direct way it has been in the past, whereby someone who knows where to put the commas is paid to attract readers who attract advertisers who pay to reach the readers. I was never really sure exactly how all that worked, anyway. I understood that editors, for the most part, are paid more than writers, and ad, marketing and business people are paid, for the most part, more than editors, and the hierarchy doesn’t bother me much. I get to write, and work with great writers, for a living. That’s amazing to someone like me. If people can make more money off the stuff I produce, good for them.

And the whole thing, the formats we express ourselves in, the conduits for the expression, the art that goes along with the expression, and the expenses for the mailing or the bandwith or the holograms or whatever comes next, all of that is eventually going to be shaped by the money to be made by those smart in the way, or focused in the way that makes them care more about making it. I’m not saying that the individuals doing the expressing necessarily cater their work to this system (some do, some don’t), but that somehow they will at least be affected by it.

There is a sort of social value that seems to be developing, which, I guess, is estimated in followers or influence on the various networks or whatever. And someone somewhere is going to figure out how to make money off the people who have the social value.

Where does the long-form storytelling go? Where do the best photos go? Will the pithy social network phrase-writer wield more influence than the 5,000-word narrative spinner? I really don’t know. At one point it seemed we all thought that long stories and photos were the future of print – pics are always going to look better on paper. But the ipad, in particualar among the tablets, sort of knocked the shit out of that. Also in this category are the big-format web slideshows, like those the Boston Globe does, or any number of photo-centric blogs. I tend to think, now, that the magazine or book or booklet or zine as “object” will be the final resting point –- and object so lovingly created that it has value for being physical. There are some books going in this direction, a few magazines, and the point is made sometimes that sailboats have significant personal value after forfeiting their utilitarian value. Or magazines will be like vinyl records? I’m okay with whatever happens; I’m guessing I’ll generally be able to make a living expressing the beauty of bicycling. If not, there is always the convenience store down the street and storytelling for the hell of it. I just want to teach my kid wrong from really wrong, and get out to the races as many Thursdays as I can and, along the way, maybe get closer to figuring out what the hell we’re all doing here.

When there is a corporate reorganization, or changes at the magazine, or the publishing or bike industries dive, there is something I tell the kids here when they get excited: It’s about the pages. Let’s put out good pages.

I loved that Campagnolo story, too. I was the editor on that one. (Though I wish we’d gotten better pics, and had the room to do a sidebar we worked on, about the most beautiful Campagnolo components through the years.) Part of what I love about it is that it was print. This year, after years of not, I started sometimes taking a notebook on rides again.

[PDAR]

Bill, loved Ten Points. Some brave writing, that. I also dig the feel of The Selection. I like the new design of the magazine as well. On an unrelated note, has Bicycling considered ending The Daily Lance? It's a little sycophantic, no?

[bill strickland]

Hi Everyone . . .

Apologies for the delay in answering questions. Just a bit of a crunch right now.

Meantime, the online version of the Dream Bikes roundup, which included Craig's, has been posted. You can jump directly to my review of his bike here:

Gaulzetti Custom Aluminum Road Bike | Bicycling Magazine

[jerk]

Hi Everyone . . .

Apologies for the delay in answering questions. Just a bit of a crunch right now.

Meantime, the online version of the Dream Bikes roundup, which included Craig's, has been posted. You can jump directly to my review of his bike here:

Gaulzetti Custom Aluminum Road Bike | Bicycling Magazine

no that's a fine fine fine piece of fiction bill! my bikes are pretty fucking awesome, but i am humbled to have my bike be the object of such well written praise. it's always great when a client "gets it" regarding what i'm trying to do with my bikes and you got it...and expressed it wonderfully. thank you again.

[bill strickland]

good morning bill -

i go into a race with the attitude, "someone has to win this thing, it might as well be me atmo." it took me years of riding, racing, and then getting near the front and doing something about it before i adapted this ^ mantra. i bracketed your quote because one takeaway i got from the original post was that part of the lesson at the track was to realize that you, bill, could get it done.

Richard,

One thing I love about writing, about telling stories, is that everyone can get their own, different, sometimes unique something out of the same words. For me, what Alaric (and bike racing) helped me realize is the opposite of your revelation: I’m more tenacious than victorious. Racing forced me to understand that I am not a winner.

Here’s a scene, from Ten Points, set the night after I finally manage to score two points in the training crit, that explains a little of what I’m trying to say.

-------------
Sitting on the couch, I reached across the valley created by the border of our legs, and touched my index finger to a pale patch on the tip of Beth’s nose that you could see only if you knew to look for it. Almost twenty years ago, she’d torn off a chunk of skin with a fingernail while batting at a paper airplane a friend of ours had thrown at her. She also had a nearly invisible scar at the bottom of her right eyebrow, where her younger brother had thrown a burnt brownie at her when they were kids. And, on the ball of her left foot, a mysterious, tiny hard spot that had been there since I’d known her.

I said, “What I was trying to tell you earlier is that I figured out something really important today.”

“How to sprint?”

“That, too,” I said. I dropped my hand from her cheek and wrapped my fingers around hers. “I’m sticky.”

She pulled her hands away, flipped them over, and examined her fingers.

I waggled my hands in front of Beth’s face and said, “Not sticky like that. You know — bike sticky.”

“Oh,” Beth said.

There are all kinds of bike riders, with names passed down from their original French, Belgian, Italian, and generally legendary origins. There are the rouleurs, tough cyclists who can turn the pedals over at high speed for miles and miles, without cracking. There are the grimpeurs, the angels of the mountains, who fly up leg-breaking slopes. There are flahutes, who excel in mud and cobbles and cold. There are domestiques, whose sole job is to protect their leaders. Rarest of all are the campionissimo, the champions among champions — the immortals. I was the least glorious, last noble, silliest-named type of bike racer of all. I was sticky. My only talent on a bike: I was hard to get rid of. Always there, never first, other cyclists said of the sticky. Great teammates. Terrible leaders. We were tenacious failures.

“But,” said Beth. “You knew that.”

It was true. My stickiness was no revelation. All of us knew what kind of riders the others were. Beth was a rhythm climber.

“Yeah,” I said. “But — I mean, I’m sticky. I mean, in life.” I put both my arms over her collarbones and pulled her toward me. We dropped our chins over each other’s shoulders, then I pulled my head back and nuzzled into the space between her neck and the fine curve of her collarbone. “That’s all I have,” I said.

Beth didn’t say anything. She slid two fingers into my hair. I listened to her breathe. I said, “It means I’m not a winner.”

“Oh come on,” said Beth. Her fingers tickled their way down my head, onto my shoulder. “You scored —”

“No,” I said. “I know this now. And it’s a good thing. I used to think it was a weakness. I mean, it is a weakness — a big one — but it’s also my strength.” I raised my head up and looked into her green eyes from a distance of two inches. Our noses brushed. “I’m not built to win. I’m built to not lose. I’m going to — I’m going to screw stuff up, you know, my whole life, and I’m never going to quite ever get what I want. Or be able to give you everything you deserve.” I took her hands again, and shook them once, up and down, as if we were agreeing on something. “But I’m sticky, see, so no matter what happens I don’t lose — not everything, anyway, which is what I’ve been afraid of my whole life.”

[bill strickland]

Ciao Dario,

I'm still thinking about that blueberry grappa you had the waiter bring out . . .

Some of the designers and engineers and brand managers at the big bike companies don't seem to understand or appreciate the handbuilt framebuilders, but most do. In fact, there's a lot of respect and, sometimes, envy. Some of the guys at the biggest companies, like, say, Chris D'Alusio at Specialized (who is about as hard-charging as it gets, and focused on high-performance to a degree that is shocking) have a deep appreciation for things made by hand. And there is also, generally, recognition that some small and custom framebuilders push the evolution along, as well, whether that's something like figuring out how to dismantle D2 batteries and store them in the frame, or being the firs to work with stainless steel, and tweaks and new ideas about bike fitting. There's also a general understanding that handbuilt and mass production aren't necessarily competitive but instead are complementary.

[e-RICHIE]

bill - thanks, that's precious atmo. and precious doesn't begin to encompass all the positives i get from reading this passage. revelations and epiphanies are beautiful, and when you can be inside the very moment that they are coming through you, it's among the best of all highs.

Richard,

One thing I love about writing, about telling stories, is that everyone can get their own, different, sometimes unique something out of the same words. For me, what Alaric (and bike racing) helped me realize is the opposite of your revelation: I’m more tenacious than victorious. Racing forced me to understand that I am not a winner.

Here’s a scene, from Ten Points, set the night after I finally manage to score two points in the training crit, that explains a little of what I’m trying to say.

-------------
Sitting on the couch, I reached across the valley created by the border of our legs, and touched my index finger to a pale patch on the tip of Beth’s nose that you could see only if you knew to look for it. Almost twenty years ago, she’d torn off a chunk of skin with a fingernail while batting at a paper airplane a friend of ours had thrown at her. She also had a nearly invisible scar at the bottom of her right eyebrow, where her younger brother had thrown a burnt brownie at her when they were kids. And, on the ball of her left foot, a mysterious, tiny hard spot that had been there since I’d known her.

I said, “What I was trying to tell you earlier is that I figured out something really important today.”

“How to sprint?”

“That, too,” I said. I dropped my hand from her cheek and wrapped my fingers around hers. “I’m sticky.”

She pulled her hands away, flipped them over, and examined her fingers.

I waggled my hands in front of Beth’s face and said, “Not sticky like that. You know — bike sticky.”

“Oh,” Beth said.

There are all kinds of bike riders, with names passed down from their original French, Belgian, Italian, and generally legendary origins. There are the rouleurs, tough cyclists who can turn the pedals over at high speed for miles and miles, without cracking. There are the grimpeurs, the angels of the mountains, who fly up leg-breaking slopes. There are flahutes, who excel in mud and cobbles and cold. There are domestiques, whose sole job is to protect their leaders. Rarest of all are the campionissimo, the champions among champions — the immortals. I was the least glorious, last noble, silliest-named type of bike racer of all. I was sticky. My only talent on a bike: I was hard to get rid of. Always there, never first, other cyclists said of the sticky. Great teammates. Terrible leaders. We were tenacious failures.

“But,” said Beth. “You knew that.”

It was true. My stickiness was no revelation. All of us knew what kind of riders the others were. Beth was a rhythm climber.

“Yeah,” I said. “But — I mean, I’m sticky. I mean, in life.” I put both my arms over her collarbones and pulled her toward me. We dropped our chins over each other’s shoulders, then I pulled my head back and nuzzled into the space between her neck and the fine curve of her collarbone. “That’s all I have,” I said.

Beth didn’t say anything. She slid two fingers into my hair. I listened to her breathe. I said, “It means I’m not a winner.”

“Oh come on,” said Beth. Her fingers tickled their way down my head, onto my shoulder. “You scored —”

“No,” I said. “I know this now. And it’s a good thing. I used to think it was a weakness. I mean, it is a weakness — a big one — but it’s also my strength.” I raised my head up and looked into her green eyes from a distance of two inches. Our noses brushed. “I’m not built to win. I’m built to not lose. I’m going to — I’m going to screw stuff up, you know, my whole life, and I’m never going to quite ever get what I want. Or be able to give you everything you deserve.” I took her hands again, and shook them once, up and down, as if we were agreeing on something. “But I’m sticky, see, so no matter what happens I don’t lose — not everything, anyway, which is what I’ve been afraid of my whole life.”

[bill strickland]

Hey Craig,

I have three or four book ideas in various stages, some nothing more than a few sentences, some that are nothing but some talking that's gone on between me and my agent, and one that is a file I keep on my desktop and add to whenever I feel like it. Took me more than a year to recover from the Lance book. I wrote a proposal for that book in November of 2008, started following him and note-taking in early 2009, chased him around until August, then, when I got home, I sat at my desk and looked at all the material and couldn't write for a month. Wiped out from the travel and reporting. In September I wrote a little, maybe 10,000 words or so. I got stuck through October (mostly on structure), then got another 7,000 or so out in November. My original deadline was December. I pushed that back a little, but not enough, and got myself into spot where I had to write something like 10,000 words a week or miss the print date. I made it, but never want to have to do that again.

Just as the book came out, so did the doping allegations, so that all ended up consuming another year of my life - all of 2010. I thought I was done, ready for a break, then in May of 2011 I wrote that Bicycling cover story about doping. At the end of that, I didn't want to write my own name. I started blogging, a bit, and Peter Flax asked me to a column for the print version of Bicycling (The Pursuit), which was just pure storytelling. I could barely get the columns out the way I wanted - I've been doing around ten drafts for each one. But, gradually, I feel like I'm working myself back into writing shape.

Right now I'm most excited about a big feature I'm doing for the magazine, about three kids who were kidnapped and turned into child soldiers in the Uganda civil war, and turned their lives around partly through cycling. I really, really want to get it right -- for them. And the deadline is right on me now.

[bill strickland]

PDAR . . . well, finally. I've been waiting to get hammered a little, or for someone to bring up my boy.

We started The Daily Lance for the 2010 Tour . . . to drive traffic to Bicycling's TdF, the edit and web staffs decided we should make sure we wrote something about him every day. (Yeah: we're in business.) I thought I could probably figure out something to write about him after each stage, and I thought that, once we decided we ought to do it, I might be able to turn it into a kind of writing experiment: I'd never written day after day after day about one person like that. Looking back, the series was uneven, and I really came up with lousy ones in spots, but it also had some moments when I think I accomplished something in the writing, especially once his Tour went bad.

That experiment turned out to be pretty successful at getting new viewers to the site. So the web staff decided to keep the name The Daily Lance as a way to archive ongoing info about his battles in the arenas of court, sport, media, and public opinion. I'm glad it's there -- like, I said, we're in business, and I don't mind being employed -- but I'm also glad I don't have to write it anymore. At this point, with all the news coming out that from his point of view is negative, I don't think it's so much sycophantic as it is wearisome to people like you. (And there are a lot of people like you . . . it's just that there are even more who want to read everything they can about him, the scandals, etc.)

[e-RICHIE]

In September I wrote a little, maybe 10,000 words or so. I got stuck through October (mostly on structure), then got another 7,000 or so out in November. My original deadline was December. I pushed that back a little, but not enough, and got myself into spot where I had to write something like 10,000 words a week or miss the print date. I made it, but never want to have to do that again.

does the snipped quote above describe writer's block atmo? i was on my walk today and, out of nowhere, the
two words descended into my thoughts. when you write for a living, and words don't come, what happens? what
does a work day look like if you are not dispensing the words?

[bill strickland]

does the snipped quote above describe writer's block atmo? i was on my walk today and, out of nowhere, the
two words descended into my thoughts. when you write for a living, and words don't come, what happens? what
does a work day look like if you are not dispensing the words?

Hmmm...you know, I don't know. I've never experienced writer's block the way I have seen it dramatized in movies or in the sophomore lives of all of us who hung around together because we wanted to be writers. I never had that, "just open a vein" mentality of the miserable writer in the garret. It's always been fun for me, freeing, a way to play with things I very much enjoy playing with -- sounds, images, rhythm, meanings, dialogue. I run into trouble when I write, and I get stuck trying to figure out which tools to use to help myself out of the fix I've written myself into. And there are times when I feel like something inside me is percolating (or molding) and that is a part of the process I have to respect. Often I don't know how to start a story. Or, worse, how to write a turn in a story that takes it where it ought to go. I realize sometimes what I have been writing for some decent amount of minutes is boring even to me, so I back the cursor up (or put in a new sheet of paper -- I have an Olivetti I like to use occasionally), and start over. But I don't get that metaphysical block I have always heard about. I think, with my long fallow period there, I was just wrung dry and had to fill back up. I very much have a craftsman's approach to writing . . . a midwestern's outlook that if you just put in the work you're going to be rewarded, and inspiration is nice but never necessary.

What I'm going through now is that my first drafts, and my second and third and a good number after that are just plain awful. Devoid of any craft, even the kind of non-craft that makes the lack of craft a solid beautiful thing.

Is it the same for framebuilders in any way -- are there days or extended periods when the welds just won't happen right? Or somesuch fate?

[Tom Kellogg]

Snipped ... Is it the same for framebuilders in any way -- are there days or extended periods when the welds just won't happen right? Or somesuch fate?

Absolutely, but since Jeff does almost all the work on our steel frames, my "issues" seem to arrive like locusts in the paint booth. The one operation I still do on our steel frames is lug grinding. When I sit down on the stool in front of the disc grinder to thin another set of lugs, I never know how it will go. Most of the time it is something I can zone out on and get through pretty well. About one time out of five, I am completely in the zone and it seems so very easy to create just what I want. And then there are times when I struggle no matter how much I concentrate. I don't want to speak for other builders but like most things, there are operations that go like butter and others that feel like we are having oral surgery.

I want to thank RS here for smoking out someone who is NOT an FB. Having a conversation with anyone who does interesting things and can communicate is always a good thing. Thank you RS and thank you Bill for getting smoked.

[e-RICHIE]

Hmmm...you know, I don't know. I've never experienced writer's block the way I have seen it dramatized in movies or in the sophomore lives of all of us who hung around together because we wanted to be writers. I never had that, "just open a vein" mentality of the miserable writer in the garret. It's always been fun for me, freeing, a way to play with things I very much enjoy playing with -- sounds, images, rhythm, meanings, dialogue. I run into trouble when I write, and I get stuck trying to figure out which tools to use to help myself out of the fix I've written myself into. And there are times when I feel like something inside me is percolating (or molding) and that is a part of the process I have to respect. Often I don't know how to start a story. Or, worse, how to write a turn in a story that takes it where it ought to go. I realize sometimes what I have been writing for some decent amount of minutes is boring even to me, so I back the cursor up (or put in a new sheet of paper -- I have an Olivetti I like to use occasionally), and start over. But I don't get that metaphysical block I have always heard about. I think, with my long fallow period there, I was just wrung dry and had to fill back up. I very much have a craftsman's approach to writing . . . a midwestern's outlook that if you just put in the work you're going to be rewarded, and inspiration is nice but never necessary.

What I'm going through now is that my first drafts, and my second and third and a good number after that are just plain awful. Devoid of any craft, even the kind of non-craft that makes the lack of craft a solid beautiful thing.

sorry - i though "stuck" inferred writer's block.

Is it the same for framebuilders in any way -- are there days or extended periods when the welds just won't happen right? Or somesuch fate?

yes - i'll make mention of it soon atmo.

[bill strickland]

I get a bicycle like this, and all I can hope for in writing a review is to not be too far off from what it deserves. Print review coming in the April issue.


True BS (You can read the numbers, memorize them, add them...)

[e-RICHIE]

I get a bicycle like this, and all I can hope for in writing a review is to not be too far off from what it deserves. Print review coming in the April issue.


True BS (You can read the numbers, memorize them, add them...)

lmra
linear measurements rule atmo

[jerk]

I get a bicycle like this, and all I can hope for in writing a review is to not be too far off from what it deserves. Print review coming in the April issue.


True BS (You can read the numbers, memorize them, add them...)

looks nice bill! which model did dario build for you?

[bill strickland]

Got a Responsorium . . .

however, Craig, you might be glad to know that, thanks to you, I asked for my Stoemper road (Todd Gardner) in alu instead of steel.

Real is real, I guess.

[jerk]

Got a Responsorium . . .

however, Craig, you might be glad to know that, thanks to you, I asked for my Stoemper road (Todd Gardner) in alu instead of steel.

Real is real, I guess.

i'm starting a renaissance. just kidding. you'll like the respo but i have no idea what the stoemper will be like....funny huh?