The titular hero of this piece is leaving for Sydney for a few weeks to have himself vigorously trained and shaped by the Army into, well, a proper hero who might one day save the World from the daunting spectre of communism. Even though the Berlin wall went down 20 years ago, communism is still a potent threat to the ability of Western citizens to have no-one else to blame for their own inadequacies. I swear they're the reason I'm not racing the Fling this weekend, dammit.
Anyway, in his absence, there will be a Joel-shaped hole in the universe for some temporal duration. While I won't speculate on the shape of the hole, it does still give me an opportunity to bitch about him behind his back. *snigger*
Joel's story starts, like most stories of nerdy guys, in a dungeon-shaped anteroom attached to his house, wherein he sat earnestly programming addictively simply games in Turbo Pascal. However, his attention was soon drawn to bicycles, and the possibilities of a world without pixellation, even if it wasn't as elegant syntaxically. Joel became a randonneur, one of those friendly old guys who rides insane distances noncompetitively on strikingly comfortable road bikes. Except Joel's bike wasn't comfortable as, for some reason, he decided to ride these Audax events on a fixed gear (freaking hipsters). Fixed gear radness abounded as Joel crossed mountain ranges, battled headwinds and did all sorts of stuff way too epic actually to have happened on a fixie. He rode mountain bike trails fixed, an Audax super series, and also dabbled in the fine arts of Trials riding (editor note - 2009 Australian Sport Trials National Champion after 0 training hours). Joel also spent time in France, working on his sleaze and cycling snobbery.
This all culminated in an attempt at Paris-Brest-Paris in 2007, in which the weather was foul and truly epic. After this, Joel's knees started to remind him that 20rpm was not the optimal climbing cadence, and his attention shifted. Nowdays he still rides Audax a bit, and races endurance mountain bike stuff under the cynical guise of the "Reluctant Cyclist". I find this nomiker to be only a partial truth - he's only reluctant when the trail points uphill, and then it is most audible and closer to "enraged and indignant cyclist" than "reluctant cylist". He and Claire have won multiple mixed pair categories, including the 8 hour series, and the Scott 24 hour.
Joel's a full-time mechanic and bike encyclopedia at the shop, where he mixes knowledge and gear-freak tendencies with the cynicism and profundity of a true randonneur. He also can be seen riding along on one wheel rather a lot.
