Ever have one of those days when your head is so far up your ass that you need a Plexiglas belly button to see where you’re going?
I was supposed to do some road cycling through the Air Force Academy with Big Bill McBeef and our mutual friend Deb at 11 a.m. today. I also had a physical-therapy session scheduled at 10 a.m. No sweat, right? Until it turns out that PT was actually at 10:30, so as I’m on the way home I get the word from Herself that Bill and Deb are already at El Rancho del Perro Loco and wondering where the hell am I.
I’m already feeling like an eejit so I tell Herself to cut ’em loose, as their original plan before some stupid fat bastard horned in was to hook up with some other folks along the way and I didn’t want to make them any later than I already had. Naturally, I arrive to find McBeef insistent on getting me out of the house and on the road, come hell or high water. Deb has gone on ahead. We are to chase her down like the Mad Dogs we once were. Time is of the essence. So I rocket around the rancho, hit the inhaler, dredge up bits of kit, snag the bike and off we go.
McBeef has been riding a ton and is keen to take his revenge on me for beating him like once in some nameless race 15 years ago, so he gives it the afterburners and in short order I am flapping in his backwash like a poorly stowed wind jacket, wondering if it’s possible to puke my nuts through my nostrils.
We sweep up Deb at Woodman Road and proceed through the infernal-combustion hell that is northeastern Bibleburg to the Academy, where I realize about a kilometer shy of the south gate that in the rush to get out the door I neglected to grab my driver’s license in order to prove to the guards that I am not a bicycle bomber from Lower Spaminacanistan despite the oddly bulky nature of my black-and-red garb, the keening, incomprehensible sounds issuing from my wind-chapped lips and the steaming blood fountaining from my eyes, ears and various other orifices.
And thus, with a feeble wave of one palsied hand followed by a burp with a lump in it and a tepid dribble down one flabby, unshorn thigh, I turned around to wobble homeward, braving the twin terrors of Academy Boulevard and Woodman Road alone.
Tonight Big Bill McBeef snickers into a wineglass as I gobble Advil like M&Ms and beg the cats for an introduction to Satan so that we may negotiate the fair market value of a battered 1954 soul with some very high mileage indeed, just not lately.
C’mon, Nick, make it 15 years ago, just for a couple of days. Say, anybody ever tell you you look a lot like Tom Waits?
Mad Blog Media 
The ‘head up your ass’ thing happens more frequent geometrically with age.
Sorry
Hey, Charley,
Y’know, I think that if I manage to drive it up there far enough I’ll eventually come out through my mouth and be a whole new man. Or maybe not.
You still at McDowell? How are the trails? We had a lovely day today — 50-something, good enough for one long-sleeved jersey, bibs and knee warmers. Practically tropical.
Patrick,
I think it was today. I had so many silly, idiotic things to deal with that I swore that either people are getting “stupider” or it was a full moon. Knowing very well that the latter was not possible (the last was on the 31st; the next is the 29th) it HAD to be the former.
At least you got out and rode. The rains returned to SacTown today. Thankfully though the temps were in the high 50s to low 60s. They will apparently return over the weekend. Oh joy…
It’s hell to really find out what kind of fitness you have. I already know what kind of shape I’m in, round! I wore one of thsoe new fangled GPS toys today and found ot my 4 mile loop was really only 3. Oh how the once mighty have fallen. Or at least we were mighty while riding downhill.
Some years back I chucked the heart-rate monitor into a drawer and pulled the cyclo-computers off my bikes. Something a guy just doesn’t need to know, or so my reasoning went.
Alas, while the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak, and one by one the various chroniclers of my infirmity reappeared like an overlarge breakfast after an interval workout. It is once again possible for me to chart to the nth degree the depth and breadth of my suckitude. I will never be smart.
Amazing bit of writing here. “High mileage, just not lately.” Definitely going to steal that one!!
I have only dreamed in religious motifs twice in my life, and both times, Tom Waits was the devil. How odd.
McDowell has added two additional loops off the Pemperton trail. They are supposed to be scenic and a nice ride. I haven’t tried them yet but will do so before the week is out.
Thanks, Steve. I guess even a blind dog finds a Milk-Bone every now and then, eh? I think riding is good for my brainpan. Too much time indoors getting the LCD tan in a fruitless typo chase is guaranteed to turn a wit into a halfwit. From there the progression is depressingly geometric.
Hey, Charley, how long you plan to be at McDowell? I’m bound for Arizona in March to do that Adventure Cycling ride and would like to drop in either before or after, or perhaps both. So I’ll be interested in those new loops. There many folks in the park this year?
Hi Patrick
The cartoon with this post reminds me that my own “Old Men Who etc” is getting a little long in the tooth. I really prefer the original full yellow as oposed to the 2nd version in red. Will there be another run of the original jerseys?
The ads in velonews feature a lot of companies that will run off limited quantities of jerseys (eg verge – as little as a 10 jersey min order).
If velonews won’t do a run and enough of your readers sign up (and prepay), would you consider gerting them made yourself? Or how much to get:
permission of and hefty payment to a heavily armed, whisky-addled cyclo-cross addict who knows your IP address.
thanks for the consideration
John
Jesus fuck. What has this country come to. An old guy on a bike can’t ride anywhere near a military base without proper identification. Achtung! Seine Karte Bitte!!! Never mind that your dad was probably an officer on the same base….
I find it funny that I can drive a van with 10 people and 10 bicycles on it and only the driver shows a license. You show up on 10 bicycles and you all need to show a license????
Hey, Darren, Bill,
Not quite … the AFA graduated its first class in 1959, when I was 5. But the old boy was a 30-year man, with a Distinguished Flying Cross from WWII, and pulled his last hitch at Ent AFB right here in Bibleburg (the site now is the Olympic Training Center). We moved here when I was 13, and he used to play golf at the AFA, which made it something more than a good walk spoiled, if only because of the altitude.
As to the ID thing, now, it’s been a while since I did the south-gate entry. I seem to recall that barring a national emergency, a whole crowd of cyclists can roll in as long as one of them has a military ID. But unescorted civilians? Not so much.
The silly thing is, I ride onto the AFA a couple-three times a week, sans ID, using the New Santa Fe Trail, which traverses the Academy from south to north. No gate, no cops, no nothin’. Ride straight on through to Palmer Lake and back if you like, with a kaffiyeh, a backpack full of C4 and an AK-47 slung over one shoulder.
I often ride the trail north, then pick up a bit of two-track that leads to the Academy’s sewage-treatment plant, and finally pick up the main drag and roll back into town past the same south-gate coppers that stop everyone using the asphalt entrance.
If you feel a little less safe after reading this, well … you probably should.
Good point on the New Santa Fe Trail. Just about every military base has miles of unfenced perimeter. Usually, there are enough deer hunters in the vicinity to scare away anyone with unsocial intentions. But still, all it takes is one.
All this about the AFA gives new meaning to the band name This Bike is a Pipe Bomb.
Haw. I think I wrote about that band once in BRAIN’s Grapevine column. As to the AFA, now, a sign proclaims that the environs are patrolled by dog teams, but I’ve never seen one. Probably one E-2 with a Chihuahua.
Speaking of the military and trails, wasn’t there some brohaha down in New Old Mexico a few years back about some base commander wanting to close off miles of trail for “security reasons?” I seem to remember it being a big deal at the time, but can’t for the life of me remember why. Spooks? Greys? Half-life scenarios?