Month: May 2009

Na zdarov’e!

~ Patrick O'Grady

A toast to Denis Menchov and Rabobank mechanic Vincent Hendriks, who between them managed to save the big Russian’s maglia rosa after he crashed short of the line in today’s rain-lashed final stage of the centenary Giro d’Italia.

I was casually rooting for LPR’s Danilo Di Luca, based on his balls-to-the-wall attacking style, but nobody can say Menchov didn’t have the final win coming. He had the legs and the brains, and that pretty much seals the deal unless someone else is better equipped in both departments. Nobody was in this Giro, not even the relentless Di Luca.

Elsewhere, you’ve been expressing lots of good thoughts in comments about my friend and neighbor John Crandall. Between work, cooking and visitors, I haven’t been able to pay him the attention he deserves, so thanks for filling in for me.

I’ve been buying bikes, parts and service from John and the Old Town Bike Shop crew since I moved back to Colorado from Oregon in 1983 or thereabouts, and I’ve never gotten anything less than stellar treatment. And it’s not because I’m that Patrick O’Grady, either — John and the gang go the extra kilometer for all their customers, not just the ones who happen to work for bike magazines. And John has more on his mind than simply putting folks on top-shelf two-wheelers, as this story from the Bibleburg Gaslight shows.

I obviously haven’t been to visit John yet, and I understand another surgery is planned for tomorrow, so it may be a while before I have a chance to pay my respects in person. I’m sure his wife, Kathy, will chime in from time to time — Kathy, if this suits you as a forum, by all means put it to whatever use you deem proper — and between the two of us, we’ll keep you posted.

Biker down

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments

Old Town Bike Shop’s John Crandall is in the hospital after a high-speed collision with a car during his usual weekend ride to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and back. The short list is a broken femur and right wrist (plates and bone-graft surgery for that yesterday), plus a broken left shoulder (surgery for that slated Monday).

For those of you in town, the word is that John’s not ready to have visitors yet. I’ll keep you posted.

Dry streets and wide loads

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

It finally stopped raining for a couple of days, and Tonatiuh the sun god has delivered us a long-overdue solar stimulus package. The cats couldn’t be happier — especially Turkish, a.k.a. Mighty Whitey the Blue-Eyed Bully of Bibleburg, Big Pussy, the Turkinator, Turkenstein, et al. Indoors is anathema to the big galoot, who on rainy days stalks from door to window to basement to office, making a doleful sound not unlike helium escaping from a leaky balloon.

Mia Sopaipilla is less demanding, but she’ll take the outdoors on a sunny day, if it’s offered. And so will I. I got out for a quick hour on the ‘cross bike, and wowsah, has the foliage ever exploded. All of a sudden there’s shade on the bike path — which is not always a good thing.

Once those spindly trailside trees fill in with greenery, every blind corner is one more crank on the handle of the old jackoff-in-the-box. A guy has no idea what’s gonna pop up. But whatever it is, it’s probably gonna be wearing an iPod.

I’ve thought about mounting a bullhorn on my handlebars, or maybe an air-raid siren, but my poor bike is already carrying more than enough weight. What a shame the iPod isn’t equipped to receive radio. Just think what fun you could have with a mic’ and short-range transmitter. “Hey, Wide Load, watch your six, incoming! Shift three feet to starboard. And put on a shirt, f’chrissakes. You look like a Wookiee with an eating disorder.”

Que triste es la vida

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

Judas Priest. The furnace just clicked on. Forty-eight and raining outdoors, 67 and cranky indoors. Are we sure this is late May in Colorado? ‘Cause it looks more like February in Oregon to me.

Oh, well. So it goes. Baldilocks will have something else to complain about before the bears come home. Like your average House Republican, who could fall into a barrel of tits and come out sucking his thumb, I am never satisfied. The glass is neither half empty nor half full, but rather a scattering of shards in a filthy gutter, just waiting for a bare foot.

Elsewhere, the prez has tapped Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice David Souter in the Supremes. She would be the Court’s second woman and its first Latina. The consensus among the parlor pinks I patronize — Kevin Drum, Steve Benen and others — seems to be that she will have little trouble winning confirmation.

Still, I have some small hope that the Repugs will insist on doing what they do best, which is acting swiftly on their worst impulses and in general behaving like spoiled children denied an undeserved treat. Hey, my pessimism knows some bounds.

At ease

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
All along the watchtower, kittens kept the view.
All along the watchtower, kittens kept the view.

Whew. Long day in the old velo-barrel today. It was an even longer day for the Astana boys, who missed out on a stage win and lost more time to the heavy hitters in the Giro d’Italia. But the longest day of all may be the one spent in uniform, far from friends and family, in the company of hostile strangers. Thus we’ll raise a glass to the men and women of the U.S. armed forces tonight. May you all return safely and honorably to the Land of the Big PX. Your kittens must miss you.