Logged onto the Versus video this morning to catch the final kilometer of today’s Tour stage. Cav’ wins again; ho hum. GC unchanged. Close the laptop. Move along, move along, nothing to see here. More of the same tomorrow.
It was refreshing to read Andrew Hood’s interview with Bernard Hinault, who clearly is as bored as the rest of us. Asked what riders should do to break Astana’s stranglehold on GC, the Badger replied succinctly: “Attack! It’s necessary to attack. There are not 36 solutions, just attack!”
I followed Hinault’s advice and attacked, sprinting to the garage, grabbing my second-best Steelman and riding north along the New Santa Fe Trail into the Air Force Academy. The trail exhibits some erosion from the recent heavy rains, but it’s still easily handled on a cyclo-cross bike, though I saw plenty of sissies on mountain bikes. Army types, no doubt. Or maybe swabbies.
Just short of the North Gate, I veered right and tunneled under I-25 to Voyager Parkway, then hung a right to Highway 83. Lots of cheesy Rancho Pendejo-style shitboxes in that neck of the peckerwoods, along with a few half-built shoppettes. If it weren’t for the Zoomie Zoo, Pikes Peak and Nude Life Church you could be anywhere — SoCal, Phoenix, Cleveland, you name it.
I rolled along 83 until just past Academy Boulevard, then took a side street behind a struggling strip mall, crossed Woodmen and picked up the bike path again just past the Nissan dealership, southbound this time. It made for about two hours in the saddle, 30 miles or so, and an interesting study in contrasts.
The wingnut fucktards who rail against the feddle gummint while praising the private sector to the skies ought to take this ride sometime. ‘Cause if it weren’t for the feddle gummint and its Air Force Academy, the private sector would’ve covered that beautiful trail and the 18,000 acres surrounding it with Rancho Pendejo shitboxes about 30 years ago.
Mad Blog Media 
Gotta be careful riding around Zoomie U these days. Gonna catch the pig flu, doncha know?
Sheeyit,
Bug bites me, bug dies.
I concur with Patrick’s comments regarding who takes care of the land and who carpetbags the place.
When the Feds closed down Barbers Point NAS on southwestern Oahu and moved the P-3s to Kaneohe MCBH, the place went totally to crap. We used to belong to an organized tandem group, some of whose members were military, so we were able to get on bases such as Barbers Pt. and Kaneohe MCBH. These places had pristine roads and had picnic areas with nary a trace of garbage. People policed themselves. Not to mention, traffic was civilized.
No sooner did bases close down and revert to the public or state government than they turned into shitholes, covered wall to wall with garbage, broken glass, discarded beer bottles, and un-policed losers. No more traffic enforcement, either. I longed for the days of the MPs.
If it weren’t for the government in those places, there wouldn’t be the people to support the army of strip malls and the clusterfuck of mcmansions. Who do those conservative business owners think buys their goods and pays their mortgages?
Um, Khal, aren’t the MPs a private security force? They police the bases, and other various off-site locales known to congregate with off-duty military personnel. They aren’t directly financed by your local tax dollars, like the popos and deputies, are they? Nor can they arrest, detain or jail non-military personnel outside of these jurisdictions?
Nope….so comparing apples to cassettes is sort of silly now ain’t it? A better analogy might be that once the comunity that was the base left, the surrounding community filled in that vacuum. Sort of like the abandoned crack house on the corner in South Central. Or in physics terms: nature abhors a vacuum.
Just a thought…
I think they were regular military back ten-fifteen years ago in Hawaii. If they have been outsourced since then, I don’t know. But it was still a Federal reservation.
James, keep in mind I used the past tense and the comparison was the USAFA stewardship of its land to the stewardship of the USN on its land. So maybe we are comparing Campy to Shimano cassettes.
The Barbers Pt. base was closed down (the USN portion) prior to 2001 and BushCo’s privatization plan. When we rode there, it was a Federal reservation and the military police had jurisdiction to arrest and detain people on base. Non-military folks like us had to be escorted around.
I’m actually curious as to what has happened since then.
Yeah… I miss the days of riding on the various military bases I lived on as a kid. There’s one close to here that I used to use as part of my commute route, but since 911, that’s been off limits. I mean, who but a radical terrorist would be riding a bike instead of piloting a land yacht, eh?
re: Tour de Astana – Yeah… A big chance was missed last week when there was a chance to put Astana into the jersey. That would have forced them to work on these flat stages. Now their droids are well rested for the coming fun.
Le Beeg Shew is certainly a bore fest so far unless you’re a raving Cavendish fan or French. Seems the TdF folks simply cashed in and put starts and finishes in whatever burg would pony up the euros rather than in the ones that would make an interesting route. I remember stages over the Tourmalet that finished at Luz-Ardiden rather than slogging along to Tarbes. Add in a seemingly sluggish peloton loathe to attack America’s (oops, make that Kazakstan’s) Team and it’s tough to even bother to look up the results on VN.com, much less try to watch the thing on TV or internet. Maybe the upcoming Brixia Tour in Italy will have some real racing—where can we see that? Or forget the whole thing and just ride my own damn bicycle!
James: Define “local tax dollars.” Local, to me, means it came out of my wallet. If my tax dollars aren’t paying the MPs salaries, then whose are?
Worst.Tour.Ever.
Unless, maybe the action in the last week will make up for it. Does anyone know – did they lay out the route before or after the big dope, errrr, big Tex announced the comeback? Seems like a route custom made to keep him near the top – no time differences at all. Hellishly boring.
SteveO – “Local tax dollars” are dollars that stay in your vicinity. Sort of local your local sales tax, property tax, liens on property to help fund education, etc. Hence, to someone on the mainland, Hawaii ain’t local. Thus the bruddahs at Barbers are paying for the policing of that area now. We, that’d be the mainlandes, are not. It is no longer policed, secured, patrolled by Federal Government employees, thus it falls under the jurisdiction of the local authorities to try and keep the peace.
If you live on a base, then your tax dollars are locally going to pay the MPs. If you do not, then they are not.
Does that make sense?