Fall is here with a vengeance. The wiseguys say this past weekend was it for aspen-viewers, but there's still some color down here in the flatlands.
Another extended stint in the VeloBarrel has come to an end. Tomorrow, the off-season begins — it’s back to the usual two days a week playing editor at large for VeloNews.com, with two weeks before I have to crank out some nonsense for Bicycle Retailer & Industry News. Livin’ large, folks, livin’ large. Why, I may even ride a bicycle.
We had a “Wild Kingdom” moment here last night. Miss Mia Sopaipilla was watching one of the kitchen windows like it was must-see TV, so I took a peek myself. I had my reading glasses on, instead of my seeing glasses, but detected a couple lumpy shapes waddling through the back yard to a gap in the fence. Porcupines? Skunks? Really small Repuglicans?
Nope. Raccoons. I put my seeing glasses on and stepped out into the alley just in time to catch one of the masked devils scrabbling up a neighbor’s latticework, behind a climbing vine. No camera handy, alas, so you’ll have to make do with this midafternoon ‘coon-free shot of our own vine.
I don't know why that hand is in there. I bet this bike can stand on its own, drink a couple of Belgian ales and maybe jump over the moon like Elliott's bike in "E.T." (Stolen from tech editor Zack Vestal at VeloNews.com.)
Katie Compton, the Beast of Bibleburg, blew everyone’s doors off at CrossVegas last night. I was reading a piece on her crazy quilt of sponsorships yesterday — Stevens frameset, Dugast rubber, Zipp wheels, bars and cranks, SRAM Red drivetrain — and scoping out all that bike jewelry got me to thinking.
Remember the good old days, when a cyclo-cross bike was a beast of burden instead of a thoroughbred?
Like a lot of us, I rode my first few cyclo-crosses on a mountain bike. My first “real” ‘cross bike was a steel Specialized Sirrus road frame that a framebuilder acquaintance in Santa Fe doctored with a torch, adding cantilever braze-ons, removing the chainstay bridge and shifting the seatstay bridge up a bit. My second was a real ’cross bike, a neon-yellow steel Pinarello with bar-end shifters, MA-40 rims and Wolber 28 Cross Extra rubber, Weinmann cantis and a Shimano 600 drivetrain straight out of the gack box like the Sirrus before it, ’cause I knew from experience that it was going to take a beating.
I got a little more disco as my skills and resources improved, stepping up to a series of Steelman framesets in Excell, Reynolds 853 and Dedacciai zero-uno, his venerable CC first of all, followed by a succession of Eurocrosses. Instead of generic Shimano cantis I stepped up to Paul’s Neo-Retro and Touring brakes. And I raced at least once with a Voodoo Loa ti’ bike sporting a one-off Marzocchi suspension fork and a pair of Zipp 530 carbon clinchers, because I got ’em for free from Andy Ording and thus wasn’t emotionally invested in their long-term viability.
But after a while I started to feel like a fat bald guy driving a Maserati in hopes of picking up chicks.
First to go were the tubies, ’cause I got sick of losing a pair every weekend to the Chatfield Reservoir goatheads. The ti’ bike went away shortly thereafter (though I held onto the oddball fork). And the Zipps went back on the time-trial bike where they belong.
My final race, in 2004, was on my Reynolds 853 Eurocross, with a clincher wheelset and no spare bike, not even spare wheels; I rode to the course from the DogHaus, and when I flatted midrace, I replaced the tube and rode back home.
If I were to stage a comeback, I’d do it on that bike. Like me, it has a ton of miles, dents, dings, scratches and scrapes, but somehow it keeps on keeping on. I wouldn’t trade it for a six-pack of Stevenses. No disrespect intended.
But still, damn. Look at this thing. I’d hang it on a wall and bow to it six times a day, maybe pray to it. But race on it?
The first sight of snow on Pikes Peak is always a surprise.
I just popped out for a quick shot of Pikes Peak as seen from the DogHaus (well, as seen from the rear bumper of the ’83 Toyota 4WD truck parked in front of the DogHaus, anyway). Looks cold up there. Glad we’re down here.
Turkish has been harshly critical of my weather-management skills the past couple of days. He stalks from door to door, pitching a bitch about how much it sucks being penned up with the lesser beings, until one of us finally throws his ass outside into the crisp fall air.
Then he perches atop a deck railing, as white and puffy as a Repuglican senator, blinking his big blue eyes in astonishment and wondering where all the nifty sunshine and warmth went.
Right down Adolf Barack Hitler Saddam Hussein “Uncle Joe” Stalin Obama’s commie rathole, is where, Turk’ me boyo. No more sunshine for us red-state weirdos unless the feddle gummint issues it to us. If he weren’t so damn’ busy socializing our health care, killing the seniors and trading white Christian babies to the A-rabs for oil, we could mine more Murkin coal and heat the outdoors, too.
Turkish finds my meteorological management not to his liking.
Could be worse, though. My man Hal at Hardscrabble Times reports snow at his Crusty County ranchette, both yesterday and today, the autumnal equinox. We both agreed that a couple hundred thou’ apiece would go a long way toward dissipating winter’s chill if spent on a pair of cozy bolt holes in New Mexico or Arizona, but couldn’t think of any mostly legal ways of laying our hands on same.
And anyway, that wouldn’t solve Turkish’s problem. He hates auto trips more than he hates being cooped up indoors on a cold, blustery morning — or any other kind or morning, come to think of it.
Those of you who are not living in caves in Afghanistan probably have heard of this thing called “Twitter,” in which people with too much time and technology on their hands pester each other 140 characters at a time. It’s called “tweeting,” though it’s generally far less musical and soothing than birdsong, unless the bird in question is a constipated turkey buzzard.
Well, it seems there’s going to be a TweetUp at Interbike featuring chirpy industry types, schwag, powerful beverages and conversations that are not restricted to 140 characters. It’s at 7 p.m tonight at the Lavo Restaurant, Bathhouse and Nightclub, at The Palazzo.
I have a Twitter account, but will not be in attendance. I will be croaking like a big, fat raven right here in Bibleburg, helping the VeloNews.com mob post all the news from Sin City. So rock on, all you robins. Tweedle-dee-dee, etc., et al., and so on.
Summer vanished faster than the public option today. I was forced to retire my usual professional ensemble of shorts and sandals in favor of a ratty pair of sweat pants and moth-eaten socks, though I stuck with the sleeveless T for freedom of movement while rassling typos for VeloNews.com.
It was a slow day in the VeloBarrel, as the crew was scattered far and wide, either at Outdoor Demo, en route to Sin City or playing one-handed spit-in-the-carpet somewhere, and that suited me just fine. I don’t like Mondays, and I really don’t like cold, gray, windy and damp Mondays, especially when I’m staring down the barrel of a five-day work week like the rest of y’all. If I wanted to work, I’d get a job, a self-imposed sentence that I have successfully avoided for 18 years now.
Still, a slow day pushing pixels is not exactly hard labor, and I was able to raise my head for a quick peek now and then to see what was shaking in the hairy-legged world. It was not encouraging.
Dingbat W. Cleon Skousen is apparently enjoying something of a renaissance thanks to Glenn Beck, Texas Gov. Rick “Goodhair” Perry and other gibbering asshats. Remember your Ed Abbey (“You can always tell a shithead by that initial initial.”)
Gen. Stanley McChrystal wants more troops for Afghanistan. Kevin Drum is skeptical, and so am I, having read a little Kipling and observed some recent history. The Persians, Brits and Soviets all screwed the pooch — I see many bootprints entering, but considerably fewer leaving — and Uncle Sammy is batting cleanup? No, thanks. Bring ’em home, please.
Mad Blog Media 