Month: November 2009

Matching bike and finger

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
The Bloo Voodoo Wazoo, now a straight-bar townie.
The Bloo Voodoo Wazoo, now a straight-bar townie.

The fine folks at Old Town Bike Shop transformed my Voodoo Wazoo ‘cross bike into a flat-bar townie yesterday in less time than it takes to ask, “Debit or credit?”

Why’d I do it? Well, I thought about going this route when I first rebuilt the bike as a seven-speed, single-ring, steel-fork, evil-weather, parts-box Frankenbike (it had been an eight-speed, double-ring, carbon-fork “race” bike with bar-end shifters until I stripped it to build the Soma Double Cross). But I didn’t have a flat bar and grips handy and instead went with a Salsa Bell Lap drop bar, Shimano 105 brake levers and a single Shimano 600 indexed bar-end shifter.

Now, with a bum middle digit on the left hand, I have trouble grasping a drop bar and operating its brake lever. And a brifter is out of the question — I have small hands and would have to use the battered birdie to shift. Owie.

The Paul's Thumbie. Pretty nifty idea, eh?
The Paul's Thumbie. Pretty nifty idea, eh?

Running a single-ring setup spares me the temptation of trying to shift into a gear I probably can’t push anyway. The smallish Real brake levers — salvaged from my mountain bike some years back when I finally surrendered to the inevitable and went to XT V-brakes — are easily operated with the index finger. Plus their light blue nicely complements the darker blue of the frame and my splinted finger. The cork grips give the injured hand a little more cushion than handlebar tape. And finally, a half set of Paul’s Thumbies let me turn that seven-speed bar-end shifter into a bar-top thumb-shifter so I can keep my right hand on the bar at all times. Pretty cool, eh?

A Paul's Thumbie turns a bar-con into a thumb-shifter, and the Real levers need only an index finger to work.
A Paul's Thumbie turns a bar-con into a thumb-shifter, and the Real levers need only an index finger to work.

When I got it home I took a quick spin around the block to see if the new setup worked for me, and lo and behold, it does, kinda, sorta, assuming I can avoid falling off in future. So maybe I can get outdoors again for some short spins while that finger heals.

The big question is: Can I fix a flat one-handed? It may be time for some Slime.

• Late update: Despite having this nifty new toy, I chickened out on an outdoor ride — I still can’t get a winter glove over the splint, which won’t come off until Tuesday — and instead did 75 indoor minutes on the Giant Tempo. The soundtrack was Led Zep’ instead of the Allman Brothers after Elvis Costello proved less than motivational. It’s exercise, but a poor substitute for the real deal, which I could see taking place without me through the living-room windows. Waah.

I’d rather push my Toyota than . . .

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
Twenty-six years old and it still starts — if one knows which demons to invoke.
Twenty-six years old and it still starts — if one knows which demons to invoke.

It must be International Try to Start Your Piece of Shit Truck Day.

I needed to haul the Voodoo down to Old Town for transformation into a flat-bar bike with thumbshifter (courtesy of Paul’s Thumbies) so I can get back to riding the road sometime soon (I hope). Toward that end, I was trying to fire up the White Tornado, my neglected and carbureted 1983 Toyota 4WD longbed pickup, ’cause it’s easier to slide a bike into its 6-foot bed one-handed than it is to park one on the Subaru Forester’s roof rack.

The 2005 Subie, on the other hand, is easier to start. Twist the key and off you go. The Toyota … not so much, especially if it’s been nestled up to the curb for a few weeks of wintry weather.

As I was cranking away, stomping rhythmically on the accelerator while mumbling various incantations and imprecations, I heard some other vehicle trying to harmonize with mine. Down the block, with its hood up, sat a Ford 100 Custom Cab of indeterminate age, its owner, like me, betting against the ravages of time, neglect and weather.

I eventually got my beater going, so I guess I win. But his has a better paint job, and collector’s plates, too, so it looks much niftier sitting immobile against the curb.

Have you blackened your Friday?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments
Oh, the tangled web we weave when spending cuts we first perceive.
Oh, the tangled web we weave when spending cuts we first perceive.

Not us. Herself is downstairs working and I’m upstairs goofing off, enjoying the fracas from a distance. My idea of a good time is not playing Australian rules football with a bunch of bargain-hunters in a Best Buy at four o’clock in the morning.

Mind you, I like to shop. It’s often more fun and less disappointing than actually buying something. But I usually root around online for quite a while, checking specs and weighing options, before marching down to some local shop to lay hands on the product and finally slap down the plastic. Or not.

Here’s a case in point. I have authorization from Herself to buy a new Mac, but haven’t done so. How come?

Well, it’s that natural contrariness rearing its ugly head again. The Black Turtleneck Mob in Cupertino isn’t selling exactly what I want to buy, which is an affordable, accessible consumer tower model like my old G4 AGP Graphics Power Mac, simple to fix and/or upgrade, but sporting modern hardware and software.

There’s the Mac Pro, but at $2,499 I’d hardly call it affordable, especially since it ships with a measly 3 GB of RAM and no Airport Express card. You want to double the first and add the last, tack on another $200.

OK, how about those nifty iMacs? Not sure I’d like working full time on a glossy screen. My 13.3-inch MacBook has one, and it can be irksome to see my ugly mug staring back at me as I cook up another bouillabaisse of bullshit for fun and profit. Plus all its ports are in the ass-end of the thing. WTF?

New MacBook? Got an old one, thanks, from 2006 and in a manly black (I dislike pasty white computers). MacBook Pro? No separate audio in/out ports on the new 13-incher, which seems to offer the most bang per buck, and no user-removable batteries on any of ’em. Plus I already have more laptops than Cheney’s closet does skeletons. As daily drivers go, they and the multiplicity of cables to peripherals required eat up a lot of desktop space, which irks the cats, who like to use my desk as a springboard to the window for reasons known only to themselves.

Mini? Another Mac I can’t crack, and it seems underpowered, if nicely priced.

And then there’s that voice, only one of many in my head, but among the most insistent, which keeps whispering, “You work in a subset of journalism, a craft with all the future of a Conestoga repairman in Manhattan.”

So instead of greening up my Black Friday with a new Mac, I’ve gotten myself a tad more computing horsepower by hooking up the MacBook to my 22-inch ViewSonic. The G4 tower now serves mostly as storage space, three drives’ worth, accessible wirelessly through my DSL modem-router combo. But I’ll also use it to scan and color cartoons, since it has an ancient yet serviceable version of Photoshop (another $500 goes unspent).

This probably won’t fly come July, if I’m still helping VeloNews.com push pixels during Le Tour. But it ain’t July.

• Late update: Reading the Gaslight‘s latest coverage of the first official shopping day of the holiday season (suck it, you out-of-Focus fucktards), it’s sad to note that while the G found it worthwhile to report from big boxes on Powers and Academy boulevards, in Woodland Park and in Castle Rock, they didn’t bother to send anyone downtown — which is about a mile away from Gaslight HQ. Maybe they’re afraid of ice falling from the USOC HQ, but I can’t see this lot being scared of a head injury, considering where they keep their brains. And they wonder why both the newspaper and downtown are struggling.

Vidiots

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment

From our You Just Can’t Make This Shit Up Dept.: A pair of polo-playing, stretch-Hummer-driving asshats who hope to get their 15 minutes with the Bravo reality-TV show “The Real Housewives of D.C.” crashed Adolf Obama’s first state dinner and subsequently posted pix of their top-shelf grip-‘n’-grins on Facebook.

A publicist named Mahogany Jones, an unavailable Hollywood shyster called Paul W. Gardner Esq., and a Secret Service with egg all over its face — hey, what’s not to like? Especially if you’re a writer for Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or SNL.

Happy Thanksgiving (hold the turkey, please)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
Miss Mia Sopaipilla's no turkey — when it's chilly, she likes to toast her po-po on the DSL modem.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla's no turkey — when it's chilly, she likes to toast her po-po on the DSL modem.

Thanksgiving is always a tad offbeat around the DogHaus. Turkey is rarely on the menu, though as an omnivore I have nothing against consuming them. As Freewheeling Franklin once said during an argument between Phineas and Fat Freddy, “Naw, it’s okay to eat turkeys. That’s just God’s way of punishing them for being so stupid.”

I’m just naturally contrary, I suppose. If everyone else is going that way, well, I’m going this way. Nothing personal. It just looks less crowded over there.

So today Herself and I, joined by the Sis and Bro’-in Law, will enjoy chicken cacciatore over fettuccine with sides of arugula with roasted red pepper, green beans in a soy-sesame seed-garlic sauce, and ciabatta with dipping oil. Raspberry cobbler for dessert.

And wine, of course. Not Italian (there he goes again).  We have a French white (Domaine du Tariquet 2008), a Spanish rosé (Protocolo 2007) and a couple of French reds (Domaine des Rozets Coteaux du Tricastin 2007 and Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau 2009).

Here’s hoping you and yours have lots to be thankful for today. Miss Mia Sopaipilla certainly does. For starters, she’s thankful to have a fine Motorola DSL modem to sit upon on chilly November mornings.