Looks like the lads at La Vuelta de Bisbee enjoyed some of the same gentle spring weather that afflicted me and my fellow cyclo-tourists during the Tombstone-to-Bisbee leg of the Adventure Cycling Association’s Southern Arizona Road Adventure last month (read all about it in the July issue of Adventure Cycling, assuming management does not regain its collective mental health).
We’ve been dealing with similar weather here in Bibleburg. It’s playing hell with my sinuses, and it doesn’t take an attractive photo, so you’ll just have to settle for an old-fashioned, text-based, filth-laden, standard-issue O’Grady description, which is to say that it mostly blows, and not in a good way, either.
Happily, Saturday is one of my days in the VeloNews.com barrel, so I didn’t feel obligated to force myself out for a few hours of sandblasted cycling. Tomorrow is another — Liège-Bastogne-Liège is on deck, and so am I — but it’s only a half day of work, the weather is supposed to improve and I’m going to get out for some exercise if it harelips ever’body on Bear Creek.
Arizona seems to be trying to out-dingbat Colorado with the likes of John McCain, Joe Arpaio and now Gov. Jan Brewer, who just signed into law a despicable immigration bill (pun intended) that will accomplish little beyond empowering racists, harassing Hispanics and enriching attorneys.
“We must enforce the law evenly, and without regard to skin color, accent, or social status,” said Brewer. “We must prove the alarmists and the cynics wrong.”
Claro que si. I mean, c’mon, here — you think a cop who sees me banging back a Guinness or three at The Shanty in Tucson is gonna demand my green card, suspecting I swam over from County Clare for a cushy gig mowing lawns in Catalina Foothills? Puh-leeze.
The only solution to illegal immigration is to wean Americans from their lust for cheap shit, which encourages employers to rely on cheap labor, both at home and abroad. It’s not unlike the so-called war on drugs, another abysmal waste of lives, time and money. Where there is demand, there will be supply, law and order be damned.
Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, Alfredo Gutierrez, a former Arizona Senate majority leader who fought against the bill, said: “It’s a sad day for the country. This is the most oppressive piece of legislation since the Japanese internment camp act.”
And in a story by The Associated Press, Francisco Loureiro, an activist who runs a migrant shelter in the border town of Nogales, Mexico, charged that police in Arizona “already treat migrants worse than animals. There is already a hunt for migrants, and now it will be open season under the cover of a law.”
“Your papers!” My ass. If I were Obama, I’d think twice before visiting Arizona anytime soon. Sheriff Joe might roust him, demanding proof of citizenship. Be a hell of a note to go from a stylish suit in the Oval Office to pink undies in Maricopa County’s Tent City.
A bit late, to be sure, but we’re getting them. The lawn likes the weather, as do the flowers, but I’d just as soon have sunny and 70, thanks all the same. Getting your vitamin D from the pharmacy just isn’t the same somehow.
I need to log some serious miles between now and May, too. I’m signed up for some extra duty at VeloNews.com, helping with coverage of the Giro d’Italia and the Amgen Tour of California. This always sounds like a good idea (more money) but rarely is (more work). If I wanted to work, I’d get a job.
However, as Herself reminds me loudly and frequently, somebody around here spent a ton of money on bike parts recently, and the piper must be paid. Maybe I could institute a “Barter for Bike Parts” program. Y’know, trade a Rhode Island Red for some SRAM Red. I hear this sort of thing is all the rage in certain circles.
SRAM Apex — a double with an invisible granny gear.
SRAM is getting plenty of love these days for its Apex road group, which is aimed at the casual cyclist (or masters fatty) who might otherwise choose a triple-chainring setup for high-country cycling.
Lennard Zinn of VeloNews and Joe Lindsey of Bicycling, neither of whom needs any performance advantages in the hills, have both ridden the Apex, which features a compact crankset (50/34), a rear derailleur that can accommodate an 11-32 cassette, dual-pivot brakes that can handle 700×28 tires, and a price that undercuts Shimano 105 by $500 if bought as an aftermarket option. Expect to see Apex hit the streets in the next couple months on $1,500 bikes from Trek, Cannondale and the rest of the usual suspects.
Both Zinn and Lindsey were complimentary in their reviews, noting that weight is reduced and shifting improved when compared with a triple setup. And Lindsey tagged Apex as part of a trend that he dubbed “the return of ‘real’ road bikes for real riders.”
“I’ve said before (and will again) that having the ProTour drive bike design isn’t an unalloyed positive,” he continues. “The products that largely result from top-level racing prize light weight and power transfer over ease of maintenance and comfort, and aren’t really reflective of the way most people ride.”
Well said. Dope fiends with too much blood in their blood and less body fat than a rattlesnake’s skeleton mostly don’t need a 34×32. But I do, sometimes. Sure beats getting off and walking the steep bits, especially in those silly-ass road shoes that make a guy mince and prance like a transvestite who hasn’t quite gotten his spike heels dialed in.
The Apex is hardly revolutionary, nuts-and-bolts-wise — cyclo-crossers and geezers have been cobbling together similar setups for years, since nobody bothered to offer one as a gruppo. In the bad old days we were stuck with 48/38 chainrings, but with the rise of the 110mm BCD crank things got very different very quickly.
I once had an eight-speed titanium Voodoo Loa ’cross bike that sported a Ritchey Logic 48/34 crank, a Shimano XT rear derailleur and an 11-30 cassette. Most of my ’cross bikes these days have low ends of 34×28, though the Jamis has a nasty 36×26 combo that hurt my legs the other day exploring in Sondermann Park. And my buddy Dennis the Menace uses an XT rear derailleur on his Surly Cross Check so he can run an 11-30 cassette, which comes in handy when dicking around on the single-track in Palmer Park.
But a guy mostly can’t buy a weirdo setup like that off the rack. Until now.
Frankly, the thing I found most surprising about the Apex reviews, not having bought a road bike in 16 years, is that it’s all like New Wave and shit to have brake calipers that can accommodate 700×28 tires — assuming that you can shoehorn those fat bastards into your plastic-fantastic frameset. The old Shimano 600 stoppers on my ti’ DBR could do that way back in 1994, when I was still rocking a 53×39 up front and a 12-21 behind. How time flies, etc.
Now if someone would only bring back eight-speed. …
A Limey publishing firm is betting that you want to read what The New York Timescalls “bite-sized stories” on your iPhone.
Ether Books, which will launch at the London Book Fair on Monday, plans to offer a catalog of short stories, essays and poetry via the iPhone and iPod Touch for busy folks who have only a few minutes between tweets, Facebook updates and porn downloads to devote to literature.
Gosh. Will Shakespeare would be so proud: 2B R not 2B. LOL.
Mad Blog Media 