Month: July 2010

(Not the) Tour of Colorado

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 30 Comments

Much chatter in The Denver Post, VeloNews.com and elsewhere about an eight-day pro stage race that may be coming to Colorado in 2011.

With the Tour of Missouri spiked, there’s a window opening in the August-September time frame, and among those said to be planning to dive through it are Gov. Bill Ritter, Medalist Sports and some carpetbagger from Texas who likes hanging out in Aspen when he’s not falling off his bike in France. An official announcement is expected next week.

I’m told that the players are calling their project, in casual conversation at least, the “Tour of Colorado.” Thing is, there already is a Tour of Colorado, a series that’s in its third season. Sand Creek Sports honcho Andy Bohlmann owns the name — he says he registered a trade name in 2005 with the state of Colorado and has sought to trademark it — and the domain name as well. Andy says further discussions of financial recompense have yet to bear fruit; I’ve not rung up the Medalist guys, reasoning that if they won’t talk to VeloNews about the matter, they sure as shit won’t talk to me. But Andy and I are old pals.

Andy and his family have put on a lot of races around here over the years, on road and off, and if they’ve become insanely rich from doing so I have yet to see any evidence of it. So while I’m as happy as any velo-weenie at the thought of top-level road racing returning to Colorado after all these years, I hope these big dogs don’t piss all over a grass-roots guy in the process of making it happen.

More as it develops.

Big Brother wants your Google history

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
Aha! This guy's OK, he's just downloading porn and blogging about First Amendment issues, the sap. Next. ...
This guy's OK, he's just downloading porn and blogging about First Amendment issues, the sap. Next. ...

As a judge strikes down parts of an Arizona police-state practice excoriated by the feds, the feds seek to do what? Expand a police-state practice of their own.

The administration wants to add just four words – “electronic communication transactional records” – to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge’s approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user’s browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the “content” of e-mail or other Internet communication.

“Our biggest concern is that an expanded NSL power might be used to obtain Internet search queries and Web histories detailing every Web site visited and every file downloaded,” said Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has sued AT&T for assisting the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program.

Lovely. As Kevin Drum said, “You know if I’d wanted Dick Cheney as president I’d have just voted for him.”

For real. This ain’t the change I was hoping for. C’mon, you guys — knock this shit off. Don’t make me stop this blog and come back there.

The House of Pain

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
The Greenland trails are a hot, dusty 30 miles from Dog Central.
The Greenland trails are a hot, dusty 30 miles from Dog Central.

As usual, I didn’t get much riding in during the recently concluded three-week Cirque du Frog. So I thought it would be swell to ride the New Santa Fe Trail to the Greenland trailhead and back yesterday.

I knew it would be hot, so I planned an early start, which I did not get. What I did get was a stiff headwind for all but a few of the 30 northbound miles, and that first 90 minutes was a bitch. The trail was in poor repair after July’s heavy rains, with ruts and sandpiles in abundance, and my legs felt like sacks of very old garbage.

Finding myself running behind what I considered decent time at two checkpoints — way behind — I thought about turning around at the North Gate to the Air Force Academy. Naw, why do something smart at this stage of your life? The Universe would become confused. Onward.

There are plenty of water stops along the way, at Baptist Road, in Monument, and in Palmer Lake, but I was a little light in the electrolytes department, and it caught up with me on the way back, when the temperature hit 96 degrees. I dragged ass back to Dog Central looking like Death eating a cracker. Seems 60 miles of sand on a cyclo-cross bike was about 10 too many in my present alarmingly decrepit condition.

I limped into the house, drank a tall glass of juice with a tablespoon of concentrated electrolytes, chased it with a couple glasses of ice-cold water, and then stretched out with my legs elevated, a cold washcloth across my forehead, meditating for a while upon the pure white light of stupidity. Then I ate a chicken-and-provolone sandwich with some salty blue corn chips and a banana and began feeling vaguely human once again.

The only half-smart thing I did on that ride was skip an extra-credit loop at the Greenland trailhead that would’ve put me even deeper into the pain cave on the way home. Maybe next time. Are we not men?

No joke(r)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Tom Tancredo announces that he will enter the Colorado gubernatorial race because the present crop of candidates fails to represent the insane.
Tom Tancredo announces that he will enter the Colorado gubernatorial race because the present crop of candidates fails to represent the insane.

Tom Tancredo, hands down the craziest Coloradan outside the walls of the state rubber room in Pueblo, will announce today that he will run for governor as the candidate of the American Constitution Party, according to The Denver Post.

Tancredo and GOP poobah Dick Wadhams apparently traded pleasantries on the topic during Peter Boyles’ talk show this morning, with Wadhams asking: “What’s your agenda? What are you going to talk about? Impeach Obama and bomb Mecca?”

To be sure, Dick old scout. And that’s just the beginning. If crazy were asphalt we could squeeze Tancredo like a toothpaste tube and patch every pothole in this cash-strapped state, with enough left over to make I-25 eight lanes in both directions from New Mexico to Wyoming.

Bibleburg being Bibleburg, I fully expect to see Tancredo signs replacing McIsn’t placards citywide within nanoseconds of the official announcement. Half the dingbats in this benighted mini-metropolis go to bed at night jerking off to pictures of Doug Bruce.

• Late update: The Bibleburg Gaslight views with alarm, and even quotes Ozzy Osbourne. The End Times are truly upon us.

Well, that’s it, then

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

Texus Maximus tries to make it all about him again, but alas, instead of riding the finale in some black Yankee-football-style kit ostensibly honoring the 28 million worldwide said to be living with cancer, The Boss and his bitches have to settle for wearing it while collecting the team prize, which nobody ever gave a runny shit about until, um, this year. Imagine my surprise.

Sorry, Pop, says the UCI, 23rd at 39:20 doesn’t carry a lot of weight around here these days. Pull on the usual gear or go home. Better luck at the Ironman. I hear they let fat fucks wear Speedos in Hawaii.

Long story short, Super Spaniard gets the V, Pretty Boy gets the virginal white, Albuterol Petacchi gets the green (let’s see how long he keeps it), and Anthony Charteau gets the spotty shirt. Maybe for next year he can borrow some heels from a podium chick so he doesn’t have to stand tippy-toe to stare at their tits.