Month: July 2010

Apocalypse now

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

There ain’t nothing like that first week of the Tour, boys and girls. And this has been a particularly bad first few days, what with various other chores coinciding with my need to work five days a week for three weeks at VeloNews.com.

After 20 years of cracking lame cycling gags I occasionally find myself with a nasty case of writer’s block, and wouldn’t you know it? This was one of those times. And me with deadlines at Bicycle Retailer & Industry News (two columns and a “Shop Talk” cartoon strip) and VeloNews (editorial cartoon).

Never get out of the fuckin' boat!
Never get out of the fuckin' boat!

I pushed the envelope so far it turned inside out, creating a wormhole that took me to an alternate universe containing a Patrick O’Grady who was still about half funny. Happily, when I showed up my dopplegänger was asleep under his drawing board with an empty bottle of tonsil polish in one limp paw (some things transcend time and space), so I appropriated his work and returned to my own universe just in time to beat my deadlines.

But is this my universe? Lance Armstrong is not winning the Tour — far from it, he sits in 18th place, 2:30 behind Fabian Cancellara, and is getting heckled by spectators calling him “dopehead” and “cheat.” And Mark Cavendish is getting his ass handed to him in the sprints. The renowned sprinter Andy Schleck has more points than Cav’, f’chrissakes.

Shit. I should’ve listened to Chef. “Never get out of the boat.” Not even to beat a deadline.

Rubber side down, boys

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

Well, sheeyit. I didn’t get out for that bike ride after all. Family commitments, shopping and what have you. I did ride the Vespa for a while, which counts as exercise only because I was fighting a fairly insane wind. And earlier in the day I did twitch and cringe a few times as three crashes marred the final 3km in stage one of the Tour de France. That’s aerobic, right?

I’ve not seen an authoritative account of who did what to whom, but one theory has it that in the first significant pileup Cervélo’s Jeremy Hunt took out Rabobank’s Oscar Freire in a turn, and that HTC’s Mark Cavendish bit the bag as well. There was a Glasgow kiss being delivered there, but as I was watching via the Innertubes with bad eyeballs I couldn’t tell who was pitching and who was catching. To some, it looked like Cav’ was the guilty party.

The second asphalt inspection was a beaut’ that clogged the road from curb to curb. I think everyone went down in that one except for Phil and Paul.

Still, my favorite was the final crash in which Garmin’s Tyler Farrar found himself trying to catch Lampre’s Alessandro Petacchi with Lloyd Mondory’s bike stuffed into his rear wheel. What looked like a minor annoyance to him probably would’ve sent you or me to the hospital, or the morgue. Fine job of keeping the side up there, Hoss.

Paris, ho!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

Well, that was … interesting. Fabian Cancellara kicked much ass without a DieHard up his seat tube (and the UCI checked, just to make sure) and Big Tex just missed the podium in a performance that has his fanboys tugging frantically upon themselves and squeaking about No. 8.

The Champs-Élysées is a long ways off yet, fellas. Put the mouse back in its house, zip up and chill out until the guy has more than five seconds under his belt and you have more than five inches under yours. That’s 8.9km down, 3,633.1km to go, is what I’m saying.

As is traditional, the VeloNews.com donkey had a couple of hitches in its gitalong on this first day of the 2010 Tour. But the virtual muleskinners are beating the poor dumb sonofabitch with a really big digital stick and it’s bound to get the idea sooner or later. Paris is thataway. Yaaah!

I took a break in mid-shift for an early Fourth of July celebration with Herself, the Mom-in-Law, Sis and Bro-in-Law, and The Dude and Doris. We ate catered vittles and drank French wine at midday. Next thing you know we’ll be dancing on Sunday.

One thing I won’t be doing on Sunday is working. That’s reserved for a long-ass bike ride. I even have a stars-and-stripes jersey suitable for the occasion, presented to me by USA Cycling for being an Official National Champion Pain In the Velo-Ass or something along those lines.

And if I can find a titanium-and-carbon-fiber shoehorn, I might even squeeze into it.

A happy Fourth to you and yours.

Missed the VN.com TdF Round Table?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

Here’s an instant replay (it’s only a model):

I tried to get my colleague Charles Pelkey to kick off today’s round table with this YouTube clip but he wasn’t having any of it. Something about a wife, two kids and a mortgage. I didn’t get it. Not the two-kids part, anyway.

Hand me the Bravo Foxtrot Hotel

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

OK, I’ve done a little research, hollered for help, cursed a whole bunch, sipped a glass or two or three, and finally repaired and optimized my WordPress database, so let’s see if this has sent the censorship gremlins packing.

If for some reason you find yourself unable to comment on one of my brilliant online observations, please fire off a NastyGram® to our retarded IT guy, otherwise known as Your Humble Narrator, to wit, me. But if I were you, I’d spend my time enjoying the Fourth of July weekend instead of hanging around here, waiting to see if I can come up with a fresh way of saying, “This fucking sucks.”

Or, if you’re truly, hopelessly and spectacularly bored, pop on by VeloNews.com at 9 a.m. Mountain time on Friday, when the Boulder-based Journal of Competitive Cycling will be running its second 2010 Tour de France Round Table. It’s set up like one of Charles Pelkey’s live updates, but instead of following a bike race online you get to ask the editors and reporters how we’ll be following a bike race online — to wit, the impending three-week dash around Frogland.

I skipped the first TdF Round Table for reasons that are better left unsaid, but I may chime in tomorrow, because it will be the last chance I get to crack wise for three long weeks.