Summer is hitting the door running with its bike slung over one shoulder. The leaves are turning, we’re back to breakfasts like steel-cut Irish oatmeal with black tea, and dinners involving copious quantities of freshly roasted green chile and free-range pork are in our very near future.
I haven’t made the ultimate concession to cooler weather — pulling on the ratty old gray sweatpants — because I’m still a tad scabby and stiff from stacking it on the trail last week. But I may have to start adding socks to my usual T-shirt-and-shorts ensemble, if only in the early mornings.
Political signs have replaced roses in the yard — Hickenlooper, Bennet, Merrifield and Mowle — and a few more opposing three insane tax-slashing initiatives will be joining them soon. I don’t see that overfed, under-taught windbag Doug Bruce volunteering to underwrite a few streetlights, patch a couple potholes or water a park, and frankly some things are worth paying for.
Between you and me, I’ll be glad when the midterms are behind us if only so we won’t have to listen to the ceaseless drumbeat of an ass-whuppin’ a-comin’ from the mainstream media. I’d rather take three beatings than endlessly anticipate one.
Meanwhile, cyclo-cross season starts this weekend. Already? I can still walk, but I haven’t tried running lately, and I haven’t been on a bike since a week ago Monday. So don’t look for me at the Pikes Peak Velo Supercross on the 18th. On a bike, wearing a number, anyway.
Mad Blog Media 
Getcher ass out here – it’s still summer in California.
Still summer, it’ll be “summer” till early November here in Alabama.
hmmmm whine dog?
It’s always summer in California – except for those other seasons FIRE, FLOOD, RIOT, EARTHQUAKE. Before anyone starts whining, I grew up in SoCal and still visit the in-laws in toney Santa Barbara — when they’ll put up with me.
I realize this is a throwback to one of O’G’s postings from a couple days ago, but I just have to mention that I was in one of my local bike shops today and I came across what may be the premier issue of “Paved” magazine! What do you know about that? I was just about to do my fair share to support cycling journalism (at $7.99) when I noticed who the lone cyclist was who adorned the cover. It was none other than “He Who Shall Not Be Named”. Great, we get a new cycling mag and it’s just like all the other cycling mags. Why didn’t they just name it “Chamois Sniffer Monthly”?
But the good news is that I saved eight bucks.
Oh well, so PAVED is a dud, perhaps Peloton will be better? I’m not holding my breath for that one either but let’s hope there’s a market for a mag created for the folks who PURCHASE & READ it rather than the folks who buy ads in it. At eight bucks a copy one would think so!
Too many of the current cycling mags feature content driven mostly by the advertising department, no matter how strongly those on the editorial side deny it.
Patrick,
Thought of you a few times this past weekend as I was slogging my fat arse around Sonoma and Marin Cos. Cross training on the roads that time has forgotten to patch. Nothing says “F-U-N” more than dodging potholes on a screaming downhill after shoulderin’ a cross bike – sans a panty wasting triple naturally – up some steep arse ‘road’ just to come hurling down the other side. The MDM and Fat Guy jerseys were hits with the other riders and drew a few comments. Needless to say that the previous two days were warm and sunny, today was foggy and a bit cooler but it burnt off just in time to go home. Cross season is here….will we abide?
The only reason I have a subscription to Buycycling is because its offered as a “benefit” of League of American Bicyclists membership. Its hard to tell where the ads end and the copy begins in part because so much of the “copy” is advertisement disguised as “testing” for the latest technocrap.
I never saw much use in a lot of this stuff (although the ad for a 400 buck Soma Double Cross frame caught my eye as it apparently did O’G). Eddy Merckx had it right. You want to improve, ride lots and ride with buddies who like to test each other. I rode better back in grad school when I had time to ride, a good group to ride with (including Bill “38 bpm resting heart rate” Meyers who now lives up near Steamboat) and no money for expensive crap.
Sadly, I ended up trapped at the Bomb Factory till late on Friday and by the time I got home, I saw little use in packing the car and screaming up to Red River for the annual self-immolation on Bobcat Pass on Saturday morning. So I got up early, made a pot of coffee and a bigger pot of oatmeal and rode across the Jemez Mountains instead. Big Mistake. Most of NM-4 is now composed of cracks, broken shoulder, and sharp ridges with a little bit of pavement in between. The NM-DoT has decided to improve the situation by repaving it using stone-and-oil, i.e., chipseal. Between the Valles Caldera and La Cueva I rode about twelve miles each way on skinny tires over loose gravel and bumpy pavement that would be good training for a cobblestone classic. This was interspersed with being hit with stone chips kicked up by speeding dualies–at first I thought I was downwind of a b-b gun range. If I ride that road again, it will be on 700-28’s at 90 psi on the cross bike and with a flak vest. My arms and shoulders still hurt. Should have packed the damn car…
khal,
Hwy 4 across the Valles Caldera has been in terrible shape all spring and summer. I think the result of a lousy chip n seal job last fall, a heavy snow winter and snow plows gouging up the road surface. Toss in the usual summer tourist traffic and you’ve got the makings of a real wheel and ass buster. I don’t get it. Hwy 4 from San Ysidro all the way past Bandelier is routinely touted as one of the premier scenic highways in New Mexico, and the state can’t spend the cash to keep it in reasonable shape. When was the last time any part of it from Los Alamos to White Rock paved? Not in the 20 years I’ve been living here.
MD, its been getting worse over the years but this year is gruesome (as you say, probably due to lousy paving and bad weather). I usually get over to La Cueva often enough once the snow melts, but this year I started hitting the climbs around Bomb Town a lot more (i.e., leave Los Alamos, ride down through White Rock, down to the Bandelier Snack Bar, up to Valles Caldera, and then back towards town and up Camp May Road). So I had not seen NM-4 over on the other side of the Valles from a saddle this year. Its awful.
NMDOT’s ability to screw things up never ceases to amaze me. I guess they figure anyone who counts, i.e., driving an SUV, won’t notice.
I wonder if any of the reason the MS150 changed routes was because the mountain road is such a disaster. Someone got killed up there a year or two ago simply by going off the road and crashing into a rock. I wouldn’t send someone up there!