Every dog has his day

July 24, 2011July 24, 2011 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 29 Comments

The dog formerly known as Sweetpea — Oh, sure, yeah, right, now he sleeps. ...

Chapeau to Cadel Evans for finally making it onto the top step of the podium in Paris. He was not spectacular, but he was as strong as an onion-and-horseradish sandwich in a very tough Tour, and when it got down to the leg-breaking he was serving up pain by the plateful.

Things got a bit hectic around here the past few days. I made a quick trip to Boulder on Friday to say adieu to Ben Delaney, who stepped down as editor in chief of VeloNews. Then yesterday it was back to the VeloBarrel for the time trial that saw Cuddles clock the Schleck sisters.

And finally Herself decided that Chez Dog required an actual dog, so we paid a visit to the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region, where she volunteers a couple days a week, and bailed out a 6-year-old Japanese Chin she’d had her eye on.

The shelter people were calling him Sweetpea, and I was calling him Motherfucker when he woke us up at 4 a.m. today, but at the moment he remains nameless, though I’m leaning casually toward Buddy — an anglicization of Budai, the laughing Buddha — because the Japanese Chin appears to be smiling all the time.

When they’re awake, anyway. I think I’ll sneak back into the kitchen and wake the sonofabitch up, see if he’s grinning when I give him a taste of the old cowbell.

The race is up that way, boys

July 21, 2011July 21, 2011 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

Da bear — Singing in the bathtub ... la dee dah dee doo. ...

Well, whaddaya know? At long last a Schleck finally sacked up and did something other than talk shit, complain or suck wheel.

Andy of Luxemberry finally got his narrow ass off that saddle for more than 10 pedal strokes and his eyeballs straight ahead and roared away to the stage win atop the Galibier, damn’ near getting the yellow jersey in the process. If Cadel Evans hadn’t towed Thomas Voeckler, Ivan Basso and Damiano Cunego to the top Tommy would be back in his plain green Europcar kit for Friday’s stage to L’Alpe d’Huez.

The Leopard-Trek boys definitely got it right today and everybody else got it wrong, especially Super Spaniard, who reverted to his alter ego of Clark Kentador on the final steeps and gave away bags of time. No bang-bang in Paris for him.

The stage put Andy in second overall, 15 seconds out of yellow, and brother Fränk in third at 1:08. Fränk didn’t do shit all day except sprint around Evans at the end, so he may be the guy to watch on the Alpe. I expect Andy and Cadel will be in the hurt locker.

But both Schlecks will need to show up wearing their racing legs tomorrow if they expect to have yellow in Paris, because they time trial like junior girls and Evans does not. I don’t have to work, but I’ll be glued to the ’puter anyway, watching the fur fly.

Speaking of fur, I saw a bear on today’s ride through the Air Force Academy. He was having a refreshing bath in the creek at trailside, just north of Woodmen. I would’ve missed him but a woman mountain biker headed south flagged me down to get a little backup lest she become bear chow while cycling past. We watched him for a while, snapping a few pix, and then he grew tired of the paparazzi and exploded out of the creek into the brush.

How does one say ‘punk’d’ in Luxembourgish?

July 19, 2011July 19, 2011 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments

Ho, ho. I should have commented on this earlier, but it’s been a busy day (deadlines, dentistry, etc.) Nevertheless, it was swell to watch the Schlecks get punk’d by Super Spaniard in today’s supposedly ho-hum stage, one that the official VeloNews Tour de France guide called “straightforward” while picking Thomas Voeckler for the win.

Well, Tommy V won, all right, in that he spent another day in yellow despite finally redlining (world champ Thor Hushovd actually crossed the line first). Cadel Evans did pretty well for himself, too, as did the suddenly audacious Super Spaniard and Sammy Sanchez.

But the Schlecks — especially Andy — stunk up the joint, and had the audacity to whimper about it afterward.

Asked if he had expected Contador to attack, Fränk Schleck replied, “No, not at all.” Super Spaniard had promised as much, and his boss Mr. 60 Percent knew from bitter experience that the Schlecks hate racing in weather that might get their kit dirty, but somehow Fränk missed the memo.

As for the younger Schleck, he spake thusly: “I’m pretty disappointed, but if this is what people want to see, a race decided on a downhill. I don’t think that. A finish like this should not be allowed.”

Oh, to be sure. There should only be uphill finishes, on straight, dry roads, for delicate types who can’t shift, descend or corner in the rain. And any team with a sprinter but no rider in the break du jour should help HTC-Highroad chase the escapees down so they’re not too pooped to line up the old choo-choo and fire the Manx Missile with 250 meters to go.

And attacking for more than 10 pedal strokes at a time should be strictly forbidden unless the attacker immediately begins looking around for his brother. Should he not have one nearby, he must first look for a teammate, and then for a countryman, and finally an excuse.

Going for the Gold

July 18, 2011July 18, 2011 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

Bibleburg as seen from the single-track detour over the collapsed tunnel that keeps Gold Camp Road blessedly free of dinosaur-powered tourism.

I was feeling guilty about not riding yesterday (too tired, too hot, too wussified), so today I sacked up and did something I’ve been thinking about for a while — rode from Chez Dog up Old Stage Road to its intersection with Gold Camp Road and then down Gold Camp back home.

It’s been a while since I tackled that ride — 15 years or so — and last time around some friends and I found ourselves climbing through a series of stimulating weather patterns, each worse than the one that preceded it, until we were descending Gold Camp in a full-on snowstorm.

Today I was by myself and glad of it, too, because I ain’t the dog I was then and can no longer bear the howls of derisive laughter. I spent a shameless amount of time in the Voodoo Nakisi’s granny (22×28) and recycled a fair amount of salt because I was sweating all over my downtube water bottle. There were no snowstorms, only dust storms whipped up by passing motorists hellbent on enhancing the washboard on the gravel road.

The descent was big fun, though. I shot past a crowd of casual mountain bikers who had been ferried by van to the intersection of Old Stage and Gold Camp, at 9,000 feet, and were enjoying the leisurely, traffic-free descent back to town (a collapsed tunnel some years back closed the road to motorized traffic). I greeted a few and should have stopped to chat, but I was hot and sweaty and tired and thirsty and I could tell that not one of these folks had an ice-cold beer or an air conditioner on them.

So on I plummeted, and after a quick shower and a semi-massive lunch with lots of water I dropped by McCabe’s Irish Tavern for a couple pints of Bristol Brewing’s Compass IPA. I had a column to write, and they had beer and air conditioning. It seemed the smart thing to do, for a change.

Entering the Twilight zone

July 17, 2011July 17, 2011 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

Twilight Summer Ale — There's nothing better than beer for flushing out the headgear on a hot summer day.

Ack. Ninety-something outside and only a little less than that inside. By the time I got done shoveling out the VeloBarrel this afternoon I decided I was not interested in cycling of any sort, especially as practiced by me. So instead I rode the Vespa down to the grog shop for a sixer of Deschutes Brewery’s Twilight Summer Ale.

This tasty brew, a seasonal beer available from May through September, will take the rabies out of the maddest of dogs beset by Englishmen in the noonday sun. Herself likes one on a hot day, too, so we’ll put a couple in the freezer for 10 minutes and then hit ’em hard, like a hungry Hemingway chugging a distingué at a Parisian café. Well, I do, anyway. She nurses hers as if Prohibition is coming back.

I like the Green Lakes Organic Ale too, though I was not impressed by my first encounter with the brew. My second, however, followed the first leg of the Adventure Cycling Association‘s 2010 Southern Arizona Road Adventure, when a new friend and I had a dram apiece at the Velvet Elvis in Patagonia. Something about 48 miles of cycling and 3,400 feet of vertical through sun-splashed, wind-whipped southern Arizona, I guess. Whatever — I was an instant convert and have remained one.

Not much action in Le Tour today and even less tomorrow, the second rest day. Tuesday brings the Alps, and thus the pain; all the big shots vow to attack without mercy, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.

Well, that would be refreshing, wouldn’t it? So far it’s the officers doing all the talking and the grunts doing it hand to hand, just like in real life.