The first pot of green chile stew is in the books for fall 2012.
I bought four bags of the green goodness — two medium, two mild — and got busy in the kitchen last night. There were plenty of leftovers, so you can imagine what we had for lunch on this cool, breezy Sunday.
And it’s a good thing I went with mild at the top end. Hot summers mean hot chile, and these “medium” New Mexico chiles were plenty hot enough, even though I altered my normal recipe to use two cups of mild to one of medium instead of a 50-50 split.
Seriously, I could feel the medium green dissolving my flesh as I peeled and chopped it. A word to the wise.
The 24 Hours of COS, a.k.a. USA Cycling’s 24-Hour Mountain Bike National Championship, is going on as we speak in Palmer Park, so between paying chores I popped round for a peek, as I did last year.
And just like last year, the whole thing seemed rather underwhelming, spectacle-wise. Here’s one rider; there’s another. And another. And another.
No disrespect intended. It’s a race intended for participants, not spectators, and I’m sure things get much more interesting when the sun goes down and the wildlife comes out and that rocky stretch that seemed so eminently rideable just a dozen hours ago turns into a black-hole Stonehenge express elevator leading directly to Hell.
But in the daylight it had all the excitement of a strip-mall carnival’s merry-go-round.
It’s a shame nobody was passing out prizes for abusing yourself over a 24-hour period back in the Eighties. I’d have a walk-in closet full of stars-and-stripes jerseys.
What a grate way to wake up on a September morning.
A scorched, musty smell and a low rumble at 5 a.m. told me that fall was indeed here, as the furnace kicked on for the first time in months.
It was something of a shock to the system, as always. It was only a few short days ago that I was motoring in a fog of my own sweat through 105-degree heat in Bullhead City, Ariz., for the dubious privilege of chasing bike parts and Scotch around Sin City, which was only a half-dozen degrees cooler.
I’m not sorry to bid adieu to a truly awful summer, but I’d sure like to hold onto sunny-and-70 for a stretch. Autumn is my favorite time to ride a bike, and I’m not ready to pull on my big-boy pants quite yet.
The venerable Bianchi Volpe gets another makeover for 2013, including a nifty powder-blue hue and retro decals.
BIBLEBURG, Colo. (MDM) — The times, how they do change.
Once upon a time my bicycle sprang from sound racing stock — first steel, then aluminum and finally carbon fiber and/or titanium — and the gearing was as manly as the showers at Paris-Roubaix. 52/42 and 12-21 constituted the standard until I moved to Santa Fe, where I was informed that 53/39 and 12-23 were better suited to the hillier terrain.
The fabled straight block came out for pan-flat time trials, of course, and for truly insane climbs one kept a cogset with a 25 or even a 27 handy.
Tires, naturally, were 700×25 — sewups for racing, clinchers for training — though I kept a pair of 28s around for one race that involved a half-dozen miles of dirt-road climbing, and for no good reason occasionally used 19s in a race against the clock.
But this was long ago, and that man is no longer with us.
Today if the bike is not steel it’s probably not mine. And the gearing — good Lord, the gearing! — has devolved to 46/34 and 12-28 on some machines. Two sport triple-ring cranks and mountain-bike rear derailleurs.
Tires likewise have ballooned. 700×28 is now a minimum rather than a maximum, and the max has gone all the way to 700×45, though the sweet spot lies somewhere between 32 and 38.
And the coup de grace? Racks and fenders. Got ’em on three bikes. Oh, the humanity.
There were lots of utilitarian machines like mine at this year’s Interbike show, from the likes of Co-Motion, Bruce Gordon, Yuba, Pashley, Velo-Orange, Bianchi, Opus, Volagi and others. And more companies are tooling up to hang useful bits on them, such as racks and fenders, panniers and trunks, bells and whistles.
What’s behind all this? Beats me. Maybe folks are sick of watching unrepentant dopers perform impossible feats on otherworldly machinery. Perhaps someone figured out that the Adventure Cycling Association has 45,000 members. And don’t forget Peak Oil — it might be nice to have something to ride to work when the last well starts farting dust.
All I know is, if this is a trend instead of a blip, I like it. A guy gets tired of staring up at lug nuts while inhaling a snootful of fragrant particulates.
BIBLEBURG, Colo. (MDM) — I’m always surprised to find myself at home after a longish road trip, because once I get that old Newtonian motion going the inclination is to keep on keepin’ on.
Then I could head north through Socorro, refueling at El Sombrero, before pushing on to Santa Fe, where the eating, drinking and cycling opportunities are boundless. A guy can bat around there for the better part of quite some time without ever coming to rest.
Alas, I’m no longer an unencumbered twenty-something, answering only to a spindly, bad-tempered mutt and a Japanese pickup. So I took the well-worn route back to Bibleburg, picking up on an excellent set of music from the Green Chile Revival and Medicine Show on Gallup’s KGLP en route — Mary Gauthier, Stan Rogers, Fred Eaglesmith and the New Orleans Nightcrawlers — and enjoying two last norteño meals at La Choza in Santa Fe and Orlando’s in Taos before finally coming to rest back at the ranch.
It’s fall with a vengeance here, which means cool mornings and an extra blankie on the bed at night, but excellent riding weather in between. So I plan to spend as much time as is humanly possible piloting a bicycle — one with what Larry calls “after-lunch gearing” — instead of a Subaru.
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