I was somewhere near Grants, New Mexico, riding a touring bike for fun and profit, when the word came that Joe Cocker had passed on.
It’s a wonder Joe made it to 70, given the way he lived his early years. John Belushi, who mocked him so well, didn’t last half as long.
And man: “A Little Help From My Friends.” “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window.” Dude out-Beatled the Beatles, is what. “The Letter.” “Delta Lady.” Hoo-lawd, he left it all out there on the stage.
“You Are So Beautiful.” “You Can Leave Your Hat On.” And “Feelin’ Alright.”
“I’m not feeling too good myself,” Joe sang, and he wasn’t kidding. But he had too much to do before he died, and thank whatever gods there are that we got to watch, and listen.
As Pat noted in comments, give our best to Frank, Joe.
Mad Blog Media 
Sad news. He sounded ruff and gruff, but damn if he didn’t always hit the notes.
Nice picture. I assume the Saga disc was the bike being tested. Looking forward to reading and watching the results. Have a great holiday and weekend. We hope to get some miles in on Thursday, no traffic to speak of, before hitting a friend’s house for dinner. But damn it’s getting windy and cold down here. Shit.
Hey, Pat … with these newfangled point-and-shoots even a fool like me can get the occasional decent shot. I was completely inept with film.
I was actually riding my old Saga, and the weather was slightly less than awesome around Grants, too. We were doing some scenics for the ACA, and happily someone who knows his stuff was behind the camera while I confined myself to what I do best — going round in circles.
The new Saga is at the shop, waiting to be picked up, though. And we have a Raleigh Tamland 2 and a Novara Mazama in house. So rig for heavy weather, bike-review-wise.
A Joe Cocker Greatest Hits album would be chock-full of great stuff, RIP Joe. Happy Holidays to all from Rome, where I spent an hour yesterday shooting the bull with Ben Serotta. His daughter Anna is a Fellow here at the Academy. Small world, eh?
Happy holidays back atcha. Small world indeed! I have a 1998 copy of Bicycling Magazine’s Complete Book of Road Cycling. On the cover is a picture of a Serotta road bike with a suspension fork. I always wondered about that bike.
Might have been a 7-Eleven experiment for Paris-Roubaix? When Duclos-Lassalle won P-R using one with the Z team he later claimed it was locked out the entire time. I think Serotta is kind of like the “American Cino Cinelli” – had a lot of interesting ideas, some of which were successful, while giving plenty of guys who worked for/with him a start in the bike biz. And it sounds like he’s far from done. I’m hoping to follow up with Ben for a future blog post.
Maybe. I also thought probably a P/R bike.
I still have the one-off Marzocchi suspension fork that came with my Voodoo Loa. One of these days I need to do something with that bad boy.
I’ll ask him about that bike next time. Nowadays 29’r suspension forks are pretty common I guess. One of my fantasy bikes is a drop-bar road bike with really fat, slick tires, a suspension fork and some flavor of disk brakes…kind of a roadracing moto without the engine. The idea would be big fun to ride down a fast, twisty descent and these days probably could be built light enough to be not-so-terrible on the climbs? But rather an expensive project that wouldn’t be tested until it was hauled over here to the Dolomites or Alps….and if it turned out to suck……….?
RockShox does a 700c Paragon trekking fork, if you know a framebuilder and want to get creative. Or maybe Hippie Tech could score you an old Ruby. Plenty of those on eBay.
I wanted Brent Steelman to build me what amounted to a 26-inch suspended road bike when I lived around Weirdcliffe, but he thought it would wind up being a piece of shit. We should’ve done it anyway in the name of Science.
I should have known Patrick had a road bike suspension fork in his parts bin! I wonder what other stuff is in it. I bet it would be like a visit to the back room of the Bisbee Bicycle Brothel (now closed.)
one of my favorites,it seems a lot of my favorites are going west, sad.
Joe is gone now. Merry Christmas to us still living!
I have a couple of Ruby’s if anyone is interested. Short steerer though. for a 52 or 54 cm frame. One has never been ridden.
One saved my has for sure late one night/early one morning as I was turning onto Colorado Ave in the dark at high speed. I hit a pothole the size of Texas that for sure would have killed me with a solid fork. I think it would have sheared a regular fork of the day or folded anything steel.