Month: January 2016

A saga of two Sagas

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments
The Soma Saga Disc.
The Soma Saga Disc.

It’s been Ride Your Own Damn Bike Week here at Mad Dog Media, and a refreshing change of pace it’s been, too.

Playing with other people’s toys is a privilege, and a hell of a lot of fun, but it’s always nice to lay hands on your own again. Consider it the bike reviewer’s version of a palate-cleanser between courses. It also gives you the chance to re-evaluate your own bikes, see whether you need to shed a few long-held biases.

Yesterday and the day before I rode the Soma Saga Disc, and I felt a little too upright, so I dropped the bars 10mm and instantly felt better.

The Soma Saga canti model.
The Soma Saga canti model.

I thought I might need to shorten the stem by an equivalent amount, too. Three consecutive review bikes have arrived sporting 80mm stems, and while those felt a tad stubby to me, a 90mm would be just about right, was my reasoning.

Then today I rode the cantilever Saga home after dropping the Subaru at an auto upholsterer and felt just fine using what I thought was an identical cockpit.

And so it was. Same amount of spacers under the stem, same extension, same 17-degree rise.

Turns out it wasn’t the cockpit. The canti’ Saga sports a straight Thomson post. The disc Saga’s Soma post has a wee bit of setback. Duh.

Meanwhile, I ain’t superstitious, but a black cat crossed my trail as I rode home. A little further along, some bozo in a big ol’ pick-’em-up truck blew through the red light at Manitoba and Tramway a full three seconds late, doing at least the posted speed limit of 50-per.

As it happens I’m one of those cyclists who doesn’t even clip in until he’s seen that everyone else has come to a full stop, so no harm, no foul.

Big ups to the fellow traveler who gave the asshole a long blast on the horn as he shot past, though.

 

 

Abbey Road, or Downton Funk

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments
You can have any color you like as long as it's red.
You can have any color you like as long as it’s red.

Herself and I settled down before the Eye last night with plates of salad and chicken quesadillas to enjoy the president’s final State of the Union address, only to find that the local PBS affiliate was airing “Masterpiece.”

Commies.

And worse, Limey commies, as the show was “Downton Abbey.”

So we switched to the White House website and caught most of Obama’s act, though the Mini spazzed out at the end, pre-empting him with The Spinning Beach Ball of Doom just as he cranked up the volume, and thus we missed the big denouement.

I enjoyed the departure from traditional practice, which has come to elevate ritual over substance. As the prez took the long view, it was particularly amusing to note the discomfiture of the clappers, who were mostly denied easy applause lines.

But I was surprised that he still seems surprised that the other team won’t play ball with him simply because he’s a Kenyan Mooslim National Socialist sissypants.

Still, I felt his pain. I’ve been preaching a gospel of equal parts socialism and substance abuse for years and not one of yis has opened a free-booze-and-bike-parts outlet.

I need some Led in my pencil

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 33 Comments
ledzeppelin1
Boy, did I ever play the mortal shit out of this one on my parents’ Telefunken, which until the Sixties had been accustomed to a steady diet of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and the like.

Well, Ziggy Stardust may have left the building, but Led Zeppelin beat him to the door. The band broke up in December 1980 after the death of drummer John Bonham, but it was on this day in 1969 that they released their first album.

So with that in mind, here’s a little fiery Zep to hot you up on a cold January morning.

Road work redux

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 28 Comments
The High Desert neighborhood makes a fine proving ground for touring machinery, with rolling terrain, light traffic and bike lanes.
The High Desert neighborhood makes a fine proving ground for touring machinery, with rolling terrain, light traffic and bike lanes.

Yesterday was one of those insanely busy days that should never afflict the underemployed. We’re not equipped for it.

The Marrakesh Express (c'mon, you knew it was coming sooner or later, right?).
The Marrakesh Express (c’mon, you knew it was coming sooner or later, right?).

With deadlines flitting around my scalp like Hunter S. Thompson’s Barstow bats I committed a few crimes against cycling, emailing back and forth with product managers, marketing wizards and editors; swapping bits of this and that from one bike to another; and bending fender stays around disc calipers, cutting all corners that looked even remotely cuttable, and beating on anything that wouldn’t cut with my favorite tool, the Bravo Foxtrot Hotel (look it up).

Then, before blasting off to the Whole Paycheck for supplies and liberating the Turk from the Nazi war dentist, I managed a brisk, 45-minute ride on the Salsa Marrakesh with full panniers.

It wasn’t actually snowing, which was nice —the temps were in the lower 40s, and I will even go so far as to say that this did not suck, not for January. You may quote me if you like.

This morning it was precipitating again, and Your Humble Narrator was all about writing bikes rather than riding them. Also, furthermore, moreover and too, there was the doctoring of the Turk, the roasting of the poblanos outdoors in a light snowfall, and the cooking of a medium-sized pot of lamb and white bean chili.

Speaking of cooking, now I seem to be slightly baked for some reason.