Join Live Update Guy at the Giro d’Italia

Disclaimer from the legal department at Live Update Guy: Patrick O’Grady, senior executive junior assistant vice president for answering reader questions for free at LUG, attempted a tasteless “joke” about the Italian people during our most recent Live Update (previously recorded).

The elderly, self-described “humorist” managed to deliver the setup, but hyper-vigilant producer Turkish von Turkenstein saw to it that the punchline never aired, and going forward O’Grady has been warned to restrict his japes to the French.

The senior management at Live Update Guy would like to apologize to all Italians everywhere, particularly any Romans concerned with drainage, medicine, roads, housing, education, viniculture and any other Romans contributing to the welfare of LUG Nuts of both sexes and hermaphrodites. Thank you.

Boo hoo

Oh, lawd, the old tee-hees are proving elusive these days around El Rancho Pendejo.

Mister Boo’s post-surgical recuperation from bladder surgery last Wednesday has been both messier and noisier than I anticipated, and it has not helped that Herself has pissed off to New Orleans for a week on a work junket that just happens to occur in the middle of Jazz Fest.

The Big Easy, this place she is not, cher. Les bon temps, they do not rouler.

There is, however, light at the end of the tunnel. This morning The Boo took the last of his antibiotics and pain meds, and tomorrow the Cone of Shame comes off. The peeing and pooping is occurring mostly outdoors, which is nice. But I laid in another 50-pack of Boots & Barkley extra-large training pads anyway, just in case the flood returns to Katrinaesque proportions.

Well, I wish I was in New Orleans … I can see it in my dreams. …

The mayor of Cell Block O

I am not an animal! Oh, wait, I am! Never mind. ...
I am not an animal! Oh, wait, I am! Never mind. …

Welcome to Little Gitmo.

Mister Boo has had surgery to remove a bladder stone, his second trip down this surgical path, and the stone was apparently so rara an avis that the medicos have shipped it off to a university for further study.

Perhaps through their labors Boos of the future will not suffer from this malady, and the subsequent isolation it requires.

I’ve tried consoling him by noting that he, unlike Prince, is at least on the proper side of the lawn. But The Boo was never much of a “Purple Rain” kind of guy. Right now he’s happy to be making yellow rain.

 

José, can you see?

José Appaloosa enjoying the view from the upper end of Tramway.
José Appaloosa enjoying the view from the upper end of Tramway.

Busy, busy, busy: And just think, I’m not even at Aqua Rat in Monterey, where all the action is.

For instance, scope out Richard Masoner’s shots of the 2017 Masi Speciale Randonneur, one of them with down-tube shifters. Verrry nice, except for those death-dealing disc brakes, which even St. Eddy and the UCI have deemed a tool of Satan.

Me, I’ve been fooling around with a Rivendell Joe Appaloosa, and a very nice machine it is, too. No down-tube shifters, but thumbshifters, and a handlebar so upright and swept back that you can see yourself coming from miles away.

None of them devilish discs, neither. Tektro V-brakes, thank you very much. In point of fact, the José is so retro I had to buy myself a hipsterish red-plaid shirt to ride around in (the baggy shorts I already own). When aboard the USS José Appaloosa the uniform of the day is very much not the skintight Lycra.

Riding a bike with nice grippy V-brakes reminded me of how much I still dislike the Shimano cantilevers on my Soma Double Cross, and in a fit of pique I pulled them off, planning to replace them with the Paul’s Neo-Retro and Touring cantis on a Steelman Eurocross that I haven’t been riding much.

I forget how old these Spookys are ... probably nearly as old as the bike they now adorn.
I forget how old these Spookys are … probably nearly as old as the bike they now adorn.

Alas, it turned out that the Paul’s are in need of maintenance … a missing O-ring here, a scored brake pivot there, and some really old pads — and thus I found myself staring at two brakeless bikes to no particular purpose.

Then, eureka! I remembered having an old set of barely used Spooky cantis with Kool-Stop pads squirreled away in a box somewhere in the garage. And soon, hey presto! They were on the Steelman, because black and red are the key components of the Mad Dog livery. And off I went for another installment of Ride Your Own Damn Bike Day.