Going down. Down, down, down, down, down.
More cycling, still more!
Yesterday I was riding the Nobilette through the steeps of Richie Rich country in northeastern Albuquerque. The idea is to cleanse the palate, flushing my system of everyone else’s bikes before I do a cannonball back into the deep end of the review pool beginning Monday.
No pix of the houses. Just their trees. I mean, you’ve seen one 12,000-square-foot house, you’ve seen ’em all.
The Nobilette has a Sugino triple (46/34/24), an Ultegra rear derailleur, and a nine-speed, 11-28 cassette, so spinning up the hills is a breeze, especially if that breeze is a tailwind. Plus it weighs 23 pounds, at least five pounds less than the typical review model.
I favor my Richie Rich route because it has almost zero traffic and plenty of climbing. Plus you get to see how the other half lives (large). One casita for sale along the way is listed for a million-five. Booyah.
While we’re discussing the lifestyles of the rich and famous, Insane Clown Pussy is still screeching about how the election he hasn’t even lost yet is “rigged.” Check those Florsheim prints on your little weenie, dude. I bet you find an exact match in one of your closets.
Tags: Insane Clown Pussy, Nobilette
Mad Blog Media 
October 16, 2016 at 10:57 am |
Did the Kenosha Pass area up here in CO a few weeks ago on my MTB. The aspen were ablaze with gold, red, orange……almost psychedelic as you singletrack thru them.
Now in the Bibleburg area the trees are magnificent. Looks like the autumn has also arrived in your area — take advantage of it.
Pat: I guess you’re next, eh?
Re your Florsheim comment: Word!
October 16, 2016 at 1:42 pm |
I need to get up to Fanta Se and have a peek at the forest there. I haven’t ridden there since we moved back to Albuquerque. Some of the trails are mind-boggling, especially when contrasted with the desert terrain I ordinarily ride.
October 16, 2016 at 12:12 pm |
Is a Nobilette the perfect bike for Richie Rich neighborhoods? Probably.
As far as the other guy, I just love watching him sink lower every time he opens his mouth.
October 16, 2016 at 1:49 pm |
Shoot, that’s not a RR bike, Pat — steel frame, Ultegra nine-speed, bar-end shifters, cantilever brakes and 32-spoke wheels? Puh-leeze. Them dudes up in the high country is all on next season’s 11-speed plastic fantastics.
As to Agent Orange, jeez, I can’t wait for his own poison to lay him low. Of course, if he loses, he will never concede, and if the Donks don’t at least reclaim the Senate, we’re looking at more of the samey-same governance-wise for the next four years.
October 16, 2016 at 5:01 pm |
The Nobilette has class oozing from it. Not so the the latest plastic wonder bike. It’s like showing up at a car show and parking a cherry Aston Martin DB5 next to the line of new Vettes.
October 16, 2016 at 6:04 pm |
The new Mustangs are all the rage around here lately. Can’t say I’m a fan. All the new muscle cars look overstuffed to me, like athletes past their prime.
October 16, 2016 at 2:48 pm |
Gotta think the speculation that Drumpf starts some kind of TV thing with Roger Ailes is pretty spot on. I’m willing to bet that his narcissism is gonna demand a permanent pulpit.
Whatta dick!
October 16, 2016 at 4:42 pm |
Every time you think he’s hit rock bottom, dude finds a new low. He must be halfway to those Chinese factories that make his neckties by now.
October 16, 2016 at 5:05 pm |
October 16, 2016 at 3:06 pm |
Be careful, they might run you out of the neighborhood for damaging their property values! https://pvcycling.wordpress.com/2016/10/14/dick-city/
On the other hand, now you’re riding real bikes!! Useful stuff like this I guess is just lacking in some sort of “cool factor” or more likely has been rendered obsolete by the industry’s idiotic desire for planned obsolescence. Instead, they offer single chain ring bikes with rear cogs as big as the old chain rings or gawdawful, lousy shifting “compact” doubles. All in a silly quest to avoid the stigma of a “granny gear.” Can’t count the times I’ve heard someone say they could never ride a triple while I’m working on their double chain ringed abortion with gearing I refer to as “vanity triple.” The usual reason I’m working on it? Complaints about poor shifting. Same as it ever was.
October 16, 2016 at 4:51 pm |
Today I was riding my old DBR Prevail TT road-racing bike, which has a fairly typical road compact setup (50/34 chainrings and an 11-25 cassette). The drivetrain’s in dire need of a good cleaning, too.
I took it on the exact same route I rode yesterday and was nearly 2 mph faster over 20 miles, probably because if I dawdled on the steeps I’d fall right the hell over. That this bike is three pounds lighter than the Nobilette probably helped, too.
I’d forgotten how much I dislike the drop from the 50 to the 34. I always wind up double-shifting — from the big ring to the small up front and to the next smallest cog in rear.
That said, the old beast sure accelerates smartly. For a few shining moments there I felt like an honest-to-god cyclist.
October 16, 2016 at 6:39 pm |
Patrick and others,
Not sure if you’ve heard, but Steve Tilford has sustained serious injury and is in the hospital. Don’t know if you read his stuff, but for all its misspellings and grammar/syntax errors, it’s interesting reading. His friend Vincent is updating the blog now with Steve’s health updates at stevetilford.com.
October 16, 2016 at 7:53 pm |
Thanks for bringing that up, Jon. I had heard about it but neglected to pass the word.
Steve’s blog is rarely dull, for sure, and I wish speedy recoveries for both him and Bill Stolte. Man, that sounds like an ugly, ugly crash.
October 17, 2016 at 5:52 am |
A million-five? Pfft. In the Bay Area that might buy you one of those nice little boxes on the hillside.
I got me a custom crabon-fibre Guru with a compact double a few years back. Hopped over the border to Montreal to check it out — “Robehr, here, ‘e will build your bahk”. I love it every time I ride it. Does that make me a bad person?
Thoughts for Steve Tilford.
October 17, 2016 at 9:20 am |
A million-five is a lot of pesos here in the Duke City, where nobody has a job, except the cops, Herself and a few colleagues super-glued to Uncle’s flabby sugar tit.
And of course, all things from Montreal are good. In fact, Canada just keeps looking better and better, n’est–ce pas?
October 17, 2016 at 6:59 pm |
Canada does indeed look great! However, fivethirtyeight gives me hope that we just might not be seeing the end of American civilization.
However, I refuse to join those exulting in the apparent demolition of the Republican brand, because there are simply too many people who have bought into the totally counterfactual narrative pushed by certain news sources (Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Newsnetwork!) to turn this thing on a dime.
October 17, 2016 at 11:22 am |
“I’d forgotten how much I dislike the drop from the 50 to the 34. I always wind up double-shifting — from the big ring to the small up front and to the next smallest cog in rear” Me too – its just awful. What really winds me up is when someone runs the chain all the way up the stack in back while in the big ring in front – and then runs out of gear. What they do next is like jamming your car into 1st gear at highway speeds. Between the free fall from 50 to 34 and the spring tension from being cross-chained “big-big” the results are rarely good. Had a guy a few years back who told me the same thing happens with his Di2 bike back home – so it’s clear that electronic shifting is still far from foolproof. Gimmee 10 tooth differences up front and a wide range (13-26 or more) in back and I’m a happy old fart.
October 17, 2016 at 1:08 pm |
Seems the last Ultegra triple crank I had, on a Trek Pilot, had 30/39/50 chain rings. That was a nice combo.
October 17, 2016 at 7:07 pm |
I have one — well, two actually — of those 50/34 12-27 setups, and manage to avoid this kind of clusterfck (heh heh — cluster, get it?) by shifting off the large ring before I run out of cogs. Works well enough.
One of the very best natural athletes I’ve ever met rocks a triple on his road bike, so I’m not subject to granny gear shaming (plus, I’m even older than our host — just by a hair — so there’s that). I just find triples a little fussy. On the other hand, much of my experience with them comes from a setup I put together in the late 1960s using TA cotterless cranks and (if I recall) a Huret derailleur, which basically sucked. The original rear shifter was a Simplex made of Dupont Delrin. Anyone old enough to remember this should be devoting their wole lives to telling kids to get off their lawn.
On the other hand, I did see Jimi Hendrix play live.