Month: October 2016

Two wheels good, four wheels bad

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
Some people call this "morning." They are misinformed.
Some people call this “morning.” They are misinformed.

It was four wheels this morning. Bad.

Herself is off to Tennessee for a combo business/pleasure trip (a lab-librarians’ powwow in tandem with a visit to Herself the Elder), and then she’s zigzagging home via Colorado and Utah (running a half-marathon and maybe camping with a gal pal).

The leaves may be falling, but the roses are hanging on.
The leaves may be falling, but the roses are hanging on.

Thus Your Humble Narrator was required to rise at dark-thirty to chauffeur ‘Er Ladyship to the Duke City airport.

I dislike driving anymore. I particularly dislike driving before the second cup of coffee, in the dark, surrounded by deranged ‘Burqueños who thought “the “Fast & Furious” flicks were drivers’ ed.

Still, we got there, and I got back, and there was this lovely rose waiting for me just outside the kitchen window.

It ain’t all bad, this early-morning stuff.

 

The high-priced spreads

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
Going down. Down, down, down, down, down.
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.
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.

 

My (Euro)cross to bear

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
Blazing saddles: Not Mongo, but mango.
Blazing saddles: Not Mongo, but mango.

More cycling yesterday. I think I’ve finally broken my annual post-Interbike slump.

For some reason, probably that we’re suddenly in the middle of October, I decided to pull my favorite Steelman Eurocross off its hook, give it a bit of a wash and brush-up (plus two new Michelin Jets), and go chase myself around the Elena Gallegos Open Space for an hour or so.

I like to enjoy this sort of foolishness on a weekday, during business hours, the trails come weekends being thick with body-armored double-boingers, texting dog-walkers, the iPlod People and other impediments to forward motion. No need to have an audience while one struggles up a rocky pitch in the 36×26, with 700×30 tires.

One of these days I need to give the old beast more than some fresh rubber. Nine-speed Ultegra, maybe? That eight-speed STI is the velo-equivalent of stone knives and bearskins these days, though it seemed just the ticket back when I still had a song on my lips and a spring in my steps.

Let me forget about today until tomorrow

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
Though you might hear laughin’, spinnin’, swingin’ madly across the sun, it’s not aimed at anyone, it’s just escapin’ on the run.
Though you might hear laughin’, spinnin’, swingin’ madly across the sun, it’s not aimed at anyone, it’s just escapin’ on the run.

I probably should have been conspiring with my fellow journalists about how best to speed the ongoing decline and fall of Ronald McDonald McTrump, but I felt like riding a bike, so I did that instead.

Anyway, it doesn’t look to me as though this virulent orange ball of flatulence needs my help to sink slowly in the west, into a sewage lagoon of its own making.

When I got back home I cranked up iTunes and worked my way through my admittedly limited Bob Dylan collection (“Blonde On Blonde,” “Blood On the Tracks,” “Bringing It All Back Home,” and “Highway 61 Revisited”).

I’m not sure ol’ Bob merits the Nobel Prize for Literature, but right offhand I can’t think of anyone else who has it coming, either. I know that I like him, and so I’m happy for him, and shall defer in matters literary to Thomas McGuane, whose opinion on Dylan (from “Nothing But Blue Skies”) I have poached before:

No one compares with this guy, thought Frank. I feel sorry for the young people of today with their stupid fucking tuneless horseshit; that may be a generational judgment but I seriously doubt it.