I’ve been preparing for this year’s (Not the) Tour de France with a series of short rides.
This is a refreshing change of pace from the usual mad dash to figure out who’s who, and what’s what, and how in bloody ‘ell can I help Charles Pelkey make three weeks in July funny just one more time, please, God and Baby Jesus!
Whoof. ‘Scuse me, got carried away there.
Anyway, short rides, as I said. On road and off. Nine-speed drop-bar bikes and bar-end shifters, because that’s how I roll.
Work reared its ugly head today, but I punched it right between the horns and went for a damn’ ride.
This is probably why our refrigerator committed suicide. It thought I had lost my work ethic and it couldn’t face a world in which it was not filled to the gunwales with lean pork products, fresh vegetables and ice cream.
I went straight down to Home Depot and ordered up a replacement. And tomorrow I’m going on another damn’ ride.
• Late update: I forgot to mention that yesterday was Wild Kingdom Day. In just under two hours on the bike I saw one deer, one coyote and a metric shit-ton of quail. What’s with the quail this year? And nary a buzzworm so far this summer. ‘Course, now that I’ve said that, I’ll probably have to bunny-hop one today.
Mad Blog Media 
Nice pix. Just noticed the groove in the bike lane between the concrete curb and the asphalt. Is it a problem? Does your front wheel try to follow it?
I did manage a ride on the Niner early yesterday morning. Hardly coughed at all. Beauty, heh?
One hunnerd degree days keep coming down here. It was 100 in Bisbee on Wednesday afternoon. Ken had to turn on the AC at the Bisbee Bicycle Brothel.
“Beauty, eh?” Warming up for Canada Day, are we?
A neighbor is Canadian, from BC. She and her husband are planning some class of a Canada Day bash this weekend. I am in solidarity with them, of course, as a former Ottawa man (1959-62).
They’ll probably sing “O Canada,” but we sang “God Save the Queen” when I was in school. This, and a familiarity with conversational French, made me quite popular when the old man got transferred to Randolph AFB in San Antonio.
That groove is indeed something to keep an eye on if you ride skinny tires, which happily I do not. 38s and 40s roll right over it with nary a wiggle. I’d be nervous on 23s, though.
Hundreds still, you say? Barf, etc. The afternoons have been in the 90s here, but the mornings are suitable for a couple hours on the bike without fear of heat stroke.
Beauty, heh? Take off you hoser!
Leftovers in my brain from “Strange Brew.” Just the kind of silly ass movie, along with “Up In Smoke,” I watch when I need to forget the news.
We just got back from a Brown Canyon ranch ride. Sandy’s first ride in six weeks after her trip and 3 weeks of shaking off the damn flu.
i head mike myers has a new book out aboot canada.
Man, I loved the “Great White North” skits on SCTV. They were were just ridiculous.
I’m interested in those good look’n knobbies. What model and size?
Love my Schwalbe “Little Big Ben” for the daily street commute, but need some off road claws to get away from traffic.
Happy July 4th weekend!
That’s a Bruce Gordon Rock n’ Road (700×43). It’s a great tire for the conditions around here (or in Colorado or Arizona, for that matter). Tremendous durability and grip, reasonable price. If you like the Little Big Ben — and I do, too, having ’em on three or four bikes — I bet you’ll like the R&R.
Oh! Good old Bruce Gordon, thanks for the tip.
I hear he’s selling his frame building shop, too bad. I see that the tires are still for sale online, I’m putting in my order soon.
Happy riding,
-doug moore
i’m envious of your desert scenery. nothing but rain here.
The rain was what chased me back to the desert from Oregon back in 1983. The Mid-Willamette Valley is shore purty, but I got weary of moss in my dark places.
They grow wine in the Willamette now POG but it still rains a ton. Grew up in Eugene and Portland, went to College in Corvallis and reside in Seattle, You’d think I’d have gills by now….
The refrigerator committed suicide. Perfect. I’ll have to steal that. My stove is on the verge.
Instead of waiting until the stage is over to take a spin you’ll be finished with your ride and sipping a cold drink.
The ‘fridge has been on the edge for a while now. We knew it was depressed but wanted to see how the whole Obamacare kerfuffle was gonna shake out before we invested in heroic measures. Now it’s off to the boneyard for the cantankerous old beast. I can’t be far behind.
Quail you say? On the Eastern Shore of Maryland we have not seen quail for years. The Bobwhites love hedgerows and field leftovers. New farming practices eliminate hedgerows for wide open fields. The large harvesters are much more efficient at retaining grain at harvest.
The bottom line is that the loss of habitat and food source has decimated the population.
My Dad and I used to bring home 8 to 12 quail after 2 or 3 hours of hunting with an English Setter. We would flush 6 or more coveys into flight – that would total at least 70 or 80 birds.
We never thought it would come to this. I parked my shotgun in the closet a long time ago. My Dad’s last Setter was a pet, not a hunter.
We used to sit on the back step at dusk and listen for the cock quail calls.
We have plenty down here Dale. On our second hatch this year. Saw parents and 12 fuzzy golf balls crossing our driveway when we were ending our ride this morning. Not unusual to see a covey feeding in our back yard. Almost all Gambel quail at lower elevations and around town. Mearns up higher, above 5000 feet, but we haven’t seen many over the years.
They followed me out here, Dale. Little buggers are everywhere, scurrying hither and yon. Look like little cartoon characters they do.
The roadrunners, not so much. Murderous bastards they are. They conduct search-and-destroy ops on the lizards hereabouts.
I will play Taps plaintively as light dawns tomorrow for LUG and POG and the lack of their singular wit and coverage as the TdF starts. Guess I’ll have to pirate coverage on the interwebs this year. Sigh.