The foggy dew

September 23, 2018September 23, 2018 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

Uh oh, look out, it’s clouding up over the Sandias.

I could feel it yesterday. The day was sunny but cool, and nobody would have sneered if I’d started my ride with arm warmers, even knee warmers. The hairy legs might have drawn a few hoots back in the day, but that was … well, back in the day.

“Yes indeed, this will do nicely,” says Miss Mia Sopaipilla.

Miss Mia Sopaipilla was inspecting the Winter Bunker on behalf of His Excellency, Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment).

Spike the Terrorist Deer has slipped inside the wire a time or two in recent days and The Leader often feels it wise to devise strategy far from the distractions of frontline combat.

Today seemed a day to boil the breakfast early — McCann’s Irish Oatmeal, Twining’s Irish Breakfast tea, and like that there.

Why, yes, funny you should ask, Herself is still a-roving around County Sligo with her younger sister, inspecting waterfalls and poets’ graves, quaffing pints of the black, and shooting iPhone video of a harpist playing “The Foggy Dew,” one of the tunes collected from the Belfast Harp Festival of 1792 by Edward Bunting, a 19-year-old organist from Armagh.

When I was 19 the only Harp I knew came in bottles. You don’t want to know what I was doing with me organ.

Interbike 2018: Relax

September 21, 2018September 21, 2018 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments

The latest iteration of the Gathering of the Tribes is in the rear-view mirror.

Was it a success? I have no idea. We’ll have to wait for the numbers, which may prove elusive.

Yes, it’s that time of year again.

One astute observer who is not me does not recall seeing any attendance figures from last year’s Interbike, the Last Roundup in Sin City, and thus who knows? Just as in real life, we may have to judge based on anecdotal evidence instead of cold, hard facts.

Speaking of anecdotal evidence, real life, and cold, hard facts, both Charlie Pierce and Kevin Drum are goggle-eyed at the latest plot twist in “The Adventures of Brett Kavanaugh, Boy Wonder.”

If this were real real life instead of a cheapjack “Justice League” porno knockoff, Kavanaugh’s nomination would be as dead as John Holmes. But the Senate is all Jokers and no Batmen.

Meanwhile, a tip of the Rivendell cycling cap to Darren Sherkat, who was the first and only commenter to publicly recognize the lyrics from Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” which I was using for headlines on this year’s Interbike posts. Hope you enjoyed ’em.

When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

Interbike 2018: The dream is gone

September 20, 2018September 20, 2018 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

El Grande, being (ahem) gravitationally challenged, rarely participates in the Sport of Kings. Organizers grew tired of the frantic phone calls from the National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado.

The inaugural RenoCross took place last night. Alas, neither I, the Mud Stud nor the Old Guy Who Gets Fat in Winter was in attendance.

Yes, it’s that time of year again.

There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of coverage out there at 8 a.m. New Mexico time, though cxmagazine.com has a brief report, results and pix.

My colleague Steve Frothingham had contemplated doing the Wheelers & Dealers race, but his new duties may have kept him in the Show Daily office. The Fake News never sleeps, and it rarely pins on a number.

El Grande did, from time to time. But it usually got swallowed by a roll, crease or fold, and even if he finished none of the judges could see it and thus he never got his just deserts.

Sometimes he didn’t even get beered.

• Next: Relax.

Interbike 2018: Can you show me where it hurts?

September 19, 2018September 20, 2018 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

Back to the present: My man Matt Wiebe of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News serves up a piece from Interbike about whether retailers should be stocking up on product with more tariffs on the horizon.

Among the folks Matt spoke to was Friend of the Blog Stephen Newhall of Rob and Charlie’s in Fanta Se, who is taking the dire pronouncements from some suppliers with “a grain of salt.”

“What will happen is that sales that would have otherwise happened in November and December will happen sooner,” he says.

One of the big issues is what constitutes a bike made in China, notes Bob Margevicius of Specialized.

“A bike’s point of origin is not necessarily clear because it is made from components from so many sources,” he says. “It is an extremely confusing time right now.”

The whole piece is worth a read, especially since Matt isn’t just another Fake News guy like Your Humble Narrator. He’s also a small-business owner*, a pro salmon fisherman with a boat, nets, and everything.

* Note the hyphenation there. That’s an Associated Press style deal intended to avoid confusion. Matt helms a small business, but as anyone who has ever seen him will attest, he is not a small businessman.

• Next: The dream is gone.

Interbike 2018: There is no pain, you are receding

September 18, 2018September 18, 2018 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

OutDoor Demo at the Northstar California resort wrapped yesterday — to rave reviews, if you believe the Fake News — and Interbike Marketweek proper opened today. There’s a Show Daily and everything.

Not everybody makes it from Demo to the show floor, though. This year, as always, a few exhibitors did the Demo and then hit the door running.

Yes, it’s that time of year again.

The Mud Stud usually strives for the doubleheader, if he makes it to the Gathering of the Tribes at all. A guy who lives on SpaghettiOs and PBR is not likely to own a GPS, even at bro-deal pricing.

He has been known to confuse Las Vegas, New Mexico, for Las Vegas, Nevada. The one time he tried to fly, Homeland Security wanted to add him to its museum of curiosities, but the EPA said ixnay.

Another time the Stud found himself in Myanmar in search of Mandalay Bay. Alas, the city of Mandalay is 500km from the nearest bay, and further still from the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Sin City, Interbike’s final flop in that neon whorehouse.

You’d think the extended water crossing might have tipped our boy off, since hitchhiking and/or cycling across the Pacific can be damply sketchy. But the Stud spends a lot of time wandering around in his own head and is not always paying close attention to what transpires outside that cavernous, empty, Mohawked space.

In 2003 the Stud made both Demo and Interbike. But it wasn’t pretty. The bike didn’t let him down, but the bottle did.

• Next: Can you show me where it hurts?