Month: December 2019

Happy solstice

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
The Sandias, as captured by my “new” iPhone SE.

O sweet irony, that the first day of winter should be the warmest we’ve had all week.

Your Humble Narrator has been doing more running than riding lately, so once the temperature inched past 45 I scooted out the door with a Steelman Eurocross and logged a refreshing 90 minutes on mixed terrain.

I didn’t want to ride a bunch of road, because all the drivers are drunk and texting relatives about what size orthopedic socks to buy Uncle Junior for Christmas and will they fit under his ankle monitor. And I didn’t want to ride a bunch of trails because all the cyclists are using them to hide from the drunk, texting drivers. Thus, “mixed terrain.” Keep the fuckers guessing.

I took my “new” iPhone SE with me, but didn’t think to take any snaps until I got home. The transition from iPhone 5 to iPhone SE was surprisingly simple — swap SIM cards, charge and boot the SE, load it with an iTunes backup of the 5, zip and zip and zip. Mere minutes only. And everything seems to be working. Even the old Tech 21 case fits like a glove.

It goes without saying that my first two calls on the “new” phone came from bots. But I’m saying it anyway.

And I’m also saying, “A happy solstice to thee and thine.” Grianstad Sona Daoibh!

Adios, Cycle Cave

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
Cycle Cave, soon to be but a memory. Photo from the Cycle Cave website.

Another one bites the dust: After 46 years of bicycle retailing, Albuquerque’s Cycle Cave is selling through its inventory and calling it quits.

The father-and-son business wasn’t struggling, according to the Albuquerque Journal. But Hervey and Bob Hawk have been working long hours for the better part of quite some time, and they feel they’ve earned a rest.

Says Bob:

I plan to get back in shape and do some of the bike rides I’ve listened to everyone talk about all these years. I think my first trip might be to Moab. As for Hervey, he has a lot of projects around the house to do. I’m sure his dog Jose’ will be happy he is home all day.

I’ve visited Cycle Cave a time or two. And though I can’t call myself a regular, I’m sorry to see the Hawks fly away.

12 Days of ’Toonsmas: Day 2

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
Never get high on your own supply. Il Fattini relearned
this valuable life lesson in the February 2019 issue of BRAIN.

When that Boulder-based journal of competitive cycling and I parted ways, the Old Guy Who Gets Fat in Winter suddenly found himself out of a job.

This is not good news for a portly fellow with an eating habit. One minute you’re the the star of the show; the next, just another MAMIL taking up space. Lots and lots of space.

Sure, you can hang around the bike shop, surreptitiously noshing on the Clif Bar display when staff is distracted by a paying customer. But this is risky business. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of the dude who adjusts your brakes. The world is full of gravity, and also, comedy.

“Where’s Fatso? Haven’t seen him hanging around lately.”

“Didn’t you hear? He blew through the stop sign at the bottom of Corkscrew Canyon doing sixty and T-boned a food truck. Had to have an emergency hoagiectomy. With fries. The docs think they got it all but they’re holding him for observation. You wanna observe him, a ticket costs $50.”

• And now, this word from our sponsor.

12 Days of ’Toonsmas

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
Cash-ing in: Emerald Expositions shot our show in Reno,
just to watch it die.

Most of yis probably don’t see Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, the magazine I’ve freelanced words and cartoons to since 1992.

Bicycle Retailer, better known as BRAIN, is a trade mag, not made available to the general public. And so unless you’ve been caught short while visiting your local shop to pick up some Kool-Stop pads for your Dia-Compe 986es and stumbled into the “reading room” to offload some oatmeal, why, you’ve been missing all the fun.

For years I wrote a column for the mag, “Mad Dog Unleashed,” which was ostensibly about cycling and its supporting industry, but often wandered far afield, like a shop rat at Interbike in search of free beer. It would have been fun to call it “Collect Telegram from a Mad Dog,” but Hunter S. Thompson would have hunted me down and Maced me for that.

The column eventually went away, as they will, but the cartoon remains. “Shop Talk” is likewise in theory about the bike and the biz, but in practice it often has something to say other than “Disc brakes are superior to rim brakes,” “You must have a full-suspension mountain bike to ride the local trails,” and “E-bikes are the Future of the Industry.”

Uh huh. La Velo Nostra has had a lot of futures, which makes me think it should consider hiring quantum mechanics instead of the usual sort.

But we are dealing with the past at the present. And thus I reprint the “Shop Talk” strip from the January 2019 issue of BRAIN. It’s Day One of the 12 Days of ’Toonsmas, and my little gift to you.

Showing the colors

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments
A blast from the past, repurposed for 2019.

Well, the package is under the Christmas tree, but it’s not exactly what we hoped for, is it?

It’s a lot smaller than we thought, for starters. Missing a few pieces, seems like.

And we won’t get much time to play with it. A bunch of smirking old men wearing American-flag lapel pins are gonna take it away from us, just because they can. Doesn’t matter that we paid for it. Or that we’ll keep paying for it, for years.

When Vito Corpulento rose to power I thought that maybe, just maybe, the GOP would eventually wipe the blood off its flabby mitts, look around at the wreckage of the Republic, and say, “Whew. Well, we got almost everything we needed from the loony bastard. He’s not even a made guy. Let’s kick him to the curb.”

Wrong. The GOP is a gang, like the Gambino family, the Klan, or the Hells Angels. And gangs under attack tend to overlook any niggling internal disagreements.

Hunter S. Thompson wrote about the Angels as a tuneup for writing about Nixon, and tell me if this quote from a Frisco Angel doesn’t sound like your modern Republican Party:

“Our motto, man, is ‘All on One and One on All.’ You mess with an Angel and you’ve got twenty-five of them on your neck. I mean, they’ll break you but good, baby.”

They couldn’t do shit in the House except make a lot of bad noise, like a poorly tuned Harley. That’s the junior chapter over there, a bunch of prospects on mopeds, hoping to wear the colors some day. Good luck with that. The Senate wouldn’t let a bag of farts like Louie Gohmert in the back door to swab out the toilets after Taco Tuesday if he promised to use his tongue.

No, the Senate is strictly for the heavy hitters. It’s where business gets done. And by “done,” I mean done.

“Package? What package?” smirks The Turtle. “We never got no package from those guys. What could I tell you? But hey, it’s the holidays. There’s a lot going on. It’ll turn up, someday, maybe.

“Now get the fuck out of here. We’re doing business. Family business. And you don’t look like family to me.”