Month: June 2020

Car camping

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 34 Comments
My lodging for Interbike 1999. While I was en route, anyway.

Two distinctly different takes on the ancient and honorable practice of kipping in the car, the first from Adventure Journal and the second from NPR.

I’ve spent many a night racked out in my rides, starting with a 1974 Datsun pickup that had an aluminum topper. The two ’83 Toyota longbeds were an upgrade (more space for me and the dog(s). The ’98 Tacoma? A little less so; that truck was too pretty for stealth camping.

One of the best ever was Herself’s Subaru Legacy Brighton wagon, acquired sometime in the mid-Nineties. Fast, decent fuel economy, AWD, long enough for a 6-footer to sleep in, and no icy water dripping on the sleeping bag on rainy/snowy nights (all truck toppers leak eventually, especially if you bounce them along the indifferently maintained dirt roads of Crusty County for a few years).

Of course, the best thing about kipping in all these vehicles was the certainty that it was both temporary and voluntary. Even a Motel 666 in Dipstick, Idaho, looks pretty good after a couple-three nights spent roadside in your ride.

Clutch effort

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments
The descent from the intersection of Pino Trail and Wilderness.

More adventures, still more!

Today I decided to challenge the ankle a bit with some off-road foolishness in the Elena Gallegos area. I thought I was being smart by waiting until 10 a.m. to head out, reasoning that the weak would get theirs earlier, in the cool of the morning.

Well, you know about me and smart. Never happen, is what. Everybody and his grandma was out there with me.

I had to dab a couple times while climbing one section I call Cholla Clutch Cañon because I screwed the pooch riding it as a descent back in 2017, grabbing a fistful of cane cholla to keep from skidding over the edge. (See “me and smart” in the previous paragraph.)

Anyway, the trail wizards have been waving their wands at this stretch since I last rode it and muscle memory was of no help whatsoever. Also, everybody else was riding it as a descent, on full-suspension mountain bikes, which proved something of an impediment to Wrong Way O’Grady, with his rigid, drop-bar Voodoo Nakisi weirdomobile and mad climbing skillz.

Speaking of mad skillz, the Adventure Cyclist boyos have posted my latest review online. Surly has updated its Disc Trucker with an eye toward the gravel-gobbling, bikepacking market.

And wonder of wonders: You can still buy the rim-brake Long Haul Trucker if that’s how you roll. I don’t know that you’d necessarily want to ride it up Cholla Clutch Cañon … but hell, I’d probably try it.

The temperature is testicular

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
Smoke from various Southwestern fires is pooling down by the Rio.

Boom! And just like that, it’s officially hot as balls here at the Duke City Chuckle Hut.

We hit the century mark this afternoon, according to our Acu-Rite weather gizmo.

I got outdoors while the temperature was a frosty 84 degrees, so I didn’t explode like an unpierced spud in a microwave. I’m still not running, but a six-mile hike is a fine means of making a motheaten carcass carry its own weight for a couple hours.

Incidentally, if any of yis who commit pedestrianism have not yet tried trekking poles, you might consider giving ’em a whirl. I scored a set of Gossamer Gear LT5 poles when they went on sale earlier this month, and they give me something to do with my hands other than gesticulate while arguing with the voices in my head.

Also, moreover, furthermore, and too, they help buttress the bum ankle as I stumble up and down the rocky Sandia singletrack in my quest for the wily endorphin.

Alas, when I turned around up near the wilderness boundary a cloud of overcooked forest was obscuring the view. On a clear day it’s no trick to see all the way to Mount Taylor and points west.

Something else that’s not so hot: The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta has been canceled for this year. That’s a solid-gold kick in the ’nads for bidness and gummint. A study of the 2019 fiesta estimated the economic impact at $186.8 million, with a corresponding shit-ton of tax revenues for the city, county and state.

Tweety gets K-popped, TikTok’d

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
“We are not amused.”

Adolf Twitler was light on adoring brownshirts last night in Tulsa, and some tech-savvy K-pop fans and TikTok users say they’re at least part of the reason why.

The New York Times got the story, which has since been picked up by other outlets, including The Verge.

Seems the social-media sappers blew up The Big Comeback by acquiring a shitload of tickets with no intention of using them for any purpose beyond creating an ocean of empty blue seats. And thus a stadium that seats 19,000 had just 6,200 nutters, not counting staff, media, box seats, or additional voices squabbling inside pointy heads behind beady, close-set eyes.

In an interview with Bloomberg, campaign spokescreature Tim Murtaugh sneered: “Leftists always fool themselves into thinking they’re being clever. Registering for a rally only means you’ve RSVPed with a cell phone number. Every rally is general admission and entry is first come, first served. But we thank them for their contact information.”

Well, don’t start sucking each other’s dicks quite yet, Tim old scout. Mary Jo Laupp, who posted her own anti-Twitler video on TikTok, told the NYT that many of the people who shared it encouraged people to get tickets using fake names and phone numbers using Google Voice or some other internet-connected phone line.

“We all know the Trump campaign feeds on data, they are constantly mining these rallies for data,” said Ms. Laupp, who worked on several rallies for Pete Buttigieg’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. “Feeding them false data was a bonus. The data they think they have, the data they are collecting from this rally, isn’t accurate.”

Summer

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Summertime, and the livin’ is easy … for a wall-hopping deer.

Summer is only just arriving down here, but it must have come a little earlier to this deer’s neighborhood.

We’ve been noticing deer poop in the grass, and caught glimpses on the wildlife cam of the jug-eared socialists nibbling nocturnally at the undersized fruit on the pear tree.

But yesterday, in broad daylight, I saw this one stroll casually from the street side of the house right through a neighbor’s gate. From there it was an easy leap into our back yard for a bit of tasty grass and a laydown in the shade.