I got to throw a rare double bird during a ride this past weekend.
Rounding a corner I saw a yard sign for TFG to my left … and then another across the street to my right.
“O! The Joy!” William Clark must have felt like this when he thought he’d finally seen the Pacific “ocian.” In honor of the Corps of Discovery I gave the placards the salute they deserved.
It’s little things like this that keep me on a slow simmer instead of a rolling boil.
As a longtime observer and occasional chronicler of our national political bed-wetting, I have felt compelled for some years now to watch and describe what appears — to me, anyway — to be a brain-damaged orangutan dry-humping the Statue of Liberty.
But damme if the lifting doesn’t get heavier every day. And I’m an old man, with a bad back.
So I lift with my legs. Which is to say that when I feel some crucial part of me starting to give way, I go for a ride, letting my legs lift my flagging spirit.
A bicycle can bear a lot of weight. You can trust me on this: I was a great fat bastard when I returned to cycling after a long absence, and that first two-wheeler had to carry a lot of baggage.
So have its descendants. But the tonnage these days is less Marlboro breath and whiskey sweat, more inchoate rage and existential dread.
That’s hard weight to shed, and not even the bicycle can get it all off you. But it definitely helps, especially if you try not to put the pounds right back on as soon as you get home.
• Pro tip: Try wearing a heart-rate monitor when you scan the news. When you find yourself surfing a hate-wave through Zone 5, remember that there is no Zone 6. Not in this lifetime, anyway. Grab a bike and get the hell out of the house.
Mad Blog Media 
Word, mi amigo. Our friend Raul used to tell me when I was wound a little too tight, “White boy, you need some dirt time!” So, this morning Sandy and I were off to Ramsey Canyon for some dirt time, After a couple miles of trail, sitting on a log bench surrounded by trees will decompress your ass toot sweet. On the drive back, however, we did salute a couple of needle dick and seedy dumb signs.
Good clean dirt is your friend. Unlike the other sort, served up every minute on the minute.
I’m about to take a claw hammer to my phone. The dozens of unwanted texts from campaigns, consultants, and pollsters make the damn thing cheep 24/7 like a budgie on meth.
You can’t swing a dead cat up here and not hit a Harris/Walz sign. Gotta be diligent to find a Trump sign. So my middle fingers have a lot of rest.
I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can ignore the occasional arrhythmia and just ride. My doc today said I was probably the healthiest patient he would see today. I was relieved, because I had not gotten the lab tests back and the electronic portal said “lab tests will be discussed with the patient during the visit”. That scared the crap out of me but it was just me being the eternal pessimist and reading too much into it. They were just late getting reported. So rather than riding straight home from my MD’s office up in Los Alamos, I took the BMW for a blast up to Dixon and down the High Road to Taos and then home. Was fun.
Hey, O’G, did you ever ride that tiny little road NM 503? It has some really steep pitches. Looks like something I should do on the pedal bike before the Grim Reaper gets me.
The state of politics really does depress me, but I don’t see much an old white guy can do about it except…well, nevermind. I’ve little in common with the old white guys in MAGA, and the Left thinks old white guys should just STFU unless you buy into all the stuff that is popular on the left these days. I tend more to practicality.
It will be up to the young-uns to either save this country or send it the rest of the way down the shitter. I’ll be gone in a decade or so. I hope they do save it, as I have nieces, nephews, and their little kids who will depend on it.
Now, back to La Boheme….I have a Maria Callis recording spinning and Mimi’s Song is starting. Bye….
“lab tests will be discussed with the patient during the visit”. Khal I have recently seen that pop up too on my online chart after medical visits and yes, there are moments of dread (possibly terror) until you learn your “numbers” are within the “ok” margins. But if they ain’t you can bet you’ll be in for more tests and the likelihood of seeing a full on doctor will still be slim back this way. Though I should say some PA’s are better in many ways. Had my first saddle-sore boil ever and home remedies failed so off to the dermatologist I was sent since my PA wanted nothing to do with it. Boy, neither did the derms for that matter as they acted like I came through their door loaded down with explosives and a trigger switch. They are quick to carve up your forehead or neck but want NO part down by the taint and I had to lean on em to get the fekker excised.
So yeah, the hell with politics, Old Herb’s got real world problems to solve.
Did you at least lay some bad jokes on them by way of vengeance? “Tain’t no big thang,” etc.? You miss a chance, you’re always one behind.
Good news, hey, K? ’Bout time we had some of that. Good on you for taking the scenic Dixon-High Road route home. Stop to collect any apples?
Yeah, I used to ride NM-503 when I lived in La Puebla, just outside Española. We had the Sangre de Cristo Cycling Club championship road race up there one year. If you take NM-76 out of Española toward Truchas there’s this really cool little one-lane goat path of a loop that veers off to the right just past the Santuario de Chimayo turnoff. Steep as Taos real estate prices and looks like something out of the Vuelta.
Good riding around that area. Or was, back in the late Eighties. I haven’t been up there on a two-wheeler in ages.
Good news at the annual medical visit is always welcome at my age. Reason I didn’t get any results was the lab was late in sending them. The tech had to get on the computer and download them from TriCore. My doc was grumbling that no one does shit any more as far as reporting stuff on time.
Yeah, that’s the road–Cundiyo Road. It is a standard narrow two laner for a while that goes up and down, then becomes a bit of a goat path, as you say, as it passes through first Cundiyo and then another nameless hamlet. Pops back onto 76 above Chimayo on the way to Truchas. I’ve thought of parking at Pojoaque and riding that loop, esp. in the fall or late in the season when it cools off. I’ve been allergic to long rides this year after the Ticker Episode, but I think it is mostly psychological.
I’m sure glad I sold the old K1100RS and got the more nimble twin. That narrow little road, for that matter the High Road, was a tough ride for the old Red Monster, with its high center of gravity and long wheelbase, even when I was young and fit rather than whatever it is I am now. That bike was built for the autobahn.
A new 2 wheeled Beemer Khal? The old school boxer twin? I never owned one, but, like a Ducati, I wish I had. I did have a Yamaha Seca 550, with lots of after market performance parts and tires, that did the twisty stuff carving pretty well as long as I kept my fear in check.
Not new as in 2024 model. It is a 2016.
I sold my old K1100 RS in 2019 and bought a 2016 R1200RS. I had bought that K1100, a four cylinder with the engine sitting on its side, back in 2011 after the fire. I got it pretty much for a song (the dealer actually dropped the price before I had a chance to dicker) as it was a high mileage 1996 example and apparently, out of fashion. I liked the bike but it was a bear to handle on mountain roads. Was great for commuting on the highways.
The 1200RS is the classic boxer twin but water cooled. Always had that on the proverbial bucket list. It is a great bike. Undoubtedly more than I needed but they didn’t make a “small” boxer twin any more. I would have preferred something like a 750, which is plenty of power for any sane use. I got this one because it was cherry. Very low mileage, in great shape. The seller had to sell it as he apparently was buried in speeding tickets. So far, I’ve avoided getting any but I suppose I have been lucky.
Got it. I confused the 1100 for the 1200. And,I thought the 1200 was a four cylinder motor. Wrong again O’Be! Anyway, I always thought the boxer design was great for a motorcycle, but friends were always worried about crashing and breaking the engine. I always thought that wasn’t really an issue.
Pat, I put engine crash guards on mine. I tend to the philosophy on motorcycles that it is not if you will crash, but when, and how do you minimize the carnage?
In lieu of flying fingers, I just shake my head and wonder how so many intelligent people can get sucked into considering voting for one who so clearly proved to be inept at the job. But then I just think of the history of mankind and realize that it has happened before (Mussolini, Hitler, Putin, et gag) and it will likely happen again. Unless benevolent AI saves us from ourselves. Riding certainly helps. My concerns at this time lean toward more important family care tasks then who our next president shall be and a quick escape on the bike sure keeps me realizing there still is a norm to the world. But I also have the egotistical benefit of rationalizing our human culture in relation to the known universe and in my mind, we really just don’t matter. “What? Me worry? Only whether my tires have air in them.”
It’s clear that the United States no longer functions as intended for a lot of people, both inside and outside our borders. And the phrase an anonymous major laid on Associated Press correspondent Peter Arnett during the Vietnam war — “It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it.” — may finally have come home for its victory parade.
With the national attention span measured in nanoseconds and many citizens’ “vision” ending at their hood ornaments I wonder what the disgruntled among us intend to replace our “town” with once they’ve destroyed it.
Monarchy? Theocracy? Autocracy? Sorry, only room for one in the driver’s seat. This way to the guillotine, please. Next. …
Whatever happens here the Universe will not notice. It’ll just keep on keepin’ on, doing its Universal thing. I’ll go back to “A Clockwork Orange” for a moment if I might.
After a spot of the the old ultra-violence Dim is having a bit of a gaze up at the stars and planets and says to Alex:
That reminds me of Neil Sheehan’s book, “A Bright Shining Lie, John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam”, which starts with the early sixties advisors to the ARVN. Sheehan was a great writer and it is a compelling story.
Speaking of working against our own interests, I finally went back where I left off and am reading more of Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed”. Gah, I have a bad feeling about this.
Yes, Diamond’s “Collapse..” allows for some interesting insight and with wisdom, foresight.