High tech and low brows

September 8, 2016September 8, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

More rain overnight but it's shaping up to be a lovely day in the Duke City. — More rain overnight but it’s shaping up to be a lovely day in the Duke City.

The weather wizards advise us to expect a blend of clouds, sun, wind and rain, which is to say a fine pre-autumnal day in the Duke City.

Despite Apple’s grand announcement yesterday the Visa card remains holstered, with the safety on. My feelings as regards the new iPhone mirror those regarding RVs, fatbikes and second homes on the beach — they’re all swell ideas, and if someone wants to give me one or all of these things I will happily accept same.

The iPhone 7’s improved camera would be nice — at present I take my iPhone 5 plus a Canon 300 HS point-and-shoot along with me on rides. But $649 and a new AT&T contract worth of nice? I ain’t exactly Ansel Friggin’ Adams here. Mostly I take snapshots for a free blog, is what.

Besides, we have other expenses. Mister Boo has his quarterly visit with the eyeball doctor today, and that’s usually good for about half a new iPhone. Then the Forester needs servicing because I’ll be driving the elderly beastie to Sin City directly and would just as soon not be walking most or even part of the trip. And finally, somebody around here keeps buying bicycles against all advice to the contrary from higher authority.

Meanwhile, it’s a good thing we didn’t watch the so-called “national security forum” last night. We’d be buying a new TV this morning. Then again, maybe not.

Man at work

September 2, 2016September 2, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments

Your Humble Narrator in the salad days, covering a race in Bibleburg.

While cranking out a column and cartoon to commemorate the upcoming 25th anniversary of the launching of the good ship Bicycle Retailer and Industry News back in 1992, it struck me that I was approaching a milestone of my own — as of today, I have been a full-time freelancer for 25 years.

That is not a typo.

After quitting my seventh and final newspaper gig, at The New Mexican up Santa Fe way, I raced the Record Challenge in Moriarty on Sunday, Sept. 1, 1991 (56:43 for 40km, a personal best), and the very next day I was up north in Bibleburg, trying to figure out how a burned-out newspaperman might pay for his bacon and beans.

I had three things going for me. One, I had been freelancing cartoons and light journalism to VeloNews since March 1989, and I began doing more of that, helping cover (now-defunct) races like La Vuelta de Bisbee, the Casper Classic, and the Cactus Cup, and lending a hand with copy-editing and production up in Boulder.

Two, Marc Sani at BRAIN wanted a comic strip for his brand-new industry magazine, and before long I was writing some stuff for him, too.

And three, Herself and I were living rent-free with my mom, who was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and required oversight. So we’re not exactly talking Hemingway-in-Paris here; we had a roof over our heads, three hots and a cot, and a small allowance for serving as live-in help while my sister managed Mom’s finances from Fort Collins.

At first I could and did work for anyone. But eventually the VeloNews and BRAIN gigs led to other work in the bike biz, and after a while that’s all I did. It’s hard to believe, but a guy could actually earn a semi-OK living scribbling for bicycle magazines, and eventually, bicycle websites. Who knew? Not me. Not until I had 15 years of newspapering under my belt, anyway.

Today I work for BRAIN and Adventure Cyclist, period. It’s not exactly heavy lifting. I get to make shit up for the one and play with other people’s toys for the other. I should be paying them, not the other way around.

You guys, of course, get the dubious benefits of 40 years’ experience for free. You’re welcome.

Not the campaign trail

August 2, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

The Joe Appaloosa enjoying a bit of dirt time north of El Rancho Pendejo.

How’s your August so far?

Mine’s been great. I got 90 minutes of trail time on Rivendell’s Joe Appaloosa today, and two and a half hours on their Sam Hillborne yesterday.

The Sam Hillborne rolls northbound along the Paseo path.

This is loads more fun than waiting for Ronald McDonald McTrump to shit out of his mouth again. Dude erupts more consistently than Old Faithful. But if you keep the iPhone locked away in a Ziploc bag, and stuff the bag into a jersey pocket, you don’t get drenched until you get home.

Speaking of drenched, the weather wizards advise that a “sustained monsoon moisture plume” is working itself into a Trumplike frenzy, which is good news in a place that just wrapped up a scorcher of a July and was seeing its third-driest year ever.

It would be nice to see less rain more often — flash floods are about as much fun as droughts, as the homeless dudes hunting for their belongings along the I-40 trail will tell you — but like the GOP, we’ll take whatever we can get.

Working like a (mad) dog

July 30, 2016July 30, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

Real life — well, “real life” as it is around Chez Slacker, anyway — reared its ugly head yesterday and I never had a chance to comment on the Hilldebeast’s coronation in Philly.

There was critter entertainment and maintenance to perform; brief yet healthful outdoor exercise (a couple hot laps of Trails 365/365A over by Embudo Dam, on the Jones 29er); video to shoot, edit and voice for Adventure Cyclist (the Rivendell Joe Appaloosa); dinner to prepare (orecchiette with cherry tomatoes and arugula); travel arrangements to make for Interbike (already?); technical difficulties (Amazon Prime got sideways somehow and we couldn’t watch episode two of “Mr. Robot”); and a Great and Powerful Ozlike thunderstorm that started out with great sound and fury but in the end signified … eh, not much.

So, yeah. No time for deep thoughts on Hillary’s Big Day.

Looking back, I thought it was a pretty fair speech for someone who’d clearly rather be doing The Work instead of chatting with thee and me. “The service part has always come easier to me than the public part,” she explained, and I can dig it. I’d rather pull off my own head than deliver a speech to a mob like that; as you already know, I have plenty of days when some two-bit bloggery seems unduly onerous.

But she fell short of the mark set by Khizr Khan, father of Capt. Humayan Khan, killed by suicide bombers in Iraq. That dude crushed it, delivering a fierce beatdown to the chickenhawk Ronald McDonald McTrump, and as I understand things, he was speaking from the heart, not from a teleprompter or notes. Well done indeed.

I don’t see the Hilldebeast becoming an inspirational speaker anytime soon, no matter who’s writing the checks, Wall Street or Main Street. But I really don’t care, as long as she’s willing to buckle down and do The Work.

There’s some heavy lifting ahead. As David Corn wrote in Mother Jones, “She is … the only chance to stop Trump’s takeover of America — and her job is to persuade voters that for now she is indeed the last best hope.”

Wreck on the highway

July 2, 2016July 2, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

The first day of what appears to be a very long Tour de France is in the bag. Thanks to everyone who joined us at Live Update Guy. And chapeau to Mark Cavendish, who avoided a last-kilometer pileup — one of several on the day — to win the stage and take his first yellow jersey.

Too, a special “ow, wow, yow, zow” goes out to everyone who hit the deck on Stage 1. The body count would seem to include — well, just about everyone except for Cav’, me and Charles Pelkey (office furniture and road furniture rarely become entangled).

Alberto Contador in particular looked like he’d been attacked by a deranged chef with an assault cheese grater. One wonders whether he’ll have to be strapped onto his bike, El Cid-style, in order to start Sunday’s stage.

I wasn’t strapped to a damn thing when I rolled out for my own ride, aboard a brand-spankin’-new Rivendell Sam Hillborne (see pic above). No clipless pedals on that bad boy, not even toeclips and straps — just flats. So I rode in street shoes, baggies, an emblem-free Pearl Izumi jersey and a Rivendell cap unencumbered by helmet, just to make the Safety Nazis crazy. Took ‘er out on the highway, too.

I wish I could change this sad story that I am now telling you. But there is no way I can change it. For somebody’s ride is now through.