Gasbags

October 5, 2026October 5, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

Photo by https://kaboompics.com/ on Pexels.com

The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is up, up and away.

The Journal‘s homepage, never a thing of beauty even when it’s not rearranged for tourism, still isn’t displaying properly in Safari. And the managing editor was tapped to write the story about day one’s calamities, which included balloonists touching down in power lines, parking lots, and other unsanctioned locations.

Trust issues? Beats me. I got yanked off the Gazette copy desk once to help cover a tornado in Manitou Springs. But I was just a rim rat, not the managing editor. There’s a lot of names on that masthead you’d expect to see atop that story before the ME’s. But it’s been a lot of years since I pulled a shift in a newsroom.

Whatevs, as the kids probably don’t say anymore. I don’t attend the Balloon Feast for the same reason I’ve never driven up Pikes Peak. These things are for tourists, and I don’t do tourism even when I’m not in my hometown.

I rode a mountain bike up to Barr Camp once. And Herself and I bicycled down to the Balloon Feast one afternoon, early on in our residency in The Duck! City, before we realized that all the action takes place in the morning and evening.

Now I walk out onto the driveway at 7 a.m., squint to the northwest, and mutter: “Yup. There’s one.” Then I go back inside and finish breakfast before kitting up for a ride.

Summer’s heat and that late monsoon appear to be in the rear view, and the October weather is fine for cycling. The traffic is a little less so, but you can’t let it bust your balloon.

Cool!

September 19, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

More rain, which, yay. And sunshine this morning, which, likewise.

It’s pleasant upon awakening to reach for socks instead of sunscreen. And to have nodded off to a stout rain backed by thunder! Lightning! And the rest of that Eddie Floyd-Steve Cropper lyric, too.

We basically got an entire September’s worth of precip’ in the past 48 hours. Morning temps are in the 50s. HVAC/irrigation systems are on pause.

As is cycling. I was feeling a bit overtrained, though I’m not training for anything. So I’ve spent the past few days being a pedestrian, either running or walking the local trails network.

Anyway, just because I have three bikes with fenders — hold on, make that four, just outfitted the Double Cross yesterday — doesn’t necessarily mean I want to use ’em.

Because next it will be knickers, and then arm warmers, and before you know it — winter!

Let’s get past fall first. Whaddaya say?

Dry rivers and damp bibs

September 15, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

Another day, another record.

The Duck! City reached a high of 95° last Friday, and boy, did I feel every degree of it heading back to the rancho from the Rio.

The climbing is no big deal, about a thousand feet of vertical from the Paseo del Bosque’s intersection with Mountain Road NE. But most of it gets served up in the last 12 or so miles, with a side of stop-and-go on the mean streets and the Paseo de las Montañas bike path.

It should go without saying that a fella feels considerably warmer on the uphill leg of this 37-miler, even with steam escaping from the helmet vents.

We’ve either been breaking high-temp marks or missing them by a single degree lately. So it has been a delight to suddenly enjoy a little rain, straight out of the blue — 0.28 inch in the past 48 hours, which Noah might snort at but no New Mexican would sneeze at. Not here in the upper reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert, where we have been drier than the proverbial popcorn fart.

The Monday-Wednesday Geezer Rides have been on hiatus, so when the rain started pelting down early yesterday morning I thought, “OK, fine, good excuse to go for a run.”

But I wasn’t really feeling it. I’ll be doing plenty of running if we ever get anything like winter around here. So when the rain abruptly shut off, I pulled a fendered bike from its hook in the garage — the rim-brake Soma Saga, which is wearing a rear Tubus rack with a strap suitable for packing a rain jacket — and off we went.

Why a fendered bike, when the rain had stopped? Simple. There may be puddles, and I don’t like collecting that famous damp brown stripe up the backside. It’s undignified for a man of my years and may lead to ill-informed gossip and speculation.

“Ah, look at the poor ould fella, would you now? Your man has gone and shite himself midride. Must be all alone in the world. No one to wipe ’is hole for ’im.”

“That’s a pretty nice bike, though. Someone must love him. Or at least tolerate him, manky arse and all.”

I am blessed in that regard, and also when it comes to bikes sporting fenders. I have three such at the moment and have had them all out in the past week to see if I could tempt the rain gods into having a wee. No joy. Rain before and rain after, but never during.

Maybe fenders don’t work that way. Maybe the rain gods see them and say: “Stand down, lads. We’ll never give the manky arse to that ould gobshite whilst he’s rocking the mudguards. Leave us wait until he takes that custom Nobilette for a long go into the East Mountains.”

Rio sans pulse

September 4, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

The Rio Gonzo, seen at 10 a.m. Thursday from the Gail Ryba Memorial Bridge along I-40.

If the Rio had a pulse yesterday, I couldn’t find it.

Our local water wizard, John Fleck, noted Wednesday that the Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, with the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and Audubon Southwest, was releasing “a pulse of water” from Abiquiu Reservoir on the Rio Chama in northern New Mexico “as an experiment – what might a several-day pulse of water do to help the aridification-starved riverside forests along New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande?”

Then he went out to chase that pulse. And on Thursday, I so did I.

What I saw, you see, right up top there. Nada. Niente. Bupkis.

It was a good day for a ride down to the bosque. Not a good day for the bosque. As far as I could see in one quick pass, anyway.

The Journal found something to celebrate, but Matthew Reisen and Eddie Moore may have paid their visit later in the day and/or further north along the Rio, closer to the Alameda bridge than the Gail Ryba. I skipped the Alameda trailhead in favor of the most direct route west from El Rancho Pendejo — Bear Canyon Trail, North Diversion Channel Trail, Paseo del Norte Trail, and finally the Paseo del Bosque Trail.

Everything looked parched along the path. Lots of leaves on the deck already and some very unhappy trees. A smallish crop of roadies in various flavors plus a few dudes rocking gravel bikes on the unpaved trails who were definitely going to want to give a little postride love to their dusty drivetrains. Some water in an irrigation ditch east of the bosque path, but the river was as you see. It seemed an odd day to be riding a bike that takes its name from the Spanish for “fishmonger.”

Fleck hasn’t posted an update yet, but that’s to be expected. He’s the expert, not just another rando rambling along the road to Perdition.

It seemed a very long, hot ride back to the rancho, where water springs from the tap at the twist of a wrist. For the moment, anyway.

Aqua, man

August 23, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments

There seems to be a theme to the news this morning.

A drought-stricken Colorado river is drying up.

The water in Cañon City and northern El Paso County tastes foul.

And the future of the Colorado River? Well … we’re probably gonna have to wear shades, but it ain’t exactly looking bright.

No wonder the bears are coming down from the mountain to kick ass.

“All y’all are fuckin’ this shit up,” says Yogi.

“We’d eat you, if we thought it would help, but you don’t even taste good anymore,” adds Boo Boo. “Like cheap industrial lager and soda pop.”

“And B.O.,” says Yogi. “You using any of this water to take showers, or are you just soaking the lawn and washing the Suburban?”

Here in the Land of Entrapment the monsoon has been more of a non-soon, and when asked when we might expect some relief the answer is “Not soon.”

The administration’s drought map shows that 3% of New Mexico is in “severe drought,” namely Albuquerque, Santa Fe and parts of the northeastern corner of the state. About one-third of the state, predominantly in northern New Mexico, is suffering from “extreme drought,” the map shows.

The outlook notes that conditions are unlikely to improve over the next two weeks, with all but the northern and western edges of New Mexico facing 100% probabilities of above-average temperatures.

Meanwhile, my old stomping grounds around Española remain on fire.

I’d love to claim the moral high ground here. But I’m down here in the sandbox with the rest of the dummies. Part of the problem.

We have a lawn. Smaller than the one we got when we bought the house, at the northern edge of the Chihuahuan Desert. But still.

I drink two cups of coffee and one tall mug of tea every morning, plus a bottle or two of water on my bike rides, and more after I get home. There’s that daily shower too. Sometimes it’s jailhouse style, but occasionally I go full Hollywood.

I let God wash the car, when She’s of a mind to. Lately She’s not in the mood. Keeps sending us bears.