Spring, forward!

March 14, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments

The wide shoulders on Tramway, coupled with its dearth of spotlights (one at the top, one at the casino, and one at the bottom), make it a popular hill with the Duke City peloton.

Daylight-saving time always cleans my mental clock. You wouldn’t think that surrendering just one of 24 hours would be so much of a much, but every year it leaves me a bubble or two off plumb for a few days.

“A few days.” Heh. I hear you snickering out there.

Herself celebrated another lap around the sun on Saturday, so we went out to dinner at Scalo Northern Italian Grill before having our REMs rerouted for … for what, exactly? I forget. Drowsy for some reason.

Then, on Sunday, she ran and vacuumed, and I mowed and rode. With no new review bikes in the Adventure Cyclist queue until St. Patrick’s Day, once again it was Ride Your Own Damn’ Bike Day®, this time the Soma Saga Disc. Nothing special, just a ride down Tramway to the Sandia Resort & Casino and back, with a digression into the honky-chateau ‘hood of High Desert for some light extra-credit climbing.

All in all, a pleasant diversion from the endless goose-stepping through the media by Il Douche, who’s simultaneously expanding and contracting the boundaries of the First Amendment by (a) offering to pay the legal bills of anyone who assaults a protester at one of his Nuremberg rallies, and (2) ordering the laws to arrest not the assailants, but rather the victims.

It’s a wonderful country, to be sure. Last time I saw a big sack of stale air making this much bad noise a red-headed dude in a kilt was involved.

Hey, bud

March 12, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

Why, hello there. ... — Why, hello there. …

The sprinkler system developed multiple personality disorder this morning, and while I was puzzling out the operation of the controller with the help of an iPad Mini and much bad language I noticed that spring, like fascism, seems to be creeping up on us.

More spring, please. And less fascism.

TGIF

March 11, 2016March 12, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

The Bianchi Zurigo Disc is just the thing for the Elena Gallegos trails.

I only had one chore today — get the groceries — so I spent the better part of the late morning/early afternoon horsing the Bianchi Zurigo Disc around and about in the Elena Gallegos Open Space.

You don’t want to be doing that on a weekend, no sir; it’s like a Lycra anthill in there. But during bidness hours on a weekday, oh my yes, especially if the temps are sneaking up on 70.

The Zurigo handles these rocky, sandy trails just fine, especially considering that it’s an alloy bike, the only one in the fleet. The carbon fork helps, as do the 38mm tires.

But I’m thinking I may follow Pat O’B’s lead and slap some TRP Spyres on the sumbitch. Those Avid BB5s make more bad noise than a GOP debate scored for air hammer and busted chainsaw.

February made me shiver

February 1, 2016February 1, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

It was a dark and stormy ... morning? — It was a dark and stormy … morning?

I was burrowed deep under the covers and Herself was in the bathroom, getting ready for work and making noises about breakfast.

When I mumbled that she had not yet sung the “Please Get Up and Make Me An English Muffin” song, she replied with something about a beating, and so up I got. She’s small but fierce and a dick-punch before coffee always gets the day off to a rough start.

After being properly muffined, Herself bustled off to the Death Star. Me, I got the trash and recycle bins to the curb and was back inside before the snow started blowing around and about, announcing February’s triumphant debut in the Duke City.

Doesn’t look like we’ll get much in the way of snow, but it’s going to be chilly for a few days, and the knee warmers I was wearing on yesterday’s ride will go right back into the drawer. Uniform of the day will be tights, long-sleeved tops (two), tuque, gloves, wool socks and running shoes. Hep, hoop, hreep, horp. …

Evil weather is forecast in Iowa, too, where The Des Moines Register is covering the mortal shit out of the caucuses. So, too, is Charles P. Pierce.

Maybe Larry can enlighten us as to why Iowa enjoys this outsize influence on our political process every four years. I spent a lot of summers in Sioux City, and one in Iowa Falls, and I consider the state to be about as representative of America as a whole as a nursing home in the Pecker Woods of North Dakota.

Still, it should be amusing. If Iowa sends a few rats over the side of the GOP’s listing cruise ship, I’ll consider it a net positive.

Editor’s note: Oh, yeah, and some asshole brought a motorized bike to cyclo-cross worlds. Naturally, it is Someone Else’s Fault®, as per usual. Jesus wept. I am so over bicycle racing.

The path is the way

January 30, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

The bike paths in these parts are better than the roads in some of the towns I've lived in. — The bike paths in these parts are better than the roads in some of the towns I’ve lived in.

Yesterday I decreed it would be Ride Your Own Damn Bike Day, and so I dug out the Nobilette, which has been neglected lately, aired it up, and took it out for two and a half hours of delightful sunny goodness.

No biggie — easy pace, just 32.5 miles on rolling terrain — but still, it’s refreshing to ride one of my own damn bikes* for a change, and for more than 90 minutes at a stretch, too.

There was only a little bit of old snow and ice hiding in the shady bits, mostly toward the end of the ride on the Paseo de las Montañas trail.

I’m guessing that’s where I picked up whatever flattened the front tire, probably a goathead thorn, though the culprit could have been some errant glass from earlier in the ride. Swear to God, it looked like someone chucked an entire case of Heineken out the car window on Tramway between Manitoba and Spain. There was so much green glass scattered around I wondered whether Ted Cruz had been practicing his carpet-bombing techniques in the Duke City.

It's a beautiful morning. — It’s a beautiful morning.

Today the weatherpersons are predicting a high of 62 (!) so I decided to power up the sprinkler system for the first time in quite a spell. Nothing exploded. This is what we sprinkler-system owner-operators call “a good thing.” Because nothing makes so much sense as a nice green lawn in the Southwestern desert.

Indeed, the forecast proved so enticing that Herself declared herself ready for her first bike ride of 2016. And just in time, too. There’s rain and gloom predicted for Monday and Tuesday.

* Incidentally, in case you’re wondering, it’s still possible to ride a steel bike with cantilever brakes and come to a stop without Flintstoning or caroming off cars, trees and light stanchions. I know, it’s against the conventional wisdom, but you can rely upon me. I’m in the media.