Trail of tiers

The Paseo del Bosque hasn’t leafed out yet, but it’s still a nice change, snotlocker-wise, from the juniper-heavy foothills.

Spring? Meh. Don’t talk to me about spring. We got summer down here, dude.

Yesterday I did a nice little two-and-a-half-hour ride that took in a number of the local bike trails — Paseo de las Montañas, Paseo del Bosque, Paseo del Norte, North Diversion Channel — and finished with the Tramway climb.

This is a really good ride for letting the mind wander alongside the body. The first hour is mostly downhill with a few tense moments — a couple dicey multilane-thoroughfare crossings, too much time on Indian School Road, and a narrow, stop-and-go, pain-in-the-ass stretch of Mountain skirting the north edge of downtown — but after that it’s smoove like butta, yo.

The bosque trail is flat as flat can be. The Paseo del Norte rises a bit to North Diversion. And Tramway is a pleasant steady-state, half-hour climb. There’s a little suffering at the bottom, near Interstate 25, and a little more at about the six-mile mark, but mostly it’s a matter of picking a gear you like and turning it over.

Mid-50s at the start, mid-60s at the finish, what’s not to like? When I got home I ate everything worth eating and then set about making some more — tacos, pico de gallo, spuds and turnips roasted in olive oil, salt and pepper. There were leftovers so I can eat it all over again today.

Then this morning I arise to learn that Il Douche and Uncle Joe are barking from a safe distance about throwing hands. Jesus H., etc. Can someone give these noisy old farts a couple of bikes, turn ’em loose in the desert sun for a couple of hours?

The only thing they’ll want to pound on afterward is a taco platter. But I ain’t cookin’ for ’em.

Bridge to nowhere

A would-be jumper snarled traffic for a dozen hours yesterday, and a few Burqueños were irked at not being able to motor along I-40 at 25 mph above the limit as per usual.

Now and then I wonder whether we ever should have come down out of the trees.

Of course, if we were still up there, a certain subset of the species would probably still be inclined to shout, “Jump! Jump! Jump!” at anyone who was having a rough day.

That’s what was going on at Interstate 40 and Louisiana yesterday, according to the Duke City cops.

A would-be jumper had law enforcement and traffic tied up for the better part of quite some time on Super Bowl Sunday, and apparently not enough of the spectators had been to church yet because their prayers seemed wildly off base.

APD spokesman Simon Drobik told the Albuquerque Journal that efforts to talk the man off the overpass were hindered by drivers shouting “Jump!” and “Kill yourself!” as they motored happily along.

“Any ground that we can take, it just gets taken back immediately when somebody does that,” Drobik said. “It’s very disheartening.”

Well, at least they weren’t shooting at him. Keep hope alive.