Category: autumn

A bog less trotted

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
Sunscreen would seem to be optional this morning.

We had a storm sweep through last night, bitch-slapping leaves off the backyard maple while spraying a half-inch of water around and about.

No complaints here. San Juan County took a beating, though. People stranded on rooftops were getting choppered to shelters and here I sit in my office, warm, dry and full of breakfast, thinking I should’ve ridden yesterday because today looks like more of a running opportunity.

With another round of thunderstorms, hail, and strong winds in the forecast, riders tackling the Day of the Tread‘s Bosque Boneshaker are liable to be shivering in their skeleton costumes and getting their plastic gravel gobblers all gooey.

Caution: Dog Crossing. Cyclocross in Fort Fun, sometime in the Nineties.

There was a time when I relished that sort of outing in October, driving hundreds of miles and paying dozens of dollars to get my muddy arse handed to me, tidying up afterward pumping quarters into a car wash.

But that was when I was a man, instead of whatever it is that I am now. If I get caught out in this sort of weather I will deal with it, but I’m less inclined to seek it out just ’cause.

Instead I may trot another class of bog altogether. The revelations about PHP, A.I. skulduggery, and what some coneheads are dubbing Black October have me thinking I should relocate my old blog’s archives from their bus-station locker in the Twilight Zone to WordPress, which is — or at least should be — better equipped than Your Humble Narrator to deal with the fallout.

We’re not talking the Book of Kells, the Magna Carta, or the Code of Hammurabi here. But some of this prehistoric blather still packs a few yuks, if only for me, and I’d hate to see it sucked through the Black Mirror into the Phantom Zone because I built it using stone knives and bear skins.

And if it all goes kablooey anyway, taking my digital dogma with it? Well, shit happens, as Hammurabi has taught us. There’s always Old Reliable, the 4×8-inch Ampad Reporter’s Notebook. Scribble a “post” in ballpoint, tear out the page, and staple it to a power pole somewhere in the ’hood.

Just call me the Analog Dog: “Our Motto: ’Zine, not Herd.”

30: Not an end, a beginning

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
“And a good morning to you too, Acu-Rite.”

Welp, piss on the dogs and call in the fire — it’s definitely fall.

The weather has been so gentle lately that we shut off all the HVAC machinery; I can’t remember the last time the air conditioners clicked on.

And thus the furnace mos def did not click on last night, which — along with the news flash from Acu-Rite pictured above — explains why I felt a tad chilly upon awakening this morning despite being wrapped in sheet and blanket like a geezer burrito.

The uniform of the day immediately shifted from shorts and T-shirt to pants and flannel shirt over long-sleeved henley. Also, wool socks, which should go without saying. I stopped short of a watch cap and gloves.

Miss Mia knows what time it is, and what the temperature is, too.

Having mowed the lawn yesterday with plans to water today, I had to trot outside at stupid-thirty to change the sprinkler system’s start time from 5 a.m. to 10. The sun doesn’t clear the Sandias until well past 8:30 and there’s no point in creating a rink in the back yard when neither of us owns skates.

And ride time just got pushed back until noon, because it’s gonna take me some time to remember where I stashed all the cool-weather Lycra.

Tell you what, though. That first cup of coffee sure smells good when the first freeze is nipping at your nose.

Autumnal

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments
Darkest before the dawn?

It’s not really fall until instead of taking arm warmers on a ride you actually wear them.

I packed mine on Wednesday’s ride and pulled them on after the first descent. Yesterday I had them on before I rolled out of the garage.

And both days I was wearing knickers.

Only three of us showed for Wednesday’s Geezer Ride — our senior leadership, two 80-somethings who also ski, plus Your Humble Narrator — and the outing turned out to be something of a bust once we turned south into a ridiculous headwind.

The cadre has not been much interested in climbing lately, so the ascent of Simms Road was right out. And grinding along into that brisk headwind was — well, if not exactly Mao’s Long March, neither was it your barrel of monkeys of which it is said that nothing is more fun.

So when my companions suggested cutting the ride short, I agreed. It seemed colder than the alleged temperature indicated, and the wind has been my least favorite weather feature since my very first bicycle race, a 40km out-and-back time trial that I thought I was crushing because guess why? Huge tailwind on the way out. On the way back? Um, not so much.

Had I been alone on Wednesday I would’ve done what I usually do in those conditions: commence random changes in direction like a spook trying to lose a tail. Off the road and onto the trails, this way and that, using the Sandias’ rubble and shrubbery as a windscreen.

I was on the Soma Double Cross, with some mildly knobby Hutchinson Caracals in 700x35mm and a triple crank with a low end of 24x34T (19 gear inches) that lets me spin instead of stomp. Nearly perfect for that sort of getaway. But leaving the lads on their own would’ve been rude, so I shelved the idea and didn’t peel off until home was just a few blocks away.

Yesterday was warmer and less blustery — starting at noon instead of 9 was definitely a factor — but I still wore arm warmers and knicks and opted for a solo, two-hour Vuelta de Variable Surfaces.

Bear Canyon to Elena Gallegos.

It’s a great ride to do on a brisk Thursday in fall. The kids are in school, their parents are nose to grindstone, and a lone geezer can do as he pleases. Generally I ride side streets to the Embudito trailhead, slalom over to the Bear Canyon/Michial Emery trail, take that into the Elena Gallegos Open Space, and pick a loop or two from the non-technical menu.

Then I’ll blast down Simms and turn north into Sandia Heights, climb a series of low-traffic hills I like, and on the way home sample a selection of the unofficial trails that provide off-street options along Blue Gramma, Academy, Spain, and Tramway.

It’s not hard to cobble together a ride of 20 miles or more this way. And like crucifixion, it gets me out in the open air.

If I’m careful I don’t collect any fresh stigmata.

Waiting for the sun

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
“Big Light in Sky Slated to Appear in East” and other rumors behind the news (h/t Firesign Theatre).

Leaves are falling off the backyard maple like winos off the drunk wagon. The morning temperature requires pants. And the sun doesn’t peek over the Sandias until shortly after 8:30, which is far too late for enlightenment, because I’ve already scanned the news by then.

The magnum dopus.

Case in point: In the dark, over coffee, I learned that once again I had been denied the Nobel Prize in Literature. Yeats, Beckett, and Dylan, si, but the Mad Dog, no? The mind, it boggles.

And after I’d already designed the cover for my collected works, too. Without some Nobel greasing the skids that doorstop will have all the selling power of a Hegseth-Patel ticket in 2028.

Aw, it’s probably just as well. I’d probably have to take up smoking a pipe and drinking port or some shit like that. Wearing tweed.

Fuck that noise. It’s brisk around here in the mornings, but not that brisk.

Gasbags

~ 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.

“Balloons. OK, what’s for breakfast?”

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.