Champs and chumps

February 3, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

Yesterday’s world-championship duel between Zdenek Stybar and Sven Nys was one of the best I’ve ever seen. Much better than the heavily pimped, darkly comical, one-sided feetsball contest that took place later that day in East Rutherford, Noo Joisey (based on media reports; I didn’t watch the thing).

It’s a shame that Lars van der Haar had such bad luck on the big day. He and Stybar have enlivened the business-as-usual ‘cross circuit this season, and the World Cup champion deserved better than a sixth-place finish at worlds. So it goes.

My ‘cross bikes stayed in the garage yesterday as winter maintains its clutch on Dog Country and I have no excess income to redirect toward emergency rooms and physical therapists. Instead, I broke out the old mountain bike again and spent an enjoyable if difficult hour crunching through old snow.

The north-south creekside bike path is in pretty fair shape. But it must be the only one getting plowed lately, because the eastbound trail from Mark Dabling to Union was a rutted, boot-print-pocked mess. Middle-ring, big-cog, 7-mph stuff, is what. I carved untracked snow wherever I could find it, because riding that is smooth like butta. But crunching through the used stuff involves something of an ass-kicking, even with a suspension fork and seat post.

No worries. I’m sure that once City for Champions becomes a reality instead of an old white land developer’s wet dream we’ll have gold-plated hybrid snowplows working the trails the way a crack whore does South Nevada Avenue. Until then, I plan to keep a shovel handy. And not just for snow, either.

A bad day at work

February 1, 2014February 1, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments

I was my usual awesome self on a short ride in the snow this afternoon.

Damn. It must be going around. Katie Compton just had one of those days at work, too.

What sucks about hers is that so many people were watching. When we lesser lights have things go pear-shaped, the audience is a good deal smaller.

I’ve never been really good at sport, so my defeats came early and often, and continue to this day, when my memory of how I used to suck a little less kicks my in-the-moment ass. It must be mind-boggling to be absolutely top shelf and suddenly find yourself rattling around in the bargain bin.

Ah, well. Homegirl has two World Cups for consolation. But she and we would’ve loved a real battle for that rainbow jersey Marianne Vos clutches so fiercely.

After watching today’s races and doing a spot of work I went out for an hour of riding the mountain bike in the snow. Also being asthmatic, I hit the inhaler before I hit the trail. And I was mighty glad that (a) there were no Marianne Voses around, and (2) hardly anybody was watching.

Special delivery

January 23, 2014January 23, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

There better be a check in the sonofabitch if I'm gonna go out to the mailbox. — There better be a check in the sonofabitch if I’m gonna go out to the mailbox.

Yow. Straight from Lycra to neoprene in one fell swoop.

It’s a bracing 12 degrees outside, and the few inches of snow were of the annoying variety — light enough to broom, but glazing slowly upward from sidewalk level, so I actually had to shovel for a change.

Well, we’ll take water in whichever form it chooses in these parts, as long as it arrives in reasonable quantities.

That means no more floods, please. Let’s stick to manmade disasters for a change, shall we?

Park place

January 13, 2014January 13, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments

From the annuals of VeloNews, circa 1998.

Chapeau to all the folks who are taking stars-and-stripes jerseys home from Boulder, especially Bibleburg’s very own Katie Compton, who racked up title No. 10 at Valmont Bike Park on Sunday.

Our politically and spiritually unhinged community is home to some top ’cross talent, for reasons that elude me. There’s six-time U.S. ’cross champ Alison Dunlap, who used to live right here in the Patty Jewett Wild Democrat Preserve and can often be seen towing a trailer full of offspring at a pace that makes grown men weep.

And of course there’s Ms. Compton, who seems so genteel and mild-mannered when buying a bottle of wine at Coaltrain, yet come race day can be seen methodically ripping off people’s legs, eating them, and then using the bloody bones to club lesser riders out of her path.

With two such exemplars of the discipline in residence, you’d think some bright person would have had the idea to duplicate Boulder’s Valmont Bike Park down here in God’s Country™, where men are men and so are the women, only more so.

Alas, the Free Hand of the Market is too busy jerking off to fantasies of an Olympic museum, a “multipurpose” stadium and a visitors center for the U.S. Air Force Academy, which already has one.

You know — places for looking at things, instead of actually doing them.

As one-half of the executive team that operates The House Back East™ Bide-a-Wee Vacation Home & Money Laundry, I have yet to encounter a guest who longs to visit museums, stadia and visitors centers.

What they want to do is tackle the Incline, Pikes Peak, the Garden of the Gods, and Manitou Springs. They want to do stuff, not just look at it. And some of them want to do it while blazing a fatty.

But don’t tell that to the local leadership. They turned this place into Six Flags Over Bethlehem and now it’s all about The Five Rings To Rule Them All, the feddle gummint’s saggy ol’ sugar tit and state-supported fantasies about what a bunch of old white guys think will get the money train chugging through town again.

Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines “spectator” as “a person who sees or watches something without taking an active part; onlooker.”

Yeah, that’s just what we need.

The abominable snowdog

January 4, 2014January 4, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 34 Comments

Fat guy, fat tires, fat city. Photo: Herself

I’ve never liked gyms, and I despise the stationary trainer. Back when I was still a man, instead of whatever it is that I am now, I would go for a run when the weather got sideways, but creeping decrepitude seems to have written finis to that sordid chapter in my exercise history.

So what’s a fat bastard to do in January?

Ride his old mountain bike in the snow, that’s what.

After moving a little of the white stuff around this morning I decided it wasn’t all that cold out — 20-something, but not a really nasty 20-something — so I aired up the tires on the old DBR ti’ to about 20 psi, tugged on a shitload of winter kit, and got busy.

And y’know what? It was big fun. I’d forgotten how much I like riding in the snow.

With the Hutchinson Python 26×2.0s at low pressure there was plenty of traction, and conditions weren’t wet enough to freeze up that old eight-speed XT drivetrain, though they were cold enough to freeze my water bottle.

The only bad part was the start, heading north without a balaclava into what proved a pretty stiff wind.

Happily, I had brought a bandanna along and that did the trick, even if it made me look like a Canadian terrorist out to attack the fascist maple-syrup cartel.