Category: Bibleburg

Prologue of the gods? Not hardly

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
The start
A quarter-mile of up, a few hair-raising seconds of down, and then it's tedium all the way to downtown.

The folks behind the USA Pro Cycling Challenge formally unveiled their routes for the Aug. 22-28 stage race today, and the prologue — slated for right here in scenic metropolitan Bibleburg — should please the Chamber of Commerce, the Convention and Visitors Bureau and any other buck-hunters hoping the area’s scenic beauty outsells its reputation for screaming loonies.

Unfortunately, it’s not much of a race course.

The 5.18-mile route is mostly downhill or flat, barring a short climb from the gun in the Garden of the Gods and another over the railyard approaching the finish at U.S. Olympic Committee headquarters in downtown Bibleburg.

The biggest obstacle will be a hard left turn at the bottom of Ridge Road onto Pikes Peak Avenue. Ridge is a steep little mother, ordinarily ridden in the other direction by cyclists seeking healthful exercise, and anybody who fucks it up will slide right through West Colorado Avenue and Highway 24 into the Red Rock Canyon Open Space, there to be eaten by bears.

The U.S. Olympic Committee HQ
The big five-ringed, dope-flushing toilet its own bad self marks the finish line.

From that point on it’s mostly bullshit — one quick right-left at North 29th Street takes the riders onto West Colorado Avenue and then it’s a long road that has no turning through Old Colorado City to the finish. In short, bor-ing.

I’m thinking the place to be is at that left-hander at the base of Ridge Road, with a big sack for carrying off the salvageable high-zoot components of the fallen. It’s an easy half-hour ride from Chez Dog, and I have plenty of messenger bags.

Meanwhile, here’s a short video clip of the interesting bits of the Garden of the Gods section from an unauthorized ride I took on the course this morning. Sorry about the jerky video, especially on the descent, but I had the Flip Ultra HD clamped to the stem instead of my helmet to cut the dork factor. I have to buy my own toys for this kind of playtime, don’t you know, and this thing was already in the quiver.

And slainte to Elvis Costello for letting me liberate one of his tunes for the shoot. He doesn’t exactly know or anything, but we share a name (Declan) so I expect he wouldn’t mind. Much.

It’s quiet out there … too quiet

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments

“Tweet of the day,” notes a colleague, forwarding this:

lancearmstrong Happy hour w/ the whole @LIVESTRONG team here at the house. For those who think we’ll be distracted, think again. We’re here to serve.

The old Million Pound Yellow Shithammer of Denial just ain’t what it used to be, hey? Not as long as Big George Hincapie may be one of the moles in need of a stout whacking. This shot will require some finesse, muses Big Tex, consulting his caddy: “What club do I use here, do y’think?” All the anticipation makes one’s putter flutter.

I get a feeling we’re on a rest day here on the Tour de Lance. But sometime soon it’s gonna be game on and Big Tex will have to start taking some very long pulls indeed, with the Devil running alongside him. And I ain’t talking Didi Senft here.

Meanwhile, I awakened to the sound of rain, thunder and hail at Chez Dog. I think I’ll sell all the bikes and buy a submarine. A yellow one. I bet I know where I can get one cheap, and all the rats should be out of there momentarily, if they haven’t all leaped overboard already.

Well, at least it’s not snowing. …

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
Reflections
Ah, it's the old "trees reflected in the puddle" shot again.

The poor bastards at the Amgen Tour of California are facing weather that the Chamber of Commerce would be cheering — if this were a ski race.

Alas, it’s a bike race, and with cyclo-cross season behind us it’s looking like the lads will face a shortened course. No word whether they’ll be running the Emerald Bay KOM.

Here in Bibleburg, meanwhile, it’s rain with temps just above freezing. Good for the trees, but also bad for cycling, if you’re a sissified geezer like me, anyway. I’m almost jealous of Herself, who is off to my old hometown of Alamosa this morning, where temps should hit the 70s by afternoon. She and a colleague have some work to do with the local biblioteca and plan a visit to the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

Me, I’m sentenced to rumormongery without parole today, with both the Giro and the AToC going on. Oh, well — it beats shoveling snow. Or racing in it.

• Late update: As you know already, organizers pulled the plug on the Amgen kickoff after the weather got ridiculous. My friend, colleague and fellow Bibleburger Casey B. Gibson, who’s shooting the race for VeloNews, says six motos went down 20 minutes after the race was canceled, so it seems organizers made the right call. So the racers got a day off, but I didn’t. You’d be astounded how much crap there is to post about a race that never was.

This Belgian doesn’t waffle

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
Easter bouquet
Not much of a snow, but we'll take it. Good for the May flowers, don't you know.

It snowed last night. I know this for a fact because (a) there was snow on the ground this morning, and (2) I was out walking around in it at 1:30 a.m. with a big black flashlight, looking for the bogeyman.

A neighbor happened to be awake and heard a sound she didn’t like, so she rang us up and out I went in my Ten Thousand Waves kimono and a pair of Teva sandals. I left the .357 Magnum hand cannon indoors because there hadn’t been any reports of any terrorist Muslim floorboards lurking in the neighborhood and a 10-inch Mag-Lite makes a pretty good blackjack.

Anyway, I took a quick look around and didn’t see anything, not even an Easter bunny freezing his eggs off. So back inside and to bed I went, and this morning I see Philippe Gilbert is enjoying a very happy Easter indeed. Go thou and do likewise.