If I cared to visit a BB&B, which I do not, I could wander right on in with my face hanging out as in days of yore, and not just because there would be no other customers (and possibly no employees).
No, it seems that overnight Bernalillo County has switched from Condition Red on the Bug-O-Meter to Go-Anywhere Green, for reasons which elude me.
Oh, wait, just thought of one: The Labor Day Drive Far and Spend Heavily While the Gas is Still Cheap(ish) Holiday Extravaganza. Get out there and buy something, you sissies!
I suppose it beats hanging out in the castle with Prospero, waiting for the Red Death to come knocking despite the “No Solicitors” sign on the door.
And if worse came to worst one could always bunker up in a Bed Bath & Beyond, which has to be the closest thing to a sterile environment outside the Wildfire lab near Flatrock, Nevada.
A quick peek at the Elena Gallegos Open Space, where I have not been riding.
Bit by bit I’m returning components of exercise to the daily regimen.
I began with walking, the most basic form of locomotion for a biped. Unless you count crawling. This we have all done, at first while diapered, and perhaps later while suffering the side effects of our reality-management system of choice.
Next came cycling, sans hills. Then the jogging. And finally, the cautious lifting of very light weights.
Yesterday I threw caution to the winds and climbed some of the lesser hills in the ’hood, aboard the Soma Saga (canti edition), which has a low end of 20 gear inches. And yes, I used every inch, while dispatching scouts along the spinal column and down the legs to check for sleeper agents in the hamstrings.
Luna. See?
The stretching? Kinda, sorta. The yoga? Mmm, not so much. But as regular readers know, I will never be smart.
My only half-smart moves to date have been (a) to ease back into daily exercise after an extended back spasm, and (2) to avoid the off-road cycling.
When you ride singletrack using rigid steel, drop bars, rim brakes, narrow tires, and equally narrow gearing, you need to use a lot of English (or, in my case, Irish) when negotiating obstacles. If the lower back will not do The Twist you are slam-dancing with yourself in a minefield.
So, yeah. Road bikes. Broad gearing. 38mm tires at 60/65 psi. My running can be identified as “running” only because it seems slightly faster than walking. And my weightlifting? Arnold probably uses a heavier toothbrush.
Meanwhile, speaking of heavy lifting, BRAIN contributor Rick Vosper wonders whether the Bug-boosted, bike-buying bubble is ’bout to burst.
He quotes Jay Townley of Human Powered Solutions as predicting that retailers — suddenly finding themselves overstocked after The Great Product Drought while consumer interest returns to something approximating normalcy — could soon be slashing prices and running sales to attract buyers and reduce inventory, with the financial burden falling “particularly hard on bike shops and small to midsize retailers.”
Rick adds that this does not apply to e-bikes, the industry’s latest shiny object for the wandering eye. Shocking, I know.
This photo has nothing to do with the blog post. I just like it.
This morning I awakened, cracked one eye, gauged the light levels in our bedroom, and guessed the time to be 6:33 a.m.
It was 6:35. Boom. Close enough. The ol’ temple of the soul is back on track after two days of the Pfizer Pfeebles.
Coffee and the news. I see via my former employer The New Mexican that some douchebags are tearing up the Nambé Badlands. My old riding buddy Dave Kraig, who is very much not a douchebag, is on the case with the Friends of the Nambé Badlands.
Down here, meanwhile, Herself saw someone throwing an unread bundle of 20 Sunday Albuquerque Journals into the recycling bins near the Lowe’s on Juan Tabo. When I was a paperboy the idea was to throw the papers onto readers’ doorsteps so that the readers could throw them in the trash. Division of labor, don’t you know.
FInally, up in Colorado, the latest in a seemingly endless invasion of out-of-towners is trying to make a silk purse out of the sow’s ear that is the dormant Cuchara ski area. Good luck with that, fellas. I hear they’ve been in touch with my man Hal Walter about doing a burro race. How about adding a “Little 500”-style gravel race in which all the competitors have to ride Range Rover Evoque bicycles? Electrify them sumbitches to bring ’em up to date and you’ll have a little sumpin’-sumpin’ goin’ on.
I’m barely a worker these days; my paying chores have dwindled to one “Shop Talk” cartoon per month for Bicycle Retailer and Industry News.
Of course, now that BRAIN is a part of the Greater Outside Globe-Spanning Vertically Integrated Paywalled Conglomerate, I find myself negotiating a contract to keep my faded Levi’s up and buckled while I continue to do what I’ve been doing for nigh on to 30 years. So it goes.
Thus, in solidarity with all y’all still on The Man’s clock, here a few random tales culled from our workaday world:
• Hotel workers serve as an unsung pit crew for the firefighters battling the Caldor blaze.
• Job openings outnumber the unemployed. But a gulf between the jobs available and what workers want has led to a “Great Reassessment.”
• Speaking of assessments, are the bots trying to upend the MeatWorld JobMart or are we just stumbling around in the dark as per usual? Kevin Drum has some brief thoughts on the topic.
Mad Blog Media 