More Dark Ages cartoonery: This time you can blame Khal Spencer, who in comments recalled a VeloNews ‘toon I drew back in 2000, which seems like an awfully long time ago, in part because it was. And yet it seems so … timely, for some strange reason.
This may have been the introduction of a nameless recurring character, a reptilian dope fiend who, like the Fat Guy, grew progressively uglier as the years dragged on. Though the Fat Guy, of course, has yet to test positive for anything stronger than gravy.
The 2011 “60 Minutes” interview with Tyler Hamilton causes consternation in the shop.
Opus the Poet asked in comments where my cartoons have been hiding lately, so I thought I’d pop up this one from 2011, following Tyler Hamilton’s revelations about Lance Armstrong on “60 Minutes.”
For those of you unfamiliar with the “Shop Talk” strip, it’s something I’ve been doing since 1992 for the trade magazine Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. It concerns the misadventures of the Mud Stud, a mohawked mountain-biking mechanic with the IQ of an Allen key, and Dude, a roadie who appears to be the boss, though he’s most often depicted wearing the blue shop apron of a wrench.
This is also where the Fat Guy wound up, when he’s not announcing the end of a breakaway for Charles “Live Update Guy” Pelkey over at Red Kite Prayer.
Speaking of breakaways, it appears that Johan Bruyneel has decided to step down in order to spend more time with his pharmacy … er, family. Naturally, we wish him well in his future endeavors, especially if they involve public humiliation and/or jail time.
No, this isn’t some class of Druidic prison … it’s the vine on the back deck going from green to red.
Today was one of those absolutely gorgeous fall days that you’d like to capture in a Mason jar, tuck away in a closet and break out sometime in February when the ceiling and floor have become indistinguishable from one another.
The sun was out, the wind was manageable and the temperature crested just short of the 80s. Herself and I celebrated with a ponderous American breakfast — eggs over easy, pan-fried Yukon Gold spuds, bacon, toast and coffee — followed by a ride to work it all off.
This won’t last, of course. The National Weather Service is predicting a repeat tomorrow, but it all goes south after that, toward a “high” of 43 with a slight chance of rain and/or snow come Saturday, when I have to be indoors working anyway. Oh, well.
Tomorrow brings The Great Debate that neither side claims to be capable of winning (keep those expectations low, fellas; the rest of us certainly are). I’m unloading all the firearms and keeping the smokepoles upstairs but moving the ammo downstairs. TVs are expensive and we don’t want to frighten the neighbors. The ceaseless, volcanic profanity and hurling of beer bottles through windows that have not been opened will be bad enough.
The 24 Hours of COS, a.k.a. USA Cycling’s 24-Hour Mountain Bike National Championship, is going on as we speak in Palmer Park, so between paying chores I popped round for a peek, as I did last year.
And just like last year, the whole thing seemed rather underwhelming, spectacle-wise. Here’s one rider; there’s another. And another. And another.
No disrespect intended. It’s a race intended for participants, not spectators, and I’m sure things get much more interesting when the sun goes down and the wildlife comes out and that rocky stretch that seemed so eminently rideable just a dozen hours ago turns into a black-hole Stonehenge express elevator leading directly to Hell.
But in the daylight it had all the excitement of a strip-mall carnival’s merry-go-round.
It’s a shame nobody was passing out prizes for abusing yourself over a 24-hour period back in the Eighties. I’d have a walk-in closet full of stars-and-stripes jerseys.
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