Four wheels good, two wheels bad

February 1, 2012February 1, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

This may astound you, but there are times when I fear that our elected representatives don’t have our best interests at heart.

Take Rep. John Mica (R-Big Oil). The American Energy and Infrastructure Act, scheduled to be marked up on Thursday by Mica’s House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has been described by Ben Goldman of DC.Streetsblog.org as “a return to 1950s-style transportation policy” that is “particularly unkind to transit and bike/ped programs.”

Andy Clarke of the League of American Bicyclists has penned a list of the top-10 problems with the proposed legislation, and I expect there are many more than 10.

Andy told my colleagues over at Bicycle Retailer and Industry News that the legislation undoes 20 years’ worth of progress made toward including cycling and walking in the national transportation plan.

“We were expecting the funding would be under attack but were surprised at how carefully they want to take bike/ped out of the bill altogether,” Clarke said. “There were sections of the bill that we didn’t know they knew existed. They’ve gone out of their way to attack the bike/ped portions.”

It truly boggles the mind. Self-described “conservatives” who don’t bat an eyelash at starting wars that run into the trillions of dollars take the greatest possible umbrage at the pennies required to create and maintain sidewalks, bike lanes and pedestrian/bicycle trails that provide safe havens for the folks who’d just as soon not crank up the family tank for short trips to school, shopping or work.

Jesse Prentice-Dunn of the Sierra Club told Streetsblog that the bill represents “a significant step backwards for safe biking and walking.”

“Today more than 12 percent of trips are made by foot or bike, yet less than 2 percent of our nation’s transportation funding goes towards biking and pedestrian infrastructure,” Prentice-Dunn continued.

“According to the Alliance for Biking and Walking, bike commuting increased 57 percent between 2000 and 2009. Instead of increasing investment in transportation options that Americans want, the House bill appears to funnel more dollars towards roads, further deepening our addiction to oil.”

Addicted to oil? Say it ain’t so! I’m certain the only reason we want to keep the Strait of Hormuz open is to defend the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

By request: Cycling and foodie things

January 25, 2012January 25, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments

The FridgeaDog — Leftovers — they're what's for dinner. And breakfast. And lunch. Annnnd dinner. ...

Egad. Eighteen degrees with a high of 57 forecast. That sort of thing is a shock to the system. It’s also SOP in Colorado. The trick is finding the sweet spot for a longish bike ride in that temperature range. That, and trying to stay out of the wind.

I’ve been road testing bikes again — a Pashley Clubman and a Bike Friday New World Tourist — but I feel like riding one of my own machines today, maybe the Voodoo Nakisi MonsterCrosser®.

The thing is a tank but it’s become my go-to bike for some reason. The 700×38 rubber suits pavement, gravel and single-track alike, and the low end of 22×26 means I can climb a tree if being chased by an angry reader.

Speaking of angry readers, James wants “more cycling and foodie things, less politics.” We’ve covered cycling, so let’s move on to foodie things.

I’ve been trying to stretch the food dollar lately, having bid adios to Los Zopilotes de San Diego. And it ain’t easy, because I dearly love to commit eating.

Pork chops are a fave, and the other day I pulled a pound and a half of same from the freezer to thaw. But I got to thinking that a pork chop disappears pretty damn’ fast, as in during one meal, unless you’re a nibbler, which I am not.

Enchiladas, beans and posole — Leftover enchiladas, beans and posole. Much more of this sort of eating and Tom Tancredo will demand that I produce a birth certificate or be deported. Hah! Slipped some politics in there, didn't I?

So I diced a pound of the chops and made a pot of posole, which inspired the cooking of a pot of pintos with chipotle and the assembly of some sausage-and-cheddar enchiladas in red chile sauce. We’re still eating on that mess — in fact, Herself brown-bagged a small container of leftovers to work for lunch.

The remaining red sauce, beans and sausage, meanwhile, will get turned into tonight’s dinner of sausage-and-bean burritos smothered in red with a side of posole and salad.

And that half-pound of pork that didn’t make it into the posole? It was featured in last night’s nuclear kung pao pork with rice. The leftovers from that will be my lunch today.

So there you have it. How to stretch your swine into a fine line, by Chef Dog. Bon appétit.

Flogging the dog

January 15, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments

The Soma Double Cross in winter configuration, sans rear rack.

One of the best things about saying adios to that part-time web-editing gig is that I have my weekends free for the first time in several years.

We left Weirdcliffe for Bibleburg in part so I could reconnect with other cyclists. But a guy who works on Saturday and Sunday misses a lot of group rides, and I found myself riding mostly solo, as I had among the hill people. There’s nothing wrong with that — OK, it does cause the hair on your legs to grow — but it sure doesn’t prepare you for cycling in company.

This I relearned yesterday when I joined my first group ride in the better part of quite some time.

It was a small group and a short ride, and I failed to distinguish myself (surprise, surprise). There were a few small hills, the pace was a little quicker than my usual slothlike advance, and my rusty pack-riding skills had me out in the wind more often than necessary. Plus I was riding my second-heaviest bike, complete with fenders and burly 700×32 Vittoria Randonneur Cross rubber.

However, as we all know, it’s not about the bike. Nope, nossir. It’s about the booty, and I’m presently wearing too much of it.

At least I wasn’t the first guy to holler “Slow down!”

Making a joyful (Velo)noise unto the lords

January 9, 2012January 9, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

Thanks to one and all for playing VeloNoise on Sunday. It was an interesting experiment in what may well be modern journalism’s ultimate corporate goal — one unpaid staffer using his own tools to transform free resources into paying copy.

The only downsides, from management’s vulturine perspective, is that (a) there was no paying copy, since WordPress does not permit advertising on its free blogs; and (2) the enterprise lacked the customary seven layers of senior executive vice presidents farting through silk and issuing contradictory edicts to the pixel-pusher at the keyboard.

I slapped the website together for less than a hundred smacks, most of it spent to nail down the domain names and the rest to point those names to a WordPress blog that uses the same template as this one for simplicity’s sake. The banner I built in Photoshop Elements 8. The only thing left to do was digest video and excrete words.

Where’s it all leading, you ask? Beats the hell out of me. I basically did it for laughs, a bit of performance art directed at Pharaoh as I fled Egypt. “How’s this for bricks without straw, bitch!”

With that accomplished, VeloNoise could become many things — a blog, a column title, a T-shirt. As usual, I’m just making it up as I go along. Whatever happens as a consequence is liable to be a surprise to all of us.

Little wheels keep on turnin’. …

January 3, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 27 Comments

Caltrop — Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to flat you.

Off the back as usual, I didn’t get around to my first ride of the year until today.

I’m road-testing a couple of bikes for Adventure Cyclist — a Pashley Clubman and a Bike Friday New World Tourist Select — and today it was the folding bike’s turn under the fat bastard. I was gentle, inflicting only an hour’s worth of light spinning on the poor little thing.

Despite some unseasonably warm weather following our last snow there was still a fair amount of ice and snow on the deck, and I found myself wishing I’d ordered up a set of fenders with the NWT. But what the hell? I’ll take a wet butt outdoors over a dry one indoors, especially after a heavy morning of networking via Facebook, Twitter, website comments and phone.

All was going swimmingly until the homebound leg when I heard a tick … tick … tick … coming from down below. I thought I’d picked up a goathead, and saw what I thought was one on the front tire, but it seemed lodged solidly in there — and this was a Kevlar-belted tire, mind you — so I kept on going rather than stop to pull it and then deal with the roadside flat repair.

When I got home, what I thought was the ass-end of a goathead wiped right off the front tire. So I checked the rear tire and found what looked like a homemade, half-assed caltrop in there. Kevlar, Schmevlar — that sucker shot right through it like a small beer through a tall Irishman. I pulled it out and psssssssssshhhhhhhhh. …

So tomorrow I get to fix my first flat on a teeny wheel. Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?