Category: Bike stuff

April flowers bring May showers

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
Weather over the mountain
Shorts weather down here, not so much up there.

May is lurking around the corner like a thug with a fistful of pipe. I rode in shorts and short sleeves today, watered the trees fore and aft, even mowed what passes for a lawn in Dog Country. It was 75 degrees and sunnier than the smile on the face of someone who hasn’t been paying attention.

Naturally, tomorrow the temps will drop like an elevator full of fat bastards and there’s rain, snow, and rain mixed with snow in the forecast.

Whatever. I don’t care. Our Canadian red cherry is showing some blossoms, and I had a wonderful ride today, just goofing around in Palmer Park, trying to stay out of the wind. I was on the Voodoo Nakisi drop-bar 29er and rode like I knew what I was doing for a change, kinda sorta, even cleaning a couple rocky bits that have been setting me afoot. Plus I stumbled across an entire gym class of young folks riding mountain bikes at the behest of their teacher, which as an industry observer I call good news.

One, on a loaner bike, was having trouble with parts of the Grandview Overlook trail and just a tiny bit lost. “It gets easier,” I promised, lying shamelessly through an encouraging smile, and showed her the way to the paved road that leads to the overlook parking lot.

I took a shortcut and advised teach’ that one of his students once was lost, but now was found, and then got the hell out of there while things were still going good. I’m not greedy, and I’d already had more than my share of good news.

• Late update: I capped the day off with a simple new recipe, ale-braised sausages with bell peppers, from Williams-Sonoma. I dicked around with it a bit, having neither apple cider (I used organic cranberry-pomegranate juice instead) nor fresh thyme (due to a persistent case of brain damage I have three or four jars of the dried stuff cluttering up the kitchen). And surprise, surprise, it turned out just fine. I used Deschutes Brewery’s Red Chair NW Pale Ale and Niman Ranch bratwurst, for anyone tracking my movements. The mashed spuds were your basic organic russets with chives, parsley, butter, heavy whipping cream, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

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.

I finally got forked

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments
Steelman road fork
Steel, si; carbon, no: My beautiful Steelman road fork is finally on the bike and logging miles.

Ever since a terrorist carbon fork enlisted my once-trusty road bike in a plot to assassinate me last August I’ve looked askance at the old gal, giving her a wide berth in favor of one ’cross bike or another whenever I’m not test-driving something for Adventure Cyclist.

Naturally, I immediately subjected the terrorist fork to extraordinary rendition and, after some extended diplomacy through a third party, eventually approved the immigration of what was said to be a trustworthy replacement.

But I never trusted it. Call it profiling if you will, but I had a garage full of steel-forked bikes that had never tried to kill me. They were content to let me try to do myself in, and I could live with that.

Eventually I asked my friend Brent Steelman of Steelman Cycles to build me a manly, red-white-and-blue American steel fork for the road bike, and he came through with a brilliant piece of work. But then winter arrived, and other distractions intervened, and before you could say “stupid plastic fork” spring had arrived and I still hadn’t introduced my steel fork to its titanium bike.

Well, our long national nightmare has finally ended. Steelman fork and DBR frame at last are one, and the pairing is both lovely and lively. No longer do I feel as though I’m diving into a potholed corner hunched over a pair of flimsy, black-plastic  tongue depressors. There’s a stout steel barrier between me and facial reconstruction.

And for the gram-counters among you — the bike now weighs 20.5 pounds instead of 19.5 pounds. This being allergy season, one good snot rocket and I’m back on an even keel.

Fuel for the fire

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments
Jamis Aurora Elite
The Jamis Aurora Elite, rigged for heavy touring. I've been riding this for a couple of weeks now. I'd tell you about it, but then the folks at Adventure Cyclist magazine would have to kill you.

Again with the hysterical gas-prices stories. The difference in this latest run-up, says analyst Trilby Lundberg, is that the national average price of $3.765 would be even higher had refiners and retailers passed on rising crude-oil prices to consumers, who already seem reluctant to put that tiger in their tanks as the mythical $4-per-gallon ceiling looms like a windshield full of oncoming Peterbilt with a full load of live pigs and a drunk, texting driver who doesn’t realize that he’s drifted across the yellow line into oncoming traffic.

“Demand has been falling at these prices,” Lundberg told the Reuters news agency.

I bet. If you don’t have a job — anyone remember the unemployment figures? You know, the story that kinda-sorta mattered before deficits, gas prices and The Donald sucked all the metaphorical oxygen out of the virtual pressroom? — a tank of gas must look like a bottle of Cristal champagne; too rich for your tastes.

But if cash-strapped drivers are buying less gas, how are they getting from point A to point B? Driving hybrids? Scooters? Bicycles? Skateboards? Hush Puppies?

Being biased, I’d like to think “bicycles.” It’s spring, and the weather is improving — well, as much as a Coloradan can expect in April, anyway — and suddenly that two-mile commute from the family seat to the cube farm looks doable on two wheels.

But can the typical Chubbo-American too pinched to buy gas afford the kind of bikes my people sell, or even look at them without hearing their dads, long dead of heart disease, liver failure and homophobia, calling them gay? Are they gonna trade in the family battlewagon for a couple of gaudy plastic-fantastics with saddles shaped like designer perfume bottles and wheels that look like the rings of Saturn? Will they spring for the reasonably priced, sensible machinery like the bikes I’ve been reviewing for Adventure Cyclist magazine?

Frankly, I have no idea. But, ever the optimist, I keep envisioning a graphic depicting the Descent of Motorist — from SUV to small car to hybrid to motorcycle to scooter to pawn-shop bicycle to Keds.

I’ve always been able to find that dark cloud surrounding the silver lining.*

* And yes, I know those front panniers should be swinging lower than an old man’s testicles over the toilet, but I didn’t have a low-rider rack that would work with disc brakes.

Fab’ foiled

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
Rock 'n' roll
Johan van Summeren and his cobblestone trophy. Photo liberated in the name of The People from Jacques Brinon, AP

Sometimes it’s not good to be the king. Fabian Cancellara found himself in the hot seat again at Paris-Roubaix, with Thor Hushovd stuck to him like a decal and two more Garmins up the road, so rather than tow the world champion up he shut the C-train choo-choo down. Then he still found the legs in the finale to lose all the hangers-on and take second behind a most surprising victor, Johan Van Summeren.

Hushovd did the smart thing, the team thing, but it sure didn’t look good on TV — the rainbow jersey marking moves instead of making them. This is one of the many reasons why Americans have trouble understanding the sport. “Why don’t he ride?” they ask, before changing the channel to something involving sticks and balls.

Meanwhile, chapeau to the big Belgie for a fine win. Word is he rolled it in on a softening tire, just 19 seconds ahead of a charging Cancellara, and then proposed to his sweetie. Quite a rock for an engagement present, no?