Category: Bike stuff

$45,000 bike (funeral not included)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

Well, he went down down down
And the devil said where you been
He went down down down
He was screamin’ down around the bend
Down down down
This boy went solid down
He was always cheatin’ and he always told lies
He was always cheatin’ and he always told lies
Down down down
This boy went solid down
He went down — “Down, Down, Down,” Tom Waits

Every circus needs a sideshow, and every sideshow needs a freak.

Here’s Interbike’s.

Imagine riding that bad boy at speed along America’s crumbling infrastructure with nothing between you and Allah but a little Lycra. And then go clean yourself up and change your underwear.

Meanwhile, after a month of waiting, Ritchey finally sent me a new fork for the road bike. That’s the good news. The bad news is that this one appears to be defective too. I’m awaiting a final evaluation from the wizards at Old Town, who have logged more time wrenching on these things than I have riding them, but fearing the worst I rang up my old buddy Brent Steelman at Steelman Cycles, and he has graciously agreed to build me a steel road fork with his very own hands.

In the meantime, if you’re riding a Ritchey Comp road fork I’d advise that you have your local shop check the sucker for evil spirits before launching your next Il Falco attack on the local alpine descent. Consider the potential for lower rebirth. You could come back as an Irish-American rumormonger of the cycling persuasion.

The O’Grady Theory of Affordability

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments

Well, baby, what I couldn’t do
With plenty of money and you. — “With Plenty of Money and You,” Count Basie

There’s an old gag about the typical bicycle racer being the kind of guy whose car is worth less than the bike on its roof rack. But y’know, that ain’t all that high a bar to hop anymore.

Check out what one of my colleagues considers to be “performance bikes at prices for real people.” * A $3,000 frameset? A $7,000 ready-to-ride bike? If these are down-to-earth prices, I’m clearly living somewhere around the planet’s core, because the only way I could afford either of those items is if I did my shopping with the old S&W hand cannon instead of a Visa card.

You know what you can get for a hair over $3,000? A 2009 Honda Rebel. That’s right — a fucking motorcycle. Don’t gotta pedal it or nothin’.

Know what you can get for $7,000? A complete, ready-to-ride custom Steelman road bike with an Ultegra build kit — plus a spare frameset in case anything unpleasant happens to the first one.

And for $10,000? You can have my 2005 Subaru Forester. It’s got a Thule roof rack, too, so you can slap a couple $7,000 road bikes up there and fit the profile of the typical bike racer.

In the damp and steamy dreams of the cycling press, anyway.

* The headline has since been changed to something a little more sensible. So we’ve got that going for us.

All quiet on the western front

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

Eggs and sausage and a side of toast

Coffee and a roll, hash browns over easy

Chili in a bowl with burgers and fries

What kind of pies? — “Eggs and Sausage,” Tom Waits

Going to Interbike as a “cycling journalist” is a lot like deliberately overeating. Everything that goes in must eventually come back out, one way or another. Then it’s stand back, boys, she’s gonna go a gusher.

Outdoor Demo is but an appetizer, a trifle. It’s too hot to think, and people are either fresh from getting settled into their hotel rooms and routines and/or discovering with dismay which key piece of pro equipment they forgot to fetch with them from Podunk (MiFi, digital recorder, camera, Visa card). So they nibble around the edges out there in the desert outside Boulder City, ride a bike or two or three, gulp a beer in the VIP tent, take a deep breath.

Tomorrow the show opens for real at the Sands Convention Center. I recommend wearing Wellingtons, a slicker and a welder’s mask.

• Late update: Meanwhile, Lennard Zinn waxes rhapsodic over a $2,600 wheelset. Well, he’s waxing something, anyway. Jesus.

In which bike stuff is discussed for a change

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
Says Miss Mia Sopaipilla: "Will ya get the hell out of the house awready and go ride ya bike? You're makin' us all crazy!"
Says Miss Mia Sopaipilla: "Will y'get the hell out of the house awready and go ride y'bike? Y'makin' us all crazy!"

The Vuelta de España is over; chapeau to Vincenzo Nibali for winning, to Ezequiel Mosquera and Joaquim Rodriguez for making a fight of it, and to Tyler Farrar for taking the final stage victory.

Cheers, too, to homeboy Danny Pate — I feared he might be jobless going into 2011, but it seems he’s leaving Garmin-Transitions for HTC-Columbia instead of the dole and the Dumpster. I’m still waiting for word on Mike Creed, whose relationship with Team Type 1 appears to have soured. I don’t care who he pisses off, I like him. His old man’s all right, too.

And finally, a twirl of the jet-black Mad Dog Livewrong bracelet to Taylor Phinney and Ben King for completing a Trek-Livestrong sweep at the USA Cycling Professional Road Championships in South Carolina.

Yeah, yeah, I know — they are affiliated with He Who Shall Not Be Named, and Trek sucks, and the dormant journalist in me is mumbling, “Oh, really?” over his second beer. But at least it’s not another steer from that same sorry old herd crossing the line first.

And as for me? I have the day off. I should be in Santa Rosa, California, sipping local microbrew and contemplating a week’s worth of cycling up hill and down dale with my old pals Merrill and Chris, but what the hell? A guy can ride his bike around here, too, even if most of the routes feel a bit stale, like Repuglican campaign rhetoric. “Why, by gum, if we just give our poor rich folks some more money, we’ll soon be as right as rain. Well, we will be, anyway. Your mileage may vary.”

The road bike remains unforked at Old Town, Ritchey being somewhat slow on the uptake, warranty-wise, so it seemed like a ’cross-bike kind of day. As the Vuelta was wrapping Dr. Schenkenstein rolled by astride his ’cross bike to say howdy, a tad weak and pale from his Yom Kippur fast, so I — full of last night’s green-chile chicken enchiladas, rice, salad and Mirror Pond Pale Ale — seized the opportunity, broke out the Nobilette and flogged him like the miserable pissant he is for 90 minutes or thereabouts.

That he had an asthma attack as we were climbing the weed-lined, dusty single-track to Gold Camp Road had nothing to do with it. My triumph is untainted. God’s judgment, I call it. The Irish are one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, don’t you know. And you can tell Yahweh likes us best ’cause he didn’t dump us off in the middle of a desert bereft of whisky.

All work and no play

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
The lads the last time we had the band together in Santa Rosa, circa 2006.
The lads the last time we had the band together in Santa Rosa, circa 2006.

Busy, busy, busy. I know, that’s no excuse — my duty is to bring the snark, 24/7 — but I’ve forgotten where I left it. The ravages of age, don’t you know.

Hell, you’re lucky I’m around at all. I had planned a cycling trip to California — I was gonna hit the road tomorrow, drive to Ely, Nevada, spend the night, then make the final push into Santa Rosa for a week of pedaling around the wine (and beer) country with a couple of old newsie buds.

But midweek I was still feeling the effects of leaving my DNA on the Palmer Park trails, my chiropractor was threatening to tear me down for parts, and there was work to be done over at VeloNews.com.

So I bailed on the trip and instead of spinning leisurely from winery to brewpub and back again, I’m working on my monitor tan as VN.com covers the Vuelta a España, this doping revelation and that one, the USA Cycling Pro Championships in South Carolina, the Tour of Britain, the impending domestic cyclo-cross season … and don’t forget Interbike. I know you’d like to, as I have, but don’t.

In fact, dash right out and buy something from a bike shop right this minute. You owe me that much.