Fall color remains elusive at the bosque. But it’s still a fine place to ride the ol’ bikey-bike on a Tuesday morning.
The 32-mile loop I did is about two-thirds easy-breezy like a Cover Girl. But the last bit from Mountain and Broadway back to El Rancho Pendejo has about a thousand feet of vertical in it. And since most of the climbing stacks up on the back side it sorta gets a fella’s attention.
As does the ongoing devolution of TFG. When the legacy media finally start catching on, you know that shit is dire.
I got to throw a rare double bird during a ride this past weekend.
Rounding a corner I saw a yard sign for TFG to my left … and then another across the street to my right.
“O! The Joy!” William Clark must have felt like this when he thought he’d finally seen the Pacific “ocian.” In honor of the Corps of Discovery I gave the placards the salute they deserved.
It’s little things like this that keep me on a slow simmer instead of a rolling boil.
As a longtime observer and occasional chronicler of our national political bed-wetting, I have felt compelled for some years now to watch and describe what appears — to me, anyway — to be a brain-damaged orangutan dry-humping the Statue of Liberty.
But damme if the lifting doesn’t get heavier every day. And I’m an old man, with a bad back.
So I lift with my legs. Which is to say that when I feel some crucial part of me starting to give way, I go for a ride, letting my legs lift my flagging spirit.
A bicycle can bear a lot of weight. You can trust me on this: I was a great fat bastard when I returned to cycling after a long absence, and that first two-wheeler had to carry a lot of baggage.
So have its descendants. But the tonnage these days is less Marlboro breath and whiskey sweat, more inchoate rage and existential dread.
That’s hard weight to shed, and not even the bicycle can get it all off you. But it definitely helps, especially if you try not to put the pounds right back on as soon as you get home.
• Pro tip: Try wearing a heart-rate monitor when you scan the news. When you find yourself surfing a hate-wave through Zone 5, remember that there is no Zone 6. Not in this lifetime, anyway. Grab a bike and get the hell out of the house.
One of the rare flat spots on Tuesday’s ride through the Manzanitas.
A friend and neighbor who’s lived here longer than me and grown bored with The Duck! City menu of cycling possibilities proposed we try something a wee bit off the beaten path this week.
And so we motored up NM-337 a ways, parked at the Otero Canyon Trailhead, hopped aboard our trusty cyclocross bikes, and took a 21-mile tour of the rolling back alleys to the east and south, beginning with Juan Tomas Road and ending with Oak Flat Road.
One of the smoother descents.
Phil had warned me that we were headed for some steep, gnarly bits that could only be described as “roads” because they were passable by horse or halftrack. But they weren’t any worse than some of the knee- and tire-popping Paris-Roubaix-style bighorn-sheep circuits I used to wrangle in CusterTucky County, so I got along just fine on the old Steelman Eurocross with its new 34x32T low end and 33mm Donnelly MXPs.
To be sure, long stretches were steep as medical bills, with ruts that may recently have channeled hot lava, enough bad lines for a Sylvester Stallone film festival emceed by Carrot Top, and more baby-heads than the basement of the John Wayne Gacy Memorial Montessori School in Hell, if your idea of a baby is a 45-year-old Scandinavian blacksmith who dabbles in professional wrestling, rugby, and steroids.
But we saw plenty of wildflowers, and the motorists were mostly parked, hunting piñon.
Oak Flat dumped us back onto NM-337, just below the Morning Star Grocery, and we had a fine, high-speed plummet to our parking spot. As roller-coaster rides go it was worth the price of admission and then some.
My Nobilette takes five at the Michial Emery trailhead.
It was the Wednesday Geezer Ride and I was running on O’Grady Standard Time as per usual.
I almost always make our meeting spot on time, or within shouting distance of it, anyway. But not this Wednesday.
After a distracting morning spent accommodating Herself and a visiting sister I was horsing the Nobilette northward along Tramway, a few minutes off my usual delayed kickoff and feeling a little light in the jersey pockets for some reason.
So I gave myself a quick pat-down.
“Shit, forgot my tools. Aw, probably won’t need them.” Onward.
Then the Watch cheeped.
“Forget your water bottle?” asked Herself.
“Shit again. That I will definitely need.”
So I texted the Ride Leader to let him know I’d join up somewhere along the route, then pulled a U and big-ringed it back toward El Rancho Pendejo, which this morning seemed aptly named.
While headed south I saw our Ride Leader headed north. We both looked at each other like, “WTF?” He should’ve been at the meetup while I should’ve been a couple minutes behind him and closing in.
“Back in a minute!” I yelled and punched it.
At the casa I grabbed bottle and tools and headed north once more, advising the Ride Leader via text that I’d try to catch up around Simms at Eagle Ridge, or at the Elena Gallegos Open Space.
But when I got to Eagle Ridge, no Geezers.
So I backtracked the route a bit. Nope. Rode up to Elena Gallegos. Nix. Did a couple laps of that loop to pass the time. Nuttin’.
Shit.
So I rip a quick shortcut to the next checkpoint, in High Desert. Nada.
¡Basta ya! I text again.
“Where you gents at?”
“At top of Elena’s,” replies the Ride Leader.
Sheeeeeeyit.
Anyway, to shorten an already-overlong story, one Geezer had a crook gut and bailed pre-ride, another flatted (the Ride Leader stopped to offer aid, which explains why he was running behind), and there were a couple other no-shows. A late start thus became even later. Our carefully designed velo-structure simply fell apart like a toilet-paper tent in a heavy rain.
At least our communications devices didn’t explode in our pockets or hands. First World Problems only, please.
In any event, so we’re a little slow off the start line. So what? Rivendell’s Grant Petersen likes “pleasurable, unhurried riding,” and so do I. When I can manage it, anyway.
• Hat tip to Alex Strickland, the former boss-fella at Adventure Cyclist, for passing along the Rivendell story.
When I haven’t been watching crazed seditionists screeching about immigrants living high on the dog or feeding less startling dishes of my own to visiting in-laws there’s been plenty of time for the ol’ bikey ridey around The Duck! City this past week.
The turnaround point.
On Wednesday my geezer brethren and I pedaled south and east through Tijeras and up to the Morning Star Grocery, just past Oak Flat on NM 337.
This annual outing is one of those “your mileage may vary” deals. A couple of us start from home; for me, the ride from El Rancho Pendejo and back is 42 miles with about 2,300 feet of vertical gain. Others drive to the meetup spot, a corporate grocery at Tramway and Central.
Our youngest (59) and oldest (82) riders were a little concerned about completing the entire ride this year. The first was undertrained due to travel and other distractions, while the second confided he felt a little less snappy on the hills lately.
But both soldiered on and finished with honor. Huzzah to one and all.
Miss Mia does her Bill the Cat impression.
With the Morning Star ride and a few lesser outings in the rear view I’ll top 150 miles for this week, which is a lot for me. Also, a good excuse to eat everything in the house. Veggie quesadillas, bolognese over egg noodles, pizza, you name it.
Not the cat, though. Not even with homemade pico de gallo.
