Category: Bike stuff

When did the Irish learn how to ride upright?*

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm old and brittle and inflexible. Shuddup.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm old and brittle and inflexible. Shuddup.

The people of Arizona clearly have sold their souls to the Devil and this is the upshot. Well, this and John McCain, who is full of more bad noise and wind than any tornado.

The weather is deteriorating here, too. I probably should’ve done a long ride yesterday, but instead I went to Old Town Bike Shop for a bike fit from Randin Isip, who’s been through the Serotta school. After dicking around with my position for too many years on too many different bikes I was convinced that I’d settled on a bad setup and wanted an expert’s opinion.

Turns out I was right. I’d done a little homework before going in and lowered my saddle height a couple centimeters, which also brought it forward a bit and felt like a slight improvement. But Randin took it a good deal further, adjusting my saddle height, angle and fore-aft position, tinkering with my cleats, and finally swapping my already-geezerish stem for one with even more rise. Sucker looks like the boner on a 14-year-old kid surfing Internet porn.

When the sun finally peeked out around noon I sucked it up and got out for a two-hour test ride, heading east and then north for some mild to moderate climbing. The new position felt just fine, especially when I hit the drops into an ass-kicking headwind out of the south that transformed me into the Titanium Tortoise. I felt like I was doing an extended trackstand.

And at times I was, mostly at stop lights that refused to recognize the fat bastard on the bicycle. Every time I had to roll over to punch the pedestrian-crossing button I pretended I was punching a traffic engineer.

* When the English invented the pedicab, of course.

Devil take the hindmost

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
They told me to haul ass and it took two trips. OK, three. Hey, is this an audience or an oil painting?
They told me to haul ass and it took two trips. OK, three. Hey, is this an audience or an oil painting?

Ever have one of those days when your head is so far up your ass that you need a Plexiglas belly button to see where you’re going?

I was supposed to do some road cycling through the Air Force Academy with Big Bill McBeef and our mutual friend Deb at 11 a.m. today. I also had a physical-therapy session scheduled at 10 a.m. No sweat, right? Until it turns out that PT was actually at 10:30, so as I’m on the way home I get the word from Herself that Bill and Deb are already at El Rancho del Perro Loco and wondering where the hell am I.

I’m already feeling like an eejit so I tell Herself to cut ’em loose, as their original plan before some stupid fat bastard horned in was to hook up with some other folks along the way and I didn’t want to make them any later than I already had. Naturally, I arrive to find McBeef insistent on getting me out of the house and on the road, come hell or high water. Deb has gone on ahead. We are to chase her down like the Mad Dogs we once were. Time is of the essence. So I rocket around the rancho, hit the inhaler, dredge up bits of kit, snag the bike and off we go.

McBeef has been riding a ton and is keen to take his revenge on me for beating him like once in some nameless race 15 years ago, so he gives it the afterburners and in short order I am flapping in his backwash like a poorly stowed wind jacket, wondering if it’s possible to puke my nuts through my nostrils.

We sweep up Deb at Woodman Road and proceed through the infernal-combustion hell that is northeastern Bibleburg to the Academy, where I realize about a kilometer shy of the south gate that in the rush to get out the door I neglected to grab my driver’s license in order to prove to the guards that I am not a bicycle bomber from Lower Spaminacanistan despite the oddly bulky nature of my black-and-red garb, the keening, incomprehensible sounds issuing from my wind-chapped lips and the steaming blood fountaining from my eyes, ears and various other orifices.

And thus, with a feeble wave of one palsied hand followed by a burp with a lump in it and a tepid dribble down one flabby, unshorn thigh, I turned around to wobble homeward, braving the twin terrors of Academy Boulevard and Woodman Road alone.

Tonight Big Bill McBeef snickers into a wineglass as I gobble Advil like M&Ms and beg the cats for an introduction to Satan so that we may negotiate the fair market value of a battered 1954 soul with some very high mileage indeed, just not lately.

C’mon, Nick, make it 15 years ago, just for a couple of days. Say, anybody ever tell you you look a lot like Tom Waits?

Nys guys finish first

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
An oldie but a goodie. Still, damn. Look at the geezer stem. I call that an excuse for a new fork.
An oldie but a goodie. Still, damn. Look at the geezer stem on that thing. I call that an excuse for a new fork.

OK, every now and then I feel the urge to post something about cycling on this miserable site, and today is one of those days.

My man Bret W. tweeted about the Belgian national cyclo-cross championships this afternoon and posted a pair of links to video of the race, which was a lulu, even though it apparently included no running at all, which is bullshit.

The first half is here, the second here. Enjoy. And a tip of the Mad Dog liter-sized mug of Stella Artois goes out to Bret for keeping the video links coming via Twitter.

Meanwhile, I was out and about on the ’cross bike today my own bad self. Being my second outdoor ride on drop bars since The Day My Finger Went Sideways in mid-November, it was part of an ongoing experiment to determine what bike I can ride best with the least amount of stress on the damaged digit.

Yesterday it was the red Steelman Eurocross, which has clunky aftermarket Tiagra-level Shimano R500 8-speed brifters; the long throw from small ring to big ring proved irksome. Today I rode the Jamis Supernova; its 10-speed SRAM Rival was a little easier to manipulate, but not much.

When I got home, just for laughs, I aired up the tires on my DBR Prevail TT road bike and rode it up and down the block a few times, shifting from small ring to big and back again and hitting the brakes a few times. And whaddaya know? Its nine-speed Ultegra brifters work smooth like butter, even for Paddy Nine Fingers.

This is extra good news, since it’s the bike I’ll be riding around southern Arizona come March. I was afraid I was gonna have to go to a left-hand bar-end shifter with a top-mounted brake lever for the rear wheel. But given my “performance” today, a compact crankset is starting to look like a must-have item. Robert Byrd could’ve dropped me on the hills.

Parked and locked (up)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

There’s one less homicidal lunatic on America’s streets today. Christopher Thompson got five years for trying to kill a friend of mine and a couple of other folks. Character references, weeping and Bible verses failed to keep the gavel from crashing down. Bang. Five years.

Now, to show our gratitude, let’s see to it that there are fewer assholes on bikes eager to whip The Finger or a U-lock on anyone at the drop of a GU wrapper. You may win in court, but think about what you might lose on the street. I’ll bet my buddy Ron would take back a “Fuck you!” or two to have his OEM face back.