Hoppin’ John, cornbread and cycling

January 2, 2010November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

Hoppin' John and cornbread, mmm, mmm, good.

The holiday season is finally behind us, and soon we will be enduring fewer idiotic stories like this and more like this.

I can see why nobody wanted the byline on the first — any “what’s ahead in 2010” story that mentions Jimmy Dobson and the Broncos is not something a scribe at a bankrupt newspaper chain hopes will draw the eye of potential employers in a dodgy job market.

As to the second, it’s beyond laughable that Janet Napolitano’s gaffe about the Underpants Bomber (“The system worked”) is on a par with Shrub praising the insanely inept Michael Brown for botching the federal response to Hurricane Katrina (“Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job”). But I blame the web editor who posted the piece for penning that fatuous nonsense, not NYT op-ed editor Tobin Harshaw.

And now for the real news: I and my dislocated finger got out for an hour on the mountain bike yesterday. It was my second outdoor ride since taking that digger six weeks ago, and boy, was I ever gun-shy. There’s still plenty of old ice and snow on the deck, just like there was when I laid it down, and I tiptoed around it like a Kurd in a minefield. Still, it’s amazing how much easier it is to do an hour outside than inside, even if it involves wearing neoprene. I liked it so much I may do it again today.

Back at the ranch, in honor of our shared Southern heritage, I whipped up that pot of Hoppin’ John and Herself made a cast-iron skillet full of cornbread. Wine was served and an episode of “Dexter” watched on our new-used Blu-ray player. I’d call that a fair start to the New Year.

• Late Update: I did do it again — this time on the Voodoo of Doom, the very machine that laid me low back in November. The Voodoo sports full-coverage fenders, and since things were getting a little slushy with temps in the mid-40s I took it out for a short spin out east to see if the evil sonofabitch would bite me again. Nope. Worst that happened was that the temps took a dramatic turn for the worse on the ride home and I was a tad underdressed. Oh, well, shivering burns fat, too.

Riders on the storm

December 6, 2009 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments

Man, am I ever glad I bought that Giant Tempo. The temp-o outside never got above 15 today, so I was setting tempo indoors on the stationary bike between bouts of snow-brooming. Yes, brooming. We rarely get enough to shovel anymore, though today’s snowfall pushed the envelope somewhat.

I never would’ve gotten away with installing one of my bikes on a wind trainer in the living room. But since the Tempo can be adjusted to suit the much smaller frame of Herself as well as my own massive carcass, it has won approval at the highest possible level of our local chain of command.

Herself generally sets my 12-inch G4 PowerBook on the Tempo’s time-trial-style handlebars and hoots through an episode of “The Daily Show” while riding. Me, I listen to an iPod. No Allman Brothers today — this time around it was Eric Clapton (“Further On Up the Road”), Les McCann and Eddie Harris (“Compared to What?”), Miles Davis (the entirety of “Birth of the Cool”) and a couple snippets of Ornette Coleman (“Sound Grammar”) and Bill Evans (“Everybody Digs Bill Evans”) to bring the ride to a close.

SRAMta Claus comes early to Bibleburg

December 5, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

SRAM's Randy Neufeld (right) brought an early Christmas present to Bibleburg's bicycle advocates.

Bibleburg’s bicycle advocacy got a much-needed assist on Friday as SRAM Cycling Fund director Randy Neufeld presented a $10,000 grant to Bicycle Colorado Springs at the Experience Colorado Springs offices.

The grip-and-grin drew a full house, with representatives from Medicine Wheel, Criterium Bicycles, Left Side Spin, Ground Up Designs, Bicycle Village, Angletech, Colorado Springs Cycling Club, the Trails and Open Space Program and the Bibleburg Metro Rides program. No representatives of the local media were on hand, alas, barring Your Humble Narrator.

Also in the house was Jim Sayer, executive director of the 45,000-member Adventure Cycling Association, who gave a brief rundown on his organization and its mission — “to inspire people of all ages to travel by bicycle.” Jim made a similar presentation later in the evening at Old Town Bike Shop, a show I had to skip as Herself required care and feeding.

Chapeau to longtime local velo-advocate Al Brody, Chamber of Commerce chief Terry Sullivan and everyone else who made this happen.

Paging Dr. Thompson

December 3, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

Oh, the weather outside is frightful. Just ask Turkenstein, who prefers a spot on my drawing board to a squat in the snow.

The Brakeman, a.k.a. Dr. Demento, Dr. Doom and Dr. Christopher T. Thompson, is up for sentencing today in the Mandeville Canyon road-rage case, if I recall correctly. VeloNews.com, which covered the trial from gavel to gavel, should have a story up tout de suite with my doppelgänger Patrick Brady on the case.

I don’t know about you, but I’m very interested to see what the judge lays on him. He has 10 years coming, and I’d like to see him serve every second of it.

Meanwhile, nobody will be mistaking Bibleburg for Southern California anytime soon. It was 8 degrees when I arose, and we are anticipating a “high” of 15. The Turk’ has asked to go outside exactly once, and after about five minutes of frigid freedom he’s parked on a sunny spot on my drawing board.

• Late update: Dr. Frankendick’s sentencing has been postponed to next year. The BikingInLA website reports that the continuance was due to — wait for it — a swine-flu-triggered lockdown at the slammer holding the good Herr Doktor. And to think they said irony was dead.

Matching bike and finger

November 29, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

The Bloo Voodoo Wazoo, now a straight-bar townie.

The fine folks at Old Town Bike Shop transformed my Voodoo Wazoo ‘cross bike into a flat-bar townie yesterday in less time than it takes to ask, “Debit or credit?”

Why’d I do it? Well, I thought about going this route when I first rebuilt the bike as a seven-speed, single-ring, steel-fork, evil-weather, parts-box Frankenbike (it had been an eight-speed, double-ring, carbon-fork “race” bike with bar-end shifters until I stripped it to build the Soma Double Cross). But I didn’t have a flat bar and grips handy and instead went with a Salsa Bell Lap drop bar, Shimano 105 brake levers and a single Shimano 600 indexed bar-end shifter.

Now, with a bum middle digit on the left hand, I have trouble grasping a drop bar and operating its brake lever. And a brifter is out of the question — I have small hands and would have to use the battered birdie to shift. Owie.

The Paul's Thumbie. Pretty nifty idea, eh?

Running a single-ring setup spares me the temptation of trying to shift into a gear I probably can’t push anyway. The smallish Real brake levers — salvaged from my mountain bike some years back when I finally surrendered to the inevitable and went to XT V-brakes — are easily operated with the index finger. Plus their light blue nicely complements the darker blue of the frame and my splinted finger. The cork grips give the injured hand a little more cushion than handlebar tape. And finally, a half set of Paul’s Thumbies let me turn that seven-speed bar-end shifter into a bar-top thumb-shifter so I can keep my right hand on the bar at all times. Pretty cool, eh?

A Paul's Thumbie turns a bar-con into a thumb-shifter, and the Real levers need only an index finger to work.

When I got it home I took a quick spin around the block to see if the new setup worked for me, and lo and behold, it does, kinda, sorta, assuming I can avoid falling off in future. So maybe I can get outdoors again for some short spins while that finger heals.

The big question is: Can I fix a flat one-handed? It may be time for some Slime.

• Late update: Despite having this nifty new toy, I chickened out on an outdoor ride — I still can’t get a winter glove over the splint, which won’t come off until Tuesday — and instead did 75 indoor minutes on the Giant Tempo. The soundtrack was Led Zep’ instead of the Allman Brothers after Elvis Costello proved less than motivational. It’s exercise, but a poor substitute for the real deal, which I could see taking place without me through the living-room windows. Waah.