Category: Bike stuff

Wave dynamics revisited

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments
Fowl weather in The Duck! City.

The fun and frolic continues apace here in the Land of Enchantment, a subsidiary of Netflix, Inc. Look for the miniseries “The Ten Plagues of Aztlan,” coming soon! “Episode 1: The Gabachos.”

Now it’s Las Vegas in the hot seat. More precisely, the wet seat, as flash floods close roads and force evacuations.

Word is Ruidoso is getting some rain, which, yay. It’s the proverbial good news/bad news scenario — helps with the fire, but not with the flooding. You gotta play the hand you’re dealt, I guess. Meanwhile, it seems full-time residents may be allowed to return Monday morning.

We woke to a light rain here at El Rancho Pendejo. By 8:30 we’d recorded 0.10 inch of rain since midnight, and we will take it, thank you. Sorta throws a spanner into the ol’ training schedule, but what the hell am I training for, anyway?

If it keeps up I don’t think I’ll have to worry about whether a fellow cyclist returns my friendly wave today. My old VeloNews colleague John Rezell broached the topic yesterday at The Cycling Independent, but I beat him to it by nearly three decades (h/t Khal S.).

In my dotage I see this churlish behavior from all manner of knuckleheads. Wave casually at a brother roadie, get The Great Stone Face. Say, “Good morning” to another hiker on a narrow stretch of trail, nuttin’ but nuttin’. Everyone has the AirPods in their ears and an iStick up their arses, I guess.

It doesn’t bother me much anymore. I keep waving and yielding trail as though it matters. Which it kinda does.

Day coyotes and the lizard portal

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
It was just after I stopped to take this pic that I saw the coyote.
The Double Cross and I took a break at the Kiwanis parking lot. No, I wasn’t draining my lizard.

So I’m noodling around in the Elena Gallegos Open Space on the Soma Double Cross, enjoying a fine mist of a light drizzle and temps in the low 70s, when a good-sized coyote ambles into my path on a fast, double-track descent.

In broad daylight.

I’d been dodging lizards all morning, so the coyote sighting instantly brought Marc Maron‘s 2020 Netflix standup “End Times Fun” to mind.

I couldn’t find that particular video clip online, so I’ll have to make do with a transcript from scrapsfromtheloft.com.

Here’s the weird thing about being a Jew. You know, I’m not religious, but I am prone to prophecy. Um, and I don’t mean that in an arrogant way. I’m not saying I’m a prophet, but if I’m terrified, I’ll go mystical, you know? I mean, I don’t mind. I’ll do it. And sometimes it doesn’t make sense. It makes sense to me, but, like, I’ll give you an example. [inhales sharply] Like, I was hiking and, um. … This wasn’t too long ago, and I’m looking at the ground, I realized, “Wow, a lot more lizards now.” I don’t know what that means, but … like, I think it’s deep. I think that Trump has opened the lizard portal and I … think you should share that. Why can’t that be a little thing of information that you spread around a little bit? Just walk up to somebody, like, say, “Maron said the lizard portal’s open.” And people will be like, “What the fuck are you talking about?” And you’re like, “I don’t know, but it sounds scary. Sounds real. Sounds like it’s happening.” “The lizard portal?” “Yup, the lizard portal is open. Saw a coyote out during the day. That’s not right, they’re nighttime monsters. You gonna tell me the lizard portal isn’t open, it is, and day coyotes are among us, and you’re gonna say that’s not a fucking problem? That’s not a harbinger of what’s happening?”

Lizard portal open? Check. Day coyotes? Roger. Oh, yeah, and did I mention he followed with a riff on (wait for it) fire season?

Our state is on fire right now. It’s on fire all the time. Every year, California is on fire to the point where it’s just the way it is. Two weeks ago, my friend Lynn said, “Aren’t the fires a little late this year?” How is that something you say … like it’s a season? It kinda is a season. Once a year, if you live in California, you’re like, “Ah, fuck, there are ants and shit’s burning. Must be summer.” 

Maron’s a former Burqueño, so you know he wasn’t just talking about California. His dad still lives here. I’m certain he’s hiked the Elena Gallegos, seen the coyotes and lizards, smelled the smoke.

Hey, I’m Irish. Not religious. But I know a prophet when I see one.

The long view

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments
Welcome to the jungle.

“Jungle?” you say. “Looks more like desert to me.”

Indeed it does, especially when you gain some perspective by leaving the mean streets behind and hoofing it a mile or so southeast and about 500 ankle-twisting feet up into the Sandia foothills, just below the Candelaria Bench Loop.

But it’s a jungle, too, down there. And for a cyclist, well … let’s just say we’re not the apex predators.

I was reminded of this on Friday when I got the word that one of my riding buddies had been hit by a car at Alameda and 4th.

He and another riding bud were eastbound on Alameda, preparing to turn left onto 4th. Alas, auto traffic being what it is down there, RB No. 2 made it to the left-turn lane without incident while No. 1 got boxed out. So No. 1 hung a right, planning to make a quick U-turn and head north on 4th.

But there was this car, and the laws of physics were applied, and our riding buddy got carted off to the hospital with what I’m guessing was a pretty significant elbow injury (a couple breaks and a dislocation, according to RB No. 2).

It’s particularly disheartening because he was riding so well and with such enthusiasm last Wednesday. And then this happens.

Still: It could’ve been a lot worse. A lot worse. I ride Alameda west from Guadalupe Trail now and then, to get to the bosque, and I always feel like a rabbit on a rifle range.

Let’s all us cottontails be extra careful out there as we’re hopping down the bunny trail. They’re always locked and loaded on the firing line.

Kick the tires and light the fires

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams finally get off the deck on Wednesday, bound for the International Space Station. | Photo: NASA Television

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams picked a fine day to get out of town. The temps at the Cape were headed for the century mark, and before the week is out I expect a few of us here in the Great American West would be happy to join them at the International Space Station, even if we’re light on luggage and have to drink our own wee-wee.

“A hunnerd-twelve in Vegas? I don’t wanna see Carrot Top that bad. They got a casino at the ISS?”

The Duck! City is under a heat advisory tomorrow — not Vegas bad, but bad enough — and though I’m still not 100 percent sinus-wise, I got out for a short snout-flushing trail ride this morning while temps were still in the 70s. We could hit 101° tomorrow, and I’d just as soon not add heatstroke to the sinus infection.

Could be worse, though. For instance, as we speak, weather-related boogeymen have kept Herself parked on the tarmac at Baltimore Washington International for two hours and counting. Southwest’s flight-status window shows her flight as “departed” — which I guess means, “taxied away from the terminal” — with touchdown in ABQ an hour later than originally intended.

Assuming her Boeing product ever gets off the ground, that is.

Jeez, we can put a man on the moon, but … well, actually, no, we can’t. Never mind.

• Late update: Charlie Pierce has some thoughts on Wilmore, Williams, and Boeing.