Category: Bike stuff

Mad Dogs and Grimy Handshakes

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
They say you never see the one that gets you.

“Where the weather at?” I queried myself just before turning around and catching it right in the face.

The wizards have been predicting all manner of vile conditions, from skin-peeling wind to rain, snow, wintry mix, travel “impacts,” plague of toads (i.e., congressional nub-tugging), IBS, incipient fascism, the heartbreak of psoriasis, GOPee pestilential hopefuls getting flogged by “None of the above,” etc.

This uncertainty makes it hard to select the day’s workout, so I usually step outdoors to see if there are any MAGA hats flogging their diesel brooms across the blackening sky before naming my poison. This morning brought only the wintry mix, which I took smack in the gob as I turned around after shooting the pic up top.

Yesterday I ran, which was probably the wrong call. It was decent enough for cycling, but I didn’t feel like submitting to all the rituals — finding clean kit, checking the Fleet for a vessel that didn’t need chain lube, tire-pumping, flat repair, derailleur/brake adjustments, whatevs. Running is quick. Shirt, pants and socks, lace up the shoes, off you go.

Anyway, time was short and there were other items on the to-do list. Grocery shopping, for starters. Some “feets ball” extravaganza is apparently on tap this weekend, and I didn’t want to hit the store late in the week when the slavering mobs will be stripping shelves like hyenas wiping out a Chick-fil-A. An hour and a couple hundred dollars later our larder was stocked for the apocalypse.

Also, an old scribbler pal had tugged on my coat, asking could he borrow a cup of old Fat Guy cartoon to illustrate one of his excellent observations about the hallowed wintertime practice of stockpiling a few extra kilos around the waistline to keep the frostbite off your kidneys and, not incidentally, serve as a distracting amuse-bouche one can slice off with the Leatherman and toss to the wolves if they start circling while one field-repairs a puncture, snapped shifter cable, or broken chain.

If you are not already reading Mike Ferrentino you should be, and right now, too. Don’t make me stop this blog and come back there. Dude has been there and done that and he will go there and do that, too, because he likes it. And he is extremely good at it, which is not a handicap. One of the very few people I will drop everything to read. His joint these days is “Beggars Would Ride” at NSMB.com.

Anyway, for Mike’s ’toon hunt I had to snuffle like a truffle pig through the Archives, which are scattered around and about in various hard drives, mostly inside of or attached to a 1999 G4 AGP Graphics Power Mac that has more white hair in its ears than I do. This motley collection badly needs cataloging by a professional librarian; alas, the only one conversant with my workflow was otherwise occupied, earning our living.

I found a couple possibilities from way Back in the Day®, but the Fat Guy was mostly a roadie and Mike was hoping for something dirty. So finally I surrendered to the inevitable, broke out the utensils, and drew him up a whole new ’toon.

This was not a hassle. It was a blessing, because I hadn’t drawn a line since I parted ways with the Outside Hyperactive Currency Furnace back in January 2022. It may have been my longest hiatus from drawing since I was in diapers, working with my own boogers on the walls of various rental properties in Maryland and Virginia. They’re probably on the National Register of Historic Places now.

In the end, Mike ended up running with one of the old ’toons. Turns out he was under that deadline pressure I used to love so much, and it seems I’m not as quick on the “draw” as I used to be, yuk yuk yuk. I told him he could keep the new one for relighting the funny-pages fire. Thanks to him, you may see the occasional scribble here, too.

The first cartoon I’ve drawn in more than two years. Thanks to Mike Ferrentino for the inspiration.

Werewolf? There wolf!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
The Wolf Moon, peeking through the clouds over the Sandias.

I was a little late to moonrise last night, but managed to catch a glimpse of the Wolf Moon despite the heavy cloud cover.

The Duck! City has been gray and damp the past few days, with 0.13 inch of precip’ in the past 48 hours. On Wednesday I just beat a short downpour home as I wrapped up a run, and yesterday I caught a little sleet in the chops while cycling through the foothills.

Climbing into the Elena Gallegos Open Space I saw a couple of Albuquerque Police Department vehicles in the parking lot. The officers waved at me, and I waved back. If they thought I must have been drunk to be cycling in January — rain jacket, tuque, tights, winter shoes — they didn’t oblige me to perform the Stupid Human Tricks or empty the wallet I wasn’t carrying. (I had a $20 in the Ziploc bag that keeps my phone dry, but shh, that’s top secret.)

It’s definitely looking runny out there this morning. And there seems to be another atmospheric river rolling in.

I have fenders, and rain gear. But maybe what I need is a kayak.

Salty dog

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
The Soma Double Cross wearing its winter kit.

Seasonable weather may have returned for the moment, but The Duck! City remains a sandy, salty, gooey mess, and thus the Soma Double Cross now sports mudguards because hey: Sometimes a fella doesn’t feel like taking his exercise on a 32-pound touring bike just because it has fenders.

The DC is another of those absurdly versatile sport-utility bikes, suitable for cyclocross, light touring, or simply trying to keep the muscle memory alive in January, when its lesser poundage — just under 26 elbees with a saddlebag and handlebar bell — makes a real difference on the hills.

I used it for a three-day credit-card tour of central Colorado in 2012, and it’s logged plenty of hours on roads and trails in New Mexico, too.

The DC is just a little small for me, which is fine, especially if you suddenly happen to straddle it on some sketchy stretch of singletrack. When I first got back into cycling in the mid-Eighties I started with a 60cm bike, then downsized to 58, and again to 56, before finally inching back up to 58 for pretty much everything save the cyclocross bikes.

The Steelman Eurocrosses, Bianchi Zurigo Disc, and Soma DC are all 55cm, while the Voodoo Wazoo is a 56cm. I should turn the Wazoo back into a drop-bar bike one of these days, but I kind of like it as a flat-bar, single-ring deal. It’s also less welcoming to fenders and a rear rack, should I want them.

Ordinarily when the weather goes sideways I turn to trail running. But we’ve had enough moisture lately to turn crucial segments of the foothills trails into skating rinks, peat bogs, and tar pits, which makes running nearly as much of an exercise in staying upright as cycling.

“Well, at least the motorists can’t nail you on the trail,” you quip. Ho ho, etc. Wrong-o, sport. Lately they’ve been hitting everything from traffic-light stanchions to tattoo parlors, restaurants, and private homes. Stationary objects, easy to avoid, unless you’re ripped to the tits on your reality-management substance of choice.

The wiseguys used to say that you’re taking your life in your hands just by getting out of bed in the morning. Now you can wake up to find yourself sharing the old king-size with a Ford Expedition.

Not even fenders will keep the road grime off your ass then.

A ‘new’ year

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
The Sandias, pre-Snowpocalypse.

January’s getting all, well, January on us. New year, same old song.

It’s been chilly, but not so much so that a fella can’t ride his bike for 90 minutes with three or four layers of 30-year-old cycling kit, adding and removing same as conditions indicate while awaiting the fabled Snowpocalypse, which by noon Thursday was as you see.

The Sandias, post-Snowpocalypse.

Betimes we are reminded that rich people, politicians, and rich politicians can be insufferable, twisted, lying, featherbedding assholes. This is not an annual or even seasonal event.

Meanwhile, just to keep things interesting, evildoers found a back door to our credit card while Herself was in an personal-electronics-free secure area and I was out on the bike, oblivious to my my own digital alerts as I removed and added layers of this and that while rolling around to no particular purpose beyond taking pix of the Sandias.

So, once I had been made aware of the breach in our fiscal defenses, I had to race home, doublecheck my receipts, mumble several filthy words, block the attempted piracy and croak that card over the phone, go get two new cards from a local branch, and then go back to get two even newer ones because the Top Secret Your Eyes Only Three-Digit Security Code was buggered on the first batch.

Now I get to work my way down the long list of bills set to autopay in order that we do not suddenly find ourselves freezing to death in the dark with no Innertubes and The Blog up on blocks.

It should go without saying that today was the day I had to drop Sue Baroo the Fearsome Furster at Reincarnation for its semiannual pulse check. I did not ride a bike home from the shop and will not be riding one back there to pick up the wee beastie.

Thirty-three, feels like 25°? No thank you, please. I’ve seen the way Burqueños drive under warm and sunny skies. There aren’t enough layers in my winter drawer and none of them are Kevlar.

Gray Christmas?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
If it’s rolling downhill, why, this must be the valley.

The weather wizards have been spot on lately. When they say “a quarter inch of rain,” they do not lie.

In fact, if anything they seem to be hedging their bets a bit, because our widget reports we got something like .39 inch overnight. And it’s still raining.

I will never be smart. But at least I was not stupid yesterday when I decided to go for my first bike ride in 10 days instead of settling for another plodding hike or p’raps daring to risk a short jog.

As I said, the wizards have been batting a thou’ lately, and when yesterday started looking like my only option to ride without mudguards and rain kit for the foreseeable future, I got right after it.

Before the Snotlocker Surprise paid me a visit I’d been planning to check out some upgrades I and the Two Wheel Drive boyos had made to my old Soma Double Cross. After replacing its chain, chainrings, and cassette while trying (and failing) to accurately diagnose and resolve an annoying skipping issue that occurred under load, I finally discovered the actual cause, which was that its ancient Dura-Ace freehub had gone to its ancestors.

Resurrecting the freehub was beyond my limited skillset, and even the pros at TWD shook their heads in disbelief, as though I’d dragged in a pennyfarthing and asked whether they stocked a 53-inch tubeless-ready carbon disc wheel.

While it was possible that some eBay velo-troll might be squatting on a stash of eight-speed D-A hubs, they mused, it might be simpler (and quicker) to rebuild Captain Retro’s wheel with something, uh, newer? Given the choice between cheap and handsome I went with the latter, a stylish Velo-Orange, which goes nicely with the other shiny bits.

What the hell, it’s my second-oldest wheelset, an Excel Sports Cirrus with Mavic Open Pro rims and DT spokes, and it’s been a faithful companion. So we gave it a new heart and it ticked along nicely for a gentle hour in yesterday’s dwindling sunshine.

Speaking of shiny new bits, you may notice that I pulled the ol’ presto-change-o on the blog this morning. I took down the custom header, a scenic photo with the “Mad Dog Media” moniker, and replaced it with a smaller logo and a text header, which makes it possible for me to add a small additional overlay of snark without having to deploy any fancy-schmancy photo-editing software.