Category: Bike stuff

Giant steps

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
It’s not your granddaddy’s touring bike.

Ho ho ho, etc. Sanity Clause* has delivered an early gift — a Giant ToughRoad SLR 1.

Well, it’s more of a loaner than an actual present. But still.

The brain trust at Adventure Cyclist thought we were getting a little fixated on steel drop-bar bikes and thus I’m reviewing this alloy flat-bar bike, which starts our journey together with three strikes against it.

First, it has hydraulic disc brakes. Second, it rolls on tubeless tires. And finally, it has an aluminum frame and composite fork.

OK, so four strikes. When I was loading it into the Furster for the drive home I bashed my noggin on the rear hatch lid, which hadn’t opened all the way (old struts, cold weather). If I hadn’t been wearing a hat I’d probably have been scalped. As it is I look like a Giant PR flack took a swing at me with a pedal wrench.

But what the hell, it’s all baseball, que no? It will be interesting to take all my biases for a ride at once.

* And yeah, yeah, I know, I know: There ain’t no Sanity Clause.

No Moore, thanks

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
When I said “dusty,” I meant it. Actually, “powdery” might be more accurate. A popcorn fart has a higher moisture content than the local trails.

I had chores to do yesterday, and plenty of ’em, so I didn’t get out to ride until late in the day.

And that was fine. It was warmish (temps in the mid-50s), but with the sun low in the sky I thought I’d ride trail instead of road, so I pulled the Jones off its hook and kicked up a little dust over toward the Embudo dam.

Seems there was a dust-up of another sort altogether in Alabama. Short-Eyes the Preacher managed to screw the pooch instead of someone’s little girl and thus he will be free to “pursue other opportunities,” as the saying goes.

I’m sure there’s a dog show somewhere that could use a judge. As long as he promises to steer clear of the puppies, that is.

Broken bicycles

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ Leave a comment

Carl sent me on a trip down the Tom Waits rabbithole with his tip about a BBC documentary on the man, so blame him for a dose of Waits during Zappadan.

This is from “One from the Heart,” the score for a Coppola flick I don’t believe I ever saw; I have the vinyl around here somewhere.

And pardon my French, but you ain’t heard shit until you’ve heard Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle doing a duet.

 

Oh deer

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
Trail 366, if memory serves. You can ride this sucker on a road bike, and I have.

After another morning spent cranking away on the Fuji Touring for review purposes I devoted the afternoon to tooling around the Elena Gallegos trails on my trusty, dusty old Voodoo Nakisi MonsterCrosser®.

There were a half-dozen deer to the left of me and about the same to the right. Don’t want to hit one of these dudes at speed on the old MonsterCrosser®. It will end badly.

As I was motoring along, enjoying the ridiculously warm weather (68, a degree shy of the record), I caught a glimpse of a big gray booty ambling through the scrub and hit the binders.

Sure enough, a sizable herd of mule deer was cruising the ’hood. So I stopped and snapped a couple pix with the battered Canon 300 HS, which has decided to start working again, kinda, sorta.

Mule deer are not nature’s geniuses. Back in Weirdcliffe we used to joke that you could hunt them with a Twinkie and a ball-peen hammer.

But they look serene, majestic and brilliant when compared to the ruminants grazing the nation down to the bedrock in DeeCee. There is nary a problem in the world that a Republican legislature cannot make worse.

Abyss in ya

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
The high point of today’s outing, just below the Sandia Tram.

“And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”—Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, “Beyond Good and Evil”

Screw the abyss, I said, and went for a ride. And what a fine idea it was, too.

It was sunny and warmish out there, away from the Mac, and grew more so. I’m still reviewing the Fuji Touring Disc for Adventure Cyclist, and thus it’s the go-to machine for any bike rides out of El Rancho Pendejo, unless I absolutely, positively must have some dirt time.

I can’t stay gone for long. The Boo has been showing signs of the Dogzheimer’s and frequently forgets the difference between indoors and outdoors, with deleterious consequences for the brick floors and carpets. I kennel him when I leave, but that’s no guarantee that I won’t come home to a mess. And confining him to quarters means he can march around in any messes that he makes. I should get him some little Wellingtons to wear in the slammer.

So, yeah. Short rides, two hours or less. But still, it beats watching everybody in America be revealed as a perv’, fascist, false prophet, lickspittle, tinpot dictator, coward, fool or some combination thereof.