Category: Bike stuff

In which the suckitude is minimized

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
The Soma Double Cross and I took five for a photo op’ at the foot of the climb to La Cueva Picnic Site.

Not everything sucks.

Case in point: I spent a couple hours on the ol’ bikey bike yesterday. And while the high temperature did not break the record of 83°, set in 2012, I found the observed high of 78° downright pleasant for the tail-end of March. Riding in shorts and short sleeves I was. Even had to break out the SPF 50 and the Pearl Izumi sun sleeves.

La Cueva Picnic Site has yet to open for the season. Being something of a scofflaw, I’ve been known to circumvent the barrier and ride the steep mile to the top anyway. But yesterday I gave it a miss. Still managed to bank 1,600 feet of vertical. So, winning, etc.

La Cueva is a reminder that the government is not always the problem. Listed in New Mexico’s Registry of Historic Places, it was the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps, part of FDR’s New Deal. According to the U.S. Forest Service:

There are stone picnic tables and structures built by master stoneworkers during the 1930s to blend seamlessly into the existing landscape. You will soon discover a rock pavilion that is hidden by the trees, plus other small structures sprinkled throughout the site. Keep your eyes open for picnic tables, vault toilets and fireplaces that are tucked away in nooks and crannies, throughout this site.

The pavilion, picnic tables, fireplaces, and toilets remain. But the road is in poor repair, which may be due to a lack of funds or part of a plan to keep vehicular speeds low. I know I tend to mind my manners on the descent. Shredding the gnar is one thing; shredding yourself is a whole other deal. Especially if the barrier’s down and the ambulance can’t get to you before you bleed out.

Remember La Cueva Picnic Area and the CCC whenever some fathead quotes that overdone ham Ronnie Reagan to you: “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”

Even a blind pig finds an acorn. But it generally takes him a while. Forty-four years later Ronnie’s right on the money.

‘Just bump him, bruh’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments
The ghost bike installed by the Duke City Wheelmen in remembrance of Scott Dwight Habermehl.

“Just bump him, bruh.”

Sounds better than “Gonna hit him hella fast,” doesn’t it?

But the difference was no difference at all to cyclist Scott Dwight Habermehl, who last May was sent flying over the passenger side of a vehicle with three giggling kids in it — ages 15, 13, and 11 — and left fatally injured on the side of the road.

He was 63. Father of two. A Sandia National Labs engineer who was just cycling to work, as he had done for years.

Two of the three kids said to have been in the vehicle that hit him have been arrested, charged with an open count of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, leaving the scene of an accident involving great bodily harm or death, and unlawful possession of a handgun, according to the Albuquerque Journal. The eldest remains at large.

We’ve all been in this neighborhood. I’ve been right-hooked into a parked car; tumbled over the hood of an SUV whose driver passed me only to start executing a leisurely U-turn; narrowly escaped a homicidal trucker on a wide highway shoulder; had a full bottle of beer thrown at me from a speeding vehicle; been threatened with a gun.

The joke among longtime cyclists with a dark streak of humor is that if you want to murder someone without suffering any consequences, wait until your target gets on a bicycle and then hit him with your car.

But it doesn’t seem all that funny when you consider that two of these three suspects were charged — within days of the crash that killed Habermehl — in connection with what the Journal called “a weekslong crime spree that included a smash-and-grab burglary, shootings and auto theft.”

And yet nothing came of it.

The case against the 13-year-old was dismissed in August 2024 “when prosecutors failed to meet court requirements,” the Journal added. It’s not clear what happened to the charges against the 11-year-old.

Maybe prosecutors will “meet court requirements” in this instance, since (a) Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham have weighed in, and (2) we’re not talking about property crime now — this time, a man was sentenced to death by three children for the crime of riding his bicycle to work.

• Video: The Albuquerque Police Department provided this clip from a video said to have been uploaded to the Internets by those involved. APD says this triggered an anonymous tip, a homicide investigation, and what we can only hope will be justice for Scott Dwight Habermehl. Thank Dog for the stupidity of many of our 21st-century criminals. Back in the Day® we knew better than to rat ourselves out.

• Addendum: The third suspect is in custody.

And a Merry Sale it is, too

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments
Soma Fabrications (a.k.a. the Merry Sales Co.) is at it again.

I meant to add this over the weekend but got distracted by feline maintenance, grocery shopping, cooking, bicycle riding, and what appears to be a remake of “Lawrence of Arabia” taking place on the property.

Still, better late than never, as the fella says. You can save big on Soma and New Albion frames and forks, but you gotta move fast — the sale ends today.

NOAA shit?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
Weather? Or not. …

Maybe it’s just that NOAA has been swept away by a tsunami of unitary-executive idiocy, but the weather reports around here lately are bordering on the comical.

Sure, that photo up top looks plenty ominous, but lots of stuff does first thing in the morning, especially since Jan. 20. By 10:30 the temps were in the mid-40s, and after checking the forecast I decided to drop my plans to go for a run and instead took my old road-racing bike out for what I said would be “a short ride.”

In terms of First World Problems this was an iffy proposition. Last time out on this rig I flatted the rear tire just a mile or so from El Rancho Pendejo, and trying to lever the sonofabitch loose of its rim to swap tubes was like trying to pry a Texas Republican’s lips from Beelzebozo’s diapered ass.

I did not want to be doing this in wind and rain. Or snow. But tomorrow’s weather looked worse, so off I went.

And whaddaya know? It was glorious. Bit of a wind, but going out and up it was mostly behind me. And when I turned around to head home I was able to duck in and out of various suburban neighborhoods and mostly keep it out of my face. Stayed out for 90 minutes of hills and even felt a bit overdressed.

Also, I didn’t flat. So, bonus.

When I got home, my iPhone told me it was raining. Huh. News to me. And fake news at that.

Herself, coming back from a run, said her iPhone was telling her the same thing.

I made us some lunch, then she hit the gym, and I rolled out to the bakery and the grocery. Still not raining.

By 4 p.m., it was still sunny enough for a haircut, so Herself broke out the clippers and had at me. Near the end of that process, which is like shaving a particularly lumpy and unlovely blue-eyed coconut, we thought we heard some raindrops on the skylight.

Rain me bollocks.

Nope.

And now my iPhone promises it will be raining in 26 minutes.

Huh. I guess it’s true what they say. You can’t believe everything you read. Especially if it has to do with stormy weather, in The Duck! City or the Oval Office.

P.T. Barnum was right.

• Postscript: And naturally, as of 7:24 p.m., it’s snowing.

Breaking (away) bad

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
Hey, bud(s).

Stupid warm in these parts.

On Monday I watered turf, trees, and shrubs. On Tuesday, I enjoyed my first ride since making my Denver pilgrimage, in shorts and short sleeves.

And on Wednesday, it seemed everything was springing to life all at once. Juniper, maple, alder, you name it. Pollen out the wazoo and right up my snout.

“Screw it,” I thought, examining a sodden Kleenex for signs of brain tissue. “I’m taking drugs.”

And lemme tell you, that behind-the-counter Non-Drowsy Claritin-D 12-Hour with the pseudoephedrine frosting will kick the tires, light the fires, and set your eyes out on wires.

During Wednesday’s Geezer Ride, after I spun past a few guys on a short hill, one asked, “Why aren’t you even breathing hard?”

“I’m on drugs,” I replied. I felt like Ol’ Whatsisface ’fessin’ up to Oprah, only without all that annoying money and fame.

Maybe it was spending an afternoon with my old college cuates, but I was reminded of a “Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers” cartoon by Gilbert Shelton.

The road to hell, etc..

Freewheelin’ Franklin wants to borrow Phineas’s car to go buy a couple pounds of weed, but he’s sold it and bought a bicycle. So Phineas offers to pedal him out to Country Cowfreak’s place to make the buy.

On the way home they decide to take an illegal shortcut via the freeway, and the law takes an interest. No problem. Says Franklin: “First, I’ll snort a whole buncha cocaine … now,. you steer while I pedal.”

For the punchline, you can read the whole strip here.