Category: Colleagues

A mountain man

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment
Leaving the light on.

I have something of a reputation as an obituary writer.

Whether it’s deserved or not, I have no idea. What I do know is that it’s a hard pull on rough ground, uphill and into the gale, especially when the dearly departed truly is — an old friend turned dust in the wind.

But I’ve never tried to write an obit while the subject was still around to read it.

That’s what my man Hal Walter is doing as we speak — writing “a life review” of his old comrade Clint Roberts, who has been ailing for some time now and has had quite enough of it. The fabled mountain athlete has one last effort in him, and it will be to hit that Door running.

Writes Hal:

Instead of an obituary, I embraced the notion of a Life Review for Clint, a short biography of sorts. He agreed to participate during his final days from his home in Oregon. It’s lengthy, and time is short, so I have decided to present it here in a series. At this writing I am unsure whether I will complete this before he is actually gone but at least he will be able to read some of it along with many people who have been inspired by him, and those who are yet to know him through this story.

Hal is posting Clint’s story at his Substack, Hardscrabble Times. Give it a read, and consider supporting his work, which includes an upcoming book collecting his play-by-play report on how he and son Harrison navigated the mysteries of Colorado Mountain College and what came after.

Your Friday Hall of Fame

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Jonathan Edwards performs a Joe Dulce classic live.

My old comrade and colleague Steve Frothingham pinged me over coffee this morning, double-checking another velo-bro’s contact info (the one and only Charles Pelkey, star of stage, screen, and TV).

Seems the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame is assembling a fresh conclave to vote on potential inductees and thought of tugging on the Live Update Guy’s coat.

Now, I happen to think that Charles would make an even better inductee than voter. I mean, the man has been there and done that, wearing more hats than the performers at the annual Country Music Association Awards.

Asking CP to vote on HoF candidates seems kinda like ringing up Les Claypool and asking, “Hey, you know anybody who rocks?”

But what the hell do I know? I guess some of us are just destined to roam that old back 40.

‘Thank you for this new day. …’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
The Supervisor, the M-Dogg, and Your Humble Narrator gear up for a 63-mile ride from Santa Rosa to Hopland in August 2006.

Looking back over some old training logs I was smugly congratulating myself on what I thought was a strong start to this, the Year of Our Lard 2026.

“366 miles for January,” sez I to myself, no one else being handy. “Wrapped it up with the first 100-mile week of the New Year. Not bad; not bad at all.”

And then I checked in with a couple old velo-newsie bros. No, not fellow refugees from that once-storied journal of competitive cycling — rather, fellow refugees from the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph. Like Your Humble Narrator, they also ride bicycles.

The Supervisor and the M-Dogg both live in Northern California now, and it’s been nearly 20 years since the three of us last saddled up together. I’m the only one who’s fully retired, in part because I’m the only one who has a wife with a job of work, which for an old slacker keen to skip his pulls into the wind is like drafting a UPS truck on a summer day.

Anyway, there we were, chatting away via text, and the M-Dogg mentions that he just wrapped a 49.6-mile ride with 2,020 feet of vertical.

Yow.

I mentioned having done a leisurely 3-mile trail run, explaining that I got a late start and didn’t feel like kitting up for a ride.

“And here the M-Dogg is already cranking out the half-centuries,” I added.

“Mo, tell him your January mileage,” says The Supe.

“760 in January,” replies the M-Dogg, “only possible in a very dry January.”

That’s 760 miles. Not kilometers, furlongs, cubits, rods, or whatever the hell it is that Californicators use to measure the distance between organic vineyards and fair-trade java shops. And here I was, cackling over the little 366-mile egg I laid last month, which was even drier here in the Duck! City desert.

“Comparisons are odious,” they say. Ho, ho. When When John Fortescue wrote that shit he was probably on the short end of a miles-gobbling contest with Henry VI, who covered a lot of ground during the Wars of the Roses.

“Better luck next year, Forty old chum! Oh, dear, here comes Edward, with that ‘Oo’ d’ye think is the bloody king around here, mate?’ look on his face. Right, I’m off. …”

Which brings us to this poem from James Crews, “Winter Morning,” from which our headline comes. Unwrap your gift and be grateful for whatever it is you find inside.

A Charles Pelkey live update

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

The GoFundMe that David Stanley set up to help our old pal Charles “Live Update Guy” Pelkey is ticking along nicely, which is more than I can say for the “classic” LUG video up above.

As of 2 p.m. Dog time the fund was at $24,410 — a tip jar that we never could’ve imagined when we were begging for nickels to run Live Update Guy. A thousand thank-yous to everyone who has contributed and/or spread the word about the fundraiser.

Now, give a listen to another old pal, Diane “The Outspoken Cyclist” Jenks, who interviewed David for the most recent episode of her long-running podcast.* You’ll get a better idea of how all this good fellowship came about.

If you haven’t joined the party, here’s a link to CP’s GoFundMe page.

* One minor correction: The cartoon of Charles that accompanies the GoFundMe news Diane and I spread around is not by Your Humble Narrator. It’s by David Brinton, a.k.a. Brintoni, who did such great work illustrating “At the Back” in VeloNews while I was up front pissing on people’s shoes.®

It never rains, but it pours

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments

We got a drive-by from that cloud over by the Sandias.

Thanks to everyone who has dropped a dime in Charles Pelkey’s GoFundMe tip jar.

As of 8:30 a.m. Dog time the fund was approaching $18,000, which as organizer David Stanley notes represents “a phenomenal level of love, affection, and admiration” for our old Live Update Guy pal.

I’ve added a widget to the sidebar for anyone who missed the memo. And it was delightful to see so many former VeloNews types in the list of donors.

Meanwhile, here in The Duck! City this morning we got a wet little kiss on the cheek from the gods; just enough rain to rinse some dust off the cacti. Thank you, sir or madam, may I have another?

I expect Herself and her pal Leslie are glad they canceled their trip to Southern California, where the rain is washing away the dust, the cacti, the hillsides the cacti are rooted to, and damn nearly everything else. Especially since the FAA developed a hitch in its gitalong, an IT failure of some sort that buggered about 4,600 flights.

That’s a surfin’ safari you can keep, is what. Nobody likes this drought, but who wants to hang ten on their front door while rocketing down a diversion channel to the Rio Grande?