Stupor Sunday

February 1, 2009 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

Another month, another gray, chilly morning. February differs from January just how, exactly? Oh, yeah — it’s shorter.

No Yanks atop the podium at the frozen crit the Dutch called ‘cross worlds, though homegirl Katie Compton got the bronze in the women’s race. The men’s race looked like a Belgian team time trial. Memo to UCI: If there’s no mud on your skinsuit and shoes at the finish line, it is not cyclo-cross.

Thirty-six and windy here in Bibleburg, yet my man Dr. Schenkenstein is already out and about, logging miles. At some point he’s bound to turn up on my stoop, wearing everything he owns and calling me a pussy because I like to ease gradually into my Sundays, like a fat man getting into a hot bath. God doesn’t even get up until noon, so I try not to incur His wrath by starting a ride any earlier than 10 a.m. With everything that’s going on in the world I figure He needs all the sleep He can get.

I understand there’s some lesser sporting event taking place today in Tampa. Alas, lacking cable or satellite we will be denied the dubious pleasure of play, commercial, play, commercial, play, commercial. Talk about your ad infinitum. We get ABC, CBS, PBS and suddenly a couple other off-brand digital channels after scoring a flat-panel TV for a joint solstice present. No NBC. And anyway, it’s wrong to watch TV in daylight hours, unless cyclo-cross — real cyclo-cross, with mud, weather and lots of running — is on.

‘It’s a kid’s course’

January 31, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

Your humble narrator in an earlier incarnation, racing at Chatfield. That's a titanium Voodoo Loa with V-brakes, a suspension fork and Zipp wheels. I had delusions of grandeur.

That’s how Dutch junior Lars van der Haar described the course for today’s world cyclo-cross championships. “It’s not cyclo-cross,” said Van der Haar in a post-race chat with VeloNews‘ Charles Pelkey. “Cyclo-cross takes much more than just a fast start. Barriers, mud, more than one run-up … that’s cyclo-cross.”

Got to concur, Lars. I think ‘cross has become a good deal less interesting since the UCI began restricting a promoter’s natural urge to inflict pain and suffering on his customers. Flyovers and beer tents are all very well and good, but l like insane shit like long, gooey run-ups and multiple dismounts to showcase the riders’ skills at getting on and off the bike.

Chris Grealish was the master of that sort of Colorado course design back in the day, when I still raced. I remember courses at Chatfield State Park that included creek crossings, slaloms through the aspens and muddy run-ups so steep that a guy practically had to toss his bike over the top and climb up after it. Snow was good because it covered the goat-heads.

At one race the dump was so deep that the promoter shoveled a short section for a start-finish area, ordered a LeMans-style start with bikes stuffed into a ragged line in the snow, and sent us off for a couple painful laps of mostly running. I think I got second that time, behind the long-legged Mark Lance; it was one of my few respectable results from that time.

In fact, barring 1999, my one solid season, if the course didn’t call for a ton of running, I’d never see the front of the race until the leaders lapped me. So you’ll understand why I like it dirty. No goo, no glory.

Get out the cowbells

January 30, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment

Dry courses and one run-up are for poofs.

‘Cross worlds is upon us, in Boogerhead, Netherlands, or some such exotic locale full of windmills, hash smokers and folks who make money running around wearing perfectly rideable bicycles.

Jonathan Page has gotten the all-clear to race and a spot on the U.S. team, and VeloNews‘ man on the scene, Charles Pelkey, reports cold weather and a dry course. This is bad news for my homegirl Katie Compton, who lives for evil conditions and thinks racing on a clean circuit is one step removed from riding the trainer in the basement.

Bibleburg is an Air Force town, and with a little assist from a C-130 fire bomber full of water and a hotshot pilot we could make the Boogerhead course a good deal more interesting, and probably without killing anybody important.

But I understand that money is tight these days, even for federales with access to printing presses and legit pictures of dead presidents. So we’ll just have to go with “conditions on the ground,” a phrase that should earn the next media cretin to use it a vicious beating with a copy of “The Elements of Style” duct-taped to a Louisville Slugger studded with ten-penny nails.

In any case, come rain, sleet or snow, CP, Graham Watson and VeloNews.com will be all over the sonofabitch like mud on a skinsuit, so don’t touch that dial.

Check this out — you can take a virtual spin around the course. I remember seeing one of these on a bootlegged tape of worlds from a decade or so ago. Still kind of reminds me of the “Money for Nothing” video, but without the rockin’ soundtrack.

Late update: As long as we’re talking about cycling here — a comparative rarity on this site, which is the digital equivalent of a dung-stained wall in some cheapjack zoo’s primate house — USA Today‘s bike guy Sal Ruibal was kind enough to mention Mad Dog Media in a list of top-10 cycling blogs at Blogs.com. So you should pop on over to his place straight away and read him until your eyes cross. Gannett needs the hits.

Greg, honey, is it supposed to be this soft?

January 18, 2009 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

Over at Political Animal Hilzoy delivers a farewell dope-slap to the “petulant lazy frat boy” who turned the Oval Office into Omega house — President George W. Marmalard. Examining his 2000 inaugural address, she notes:

He’s a small, small man, who ought to have spent his life in some honorary position without responsibilities at a firm run by one of his father’s friends. Instead, he ruined our country, and several others besides. He wasted eight years in which we could have been shoring up our economy, laying the groundwork for energy independence, making America a fairer and better country, and truly working to help people around the world become more free. Instead, he debased words that ought to mean something: words like honor, decency, freedom, and compassion.

To this day, I do not think he has the slightest conception of the meaning of the words he took in vain.

To repeat an old gag, he’s a man of few words — he only knows a few. Joe Galloway knows a few more, and he uncorks them with a vengeance here.

Meanwhile, it was another excellent day here in Bibleburg, and I enjoyed a third consecutive day on the cyclo-cross bike. This keeps up, it’ll be almost like training, only slower. And the unseasonable weather is supposed to hold, with temps in the 50s —and even the low 60s — forecast throughout the week.

Today’s ride with Dr. Schenkenstein went north into the Air Force Academy and back, and the contrast with Friday’s ride to Fountain was amazing. South of Woodmen the trail is drier than a popcorn fart. North of there it is a gooey, icy mess, with one particularly evil sheet of damp ice curb to curb on the concrete just before the trail turns to dirt.

On the way out, we both walked it. On the way back, I joked that if Dr. Schenkenstein got high enough on the concrete banking of the drainage channel, he could probably ride it. No sooner said than done. Up the wall he went, coming down just short of clearing the ice entirely, but keeping it up nonetheless. Think about going high on the velodrome, but with the high side to your left instead of your right. Pretty friggin’ impressive for a 50-something guy with a $10,000 deductible on his health-insurance policy.

Hot ‘cross buns

January 1, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment

The fabled Brown Stripe of Cyclo-cross, up the bag and onto the booty.

New Year’s Day. Late arising for some reason. Check the trash for dead soldiers. Christ, it looks like the Battle of Verdun in there. Thank God we had the good sense to leave the sparkling wine corked.

I am in the midst of preparing a massive American breakfast when Dr. Schenkenstein phones to propose cycling somewhere, on ‘cross bikes, within the hour. We can do that. We don’t even need a reason, though breaking fast with a skillet full of eggs, peppers, potatoes and ham after an evening’s debauchery certainly provides one.

Off we roll, me feeling mildly retarded and wildly overdressed. The computer said 47 but those things lie. It’s the usual route, north on the bike path into the Air Force Academy and back, and the warmish weather has yet to completely melt several sheets of ice coating this and that, which makes for some nervous moments, particularly on descents.

My neural network being slightly jangled, I actually walk one of these treacherous pitches, which proves even sketchier than trying to ride it. But I figure I’ll be much slower and closer to the ground if I spaz out, and thus won’t T-bone some iPlodder focused on his playlist in the blind corner at mid-descent.

The rest of the ride unfolds without incident, and once we are into the academy ice gives way to mud and damp sand. Now I have two ‘cross bikes in dire need of cleaning. Happily, I have three more in the rotation before it’s off to the car wash with a bucket, rags and brushes, pockets packed with quarters.