Bike wash

October 7, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

Not a great photo, but it gave me the idea for the headline, so … winning?

Ah, October in Duck!Burg. The temps have dropped, the rain has stopped, and the streets are alive with the cars of eejits.

I enjoyed a near miss on a fast descent the other day. I was braking (and signaling) for a left turn when a motorist halfway-rolls the stop sign at the street I planned to enter, glancing only to her left.

Well, shit. I’ve seen this movie and I don’t like the ending. Couldn’t turn in front of her, as I could have had she yielded the right of way at the stop sign. And I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of ripping the turn on her right side, because while she appeared to be about halfway into a left turn I couldn’t see if she had the left blinker on. The right most definitely was not on. And nobody in this town uses their turn signals anyway, not even the cops.

So I hit the binders, come to a stop, and shout “HEY!”

Well, then she saw me, if the deer-in-the-headlights look she pasted on her face was any indication. I was signaling my turn, wearing bright colors, and rocking a bright headlight as per usual, but if you don’t fucking look at me you won’t see any of that Sammy Safety shit.

I’m not big on driver education, what with everyone being armed these days, so rather than doing a war dance in my broken-down old Sidis I settled for the Universal Headshake of Disappointment — left, right, left, mmm, hmm, hmm, you stupid, stupid motorist — and went about my business. A cyclist has to keep the Third Eye wide open and way out on its stalk in these parts. Periscope up!

Speaking of feckin’ eejits, early voting began yesterday and we’re looking forward to receiving our ballots via uniformed federal employee and casting the moneychangers out of the national temple.

Unlike the Swamp Thing besmirching the Oval Orifice with its wet Mickey D’s farts we do not vote by mail, we just get our ballots that way. Then we fill them out at the kitchen table, screeching blasphemies as though the candidates were dumbass motorists rolling stop signs.

“Yeah, fuck you! Eat shit and die! That’s right! Go get a job in the private sector, you Brooks Brothers butt-kisser! Oh, wait, you can’t, because the private sector expects results! Boom! Now, piss off! Die, die, die!”

Etc.

Then we walk our ballots up to the neighborhood polling place and thank the workers for their service.

This year the herd-thinning process will be a breeze because anyone still claiming to be a Republican after two years of Swamp Thing v2.0 is not only a taco short of a combo plate but a clear and present danger to what little remains of the Republic. Christ knows the Democrats are bad enough.

But we don’t want to be hollering like that at our polling place. We don’t want to frighten any fainthearted types from the other team who may be coming, however belatedly, to their senses. The Republic needs all the help it can get.

Home with the armadillo

October 1, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments

My people were most definitely not Texans, but we dug “¡Viva Terlingua!” all the same.

A story about Luckenbach, Texas, Hondo Crouch, and Jerry Jeff Walker in The Guardian sent me on a little spin down Memory Lane over coffee this morning.

Maybe it’s the Londonesque weather we’ve been enjoying:

Well, it’s cold over here, and I swear
I wish they’d turn the heat on. — Gary P. Nunn, “London Homesick Blues”

October could get chilly in the college cowtown of Greeley, Colo., too, which is where The Mombo Club-El Rancho Delux crew mostly played the mortal shit out of Jerry Jeff’s “¡Viva Terlingua!” album and once saw “Scamp” Walker Hisself perform live, loud, and knee-walking drunk at the University of Northern Colorado:

Sure does like his Falstaff beer
Likes to chase it down with that Wild Turkey liquor
Drives a ’57 GMC pickup truck
Got a gun rack
“Goat ropers need love too” sticker. — Ray Wylie Hubbard, “Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother”

Maybe it’s the sudden realization that it was 50 years ago when, after more than a few Falstaffs of my own, a 20-watt bulb blinked to sputtering life in my hairy head: “Holy hell, I think I’m gonna have enough credits to graduate come spring. …”

And before you could sing a verse of “Gettin’ By” I was off to the rat races. Cage-liners, bike mags, and blogs, O my!

Don’t matter how you do it
They say, “Just do it like you know it,”
And I’ve been down this road once or twice before. … — Jerry Jeff Walker, “Gettin’ By”

Cool!

September 19, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

More rain, which, yay. And sunshine this morning, which, likewise.

It’s pleasant upon awakening to reach for socks instead of sunscreen. And to have nodded off to a stout rain backed by thunder! Lightning! And the rest of that Eddie Floyd-Steve Cropper lyric, too.

We basically got an entire September’s worth of precip’ in the past 48 hours. Morning temps are in the 50s. HVAC/irrigation systems are on pause.

As is cycling. I was feeling a bit overtrained, though I’m not training for anything. So I’ve spent the past few days being a pedestrian, either running or walking the local trails network.

Anyway, just because I have three bikes with fenders — hold on, make that four, just outfitted the Double Cross yesterday — doesn’t necessarily mean I want to use ’em.

Because next it will be knickers, and then arm warmers, and before you know it — winter!

Let’s get past fall first. Whaddaya say?

Awk!tober

October 1, 2024October 1, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

Ninety-three yesterday as the last day of September dragged its sweaty arse into the National Weather Service record books.

Anyone who got out early yesterday had nothing to complain about. Come to think of it, anyone who got out late, well, likewise.

The Rio wasn’t snaking its way up the drainage channels to snatch up our kinfolk, pets, and proud-ofs. We are light on natural disasters here at the moment, barring the odd pedestrian getting run over by three (!) vehicles, one woman going after another with an ax, and the city council considering guidelines for artificial intelligence, when the real thing seems to be in such short supply.

We may have a spot of wind that will set us to dashing around the foothills chasing our lawn furniture, which we have not been using because mosquitos, which will be chasing us around the foothills, and so on and so on and scooby-dooby-doo-bee.

At least it gets you out in the open air. Like crucifixion.

Meanwhile, a former colleague at Bicycle Retailer and Industry News reports that he and the fam’ are OK in Black Mountain, N.C., save for the lack of “water, internet, cell coverage or landline.” They have a propane generator that supplies electricity — as long as the propane lasts — and while driving is impossible due to downed trees and flooded roads, cycling is not. Stay high and dry, Dean.

Another former bike-industry bro in South Carolina says via text that he too is rocking a generator for power. The water is on, and he has plenty of grub, but the gas “is a bit tricky” and “cold showers suxxxx.” Word, TC.

The Shit Monsoon. They say the job isn’t over until the paperwork is done, and this one took more than the one roll.

I’ve only ever been a spectator at this sort of thing. Back in the late Seventies I got yanked off the Gazette copy desk to help cover the aftermath of a freak tornado that walloped Manitou Springs. And in Colorado we had to keep an eye peeled for fires.

One within eyesight of our shack in CrustyTucky had me scouting a back way off our one-road hillside. Another in Bibleburg had us taking in refugees.

Lucky for us, the worst we ever had to deal with was the occasional four-foot snowfall, power outages, and the fabled Shit Monsoon of song and story.

That was pretty crappy (rimshot). About like having a circus elephant with a crook gut let fly in the basement. But at least we still had power, water, and food … though our appetites were not up to snuff for a while.

I mean, c’mon. The place smelled like canned farts.

• Meanwhile, speaking of shitstorms, it’s been a while since I thumbed through the Book of Revelation, but it seems The New York Times is reprinting it in modern lingo.

March in October

October 25, 2021 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments

“Hup, hoop, hreep, horp … hey, where’d that senile old fool get off to now?”

I’ve been neglecting my footwork lately, so I left the bikes on their hooks yesterday and took a hike.

Herself thought this a fine idea and joined me, setting a brutal pace as per usual. I had to take a picture just so I could remember what she looked like in case some good Samaritan happened upon me as I lay collapsed in a weepy heap at trailside.

“Have you wandered away from the Home, old timer? Mind if I rummage through your pockets? You won’t need the wallet; the coyotes don’t take Visa, and they sure as shit won’t honor this UnitedHealthcare card. Say, you don’t have a keeper somewhere nearby, do you?”

“Yes (sob) … she looks like this.”

“Oooh, iPhone, cool, I’ll take that too.”