We’ve finally surrendered to the inevitable and turned on the air conditioning at El Rancho Pendejo.
It’s been hot as balls for a while now. And though this morning we awakened to cloudy skies and light rain, before long the sun came out, the wind followed, and boom! Just like that our plans for a long bike ride got red-flagged.
The gabacho sombrero.
Herself opted for a short trail run instead, while I trudged out for an hourlong hike, my running days being more or less over.
One of the downsides of using hiking as a running replacement is that the practitioner is compelled to spend more time outside, where the sun is. And during a four-miler last week I got a bit toasted on the back of the neck, where my Santa Fe School of Cooking ballcap proved of no use whatsoever.
So afterward I popped round to a nearby surplus store, where I scored myself a cheapo Honduran boonie hat to replace the ballcap. And I’ve started knotting a raggedy-ass bandana around my throat, too.
Now I look like every other bewhiskered old gabacho hoofer in the ’hood. Imagine how Carl Spackler might look 40 years after “Caddyshack,” assuming he married well, and you’ll get the picture.
Mister Jones and me tell each other fairy tales on Trail 365.
Summer is leaving a few heat records behind as it lurches toward the off-ramp in a blue shroud of exhaust.
Even the space aliens are fleeing Roswell.
“Right, we’re off! Back to Vulcan, which should feel positively wintry by comparison. Live long and prosper. Or not.”
As I will never be smart, I pulled the Jones down from its hook and went kyoodling around the Elena Gallegos trails under the blazing sun. But there were plenty of other dummies impeding forward progress there, so I headed south for a quick inspection tour of Trails 365 and 365A.
Despite the heat the singletrack was crowded by vegetation, some of it spiky, and I found myself wishing I’d worn high-rise socks and maybe a pair of Kevlar shin guards. Perhaps 365 isn’t getting much use these days; I’ve noticed some similar narrowing of the trail between Candelaria and Comanche during my weekly runs. Makes it hard to spot the buzzworms until you’re right on top of ’em.
After a bit of lunch I went after my own vegetation with lawn mower and weed whacker, further enhancing my reputation for questionable decision-making. I was sweating like a Minnesota farmer in trouble with the bank and thinking seriously about ordering up a gravel truck and/or an airstrike.
At least there aren’t any hurricanes in the forecast. I don’t know that I’d care to surf the diversion channels down to the Rio Grande. I’d rather ride my bike.
Even a faux Canadian like me can appreciate the maple leaf, especially when a whole bunch of them shade the house as the temps inch into the upper 90s.
Sticky out there today. Eighty by the time I finally got out on the bike around 9:30. Much warmer by the time I got back. Much, much warmer.
All praise to the shade tree. It’s enough to make a druid of Franklin Graham.
Neither sealant nor lip balm will keep you rolling after you collect one of these bad boys in your tire.
You know what doesn’t give a shit about whether you have sealant in your tubes?
A big-ass screw, that’s what.
I collected this sonofabitch in the rear tire this morning at the bottom of the Tramway descent, just after I’d crossed under Interstate 25 and hung a left on the Pan American Freeway near Balloon Fiesta Parkway.
I heard a short clatter, then a “tick … tick … tick” that told me I’d picked up a hitchhiker, and so I pulled over to have a look-see.
“Th’ fuck’s this, a thumbtack?” I muttered, and then gave it a tug.
Spooge! Fwissssssssh. Phhbbbllllllllffff.
Seriously, it was like one of those volcano projects from junior high. Or Bluto’s zit imitation in “Animal House.”
And of course, it had to be the rear tire, on the Co-Motion Divide Rohloff, so called for the Rohloff hub on (wait for it) the rear wheel.
What are the chances of picking up something like this in a bicycle tire? If you’re me, 100 percent.
Did I mention the Gates belt? Yeah, it has one of those, too.
I don’t know that I’ve ever had to deal with a flat of any kind on this bike, which is a testament to its Geax AKA 29 x 2.0 tires. But this fucking screw might’ve given even Superman a hitch in his gitalong if he ever happened to be afoot in Albuquerque.
As I was, on a scorching Sunday morning, hoofing it along the shoulder of the Pan American, looking for a shady spot and trying to remember how to remove and replace the rear wheel on a Rohloff/Gates-equipped bike, a chore I last performed in a workstand at Chez Dog in Bibleburg back in … 2012?
Lucky me, I found a bus bench with a sun shade at Balloon Fiesta Parkway. And then I set about rooting through the ol’ mental hard drive.
Lessee here: Shift into 14th gear. Break out a nickel to loosen the thumbscrew holding the cable box to the hub. Remove the cable box. Open the quick-release lever. Remove the wheel. Bingo.
The bus bench had a convenient trash can that made an excellent workstand to hold the bike while I swapped tubes (just affix rear dropouts to rim of can).
Reinstalling the wheel proved a tad more challenging. Unlike a chain, a Gates belt isn’t a greasy mess. But it kept wanting to hop off the crank or the sprocket as I tried to mate hub with dropouts and brake rotor with calipers. Lacking a hammer, I was compelled to employ patience, which is always in short supply among the Irish.
After a few tries, the belt surrendered, I closed the QR, snapped the cable box back into place, screwed it down finger-tight in case I lost my nickel at the casino on the way back, and hey presto! I had all 14 gears and a slightly soft rear tire (about 30 psi, as it turned out, despite my best efforts with my thousand-year-old Blackburn minipump). That was enough to get home.
And a good thing, too, ’cause I only had the one spare tube. One more flat and it was the patch kit for Your Humble Narrator.
Don’t let the clouds fool you. That’s steam boiling off my bald noggin.
Seventy-one at 5 a.m. No, not me, the temperature.
And that’s outside, mind you. In the office, it’s 78.
We have at least three days of the roast-a-rama ahead, so it’s ride early or not at all. Hunker down in the air conditioning like we did as kids at Randolph AFB outside San Antone. You were either marinating in poisons and pee at the O-club pool or camped out in front of the Fedders window unit, playing Monopoly. Venture outside and you’d sink into the tarry streets like a dinosaur at La Brea, later to mystify alien archaeologists.
The God of the Tar People, discovered when a skeleton was unearthed by Vulcan archaeologists sometime in the distant future. Historical note: Like many a cartoonist, F.O. Alexander got stiffed for his work drawing characters for Monopoly.
“Chlorine must have been an essential nutrient for these semiaquatic creatures. And their god appears to have been this fellow with the archaic headgear and outlandish facial hair, who seems possessed of astonishing wealth.”
The Masi Speciale Randonneur review for Adventure Cyclist has been shipped, as has the August cartoon for Bicycle Retailer. I’m been thinking not very hard about an episode of Radio Free Dogpatch, but it seems podcasts are so 15 minutes ago, just like blogs. Or phrases like “so 15 minutes ago.”
In other news, Ginger Hitler has taken his song-and-dance routine to another Nuremberg rally, where he debuted a new three-syllable chant (he’s a man of few words, which is to say he only knows a few). A new low? Not for long, according to Kevin Drum at MoJo.
And finally, Le Shew Bigge is heading into the Pyrenees, just in time for Zoom-Zoom Froome — who is absent while recovering from a nasty pre-Tour get-off — to be named champion of the 2011 Vuelta a España after Juan José Cobo rang the Dope-O-Meter®.
Yes, that’s 2011. We’re not all the way back to 1934 yet, but we certainly seem headed in that direction.
Mad Blog Media 