And the news? Oy. Don’t get me started on the friggin’ news. It seems to have boiled down to @infinite_scream on Twitter, as interpreted by the band Disaster Area from “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”
But I gotta admit, the way The New York Times arranged this news nugget on its homepage made me smile.
We used to have a saying in my biz: “Never fuck with anyone who buys ink by the barrel.” It may no longer apply, but we can always hope, amirite?
“He’s done it again. It’s coming up. It’s coming up.”
The only thing I have in common with Ernest Hemingway* is that occasionally I find myself at a loss for words.
Then I remind myself, as he reminded himself in “A Moveable Feast”: “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now.”
And so I have: The Bicycle Retailer column is finally in the can. Next, the “Shop Talk” cartoon, also for BRAIN, followed by the Specialized Sequoia review for Adventure Cyclist.
Jaysis. Some days, the writing, it goes smooth like butta.
And some days, it goes more like shitting broken bottles into a flaming toilet. Something of a pain in the keister, is what.
This is the grotesquely scenic route toward explaining the recent dearth of bloggery in these environs. With mots of the bon variety proving elusive I felt compelled to corral the few I was able to catch, hoping eventually to assemble them into a remuda of paying copy.
Nix.
Notions kept arising with malicious intent, like Martin Sheen surfacing in the lagoon en route to snuffing Marlon Brando in “Apocalpyse Now.” False paths with bad endings. Curiously shaped bricks that, while fascinating in their own right, didn’t quite fit in the wall.
Gah.
Also, it snowed. One of those obnoxious, featherweight snows that, coupled with a stiff north wind, basically glazes a steep, north-facing driveway like a cop’s donut if the homeowner is distracted by journalism and forgets to clear it first thing.
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeyit.
While all this was going on I was striving mightily to avoid the actual news, which, wow, talk about your false paths and bad endings. The road goes ever on and on. Here be dragons. This way to the Dark Side. Thus I shunned The New York Times and NPR in order to remain blissfully ignorant and focused on the task at hand, viz., to wit, earning the meager handful of coppers I require to purchase my common groats and lentils.
And now I believe I need a break from all that. It’s the weekend, f’chrissakes. The toilet will still be on fire come Monday morning.
ALBUQUERQUE (MDM) — There must be something to all that vortex talk about Sedona. Something was definitely sucking there on Saturday. Mostly the drive in, down Oak Creek Canyon, on what should have been a beautiful fall afternoon.
I suppose if you have to be trapped in a traffic jam there are worse places for it. I had just left one of them, Las Vegas (“Gateway to Bankruptcy and Repossession”), and was glad of it, too.
Still, you expect all manner of inconvenience in Sin City. Sedona bills itself as “The Most Beautiful Place On Earth In So Many Ways,” but this linear parking lot was not one of them.
Right behind me were a couple little yos in a red Kia getting their smoke on, their rap music polluting the air nearly as badly as the conga line of cars. (Pro tip: A red Kia is not “gangsta.”)
Up front, a sign proclaimed “Speed Reduced Ahead.” Not possible, I thought, glancing at my speedometer, which was flirting with zero. This made driving through Taos on Memorial Weekend look like barreling down I-25 between Raton and Wagon Mound at 3 in the morning. At least nobody was hollering or honking.
I hadn’t been to Sedona in years, and I wouldn’t see much of the new-and-improved version this trip. After inching through town to my hotel, I slouched over to the inevitable Whole Paycheck, bought a mess of juice, salami, cheese and crackers, and slouched back. Thusly fortified, I reclined on a chaise lounge at poolside and set about enjoying the comparative peace and quiet of the bubbling hot tub after the clangor and din of the Luxor-Mandalay Bay Dante Alighieri Memorial Circles of Hell (Two Through Four Inclusive).
Rub-a-dub in the hot tub! Or right next to it, anyway (yes, I eventually got in).
Just about then a couple wanders in and of course they are in a mood to chat, having just come from the annual Sedona Winefest. He was a copper miner from Globe-Miami, and she was a phys-ed teacher and coach … who just happened to have cycled with a trailer from Canada to Mexico and was a member of the Adventure Cycling Association.
(“Cue “It’s a Small World After All.” Everybody sing!)
Anyway, they told me that on any given weekend Sedona was pretty much as I had already seen it, and so bright and early the next morning I arose, loaded the Subaru and got the hell out of Dodge. Vortex. Whatever. I took the back door through the hamlet of Oak Creek, which allowed me to use fifth gear and my inside voice.
I made it back to Duke City and El Rancho Pendejo in time for a light dinner and a short walk with Herself and Mister Boo. Turkish and Mia bestirred themselves, albeit briefly. (“Oh, you were gone? We hadn’t noticed.”) We enjoyed a beautiful sunset and an early bedtime.
All this peace and quiet will be shattered by tonight’s debate and the subsequent spinning of same, of course. Some vortexes suck more than others.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. (MDM) — Ah, so this is what it’s like to have a job. Toting that barge and lifting that bale from sunrise to dark-thirty, lots of bad noise, and no time to play with the old blogaroo.
There’s a new sheriff in town at Adventure Cyclist — Nick Legan, once a top wrench on the racing circuit who went bad and signed on as tech editor for some Boulder-based cycling mag, and then for us — and frankly, the man is a slave driver, marching us around the Interbike floor like maggots at Parris Island (copy coordinator Dan Meyer, another addition, actually did five years in the Marines, but that’s another story).
As a result we have seen things — many, many of them — and more than a few are suited to the adventure-cycling crowd. Seems the industry has finally discovered what the Adventure Cycling Association folks have been all about for, oh, four decades now. Who knew?
Expect a review of the Moots Baxter (not from me, call the waaaaambulance). “Think mountain-bike capabilities in a mountain-cross build,” says the marketing copy, and it’s named for a dog. Plus it’s a Moots. This is all you need to know.
Also looking good are the Adventure Series bikes from Masi. We looked at but did not review the 2016 Giramondo, but it’s in the hopper for 2017. The Speciale Randonneur looks good, too.
Appearances can be deceiving: While there were times when the show floor seemed busy, overall I’d guess attendance is down, and I’m not the only professional pessimist out there.
For some reason the Bombtrack bikes didn’t grab me when I first saw them online, but they’re mighty sharp in MeatWorld, especially the Beyond.
Marin, which did such a fine job last year with the Four Corners Elite, is back for more this year with a wide range of adventure-capable machines, from that Four Corners to the insanely affordable Nicasio.
Also priced to move: Breezer’s Radar Pro. The colors are a bit loud for a subtle fashionista like me, but it’s hard to complain about the price.
The fine folks at Panaracer have plenty of adventurous tires (check out the Gravel King SK); Ortlieb has moved into bikepacking gear; and … and … and I’m sure there’s more to report, but right now I need some breakfast and then it’s off to the show for the final day of Interbike 2016.
• Thought of the Day: Is everyone who works at Rí Rá really Irish or are they putting us on? Seriously, it sounds like “The Commitments” in there. It’ll break me heart if it turns out they’re all from Jersey or Iowa and just takin’ the piss.
OK, it’s been a long week.
Mad Blog Media 