The scene outside the passenger window near Wagon Mound, N.M.
SANTA FE, N.M. (MDM) — I arose this morning to partly cloudy skies and images of my old friend Jennifer Buntz on the TV, discussing some bikey issue on KOB-TV out of Albuquerque.
I chose to regard both of these developments as good omens, having left Bibleburg under threatening skies and surfed a couple of gully-washers en route to The City Different, the traditional first stop on the Road To Mandalay (Bay). It’s still raining back home, Herself confirmed this morning.
I expected more of the same in Santa Fe, but managed to sneak in a quick soak and steam under the clouds at Ten Thousand Waves, poaching the editorial kinks out of my moth-eaten carcass.
All my usual dinner haunts are closed on Sundays, so I grabbed some disgustingly healthy grub from Whole Paycheck and took a brief assay of what was on the electrical babble box. Not much. I can’t believe people pay American money to watch this shit. I likewise gave myself a day away from the Innertubes, being weary of that particular monsoon, too.
This morning it’s an overdue dose of green chile at Tia Sophia’s and then off to Flagstaff. See you along the road.
Did I miss anything? I was feeling beat, pissy and unfunny and decided to toddle off for a high cranial colonic, the mental equivalent of a radiator flush. Lord, how that corrosion does build up.
While at large I ignored the news, the Innertubes and pretty much everything else save steering the old two-wheeler around, eating, and watching lots of TV like reg’lar folks. I can recommend the new Louis C.K. standup, “Oh My God.”“Prometheus,” not so much.
In short, I spent the week not being me, which can be curiously refreshing. Tomorrow I’ll put on a freshly reddened rubber nose. Now, please, everyone, lock your wigs, let the air out of your shoes and prepare yourselves for a period of simulated exhilaration. Welcome to … The Future!
One of the downsides of spending 22 years working solo in a home office, besides not being able to get a gig at Yahoo!, is that one tends to take on attributes of those lost tribes National Geographic is forever un-losing, or the Japanese soldiers jungled up on various Pacific islands who never got the word about the emperor’s surrender.
Outsiders are suspicious characters, their fabulous tales not to be given credence. And should they drag you from your village or spider hole toward what they deem “civilization,” you may expect to contract smallpox, TB or the clap. Better to make pincushions of the foreigners with blowgun darts and shrink their heads, or fillet them with a katana and get back about your business.
The Boo Glissando is a concept townie that marries a bamboo laminate with titanium.
Which is the long way around to saying, yes, I was compelled to attend the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Denver, where I was put on display by the white devils, and all I came away with was a massive tab for docking my Subaru Outrigger and a medium-heavy case of Snotlocker Surprise.
In all fairness, I wasn’t exactly dragged. Having missed last year’s NAHBS, I was determined to take in the Denver edition, if only because I wouldn’t have to depend on United Airlines to get me there.
But I was planning to attend mostly for kicks. I didn’t count on being shanghaied into helping judge the 2013 NAHBS Awards, filling in for the absent Patrick Brady of Red Kite Prayer. This was not unlike inviting a Jivaro headhunter to stand in for Len Goodman on “Dancing With the Stars.”
So I had to get there way too early for a daylong refresher course on how little I know about the velocipede, and if you were one of the losers who came away empty-handed, award-wise, well, I can only say that it wasn’t my fault. It was those other guys. My judicial pronouncements were limited to the usual half-witticisms, like “I’d ride the shit out of that one if someone gave it to me,” “That belongs on a wall with a frame around it,” or “I can see taking that thing into your average shop for a tuneup and finding out afterward that the mechanics all hanged themselves.”
This last really has to be seen up close to be believed, as photos don’t do it justice. Rob English is a time trialist, a two-time winner of the Oregon state championship, and his considerable talent and ingenuity were clearly focused by his love for the discipline.
Once we’d wrapped up the awards, I took another refresher course, this one in bullshitting. It’s easy to bullshit over the Innertubes or in a magazine column, but improvising chin music on the fly takes practice, which I was out of. So I spent the rest of the show chatting up a number of old friends and colleagues, and that’s probably how I contracted the Snotlocker Surprise.
BIBLEBURG, Colorado (MDM) — Meanwhile, back at the ranch … Herself and I went out to dinner at Nosh to celebrate the return of the prodigal. (The prodigal was hungry after 144.6 miles of cycling in three days and there was nothing to eat at the ranch.)
My old Cateye computer developed a partial paralysis somewhere between Pueblo and home, but the mileage is right; I just lost elapsed time and average speed, neither of which were worth bragging about.
That final leg from the Pueblo Hampton north is a real hodgepodge of terrain. It starts with a couple of streets that have no business existing, were it not for a couple of underused strip malls, then segues into a few miles of Interstate 25 before veering east at the defunct Piñon Truck Stop onto a stretch of what the old hands would call “heavy road” — a rough, rolling chip-seal frontage road that may be the remnants of the old Highway 85/87.
After the rest area another short run on I-25 takes you underneath and across to the west side of the interstate, and that’s the last you see of the sonofabitch — before you know it you’re on Old Pueblo Road, which leads to Fountain, the Front Range Trail, and blessed freedom from infernal combustion until just a half-dozen blocks from Chez Dog.
Now I’m typing with the right hand while the Turk’ sprawls across my lap and onto my left hand. You may recall the tale of the wise man who cut off the sleeve of his garment rather than disturb a sleeping kitten — well, the Turk’ is no kitten, and better to surrender aspects of one’s keyboard than to lose one’s left hand.
I may not be wise, but I’m not exactly stupid, either.
PUEBLO, Colo. (MDM) — It’s hard to know what to make of all the traffic on Highway 50 between Cañon City and Pueblo. We could chalk it up to unemployment, but then how do all these people afford the gas?
Day two of my self-propelled getaway began with a free breakfast at the Hampton followed by a five-mile ride to the AT&T store for iPhone surgery. A very helpful young lady showed me how to reseat the SIM card using a paper clip (my preferred tool is a ball-peen hammer, but different strokes, etc.).
It was cool, in the lower 40s, with a brisk wind out of the east, so I made a few itinerary changes on the fly. I skipped a second visit to Dakota Hot Springs, reasoning that poaching my thighs just 10 miles into a 50-mile day might not be smart. And I likewise gave a miss to Lake Pueblo and the western stretch of the Arkansas River Trail, because Pueblo West has changed some since last I cycled through there and I didn’t feel like getting lost in some prairie-dog town hunting the trail. So I stayed on Highway 50 to Pueblo Boulevard, hung a right, and picked up the trail just west of City Park.
Despite the chill there were plenty of fishermen working the river — one of them in shorts — and quite a few folks either walking or cycling the trail, which beat the mortal nuts off Highway 50 in terms of traffic/noise volume.
I left the trail at Main Street and hung a left over to Union for lunch at the Hopscotch Bakery. Dismounting and walking the bike through a crosswalk I narrowly avoided getting center-punched — by a cop car! I gave the bluesuit the stinkeye, which is always a bad idea in P-town as these guys like to tase you before they shoot you. But still, damn.
If you’re ever in Pueblo make sure to visit Hopscotch and its brother op’, Bingo Burger. Locally owned, great food, better people.
The final leg of the day was up Main through Mineral Palace Park, over to Elizabeth and north to another Hampton (free stay, free breakfast, what’s not to like?).
Today it’s back home to Bibleburg on what looks to be the chilliest of my three days on the road. It’s just 28 at 8:40 a.m., so it may be checkout time before I actually check out. No need to hurry — some of today’s finale involves short stretches of Interstate 25, and I’d like to hit that sweet spot between hungover motorists driving to work and drunken motorists heading back home.
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