Category: Road trips

Quaddammit

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments

The 36th Mount Taylor Winter Quadradthlon is today.

Don’t look for me in results — it’s been years since I raced the Quad, but I was pretty OK at it a time or two. The bike and run legs, anyway.

Hal’s wife, Mary, and I used to race it as a mixed pair, and we won in 1990, 1992 and 1993.

I was usually in decent shape, being tanned, rested and ready following a long cyclocross season. And Mary was always tip-top, living at altitude up Weirdcliffe way and running around with jackasses, some of them four-legged (ho, ho).

Quadware included Nambé medals and platters.

Hal, of course, did the whole thing solo, which always looked a bit too much like work to me. I was only so-so on snowshoes and an outright hazard on cross-country skis.

This was and remains a toy-heavy pasatiempo, and Hal’s truck would be stuffed to the topper with bikes, wheels, tires, skis, shoes, snowshoes and a ridiculous amount of clothing suited to any and all weather conditions.

Running shoes were augmented with sheet-metal screws in the soles for traction, in case there was ice on the run leg (there usually was).

Clip-on aero bars? Sometimes. Once I used a set of Scott Rakes to good effect, aero bars giving me The Fear on the descent back to Grants.

The bike was usually standard road. In 1990 I was rocking an aluminum Trek 1500 with 53/39 rings and a 13-24 freewheel.

I know I’ve written about the Quad before, but whatever I cranked out is squirreled away on a Zip disk somewhere or in an actual magazine, and I don’t feel like diving down those rabbit holes this morning.

However, I did find a reference to my first Quad in my 1990 training diary, and that reads as follows:

“Big-time pain. I don’t think I’ve felt this bad since I got the shit kicked out of me at Alamogordo last year. Bike leg was slower than I’d hoped for … and my uphill run was fucking awful. Downhill run was better — but not much — and the downhill bike was spiked by the Headwind from Hell.”

Yeah, good times. The Quad will never be the new golf.

• Editor’s note: Hal “Mr. Awesome” Walter notes that I lifted his faux curse “Quadammit” from one of his own works. This explains why a Spotlight search failed to turn it up on any of my hard drives; that, and an admittedly casual approach to petty theft. Give it a read.

A bit of InSight

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments

Well, now that we’ve made a mess of this place, I see we’re scoping out some new real estate.

Mars looks like a fixer-upper to me — “Kansas without the corn,” say mission scientists — so no doubt we’ll get a good price and a hell of an interest rate.

I don’t expect we’ll get the damage deposit back on this rental, though.

Hope the new neighbors are cool. Hey, look, the Welcome Wagon! Ack ack ack!

 

Tanks, but no tanks

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
“Goddamnit, just look at that traffic. I knew we should’ve taken that left turn at Albuquerque.”

More than 41.5 million of us will be traveling this weekend, most of us via suburban battlewagon, according to AAA.

What, you thought they were all taking the electric bus? Brother, have I got a bridge for you.

My man Hal Walter beat an estimated 760,000 of his fellow Coloradans to the exodus, motoring north on Thursday to help his mom celebrate her 80th birthday. But he should meet plenty of them on the way back to Weirdcliffe, especially if he’s late getting to Mile High and Bibleburg, the traditional pinch-points along Interstate 25.

“Plain and simple, people just aren’t worried about pump prices,” said AAA Colorado spokesman Skyler McKinley, who predicted “a busy summer travel season.”

Hm. Maybe so. But Herself and I will be staying put, for this weekend, anyway. Traveling on holidays is like pub-crawling on St. Patrick’s Day — strictly for amateurs.

Thus we will be riding our bikey bikes, and pulling some weeds in the back 40, and listening to the little girls next door squeal as they run through the sprinklers surrounding the nice little bit of lawn that their parents just had installed for their summertime enjoyment.

What are all y’all up to?

California dreamin’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
The mornings are a little cloudier and a little cooler in October.

Green chile stew for dinner. Oatmeal for breakfast.

Oh, yeah: It’s definitely fall in New Mexico.

Reheating the leftovers for Friday-night dinner.

My old newsie pal Merrill stopped by Thursday on the final leg of his move from Noo Yawk City to Santa Rosa. Thus the green chile stew. Merrill was in the mood for Mexican food, but the best beaneries are way over on the north side, and I figured he’d had enough driving for one day (central Oklahoma to the Duke City). So I got out in that kitchen and rattled those pots and pans.

There was some brief discussion of a bike ride. Merrill had a two-wheeler in his rig, but it was a road bike and his shoes were for the mountain variety, and while even I can handle a quick pedal swap, he had the itch to move a little faster and a little farther.

So off he went, bright and early on Friday, ticking off the 830 miles between here and his brother’s house in Simi Valley, California.

Incidentally, if anyone’s in the market for a new ride, Merrill is piloting an AWD Mazda CX-5, which seems to be getting solid reviews from all and sundry (including Merrill). The important thing: You can stuff a bike in the back without removing the front wheel.