Category: Viewing with alarm

You can’t spell ‘OMG’ without ‘GM’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 29 Comments

A tip of the salt-stained Mad Dog Campy cap goes out to the League of American Bicyclists for taking note of GM’s latest ad aimed at luring college kids even deeper into debt by adding “discount” new-car payments to their student-loan tabs.

“Stop pedaling … start driving.” Really? Jesus. I know the corporate ideal is to keep us fat, stupid and up to the hubs in debt, but could we try being a little less obvious about it, GM? I’m surprised your ad agency didn’t slap a big set of tits on that car. They’re implied, of course, by the sneering bimbo in the passenger seat, which is about as subtle as slapping a giant schlong on the grill of an Escalade. F-minus.

Just what every undergrad needs, right? Instead of a fashionable fixie and backpack — retail cost, oh, what, next to nothing? — s/he can take advantage of a “college discount” on a pick-’em-up truck that sells for $22,000 to $48,000, depending upon options, and gets 12-15 mpg city and 18-22 highway.

Sounds like just the thing. Upon graduation, our young GM owner can live in the truck, staying one step ahead of the repo man, until s/he runs out of gas. Then it’s either Mom and Dad’s basement or a Sally Ann tent under the bridge with the rest of the liberal-arts BAs.

• Late update: GM caves to velo-outrage, pulls ad.

The VeloHerd thins

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 29 Comments

It took a while for the word to filter down to the cycling press, but it seems that even a blind dog finds a Milk-Bone now and then — Bicycle Retailer and Industry News reports today that John Wilcockson and Charles Pelkey both got the heave-ho last week from Velo (formerly VeloNews) and VeloNews.com. They followed Velo editor in chief Ben Delaney out the door shortly after the 2011 Tour de France wrapped. Ben was not pushed; he jumped.

I’m not a staffer with Velo or VeloNews.com; never have been. I’m a free-lancer — an “independent contractor,” in the parlance of our times — and my contract with San Diego-based Competitor Group Inc., now the owner of Velo, VeloNews.com and a number of other publications and events, bars me from discussing any “confidential information” that I may come across in the course of doing my little bit of business with the company.

Given that the information about the sacking of John and Charles has become generally known — throughout the industry, anyway, via BRAIN, for whom I also perform my one-ring circus act  — I no longer feel compelled to refrain from discussing it, albeit with some circumspection. Like John, Charles and Ben, I have bills to pay.

John has covered more than 40 Tours and Christ only knows how many other races in his years with VeloNews and other publications. He is a walking, talking VeloHistory book, so crucial to the chronicling of the sport that I even forgive him for having been born a Limey instead of an Irishman. He and the original Trio — the other two being David Walls and Felix Magowan — hired me as a cartoonist in ’89, and the work that they and editor Tim Johnson kicked my way when I quit my last newspaper job in 1991 helped keep food on the table, beer in the fridge and the wolf from the door.

Charles, in his 17 years with the company, not only covered a ton of races, he became a respected authority on cycling’s governance, the abuse of performance-enhancing drugs and the arcane testing/appeals process. He wrote a popular online column, “The Explainer,” and assembled a worldwide audience of devoted fans who attended his live updates from the Tour and other events as if they were papal addresses from St. Peter’s Square.

The silly sod also routinely got up at 3 a.m. to post cycling news from Europe. You might get me up at that hour to face a firing squad, but probably not. “Fuck it, just shoot me here. Bring me a cup of coffee first. And a newspaper. And Elle MacPherson. Not necessarily in that order.”

Charles and are old pals who tag-teamed the VeloNews.com op’ for a lot of years, and I always worked the late shift, because I was not born a German and have no children to interrupt my sleep. Being old newspaper guys, we have the sort of professional relationship that lets us shout “Fuck you!” at each other without anyone’s feelings getting permanently hurt.

I’d say we’ll miss these guys, but that seems kind of obvious.

Keep your fingers crossed

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

Longtime friends of the DogS(h)ite Khal Spencer and his wife, Meena, are among the residents of Los Alamos forced from their homes by the Las Conchas Fire.

They had stayed put Sunday despite a voluntary evacuation order, but this morning Khal told me via e-mail that ash was raining down on their house. A few hours later he sent a brief note: “Outa here: Mandatory evacuation. Talk to you soon. I hope.” He’s been blogging about the fire at Los Alamos Bikes, but I expect updates will be few and far between as they get themselves and their critters to safety.

So, like the headline says, keep your fingers crossed — not just for Khal and Meena, but for all the other folks dodging fiery bullets down there in New Mexico. And I’ll keep you posted.

Fire in the hole

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

We’ve been getting a taste of burning Arizona timber lately thanks to the Wallow Fire, which at last glance had scorched more than 120,000 acres near the Arizona-New Mexico border.

Could be worse, I suppose. We could be living in the path of the sonofabitch, which shows no signs of petering out thanks to high winds and a wealth of fuel. Or we could still be living in Santa Fe, which has been seeing ash fall from that fire and four homegrown conflagrations.

Come to think of it, it wouldn’t take much to set Bibleburg alight. It’s been drier than a popcorn fart here, so much so that local officials are conducting fire drills, and as you know we are not exactly lacking for small hat sizes. A smoldering butt flicked out of an SUV window, an unattended campfire or a live-fire exercise gone wrong at Fort Cartoon and we won’t have to worry about those beetle-killed pines anymore.

 

Fuel for the fire

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments
Jamis Aurora Elite
The Jamis Aurora Elite, rigged for heavy touring. I've been riding this for a couple of weeks now. I'd tell you about it, but then the folks at Adventure Cyclist magazine would have to kill you.

Again with the hysterical gas-prices stories. The difference in this latest run-up, says analyst Trilby Lundberg, is that the national average price of $3.765 would be even higher had refiners and retailers passed on rising crude-oil prices to consumers, who already seem reluctant to put that tiger in their tanks as the mythical $4-per-gallon ceiling looms like a windshield full of oncoming Peterbilt with a full load of live pigs and a drunk, texting driver who doesn’t realize that he’s drifted across the yellow line into oncoming traffic.

“Demand has been falling at these prices,” Lundberg told the Reuters news agency.

I bet. If you don’t have a job — anyone remember the unemployment figures? You know, the story that kinda-sorta mattered before deficits, gas prices and The Donald sucked all the metaphorical oxygen out of the virtual pressroom? — a tank of gas must look like a bottle of Cristal champagne; too rich for your tastes.

But if cash-strapped drivers are buying less gas, how are they getting from point A to point B? Driving hybrids? Scooters? Bicycles? Skateboards? Hush Puppies?

Being biased, I’d like to think “bicycles.” It’s spring, and the weather is improving — well, as much as a Coloradan can expect in April, anyway — and suddenly that two-mile commute from the family seat to the cube farm looks doable on two wheels.

But can the typical Chubbo-American too pinched to buy gas afford the kind of bikes my people sell, or even look at them without hearing their dads, long dead of heart disease, liver failure and homophobia, calling them gay? Are they gonna trade in the family battlewagon for a couple of gaudy plastic-fantastics with saddles shaped like designer perfume bottles and wheels that look like the rings of Saturn? Will they spring for the reasonably priced, sensible machinery like the bikes I’ve been reviewing for Adventure Cyclist magazine?

Frankly, I have no idea. But, ever the optimist, I keep envisioning a graphic depicting the Descent of Motorist — from SUV to small car to hybrid to motorcycle to scooter to pawn-shop bicycle to Keds.

I’ve always been able to find that dark cloud surrounding the silver lining.*

* And yes, I know those front panniers should be swinging lower than an old man’s testicles over the toilet, but I didn’t have a low-rider rack that would work with disc brakes.