Author and former New York Times reporter Tim Egan has apparently visited Bibleburg and observed the splash from the corporate money shot released by the strong right arm of the Roberts court. Here’s hoping he was wearing his raincoat.
Category: Viewing with alarm
$45,000 bike (funeral not included)
Well, he went down down down
And the devil said where you been
He went down down down
He was screamin’ down around the bend
Down down down
This boy went solid down
He was always cheatin’ and he always told lies
He was always cheatin’ and he always told lies
Down down down
This boy went solid down
He went down — “Down, Down, Down,” Tom Waits
Every circus needs a sideshow, and every sideshow needs a freak.
Imagine riding that bad boy at speed along America’s crumbling infrastructure with nothing between you and Allah but a little Lycra. And then go clean yourself up and change your underwear.
Meanwhile, after a month of waiting, Ritchey finally sent me a new fork for the road bike. That’s the good news. The bad news is that this one appears to be defective too. I’m awaiting a final evaluation from the wizards at Old Town, who have logged more time wrenching on these things than I have riding them, but fearing the worst I rang up my old buddy Brent Steelman at Steelman Cycles, and he has graciously agreed to build me a steel road fork with his very own hands.
In the meantime, if you’re riding a Ritchey Comp road fork I’d advise that you have your local shop check the sucker for evil spirits before launching your next Il Falco attack on the local alpine descent. Consider the potential for lower rebirth. You could come back as an Irish-American rumormonger of the cycling persuasion.
The O’Grady Theory of Affordability
Well, baby, what I couldn’t do
With plenty of money and you. — “With Plenty of Money and You,” Count Basie
There’s an old gag about the typical bicycle racer being the kind of guy whose car is worth less than the bike on its roof rack. But y’know, that ain’t all that high a bar to hop anymore.
Check out what one of my colleagues considers to be “performance bikes at prices for real people.” * A $3,000 frameset? A $7,000 ready-to-ride bike? If these are down-to-earth prices, I’m clearly living somewhere around the planet’s core, because the only way I could afford either of those items is if I did my shopping with the old S&W hand cannon instead of a Visa card.
You know what you can get for a hair over $3,000? A 2009 Honda Rebel. That’s right — a fucking motorcycle. Don’t gotta pedal it or nothin’.
Know what you can get for $7,000? A complete, ready-to-ride custom Steelman road bike with an Ultegra build kit — plus a spare frameset in case anything unpleasant happens to the first one.
And for $10,000? You can have my 2005 Subaru Forester. It’s got a Thule roof rack, too, so you can slap a couple $7,000 road bikes up there and fit the profile of the typical bike racer.
In the damp and steamy dreams of the cycling press, anyway.
* The headline has since been changed to something a little more sensible. So we’ve got that going for us.
A midnight dreary
The raven that’s been crapping all over the publications biz came a-tapping, gently rapping, on Bicycle Retailer & Industry News‘ door last Friday. Creative director Erik Haugli, graphic designer Wanda Williams, production manager Ron Bertola and classified sales rep/administrative assistant Stacey Smith all got laid off.
The headline on this news item was “BRAIN Realigns Staff to Boost Efficiency.” Just above it was an item on Cannondale shit-canning 92 people with the hed “Cannondale Completes Bedford Plant Layoffs.” I don’t suppose it feels any better to be realigned than to be laid off. But then I’ve only been laid off, job-wise. I leave the realignments to my chiropractor.
A somber tip of the Mad Dog fedora goes out to these latest casualties of the Great Recession. No journalists were harmed in the making of this realignment. Not yet, anyway.
Of winter and discontent
We enjoyed a beautiful morning today in Bibleburg. There was finally enough snow to shovel, just barely, and the Big Yellow Ball In the Sky took a valiant stab at burning through the clouds that have been hovering overhead for the past few days.
Herself has returned from a sun-splashed weekend in Palm Springs and is very much not amused by the conditions here, especially since she has to drive to the office in Denver shortly. This is not unlike entering a demolition derby held on ice, driving your good car instead of some beater.
Last night, as I was gingerly negotiating the slippery streets en route to the Bibleburg Intergalactic Airport to fetch her home, I saw any number of speeding nitwits piloting two-wheel drive vehicles one-handed while jabbering away on their phones. Why not just stay home and shoot yourself in the head? That way you’re performing a public service instead of being a public menace.
Speaking of public menaces, don’t miss this Mother Jones story on the Oath Keepers, a so-called “patriot” organization whose core is men and women in uniform. You can’t grow up in the military or live where I’ve lived without meeting people like this, and they’re much more frightening than their leftist counterparts, with whom I palled around in my younger, dumber days.
I occasionally consider selling my guns. Then I read a piece like this and check to see whether they’re all still loaded, with extra magazines and speedloaders within easy reach.
Mad Blog Media 