Category: Viewing with alarm

Sys-tem failures

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
Now there's a Mavic wheel for ya: Open Pro rims, stainless-steel DT spokes and Dura-Ace Hubs. And the only thing cracked, broken or bent is the sumbitch ridin' it.
Now there's a Mavic wheel for ya: Open Pro rims, stainless-steel DT spokes and Dura-Ace hubs. And the only thing cracked, broken or bent is the sumbitch ridin' it.

I don’t want to turn this site into a poor imitation of the DrunkCyclist “Biker down” series, but you really should check out this article by VeloNews editor in chief Ben Delaney — especially if you’re riding a Mavic R-Sys wheelset (even a post-recall version). He had a post-recall front wheel explode underneath him during a race and took a header, breaking his shoulder.

Ben and I have always ridden Mavic wheels, and will continue to do so — but only steel-spoked models. For years the wheel of choice around here was the Excel Sports Cirrus, a pair of 32-hole Open Pros laced to Dura-Ace hubs with DT spokes. That wheel has been replaced by the Nimbus, which uses Ultegra hubs, but I’m still riding my old Cirrus wheelsets on two ‘cross bikes. Nary a broken spoke in many a bumpy mile.

I also like the Neuvation wheels — I have a pair of R28 SL3s on my road bike, and they’ve been rock-solid (plus the prices are killer, especially right now).

• John Crandall update: Kathy Crandall reports that John had a good day yesterday — pain under control with medication and “lots of physical therapy,” including a device similar to a recumbent bicycle. “In occupational therapy he got to take a shower … first one in 11 days,” she adds. I’ll bet that felt good.

• One less psycho on the roads: And finally, the driver who killed two Colorado Cyclist employees is in the hoosegow for three years. Barbara Thomas was stoned on prescription morphine and barbituates and driving without her glasses when she swerved her 1986 F-350 into a pack of cyclists at 26th Street and Westend Avenue, killing Jayson Kilroy, 28, and Edgar “E.J.” Juarez, 30.

Police reportedly said Thomas had been shoplifting at the Safeway on West Colorado Avenue and clipped a man’s car in the parking lot before driving off toward the fatal collision. She also had quite the rap sheet — an outstanding summons for a hit-and-run two months previous, four shoplifting convictions, a citation for drinking in a vehicle and minor traffic infractions, according to the Bibleburg Gaslight.

That a 64-year-old woman who takes 18 daily meds to control pulmonary disease and arthritis is rolled away to the slammer in a wheelchair, clutching an oxygen tank, is not a moment for glee. But I can’t conceive of any suitable alternative. Unless it would be jailing the family members who let her careen around town, full of drugs, in a one-ton truck.

• Plenty more where she came from: You think that’s bad? Take a squint at this. There are 53,201 people who have three or more drunken-driving offenses in Colorado? Jesus H. Christ. I may never ride the roads again.

Unhappy motoring

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
The Aztec sun god Tonatiuh, a life-taker and heart-breaker.
The Aztec sun god Tonatiuh, a life-taker and heart-breaker.

More snow. Feh. The sun god Tonatiuh is angry. Let us feed him the hearts of American auto industry executives and beg his forgiveness in order that spring may return.

I’m not quite certain what to think about the feds getting all medieval on Detroit. I don’t have any sympathy for The Big 3’s management — my second and last American auto was a 1996 Ford F-150 that was possessed by evil spirits, and it’s been nothing but Subarus and Toyotas around here since — but you have to feel for the grunts who actually made things over the years instead of shuffling worthless pieces of paper around. As usual, the shit will roll downhill, and the working stiffs will be inhabiting a dank and smelly valley.

Over at The Washington Monthly, Paul Glastris sees some useful lessons from previous federal interventions in the railroad industry, a tale told by Phillip Longman of the New America Foundation. Meanwhile, dday and Josh Marshall wonder why it’s all hugs and kisses for bank execs but cold shoulder for the auto bosses.

Myself, I’d like to know when the crucial cycling-humor industry will be getting its fingers off the keyboard and into Uncle Sam’s bottomless pockets. I need a new snow shovel, and I’ll be happy to surrender my private jet if that’s what it takes.

Late update: Also at Washington Monthly, Hilzoy opines on “cramdowns,” or allowing bankruptcy judges to reduce homeowners’ mortgage principle, noting that “it’s no good trying, for instance, to save GM if we don’t have customers who are able and willing to buy cars. As any number of commenters have said, we need to shore up the not just businesses’ balance sheets, but consumers’, since if they are not able and willing to spend, then even the best-run businesses will fail.” Well said.

Tom Joad lives

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
Times have gotten so hard here in Bibleburg that even cute little kittens find themselves forced to live in drawers.
Times have gotten so hard here in Bibleburg that even cute little kittens find themselves forced to live in drawers.

If they’re not crowding into shitbag motels, they’re setting up tent cities by the river — welcome to “Grapes of Wrath II: From Hotels to Hoovervilles.”

In Sacramento, a tent city that has sprung up near the American River already has some 300 residents and is growing like the proverbial weed as working-class people join the chronically homeless in life in the great outdoors.

A spokeswoman for a Sacramento non-profit that provides “survival services” for the neo-homeless told The New York Times that the number of unsheltered people in her town rose 26 percent in one year:

“We have lots of folks living in their cars. People are buying storage units and living in them. People are trying to do what they can to put a roof over their head. Sometimes people romanticize camping, that they are free spirits. In fact, it’s an act of desperation.”

There are many such Hoovervilles in Bibleburg, albeit on a smaller scale. Walk 10 minutes north or west from Dog Central and you will see a cheap tent here, a ragged bedroll there; head south along the Monument Creek trail and you’ll see the po’-folks’ version of the RV camp — battered shopping carts and bicycles, and the soup kitchens and shelters just a short hop away.

Seven hundred people eat daily at the Marian House Soup Kitchen, up 40 percent from last year, according to the Gazette. And with unemployment up to 8.1 percent as of January — the highest level in nearly 17 years — they’re not likely to get lonely anytime soon.

Elsewhere, a Yale student is suing US Airways over a lost Xbox 360. He wants a million smacks for his pain and suffering, plus $1,700 to replace the hardware. A guy could buy himself a sweet little tent for that kind of money, and maybe a shopping cart to go with it.

Happy motoring

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

Here’s a happy story: An apparently drug-addled woman suffering from dementia who is suspected of striking and killing a pedestrian with her automobile triggers a discussion of the “right” to drive. There is no such thing. Driving is a privilege one earns by passing written and driving tests, and retains through periodic re-examination as deemed necessary by the State or clued-in kinfolk concerned that Grampa Leroy may be getting a tad too daffy to slide behind the wheel of his beloved F-350.

I have some small, bitter experience in this field. My family and I were not especially close. After Dad died in 1980, Mom was pretty much on her own here in Bibleburg while I rambled around the West, burning down newspapers, and my sister worked for social services in Fort Collins.

A snap of our wedding. From left, me, Herself, her mom, my mom, and my sis. On the back of the snap is scribbled, "If this is fun, we're havin' it."

Mom had a business partner, friends and activities — she helped manage a few jointly owned rental properties, played bridge, went golfing and bowling, you name it — and the three of us would generally get together on at least one officially sanctioned national holiday per annum for a short, stiff reunion. We weren’t exactly ringing each other up once a week to dish the dirt the way Herself does with her mom and sisters, is what I’m saying.

One day I got a call from Mom’s business partner, who said she had lost her car and asked for his help buying a new one. Mom had been called to jury duty, which meant a trip downtown — a place she rarely visited — and apparently was so confused by the journey and the judiciary that she forgot where she had parked and walked the seven-odd miles home.

I drove up from Santa Fe and went car-hunting, finally locating Mom’s Mazda 626 in a parking lot not far from the courthouse. My sis came down from Fort Collins and we had a chat with Mom, who was by turns distracted, confused and indignant. Finally, exasperated, I rattled her keychain, a gag item bearing the legend, “I’ve found the keys, now where the hell’s the car?”, and said, “Mom, this isn’t funny. You lost your goddamn car!”

It was Alzheimer’s, of course, and a very long story that is. Here’s the Reader’s Digest version: My sister and I had to assume a parental role over our sole surviving parent — taking her to a series of doctors to eliminate all other medical probabilities, then hauling her into court to prove that she was no longer capable of handling her own affairs. We seized control of her finances, her house — and, yes, her vehicle — and eventually committed her to an excellent nursing home. Herself and I quit our jobs in Santa Fe and moved in with her for a while, trying but failing to play the caregivers’ role, postponing the inevitable. I was able to be there with Mom as she died, peacefully, in the Namaste Alzheimer Center.

Mom didn’t take anyone else with her. But she very well could have, and it wouldn’t have been her fault — it would have been ours.

I don’t know a thing about Mary Jo Anne Thomas’ family, and I’m not inclined to throw stones at them from my nifty glass bungalow. But I’ll say this to the rest of you: Ring Mom and Dad up now and again. Pop by for a visit, take ’em out to lunch. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do. While bringing a little sunshine into your parents’ twilight years, you might just save some stranger’s life.

Addendum: Someone should run a brain scan on state Sen. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder, who told the Boulder Daily Camera: “If you say nobody with dementia can drive, that won’t go over well. I think you’d be laughed out of the Statehouse.” I ain’t laughin’, motherfucker. And neither is John Breaux, Mary Jo Anne Thomas, or anyone who knew either of them when they were still with us.