Category: Wheels of misfortune

A VeloBarrel of fun

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

Today’s was a long and unproductive stint in the old VeloBarrel. VN.com remains a little twitchy — envision a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs — and this afternoon in addition to the usual hitches in its digital gitalong I started having trouble simply staying connected to the site.

This is problematical if you’re one of the people being paid to stuff bits and bytes up the digi-tubes linking France, Colorado, Wyoming and California. Thus I accomplished very little beyond rearranging the order in which I repeatedly delivered a short selection of choice obscenities.

Bring me one of these every 15 minutes until I pass out and every half hour thereafter.
Bring me one of these every 15 minutes until I pass out and every half hour thereafter.

Beats me what the problem was (and still is). My other usual haunts — The New York Times, Political Animal, DrunkCyclist and this miserable site — are chugging right along. And this site and DC are both WordPress-based models, too. So go figure.

“Is it too early to start fuckin’ drinking?” I IM’d web editor Steve Frothingham around 1:30. “It’s 9:30 p.m. in France,” he replied.

Speaking of booze, Frank Bruni has an item on the Bloody Mary over at today’s NYT.com. Writes Mr. Bruni: “The bloody mary bridges the speakeasy and the herb garden; it’s a liquid salad into which you can not only pour pretty much any kind of base alcohol you like but also sprinkle parsley, basil or cilantro, and, while you’re at it, cram in hunks of vegetables, usually pickled, of many types.”

He then goes on to describe an appalling series of effete East Coast beverages served up by sissified Noo Yawk bistros that must make a Sonoma County wine bar look like a Hell’s Angels clubhouse by comparison.

I was never big on Bloodies, myself. Back in my morning-drinker days the crowd I ran with favored the lowly red beer as a palliative for the daily brain sprain. This was simply whatever cheap lager was on tap at the nearest dive bar mixed with Snap-E-Tom tomato-and-chile juice, repeated as necessary. A wedge of lime upped the vitamin-C content while adding much-needed roughage.

Maybe I’ll have one tomorrow. Or maybe I’ll just get straight into the smack.

Freezer burn

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

We’re in the deep freeze here in Bibleburg. It reminds me of the bad old days up in Weirdcliffe, where Herself and I passed many a winter day huddled in our bearskins by a blazing woodstove, sipping whisky from CamelBaks with our fingers buried in the ample guts of a freshly killed Republican to prevent frostbite.

Saw a hand surgeon today and the good news is he will not need to rewire my port-side communications network. The bad news is I get to enjoy three weeks of intense physical therapy and am probably looking at three to six months before the left birdie regains full flippage.

Adding insult to injury, as I was leaving my first PT session I set my keys and cell phone on the driver’s seat of the Subaru and commenced to knock ice and snow from its windows. As I let the driver’s-side wiper fall to the windshield the security system hooted once and there I stood, locked out of my ride in 8-degree temps with a light snow and a brisk wind from the east.

As I told a colleague earlier, next time I lay it down I’m gonna see to it that the head hits the deck first. Brain damage is not a handicap in our line of work — it’s a prerequisite.

I’d rather push my Toyota than . . .

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
Twenty-six years old and it still starts — if one knows which demons to invoke.
Twenty-six years old and it still starts — if one knows which demons to invoke.

It must be International Try to Start Your Piece of Shit Truck Day.

I needed to haul the Voodoo down to Old Town for transformation into a flat-bar bike with thumbshifter (courtesy of Paul’s Thumbies) so I can get back to riding the road sometime soon (I hope). Toward that end, I was trying to fire up the White Tornado, my neglected and carbureted 1983 Toyota 4WD longbed pickup, ’cause it’s easier to slide a bike into its 6-foot bed one-handed than it is to park one on the Subaru Forester’s roof rack.

The 2005 Subie, on the other hand, is easier to start. Twist the key and off you go. The Toyota … not so much, especially if it’s been nestled up to the curb for a few weeks of wintry weather.

As I was cranking away, stomping rhythmically on the accelerator while mumbling various incantations and imprecations, I heard some other vehicle trying to harmonize with mine. Down the block, with its hood up, sat a Ford 100 Custom Cab of indeterminate age, its owner, like me, betting against the ravages of time, neglect and weather.

I eventually got my beater going, so I guess I win. But his has a better paint job, and collector’s plates, too, so it looks much niftier sitting immobile against the curb.

Ain’t nobody’s business

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

From our No Shit, Y’Think? Department comes the following, from Tom Boonen, who once again has tested positive for the dumb dust:

“The night before the drug test I went out. I stayed for a while and I drank. At some stage I must have taken something. Then I had a blackout. I think I have a problem.”

I can sympathize with the guy. When I was 28, my preferred form of recreation consisted of going out, staying for a while and drinking, at some stage taking something, and having a blackout. The only major difference between us is that Tornado Tom is a former world road cycling champ and three-time winner of Paris-Roubaix subject to regular drug testing, while I was an unheralded copy editor who could piss flame across the newsroom without anyone paying the slightest bit of notice, barring a chain-smoking colleague in need of a light.

Had newspapers been routinely dope-testing hacks in 1982, I would have earned a lifetime ban from journalism between New Year’s Eve and St. Patrick’s Day, and there would forever have been an asterisk next to my name in the smattering of headline-writing and cartooning awards I had won.

Happily, they weren’t, and thus I remain at large to annoy my betters, free of nosebleeds and unmolested by white-coats proffering plastic cups. Frankly, if anyone needs drug testing in my game these days, it’s those who employ me against the advice of advertisers, the entreaties of subscribers and their own better judgment.

So I could care less if Boonen is horning lines off strippers in some tawdry Belgium alehouse on Saturday as long as he can ride a straight line on Sunday. As Big Tex noted, “This is more of a social issue than a sporting issue.”

• Special Pre-Mother’s Day Blasphemy: This is my new favorite band: Jesus H. Christ and the Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse. I mean, with a name like that and songs like “Connecticut’s for Fucking,” “Nipples” and “Alcoholics in My Town,” what’s not to like? Five Hail Marys and two Hello Dollys to former New Mexican colleague Steve Terrell for the tip.

Symphony of pain, scored for clavicle

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
The Mighty Dog, circa 1990, riding for the Sangre de Cristo Cycling Club in Santa Fe, NM.
The Mighty Dog, circa 1990, riding for the Sangre de Cristos Cycling Club in Santa Fe, NM.

Lance Armstrong and I have something in common, in addition to brains, good looks and wealth — we both waited until our 30s to break a collarbone.

I was 35 and getting set to start my first real season as a bicycle racer when I laid it down on March 7, 1989, on the road to the Puye Cliff Dwellings on Santa Clara Pueblo near Española, N.M. I don’t remember the crash because in addition to snapping my left clavicle I coldcocked myself, totaling my beer-cooler helmet. I decided afterward that I’d probably let my Look cleats wear down a bit too far and unclipped while sprinting up a short rise, going over the bars and then landing on same. I took note of the calamity in my training diary:

“Tore off a hunk of scalp, raspberried both knees and elbows and picked up a Technicolor bruise from left thigh to waist. Doc says I can’t ride the road for a month but can do the trainer if I can stand the pain.”

I could and did, getting on the trainer for a 20-minute spin two days later. Oh, Lord, did that hurt. My heart rate was in six figures, and simply getting out of bed was an exercise in pain management; I had a water bed, and the one quick situp required to get out of the sonofabitch was no fun at all.

But I was religious about a daily trainer workout, and finally got outdoors for a road ride — on a mountain bike — three weeks later. Two months from the crash I rode the Santa Fe Century in under five hours, and on Memorial Day weekend I raced the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, albeit without distinction.

So I wouldn’t bet against Armstrong being able to bounce back in time for the Tour. It isn’t exactly the Iron Horse, true, but a guy needs a goal, no matter how modest.

Late update: The Armstrong kerfuffle sent me to rooting through the cerebral attic, trying to find a tantalizing bit of data I’d misplaced, when all of a sudden it came to me: In 1995, at age 32, Rebecca Twigg won a sixth world title and set a world record for the individual pursuit despite breaking a collarbone less than two weeks earlier. Oh, yeah — she had a cold, too.