Category: Winter

Neither a Bibleburg nor an Arab spring

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

Say it ain’t so — looks like we actually squeaked into positive territory here this afternoon. Two degrees above zero. Why, that’s practically balmy. Or maybe that’s just me. Two consecutive days of trainer rides in the office do little for one’s mental health, no matter what’s on the iPod.

Speaking of mental health, what in bloody hell is going on in the Middle East? Did everybody wake up on the wrong side of the bed all at once? Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan — all of a sudden the streets are full of pissed-off people and the boss-fellas are peeing themselves, spazzing out like a herd of cats trying to cover turds on a tile floor.

Not even the CIA can push ’em over wholesale like this. They have enough trouble working retail. And the NYT doesn’t seem to think it’s jihadis, either.

Is it truly an “Arab spring?” Not so fast, says Roger Hardy, Middle East analyst at the Woodrow Wilson Center:

“Analysts would do well to exercise a little humility. My own guess, for what it is worth, is that this is not the beginning of an Arab spring, but of something more messy and drawn-out. The old order still has plenty of fight in it.”

Less than zero

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments
The folks at NOAA have some chilly news for Bibleburgers.

Great googly-moogly! It’s colder than the ice cubes in Weepy John Boehner’s breakfast martini out there.

The weatherfolk say we may crack zero today. But when I got up we were at minus-8 and we’ve been inching downward ever since. Right now we’re at 10 below zero.

I guess this means the nude sunbathing is right out. Poo.

Blue Monday

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
Bare trees, a la Fleetwood Mac
There's a big-ass mountain behind there somewhere. We know it's there. We just can't see it.

Nope, not so much. January hits the door running, taking our blue skies with it — so this Monday, what we have is gray with a side of snow.

Oh, well. Mondays are supposed to suck, right? And it ain’t like there isn’t any work that needs doing. I wrapped up my review of the Voodoo Nakisi for Adventure Cyclist magazine — look for it in the April edition, I believe — and more bikes are en route to the Caramillo Street Beacon of the Revolution Bicycle Examination Collective & Proving Ground as we speak, including a Soma Saga and a Raleigh Port Townsend.

But before they get here and the fun stuff resumes, VeloNews needs a cartoon, Bicycle Retailer wants ’toons and columns, and VeloNews.com has requested the honor of my presence in the virtual barrel a few extra days in February while Management attends the Tour of Qatar.

And given the weather, it looks like the only bike I’ll be examining is the one bolted to the Cateye CS-1000 in the office.

So, yeah. Monday. There’s always a little blue in there if you know where to look. A professional can always find that dark cloud surrounding the silver lining.

Speaking of dark clouds, check out Paul Kimmage’s interview with Floyd Landis, posted at nyvelocity.com. Good read, but a sad story. Makes a guy feel like a low-level mafioso for writing up pro bike races for fun and profit.

New Year’s freezin’ Eve

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
The Cateye of the Tiger
The Cateye of the Tiger

If ever there was a night not to be a party animal, this is it: 6 degrees with a low of minus-8 in the forecast and wind-chill values around minus-20.

My idea of a rockin’ New Year’s Eve is not sharing icy roads with the lesser primates, courting frostbite, hypothermia and Death by Eejit, to drink among strangers too stupid to stay home where they belong. These pootbutts drive in snow about as well as Baptists dance on Sundays.

As usual, we got just enough snow to introduce natives of warmer climes to the limitations of four-wheel drive and the locations of our local emergency rooms, police stations and body shops.

Nevertheless, it left our neighborhood looking like a bobsled run laid out by a timid German (flat and in a grid pattern), and I went outdoors exactly thrice, to shovel the block and our driveway. It took three trips and two tea breaks because I was freezing my not-inconsiderable ass off.

I clamped my road bike to the Cateye CS-1000 Cyclosimulator last night, but I never used it. Shoveling is fine exercise, or so I told myself as I was uncorking a bottle of 2009 Penelope Sanchez.

Just Thursday I was riding dusty trails in long sleeves and leg warmers and feeling slightly overdressed. I can’t face the trainer. Not yet, please, God. There will be plenty of time for that sort of thing in the new year. I rode more than 4,000 miles outdoors this year and riding indoors will have to wait until 2011.

In the meantime, I raise my glass to you and yours in gratitude for your generosity in popping round from time to time to visit a cantankerous ink-stained wretch, and ask that as the old year closes you give some thought to those who may find little to celebrate this New Year’s Eve.

I’ll be thinking of an old friend and colleague, a brother cyclist, who spent Christmas in the emergency room with his gravely ill wife. She’s back home tonight, which is good news, but not the sort that sends the champagne corks flying. Strength and peace to you both, C and T.