Category: Winter

Tempo fugit

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
Herself makes those pedals spin. I'm practically getting trails ... or it could be an acid flashback.
Herself turns those pedals around. I'm practically getting trails off those wildly spinning legs ... or it could be an acid flashback.

Yes, it’s that time of year again — the season of indoor cycling, which sucks a mile of yak dong but still beats ballooning to Orson Wellesian proportions due to one’s fondness for food and drink.

I usually bolt a lesser bike to my Cateye CS-1000 trainer for use in evil weather, but this is an imperfect solution. For one, it sounds like a speed freak with a hand saw trimming up wood for the stove. And that spinning rear wheel is a cat magnet.

Worst of all, it won’t accommodate Herself without much clusterfuckery — fetching bikes in and out of the garage, popping off/restoring front wheels, adjusting the Cateye framework, and so on and so forth. I’m 6 feet tall, she’s 5 feet tall; you get the idea. And anyway, the whole idea is not to go outside, where the garage and the foul weather are.

So, fearing a long and unpleasant winter based on what we’ve seen so far in October, and lacking a gym membership, I bought us a Giant Tempo exercise bike from John Crandall at Old Town Bike Shop.

The Tempo is adjustable without tools — seat post, saddle, and stem/handlebar combo all raise and lower and slide forward and back, using knobs or quick releases. Everything’s neatly hash-marked so you can quickly rearrange the bike to suit the tall or small. The fixed-gear flywheel has a recessed magnet so you can add an aftermarket cyclo-computer (I did), the stock pedals are easily removable for replacement with the pedals of your choice (ditto) and the belt drive keeps things quiet enough so you can hear the old iPod without cranking it to 11.

Like most human constructions, the Tempo is not without fault, especially as regards the stem/bar combo. It could go lower to accommodate smaller riders (a hacksaw can fix that), and it could have a longer horizontal track, which would allow the vertically challenged to bring the bars closer to the saddle (one possible workaround is disassembling the setup and flipping it 180 degrees).

But these are nits I’m picking here. The Tempo is solid, quiet and reasonably priced, and we’ve both ridden it and like it a whole lot more than doing the Ice Capades on two wheels with a critical audience of SUV pilots entranced by the texting capabilities of their Crackberries. It’s not as much fun as riding outdoors, but what is? When you’re wearing clothes, anyway. …

Full disclosure: I got this rascal at a considerable discount, thanks to John and Steve, our local Giant rep. I can see why John might cut me some slack, since I’ve been buying bikes, parts and service from him for a quarter century or so and live within eyeshot of Crandall Manor, but Steve’s assist was entirely unexpected and most appreciated. A tip of the Mad Dog skid-lid to both gents for their generosity.

Footloose

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
There's no place like home ... there's no place like home.
There's no place like home ... there's no place like home.

Another sign of the times: the seasonal purchase of a new pair of running shoes. I haven’t been running that much lately for a variety of perfectly defensible reasons, chief among them sloth. But winter exercise means either the icy brown stripe up the pooper or an occasional descent into pedestrianism, and since my shoes are all pretty much blown out, I swung by Colorado Running Company to do a bit of business with John “Usuck” O’Neill, like me an O.D. (Original Dog) and Chief Cur Emeritus of Team Mad Dog Media-Dogs at Large Velo.

John sold me a rather sparkly pair of Saucony Progrid Omni 8s that look like footwear from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, but a few tromps through the goo will take a little flash out of their dance.

I got started this afternoon with a short jog through Monument Valley Park, which was still a little sticky in spots from last night’s light snow. But I still get the feeling I could click them together a few times and wind up in either Kansas or Oz.

Mercury falling

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

Summer vanished faster than the public option today. I was forced to retire my usual professional ensemble of shorts and sandals in favor of a ratty pair of sweat pants and moth-eaten socks, though I stuck with the sleeveless T for freedom of movement while rassling typos for VeloNews.com.

It was a slow day in the VeloBarrel, as the crew was scattered far and wide, either at Outdoor Demo, en route to Sin City or playing one-handed spit-in-the-carpet somewhere, and that suited me just fine. I don’t like Mondays, and I really don’t like cold, gray, windy and damp Mondays, especially when I’m staring down the barrel of a five-day work week like the rest of y’all. If I wanted to work, I’d get a job, a self-imposed sentence that I have successfully avoided for 18 years now.

Still, a slow day pushing pixels is not exactly hard labor, and I was able to raise my head for a quick peek now and then to see what was shaking in the hairy-legged world. It was not encouraging.

Dingbat W. Cleon Skousen is apparently enjoying something of a renaissance thanks to Glenn Beck, Texas Gov. Rick “Goodhair” Perry and other gibbering asshats. Remember your Ed Abbey (“You can always tell a shithead by that initial initial.”)

Gen. Stanley McChrystal wants more troops for Afghanistan. Kevin Drum is skeptical, and so am I, having read a little Kipling and observed some recent history. The Persians, Brits and Soviets all screwed the pooch — I see many bootprints entering, but considerably fewer leaving — and Uncle Sammy is batting cleanup? No, thanks. Bring ’em home, please.

And finally, apparently straight porn makes you gay. But I don’t even like show tunes.

Chairman of the bored

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

While I strive to muster the intestinal fortitude to go for a run in our gentle 45-mph spring zephyrs, let’s examine a few notes from the news:

• The Sultans of Swat: “Floggings, stonings could begin in Pakistan’s scenic Swat valley.” No, it’s not a delayed April Fool’s gag, and you can read the story here.

• Heeeee’s Baaaaaaack: Renowned doper and dingbat extraordinaire Frank Vandenbroucke wins a bicycle race for the first time since 2005. Must be nice to be in the sports pages instead of the police blotter for a change.

• I Call That Bold Talk for a One-Eyed Fat Man: The Coen brothers are remaking “True Grit,” planning to hew more closely to Charles Portis’ original novel than did the John Wayne classic.

Got some weirdos of your own? Leave ’em in comments.

• Late update: Well, it probably snowed three or four feet today. But not here. We only got to watch it whiz at high speed  from north to south, perfectly parallel to the ground, bound for New Mexico and points south.

First they came for my winter, and I said nothing . . .

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment
Turkenstein the Magnificent reclines in the sun-splashed grass, blissfully unaware that yet another spring snowstorm is en route to keep his giant white ass indoors.
Turkenstein the Magnificent reclines in the sun-splashed grass, blissfully unaware that yet another spring snowstorm is en route to keep his giant white ass indoors.

Damn’ Democrats. Soon’s they get into office, winter becomes spring and spring becomes winter. Whoops, same thing with the last guy. Never mind.

The Front Strange is hunkering down for its third spring snowstorm in less than three weeks, so after squeaking in a quick run I took the cats outdoors for a bit of vitamin D before the deal goes down.

Turkish gets out all the time, without close supervision, though he likes some days better than others (sun and dirt is good, wind and snow, not so much).

Mia Sopaipilla only gets out on a harness-leash combo, which greatly cramps her style but reassures her two-legged staffers (the neighborhood is lousy with foxes, feral cats and loose mutts).

Where the hell is that ding-a-ling noise coming from?
Where the hell is that ding-a-ling noise coming from?

As a consequence, Turk’ is jaded. Ho hum, another day outdoors, big whup. Been there, done that, got the furball.

For Mia, on the other hand, every outing is a fresh adventure. Bugs! Trees! Wind chimes! Wow! Why don’t we have all this cool stuff indoors where we can enjoy it at a moment’s notice, unfettered by leather, nylon and primate paranoia?

Indeed. The indoors would be much more interesting if it were more like the outdoors. More sunshine, less radiation from computer monitors. More grass, less carpet. Fewer walls, more possibilities.

Unless we’re talking about the next couple days, anyway. According to the National Weather Service, the indoors is going to be a good deal warmer and drier, and therefore, albeit briefly, the smarter choice.