Add Adolf Twitler to Mount Rushmore? No, thanks.
Perhaps some smaller sculpture, in a more appropriate location. Think of it as an oversized and especially unattractive urinal cake.
Mount Flushmore
Executive ordure
The U.S. Constitution is a poor defense against a ruthless huckster hellbent on selling snake oil to the rubes.
“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriation made by Law. …”
“Fuck you. Sue me. And guess who pays for the lawyers?”
My dogs are barking
not via shank’s mare.
Cycling has taken a back seat — actually, a garage hook — to hiking.
I don’t know why. Yet here I am, having hiked 20 miles in the past few days.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Until this afternoon, when the legs and feet feel a tad abused for some reason, as though they had been et by a coyote and shit off a cliff.
The last couple days I’ve been hiking trails that I used to ride before The Bug came to town. The change in perspective is interesting. I’ve spotted social trails that I never noticed from the saddle, plus a few old fencelines that make me glad I didn’t major in Stringing Fence Up Steep Slopes.
Exploring an unfamiliar trail is a little easier because I don’t have to put a foot down and mumble, “Oh, shit, can’t ride that.”
Also, bits I’ve historically been unable to ride? I look at them on foot and think, “Why can’t I ride that?”
Dodging the clueless is likewise simpler. Almost nobody seems grounded in trail etiquette these days, or even schooled in the concept of a shared public space, so I just step aside and wave the dummies on.
What the hell? The world is full of dummies, and worse than dummies, too. You can’t clout them all with your hiking stick. Or you shouldn’t, anyway. You might break your stick.
Get OUT!
It’s not just bikes that are as rare as hen’s teeth, rocking-horse shit, and integrity in the nation’s capital.
Now it’s everything outdoorsy, from camping equipment to boats and birding binoculars.
Pretty soon “getting away from it all” will mean “going home.”
Bonus non-political content
Six months.
That’s how long it’d been since I last visited a bike shop. Until yesterday, when I popped round to Two Wheel Drive to return the Surly Disc Trucker I reviewed for Adventure Cyclist magazine.
Happily, the lads have not been wasting away, praying for a visitation by a stove-up senior citizen on a fixed income with the spending power of a junior partner in a corner lemonade stand.
They have product to sell — including a freshly scored size run of the 2021 Kona Unit X — and shortly after I lurched in, so did a couple of actual customers, while another pair queued up outside (house rules).
Manager Zach took a minute to pitch me on the joys of the Kona Electric Ute, even offering to turn me loose on the floor model. But I passed, figuring his time was more profitably spent with the paying clientele. Zach owns an E-Ute, and says it makes a fine car replacement, suitable for fetching groceries and transporting rug monkeys.
Our cars are both paid for, and we don’t use them much; we’re even getting a discount from our insurance company for letting them rot in the garage. Still, I think it would be interesting to have a go at a one-car life.
The biggest hurdle for me is (wait for it) the advancified futuristical Jetsonian technology. Sitting here at the desk I can see eight battery-powered devices without swiveling my head. I don’t really want any more.
Tell you what I do find interesting: The Soma Pescadero. Which of course is completely sold out.
Until a new run arrives sometime in November or December, I’m compelled to contemplate a cousin, the New Albion Privateer, the only other rim-brake frame available from the Merry Sales folks.
Merry’s Stan Pun says the Privateer “is like a [Soma] Double Cross with a lower BB height, longer chainstays and heavier tubes.” At a glance it seems to slot in neatly between the Pescadero and Saga. As the owner of one Double Cross and two Sagas, I’m intrigued.
And of course what we really need around here is another bicycle. N+1, baby, N+1.
Mad Blog Media 