Bikes, trains and automobiles

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 37 Comments
I didn’t take a camera on today’s ride, so you’ll have to make do with a feeble iPhone shot of the bosque just starting to show some color.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in with birthday wishes on this, my induction into Official Geezerhood.

Is there a probationary period? If I fail to chase enough whippersnappers off my lawn will I be stripped of my galluses, wattles and trifocals, and demoted to Youth?

The birthday ride is done and dusted, and like last year I exceeded my expectations: 45 miles, or 72.4 kilometers. Thus I have some more kms banked for subsequent birthdays. One of these years I won’t have to ride at all.

Which will give me more time for podcasting. Yes, yes, yes, it’s another edition of Radio Free Dogpatch, Senior Moment Edition. You’re welcome. Now get the hell off my lawn.

P L A Y    R A D I O    F R E E    D O G P A T C H

• Technical notes: This episode was recorded with an Audio-Technica AT2035 microphone and a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. I edited using Apple’s GarageBand on a 2014 MacBook Pro. The music is “Matador’s Entry,” from Zapsplat.com. I really wanted to work “The Coroner’s Footnote” from Half Man Half Biscuit in here somewhere, but couldn’t pull it off. You should listen to it anyway. While you’re at it give an ear to “Every Time a Bell Rings.”

Inspecting The Fleet

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
The Co-Motion Divide Rohloff takes a break so a herd of young dudes can shred the gnar without rear-ending some poky senior citizen.

Being at liberty, more or less, with all my paying chores completed, I’m riding my way through The Fleet as something of a palate-cleanser. Sure beats riding a desk.

First up was the Voodoo Nakisi, which is overdue for an little love. Brake pads at the minimum; chainrings, chain, cassette, wheels and brake calipers at the maximum. The last two items I have on hand. Decisions, decisions. …

Unzip over to Voler to join the team! Use the Secret Code (OLDGUYS15) to get 15% off your purchase. And no, goddamnit, for the last time, it does not come with fries!

The Co-Motion Divide Rohloff has gotten out three times in the past week, and it needs tires. The old Geax AKA 29×2.0 rubber is not getting ’er done on the Duke City trails. They’re heavy and not particularly solid in the loose stuff, which in the absence of precipitation is pretty much everywhere, especially in the scary bits.

I saw a dude on a plus rig nearly slide right off the oh-shit side of a sketchy descent yesterday because he couldn’t find any traction. I like traction.

Today it’s the Bianchi Zurigo. This 55cm aluminum-and-carbon rig is a little small for me but I like it anyway. Or I did like it. It’s been a while since we’ve been out together.

Today’s high is supposed to hit the low 70s. I find that hard to believe. Still, I had to peel off the arm warmers yesterday and was wishing I’d worn shorts instead of knickers, so spring must finally be here.

Until it isn’t, of course. Never trust a sunny day.

BOHICA

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
Mooned again.

The best take on special counsel Robert Mueller’s report so far comes from Kevin Drum at MoJo, who writes: “The truth is that we barely know anything more today than we did a week ago. It’s likely there’s a reason for that.”

Runner-up is from Charlie Pierce, who observes: “In fact, the basic overriding result of [Attorney General William] Barr’s summary is that the whole matter now has been dumped into the laps of a divided and hyper-partisan Congress in such a way as to guarantee that the Congress will be more divided and more hyper-partisan than ever before. The Democratic House will hold hearings and the Republican Senate will yell about Hillary Clinton. The Internet will be indiscriminately insane for the foreseeable future.”

For what it’s worth, my own uneducated guess is that our keepers have decided that “government of the people, by the people, for the people” is the people’s problem. We shit the bed, we do the laundry. No indictment, no impeachment, and open a window, f’chrissakes. It stinks to high heaven in here.

Absent an abrupt change of course based on the Mueller report, the Donks seem to be betting that they can clean Il Douche’s clock in the 2020 election, which sounds an awful lot like drawing to an inside straight. Or maybe it’s more like the kind of lame-ass, no-balls, break-even poker playing that sends you home neither richer nor poorer while the big boys take all the pots.

Are they still hunting, Elmer Fuddlike, for that mythical Moderate Republican, hoping they can bag enough of these fabled centrist unicorns — without hurting the MAGA dummies’ fee-fees — to take the White House and the Senate, pad their edge in the House, and govern free of interference from the Flying Monkey Caucus?

Fuck me running. I wish I had some magic beans to sell these rubes. I could use a more reliable income stream. This hand looks more like a foot.

In the meantime, we all could use some more information. There’s an election coming up, or so we hope. Release the damn report, shitheels. We paid for it, and in more ways than one, too. It’s ours.

Stand down

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
His Excellency scans The Compound for unauthorized personnel.

Huh. I’ve actually managed to accomplish a few things lately. Go figure.

My April cartoon has been delivered to BRAIN. And my review of the Salsa Journeyman Claris 650 — print version and its two-minute video teaser — is all but complete; I’m just waiting for some Salsoid to answer a couple of questions about spec.

Unzip over to Voler to join the team! Use the Secret Code (OLDGUYS15) to get 15% off your purchase. And no, goddamnit, for the last time, it does not come with fries!

Two other review bikes have been shipped back to their respective motherships, greatly enhancing velocipede-storage capacity in the garage.

Sue Barue, The Fearsome Furster, has passed her annual checkup and had a brace of new window gussets installed, so maybe I’ll be able to hear the stereo again.

The cats have been given a vigorous spring airing. Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) inspected the perimeter yesterday and collected samples of this year’s grass crop for scientific analysis, the results of which were displayed on the living-room carpet this morning. Miss Mia Sopaipilla took up her station in the clothes dryer, and reported that for reasons unknown the lint filter seems to be full of cat hair.

And now I have exactly fuck-all to do. Nobody’s sending me to Taiwan, or Sea Otter, I won’t have a cartoon due until mid-April, and I’m fresh out of review bikes.

So I guess I’ll just have to ride one of my own. Sucks to be me.