Temps remain a bit below normal in the Duke City, but you don’t have to shovel cool.
Stop? Not me.
It was a gorgeous St. Patrick’s Day in the Duke City, and everybody and his/her granny was out and about, trying to sweat out the remnants of Gaelic brain eraser.
I awarded myself a day off from riding other people’s bikes and used one of my own, the Steelman Eurocross pictured in yesterday’s post.
The great thing about a ’cross bike — the original gravel bike, don’t you know — is that you can ride it pretty much anywhere. And that’s exactly what I did. Pavement, good and bad; singletrack; two-track, whatever.
For instance, it’s great fun to zip down Tramway Road from Juniper Hill, pull a U at the bottom, and ride back up the gullied trail that parallels it instead of grinding along next to the hordes of goggling tram-bound tourists.
It would be easier on a modern gravel bike, like Salsa’s Journeyman Claris 650, with its 2.1-inch 650b’s and low end of 30×34. The Steelman maxes out at 700×33 and a bottom of 36×28.
But if God wanted our lives to be easier He wouldn’t have given us Il Douche.
As you know, God rides steel, or titanium (if He can get a bro’ deal from Moots, which is by no means a sure thing). And what God rides is good enough for me.
But the latest review bike here in Dog Country is aluminum, both frame and fork. And thus in the pursuit of Fairness and Objectivity I must keep my metallurgical biases chained up in the attic.
That is, I would, if we had an attic. Christ, there’s not even a basement in this fauxdobe rancheroo.
The Salsa Journeyman Claris 650, up against The Wall of Science.
Just as well, too. I’d probably tumble down the stairs and break a hip, and Herself would have me put down, find some nice young fella with wavy hair and a future instead of stubbly scalp and a past. Or maybe she’d just keep me down there. Lob a sack of Taco Bell down the stairs now and then, and a plastic bucket with a roll of single-ply. It’s not like I don’t have it coming.
Anyway, the bike. It’s the latest update to the low end of Salsa’s all-road, gravel and light-touring Journeyman series, the Claris 650. And it’s not only aluminum, it’s got them funny-size tires, whatchacallem, your 650b, or 27.5, neither fish nor fowl. And more holes than Albert Hall! You can plug pert’ near anything into the sumbitch except for maybe a Fender Stratocaster. And I’d try it, if someone at Fender would just loan me a Strat’ to review.
The Journeyman Claris 650 rolls with a manly eight-speed drivetrain, so it has that going for it, which is nice. None of your one-by-whatever setups with a cassette that has more teeth than a tour bus full of Osmonds.
Charlie Ervin down at Two Wheel Drive asked me if I try to put myself in the mindset of a customer shopping for a sub-$1,000 bike when I’m reviewing one and I said hell yes. I am a Man of the People, though I notice that most of ’em don’t pick up when I call.
Especially the ones with the $8,000 titanium bikes that desperately need reviewing, and by me, right now, goddamnit. Dern Caller ID anyhow.
We’re burning the furniture and roasting the slower neighbors while we wait for the Red Cross to airdrop emergency supplies.
* a.k.a. “bum cyclone.” Everybody sing! (To the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!” from “Mary Poppins.)
Bombcyclonesnowpacalypticarmageddonado
Winter’s piling record-breaking drifts on Colorad-o
If you have some snowshoes to the pub you all may wade-o
Bombcyclonesnowpacalypticarmageddonado!
We used to roll massif Back in the Day®. But that was when ditch weed went for $10 per lid.
These crazy kids today. Riding the goddamn bicycle used to be good enough for us — it was painful, and unrewarding, and we liked it! — but in these days of modern times it has to come wrapped up in organic, free-trade hemp paper and PBA-free ribbons with a non-GMO cherry on top.
You got your sportives, your 24-hour mountain-bike events, and your gravel races. And now you got your Roll Massif, which sounds like Bob Roll in the off-season but isn’t.
What it is, is a Colorado combo platter with all three main items, but without beans, rice and tortilla.
I gotta admit, it kinda sounds like … sounds like … like … OK, all right, fun! It sounds like fun! There! I said it! Happy?
More fun than sitting indoors in Albuquerque, watching the wind blow the rain to Kansas, anyway. That shit is boring.
When we got bored on the copy desk we’d start making stuff up. Not for publication, unless the slot man was drunk, asleep or both, but just for giggles. Bogus horoscopes. Fake AP stories. That sort of thing. It was the journalistical equivalent of a cup check. Occasionally someone’s cup runneth’d over and that shit made the paper, but it wasn’t our fault. We may have been drunk, but we weren’t asleep.
So, since the slot man took the buyout, bought a van, and relocated down to the river, here are some Roll Massif riffs for anyone who thinks wax is for chains, not moustaches.
I mean, Jesus, what’s next, hipsters? A 24-hour gravel sportive for e-bikes? Get the hell off my lawn, sonny.
The Droll Massif
• Roll Massif. What’s hidden, and not very well, either, under a master racer’s Assos bibs.
• Jelly Roll Massif. The Fat Guy on a fat bike.
• Raul Massif. The Fat Guy’s Mexican alias, used when he sneaks over the border for some pan dulce auténtico. Incidentally, he thinks a “Roll Massif” comes from Cinnabon.
• Rule Massif. “Bring your own food on the ride,” sayeth the Fat Guy. “I’m serious. I need all six of those Clif Bars just to get out of the garage.”
• Bull Massif. A bunch of Mad Dogs bragging about how they could crush the Roll Massif if only some generous forklift operator would pry them off the couch.
• Bowl Massif. A “Lebowski” sequel featuring The Fat Guy, who would consider playing Walter Sobchak a Role Massif.
• Troll Massif. Ridiculing someone’s Roll Massif performance on Twitter before the ride has even started.
• Droll Massif. Not taking the Roll Massif seriously enough to placate a Troll Massif.
• Hole Massif. A puncture in your 650b x 2.1s that the sealant won’t resolve.
• Stroll Massif. A double Hole Massif with no spare tubes.
• Toll Massif. Ask not for whom the Massif tolls. It tolls for thee.
Mad Blog Media 