This one goes out to everyone whose rock has done rolled back on ’em.
It’s funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’
For a little while
It’s funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’
For a little while
Hands on
We smashed the State yesterday. You’re welcome.
Herself and I were part of a crowd guesstimated in the thousands that piled into Civic Plaza for our local Hands Off! rally, taking a raucous stand against fascism.
We carpooled with two friends to the thing, and met up with a few others at the plaza. Frankly, I was not expecting a big turnout — the “high” temperature of 43° just missed the record low, set in 1983, by a single degree — but I was delighted to be proven unsmart as per usual.
In Bibleburg it was easy to think we were the only libtards in town, though we knew better; it just felt that way sometimes. As in almost always, especially during election years.
In Duck!Burg, we’re surrounded by fellow travelers — but even here, with the endless cascade of caca pouring out of DeeCee, some days it seems that no umbrella, no matter how all-encompassing, can keep the stink off you.
So, yeah — even I, Captain Cynicism, was moved to see the throng hooting and hollering along with emcee Robert Luke, legendary activist Dolores Huerta, Mayor Tim Keller, former Interior Secretary turned gubernatorial candidate Deb Haaland, state Attorney General Raúl Torrez, former Albuquerque poet laureate Mary Oishi, and others.
There were so many excellent, creative, handmade signs in evidence that I regretted dogging it and downloading prefabs from the Hands Off! people. My faves included “Shut Your Heil Hole,” the ever-popular “Elect a Clown, Expect a Circus,” and “Deport This Pendejo,” with an image of everyone’s favorite Swasticar salesman. There was even an excellent “Chingatumaga” placard, which we praised to its grinning creator.
So, props to Hands Off! and their partners for pulling off this nationwide dance party, which grabbed a whole lot of headlines. Now, the question is … where do we go from here? Or as that old troublemaker V.I. Lenin put it, “What is to be done?”
Sound and fury, etc.
It’s a helluva note when you can’t hear the rumbling furnace over the thundering wind.
The sleeping last night was not spectacular, but a quick glance around the yard indicates most of the property remains in place, and we even got a soupçon of rain, so, yay, etc.
Still, as Mr. Waits has taught us:
The hawk had his whole family out there in the wind
And he got a message for you to beware
Kicking your ass in, in a cold-blooded fashion
And dishing out more than a good man can bear
A man needs his shuteye in these dark, blustery days. You never know when the ICEholes are gonna kick down your door, demand proof that Great-Great-Grampa Conán was in this country legally, air-freight your ass off to a Salvadoran lockup, and lie to a federal judge about it.
Waking involved extra grumpitude because for some reason yesterday I thought it would be smart to ride the 32-pound Co-Motion Divide Rohloff on some narrow, mildly technical, occasionally steep singletrack, and in the opposite direction from the one I normally choose, too.
So there were missed turns and dabs and bad language and this morning I had a minor hitch in my never-too-suave gitalong as I crabwalked to the coffee.
But we’re not hiding in closets from tornadoes like the sis-in-law in Tennessee, or dodging fireballs in the Carolinas like my man Big Nurse, so it’s all good, yeah?
There’s a new tariff in town
Hoo-lawd. Anybody’s portfolio turn into a postcard yet?
In case you’ve missed Paul Krugman, he’s speculating over at Substack that Elon’s Hitler Youth may have cobbled together the tariff scheme using ChatGPT and/or other A.I. models.
In my post immediately following the Trump announcement I speculated that Elon Musk’s Dunning-Kruger kids might be responsible for those tariff numbers. That now looks like a distinct possibility.
Who makes policy this way? The key point is that Trump isn’t really trying to accomplish economic goals. This should all be seen as a dominance display, intended to shock and awe people and make them grovel, rather than policy in the normal sense.
Again, I’m not being snobbish here. When the fate of the world economy is on the line, the malignant stupidity of the policy process is arguably as important as the policies themselves. How can anyone, whether they’re businesspeople or foreign governments, trust anything coming out of an administration that behaves like this?
Good time to be heavily invested in the knee- and elbow-pad markets.
R.I.P., John Neugent
John Neugent has gone west, according to Bicycle Retailer. He was 76.
Like many of us in the bike biz John wore a series of hats. His résumé includes stints at (or with) Sunshine Cycle, Service Cycle, Sachs USA, EV Global, Trico and Schwinn.
Eventually he went consumer direct under his own shingle — Neugent Cycling — and kept in touch with his customers via e-mail newsletter and a YouTube channel that he used as a showcase for his banjo chops and wheelbuilding skills.
John was an affable gent, occasionally mildly retrogrouchy, but without the grouchy bits, and he maintained a certain flexibility as regards the catechism. Here’s an example from a March 2019 edition of his newsletter:
It recently occurred to me that there is a generation, maybe two, who never used friction shifting. The type I grew up with that preceded index shifting, hyperglide, and electric shifting. Any real rider would also have downtube shifting where you needed to take one hand off the bars and bend over enough to reach the downtube. There are no studies done on this, because, in all likelihood, a bike like that made with modern technology would result in a much less expensive, lighter, and, one could argue, better bike. The real problem: They would be less expensive.
Imagine if you might how light a real 10-speed (five in the back and two up front) with downtube shifters and pedals using toe clips would be. Add tubular tires and carbon frames and rims and you are probably well under 10 pounds. Probably even more when you consider how much weight they could save in brakes, derailleurs, chain, sprockets, and anything else. I know there are grand fondos that require the use of bikes like that but they don’t use today’s technology.
At some point they are going to have bikes that pedal themselves. Oh wait, they’ve already done that. They’re called electric bikes and they are the new rage. How come I feel that many steps forward are really steps backward?
If someone presented a post-modern bike like the one I imagine I bet people would look at it with awe in the same way they recently did with single-speed bikes (known as track bikes 50 years ago). True spoke-sniffers like myself are not only dreaming of the possibilities, but are thinking about how to put one together with parts lying around.
John and I emailed back and forth now and then, and I always enjoyed his laid-back perspective on La Velo Nostra. I never got my DBR Prevail TT down to 10 pounds, but it wasn’t the fault of his Neuvation wheelset — I hung on to my heavy STI shifters, nine-speed cassette, clipless pedals, and ti’/chromoly frameset.
Peace to John, his family, friends, and customers. He will be missed.
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