No, this isn’t deep in the Amazonian jungle. This is Trail 341, just west of the non-bikeable wilderness.
The first ride of July is in the bag — 90 minutes on the trails surrounding the Elena Gallegos Open Space — and now I will shun the singletrack until the Fourth of July weekend is over. From now until Tuesday morning the trails will look like the aisles at Interbike on day one.
I was rocking the old Voodoo Nakisi with slightly overinflated tires to avoid pinch flats and rolls (I really need wider rims) and despite my best efforts managed to (a) keep the rubber side down, and (2) avoid centerpunching a small flock of early-bird weekenders.
Tomorrow Counselor Pelkey and I commence coverage of Le Tour over to Live Update Guy. We struggled mightily with the notion of cranking up the NRRBBB® Machine again — frankly, I was advocating a LUG-free July — but in the end we decided to bite that big yellow bullet and see if it blows our heads off. See you there.
I knew yesterday would be a lovely day when I stepped outside with The Boo and saw the moon fraternizing with the foliage.
“Oh my,” said I, or something very much unlike that.
Near the top of the La Cueva picnic area.
I had planned a longish road ride but burned a little too much cool daylight early on, walking The Boo while it was not yet scorching, watering plants, and viewing with alarm (the Limeys appear to be having Bregrets over Brexit). Those folks need a king, or at the very least a leader who hasn’t got shit all over him.
So do we, come to think of it.
Anyway, instead of logging four hours of saddle suffering, I spent about half that time climbing hills in the ‘hood, and that was just fine.
There’s not a lot of velo-traffic on a Monday, so I’m spared the stony “What are you doing on my road?” looks from the shaven-legged set. The four-wheeled traffic is up, but that’s fairly easy to dodge if you know the roads and there aren’t any three-time losers behind the wheel with a nearly empty 30-pack of Busch for company.
“She’s just really having a hard time in jail,” says her lawyer. Hey, counselor, that’s why they call it “jail” instead of “happy hour.”
Today is looking less bicycle-friendly, alas. I’m wrapping my print and video reviews of the Velo-Orange Piolet and sending the bike back to its owner; collecting a Rivendell Sam Hillborne, the next bike up for evaluation; thinking about my next column and cartoon for BRAIN (thank the suffering Christ that we go back to monthly publication after two more issues); and hitting the grocery.
I need some brain food (no, not BRAIN food, brain food). Looks like Counselor Pelkey and I will be calling the Tour de France over at Live Update Guy, if we can find some ether to spray in the carb and a couple rattle-cans of yellow Rustoleum.
You may never have read “Dispatches” by Michael Herr, but chances are you’ve shared some of his experiences at the cinema, in “Platoon,” “Apocalpyse Now” or “Full Metal Jacket.”
Michael Herr deserves his own post, if only for “Dispatches,” a work I’ve mentioned here before.
He went to Vietnam for Esquire, not for Uncle Sam, and he had to have a breakdown before he finished the book for which he would be best known.
If you saw “Apocalypse Now,” you’ve heard his work (he wrote the narration). You got some more of it in “Full Metal Jacket” (he wrote the screenplay with Gustav Hasford, author of “The Short-Timers,” for his friend Stanley Kubrick).
But “Dispatches” was the real deal. Seventies reportage from the scene, slightly fictionalized, deeply admired, by the king of Gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson, and by me, too.
Rest in peace, Mr. Herr.
Extra-credit reading
• “Hell Sucks,” which became part of “Dispatches,” reprinted in its entirety at Esquire.
Second, Floyd Landis will be fronting a whacky-tobacky enterprise, dubbed “Floyd’s of Leadville.” Cheech and Chong must be shittin’ themselves. I guess someone else already cornered the whiskey, beer and synthetic-testosterone market. (Pro tip: Never get high on your own supply, Floyd old scout.)
The Paseo del Bosque makes a nice change from riding Tramway.
Summer has announced itself with some authority here in the Duke City.
The temperature was in the 70s at El Rancho Pendejo before I finished my morning java, and hit the 80s before I left for the daily ride at 9-ish.
This little fella was trying to make the irrigation ditch before some earbudded triathlete did him in.
Too late, you say? Yep. ‘Cause I was enjoying 90-something in hour three of today’s little outing, which took me down to the Paseo del Bosque Trail, through downtown, and then home via the North Diversion Channel and Bear Canyon Arroyo trails.
It was an eventful day. I saw bison grazing on Sandia land along Tramway; a small tortoise trying to cross the bosque trail (I gave him a hand); ducks paddling underneath the Interstate 40 bridge over the Rio; and a dude on a skateboard pushing a canoe on wheels.
I am not making that last part up.
“Interesting way to get around,” sez I.
“Hey, it works,” sez he. And so it did.
I should’ve snapped a picture, because I’m not entirely sure I actually saw it. It was hot out there.
• Addendum: I’m not sure I saw this either. I can’t wait to hear the good constitutionalists out there screeching about activist judges (cue the crickets).
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