Flogging the dog

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments
The Soma Double Cross in winter configuration
The Soma Double Cross in winter configuration, sans rear rack.

One of the best things about saying adios to that part-time web-editing gig is that I have my weekends free for the first time in several years.

We left Weirdcliffe for Bibleburg in part so I could reconnect with other cyclists. But a guy who works on Saturday and Sunday misses a lot of group rides, and I found myself riding mostly solo, as I had among the hill people. There’s nothing wrong with that — OK, it does cause the hair on your legs to grow — but it sure doesn’t prepare you for cycling in company.

This I relearned yesterday when I joined my first group ride in the better part of quite some time.

It was a small group and a short ride, and I failed to distinguish myself (surprise, surprise). There were a few small hills, the pace was a little quicker than my usual slothlike advance, and my rusty pack-riding skills had me out in the wind more often than necessary. Plus I was riding my second-heaviest bike, complete with fenders and burly 700×32 Vittoria Randonneur Cross rubber.

However, as we all know, it’s not about the bike. Nope, nossir. It’s about the booty, and I’m presently wearing too much of it.

At least I wasn’t the first guy to holler “Slow down!”

Rouleurs and Stooges and ’cross, oh my!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments
Edward R. Furrow
Never give a mad dog an open mic'.

Friend of the site Larry T., commenting over at VeloNoise, directed me to a witty review of cyclo-cross commentary American style by his pals at Rouleur magazine.

Naturally, I was inspired to bang out my own take on things.

Maybe it’s that I’ve spent too many years working alone from a home office, but I find myself less tolerant of racket in my advanced geezerhood. And that’s what I find most homegrown cycling commentary to be.

No disrespect intended to Dave Towle, Richard Fries or Brad Sohner, who had a more restrained delivery than his two comrades. It takes ’nads to put yourself out there, mic’d up and on camera, and then crank up the old P.T. Barnum for a few hours (“Hur-ry, hur-ry, hur-ry!”). I’d just like to see them dial down the theatricality a click or two or three. That sort of bombast is hard on an iMac’s speakers.

There’s plenty of drama inherent in the racing. No need to slather on more. It’s like watching someone take a can of Krylon to a Moots.

Meanwhile, my fellow geezers are mixing it up at the 2012 masters cyclo-cross worlds in Louisville, and all the usual suspects are serving up the whup-ass from a muddy 55-gallon drum. It would be fun to be there.

But it would be even more fun to be there in 2013, when Eva Bandman Park hosts the UCI Cyclo-cross Elite World Championships. Hell, if I can get there I might be doing some hollering my own bad self. “One to go! Onetogo onetogo onetogo!”

The knuckle-draggers from Amen Corner

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

Christ, we get more bad shit out of Texas Republicans than a zoo vet does out of a whole herd of sick elephants.

The latest GOP dungheap will be accumulating at a ranch near Austin, where a gaggle of “social conservative leaders” — read “wealthy rednecks who either misconstrued Christ’s message or deliberately chose to pervert it” — will spend the weekend trying to decide whom they wish to assume the position before as the pestilential erection looms.

Ho, ho. As if it matters.

These self-righteous, sanctimonious pricks are in the same boat as we lefty-loonie, tree-hugging commies. When it comes to the big prom in November, we have no choice as regards dance partners.

Frankly, it’s an abusive relationship for both parties, the hard right and the hard left. Obama figures we’re not going anywhere, and whichever double-talking fascist finds himself out in front of the Tea Baggers, Elmer Gantrys and bow-tied Beltway boneheads knows he’s got that lot locked up.

It’s all about getting the base to the dance while also snagging the lion’s share of the so-called “independents,” who mostly have already made up their minds but won’t tell the pollsters.

So, yeah, “social conservative leaders,” good luck with that KKKaffeeklatch outside Austin. Will rubber chicken and plastic knives defeat a Chocolate Jesus? Stay tuned.

Making a joyful (Velo)noise unto the lords

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

Thanks to one and all for playing VeloNoise on Sunday. It was an interesting experiment in what may well be modern journalism’s ultimate corporate goal — one unpaid staffer using his own tools to transform free resources into paying copy.

The only downsides, from management’s vulturine perspective, is that (a) there was no paying copy, since WordPress does not permit advertising on its free blogs; and (2) the enterprise lacked the customary seven layers of senior executive vice presidents farting through silk and issuing contradictory edicts to the pixel-pusher at the keyboard.

I slapped the website together for less than a hundred smacks, most of it spent to nail down the domain names and the rest to point those names to a WordPress blog that uses the same template as this one for simplicity’s sake. The banner I built in Photoshop Elements 8. The only thing left to do was digest video and excrete words.

Where’s it all leading, you ask? Beats the hell out of me. I basically did it for laughs, a bit of performance art directed at Pharaoh as I fled Egypt. “How’s this for bricks without straw, bitch!”

With that accomplished, VeloNoise could become many things — a blog, a column title, a T-shirt. As usual, I’m just making it up as I go along. Whatever happens as a consequence is liable to be a surprise to all of us.

Hey, children, what’s that sound. …

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
VeloNoise
One bad idea deserves another.

It struck me today, as I was enjoying a leisurely spin around Bibleburg, that this was the first weekend in the better part of quite some time that I hadn’t been confined to the VeloBarrel, shoveling frantically to keep my breathing apparatus above … well, I suppose you could call it water.

Of course, it was also the first weekend in the better part of quite some time that I was “at liberty,”  or “resting,” as Steinbeck said the theatrical people had it, or “down to two part-time jobs,” as I describe it.

This gives a man time to ride, weather permitting. Also to think.

So, as Sunday seems more of a snow day, maybe I’ll do for free what I used to do for money at the other place — watch streaming video of the Belgian and U.S. national cyclo-cross championships and pop a short recap of each up on the Innertubes at www.velonoise.com.

That’s Velo-Noise, by the way. Sound it out: velo-noise. And no disrespect to my fellow Velo-comrades is intended. But it’s a new season, and we’re wearing different jerseys. I’ve just reverted to amateur status — which means I’m doing it for fun, not money.

• Late update: I’m gonna try a little experiment and embed the code for the streaming video over at VeloNoise, just ’cause. I owe it to science.