Buh-bye, bunga bunga

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
Buffalo bolognese
A guy can't eat Mexican 24/7, f'chrissakes. One must think of the neighbors. Leave the gas attacks to the coppers at Occupy Denver.

In honor of Silvio Berlusconi’s departure and Larry T’s extended Giro d’Italia — and because we’ve had an overlong run of beans, green and red chile, and posole around the DogHaus lately — I whipped up a skillet of buffalo bolognese tonight and laid it out over spaghettini.

Herself assembled a green salad and tackled post-dinner KP, while as per usual the cats and dog contributed exactly jack shit to the common good. Why we let all these critters Occupy Caramillo Street free of charge remains a mystery. Oh, yeah, they’re cute. Mystery solved. You know my methods, Watson.

Bloggery was nonexistent this weekend thanks to an unusually large pile of VeloNews, which caused me to mumble many words of four letters and one syllable as I shoveled away.

I wrote five race reports thanks to the miracle of streaming video; fielded quotes, updates and wisdom from Brian Holcombe, our man on the ground at USGP Louisville; posted a mess of results and bits of this, that and the other from Euro’ scribe Andy Hood and other contributors — and yet, when I look at the homepage, somehow it doesn’t look like there was much going on. It just took a long time to get it up there.

Meanwhile, for some reason I’ve decided to resume “running,” if your idea of “running” involves five minutes of same sandwiched between two 10-minute segments of walking. My knees were bugging me earlier this year, so I 86ed the ground-pounding in hopes that a respite might spare me a trip to the doc. Bad news I can get right here in the office for pennies via the Innertubes.

But on Saturday I did the walk-run-walk thing, and I repeated it today — ramping the “running” segment up to seven and a half minutes — and while I can’t say that it feels as pleasant as getting a hot-oil rubdown from Elle MacPherson and Tyra Banks after a double Talisker, it’s not as painful as watching Rick Perry or Herman Cain demonstrate how woefully unqualified they are to hold any position loftier than that of Wal-Mart greeter in Undescended Testicle, North Dakota.

Whose roads? Our roads!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments

The nanny-state ninnies in DeeCee are at it again, slipping a mandatory sidepath provision into the draft of the Senate’s transportation authorization, a.k.a. S. 1813, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act.

The portion dealing with the federal lands transportation program reads as follows:

(d) BICYCLE SAFETY—The Secretary of the appropriate Federal land management agency shall prohibit the use of bicycles on each federally owned road that has a speed limit of 30 miles per hour or greater and an adjacent paved path for use by bicycles within 100 yards of the road.

No, no and hell no, thanks all the same. As the League of American Bicyclists notes, this egregious bit of transportation segregation “ignores our fundamental right to the road.”

There’s a perfect example of why this is a ridiculous notion right here in Bibleburg. North 30th Street is a narrow, high-speed road that cyclists use to get to the Garden of the Gods or to the hilly roads around the Flying W Ranch. There is an alternative route — a “multipurpose path” east of the street that connects to a serviceable west-side path — but the eastern leg is in woeful condition, a hodgepodge of lumpy, thousand-year-old chip-seal and pulverized-granite road base that erodes at the slightest bit of run-off.

I don’t mind riding it, but I’m usually on a old steel cyclo-cross bike. Some more sensitive types with five-figure plastic fantastics find the trail less navigable and so stick to the road.

And why shouldn’t they? These are our roads, as in everyone’s, not just the folks texting their office-mates, kinfolk and sweethearts while barreling along behind the wheel of a multiton hunk of Detroit iron.

The choice to use road or path is and should remain an individual one. The League is on this like a sweaty jersey, but if you’d like to add your voice to theirs, sign their petition reminding the Senate that bikes have a right to the road. Tell the silly sods to Occupy the clues closet for a change.

A tip of the Mad Dog Media riot helmet to Khal S., LAB rat and longtime friend of the DogS(h)ite.

To Austin’s dope dealers

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
Asshat
Someone give the poor sod a Plexiglas belly button so he can see where he's going.

A grateful nation sends its thanks to whichever one of you is selling the chronic to Gov. Rick “Goodhair” Perry. The Republic is remarkably resilient, but I’m not certain it could survive another Lone Star shit-for-brains who can’t maintain.

Y’all deserve a Presidential Medal of Freedom, or at least a get-out-of-jail-free card.

SOPWAMTOS lives!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

Back in the day, when Interbike was smaller and less regimented, Bruce Gordon, Mark Norstad, David diFalco and a few other folks united under the banner of the Society of People Who Actually Make Their Own Shit (SOPWAMTOS) would present the annual Golden Toiddy Awards.

A parade through the aisles would feature dancing girls spinning titanium hula hoops, gents wearing Bruce Gordon fezzes, Mickey Mouse panties and damn’ little else, and Mark and Bruce — the two Self-Appointed Co-Dictators for Life — being wheeled along on a golden litter.

My Golden Toiddy
My Golden Toiddy, awarded for Excellence In Bad Taste. It's always nice to see one's efforts noticed.

The highlight was always the presentation of the Golden Toiddys, cleansed, spray-painted and hand-lettered toilet seats liberated from a dump near Petaluma, California. The SOPWAMTOS motto was “Standing for Rudeness and Truth in the Bike Business,” and the awards always had a strong flavor of a Friar’s Club roast emceed by Jeffrey Ross.

Cannondale’s Joe Montgomery got the “Smoke & Mirrors” award the first two years and loved it. Specialized’s Mike Sinyard got the inaugural “Best R&D (Rip-off & Duplicate)” award and was reportedly less pleased.

I even got one, for “Excellence In Bad Taste,” and was delighted. But not as delighted as I was to learn that SOPWAMTOS is enjoying something of a renaissance as a place where cyclists can buy good old made-in-USA products, among them White Industries hubs, Bruce Gordon brakes and other goodies. Other products said to be coming soon include items from King Cage, Paul Components, Phil Wood, Thomson and Wald Sports.

I immediately bought myself an official SOPWAMTOS T-shirt, as I am engaged daily in the design, creation and wholesale distribution of what some will wholeheartedly agree can be described only as shit.

Didn’t see any BG fezzes in the online store though, dammit. How’s an old bald guy supposed to keep the melanomas off his noggin when he’s parading around in his Mickey Mouse panties?