Adios, Vuelta; hola, Interbike

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Outdoor Demo 2005
Your Humble Narrator, courting sunburn at the 2005 Outdoor Demo.

The Vuelta a España wraps up this weekend, and come Sunday I’m off to The Big Show in Vegas for the first time since 2006.

This will be my 14th Interbike, and my first under the aegis of anyone other than Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. I started out doing medium-heavy lifting for BRAIN, first in Anaheim and then in Vegas, pitching in on straight news coverage for the Show Daily. But as the years passed I gradually scaled back to compiling the Grapevine column and drawing a special Mud Stud strip for the Daily; I also lent a hand with headlines, photo captions and page-proofing, having done plenty of all three in 12 years as a copy editor for various newspapers.

When money got tight my annual trip to Sin City got nixed. It didn’t help that my post-show column was usually a variation on the theme “Interbike sucks,” which must have become tiresome to the publisher, editor, Interbike and the readership. I contributed Show Daily cartoons from a distance for a year or two, and then bean-counting saw the plug pulled on that, too. In a trade magazine comedy is an option, and occasionally more bug than feature.

No worries. I wasn’t enjoying myself, and it was time to take a break.

Now I have the chance to visit the show as a tourist, thanks to the fine folks at Adventure Cyclist magazine, who have yet to see the worst of me. Editor Mike Deme and I will wander the floor of the Sands Expo and Convention Center, looking for bikes to test-ride in 2012, and I should have plenty of spare time to unearth interesting bits of this and that, not being tethered to a Show Daily deadline.

So stay tuned — that low rumbling sound you hear in the distance is the DogMobile warming up for another high-speed run across the desert to Bugsy Siegal’s Fun House.

This way to the Egress

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

There are no easy stages at this year’s Vuelta a España.

Today’s finale appeared to have been designed via collaboration among P.T. Barnum, M.C. Escher and Owsley Stanley. It’s a miracle that the final few meters weren’t greased with human flesh.

I arose just in time to catch the last 50km, my evening’s repose having been less than refreshing thanks to Buddy the Wonder Dog, who is a restless bedmate. Like Turkish, who stretches out next to me like a hot, furry sack of traction sand, the Budster is a fan of body contact and spent the night glued to me like a decal, occasionally snuffling through his abbreviated snoot, rolling over or sighing.

Herself finally caved around 5:30 or so and got up to deal with the little tosser, and I tried to go to sleep. Miss Mia Sopaipilla slipped in through the open door, taking up residence under the bed; Herself corraled her, too, and clicked the door solidly shut so the Turk’ couldn’t join the party.

Long story short, I finally got up around 8:30 feeling like someone had unplugged about half my RAM and poured a beer onto my motherboard. I contributed some weak snark to Charles Pelkey’s LiveUpdateGuy, prepared a late breakfast and now I’m at Heuberger Subaru waiting for them to find something wrong with the rice grinder as I prepare for my triumphant return to Interbike.

There will not be any dogs in the bed in Vegas. Just sayin’.

Chilly Bibleburg, hot Vuelta

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments

After what seemed an eternity of hot, damp weather the furnace clicked on this morning.

“It’s not even Labor Day yet. Am I gonna have to start wearing pants already?” I thought as I pushed pixels for investment capitalists who think “velo” is the French for “EBITDA.”

Nope. I closed a couple windows and surrendered to the urge for socks, but the pants remain in the closet for now. Real Coloradans don’t pull on their trousers until the snow flies, and sometimes not even then.

The heat was on during today’s Vuelta stage, too. It always is when the peloton tackles the Angliru. Bradley Wiggins collapsed like a cheap clincher full of goatheads and Juanjo Cobo peeled the red shirt right off his back with a performance that some skeptical types quickly dubbed extraterrestrial.

Who knows? As many dipshit fools as there were lining the climb today, Cobo could have been getting Madison slings that entire last 5km. At least two motos went down in the melee, including the camera bike watching the GC group, and Eurosport’s house Limey was peeing his pants trying to get word of Wiggo’s whereabouts as Cobalt blew up the Vuelta.

Meanwhile, Boom-boom Boonen hit the deck again and broke his left hand, which probably means there will be one less Belgian at the worlds in Copenhagen. Dude must think some ex-girlfriend put the mojo on his ass. He’s spent more time on the tarmac lately than the entire Euskaltel-Euskadi team, guys who are spastics without peer on anything other than a solo flyer up a 28-percent grade.

I bet Boom-boom could fall into a barrel of tits and come out sucking his thumb. Only way he’s gonna see a rainbow anytime soon is if Monaco hosts a gay-pride parade.

Road trip!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments
Should've seen him yesterday. ...
I'm not dead yet. ...

Back in the day I had a dog, name of Jojo. Leave a door or a window ajar and Jojo would shoot through it like a bottle rocket, a decidedly unguided missile.

He would come home, eventually, looking like he had been shot at and missed, and shit at and hit. But he always seemed to have had a good time.

Jojo never learned much from me. But I clearly learned something from him, because every time a window opens … well, you get the idea.

My window opened yesterday, and I shot through it with the idea of cycling through Pueblo to Penrose, there to stay at a nearby hot springs overnight before returning to El Rancho del Perro Loco to ride herd on the cats, Herself having planned to toddle off to Texas with Buddy to visit family.

What the hell? It was only 80-some-odd miles, and who cares if I get the traditional late start, as in 10:30 a.m.?

Fountain trail
Riding the trail south from Bibleburg through Fountain beats the hell out of the alternatives — Interstate 25 or Highway 85/87.

Well, me, for starters, once I finally got to Pueblo three hours later after fighting a headwind all the way with a couple dozen pounds of this and that lashed to the rack of my Soma Double Cross. It was 98 degrees at Bingo Burger, the skies were looking decidedly ominous toward the west, and despite having packed and consumed three bottles I was so dry I was farting dust.

I slammed two IZZE Grapefruits with my burger and fries, reloaded my bottles with water and ice, took one more look westward — goddamnit, the wind is out of the west now! — and made a command decision: Fuck Penrose, I’m staying in the Hampton Inn & Suites, where there is air conditioning, a swimming pool and a liquor store within walking distance.

Plus I got Hilton points, which also scores points with Herself. This is important if one is not supposed to be staying in a motel in the first place.

This morning I got up bright and early, took advantage of the Hampton’s free breakfast, and snagged Herself via cell phone en route to Texas as I departed. We met, I took Buddy for a quick walk, Herself took herself for one too, and we agreed that we would not kill me until she came home.

Railroad bridge
An old railroad bridge paralleling Old Pueblo Road near the fabled Hanover Loop, a death march of a ride favored by the Mad Dogs back in the Nineties.

My ride north was a good deal easier, though longer. It helps if one starts before the sun is on full fry-the-fat-guy mode.

• Extra-credit bonus snark: The movie “Unstoppable” is one of the silliest flicks it has been my misfortune to stumble across with a remote control, a mild case of heatstroke and a six-pack of Odell’s 5 Barrel Pale Ale in an air-conditioned motel 30 miles from where I had intended to park myself for the evening. I actually have been hit by a train, and I would gladly endure that indignity again if only I could be driving a bus containing everyone responsible for this miserable piece of shit as we hit the crossing in front of old Triple-7 doing 70 per.