Attack of the Killer Bicycle

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments

OK, yeah, right, not a lot of O’Grady®-label content around here lately, apologies, sorry sorry sorry. A tip of the Mad Dog propeller beanie to everyone keeping the sound cranked up to 11 in the comments so none of the other WordPress blogs can get any sleep.

Herself is on the road, helping her kinfolk marry off a youngun (no first cousins were harmed in the making of this marriage, or so I’m told). Thus, for a few days now I’ve been on my own, which is never pretty, as I revert to bachelorhood at warp speed.

Lacking adult supervision, I know that there is still a place for everything, but that place has become the floor. No one in authority suggests the use of the inside voice during attempts at debt collection. Meals tend to be infrequent, unheated and taken over the sink, and the only laundry that gets done involves colorfully sublimated Lycra.

An extra added attraction this time around is that my road bike tried to assassinate me, a titanium Virgil “The Turk” Sollozzo to my all-too-vulnerable Don Vito Corleone, knowing that in Herself’s absence nobody had my back.

The treacherous titanium two-wheeler put me into a Death Wobble on a descent on Wednesday and I only survived the assault thanks to the intervention of the Blessed Virgin of Hell Is Full and Satan Is Busy But Your Call Is Important To Us And Will Be Answered In the Order In Which It Was Received.

Either that or the cats implored their dark lord to spare the hairy-legged roadie, if only until The Chosen One returns from West Texas. They have yet to master the filling of the dish and the emptying of the litter box.

Share which roads?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
"Peace be with you." "And also with you."

Once again we take our sermon from the Book of Comments, chapter 36, verse 49, “Yea, though we ride through the Valley of Death, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.”

The discussion about Reed Bates and his two-wheeled run-in with Texas law enforcement touches on a topic that affects me since I caught the bug of bicycle touring.

My recent reconnaissance of south-central Colorado highways gave me a bad case of The Fear — getting to some of the places I’d like to visit via bicycle would require me to share long stretches of skinny highway with wide vehicles, many of them traveling well above the posted speed limit of (usually) 65 mph.

I can ride these roads — I’m just not certain it’s smart. And while I’m trying to find suitable workarounds, they’re few and far between, our roads having been designed and constructed with infernal combustion in mind.

As a teen-ager I could and did cycle on Academy Boulevard here in Bibleburg. Today, better you should stay at home and shoot yourself in the head; it’s a cleaner, less agonizing death. And there are other roads I once cycled but now avoid because the auto traffic is too heavy, or there’s no shoulder, or what shoulder there is looks like Fort Cartoon has been using it for artillery practice.

This kind of self-segregation irks me, but I want to enjoy my rides, and finish them upright instead of in the back of an ambulance (or a hearse).

“What is to be done?” asked Lenin. I don’t care to battle The Man for my two-wheeled share of Academy, Marksheffel, Union, Circle, Powers or any of the other major thoroughfares in Bibleburg. But I would like a nice, wide slice of westbound Highways 24 and 50, both of which are gateways to some pretty attractive country.

Seems to me, then, that in the absence of an endless supply of ammo, we need sharpshooters who pick their targets carefully and nail them with the first round.

Bullish on stocks

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
At Pillory Real Estate, we'll never leave you hanging.
At Pillory Real Estate, we'll never leave you hanging.

As the last U.S. “combat brigade” leaves Iraq — some 50,000 other gun-totin’ troops remain, among them elements of Fort Carson’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team — let’s take note of some other good news.

Remember Capt. Michael Clauer, the Army Reserve soldier who lost his $300,000 home over an $800 debt while stationed in Iraq? He’s getting it back, thanks in part to a Mother Jones story.

As MoJo’s Nick Baumann notes: “If folks from the homeowners association had bothered to knock on May Clauer’s door, they might have avoided all this — the legal fees, the negative press attention, and the (surely large) settlement costs. But they didn’t, and they paid the price. Fred Rogers would be ashamed.”

A swift kick in the wallet pocket is too good for these swine. How about a little time in the stocks, too? If the debts pile up and their houses get seized and sold while they’re hanging around in the town square, well, perhaps they can find new homes somewhere — say, in the Army, in Afghanistan.

Intelligent design

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
The Front Range seems very far away when you're between Falcon and Peyton.
The Front Range seems very far away when you're between Falcon and Peyton.

Lots of good thoughts in comments about the larval T-shirt/jersey design. Thanks to one and all. I think Jon P. hits the nail on the head when he suggests starting with a cheap T-shirt and taking time to dial in the pricey jersey.

The Mad Dog Media-Dogs at Large Velo jersey never did sell worth a damn through VeloGear, and neither did my Bog Trotters cyclo-cross jersey, so I’m wary of getting stuck with a closet full of these things.

I also need to come up with some amusing “sponsors” to put on the sleeves, pockets, collar and elsewhere, and I don’t feel the need to rush, especially since the DogHaus needs a new roof and insurance is unlikely to pay.

So, yeah — T-shirt first. I’ll have a final design and cost locked down by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, I spent part of the last two days riding the bike, which is a lot more fun than playing with Photoshop. Both times I rode northeast on Highway 24, yesterday on the Soma with fully loaded panniers as a sort of shakedown cruise for that eventual tour, and today aboard Old Faithful, the DBR ti’. Forty miles with panniers and 50 without. Guess which was easier.

Highway 24 is about the closest thing you can find to a flat ride in these parts. It used to be the Sunday group ride, back in the early Nineties, and while the traffic has certainly grown exponentially, the shoulders remain wide enough for a double paceline (or a single fat bastard).

The only hairy moments involve a few pucker-pass bridges, a la Highway 115. I don’t care what Satchel Paige said about not looking back — you hit one of these bad boys with an 18-wheeler in the oncoming lane, you want to take a quick squint over one shoulder to see if another 18-wheeler is gaining on you.

The math is simple: 1 pucker-pass bridge + 2 18-wheelers + 1 fat bastard = 1 closed-casket funeral.