Back in the saddle again

February 25, 2016February 25, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments

Miss Mia Sopaipilla inquires whether I plan to stick around for a few head bumps before pissing off again to God knows where.

Nose, meet grindstone.

I pretty much plugged right back in after my little sojourn in the desert. Cranked out a column and cartoon for Bicycle Retailer, edited pix and video for Adventure Cyclist, bashed out a post and gallery for all y’all, delivered myself of a few quips on social media, replenished the larder, and got the Subie serviced.

The old rice rocket is still ticking along nicely after 11 years and 117,000 miles, and a few inexpensive repairs — replacing the cracked moon roof, reupholstering the driver’s seat and buffing the haze out of the headlights — should keep me off the car lots for a while yet.

The critters’ separation anxieties have all been soothed (I haven’t told them Herself will be pissing off to Hawaii here directly). And if I haven’t had a lick of exercise in three days, well, at least I’ve gotten a few things done.

After a heavenly week of shunning radio, TV and the Innertubez, I can’t say I’ve enjoyed catching up on the news, save for a bit of heehawing at Jeb (!) finally noticing all those loafer prints in his ass. How pleasurable it was to finally see a head roll in that dime-store dynasty, even with The Donald serving as executioner.

And speaking of The Mouth That Roared, that tale has pretty much stopped being funny. Over at MoJo, David Corn reminds us that the Rethugs have no one to blame but themselves for this billionaire buccaneer who sailed right into the middle of their tony fleet and let fly with broadsides to port and starboard.

At The Guardian, Jeb Lund distributes the credit a little more widely, observing that the courtier press is a bit too comfy in its own box seat at the opera to notice that the peasants outside are revolting (oy, are they ever).

Me, I think we all had a hand in the phenomenon that Charlie Pierce calls “He, Trump.” Or off it, as in abandoning control of our electoral processes to the pros, fixers and wizards.

This is one of the reasons I’m not sanguine about the idea of self-driving cars. If you’re not in the driver’s seat, you can be certain that someone else is. And they may be taking you somewhere you’d rather not go.

Turning Traitor

December 19, 2015December 20, 2015 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

The Traitor Wander parked at the northern end of the Tramway bike path. They can still run you over on this thing, but they can't claim they never saw you. — The Traitor Wander parked at the northern end of the Tramway bike path. They can still run you over on this thing, but they can’t claim they never saw you.

The temps finally inched above 40 yesterday afternoon so I kitted up and got out for a short ride on the Traitor Wander, the next bike in line for review in Adventure Cyclist.

I’m no longer equipped for nor inclined to those long subfreezing training rides we used to enjoy Back In the Day®, when everyone dressed up like the little brother from “A Christmas Story.”

But 40-something I can handle, especially since I’m no longer afeared of fenders. The new Shimano XM7s help keep the toes toasty, too.

I briefly considered running, but I already had all that heavily loaded legwork under my belt from emptying Chez Dog, and I hadn’t been on a bike since returning to El Rancho Pendejo, so off I rolled.

I saw a few other desperadoes out there pedaling, a couple of them wearing shorts. That’s way past Manly Points and deep into Dummy Country.

Today the weatherperson is predicting a high in the low 50s, which is my idea of the perfect December day. So I’ll be out for more than an hour. So will everybody else, but as the Buddha has taught us, life is suffering. They’ll just have to suck it up and learn how to share the road with my fat ass.

Look at that turkey

November 25, 2015November 25, 2015 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

Your Humble Narrator pretends to be a self-supported tourist on Tramway, about 20 minutes from EL Rancho Pendejo.

It’s not what it looks like — Your Humble Narrator ripping up the roads en route to someplace sunny, his panniers full of camping gear, bike parts and journalistical accoutrements.

Nope, just shooting a bit of video to tease my review of the Opus Legato 1.0 in the latest edition of Adventure Cyclist magazine. I was out for about an hour, rolling up and down Tramway while taking selfies like all the other narcissists.

Still, it got me away from the Innertubez, where life was busily imitating art again. The Russia-Turkey dick-waving competition was reminding me of the early pages of “Alas, Babylon,” while the GOP pestilential contest was shaping up about like “It Can’t Happen Here.”

These are dire days for fans of apocalyptic fiction and prescient political satire, and my natural misanthropy was on full boil. That is, until a motorist pulled over to ask if I needed any help as I fiddled with my cameras, and a cyclist likewise paused to ask where I was bound, then told me about an actual tour he had wrapped earlier this year, a massive, months-long expedition that basically took him to all points of the compass and back again.

There’s hope after all. Let us be thankful.

Privateering we did go

September 17, 2015September 19, 2015 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

There. A photo of an actual bike, from the actual show. Happy now?

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (MDM) — Some people watched CrossVegas. Others tuned in to “Mister Trump’s Neighborhood” (“Won’t you be my neighbor? No, of course you won’t, we wouldn’t let you, because you’re a loser! And anyway, I’m building a great big beautiful wall!”)

Me, I enjoyed a Mark Knopfler concert.

The Adventure Cycling Association’s King of All Media, Mike Deme, proposed the idea some months back and handled all the arrangements, so last night off we went to the Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace.

Good show. The man still has it at 66, and the band was tight, although the sound was poor; the bottom was over the top, smothering the lesser stringed instruments (cittern, ukelele, mandolin); overpowering whistles, flutes and even the uilleann pipes; and at times nearly obscuring Knopfler’s voice entirely.

The two-hour show unearthed a couple of what Knopfler called “historical relics,” including “Sultans of Swing,” the first song of his most of us ever heard. But there was plenty of newer stuff, too, from “Privateering” and his latest album, “Tracker.”

There was another show, of course, involving bicycles. I paid it little mind, day one always being heavy on the how-y’doing, what’s-up, still-working-for-eejits-o-yes* side of the ledger.

But Mike, Adventure Cyclist boss-fella Alex Strickland and I managed to fall by Pearl Izumi; Bollé (which is now doing helmets); Nutcase (which is doing some cool scooter helmets); Brompton (slick build-to-order Brit folders); and Jamis (check out their nicely spec’d and affordable Renegade series).

More of the same today, including a chat with Novara manager Cyndi Mundhenk of REI and a big skull session with the Adventure Cyclist staff and contributors over dinner this evening. I’ll try to post something from the show floor today. **

Next: Not all those who wander are lost. Just me.

* No eejits were harmed in the making of this post, especially those eejits who are paying the tab.

** Notice how well that worked out? Yeah, me too.

Putting on the Dog

September 15, 2015 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

For today at least, Sin City is not a scorching hellhole.

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (MDM) — Early rising makes me disagreeable, even more so than usual. So rather than make my usual pilgrimage to Late for the Train, I fled Flagstaff for Vegas, where one more bad attitude is the equivalent of a mouse fart at a sewage treatment plant.

Oddly, my arrival was completely incident-free. I checked in at the Luxor, picked up my show badge, and settled into my spacious Cycling Journalist’s Suite at the Luxor, awaiting the first of what I hope will be many meals at someone else’s expense.

The kickoff is always dinner with the Bicycle Retailer and Industry News mob. Then Adventure Cyclist takes a pounding for the duration.

That's Smirnoff, but not of the Yakov variety. — That’s Smirnoff, but not of the Yakov variety.

Throwing a few meaty bones to the old Dog is a small price to pay to keep me out of the office, and indeed across state lines. More than one of them, too, BRAIN being a California concern while Adventure Cyclist is based up Montana way.

On the way over to score my badge I noticed that someone had already had his dinner. Well, like they say, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Specifically, in and around the toilet at the Luxor.

Next: It’s showtime!