The latest bike in the Adventure Cyclist review chain.
OK, as Giros go, that one did not suck. Props to Ryder Hesjedal for the win — I thought he was gonna lay it down a couple-three times in the final time trial — and to Purito Rodriguez for a much more honorable defense of the maglia rosa than the one he put in yesterday.
The Bear Creek trail, just east of the Nature Center.
It was an honest-to-God nail-biter and if Al Gore hadn’t invented the Innertubes we’d never have been able to see it live on our computers. Best president we never had, is what.
Post-Giro I went for a hilly, windy shakedown cruise on the latest bike in the Adventure Cyclist review chain, a Moots MootoXYBB that arrived rigged for the Apocalypse with 29×54 rubber, Old Man Mountain racks fore and aft, and titanium everything from stem to stern except for the nifty leather bits from Brooks. Woof. I’d tell you more if you were members of the Adventure Cycling Association.
Tomorrow there will be more of the same, kinda, sorta. Less Giro, as in none, and much more Moots. I need to ride this rascal someplace sexy, where the basements are not full of breaker-tripping dehumidifiers, half a carpet and heavily edited drywall.
Too, I’m been chiming in during Charles Pelkey’s live updates from the Giro, for all the good it does him. And Herself and I celebrated our 22nd anniversary on the 12th.
So, yeah. Busy busy busy, especially considering that I remain seriously underemployed — and, as a geezer who earned his chops in a dying profession, am likely to stay that way. Well, that just means more time to ride, no?
So I go out and flog myself around the countryside for a couple of hours, followed by a bite of lunch, and by the time the day’s Amgen Tour of California stage rolls around I could give a shit. I mean, I like Peter Sagan and all, but four stage wins? For reals? And today brings the time trial in Bakersfield. Pass the toothpicks, someone, I need to prop my eyelids open.
Of course, with my eyelids propped open, I can’t not look at stupid shit like this, from Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Fuckwit). Jesus H. Christ on a flatcar. Most states in the Union put their crazy people in mental institutions. Colorado sends them to the U.S. House of Representatives.
I'da got off and run the sumbitch but I didn't want to stuff my water bottle into my armpit. Yeah, right.
As hard as it is to believe, we’ve nearly completed another lap around the sun. Didn’t we just do the whole New Year’s Eve thing?
Colleagues are writing up the usual best-of, top-10 and “a look back” pieces, but as a perpetual juvenile and occasional Zen student I remain caught up in the moment.
For example, work is particularly vexing lately for reasons that aren’t worth delving into. “At least you have work,” I remind myself, but it doesn’t help. I have something that pisses me off, is what.
Happily, the biggest upside of my gig — besides the monthly paychecks, that is — is its part-time nature. When I find myself composing a vitriolic NastyGram®, the cursor twitching over the “Send” button, I can put the iMac to sleep, grab a bike and go for a ride.
I’ve been riding the Voodoo Nakisi lately, because I plan to write a review for Adventure Cyclist magazine, but yesterday I thought I’d break out my custom Nobilette, which has been idle for a spell due to a rear-brake issue I didn’t feel like troubleshooting.
Problem solved with a little more daylight between pads and rim, I rolled off toward Palmer Park, my go-to spot for flushing out the headgear. Its 730 acres comprise more than 25 miles of trails, from tame to terrifying, and during a dry winter like this one it’s a great place for staying out of the wind and refuting entropy.
Palmer gets quite a bit of use — hikers, cyclists, joggers, dog-walkers and equestrians — and as a consequence many of its trails have deteriorated alongside Bibleburg’s crumbling finances. I had been sticking to the west side of the park because a main eastern trail had been more or less destroyed, but yesterday I thought I’d do a little recon, see what things looked like over there.
The initial idea was to try to ride some moderately technical, steep single-track, replete with switchbacks and water bars, but my legs exercised their veto power. So I rolled over to the playground at Maizeland and Academy and then looped back around to scope out that eastern trail, which parallels the paved road that winds through the park.
Imagine my surprise: Someone, either the parks department, the Guardians of Palmer Park or benefactors unknown had performed a serious feat of engineering on the worst section of trail, a short, steep ascent that takes you to a bend in the road from which several trails fan out. What had been a rocky, rutted mess had been smoothed out, with new water bars installed and the ruts filled in.
Lacking compaction by rain or snow, though, the soft dirt used for the trail’s new surface grabbed my 700×30 Maxxis tires like a troll reaching up from underneath a bridge, and off I came. Bugger. Pushed the bike to the top like a big sissy and took a picture while catching my breath.
Maybe I’ll go back over there today aboard the Voodoo, with its 700×45 tractor tires and 22-tooth granny. Teach that trail a lesson.
I could send it a NastyGram®, but some issues are better raised face to face.
Now here’s a goddamn bike race for you. Only one stage — but it’s 2,745 miles long, from Banff, Alberta, Canada, to Antelope Wells, N.M., and there are no soigneurs, domestiques, chefs, team cars, buses, officials, checkpoints, etc., et al., and so on and so forth. Strictly a garage-band sort of deal. Ride or die.
The Tour Divide runs along the Adventure Cycling Association’s Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, and the association has just hired the women’s record holder for the event, Jill Homer, as project manager and deputy editor of Adventure Cyclist magazine.
I like this note in the rules:
7. Tour Divide is a web-administered, do-it-yourself challenge based on the purest of wagers: the gentlemen’s bet or agreement. Nothing to win or lose but honor.
Mad Blog Media 