Finally, the temperature crept above zero, and then above freezing, and after I shipped my “Shop Talk” cartoon for the March 1 edition of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News I was able to sneak out for my first ride in the better part of quite some time that didn’t require pulling on enough neoprene to make wetsuits for every frogman in the Chinese navy.
First I took the Bootleg Hobo out and about with a GoPro on board, so I could get some winter footage for its video review, which Adventure Cyclist wants early next month.
Then I pulled the old mountain bike out of the garage again and rode over to Bear Creek Regional Park, where the Mad Dogs used to promote cyclo-cross races back when we were men instead of whatever it is that we are now.
There was still plenty of snow and ice on the ground, plus some slush to keep it company, and the trails were thick with feckin’ eejits who were either unable or unwilling to hear the crunch of fat tires on old snow, a bell rung thrice, and a cheery voice warning, “On your left!”
I startled the mortal shit out of at least two of ’em when I passed. They jumped smack out of their shivering skins and left ’em splayed on the ground like sex dolls awaiting inflation, their internal workings exposed to the elements. Stupidity should be painful.
Speaking of which, our local fish-wrapper, which is dead set on helping politicians, developers and other shameless hoors further enrich themselves at the taxpayers’ expense by elevating The Olympic Movement to cult status hereabouts, couldn’t even be bothered to localize an Associated Press story about a new national mountain-bike series that will finish right here in Bibleburg, home to (wait for it) The U.S. Olympic Committee and USA Cycling, in the U-nited States of America.
Nope, they’re too busy pimping the Winter Games, which is all the way around the damn’ world in Red Roosha, is what.
Shit, the lazy sonsabitches didn’t even fix the typos. Looks like we lost the Cold War after all.
What with helping Consigliere Pelkey live-blog the Giro, cranking out the comedy for Bicycle Retailer, logging saddle time on the Jones Steel Diamond and the Co-Motion Divide Rohloff in preparation for reviews thereof, and assisting Herself with a new project — turning our House Back East™ into a vacation rental via airbnb.com — I haven’t had much time to follow the doings in DeeCee.
But now that I’ve had a minute to cast an inquisitive eye about the Innertubes, I have a question for those of you who have been paying closer attention.
Is it time we abandoned our flirtation with representative democracy and begged the Queen to take us back? God save the Queen!
Speaking of limeys, back at the bike racing, Brave, Brave Sir Wiggo’ went from descending like a girl to descending the Giro’s overall standings like a sick girl in a Radio Flyer full of anvils on Mount Doom. Defending champion Ryder Hesjedal has had even worse luck; they’re timing that poor sod with a calendar. I have no idea who’s gonna win the goddamn thing, but it sure is fun to watch. Join Mr. P and me at Live Update Guy for tomorrow’s stage, the Giro’s longest.
In California, meanwhile, it’s Jens Voigt making everyone look sick. The 110-year-old father of 16 crushed Tyler Farrar and Thor Hushovd under his chariot wheels en route to victory in stage 5 of the Amgen Tour. He told VeloNews reporter Matthew Beaudin that when he finally retires, if ever, it will take two people to replace him — “one to do the funny part, and one to be the bike rider.”
And me? I didn’t ride a meter today, in victory or defeat. Work, work, work, that’s all we have around these parts. That, and dinner with friends at Springs Orleans. Somebody had managed to FUBAR the house lights but we couldn’t have cared less, because the food was top notch. We just let our forks follow our noses.
I don’t know whether it’s Daylight Saving Time, the death throes of my 2-week-old case of Snotlocker Surprise, or simply a matter of cranking out too much velo-journalism in too few hours, but I’m whupped.
Today I did manage to slip out for a short ride between chores, however, and it was delightfully refreshing. Sixty-something and sunny, with a light wind. A nearly perfect day, and it gave me a Madison sling to the finish line of this latest deadline cycle.
Back at the ranch, while finishing a column and cartoon for Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, I cooked up a pot of beans, pintos in chipotle chile, and with the roasted spuds in red chile that I made yesterday they will make a fine accompaniment to the chicken enchiladas in green chile that I will make tomorrow, right after another ride — a much longer, more leisurely outing than today’s.
The next two days I’m largely free of pressing responsibilities, a rare thing indeed lately, so I intend to take full advantage. I’m talking highs in the 60s and 70s, another unusual occurrence come March.
Now if I can just remember where I left my legs. Pale, thin, hairy … yes, two of them. They were here just a minute ago. …
Editor’s note: After some gentle prodding I’ve decided to post my “Mad Dog Unleashed” columns here at the blog, 30 days or so after their dead-tree publication (the folks at Bicycle Retailer and Industry News are paying good money for these things after all). Still, you can’t buy your own personal copy at the Barnes & Noble — BRAIN is a trade magazine, found near the toilet in all the better shops — and so the non-industry types among you may wonder what the hell is it that I do to pass the time when I’m not raving for free here. Speaking of which, this particular column had its roots in a blog post, so don’t be surprised if bits seem familiar.
If Bilbo had had a bike, he’d still be out there
“So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending!” — Bilbo Baggins in “The Hobbit”
In mid-November, after an overlong stretch of working for a living, I decided to treat myself to an adventure.
I had planned to head for Arizona for some sun-splashed cycling. But then I thought about the driving there and back, and all the cycling I would not be doing as I motored along, enduring various NPR pledge drives.
And frankly, the weather was not too shabby in Colorado.
Old Pueblo Road, just south of Hanover Road.
So instead I equipped my Soma Double Cross with racks, panniers and about 25 pounds of things I would not need, and went for a ride. Call it “There and Back Again,” in honor of Peter Jackson’s overstuffed epic “The Hobbit,” though my trip took only three days rather than three films and cost considerably less money.
The Road goes ever on and on. The Adventure Cycling Association, for which I do a bit of work, has been promoting “bike overnights”, the idea being that not everyone wants or needs to cycle clear to the Lonely Mountain and back.
I first rode one in 2011, a simple 100-mile round trip, and I had been itching all year to do another.
There were two downsides: One, I was woefully unfit, having ridden the office chair more than the bike. And two, the first leg of my planned route, Highway 115 to Penrose, had for months been a quagmire of construction.
When a quick recon found the work nearly complete, I took a deep breath, tugged on my roomiest bibs and pedaled off.
Down from the door where it began. Day one was a rolling, 50-mile ride along the broad, winding shoulders of 115 to Cañon City, with a stop outside Penrose for a soak at Dakota Hot Springs. Rather than camp I spent the night at the Cañon Hampton — for free, thanks to Hilton Honors points.
Come morning I wolfed a complimentary hot breakfast; took note of a plump coyote trotting alongside a nearby creek as I wandered around, unkinking my legs and waiting for the temperature to rise; then kitted up for the ride east to Pueblo.
Once past the traffic signals I settled into a pleasant rhythm that eludes me on short rides around town. Highway 50’s high-speed traffic was a distraction, but so are the Internet, the telephone and the doorbell.
Now far ahead the Road has gone. Outside Pueblo I turned south toward the Arkansas River Trail.Despite the chill fishermen worked the river — one of them in shorts — and several folks were walking or cycling the trail, which was a pleasant contrast to Highway 50 in terms of traffic/noise volume.
Leaving the trail downtown I stopped for lunch at Hopscotch Bakery, where I learned they wished to expand their Bingo Burger operation to Colorado Springs.
Some uninformed contributions on this topic won me a free cookie, and thus restored I rode north through Mineral Palace Park and across Highway 50 to another Hampton (free bed, free breakfast, what’s not to like?).
And I must follow if I can. One great thing about travel by bicycle, even a short trip, is the discipline it enforces. If you skip that day’s ride, you don’t get to where you’re going. And it was a temptation to skip the final leg to Colorado Springs, which began with a few miles of Interstate 25 (yikes!) before veering east at the defunct Piñon Truck Stop onto a rough, rolling frontage road.
Still, “third time pays for all,” as Bilbo Baggins was fond of quoting. And once past the rest area, with another short stretch of I-25 behind me, I rolled through an underpass to the west-side frontage road and thence to Old Pueblo Road, which leads to the Front Range Trail and blessed freedom from infernal combustion until a few short blocks from home.
The trip was less Lewis and Clark than Martin and Lewis — old fat bastard on a bike to no particular purpose, dragging bags of superfluous doodads along the way a snail does its shell — but it was refreshing to leave all my other baggage behind for a few days.
And while no dragons were harmed during the making of this column, I particularly enjoyed giving a dope-slap to that remnant of lizard brain that likes to whisper, “You can’t do it, y’know.”
March, is it? Whose idea was it to make February so short and start Daylight Saving Time on Sunday? Jesus, I take some time away from the blog to do a spot of work from my deathbed and the whole place goes to hell.
I brought some heavyweight class of an upper-respiratory bug home from the North American Handmade Bicycle Show and mostly have been sleeping at The House Back East® to keep from catapulting Herself out of bed and into the madhouse with my coughs, which sound remarkably like an M777 howitzer in action, if M777 howitzers fired 155mm olive-drab snot rockets.
Between booger barrages I have had to crank out the word count for Adventure Cyclist and Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, the latter now back to twice-a-month publication. Doubling up on the funny is heavy lifting when your brain is braising in bacterial tapioca.
The past couple of days have brought some mild improvement, happily, and I’ve even been out and about on the latest review bike, a Novara Verita, one of the steeds in REI’s velo-stable. I’ve tried not to dribble on it, because the green would clash horribly with the nifty blue-and-white color scheme and might even dissolve the tubeset.
I shan’t have access to that refreshing little pasatiempo this weekend, however. The wizards predict rain, snow and wind — to wit, March weather.
Just as well. Another round of deadlines is upon me like some fresh plague, and I might as well stick to embarrassing myself in print instead of upon the bicycle until the sun comes back sometime next week.
Mad Blog Media 