Tag: Giro d’Italia

Giro today, Mooto mañana

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
The Mooto XYBB
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.

Bear Creek
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.

Cav’lry charge falls short

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

Hoo-boy. Mark Cavendish was pissed when Andrea Guardini beat him to the line in the last sprinters’ stage of this year’s Giro d’Italia.

It was a clean, straight-up ass-whuppin’, though, with nobody on the deck afterward. Guardini was simply faster than Cav’ this time around.

Tomorrow brings a real leg-breaker, 197km from Treviso to Alpe di Pampeago. Don’t look for Cav’ at the front of that one come the finish line, either.

Chirp … chirp … chirp. …

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
Highway 24
Pikes Peak as seen from Highway 24 near the Banning-Lewis Ranch.

Wow — the sound of all those virtual crickets digitally chirping is deafening.

The days have seemed about 90 minutes long lately. Bicycle Retailer and Industry News deadlines have been coming and going like cabs at McCarran International Airport. Likewise bicycle reviews for Adventure Cyclist. I just wrapped up the Cyfac Vintage; next in line is a Moots MXYBB, with a Van Nicholas Amazon Rohloff waiting in the wings.

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.


Phinney tests positive for grass

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

I filled in for the lawyerin’ Charles Pelkey this morning at Live Update Guy, doing my usual half-assed imitation of the master.

While I was juggling video, comments, stats and what have you I nearly missed maglia rosa Taylor Phinney riding straight off the road and into the grass at high speed. This would be hairy enough on the average pro road bike, but this being the team time trial Phinney was on his TT bike — and he managed to keep it upright and get back on the road (though he would have less luck holding onto his leader’s jersey).

So, chapeau to young Mr. Phinney. Nobody will ever know whether he could have stayed in pink had not Roberto Ferrari taken him down with that stupid sprint of his. But I think we can all agree that he certainly would have had an easier time of it today.

Chapeau, too, to Garmin-Barracuda and Ramunas Navardauskas for winning the stage and taking the overall lead.

What’s my line?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

Man, did you folks see Roberto Ferrari take out Mark Cavendish and Taylor Phinney in today’s Giro d’Italia stage? Judas priest. Cav’ went down like someone shot him from the sidelines.

“I was doing my sprint. I didn’t see him,” Ferrari told Cyclingnews. “I don’t know what happened because it was all behind me, my foot slipped. I had to switch lines because another rider moved abruptly.”

Bullshit. He was trying to hit a gap that wasn’t there. Relegation was too gentle a punishment. Every rider on Team Sky, BMC or any other squad with a man on the deck should be permitted to queue up for a chance to kick Ferrari in the nuts.