Tag: Live Update Guy

And it’s 1, 2, 3, what are we riding for?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

“Pamplona” is the sound of three Garmin-Sharp guys hitting the deck in the team time trial at the Vuelta a España.

Sport director Allan Peiper said Koldo Fernandez laid it down in a corner in the short, technical TTT and took Michel Kreder and Thomas Dekker with him. Ouch. Nothing like shredding the old skinsuit — and the old skin, too — on stage one of what will be a very long Vuelta.

“It’s a little mistake that makes a bigger damage,” Peiper said. “It’s a pity because we had started well.”

Charles Pelkey and I had a similarly rough start to providing live coverage of the stage over at Red Kite Prayer. Time trials are always a pain in the ass to cover live, especially short ones, and extra especially short ones in which the folks on the ground keep changing the times and standings on you in some foreign lingo. It was like herding kittens, to be precise.

But we got ‘er done, and Sunday brings an actual road stage, one for the sprinters. So y’all come. Coverage should commence five-ish Mountain time and end around 9:40 a.m.

Sky high

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 29 Comments

Wow. Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome crushed it today in the Tour’s first big time trial, opening up a 10-gallon-can of whup-ass on Cadel Evans and everyone else — including El Fabuloso, Fabian Cancellara, who must be pinching himself to see whether he’s still asleep and having a nightmare.

I was over at Red Kite Prayer, helping Charles “Live Update Guy” Pelkey track the race for our friends sentenced to cubicle farms worldwide, and we had a record haul in terms of contributions to the tip jar— in no small part to some silly little hooter logged on as Two700c, who complained about “politics” being injected into the play-by-play (oddly enough, it was one of our least political live updates ever).

Two700c slagged me in a snippy note to Charles, which goes to show you that not even the anonymity of the Internet is comfort enough for at least one timid Tea Bagger. Still, I feel obliged to thank him for helping us rake in a pile of coin. I’ll be donating a portion of the proceeds to the Democratic Socialists of America.

If you’re not already joining us for the daily live updates, swing on by. Always room for another pinko in the Party photo.

But it’s not all politics, all the time. Today, for example, I reprised one of my favorite National Lampoon covers to urge readers to contribute to the Cause.

If you don’t support this website, we’ll kill this dog.

Live updates for the Tour?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

Live updates … getcher live updates here … live updates, get ’em while they’re hot. …

If any of you folks enjoy Charles “Live Update Guy” Pelkey’s play-by-play from the grand tours, especially the Tour de France, pop round to his website and let him know.

He’s on the bubble about calling this year’s Tour, as he has a bit of lawyerin’ to do in his button-down persona as Consigliere Pelkey, Lawyer of Laramie. So if you’re a LUG nut stuck in the cube farm for three weeks in July, desperate for news from Le Show Beeg, give Charles a shout-out.

And if he comes off that bubble to call the Tour for us, think about plinking a dime or two in his tip jar by way of a thank-you. It ain’t often you see a lawyer working for tips.

• Full disclosure: I chime in from time to time during Charles’ live updates. But don’t let that deter you.

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.