Tag: Live Update Guy

Shark. Fin.

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 37 Comments

Laptop-OverWhew. Another Tour is in the bin, and just in time, too.

Vinnie “The Shark” Nibbles arrived in Paris with his lead and skin intact, two Frenchies made the podium for the first time since the lads raced with wooden rims, smoking cigarettes, and Charles Pelkey and I called the sumbitch from start to finish at Live Update Guy. Thanks to any and all of yis who popped round to watch us flail. If you enjoy that sort of thing, we’re gonna be doing it again for the Vuelta a España.

Now I can finally relax a bit, if your idea of downtime is immediately banging out a column and cartoon for Bicycle Retailer, shooting and editing a video for Adventure Cyclist, and wrangling a herd of tradespeople — movers, plumbers, arborists, painters, bankers, and Realtors™ — in preparation for our impending move to Albuquerque. Fuck me running, if you’ll pardon my French.

Herself will be southbound directly, taking up temporary quarters in Duke City as she starts the new gig, while I remain behind at Chez Dog, dealing with deadlines, managing the menagerie and assisting the house-hunting process from afar with my usual wit and wisdom.

“Nope. Nope. Nope. Hate it. Ug-ly. Sucks. Nope. Nope. Nope.”

It doesn’t help that we’re out of practice, having stayed put for 12 years. Too, we’ve been extraordinarily lucky as regards house purchases, having dealt exclusively with friends and relatives thus far. Still, eventually we’ll find a place we like, accumulate some soul-crushing debt, and that will be that. We’ll be New Mexicans again.

¡Que triste es la vida loca!

A Giant among men

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments
This stretch was one of the fast downhill bits of our old 'cross courses.
This stretch was one of the fast downhill bits of our old ‘cross courses.

Stifling again today, with the high somewhere in the mid-90s and the promised rain nowhere in sight.

It was already 80-something as I stepped away from the iMac and started slathering on the sunscreen after a bracing few hours playing second-chair tuba in the Live Update Guy Symphony Orchestra during stage 3 of the Tour de France.

What a fella wants after all that chin music is a bit of the old bikey ridey, and a little shade to do it in, so I rode south past Colorado College and America the Beautiful Park to Bear Creek Regional Park, where the Mad Dogs used to run their cyclo-crosses back in the day.

The shade is spotty over there, especially if you climb westward through Bear Creek Terrace toward Gold Camp Road, which I did. Then I zipped down 26th Street into Old Colorado City and turned east, toward home.

Nobody would have mistaken me for Marcel Kittel, who I figure can play The Batman anytime he wants to. I’m sure Ben Affleck would be happy to step aside, especially if Marcel has gotten his bad self up to speed.

Speed bump

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

I was never a sprinter, for a variety of reasons, the foremost of which we saw today in stage 1 of the Tour de France.

Thundering into a gap that didn’t exist, Mark Cavendish lost his chance to win one in front of the home folks and don the yellow jersey to boot. He tangled with Simon Gerrans, both men went down (as did others), and it was just a helluva mess, a really bad way to end what otherwise had been a fine start to the Tour.

To his credit, Cav’ took the rap, saying via press release: “It was my fault. I’ll personally apologize to Simon Gerrans as soon as I get the chance. In reality, I tried to find a gap that wasn’t really there.” Gerrans, for his part, was circumspect, declining to assign blame as he limped off with his kit in tatters. And Marcel Kittel was grinning from ear to ear, because he finished with the rubber side down and took the first stage win and yellow jersey.

Charles Pelkey and I called the race as per usual over at Live Update Guy, and it was big fun until suddenly it wasn’t. It seemed most of the regulars were on hand, and we engaged in the usual digressions — doggerel, cat photos, Monty Python, literature, cartoons, rock ‘n’ roll, beggary, history, pix from the Man On the Scene (MOTS), medium-heavy libel, you name it.

We’ll be doing it again tomorrow. Y’all come.