Fryday

September 6, 2013 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments

A section of the Edna Mae Bennet Trail, which leads to the Templeton Trail.

Man, it got hot again all of a sudden.

We went from a pleasantly damp monsoon season straight back into summer, no matter what the calendar says.

This is good news for Manitou Springs, whose residents get a chance to chisel all the dried mud out of their basements, autos, and nostrils, but it makes for some steamy afternoons here in the office, which sits on the hot end of the house.

A little rain might help keep me in that office, which is where I need to be, having a few deadlines to beat before toddling off to Interbike. But the rule is that when the sun shines, vigorous exercise shall be taken, and outdoors, too.

By the time that’s over and done with, I feel a tad fatigued for some reason and crave a frosty beverage, a nosh and perhaps a nap. Thus work suffers. No wonder the economy is in such a parlous state.

Looking upward from the Templeton Trail, just east of Union and Austin Bluffs.

Lately I’ve been alternating rides with hikes, generally in Palmer Park. I used to run the trails there quite a bit, but the knees don’t seem interested in that sort of thing anymore. So I hike instead, which is an acceptable substitute. I seem to trip and fall down a good deal less, anyway.

And if you pick the right trail, you can get plenty of vertical gain, as you can see from the pix. I can’t believe we used to ride these things back in the day.

And when I say “we,” I mean, “somebody else.” I was walking them even then.

• Late update: Herself and I did our part to rein in the idiots this afternoon by voting not to recall state Sen. John Morse, who fell afoul of the gun nuts. Lord, single-issue fuckwits give me a brain cramp with their political temper tantrums. You don’t like the way the man works, vote him out in the next regularly scheduled election — that’s why we have ’em. These pissants remind me of a toddler screwing up his chubby little mug right before spitting out the creamed spinach.

Glory road

March 29, 2013March 29, 2013 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

I didn’t get to ride my age this year. Not in miles, kilometers or even minutes.

In fact, the whole first quarter of 2013 has been a little sketchy, ride-wise, thanks to bugs, chores, the natural Irish predilection toward sloth blended with storytelling — say, did I ever tell you the one about the Mighty Dugan?

No, let’s not get started down that particular path. There be dragons.

But today, after wrapping up a bit of video for the folks at Adventure Cyclist, I straddled the Voodoo Nakisi and hit the trails in Palmer Park. It was a casual ride that lasted nearly two hours, which for me these days is something of an expedition.

The afternoon was 60-something and sunny, if a bit breezy, and I must have been just tired enough to not give a shit if I fell over, because I was easily cleaning obstacles that ordinarily confound me.

I stopped at one intersection to pull off the knee-warmers and up rolled a couple of young gents on double-boingers who likewise were having a fine day on two wheels. They professed to be astounded that a gentleman of my years would be riding a cyclo-cross bike on Palmer Park single-track, and I confessed that while it appeared to be your standard unsuspended steel drop-bar bike, it was in fact a stealth 29er with a triple ring and 700×43 tires and thus not so much of a much.

Did the wheels stand the strain? they asked. To be sure, I replied. Built by Brian Gravestock himself they were, using Mavic Open Pros from this millennium and Hügi mountain bike hubs from another. Brian says steel bikes are making a comeback, they confided. I agreed, and with that we went our separate ways.

Back at Chez Dog a neighbor’s landscaper said he’d seen me on the bike and that I looked “like a young man.” He was trying to sell me some yardwork — successfully, as luck would have it — and I forgave him the Good Friday falsehood.

Off the rails

March 18, 2013 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

Roads are for the weak.

What a fella wants after too many days spent indoors with runny snoot pressed to grindstone is not the sissified hiss of skinny tires on asphalt but the crunch of gravel under roughly shod wheels.

So Thursday and Friday I broke out one of my own bikes for a change — Old Reliable, the Voodoo Nakisi, with 700×43 Bruce Gordon Rock n’ Road tires — and rode around in Palmer Park, Bear Creek East and pretty much wherever else the cars weren’t.

On my way back to the ranch on Friday I took a side trip along a stretch of lightly used railroad tracks that not long ago bisected a small city of homeless camps. The “No Trespassing” signs are up now, in part to keep the street folks away and in part to save the unwary from getting carpet-bombed by road workers rebuilding a bridge overhead.

Naturally, being the sort who views “No” as encouragement, I pressed on regardless. I survived.

There’s snow in them thar hills

January 29, 2013January 29, 2013 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments

Snow? In January? who'da thunk it? — Snow? In January? who’da thunk it?

The weekend was a tad busy, and come Monday I had a minor case of the ass.

I wanted, needed, to go for a ride — especially since I have a couple of bikes that need reviewing in fairly short order — but my usual routes had become yawn-inducing, an affliction that surfaces from time to time, like malaria or herpes.

The weather had mostly been sunny and dry, so I decided to spend a couple hours dicking around on the trails in Palmer Park, and riding a fendered MonsterCrosser® on the bone-dry single-track proved a pleasant change of pace.

Good thing I got ’er done when I did, too. Because we awakened this morning to a heavy wet blanket of snow on the deck. Thus today’s exercise consisted mainly of upper-body work, to wit, shoveling.

I’m not complaining, though. This ongoing drought is no joke — come Thursday, we’re back to another stretch of sunny, windy and 50-something — and I fear for our silver maple, which shades my office window. It takes a lot of water to keep a big tree happy, and an inch or two of snow every couple of years won’t do the trick.

20 minutes of 24 hours

September 29, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

The 24 Hours of COS, a.k.a. USA Cycling’s 24-Hour Mountain Bike National Championship, is going on as we speak in Palmer Park, so between paying chores I popped round for a peek, as I did last year.

And just like last year, the whole thing seemed rather underwhelming, spectacle-wise. Here’s one rider; there’s another. And another. And another.

No disrespect intended. It’s a race intended for participants, not spectators, and I’m sure things get much more interesting when the sun goes down and the wildlife comes out and that rocky stretch that seemed so eminently rideable just a dozen hours ago turns into a black-hole Stonehenge express elevator leading directly to Hell.

But in the daylight it had all the excitement of a strip-mall carnival’s merry-go-round.

It’s a shame nobody was passing out prizes for abusing yourself over a 24-hour period back in the Eighties. I’d have a walk-in closet full of stars-and-stripes jerseys.