A drop taken

April 10, 2026April 10, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

The start of Tramway’s descent toward Interstate 25.

Never fear, I’m not back on the sauce. This drop taken was down to the bosque, for the first time this year.

It was a lovely day, if a bit windy — high of 80°, 65° when I started — and if I’d had my wits about me I could’ve finally ridden my age (in kilometers).

But I didn’t. After inspecting the state of the Rio Grande below the Gail Ryba bridge (still fluid, in a not-so-solid fashion), instead of pulling a U and heading home via the Paseo/North Diversion/Osuna-Bear Canyon trails, I noodled back to the ranch through Old Town to Odelia-Indian School and the Paseo de las Montañas/Tramway trails. Wound up 8 miles short of a birthday ride. In kilometers. Which is kind of like kissing your sister.

The Bosque Bandido never materialized, but I did notice a John Law parked on the gravel at trailside. We exchanged waves. Didn’t ask to see my papers or nothin’. Which was fortunate, because all I had on me was an elderly iPhone 13 mini, a water bottle, and a stick of Clif Blox. It would’ve been off to County Clare for Your Humble Narrator.

“Ireland? But your honor, my client’s bicycle doesn’t even have fenders!”

“Tough titty, counselor — he should’ve thought about that before his great-granddaddy came here to occupy a barstool that by rights belonged to a nat’chal-borned American. Next case!”

The good news is I missed whatever it was Melania thought she was up to behind the pestilential lectern, where nobody could see the rug burns on her elbows and knees, and that “Property of Satan’s Slaves’ tat’ on her ass.

Isn’t it about time we started relocating some of these Trumps to gilt-free cages in the swamps, deserts, and desert swamps of Wottalottaland, Lower Slobbovia, and Spaminacanistan? I mean, Christ, Boss Hogg is bombing anything he can’t steal, Melanoma’s doing this feeble impression of Richard Pryor’s “Now are you gonna believe me or your lyin’ eyes?” bit, and now Barron wants to start dealing speed in Florida?

Dude thinks he’s being cute by calling it “yerba mate,” which I think is Guarani for “murder tea.” Wait until he hears what the Cartel calls it. “Gringo failing to swim across the Gulf of America while wearing 300 pounds of chains, a jukebox, and a burlap sack,” is what.

See if you can get mommy and daddy to join you for that dip in the shark tank, kid. Your ould fellah could certainly use the exercise. Driving the golf cart and having people killed ain’t getting it done.

• Addendum: Artemis II made it home safely, and about 20 minutes after they were bobbing around in the Pacific off San Diego, boom! We got our first hummingbird of the new year at our feeders. Winning!

Leaf me alone

September 27, 2025September 27, 2025 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

Following the news was starting to feel like losing a shit-eating contest, so I stepped away from the Mac and treated myself to a little expedition down to the bosque.

It was something of a whim, actually. I just grabbed the Soma Pescadero and without a plan in place took the Paseo de las Montañas trail down to I-40, rolled up and over the bike-ped bridge, and then risked life and limb riding Indian School and Washington to the brief I-40 Trail at Carlisle, which leads to the North Diversion Channel Trail.

But instead of turning northward as per usual, to head back to the Mac via Osuna-Bear Canyon, I swung south. What the hell? I thought. Why not? Let someone else gnaw on that shit sandwich for a few hours.

Ridden south the NDCT has an exit onto Indian School, which becomes Odelia as it traverses I-25. It’s the sort of auto-friendly shooting gallery that bicycle advocates call a “stroad,” with a bike lane, and drops past Albuquerque High School (pay no attention to the graveyard on your right). To avoid the equally dicey Broadway at the bottom I hung a left off Odelia onto Edith, then a right onto Mountain.

This is the same route I ride to collect the Forester whenever it needs a little love from the Subaru wizards at Reincarnation. But Mountain also winds through Old Town to the Paseo del Bosque trail.

Mountain can be a little sketchy, being a narrow two-lane shared with street people and gas-guzzlers. A seemingly endless construction project that I first dodged in June added a small degree of difficulty, taking me off the street and onto a series of sidewalks from Tiguex Park to the Albuquerque Museum. After dodging a dog-walker, dropping off the sidewalk onto Mountain, and crossing to the opposite sidewalk to punch the bike-ped button at Mountain and Rio Grande, it was smooth sailing to the bosque trail, which I joined just south of I-40.

Then another whim: Check the state of the Rio Not-So-Grande. Up the Gail Ryba Memorial Bridge I rode. Yikes, etc. Back to the bosque trail.

The cottonwoods weren’t showing a lot of fall color so early in the season. Just a hint of yellow here and there. No matter; just happy to be here. I brought arm warmers but never needed them as I cruised along at a pleasant skull-flushing pace.

I shared the trail with kindred souls. E-bikes, recumbents, mountain bikes, gravel bikes, even road bikes (how quaint). One long lean type on a flared-bar, fat-tired gravel bike ahead of me was riding no hands, swaying gently to some music in his mind.

They call me the breeze / I keep blowing down the road

Was he was thinking about ways to drag hapless strangers into unmarked vans and out of the country, or into court to fight some half-baked rap, strip them of their jobs, health care, and reputations, sic’ the thugs in his cult on them, or simply shoulder his way in front of a cluster of cameras so the rest of us have to look at him and listen to his bullshit? If so, I wasn’t seeing it. Just another dude on his two-wheeler, enjoying some fresh air between shifts in the barrel.

As I turned north off the bosque onto the Paseo del Norte Trail and headed for home I thought about how the barrel is with us always. We need a broader view than the one we get through the bunghole.

Me and the Pescadero, just blowin’ down the road. Trail. Whatevs.

Islands in the stream

March 27, 2025 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 28 Comments

The annual birthday ride (in kilometers) is done and dusted. And on my actual birthday for a change, too.

I only needed 44.1 miles for 71km, but actually covered 45.3 (72.9km), so I have a few pedal strokes in the bank for next year.

My plan was to zip down to the bosque and log as many flat miles as I could stand before turning around for the long climb back to the foothills.

As I rolled out, the air down in the valley looked filthy, and I considered bailing, but then thought, “Nawwwwwwwww,” and soldiered on.

And I was glad I did. I’ve been caught in a loop of Groundhog Rides — basically the same 20-milers over and over and over again — and this was a refreshing change of pace.

There was a slight headwind as I rolled south on the lightly greened Paseo del Bosque trail to I-40, where I hung a right to snap a shot of the Rio Grande from the Gail Ryba bike bridge. More like the Rio Not-So-Grande. Too thick to drink, too thin for swimming.

Pic in hand, I pulled a U and enjoyed a tailwind to the Paseo del Norte trail, then took the usual route back to the rancho, along Bear Canyon-Osuna, up and over I-25, past the golf course and thence to Tramway via Manitoba, and home again home again, jiggity-jig.

Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I had to head south on Tramway to Rover and pull another U to collect enough mileage (kilometerage?) to make the nut.

And then I ate everything in the house and took a shower because hey: It was my birthday. I could do whatever I wanted.

Leaf of absence

October 16, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

Fall color remains elusive at the bosque. But it’s still a fine place to ride the ol’ bikey-bike on a Tuesday morning.

The 32-mile loop I did is about two-thirds easy-breezy like a Cover Girl. But the last bit from Mountain and Broadway back to El Rancho Pendejo has about a thousand feet of vertical in it. And since most of the climbing stacks up on the back side it sorta gets a fella’s attention.

As does the ongoing devolution of TFG. When the legacy media finally start catching on, you know that shit is dire.

A “town hall” that drifted into a “Mister Music, please” segment from Romper Room? A one-on-one Bloomberg interview in which the candidate answered only those questions posed by the voices in his head?

I wonder if there are any early voters who’d like a do-over. Dude makes King Lear look like Norman Lear.

Your Daily Don (or not)

September 28, 2024September 28, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments

The whole “Your Daily Don” thing never really took off, did it?

Honestly, the less I think about Darth Cheeto and his new droid, Clockwork Orange, the happier I seem to be.

Speak of the devil and he appears, as the saying goes. So let’s not and hope he doesn’t.

There are other ways to pass the time. Jogging. Hiking. Cycling down to the bosque to gauge the color of the cottonwoods (not quite spectacular yet).

And reading about the newish editor and vice president of the Albuquerque Journal, who apparently is doing 10 days in the clink on a shoplifting rap.

Whatever is the world coming to? I’m old enough to remember when only reporters, photographers, and copy editors were so poorly paid that they had to steal to make ends meet.

The Journal may be so hard up it can’t even afford a poorly paid copy editor. My tribe goes unmentioned in the “Contact Us” section of the Journal‘s ghastly website, though I found a “design desk” with four people on it, or under it, depending on whether they’re still sharp enough to steal booze. And two assistant city editors but no actual city editor. Maybe s/he’s in jail too.

That the Journal apparently has no copy desk wasn’t news to me. Not after I saw the story refer to Patrick Ethridge as “editor in chief”, “executive editor,” and “Executive Editor” (in the “Contact Us” lineup, Ethridge is called, simply, “editor”) and report that he was serving “10 days” or “ten days” in the calaboose.

These are peccadillos that even the most poorly paid, knee-walking-drunk, one-eyed copy editor could catch on the first pass through the story from underneath the design desk between attempts to grope one or more of the designers. When one sees these tiny turds floating in the bowl one wonders what monstrosities lurk beneath.