Rain, rain, go away. …

May 10, 2017May 10, 2017 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

We drove out of that to ride the Paseo del Bosque and whaddaya know? I didn’t even need knickers, much less the rain jacket.

Yesterday I laid down my hammer and sickle and took time out for a refreshing spin with Friend of the Blog™ Pat O’Brien, who with his lovely bride Sandy popped round to see what’s what in the Duke City.

I didn’t document this major tourism event with photography, because frankly I didn’t think we’d get ‘er done. It was raining when Pat arrived in his manly Toyota Tacoma to pick me up for the drive to the Paseo del Bosque’s Alameda trailhead, and the forecast was grim indeed.

But my iPhone photo above depicts the worst of it. Down by the Rio the weather was warm and windy, and we did the full lollipop, riding south, then curving in a northeasterly direction to Rio Bravo before returning to the bosque trail for a (mostly) tailwind-supported return.

We were both aboard Somas, naturally. Pat rode his Saga whilst I piloted the old Double Cross, freshly equipped with SKS fenders just in case. This, and the fact that we both carried rain jackets, is almost certainly why the clouds didn’t open up during the ride.

Back at El Rancho Pendejo I learned that a deluge had struck DeeCee, washing away the stain on democracy that was Jim Comey. King Donald the Short-fingered, alas, remains perched atop his golden throne, his personal roll of Constitution toilet paper close at hand. Here’s hoping it’s a harder rain gonna fall on his crooked highway before much longer.

Cave man

September 2, 2015September 3, 2015 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

The boys were climbing today in the Vuelta — oy, were they ever — so I felt obliged to do a little vertical my own bad self once we wrapped the coverage at Live Update Guy.

There’s a nice, steep grind not far from El Rancho Pendejo, the 2-mile climb to the La Luz trailhead, but after running for an hour on Tuesday I thought that might be asking a bit much of the old legs. So instead I hung a right and did the 1-mile climb to the La Cueva campground.

The surface is what we Phlegmish types call “heavy,” the chips in the chipseal being slightly boulderish, so I was glad to be riding the Soma Double Cross with its Little Big Bens. Quite a view from up there, but the helicopters were something of a nuisance, harshing my mellow and distracting me from the view.

Turns out it wasn’t just flyboys logging flight time. Some poor dude turned up dead in the Sandias, and I’m guessing they were part of the search. Me, I got to come down the easy way.

Julio, get the stretch!

June 4, 2015June 4, 2015 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

The view from underneath one of the many bridges crossing the North Diversion Channel Trail.

I took a break from writing up my review of the Felt V100 to log a few miles on one of my own bikes for a change — Old Reliable, the Soma Double Cross.

The weather has been heating up here, and so my usual practice — arise, caffeinate, cast a baleful eye upon the news, do a bit of work, and then ride sometime around 10 a.m. — has come to a screeching halt.

Today I rolled out of the garage just after eight in the ayem, and what a lovely morning it was. Got in 40 miles before lunch and even sprawled out on the couch for a while, imitating the cats.

I didn’t notice until midafternoon that Goodhair Perry and his eyeglasses have clambered into the GOP clown car. That crowd is gonna need to borrow Bruno Mars’s stretch limo to get around until the Faux News debate format thins the herd a mite.

Somehow I doubt that wearing spectacles will prevent Goodhair from becoming one. I bet the bags of hammers snicker when he walks into a Home Depot and steps on all the rakes.

Cogito ergo dum

January 18, 2015 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments

I will never be smart.

I’m riding the Soma Double Cross on Tramway this afternoon and on the speedy big-ring drop to Interstate 25 I suddenly hear this high-pitched whine coming from what I’m certain is the front wheel. Sounds like a brake shoe rubbing up against the tire, or maybe Jimmy Olsen’s watch calling Superman. Zee zee zee zee zee.

As this can only end badly on a fast descent, I stop — not once, not twice, but three times — to try to diagnose the problem. No joy. But then, as I turn around at the bottom for the climb back up, the noise stops.

Well, OK, then. Ain’t much bad can happen to me at 10 mph. So on I pedal in blissful ignorance.

Until I shift back into the big ring, get out of the saddle to stretch, and hear it again — zee zee zee zee zee.

A light bulb sputters on, about a 20-watter. I’m running the biggest tires this bike will take, 700×38, and I bet the rear tire is heating up and expanding and rubbing up against the front-derailleur mech. Genius!

Well, maybe not so much.

The Double Cross doesn’t have one of those bulky new Shimano mechs that intrude into the rear triangle the way the NSA does into your life. It sports a svelte old Ultegra model.

And, as I found when I got home, it also has a front-derailleur cable that somehow got itself bent inward, and the cable cap was rubbing the rear tire whenever I shifted into the big ring.

So if you’re ever riding with me and wonder what the funny noise is, don’t worry — it’s just the air leaking out of my head.

Gimme a brake

December 29, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

I spent a little time in our freezing-cold garage this morning, adjusting the cantilever brakes on my Soma Double Cross, and then said to hell with it and rode the Novara Mazama instead. It’s Monday, Christmas is over, back to work.

The outside wasn’t much warmer than the garage, so I layered up: heavy leg warmers, bib shorts, three long-sleeved jerseys, winter gloves, tuque, shoe covers, etc., et al., and so on and so forth. Then I went exploring, riding unfamiliar streets on an unfamiliar bike.

The brakes on the Mazama are of a higher order than the stoppers on my DC: TRP Spyre mechanical discs. I’ve ridden Avid’s BB5 and BB7, and Hayes CX, but this is my first experience with TRP. A couple hours of gentle cycling on forgiving terrain hardly makes me an expert, but so far, so good. Nice modulation, plenty grippy when you need ’em to be, and they don’t screech like Ann Coulter when the laundry puts starch in her banana hammock.

I wasn’t asking much of them, I’ll admit. I’d been wanting to check out a couple of the neighborhood roads that have bike lanes attached, so I was riding them uphill and then dropping back to Tramway via a short, swoopy bit of single-track. It being the Monday after Christmas, most folks were doing their work indoors, which meant more trail for me. Yay.

Speaking of trail, someone who should be hitting same is Rep. Steve Scalise (R-You Kiddin’ Me?). The freshly elevated House majority whip claims he had no idea he was addressing a clot of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other such cuddly types when he spoke to David Duke’s European-American Unity and Rights Organization in 2002. That’s extra-dumb, even by House leadership standards.

His enablers are trying to whitewash (har har) the escapade as an example of poor staff work done on behalf of a then-36-year-old state legislator. Honky please. I knew what Duke was in the Seventies when I was a 20-something reporter and interviewed the sonofabitch over the phone. And I didn’t even ply my trade in Louisiana.

Happily, I still don’t. So it ain’t my cross to bear. Or burn.