Dry rivers and damp bibs

September 15, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

Another day, another record.

The Duck! City reached a high of 95° last Friday, and boy, did I feel every degree of it heading back to the rancho from the Rio.

The climbing is no big deal, about a thousand feet of vertical from the Paseo del Bosque’s intersection with Mountain Road NE. But most of it gets served up in the last 12 or so miles, with a side of stop-and-go on the mean streets and the Paseo de las Montañas bike path.

It should go without saying that a fella feels considerably warmer on the uphill leg of this 37-miler, even with steam escaping from the helmet vents.

We’ve either been breaking high-temp marks or missing them by a single degree lately. So it has been a delight to suddenly enjoy a little rain, straight out of the blue — 0.28 inch in the past 48 hours, which Noah might snort at but no New Mexican would sneeze at. Not here in the upper reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert, where we have been drier than the proverbial popcorn fart.

The Monday-Wednesday Geezer Rides have been on hiatus, so when the rain started pelting down early yesterday morning I thought, “OK, fine, good excuse to go for a run.”

But I wasn’t really feeling it. I’ll be doing plenty of running if we ever get anything like winter around here. So when the rain abruptly shut off, I pulled a fendered bike from its hook in the garage — the rim-brake Soma Saga, which is wearing a rear Tubus rack with a strap suitable for packing a rain jacket — and off we went.

Why a fendered bike, when the rain had stopped? Simple. There may be puddles, and I don’t like collecting that famous damp brown stripe up the backside. It’s undignified for a man of my years and may lead to ill-informed gossip and speculation.

“Ah, look at the poor ould fella, would you now? Your man has gone and shite himself midride. Must be all alone in the world. No one to wipe ’is hole for ’im.”

“That’s a pretty nice bike, though. Someone must love him. Or at least tolerate him, manky arse and all.”

I am blessed in that regard, and also when it comes to bikes sporting fenders. I have three such at the moment and have had them all out in the past week to see if I could tempt the rain gods into having a wee. No joy. Rain before and rain after, but never during.

Maybe fenders don’t work that way. Maybe the rain gods see them and say: “Stand down, lads. We’ll never give the manky arse to that ould gobshite whilst he’s rocking the mudguards. Leave us wait until he takes that custom Nobilette for a long go into the East Mountains.”

It never rains, but. …

July 21, 2026July 21, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

Crossing over I-40 near Winrock Town Center aboard the Soma Saga (canti edition).

We’ve been enjoying the occasional sprinkle in late July, all told about a half-inch of moisture in our dusty little corner of the sandbox.

Sure helps keep the mercury on the down-low. The air conditioning gets to take five, as does the irrigation system.

Why, a fella can even wait until 9 in the a.m. to get out for a bike ride without risking spontaneous combustion. Luxury!

I’ve been logging more miles lately — 131 last week, 123 the week before, 130 the week before that — not just because the weather has been delightful, but because it gets me away from the MacBook Pro, which seems to have visited Taco Bell without me and has been shitting all over my desk.

I’ll spare you the links. You’ve seen them all anyway.

Now, I could take a claw hammer to that laptop, make it shut up. But the MacBook Pro is not the news; it’s just a delivery system. It’s not the Beast; it’s not even letting it in. It’s just making it available in case I want a peek.

Remember Parker beating the tar out of Ash in “Alien” and all the good that did him? Ash was a grinning, disembodied head in a puddle of goo — literally a talking head, still bringing the news and analysis, like some interstellar anchorman for “The Weyland-Yutani Newshour” — and before long everyone on the Nostromo was Purina Alien Chow except for Ripley, Jonesy the cat, and the alien.

And Ripley was still getting nothing but bad news. Especially when, just as she was getting ready to back the escape pod out of the garage, up pops the alien with a solid impression of Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” — “Heeeere’s Johnny!” — and she had to have been thinking, “Goddamnit, all I wanted to do was take a little ride, get away from all this ‘Wet cleanup on Aisle 4’ shit for a while. …”

And Ripley didn’t even know about the next three movies in the queue. Talk about your long days in the office.

The bike is my escape pod. I check it for aliens before I hop aboard.

And while I bring a bot along, I keep that sumbitch locked down tight. If he manages to pop off somehow, well … he’s just a feeble old iPhone 13 Mini, and I’m pretty sure I can whup his ass in a fair fight.

Another Saga unwritten

July 14, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments

My Soma Saga touring bike (rim-brake edition).

Well, the good news is, I won’t need fenders and a rain jacket for the ride downtown to collect my Subie from the shop.

The better news is, it is raining.

Reincarnation (the shop, not my hope for higher rebirth) just texted to say the old bucket of bolts is still deep into its semiannual wellness check and won’t be ready to come home until tomorrow.

It should go without saying that I had just pulled a fendered Soma Saga off its hook, aired up the tires, and lubed the chain.

But no matter. That needed doing anyway. And I got a couple hours of saddle time in this morning when it was still windless, cool, and dry, noodling home from the shop on the fenderless Soma Double Cross.

Besides, I may need the Saga tomorrow. The weather wizards are calling for a 70 percent chance of rain.

FIngers crossed.

Winter wonderland revisited

December 7, 2025 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

“Bike lane.” Ho, ho. You can see how much safety *that* implies by the indifferently tarred seams and that tire scuff on the curb.

With the Ice Capades on pause and my cabin fever in triple digits I found time for a lazy 20-miler yesterday.

Back when I was a man, instead of whatever it is that I am now, I thought nothing of driving for a few hours to race cyclocross for 45 minutes plus one lap in conditions that made the ice planet Hoth look like Epstein Island.

Now I perch like a zopilote on the frozen carcass of my summertime fitness, pecking away at the Weather Underground website until the temperature creeps into the mid-40s.

It finally got there around 11:30 yesterday and I sprang into action, which looks an awful lot like some old bald dude tottering into his bedroom to see if he has any clean winter cycling kit.

Lo and behold, he did — Sugoi tuque, long-sleeve Paddygucci base layer, long-sleeve Gore Bike Wear jersey, full-finger Pearl Izumi gloves, Voler bibs, Pearl Izumi tights, Smartwool socks.

I glanced longingly at my Shimano SH-XM700 GTX clodhoppers with their Gore-Tex liners and Vibram soles. Toasty warm? To be sure. But there is always the chance of shoe-fender conflict when riding a bicycle so equipped, as I intended. Furthermore, your Duck! City driver — unpredictable at any time of year, in all conditions — doubles down on the dumbass on weekends, in poor weather, and during holiday seasons. When rocking the trifecta you want to be able to get out of your pedals faster than a Republican fleeing a primary (or his constituents).

So the beater Sidis it was, and boy, do I ever need a new pair of them. The soles have been ground flat by Dog only knows how many skidding dismounts at speed and long runs up muddy hills. And the Velcro straps are basically ornamental at this point, flapping in the breeze like my tongue at any heart rate over 150 bpm.

This dithering proved bootless (har de har har). Not only did I not need the fenders, I could’ve ridden in Birkenstocks, the way my old pal John “Usuk” O’Neill once did while we climbed Hardscrabble Canyon in Colorado. The roads were free of ice and snow, the only menace to traction being a scattering of white powder, which I assume was the remains of whatever the transpo dudes use to melt that mess. Probably fentanyl seized by the John Laws. Maybe there’s a tariff on road salt. There sure as shit is on Italian bicycle saddles. No, don’t ask.

Anyway, toward the end of the ride, just a few meters east of that bike-lane sign, some northbound asshat in a sporty red auto blew right through the stop sign at the intersection of High Desert and Spain as I approached headed south. Never even touched the brake pedal. An eastbound motorist gave him the horn, and the asshat gave one right back.

I left my Incredibell unrung. Why add my little tinkle to that sonic stream? That’s what blogs are for.

After the deluge

November 23, 2025November 23, 2025 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

I’m glad to have logged a couple leisurely hours on the bike yesterday, because today is looking decidedly less velo-friendly.

Something blew me out of a sound sleep around 3 a.m., and surprise, surprise, it was a powerful wind bearing water in quantity. Stripped a metric shit-ton of needles off the pines, slapped one wind chime off its hook, pitched a plastic bucket across the yard, and dumped about 0.30 inch of agua fria in under three hours.

That would be 0.12 inch short of normal … for the month.

We’ll take it. Since we shut down the irrigation system I’ve been watering by hand, and that burns a lot of daylight that I could use for other pasatiempos. Like, say, cycling.

The bike I was riding yesterday, a Soma Saga, sported fenders that I did not need. Long sleeves, knee warmers, yes; mudguards, no. The only evidence of Thursday’s 0.44 inch of precip’ was a little more sand scattered across the foothills streets.

Today might be a very different story, if I were sucker enough to give it a go. Oh, sure, at the moment the sun is shining brightly, and the cul-de-sac is slowly drying out.

But there’s still a 50 percent chance of rain resuming around 10:30. And while I welcome it on the trees’ behalf, I can do without it on my person, thanks all the same. I like my showers hot.