We are not on fire here. Far from it, in fact. Twenty-five degrees and windy at the moment, which is why Her Majesty Miss Mia Sopaipilla is curled up in the Winter Palace.
There was an alarming degree of peachy cloud cover to our west this morning, which in my ignorance I will attribute to secondhand smoke from the Los Angeles fires. Holy hell. The pix look like Dresden after (or maybe during) the Allied bombing.
My fellow velo-scribe Zapata Espinoza is among those whose homes went poof (h/t to the lads at my old shop, Bicycle Retailer and Industry News). A GoFundMe has been set up to help Zap and Xakota in their hour of need.
In all our years together Herself and I have never been in the shit. In the vicinity a time or two, but never to the point of grabbing go-bags and critter kennels and beating feet. We know things will never be the same, but we hope they get better.
Your Humble Narrator in the salad days, covering a race in Bibleburg.
A bitter wind continues to thin the herd of cycling journalists struggling to make headway in the bloody gutter of vulture capitalism.
Yet even as the ravens screeched “Nevermore!” for Zapata Espinoza and two colleagues at Hi-Torque Publications, Wade Wallace and Caley Fretz were crowing over the news that they had signed up enough committed members to launch their new venture, “the best damn cycling website on the planet,” a.k.a. Escape.
Turn your radio on.
The notion of journalism underwritten by membership is not new, not even for cycling journalism. The Greater Outside Globe-Spanning Vertically Integrated Title-Killing Paywalled Conglomerate relies on memberships (and vulture-capitalist beggary), and The Cycling Independent (which we help prop up with a monthly tenner) strives to get by on subscriptions.
It’s a rough old road, no matter how you ride it. The sport is pricey to do, and even more so to cover. Memberships and subscriptions can only take you so far. Advertising is a hard sell.
And the vulture capitalist? Basically a pimp who says things like “synergy,” “scale,” and “best in class,” instead of “bitch,” “hoe,” and “Shit, it’s five-o.” He might not take a straight razor to your lips if you don’t bring in the Benjamins, but he will cut the hell out of your masthead. He didn’t add you to the stable because he liked the look of your legs, honey; he thought you’d be a good earner.
The wild card in this bum hand at Casino Velo is the audience. A lot of people think information wants to be free. They want to be paid for whatever they’re doing for work, when they can find it, and actually show up to do it. But you, pal, don’t you bogart that information.
Lucky for you, you’ve stumbled into the cheap seats. We’re serving up another episode of Radio Free Dogpatch, absolutely free of charge, and we guarantee it’ll be worth every penny you paid for it.
Zapata Espinoza and two colleagues just got the old heave and also the ho from their gigs at Hi-Torque Publications.
According to my man Steve Frothingham at Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, Hi-Torque plans to croak Road Bike Action and Electric Bike Action. Hence the pink slips for Zap, Tony Donaldson and Alex Boyce.
“(The) head winds proved too mighty” for the titles, Espinoza told BRAIN in an email.
Oof. When even a Mountain Bike Hall of Famer like Zap can get dropped you know them headwinds is fierce. Here’s hoping the lads find new homes soon.
Mad Blog Media 
