A Bike of Her Own

Well, it was about time. The Mrs. gets her own hybrid and she’ll be back on the road after her fall and previous cycling disappointment. The Kelly Visage is being set up at the LBS and it will be my wife’s first bike EVER! Can you believe that? Can you believe that she never had a bike of her own as a child? Now, I’ve been married for 21 years – God Bless! – and I really never knew that my wife never had her own bike. (And I’m frankly tired of seeing her, oh so jealous, when I go out with our three children for a ride!) Well that’s been fixed. Little “Envy” that someone let us have didn’t work out for her (was in bad shape and I just don’t know how to fix her and at the LBS it will cost almost like a new one to get up and running) so the only way to get my wife cycling and to overcome her fears was to get her a decent hybrid – her size – all set up and ready to go. I’m so excited! More than her. Now I get to plan her routes, a little training, bike shopping and we’ll all get to ride together: that’s five of us – I get to carry the little critter. More on the bike shortly, once we know more about it in practice since in theory I’m pretty much okay with it as a starter bike – similar to my Specialized Crossroads. Now I’ve got to think of a name for her. Any ideas?

Why I must still like the Tour

I like the Tour de France for the cycling, the struggle and the determination of the racers. I’ve always like that; it was a family passion I shared with my dad during many summers. My father never even owned a bike—not sure he could ride one—well he could because in his only riding story from childhood he saw this elderly woman dressed in black at the bottom of a hill and when he began his decent said rather fatalistically: “I’m afraid I might run her over!” And he did, without any serious consequences, thank god, and as he claimed in his typical honourable manner: “Believe me when I say I never meant for that to happen.” Other than that he never owned a bike.

But summers without the Tour for us just would’ve been the same. Here in Spain we planned our lunch – and we have big lunches here – and even our siesta strictly around the Tour (well, except in the very flat stages where we could take a nap here and there without anything happening in the pelotón; heck, if they could rest why couldn’t we?) And so like my father I liked the Tour before I liked cycling. This is true. I didn’t know what a brand-name was and didn’t care whether someone rode an Orbea or a Cannondale or a Bianchi, or why they used culottes, gloves or energy drinks. I just loved those guys giving it their all, I thought. Who couldn’t respect guys like Mercx, Indurain or Armstrong defending those jerseys year after year. And who couldn’t just love some unknown cyclist giving those boys hell climbing the Pyrenees?

We were naïve I guess. We never gave much thought to doping or cheating or all the money that has eventually ruined the sport. Isn’t money the only “legal” drug that ruins all? Still, as disappointed as I am, I must still like the Tour. It’s like that member of the family that has gone astray; I’d like to take him back, you know, despite his errors and imperfections. If anything, I must like the Tour as mere payback for those lovely summer afternoons with dad. And in case this goes wrong, we still have the Vuelta! www.cyclingnews.com presents the 94th Tour de France

¡¡¡ Adios, Monsier Rasmussen !!!

Rasmussen s'en va !

Is this fun or what?! Never mind who wins...let's just bet on who leaves. (What color do we make the YOU'RE OUT DOPE JERSEY?

¡¡¡ Vino Positif !!!

Vino positif, Astana s'en va ! - Cyclisme - Eurosport: "Vino positif, Astana s'en va !"

Am I dreaming?

Burning

I was away on another trip.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch half my country has been burning to hell. Apparently some bunch of psychos have been setting our forests ablaze. We have experienced nothing like this in our known history. Fires burn everywhere you look around the horizon – all is smoky haze.

All the mountains I normally ride through, enjoying that Irish-like, Celtic-green scenery, are now smouldering heaps of ash. Wild horses and cattle have made their way down to some towns to find minimal food and water. I hate to think what has happened to the rest of the wildlife.

Three folks have died so far from smoke inhalation.

We need a cold front to stop the northeast winds on their tracks. We need winter rains.

That these catastrophes are intentional is beyond reason. That these people aren’t caught – yet – is right down shameful.

Kent Petersen & Family

Damn it, I don’t want Kent Petersen to be a hero. I don’t want his family to be heroic. I wish they wouldn’t call so much attention – that there be more of them, somehow, that wished to do what they do, that carried it out and that liked doing it. I think it touches a deep chord, somewhere, for a lot of us. Surely, Kent Peterson would’ve been nobody to someone like my father growing up poor after a civil war. “So they have no car. They walk or ride a bike to work. What the hell’s so strange about that?”

The fact that something as natural as walking to work or riding a bike to a store has become so unusual tells a lot about where most of us are headed today. How did we get here? Or worse, we actually allowed things to become this complicated? To Kent & Family: My Deepest Respect.