This is a shameless attempt to save the the most advanced civilization in
history from imminent self destruction by eliminating carbon emission,
dependence on foreign sources of fuel,obesity, hypertension and diabetes.
Cycling accomplishes all those things at once and helps us develop a better
understanding of ourselves, each other and our relationship to the cosmos.

Oh, horse puckey!
I like to ride bikes, have been doing it all my life.
The rest of that crap is just a fringe benefit,
and the blogosphere gives me a chance to share my interior
monologue with virtual rather than imaginary friends.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Looking past the rearview.

So, 2014 right.  New Year's Eve signified a milestone for the planet.  
The crystal ball in Times Square was operated by bicycles from the Citibike program.
  Hopefully, Dorothy Rabinowitz will quit her job, move from the country and shut her demented mouth.  Any of the three would be nice, but I am hoping for the hat trick.  Rob Ford, the other great pain in the headlines this past year, seems to be attempting to act as close to a human as he can.

The figures are caricatures of him.   Of course, what else would a mayor think about?  I should get one to place on the dashboard of the car I don't use.  Actually he is using them for a second time to raise money for charity, and convince people there is a  remote possibility he has human ancestors.
 He shows that it is time to move on.
  I am doing just that.   I don't make resolutions, but plans don't hurt.  You could call them goals, but I am getting older that's taking shit way too seriously.  After all, if I failed to reach one of my "goals" and then realized I just didn't care, that would qualify as a character flaw, right?
 Enough philosophizing,  I am reaching 62, the age of official semi-retirement.  Therefore the need, and will, to continue doing anything but what I damn well please is waning rapidly.  I honestly don't feel any different than I did when I was 30 years younger.  One could say that genetics are an influence and I believe that to a point,but I have two cousins with whom I spent a lot of time when we were children.  One was a year or so older, the other a year or so younger.  We were enough alike that people thought we were triplets.  Now, they are skinny-legged-pot-bellied-grey-haired old men who spend their time drinking beer in front of the TV while complaining about their ailments.  I am not, probably because I haven't.  I'm quite sure the biggest difference has been our activity levels.  My jobs and responsibilities have been far more sedentary than their's.   I persistently replaced my auto use with my bike through the years, and that's been the difference, I plan to continue making that difference.
   It's the first of the year and everybody is reviewing their successes and failures, reassessing their fitness gains, re-calibrating their heart rate monitors, power meters and cyclometers before collating the information into Map My Ride so they can review their accomplishments and download it to their Dick Tracy wrist whatever.
 I wonder how many people are disappointed that the Recon Jet is not quite ready.
 It meant enough to me to mention it.  You must have one!
Resistance is futile!
   After analyzing all the data, I realize I had to cancel a week long trip last year.  I have to make that up this year, so I put one week to the desert Canyonlands on the schedule at the beginning of summer and another week up north at the end.  Whew! That was a lot of pressure to make all those adjustments.  I did make a decision not to have couplers installed on the Hunq.  I thought that, as I grew ah..ah.. more mature (that's it, more mature) I would be able to fly more often but realized that most places I want to visit are easily accessible by train.  I'm in no hurry now, and I don't need a special bike to ride the train.  So I expect to have a whole new series of stories about a different mode of bike travel available before the year is out.  
      It's a balmy 16 F , with 6" of fresh snow and more coming down in the 14 mph winds.  I can't resist a beautiful day.   I'll go test the theory that there is no bad weather, only bad clothing.

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