Jenni’s first post-biopsy ride

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. Sure, there was griping, but that is to be, er um, expected. (And I do my fair share as conditions warrant.) However there’s parts to the tory that Jenni did not tell. I’ve been on countless rides where the path was hers we’ve I’ve heard over and over “That’s the last hill…” only to find yet another hill just around the corner. The other part is that she really did have an invasive procedure from which she isn’t healed, so we took it slow. Now that has two effects. It makes some hills harder, and roughness of the road bothered her more than the effort. So the weather was cool, she isn’t healed, we took it slow, and there was some grade.

I should add that I was almost dressed right at the beginning… arms warmers, knee warmers and a vest helped protect from the chill. My arms started out feeling colder than I would have hoped. Everything else was fine, and I even had to roll down the warmers before we were through.

Allez!

Fat Tires

Fat Tires: The horrible roads don’t seem as bad, the bumps not quite so severe. I didn’t lose much in the form of performance, in many ways I’ve gained. In many situations the fatties handle better. [snip -ed] I don’t plan on riding skinny ever again.

Here’s another blog entry with a similar theme. [I can’t make such an emphatic statement. I love both for what they are. There’s a time and a place. At the moments my tires run from 2.35 (Schwalbe Big Apple) fatties to 35c and 33 middle of the roads, to 21/23c skinnies. They all have their place, and they’re all lovely. I will add that as the weather turns colder I spend more time on fatter tires. Seems like part of the cycle of life.]
Source: MnBicycleCommuter

Environmental Constraint = Better Quality

Environmental constraints, because they impel us to reduce waste and narrow our choices in raw materials and trims, also help us improve the business’s bottom line. When we reduce complexity, we allow ourselves to focus our efforts on greater innovations. We’ve learned that in reality, unlimited choice ultimately drives up costs. The ‘Live Simply’ mantra turns out to be more than a nice bumper-sticker slogan; it’s sound business advice. Time and again we’ve learned that when we do the right thing we end up doing well.[The project I’m working on is just starting to learn this lesson… I hope.]
Source: The Cleanest Line

Weapon of choice (winter division)

IMG_0129.jpgLittle steps on the way to the fall/winter season…

I have a new wheel. It’s got a blingy Chris King singlespeed hub in red. But wait you say, it looks like there’s gears on there? And Hmmm. 6 of them? Strange. The idea is to build a very strong and stiff wheel, so Jeff Jones reworks an cassette to create a 34 -17 set, designed around using a singlespeed hub so that there’s no offset. The wheel is built with equally tensioned spokes. It also makes it super easy to convert to a single speed should I desire. Nice. All part of the WOC(WD) (see the title).

Allez!
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Billykirk

123B_FRONT_OPEN1.jpg There’s a certain amount of synchronicity in my life. New things pop up in several places at once. In this case a friend with whom I often pass design ideas, sites, and writing sent me a link to the design of a token he liked, and another blog pointed me to Freeman Transport who making a fixie bike with S&S couplers and a bag to match. The bag looks like the work of Billykirk, which a few days I never would have known. There’s a link on the sidebar… cool.

Anyway, the designs are interesting, and I heard from Chris Bray when I wrote about a future product, and we’ve been passing design ideas back and forth. Cool. I love the understated simplicity coupled with handworked quality that seems to be the hallmark of their designs. Personally, I like the No. 123 Shoulder Pouch and from the Preview page, the item I wrote to Chris about the No. 206 ‘Green’ Giant Shopper. (Bergundy? Oh yeah…)

And to my biking friends, Freeman Transport will be selling the bag by itself.

Experience and thoughtfulness

Some people will never be considered “experienced”. To become experienced, one must reflect upon experiences and attempt to draw understanding from them. “This didn’t work out, this did. Hmmm? Why is that?” Failure to inspect our experiences leads no where.

You can also get ahead of the curve. “What do I think I should do in this situation? What am I capable of doing? where do they intersect? What does this more experienced and or capable person think? Does that change anything significant?” This is the nature of thoughtfulness.

So with these two simple notions at hand explain to me dear reader why no one pulled through on my ride this morning for over a 10 mile stretch into a headwind? I waved, I pulled out, I slowed… nothing. It’s was like watching one of the TDF breakaways falls apart where it has become everyone for themselves. Ya know, the guys in back never pull through? I would pull out and slow, everyone else would slow. I’d pull out and wave… nothing. Slowly extremely would bring questions of “Are you OK?”. Sigh. I’m fine. Keep pedaling! There was no reason someone else couldn’t stick their nose in the wind. A couple of folks were clearly being lazy, they had no problem sprinting ahead when they felt motivated. Quite a few had no problem pulling when we turned and the wind was longer in our faces. A couple of folks were probably inexperienced and haven’t been taught proper etiquette. Hopefully, they’ll go home and wonder about these moments and at least think “What was that about?”

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33 miles, almost 1000ft of climbing, an average speed of 13.4 that is really a lie ( well no, it’s not in the sense that I’m sure it is the average for all movement on the ride, but that includes the dinkying around the parking lots and city streets… so I pawed through the graph for the “on the road sections” and sure enough even the uphill averages were over 15 with some sections in the low 20’s.

The next annoyance was when I realized that a so called “expert”, an expert by virtue of nothing more than experience, put my wife’s bike rack together wrong, with some critical parts installed backward. My analysis is that in this case the person hasn’t built many of this model rack, and it was a misreading of the instructions, but I was surprised at how things went when I tried to put a bike on the rack. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Yesterday I saw a picture of the same rack and in just one second it became clear which parts had been installed wrong, and now it all makes far more sense, and works properly. The failure here is that someone who should be used to this (the so called expert) rushed the job. He should be used to working with customers waiting, he does it all the time. I was in no particular rush, and wasn’t hovering (on purpose). So it’s just sloppiness.

We can make a choice about the quality and nature of our work. We can be present and demand a level quality that we will not forego. To me it is essential to constantly be aware of this. I don’t always get to work to the quality level I wish, there are other constraints on my work such as time, cost, and my own ability to execute. What I cannot and do not give up is the awareness of those decisions, how they are made and why, and allow some lesser level than I desire become assumed and routine. I am aware of my decisions, my experience, and I will not release my thoughtfulness to the best of my ability.