Buying A Vest From Someone With A Vested Interest

I've been thinking a lot lately about the hidden, and not so hidden, agendas of organizations that people, consumers like myself, think are looking out for them. I think that it's fairly safe to say that no corporation has your best interest in mind. Unless, possibly, you are a shareholder in said corporation. The government may or may not have your best interest in mind, that one is a little circuitous and depends mainly on whether you get your news from the New York Times or Fox News. But if you think about it, most of the "authorities" that we rely on for guidance are either governmental or corporate. I think that it's also safe to say that you should take any advice given by someone trying to sell you something with a grain of salt. And that goes for magazines or any other media really because they are beholden to their advertisers; mainly large corporations. Don't worry though, News From Out There is completely privately capitalized and accepts no advertising revenue whatsoever. Well that's not quite true, I do get free stuff sometimes, but I won't try to sell you anything here that I don't personally believe in, even if I did get it for free. In fact, anyone who knows me knows that I can't sell anything with a straight face and dry underarms. I'm straying off topic though. What I mean to say is that it's very difficult to get good information anywhere. You really can't even trust scientists anymore, as we've seen with the previous administration. Scientists are sometimes obliged to make conclusions for money as well.

I've been thinking about this topic for a while now but it was just refreshed by a book that I'm reading. The book is Born To Run by Christopher Macdougal. It's about a lot of different things; running in general, ultra distance running, the Tarahumara Indians of Northern Mexico, a white runner named Caballo Blanco (white horse) who wants to be a Tarhumara, and running injuries, to name a few. But one of the big things I'm taking away from the book is that the running shoe industry is probably largely responsible for a whole host of running injuries that plague nearly every runner who ever laces up a shoe. Here's an example: There is this pervasive idea floating around that you absolutely must replace your running shoes every 300 miles or so. Failure to heed this warning will result in running injuries. That means that a typical elite marathoner is going have to replace a $130 pair of shoes every three weeks or so. It seems plausible though, and you literally hear this advice from so many different directions that you don't really know where it comes from and you just heed it as running gospel. But if you stop and think about it, where could it come from, other than running shoe manufacturers or running media, which for all intents and purposes are the same thing. Well, it turns out that worn out running shoes are actually less likely to injure you than new expensive ones. In fact, one study found that the only factor that had any correlation to the likelihood of a runner being injured (for the record, during any given year somewhere between 65% and 80% of all people who consider themselves runners suffer an injury, so the likelihood is high anyway) was dollar amount spent on shoes. That means that the cost of one's shoes was more important than stretching, weight, prior history of injury, talent, distance run, years running, etc. Now, you're probably thinking "of course, buying more expensive and technologically advanced shoes will offer a level of protection." Wrong. The correlation was that runners who spent more than $95 dollars on a pair of shoes were two times more likely to be injured than runners who spent less than $40 dollars on a pair of shoes. Guess how many column inches that study got in Runners World Magazine? I feel like a real dipshit for buying all of those $130 dollar pairs of Asics shoes and throwing them away after two or three months.

It turns out that running shoes probably have too much cushioning for humans to run in them anyway. That's a topic for another time though. What I'm getting at is that for a long time now I've been putting my trust these big athletic shoe companies, assuming that all of the research and fancy acronyms that they are putting into my shoes have been geared toward making a better and safer product for me. Instead, they've been making a better product to liberate my money from me. As for Runners World, well I figured out that they were trying to sell me something in every article a while ago and I stopped listening. Almost all magazines are trying to sell you something and I've stopped buying most of them for that reason. Ever notice how at least 75% of all magazines on the news stand at any given time have a cover story about "flattening your stomach and developing six-pack abs"? Mmm hmmm. I don't know about you but my stomach has not gotten any flatter from any of those god-awful cover stories. Now if somebody could write an article so intense that my abs would get ripped just from reading it, I might buy the magazine. Consider that a challenge fitness writers!

I guess the thing that kind of shocked me into paying attention is that we are all so culturally conditioned to consume that we don't even stop to think where our information is coming from and how that source might taint it's validity. I mean why wouldn't Nike want to give me the best shoe possible that would last a long time and protect me from injury? Umm, because then I wouldn't be susceptible to their future claims that now they really do have if figured out and if I just replace my worn out (in two months) supermachindestructa trainers with this new model, that nagging pain in my illio-tibial band will finally go away. Finally. And in case you were wondering, the Tarahumara Indians have been running great distances, sometimes over 100 miles a day, for centuries. And they don't even have shoes. Screw you Nike.

Don't Shoot, I Give Up

I think I'm about to run up the white flag. I'm not sure whether I'm surrendering because I'm tired, lazy or scared, but for whatever reason, I think I'm done bike commuting. Maybe it's a combination of all three. I guess I'll probably still ride in once in a while but not every day. I'm sick of the road. I'm fed up with the derision, the ignorance, and the downright malicious intent. I'm tired of the noise and violence of internal combustion as experienced from the shoulder of the road (ironically, my only other option is to embrace internal combustion as a means of transportation.) I'm exhausted from constantly feeling like a target, wondering whether the thunderous roar approaching from behind will be the last sound I ever hear. I'm tired of shuddering with every mention of drivers text messaging behind the wheel. I can't even tell you how tired I am of the fucking brilliant and creative comic geniuses who think it's hilarious to get right alongside a cyclist hurtling downhill on Route 4 and lay on the horn for a good three or four seconds. Good one fellas, that's always a real knee slapper. I'll be honest, I'm a little bit tired of getting up at 4:30 in the morning.I suppose that makes me lazy.

I'm pretty bummed to be relaying all of this. There are so many positives to bike commuting, and if it wasn't for the necessity of riding on Route 4 to get from my home to where I work, I wouldn't be throwing in the towel. I've just felt like I'm playing Russian Roulette every time I've gotten on my bike to ride home lately. It's like jumping out of airplanes. Do it enough times and it will probably kill you. Or, as a wise man once told me, "if you keep going to the barber shop, sooner or later, you're going to get a haircut." The mornings are not quite as bad, probably because there are not as many people driving at 6:00 in the morning as there are at 4:00 in the afternoon. There is, however, a greater likelihood that people driving at 6:00 in the morning are either still drunk from the night before or under-caffeinated, both situations that can lead to bad driving. Luckily, most people, it seems, do not hate cyclists until later in the day. Anyway, it doesn't do me much good to ride to work and then have to find a ride home, although I suppose it's a possibility. If I could move to Killington or work in Rutland, then fine, no problem. It's just that stretch of Route 4 between the two that is totally discouraging me. Heavy traffic, lots of tractor-trailers, varying width of shoulder, dangerous dips, holes, and cracks in the pavement, and stupid people. A recipe for disaster.

Here's what I'm going to miss: filling up my gas tank every two weeks, sometimes three. Commuting to work and getting all the exercise I need all at once. Having a legitimate excuse to buy bike parts, clothing, and other cool stuff. People thinking I'm some kind of superman for riding my bike 12 miles up hill at 6:00 in the morning. Feeling pretty righteous for being part of the solution.

Need Drywall Work? Don't Call Green Mountain

I had a run in with particular drywall company the other day on my bike ride home from work. Green Mountain Drywall, was what the truck said. I didn't get a license plate number because I was fighting for survival, but it was a white pickup truck with green lettering. The driver got right next to me and scared the hell out of me by blasting his horn. I jumped and swerved and almost crashed into him. I was going about 40 mph downhill at the time. I should call the company and complain but I probably won't. I'm more the passive aggressive type. I'll just do everything I can to ruin their business. For years to come. See, I once drove a vehicle with lots of logos on it for a living and I was always conscious of the fact that everything I did in that vehicle reflected on my employer. From a practical standpoint, what this meant, was that I could be fired for driving like an asshole. This bit of information was apparently lost on Mr. drywall taper/hanger guy. The other thing that this genius probably didn't take into account is that the homo in the tight shorts riding his bike on a road clearly meant for motor vehicles only might be a contractor in the building trades. And therein lies the beauty of passive aggression.

Wet Weekend Weather

I had big plans for last weekend. Friday was to be a gift, the best kind of gift, an extra day off. I planned to have Christine drop me off in Middlebury at the Long Trail trailhead on Friday morning and then spend the next three days hiking back to Killington, from where I would either get a ride to Rutland or walk there, depending on the time frame. Christine was away for the weekend on a girls only Saratoga Springs trip anyway. Unfortunately, I pulled the plug on Thursday night because the forecast looked like poop. Probably best that I did because it did rain a lot. In fact Rutland flooded on Friday afternoon. We got 1.2 inches of rain in about 30 minutes. I happened to be driving to the post office at the end of the deluge and had to turn around at the end of my street and backtrack because there was a two foot deep river flowing over the road and water was shooting out of the storm drains like a geyser. Turn around, don't drown is what they always say on the weather channel, so I did. The problem with downtown Rutland is that it sits at the bottom of a hill. When we get a downpour like that it overwhelms the storm sewers, which empty into the actual sewer, and the whole mess ends up crashing through the basements of most of the businesses and restaurants downtown. Which is a problem because the health department gets touch about raw sewage in eateries. This happened last year in June and caused millions of dollars in damage and people said it was a "hundred year storm." My how time flies. If I owned a restaurant on Center street or or Merchants Row, I'd be looking for another line of work right now. Water and mold abatement might be a good line of work to go into, for instance. Anyway, after that took the wind out of my sails, I ended up doing basically nothing for the rest of the weekend. I'm just sort of tired of being outside in the rain at this point. I drove to West Lebanon, NH to buy a book on Saturday. It seems kind of crazy to have to drive 100 miles round trip to buy a book, but short of buying it online, that was my only option. I'm all for supporting the local independent bookseller, it's just that my local independent bookseller doesn't have any damn books. It's really out of character for me to drive so far for so little, I know, but I really had my heart set on a particular book for the rainy weekend. A book who's author was featured on the Daily Show last week by the way. Maybe I'll do a little book review for my next post.

The only other exciting thing that happened all weekend was that my good friend Susie D. hosted a ladies downhill mountain biking clinic at Killington. She planned the whole thing and promoted it herself, as Killington isn't much use for those sorts of things, and she had a very respectable turnout of a dozen girls, despite the questionable weather. Sue is a pro downhill racer herself and a bikie from way back, so she is eminently qualified and of course she has massive enthusiasm, which doesn't hurt. I equate riding a ski lift to bomb down the mountain on a bike with a broken collarbone, myself, but it does look kind of fun, with all of the pads and a long travel bike. I met the ladies for a beer at the Lookout after they were done riding. There was an interesting cross section of ability levels and Sue said that it was a very successful intro for some of the girls. Of course there were a couple of dirt loving rugged girls, the type that might brag about broken bones and such. One girl told me that she had dislocated her elbow on a big drop with a flat landing. I've not heard of that particular injury, but trying to picture it is making me uncomfortable. It's not often that you get to have a conversation at a table of ladies that makes you squeamish. At any rate, Sue is a really effective teacher of mountain bike skills, as Christine can attest, and she is going to host another one of these clinics in September, so if you're an aspiring female downhiller, you'll want to check it out. I'll post the date as soon as I hear, and I'll put it up on the Basin Sports site too. Just do it, what are you afraid of, dislocating an elbow or something?

Marketing blahh blahh blahh

I just spent a couple of hours writing descriptions for skis for the Basin Sports Webstore. Some of the text that the vendors come up with is really funny. I try to put a less techy spin on their stuff so it doesn't sound so science-fiction-like. The mad scientists at Atomic, evidently, have engineered TFC Sectors into their new skis for 2010. Some of the skis have six TFC Sectors in the front and only four in the back. It sounds like something you should watch out for when you're making the jump to hyper-space. I think maybe their product managers had a little too much THC technology, if you know what I mean. They also have Nano Technology, which is a valid technology, if you're talking about medical products or space travel, but it sounds funny when you're talking about a ski. I have no idea what nano technology is, other than it relies on very small particles. The good news is that my lack of nano technology knowledge has not affected my skiing at all, so far.

When I was a new hire at Salomon and nobody really knew who I was, I sent a memo to everyone in the office praising the SFP Technology in the new line of skis. At the sales meeting we had been given a huge binder (the French called it an argumentaire)full of product specs and info and it was entirely written by the French product team so the English was pretty funny to begin with. They were always coming up with these acronyms and meaningless words to describe new technologies. Nobody ever read those things, but I was new, so I did. I seized on one particular description where a new race ski was described as having it's mounting point moved forward to create a "shorter front part." This is still hilarious to me. Anyway, I let the US product managers know that, despite certain other shortcomings, SFP technology would elevate Salomon's race skis high above the competition. I wish I still had that email because I remember thinking it was really funny, but I do remember that one line was “thank you Salomon for ushering in an era where all front parts are free to be, well, shorter.” Immediately after I sent it, I was thinking, maybe it wasn't such a smart idea. I had no idea if it was acceptable to make fun of the Franglais in the marketing materials or not. I actually composed the email out of frustration, because at the time our logistics company was just terrible and I had spent the whole morning getting reamed out by dealers for poor product delivery and shipping mistakes. Everyone in the office was on edge too, and I had no idea if anyone had a sense of humor about it or not. About ten minutes after I sent it, though, my phone rang and it was the ski and binding product manager, Ted Wardlaw, and, from what I could decipher through his hysterical laughter, everyone thought it was funny. It really broke the tension for a while, I guess. Unfortunately, everyone knew who I was after that so I had to figure out what my job was and start doing it.

Home sweet... Astro Van

I can't believe how many people live in vans and other types of automobile. Who knew? I'm intrigued by this culture, I want to try it. They call themselves vandwellers and there are organizations of them and this whole sort of fraternal organization. They all link to each others blogs and they all seem to know one another. They all seem to be single though. My question is, if you're a married vandweller, do you share a van, or do each of you get your own van? I haven't figured out how to breach this with Christine yet. I've been trying to convince her of the benefits of living in a yurt for a couple of years now, and this goes a bit beyond that. I've got to proceed with caution. There is one girl who lives in Toyota Prius, so if a van isn't your thing, you know, you can still play along. The girl who lives in the Prius even has a job (in public radio, I believe) in Los Angeles. She just doesn't believe in the traditional housing model that most people unquestioningly buy into. You can't blame her for that can you? One of the more famous vandwellers is a girl who calls herself hobostripper. And yes, she is a stripper, although as I understand it, she mostly does phone sex now. Think of the advantages. No mortgage or rent or at least very minimal mortgage or rent. Want to move? Go ahead. Have a few too many at happy hour, no problem, you're already home. Pain in the ass neighbor? Drive away. It's almost all upside. I could park near wherever I'm working and ride my bike from there. I wouldn't even have to drive the van most of the time. I have slept, quite comfortably, in my Honda Element. It wouldn't be a bad vehicle to live in. Not a ton of storage space, but you could make do. If you only owned as much stuff as you can carry on your bike at one time.

Change is constant

I made some changes to the old blog today. I swapped out the photo, as you can probably see. I loved that no crampons on the porch photo, but not everyone got it. So this one is more universal, you might say. I don't have any decent photo editing software so I've been using an online editor called fotoflexer to resize and add text to my blog photos. It works pretty well. I'm actually trying to use free and alternative software as much as possible as kind of an experiment. I don't even have microsoft office on my computer currently. I'm a rebel like that. But that's a topic for another time. The other change I made is that I added twitter updates. So now when I'm bored, riding around in the truck with Ed, I can send updates from my phone. That should be exciting for both of the people that read this thing. And, oh yeah, this is kind of embarrassing, but I made a setting change that should make it much easier to leave comments. I didn't realize that I had that power. It would have been nice to have comments when I was on my trip and people were actually reading and wanting to comment. Oh well, live and learn. So leave a comment.

Is It Considered Adultery If The Other Woman Is A Bicycle?

I got reacquainted with an old flame today. No, not a woman, I'm talking about a bike. A bike that I was once really in love with, a bike that I took for granted, a bike that ended up hanging in the rafters of my attic for a few years, totally ignored. I never forgot about that bike though, I would think of it (her?) from time to time, think about how she was languishing up there, not doing me or anyone else any good. It was shameful, I know, but I was busy and I had other bikes vying for my attention. Newer, lighter, dare I say, faster bikes. I was into that kind of thing back then. Always looking for an edge over my competition. But lately I've felt different. I don't want newer or faster bikes anymore. I want more substance in my bike these days. And that old Marinoni fits the bill. I built the frame up a week or so ago with stuff that was on the last race bike I had. That last race bike was on borrowed time for sure. I'm not knocking it, it was once the finest racing bicycle that the Czech Republic could produce. But that was five years ago and I was starting to hear strange sounds emanating from the joints of the thing. Sometimes my mind would wander on a fast descent and I would imagine I felt the rear triangle separating from the rest of the bike. Those of you who are unfamiliar with bicycles might not know it, but if that were to happen, it would be, at the very least, painful. Think of sticking to your sheets for weeks with oozing road rash on 75% of your body. I'm really hoping that I've turned the corner and the oozing road rash days are behind me. Anyway, I found myself not wanting to ride that Czech bike and not having another road bike (as opposed to a mountain, touring, singlespeed, or commuting bike) to ride. Except for that old Marinoni.

When I first started riding and racing road bikes, everyone who was anyone rode a steel frame. Preferably a custom sized and built steel frame. And that is exactly what my trusty Marinoni is. Custom built to my specifications. A 55cm top tube and an extra long head tube to help iron out the differences between my long legs and short torso without looking goofy. The bike I mean, I look goofy anyway. Painted British racing green with a fade to silver. A wacky internal headset that I let the rep talk me into and have kind of regretted ever since. But it was a custom, mine all mine. I raced that Marinoni for only about one season. Steel fell out of fashion with racers. First it was aluminum, then aluminum and carbon composite, now all carbon fiber. Oh, and titanium, which was what initially took the wind from the Marinoni's sails. “Steel is real,” claimed the die hard retro-grouches. “Steel is real... heavy,” replied the techno-dweebs. I took the bait.

Things are different now. I don't care about weight so much anymore. I want to ride a bike that was built by someone who loves bicycles, not by a wage slave in a factory. I want a bike that I can ride for years and not worry about whether or not the glue will fail (seriously, my last bike was glued together.) That's the problem with mass produced bikes these days: most of them are disposable. Not steel though. Steel has legendar fatigue resistance. Steel frames rarely fail and when they do, they do so in a predictable manner, slowly and not all at once on a fast descent. They may not be the lightest bikes on the market but, in my opinion, they are the prettiest. So I restored the old Marinoni to it's original splendor and took it out for a nice long hilly ride. It just felt so right. These fancy carbon fiber blaahh blaahh blaaah bikes that everyone rides today, they're all the same. Even the old Italian builders are turning out cookie cutter carbon frames now because that's what the cycling magazines and product managers are telling people to buy. I'm not buying it. Not again. I want a genuine human being to build my bike, and build it the way I want it. And build it out of good old long lasting steel. Oh wait, I already have a bike like that. I guess I'm all set.

Relaxing On The Water

I took my kayak out yesterday for the first time all summer. Not that I'm a really prolific paddler or anything, but this summer has featured such bad weather that it never occurred to me to take the thing out until yesterday. Unfortunately, every other person in Rutland county decided yesterday would be a great day to go to Chittenden reservoir also, but I knew that would be the case. The remarkable thing though, was that as I was paddling around for a few hours, soaking up the sun and just generally enjoying the whole experience, I realized how relaxed I was. A deep relaxation of the sort that I rarely experience unless I'm locked away at a yoga retreat or something. And it occurred to me that the biggest reason for the relaxation was that no automobiles were whizzing by me, inches away. It seems that I spend a great deal of my leisure time riding my bicycle on roads that are also inhabited by cars, and I don't realize how stressful that is until I get away from them. I may have to re-evaluate how I spend my free time.

living like you're not going to get another chance

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately about voluntary simplicity. Incidentally, I came to these blogs initially through my research of bicycle touring in the US, mainly through adventuresinvoluntary simplicity.blogspot.com. You should check it out and follow some of the links, but only if you have a bunch of time to kill because I can't seem to get much else done now that I have all of these blogs to follow. Anyway, voluntary simplicity, in a nutshell is about downsizing your lifestyle, your footprint, if you will, not because you lost fifty percent of your net worth in the housing bubble implosion, but because, for one reason or another, you think it's the right thing to do. In case you are wondering, I think it is the right thing to do. I may go into my reasoning for that at a later time but that is not what I have on my mind today. What I have on my mind today is a recurring thread in all of these blogs. The catastrophic reminder of how short and fragile life is.

One thing I've noticed about all of these writers writing these blogs, other than the fact that a lot of them live in vans (not all of them live “down by the river,” though) is that some awful occurrence caused them to simplify their lives. Often it was the death of a loved one, sometimes a significant other, other times a parent, occasionally just an acquaintance. This usually lead to a revelation of, “what if today was my last day, would I be happy with where I am?” Evidently the answer was mostly “no.” Not all of them came to this realization through death, though. Jack from Adventures in Voluntary Simplicity, for instance, woke up one morning and realized that he was an asshole. It could be anything, failure of a business, dissolution of a marriage, loss of a job. Anything that causes one to take stock of one's situation. Which is an interesting phenomena in itself, the fact that most of us are so busy going through the daily motions that we never have time to wonder why we go through those motions until some calamity give us pause for long enough to think about it. It makes me think that maybe we should periodically review these things, even if nothing awful has happened to us, and make sure that the path that we are on is a good one.

Steve Jobs said it pretty well when he said that he likes to look in the mirror every morning and ask himself “if I only had a short time to live, would I spend time doing what I'm about to do today?” If the answer is no for enough days in a row, then he knows he has to change something. Sometimes the change he makes involves cheating the organ transplant system, but that's beside the point. The point is, he asks that question. Everyday. I'm joking about the organ transplant thing, I have no idea what went down with that and I certainly don't begrudge anyone a working liver. There are the shareholders to think about too. I mean, really, the guy was obligated to keep himself alive for the sake of the shareholders, right? Oh-oh, I feel myself being pulled into a rant here... must resist... whew! I'm okay now, sorry about that. Anyway, I gotta go look in the mirror and ask myself some heady questions.

Here Comes The Bride

Ben got married this past weekend. It came as a bit of a surprise to a lot of people. Not his Mom, though, she said she always expected it. It caught me a bit off balance, I have to say. Anyway, it was a beautiful wedding, as weddings in the rolling farm country of Connecticut are wont to be, and the day was one of the few warm sunny days of this cold and wet New England summer. There were the usual wedding things: a touch of drama, a touch of drunkenness, really good looking groomsmen, flamingos, people dancing with no regard for the fact that they might be caught on film, and catching up with people that you never seem to have enough time to catch up with. We finally finished off that awful half gallon of Old Smuggler Scotch that was opened at my wedding and ceremoniously consumed, swig by nauseating swig, at every subsequent wedding. Good riddance to that vile stuff. I got to know Ben's wife, Shannon, a little bit better. You done good Ben. I just wish that Ben and Shannon didn't live so far away. It would take me at least 60 days to ride my bike for a visit.

Speaking of Efficiency

I read today, in an article about heat illness in runners, that human muscles are actually shockingly inefficient. Evidently, 75% of the energy used by your muscles goes to producing heat, leaving only 25% for accomplishing whatever task you are supposed to be working on (mixing concrete by hand for deck footings, say, or riding your bike to a foreign land like Michigan.) Maybe I am stupid after all, advocating for human powered transport. Oh well, I've done lots of things more stupid than that.

Title and Registration

I got the title for my car in the mail today. I think this is the first time I've ever had that pleasure, the pleasure of paying off a car loan. I had a loan for a car once before, when I was about 18, I think, but that was a personal loan and I don't think the title was held. Anyway, it feels good to have finally paid the thing off. I feel kind of, well, validated. Five years ago I walked into a car dealership, drove away in a new car with no trade-in and no money down, became a slave to the American Honda Finance Corporation for five years, and survived to come out the other side. That makes me a good American, right? Isn't that what productive members of our little society do? The crazy thing is that, at the time, I didn't even have any demonstrable income, but they gave me the keys anyway. I feel good about it, I really do. The trouble is, I never want to do it again. People keep saying, “cool, now that your car's paid off, what are you going to get next?” Nothing. I'm going to drive this car, which I own now, until I have to pay somebody to come take it out of my driveway or pick it up on the side of the road (just like every other car I've ever owned.) As much as I like my car, and as much as I enjoy having reliable transportation, I just haven't ever felt that great about paying $25,000 for something that's only worth $10,000 dollars by the time I finally own it. Or less. This is one of the main reasons I had to leave Michigan at a young age. I didn't get the whole car thing and it made me an outsider. I tried, for a while, to really care about cars (pickup trucks, actually) so I could fit in and, you know, get a girlfriend. It just never worked out though. My heart wasn't in it. So I packed up that alarmingly unreliable Chevy S10 that I had purchased with a personal loan of, I believe, $2000 dollars and headed for VT. All in all, I've done fairly well. I don't think I've ever paid more than $2500 dollars for any vehicle other than the one I have now. One of the best cars I ever had was a Toyota Tercel that I got for $400. I had a stretch where I didn't have a car at all and, though it was kind of inconvenient, I managed to survive. I also had a five year stint where I had the use of a vehicle provided by my employer and did not personally own a car. That was probably the best arrangement possible. I've owned easily twice as many bicycles as I have cars and most of my adult life I've owned at least one bicycle that was worth more than my car. I guess it all depends on the metrics you choose to measure with. In my mind, I've done far better than most of my peers. Hell, I even got a sane and rational woman to marry me, despite the fact that I didn't own a car at the time.

I'm Simply Remembering My Favorite Things

When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad... I know, I know, that's terrible. These are some of my favorite things, especially when I'm riding great distances on my bicycle.

Cycling cap: A very underrated piece of equipment. Riding in the rain without a cycling cap is just awful. You see, what happens is the rain and spray move through your helmet vents and rinse the salt and whatever else you have on your head (not nice things, usually) down into your eyes and mouth. Now if you have one of these dapper little caps on, the visor directs the water elsewhere and saves you having to taste your own sweat all day. It also keeps the spray coming off of your partners wheel out of your eyes. Best of all, you can wear it off the bike for that jaunty European look. Or maybe you look like a long lost member of the Village People but, whatever, if you're bike touring you are obviously not too concerned about appearances.

Nuun: I've mentioned this hydration product before, but I'm really loving this stuff right now. Simple and easy to work with, no mess, no sugar or, gasp, corn syrup. Just some electrolytes and a subtle flavor to keep you reaching for the water bottle. I'm honestly not sure that it has any performance advantage over plain water for most people but just the fact that I tend to drink more fluid if the fluid has some flavor, especially when the water is from a dubious source, clinches the deal for me. If only my local bike shop carried it...

Brooks B17 saddle: Not only does this saddle look really cool and give your touring bike instant street cred, the thing is also super comfy. One problem with any all-leather saddle, however, is that if it gets soaked, it feels like you're riding on a slab of bacon. It also tends to get all stretched out and saggy if you ride it wet. In the future I'll get a Brooks waterproof cover for it to prevent the saggy bacon feeling. I didn't really know how comfortable the thing was until I got home and rode on some of my other saddles. Ouch.

Ortlieb Panniers: Easy to put on and take off, secure and worry free while riding, and utterly waterproof. That's all you need to know.

Thermarest sleeping pads: These self inflating pads are the only way to get a restful night of sleep when you're sleeping on the ground. I'll never attempt to sleep on a foam pad again. Marc had an REI branded one that was essentially identical to my Thermarest, and it worked just as well. Whatever you call it, a 1.5 inch self inflating pad is required gear for sleeping outside. You might want to throw in a repair kit too, though, because if the thing sprung a leak, you would be bumming. Neither of ours did, however.

Lithium batteries: I used lithium AA/AAA batteries in my camera and headlamp and anything else that used batteries. They cost about twice as much as regular alkaline batteries but they last forever (up to three times as long as alkaline) so you don't have to mess around with spares. I started using them in my camera for backcountry skiing because they have much better cold weather performance than alkalines and I couldn't believe how long they lasted. As an added bonus, they are much lighter than alkaline or rechargeable batteries. I'm not sure what the environmental consequences are though.

Defeet socks: These socks are indestructible. Get yourself two pairs of them and you're set for about ten years or so. Smartwool socks are good too, but not as cycling specific. Make sure you like the color of your defeet socks a lot though because you'll have them longer than any color trend will last. I have some with purple cuffs from about fifteen years ago that I don't really want to wear anymore, though they're still in fine shape.

Keen Commuter sandals: This is a cycling specific sandal from footwear innovator Keen. They have a relatively stiff midsole that can accept an SPD style pedal cleat. Although they are strappy and airy like sandals, they actually have a closed toe area, which I really like. Something about cycling with open toe shoes scares me a little. One nice thing about the Keens is that the metal cleat is well recessed in the sole so that when you are walking into a store or cafe on a hard floor you don't sound like you're wearing tap shoes. You don't scratch up the floor either, which will allow you to make new friends a lot easier. They are perfect for touring because they function very nicely as a comfortable off the bike shoe. A lot of people seemed concerned that they would not keep water out while riding in the rain. Well, duh, of course they won't, they're sandals. The thing is, any shoe will get filled with water when you ride in the rain. At least with a sandal, the water will run out and they'll dry fast if it ever stops raining. You will get weird tan lines though if you don't wear socks. Another thing people kept asking me was if they were stiff enough for efficient cycling. Stiffness in cycling shoes is highly coveted by racers and a marketing professionals. Unless you are either of those things, don't worry about it, it isn't that important.

Surly Long Haul Trucker: I do not think a better value exists in the bicycle industry. This thing is a bomb-proof and legitimate touring bike that retails for around $1200 complete. And the build on the complete bike is good enough that all you have to do to ride the thing across the country is put some pedals on it, add some racks, and maybe change the saddle to your favorite model. It's sturdy, handles superbly loaded or unloaded, has immense tire and fender clearance, has thoughtful details including all necessary braze-ons (even a spare spoke braze-on - so trick,) and sports a thick and protective powder coat finish. What more can you ask for? Well, I'll admit, it isn't my dream bike. I think if I could have any touring bike in the world, it would probably be the Rivendell Atlantis. Or possibly the CoMotion Americano, but those are both hand built bikes that would set you back a good three or four times as much as my trusty Surly. Surly is a good company too, and I'm happy to support them. They make a lot of truly useful bikes that aren't economically feasible to produce and they manage to make a go of it. Buy a Surly, it'll treat you right.

REI Qurterdome tent: Marc bought this tent specifically for this trip and I have to give it two thumbs up. For a tent that weighs under four pounds, you can't do better (or less expensive at $269) than this tent. We slept dry and comfy through some seriously hard rain in this thing, and considering the size and weight, it seemed to provide enough room for the two of us. One really nice feature that not many, or maybe any, tents in this weight range have is two vestibule covered entry doors. When you're sleeping in a two man tent with a person that you are not married to, you want your own door, trust me on this. There were only two things that could be improved on this tent and, honestly, they probably could not be improved at this weight, which is a primary consideration when touring. One, the all mesh canopy, while great for the extreme ventilation it provided, made the tent impossible to set up in the rain without getting a bunch of water inside the tent. Two, there was very little gear storage area, even considering the two vestibules. This isn't that big of a problem though because if you're gear isn't pretty waterproof on the bike anyway, you've got bigger problems. So, all things considered, I highly recommend this tent.

Clothesline: Simple but so nice to have. We got so that one of the first things we would do when setting up camp was find a spot for the clothesline. That way we could utilize whatever dry sunny air we had left to start drying and de-funking our riding gear. And also dry anything that hadn't fully dried from the night before. When you are traveling with limited clothing you have to do a little laundry almost every day, so you are always drying something. And then there are the times that all of your stuff gets covered in egg because your eggs broke all over the inside of your panniers. And the times when you've been riding for six hours in the rain and most of your stuff is a little wet. And the smell that comes from inside your sleeping bag when you've been sleeping in it for days and days and stuffing it slightly damp every morning. You get the idea. Here's another tip, Marc had some of those little spring binder paperclips with him and they are handy for lots of things, but they make great clothes pins for when the wind comes up and starts blowing all of your laundry all over campsite. Over and over and over again until you start swearing. Yeah, I bought some of those paper clips as soon as I got home.

That's all I can think of right now. I'm sure I'm forgetting something but I can always post the addendum later. Now, grow our economy by going out and buying all of these things, even if you have no intention of bike touring. Seriously, how are we going to get out of this economic downturn unless we all buy more stuff we don't need?

True Dat

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction."
E.F. Schumacher

I don't know who this Schumacher is but I think I'm going to find out. Evidently he's an economist and I can't recall anything like that coming from any other economist. Go Schumacher!

5% Seems Like a Pretty Good Deal

I just found another really cool statistic about cars. 95% of the energy an automobile uses goes toward moving the vehicle itself. Only 5% goes toward moving the passengers or other cargo. That doesn't seem very efficient to me. Again, I'm no economist or mathematician or anything but, you know, it seems like we could do better.

Time and Space

I mentioned in my last post that I learned some things about time and space on my trip. I wasn't referring to physics there, exactly, I was referring to the space that exists outside my front door (as noted in the title of my blog) and the time it could take one to see or traverse that space. I really got to thinking about it the day that Cleveland fireman told us that he and his wife had driven nearly 300 miles north to Frankenmuth Michigan (inexplicably, to visit a Christmas decoration store and a family style roast chicken restaurant, but that's beside the point) in about five hours. As I was digesting this piece of information it occurred to me that it was going to take Marc and I five days to travel that distance. And neither of us had even a remote interest in Christmas decorations or that particular roast chicken restaurant, although at the time we could have eaten a pile of roast chicken, no doubt. Time and Space. I thought about it again the first time I rode in an automobile after the trip. I was in the passenger seat of my Dad's car, headed to a grocery store, and the whole time I was thinking, "dear God, why are we going so fast? We'll surely be killed!" Of course, we weren't really going that fast, just a lot faster than the 18 miles per hour, or so, top speed that Marc and I had been traveling for the previous two weeks. Marc relayed a similar story, saying that the first time he had driven a car after the trip he had been surprised at how quickly a following car had come up behind him and annoyed that the car was impatiently tailgating him, until he realized that he was driving 25 miles per hour. And he didn't want to go any faster. All of this made me think about how unnatural it is to always be traveling at 60 or 70 miles per hour; inhuman almost. Even the bike is unnatural, considering that without some kind of machine beneath us we humans can't really hope to go much faster than 15 miles per hour and then only for a short distance. Maybe we should slow down a little. I gave the issue even further contemplation on the car ride home to Vermont. Granted, the drive was along a much more direct route, but the fact remains that we traversed the same space, from Freeland Michigan to Rutland Vermont. In the car it took just about exactly 12 hours. On a bike it took 14 days and caused a lot of people to ask, with varying degrees of seriousness, "are you crazy?" Well, not really, when you consider that for most of human history, traveling 1000 miles in fourteen days would be considered awfully fast. Maybe even dangerously fast. If you ask me, covering 700 miles in 12 hours is a lot crazier. Think about it from an animal perspective (we are animals, after all, despite our affinity for fancy flatware and high thread count sheets.) What would your dog or cat be more comfortable with; being sealed in a steel capsule rocketing through the air for 12 hours, or loping along on the ground, nosing out new curiosities and sleeping under the stars? Actually, domesticated animals might not be the best examples, some of them are almost as used to being in motor vehicles as we are. But you get the point. Traveling at human speed is less crazy than internal combustion. Time and Space. You know what else is different about traveling by bicycle? It's a lot harder to do more than one thing at a time. Which is a positive thing. I think we all need to re-learn how to nothing. When was the last time you sat still and did nothing (other than the last ten minutes of a yoga class, although that's a good start.) It's quite a stretch to think about doing nothing if you're always doing at least two things at a time. Think about it, you're driving and talking on the phone; you're eating breakfast and reading the paper and listening to the Weather Channel; you're checking your voice mail and email simultaneously. Wouldn't it be nice to find the time (and space) to do nothing?

If Not Now, When?

I learned a bunch of things by riding my bike a quarter of the way across this gigantic continent of ours (actually, it was further than a quarter but only because of the circuitous route we took, so I'm still calling it a quarter.) I learned a few things about the people that inhabit the spaces between here and there, I learned some things about the infrastructure that we have for traveling from here to there, I learned some things about time and space, and I learned a whole bunch of things about one particular citizen of these United States. That would be myself of course. I'll get to all of that eventually but today I want to focus on that infrastructure bit. As you probably know, we have an incredible array of roads and highways in this country, most of them in fantastic condition. I have done only a tiny little bit of traveling abroad myself but Marc has traveled widely and deeply, often in parts of the world that are still in juvenile phases of development. This caused him to comment on the state of our roads, how beautifully maintained they are, how numerous they are, how many options we have for getting from, say, Rutland VT to Freeland MI. The little bit of traveling I've done in the developing parts of the world, like Maine and Costa Rica, has taught me to be mindful, even thankful, for roads that go in a relatively direct fashion from point A to point B, especially if they do so on smooth surfaces. I'm thankful, I really am. But all of these great roads have come to us at a cost, and we've not yet begun to pay that cost down. I'm pretty sure we will, if not in my lifetime, at least in the lifetimes of people that I know. This all sort of bums me out.

This country was shaped by the automobile. There are a handful of exceptions, places where one could live a rich and satisfying life without owning an automobile but, for the most part, if you don't have a car in this country you are some kind of a kook. How are you going to get to work, get to the grocery store, get anywhere? Not on a bike or on foot, that's for sure, unless you happen to be a suicidal kook. Great tracts of our cities and, even more so, our suburbs are all but inaccessible to bicycle or foot traffic. One place that really stands out in my mind is Bowling green Ohio. This is a college town, a State University town and, from what I've seen, a town that is pretty much off limits unless you are driving an automobile. If you happen to be in Bowling Green on your bike, and you want to get a room for the night and some dinner, well, there's good news and bad. The good news is that there are a multitude of options including all manner of chain motels and restaurants, all conveniently located along the same strip. The bad news is that the road going through that strip is an awful place to have to ride a bicycle, a place that requires one to suspend all self preservation instinct for a time and hope for the best. The people using that road for it's intended purpose -- occupying it in a motor vehicle -- are seemingly very happy to be stuck in their metal boxes. They've got the air conditioning cranked up, they're making lots and lots of phone calls, and they certainly don't want to slow down or move laterally to avoid killing the kooks on the side of the road walking or riding a bicycle. In case you're wondering, Bowling Green isn't the only place like that. In fact there are places just like that here in my hometown of Rutland VT. If I was determined to go to the Hannaford Supermarket, the best supermarket in this fair town (my opinion, others tend to disagree) I would be taking my life in my hands trying to get there by bicycle. I would stand a better chance on foot, but since it's probably a four mile round trip from my city home, I'd need quite a bit of time to accomplish the task. So like, what should I do? Buy a car? Fortunately, I do own a car, so I'm not, you know, a totally irrational and dangerous subversive. But you know what? Owning a car is such a bad deal that I just wish I didn't have to own one.

I did some digging around and found some good statistics. According to AAA of Minnesota, the average annual cost of ownership for a vehicle driven 15,000 miles a year is $7,754 (that statistic is from 2003.) Since the average American earns somewhere in the neighborhood of $17 an hour, that means that the average person has to work over three full months each year just for the privilege (?) of owning that bad investment. That's a quarter of my time, man. Or in a year like this, when no one wants to build or renovate anything, all of my working time. I'm not down with that. If I had been saving that money all these years, instead of using it to pay for my car, I could probably be retired right now. Or, consider that you can park between 7 and 12 bicycles in the space that one car takes up. Think of all the nice green spaces we could have if we didn't need so many parking spots. Or you could build two Bed Bath and Beyond stores, instead of just one, with all that left over space. It costs about $50 to build and maintain a bicycle parking space in a bike rack. It costs about $8500 to build and maintain an automobile parking space in a parking structure. I'm not great with numbers but that seems like a really good savings. I know this is all massively simplified, and also I didn't bother to do any fact checking because I'm a blogger and I don't have to (that is the rule, bloggers can print anything they want) but it just seems to me like we could clear up a couple of our societal problems by taking some of this stuff into account. And I think we should maybe start doing some of these things sooner than later because, you know, our current model of living all spread out and relying almost totally on automobile transport is just not sustainable. Judging by the level of impatience I see in motorists who have to wait behind me for 10 seconds at a stoplight, I'd really hate to see the reaction elicited by a complete and total collapse of our petroleum economy. I think there might be physical violence.