I love all the small things that collectively make up cycling and when "improvements" remove those from necessity it reduces my experience. Some see cycling from the perspective and definition of performance and make judgements based on what moves their experience on that spectrum to their satisfaction. People are the same with the vehicles they purchase, some want performance as their foremost objective while others may greater utility over speed and handling.
I guess it is my agency that leads me to prefer being more involved in the act of cycling. I went through Ergopower and STI phases, I am about finished with mechanical discs. I saw a YouTube about servicing them after a wet ride that included replacing the pads, cleaning the caliper, applying a grease to prevent pads from binding when retracting from the disc...after a ride in the wet. I ditched a brand of car after the warranty because it was fiddly and expensive to keep. The previous one had been stalwart but helpless in bad weather, the latter seemed made of delicate pieces carved by Lorelei herself, consumed by mundane use far beneath its potential. Settling up after services felt like real estate closings. I appreciate sufficiency, not being a bother to anyone, while I do what I do. Last night I was flagged down by a cyclist with his bike upside down on the sidewalk. As I neared, he asked if I had a pump, which I have snapped into its included frame clip that is zip-tied to my Caradice Nelson Longflap's cross dowel inside the bag. I've posted a picture of this before. His pump's cup didn't seal to move air yet alone create pressure in this first need of it's function. My simple Topeak mini road did, even though I hadn't used it in over a year. It's just part of my kit of things that assure I will suffice and was happy to offer it's aid. He was satisfied and thankful. Last week I rode the GAP to Cumberland, MD. Thursday the forecast of scattered drizzle and 60s realized as rain in the high 40s. My traditional mid morning stop for coffee in the past had burned and was boarded up. My lunch preference was under limited hours still and not yet open for the day. My best tools were three layers of wool, my old wool Army glove liners and a space blanket I wrapped with under cover when my layers were wet to the skin. My body heat dried the wool and kept the wind off me. If I distrusted the forecast I would have worn my Hiltrek Ventile anorak but I was in a more breathable shell considering the entirety of my trip. The day's ride took longer under these accommodations but that is part of what I enjoy about outings like this. In the morning after breakfast I rode into the fog discovering that the rain I had been in was in the form of 7-9" of snow in the higher elevations as I climbed out of the Casselman River valley. The path was soft from the wetness it held and as I neared the high point I noticed a left side tick when my foot neared bottom and I ran through the diagnostics in my mind: pedal installation in the crank arm, chainring fastener(s), crank bolt torque securing the right crank arm, bottom bracket (SKF unit) retaining ring torque or a breaking joint in the bottom bracket area of the frame. manipulating my pedal stroke I narrowed it to the BB and responded with by optimizing my tired full circle pedaling and achieved quiet, hopefully non-destructive ride into Cumberland. Once home and cleaned up I found a combination of crank bolt torque and BB retaining ring torque insufficiencies that satisfied my desire to mechanically understand and the ability accurately assess and diagnose odd sounds or degradation of functions. Yeah, deemphasizing my agency in all the facets of cycling is not movement toward a positive end from my perspective. Andy Cheatham Pittsburgh On Sunday, May 1, 2022 at 8:05:47 PM UTC-4 Patrick Moore wrote: > I know that I am pushing the boundaries of this thread to the breaking > point, but I also think that these tangents are fully sympathetic to the > general sense of this list in general and to Grant's own predilections in > particular. This current NYT article makes intelligent observations on the > debilitating effects of substituting technology for reality. > > At any rate, FWIW. Caveat: I find very many things to disagree with in Ms. > Tish Hamilton Warren's opinions, but OTOH, it is quite obvious that she (a) > is truly sincere and (b) has given these matters a great deal of > intelligent thought and (c) is a caring and sympathetic and, by God, an > *intelligent!* human individual. > > Her OpEd piece last week is also worth hunting up and reading. > > > https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/01/opinion/loneliness-connectedness-technology.html > > On Sun, May 1, 2022 at 3:35 PM Patrick Moore <bert...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I'd like to understand better what you mean by this. I agree that, in >> general, many improvements so-called to everyday life have been >> technologies that do things for you and therefore remove agency and the >> resulting pleasure; remove agency except the very basic, almost pre-human >> agencies of adding inputs without having to think about results; and by >> technologies I mean administrative systems as well as machines. Almost 3 >> decades ago a friend on a modestly successful upward career path as a >> commercial loan officer at a regional bank left after the bank was bought >> by a much bigger bank that had rationalized everything and put into place >> their program of using statistical analysis to reduce loan decisions to a >> checklist instead of what he found fulfilling: getting to know people and >> sizing up their circumstances and character, and forecasting outcomes based >> on this judgment. >> >> And 20 years ago, when I was married to a pediatrician, the big hospitals >> (here in flyover ABQ, NM) had been more and more making diagnosis and >> treatment a matter of following rationalized, statistically tested, general >> checklists, with other checklists to measure "productivity." She is now in >> 1-woman private practice, and good for her. >> >> Is this what you mean? >> >> It's funny and sad that more and more -- not only hard, dirty, dangerous >> physical labor, but human thought and creativity has been replaced by >> rationalized systems evaluated statistically, so that even some previously >> professional work has been reduced to hewing wood and drawing water, >> metaphorically speaking: plugging in inputs. This started of course with >> manufacturing. >> >> I agree that the same trend seems to be taking over cycling, with the >> difference that the ultimate agency in cycling is still the person that >> pedals. Still, I too like friction, when I don't use the primitive indexing >> on Sturmey Archer hubs, or give it all up altogether for fixed drivetrains >> -- because of agency. >> >> I do not by any means consider Matthew Crawford a sage, but he's an >> intelligent and well educated man who has actually thought through this >> sort of thing and expressed his conclusions with surprising clarity for >> someone trained as an academic, this in *Shop Class as Soul Craft* and *The >> World Beyond Your Head.* Both books assert generally that real-life >> confrontation and engagement with real things, notably in the manual >> trades*, are much more conducive to virtue** than coding software or even >> -- the clientele I write for -- managing the strategies and general >> direction and design of business systems, be these entire corporations or >> business units or product portfolios or global IT systems using statistical >> methods and working to meet the quarterly numbers. Yes, doing otherwise >> does indeed put a limit on practical size. >> >> Crawford worked as a journeyman electrician, and owns a business >> restoring classic motorcycles. >> >> * Hands-on trades: plumbing, auto mechanics, framing, and I daresay, >> though he doesn't extend his descriptions to them, cooking, interior >> design, event planning, stock raising, farming on a family scale. >> >> ** "Arete," the perfection or fulfillment and thus flourishing of a >> specific (= species) kind. The virtue of a hammer is to be well balanced, >> properly weighted, and because of this to drive nails efficiently. Crawford >> means both the specific excellences of character and the specific >> excellences of the practical intelligence; the speculative intelligence is >> beyond him. Suntour's classic bar cons by this criterion are highly >> virtuous shifting devices. Forget the idea of "virtue" in the modern sense >> as something that makes you give up stuff. >> >> On Sun, May 1, 2022 at 4:45 AM ascpgh <asc...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> ... So much in our lives has been optimized and refined to make things >>> less of an effort in general that a part of my brain is left unsatisfied by >>> the resulting lack of problem solving, coping or effort, mental or >>> physical, that is necessary in a day. >>> >> >> >> > > -- > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > Patrick Moore > Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 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