What do they all have to do with one another? Nothing! It's Non Sequitur Hour(tm)!
1.) First day of real snow here, and already the bozos are dumping their SUVs into the ditches.
Jonesy-spawn and SWMBO join your's truly for a little Tacos del Mar action 10 miles from home. Get
out with full bellies, and the snow has come down pretty well, but that's not the problem - the
temp has decreased 5 degrees, and what *was* wet and slushy is now icy. Even in an AWD vehicle,
you have to take it easy on all-season (read "no-season"😉 tires. Yup, that's right - the snows,
mounted on rims and ready to go, are sitting in the garage awating the jack and some beers. [censored].
OK, so, take it slow. Except Mr. (Ms.) impatient behind me doesn't want to go 25mph - which is
pretty fast for the conditions. Guy ahead in a late model Mustang begins to fish-tail and then
obviously hammers on the brakes. I start giving the brake pedal the foot-activated massage, and the
guy (gal) behind gives me the brights from 10 feet away. I'm looking for a place to ditch, so that I
can miss the Mustang, who is obviously in over his/her head, AND stay out of the way of a 2.5 ton
SUV, who is gonna run his/her high bumper right up my ass if the Mustang guy really gets wild (I
have plenty of room still, but you never know what's gonna happen.)
Just when I think I have it under control, dumbass behind me whips out to pass. Ah, [censored] - now
what's gonna happen? I tell everyone to relax, 'cuz I'm gonna take the sheetmetal damage from going
off-road in order to not get involved with the other two vehicles, and start planning my angle off
the road so as to not get the car too messed up. Dumbass behind gets even with me and FINALLY
notices Mustang is gonna go off-road. He/she hammers the brakes, and rotates the ass-end of the
vehicle away from the road crown (opposite side of the road) and is on a vector to go off-road
ass-first, away from us. I ease right to get the left wheels onto the dirt shoulder, and go past the
Mustang, which went off nose-first. The SUV does indeed go off ass-first and slams hard into
opposite ditch. I find a place to stop, so I can check on them, just as a local PD guy in a cruiser
lights his blues and pulls over by the Mustang. OK, says I, and drive home.
Didn't get to sleep until 3AM - I was way over-stimulated by that encounter - which lasted all of
about 15 seconds in real time. Funny
that's all there is to it.
One might draw a conclusion over the relative risks of particular activities from this tale. Or one
might not.
2.) I live close to work, and sometimes I just climb on the bike and push a tall gear, just for the
exercise. And because I can put the bike in my office and nobody yells at me. So, about a week
ago, I'm riding along, and I look across the street, and there's a student riding a Walgoose FS
bike-shaped toy, I smile to myself, because he's on the (double-wide) sidewalk, no helmet, in deck
shoes. It's a sad smile - so many of the students are just clueless about riding bikes around,
brand of bike notwithstanding. So, he comes to an intersection, and bunny-hops off the walk into
the crosswalk, and I hear a big "SNAP!" I look more closely and his shock mount has come away from
the downtube. I resist breaking out in full laughter, but only because I can see he's not hurt,
and is clearly upset at breaking his toy. No need to heap insult upon injury. A six-inch bunny
hop. Wow. "Best $90 I ever spent..."
3.) The new bike was mostly identical to the beater bike in every dimension, which is why I've had
such an easy time adjusting to the slight differences. But one thing that was a little different
was the seat tube angle. OK, no big deal. Except that most seatposts nowadays have a slight rear
offset for the clamp, which would also be no big deal - unless you need that 5mm of forward
adjustment for your saddle. Guess what? Yup, had to get a new seatpost after doing another KOPS
test. Well, not new - a nice Thomson Elite from eBay. Good way to save $40. I looked around, and
it seems that Thomson is on the short list of seatposts that have a clamp without any rear offset.
I was curious as to why there are so many posts with the clamp at sometimes over 1cm of rear
offset - is it because people are buying frames that are too small? Now I have a 31.6mm x 350mm
Answer Carbolite post to get rid of. Maybe I'll mate it to a Fuel frame some time next year.
Unless someone wants to buy it... 😉
And with that, Non Sequitur Hour(tm) wraps up 55 minutes early...
--
Jonesy
E-mail me: rfjonsey *at* hotmail *dot* com