The Importance of the New Revisited (Pt 2)

In last week's post I told, at length, the ordeal of my various tire failures during my tour down the Pacific coast.  Taken at face value, that post would seem to be a refutation of my original position on the importance of buying all new running gear before setting out on an adventure. In reality, however, while it cost me a fair amount of extra coin, the whole affair solidly vindicated my position.

Solo

“The pleasure of ‘riding alone’ depends very much on whether or not a man takes good company with him.”—Karl Kron

As any 5-year-old can tell you, the key to riding a bicycle is balance. Once this is mastered, it rarely requires any conscious thought. As a 45-year-old, however, I’m finding myself thinking about balance of a different kind when it comes to my bike-riding life. I’m talking about a kind of social balance, riding sometimes with friends and other times alone. I like doing both, but it’s not always easy is to strike the perfect balance of the two.

The Importance of the New, Revisited

Just before leaving on tour, I wrote a blog post about the importance of overhauling your rig before the departure date hits. In retrospect, after all of that preparation--and preaching about it--it almost seems like I was asking for some sort of divine punishment.  So for the follow-up post, I'll just start by saying that I didn't finish on either of the new tires that I set out with. But despite what seems like an existential rebuke, I stand by every word I wrote.

Tricycle Dreams

I can’t stop dreaming about tricycles.

For the second time in the past two weeks, a tricycle has figured in one of my dreams. The latest one happened a few nights ago. In my dream I was walking along the road near my office going where-I-don’t-remember when a very old but very fit-looking woman, a svelte granny, you might say, appeared before me on an adult tricycle (the kind you see codgers slowly pedalling along the sidewalks of Florida), booking it across the road in front of me. She hopped over a curb and disappeared around a corner, turning so sharply that one wheel lifted right off the ground.

Code of the Semi-Serious Cyclist: Part 7 (Team Kit)

The Semi-Serious Cyclist doesn’t wear professional-cycling team kit. No Garmin-Barracuda jersey, no Lampre bib, no Team Sky cap. Why not? Simple. He’d feel like a knob wearing it.

That’s not to say that the SSC doesn’t have a casual interest in pro cycling. He does. In fact, during Tour de France season, he even gets to know which of the main GC riders are on which team. But the SSC knows that he’s not actually a member of any of those teams, nor is he likely to get picked up by one of them any time soon.

So, for the SSC, wearing that Sky jersey while out riding a bicycle in public only invites unflattering comparison. It shouts out, “I think I’m fast, like Mark-Cavendish fast.” Or it implies a kind of unselfconscious game of make-believe: “Look at me, I’m pretending to be Chris Froome!” (Admittedly, there’s something naïvely sweet about enacting this kind of cycling, dress-up-in-public fantasy—at least, if you’re twelve.)

Happy Birthday, DM

The Dusty Musette is one year old this week. It was on a grey, early October day 12 months ago that Val offered up this found-graffiti image of a mini-rocket as emblem of the low-key launch of this blog. Our goals when we set out on this 3-man mission were modest: to offer an unpretentious buffet of considered, more-or-less literate commentary on our idea of cycling—without taking ourselves (or anything, really) too seriously. We hoped we might find a constellation of readers, start some conversations, provoke a few smiles, and celebrate, in our small way, our twin passions of reading and riding.

The Karl Kronicles

"This is a book of American roads, for men who travel on the bicycle."--KK

There’s still plenty of good riding to be done this fall, but as the leaves drop, I'm beginning to think ahead, to plan some over-winter projects, one of which is to finally read—and I mean, full-on, cover-to-cover read, read—Karl Kron’s 1887 eccentric cycling classic Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle (TTM). For those of you who aren’t familiar with this text, here’s the backgrounder.

Bicycletiquette (Gloves)

Dear Jasper,

My husband’s cycling gloves are disgusting. They’re dirty and snot-covered. Plus they kind of stink. But here’s the weird part. For some reason I can’t fathom, he refuses to wash them. What’s up with that?

Yours,

Baffled Spouse

Dear BS,

I’m afraid your husband is absolutely right on this one. Under no circumstances should cycling gloves ever be laundered. Occasionally they may—and really should—be rinsed with rain water, perhaps while riding on a wet day, and then hung up to air dry. But that’s the extent of it. Whatever happens, one should never allow even a drop of laundry soap to sully the glovey fabric, lest the gloves be ruined.

Tangled

The crash happens—as always—so fast. One second I’m riding along a range road behind my 12-year-old son, the two of us chatting away about the drunken yahoos at the campground the previous night. I take a quick peek over my shoulder for traffic (good, no vehicles in sight). Then boom. I’m lying on the pavement, tangled in my bicycle, a bit stunned. My leg is bloodied, my front brake lever a little bent, and my left hand kills. In fact, I can’t move my fingers. The pain courses through me in distinct waves as I try to make sense of what just happened.