Cycling and riding a bike

I have decided that I'm not a Cyclist. I just like to ride my bike. There's a difference. Cyclists are serious. They've got the fancy duds. They've got the expensive wheels. They've got the cool equipment. They roam in large packs.

I'm just a dilettante, a dabbler. I wear gym shorts and an old JavaOne t-shirt. I ride an inexpensive bike. Also, I'm a fair weather cyclist only. I have no interest in enduring pain and fatigue or sacrificing all my time for the sake of The Sport. And as for money for fancy equipment...well, let me just paraphrase Tolkien by saying that bringing up young Hobbits takes a great deal of provender. My only concession to fashion is a helmet. After all, one may be indifferent to the admiration or scorn of Serious Cyclists, but one still has one's pride; there's no need to be a pariah.

In the end I guess I'm just a hedonist. Riding my bike is for the solitary pleasure of enjoying the sunshine, the breeze, and the movement. It's the most elegant form of transportation ever invented and it's my second favorite form of exercise after walking. Sitting as I do on the doorstep, and nerving myself to ring the doorbell, at number 50 Birthday Lane, I just want to nurse the old chassis along for another 30 or 40 thousand miles. And riding the bike is good for the motor without being too hard on the transmission.

So I guess I'll probably never be a Cyclist, but I intend to keep riding my bike whenever I get the chance, hopefully for another 30 or 40 thousand miles.

Posted with Blogsy

Comments

Important lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian War

My attention for the last few months has been very much occupied by Vladimir Putin's war on the Ukraine. Like many, I have come to feel a deep admiration for the bravery, resource, intelligence and dogged persistence of the Ukrainian people and military in the defense of their country. It has also been extremely gratifying to see European nations put aside their internal differences and full-heartedly support the Ukraine in their hour of need. I have also been struck by the contrast between what we have traditionally thought of Russia's military power and what we are actually seeing unfold in front of our eyes today -- over a million casualties in a war that was intended to last at most a few weeks, but has dragged out over more than four years with no end in sight. We are seeing the hardware of war being destroyed in colossal numbers by drone warfare -- tanks and artillery vehicles in their thousands, entire air defense systems wiped out, even the flagship of the Russian navy,...

To Boldly Split Infinitives

This is somewhat a manifesto. English is not Latin. We can put prepositions at the end of a sentence if we want to. And we can start sentences with a conjunction! If we want to boldly split infinitives, then we're perfectly welcome to do so. Why? Because these are all syntactically correct constructs in English; they parse. And even more, they convey meaning to other speakers of the language, which is the real test of whether something is permitted in a language. My seventh grade English teacher, Mrs. Doane, a throwback to the 19th century prescriptivist grammarians, would no doubt sniff disapprovingly and peer with narrowed eyes over her Far Side-style glasses at such goings on. However, now I have the M.A. in Linguistics and can scowl back with gravitas. And so I will echo those marvelous Churchillian words: " This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put. " But in the end, I must confess that it was Guy Deutscher who freed me from the pointless tyran...

The North-going Zax and the South-going Zax

Yesterday, I was on my lunch time walk and had an interesting experience. It lasted perhaps less than 2 seconds and yet I've been thinking about it on and off ever since. I was trundling along at my usual brisk pace, on the right-hand side of the path. A few yards off, I spied a man walking toward me on my side of the sidewalk, two trains heading toward each other on the same track. As we grew closer, I instinctively hugged the right-hand margin a little closer and he did the same. When it became clear that we were on a collision course, the image of the old Dr. Seuss story about the North-going Zax and the South-going Zax popped into my head. In the story, the two Zaxes meet and stand there for years, each too stubborn to give way to the other, while a city grows up around them. For about a quarter of a second, I contemplated such a pissing contest and realized that such a course of action did not advance my goal of getting back to work in time for my 2:00 meeting. So I swerve...

The Natural Linguist

Search This Blog