The new or replacement frame for Mr Tib had the standard Square Peg in Square Hole front crank configuration which is so prevalent in amateur or prête-à-faire cycling due to costs I assume. Such configurations are expected to last perhaps 10,000 miles until the edges of the pegs round off through use the edges of the holes (& vice versa) & one’s pedaling becomes slushy & ineffective; one loses a noticeable percentage of each stroke. It’s annoying & draws attention from the other functioning aspects of riding.

Other cranks, Racing cranks specifically, use as many as 30 pins to connect the crank arms together, virtually eliminating any Rounding Off; there are simply too many points of efficient contact for wear & tear to cause catastrophes. If 30 rowers are on the oars a sprained wrist is less likely to cause noticeable loss of speed.

So I got a SRAM crank with 3 more teeth (48!) than my old rounded-off crank & today was my first ride on it. I was initially fearful the new front to back ratio (48 front, 16 rear) wd make the hills which are unavoidable on my approach to & exit from the park debilitating if not impossible, but the extra bight taken on the links with each stroke made them yes more difficult but not horribly so. & the action is so much smoother & more integrated that even though I felt the extra fatigue in my legs the riding felt easier. On this initial run I could maintain 17 mph easier than before & bursts up to 20 seemed to take less effort.

I’ll need the off season to get my legs stronger but next season ought to be very good.

Considering it was The Habit Of Being (the selected letters of Flannery O’Connor) which brought me to Nashville in the first place, you’d think I’d write more letters. Quick mental glance around reveals I don’t even have decent Writing Paper – Printer paper, Copy Paper, Wrapping Paper (for impious reasons), Baking Paper even, but no writing paper. Hell, I even have a Writing Desk, ordered up special & put in the right window for decent light.

My let’s call him Brother-In-Law sent us a cursive written post card from Germany with a brief but lively accounting of his doings. I remember well writing from Venice just to let folks know I hadn’t died & to exploit the WOW of the Venice Postmark – by the way a perfectly lovely Post Office well worth the detour even if all you do is text. So I thought about actually writing back to him but with the long postal delay he will be back in Cincinnati soon & more easily reached by phone.

With both my parents gone the most likely target of any letter I might write is some imposing lawyer somewhere. Such a decrescendo

Just a little joke

There was some sort of WordPress issue

more Little than Joke

Someone whose name I forget is setting up to play Memorial Day in Nissan Field so I took the suggested detour out toward Top Golf (Closed this morning at 7 but an interesting looking place – appropriately very Japanese). I’d thought about making the place part of a large loop but the parking lot isn’t designed for looping so I continued up Cowan & way North along easily remembered roads until (12 miles later) I saw a Greenway sign & followed it. Some shooting club has rented or sold part of its parking lot to the county & so now it’s a Greenway – about a 0.85 mile loop in lovely woods. Plus two food trucks setting up for the weekend shooting bunch. It made for a nice surprise ride.

Our embattled Mayor has plans on opening much of the East Bank of the Cumberland to cycling walking jogging & small business commerce. I scoffed at the idea until today’s ride.

The Greek Underworld is a place of Fear, of Wealth, of Weakness, & of Power. The common take on one of Hades’s (the Place, not the Monarch) most famous denizens – Persephone – is that she was an innocent girl out gathering flowers when, in retribution for what I’ve forgotten, Pluto (the king of hell for Rome) or Dionysus (the god of wine for Greece) snatched her away to the Underworld, where unfortunately she committed the worst sin imaginable by Eating in Hell the simple single seed of a pomegranate. Who eats in hell cannot leave hell – those are the rules. Demeter, Persephone’s mother, managed to orchestrate a slight reprieve for her doomed daughter, & so (the popular theory has it) for the 3 Months which constitute Greek Spring, the little lost girl can gad about the Earth & either admire the flowers or cause their existence. Her Hell therefore last 3/4ths of the year in which there are no Spring Flowers.

My take on the myth is less comforting: I take her punishment as causing her to abide in Hell during Spring (her motive force & youth create the flowers she cannot see up here on Earth), & during the rest of the flowerless year she wanders the Earth never finding Spring. Her Hell therefore lasts the entire year & even seems to follow her around. “Which way I fly is Hell,” Milton’s Satan intones: “myself am Hell.” Persephone agrees.

Spring rides are difficult because the legs are old with Winter’s inactivity but the rides are enticingly brand new. 31 miles in August are a warmup to the desired 100 mile day, but in April one’s 45 miles are dearly bought.

I’m gathering as well as I can

A good day for 45 miles – which I’m trying to make my “usual distance” after last year’s 50 Kilometer focus – & I had almost no car problems; a young squirrel played the You Can’t Touch This game under my wheels & paid the non-ultimate price for it. Second time that has happened. As far as games go this one puzzles me – there’s nothing in the end but bragging rights. (Said the Fixie cyclist). Weather started in the low 50s & climbed up to 68°.

Along the middle of the current Greenway between the closed bridge & the recently re-opened bridge I rode past Gene, with whom I rode for 4 years in a row once. We were both old guys young to cycling & liked trading the difficult stories about distant hills & narrow twisting country roads. He was rehabbing from heart troubles & the bike did him worlds of good. He’s walking now – the years took his knees & stability & cycling is now more a danger than a benefit to him. He was a dedicated thoughtful cyclist.

Once I thought I’d simply spend more time hitting the bag if I stopped cycling, but lately that has caused some wrist pain. I know those who embrace swimming, but let’s face it – pools are filthy & lakes worse. Jogging my feet will reject out of hand. I don’t have a Target Rich future here.

Volvere is what will pop out initially from the word Revolution & I guess there are Latinists who will argue that the word means Recurring Change or Eternal Spinning, but (always a But with me) Volere (to Want to Desire to Yearn For) is equally undeniably imbedded in the word & the translation is even better: To Want Again. Yes my wheels display Revolution, but so does my heart.

Economically defined, inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. Classically – to blow into – it’s less satisfying no matter how pedestrianly accurate.

Coming off last year’s disaster and pulling slowly back up to Daily Ride Strength means entire rides spent slowly surveying the damage. The flooding damaged a few bridges & one path is still under a few inches of murky water. The Spring wind is strong & makes airport sprinting (even if I could ride directly to the airport) nearly unappetizing. The new house is directly in a Cwm – the only way out in any direction requires steep pedaling with nearly no opportunity to warm up beforehand.

I have plenty of desire to ride but few routes available.

My watch has the app & you just touch the mostly decorative stem & the connection completes & you can be told 30 seconds later that your heart rate is normal or start worrying, Buster. I’ve had a heart rate fixation ever since I learned that Bush 43’s was in the low 40s. 8 years of cycling & mine is in the mid 50s.

Most of what my folks told me to guarantee for the future is prudently locked away behind the stern miens of 2 professional bankers. I’m nearly at the end of what I can sell but the last house is nearly ready to be sold & I think she will sell quickly. My sister has called for money. A niece has called for money. For 2 days I have not answered my phone. Clearly I have no heart

At some point you have to see only grandchildren & beyond to have no heart

There’s no app for that

The Elliptical Airbike (whom I call Aurora – less for the goddess of Morning than for the etymological Burn [in all honesty I thought it meant Big Wind – it’s an Airbike; it makes some big wind – but Burn now makes a good story] is a godsend to me during frigid Winter & rainy days & generally for building & maintaining my wind. She interacts with the rider almost exactly as an uphill route on fixed gear into the wind; the harder you pedal the more resistance she offers. It’s the kind of pleasurable punishment usually reserved for inhospitable weather rides.

Her saddle though is but poorly designed. It’s wide like an old-fashioned beach cruiser’s. I have no chamois capable of protecting previously untargeted areas of my butt & saddle sores are never any fun.

Since I share Aurora I can’t just put on one of my old familiarly targeting saddles.

Becoming an engineering problem.

I’ve converted most of the deadbolts over to keypad locks & can leave on the bike at least with no keys in my pockets & a securely locked house on my mind. It’s rather upsetting it took me so long to match my house to my email account – seems so obvious now. Rather than go though with memorized numbers I went with specific memorable shapes as the codes; shapes are for me easier to remember & to explain to say the house-sitter.

With thus many things now off my mind, my thoughts are troubled by a persisting elevated (for me) heart-rate long after the ride has ended. My watch has the ECG feature which spots Arterial Fibrillation & usually when I access it I get Normal Sinus at 55 or so beats a minute. For 2 days now (my first rides of 2019) my heart stays in the 70s & today I got this

at about 76 beats a minute.

So far I’m continuing to blame greater fatigue than usual & slight dehydration, but given the heart disease which runs in my family I’m a little worried.