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Sunday 20th 60-70F, 15-21C, sunny, with light winds [again.]Swapped the Vetta back to the B17 "Special" saddle. The new DHB shorts were clinging like glue to the 'sweaty' vinyl of the Vetta yesterday. Vinyl is obviously only a winter-friendly saddle material. Just finding somewhere reasonably flat is a major hurdle on our undulating "back yard" parking area. I had to drag the trike, kicking and screaming into the shed, just to get the saddle level.
A bit more tension helped the cause. I have two Brooks, nose tension adjustment spanners. One arrived very badly made by completely knackered tooling in a completely knackered press. The other is much smarter in the split ring department but doesn't fit! I use the worn out one which fits the Brooks tension hex without a struggle.
How often do you need to tension a saddle anyway? Imagine the millions of Brooks tension spanners just sitting there waiting to be used. I used an open ended spanner for most of my cycling life. There really isn't much room in there so I ground the spanner head away. A modified, slotted, ring spanner would have been much better but why ruin a decent spanner for such occasional use?
Talking of appropriate technology: I was just scanning an article online about the Amish and their 1850's view of technology. Their argument is that not all technology is beneficial and should be considered and assessed before early adoption. They believe that some technology can be dangerous and antisocial. Like cars, for example. Cars kill huge numbers of people. Usually because of the deluded idiots behind the steering wheel. I'd argue that cars are also largely responsible for the complete breakdown of society.
For example: It would be highly inconvenient to give a lift to a neighbour on their every whim. They might want to go somewhere the owner would rather not. The neighbour might be "undomesticated" in many respects. Or want to take the extended family along to the detriment of the car owner and his vehicle.
Not to mention the expense in fuel, maintenance and cleaning. Most car journeys are turnkey events without thought or preparation. So the car splits the neighbours apart rather than bringing them closer together. A horse and buggy require regular maintenance, care and feeding. So asking for a lift means you have to weigh the burden of this favour on the owner and all the preparation required. The buggy journey is not usually over before it has begun, as it is in a car. Is it really worth the effort of driving the neighbour's horse and cart, the short journey into town, just to buy more sweets, cola or a takeaway?
You can't easily cadge a lift on a bicycle unless you are young, slim and pretty. Nor expect offers of help, via a piggy-back, with a journey when both parties are walking. Few would physically carry the luggage of a neighbour who was simply going on holiday. Nor would they offer to carry their pig to market in their arms. Nor a severed limb and its owner to hospital.
I think you can see where this is going. There are countless, completely thoughtless users and abusers in this world. Keeping them at a comfortable arm's length, as neighbours, works for most people. The intimacy of sharing your car with a neighbour, or anybody else, provides far too many problems. The etiquette of refusing a lift can easily lead to a minefield. Such parasites often turn nasty if they think themselves "entitled." As so many do. Don't even ask if a refusal may cause personal offense.
On the subject of technology: Mobile phones are beginning to kill and maim more people than the car. Many young people are now suffering from near-sightedness from staring at tiny text for their every waking moment. Next comes the agonizing neck and back pain from looking straight down all the time.
I'm looking forward to the shock of a class action against the trillionaire, technology despots as literally tens of millions will require major neck operations from their profiteering from i-phoney abuse. Then there's the awful toll on society of all the anonymous, sociopathic trolls and online bullies undermining so many innocent lives. People can no longer talk face to face. As they never learn [or lose] the subtle abilities of direct human communication without the aid of technology.
Technology is always a double-edged sword. A mixed blessing or a curse. It often makes people lazy. Which often requires copious exercise and endless dieting. The planet would have been far better off without chain saws. The car rid us of the ultimate convenience of the local corner shop. It stripped villages of the convenience of a post office, grocer, bank and all the other vital necessities. While simultaneously impoverishing the life experience and social life. While further denying the poor and pensioners easy access to the distant, out of town mall.
If radio informed, educated and honed the human imagination. Then TV made them couch slaves to mindless, puerile crap. While all TV advertising is aimed squarely at the "educationally challenged." Who else could possibly find any interest in 99.999% of what appears on "our" screens?
Computers were much harder work , at first. It required some effort to make use of the new technology. I was hooked the moment I could write "FUCK" on the tiny B&W TV attached to a ZX81 with its truly awful keyboard. After two decades of passive BBC tripe my new found freedom was far more intoxicating than whatever fix drugs or booze might have promised. Everything which followed was more about getting obscenely rich and exploiting the masses. Than providing a benign aid or service to humanity.
Inappropriate technology always brings problems. Or, as the Irish are supposedly fond of saying: I really wouldn't start from here!
No ride today. That didn't stop an elgant glider entertaining us in the afternoon. A kite/parachute arrived later at several thousand feet with the pilot lying prone in their "sleeping bag." Heaven knows how an un-powered kite could get so high unless the glider tow had given them a helping hand. Perhaps the parachutist had base jumped from the 1000' TV mast? The wind had picked up by then. So they were heading rapidly for the North Sea despite repeatedly facing east in an attempt to fly "backwards" and then spiral to try and lose height. We must pray they don't become a martyr to thermals and run out of oxygen!
My apologies for the "cross dressing" blog post from another dimension. And thank you to the eagle-eyed reader who spotted my "senior moment" and raised the alarm. I'm blaming Google. They constantly swap back and forth between blogs while I'm editing. Almost very time I click on New Post they shift between my various blogs. It's no wonder they removed "Don't be evil" as their motto. Now their blog standards have fallen again without apparent logic or even the most basic, human intelligence on their part.
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