Bike & Chain

Companion Reader

2011-12-21T22:00:00.000Z

Before getting started on chapters of Bike&Chain below, be aware of the ongoing journal in the same style (visit here) that further reveals compositional techniques, emerging art and culture, and news related to cycling since initial publication.

Companion consists of 3-1/2 years of these journal entries, over 300 pp. Reads from latest to oldest entry. As entries accumulate, Reader is overwritten. Open with Adobe Acrobat. Let blog or reader become your transition into enormity of Bike&Chain, 1.000 pp. of verbal hell.

In some ways fragments on a focused topic exceed comprehensive chapters. At least they address attention deficit and disrespectful impatience instilled by motoring. What are you running from? Slow down; stress kills.

Bike&Chain Chapters

2009-04-09T00:42:00.011+01:00

Thanks-Preface-Contents
1. Stuck Indoors
2. Beginning Anew
3. Venturing Out
4. Too Cute to Commute
5. Parallel Universe
6. Meeting the Natives
7. Curtain Links
8. Going as a Group
9. House Arrest
10. Twist a Topic
11. Real Compared to What?
12. Hitting a Nerve
13. Driving Him Mad
14. Steel Ballet
15. Guilty Pleasures
16. Afternoon Incident
17. Fair Share
18. Living on the Edge
19. Lost in an Instant
20. Fashion Passion
21. Bashing Barriers
22. Food Fight
23. Wheeling in the Years
24. Extraordinary Outings
25. Up to the Hype
26. Intense Sensations
27. Flat State of Mind
28. Need for Speed
29. Dog Days
30. Elusive Spin
31. Exile on Main Street
32. Traffic Fines Doubling
33. Reality Fragments
34. Fall Classic
35. Ancestor Worship
36. Measure of Shifting Sand
37. Saving Face
38. Watching & Waiting
39. Standing on Brook
40. Spreading the Word
41. Doing Good
42. Millennium Bug
43. Fear & Loathing
44. Polarized Pundits
45. Burnt by Dot.coms
46. Fastenings of Kind
47. Dread Capital
48. Causes of Cancer
49. Right Word, Right Time
50. Giving Back
51. Waste Deep
52. Doubting Promise
53. The Perfect Enterprise
54. Article of Faith
55. Heading Home
56. The End
Labann’s Bixicon - Glossary
Appendix - Bike Culture
• List of Bicycling Songs • Bicycle Poetry • Song Lyrics
• Bike Prose • Bike Art • Bike Obsessed Films • Bike Oriented Films

Time Trials

2009-04-08T16:02:00.008+01:00

Daily grind of contributing to 2 blogs, editing books, and managing a small business can wear you down. Labann doesn’t like to juggle, usually serves only one client at a time to devote all his attention and do his best. Time is THE most precious commodity. Do you fritter it away amusing others, considering ideas, or waiting for something to happen? People who care about ideas only care about their own, so why bother?

Connection with others is what everyone seeks. You can’t exploit someone unless you break through her/his defenses. So many look to hook their wagon onto someone else’s style of book, any manuscript that comes along that’s totally unique sings the wrong song. Do something different, nobody gets it. Yet progress requires innovation, something to spark interest. Innovators seldom secure sustenance, more intent on personal voyages than pots of goals. Only those who set themselves up to capitalize once a market exists profit off of pioneers.

Takes all day to go anywhere distant by bike. You leave at dawn, might make it back by dinner. Seems an extravagant waste of hours until you calculate all the costs of motoring, which easily devours annual pay of those who earn minimum wage or entire lives of whoever works for nothing in lieu of deserved compensation. Riding a bike gives you time to think of such inequities. When you’re making money and motoring back and forth, you don’t much care what else goes on.

Some anniversaries pass unnoticed. Began writing Bike&Chain in earnest 14 years ago. Have just completed its 3rd edit. Now must decide to leave up or take down. A few thousand visitors offered no encouragement. Blog entries blur book content boundaries. Readers expect content for free, must think someone else subsidizes. Did you ignore any advertising here? This has always been a free service at Labann’s expense for those who couldn’t afford to pay anyway.

Surveys call to ask personal questions and keep you from doing something more important to you. You don’t know who they are, really, or why they want your input. There are no secrets anymore. All has already been revealed. Yet they expect you to sift through your own ashes to find cogent lumps of coal to suit their nefarious purposes. Isn’t that a service for which clients ordinarily pay? Whatever bad they find in you they put there. Why expect stellar citizenship after years of active neglect and bad example? Personal choices are what society allows, encourages and fosters, nothing moreso than banned behaviors, which elevate deviant acts into religious fervor. Everyone plots personal coups d’etat. Until opportunity knocks, there’s not much else to occupy your time.