Shocks Sarbane

"This may come as a shock..." constitutes as cringeworthy a phrase as, “Tell me if this hurts." Brace for a beating; face stress building. People prefer ghastly lies over a nasty surprise. Yet many ignore dire warnings deemed predictions of gloom from prophets of doom. "Tell me some good news," they importune, though they rather it be nonsense or silence, because ignorance is bliss, "No news is good news." Then well laid plans go amiss.

Spent half a century in quality assurance, Six Sigma trained, totally committed to scientific method of observe, hypothesize, experiment, gather data, repeat, analyze, theorize, codify, form corollary, surveil for exceptions and failures. Unappreciated are measuring, monitoring, and sweating time consuming tasks. Jumping to conclusions is easy and quick. Learning from mishaps dissolves into trying to avoid.

Not very sexy, nobody's much interested in constant measurement, data maintenance, due diligence, or statistical assessment. Details cause countenances to droop, eyes to glaze, and jaws to yawn. As author, editor, illustrator, technical writer, and webmaster, spent 50 years rechecking and verifying minutia. Still make mistakes, but trust process when permitted favorable conditions and hours to apply logic and tools, although impatience rules and turns everyone into fools. Even when you cover all contingencies, things still go wrong. Total incorruptibility tags the saint for crucifixion. The more unconscionable and unforgivable you are, the more likeminded lummoxes like you. Worst gangsters rise fastest and highest.

No number of congressional SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) Acts could keep accountants from destroying American industry over last two decades. Khrushchev has his revenge from beyond the grave. Once engineers designed anew just to improve continually this technology zoo. Acquisitions, insurers, mergers based upon global greed doing bean counting at the expense of what matters - increasing reliability and saving lives - destroyed incentives and eclipsed impact. SOX’s very existence even without enforcement, only voluntary compliance, still rankles conservative cheaters. Legal practices and poison pills mean stockholders never in fact obtain company ownership. Great potential has been gutted on purpose in a battle against intelligent stewardship.

Things are so bad weavers would rather make disposable socks and pick your pockets than maximize comfort and wear. Can't find any that don't pinch off blood vessels by being too tight, which results in foot burn, poor circulation, and possibly blood clots, and get threadbare faster than FedEx can resupply. Sumptuous merino wool may be best, but makers betray by tweaking mix of nylon and spandex, and split sizing of Med-XL that sacrifices perfect but unpopular XXL. Black old style pair with little white homunculus show wear points on foot to almost see-through thinness at ball edges, heels, and toes. Makers could examine to redesign and reinforce, but they don’t care. Greed for profit forever surpasses need to serve all classes when competitors are few and customers are stuck with bad or no choices. Whatever happened to, “Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back,” as an inducement? Afraid to buy a replacement, spend too much time damning and darning. Shouldn't have to include sewing among bike handling skills.

Boomers bowed out too early, believing they knocked out social injustice forever, since 20th Century was a clinic on how bad leaders who gained supremacy based on empty rhetoric hurry next catastrophe. Those who jump ship might drown, sink to bottom feeders, such as Peterson’s orange clawed lobsters. Crustacean hierarchies don’t describe human societies or prove male primacies. Big fish eat little fish only beneath the seas. Too many from this generation left country or withheld votes, as if that might work. Only meant a small cadre could seize power. Nixon’s vampire protégés took over, will never leave voluntarily, won’t summer by the sea lest they lose their ghostly and superior whiteness.

“My rhetoric is better than his. My rhetoric is the best ever.” Donald Trump, 07 August 2019, present POTUS, schoolyard bully, supposed leader of the Free World whose schadenfreude for your suffering knows no bounds.

Exactly what in this brand appealed to his base? “Base” by all connotations, MAGA cleverly marketed improvements, though delivered none even with congressional backing, certainly created social ogres while stoking unreasonable fears, and currently promises to crush them should he be returned to office for another term. Almost as laughable as a cartoon villain, he's too reckless a menace to dismiss. Can nobody see through this scam? Can’t say, “You’re fired!” SOX didn’t compel him to disclose soviet contracts concerns or tax returns. Casinos are ideal setups for money laundering and people torturing. Why bother to investigate? Can talk his way out of any indictment. Wiggy presidents are only lightning rods that draw voter charges away from country’s secret bigwigs.

Can’t say you’re disappointed when you’ve foreseen inevitable outcome, except for donkeys, who won’t present anyone you’d want, just lame ducks, spring chickens, and war hawks. For the birds! No viable alternative attracts attention. Rap enough, some of what you say will seem prescient or visionary, since unresolved issues reemerge repeatedly. Was really the moment in history to introduce a whole new progressive party, but nescient citizens blew it, and world has been reset to a century ago on brink of annihilation. Well, screw it. Bike through it.

This time around marching army can’t rely on decent socks, something of a meaningless distraction until they are shot dead paying more attention to toe agony than foreign foe. Charities collect socks for vagrant foot applause in a vain gesture that does nothing to alleviate root cause. Meanwhile, traitors in Senate thrive, those who supposed to be representing you in crucial decisions of protecting and spending. Aw, shucks, who signed you up for awe, hurt and shocks if not them? Why did you not foresee and knock footing from under them? Could see some sacred cow tipping about to commence.

“Down by the railway the bicycles are there, an apocalyptic fair for the alive. It's a sign, the messengers they bring with their stainless steel wings on a 45 that plays our lullaby. Man made moons, they go on, one by one, when the sun is done for the day.” Amy Millan, Wayward and Parliament, Honey From the Tombs, Arts & Crafts, Int., 2006, inspired by serving brews at a coffee shop on Parliament Street in Toronto.

Bite Dumb Cane

Critics use the term “manifesto” in a derogatory way. Comes from the Latin “manifestus”, meaning “obvious”, therefore, disclosed as self evident. Nothing should be more welcome on your path to truth. May inadvertently connote “mandate” with which you must comply even if you don’t want to, but that’s just how things are and never what Labann intends. If fact, have always exposed both ends of spectrum, and presented conflicting approaches, not proselytized singleminded avenues. Uncompromising extremists with agendas to fulfill and axes to grind condemn and deride a centrist standpoint. Always another way to do anything, 99 out of 100 will bring pain or regret you might deserve if you don't take needs of all others into account.

When you consider unbiased numbers, nation is not perfectly divided or substantially polarized. A small minority of morons has a mouthpiece, whereas vast majority does not. Despicable Fox News claims to speak for Americans but doesn’t represent 80% of them. Not even close. By and large Americans are eager to serve a purpose, generous to a fault, hard working, mind own business, obey laws, pay taxes, rush to aid, tolerate other races, religions, and viewpoints, will smite enemies decisively when provoked, and won’t stand for unfair practices. Rest of world would emulate them. Instead, Fox conflates exceptions, generates fear, promotes hatred, and triggers terrorism.

Not all nation’s residents are Americans or citizens, though, or care about mutual benefit. A mean spirited cadre now runs country, puffs itself up to hide its impotency, and taunts bigger crowd of betters as would any bully. Criminals aren’t the norm, cause a disproportionate degree of harm, and do exist at every level in any form. When foreign nationals say they hate Americans, they mean this abominable cross section. A tormenting flea influences behavior of dog tens of thousands of times larger, but surely isn’t dog’s guiding essence. No, pets want to be rid of these pests.

So what if Labann tosses in an occasional metaphor? Some help get points across dense divide. Unless framed as artsy or salacious, crucial messages never reach anyone. Do writers keep blogs to communicate or something else? In every interview infamous artists describe their compulsion to produce. What else is there to do? Guilt drives futile posturing and senseless strutting. Hunger, want and war force immediate, often violent reaction, but with what do you fill times of peace?

Some would suggest art, gratification and music. Others say advancement, exploration and improvement. Nitwits engage in gossip, hate, and home wrecking, pitting spouse against spouse, serving greed of divorce attorneys and those with more money than they know how to spend. Wisdom urges perpetual vigilance and steady effort when common good you must defend. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Dumping recorded impressions and what one assesses into an internet vacuum just depresses. Decline, perversion and superstition interfere, and tailspin sets you back to yesteryear. America has almost become a medieval fiefdom, middle eastern theocracy, or murderous monarchy.

Back when primetime television audiences tuned into and were satisfied by contrived depictions of family life, political shows were filler for Sunday morning dead air. What was the first reality program? Besides news and sports, that is. The sole thrill of NASCAR is that death is defied when vehicles collide. Among unscripted shows, Cops has hung around the longest by diverting viewers with misdemeanor beatings. Shows like Survivor threw together incompetents competing for a prize, and indolent imbeciles applauded ensuing mayhem: Sports with few rules, no athletes or referees, pure mind rot for dumbed down masses. What next? Gladiator contests at the LA coliseum? Mayan football where losers get sacrificed? Political talk has now become primetime's ultimate reality show in which nation gets split into bloodthirsty camps and you pay the price with your life. It's only a game, and those who stage it profit staggeringly. How did this totally reverse? “Never criticize the populace... ‘the deceived masses’ were easy marks for a cynical and self-perpetuating ‘culture industry.’”

People falsely assume that you must be crazy if you're not famous yet speak your mind. Sure, psychos do grouse and mumble, but seldom coherently. Sane folks say little; they recognize fact that most won't grasp what they're saying anyway. "Why cast pearls before swine?" asked biblical authors, then assembled a 1000 page codex to do exactly that. When you dignify idealized depictions of life on sitcoms versus reality programs with contrived scenarios indented with Fox's thumbprints, you fall into same trap of falsehood. Both want you to believe something other than basic facts of enduring pains, hunting gains, and surviving strains, what you really do for a living. B&C only portrays how things are, not how you wish they would be, without excluding details that don’t fit anyone's closed circuit narrative.

Guilefool, O'Really, Sanctity, and whole lineup of disgruntled Fox personalities (not an objective reporter among them, nothing but paid agitators) will accuse you of behaving as if politics of 75 years ago were still relevant; it's a brainwashing tactic. They themselves ape obsolete and square Bucky smugness, Limburger stink, and Merry schemes, whatever always works. A raging world war did require teamwork and tight lips. Not much since has changed with nation still under siege by stupid thugs and war lords, who either don't understand America's stabilizing effect or do want to see world burn. Yet you let jackasses in suits and ties rant jabber and and tout white supremacy or xenophobic deportation at your peril; festivals and schools don't screen attendees for assault weapons. You know too well what divisiveness they are all about by content and tone of sound bites they deliver with insincere smirks and shifty eyes. It's Ailes advising Nixon all over again, "I am not a crook," as if supporting a paranoid sociopath were preferable. But Labann's a nobody stuck in cultural inquiry at the terminus of cosmological waste disposal, not a notable who can do or say anything because face is bloated to indisputable by big screen or world stage.

Since when have intellectuals resumed heeding clerics and pundits over scientists? Empirical facts are peer reviewed and professionally vetted; there's no room for flexibility or stupidity. Questions of morality and spirituality can never be answered and will always remain debatable. Therefore, wars are fought over them incited by neocons precisely because they can neither be proven nor refuted and nothing is more divisive. All neocons believe in is profitability created when parties disagree. Anyway, after partisan pundits, pederast priests, and proof-for-pay scientists, who can you trust?

Broadcasts ridiculously commenting on reporting of real investigators elsewhere turns riding bikes into high-risk crossings of a fearscape, no longer an innocuous calling upon a pleasant landscape. People who count occurrences and focus on facts and can offer proof that bicycling and walking (possibly also racing and running) are much safer than motoring, even if infrastructure centers on automotive and lacks any ethical motive. Worst worry isn’t potholes, sweat or traffic, it’s up-close encounters with anyone who believes latest graphic faked by Fox, and is so incensed to senselessly punish you. These serial terrorists buzz, cut off, hook, and pelt bicyclists on purpose, park or pass in bike lanes, or pursue you with malice.

B&C tells a story of how an angry carload at a bike path crossing screamed insults out windows. Labann made an appropriate finger salute, hurried along, then slipped through next crossing just before same carload nearly chased down from around corner. Of course, can’t blame bad attitudes alone, but capitalistic enterprises of cooking crack, importing coke, and selling liquor in which neocons and rednecks collude. Exercise does builds testosterone, makes bicyclists concupiscents, but gutless drug addicts lash out against helpless innocents because those in control are inaccessible and remote, and you aren’t. No, bicyclists and walkers are powerless and vulnerable.

Tolerating, trying not to pity, these pains-in-the-asses parallels bicycling on multiple levels. Believe no one who says bicycling is nonstop joy in cresting hills, maintaining cadence, and paying costs. It's a battle against bugs, chemical burns or infectious germs splashed on you by riding through gutters awash in mystery juice, saddle sores, sorrow and worry, such onerous stuff with which you must deal but shouldn't have to, and toil that yields mood elevating endorphins and years of living longer. It's a game changer for those among you who are smarter.

David Bowie recalls with amusement how in Berlin new acquaintance Brian Eno would take a train based on how many marks he had in his pocket, then explore neighborhood in which he found himself. Situationist Guy deBord identified this behavior in Theory of the Dérive (1956), an unstructured journey where you absorb whatever you randomly encounter, and emotionally disconnect. One wonders whether anything is so utterly random, when it could be part of some otherworldly plan, or whether preordained scripts create or were derived from chaos. Still head out alert on bike on a wide-eyed dérive and let vehicle flow decide which turns to take, though know there'll be some consequence. A flaneur imposes self into a crowd just to feel alive amidst a moshpit of movement and transgression, in other words, traffic, from which everything you need to know gets revealed. In an armchair or on a couch, you yourself are mere furniture. Independent of conveyance choice, whenever in motion you are traffic, as much as any bus, car, or steel on wheels for which planners must accommodate. It's only now, 30 years since ADA was enacted, that cities are installing wheelchair ramps in intersection curbs. They ignored a whole generation of wheelchair users, though bike paths always supported motorized chairs.

Constant sweeping is what bicyclists do, surveying ahead from front wheel to vanishing point. This sweep derives from a need to dodge hazards, distant and narrow, downcast and medial, then proximal and wide, repeated as many times a minute as miles per hour in speed. Bicyclists also sweep tires side to side, like painting pavement or tango dancing. Regarding politics, citizens need to be on par: looking ahead, looking around, and staying engaged in current events. Over the last 50 years world's population has doubled from four to eight billion. Two additional generations have joined parents and grandparents on highways. Family drives on Sundays have become an anachronism. Can't see bucolic vistas when focused on bumpers inches ahead and behind. Motoring's a key defoliant and pollutant which has laid roadsides bare. Nothing much to see anymore except impending shambles. At least by bike, you soak up oxygen and sunshine.

Almost never look back, especially when someone hails. Promises no reward for services rendered. Was early on a Sunday, quiet enough to hear, so went back despite misgivings. Bicyclist on a borrowed bike had dropped chain completely off. Had tools to fix but he couldn’t figure out how. Explained that derailleur is on a spring, so bottom cog was flipped over top. A lesson later, chain was restored, and cyclist was left with a happy memory of a helpful samaritan... and how to locate nearest bike shop. Perhaps he’ll pass along a positive vibe. How many times has it been that Labann fixed a stranger’s flat and was forgotten? Then, again, always foresaw contingencies, so seldom needed reciprocity. Did roll 150,000 miles without unmanageable mishaps. Maybe karma accumulates and protects, you never know. Talking heads who incite hate may earn millions by ruining marriages, but surely are due for huge comeuppances, hopefully including reparations.

Getting along doesn’t mean you have to bite mother-in-law’s tongue, chew dumb cane, shut up, or suffer in silence. Having personally dealt with belligerent losers, learned it’s better to go limp, neither confront nor escalate, if you want smother an emotional inferno. Once fuel is expended, fury becomes smoke and melts into thin air. Unfortunately, propaganda continually gets refueled by billionaires, so you’d better counter with equal measure lest it cost you your life, though it consumes your time.

Orbital Plane

How can anyone be interested in bicycles alone? Bikes are only a means to take in wide world beyond your doorstep. Have gotten stuck on transportive processes, but what else have you? Vegetative? Yes, you can learn plenty from barnyard animals, insects and plants, but warmest relationships can only form once you meet some percentage of planet’s seven billion seven hundred thousand other humans. Universe includes everything; culture and science explain how you fit into it. Heaven is gliding effortlessly to hear, see, sense and understand everything.

Fact is that during short time allotted there’s a glut of input and surplus of stupidity. Whole of internal logic, poetic rhyming, suggestive innuendo, and whimsical wordplay gets totally lost in translation, meaning filtered from consciousness of most readers whether or not foreign or native language fluent. Audience flocks to whatever bundles, digests, and eases reach, usually radio or television, then Twitter memes or websites. May attend live lectures or performances, but whenever highly motivated most knuckle down and read chapters and paragraphs. If you think about it, literature originates raw material for all other media, yet remains the least loved. A bond must be formed between audience and author that requires extraordinary effort from both, even undeserved pain, to achieve rapport, meld minds, and start word of mouth that breaks barriers. Wastes too much time.

Same dynamics describe transportation choices. The path of least resistance appears to be a private passenger car... that is, until gridlock becomes intolerable, parking impossible, or roads impassable. Then you’re back to walking, for which most are so out of shape they’ll pathetically stay in place until death overtakes or situation resolves. Planes and trains never reach where you want to be, so you still must rent a car or take a taxi. Costs and hassles of arranging, boarding and delaying have become so bad motorists may often be tempted to drive thousands of miles instead. Along with distracted and intoxicated, sleep impaired motoring is a major cause of accidents and fatalities, though many find it impractical to snooze aboard planes or trains, then drive upon arrival anyway.

Exactly half a century ago many of Earth’s three billion six hundred thousand people - less than half its current population - were riveted to Apollo 11 broadcasts. CBS anchor Walter Cronkite invited futurist fictionist Arthur C. Clarke to comment, since Clarke had speculated in books a generation earlier all that was about to occur, though admitted going to the moon was a lot more complicated and costly than imagined. Historic precedents excite, but space exploration since has drawn less acclaim than criticism, even with another moon landing planned around corner. Although you’re tracking more junk in orbital plane than you care to admit, because its influence is plainly incontrovertible, you live in a gravity well that's hard to escape and mustn't be taken for granted. News of alien visitation wouldn’t make things any weirder than they already are. Nobody at that time was reading instead of listening or viewing. During current events, literature gets abandoned, then resurges when buzz passes and people seek new perspectives. However, authors seldom rate among celebrities. Action heroes amass accolades. Wordsmiths are accursed.

A perfect case in point was Marshall “Major” Taylor, the first African-American international sports star. Not only did he set USA cycling records, Taylor surpassed all competitors on three continents and won every championship. Despite denial, racism, and violence stateside, the Black Cyclone was invincible from 1896 to retirement in 1909. He sat atop a fortune in winnings when age and rivals began to catch up. Although he expressed no bitterness or regrets in his autobiography, The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World, self publishing in 1928 and peddling copies himself, along with crashing of stock market and declining popularity of bicycling, ruined his marriage and net worth. Residing penniless at Chicago’s YMCA, Taylor succumbed to heart disease at 53 years old, about same age Labann began publishing Bike&Chain. So, fans lavish cash upon athlete, yet look past author as if he didn’t exist, even when one in the same person.

Had a chance to roll along Major Taylor Boulevard and stop at the [shown] Mendez memorial to the Worcester Whirlwind, dedicated in 2008 by Greg Lemond himself, outside public library next to YMCA just 7 blocks from George Street, an 18%, 500 foot hill Taylor used to train on, now venue for an annual race held every July in his honor in Worcester, where he began his professional racing career and first found fickle fame. These days city itself seems filled with anger, blight, ghosts, and reminders of region’s biggest KKK rally, while ugly white supremacy has wormed into nation’s highest offices.

There used to be an anti-religion, immigration hostile Know Nothing Party. Ever wonder what happened to it? Lincoln drew its xenophobic adherents into Republican Party. This same thinking monolith of anti-intellectuals, bigots, denialists, and racists represent only about 25% of Americans, which, coincidentally, is the same proportion of insane people loose in society at any given time. Without scruples they are better organized than any other party, especially Democrats, a loose confederation of idealists, labor unionists, and splinter groups that collect over 45% of voters, though not all routinely show at polls. In the 1930’s, Republican Smoot Hawley tariff was principally to blame for deepening The Great Depression and making recovery impossible, now known as the most catastrophic act in congressional history. In 1940 another of their bills, Taft Hartley, restricted unions to keep wages low. In the 1950's, McCarthy's communist witch hunts, with his protege Reagan, condemned innocents and curtailed progress. Nixon was forced from office for his misconduct and paranoia. Politics were much healthier before Reagan destroyed unions in 1980’s to end labor’s clout in picking candidates and speaking for up to 35% of voters. Unions have since dwindled to municipal, paramilitary, and shrunken industrial groups, only 5% of today's workforce. Bushes gave billionaires bailouts and tax cuts precipitating recessions that savaged all but the wealthiest few. Yet dunces who couldn't see trough this century of lunacy and villainy elected Trump. Just how stupid can Americans be? Who can you blame but yourselves for this condensed history from New Deal to No Deal?

People react as if astonished that a politician dares to cheat and deceive them. It's all they ever do. Honest folks have no place in office. Even when they do get elected, they're forced or maneuvered out, usually through sex scandals, as if intimate encounters weren't healthy and normal but lewd and shameful. Probably dupes celibates, crones, and virgins. Rest of voters engage in some frequency from "get lucky once" to "once an hour on average". Scandal tactics don't work against Republicans, who are the first to accuse others of what they themselves have been caught and doxed doing countless times. Over the last 3 GOP presidencies alone that includes homosexual trysts, pedophiliac perversion, rancorous infidelity, and statuary rape. More outrageous than this bitchy behavior is their outright hypocrisy.

Maybe relative decency, social programs, and wide tolerance weren’t so good as strategies when planet’s population doubled since 1969 threatening natural resources to tipping point and tripling traffic with which you have to deal. Yet non-stop war over same period did nothing to reduce, single child laws failed to achieve zero population growth, and threats of apocalypse urged births to preserve species. If world’s going to end soon, what’s the difference? Validates don’t-give-a-f*ck attitude of climate denialists, self servers, and unchecked sociopaths in office. GOP’s gross misconduct emboldened miscreants, enabled worst transgressions, and exposed an execrable underbelly allowed to operate in society. Nobody expects perfection, only works toward it to bring improvement.

Situations change while stuff stays the same. Bush recessions hurt, but collapse of social entitlements earned over a lifetime would be ruinous. Most of all Neocons drool over trillions duly invested into Social Security, the last federal treasury from which they’ve not been able to steal. For many retirees, it’s still an important foundation for monthly income, though small amounts doled out represent less buying power than dollars involuntarily contributed. Now they want to take even this away in pursuit of their zero sum game that will kill everyone including themselves. Conservatism describes the terminal scenario before sink hole sucks entire system to bottom. A clean sweep of Congress can’t be done within year left before next election, may take several cycles, would require viable candidates, yet almost anyone would represent you better, and America survived bad administrations before. Worst catastrophe in homo sapiens history would be to allow this conservative cancer to spread to another planet. Colonization must be apolitical and freegan.

“When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equals, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.’ When it comes to that I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.” Abraham Lincoln, 1855

Moneybag Seine

Unworthy of bandwidth and cloudspace (...and what within this blog ever was?), always wanted to delineate personal ritual that precedes every cycling session. Drink a full cup of water with maybe a splash of fruit juice, because hydration is crucial to cycling performance and heart function. Ready, relieve and stretch self. Ever try to find a restroom? Freud was right; Americans cringe before anal retentive anxieties evidenced by lack of public toilets. Inventory bindle (cash, cell, CO2 cartridges, keys, levers, tools) and stow in handlebar bag. Always press sidewall of tires to check pressure, or peremptorily pump up to specified psi. Inspect spokes and spin both wheels to ensure not rubbing and tightly locked on. Check that cleats are tightly fastened to shoes while putting them on; flatten lace flaps across foot so not lumped up; pull socks fully on so not bunched at toes. Likewise, settle pad in shorts across crotch, since anything out of place causes pain. Properly fit helmet because adjustor slips, conditions vary, hair grows, and straps stretch. Don gloves and M-frame glasses and swing attached rear view mirror into position for safety sake. Sunscreen? Depends upon daylight intensity and time of departure, but would rather avoid. Blocks benefits of soaking up Vitamin D and stings eyes when forehead sweats, though sunburns on earlobes, neck and nose are no fun. Reset cyclometer, thereby collect data on route taken and time elapsed for planning and training assessments. Flip crank arms to horizontal to avoid scraping pedals when tilting bike to mount. Downshift to small crank ring if not already there; hard to start pedaling from big ring. Hold both brakes to steady bike and test calipers while clipping in first cleat. Do all this somewhat unconsciously within minutes before shoving off. Regret missing any one step.

Not dissimilar to what they teach in driver’s education: Adjust seat, bag loose stuff, check mirrors, fasten seat belt, release parking brake, and turn off phone before depressing brake and starting vehicle. Yet all but drivers during license tests totally ignore, same as bicyclists the previous paragraph, then suffer consequences and wonder why. And what of clearing snow and scraping windows before engaging gears? Those who don’t can’t see others, particularly bicyclists, and obscure view for others so show no respect for human life. As goes the old saying, preparation prevents poor performance, but surely as well permits attending priorities, such as concentration on sketchy pavement and safe operation in traffic.

How does anything start? You live life on rails from birth to burial. Parents keep you alive until they send you off to school, where educators transform you into cannon fodder or wage slave and schoolmates run good intentions amuck. Bicycling changes all that, encourages independent thinking, and rewards planning. When hills inevitably rise ahead, cranking form, months logged, and know-how combine to flatten. Heels down with knees within elbows and toes in will maximize torque and minimize effort. Building momentum before hitting incline helps carry you up. Never downshift until you feel you must because you’ve lost thrust. Skills and stamina gained from daily commutes enable glorious weekends of hilly routes. Careers seem like club rides where you slowly climb under appreciative managers then zoom to bottom under bad bosses, bankruptcies, department or division consolidation, mergers, and nephews needing your job. Lest they risk layoff list, smart workers fly below radar, maintain connections to network and recruiters, make no waves, shut up, stay ready to move with an updated resume.

Embarked on this extracurricular mission with a dim awareness of how thoroughly political bicycling on shared pavement can be. After a decade of neglect, then tactics and threats, own street was recently resurfaced. With a smidgen of satisfaction watched an enormous vehicle scrape an inch of crumbled asphalt and spew into trailing dump trucks, which presumably haul back to a plant that melts down for other streets. Then another overly wide vehicle laid down hot paste half a road wide in each direction, followed by a steam roller, which flattened and smoothed. Whole process took only 3 days. Undoubtably expensive, isn’t as if they can only afford once a century. Petrochemical skin lasts for about 25 years, then process must be repeated, though never saw before in nearly 40 years, so decades late. At least for a while you can enjoy rolling on a stretch that doesn’t constantly want to bite your wheels and cause a crash. But where are those new bike lanes or wide shoulders guaranteed by law?

Every summer forecast predicts rain, but turns out only overcast again and again. Fed up with being scorched, still echo plurality and escape le pluie by reserving riding to dry days. Yet can’t trust weather modeling, so took a chance one leaden predawn. Rounded a corner into a sudden downpour, road ahead already inches below water. While rushing to an underpass, was thrown from bike so fast wasn't quite sure what happened. Immediately dragging self and stuff to edge of road, narrowly avoided being run over. Probably wouldn't have happened had a storm blinded driver taking up most of lane not forced own unwanted track. Scraped right elbow and knee, but, worse, slammed hip on one of those plastic keepers used to tighten up jacket cord. Left a painful welt and prodigious bruise. A bit of handlebar wrap got clipped off, chain came loose, and sensor for cyclometer had to be repositioned, so no debilitating damage. Took a moment to set things right and wipe chain grease from hands. Soaked with no point waiting out squall, pressed onward. Arrived on time, but had to wring out clothing. Still wasn’t dry after 8 hours despite touted wicking properties of fabrics purchased.

Since road was completely flooded, didn’t immediately determine cause. Next time, traced route to figure it out. There were 2 enormous gaps in pavement, one a jagged 8 feet long x 1 foot wide grin, and other 1-1/2 feet deep and round pot to stick front wheel in. If not for Kevlar belted tires, might have flatted.

State or town theoretically can be sued for not maintaining roads. An individual would have to sustain considerable loss, though a mashed and totaled bicycle might amount to $25,000. People die constantly, yet survivors never blame road keepers. Government would dismiss grievance, ignore claimant, and snub any filing below a class action even if press gets involved. Can barely compose one sentence an hour, but over a quarter of a century sent reams of protests to agencies, cities, states and towns. In reply got several banal acknowledgements but seldom decisive actions. They say it takes overwhelming consensus to push states or towns to obey infrastructure laws existing for decades, though obtained results on own when illegality was undeniable and impact on motorists was also demonstrable, so solely upon content, not necessarily volume.

There’s an analogy in last post that could be further elaborated: Bicycles are Democratic, roll your own way, sort of a donkey prodded onward with reluctance. A unicycle is Republican, only one way (theirs), hardest of all to abide, likely to hurt you, lumberingly elephantine, not at all good for getting anywhere efficiently, stomping unsteadily everything in its way on a trophy hunt that benefits no one. Trikes are Progressive, only go forward, really never backward, even big wheel thingies that skid backwards and sideways, yet always in direction of momentum, require no balance or skill; toddlers can handle them. Motorcycles are for badass, swill chugging, tattooed bikers bound for nowhere but hell or jail. Readers will cheer or jeer this senseless metaphor. They feel buttons being pushed as they read between lines: Agree or denounce, then say what, as you introduce something they haven’t imagined. You actually have choices! Huh?

As with religions, folks generally choose party into which they’re born out of misplaced loyalty and rigorous indoctrination. When neither of predominant two suits you, you seek another or stay home. Half of eligible voters do the latter, not because they are apathetic losers but because no candidate represents them. If you live in a district that’s overwhelmingly polarized, your vote doesn’t really count, superfluous. But who’d want to move into MAGA-Land just to overturn electoral college? Once a year these brainless imbeciles and mental defectives show up drunk at polling places and waste their vote in support of empty slogans. They loathe bikes and love NASCAR. You’d have to tolerate such hatred and ignorance 363 other days. Never saw a MAGA cap? Most likely place will be on noggins of @hat drivers of Chevy pickups or SUVs, same ones who drive so badly they scare bicyclists, even other motorists, off road.

Of Trump’s hand picked administrators, exactly 50% have been asked to resign or fired outright due to corruption, though impeachment of their boss seems about as likely as reelection. Of Trump’s own accomplishments, zero policies have been enacted. Silver lining in all his gross negligence and outright malfeasance is that nation escaped major harm from what could have been ruinous precedents. Plus nazis were exposed. Though debt has doubled, people previously enjoyed a chief executive who helped to reduce, so redemption is still possible. But wasn’t lack of congressional leadership and subpar representation the very reasons Trump got elected? Seems any baboon who insincerely promises to drain Potomac swamp stands a chance to serve country. But not rule as a monarchy! Been two King Georges against whom you could have acted but didn’t, then let a con artist sneak in on a technicality. For shame! To hear anyone with presumed intelligence defend smacks of sellout or stupidity. Shouldn't bear mention. Works on principle that all publicity is good, as long as name gets repeated and stays in conversation.

When sorting through rhetoric, keep in mind that those who argue you drank Kool-aid are the ones who mixed it. Bush withheld funding for bicycling projects while laws and mandates already existed. Obama restored, so a few lines got painted. Trump again broke compliance and retained Republican track record of persecuting bicyclists. Meanwhile, venues to safely bike disappear as 2 lane roads get converted into limited access highways and shoulders get restriped for extra motoring lanes. Previous administration saw both a decrease in gasoline prices and increase in bicycling miles; usually the opposite occurs, but new accommodations can have that affect. Average prices at pump since have gone up 22%, to be expected as global reserves dwindle. How much longer can motoring go on? Gridlock so bad, miles per gallon are next to none. Smarter to burn fossil fuel in stationary plants to produce electricity for vehicles to use, though was startled yesterday when passed by a Tesla, it was so quiet, a new reason to carefully prepare.

Pavement may not, but roadways endure. Politics push bicyclists off the edge. DOTs only act in the interest of motorized moneybags, doing whatever stimulates corporate profits and transfers taxes from you to them including spending a trillion on interstates every decade. Like fishing with a purse seine, big business sets a wide net and surrounds entire school of suckers. Collateral damage to bycatch of marine mammals resembles what happens to bicyclists whose streets are no longer shared but stripped of supportive stripes. Unless cars and trucks consume fuel, thereby requiring crude fractioning with asphalt a byproduct, roads wouldn’t be paved. Only a glutton grabs all of whatever is worth having. Republicans not only enable, but offer tax breaks to Monopoly mascot Uncle Pennybags, other New Jersey casino magnates including game show gambling host Trump himself, and whoever tosses bones into bosses’ war chests. Grossly bizarre, why would Americans vote their purse, not whether they’ll survive to curse? Conditioned to value money over sanctity of life itself? Equate as just tools to exploit? Can only a bicyclist see how imbalanced this would be? Love or leave? Maybe should be bicycling in France instead?

Rednecks Flain

“Riding a bike is Democratic... Now into era of mixed messages, travel by bike and you may be treated like a hero, or, still, treated like vermin... Revolution might be a cycle tour. Time spent thinking about how to do it is never wasted... People fear freedom... Tiresome to be treated as a problem when you are the solution. Don’t let other people’s stupidity upset you... People who ride bikes live longer.” Patrick Field, 2011 address to Royal Geographical Society

This ten year blog slog must end soon. Meant to slow time, it still went by in a cosmological blink. As did Patrick Field, said everything necessary about bicycling already, though parsed deliberately in bicycling cadence through many digressions over a decade. Yet B&C’s social commentary has lost its relevancy. While literature should be fun to read laden with linguistic delights, texts stuffed with opinion alienate everyone. Politics stink. Surveys only seek self vindication, not what you personally think.

So what have blog’s readers learned? A lot of words rhyme with chain? A mineral skeleton integrates effectively with a biological organism? Every manner of human is represented among a billion bicyclists? A quarter of a G8 nation of three hundred million can’t differentiate a dictator from a servant, and three quarters have no idea how to recapture control and retard decline? Not a damn thing?

Most people avoid everything that even hints of emotion, logic, poetry, reason or thinking. Facing facts can indeed be too painful, cause stress, raise blood pressure, shorten lifespan. But if you let others do it for you, you forfeit your chance to do what’s right for you as an individual; you’ll have to wear one-size-fits-all hand-me-down decisions, which may impact your very survival.

Who’s going to rub vindictive Ubu Roi the wrong way thereby risk being rubbed out? Like Jong-un and Putin, he’s a gangster surrounded by henchmen whose salaries you stupidly pay. Unpopularity also proves nothing. USA’s presidency isn’t a monarchy, only to a certain redneck mentality, which has been decisively bagged, precisely flain, and specifically quartered here since onset. Hunting makes for fitting analogies given their gun proclivities and hankering for war. Have made it plain that only none too bright short term gain and right to exploit interim might matter anymore in a world run by bosses, nazis, racists, terrorists and theocrats. A diligent citizen or intelligent resident has no say, then it all crashes with no family spared heartache and losses you might pray would stay away.

Despite their conspicuous contempt, Republicans seem content to run their ridiculous incumbent for another term. A dozen Democrats have to duke it out for dubious privilege of deposing this dunce. Nobody with any sense wants the job. Or listens to same 3 rap beats repeatedly. Or parks in a crowded lot and pumps volume to ear splitting decibels on sunny summer afternoons, as if doing world a favor and making America great again. While sensible people do exist, they don’t make a spectacle of themselves, so you only notice candidates and cretins whose intention is to draw your attention by whatever means, such as parading missiles and tanks to flaunt military might, instead showing muscular incapacity to every enemy.

A least Democratic debates raised issues that voters wanted to discuss: job creation, living allowance, loan relief, minimum wage hike, social justice, and ways to participate in a rigged capitalist regime. Sanders and Warren did respond, but suggested no ways to resolve. Poverty spreads while corporate profits and Wall Street soar. Democrats want to push boundaries on behalf of splinter groups, while Republicans seek to restrict reform of electoral college which delivered elections. For example, by not holding 2020 Census, funding and voting wouldn’t be properly redistributed. This would undermine their plot to have indebted multinational agribusiness control a large number of districts in rural states.

A third option exists, though not so obvious most would notice: To form a centrist political party that could divert enough votes from main two, as if only two ever existed of anything. Might actually be easier than it sounds. Democrats and Republicans in office don’t serve mainstream voters but small factions. They divide votes because no other choice presents itself to dissatisfied majority. Bikes and unicycles both roll, but trikes are more stable.

Forever in demand, progress never occurs without problems. Amish or Neo-Luddite separatists might think they can transcend technology, but they can barely produce enough to be self sufficient without machines and they’ll suffer just as much as rest of society after widespread collapse. Freaks espousing fringe beliefs found no sanctuary among equally superstitious farmers. Everything done to enfranchise ingrates becomes dictates that penalize the god fearing and law abiding.

Revolution would toss out hard earned entitlements along with political corruption when only slight tweaks are required, by which Labann means new faces and policies. Partisanship has become a pandemic affecting all incumbents. With fraud so entrenched, fearless and scrupulous patriots need to reclaim responsibilities, secure spots in Senate, and serve entire nation, not just selves. People seldom get so lucky. Motivated mostly by greed, swilling brews, and watching NASCAR, rednecks neither heed nor read, so are definitely not willing. Perhaps millennials won’t be so self possessed when they inherit this mess once ugly gluttons drop dead or retire, unless offspring inherit seats in Congress. Too often votes are swayed by name recognition. Conservatism derives from aged dementia and mental defect, whereas liberal youth often demonstrate bad judgment and inexperienced mistakes. Provided you can find anyone with some, what needs to prevail is wisdom.

Bike&Chain focused from start upon the universal struggle between doing right and exercising freedom, neither of which are tolerated within a de facto kingdom, not to relieve readers from unreasonable worries. Some stress is good when what results benefits both self and society. But it should be a whole lot easier to work toward global justice when doing the opposite only destabilizes diplomacy for transient comforts.