I'm sick of wearing a mask, too...

Saturday morning started on an up note when a guy who prunes trees for a living and took a biology class 20 years ago told us authoritatively that masks do nothing and that global pandemics are an inescapable hundred-year phenomenon. Any glance out the back window confirmed that the vacationing public agrees with him and is ready to let nature take its course. We face a high barrier in attempting to inspire widespread respect for the disease and for each other.

It's not just vacationers. The local mason who rebuilt the top of the older chimney at my house stated his own belief that H1N1 was worse and that Covid-19 is just like the flu. He is one of many who doubt the seriousness of the current disease, or who embrace the death toll as beneficial culling. It's all blown out of proportion by The Media.

The broadcast media have done their best to carry on the traditions of yellow journalism since the beginning of the Age of Infotainment began in the 1980s. I suppose it really goes back to the 1970s and the rise of morning news programs like Good Morning America. I'm old enough to remember black and white television and newscasters who sat there wearing a gray suit and a black tie and just presented the news. My father would get home from his government job and watch the six o'clock news before supper. It fit the mood of a world constantly on the brink of nuclear destruction. Simpler times. Now everything is elaborately produced and set to dramatic music. Half the people are sucked in by the effects and the other half are dangerously skeptical of absolutely everything they see. This does not produce a functional balance of points of view. It just rips us apart along yet another line of perforation.

Our shop will continue to observe precautions and endure being labeled as foolish cowards. Fine with me. We have a long way to go before we find out who was right. Even if there's a huge death toll, the survivors will still argue about whether that's such a bad thing. That debate has already begun.

Decades ago, in the 1970s, I was considering how I wanted to live in an overpopulated and polluted world. If we all did nothing, catastrophic events would probably take care of the problem. If, instead, we slowed our reproductive rate and simplified our lives a little, we could let less drastic attrition ease the numbers down. We could avoid the need for mass casualties. I didn't want to be one of them, therefore I should not ask anyone else to be one of them. It seems pretty simple.

That's not how it went.

The American experiment is more than just a political exercise to determine whether a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal can long endure. It's a complete submission to the forces of evolution. The complete dissolution of the republic is the natural conclusion of an obsession with personal freedom and the pursuit of pleasure. Some people will want a cohesive and supportive social system. Other people with legally equally valid opinions will want chaos. Opinion covers the whole spectrum between authoritarian monoculture and total disintegration. Mix it all together and see what comes out.

The mask debate makes life more difficult than it already was. Any venture out in public not only involves the basic risks of human contact, but the added risks of emotional reactions inspired by the mask itself. I'm really tired of wearing one, but it still seems like a partial defense. A partial defense is better than no defense. The latest hopeful drug, for instance, only reduces mortality by maybe 20 percent in the patients already sick enough to need respiratory support. That's hardly a magic bullet, but it indicates a possible line of weakness in the virus that researchers can follow further. There's even a story going around that COVID19 is weakening and will die out on its own. Is this information helpful when we have no idea yet why that would be happening and whether purposeful interventions have played any part? Someone who skims the headlines will see only that the already over-hyped disease really is just fading out by itself. Take that stupid mask off! Be a man!

The problem with a disease, especially one with a pretty long incubation period, is that you don't feel anything right away. Food poisoning hits you within hours. Someone sneezes on you and you feel yourself getting a cold within a day or two. A gunshot hits you right away. Same with a punch in the face. We can understand direct cause and effect perils much better than the invisible progression of a microbial invasion. We grow up learning about the dangers of fire, and falling off of things, and having things fall onto us, and drowning, and interpersonal violence. We can connect the dots when we see them. Micro-droplets of breath moisture that may or may not be infected don't seem real enough to excuse a change in behavior.

Summer has brought an increase in customers even as the bike industry remains unable to provide product. This means more people through the doors, and more arguments about the need for precautions. We've seen people come up the walk, look at our sign requiring masks, and walk away again without coming in. We've had the people with the mask under their nose, and even under their chin. We started renting bikes again, and have to recite our list of rules and procedures to everyone who inquires. Then we have to follow those procedures after decades of muscle memory based on the earlier, more casual process we used to follow. All the while, we do our best to give each other space during the long work day. We spend most of the time masked, and will continue to do so. It really cuts into my compulsive snacking, as well as the excessive hydration necessary to keep the kidney stones at bay. My nose is getting mashed down. And that's just in the sympathetic environment of the shop. I'm really tired of it, but that's not a good reason to give up.

Most of these tuneups should be overhauls

The Bike Tune Up generally includes the basic adjustments to bearings -- those that might still be adjustable on your modern marvel -- gears and brakes. Customers dutifully bring their bikes in every year or so for the traditional laying on of hands.

A bike that has been well tuned and not abused will still be in adjustment a year later. Brakes might get sloppy from pad wear. Index shifting might slip a bit from housing compression or cable stretch. But a properly adjusted bearing will stay adjusted as long as whatever was provided to lock the adjustment works in the first place and is correctly secured by the mechanic.

Inside that properly clearanced bearing, lubricants break down or get flushed out by various environmental stressors. I can perfectly adjust a bearing that has no grease left in it. It will run a bit roughly, but better than it would with no attention.

Most of the bikes that customers bring in for tuneups should have overhauls instead. The bearings need to be opened up, cleaned out and re-greased, if they're serviceable bearings at all.

Bike shop workloads run on a boom and bust cycle. Bike owners all get the idea around the same time, the Bike Season, and storm the shops for service. If even half of them said to go for the overhaul instead of the less effective tuneup, the wait time would surge into weeks instead of days. Taking someone's bike for that long in the season risks killing their enthusiasm either for riding or for getting their bike serviced. So we do the best we can with the time we have. We're like a battlefield hospital, patching up the wounded as best we can.

Many of our seasonal customers save their bikes for us to fix because they do not feel well served by their local shops. It's flattering and a helpful source of revenue, but all these people arrive with time constraints.

A couple of days ago a father and son came in asking questions about how to perform various procedures and what tools to buy. Refreshingly, they seemed to absorb information readily and had the vital ability to visualize a mechanism and a procedure from a verbal description. I did a little show and tell, but we managed to cover a lot just from discussion. They came back the next day for more little parts and further guidance, but it was building on the previous information, not filling it in again because it had all leaked out of their brains.

That poor kid is at risk of ending up in the bike business. My own slide down the slippery slope began because I wanted to be able to maintain my own bike. Then, hard up for cash in a career slump as a sort of a journalist, I wandered into my local bike shop in search of supplemental income. Turns out bike repair is steadier and more reliable employment than quasi-journalism. I'd been a copy editor, which is basically a word mechanic and someone who repairs press releases, so it's all kind of related. When the newspaper fell on hard times and eliminated my position, the mountain bike boom brought enough money and work into the shop to turn my part time into full time. Not lucrative full time, mind you, but enough to find a survivable balance of income and expenses. I've found that to be more valuable than a feast or famine roller coaster of big money followed by no money. I've seen people ride that one. It's all good fun until the screaming plunge.

The repair load has been inconsistent this season. Right now we're in a big weekend, with two triathlons and the Mount Washington Hill Climb. In addition, certain seasonal visitors we had not seen yet seem to have arrived for their stab at summer. The lulls even on a busy day are still frighteningly quiet and deep, but the surges are almost like the real thing.

Yesterday I had to make a 7-speed cassette out of an 8-speed because a customer needed it and we didn't have a proper 7-speed in stock. It wasn't as simple as just dropping one unwanted cog, either. I had to find a 12-tooth high gear cog to keep the steps reasonable and match the one we were replacing. That meant a treasure hunt in the cog farm. You can find all the 11-tooth cogs you want. Good luck finding just the right 12. I had to change the lock ring to one with a wider flange to secure the best 12 in my bin of spare parts.

In the middle of the onslaught, one of the X Family's Stromers showed up with yet another weird problem. On long, steep climbs, when you would want the pedal assist the most, the motor cuts out completely. This is probably because the no-longer-new lithium-ion battery is protecting itself, but it could be several other things in the system. The worst part for me is having to test ride the thing extensively, because I have to be seen in public on it.

I don't care if people want to own and ride these things. I just don't want to do anything that might convey the impression I endorse them in any way. I may have to sneak back to town at night and work on it then, where the kindly darkness will hide my shame when I have to go road test the latest attempt to iron the kinks out of the infernal machine. Or wear a ski mask.

Warning

Last night I received this email from my colleague Big G, briefing me on the day's events so I could be prepared for what might await me.

"T

Today was off the wall!  Sucking chest wounds punctuated by needy and stupid renters all day long. 

Well, today we have a new family to add to our infamous hall of shame.  First there were "The Chiselers of Weston", then "The Chaos Family" and now, "The Mayhems from Florida".  Yes, "The Mayhems of Florida".  All seven rented mountain bikes to ride The Cotton Valley Trail. 

I put Mom on the hybrid step-through, Big Sis on The Queen, next sis on The Duchess and the rest on assorted mountain bikes from our stable.  Only two out of the seven chose to wear helmets, Mom and Big Sis.

Four hours later, while I was test riding a bike out back, the youngest son rode into the parking lot stating the others would soon follow.  Five more pulled in. 

Mom was scraped up and bleeding from her hip to her foot.  Her arm was bleeding too.  I asked her what happened and she said she was watching a blue jay.  I told her she could get cleaned up in our rest room and that we have band-aids but she declined and said she would treat her wounds with vodka.  Then she said her daughter might be in worse shape with a broken wrist.  Just then, Big Sis appeared clutching her wrist while Middle Sis wheeled the bikes.  I told Mom where the hospital is but she said they would have "lunch" first.

Then there was Johnny, (Or whatever his name is.) "Where is Johnny?  He was RIGHT behind us!"  At that moment a car going down Mill Street slammed on its brakes and screeched to a stop in front of the deli.  "Oh, here he comes now." 

I gave the bikes a quick lookover and I think they are okay.  The way things were going I didn't have a lot of time to really check over things the right way.  If you rent the queen or the Giant hybrid step-through tomorrow give them another quick look, just in case.

 

........and, watch out for mayhem, or The Mayhems.   -G"

The Queen and The Duchess are nicknames for our two best step-through rental bikes.

Sounds like summer chaos has really blossomed.

Colt 58

After two commutes of 29 miles each, the Brooks Colt seems to be shaping up nicely.

Very subtle differences in shape seem to make a difference in rider performance. The Colt has a narrower nose than the Turbo. One issue with the Turbo had been the way my thighs wore away the thin leather on the sides of the saddle. On the Colt my legs come in that little bit farther and still rub the sides. And that tiny change in angle may improve pedaling efficiency. I've had my two best commuting times of the year on these first two rides on the Brooks.

Other factors may be at work. Oddly enough, I had my two best commuting times last season on almost exactly the same dates. But the most recent times were faster.  I did not note in my obsessive little record book whether I was rested or tired last year, but I can tell you that this year I'm thrashed. I get to bed too late, drag myself out early and guzzle coffee just to get started. The dog we adopted has been squeaking to go out a half an hour before my alarm is set, thus disrupting even the inadequate amount of sleep I had intended to get. Yet I get on the bike and hammer. I really think that the narrower saddle is putting me in a better position over the cranks.

The saddle is shaping to fit me, as promised. On the first ride it felt comfortable enough. Aside from slithering around on the bit of residual Proofide that had escaped my polishing rag the saddle felt reassuringly similar to the one I had removed. None of the noticeable shape differences struck me as ominous. The second day was only better. So this colt is breaking nicely.

The workshop is filling up with the bikes of triathletes tapering their training ahead of a busy race weekend just over a week away. I hate doing race tunes because if anything goes wrong it will be my fault. When I raced I did all my own work. If I messed anything up I only ruined my own day. Not that I intend to mess anything up, but when lots of urgent jobs come in at once and other riders are also trying to get a last shot at summer fun it can get pretty chaotic. And we're operating on a survival crew of two this week.

Off to work. At least it's rainy today. That should keep the bike rental business quiet.