You train yourself

You train yourself all the time, whether you are purposely practicing a discipline you want to perfect or just thinking about concepts you want to incorporate into your behavior.

As long as I have been in the bike business, articles in the trade publications have talked about making shops more welcoming to all sorts of riders. Female riders in particular criticized the elitist and sexist characters they met in some shops.

Because I learned most of my basic mechanical techniques and riding skills from a woman, I never thought that "girls" were inferior or did not belong in the pure realm of cycling. But just being your  average horny idiot is a gateway to inadvertent acts that could be construed as creepy by someone particularly sensitive. And any time you find yourself even temporarily being an above average horny idiot you can be sure that you've already made a pile and skidded through it. The job offers many opportunities to stand too close, or talk about personal things, or even lay a hand on someone under the pretext of biomechanics or bike fit.

The more attractive you find a person, the more you need to focus on the professional necessities of the encounter. It's fine to be friendly, but remember why the person came to the shop in the first place.

The recent surge of awareness of the constant barrage of unwanted male attention faced by so many women highlights the need to maintain a certain distance and reserve. Almost 30 years ago, I wouldn't hesitate to flirt with a customer I found attractive. I figured I was a good looking guy with a bright future, what's not to like? History has proven otherwise, but that shouldn't be the only reason I take a much more reserved approach. I figure that women need a break from even the hint of lust. The deeply buried horny center of my brain still tries to get my attention, but now I enjoy thwarting it while I laugh at its promptings.

Last week, a very attractive and friendly woman came into the shop on a ride with a male companion. They seemed like a couple, but not a gooey cooey kind of couple. They were on interesting bikes. Hers was an old Trek 520 touring bike. His was a Bridgestone XO. She asked questions about how riding position might relate to some calf pain she was having. She's a yoga instructor, and they both seem to work in fields where anatomy is important. They could name muscles that I used to be able to locate, but now the names are more like people I used to party with that I haven't seen in years. Soleus? Oh yeah, we used to hang out together. And gastrocnemius. I could tell you stories about gastrocnemius, oh yeah. I've had to cram my head with so much bike anatomy that my knowledge of human anatomy has faded like a fax in the sun.

The woman was riding in running shoes. I suggested that the pain started because she was trying to ride some stiff climbs in floppy shoes. Because she was using calf muscle to stiffen and stabilize her foot as well as provide power in the pedal stroke, it was shortening and tightening the muscles. We turned out not to have bike shoes to fit her, but while she was sitting to try on what we did have, she spotted a road bike hanging on a display hook. She ended up test riding the bike and putting it on hold.

Today they came to pick up her new road bike. She had new shoes that she'd picked up during the week, so she bought pedals to match. She'd never ridden clipless before. I gave her the usual instructions and warnings before we went down to the back parking lot to check her position on the bike.

"Remember that you have to twist your foot outwards," I said. "And release both feet when you're getting ready to stop, in case the bike happens to tip the opposite way from the one you'd expected."

She circled and landed successfully once. Because she was also practicing getting into the cleats, stopping and starting as we dialed in her riding position gave her a good opportunity for repetition. Around she came for another landing. She unclipped a foot...and it was the wrong one. Over she came, toward me.

"Never touch a woman without her consent," was the first message to my brain in the split second as she toppled toward me.

Yeah, so she hit the parking lot. She might have bounced off of me a little bit, but I had it so engrained in me to keep my hands to myself that it never occurred to me to grab her. I wasn't even sure if I should help her up. She's an athlete and a yoga instructor after all. And in the scrabble to regain dignity after suffering the newbie cleat fall, isn't it more empowering to let her take control as quickly as possible? Yeah, that's it: it was empowering. Empowering is good, right?

R-e-s-p-e-c-t. Yeah, buddy.

Fortunately, she was only a little scuffed up, and the bike was barely scratched. Scratched is even too strong a word. There was a bit of grit on it. I brought her some hydrogen peroxide to wash out the minor scrapes while we joked about how I had totally blown the trust fall.

Talking about it with my coworker afterward, he said, "So you weren't a creep, but you weren't a hero either."

The couple left on their shakedown cruise. They reported back just before closing time. It went well. So that's good. The goal is to put people happily on bikes.

New England, where trends go to die

Fads and fashions in the rest of the country tend to take a while to reach northern New England. By the time they're hip and hot here, they're on the way out everywhere else. So here it is, 2017, and some idiot in a truck finally tried to roll coal on me as I rode to work on Sunday.

Rolling coal is the practice of setting up your diesel truck to spew out copious quantities of thick, black smoke in defiance of the prissy wussies who give a shit about clean air. It is childish, vindictive, and one of the clearest indications that the human species might as well kill itself off now as later.

After laying down a rather thin smokescreen, the brave road warrior appeared to try to tail-whip his truck at me, but he was too far past. Off he went in triumph, having put me in my place. I rode in the fumes for a half-mile or so before the air cleared or I got used to the higher pollution level.

I have to remind myself that evolution is a long-term thing, and that I have no control whatsoever over the outcome. A human lifespan is too short for the big trends to matter, unless your span happens to line up with a sudden accumulation of the consequences of a few generations of ignorance and greed. Even then, you can't do anything about it. If massed ignorance and greed wants to keep going, thoughtful people can do nothing but endure the spectacle of destruction that so many people seem to embrace and enjoy. As much as I feel a surge of rage at the antics of destructive idiots, I have to remember that human existence is itself pointless, and that life has been fairly cushy in spite of the looming collapse of a nation that has chosen to live up to its potential to be a nest of spoiled brats rather than the thoughtful, diverse and interesting culture that the advertising led us to believe was possible.

I can only hope that the arrival of coal-rolling in northern New England signals its rapid decline elsewhere, and that the trend here falters and dies out in the face of ingrained cheapness and practicality. When it comes to flamboyantly destroying motor vehicles, however, the famous New England frugality goes right in the crapper. The American love affair with smoke, flames, and loud noises overcomes any restraining convention in this age when restraint is scorned. And the belief that the best expression of freedom is to offend as many people as possible guarantees that offensive behavior will enjoy rampant popularity.