Re: On the move

At 08:27 AM 2/19/2011, [email protected] wrote:

>John,
>
>If you have ridden 44,000 miles on that Fuji you should be able to 
>dismantle and reassemble a bicycle in the dark.  After all it is 
>only bicycle science.

No, I am not much at putting things together.   I like to ride and to 
make long stops by the roadside.   But I do the minimum amount of 
work I can get by with to keep going.   I can't get my shifting 
adjusted nearly as nicely as the people in the bike shops can, for 
example.   I've changed the gearing on that Fuji a couple of times, 
with some help from this list and the late Sheldon Brown, and I've 
replaced broken shifter cables.  But riding does not make me an 
accomplished bicycle fixer.

I wouldn't mind learning more, but would also rather spend my time on 
other things.   So I am not going to put that new bicycle together by myself.

Just the same, having two touring bikes will enable me to do a little 
more myself.   I'll have a bike to ride while the other one is 
waiting for new parts, or for me to calm down enough to get back to 
work on it without being tempted to do bad things to it -- but I like 
to think I can ride a bike without being a mechanic, just like I 
drive a car without doing my own work on it.   (I haven't even 
changed my own oil for some years now.)

>And to Mark......From broad experience spending every free week end 
>in the South Tex brush with my four best Jr. High pals eating only 
>what we killed, we reached consensus that a single shot .22 long 
>rifle with a 17" inch barrel was the very best survival gun.  (you 
>don't need a .308 to kill a deer).

In 1962-63 I attended a high school on the edge of the Santee Sioux 
reservation in northeast Nebraska.   One of the guys on the rez, who 
sat across from me in study hall, used to go deer hunting on the 
river bottoms with a .22 rifle in the morning before the school bus 
came.   The rez had its own game laws, which at that time meant no 
game laws at all, so using .22 long rifles to kill deer was legal for 
him.   Selling the meat off the rez probably was not legal.   The kid 
is now one of the tribal officers/elders.

I wouldn't mind riding through that area again sometime.   Last time 
I was there was in 1995, on my first-ever week-long ride.   That was 
before I had a touring bike.  I was using one of those Univega cross 
bikes at the time -- sort of a cross between touring and 
mountain.  It took a few months for my left hand to completely 
un-numb itself after that ride.   I have had only the slightest hint 
of that kind of problem since.

John Gorentz
www.spokesrider.com


>Jerry (ex ravenous 14 year old) Rhodes
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