Interlude 9: Quality Still Matters, Again, Some More, One More Time

Heeeey, and stuff.

Sooo...

Tonights post is sort of an extension and continuation of last weeks post.  In case you couldn't tell from the title.

As you know, I have a "new" bicycle.  It's great.  I'm really liking it.  I've been riding all over.  And, as I'd hoped, it worked out great for the Sunday run/ride with my wife.  All 16 miles.  She ran while I sort of goofed off.  Up curbs, down curbs, down stairs, small bump jumps... I enjoyed myself like a 9 year old boy when he gets his first "real" bike.

Since last week, I have set off converting my bike to a single speed bike.  As I may have mentioned, for the riding I do, I really only need one gear.  I found the proper hub and gear combo I liked and have purchased it and it is now on the bike.  That is a whole amazing story in itself that perhaps I will share next week.

I have NOT been able to ride it yet as my new tires have not arrived and were not in stock at the store and as the old tire was being put on a new rim (also part of that other story for another time), the old tire split down the sidewall.  I was expecting this would happen eventually which is one of the two reasons I ordered new tires.  So, alas, I must wait till next week, when my new tires arrive, to see how it all worked out.

I have also been trying to nail down all the other bits I need to finish the basics of the bike build.  There are a few things I'd like two do as time and money permit, but there are two other things I need to do.  They are a new seat and hand grips.

The old hand grips were cut down short so the previous owner could put bar ends on the bike.  Which is too bad because they were relatively nice grips.  But, they are old, and too short for my hands, and now they are starting to come apart under the friction of my riding.  So, I have grips coming.  (unrelated, Ebay has been awesome for sourcing new, quality parts at half price or better.  I have no advertising contract with them, it's simply the truth.)

The seat was an absolute necessity.  My old bike had a seat that was about as comfortable as an uneven brick.  My "new" bike's seat is 22 years old and has holes worn through in a number of places.  It is more comfortable than my other bike's seat, but only just.

The research on my seat choice led me down an interesting path of discovery.  I wanted a soft comfy seat as I have an old, boney bum.  I talked with the guy at the local bike shop about seats and in my ignorance had asked him about a gel seat.  He recommended against it as he's found a high number of people find that, while the seat is comfy to sit on, they start getting numbness as the seat compresses and pressure begins to be applied to areas of the leg that you wouldn't be ordinarily sitting on whilst on a bike.

I've always wanted to use the word "whilst" in a sentence.

As I started my search based on his recommendations and sampling some seats in his shop, I started reading customer reviews of seats.  As the guy at the shop suggested, people were pretty split on gel seats.  So, I began looking at other seats.  But it was tricky because I also have a specific visual idea for my bike.  This means the seat needs to be a specific color, which dramatically narrowed down my choices.

I found a seat that was the color I wanted and it was the appropriate style for the riding I do.  The big question was, "is it comfortable?"  It looked sort of thin.  So, I started reading reviews on it.

I read hundreds of them.  Seriously.  There was skimming involved, but still.  Out of the hundreds, I only read one reviewer who didn't like it.  It was universally (almost) hailed by everyone (almost) that not only was it comfortable enough to rival high end seats, it's price was very inexpensive (and it is).  Professional and novice riders alike have found this seat to be comfortable and quality.

There is that word again.

Here is what I learned in my seat search that helped get passed my hesitation.  Buying a bike saddle (don't call them seats as I have.  they are saddles.  get it right.  or else.  ELSE!!) is a super individual process.  What is comfortable for one bum is not for another.  Part of this is because saddle comfort is almost more about the shape of the saddle, than it is about the softness of the saddle.  This is because all of our back sides are shaped just a bit differently than each others.  Sometimes more than a bit.  This means, you can have a rock hard saddle that is more comfortable than a super cushy saddle, if the cushy saddle isn't shaped right for you.

I'm a little nervous about getting my saddle because I've spent money on it and once I get it, it's mine.  That, and another truth is that it takes time to break in any saddle you use, quality or not.  So, you can never truly tell right away whether or not it's going to be just right.

However, today I experienced the reality of proper saddle choice.  I was at the gym and decided to do some stationary cycling since my knee still isn't prime for running.  I found an open bike with a nice cushy saddle and rode on it and could never get it comfortable.  In fact, I finally had to stop riding because I went numb in, um, sensitive places.  

Soft saddle, shaped wrong.

And now for my point.

A persons walk is much like a bike saddle.  It is usually a very individual thing.  What is needed for one person does not necessarily work for another.  It is not always a "one size fits all" type of proposition.  What brings a person to a better place spiritually, philosophically, etc., may be very unique and specialized for that person.  It may not work for someone else.

Don't walk another persons path just because they walked it.  Maybe it is the right thing for you, but, maybe, it's not.

This is a tricky thing for a pastor to say, but it's the truth.  My way may not work for you.

You need to do the leg work.  You need to find the way that works.  No one can do that for you.  Conversely, no one should try to make you walk a path just because they said so.  They might not have any idea what is best for you.

Do your home work.  Find what is best for you.  Find the way that guides you the best.  Don't do the thing not shaped properly for you simply because it's there.  There is always a better way.

Do that.

Interlude 8: Quality Matters

Hey class!  How's everyone doing today?

Excellent, glad to hear it.

Except for you, I'm sorry to hear about it.

Well, I have exciting news for you all.  Are you ready for it?  You sure?  Here it comes.

I have a new bicycle.  That's right.  I have a shiny red new bicycle.  And by "new", I mean a used, 22 year old bicycle.  23 if you factor in build date vs model year date.

For some of you, (all of you?), this is probably underwhelming news.  I doubt a single one of you is anywhere close to whelmed.  However, I am pretty stoked.  "Stoked", a word almost as culturally old as my "new" bicycle.

Not that this matters to most of you, but allow me to explain.

For those of you have been longer time readers, you might remember my historical affinity for bicycles.  If you don't remember (or never knew), feel free to catch up by reading this old post of mine Lesson 10 - Soft Like Concrete.

Now, I already had a bicycle.  Back in the year 2000, I think, my wife and I decided one day on a whim with no research and even less common sense, to just purchase a couple bikes because we wanted to ride bikes.  They were cheap Target specials and, fortunately, we didn't pay that much for them.  But hey, we had bikes and we rode them.  They were both mountain bikes, which made sense because we were living in Colorado at the time.  In case you didn't know, that's where the mountains live.  Not that we ever rode them in said mountains.  

Ya.

Fast forward to 2014.  We are now living in Chicago.  As it turns out, there are not a lot of mountains in Chicago.  These old bikes were full suspension bikes because, um, they were suspension bikes and isn't that what the cool kids rode?  I mentioned we just sort of did it, right?

As such, these old bikes are heavy.  HEAVY.  My bike tips the scales at just a smidge over 50 pounds.  That may not sound like a lot, but for a bicycle, it's obese.  Morbidly obese.  But, hey, it looked super cool and, to be fair, the frames were close to indestructible.  I learned this recently when I decided to research the bike I already owned.  

In Chicago, a bicycle is more than just reasonable transportation.  It makes a ton of sense.  One doesn't measure travel time by distance here.  Most places I will ever go in the city are within four miles of my home.  Much of it less than two.  If we head downtown it's more like 12ish if you go straight, or 15 if you take the lake front path.  And, you can do those trips in not much longer than driving if there is any traffic at all.  In fact, the shorter distances, especially in traffic, are often faster for cyclists.

I started riding my bike more recently.  Especially when my wife started running 14 miles at a time, just for fun.  No race.  No event.  She does it just because it's a Sunday.  So, I decided I would ride and keep her company.  I run, but I can't run that far yet.  And now that I messed my knee up (which in theory should heal up good as new), the bike is making more sense as opposed to jogging.

After that first ride/run session, I learned the truth about my old bike.  It is, and always was, a giant, heavy piece of (insert preferred negative term, here).  Navigating paths and people and hopping curbs and descending stairs (that's right, down stairs), the weight and overall uselessness of all those suspension components became crystal clear.  I'm not saying there aren't good suspended bikes.  There are tons of them.  Mine simply isn't one of those examples.

But mostly it was all the extra weight and floppy, rattly, parts that, no matter how much fine tuning you do, will not change.

Sooo, I decided it was time to upgrade.

Now, as a former design guy, the look of the bike mattered to me.  It needed to have the appropriate function, but also the right style.  

I began researching bicycles.  I hadn't really kept up once I went to college, had a car, and got married.  (Hence the garbage bikes we bought shortly there after.)  It became clear that what I wanted was a single speed bike.  I realized that I was pretty much using the same gear all the time on my bike.  I had found one that allowed me to ride slow, accelerate well, but also ride fast enough to tackle street riding.  

I then realized that I really like the simple, clean look of fixies.  Those are the fixed gear bikes all the cool kids in the city ride.  They look like old road bikes, but with out all the gears and switches.

The problem was, they have those super skinny tires.  Which are fine except that their designer never road a bike on Chicago streets.  The problem isn't the endless potholes and cracks.  It's all the energy it takes trying to find a path that's rideable between them.

Ok, it's the potholes and cracks.

But also, I didn't like the harder ride of the thin tires and I wasn't keen on the gear options on the brand new bikes.

I looked at beach bikes and the like, but I just couldn't find the thing that made me all giggly in my insides.

Then one day I had an accidental epiphany.  One could argue that all epiphanies are accidental, but whatever.  I was over at the church and one of our youth rode up on a bicycle.  It was an old Raleigh.  But it wasn't a road bike.  It was an old mountain bike.  And that's when it hit me.  I had missed the obvious.

I needed to find an old mountain bike and convert it to single speed.

Here's why.

The older, first and second generation mountain bikes all had frames that more or less visually mimicked the road bike frames, except they were much stronger, and just as importantly, were designed for fatter, more comfortable tires.

And... and... because they had no suspension on them, like every single bike we all grew up with, they are much lighter.  

Problem solved.

Except, where do you find one?  And, which one should you get?

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why God invented the internet and Ebay.

I started searching for old mountain bikes.  Or as the internet calls them, "vintage" mountain bikes.  Even if it's from the 90's.  Sigh.

That's how I stumbled across the early 90's Bridgestone mountain bikes.

"But isn't Bridgestone a tire company?"  I hear you ask.  Yes.  Yes it is.  But they have also been importing bicycles to America off an on for a long time.  Currently, they do not, but their last round of bicycle importing (Bridgestone is actually a Japanese company) came from 85-94.  Mine is a 92 (frame stamped 91, but I'm sure I'm the only one who cares).

I won't go into all the things I learned about these bikes and the various models.  But I will say this because it helps me get closer to the point of all of this.  The guy who was designing the mountain bikes for Bridgestone at the time decided to go against convention.  As a result, he almost single handedly set the tone of all mountain bike made by everyone for the next decade.  Better frame geometry.  Better frame construction.  He did all the stuff that the then current frame makers felt didn't matter.  He was even criticized for it.  But in the end, his bikes set the tone.

Most people probably don't even remember these bikes were made.  The bike aficionado's do, but other than that, not many.  But those who do all say the exact same thing.  These were some of the best (but not THE best, just being fair) bikes made during that era, maybe ever, especially for the price.

And that was the thing.  They were stronger, better made, not as light as some, but they lasted and won races.  But most importantly, they were less expensive than the ultra expensive competition bikes.

In 1992 the bike I now own cost just under $900.  I picked it up for barely a fraction of that. I've spent more money on shoes than I did on this bike.  And you could argue, "ya, but it's old."  My response is twofold.  One, shut up, it was only 1992.  That's not old.  Respect your elders.  Two, quality is quality.  Strong, straight, excellent build quality, good condition, old paint not withstanding.

Now, I have a bike I can modify slightly and have exactly what I needed, to do what I wanted to do.

But here was what surprised me the most.  It shouldn't have, but it did.

This bike is older than my old bike.  A 21 speed mountain bike that hasn't seen adjustment in a long time.

Once it was delivered (Ebay rocks), I reassembled it, aired up the tires, and it rides better than my old bike ever did, even when bran spanking new.  It's solid, smooth, quiet, and oh so light compared to my old bike.  It was like a revelation.  Right now it weighs 27 pounds.  It will probably weight about 4 pounds less when I'm done.

But oh man, the quality.

And this is the great lesson.  Quality matters.  I will stick my neck out and say that this is true 100% of the time.  Quality often costs.  But, not always.

More importantly, quality matters in every part of our lives.  Not just in what we do, but how we do it, and who we do it with.  Quality matters in who we are and how we live.  Quality is that thing in life that makes your eyes light up and your heart speed up and causes you to have that slight twinge of regret when you find quality when you hadn't noticed that quality was what you'd been lacking for so long.

Do not just exist and complete life.  Live it with quality.  The amount of your years matter, but not nearly as much as the quality of the years you live do.

Seek the best you can in all you do.  Not costliest, not the most quantity, but the best quality you can muster in all things.  It is here you find the beginnings of satisfaction in everything you do.

Have a truly great night.

Lesson 23 - Fear? Or You?

Last night I went on a date with my wife.  We do stuff like that because we love each other and we are awesome and don't suck.

Completely unrelated, I have issues with arrogance and vanity.

On this evening of happy joy time, we went and watched "Cirque: Shanghai - Warrior", a "Chinese" acrobatic circus.  (I say "Chinese" because I don't know that every one of them were actually Chinese.)  It wasn't "Cirque de Sole" amazing, but it was still pretty good.  They started off with really simple stuff and just progressively cranked up the difficulty until they were performing feats of insanity that only people who are high or crazy (or both) would even consider.  

There were high balancing people pyramids, high tossing and flipping, tumbling, balancing, juggling, and often all of it at once.

The last three main routines started with the hanging ribbons, where someone (a duo in this case) wraps silk ribbons around their arms or legs and then is lifted off the ground where they swing around in lazy circles while performing stunts, in the air, hanging from ribbons which are not actually attached to them but are only being held on to, generally one person at a time while the second person is holding on to nothing but the first person.

And of course there are no nets.  For anything.  Ever.

At one point the girl is hanging by nothing but her neck from the guy who is hanging on to the ribbons with one arm.  Then she is laying horizontal on his toes  in a "planking" position while he is holding on to the ribbons.  Then she wraps the ribbons around her thighs, does the splits, hangs upside down, grabs him, and they float off.  The ribbons are not tied.  Simply wrapped around a couple times.

Then there are the twin cage hoops that rotate around a central pivot with a dude in each cage hoop.  A cage with no sides.  Sometimes they are in the cage, others they are on the cage, on the outside, 30 feet in the air, no ropes, no nets, while the entire apparatus rotates on a central access, one cage on each end, in giant, fast, circles.  The guys jump into and out of the cages all in transit.  They get on top, and as the cages crest the top arc, fly into the air as the centrifugal forces launch them into the air and then they land back down again as both them and the cage come back down in their arc.

And then, they do it while juggling.  Then they do it while jumping rope.  Once the guy got his foot caught in the rope.  He stumbled and bobbled and almost fell off, but kept his footing, and then tried it again.  Nerves of steal doesn't even begin to describe what it would take to not only try it, but to almost die, then try it again with barely a pause.

Then there was the spherical cage where not one, but four motorcycles drove inside of and then drove around in it and upside down in different patterns without running into each other. One mistake, and everyone has a very bad trip to the surgical ward.  But they didn't even hesitate.  They were confident and focused.

As I sat in the audience and watched these and other things, I reflected back on my gymnastics days.  I was never half as good as any of these people.  But there were some of the things they did, basic things, I used to do.  The handstands, the pyramids, bits of tumbling and flipping... I remember doing those things.

But I remembered the other side of it.  I remember why I was never as good as any of the people I watched last night.

As I thought about it, I realized the problem wasn't one of skill.  Please don't misunderstand.  I'm not saying I was that good.  I'm saying it wasn't  skill or the potential to be that skillful that held me back.

It was fear.

I remember doing handstands on the ground.  Pretty easy once you practice, gain some strength, and make it almost second nature.  No problem.  Then, you start doing handstands on other people.

This sounds hard.  It really isn't.  If you have a good strong person under you, (they are called a "base"), they do a lot of the work for you.  You simply need to stay tight and straight and use proper control to get upside down.

It's pretty simple.  If you can do a proper handstand on the ground, you can do one on a good "base".  I've done it and I've taught it, and I've done both sides of it.

Here is where the problem comes.

You do it on one person and it's no big deal.  But now add a second level.  Now you are three people in the air.  From a structural stand point, if you do it right, it's still pretty stable.  But suddenly you are way off the ground and you are upside down staring at it.

I've seen people do it 6 or 7 people high.  I never made past just the one.  Not because I couldn't do the handstand, but because I was scared to death.

Adding one more person didn't make my part of it much harder.  Yes, it is harder for the people under me, but for the guy on top, it's still fairly simple.  There is some extra motion to balance out, but I found I could stabilize lots of motion when I was down low, but up high...?  I would freak out and bail every time.

We used to train doing handstands by having someone try to push you around while you were on your hands.  Not super hard, because it's pretty easy to shove someone over that way.  But we would try to simulate a shaky footing.  I was pretty good that way.

But the moment altitude was involved, I totally would lose it.  I was afraid.  My fear defeated me before my skill showed my brain that I could do it.

As I thought about this, it wasn't hard to see how this is true in most areas of life.  People will "fail" more out of fear, than out of ability.  We don't walk a certain path because we don't think we can.  We don't make certain choices because we've rationalized away the decision.  But in most of those cases, if we are honest, we made those choices out of fear of what might be, instead of what IS.

People are very capable.  With focus, and training, we can do almost anything.  We are rarely limited by ability.  What limits us is our fear.  Fear of failure, fear of damage, fear of pain and hurt.  And, while the dangers might be real, so is our ability to overcome the danger.  We have the ability to over come the fear.  We have the ability to realize that fear is simply an illusion.  It's not "truth".  Real, but not true.

Don't let fear keep you from something greater, from realizing the height of your potential.  You are not your fear.  Don't let fear define you.  

Let you define you.

Be more.

Interlude 7: Bent Out of Shape

Guess what?

I've done it again.

That's right.  Given the freedom and opportunity, I have managed to extend the time frame of personal injury one can inflict upon ones self in a relatively short period of time.

I am so proud.

Remember a couple posts back, my story about the back injury?  Well, this isn't about that. While I was nursing that back to health(get it?  Back?  My back, back to health?  Ha!  Haha!  See how I'm funny?  Shut up.), I was mixing up my work-out routine to take some strain off of my back.

A couple weeks ago I decided to use one of the seated hamstring curl machines.  In a nutshell, you sit down, strap a bar across the top of your thighs near the knees, and then starting with legs straight and a different bar under your ankles, you pull your feet down and do "curls" with the back of your thighs.

In case you weren't sure what those were.

Now, I don't know how many of you work out with any regularity, but a couple things you start to get picky about when you work out with free weights or machines, but especially machines, are range of motion and not slamming the weights back on the stack (especially due to lack of range of motion.)

As I was adjusting the machine, at first the weights were slamming back to stop before I was getting my legs close enough to straight.  This was hampering my range of motion in the exercise and was, in general, just plain annoying.

Fortunately, the machine had several wonderful adjustment points for the both the knee support bar and the ankle pull bar.

And, as it turns out, you are allowed to adjust yourself straight to stupidity and injury.

Because I wasn't attempting to pull a lot of weight, I adjusted the bars so that I would basically have tension all the way back to stop.  But, apparently, it was a little to close to stop, and in fact, a tad past stop.

Which, I knew.

And yet...

... at the last return of my last set, I forgot myself and let the weights go back to stop, and my left knee made an ever so slight, slightly wet, pop.

At first, I wasn't even sure anything had happened.  But over the next few hours... and days... I realized the truth.  I might have ever so slightly hyper-extended my left knee.

(grumble)

But wait, it gets better.  (No, not my knee.)

After about a week of me being careful with a knee that just felt... off, I was feeling pretty good.  So what did I do?  I jumped on an elliptical machine and hammered out a mile and half just to see if my knee was ok to run.

Surprise surprise, it was not.

My knee went from pretty good, to not very great, very quickly.

And now it's been another week or so.

Did I bother to go see a doctor you might ask.  No.

Am I going to see a doctor?  Yes.

Funny story...

Have you ever had a problem with your health and put it off for a while, then finally made an appointment only to have the problem go away before you got in to see the doctor?

I made an appointment to see a doctor a couple days ago.  I can't get in till the beginning of the week.  Then, last night, I woke up in the middle of the night, and while groggy, absent mindedly stretched my legs straight.  I haven't been able to straighten the left knee without discomfort at straight lock.  Well, the left knee popped.

Today as I was going about my day, I noticed my knee was feeling decidedly better.  It's entirely possible the "pop" last night was a good thing.

It's not perfect, but it's much improved.

Don't worry, I'll still be seeing the doctor.

Sooo...

Isn't that just all manner of dumb?  You might be thinking about how I seem to do lots of idiotic things.

It seems you may be correct.

We were talking about "spiritual gifts" at church this past weekend, and I made the statement that I'm becoming increasingly convinced that my "spiritual gift" is "stupidity."

*sigh*

One day, maybe, I will learn that, no matter how smart or clever one may be(I may be making incorrect assumptions about that), I am not immune to doing dumb things.  And that, no matter how smart or clever one may be, they need to be ever vigilant against doing said dumb things.

Take care of yourselves.  Take the time to be patient and dedicated to the task of, not just maintenance of ones self, but improvement across the board.

Measure twice and cut once, as they say.

Till next time...