Bicycles and Big Riders: A Guide to Bike Shopping for Heavy Folks

 I recently came across an article on Outside Magazine's web on bike shopping as a plus-size rider. I was discussing it online with friends, as you do, and realized that if I'm qualified to have an opinion on anything, cycling as a heavy rider is probably it. 

See, I worked as a mechanic in bike shops either full or part time for nearly 20 years before I wore my hands out and had to give it up, so I know about bikes, and I ride regularly for commuting, camping and recreation. But also, I'm a big boy. While I'm fairly active, my build is probably more suited to a defensive lineup than a peleton, and I run about 6'3" and 300 lbs. 

They call me "The Mountain That Bikes"

So I have a pretty good idea of what works and doesn't for a larger-than-average rider, and thought I'd share some of what I think is and isn't important. I'll also tell you about what I ride, myself. 

Spoiler: It's a bicycle

While the bicycle world, particularly bicycle marketing, can get wrapped up in cramming as many gears as possible into the rear cassette, new bottom bracket standards, and shaving grams, our priority as heavier riders (aka "Clydesdales and Athenas" in racing terms, that being men over 220lbs and women over 165), are a bit different. I mean, maybe we still want to go fast or shred some trails, but we'd like to not break stuff too often along the way. You might have also found that the bike shop employees, who are often (but not always, to use myself as an example) are thin and stereotypically athletic individuals, may not quite know what to do with you. 

So here's a short breakdown of what I think matters. 

Wheels

Wheels are probably the most important thing to big riders, and will make the most difference. First off, if you're going to be riding on pavement, look for a bike that will fit at least 32mm wide tires, off road consider 2.5-3" wide tires (fat bikes are great, but can present extra challenges for heavier riders, including longer axles making them more vulnerable to damage, and the bigger tires suffering even more drag with your additional weight than they would for a light rider).

Rims should be double-wall (box shaped cross section instead of just u-shaped) and have at least 32 spokes. Aluminum rims hold up better than the steel ones found on old bikes, and offer better braking, so if you're setting up a vintage road bike, plan to upgrade the wheels if you can.

Brakes

Speaking of rims and brakes, disc brakes offer really good stopping power for the heavy rider. Hydraulic disc brakes work really well, but maintenance can be fiddly, so for a casual rider (or touring/commuter oriented cyclist like me, who likes field reparability) decent mechanical disc brakes work well, and often better than the cheap hydraulics on some stock builds.

If your budget only extends to a vintage bike, consider upgrading to newer brakes if you can. The caliper brakes on old ten-speeds and vintage road bikes don't stop as well as newer dual-pivot calipers, new levers and brakes can transform a cheap old bike into a great commuting machine. Older mountain bikes often have cantilever brakes, which can stop really well if they're set up perfectly, but linear-pull "v-brakes" are easier to get more performance from (you'll also have to change out the levers to match the cable pull, or add an adapter to go from center pull cantilevers to linear pull v-brakes)

Suspension

Unless you're spending over $1500 on a serious off-road bike, avoid it, inexpensive suspension forks don't handle heavy riders well. And bikes with rear shocks tend to suck until you get past the $2000 price point.

Other parts

You probably don't need the lightest and most cutting-edge drivetrain, in fact "cutting edge" and "finicky" are usually synonyms. That being said, as long as they shifters and derailleurs work, they're fine whatever they are. You may want to make sure you have low enough gears for climbing. Two-piece cranks seem to hold up better than the old-fashioned square taper design, and I've never had any luck with older cottered cranks. Pedals are going to wear out, don't stress over which ones you get, just assume you're going to have to buy new ones periodically.

Saddles

Squishier is not better. As a heavier rider, you'll probably sink through the cushioning like it's an old mattress, and as your sit bones push down, the rest of that displaced padding will push up into your softer bits. Think more "support" than "cushion" when you're shopping for a bike seat. Sometimes wider saddles, combined with meatier thighs, lead to extra chafing and ergonomic issues. Don't let some sales guy convince you to ride on something that looks like a tractor seat just because you're big, try some sportier stuff. A good rule of thumb is the more leaned over you are, the thinner the seat, so on an upright bike, a broader and more supportive platform works, but as you get into a "sportier" position, your ideal seat will get slimmer, EVEN IF you're a big rider (and most people are more comfortable riding leaned at least a bit forward, sitting bolt-upright puts your weight right on your tailbone and spine and can be less comfortable than being slightly "slouched" forward).

Jerome K. Jerome offered this advice on bicycle seats about 100 years ago "There may be a better land where bicycle saddles are made out of rainbow, stuffed with cloud; in this world the simplest thing is to get used to something hard."

Frames

Steel, aluminum, carbon, titanium, there are good frames made out of any of these. Cheap titanium (which isn't actually all that cheap) is going to be really flexy for a big rider, sometimes to the point where, if you stand up to crank up a hill, it'll bend enough that your tires rub on the frame. Cheap carbon is rare and should be looked at with suspicion. Steel frames can be great, cheap ones can be a little flexy but mid-to-higher end steel frames work great. Same with aluminum, while in theory, it has a shorter fatigue life than steel, in real world conditions a well-made aluminum alloy frame will last you for decades. Bikes designed for touring work well, as they're meant not only to be strong enough for extra weight, but to handle reliably under a heavier load. The only disadvantage is they tend to favor stability over maneuverability, which can be a drawback if you're looking for a quick and agile ride. 

Handlebars

Depends on the type of riding you want to do. For city and casual riding, swept back bars are fantastic, and even work well for light trail and touring use. Straight-ish bars are best for trails, as they give lots of control, but aren't especially comfortable or ergonomic. "Rams horn" road handlebars offer good ergonomics and the ability to change hand positions, which is really helpful on longer rides, the trick is to set them a lot higher than you see on racing bikes (level with your seat or higher, usually). Wider bars give more leverage and control, in general, so tend to work better for us big folk

So what am I riding? Well, the frame for the bike pictured up top is by Surly bikes, a Minnesota-based brand that manufactures frames in Taiwan. The model is called the Disc Trucker, which is based on their Long Haul Trucker touring bike, but with the addition of disc brakes. The wheels are Velocity "Cliffhanger" rims, which are designed for on and off road touring, laced up 32-spokes-each to Shimano XT hubs (the front one having a dynamo to power the lights, which has nothing to do with durability, but makes me happy). I built the wheels up from parts myself when I worked in a shop. 
Tires are Schwalbe Marathon Mondial in 700x41, an all-condition heavy touring tire. I've got Surly's "Truck Stop" handlebars, which are big and wide and even have a bit of rise in the middle and a Brooks B17 saddle, and I reign in my blazing-fast speed with Avid BB7 mechanical disc brakes. 
Overall, it's a heavy-duty touring bike designed to be reliable and sturdy for commuting, camping and general riding. Is it the perfect bike for everyone? Nope, but it works well for me, and a similar setup would probably work well for a lot of folks. I built it up myself by Frankenstiening a couple other bikes together with some new parts, but a similar build-up would probably cost around $2,000 retail. 

A closer look at some of the components: 

A mountain bike crank is sturdy and gives me low range for hauling camping gear 

Tires and rims that will take a beating and have enough air volume to avoid flats

More mountain bike parts for a wide gear range

Mechanical disc brakes top well and are easy to adjust 

Nice wide bars set just above seat level are easy on my hands and back, and provide control and leverage

I hope you find this helpful, and if you have specific questions, feel free to drop them in the comments, and I'll do my best to answer them. 

My Year in Nonfiction - Living Through Extraordinary Times

 It's probably no surprise to hear my nonfiction reading was a lot about how people behave in difficult circumstances. The pandemic and the partial shutdown of our economic and social lives has definitely been on my mind, as well as everyone else's. Add to that nationwide protests against police brutality, a record-breaking hurricane season and a tense election plagued by an outpouring of conspiracy nuts and it's been an... exciting year. 

I read a lot of different things, ranging from my usual genre loves of science fiction to a few how-to books for projects and hobbies, but here are a few that really stood out as particularly relevant to the mood of the year. 

Early on in the shutdown, before I had to return to in-person work I stumbled a book that really resonated with my new, involuntarily slowed-down life, How To Do Nothing: Resisting The Attention Economy by Jenny Odell.  This book was not about actually nothing at all, but rather finding healthy ways to unplug from the "always on" demands of work, social media and advertising that are constantly clamoring for our eyeballs and attention. This book got me thinking more about the things I found satisfying away from the ubiquitous screens and made me re-evaluate my relationship with both social media and work. This re-evaluation is still ongoing, but the books that followed became part of it. 

In the same vein I picked up Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit and The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling by Arlie Russel Hochschild. While these books covered very different areas, the first being more about the values of looking at the world on a pedestrian scale (as in "walking" not "boring") while the second is about how the workplace has come to place more and more demand on not only our physical and intellectual labor, but our emotional work as well, as we're increasingly expected to show particular emotions and attitudes as part of our job. Demands that are made unequally along lines of status and often gender, which can create all sorts of hidden wear and tear on our psyche. 

These books helped me look at the everyday grind, what was good, what was bad, and got me thinking about how not only my place in the whole machine, but the flaws of our economic and social structures and how they might be improved with a bit more thoughtfulness. 

But of course, this wasn't an ordinary year, this was the year the machine broke down. The immediate cause was, of course, the COVID-19 Pandemic, though the fact that our cultural and financial institutions were woefully unprepared to deal with a large scale disruption made everything, and continue to make everything, worse than it had to be. So I got to thinking about disasters. 

Two books that really opened my eyes to a lot of the reality of what happens when a disaster hit, the first, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why by Amanda Ripley talked about ordinary people reacted to extreme circumstances, and in a lot of cases how what really happens contradicts the expectations of what's going to happen created by movies and pundits. It explored more than a hundred years of disaster reporting and sociology, involving earthquakes, fires, hurricanes and revolutions. 

Much to my surprise, the pop-culture images of widespread panic and looting were fairly rare in real life. If anything, some people go too far in the opposite direction, waiting passively for things to make sense again, with tragic results. But for the most part, people seem to be pretty sensible in an emergency, working together, behaving rationally and getting away as best as they can. Often they'll behave extremely altruistically and help out others. 

When panic does happen, it's often the result of predictable circumstances, where people are unable to move or act, and are packed too tightly to be able to respond with any sense of autonomy. The same seems to be true of rioting in times of civil unrest, protestors almost never spontaneously riot, it's usually the actions of police or military forces putting pressure on them that causes the situation to explode. 

Looting too, seems a lot rarer than it's made out to be in disaster movies, even in actual riots and especially in life-threatening emergencies. It does happen, but it's hardly widespread. The much greater danger seems to be the vigilantes who take it upon themselves to "protect" the community from the looting they imagine is going to happen, which in practice often looks a lot like shooting anyone of a particular racial or socioeconomic group who dares show their face in certain neighborhoods (this was a big problem after Hurricane Katrina, exacerbated by police with much the same attitudes). 

Ordinary people, it seems, do OK in disasters, while authority figures tend to be the ones who actually freak out, leading to what sociologists call "elite panic," and causing unnecessarily draconian or violent responses to an emergency in the name of maintaining the social order, as opposed to helping people in need (to see this happening in slow motion, just read anything dealing with the response of the US Congress to the current situation).  

Often, in fact, everyday people will work together at their local level to create temporary communities in the wake of a disaster, trying to keep each other fed and safe, which was the topic of the other Rebecca Solnit book I read this year A Paradise Built In Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise In Disaster. In this book, Solnit describes how some of the improvised communities built in the wake of earthquakes, hurricanes and the like allowed people to not only survive, but to thrive. Often the sense of purpose and the breaking down of routines and social strata made people happier for a short time than they may have been in their everyday lives, and these cooperative bands of neighbors were more effective in distributing relief than the official government response was (which led to more of that elite panic and sometimes interference with grass-roots relief efforts in the name of imposing top-down order once again). 

It's worth noting that the current situation, where the best way to help each other is to keep our distance and stop the virus from spreading, doesn't particularly lend itself to neighborly measures like erecting spontaneous soup kitchens or street medic stations. But think about how many people have been sewing masks or donating blood, volunteering where they can. In times of crisis, the human instinct is often to do SOMETHING to help out, which is pretty great. And, honestly, not terribly surprising, in spite of what all the post-apocalyptic movies we all watched might have told us. We are, as a species, instinctively cooperative, which is probably the most important reason we've been so successful. 

The final book that really tied into my theme for the year was probably the meatiest and most complicated of the bunch, Behave: The Biology Of Humans At Our Best And Our Worst by Robert Sapolsky. This book explored not only the way we act, but the hormonal, neurological, genetic and environmental factors that influenced all of those. I could probably (and maybe will) write a whole blog post on what I learned from this book alone, but there are a few takeaways that tie into what I read in the other books. 

Probably the most important ones are that we human beings, like other primates and most other social animals in general, are very good at dividing the world into "Us vs Them." And we'll often make all sorts of excuses for Us, and blame anything we can on Them. Now who constitutes and "Us" and what terrible enemy counts as "Them" from moment to moment can be very fluid, because we're pretty complicated critters, even compared to our closest cousins in the wild. It can be along racial, political or religious lines, it can be between fans of rival football teams or even between people who like football and people who don't. And we can exist simultaneously in several Us/Them relationships at the same time. "Sure, he's a Dallas fan, but he shares my love of '70s heist movies, so he's not all bad." 

The Us/Them paradigm can be manipulated, for good but more often for ill, because of something else that makes humans particularly human, our ability to think in metaphors. We literally feel sick at seeing an image of something repugnant, like we smell rotten meat, we feel joy at a particular song that reminds us of home, symbolism is so closely tied into reality in our minds that we have trouble separating them on a subconscious level. And terrible people use that to exploit the Us/Them division. "Look at these people from group X," they say, "are they even really people? They're more like cockroaches." And part of our brain stops seeing other people as human beings, and if they're not human beings, does it matter how badly we treat them? This is called pseudospeciation, and it's one of the most effective propaganda tools out there. It works well because, sometimes, the more we hate the Thems out there, the closer and more loyal we feel to Us. 

And all this works because we're never as rational as we like to think we are. Probably especially people who pride themselves on being rational all the time. What we think of as rationality is often rationalization, our very clever brains looking to make excuses for our unconscious biases and things that lurk in the deep, dark currents of our psyche. We don't like to admit to ourselves that we don't trust a person because something about them reminds us of our third grade bully, or because we're a little bit prejudiced against something. Or maybe we need to eat lunch and we're just cranky, but we'd NEVER let a little thing like slightly low blood sugar affect our judgement, would we? 

But in spite of all our strange, chaotic, and seemingly unpredictable irrationality, Sapolsky tells us, we're surprisingly nice to each other most of the time. There are evolutionary and personal benefits to cooperation, and studying our primate cousins teaches us that the noisiest and most aggressive are almost never the most successful, rather the ones who are really good at getting along with each other. No man, (or chimp, or baboon) it seems, is an island. 

The takeaway from all this? Well, for me, a lot of it's still percolating, but in spite of the chaos of this year, I feel a bit more optimistic about human nature, and have been really thinking about my own place and where I want to go from this kind of transitional place I find myself, career-wise. There's a lot to be said about the feeling of satisfaction in finding a way to serve the greater community, and maybe I'll figure out how to do that (and buy groceries) in the future. But I've still got a lot of reading to do, either way. 

Happy New Year, folks!

Working From Home Without Losing Your Mind: Tips and Resources

Current events have forced a lot of us to do our jobs from home. For those who are used to doing at least part of their work remotely, this may be an easy transition, but a lot of use are used to the structure and social interaction of the workplace and can find this really challenging. But there are definitely things you can do to survive, or even thrive, in this new environment.

Set a Schedule
Probably the biggest, most important element is creating some structure in your day. The combination of anxiety and a sudden change in work environment can make it really hard to focus, doubly so if, like a lot of us, you've gone from a fairly active, social environment to one that involves a lot of online learning or large group videoconferences, where you might be taking a much more passive role in your work. In addition, if you're suddenly working at home with family, particularly kids, giving them definite "working/not working" time for their parent can help them feel more comfortable and know when not to interrupt you (or, more realistically, interrupt you less often).

Setting a definite start and end time for your day can also help you avoid feeling like you're constantly beholden to your workplace to be productive, even when you're doing personal or family activities. "Clock in" and "clock out", and don't forget to give yourself a break for lunch as well as short breaks to get up and move around. Some people find it helpful to "commute" to work by going outside and going for a short walk before going to work, and almost everybody finds that getting dressed in "office clothes" (even if it's just a different pair of sweatpants from the ones you slept in) helps them get in a better mindset to sit down and work.

Experiment a little bit in what time of day works best for you. You may be a morning person who gets the most done before 2 pm, or someone who likes to get started in the afternoon and work into the evening. This might be the rare chance to tailor your workday to suit your natural inclinations, within the bounds of employer expectations and web meetings. And allow yourself a bit of flexibility, life happens even - especially - when working from your own home. 

Finally, when you're done for the work day, be done. Turn off your computer, or at least log out of your work email, and set aside that part of the day until tomorrow. Keeping a strict division between work and personal time at home helps you keep better peace of mind and let you feel more focused and productive during your designated work hours. 

Set Up Your "Office" 

If it's in the corner of my bedroom, can I brag about having a "corner office?"

If you're fortunate enough to have a home office already, you're all set! But if, like many of us, you're new to this, it's really, really helpful to have a designated work spot, ideally a different spot from where you sleep, eat and watch TV, though if you've got a small living space, you may have to work with what you've got.

If you have the space and money, do what you can to make it as comfortable as possible. A high-end desk chair may not be necessary, but but one that's comfortable and puts your hands and wrists at a good angle for typing can save you a lot of aches and pains (if you have a laptop, like I do, it may be hard to get the screen at optimum level, but do what you can). Using a separate mouse, wired or otherwise, can also make entering data a lot easier and more comfortable. 

Good lighting is essential for relieving eye strain, helping with focus and mental health and making you actually visible while you're participating in one of the many, many, MANY video conferences you're going to be on during the work week. Natural sunlight is one of the best options if you can set your desk near a window, but a flexible desk lamp of some sort can help with task-specific lighting too, from viewing documents to providing a bit of indirect light to make your web-conference face look its best.

Aside from being well-lit and ergonomically sound, the decor and color of your work space can have an effect on mood and productivity as well. Live plants can help for a lot of people and even the color of your environment can have a marked effect. Studies have shown that shades of blue make for the best work environment, followed by green, while yellow made for the least comfortable space. You probably don't have the option to repaint an entire section of your home or apartment, but adding some posters or decorations can help a lot.

Avoid clutter in your working space, too. Not only does it make it harder to actually work if you need to sort through documents or other materials, but a cluttered environment can cause an increase in anxiety, which is the last thing any of us needs these days. 

It may be a luxury for a lot of people, but if you have the option or are expecting to have working from home be a long-term part of your job, having a dedicated work computer can help separate your home life from work life. Your employer may even provide you with one. But if you can't do that, you should designate the desk as your "work" space, and at the end of the day when you're done with your work hours, move your laptop to a different physical location to watch Netflix or read blogs. You can even set up a separate user account for your work self and your home self to create both a psychological and an information barrier between the two.

A final note on web conferencing: be aware of what's behind you! Try to make sure that the space behind your desk is free from excessive clutter and anything you don't want your co-workers to see. 

For some more resources on setting up a home office, TheWireCutter has great reviews and suggestions for gear at various budget levels, and lifehacker has an extensive collection of work-from-home articles. 

Breaks, Health and Distractions

Take breaks. No, really, take breaks. While there is a kind of cult of productivity that thinks working through lunch makes you a better employee, that's not true during the best of times, let alone during the unusual circumstances we find ourselves in right now. You're no good to yourself, your family or your boss if you're burnt out and frazzled. When your work space and living space overlap, the temptation to just eat at your desk and keep going with what you're doing can be strong, but what you should do is get up, walk away from your computer and go eat lunch somewhere where you can't even see your desk (face the other way if you're in a small space).

A break for exercise can be a real lifesaver for a lot of people, a short jog or walk around the neighborhood can leave you feeling a lot more refreshed and focused for the second part of your day. Short breaks also help a lot too, with physical and mental health. Set a time if you have to, but try to get up every hour for just a few minutes, stand up, stretch, move around a bit, use the bathroom, get another cup of coffee, try a few mindfulness exercises and sit back down with your mind and body clearer.

At the same time, you're probably best off limiting your social media and news consumption during work time. Not only do they tend to be distracting, but fairly anxiety-inducing right now. It's no big secret that social media platforms use design elements to keep you scrolling and hold your attention, which can easily derail your work day for longer than you'd expected, but with a constant stream of disaster and political news, they can also ramp up your stress levels and make it hard to focus, which in turn can lead to you stressing out about struggling to focus on the task at hand. 

That's not to say you should be avoiding social media or news entirely! After all, right now the primary way we have to connect with each other is through the internet, and those social connections are also vital to our health and well being, but be judicious and set planned times for it, so you can keep yourself in balance and get things done. 

Overall, the resources and technology we have here in 2020 make working from home a lot easier and more comfortable for most of us than ever, and with a little planning and patience, you might even find yourself enjoying it. And really, you can't beat the commute! 

Free Online Resources for Sci Fi and Fantasy Lovers

If there’s any group of readers who may be truly prepared to spend weeks sequestered alone by themselves or in small groups, it’s those of use who grew up on tales of interplanetary travel. There’s not a lot of extra room on spaceships, after all, and you can’t just run out to the movies or a coffee shop when you’re halfway through your burn to the mining colony on Ganymede. 

Unlike our fictional heroes, though, we have a few advantages. When it’s warm enough, we can open our windows, for one, but also we have access to a pretty good range of free Speculative Fiction stories that we can access instantly. 

The Libby App lets you use your library card to check out ebooks and audiobooks from your library’s digital collection. The app works for both IOS and Android and can be installed on most devices pretty easily. From there, you enter your information and can see what’s currently available to check out or put on hold. 

If you’re a fan of the classics, Project Gutenberg has been creating an archive of works that have passed into the public domain. While you won't find anything recent on there, a lot of the best Science Fiction and Fantasy novels really have held up to the test of time, and you might also enjoy the chance to see what folks a century ago got right (and wrong) about the far off days of the 21st Century. If you need some help narrowing it down, and lean towards the Sci-fi end of things, Popular Mechanics made this list of some of their favorites. 

Tor Books puts a lot of great Fantasy and Science Fiction short stories online for free, and also offers downloadable ebooks that are free for a limited time, including those from some of the most popular authors in the field. 

If you’re a Kindle user, or use the Kindle app on one of your devices, Amazon has a lot of free Science Fiction and Fantasy ebooks available, often from up-and-coming authors or the first book in a series, to give you a chance to try something new. 

If you want some fresh short works, check out Uncanny Magazine or Futurism, both of which put out new Fantasy, Science Fiction and science fact stories on a regular basis. Uncanny offers a well-reviewed Speculative Fiction podcase, as well, and Futurism features editorial staff from the short-lived revival of the famed OMNI Magazine. 

Of course, you don’t have to stick to just reading, Dust, on Youtube features original short Science Fiction films. If you’re more into the history and analysis of your favorite stories, check out PBS Digital Studios’ channel Storied. Storied comprises two series, “Monstrum,” hosted by professor of literature Emily Zarka, which explores legendary creatures from around the world, including their origins and social context, and “It’s Lit” hosted by Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes, which takes a look at all different genres of fiction. 

Educational Youtube Channels for Adults

At this point you may feel like you’ve reached the end of Netflix or may even be (gasp) tired of watching cat videos, and be thinking that you’d like to at least feel that you were using your time at home to learn a bit more about the world. 

Fortunately, there is a vast community of creators putting educational content up on Youtube for free. The ones below are just a few of my favorites, and tend to be of pretty high quality with good research and fact checking. Most of their videos are about 10-15 minutes long and are entertaining and informal in tone. 

Science and Nature: 

Animalogic: This Canadian channel is hosted by professional wildlife illustrator Danielle Dufault, and features a different creature every week. Some are cute, some are creepy, some a bit of both, but they’re all interesting. 

PBS Eons: Produced by PBS Digital Studios, this channel focuses on paleontology and prehistory, with a weekly deep-dive into different topics on prehistoric plants, animals and even weather 

Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell: The title is from the German term for a quick summary of something complex, (hence “in a nutshell” in the English-language version), this channel presents brief but well-researched explorations of a wide range of science topics… with adorable animated birds. 

Kyle Hill: The long-haired former host of the “Mythbusters: The Search” show explores interesting physics, math and engineering questions, as well as the possible science behind your favorite superhero and and sci-fi shows, with occasional cheesy jokes. 

(note: up till recently, Hills content was hosted on a channel called Because Science, and his older content is still available there) 

It’s OK To Be Smart: Another excellent show from PBS Digital Studios, host Joe Hanson explores a different science-related topic every week. 

Smarter Every Day: One of the longest-running educational Youtube channels, since 2007 engineer Destin Sandin has been talking about the science behind everything from farming to rocket science. 

Arts and Culture

Films&Stuff: We all may have our favorite movie moments, but have you ever thought about how and why some scenes and some films work so well? Host Jonathan Burdett breaks down some of the nuts and bolts cinemetography used in our favorite blockbusters. 

Terrible Writing Advice: A humorous look at how to make a well-crafted story… be exploring exactly what NOT to do. Each video is an animated look at how typical storytelling tropes can be used and misused in a book or movie. 

Jesse The Reader: One of the most popular “Booktubers” (Youtubers who vlog (video blog) about books) Jesse talks about everything from his recent favorites to organizing your bookshelf. 

Lindsay Ellis: An often irreverent (with some adult language) take on books, movies and theater. Ellis tends to have longer video essays around 40-60 minutes and cover everything from the evolution of the “Phantom of the Opera” through books, plays and movies to a whole lecture series on film theory using the Michael Bay “Transformers” movies as a model. 

12tone: A look at how music theory applies to popular music as well as some more strange and abstract musical concepts. While 12tone does occasionally dives deep down some music theory rabbit holes, it’s mostly about breaking down things for the layman, and it features a lot of cute hand-drawn illustrations. 

Polyphonic: Video essays on popular music. Each episode takes a look at a popular song and talks about how it goes together, some history of the song and its place in pop culture at the time it was released, and the music’s impact. 

The Met: New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has both virtual tours of its galleries and videos exploring certain collections, history and restoration. 

Curator’s Corner at the British Museum: The curators of the British Museum highlight some of their favorite parts of their collections, interesting facts and side projects. Highlights include using clever detective work to determine that a particular Viking was left handed, the evolution of Manga and figuring out the rules to a 3,000-year-old board game!

History, Social Studies and General Knowledge: 

Crash Course: This channel covers some of everything, from history to writing to film to biology. Good quality content and entertaining hosts make this a fun way to learn new things or to use a study aid for students. 

Today I Found Out: Strange historical events, the interesting origins of everyday words or things, and the occasional exploration of current developments. This Anglo-American channel, hosted by Simon Whistler, published a new video daily, ranging from five to twenty minutes in length, and often including some bonus trivia tangentially related to the main topic. 

CGP Grey: Wide-ranging and only sporadically published, Grey’s videos take close looks at geography, history, science, government and urban design, or whatever else catches the host’s interest at the time. Grey (an American living in London, who appears as a bespectacled stick figure in his videos) has a background in both physics and sociology, but also a great interest in political science and random trivia. 

These are just a few of the channels that I like, there are loads more out there, I’m sure you’ll find some of your own favorites over time! 

On the Glorious 25th of May: What Sir Terry Taught Me

May 25 is Geek Pride Day, where all of us who love Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Cosplay, Gaming and what have you are free to let our freak (geek?) flags fly, though I would kind of argue that's pretty much every day. It's also Towel Day, when we celebrate the life and works of Douglas Adams, which is a noble and worthy cause, of course.

But for another subset of geek culture, a large, but often relatively quiet fandom compared to the t-shirt-wearing, movie-quoting masses, the 25th of May is significant for another reason. It marks the date of the People's Revolution of the Glorious 25th of May, from Terry Pratchett's 2002 book, Night Watch.

Pratchett has long been one of my favorite authors, and Night Watch probably remains one of my favorite books from his Discworld series. It confronts some pretty grim subject matter, but still manages to maintain humor and humanity, and it closely examines a lot of our issues and assumptions about politics, revolution and human nature. It's got a bit of Les Miserables about it, a bit of English history, a bit of the '60s and a lot of Pratchett. Read it, you won't regret it.

Aside from just this book, though, the Discworld series and associated books have taught me a lot over the nearly 20 years I've been reading them, and Pratchett's death a year ago hit me pretty hard (especially as it came at a time when I was still mourning a more personal loss). But some of the lessons from his stories have become core parts of who I am. Among them:

• There are many ways to sin, and many ways to be evil, but they all start with treating people as things. Once we stop seeing people as individuals and look at them as pawns in a game, as stereotypes, as means to an end, we head down the wrong path. Sometimes even if we set out with the best of intentions. 
• Darkness isn't the opposite of light, it's simply it's absence. It's up to us to be a light in dark places, and to not let indifference or complacency make us part of them. And, when all is said and done, and the odds are against you, sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than to curse the darkness. 
• Stories matter. They make up who we are and tell us why we're here. And sometimes belief and faith are extremely important, including belief in things that we may objectively know not to be real. You can't weigh justice, you can't measure out a cup of mercy but those things are important to making us human. Our belief in these things gives them a reality which, although it may only exist within the confines of our own skulls, has the power to shape the world, and lets us become what we are, the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape. 
• Personal isn't the same as important. This is a harsh truth and one that can be hard to live by. Sometimes what matters most to us isn't what matters in the grand scheme of things. 
• At the same time, the small things do matter. In a vast, uncaring universe our tiny, insignificant and brief lives are all unique and precious. And the fact that we have the ability to look up into the night sky and contemplate infinity, fully aware of how tiny we are in the face of it all, and in the next breath return to wondering what we should make for dinner is not a flaw. 
• People, even when they don't look like what you may think of as "people" are pretty much the same everywhere. For the most part they want the same things, a good meal, the company of friends, and to go about their day knowing that the world they live in is relatively sane and stable from one day to the next. People are also different from "The People," in that nobody's actually met the latter, but it's a phrase often used by those who think they know what's best for "The People" regardless of what actual people want (which is another road to Treating People As Things). 
• The most powerful magic is understanding how people think. Failing that, actual magic is pretty cool, but a big stick is often more useful. 
• Ideals and ideas are wonderful, but somebody still has to bake the bread and clean the privy (preferably not at the same time). 
• It's very tempting to divide the world into Us and Them, and to think that all of the bad things are the fault of Them. It's more comfortable to blame it all on Them, but in reality there is not Them, there's only Us. 
• Real Freedom includes the freedom to suffer the consequences of your decisions. The freedom to suceed goes hand in hand with the freedom to fail. 
• Don't give up, in order to have a last-minute change of fortune, you have to take your fortune to the last minute. 
• Making bad choices for good reasons makes it easier to make them for bad reasons later on
• Sometimes the best answer is a more interesting question
• Knowing how bad you can be is the best encouragement for being good. 
• Doing the right thing can mean your lose everything, but doing the wrong thing can mean you lose  yourself
• The best way to face everything, good or bad, is with curiousity, humor and compassion. 

How do they rise up? 

The Towpath Scorcher: my Country Road Bob

I've owned any number of bikes over the years, but probably my favorite has been the Van Dessel “Country Road Bob” in its various incarnations. I got the frame used from a local racer seven or eight years ago, and had actually had it off the road for nearly a year, as some parts were worn out and others got scavenged to build up my Cannondale road bike, but recently acquired some new wheels, cranks and bars to build it up again. 

Not a bike for the shy.

Van Dessel, for those not familiar with the company, Van Dessel is a small company based in Mendham, NJ that designs and distributes some unique – and uniquely named – performance bicycles. Most of their bicycles, such as the “Gin & Trombones” (cyclocross), “Drag Strip Courage” (track) and “All Systems Go” (time trial) are pretty race-oriented, but they've always had one or two models like the now-discontinued “Country Road Bob” and it's spiritual successor, the “Whisky Tango Foxtrot” that were a bit weird, but extremely versatile.

The Bob I have, a 2002 model, is a singlespeed-only frame, with horizontal track-style rear drop outs (“fork ends” for the purists), and features a moderately zippy cyclocross geometry, carbon fork and a very distinctive look brought about by a curved tubeset and bold green paint job. 

A 3-inch drop from saddle to bars makes for a  nice sporty ride.

 

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The joy of the bike, other than it's “look at me” style, is that it's such a great go-anywhere, do-anything machine. I've normally had it set up as a fixed gear, and formerly had road bars on it, but would use it for everything from commuting and sporty pavement riding to cruises down the D&R Towpath to some light singletrack (sometimes I'd flip the wheel around to use it as a freewheeling singlespeed for my off-road jaunts, but more often I'd just keep it on the fixed side).

Not long ago, I was given the gift of a Surly “Open Bar” handlebar, which is a nice wide steel handlebar with about a 50-degree sweep, which is designed with singlespeed bikes in mind. I also acquired a set of fixed/singlespeed wheels and a few other bits and pieces, so I decided it was time to get the Bob back together. 

The curved parts of the bar also make for a surprisingly comfortable secondary hand position.

One of the less-ideal things about the old build, with dropped handlebars, was that it relied on centerpull cantilever brakes, rather than mountain-bike style linear pull brakes. The rear brake, in particular, with its long continuous cable housing and too-low cable stop never quite had the stopping power a big guy like me was looking for. When riding fixed this wasn't a problem, but when the bike was set up with a freewheel, I never felt confident in the brakes when riding at speed.

The new build uses mountain-bike style levers and a set of Promax linear-pulls, which offer much better stopping power.

The swept handlebars and curvy tubes put me in mind of the path racers ridden by turn-of-the-century “scorchers,” as aggressive cyclists were known back then, so I decided to run with it and put on a leather saddle and cork grips. 

Cork grips after a quick dunk into Bullseye Shellac

The saddle is a Velo Orange “Mod 1,” which the company is selling at a discount. I have a black version of this saddle on my road bike, and not only do I find it extremely comfortable for long rides at moderate effort, it has saddlebag loops which allow me to hang traditional-style saddlebags of various sizes on the back, rather than mounting a rack and panniers or trunk bag. For daily riding I just use a small tool bag, but for long commutes, day trips or touring I can add on my Carradice bag. I find that on bikes with sportier geometry, not only does a Carradice-style saddlebag look better but by putting the weight closer to rider rather than on the wheel, the handling is less affected. 

A Minnehaha saddle bag makes the perfect tool bag for day-to-day rides, a Carradice College bag works for bigger loads.

I went with a honey-brown saddle this time, purely because I thought it looked cool, and shellacked the grips to waterproof them and make them match the saddle better (again, rubber grips work just as well, I just think the cork is comfortable and looks cool). 

32mm tires roll over most stuff with no problem

42x17 gearing and 700x32c tires give me just shy of a 67-inch gear ratio, which gives me an on-pavement cruising speed comfortably in the high teens but still leaves me the leverage to get up hills and ride light off road. Right now the as-yet-unused freewheel side of the hub is also a 17-tooth, but I may find a slightly larger cog to give myself a better bail-out gear.

Fixed on one side and a short freehub on the other, with hard-to-find 135mm hub spacing. The wheelset came from a Marin singlespeed.

 Since I've got good brakes and don't need to rely on back-pedaling to help me stop anymore, I no longer feel the need to ride it with clipless pedals, so I have a pair of big, grippy Shimano BMX pedals to keep my sneakers from sliding off. 

Truvativ cranks do the job with just fine.

I've had it on a bunch of short rides and one 30-mile towpath jaunt, and it rides wonderfully. I intend to do a bit of light touring with it this fall, and look forward to seeing where my favorite bike takes me.

Where are we headed today?

Independence Day Musings: A Christian Nation?

As we celebrate the publication of that all-important American document, The Declaration of Independence, I can't help but also think of our current political climate, and some of the language that gets thrown around by various pretenders and pundits.
One phrase that always catches my attention is "a Christian Nation," as in "the United States was founded as a Christian nation, therefore, what you're doing is unAmerican."

The irony of using Christianity, whose fundamental texts call for peace and tolerance, to justify bigotry has been much written of elsewhere, and I won't go into that in detail here. Instead, I'd like to think about whether or not the U.S. was indeed founded on some sort of Christian principle, and what that means to us in the 21st Century.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence were, indeed,  "Christian" men. While some were more traditional in their beliefs than others, all but one (Charles Carroll, a Roman Catholic) were aristocratic Anglo-Protestants. The language of the Declaration and the Constitution do contain references to God and The Creator, as was co mmon in formal documents of the day.

But looking at the content of both the Declaration and the Constitution, one would be hard pressed to find any justification for favoring one religion to exclusion of all others, in fact, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights explicitly forbid the government from doing so in several places, saying there can be no religious test for serving in office, and prohibiting the government from either endorsing or supressing any particular faith.

But what about intent? As I pointed out, the Framers were all Christian men, didn't they intend Christianity to dominate?

Well, first off, there has been entirely too much fetishisation of the "intent of the Framers" lately. While they were bright, courageous and well-educated men, they were just as fallible as any other bunch of mere mortals. In fact, one of the smartest thing they did was to leave a flexible set of laws that could be adapted to fit the changing needs of future generations and changed to correct their own oversights.

I would argue that, if anything, the United States was founded as a "pragmatic" nation more than a nation of any particular faith. And yet, there is in the Declaration a particularly Christian sentiment, included in one of the most famous sentences ever set to paper:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Most of recorded history, and much practial observation would serve to contradict this statement. Men (in the general sense of human beings) are NOT equal, some are born wealthy, some poor, some healthy, some sick, some have far more influence over the world around them than others. Many cultures, including that of the founding fathers, felt it was perfectly acceptable to hold other human beings as property.

Yet there in that one sentence, was stated the belief that in spite of all evidence to the contrary, there is something inherent to each human life that is of equal value to every other human life on the planet. That all all of us are, in some intangible way, of the same importance.

In this we see reflected the Christian teaching that the poor and the powerless are just as valued as kings and princes. It's a powerful (and sadly, often ignored) concept that is at the heart of the democratic ideal.

Unfortunately, this sense that all of us are equal usually falls by the wayside in the practial functioning of government, but maybe it's worth reminding ourselves of it from time to time.

And perhaps, more importantly, it directly contradicts the meaning of the small-minded  ones who so often throw out the "Christian Nation" flag to justify their own petty prejudices. If our Founding Fathers intended this to be a nation of Christian ideals, then the foremost ideal in their mind was that we are all brothers and sisters, regardless of the superficial distinctions of faith, lifestyle and circumstances.

Happy Fourth!

Things Your Bike Mechanic Wishes You Knew

This is a follow up to my last post "Talking to Your Bicycle Shop," which tried to address a few of the frequent miscommunications between shop employees and customers. Today I wanted to specifically share some thoughts from that mysterious back room where all the bike-fixing magic occurs.
While many shop employees do both repairs and sales, it's very common for the bike shop to be divided into two worlds: the customer service section in front, where the marginally socialized shop rats help customers select a bike or accessories, and the domain of the shop troll, who is far, far better with a derailleur adjustment than a conversation.
If these mechanics had the chance to speak to you frankly, here's a few things they might say:

- Don't lie about what happened.
There's actually a commonly used acronym in bike shops: JRA, which stands for "Just Riding Along," as in "I was just riding along and..." which is how far too many inquiries about repairs begin.
 First off, things don't get broken -and I don't mean "out of adjustment," I mean "broken-broken" - while one is just riding along. Something had to happen to bend, break or dislocate the parts that are malfunctioning. Maybe you dropped the bike, maybe it was on your car rack and you backed into the garage door, whatever, but when the mechanic looks at your noisy rear derailleur and sees it covered in gouges and scratches, he'll know it had to have banged into something.
Secondly, it makes the job harder. The more information the mechanic has about what happened, the more likely they are to quickly figure out the problem.
Believe it or not,  your mechanic is not there to judge you, and no matter how embarrassed you might be about what happened, they've probably seen something that tops it (I once had a bike that had the tires shot out by a .22. The customer actually asked me if it was a warranty issue), just tell the shop what happened, and they will try to fix it.

- "Some Guy on the Internet" is not an official repair manual.
There's a lot of good and useful information online... and there's five times as much useless nonsense. Sometimes it's hard to sift through it, especially on message boards. There's a certain type of person who gets an ego boost out of being considered an "expert" on something, who will offer their opinions and guesswork as legitimate advice. This sometimes only serves to muddy the waters, especially when the mechanic is confronted with a problem that he's familiar with, only to have a customer insist that a web site says it's a totally different problem.
This is not to say that one should not use the vast stores of knowledge available online, even experienced mechanics turn to the Web for answers (especially the information compiled by the late Sheldon Brown), but one should always take things with a grain of salt. It's hard to diagnose a problem without being able to put your hands on it, and even a great mechanic can only offer an educated guess via email.


-Sometimes, we really, really don't want you looking over our shoulder while we work
And sometimes, you really, really don't want to see what we're doing. For example, the shop I work at used to sell SIDI cycling shoes, which are handmade in Italy and easily cost well upwards of $300 a pair. We also sold Speedplay pedals. A popular combination among discerning cyclists was the Speedplay Frog pedal with the SIDI Dominator mountain bike shoes. However, through a design quirk, the opening in the pedals sole was always a bit too narrow to mount the cleat that went with the Frog. The simple solution was to take a Dremel tool and remove a bit of material from the sole of the shoe. This doesn't sound like a big deal until you think about it from the perspective of someone who just dropped several hundred dollars on a handmade Italian shoe, which is now about to be attacked with a grinding wheel. We usually said "we'll get these ready for you, why don't you come back for them in a bit."
Bicycle repair, sometimes involves bending, drilling, cutting or hammering on things, and when those "things" are particularly beloved, or even simply expensive, watching them receive a bit of tough love can be a bit anxiety-inducing.

-It's not rocket science, but it does take a bit of skill
One of my favorite things about bicycles is their simplicity, You can look at a bike, and see exactly how it goes together and how everything works. One author referred to the bicycle as the last technological advancement that could be understood by laymen.
However, it does take a bit of time and energy to learn how to work on them, especially some of the more esoteric problems that arise. There's nothing wrong with doing some of your own repair work and turning to a pro for other jobs. If I cut my finger, I can put a bandage on it, but if I break my leg, I'll probably want a doctor to look at it. By the same token, you should probably know how to change a flat tire, but you don't need to know how to lace a wheel or overhaul a hub.

-We've got other bikes to fix
Sometimes we get a customer who will come in on Saturday afternoon and say something like "it's really nice out and a want to ride, can you fix my bike today?" Sometimes all their bike needs is a bit of air in the tires and we can just pump them up and send them on their way, but other times it will take a bit of time. Most repairs on a bicycle take less than an hour to complete, but we can't have your bicycle back to you an hour after you drop it off.
Why not? Well, in order to make enough to(barely) live on the mechanic needs to have 6-8 hours of work each day. That means several bikes in the queue. All of those customers are waiting for those bikes, and the mechanic can only fix one at a time. In order to do same-day repairs, the shop needs to have all the previous day's repairs done, and a mechanic just standing around doing nothing. Most small shops can't afford to pay a mechanic to stand around when they're not bringing in repairs, so the guy or gal's workload is usually scheduled a day or two in advance. Bigger shops can sometimes afford to pull somebody off of a project to do a "priority" job, but it means somebody else is going to have to scramble to catch up.

-It's OK to tip you bike mechanic
I'm not going to say that being extra nice to the guy who fixes your ride will get you better service, or maybe encourage him to go a bit above and beyond on your next service, but I'm not going to say it won't either. Fixing bikes is a trade that takes years to learn to do well, but is pretty low-paying as far as trades go, a few bucks for lunch won't hurt any wrench-slingers pride.
And beer is always welcome.