Week of 25th. Tom Milton Boy Scoutsropeswingdepositionscouts...Satmorn RIDE
April 26, 2010
I'm wondering if the ropeswing we put up on the last S24O (bike camping overnight) is still up, or did somebody take it down? People take down ropeswings if they think (1) They're dangerous; (2) They're a blight, or (1+2=3) They're a dangerous blight. It is on public land, in an open space. If a troupe of hikers came upon it on a nice day, it could be the high point of their hike-and-picnic. There are other ways to see it, though, and I've had ropeswings cut down at least three times before.
Anyway, I'm going to ride up there and see, and if you want to go along, you're welcome. It's a no-host/no sue/no how/no way ride. Here's a description of the ride, followed by logistics:
Meet in the parking lot in front of Discount Muffler right next to Rivendell. About 35 to 40 minutes easy bike path and road, at a talking pace. Then we go up a steep paved road entering the open space. The climb is beautiful etc, but it's a five to ten minute grunt to the top, then a short descent to a parking/picnic area by a pond. It's not a race up t he hill, but if there's a group (I'll probably be the only one) and there's separation, we'll regroup there, by the gate at the trailhead.
Then we have some bumpish trail riding, not too steep, and if you made it up the steep paved part, you can make it up there. Then it flattens a short bit till there's a steep left, and you have to be semi-strong and semi-skilled to make it up this without walking. It's a great walking hill, though, and that's probably the best way to go up, because if you ride it, you're concentrating too much on every pedal stroke, and ... well, walking's more fun.
Shortly after the top we go up a long steep singletrack, a photo that's been on the homepage before, with Gary in a pink shirt. It's a walking hill. We can see from the bottom whether or not the ropeswing is there, and if it doesn't seem to be, we'll prolly go up anyway to make sure somebody didn't just tuck it around the trunk to hide it from below. Then down the same way, and left back toward Rivendell, on trails not as steep as the ones you've already been on.
Recommend tires no skinnier than 38s, but if you're comfortable riding 32s on trails, come on down.
Meet at Rivendell at 9am. Store's not open till 10, but you can shop if you need to when we get back. Bring your bike, or you can ride a demo if you can ride it as is, with no more than a saddle height change, and if you'll need that, know your saddle height so we can set it and go.
Leaving no later than 9:10; back no later than...hard to say, but barring stuff, around 11. A casual ride. Some walking, but basically just nice. You can do it.
G
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About the deposition, which read way below--a note from reader Ned Watts:
I like your theory about how the front wheel came off. Years ago, I had a
canoe blow off the roof of my car. The canoe was firmly lashed to the
roof rack, which also blew off. The roof rack attached to the car's rain
gutters with the same sort of over center cam as the quick release/vise
grip mechanism. And someone engaged me in conversation while I was
putting the rack on the car, so I forgot to latch or check the levers.
As a lawyer, I can categorically state that that did not make the levers
or their design or construction unsafe. It made me unsafe. Have a
checklist. Check your work.
How about if the wheel was bolted on instead of using a quick release,
and the owner forgot to tighten the nuts? Would we then need lawyer lips
on all nuts? That's nuts. Where will it all end? I do not know when it
will end. I do know how it will end. Badly.
I just read an article about new lifeboat requirements after the Titanic
sinking. The new law required lifeboats or rafts for everybody on
board. Old boats were retrofitted. The ship S. S. Eastland was
retrofitted with the legally required lifeboats. It was not designed to
have so much weight added topside. In 1915, it rolled over at its dock
when 2,752 people came aboard for a picnic trip out of Chicago. 844
people died. The law of unintended consequences. Or, perhaps, no good
deed goes unpunished.
Ned
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Comment about my comment about scouts getting merit badges for video games,and my response to this below.
Grant,
You wrote: "This just in: Boy Scouts can now earn merit badges for achieving certain levels of mastery of certain video games."
This is not trueor even close. First of all, it's for Tiger Scouts, Cub Scouts, and Webelos age boys, not the older Boy Scouts. Second of all, no actual Merit Badges are involved (Merit Badges are for the older Boy Scouts). Thirdly, there's no mention of attaining particular levels inside games, or even which games should or should not be used to earn the awards.
Having a Cub-Scout age boy myself, I can tell you that I am most pleased that he and I will be going through the process below:
Belt
loop: Complete these three requirements
1. Explain why it is important to have a rating system
for video games.
2. Check your video games to be sure they are right for your age. With an adult, create a schedule for you to do things that includes your chores, homework, and video gaming.
3. Do your best to follow this schedule. Learn to play a new video game that is approved by your parent, guardian, or teacher.
Academic
pin: Earn the Video Games belt loop, and complete five of the following
requirements
1. With your parents, create a plan to buy a video game that is
right for your age group.
2. Compare two game systems (for example, Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Wii, and so on). Explain some of the differences between the two. List good reasons to purchase or use a game system.
3. Play a video game with family members in a family tournament.
4. Teach an adult or a friend how to play a video game.
5. List at least five tips that would help someone who was learning how to play your favorite video game.
6. Play an appropriate video game with a friend for one hour.
7. Play a video game that will help you practice your math, spelling, or another skill that helps you in your schoolwork.
8. Choose a game you might like to purchase. Compare the price for this game at three different stores. Decide which store has the best deal. In your decision, be sure to consider things like the store return policy and manufacturer's warranty.
9. With an adult's supervision, install a gaming system.
Now, to be honest, I'm not a big fan of the amount of time my kid spends with the video game console; if the boy hadn't saved up and purchased it himself, we wouldn't have it in the house. But he earned all the money by doing yardwork throughout the summer, and bought it with what I consider hard-earned money. I actually thought that was a good lesson. At least, by following the steps above, I feel that some good can come of the whole experience.
Now that you know more about what the awards entail, do you have the same opinion?
I copied these new rules from the link below. It contains a good explanation of the new awards:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/
I read the link but remain suspicious and skeptical. Scouts be monkeying around with video games under the banner of scouting, Video games are ubiquitous, a fact of life, etc, but Scouts (to this non-scout) seemed to be nearly the last bastion for outdoorsiness for young ones, and it seems that letting in video games is caving in to pop culture in order to get more kids signing up. THere are lots of things kids ought to learn, or would benefit from learning, but isn't scouting about outdoorsy stuff? They can learn video game stuff, even the stuff on this list, easily without scouting.
Teach them how to start a fire without matches, how to tie ten useful knots, how to Make a Safe Ropeswing (yay!), how to sharpen a knife and an axe, how to climb and rappel, how to make a fire the Yosemite Ranger Way, how to lace boots so they won't get heel blisters, stuff like that. Stuff they'll be able to teach their kids in twenty or thirty years, and make their video-same playing friends jealous with now.
Some of the Video Award criteria make some sort of sense, but I say print the list on a sheet, give it to the parents and say "If you find this useful, fine," and be done with it.
How about one new knot for every video game played? Would that cause a ruckus? Maybe it's a ruckus that needs to be caused and dealt with. Who's da boss? Who's Hugo Boss? Who's Hugo Boss's boss? If they have to learn a knot first, will the Boss still get Hugs?
Well.....I won't stick my nose into this sticky business anymore. I don't mean to be the columnist with the last word. The writer has some good points...but still---go for the knots.
G
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On an S24O last weekend we put up a ropeswing in a tree on top of a hill at the end of a long skinny singletrack hike. We swang on it, about 7 of us, and it was fun and safe, and a good way to end an evening of riding, after setting up camp.
Here's how you get the rope over.
You tie a thin cord to a throwable thing (in this case, a 7-inch diameter monkey's fist (knot, hence my disgust with the scouts who can play video games but can't tie one). Then you tie the other end to the main rope. Thow the 'onkey's fist over the branch, which we did, and it trails behind it the cord. Pull on the cord which is attached to the main rope, and it comes over, and then you tie the main rope to a tree-or-something so the business end of the ropeswing hangs where you want it to hang.
The biz end has a flat board with a hole in it. You tie a knot so the rope stops there, and leave some left over for slinging the swinger. Otherwise, on flat ground, the guy or woman (we had two of 'em this time!) doesn't swing up and out of reach. The leftover rope gives you a handle to grab and fling from.
It's 6:30 and raining and a friend just came by for a ride, so I'll finish this later, short. The deposition went fine. Nobody's going to jail, probably nobody's even going to court, but we'll see. Let me ultrare-emphasize this: Has nothing to do with Riv. Got it?
We left the rope swing up, betting on how long it would last. I said two weeks. Sean said a couple of days, and I'll check on it this weekend.
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This just in: Boy Scouts can now earn merit badges for achieving certain levels of mastery of certain video games. Did this replace, say, knot tying, or supplement it? Holy Zeus.
Today I go to a deposition to verify that Bstone did, indeeeeeeeeed, sell bicycles in this country a number of years ago. A rider owned an RB-1 for 15 years. A triathlete. It's not a tri-bike, but whatever. Fifteen years after buying it and riding it a lot, the front wheel came off mid-ride, and boom. No permanent injuries, but in a case like this, human suffering aside (if we can ever put it aside), would it matter?
Is it possible for an active rider to own and ride for fifteen years without once taking the wheel off and putting it back on? It is impossible for a quick release to wear out. The mechanism inside is something called an "overlocking taper," and is the same gizmo-type thing that makes a Vise Grip work. Think of a cam that's closed over center, and it's the same. Vibration can't open a properly closed Q/R.
I think that the fact that it opened points to it not having been closed properly. Somebody didn't do it this time, for whatever reason. I have my hunches, but it's all kind of piecing together a scenario that fits the fact.
A bike on the roof rack with front wheel in back seat. Drive to the ride, take down the bike, put in front wheel and go take a leak before closing it, or otherwise get distracted. The wheel's in it, the q/r isn't closed, and up the road on the ride there's a small obstruction that the rider wheel-hopped over, and the wheel came out.
How else?
Is a dropout without lawyer lips a bad dropout? Should all bikes without them be recalled? How does that work?
I gotta go now. Disgusted with Boy Scouts and lawyers. Rivendell is not involved, by the way. I'm there only to say something like, "I went to work everyday and seemed to be working for Bridgestone."
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Tom Milton of Selle An-Atomica saddles comes by once a month or so to get another set of wheels by Rich here, and was by about four days ago to pick up another set, his fifth. You know what's coming. About halfway thru Saturday's local Devil Mountain Double Century, as tough and hilly as double centuries get, Tom died of a heart attack. Tom appeared to be in his late 50s, or early 60s. He was about 6-1 or so, weighed about 165, and was an experienced high-mileage rider, tackling centuries, doubles, and brevets. He looked super bicycle-fit.
Tom loved bicycle and riding, and after a career as an engineer, he set out to design the most comfortable saddle ever, and most riders who tried his Selle An-Atomica saddles will vouch for his success. I will, for sure. I believe he was working on some modifications to improve the saddles, but I don't know what they were.
It's been said and will be again that Tom died doing what he loved, and there may be some solace in that. But dead is the final, sad word.
Tom is the guy who made Brooks sit up and pay attention. Would Brook's new Imperial model, with the slot and all, have been resurrected from the early 1900s if Tom hadn't converted so many Brooks riders to Sella An-Atomica? We don't know, but I'd bet not.
Tom was the swaggery guy one who took on the King and inspired others to do it, too. No doubt Brooks's sales are at an all-time high, and good for Brooks (we R fans...). But Tom deserves credit for his contributions to comfort. A new Selle An-Atomica Titanico Clydesdale saddle is still, to my crotch, the all-time comfort king.
Tom Milton was a good guy, and he certainly made his mark. People die every second, but it's sad when you know the guy. We and many will miss him.
-- G
