Cyclists I saw today

Andre Jute wrote in news:7861acb6-9f59-41b0-b023-
:

On Sep 20, 2:28 am, Barry Harmon wrote:
Andre Jute wrote in news:b6e784cd-bdd0-4920-
aa54-
:



I saw a camper with two shiny new bikes on the back in a beauty
spot,
unable to get out because the roadmakers had blocked off the exit
while they work on the road. Nodody with the camper; the owners
must
have walked away, fearing that if they ride their bikes they will
get
hot tar on them. They apparently didn't know of the path along the
hillside starting behind the big stone only 20 paces from their
camper. Or perhaps their bikes are for show only; if they didn't
discover the lovely little foot and cyclepath, they're hardly
adventurous.

I saw a man on a cheap bike, clearly not up to any kind of a long
tour, but it had panniers fitted for his shopping and he was
clearly
coming from work, complete with briefcase on his rack. That's a
heartening sight which one sees every few weeks not. Until recently
you never saw it; the only panniers you saw were on the bikes of a
few
foreign tourists, serious bikies.

And that is the clue why the panniers on the bike of Everyman are
so
important. Serious bikies, so often grim and narcistically involved
with their shaven legs, will never in a million years influence
more
than a tiny majority of grim masochists to take up cycling; they've
tried and failed. But just one regular guy turning up at the office
on
a bike proves it is feasible, especially if he doesn't even try to
proselytize. The panniers prove the guy cycles regularly to work.
So I
expect to see a few more cyclists with modest bikes with panniers
fitted in years to come. Come to think of it, I saw a second bike
with
panniers today, and entirely unsuitable bike at that, one of those
low
mountainbikes for some specialized purposes like stumpjumping or
riding upside down. There were actual groceries sticking out of the
panniers.

I also saw something seriously stupid. Two of the cyclists I saw
near
University Hospital, a biking hotspot in Cork, Ireland, were on
their
mobile phones. This is stupid for a number of reasons. It is
dangerous
to the cyclist. It infuriates motorists as a privilege cyclists
haven't earned, because it is illegal for them to use mobile phones
while moving and he police have been clamping down. And it is
provocative for cyclists to do anything at all forbidden to
motorists.

Andre Jute
When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back -- Freddy
Nietzsche

I helped run a company in Ireland in the late 19802 and early 1990s
and
went there several times. I was taken by the number of people on
bikes
in small villages and towns. These were mostly bikes that were maybe
as
old as I was and still in working condition and, from what I saw,
with
very little maintenance.

Barry Harmon

I dunno where you were, Barry, but my comparison of "more" is with the
time period you mention. Back then we had only two regular daily
cyclists in town, two old chappies who always wore a a jacket and a
tie, one indeed always in a black suit, the latter still to be seen
occasionally, still on the same bike. It isn't that back then, and
even further back, say 1980, that the road around Bandon were too
dangerous for cyclist; on the contrary, the roads carry magnitudes
more traffic now and are vastly more dangerous (I've given up cycling
on the vast majority of the fast sweeping rides I then delighted in).
It was simply growing affluence; the trash among the nouveau riche, in
their first Mercedes or "lifestyle" four wheel drive that will never
leave the tarmac, still look down on bikes. But bikes are becoming
trendy. You will not believe how many people talk me me in the street
about my bikes.

Andre Jute
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/B...20CYCLING.html



I saw bikes in smaller towns used as transport. Maybe I had a skewed
sample or they trotted them out for the tourists. Never can tell with
those sly Celts. :-)

Barry Harmon

Barry Harmon writes:

Andre Jute wrote in news:b6e784cd-bdd0-4920-aa54-
:

I saw a camper with two shiny new bikes on the back in a beauty spot,
unable to get out because the roadmakers had blocked off the exit
while they work on the road. Nodody with the camper; the owners must
have walked away, fearing that if they ride their bikes they will get
hot tar on them. They apparently didn't know of the path along the
hillside starting behind the big stone only 20 paces from their
camper. Or perhaps their bikes are for show only; if they didn't
discover the lovely little foot and cyclepath, they're hardly
adventurous.

I saw a man on a cheap bike, clearly not up to any kind of a long
tour, but it had panniers fitted for his shopping and he was clearly
coming from work, complete with briefcase on his rack. That's a
heartening sight which one sees every few weeks not. Until recently
you never saw it; the only panniers you saw were on the bikes of a few
foreign tourists, serious bikies.

And that is the clue why the panniers on the bike of Everyman are so
important. Serious bikies, so often grim and narcistically involved
with their shaven legs, will never in a million years influence more
than a tiny majority of grim masochists to take up cycling; they've
tried and failed. But just one regular guy turning up at the office on
a bike proves it is feasible, especially if he doesn't even try to
proselytize. The panniers prove the guy cycles regularly to work. So I
expect to see a few more cyclists with modest bikes with panniers
fitted in years to come. Come to think of it, I saw a second bike with
panniers today, and entirely unsuitable bike at that, one of those low
mountainbikes for some specialized purposes like stumpjumping or
riding upside down. There were actual groceries sticking out of the
panniers.

I also saw something seriously stupid. Two of the cyclists I saw near
University Hospital, a biking hotspot in Cork, Ireland, were on their
mobile phones. This is stupid for a number of reasons. It is dangerous
to the cyclist. It infuriates motorists as a privilege cyclists
haven't earned, because it is illegal for them to use mobile phones
while moving and he police have been clamping down. And it is
provocative for cyclists to do anything at all forbidden to motorists.

Andre Jute
When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back -- Freddy
Nietzsche

I helped run a company in Ireland in the late 19802 and early 1990s and
went there several times. I was taken by the number of people on bikes
in small villages and towns. These were mostly bikes that were maybe as
old as I was and still in working condition and, from what I saw, with
very little maintenance.

Barry Harmon

That was an exception. Cycling in Ireland in the country is almost
nil. In the main cities even less. And not surprising. Cycling in Dublin
inner city is a passport to Heaven. Extremely ignorant drivers with
little if any regard for cyclists in the tense jams. The introduction of
bike and bus lanes has just seen more people parking their cars in the
high street thinking the lanes are reserved spaces.

Andre Jute wrote:
On Sep 20, 1:40 am, wrote:
On Sep 19, 1:13 pm, Andre Jute wrote:

a privilege cyclists
haven't earned
I think going
0.0000000373c is
a privilege motorists
have not earned.

Sorry, Norman, I don't get it. Is .373c^-e to the somethingth that I'm
too slack to count a constant I'm supposed to recognize and from which
I am further supposed to derive the joke? It looks like something I
used to remember when I wanted to translate watts to nutritionist's
kcal when I had a Ciclosport HAC4; my new Sigma PC9 tells me kcal
directly, so I now longer bother to remember the constant.

"c" is the speed of a photon in a vacuum. 0.0000000373c converts to 40 kph.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Twisting may help if yawl can chew gum and walk.” - gene daniels

Tom Sherman wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
On Sep 20, 1:40 am, wrote:
On Sep 19, 1:13 pm, Andre Jute wrote:

a privilege cyclists
haven't earned
I think going
0.0000000373c is
a privilege motorists
have not earned.

Sorry, Norman, I don't get it. Is .373c^-e to the somethingth that I'm
too slack to count a constant I'm supposed to recognize and from which
I am further supposed to derive the joke? It looks like something I
used to remember when I wanted to translate watts to nutritionist's
kcal when I had a Ciclosport HAC4; my new Sigma PC9 tells me kcal
directly, so I now longer bother to remember the constant.

"c" is the speed of a photon in a vacuum. 0.0000000373c converts to 40 kph.


they're not photons, they're waves...

In article
,
Andre Jute wrote:

On Sep 20, 1:40 am, wrote:
On Sep 19, 1:13 pm, Andre Jute wrote:

a privilege cyclists
haven't earned

I think going 0.0000000373c is
a privilege motorists
have not earned.

Sorry, Norman, I don't get it. Is .373c^-e to the somethingth that I'm
too slack to count a constant I'm supposed to recognize and from which
I am further supposed to derive the joke? It looks like something I
used to remember when I wanted to translate watts to nutritionist's
kcal when I had a Ciclosport HAC4; my new Sigma PC9 tells me kcal
directly, so I now longer bother to remember the constant.

Watt and kCal are different units.

--
Michael Press

On Sep 20, 5:09*pm, Barry Harmon wrote:
Andre Jute wrote :



On Sep 20, 4:27*am, jim beam wrote:
Barry Harmon wrote:
Andre Jute wrote in
news:b6e784cd-bdd0-4920-aa54-
:

I saw a camper with two shiny new bikes on the back in a beauty
spot, unable to get out because the roadmakers had blocked off the
exit while they work on the road. Nodody with the camper; the
owners must have walked away, fearing that if they ride their
bikes they will get hot tar on them. They apparently didn't know
of the path along the hillside starting behind the big stone only
20 paces from their camper. Or perhaps their bikes are for show
only; if they didn't discover the lovely little foot and
cyclepath, they're hardly adventurous.

I saw a man on a cheap bike, clearly not up to any kind of a long
tour, but it had panniers fitted for his shopping and he was
clearly coming from work, complete with briefcase on his rack.
That's a heartening sight which one sees every few weeks not.
Until recently you never saw it; the only panniers you saw were on
the bikes of a few foreign tourists, serious bikies.

And that is the clue why the panniers on the bike of Everyman are
so important. Serious bikies, so often grim and narcistically
involved with their shaven legs, will never in a million years
influence more than a tiny majority of grim masochists to take up
cycling; they've tried and failed. But just one regular guy
turning up at the office on a bike proves it is feasible,
especially if he doesn't even try to proselytize. The panniers
prove the guy cycles regularly to work. So I expect to see a few
more cyclists with modest bikes with panniers fitted in years to
come. Come to think of it, I saw a second bike with panniers
today, and entirely unsuitable bike at that, one of those low
mountainbikes for some specialized purposes like stumpjumping or
riding upside down. There were actual groceries sticking out of
the panniers.

I also saw something seriously stupid. Two of the cyclists I saw
near University Hospital, a biking hotspot in Cork, Ireland, were
on their mobile phones. This is stupid for a number of reasons. It
is dangerous to the cyclist. It infuriates motorists as a
privilege cyclists haven't earned, because it is illegal for them
to use mobile phones while moving and he police have been clamping
down. And it is provocative for cyclists to do anything at all
forbidden to motorists.

Andre Jute
When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back -- Freddy
Nietzsche

I helped run a company in Ireland in the late 19802 and early 1990s
and went there several times. *I was taken by the number of people
on bik
es
in small villages and towns. *These were mostly bikes that were
maybe
*as
old as I was and still in working condition and, from what I saw,
with very little maintenance.

Barry Harmon

it's called "poverty".

Gee, Jimbo, if you think that, you must be even older than Clive
George and more ill-informed than Frank Krygowski, who both think
Irish roads are full of potholes. Nah, that's two impossibilities in
one sentence, so you're pulling my leg.

The facts are that the Irish, as recently as the 1960's the best
educated peasants in the world, exporters of brains and politicians to
the rest of the world, and appropriately poor if proud, are now among
the richest denizens of the world, with education standards slipping
fast to depressingly low British or American levels. Dublin, for
instance, is now the most expensive city in Europe to live in. Sales
tax in Ireland, called value added tax, is 21%; what is it where you
live?

Barry might have been more observant than me or perhaps he was
operating in some particularly poor area, where the government tried
to steer foreign companies they gave a tax break to set up in Ireland.
But even there, today a big pothole in the road is probably under a
heritage protection order to show to particularly credulous tourists
like Clive and Krygo searching for "the real Ireland" of the
postcards: "That's the pothole Eamonn fell into with his bicycle and
drowned, silly drunk bugger. The council roadworkers recovered the
bike, though. Good as new when we wiped it down with an oily rag."

Andre Jute
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/B...20CYCLING.html

The company was in Dublin. *We took some trips west and south, Kenmare,
Kinsale, Galway, Dingle, Cork, and a few short trips around Dublin. I
always wanted to see Mayo, but never made it.

I was impressed with the general level of literacy and the work ethic
among the people I met and saw. *

Back in the later 60s I'd come play golf in Ireland with clients I
wanted to bond with. The place was so poor, you couldn't even rent a
big Mercedes, never mind a Rolls. I'd have a car sent over from our
London office. The courses weren't fabulous but you could always get a
game and, for that matter, a meal, because the manager's wife would
come in to make lunch, usually very good too. I used to bet the less
pompous of the clients that they could choose a pub, any pub, and I
guaranteed to find someone in it who would swap Latin tags with me.
The bets would be quite big (a grand at a time when a supreme court
justice earned maybe forty grand a year) but I never lost except one
guy I let win. One poor client went quite demented when he lost four
times in a row. He plotted on a socio-economic stratification map of
Ireland -- which he had his assistant ask my own office to fax over
behind my back -- to find ever poorer and poorer pubs, the golf quite
forgotten. Eventually I told him the secret. Most of these guys with
the ingrained dirt of decades under their fingernails were failed
priests, wonderfully well educated at Maynooth, and the rest had been
educated in the "hedge schools" that sprang up when the British tried
to quash the aboriginal (or at least local) culture. This guy lost
seven times in a row to win once, when I managed to let him win the
eight one; after that I called a halt before I lost my client; my
chairman heard and told me to stop altogether as it was too dangerous
a game, since most clients anyway went home much poorer from playing a
thousand dollars a shot with me.

This was right at the start of the
Irish Tiger movement, as we were the first company to get a financial
services license and the first to sign up for the Financial Services
Center that was built at the Docks.

The Celtic Tiger, frittered away in real estate speculation. There
was, even among my friends who are used to me being twenty years ahead
of popular opinion, stunned shock when I said in public in 1992 that
the finance minister should be castrated for not redirecting the new
wealth into productive investment by simply raising the prime rate.
Ignoring the cries of pain of the real estate agents present, I
pointed out that real estate speculation leaves no one better off
except real estate agents, whom I described as (snipped for fear of
retalliation; Tom woulda been proud of me...) A decade and a half
later, of course I'm proved right.

I haven't been to Ireland for a while, but friends tell me it's over-
the-top expensive. *I hope wages and benefits have kept up with prices.

Barry Harmon

Some hard adjustments coming, but Ireland is very likely in a better
shape than Wall Street or the City, not because of greater smarts but
simply because of less exposure and because the regulators have
stopped the local banks mixing into the worst of the foreign
stupidities. On the other hand, Ireland is too small not to take
aftershock knocks from crashes elsewhere. Then again, the EU has so
many safety nets, in such good order, that I don't think even total
American financial meltdown will take down everyone else, as in 1929.
(That doesn't mean I think recovery will arrive in short order. The
magnitude of adjustment required will take a decade or 15 years
before, for instance, property prices recover.) But we should not
forget that on the previous evidence brought by history, it takes only
one additional problem -- drought, rinderpest, a truly destructive
earthquake in California or Tokyo -- to set the dominoes tumbling
further. Kondratieff business cycles are in decades because that is
how long it takes, not because the guys extracting the numbers are
particularly gloomy.

Andre Jute
Sophister. Also another economist.

On Sep 20, 5:11*pm, Barry Harmon wrote:
Andre Jute wrote in news:7861acb6-9f59-41b0-b023-
:





On Sep 20, 2:28 am, Barry Harmon wrote:
Andre Jute wrote in news:b6e784cd-bdd0-4920-
aa54-
:

I saw a camper with two shiny new bikes on the back in a beauty
spot,
unable to get out because the roadmakers had blocked off the exit
while they work on the road. Nodody with the camper; the owners
must
have walked away, fearing that if they ride their bikes they will
get
hot tar on them. They apparently didn't know of the path along the
hillside starting behind the big stone only 20 paces from their
camper. Or perhaps their bikes are for show only; if they didn't
discover the lovely little foot and cyclepath, they're hardly
adventurous.

I saw a man on a cheap bike, clearly not up to any kind of a long
tour, but it had panniers fitted for his shopping and he was
clearly
coming from work, complete with briefcase on his rack. That's a
heartening sight which one sees every few weeks not. Until recently
you never saw it; the only panniers you saw were on the bikes of a
few
foreign tourists, serious bikies.

And that is the clue why the panniers on the bike of Everyman are
so
important. Serious bikies, so often grim and narcistically involved
with their shaven legs, will never in a million years influence
more
than a tiny majority of grim masochists to take up cycling; they've
tried and failed. But just one regular guy turning up at the office
on
a bike proves it is feasible, especially if he doesn't even try to
proselytize. The panniers prove the guy cycles regularly to work.
So I
expect to see a few more cyclists with modest bikes with panniers
fitted in years to come. Come to think of it, I saw a second bike
with
panniers today, and entirely unsuitable bike at that, one of those
low
mountainbikes for some specialized purposes like stumpjumping or
riding upside down. There were actual groceries sticking out of the
panniers.

I also saw something seriously stupid. Two of the cyclists I saw
near
University Hospital, a biking hotspot in Cork, Ireland, were on
their
mobile phones. This is stupid for a number of reasons. It is
dangerous
to the cyclist. It infuriates motorists as a privilege cyclists
haven't earned, because it is illegal for them to use mobile phones
while moving and he police have been clamping down. And it is
provocative for cyclists to do anything at all forbidden to
motorists.

Andre Jute
When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back -- Freddy
Nietzsche

I helped run a company in Ireland in the late 19802 and early 1990s
and
went there several times. *I was taken by the number of people on
bikes
in small villages and towns. *These were mostly bikes that were maybe
as
old as I was and still in working condition and, from what I saw,
with
very little maintenance.

Barry Harmon

I dunno where you were, Barry, but my comparison of "more" is with the
time period you mention. Back then we had only two regular daily
cyclists in town, two old chappies who always wore a a jacket and a
tie, one indeed always in a black suit, the latter still to be seen
occasionally, still on the same bike. It isn't that back then, and
even further back, say 1980, that the road around Bandon were too
dangerous for cyclist; on the contrary, the roads carry magnitudes
more traffic now and are vastly more dangerous (I've given up cycling
on the vast majority of the fast sweeping rides I then delighted in).
It was simply growing affluence; the trash among the nouveau riche, in
their first Mercedes or "lifestyle" four wheel drive that will never
leave the tarmac, still look down on bikes. But bikes are becoming
trendy. You will not believe how many people talk me me in the street
about my bikes.

Andre Jute
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/B...20CYCLING.html

I saw bikes in smaller towns used as transport. *Maybe I had a skewed
sample or they trotted them out for the tourists. *Never can tell with
those sly Celts. *:-)

Barry Harmon

"Hey, mister, have you bought your family leprechaun yet? Every proper
Irish family in America must have a family leprechaun. I just happen
to have one that belongs with your family right here under this
bridge, keeping cool in the water."

-- AJ

On Sep 20, 6:15*pm, wrote:
Barry Harmon writes:
Andre Jute wrote in news:b6e784cd-bdd0-4920-aa54-
:

I saw a camper with two shiny new bikes on the back in a beauty spot,
unable to get out because the roadmakers had blocked off the exit
while they work on the road. Nodody with the camper; the owners must
have walked away, fearing that if they ride their bikes they will get
hot tar on them. They apparently didn't know of the path along the
hillside starting behind the big stone only 20 paces from their
camper. Or perhaps their bikes are for show only; if they didn't
discover the lovely little foot and cyclepath, they're hardly
adventurous.

I saw a man on a cheap bike, clearly not up to any kind of a long
tour, but it had panniers fitted for his shopping and he was clearly
coming from work, complete with briefcase on his rack. That's a
heartening sight which one sees every few weeks not. Until recently
you never saw it; the only panniers you saw were on the bikes of a few
foreign tourists, serious bikies.

And that is the clue why the panniers on the bike of Everyman are so
important. Serious bikies, so often grim and narcistically involved
with their shaven legs, will never in a million years influence more
than a tiny majority of grim masochists to take up cycling; they've
tried and failed. But just one regular guy turning up at the office on
a bike proves it is feasible, especially if he doesn't even try to
proselytize. The panniers prove the guy cycles regularly to work. So I
expect to see a few more cyclists with modest bikes with panniers
fitted in years to come. Come to think of it, I saw a second bike with
panniers today, and entirely unsuitable bike at that, one of those low
mountainbikes for some specialized purposes like stumpjumping or
riding upside down. There were actual groceries sticking out of the
panniers.

I also saw something seriously stupid. Two of the cyclists I saw near
University Hospital, a biking hotspot in Cork, Ireland, were on their
mobile phones. This is stupid for a number of reasons. It is dangerous
to the cyclist. It infuriates motorists as a privilege cyclists
haven't earned, because it is illegal for them to use mobile phones
while moving and he police have been clamping down. And it is
provocative for cyclists to do anything at all forbidden to motorists.

Andre Jute
When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back -- Freddy
Nietzsche

I helped run a company in Ireland in the late 19802 and early 1990s and
went there several times. *I was taken by the number of people on bikes
in small villages and towns. *These were mostly bikes that were maybe as
old as I was and still in working condition and, from what I saw, with
very little maintenance.

Barry Harmon

That was an exception. Cycling in Ireland in the country is almost
nil. In the main cities even less. And not surprising. Cycling in Dublin
inner city is a passport to Heaven. Extremely ignorant drivers with
little if any regard for cyclists in the tense jams. The introduction of
bike and bus lanes has just seen more people parking their cars in the
high street thinking the lanes are reserved spaces.

What you say is true. That is why I write of even small changes as if
they are revelations, because they are. However, we do see more and
more cyclist, if not many, and drivers are becoming better after the
government made a determined effort to get the unlicensed drivers off
the road. I think Barry, a cyclist, focussed on what interested him,
and skewed his own sample. It's like someone once asked me what Macao
was like, and I, an advertising executive and an artist, told them of
the really clever neon signs... -- AJ

On Sep 20, 6:46*pm, Tom Sherman
wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
On Sep 20, 1:40 am, wrote:
On Sep 19, 1:13 pm, Andre Jute wrote:

a privilege cyclists
haven't earned
I think going

* 0.0000000373c is a privilege motorists
have not earned.

Sorry, Norman, I don't get it. Is .373c^-e to the somethingth that I'm
too slack to count a constant I'm supposed to recognize and from which
I am further supposed to derive the joke? It looks like something I
used to remember when I wanted to translate watts to nutritionist's
kcal when I had a Ciclosport HAC4; my new Sigma PC9 tells me kcal
directly, so I now longer bother to remember the constant.

"c" is the speed of a photon in a vacuum. 0.0000000373c converts to 40 kph.


Thanks. How many els is that? -- AJ

Andre Jute wrote:
On Sep 20, 6:46 pm, Tom Sherman
wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
On Sep 20, 1:40 am, wrote:
On Sep 19, 1:13 pm, Andre Jute wrote:
a privilege cyclists
haven't earned
I think going
0.0000000373c is a privilege motorists
have not earned.
Sorry, Norman, I don't get it. Is .373c^-e to the somethingth that I'm
too slack to count a constant I'm supposed to recognize and from which
I am further supposed to derive the joke? It looks like something I
used to remember when I wanted to translate watts to nutritionist's
kcal when I had a Ciclosport HAC4; my new Sigma PC9 tells me kcal
directly, so I now longer bother to remember the constant.
"c" is the speed of a photon in a vacuum. 0.0000000373c converts to 40 kph.


Thanks. How many els is that? -- AJ

5.80 x 10^4 els/hour.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Twisting may help if yawl can chew gum and walk.” - gene daniels