On Joy Rides

You know it occurs to me that that bit of Tolkien I quoted in the last post could be taken as some sort of attempt on my part to equate myself with Aragorn the king of Gondor. Obviously nothing could be further from the truth, I was just thinking of the scene in Return of the King when the sword gets reforged from the broken blades, much as Erin was rebuilt. (Something rather pathetic, read the Wikipedia article I reference, I think someone needs to be told that The Lord of the Rings is not a text book, and I thought I was bad because I named my bike.)

I better insert a second disclaimer here, I read The Lord of the Rings, long before the Peter Jackson mega blockbuster came out, before I came to know Lesley even, truth is, I'm not much of a fan for fantasy, including Tolkien. I'm sure I've upset a legion of boys (if they read my blog) but I just never liked reading a thousand pages about an impossible World where impossible things happened and people lived impossibly long lives. I need my fiction to be grounded in reality. (Sorry children, but having a Wikipedia article about Lord Aragorn that reads as if the king were real does not make his story any more enticing.)

In other news, ever since I got Erin back up I have been riding her as much as I possibly can. And what a delight it is to be on a light bike. Suddenly hills that in the past seemed difficult are now a place to drop the rest of the club as I hammer on by.

Recently I rode through 16th Avenue from Kennedy across to Keele St, whatever appeal there is in 16, also known as Carrville and Rutherford and possibly other things, is beyond me. There was a huge amount of motor vehicle traffic. But one thing I found ironic and disgusting at the same time, as I passed Leslie I encountered a Dewbourne then a Spadina Ave. Now having grown up in Cedarvale I lived one block from Dewbourne and remember riding my Coppi up and down Spadina. Only up North of 16 the roads got these names by a frantic effort of developers (Question: why are all efforts by a developer frantic?) to sell homes to the nostalgic children of Forrest Hill and Cedarvale residents. Children who had to have the two car parking and had succumb to the seduction of the automobile.

The seduction of the automobile, reminds me of the scene in the movie Oh What a Lovely Little War. The beautiful woman on stage (representing war) singing to the boys telling them to 'take the ticket', but when the boys jump on stage she turns out to be an ugly hag, but of course by then it is too late, the boys are rushed to the trenches to fight or more realistically, to die. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, "Owning a car, is like holding a wolf by the ears, you don't like it but you don't dare let it go." Well some people like to own cars and drive, I don't understand that type of person but I know they exist, personally I still remember getting our car, it was an exciting way to blow a lot of money, but after eight years it is amazing how ugly the hag of car ownership truly is.

In other thoughts, recently someone published on the BCC web site the following in a comment: "...at Bloomington, and together we had a nice spin to the Starbucks. I only hit 65km/h on Kennedy. Next year, I vow to break the speed limit." Now I checked and in fairness nowhere did I write that I have had, for a long time, a goal of exceeding the posted speed limit of 70km/h on Kennedy Road southbound below Bloomington. I recall some time ago a BCC ride to Goodwood, QB was training for the Iron Man and after reaching Goodwood had decided to do a second lap up the town line road or perhaps 9'th or 10'th line. I tried to catch QB but he is just so damn fast, I ended up turning for home on Kennedy and discovered how easy it was to hit 60km/h, I realised with a little effort I could exceed the speed limit and maybe even get busted if I was not careful. Thereafter I set a goal of getting busted for speeding there. I have not yet achieved this goal, but I have said I want to do that for some time. Now I may not have written that I want to get busted for speeding on Kennedy but, I know I have told near everyone that I've had that goal and one day I will achieve it. That said, on August I did say the following: "Max speed: 59.27km/h (damnit didn’t bust the speed limit… gotta keep trying)" I know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but imitation without attribution is something else entirely. I know sometimes I repeat what other people say, but I try to acknowledge that person, or at the very least acknowledge the fact that the remark was not my idea, and I know I should not get all hot and bothered about it, but on the other hand it is not the first time I have had an idea and someone has tried to steal the credit. At least this time the theft of an idea will not result in reward, a silly goal, a laugh or two, but nothing serious. The last stolen idea was work related and a vendor tried to claim the credit, thank goodness my manager was on the same conference call with that vendor when I conceived the idea, I just wish my manager was on the second conference call when the vendor tried to publicly take the credit for my idea.