On Riding and Writing

Happy Birthday to me! Anyway, I wrote this a little while ago but decided to proof read it a few times to make sure it was not quite as bad as some recent posts.

I know my last post positively stunk. The only thing I can say by way of an apology is that it was a lot better when it was still in my head before fingers touched keyboard.

Anyway my red cell count is down, probably something between eight and ten percent and the weather is iffy, at best, so I am back on the saddle! But in much worse shape than just ten days ago. There was a study an Italian doctor believes he has found a therapy for MS, it is still in the early stages, but if this works in larger study populations MS might become a thing of the past. I bring this up because the therapy involved reducing iron build up, ironic, MS patients have too much iron, right about now I could use an anvil in my stomach.

I have been developing a novel in my head, well it is more the background, the characters, the plot, all that good stuff. The problem is while I have decided on the issue my protagonist will face I have yet to settle the underlying motive. Look for the book sometime this spring! (Not!)

I would like to try my hand at writing, I think I can be good, sometimes, and to be honest it would make a nice change to do some fiction as opposed to all the stuff I do in my day job. Don't get me wrong I do like what I do, but my creative streak needs an outlet, that is partly why this blog exists, and writing a short novel seems like a pretty harmless way to express my creativity.

Other than that, I should report that Toronto drivers are setting ever deeper lows. Today a guy turning right did not bother to check the bike trail as I nearly slammed into him (good thing I had new tyres on, the ground was wet, with older tyres I would have gone through his side window for sure.) Yesterday on a four lane road a minivan driver blasted his horn at me, I had the audacity to "hog" the entire right lane, there was no traffic in the left lane. Eventually our horn tooting minivan passed me honking all the way as s/he ran a pedestrian cross walk, where pedestrians who had the right of way, were waiting to cross.

Other than riding I recently wrote up a product review of Shimano Dura-Ace 7900 brake/shift levers. What a disappointment the 7900 groupo has been eh? (If you don't have Dura-Ace don't get jealous, it is totally not worth it.)

First of all the new Dura-Ace master link is so bad it does not just suck, it actually swallows! I mean here is something that is supposed to help the roadie salvage a busted chain roadside, well a couple weeks ago I was cleaning Erin and I went to take the chain off. After struggling with that link for a good 30 minutes I finally get, well very black hands, but I do get the link off and loose one of the pins in the process. I have switched to KMC links, cheaper and easier, a lot easier. Next chain will be SRAM, they have a sensible master link, even use a different colour to make it easier to find, isn't that helpful?

Or how about this, I sold an old pair of levers, the ones that had been in the crash. I replaced a dinky plastic cover plate on them, it was purely aesthetic, totally unnecessary, but would make the levers more sellable, cost of the plate? $27 wholesale, $54 MSRP! It is a 1 gram piece of frigging plastic!

Of course over priced parts and well thought out master links are unimportant if the part works as advertised, which is why Dura-Ace is really over priced. To change a gear you have to heave the shift lever so far over that one might as well dismount and change gears the old fashioned way, by changing wheels! I had a chance to test ride some SRAM Red levers recently, I was a Shimano guy, but not so much anymore, one quick click and I've changed gears, a longer click and I change two gears, it really cannot get much better than that, especially at the bottom of a steep hill climb or the top of a steep decent.

Dura-Ace is pretty, but the short of it is, if this is Shimano's top of the line product for roadies then Shimano should stick to fishing rods. In a fair side-by-side comparison Campi and SRAM should put Shimano out of business.