My theory is roughly described here and I will now elucidate further:
Road bikes are women, they are light, sleek, have graceful curves, beautiful lines and look sexy. If you do anything to hurt them, ride over a pothole, take a railway track on a funny angle, they give it all right back to you in spades, but when you treat them well they can be the greatest ride of your life.
Mountain bikes are men, they are heavy, have straight angular lines, they look awkward and have bizarre things hanging around in places there should not be things at all. No matter what punishment you give a mountain bike, it just takes it quietly without complaint.
Well this leaves hybrids, where are hermaphrodites.
Anyway on mentioning my theory of bike gender the bike mechanic told me that logically, a hybrid with road wheels and road bars but maybe shocks and a mountain frame is a hermaphrodite. A road bike with straight bars is a eunuch, since it’s pretty much a useless ride. An interesting theory, but by simply changing the bars, a eunuch becomes female? Strange, very strange.
For those of you who are wondering, yes my friend named his bike’s, the road bike is Bevis and the Mountain is Judy – clearly his bikes have gender issues. (It occurs to me, I never published the name of my current Roubaix, she is Amy, for anyone who was wondering on that score, I am kind of thinking Ashley for the next bike, but not sure yet, Ashley could be a man’s name. No, I have not bothered to name the Coppi, not naming that bike is a mark of disdain I suppose.)
On returning from Rochester I had another unpleasant experience with the border guards, the sad fact is, I hate crossing the border. Those guys give me the willies every damned time. I have decided that going forward I am going to avoid border crossings if and when possible. (Failing that, I am declaring everything because I have the worst possible luck with those guys.)
On an unrelated note when I was younger American friends of mine would ask me which US currency did not have a dead president on it. An idiotic test of history because while they wanted to hear the hundred dollar bill, the answer is actually the ten and the hundred. (Recall, the ten has Alexander Hamilton and the hundred has Benjamin Franklin. Hamilton could never be the president; he was born in the British West Indies.)
In honour of Ben Franklin though I found this quotation which I find very helpful:
I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as "certainly", "undoubtedly", etc. I adopted instead of them "I conceive", "I apprehend", or "I imagine" a thing to be so or so; or "so it appears to me at present".
When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him immediately some absurdity in his proposition. In answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appeared or semed to me some difference, etc.
I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction. I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right.
-- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
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