I've taken almost two weeks off from typing anything. I've found that many of the thoughts I wanted to express were not worth the time to put here, and haven't done anything about coming up with bigger thoughts.
That said, I'll toss out a few thoughts, small and smaller, in no particular order:
The 34th Old Kentucky Home Tour happened over the weekend. The weather was near-perfect, if not absolutely perfect. Few riders had enough mechanical difficulty that they needed help from the various bike mechanics on hand (although there were a couple of broken spokes discovered Saturday morning, and I hadn't brought means to make replacements). The Tour's riders have come a long way from the 2001 event, when two mechanics fixed over ten percent of the bikes in use that weekend (I know this because...), working until after dark on Saturday and starting before daylight on Sunday to get folks' bikes working again. There were two crashes to my knowledge, but I don't have accurate details on either to share, other than that one factor in one crash was that the guy's tires were beyond worn out (I've used the term "thread pattern" to describe tires like these before).
Immediately after the Tour, a few people got on the list server and praised Club President and Tour Director Andy Murphy for his job, one mentioning hurdles Andy had to overcome to make it happen. The tone of the email could have been interpreted to imply that some of the hurdles had to do with the volunteer cadre. I wonder whether that poster was referring to the numerous problems that arose because Andy Murphy abruptly resigned his post on May 9th, leaving the volunteers wondering if there would even BE a Tour this year? Or was he referring to the damages done to sponsors, some of whom left in mid-May? Or the extra work the Sponsor Liaison had to do to find replacements for those sponsors? Or that Murphy refuses to (or is incapable of) recognize that there is much to be done in terms of repairing the damages done by his abandonment of the Club and its beloved Tour? Or, well, the list goes on.
This aside from the fact that the poster who was cheering so hard for Murphy on the list was also the same guy who irresponsibly asked that the remains of the Club's Executive Committee consider having Murphy succeed himself as Club President, which had the direct effect of keeping any other potentially stronger candidates from offering to serve (this during a particularly tense Club general meeting in May).
On to more amusing things. My teammate on the Ergon Commuter Team, Jeff Moser, put up his comments on the Ergon GR2 grips he's been using this season. As my readers know, I like my Ergon grips quite well. It's good to read Jeff's comments, especially since he has had a favorable experience with them.
Also more amusing than mud-slinging about the Tour: As of Thursday evening of last week, I had pedaled over 5900 miles in 2011 to date, with over 5300 of those miles utilitarian in nature. By the end of this week, I will surpass the original goal of 6000 miles for 2011, and be on my way to the revised goal of 8000. I could ride less than a mile a day for the rest of the year and still break that 6000 mile mark!
In my role as a cycling educator, I tell students that we steer our bikes by leaning them, and control the lean with the handlebars (steering mechanism). We control the balance of the bike by leaning it in and out from under us. Pondering on this during my morning commute today, I realized that training wheels on kids' bikes are a bad idea. I already knew that things like the Specialized HotWalk are better learning devices than bikes with training wheels, but wasn't sure why. It occurs to me that on a bike with training wheels, the rider steers with the handlebars, instead of leaning the bike, which is counter to how it works when the training wheels are removed. It takes those young brains a bit of trial and error before they learn the tactic. Putting the kid on a bike without pedals gets them doing that from the start.
Speaking of education, we have one more New Rider Clinic to do this season. It starts this Thursday.
Boulder, Louisville, and press coverage of crashes
16 years ago
6 comments:
Although I recently became a club member, I still have no grasp of what's going on with club politics. I think I'm okay with that though.
I may attend a meet now and again, just to make sure.
Any time you have a club with a thousand members, you will find political problems.
Andy stepped down early in May, claiming that another officer had browbeaten him over the phone repeatedly during the prior year and a half or two years. That officer--thinly veiled references made sure folks knew it was Jim Tretter, stepped down a week later, hours before the Club meeting planned for that afternoon. This was unprecedented, and left half the remaining committee to do a LOT of work for a month or so.
When the Ex-Comm announced the replacement officers in June, well, I'll let you read the announcement on the Club's web site forum.
I read it. Andy's back and some others shuffled in to fill other positions.
I wasn't a member when this happened. I'm not clear what the procedure was. I guess I could dig into by-laws, but I'm not THAT curious. :)
I'm slightly confused as to what happened for OKHT planning. I've never ridden OKHT (maybe next year), but I know it's a popular event.
OKHT planning benefits from several things: We have long-ish standing relationships with agencies and property owners where the stops are situated, and with folks in Bardstown. We have a LOT of institutional memory in the cadre of volunteers who do the real work of making OKHT happen. The volunteers who lack the institutional memory make up for it in willingness to work at the tasks for the Tour and the Club, regardless of who the Tour Director is.
Those volunteers realized that to torpedo the Tour would only make themselves look bad, not the director. A director that abandoned them in May only to be happy to return once a personal squabble was removed from his plate for him was not and is not confidence-inspiring.
Don't tolerate office politics very well. Quit going to my wife's church b/c of politics. And, unfortunately, probably won't join the local cycling club because, oh let's call it what it is, POLITICS!
We're humans, i.e. we're fallible.
Yeah, the poly-tics (multiple blood-sucking insects) chase folks away from many things. Lots of riders just want to ride bikes, without the drama. I'd far prefer to leave the drama to others, myself. I only stepped up to be an officer in the club because I'm all about getting folks on bikes and the Education post helps me do that. I almost stepped down at the end of last year, and have pretty much decided to step down at the end of my current term. I think I'll spend more time and energy with Bicycling for Louisville going forward.
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