Cycotherapy News Roundup: All the feels, bikepacking in the mainstream, myopia, Tolkien and Good Bones
Greetings on this fine Friday, cycopaths.
This morning, we sent our eldest daughter to kindergarten. I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t cry a little. Being a girl dad to two daughters has made me such a softy.
So today I come to you in a bit of a sad-but-happy mood. Remember the back-to-school mood? New teacher. New class with new potential friends, or bullies. Bigger books with fewer pictures. A new building. New shoes. New pencils. A farewell to summer vacation.
Being a parent is weird.
I’m simultaneously and equally happy and sad that my daughter is growing up. Learning new things. Making more friends. Losing baby teeth. Drinking juice without a straw.
Anyway. Enough melancholy for the day.
Here’s some stuff to talk about on your rides this weekend.
headlines
An inflatable helmet … hm.
I think it’s safe to assume that most of the readers here are avid cyclists who know wearing a helmet is safer than not wearing a helmet. So, when I read Inflabi “decided to create this helmet as a way of getting more people wearing helmets,” it makes me wonder who their audience is. Are they marketing the casual rail-to-trail rider? If so, I’m not sure that person is going to want to wear something they have to inflate or deflate before heading out. So … there’s that. But, also, the Inflabi helmet looks strange. I don’t know, what do you think??
The wave of the future
Micah Toll is making a simple argument regarding the e-bike: “… make no mistake, this isn’t some short-lived enthusiasm or a passing fad. This widespread adoption of e-bikes by young and old alike is merely the first signs of a paradigm shift. That’s right, welcome to the future.” He cites stats about U.S. teens’ decreasing drive to obtain drivers licenses and says that’s why everyone will eventually turn to e-bikes as a primary source of transportation. I’m not super convinced. Literacy levels are also dropping. But we still have books. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think e-bikes are a passing fad. They’re just the new audiobook. It’s a new way of getting around, or, simply, of riding a bike.
Bikepacking is now part of the mainstream
Here’s what CNN and the Wall Street Journal have to say about bikepacking. In CNN’s piece, the opening line is “bikepacking is for everyone.” Is it though? Why is legacy media so hellbent on selling the sport as inclusive? I’m not against inclusivity at all … but anything is for everyone. Let’s not lie, though. Don’t coat it in sugar. Bikepacking requires having a bike, the gear and the time to spend days on end in the saddle. It’s cost prohibitive and time prohibitive. If you can get past those two hurdles, sure, it’s for you. And that’s not even considering the physical feat. Carrying all that gear on a bike is hard. It requires stamina and strength. Like sleeping outside? Do you enjoy pain and being uncomfortable for hours at a time? Cool! Good! Bikepacking is for you!
Introducing the 336-mile Arkansas Graveler
Not sure how inclusive this event will be. But it looks fun! Looks like it will be a 6-day “gravel festival” (June 23-29, 2024). Starts in Fayetteville and ends in Jonesboro and it’s expected to be one more thing that puts Arkansas on the map as “No. 1 in the country” for the U.S.’s fastest growing outdoor economy.
feature of the week
It’s rare I get this invested in a story about something I know very little about: myopia. Though I have a slight astigmatism in both eyes, and am considered slightly nearsighted, I don’t know much about why or how to correct it — and even that more and more people are struggling with this phenomenon.
The story is just well-written and reported. It doesn’t read like science journalism. It reads like a mystery. Here’s the opening paragraph:
DOING SURGERY ON the back of the eye is a little like laying new carpet: You must begin by moving the furniture. Separate the muscles that hold the eyeball inside its socket; make a delicate cut in the conjunctiva, the mucous membrane that covers the eye. Only then can the surgeon spin the eyeball around to access the retina, the thin layer of tissue that translates light into color, shape, movement. “Sometimes you have to pull it out a little bit,” says Pei-Chang Wu, with a wry smile. He has performed hundreds of operations during his long surgical career at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Kaohsiung, an industrial city in southern Taiwan.
book excerpt of the week
In a chair, at the far side of the room facing the outer door, sat a woman. Her long yellow hair rippled down her shoulders; her gown was green, green as young reeds, shot with silver like beads of dew; and her belt was of gold, shaped like a chain of flag-lilies set with the pale-blue eyes of forget-me-nots. About her feel in wide vessels of green and brown earthenware, white water-lilies were floating, so that she seemed to be enthroned in the midst of a pool.
‘Enter, good guests!’ she said, and as she spoke they knew that it was her clear voice they had heard singing. They came a few timid steps further into the room, and began to bow low, feeling strangely surprised and awkward, like folk that, knocking at a cottage door to beg for a drink of water, have been answered by a fair young elf-queen clad in living flowers. But before they could say anything, she sprang lightly up and over the lily-bowls, and ran laughing towards them; and as she ran her gown rustled softly like the wind in the flowering borders of a river.
'Come dear folk!’ she said, taking Frodo by the hand. 'Laugh and be merry! I am Goldberry, daughter of the River.’ Then lightly she passed them and closing the door she turned her back to it, with her white arms spread out across it. 'Let us shut out the night!’ she said. 'For you are still afraid, perhaps, of mist and tree-shadows and deep water, and untame things. Fear nothing! For tonight you are under the roof of Tom Bombadil.’
The hobbits looked at her in wonder; and she looked at each of them and smiled. 'Fair lady Goldberry!’ said Frodo at last, feeling his heart moved with a joy that he did not understand. He stood as he had at times stood enchanted by fair elven-voices; but the spell that was now laid upon him was different: less keen and lofty was the delight, but deeper and nearer to mortal heart; marvelous and yet not strange. 'Fair lady Goldberry!’ he said again. 'Now the joy that was hidden in the songs we heard is made plain to me.
O slender as a willow-wand! O clearer than clear water!
O reed by the living pool! Fair River-daughter!
O spring-time and summer-time, and spring again after!
O wind on the waterfall, and the leaves’ laughter!’
J.R.R. Tolkien — The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
out-of-context quote of the week
“Life is short, though I keep this from my children.” First stanza from a
poem, Good Bones.