Type of Riding You Do

More and more from the comments from the group I get the feeling that Joerg, Jay and only possibly another or two ride for performance. That isn't racing but riding fast and doing things like going down hills and dropping car traffic in the turns. Going down the south side of Palomares I've even dropped the motorcycle play racers. Most of these guys haven't a clue of how to corner. Several times their more powerful acceleration gets them in front of me and then I'll pass them again when the turns get back to back.

So it seems to me that a lot of arguments are based not on substance but riding style. I don't complain that there is anything wrong with riding a steel touring bike with fenders and racks on it around town or even with the road riders (we have a couple of younger members in the group that can kill everyone even riding bikes 8 to 10 lbs heavier than the AVERAGE road bike) So why should I read stupid comments from Dopesalot about my choice of tires or wheels?

If he doesn't like a conversation why would he be commenting in it rather than avoiding it?


Frank pretty obviously has slowed down a lot. That's the price of aging ungracefully. I expect that to happen to my younger brother and it already has to my older.

I can't think of anything more enjoyable than a long climb up a steep empty mountain road though it is a lot more exciting descending it. I suppose that there's always the chance that something will break and kill me but so far I've encountered a hell of a lot more dangerous conditions riding two blocks from my home from someone running a stop sign, or driving a car on the freeways around here.

Not to mention that some of the neighborhoods I ride through always could have gang members shooting at gang members. I looked at an old wreck parked in front of the lower apartment windows of the fourplex my mother used to own in Oakland. It had several bullet holes in it. And this was a safer area..

But this is headed for your own neighborhood if the Democrats have their way. Never underestimate the effects of stress and strain on minority communities who have to compete with illegals for even low paying jobs. Just a low paying position gives you the HOPE that you can improve yourself. I can't even begin to understand what happened to the black community between the time I joined the Air Force and the time I got out. They went from hardworking tightly bound families to being told that they could NEVER make it in a white man's world. From being the pillars of many communities to the dope ridden dregs and all because that hope was stolen from them. I doubt that anyone of you would go to my old neighborhood. There was ONE wino, a bunch of kids from the projects and then the private black families that were the most respected people. Now every single - not most - every single house has 7 to 9 foot tall steel bar fences with arrowhead on top completely circling the houses.

Where blacks and whites and Hispanics and even Croatians could all play in the streets because drivers were careful, there are very few cars at all because the rents are so high they can't afford to own and operate a car.

I see this as the real promise of Socialism. Jerry Brown now ex-Governor sold his home in he Oakland hills. Apparently I'm the only one who really knew where it was because everyone else seems to think that it was a Duplex on the border with Berkeley. It is in completely another area of the hills on the far end of the same Skyline Blvd. on a side road. It is a frigging castle - no kidding turrets and all. I would guess that it has at least 20 large rooms and probably 7500 sq. ft.

After making such a mess out of California where did he retire to? The Republican part of the state FAR away from the cities that he ruined. Gavin Newsom who did the same thing to San Francisco makes Brown sound like a conservative.

So I don't expect that those nice quiet mountain roads that you can climb for an hour and a half and still get home for lunch will soon be a thing of the past and if you aren't REALLY careful this is going to be the entire country.

If you like sport riding and respect the people of this country that means have to act that way in every part of your life. And not ignore that respect when it comes time to vote. A capitalistic society may be hard at times but there has never been any other system that even came close to giving even the dregs of society more than the middle classes of other societies. It is the ONLY system in which the average man can hope to rise from the bottom to the top with only the sweat of his brow and the strength of his hands.