Author Archives: Rich Freggiaro

I stole the blog title from the 1898 horror novella by Henry James. I never read it, but I did have to read and take a final exam on the same author’s novel Daisy Miller. Not exactly a page turner…And later it was used as the story for a 20th-century English chamber opera composed byContinue reading “The Turn of the Screw”

There are lots of serious and dangerous events going on in the world and here in the United States. Too dangerous and serious for the Rich Freggiaro Cycling Blog. We try to keep things light-hearted here. Recently I came across a few items that are quite different, but related; call them Variations on a Theme…Continue reading “Weighty Matters”

Not in Boston…you may not know about this if you get all your news from NPR. Michelle Wu (Mayor of Boston) drew criticism Wednesday after her aide sent a holiday party invite to all members of the Boston City Council for an “Electeds of Color Holiday Party,” even though seven of the officials are White.Continue reading “And May All Your Christmases Be White”

I learned a lot about paradoxes in college. “The Paradox of Value” asks the question why is water, which is essential for life, so much less expensive than diamond rings, which are not. Zeno’s Paradox takes many forms; balls that can never hit walls or tortoises that can never cross finish lines. My favorite versionContinue reading “‘Tis a Puzzlement”

On Saturday a group of my cycling friends decided to stay flat and local with a 50+ mile loop from Lodi to Thornton and Galt. The weather was perfect, cool but not frigid, and sunny with almost no wind. Everyone was relaxed and enjoying the day and the company instead of hammering up some hillsContinue reading “Share the Road…Not Everyone Concurs”

Way back in December 2014 I woke up one morning with a very strange tingling sensation in my chest and I felt a little light headed. I took my blood pressure with our home monitor and discovered my pulse was over 100 beats per minute (bpm). That is about double what my normal resting pulseContinue reading “A Fib…No Lie!”

Something startling appeared in my Facebook news feed yesterday (9/21): Shimano recalls 760,000 Hollowtech road cranks after receiving 4,500 incident reports. Shimano says 760,000 11-speed Hollowtech road cranksets will need to be inspected for signs of delamination. The affected cranks — Dura-Ace and Ultegra models manufactured prior to July 2019 — can separate and break;Continue reading “Crank It Up”

I have never liked riding my bike on bike paths. I think that they are actually more dangerous than riding on the road. Most paths are used by a variety of walkers, dog walkers, skateboarders, roller skaters, people on scooters, little kids wobbling on trikes or children’s bikes, or casual adult cyclists wobbling on theirContinue reading “Belgian Waffles”

That is what we used to say back in high school when we were assigned reading material. “Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ was banned at our high school, so of course we went out and bought paperback copies to see what all the fuss was about. ‘The Godfather‘ wasn’t on any English Class reading lists, but weContinue reading “Show Me the Good Parts”

You recall the old adage about how a conservative is a former liberal who got mugged? Case in point… Shivanthi Sathanandan, the 2nd Vice Chairwoman for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, posted on Facebook Wednesday that she was “violently carjacked” by “four very young men, all carrying guns.” At the height of the George Floyd riotsContinue reading “Crime and Punishment (?)”