Giving up something for Lent is a tradition for some Christians. Not eating meat used to be a common abstention, or no alcohol, or even no marital relations. If I had to choose among these three, I’d better get used to eating seafood and tofu.

But now a Chicago area church has some new ideas on the subject:

A church in suburban Chicago has told parishioners it will abstain from performing any music that is associated with White people during the season of Lent.

“In our worship services throughout Lent, we will not be using any music or liturgy written or composed by white people,” the website for the First United Church of Oak Park reads. “Our music will be drawn from the African American spirituals tradition, from South African freedom songs, from Native American traditions, and many, many more.“

The church is also reportedly promoting reflections that it calls “evotionals” which have supported the idea of “fasting from whiteness.“

I found the story on Fox News, so I was suspicious. But I went to the Church’s website, and it is true. They even put a sign up on the front lawn.

I would certainly rather ‘fast from whiteness’ instead of giving up drinking Côtes du Rhône vin rouge for 40 days. But first I have to figure out what ‘fasting from whiteness’ means.

Some things are obvious. No Mozart or Beethoven or Gershwin. No French baguettes, but maybe tortillas are acceptable. Are potatoes Irish and thus white? Maybe Black Irish? I suppose waltzing is off the table, but I am a terrible dancer anyway, whether it is an ethnic step or not. Basketball is ok but golf is questionable, and curling is completely verboten. Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway are fine but put the Glen Miller records away. So I have to be careful when I’m listening to 40’s Junction on Sirius XM, which I do in the car. And forget about Willie’s Roadhouse unless Charlie Pride records are on the playlist.

I will probably make mistakes, but I’m going to give ‘fasting from whiteness’ a shot. Bring on the vodka and the hot links, but put Cosi Fan Tutte on hold. On second thought, is vodka part of ‘whiteness’? It is a component of a White Russian…this is going to be harder than I thought…

Most cycling training programs include something called a ‘recovery ride’ about once a week This is a ride where you keep your intensity and distance at a really easy level. The theory is that this is better rest than just staying off the bike entirely.

Recovery rides are great fun. If you have been doing some hard days on the bike, it is very pleasant to go so much easier and enjoy the scenery. A couple of weeks ago I did 30 flat miles and my heart rate averaged all of 85 beats per minute. Kind of like sitting in a chair watching the news.

Except on that recovery ride, I was riding in front of a ‘recovery rider’, one of my friends who is dealing with cancer. I wrote about it here: https://freehtt.org/2022/03/04/real-life-intervenes/

My friend Steve had been off of his bike completely for 4 weeks while recovering from surgery. He said after the ride that I ‘trashed’ him. Before his layoff I had to work to keep up with him, but he had lost so much fitness that what was very easy for me was a challenge for him. I certainly didn’t ‘trash’ him on purpose. I kept him on my wheel and looked in my mirror and slowed down if I ever saw him drop back. But it was still hard for him. It is amazing how quickly we lose cycling fitness if we don’t ride regularly.

All three of my post surgery friends are back on their bikes as ‘recovery riders’. Yesterday two of them joined the Thursday club ride from Wallace. Steve is a Thursday regular, and he brought Joni along.

Joni has done something like 60 double century rides, 200 miles in one day! She and I have a long history. I was on her very first real road ride over 20 years ago. And on her first trip up Jesus Maria Road. She even rode my Sampson once when I was trying to convince her that she didn’t really need those triple chain rings. Once she started doing double centuries she pretty much eschewed the club rides, because they were way too short. But she will always be my BBPFDCG. Don’t ask…

Yesterday’s ride was the first time riding in the hills for either of them since they have been off the bike recovering from surgery. They both struggled but neither of them took my suggested shortcuts. So they covered 45 miles with 3300 feet of climbing, with gradients reaching 14%. I think Steve looked really tired at the finish, but Joni seemed fairly fresh.

She was off of the back of the group all day, but there was no chance I was going to leave her on her own. Joni is a strong rider but she can be navigationally and mechanically challenged. So I would ride at my own pace to hilltops or regroup spots, wait and let her get ahead, then chase her. Before surgery I wouldn’t have caught her. Or had to wait either.

It was great to see these two ‘recovery riders’ back on their bikes and doing what they love to do, even if it was much harder after such a long layoff. We don’t know what future treatments or surgeries might be needed, or how it will affect their cycling. One ride at a time, just keep pedaling…

President Biden promised that his first Supreme Court nominee would be an African American woman, and at first glance it seems he delivered on that promise. But things are not so simple…

Most people start to really hate mathematics when they encounter Euclidean geometry. This is the first time they come face to face with an axiomatic system. An axiomatic system has to start somewhere, so geometry has some ‘undefined terms’ : point, line and plane.

Legal scholars wrestle with definitions all the time. And they don’t always succeed. Consider what Justice Potter Stewart said in 1964 in a free speech/pornography case that reached the Supreme Court. He tried to explain what is ‘obscene’ by saying “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced… but I know it when I see it …”

So like point, line and plane, ‘obscenity’ is an undefined term, at least before our highest court. I wonder what Justice Stewart would think of the kind of stuff that pops up in your browser when ‘safe search’ is disabled? This isn’t 1964!

Our next Supreme Court Justice has another undefined legal term for us to consider:

SEN. MARSHA BLACKBURN: Can you provide a definition for the word woman?
JUDGE JACKSON: Can I provide a definition?
BLACKBURN: Yeah.
JACKSON: I can’t.
BLACKBURN: You can’t?
JACKSON: Not in this context. I’m not a biologist.

I’m not a biologist either, but I never knew there was any confusion over the subject. Like Justice Stewart, I know one when I see one. But of course the world view from Brumby Road is way too narrow. For example, the NCAA thinks this is a woman:

No wonder Justice Jackson decided to pass on a definition. Perhaps she could have followed Justice Stewart’s precedent and resorted to the ‘know it when I see it’ method.

So is Justice Jackson a woman? President Biden promised us a woman nominee, but if the term is in dispute how do we know she is a ‘she’?

Walter Scott took a crack at the issue:

O woman! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please… When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!

So if she is a she, you can count on her interrupting you for some ‘honey do’ while you are watching an NFL game and sipping a martini, but if you get sick and just want to be left alone to suffer in peace she will hover offering hot soup or a cool compress. Uncertain indeed!

We could look to Shakespeare for some input: “Why makes thou it so strange? She is a woman, therefore may be wooed; She is a woman, therefore may be won“

I guess that didn’t help much either. All this wooing and winning stuff kind of makes it look like men are up to no good and only after women for one thing. And we will do almost anything for that ‘one thing’. Example: guess who goes up on the roof to clean the gutters? Or crawls under the house to put out rodent bait? Remember we live in the country where the critters are a problem. The bait works, the rats and mice die and the dried bodies litter the dirt floor of the crawl space. One of my favorite home maintenance tasks.

Since ‘woman’ is going to be considered undefined, I need to consider whether Stoker is one, or if I have simply been deceiving myself for the last 40 years. A close physical inspection reveals the predicted differences between me and she (pronoun assumed), but I guess the real issue is whether she (?) identifies as a woman. If she doesn’t, next year I’ll leave the crawl space excursion to (non binary pronoun).

Stoker and I started going to France to ride a tandem way back in 2015. We did 5 rides that year, and things went so well that in 2016 we went back for a two week trip, staying in 4 different villages, with 12 tandem rides.

On this trip we had a day off the bike in Malaucène, on a Wednesday, which happened to be market day. The main street was closed to cars and vendors assembled selling all kinds of fresh vegetables, fruits, meats, cheese (oh my, the cheese!), pastries, wines and more. As we wandered around and then sat at a café for a coffee, I kind of jokingly said “You know Stoker, we really can’t move here”.

Her response was “How about a month?” I thought for a second and then said that seemed possible. I was pretty sure it was just idle talk and that reality would set in at the airport. Nothing like travel hassles and discomforts to bring you back to the real world.

I underestimated her resolve. As soon as we got home she went hunting for a rental house for May of 2017. She found one, and we booked it for our great gamble: one entire month in the village of Malaucène.

We loved it. So much that we went back again in 2018, and in 2019. The 2019 trip was remarkable. We had our best month of riding together ever. I’m going to write about that in some detail later, since it now seems likely that we have done our last tandem ride in France.

We booked the house ‘le portail du Ventoux’ for May 2020, and paid for it as soon as we got back to California after that Magic May of 2019. We all know what happened starting in March 2020.

For a while I believed the ‘two weeks to flatten the curve’ decree, but it soon became clear we weren’t going anywhere in May 2020. I texted the Landlady and at that point I just said that we would keep in touch and try to get to France when the pandemic was past. I didn’t bring up anything about a refund.

Well two weeks turned into a year, and in the spring of 2021 our Malaucène Month of May was still not possible: France was closed. So in April 2021 I asked for some money back:

Of course no refund was forthcoming, which didn’t surprise me much. In August 2021, France finally opened up to travel from the US, and I asked for the house from May 4 to June 3, 2022. The Landlady was happy to keep the money and agree. She even used the smiley face, which is as good as a notarized signature.

So when our plans for May 2022 turned into a shortened trip for one I texted the Landlady and said I would be there from May 18 to 27. Note that this is a subset of the dates I asked for in August 2021 in lieu of a refund. I did this as a courtesy so she could rent it at the other times even though she had agreed for me to have it from May 4 to June 3. But she generously offered it to me until May 22 only, since it was rented to someone else after that!

I’m sure glad I took screenshots of our text messages. I tried to be polite but I pointed out that we had a ‘contract’ dating back to August 2021, which she signed with a smiley face. She suggested that I could change my dates, but since I have another tour starting on May 28 I really needed the dates I asked for.

Finally she agreed to a refund. I have learned from 44 | 5 that there is a Covid law in France that requires her to give me my money back, even when she said it was ‘difficult’. I didn’t push the issue because I thought we would get to Malaucène eventually and I was willing to pay in advance.

I sent her bank account information a week ago, and I haven’t received anything yet. I really don’t expect to. I have no leverage here. What am I going to do, hire an attorney and sue in France’s version of small claims court?

Here is how I have chosen to look at it: Diane and I spent 3 wonderful months in this house over 3 years. If I take the 1950 euros I’m (probably) out, and add it to the rent we paid for the other 3 years, we still got our money’s worth. Stoker and I have spent some wonderful happy years together, but we have never been happier than we were in ‘our’ Malaucène house.

Our front door in May… And le Tour came by the same door last July!

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., argued Friday that global inflation “starts with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” but that increased U.S. government spending on domestic social programs would help decrease the national debt and bring down inflation at home.”

Ms. Pelosi is a very smart woman. So she knows that what she said is complete nonsense. But, being such a smart and powerful person, she (her preferred pronoun) also knows that no one is going to dispute her. Except for the Rich Freggiaro Cycling Blog! I should probably be worried about being put on a ‘no fly list’ or being audited by the IRS.

Gas prices in the U.S. averaged $2.33 on January 6, 2021. On February 1, 2022, well before Russia invaded Ukraine, the price had risen 48% to $3.46.

Now on to the fanciful notion that increased government spending will decrease the national debt and bring down inflation at home. Really this is such an outrageous statement that I can hardly stop laughing. Except it isn’t that funny.

Here is a picture for your consideration. Discussion to follow:

The red line is the rate of inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The black line is the rate of growth in the money supply as measured by M2.

The CPI is kind of self explanatory, but we need to spend a moment on M2. If you add up all the money in checking accounts, all the physical currency in circulation, and certain savings accounts and short term CD’s, you get M2. M2 is considered the best measure of the money supply.

So far so good. But things are about to get very complicated. We know the US government has the power to print money. But how much that money is worth depends on how much they print. That responsibility had been delegated to the Federal Reserve, a powerful and semi autonomous government agency. The Fed has the power, authority and tools to control how fast M2 grows.

Over time the money supply needs to grow at roughly the same rate as real GDP (Gross Domestic Product, a measure of the goods and services produced). If you are a loyal reader you will remember PQ=MV. Q is real GDP, and it grows over time. So for prices to be stable and the economy to grow, M has to grow too (V is assumed to be relatively stable).

Conspiracy lovers blame the Fed for everything from the price of gas to the common cold, or now the Common Covid. I’m not one of those at all. But what the Fed does, in cooperation with the Congress and Executive Office regarding Federal deficit spending, affects the value of money. More than Putin’s war does.

Now to the chart. Notice how sometimes the black line spikes up far above the red line? Then what happens? The black line falls and the red line rises until it close to or above the black line. The simplistic conclusion is that when M2 is allowed to grow faster that real GDP, inflation follows. When M2 growth is restrained, the rate of inflation comes down.

The chart goes back to the early 1940’s, WWII years. Back then the US Government was spending way more money that it took in in taxes, i.e. deficit spending. But prices were kept low by using price controls, and since prices were artificially low ration cards were issued to dampen demand for goods. After the war price controls were lifted and all that created M2 went around chasing goods that weren’t there. Inflation!

Same thing in the 1970’s. Deficit spending for Vietnam, social programs, the Cold War, whatever. The Fed played along by sopping up Treasury Bonds and letting M2 get ahead of itself. Inflation spiked twice soon after.

Then came a long period of relative price stability and stable money supply growth, and all was well until 2008, when some Wall Street creations called ‘derivatives’ that were supposedly rated AAA turned out to be based on inflated housing prices and were really more like FFF. There was a steep drop in M2 and everyone was worried about deflation and a collapse of the US economy resembling what happened in 1929 through 1932. The Fed reacted by quickly restoring M2 and putting ‘liquidity’ into the financial markets to avert a crisis. Deflation averted, unlike what happened in 1929, when the Fed sat on its hands and let M2 fall something like 30% and allowed banks to fail. Depression followed.

So with all that as background, look what happened in 2020 and into 2021. M2 grew faster than at any point in the past 80 years. Remember that money that magically appeared in your bank checking account? M2 growth. Free Covid tests and masks and emergency production of ventilators which proved to be unnecessary and even counterproductive? Financed by M2 growth making the deficit spending possible. Hospital ships moved into New York harbor and emergency Covid centers like the one at Arco Arena in Sacto, which never housed a single patient?. M2 again.

All this may or may not have been a good idea as a reaction to the Covid pandemic, aka Pandemia, which is a great book by Alex Berenson about events since March 2020. I’m not going to debate anyone about Covid policy. But I’m not going to let Ms. Pelosi’s comments stand without at least a little push back. Even if it does get me on a ‘no fly’ list. Mr. Putin is a bad man causing the world much trouble. But if you are upset about rising prices, look to Washington, not Moscow.

For years, this was part of every male annual physical examination, to check for prostate swelling, which could indicate prostate cancer, or the more common and less worrisome but still uncomfortable ‘benign prostatic hyperplasia’.

Now I certainly have a few health issues, but the symptoms of BPH are not among them. So I can ignore all the ads for supplements to promote prostate health. But still it pays to be safe, so for years I bent over and let my GP do his thing. I think he was more nervous about it than I was. Much, much easier than dental implants.

But progress marches ahead, and at Adventist Health in Lodi the finger is a thing of the past. It has been replaced by something called a PSA test and is a standard part of the blood work for a routine male physical.

At least that was what I thought. For years I’ve had PSA tests and never been asked to pay extra for them. But when I went to the lab last week I was told that of the battery of blood tests my Medicare and supplemental would cover all of them, EXCEPT for the PSA. Apparently it was coded as ‘medically unnecessary’.

Now at least the receptionist was nice enough to inform me of this before they drew blood, and let me know that if I wanted the test it was going to cost me $150. So even if there was no finger involved, I would be getting the finger, metaphorically speaking.

What’s an uninformed and relatively prosperous patient to do? I said go ahead and do the test. We spend about 1/7th of our GDP on medical care, so what’s a few dollars more? It’s only about the cost of one tank of gas…

Now it does seem to me that screening for prostate cancer might actually be considered ‘medically necessary’. When I finally saw my doctor to discuss the labs and other matters, I asked him if there had been some coding error in ordering the test that meant I had to pay instead of the insurance company. He told me that up to age 65 the screening was medically necessary and insurance would pay. But once you turn age 65 new rules come into play, and if you are asymptomatic then the test isn’t necessary and if you want it anyway, open up the wallet.

If you think this doesn’t make a lot of sense, I would point out that when government bureaucrats and insurance company lobbyists get together over drinks very little good can come out of it. I wonder what other surprises lay in store as I begin my Medicare odyssey?

There are elements I strive for in each of my posts to entertain my 10 readers. Gentle self deprecating humor. Common sense in the face of social science stupidity. Outrage at lunacy and waste of taxpayer money. And always, always, reminding people of how much I love Stoker.

There is none of that in this post. Three of my cycling friends have been diagnosed with cancer in the last few months. They are all in various stages of diagnosis, surgeries and post surgical treatment regimes.

The prognoses of the three are unknown and uncertain. They could be cured or go into remission. They might lead long and healthy lives. Or they may not. All we can do is hope and pray and offer support.

Another cycling friend is having heart difficulties with some complications. He has had procedures and medications to try to bring the problem under control, but for now his cycling is on hold even with an e bike. It might not be as serious as cancer but it still sounds serious and troubling.

Yet another cycling friend listed his extraordinarily beautiful and nearly brand new custom build road bike for sale on Facebook due to ‘recent health challenges’. I have no idea what those are, but if he is selling this truly beautiful bicycle, ridden less than 200 miles, they much be significant.

My dad’s first cousin Dino Cortopassi passed away recently. The Celebration of Life was Saturday. It was very nice. My parents were very close to Dino and his wife Joan and their family, and it is hard to think of him not being here anymore.

Another cousin has cancer and is in and out of hospital.

We are all getting older and as we do health problems become more frequent and magnified. We spend more time going to doctors’ appointments and in hospital waiting areas. And, sadly, at funerals.

There isn’t anything we can do about this except try to enjoy the moments we have and do good and kind things whenever we can. Because eventually we can’t.

If you are looking for a blog that is going to pontificate about events concerning Russia, Ukraine, NATO, the U.S. and China, you are in the wrong place. But until the world comes to an end, I want to know what is OK to put over ice while we watch the evening news.

It seems that well meaning and patriotic bar and liquor store owners across the western world are pouring Russian vodka down the drain in solidarity with the Ukrainians fighting for their country.

Now here on Brumby Road, the vodka of choice is Stolichnaya. Always has been. ‘Stoli’ acquired cachet back in the late 1970’s when it first became available in the US and the Soviets needed hard currency to go onto the wheat futures market and steal our grain at rock bottom prices. I remember it sold for $25 for a 750 ml bottle, which was astonishingly expensive at the time. Even Jack Daniels was only about $10 per bottle back then.

Today at BevMo, you can get a 1.75 liter bottle for $23, which demonstrates that not all essential goods are participating in the current 7.5% annual inflation rate. And the quality seems as good as ever. Although with vodka it can be hard to differentiate, since it has kind of a numbing effect. Great for aches and pains and attitude adjustment though.

So I looked on the back of the bottle that we keep in the freezer, ready and waiting for the News Hour, and look what I found:

Produced and bottled in Latvia! Hooray! Latvia is a NATO member and one of the countries in the line of fire if Putin really wants to recreate the USSR, so I can buy their vodka with a clear conscience knowing I am helping an ally.

Then my friend Gavin from the UK (not that other Gavin, the mask man) informed me that the water is Latvian, but the alcohol is Russian! Gavin does something in banking and currencies and knows quite a bit more about this kind of thing than I do.

Now even if what Gavin (the Good Gavin, not that guy in Sacto) says is true, to me this seems like an excellent example of detente, “where East and West can meet as comrades, ease the tension, over drinks”. This is an obscure musical theater reference and the kind of thing that rumbles around in my head. Anybody recognize it? Here’s a clue…

I wanted to know more, so I went to Google and Wikipedia. Here is some of what I found:

Stolichnaya, for example, is a historic Russian brand owned by two different companies – one based in Russia, and one based in Luxembourg. The Stolichnaya vodka you find in the US, for example, is made in Latvia.

Luxemborg! The gnomes of Zurich are close to hand. You can’t get more Capitalist than that. And:

Stoli vodka is currently produced in Latvia, a former Soviet republic that joined NATO in 2004.

And now to add to the confusion:

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the ownership of the brand has been disputed between a Russian state-owned company and SPI Group, a private company. The Stolichnaya sold in the US is made by the latter company, which distills it in Lativa (though it does use alcohol from a distillery in Russia).

So here is what I think happens. Low quality alcohol from Russia is sent to the magic vodka plant in Latvia. The distillery feed stock is made from fermented grain, possibly distilled once or twice. At the plant in Latvia the REAL distillation process and filtering takes place, then the Latvian water is added to produce the final 80 proof product.

That’s good enough for me. Stolichnaya is a NATO friendly product. So unless BevMo and Raley’s decide that anything that sounds Russian must be gone from the shelves, I’m going to bring a bottle home. Or 2…

Last Saturday was a Red Letter Day on Brumby Road. First I sported a new fashion look on the Club ride, then got a new version of my LOOK back after an OCS component update.

First the fashion faux pax: when I got to the ride start in Valley Springs I put on my jersey, but I was having trouble with the zipper. The little tab at the bottom had kind of worn away, so the jersey kept opening up from the bottom. The sides of the jersey were flapping in the wind, especially going down hill.

The flapping was irritating. And I was worried that my phone and wallet might fall out of the back pockets. So I had to take desperate measures.

I wear bib shorts, and the shoulder straps are supposed to be worn under the jersey. But I pulled the straps up and over the top of the jersey and tucked the bottom under the bibs, creating the ‘walnut farmer’ cyclist look.

Of course I got a lot of teasing about this, and someone took a picture and put it on the Club Facebook page. There was even talk that the page administrator might change the cover photo, but nothing came of it.

I once came upon a rider on a Backroads Tour in France who was wearing his bib and jersey the same way, and I my have made some disparaging comments about this in my blog. And as I have been reminded, world class endurance cyclist, multiple times RAAM Champion and Valley Springs resident Seana Hogan wears her bib shorts this same way. She has a practical reason for doing so; remember she spends long, long periods of time in the saddle and occasionally nature calls. Her sartorial method saves time. Form follows function…

Seana is a big champion and can do what she wants, but on me the look is ridiculous. Roberta posted the picture from a Terry Catalog of someone who can definitely pull off the bib short look, but I hope I don’t have to resort to it again.

Later that afternoon Mark Stemey of OCS returned my new look LOOK. I got the bike back in 2009, and I decided that it could use some upgraded components. Mainly I needed lower gears if I was ever going to take the bike up some serious climbs,. The Dura Ace 10 speed drive train was limited to a 28 tooth cog in the cassette. I need a 32 tooth cog at least, and a 34 tooth is even better.

So I got some new stuff; SRAM Red levers and derailleurs and a cassette and a new chain and a new handlebar and bar tape, and asked Mark to do the installation. He picked up the LOOK and brought it back a week later, on the same day I sported a new cycling fashion look. I’m LOOKing forward to years with the LOOK but I hope the other look was a one off…

It is no secret that California really needs significant rain, and the clock is ticking toward spring and summer fast. If you were outside yesterday, you might think summer was here already.

This year’s weather has been quite variable. There was record rainfall in October which affected the walnut harvest. November was completely dry. December brought record snowfall and significant rain to the valley. January and February have returned to the dry pattern. Great for cycling, not so good if you like to take showers or irrigate orchards.

Facebook has started doing something kind of clever in an effort to keep people clicking away. They offer you ‘memories’ of posts you made on a certain day in previous years. Here is a sample:

February 2013 looks like the beach weather we are currently enjoying while simultaneously feeling guilty for doing so and worrying about the drought. February 2019 looks like an ice age is coming and glaciers are returning to the Sierras. February 2017 looks like God decided to break his promise to Noah never to destroy the earth with a flood again.

Three Februaries, three extreme weather events. The same thing can happen in March. Years back before Facebook there was a drought ended by a ‘March Miracle’ of late season record rain and snowfall. It was a great year for the water supply and a terrible year for cherry growers. Those lazy bees just didn’t want to get their stingers wet. I don’t have any ‘Facebook Memories’ of that year, but I know our line of credit got a workout with no cherry crop to sell.