My father is 89 years old and in remarkably good health. Although he no longer farms and a tenant manages the property, he still can be found with a hoe, or a rake, or pruning shears taking care of some little details the tenant’s employees might miss.

His major job is to run the irrigation system. He consults with the farm manager about the watering schedule, then starts and stops pumps at times dictated by PGE’s Time of Use Rate Schedule. He uses a 4 wheeled ATV to check for broken sprinklers before starting the pump, and once the water is on he drives around making sure none of the sprinklers are plugged and all of them are turning.

He was doing this on Thursday morning. After checking all the sprinklers and getting his pants wet in the process, he went home to change clothes and have lunch. Then he remembered he needed to retrieve his cell phone, but when he checked his pants pockets it was gone.

The last time he knew for certain that he had it was just after he started the pump and just before he set out on his inspection rounds of the 18 acres being irrigated. That narrows the search zone down to 7,840,080 square feet.

He called me for assistance. As is usual on Thursdays I was doing the Club ride out of Wallace, but his call came through just as I was finishing. His health is excellent but his hearing is awful when he doesn’t use hearing aids. So the plan was for him to use my mom’s cell phone to call his cell number over and over, while I walked up and down the walnut rows listening for the stock Verizon ringtone while getting wet from the sprinklers.

Who among us has not done the same thing? I’ve called my own cell number using our land line to try to locate my smart phone. And yes, we still have a land line. I’m not sure why except that it comes in handy to locate lost cell phones. But usually the search zone is limited to inside the house or garage or our yard. Not the aforementioned 7,840,080 square feet!

My dad’s phone is a very old and primitive flip phone model. He doesn’t use it for anything except actual phone calls, so if you get his number forget about texting him. The financial loss would be minimal but the nuisance factor would be considerable: I’m sure learning how to deal with a new phone would not be my dad’s favorite way to pass time.

So up and down the rows I walked, getting wet and listening carefully and privately laughing at the futility of the effort. The phone was undoubtedly wet and probably not working. If it was, how many rings would it take to drain the battery? But I gave it my best shot. I’m not sure a 2 or 3 mile hike is the best recovery from a spirited bike ride chasing Marlin on South Comanche Parkway, but I wasn’t complaining and the day was warm and the cool water on my legs felt nice.

I finished 15 of the acres with no result, but as I approached the last 3 acres my dad came up to me and made the ‘broken chicken wing’ gesture. If you do not have Linden Italian farmer roots you may not know what this is. When something is exasperating, you raise an arm like you are taking an oath, but you turn the wrist down and push the elbow out while muttering something unintelligible that sounds like ‘aayeeyah’. If things are really beyond the pale, you might see the ‘double chicken wing’, which is the same gesture using both arms simultaneously. The ‘double chicken wing’ is reserved for moments of supreme frustration at the foolishness of oneself or of others. I employ it regularly when Newsom and/or Fauci are pontificating and nagging.

It turned out that the missing cell phone had slipped out of his pants pocket and into a crevasse in the mud room closet where my dad keeps his dry clothes. My mom happened by and heard the phone and answered it. So my dad did the chicken wing because he didn’t look enough in the most likely place before sending his oldest son on a walk through the orchard.

I didn’t mind. I’m lucky my parents are still healthy and don’t need much help, so when they do ask for something I hop to it. Even if I risk a broken chicken wing directed at some folly of mine.

There must be some kind of way outta here
Said the joker to the thief
There’s too much confusion
I can’t get no relief

I can hardly think of a quatrain more apt regarding the continuing Covid conundrum. I really would like some relief from the incessant reminders and/or demands to wear a mask, stay 6 feet apart from everyone except Stoker and Luke, and wash, wash, wash these Lady Macbeth hands that will “ne’er be clean”.

We are not going to France until late July at the earliest. So just to make sure that I remember what I am missing, my friend and tour guide Gerry sent me a couple of wonderful relief maps of the area we have cycled since 2014.

The top map is the area around Mont Ventoux. Our Malaucene rental house is just at the upper left of Le Geant de Provence. The lower map is the Cevennes national park where 44 5 runs a week long tour. I’ve done it 3 times and #4 was supposed to be in 2020, since postponed to 2021, and now 2022. It is certainly worth repeating; if I could only do one week long bicycle tour for the rest of my life I would pick this one. It has everything except traffic.

These maps provoke many memories. Here is the Col de Fontaube, an incredibly beautiful and tandem friendly (6% max, 3% average) climb on the way to the lovely village of Brantes for coffee. We’ve been up it 3 times. Over there is the Col de Homme Mort, which despite its foreboding name is a pussycat of a climb unless the wind is blowing. The Dentelles and Col de la Suzette, where Stoker and I encountered trucks laying fresh chipseal that forced a 2 km hike in cycling shoes. And over in the Cevennes, we have Mont Lozere and Mont Aigoual, the the gorges of the Tarn and Jonte rivers, and the causses (plateaus) between them.

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Fantastic memories of cycling adventures shown in relief maps. Which do not provide relief from disappointment. Like the fans of ‘them bums’ back in Brooklyn’, Stoker and I are chanting ‘Wait ’til next year’ for some kind of way outta here and across the Atlantic.

Let’s start with a vocabulary lesson…

If you watch the Giro d’Italia bicycle race on TV, you will occasionally hear the spectators (back when there were spectators, before Covid) shouting “Die Die Die”. Or perhaps they are screaming “Dye Dye Dye”. But that is how the Italian word ‘dai‘ is pronounced, and ‘dai‘ is what the tifosi (fans) are shouting. ‘Dai‘ means ‘come on’ in English. The fans are exhorting the riders to keep fighting and struggling to get to the top of the mountain.

Some of the riders on the climb might feel like they are in fact dying, but they can rest assured that the fans are not encouraging their demise.

‘Dei (pronounced ‘day’) means ‘of God’ and is a part of many Catholic phrases. I’m not Catholic, but I recognize ‘Mater Dei’ as meaning Mother of God.

But now in the USA, DEI (it exists, just google it) means something different. Case in point:

A suburban Minneapolis theater company abruptly canceled its production of “Cinderella” because the cast was “too White.”

“It was 98 percent White,” the theater’s director, Michael Brindisi, said of the show’s actors Wednesday. “That doesn’t work with what we’re saying we’re going to do.”

“After careful consideration and with our ongoing commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, we have made the decision to cancel our upcoming production”

This is the first time I personally have come across the DEI triumvirate used in this fashion, but it certainly will not be the last.

Now take a careful look at the paragraphs in italics above. Imagine a few clever substitutions. For ‘theater company’ substitute NFL. For ‘production’ substitute ‘season’. For ‘director’ substitute ‘Commissioner’. I’m not going to suggest any other substitutions, since the whole idea is absurd. As is the reality.

DEI cancels Cinderella? Mater dei, what next? Dai!

I received my second dose on Monday at 2:30 PM. The first dose three weeks earlier had no effect on me at all. This time was different.

After the shot on Monday I felt fine. I woke up Tuesday morning still feeling pretty good, with just a kind of vague headache. So I decided to do the Tuesday club ride starting in Lockeford.

The Tuesday ride is a flat 40 miles. We ride 25 miles to the Towne Cafe in Lodi where we take a coffee break. Most of this part of the ride is into the prevailing wind. Marlin and I do a lot of the pulls on the upwind portion, with help from Dean. But yesterday I was determined to ride easily lest I exacerbate any oncoming side effects. So I reverted to following wheels or even dropping off of the back.

When I reached the rest stop and stopped pedaling, I suddenly did not feel so well. I was nauseous and my headache was worse and I started getting cold even though the day was sunny and nice and warm. I had to move my chair from the shaded terrace into the sun to try to warm up.

Normally I get something to eat, preferably the excellent breakfast burrito, but today that seemed like a dubious idea. So I drank a Pellegrino hoping the bubbles would ease my stomach discomfort, and sucked down a 100 calorie easily digestible gel for some energy to ride back.

Several Tuesday riders live in Lodi. They start early and ride to Lockeford, so the Towne Cafe is the end of their ride. Three of them offered to drive me home, which was very nice. But I decided to continue to ride, easily. No speed records or anaerobic heart rates for me. I was just trying to survive.

I made it, but I was feeling worse the entire time. I drove home, took a shower, ate something, grabbed a blanket to keep warm and took a nap.

I had a low fever, just under 100. I had aches and some shooting pains. When I retired to bed, quite early, I kept having chills and sweats and my headache was worse. It was an uncomfortable night.

Now I do not want to exaggerate. I am not deathly ill. I am not miserable. I am still glad I have both shots and that magic piece of paper that may or may not be needed to travel to France, if that ever becomes possible.

But I get a flu shot every year, mostly because Stoker thinks I should. And I have never had this kind of reaction. It is like I have ‘flu light’, just enough to quash your joie de vivre and remind you that this is a world of toil and trouble.

Your experience may be different of course. But when you get a second dose you might be advised to be smarter that I was and stay off of the bike for a day or two.

From the University of Michigan Wellness web page:

For many Americans, life in the time of COVID-19 means forming “pods” – small groups of people who agree to share child care and education responsibilities, or to study or socialize together.

The Brumby Road Pod is a pretty exclusive one. It contains Stoker, Luke, 7 goldfish named for the days of the week (Sunday, Monday…) and Rich. Any invaders to the Pod are confronted with masks, sanitizer and social distancing.

Within the Pod, we interact freely unless I make some kind of husband mistake and Stoker decides to practice a little social distancing of her own. In 38 years of marriage this has been a rare occurrence, but it does happen.

Now there are two other kinds of groups we need to be aware of in these Covid times. First we have our ‘Peeps’. These are folks we interact with on a regular basis, but who are not in our Pod. My personal set of Peeps includes my parents, Stockton Bike Club Tuesday/Thursday regulars and management at the walnut company where I am occasionally employed.

In set theory terms, the Pod is a subset of the Peeps. Pay attention, there will be a quiz later.

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Now we are suppose to practice all the distancing, hand washing, masking and sanitizing routine with our Peeps, but this is very difficult. I give it my best shot. But on Friday Stoker and I went to a restaurant across the border in Sacramento County, where you can actually sit inside at a table. And we had lunch with 4 of our Peeps. This is the first time in a year we have done something like that.

Now when you venture out to the locations where you normally shop, work and recreate, you are in your ‘Hood’. The Hood and the people in it form a superset of your Peeps, which is a superset of your Pod. Got that?

In the Hood the CDC would like you to wear every piece of PPE known to man. Two masks, preferably with one of N95 quality. Treat everyone as if they are giving off radiation at fatal levels for a radius of 6 feet. Take a bath in sanitizer as soon as you are back in the safety of the Pod. It is occasionally necessary to leave the Pod and enter the Hood, but we are supposed to keep such excursions as short in duration and as few in number as possible.

The Hood is the extent of the range our infectious disease bureaucrats allow us, grudgingly, to move around in. Travel outside the Hood is unnecessary so we aren’t suppose to do it lest we spread the virus to other Hoods, or acquire the virus and bring it back to our hitherto virus-free Hood. And then spread it to some of our Peeps, or even into the sanctity of the Pod.

I thought I had some Peeps in a Hood in France to supplement the Brumby Road/ Linden Hood. But our postponed 2020 trip, which we rescheduled for May/June 2021, just got cancelled. On Easter Sunday! Peep, peep, peep!

There is an expression for a cyclist who is obsessed about how much his/her bike weighs and tries to make it as light as possible. He/she is called a ‘weight weenie’. There is even a internet forum where weight weenies trade tips on how to make their bikes skinny.

I must admit that I am a bit of a weight weenie myself. I have accurate scales and any new equipment gets evaluated to see if it makes the bike lighter or heavier. I know how much weight using an Ultegra 11×34 cassette adds compared to a SRAM Red 11×32. Over 100 grams! But I need the lower gear and SRAM Red doesn’t make an 11×34.

I know that my S Works Tarmac weighs 15.2 lbs. with the HED Ardennes wheels. My Look 586 goes 15.4 lbs. with the very light American Classic wheels and 16.5 with the Zipp 303 wheelset that has a Powetap hub. The Sampson with Ultegra parts and the same HED Ardennes wheels is 18.2 lbs. Hmm, maybe I’m more of an obsessive weight weenie than I thought I was.

I don’t always use the lightest parts. My saddle is a very comfortable Fizik Aliente with alloy rails that weighs about 230 grams. I could replace it with an all carbon model with no padding at all and save about 80 grams, but I don’t think my butt would be too happy about it. And I put Ultegra parts on the Sampson when its Dura Ace components finally gave up, instead of opting for something lighter and pricier.

Recently Al, a cycling buddy, showed me a new way to save weight: the Specialized Exos Road Shoe. He said they were the most comfortable shoes he had ever owned, and he let me feel how light they were. I could hardly believe it. I use S-Works road shoes and thought they were extremely light, but they felt lead weighted compared to the Exos.

The Exos shoes’ upper is made from some kind of magic material that feels flimsy but is actually incredibly strong. The sole is the same very stiff version used by the S Works shoes. I read a review by someone who rode them for 6 months in all types of weather with no durability issues. I decided that with all the money Stoker and I are saving on travel during the Covid restrictions I had to spend some of it on a pair. They aren’t cheap; I think I paid $420 plus tax. But boy are they light!

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The Exos shoes weigh all of 400 grams with cleats, while the S Works shoes tip the scale at 650 grams. That is a savings of 0.55/lb., or 8.8 ounces. And it is ‘rotating weight’. Because of something called ‘moment of inertia’ or ‘angular momentum’ or some other concept of physics I don’t understand, this is supposed to be equivalent to reducing the static weight of the frame by about twice that much, some 500 grams.

I haven’t tried the nice light white shoes yet, but now that dry weather and dry roads are here I’m getting ready to put them on and see if they make a difference. Or if they are as comfortable as Al claims they are. I actually wanted to get the shoes in black, so they wouldn’t show dirt, but bike parts and accessories are in short supply because Covid has affected global supply chains and the only ones in my size that I could find were white. So don’t conclude that I’m making any kind of statement choosing white shoes over black ones. You hear me Facebook?

First it was mathematics as a tool of White Supremacists. And now this…

Staff members within the University of Oxford’s music department have reportedly suggested removing sheet music from the school’s curriculum because of its purported connections to a “colonial past.”

Professors said that music notation has not “shaken off its connection to its colonial past” and that sticking with it would be a “slap in the face” for students of color, according to documents reviewed by the British outlet The Telegraph.

The same faculty also reportedly questioned whether the current curriculum was complicit in “white supremacy,” pointing to the program’s focus on “white European music from the slave period” – composers like Mozart and Beethoven.

The professors further suggested that certain classical music skills – like playing the piano and conducting orchestral arrangements – ought not to be required given that they “structurally center white European music” and cause “students of color great distress.”

I actually have a whole bunch of Mozart CDs from back when CDs were state of the art musical technology. The music from Cosi fan tutte gives me chills. In the 4th act of Le nozze di Figaro when the Countess forgives her unfaithful husband (Contessa perdono) my eyes water, so beautiful is the music and the moment. In the current climate I suppose I’d better keep this quiet lest this music be ‘cancelled’ or I be branded a racist. That seems to be getting harder to avoid; first it was my math degree and now my musical tastes being tools of oppression.

Speaking of Mozart, I sometimes refer to Duke Ellington as “America’s Mozart”. A genius composer and orchestra leader and pianist. I’m no music expert but I find myself listening to Sirius XM 40’s Junction and when Ellington’s Orchestra is playing I’m not changing the channel. I have some Ellington CD’s as well.

So here is photographic evidence that this American music master used both sheet music and the piano to create his masterpieces. I wonder if he knew these were a connection to a ‘colonial past’? Oxford take note…

I got my first high quality LOOK clipless pedals back in 1992. Later I switched to Shimano pedals with a very similar design. Shimano tried to develop its own pedal , but the LOOK system was so elegant that Shimano gave up and paid LOOK to license their design without patent infringement.

I’ve ridden over 160,000 miles in the last three decades, and I have never had a pedal problem. Never. The bearings do not seem to wear out, the retention mechanism that holds your shoe cleats in place keeps working, and the only time the pedals make any noise is when those cleats are worn out and it is time to get new ones. About every 7,000 miles for me.

My friend Bill is not so lucky. Bill is a relatively new road cyclist. He started riding with the Stockton Bike Club and has become a Thursday regular. Last Sunday I rode with him for the entire Ride for Art event. Bill is a good rider but he said he had never done more than 60 miles or more than 4,800 feet of climbing on a single ride. So when we finished with 80 miles and 7,700 feet climbed on Sunday he was well satisfied with his effort.

His bike has been making a very irritating noise for months. I asked him about it on Sunday. We all thought it was his bottom bracket. He had one on order for a long time, but COVID has really disrupted supply chains and many bike parts are in short supply. But his had finally arrived and been installed, and the noise persisted.

On Thursday the mystery was solved. After 5 miles of riding on South Comanche, we stopped to regroup, and as he unclipped Bill discovered that his pedal was wobbling. Then he pulled it out of the crank arm without a wrench. The threads on the crank are were stripped! So severely stripped that he shoved the pedal in and out of the hole where the threads were supposed to be like a piston in a cylinder.

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A loose pedal is a real problem that can be catastrophic if it fails when you are out of the saddle putting all of you weight on it. If it loosens suddenly or (worse) breaks, you can crash and in the process injure some very tender body parts. He is lucky that didn’t happen.

But he is also kind of unlucky. Pedal problems are exceptionally rare. The noise had been going on for months, and I know he checked the pedals and they were tight, but there must have been some play in the threads that eventually worked loose and left him with a stripped crank arm.

There are some patchwork fixes for this, but I wouldn’t trust them on such a critical interface between bike and rider. So the only answer is a new crank. A new Ulterga crank to replace its ruined twin will cost $290. And the pedal threads look kind of battered, so he will probably need to spend another $180 to replace them too. Ouch!

There is a moral to the story. A quality bicycle properly maintained should be nearly silent. Any new squeak or thunk or rattle is a sign of potential trouble. So try to isolate the cause and solve the problem ASAP. Before the possibility of solution is ‘stripped’ away.

Since the Covid lockdowns started back in March 2020, organized bike rides and bike tours have pretty much vanished. Most ‘gatherings’ are verboten and even an outdoor, well spaced event like a fund raising bike ride has to make so many adaptations and follow so many rules that organizers simply give up.

So yesterday, the Ride 4 Art ride in Calaveras County decided to buck the trend and actually put on a ride. With modifications of course. No post ride meal or entertainment. Remote check in. No wrist bands for rest stops. No raffle.

The ride was not quite as advertised. The website said this:

But my Garmin and Strava told a different story:

An ‘extra’ 2,100 feet of climbing! This turned out to be my longest ride with the most climbing since I was in the Dolomites back in September 2019. In all of 2020 I didn’t do any ride even close to this one. The Panicdemic put all my trips and most of my cycling ambition on indefinite hold. It has been a long time since I spent over 6 hours pedaling.

Now normally when you pay your $65 to do a long ride like this, you get well stocked rest stops and a post ride meal. Usually there is fresh fruit, chips, and pastries at a first stop. The second stop usually has peanut butter sandwiches and turkey sandwiches, and a much needed Coke, I never drink Coke except during the second half of long bike rides.

I understand that the Covid Panicdemic rules mean some changes. And we were warned that the rest stops would be limited, but I was surprised at the extent of that limitation. There were plenty of water-only stops, so there was no danger of getting dehydrated. But the first food available was at the Harrah’s Casino at mile 39, when we had already climbed 3,800 feet and been pedaling for 3 hours. The fare on offer consisted of packaged chocolate brownies and Doritos. That was it. No fruit, no cookies, no sports drink. I ate a bag of the chips, put the brownies in my pocket, took a water bottle and pored it into my bidon and headed for the next stop, 17 miles away.

Here the conditions were the same, minus the brownies. We are at mile 52, and we have another 28 miles and 3,500 feet to climb. I ate another bag of Doritos and one of my brownies. I was carrying two energy gels of my own for nutrition emergencies. I took the first one earlier at the top of Stoney Creek Road. The last one I saved in case of bonk, which never happened.

I don’t blame the organizers for the meager provisions. I have no idea what the Covid rules for rest stops are. But given the minutia that we are bombarded with in the forms of rules, regulations, guidance, advice and social pressure during this panicdemic, I’m sure the restrictions are many and the choices are few. Perhaps Doritos have been found by science to have anti-viral properties.

It became obvious that the ride was going to be longer than planned, but I had some fine riding companions. Bill and I rode together for the whole thing. Kent started well ahead of us, but he said we would catch him, and eventually we did. We were joined by Captain Hawk who rode part of the course from his house, but he did about 60 miles and skipped Stoney Creek, so he only gets partial credit.

Instead of heading for the barn at mile 65, we decided to to the out and back on Hogan Dam Road. This road made me think of France. It is all up and down and curves and few cars. With one major difference from the French versions: there are people shooting loud guns at targets in some open space and hopefully away from the road. I’m not sure this is legal but I’m not going to argue the point.

The only problem with this road is that the pavement ends after 5 miles. So we turned around into the wind, which got stronger as the day went on and was going to be in our faces for the last 10 miles. Of course it was! Who wants to cap off an epic day of cycling enjoying a tailwind?

After the ride I was really hungry so I headed to Davinci’s deli for a much needed sandwich, and I took home some ravioli for dinner too. I was happy and kind of surprised I did the whole ride without any issues, although for some reason I got really tired around mile 50 but rode better after that and actually felt fine at the finish. Maybe the first bag of Doritos took a while to kick in.

It has been a little over one year since most of the USA went into some form of lockdown. Remember the instant toilet paper shortage? Last March I made a trip to my local Raley’s on a Sunday, and to my shock the shelves were empty of almost everything and fellow shoppers were wandering around with dazed looks on their faces.

I could see the looks on their faces, because none of us were wearing masks. One year ago our experts told us masks weren’t necessary and didn’t work anyway unless they were the N 95 type. Just as the original Stay at Home Order was supposed to last a couple of weeks to ‘flatten the curve’. Soon we were told and ordered to mask up, and recently advised that two masks are even better than one. And the couple of weeks has dragged out to over a year.

I’m not going to tell you what I think about the ‘experts’ and our state governor and our county public health department head, and how they are telling us what we can and cannot do (mostly the latter).This isn’t a political blog. I’m just trying to keep sane and out of trouble. Vodka helps…

A year ago we were watching our travel plans unravel in increments. The six weeks of cycling in France starting in May 2020 officially bit the dust on April 7, when Air France sent us an e mail cancelling our flight. AF issued vouchers good for future travel and refundable for cash after one year. I’ve still got them in my France folder.

I didn’t ask for refunds from our Malaucene landlady or France Bicycle Rental (Modestine’s owner) or my favorite European bicycle tour company, 44 5. I had already paid for everything but I presumed that by August 2020 we would be able to travel. Wrong again.

So here we are in March a year after the shut down, and the same May/June trip we had planned for 2020, paid for in 2020, and rescheduled for May/June 2021 is starting to fall apart. France’s border is closed to travelers from the USA. France itself is having problems with the pace of vaccinations and many parts of the country, including Paris, are back in a severe lockdown. And the French don’t fool around: you can only leave your home for a few reasons and you need to carry an attestation form stating why. You can be fined for violations.

International travel for cycling is stressful enough for me without the potential Covid complications. There is the bike transport issue. What cycling clothes to take for uncertain weather. All the stress of tandem cycling, where as the pilot anything that goes wrong is my responsibility. Because if Stoker isn’t happy…

No one knows what the rules are going to be if and when it is possible for a US tourist to fly to Europe. But negative Covid tests 72 or 48 hours before flights are a near certainty, as is some kind of still to be determined ‘Covid Passport’. And who wants to travel if the restaurants are closed, or there is a curfew, or the attractions you want to see are shut tight? What about the possibility of getting quarantined or locked down in a foreign country?

Our France trip this year hasn’t been officially cancelled, but it is on life support. Groundhog Day…