Many years ago Stoker and I were walking down Michigan Avenue in Chicago at Christmas time. It was a cold but sunny day and the famous Windy City was enjoying calm conditions. The street was filled with festive shoppers and the stores were all decked out in holiday finery. Not a homeless person in sight either; this was back when there was a Daley in the mayor’s office and the city functioned, even if a few dead people might vote occasionally.

Not everyone was celebrating the holiday spirit. Outside of a high end department store (Nieman Marcus maybe?) there was a group of petulant PETA people protesting. Say that 3 times fast to improve your diction. I think they were opposed to fur coats, but it could have been meat or testing cosmetics on animals. Whatever it was they were worked up about it, chanting slogans and waving signs.

We stopped to watch for a second, and I guess I was looking askance at one of the women, so she glared directly at me and snarled “Do you find me frightening?” I responded “No Ms., I find you amusing!” That really got her mad and as we walked off she was spewing obscenities. Nothing makes a social justice warrior angrier than being laughed at.

I’m no longer laughing, at least not in the presence of someone convinced they are fighting against fascists like me. Back around 2000 such behavior would get you upbraided verbally, today it might get you beaten up or shot. Or at the very least, “keyed”.

Even by an elected public official:

A Rhode Island state senator who was caught keying a man’s car last month was sentenced to pay restitution after admitting to the charges of vandalism and obstruction of a police officer. 

Miller, 69, was arrested in June after he vandalized a car with a “Biden Sucks” bumper sticker and later lied to police. He initially denied keying the car and later claimed the victim was “daring” him to once police confronted him with video evidence.

This is how an elected State Senator behaves when he sees someone who doesn’t think the current occupant of the White House is doing a good job and chooses to express his opinion with a semi vulgar message on his automobile. He keys the car and lies to police about it, then tries to blame the victim. About what you would expect from a politician.

What ever happened to the ‘sticks and stones’ mentality? Nowadays words can get you doxed, or cancelled, or keyed, or beaten up, or shot.

I have thought about displaying a flag for a politician outside our home on Brumby Road, but I have demurred. This Blue State ain’t gonna agree with me on anything political in my lifetime. Besides, the only people who would see it work for Amazon or UPS. They are younger and likely to be a lot more woke up than I am, and I don’t want to incite violence. All they would have to do is go into the orchard and kick a few sprinklers to really mess up my day. And strike a blow for justice against the fascist farmer.

So these days I restrain my laughter and hold my tongue. I can’t remember the last time I got into a political argument with anyone, and I’m going to keep it that way. I’ve never convinced anyone of anything anyhow. If I keep my head down maybe state senators will keep their keys in their pockets.

LGBTQ activists at New York City’s annual drag queen parade chanted, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children,” in Manhattan on Friday.

I had a hard time believing this actually happened. But YouTube has video. And sure enough that is what these marchers are chanting.

I am a tolerant man. I really don’t much care what consenting adults do in private as long as they don’t frighten the horses. Tolerance is, however, not approval. If you are a participant in all the hoopla over Pride Month, well and good. I may be quietly laughing to myself over some of the celebration rituals, or merchandise, or rhetoric. And I will certainly be avoiding gatherings where it seems acceptable to openly display genitalia. I like a topless beach as much as the next person, but fully erect appendages on public streets are a bit much.

But I would like to ask people in the LGTBQIA2S+ community whether they are proud that some of their members are chanting this threat that they are “coming for your children”. Are Pride Activists going to disavow this? Are they going to censure the perpetrators?

Let me assure the Pride Promoters that behavior like this is making tolerant people like me a lot less tolerant.

My 16th trip to Europe for cycling was accomplished in 4 steps: car transfer to SFO, flight from SFO to Charlotte, flight from Charlotte to CDG in Paris, then take the TGV to Nimes. Almost 30 hours in transit.

The easiest and most comfortable leg was supposed to be the Business Class flight across the ‘pond’. It was on American Airlines, and I was curious to see how this would compare to my previous experiences on Air France and KLM.

I was sitting pleasantly ensconced in my window seat of the 4 across cabin, when an older couple boarded and were dismayed to find that their assigned seats were not right next to each other. As I was looking at my phone a middle aged woman, who turned out to be the couple’s daughter, politely said “Excuse me sir”, and asked if I would mind changing seats so her parents could see each other during the flight.

There were a couple of reasons for me to say no. I had already organized my seating area and started saving some ‘favorite’ movies to help me get through the flight. Also my seat had my shoulder against the fuselage and my feet angled toward the aisle. It also had a simple lap seatbelt. The seat I was asked to move to was configured the opposite way with my shoulder on the aisle and my feet angled toward the window. And because of the direction it faced I would be required to wear a lap and shoulder belt instead of the lap belt, which was less comfortable.

I had deliberately chosen this seat months ago, and I was well within my rights to refuse to move. Instead I agreed, packed up my stuff and made the switch, thinking this act of kindness would give me good Karma for the trip. Karma soon made its entrance…

One of the many nice things about business class is that you board first, and they serve you a beverage while you wait for the plane to fill up. They usually offer champagne, water and orange juice. Guess which one I choose.

The cabin steward entered carrying a tray with full glasses of champagne. He offered one to the old guy who was now occupying my former seat. As the steward turned toward me he somehow lost his balance and sent 5 full glasses of champagne cascading into my cubicle, drenching my shirt and pants and seat.

The steward was mortified and ran off and returned with some napkins, but he underestimated the degree of the drenching; I was soaked. Napkins were kind of a feebIe gesture. I asked him what I should do now? How am I going to get through an 8 hour flight soaking wet and smelling like a winery?

I had a change of clothes in my carry on bag, which I usually don’t have. Ever try to change clothes in an airplane bathroom? Not easy even in business class. And I didn’t have a change of underwear in the bag, so my choice was to go damp or commando. I’ll let you guess.

Back at my cubicle, I had to stand up because my seat was so wet and I didn’t want to get my dry clothes un-dry. The steward assured me there was someone coming to give me a dry seat cover, and finally a technician showed up and replaced it. I’m pretty sure the foam underneath, which was not replaced, was still damp, but it didn’t penetrate the new cover and my bottom stayed dry.

When I finally sat down the apologetic steward asked if there was anything he could do. Since I had missed my champagne, I asked for a vodka and ice, STAT. And he said he couldn’t serve me because we were too close to takeoff! I’m already mad, and this was beyond the pale.

I finally got my vodka much later during the normal pre-dinner cocktail service, and the drencher did offer me a double. I was tempted but decided to stick with my moderation plan and demurred.

Near the end of the flight, a very pretty woman (I noticed, so call me sexist and sue me or dox me) said she was the head flight attendant and she wanted to apologize personally. She said Charles (the spiller) was so very very sorry. She had noted that I drank Malbec with dinner and offered me a bottle as a goodwill gesture. I thanked her and declined because I didn’t really have room for it in my bags but I appreciated the thought.

Then Charles the Drencher came over to apologize yet again, and he thanked me for being so composed and understanding during the incident. I was kind of surprised by this since I know I was fuming and extremely irritated and I had to have been scowling. But I didn’t raise my voice or swear or call anyone an idiot or klutz or worse. He said not everyone would have behaved so reasonably and he was grateful.

So Karma hit me in the face with 5 glasses of champagne, but maybe the payback came on the rest of the trip where the weather was perfect and I felt great off the bike and okay on it. At the end of the trip I made a visit to the Duomo in Milan, and lit two sets of prayer candles in gratitude and for continued safe cycling in the future. ‘Seat Change Karma’ needs to up its game a bit though.

First it was Bud Lite managing to offend a large number of its customers and cut sales by 30%. Now this from the store I use to avoid shopping at Walmart:

Target Pride merchandise includes female-style swimsuits that can be used to “tuck” male genitalia, products labeled as “Thoughtfully fit on multiple body types and gender expressions,” a “Gender Fluid” mug, a variety of adult clothing with slogans such as “Super Queer,” party supplies, home decor, multiple books and a “Grow At Your Own Pace” saucer planter.

Critics are particularly peeved about Target Pride merchandise for children, which includes onesies and rompers for newborn babies and along with other apparel for kids of all ages.

I had to see this for myself, so after a trip to my CVS and B of A I headed to ‘my’ Target on Kettleman Lane in Lodi. Sure enough, the Pride items were right in the front of the store just beyond the entrance. I took a few photos to convince myself that the conservative community of Lodi that I grew up in has gotten a bit of a woke-up call.

I looked for one of those bulge accommodating swim suits, but I couldn’t find any. That was probably too ‘over the top’ for Lodi. This is what I was looking for:

I was planning to purchase one of these gender bending swimsuits and model it for Stoker. Who knows, it might uncover some long repressed fantasy of hers that could lead to an entertaining hour. Or it might cause her to collapse with laughter. Or she might make some clever remark about not really needing so much extra crotch coverage. Wives can be cruel…

I was also planning to take a picture of myself clad in my tuckable, and put it in this blog. Fortunately for you, dear reader, that did not happen. Those who know me realize that I get a five o’clock shadow well before noon, and have unshaven and very hairy legs, so it would have been quite a sight.

I could say I’m boycotting Bud Lite, but that would be misleading since I never touch the stuff. And I’m not going to boycott Target. This merchandise may say Pride to some but to me the items aimed at adults are just entertaining. Now the ‘onesies’ with slogans like ‘bien pride’ are something else, but I imagine parents know best.

One really cool thing about France is that it has a real high speed rail network, far superior to anything California is going to come up with even if we do actually build something. The TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse) can get you to many places in France at speeds up to 180 mph. And there is a train station in the International Terminal at Charles de Gaulle Airport, which means you can get off a flight from the US and walk a few hundred meters and catch a train to Nimes or Lyon or Nice or Toulouse. Much more comfortable than a connecting flight and more scenic too.

Last February when I finalized my 2023 cycling trip plans, I decided to take the TGV from CDG to the lovely city of Nimes in southern France. My flight is supposed to arrive at 10 am, and there were two trains to Nimes: one at 12 noon and the other at 3 pm. Originally I booked the later train, because it delivered me to the Nimes Center station only a short walk from my hotel. But this train involved 2 transfers, including a 10 minute connection in Lyon, which made me a bit nervous. I’ve been to the Lyon station and it is busy and more than a little confusing.

The noon train was non-stop to Nimes, but the destination station is at Pont du Gard, maybe 15 miles from my hotel. When 44 5 (my ‘French Connection’ cycle-touring company) offered to pick me up at Pont du Gard I decided to book the earlier train. If everything works I will be in Nimes in time for an afternoon glass of rosé.

Using the SNCF website and the app is not always intuitive or easy to navigate, but eventually I got the second ticket. Today I decided to go back on SNCF and get a refund on my first ticket, which was fully refundable.

I logged on, went to ‘My Trips’ and was shocked to get the following message:

Both of my tickets has disappeared. Even though I had printed them on paper with the QR code, the website seemed to have lost track of them. I went back to my credit card statements and sure enough, both tickets had been paid. What now? Do I have tickets or not?

44 5 (Gerry) to the rescue! I sent him some What’s App messages and he used my password to get onto the site. And he said the tickets were there! I tried again and still couldn’t make them appear on my computer or on the SNCF app I installed on my phone. So I asked Gerry to cancel the first ticket, and seconds later I got confirmation by e mail from SNCF.

I tried to follow Gerry’s steps so that I could view my remaining ticket, but I kept getting the screens you see above. Finally I asked Gerry what name he typed in and he said “Freggiaro”. I told him I had been using Richard Freggiaro, or Freggiaro Richard, or FREGGIARO RICHARD or RICHARD FREGGIARO in case it was case sensitive.

I actually got tripped up by Google translate. The French word ‘nom’ apparently means surname. When I put the booking code in with FREGGIARO (leaving out any form of Richard) my ticket popped right up. In English the box asks you to enter “Name used to make the booking”. If it had translated ‘nom’ as ‘Last Name’ I could have saved myself about 2 hours of confusion and worry. That is the price I pay for not taking French in high school, although in San Joaquin County two years of Spanish proved much more useful. Google take note: nom and name are not the same!

First a little history: Stoker grew up in Iowa but spent several years in St. Paul Minnesota. She got her Library Science degree at the University of Minnesota, then went to work to support her first husband while he worked on his PHD.

When we got together in DC I used to get on her case about all those kind, decent, caring liberal Lutherans who belonged to the DFL political party. That is the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, which is what Democrats in Minnesota call themselves. In 1984 Minnesota was probably one of the least diverse states in the U.S. Blonds, Scandinavian last names, and Lutherans. They were also the only state not to give an endorsement to a very popular sitting president.

In 1980, Stoker voted for the incumbent, along with 16 of the 18 people working at our consulting firm. One secretary and I were the only dissidents. The majority was probably partially self motivated, since our firm did some lobbying (not me; I was just a junior analyst) and had really good connections at USDA who would be replaced if Reagan won.

You would think that love could not conquer such a wide gap in political views, but marriage is about compromise. I rant and rave and then we do what Stoker wants. Over years of observing the economic and regulatory realities of farming, along with realizing that the government was confiscating an increasing percentage of our growing income, she made a kind of spectrum shift towards the red.

But feel-good liberalism is alive and well in the North Star State:

Minnesota lawmakers are mulling a change to state law, House File 181, that would log alleged bias incidents even when they aren’t considered a crime.

The bill, introduced in January, would allow people to report perceived bias-related incidents such as alleged slurs and verbal attacks that would fall outside the hate crimes compiled annually by the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, according to the St. Cloud Times.

When asked if opining that the Corona virus leaked from a Chinese virology lab could be considered a ‘bias related incident’ a sponsor of the bill had this to say.

Samantha Vang (DFL) argued that while not all incidents are considered violent or criminal, this sort of rhetoric is “bias motivated” therefore “it can be considered a bias incident.”

Ms. Vang was also asked if wearing a J.K. Rowling t shirt could be considered a bias related incident, and she demurred.

Shoplifters ply their trade with impunity. Violent felonies are reduced to misdemeanors and perpetrators released from custody. Rioters smash windows and burn cars and assault innocent people trying to enjoy a dinner downtown, and very little happens to them unless they are protesting from a non-woke point of view. But in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, ‘bias motivated rhetoric’ is a reportable offense.

So if you engage in a modern tea party protest by dumping cases of Bud Light as a show of disgust at their choice of spokesperson, be advised that Minnesota has you on their radar.

My blog is definitely bias motivated. I am biased against stupidity and hypocrisy. There is plenty of both of these around so I never lack for material. I imagine my blog would make Minnesota’s bias incident registry if any of my readers want to report me. Go ahead; reporting me means you read the entire blog, which is all an author can ask for.

Readers may recall that I like to say my hobbies are cycling, chess and monogamy. Two of those are in the gender bending news this week.

Item 1 is from a women’s crit cycling race in New York.

Here is what USA cycling says regarding who is eligible to compete in ‘woman’s’ races: “Those who transition from male to female (MTF) are eligible to compete in the female category under the following conditions:

• “The athlete has declared that their gender identity is female.” (I declare that I am a talented cyclist, but that don’t make it so…)
• “The athlete must demonstrate that their total testosterone level in serum has been below 2.5 nmol/L for a period of at least 24 months.”

Normal testosterone levels for a male are 10 to 35 (nmol/L) so it is obvious that any MTF person has to take a lot of hormone altering drugs to get below the 2.5 level. It is also obvious that having gone through puberty and much of adulthood as a male, this 42 year old athlete has more muscle mass and a different bone structure from female competitors. And nowhere does it require that the MTF person be altered in the most obvious way.

I ride my bike with some very, very strong women. I’ve been dropped by some of them, and I block the wind riding in front of some others, and I marvel at how strong they all are. But as far as I know, they are all females who identify as women, although we’ve never discussed pronouns.

Item 2: From the world of chess: a male, who identifies as a male, decided to surreptitiously enter the Kenyan Open Chess Championship as a woman, using a disguise:

“We didn’t have any suspicion at first, because wearing a hijab is normal,” tournament director Wanjala said. “But along the way, we noticed he won against very strong players… and it will be unlikely to have a new person who has never played a tournament [being very strong].”

“One of the red flags we also noticed [was] the shoes, he was wearing more masculine shoes, than feminine,” he added to BBC Sport. “We also noticed he was not talking, even when he came to collect his tag, he couldn’t speak, ordinarily, when you are playing, you speak to your opponent… because playing a chess game is not war it’s friendship.” (I’m not so sure that chess is friendship and not war. There is a book written by a psychiatrist called “Chess and the Dance of Death”. And in chess the King is the most important piece but the Queen is the most powerful. That is also true on Brumby Road: If Stoker isn’t happy…)

Officials reportedly were afraid to call out Omondi at first in fear of accusations of profiling, but when they did call him out, he came clean. Omondi registered as Millicent Awour. He admitted to his transgression in a letter, saying he had “financial needs.”

It seems the Kenyan Chess Federation has more stringent rules about who can compete as a woman than USA Cycling or the NCAA. The director noted that the hijabed individual was wearing ‘masculine shoes’. And they noticed that ‘she’ never spoke a word, keeping silent lest someone notice ‘her’ deep voice and identify ‘her’ as a him.

Kenyan Chess officials were afraid to call out the faux Millicent, because they were in fear of accusations of profiling. If you happened to notice what happened to Riley Gaines when she spoke in San Francisco about what biological males are doing to women’s competitive swimming you can understand their reluctance.

But in the end they did call him out, and Omondi nee Millicent came clean. Apparently he really identifies as a he, and the idea of removing his he-ness is as appalling to him as it would be to me. He said he needed money and knew he could win the women’s tournament and get out of debt. So he masqueraded as a female without identifying as one. To their credit the Kenyan tournament officials annulled his results and gave the prize to a real woman.

And to add to the irony, I would say that chess is a sport (is it?) where men have no inherent physical or mental advantage over women. Why are there chess competitions that only allow women to enter? There is a US Women’s Championship and a Woman World Champion. There are also women who achieve the title of International Grandmaster, which is open to both men and women. I don’t object to the women-only events at all. The Kenyans agree and want to preserve women’s sports (including chess) for women while the NCAA and USA cycling are not as concerned even if biological males have physical advantages.

The third hobby has no gender news to report. Brumby Road remains binary. Delightfully so. Vive la différence!

Back when Mr. Putin first sent troops into Ukraine, bars and liquor stores and vodka fans the world over responded by pouring vodka from Russia down the drain. But there are lots of vodka brands with Russian sounding names that come from other places, including Smirnoff:

Smirnoff is named after Vladimir Smirnoff who fled from Russia during the country’s revolution, but it’s owned by British company Diageo (ticker: DEO) and is made in the U.S., Canada, and many other countries—but not Russia.

Now on Brumby Road we drink Stolichnaya, and after I did a little research I concluded that I wasn’t hurting Ukraine by doing so. You can read about what I learned here:

Vodka Verity

But apparently the people who own the brand Stolichnaya decided that the name was too ‘Russian’ sounding and was hurting sales, Besides, most people have trouble pronouncing ‘Stolichnaya’ although since Stoker studied Russian in high school and college (useful back in the cold war days) she never had any problem. She can even read the Cyrillic characters in the title of this blog.

Most pub patrons shortened the name to ‘Stoli’ when ordering. In fact, when I would ask for “two Stolichnaya on the rocks with a twist” I would sometimes get blank looks until I shortened my order to ‘Stoli’.

So in an effort to appear less Russian, Stolichnaya has been rebranded, kind of. Here is the evolution of the label:

On the right is the pre-war version where the diminutive form is nowhere to be seen. The middle bottle retains the full name on the upper part, but uses Stoli across the very 1930’s looking vodka factory drawing. On the left is our most recent purchase, where the name Stolichnaya is completely absent. Dasvidania Stolichnaya, hello Stoli! Welcome to Brumby Road!

A lot of the mail that finds its way to Brumby Road is junk that gets dropped in the garbage can in the garage without ever entering the house. But not when it arrives looking like this:

Much of our mail is at least a little unwelcome: PG&E bills, jury duty summons, property tax notices, medical insurance bills or doctor bills all produce a sigh of resignation and thoughts of ‘such is life’. But a letter from the IRS when none is expected produces outright terror.

I do our taxes myself using Turbo Tax. I don’t cheat. I report all our income. I juggle RMD’s and 1099 DIV’s and Form 1040 ES’s and even a schedule for farm rental income and expenses. And as I said, I don’t cheat, although the tax code is so complicated that there are plenty of icebergs to sink you. What I think constitutes a ‘necessary and ordinary’ business expense might not mesh with an auditor’s interpretation.

We had a large one-time income event in 2022: some US Savings Bonds we bought in 1992 matured and all the deferred interest had to be reported as taxable income. I make quarterly estimated payments, and I knew I was underpaying for 2022, but there is a ‘safe harbor’ as long as your payments are 100% of last year’s (2021 for me) tax bill. Which I thought I was doing. But when I filed my taxes in February, Turbo Tax told me I owed a penalty for ‘underpayment of estimated taxes’ Oh no, penalties and interest, what have I done? It turned out the penalty was all of $8.00 (not $80, or $800, or $8,000). I was so relieved I decided not to try to chase down what the issue was.

So this letter from the IRS had me more than a little worried. Maybe the $8.00 penalty was miscalculated? Maybe the large payment for tax due that the IRS withdrew from my back account in mid-March wasn’t properly credited or was stolen by some hacker or identity thief? Or maybe it is an audit notice from one of the 80,000 new IRS agents hired by the Biden Administration to go after scofflaw Red State voters. OK, I know I live in a Blue State but east of I-5 the politics change and Linden votes differently than Oakland/San Francisco/Bay Area communities.

When I saw what was inside the letter I almost jumped for joy: the IRS found that I had OVERPAID my estimated taxes by some $240, and that I could expect a refund for that amount in a couple of weeks. It arrived yesterday. No audit, no fraud accusations, no criminal charges, no jail time. I felt like I had won the lottery.

I have no idea how this happened. I looked at our tax return and everything seems correct, but the amount Turbo Tax said I owed was $240 more than the IRS’s tax computation. Perhaps I entered my estimated payments incorrectly. Perhaps Turbo Tax got confused. Perhaps the income tax system in the U.S. is way too complicated. That is probably something Red, Blue, Purple and all other color States could agree about.

A high quality road bike that is well maintained should be nearly silent. You might hear a swishing sound of tires on smooth pavement, and a kind of ‘whrrr’ as the clean and well lubricated chain rotates and meshes with the chainrings and cassettes. Shifts are smooth and precise with no irritating rattling or chain rub. And while there may be a few clicks and vibrations on exceptionally rough roads (Chile Camp/Campo Seco anyone?) those noises disappear on roads that do not resemble goat paths.

Sometimes riding in close quarters on flat ground with my friends I marvel at how little noise our machines are making. We all ride pretty high end bikes and since most of us are retired we have plenty of time to keep things clean and lubricated and properly adjusted. A few people don’t lube the chain quite often enough, and the slight squeak bothers me even if they don’t seem to notice it. But it doesn’t happen often.

My bikes all have 25,000 miles or more (some much more) of wear and tear, and they are all silent. So you might think that a new, high end bike would be completely noise free. But things are not always so simple.

My friend Kent just bought such a brand new, high end machine. He already had a very decent but older Orbea, and a really magnificent high end Trek Domane. So he didn’t need another bike, but he decided to follow Rule 12 from The Velominati.

Rule 12: // The correct number of bikes to own is n+1.While the minimum number of bikes one should own is three, the correct number is n+1, where n is the number of bikes currently owned. This equation may also be re-written as s-1, where s is the number of bikes owned that would result in separation from your partner.

Kent got this beauty built up and fitted to match his current model. There was a little problem with that. His back got really sore and strained after his first ride. It turned out that the handlebar was 1 centimeter off center, which is a huge amount and I am kind of shocked that no one noticed until Bob, a friend and master of almost everything about bicycle mechanics, found it and corrected it.

After about 200 miles on this new bike, it started to make an irritating noise, kind of a cross between a squeak and a clunk and a click. It was coming from somewhere around the saddle and seat post area. So Kent started the detective process to discover the issue and get it fixed.

First step: check the seat post clamp bolt. The torque spec was 16 nm or less, which is pretty tight. The bolt was well below 16, so Kent set his torque wrench to 15 and tightened it down. The noise persisted.

Next suspect, the new saddle. Kent put an old worn out saddle on the new bike, and the noise persisted. But this was an imperfect test, since the old saddle had also been making some noise when he retired it. So he brought the bike to my house and installed a brand new Fizik Aliente that I have laying around, and as he rode away on my driveway to do a Brumby Road test ride, it was pretty clear that the saddle wasn’t the problem.

Or was it? Kent took the bike back to the shop where he purchased it, and they removed the seat post and re-greased everything. But when the mechanic did a test ride there was still some noise, and he says the saddle was flexing too much on the rails for a brand new one. Saddles do eventually wear out, and start to creak where the rails attach to the saddle body, but not for many thousands of miles. The mechanic is sending the saddle back for a warranty replacement.

If you are a little confused at this point, let me recap. It appears there are two issues: the seat post creaks, and the new saddle is flexing and making noise as well. The sound on Sunday’s ride was pretty loud, so maybe there were two sources.

A noisy brand new bike is really frustrating, especially after paying thousands of dollars for it. The shop is doing all they can and the problem will get fixed eventually. But let me get on my soap box for a bit and rant about over-engineering. The reason the seat post is creaking it that there is some kind of shock absorbing material in it that is supposed to contribute to a smoother, more comfortable ride. But that post/elastomer/frame interface is a potential source of sound. And it really is not necessary. Slightly wider tires at slightly lower pressure will do more to affect ride quality than any shock absorbing seat post.

I had a similar issue with the bottom bracket on my beloved Tarmac. It squeaked. Mechanics greased the bearings, replaced the bearings, replaced them again with a different type of bearing, and nothing worked. The problem was with the pressed in design, and the solution was a completely different type of bottom bracket that held the crank and bearings much more securely and eliminated the noise. The original design was lighter but the noise drove riders crazy, and there are a lot of Tarmacs out there running Wheels Manufacturing aftermarket threaded bottom brackets. Including mine, which is now wonderfully silent even when I put my maximum power into the pedals. A pro might still make it creak but I’m not doing 1,000+ watts in a sprint.

I hope Kent’s bike gets quiet soon. It is a beautiful bike with high end components, and it deserves to get noticed for that and not for its noise level