bicycling been belly, belly good to me.....

my pursuit of flexibility remains intact and i am not riding a 'comfort bike'. i haven't been riding flat out on a mountain bike in a while, but when i do it will be un-suspended. not even gonna ride a mountain bike, i'll be building up the bridgestone xo-2 soon.

but back to bike fit and flexibility. the most indicative observation is lever position on drop bars. i've always set up my levers a little low, basically put a straight edge on the lower flat position and even the bottom of the brake lever w/ that. a colleague of mine suggests that raising the levers is warranted. of course nothing is really wrong with that, if you are old and inflexible. if you are young at heart and ready to break some records use a lower position for the levers.

to be continued.....

update: 2 pm local time;
after further consultation with an expert mechanic, i have been informed that the 'brifter' combinanation may require a higher brake lever position, due to it 'unique design'

The Men That Don't Fit In by: Robert Service

There's a race of men that don't fit in, A race that can't stay still; So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will. They range the field and they rove the flood, And they climb the mountain's crest; Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood, And they don't know how to rest. If they just went straight they might go far; They are strong and brave and true; But they're always tired of the things that are, And they want the strange and new. They say: "Could I find my proper groove, What a deep mark I would make!" So they chop and change, and each fresh move Is only a fresh mistake. And each forgets, as he strips and runs With a brilliant, fitful pace, It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones Who win in the lifelong race. And each forgets that his youth has fled, Forgets that his prime is past, Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead, In the glare of the truth at last. He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance; He has just done things by half. Life's been a jolly good joke on him, And now is the time to laugh. Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost; He was never meant to win; He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone; He's a man who won't fit in.

PORTRAIT D'UNE FEMME by: Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

OUR mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,

London has swept about you this score years

And bright ships left you this or that in fee:

Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,

Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.

Great minds have sought you--lacking someone else.

You have been second always. Tragical?

No. You preferred it to the usual thing:

One dull man, dulling and uxorious,

One average mind--with one thought less, each year.

Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit

Hours, where something might have floated up.

And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.

You are a person of some interest, one comes to you

And takes strange gain away:

Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;

Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,

Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else

That might prove useful and yet never proves,

That never fits a corner or shows use,

Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:

The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;

Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,

These are your riches, your great store; and yet

For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,

Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:

In the slow float of differing light and deep,

No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,

Nothing that's quite your own.

Yet this is you.

"Portrait d'une Femme" is reprinted from Ripostes of Ezra Pound. Ezra Pound. London: Elkin Mathews, 1915.

MORE POEMS BY EZRA POUND