Time to slow down... a bit

There are times when it makes sense to balance passion and reason. Mountain-biking is a sport with inherent danger, and too often, I have taken falls which end up hurting, at least pretty badly. Falls do happen, and even at slow speed, unlike with skiing, they're never a pleasant option.


My last fall wasn't spectacular as always, but somehow managed to show, so with no further ado, I am now committed to ride down even more slowly so I can enjoy my bike much, much longer and, in a few many years, get a new one!

People who command respect

I'm not talking about celebrities of the arts, sports, politics or science. I'm talking about those that I truly admire for their attitude and their accomplishments day-in, day-out. The individuals that “deliver” the goods no matter what, that don't use excuses as a crutch, that regularly exceed expectations and are always smart enough to think twice before making outlandish promises.

It's also about what some folks accomplish in relation to their potential or their innate abilities; that's right, getting a maximum output off limited resources. They generally don't boast about their performance, are nice and stay humble. These are the one that deserve our respect; period.

The knife, the ax and the woodworking machine

You can do a lot of things with a knife, but it can be slow, tedious and frustrating. Tools aren't created equal and the smaller and simpler they are, they generally can't be jack of all trades!

Yesterday, I was observing my general contractor struggling on his (oversized) smart phone, looking for some email lost in some invisible sea of data and was thinking: “it's just a knife, perhaps of the Swiss-Army kind, but it's still a knife!”

There are tasks that can be perfectly accomplished with a smart phone (the Swiss-Army knife) the digital pad (the ax), but nothing still come close to the the computer (the combined woodworking machine) when it comes to crunching numbers, sorting things out and creating content; yes, you can text this basic truth to your friends!

When running problems become riding pleasures

This summer hasn't been kind to my running: Shin-splint, muscle tears and now tendinitis on my left Achilles! This unpleasant situation has forced me to literally “shift gears” and ride my mountain-bike instead of running.

This is no punishment at all as I fully appreciate my early morning ride, when the sun is rising and nature is at its best. I'm so lucky to love mountain-biking as much as I love running!

Wow, a new mountain-bike!

I got my current mountain bike in 2005 and it has lasted me nine seasons. For a while I seriously thought this would be my last one. Funny how these machines lifespan match those of passports, yeah, every ten years...

The new one I just got today should, in all probability, last me another decade. Will there be a replacement one down the single-trail, come year 2023? We'll see, but I remain quite optimistic...

The art of shutting up

Last night was an informal block party in one of our neighborhood street celebrating the end of summer. We were invited and asked our son, daughter-in-law and grand-son to join in. The skies had been threatening all day, so few people showed up, but in spite of the limited number of participants, we all had a good time.

As we were chatting with everyone, I realized how people love to tell their own stories. They somehow have to come out, even if they sound trite or are of little interest to others. At the same time, I also realized how badly we want to tell our own things too, and what gives is the fact that we're perhaps more gracious, have done that before and chose to yield to others.

That's is good, because not only it keeps us humble but it also prevent us from talking about boring generalities and sometimes uttering the not-so-smart things we hear from others...

Wanna ride a $10,000 mountain-bike?

It's my doctor who started me thinking during my last physical. He said that each pound can make a significant difference in the way I feel when I'm climbing on my mountain-bike. I didn't think too much about it since, until recently when I began shopping for a new bike.

Depending on the available frame and components technology, a full-suspension mountain bike will range between 26 and 32 pound, which span over a whole 6 pound! The cost of taking down the overall weight of such a machine can be quite costly

and range from $2,000 all the way to $8,000 and even more, which means that – on average – each pound gained will set you back some $1000 on average. Reality is quite different, as past a certain threshold, each ounce gained can literally cost its weight in gold.

Now, you contrast this with shedding weight. If you're an average male rider weighing say, 170 lbs, how hard is it to shed 6 pound or less than 4% of your total body mass? Not that big a deal, and yet it could be worth that $6,000 difference.

The morale of today's story: Buy yourself a cheap, 32 pound mountain bike and make a conscious effort to use it twice as much as you had originally planned. Very soon, it will feel to you like a $10,000, 25-pounder!