I got a "C+" for a paper in school digging deeply into Emily Dickinson's angst-oozing winter Poem by the same title.  It took me many years to get over the arguments I'd had with the English Department Chair, who didn't see it my way.  The thing about subjectivity is that you don't have to get my drift, People don't need to agree -- One just has to make a solid case for their position, or perhaps not at all. There was the rub.  In a class, I was under duress to convince an academic sophisticate to look at this "another way".  I'd cited all sorts of books on "seeing" and aesthetics, but the department believed that, (my) "way of seeing it was wrong".  I've kept that maudlin bit of Mid-January in my rear brain for more than a few decades, and still it brings unrest.  I've spent the gap years showing others how we own very little but subjectivity and creativity belong to us.  Your Creativity and Subjectivity, are not things which you have to share, but the world can be a better place when you do.  Take the case of this certain slant of light, Most assuredly not Dickenson's intended imagery, but just the same a theme which may evoke a different interpretation for each beholder.  Primitive shadow puppets may be the first animated theater, but if you cast a long enough shadow, you'll note that the dark spaces makes for interesting conversations.  Such that it was with Emily Dickenson, who seemed to cast quite a long dark shadow, struggling to breathe clean air above troubled water.  May we all be more joyful than she. It seems rather easy to out-happy Dickenson.  In fact even if we dwell in the "little things" as she did, what we cull out of their nuance can be the cup half full.   Children can have more fun with a cardboard box, and a pile of sand than any moulded plastic figure you can buy them.  Thorough Danish Studies Published recently, and shared here prove that kids are happier when they spend time in nature, and so it makes sense that earthbound is not housebound.  A glowing screen version of a sandlot, doesn't substitute the real thing, and the long shadow of the sun before dusk cannot be substituted by anything in the basement. Sure you can shine a flashlight over your hands and cast the shape of a heart, but there is no supplement for the impending danger of darkness, or the thrill of pushing the bounds of being scolded for staying out past the street lights. Thrill comes to us in nuanced forms, from the surprise, and elation of doing even the simplest things which we'd thought impossible, to the freedom to be dangerous. Its perhaps not surprising that spending time outdoors makes kids more happy and happier as adults, if we understand what being outdoors provides, that the indoors cannot.  
The graph above is a map, which can be tough to follow unless we just look at the left column numbers which are higher for kids in the city, than the country.  Lets, also consider that all kids spend way too much time indoors, so we need to skew for the heavy effect of being shut-ins in general.
​Danger as an Elixir:
Outside has plenty of danger, and danger, and risks bring both fear, and exhilaration.  It's taking chances, and calculating the risk of jumping from this rock to that, or climbing a tree, that you can't fathom how to climb down from, that stimulate us toward happiness. The fallout from jumping from one roof to the other, provided the outcome was positive, will be Thrilling. Being thrilled seldom comes from a screen, or in another Two-dimensional form.  Slip off a rock and skinning your knee before dragging one foot under an icy river current is a tough sensation to bring about in a VR rig.
Dirt, and all things which make us dirty,
make us happier.  Happier to be clean perhaps; But filth is the Yin to the Yang of clean Pajamas. For kids this dualism, of our interconnected/ interdependent world gives more meaning to a balanced life. Nobody needs to be a buddhist, to understand the primary chaos of material energy, everything has energy. The proof can be found in a hug, even hugging a tree.  Dirt has energy, and knowing clean may follow, makes that energy more potent.  It seems strange that something so elementary could be true, but consider the Prince who is pampered, carried, chauffeured, and quaffed…, is it surprising that the description brings to mind someone’s Bichon? An idealized description of that one lady in the elevator, as dolled up as her dog, but her pocket-pooch is adorned with ribbons, painted nails, a Longchamp sweater, and a rhinestone  collar… In animated films that is the most miserable dog, barking anxiously at anything to compensate for being emasculated in this way. A pet kept to this standard would certainly like very much to eviscerate that squirrel, but decorum forbids this. Being over-maintained separates pets and people from primal grounding elements. Some of these come in strange form from  Mud wrestling, to Pottery class, Color Runs, Finger-Paints, A sandbox, The Beach, Camping, A Mosh-pit, We have opportunities to get filthy, sweaty, exhausted, and we exit the other side of that experience somehow more whole.  I don’t pretend to know why, but it seems true that if we don’t get dirty or feel some strain, then we lose reference for comfortable contentment. 
The Glowing shimmer of space:
Shimmering sunlight and the vastness of space.  Everyone cannot travel into space, but every kid can wander there or wonder about vast space by looking toward it.  Playing in the sunshine, is immensely underrated. Going someplace dark to see the stars, the vast galaxies of stars, which boundlessly shimmer above us every night is an increasingly rarified experience.  Children and adults generally have little face time with the cosmos, our moon, and even the sun.  The long cast shadow that the sun creates before dusk and after dawn is invigorating because every object we thought we knew in the 2-D world becomes far more three-dimensional when the shadows, and light stretch and animate plain forms.  Ask any photographer, and they will tell you that their job is not to control the photograph, nor the subject so much as it is to control the light, and that interest comes from interesting light. From the boundless shimmer of galaxies, to the cratered moon, to the healthy glow of the Sun, The absorption of fascination & vitamins from the sun & cosmos cannot be understated. When darkness comes, so too comes the thrill exclusive to the dark. With the regenerative power the next day brings, we pause our playtime at dusk, to return tomorrow to the very same spot, to pick-up building a fort, or a castle, or to venture further afar. What is postponed when darkness falls, has it's surrogate in the cool shimmering air of the night sky. Fear not that certain slant of light.
Wonder comes from Wandering:
​...And getting lost is essential to playing.  Going places with a friend, or solo through a field, across a railroad, or through a graveyard, with the risk of losing ones way, is a sure-fire way to have a blast.  It is not suggested that anyone travel out of range and keep on that way with no sense of boundary, but orienteering oneself outdoors, is an essential life skill, and is it's own antidote for structure, and routine.  Part of what makes wandering through the woods so much fun, is the seeming randomness and chaos that surrounds us. Like a constellation, certain trees, and rocks, ruts and piles, scatter like bread-crumbs in our minds to define a pattern for dead reckoning. If we feel lost even for a moment, or rev that up to sustained fear, then we are tapping into something which is useful.  We are engaged in the smallest way, with our own survival.  Skills build confidence, and with confidence comes new tools to create solutions which we'd never know if we didn't first get lost.  The singular focus on the problem of perhaps not making it back home, develops a rational understanding of what we are capable of, and what we need to work on.  Wanderlust builds wonder, and is wonderful for development.
​I think that unhappy Emily Dickenson never got out much, and whatever the circumstances, I'd much prefer to travel, than to read about travel.  What I read form her poem was that she wasn't a happy kid. Creating happy kids requires nature, and daylight, green-space, and adventures to develop.  Kids are healthier when they stray, when they play outdoors, and even middle-aged late bloomers who learn to fly-fish at 50, can enjoy the same benefits. It's far simpler to imagine the greatness of the outdoors, from the dim boundary of our indoor lives, but that system is not sustainable! There's this certain slant of light, which one can only know when they have seen the same from all other angles.               Go outside.

Full article from the PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

There's a certain Slant of light, (by Emily Dickinson)
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –

None may teach it – Any –
'Tis the seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –

When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –  

"The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture 'This is a pipe', I'd have been lying!"— René Magritte[4]  "The Treachery of images" was painted by Rene Magritte perhaps intent to upset some, and to define what an object is, by what it is not, Pushing new boundaries in the 2-D art form, Magritte's illustration may have muddied an already unclear direction for modern art, or it may have sorted some things out, ushering a discussion about what it is. 
​
The above "e-bike" may be the same sort of representation. It's a two-dimensional illustration on a flat surface, and you cannot ride the image, but Is this a bike? Is it a Triumph Motorcycle?, The answer is cloudy. I can tell you that it's not the Bicycle image that springs to mind when I'm asked to conjure one.  That is, that I don't commonly store the above image in the scattered papers of my brain, and pull it out when someone begins a fond story about their Bicycle. Using the Noun "Bike" loosely we could call nearly any self-propelled two-wheeled transportation with a seat and handlebar a Bicycle, but... Do they deserve it? When does the bike become something else?  If you were to meet someone at a dive bar, and they say, "Want another?" and you tell them "No thanks", (you can only have one beer, because), "... I'm on my bike" -- They may ask you excitedly, " Oh really!...What kind of bike do you ride?"  (Pause), fade to a silent moment with your thoughts: {she thinks I have a motorcycle}
We have all been there, The moment where you realize that they raised a brow, moving in closer, becoming chummy, imagining the free spirit of a winding road, wind in their hair, as in Easy Rider, only to discover that you meant "Bicycle" and now they are disappointed, because a moment ago they thought you were cooler, than they do now. It's not a motorcycle.
They thought you rode a motorcycle to the bar.  You tell them you,  "Um, ride a bike a lot", and -- They know it must account for your lean form, but your health is less socially important to them at that moment than it may be to produce a BMW R1200 GS, or to chat about their last Harley for hours. You quickly change the topic, and they look away, blankly bored as if betrayed by something.  ...Another  Pause...
Now, if only you rode the "Bike" above, you may be able to salvage half of their fantasy, Because it is motorized, but you will soon discover that any Biker version of the same story with an "E-Bike" will also end as betrayal. In particularl if they ask to go for a ride, or mention anything about Sturgis, South Dakota.
You see, the e-bike is not a motorcycle, and so it gets easily edged out of that camp, And you only need to go to one bar in the countryside to verify that fact. The "e-bike", -- What it is, may best be defined by what it is not... I'll put it to you again; Is the image below a bike?
​Really?

It would seem to me that "Bike" used to mean Bicycle; and with a "Motor" it would simultaneously become a new compound word; "Motor-Bike", or "Motor-Cycle" no? Let's back-pedal, and search for more meaning here. A bicycle is commonly defined and consensually agreed to be roughly the same thing in any language, and anywhere in the world.  It is true that some use them differently from the Flying Pigeon of China, to the Trek 520 from Wisconsin.  Bicycles are commonly seen and revered as the same thing, albeit mechanically a bit unique, as a Sedan would be to a Coupe, they are both cars.  But when a smug kid passes you on a path as you mash the pedals to a clip of 24 mph, and they smirk back toward you as they pass pressing their throttle, gloating at how much less work they are doing, and shaming you for not doing the same... Is this fricking punk kid riding a "Bicycle"?  No they are not.  
Back to basics, Does it have pedals? A motor assist bicycle is still a bicycle, right? hmm. Have you ever been clipped by someone texting and coasting at 20 mph on their "e-bike" while you and a friend are pedaling on a fast cat & mouse ride along your favorite course?  Have you ever dodged a Segway turning suddenly on a Bike Path?, or passed a Beach-Cruiser fitted with a growling 2 stroke motor?  Have you ever been startled when a motorized skate-board barrels onto the bike lane from the Convenience Store, with a burrito in one hand and a speed controller in the other?
I have, and I can tell you by that nuisance that, none of these are "Bikes", perhaps they have two wheels, and something to steer with, but they don't fit my definition of a bike. You can look it up for yourself, but I'm rather certain that most if all definitions distill down to the same, and that they all include locomotion driven by pedals, with a saddle and handlebars. The other Category being a "Motorized-Bicycle"  If you've not seen the animated film Wall-e, then you may not get where this is headed; But I can see a conveyor in the future where we all are carried from one visual stimuli to the next and even the shower in a motorized seat, with a cup-holder.  

 Is it really so dystopian to imagine everyone's forward momentum propelled by LiPo and a brushless motor?  It isn't.  If you haven't ridden an E-Bike, a Segway, or an Electric Skateboard, then you really should try them, but not on the "Bike Path". In Fact everyone should try one when they can, and if nothing else, some will be selected out of the pool naturally by an incident, while others will pass you smugly as you actually pedal your bike, or (gasp!) Jog by.  What is fundamental to the "E-bike" momentum is the need for stuff, and everybody may already have a bike, so why not also a bike with a motor?  Recently I saw a motorized bike that rides as a boat, and a motorized surfboard is making gains, as well as the venerable Jet-Pack, which we all were promised when we were young.  I want a Jet-Pack, and I've ridden all the rest, but I am not sure about the new category the "E-bike" being called a "Bike", in fact in Apple iOS Parlance, the "EBike" would most certainly be an "eBike", and however it is spelled, it is a conjunction of "Electric" and "Bike" so as such, it is not a Bike. When Rene Magritte painted a Pipe and boldly wrote in the piece that it was not what it appeared, the Polish-American scholar Alfred Korzybski (a contemporary of Magritte), was developing "General Semantics", he was quoted as saying, "The word is not the Thing", and the "Map is not the Territory", which aligns with the argument that Magritte made, that his illustration is not the thing, Nor an illusion, but a language. art, allusion, and language all fall short of the Thing. Quite like when Three patties, Bacon, Avocado, and a Cracked-egg, stretch the truth about what a hamburger is. Cheese curds, wings, and a slider skewered atop a bloody-mary edge both the burger and the Bloody dangerously close to becoming a new object.  So if we are all good with that concept, and the inevitable conveyor we will end up on after enjoying  the burger, the bloody to, and our eBike, --Then the illustration of both the bike and the eBike fall short of the experience of riding them.  The word bike is not the actual bike, true. It is however not cool to gloat that you don't need to pedal, while you zip past as if the Bicycle had advanced and I simply didn't get the memo. It's not a bike, if you have no pedals. If it does have pedals, but you cannot pedal it when it's out of batteries because it's too damn heavy, then it's not a Bike -- It's a Moped.  When we dip into our brain's romantic ideal of what a Bike is, applying fond nostalgia, of training wheels and a skinned-knee, that image in your head with the kick-stand down, chain grease on your cuff, glittering grips, and a chrome sissy bar... That bike, --'Click!', Capture that image, because that is a Bike.  So it follows both semantically, and generally that an eBike, may be fun, but it is not a Bike. Ceci n'est pas une bicyclette

Some used to think the earth was flat, and if you approached the edge, you'd simply fall off, as all good landscapes appear to do. Science prevailed over this theory, when real-world data came to bear, and yet some still held to their belief that the earth was flat.  Global Warming, may be rocking established tenets but there are steadfast nay-sayers who will die disputing that science. Whenever debate arouses the worst in us today, the smart money walks away first. You can persuade a reasonable person with facts, and figures -- But some just have to live out their own version to learn. I believe that the earth is spherical, but for some gadgets, I have to take them apart to know how they work.  I recently took apart my dryer, and searched for schematic, and instructions on the internet.  The predominant advice was that I'd need to cut my losses and buy a new dryer. N+1. I ended up breaking the whole thing down, and re-assembling it, in a few hours, and spent nearly nothing to fix it. Unfortunately Videos never seem to disappear from the web, and so as we pile more data on top of them, their helpful relevance becomes obscured like a pile of junk-mail concealing your refund check.  It gets daunting to shuffle through the mess. Even if you are careful you may lose something important between the pages of a Catalog, before you recycle the mounting junk. If you're cautious, you'll find the notice to renew your insurance, or find the property tax bill between an AARP invite, and a Frontgate catalog just before they foreclose.  Within the dark chasm of the internet, finding a useful video may be far more difficult, as the virtual paper mounts.  As search results profile who they think you are, the "True You" won't find what you want right away, (if ever). You will find what "they" want you to see, and they want you to get tubeless tires.  I'm thinking that some day people will pay big money for "Search" which correlates to what one wants, and that day is coming soon.  I'm imagining a "concierge search" which we willingly pay for, to filter a result unbiased by retail, or politics.  
I've recently looked up tubeless tires to see what people find by way of helpful tutorials, as they endeavor to sort this one out for themselves. Naturally there is some valid pro and con -- And results vary depending upon the glowing device used, and the search history of it's MAC address.  I've found tutorials for how to convert to tubeless, how to mount them, and how to fix them..., and never found them biased toward the lowly inner tube. Nobody was trying to convince me to stick with my inner tubes.  I found bed-of-nail testings, and a gauntlet of drivel from the early tubeless days, showing darts and ice-picks, and a slow rolling tire curing itself instantly from a hundred stab wounds, as if by divine intervention. Most top search returned videos with more views than I could imagine were real.  I found ways to convert to tubeless, and endless drivel about rim-strips, fluids, and methods, all spinning a myth that Tubeless is "The Answer". So convinced was I, that when done searching, I'd converted to the idea that when the messiah comes, she will lift us out of misery, and bring us all a bottle of "Stan's fluid". Perhaps some-day, we will bleed tubeless tire fluid. Although, I suppose we (kind-of) do now.

​I'm not going to lie to anyone here, but I will go out on a limb and state that Tubeless (while nice) may be a false prophet.  To vet Tubeless properly by a standard that we could all agree upon, I'd have to begin with the weight game, and move through the "No Flat" myth, before we arrive at what makes a good tire.  Through the maelstrom of fact and fiction we would doubtless land upon Tubes vs Tubeless doing battle, one with wings and one with horns, like any allegorical poem unfurls, most will find the result to justify their position. Much like any body politic, some would side with a group, and become deaf to the story the other's are listening to. This is one of those stories, where fair and balanced won't account for much, as one's mind-set slams the door behind it's decision. To begin, we should look at history.  The first Bicycle tires were steel bands wrapped around wooden spoked wheels on Velocipedes, which were not quite bicycles, but for brevity were their direct antecedent.
The next ones were rubber bands adhered to a similar wheel, and invented by Clement Ader in 1868, These tyres must have felt quite a bit nicer than the sketchy steel wheels.  Nearly 20 years later, in 1887 the Pneumatic tire was invented, by John Boyd Dunlop for his son's bike, to prevent his headaches from the jarring vibrations of it's forebears.  Dunlop couldn't patent his invention as a sketch by another man showed the idea was not necessarily exclusive to Dunlop.  Just the same, two years later, Dunlop started a Tyre company and made several improvements. By 1890 Dunlop Tyre was lining their tires with a canvas layer to prevent punctures. Serious cyclists began adopting this tyre for their bikes, realizing great speed control and comfort benefits. In the early days of the Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co., Tyres were attached to the wheels using special clamps. In 1891 Edouard Michelin began to make tires which were easily removed preferring to glue them to the wheel.  This allowed the removable tire to be serviced, changed and the inner-tube to be patched separately. For forever the venerable 'inner-tube' has made our lives more comfortable, more productive and even more meaningful. Bikes have enjoyed over a century floating on air, held in a cylinder of butyl, wrapped in cotton, and rubber.  We've patched them when they pinch, puncture, and pop.  We've watched tubes sneak out of the side of our tire before exploding in a flash of talc, unseated by months of neglect.  We've watched them get crusty and fuse themselves to a tire to become one body.  We have carried spares around the world, and deployed them to make land speed records, and win distance contests.  We've paid a king's ransom for a measly inner-tube simply to keep the corner bike shop in business.  I once changed 26 flats in one event stage, when someone scattered tacks on the course. A few years later in 2006 Shimano and Hutchinson introduced the first tubeless tire system for bicycles. The largest innovation from this introduction would be the refinement of clincher rim profiles to improve the tire's attachment and seal.
For the thousand flat's I have fixed, I too have had a love / hate relationship with the 'inner-tube'. But it's not the tube's fault, it's the fact that we want light tires, that allows the tube to puncture.  
When Tubeless came along, we didn't realize that we'd been driving cars without tubes for decades. We'd never considered how rarely a flat stopped our Holiday travel plans. We seldom considered that Trucks deliver both ways; some with tubes, and some tubeless...  We've cursed at Slime, as neon green goo sprayed forth coated we unwitting and frustrated to find a flat in-spite of the liquid preventive.  We've cursed at small wet-spots which constantly seem to spew like tiny acne geysers on road and gravel tires.  
The special sauce of tubeless is it's ability to deliver lower ridable pressures without pinch-flats. Plain and simply, tubeless gives us the confidence to roll softer tires, but is it "all that"?
It is true that I could ride sew-ups and nearly never get a pinch-flat. It is also true that If I rode  Schwalbe Marathons, I would seldom think about any kind of flat.  Really I'm not sure that Tubeless is "all that", because I still carry a spare inner tube, and ride regularly with CO2, pump, patch, and boot, just as I have always done.   I really don't get less flats with tubeless.  If you count the constant ooze from daily city riding, and the need to top-up pressures more often than with tube or tubular... It seems that we get more flats with tubeless, than with tubes. But we are comfortable, picking flakes of glass out of our tread, defined by a hissing white spew. 
Here is the marketing plus column for tubeless:
1. Lower pressure 
2. Lighter 
3. Less Down-time
Back to the bed of nails, and the mis-marketing... We tend to tout tubeless as puncture-proof, which is false.  We tend to also market it as a massive weight savings over tubes... Which does not always bear out. Take a tire with reasonable puncture resistance, and add a lightweight tube; what's the net?  It's generally a round 600 g. Now take a puncture resistant tubeless tire, with a valve stem, strip, and adequate fluid; what's that weigh? It weighs roughly the same. As a matter of fact, the weight of adequate liquid to get some Fat-Bike tires inflated successfully can border on the tube weight, but it is in the larger tires where liquid weighs less than Butyl.  Accounting for some seepage and evaporation, I likely have a pool of sticky goo stuck to the low spot of my fat tires rolling them out of balance like a shoe in a dryer.  I likely have the same finesse in my Gravel tires, and my road bike.  Because of all the tubeless fuss, the de rigueur tubeless fashion seems destined to remain optional. On a mountain bike trip, one would be foolish to pack only a plug kit, and pump. On a Bike-pack trip, it's advised to have all of the aforementioned tools, as well as spare tire/s and tube/s. If we are still carrying a Plug kit, tire boot, needle and thread, fluid, spare tube, CO2, pump, patches and glue, then is it really fair to give so much credit to the tubeless trend?
Lightweight and Reliable are generally at odds, and it's never been more true than how this applies to tires. If we could ride the same reliable steel-belted radials as our car's run-flats, then we would for certain suffer for speed, but never catch a flat.  A dutch bike fitted with Schwalbe's venerable Marathon tire will likely see no more than a flat per annum, and some never.  The weight penalty for the daily driver, means never needing to walk home. Never being stranded, and never struggling to free a chain-guard, fenders, drum-brake, and greasy chain, makes the trade reasonable.  I have seen the same tire roll (daily) for over 6 years flat-free in the war-zone of my city. My tubeless seem to grab a flat three times a year per bike, regardless.  
It's all weight ratios right?.. When we are counting grams, we cannot expect a worry-free solution. The weight savings will bare out more beneficial as the tire size goes up, but for the average 700/35 diameter, the clincher sporting a light inner-tube, vs. tubeless fluid, is lighter, if more prone to flatting. 
​Here are the numbers:
Inner-Tube
Good Tire: 490 g
Tube: 60 g
Strip: 25
Net 575 g
Tubeless
Good Tire: 490 g
Basic Valve stem: 18 g
Tubeless fluid: 2.36 oz 66 g
Strip 25
Net 599 g

Most marketing looked like a sadistic ritual acupuncture, but perhaps their creators thought we were stupid and needed to see the bad guy get shot several more times, just to underscore that he got his just deserts. In the end, no matter how may times you see a nail in a tire, you should wince for each and every one, because once this happens, tubeless of tube-d, it will typically mean some down-time. If you have ever hit a water pipe with a screw or nail, you will note that it never matters too much when the screw goes in, but what happens when it's pulled out.
Should anyone get the mistaken impression that I don't prefer tubeless, let me address that right away.  I do. We have already addressed the first two accolades of tubeless, 1. Low Pressure, I agree that lower rideable pressure is valuable and that it's something which a Tubeless system has over a tube, but we also note that a Tubular Tire, AKA a "Sew-up" almost never pinches flat as well, and that is some ancient technology which still outperforms nearly everything in real racing today. You could say the Michelin sew-up is king.
2. Lighter. In the basic set-up for a road-bike tubeless doesn't save much weight if any over a tube, or tubular, but it does improve weight over a tube at larger balloon and fat-bike tires.
3. Finally we have less 'down-time'.  In the stricter sense, we have less down-time if we get less flats, and walk less. This will depend upon your mechanical skill-set, ride style, and your environment. Mechanically if you are not adept you may suffer from poor execution on setting up your tubeless system, and so if you feel you may need some help, please find that.  It is no less important with tubeless than with tubes, to know how to maintain, change, and fix a flatted tire.  Everyone should learn this and know it cold, before they stray too far from home, lest they remain a burden upon their better equipped friends.   In a light-weight set-up, If you have a properly executed Tubeless set-up and you maintain adequate tire pressure, riding as the products intend, then you should get less down-time, than with a tube.  If you hear a hiss, and see white shit spraying from your tire, don't stop instantly in a pack of others, and if it's not flat, but hissing, you'd do well not to stop at all, because the liquid needs the centrifuge to push gloppy bits to the hole to seal it up.  If you can fix a flat, roll-out a puncture elegantly, and you don't mind losing air more regularly, struggling to open a gummed up valve which glued itself shut, then you should have a bit more up-time.
In all cases, you will still need to bring a back-up tire and tube, patch and a boot for any big trip. You will also need to know what to do with a pump, and when a pump is best, compared to CO2. As dusk sets on a lonesome road, and you've exhausted yourself and three CO2's trying to re-seat a dry and stubborn tubeless system while being eaten by mosquitos, in the hot July sunshine,  you will trade your first born for an inner tube, and the skill set to remember how it works. 

I got this in my inbox, and then laughed a bit, before having a deeper look. Zipp introduces a brand new ground-breaking technology, which looks really cool when you consider reinventing the wheel. I think they would have me believe that their new wide low profile rim is a completely new invention. They call it "3Zero Moto", and what it really is is the wheel from my 1956 three speed. OK, so it's not steel... What it also is, is a four year-old HED Carbon Fat Bike rim, or for that matter, any rolled rim from any shitty ten-speed circa 1960; Given, it's carbon. Here we see the very bleeding edge of marketing hyperbole, without a nod to it's forebears. Let’s take a closer peek, shall we? The revolutionary rim profile has a rolled or beaded edge, and no box section -- That's true. The breakthrough concept likely has a nicely locking bead for tubeless, and it perhaps costs way less to make than it's now obsolete analogous box-sectioned rim, because it's no longer necessary to accommodate flats for a rim brake, (shown below). Is it a break-through? In Fact, excepting the rust, and sharp edges, the Schwinn S-6 rim profile with rusty spokes poking through a dried up crusty rim strip is the Chrome-plated version of the new and revolutionary Zipp Concept called 3Zero Moto. The marketing goes on the mention the flex as being a bit more like suspension. Really?, it has travel? Perhaps not, but will you want to buy some? Sure. If you need a new wheel-set, then maybe these are for you. My guess is that they won’t do anything for you that brand “X” could not; But they are pretty carbon hoops laced to a nice hub. Groundbreaking? Nah!!, A placebo perhaps for people who need to believe in something new. But if you have a giant tire, soaking and smoothing the terrain, conforming and compressing under all fare of root and rock, is the wheel really changing the game? It seems the wheel is doing a fare bit of flexion, but the "Science" here is a bit of an over-reach.

Zipp Science: Lateral stiffness – In a sharp turn, the rim remains stiff, providing confidence that the wheel is firmly planted. Zipp’s wide hub flanges provide better spoke-bracing angles which help to increase the lateral stiffness.
Torsional windup – When torque is applied to the rear hub when pedaling, you don’t want the spokes to create a spring-like flex sapping your wattage. Having 32 spokes at the right tensions keep the wheel constrained during windup, meaning the energy in your legs is efficiently transferred to your rear wheel.
Radial Compliance – When you hit a rock, the system is designed to act as a shock absorber. Zipp’s MOTO Technology allows the rim to flex, which absorbs the impact energy and spreads it away from the impact zone for increased durability. In essence, more of the rim carries the load from the impact.
“Ankle” Compliance – Imagine a runner rounding a sharp turn, the ankle naturally flexing to maintain grip as the runner leans. The rim can locally flex to stay parallel to the ground during cornering, which increases traction much like a human ankle. This ability to twist locally allows it to deflect during single bead impacts without the rider getting bounced off line. 
All of the above "Science" is lifted directly from Zipp's Webpage.  I read it thoroughly, then looked for patent abstracts, and further details on the "Science" and found nothing with teeth. This is not to say that there is no "science" here to discuss, but if you observe the illustrations, and the rim is pivoting around the spokes which are centered to allow the Foot (rim) to roll below the "Ankle" (spoke bed) when pressured from a leveraged edge -- Then, like placing a pry bar beneath a heavy rock, you would of course expect the rock to lift on one side, and the other side to remain, somewhat as illustrated.  So if that is truly the science, then It is true that this is nothing new, unless there is a breakthrough bearing point in the rim, some special active socket, which is not shown. If the "Science" (Ankle Compliance) is meant to illustrate tilt of the rim edge whilst the static fulcrum (pinned by the Spokes) remains level and; If the rim is flexing to give way to a large path obstacle, then the "Science" (Radial Compliance) is a twisting rim. This isn't illustrated well here. Their Illustration shows the rim profile as a constant, but tilting, not flexion, where the rim would contort. Like a truck's rear suspension, the Ankle Compliance is illustrated properly showing one edge lift whilst the other is lowered.  I'm looking for the Science, but the illustration betrays the description. Ball and socket, ankle and foot?, or Compliant rim conforming to applied pressure from each side? Both perhaps? Either way, when I got my first BMX bike I longed for a set of wheels built up on ACS Z-Rims, which were glass composite flexy hoops, which because they sprang back, tended to keep shape in large drops and jumps, and not take the shape of the flat you hit...  So I think that this is what Zipp have invented (reinvented). Sans the 4 cross lacing of a late 70's ACS Z-Rim. we have a bit of flex, owing to the properties of carbon. Great, I have these wheels, they came on my fat bike five years back. The steel version came on my Raleigh 3 Speed, and countless Schwinns, c.1965. Oh!, coincidentally the shallow cross-section profiles are similar from Zipp to Z-Rim to Schwinn, and further. I'm glad that we now have disc brakes and that the carbon layup is now simpler, and less costly. As far as science goes, we take a Z-Rim, and reduce the spoke count down the middle, and what we get is the next big thing.  Reinventing the wheel is hard work.

Of course when every bike was a coaster brake, or even a rod brake there was no reason for a side profile to press a pad against.  In that spirit basic rolled steel rim from Araya, Rigida, and Schwinn are roughly the same as Zipp's "Moto Technology"; even the Westwood has “Moto Technology”. The only way to form pliable steel into a hoop in the 50's was Moto technology. Image left, is an extruded aluminum hoop c.1995 likely a Mavic Open 4CD or some such, whereas the wider one on the right is rolled steel, c.1965, decidedly not a box design. The Schwinn rim on the right is a simple rolled steel hoop seems to possess Zipp's "3Zero Moto Technology". Wow, that was a throwback. A flaccid flexible hoop, that keeps the tire on, and prevents pinch-flats because it is so damn flexy that it follows the terrain, and has little bead to speak of. Man, that was simple. Inventing something new today seems to be as simple as re-naming it. Complaining about Zipp's new invention may contribute to a silly Moral Panic, but it is sometimes justifiable, to curb your enthusiasm when it's just a hoop with spokes. I suppose the new normal is to tell a story, and stand firm. Little fictions, like My Dad invented "Some cool Shit", but when my friends called me out on it, I looked like a fraud. When being disingenuous becomes the status quo, we all get to bull-shit each other unchecked, right? Standing on the shoulders of giants allows for a great view, doesn't it? Now you can merely look over the fence at your neighbor's rusting 3-Speed, spy the technology that you will now call your own. Throw a through axle and 12 gears on it, and you have a breakthrough, ‘Moto’! meh!... I Wish I had a patent on "3Zero Moto Technology", whatever that is, (3-Speed wheel technology now borders on steampunk). I suppose it doesn't matter much when I already have this technology on my vintage Schwinn. I hope nobody minds when I call my 3-Speed Moto Technology revelatory.

Way back in your College days, no wait!!, before that.  Way Back when you were in Grade School, when the cool kids came to class with a Scooby-Doo Lunchbox, a Trapper Keeper, and the Good Pencils, with tip-erasers, you knew him, the once venerable PB&J.  You actually pretended that you didn't hang-out with him, as others ponied-up big coin for hot pizza in the school lunch line, you shuffled sheepishly by, head down, passing the final checkpoint (The Milk Lady), before taking a seat in the gym's make-shift cafeteria.  You carried a paper bag, with the top folded down and now the crease was torn a bit from sweaty hands, and soiled from your run through a shortcut on your way to school.  It was a dry day, (of course), because if it were not, your bag would be torn, and then crushed from safe-keeping in your jacket --Tucked against your stomach, as you climbed a fence, and ran through someone's yard en-route to school.
This humble bag contained simple provisions.  Your bag lunch glancing an embarrassed and wanton eye toward the "Hot-Lunch" which came on a tray, in neat compartmentalized foil, and plastic boats. You began to smell the "School Lunch" shortly after Reading, and it's intensity peaked just before the Lunch bell rang.  Peak excitement to leave class compounded with the dream of salty pizza, and crispy ice-berg.  But... You would be having none of it, as you meagerly handed your dime and nickel to the "Milk-Lady" who pulled your choice of Chocolate or White from a Dairy crate.  Really no choice there, as it was always chocolate.  I'm sure the stats bear out that most kids preferred the darker varietal, and perhaps this was to rescue the sad contents of your brown paper bag-lunch.  Square against the bottom of your bag dwell your old friend, someone who you pretended not to know or even look at while others were slowly flaunting their Piping Hot Pizza.  The trick was to eat your bag contents either before or after your friends dined, so that they didn't judge your measly meal.  Shame was the word.  Broke kid goes to school with bag-lunch, that conceals the generic scarlet letter which showed others that he was without "school-lunch funds".  It never mattered really, and was mostly in your head..., Perhaps all in your head?. The other kids barely noticed what you did or did not eat, they were busy chewing, while you were reviewing the existential calculous and economics of being lower-middle class.  The Bag lunch was the cuisine equal to non-branded slacks, and knock-off kicks.  You'd have been far better off owning your lunch-room strata, than to ruminate about comparatives, but you didn't.  No judgement, just take out your old friend and eat him, with relish. You may have a home-made treat in the bag -- Both sitting concave like a pillow beneath a cat, compressed into a nest shape by a much heavier orange, or apple. While others ate their pudding cups and twinkies, you'd make due with something baked at home. Surprised that now at midlife you're eating well whilst your classmates check their blood-sugar? Don't gloat!
PB&J; What is fundamentally wrong with PB&J?... Was it the pickle soaking through wax paper into the side of your sandwich?, was it the blackening banana?, Or the carrot sticks leaking slightly through the side of the bag? Were there chips?, Where are the Chips?... You don't know, because you were too ashamed to check.  Was it really so bad?, this kid you'd refused to sit with, who was actually already beside you, or on your lap -- as the room becomes more loudly animated by the frenzied sugar-rush of lunch-room gymnastics? You watch others, calculating the right time to roll the bag open and eat.  You are looking for a distraction, a moment to pounce on your brown-bag super-hero friend. The smells, the pure pavlovian power of smells... Alas you can take no more, and you reach onto your lap to reveal Exhibit A: "A Humble Sandwich". Like so many before it, and thousands thereafter, but always a bit unique, the venerable PB&J cut in half on the diagonal, came to your rescue.  No shame, No brand-name, just lunch.

These rations were assembled in a factory manner with a conveyor carrying bread across your kitchen counter, each layer added, and then smacked together before being cut, and  folded into Wax paper or tucked into a pleated sandwich bag.  The sandwich bag of the 'fold-top' variety, ...because zipper bags had yet to be introduced. 'Spread-Ratios' varied, some soaking through, some far too spare. Further variables from  Home-baked, to crusty bakery bread, to grocery-store soft white, the foundation of a good sandwich would yield a myriad outcome.  Many days this sandwich was perfect. Many more days the meager PB&J would be dry, and un-enticing.  Always the PB&J came to work and did it's job, and even, occasionally saved your life, but you give it no thanks now.  You rarely consider the option, as if scarred by a memory of some kid shaming your frugal family for not caughing-up eighty cents for Pizza.  Today, your PB&J likely costs 80 cents. It is going to be OK, so long as you can reconcile the past. Perhaps it was the time your older sister helped make them by chewing up whole peanuts to make the PB part. Yes, perhaps that's the scar, you need to face.
Today, you are scarred, you are begrudging your old friend , the PB&J which sits idly by like a misplaced toy, waiting to engage. You turn away from him, packing some sort of pre-fab protein bar which claims to be all your body needs.  A "meal-bar", with (X) grams of this or that.  You need look no further than your cupboard.  You needn't overthink this one.  That kid with the brand-name jeans is no longer around anymore to sit in judgement, and you are over this lunchroom status thing right? Go Boldly, be low-brow, and take a bite of your past. Own up to the fact that you betrayed your hero for status. He sat in your lap for crissakes, clearly you were there together.
You can surely make two or three of these for the price of one RX Bar.  You can likely go farther on the energy gained, and you will likely feel better about yourself. If you could just make up with the lonesome super hero who sustained you through most, (if all) of your formative years. The unsung super hero of youth, the PB&J awaits.  If you find the heart to make-up, then you will likely be a richer person for it. Find some new recipes, and get the gang back together. Find a "Grown-up" or "Fancy PB&J" So the next time you are starving, lonesome in a remote place, and craving any calories whatsoever, let your food fantasy be for a PB&J, and remember him fondly, as he was always there for you. Always...

Long Shadows mean one of two things: 1. that you have the whole day ahead of you, or 2. that you had better find a place to pitch your tent. For me, each day begins with coffee, and this morning I will not compromise. When traveling solo, I use the GSI dripper, and either of my stoves to boil water. When traveling with my pals, I'll often bring my Nanopresso, discussed elsewhere in this blog. The nano is great for desert trips, and places where coffee is a must, but water scarce, and the longer drip coffee of the GSI dripper is nothing more than a sock held above a cup, but a compact and effective if cleaner sock. It's not my favorite brewer, but it is my favorite small dripper. Ten Bucks, Paired with a melita filter for more coffee, with less spillage, and smoother taste. By the Way the GSI Grinder is a total P.O.S. I've tried several and needed to return every one. Seems that their Chinese OEM makes the handle square out of something less than good solid steel, and the first crank on anything lighter roast or peaberry, will break the mech right out of the box, Ive broken several, and so loved the idea that i even brought coffee into an REI to test the last one, before shaming myself and GSI for the trouble. Don't Bother... I've told GSI, and they have seemingly no control on this one. They need to send everyone back and recall any in the field, because it sucks.
​I grind coffee for Aeropress ahead of any trip and carry it that way until someone invents a solid tiny grinder. More coarse than Espresso, and finer than Drip, this gets me more mileage, and more flexibility in any application. Every adventure begins with coffee. It always seems to start out sunny. The adventure begins (although crisp) with bright sunshine. I lashed the gear to the bike and set out. It was gusty 56 f., and you know you can never trust the weatherman, NEVER, and so we cross our fingers, and leave.
Some of this spring is green, but no leaves yet, just darling little buds like the first sparse hairs in a Gym locker-room, timid, and reticent, amidst a few overzealous Crocus, and Magnolias peeking about. It seems, guarded, lurid, & coed. The wind, unrelenting from the west, and as luck would have it, (dread) That was my direction. Two questions clarify, "How long can this wind remain this strong?, and "Will I have enough caloric mojo to get there, working triple time into a monster head-wind?" The houses seemed firmly planted, in-spite of a tune-out fictional fantasy of funnel clouds, and bicycles flying through a miasma of twirling debris, wagons, wheels and flying monkeys.
I set off head-on, and I rode in that tuned-in but tuned-out manner, when one loses the time, and gains it back through a mindful grinding forward, absorbing absolutely everything, and nothing at all -- Oblivious to most daily crap.
I rode with my head down, in the drops, and thought fondly about the specific bike-pack which may house my chap-stick. I thought fondly about how cool the wind was, how it evaporated my lips, and dried my eyes, and how perfectly my Tempesta jacket curved over my bent spine as I cut forward like one of those "crazy cyclists" heading westward just after dawn to no place special. The destination was a campground which had opened to the public just a week prior, and I'd hoped to find hardcore campers there, along with eager fish, in the lakes and streams. The route took me through farms which kicked up more gusts as the cold black un-planted soil warmed beneath a bright sun, creating a heady scent, and an upwelling torrent which clashed with the clear crisp blue morning haze for dominance. It would be windy all day. Like my city of tall cold skyscrapers, where warming glass reflections pushed cold downward, and rising heat gusted like a chimney often making cross-winds sketchy. I knew the routine, but with a direct head-wind at least I didn't fear the bike pushing out sideways from beneath me. I felt as if someone were showing me how to ride, and held my shoulders while I stood in place straining toward them. Tough wind today made the case that things may end a bit differently. The farms expanded like quilts, into a warp and weft of turned black soil combed in a tufts of wispy grey thatch patterns like woven rugs, and Triscuits soothing the memory of Grant Wood, or Andew Wyeth. Cows, glanced embarrassed, zen-like puzzlement toward me like each passing truck, stupefied for me working so hard. People were not used-to, and never seem to reconcile themselves to the lonesome bike-packer. Damp Wisconsin farmland rich with color and wet spring smells. Clear blue skies stuffed with fluffy cumulous clouds, breaking and joining like a feral cat & a pillow tumbling in a dryer of blue.
My audio book stayed my panic about losing great time to the head-wind, I descended into a mindless fiction, thinking only about chapped lips, and cheeseburgers, the spy novel allowed me to further detach from the typical re-calculous of a "plan-B". I stayed true to my travel plans, re-adjusting my body to re-shape for aches, and seat position. I rode westward with a pack-rod, a tent, pad, and bag. The essentials you'd see on any great bike-pack check-list, only I was decidedly short on provisions, planning to stop someplace to eat. I turned the cranks mindlessly until I was so well out of town, and so free from "civilization" that I no longer gave thought to how slow I was traveling, but how near or far the next road-side attraction my be which featured a Cheeseburger. It's not that I wanted only a cheeseburger, nor that I even preferred one, but being that I was in Wisconsin, It seemed realistic that the options boiled down to this, Cheese Curds, and perhaps Grilled Cheese. Nothing gourmet was planned, and I held out no hope that a gastro-pup lie between my front wheel and my destination. Just being realistic with expectations that's all... And so I soldiered on for the next few hours.

​

May I make a suggestion?... If you are going to travel with a rod and reel, it's novel to anticipate the time it takes to whip your thing out and dip it in the water.  As with all romantic ideas of a great SLR, or fancy-pants camera and a full set of lenses -- a Pack-rod, Like a point and shoot should be just as simple to carry as it is to take out and shoot with.  If you have anything more than that -- You are lying to yourself.  "The camera which takes the best pictures, is the one you have with you when you frame the shot", (-M) and a fishing-pole is admittedly that much more difficult to have on the ready.  I've researched this to death, and after settling upon a few favorites.  One day, overzealous, perhaps, but just as eager to fish, I dropped the tip of my St Croix Rod into a lake, I decided that telescopic made more sense than separates.  The trouble with telescopic is generally length and sensitivity.  While it's practically impossible to make a great pack-rod, and harder to craft a telescopic pole to be as sensitive and good a caster as a single blank, or one which breaks apart in sections -- It's not impossible however, to find a great pole that's got a light action, and the sensitivity of a sibling, in a form that's reasonably speedy to deploy.  I've settled on a Shimano.  You already know Shimano right? that they make good bike kit, and you may know that they apply the same innovation to the fishing biz; But what you may not know, is that there is a virtual analog between the two industries and that Carbon, Aluminum, and Shimano stimulate growth in both camps using un-rivaled engineering.  
I won't pretend to know what all of the initials on my pack-rod mean, but I will show you a picture of the pole and the bag to get that sorted. And so there is sits upon my carbon handlebars nested in an ingenious case with my faithful Abu Garcia reel, and a tiny steel box for lures, and leaders.  The venerable king of the collapsibles.  A true grab-n-go rod for the novice, or the seasoned casting rod pack kit. If you don't travel everywhere with a collapsible or inflatable canoe in your trunk, that's perfectly fine, but if you could... would you?  I for one won't generally tote a .22 on my bike, nor a Glock, or a set of rabbit traps, or Golf clubs, but what sport aligns itself more astutely to rolling about the countryside than fishing?, and what you do with your pole is entirely up to you.  But you can't use one if you leave it at home.

This kit is tiny, light and well protected, and can be slung simply on a bike or back-pack, and can actually be with you when you amble upon a stream, or lake. Unlike your DSLR, that you left at home for the third vacation because it's "too bulky", "too risky for where you are traveling", or "not water-proof", the pack rod shown here is adventure worthy, and can be wielded, and baited  in a few minutes simply enough for a couch-bound stoned-teenager to find it simple.  Anything more difficult or large would be impractical and likely remain at home.  So when I get to the lake or see a stream en-route, I fantasize about catching the big one, and although Most of what I may catch is decidedly not... I enjoy the added speculation the fantasy affords.  If you get this pole and combo it with your favorite reel, be sure to bring a bobber, or even a cork, or stick, to float out a bait, while napping.  It's serene and relaxing to chill beside a pond, and soak the sun, and you will thank me when you have forgotten the moment for a spell, and wake to see your bobber dragging below the drink, with no effort whatsoever -- "Fish On!". A piece of tent line for a stringer, and a pocket knife can resolve the finest trail-side meal a spare hour can invent.  If you never take the pole out, it may be that you are having too much fun, but when you need a reprieve from a gusty day on the bike, and you can align your breathing with the shallow lapping tides of a breezy pond, what lay below the surface, could save a dull day, or even you life, if you can't find that hamburger stand.

I had a paper-route when I was young, and am surprised that my spine didn't curve over time from the compressing weight of the bag I'd carried. We'd collect our papers at someone's home, a Lucky kid who didn't have to walk beyond his front door to get started.  They called the place we'd pick-up our papers the "bundle-stop". Each day we'd convene at this one kids house where the back door of a blank white van would open and out they belched nearly a thousand pounds of paper strapped in square stacks. If you arrived early to the "bundle-stop" you'd witness a dragging/falling muffler, with the throat of the devil blazing through belching dark smoke, as bundles fell upon the sidewalk, where we would collect them rain or shine.  Most days they would be there prior to my arrival, each marked with wax marker to designate the route number.  This predated inkjet printers, or anything of the like, and frankly forms would have cost a penny, so the wax marker would suffice for scrawling whose stack was whose, well before dawn made it viable to read the numbers.  Kids who had paper routes were really the lowest "employed" strata of the working class.  You could actually not dip below a Paper route before you slid off the chart entirely as the dreaded unemployment caste.  Never had it dawned upon me whilst throwing papers at porches, that this was the worst job one could possess.  There is a blind spot that we generate, in particular when we are young, that betrays us, and relegates us to shit jobs.  Paperboy was a shit job.
​
​It would be a decade or more before I realized that the pathway to something other than a shit job, was one typically paved by doting parents.  Without them, and from a large tribe, I had to first finish school, with a shit job, and get my first shit job, all for which I was grateful. In a sense, I'd need to first clear the cataract that blinded me from realizing that seemingly everyone I knew chose another path, which was somehow (if not paved with gold) at least lined with padding, good food, and more free-time.  Sure, I had several jobs between Paper Route, and Present, but I didn't begin to realize that others seemed to be led by a silver carrot, if not a silver spoon.  I remember literally starving in College, and I recall resuscitating my roommate with ketchup packets, and Braunschweiger Liverwurst, when he was too week to get up.  Some self induced, selling blood plasma to buy books, and a beer.  It's no mystery that Liverwurst is whatever falls on the floor. With respect to it's inventor, it's basically cat food for humans.  Making it through my formative years without sight of any real goal was equal parts dumb luck, survival instinct, and great friends.

​  When I saw the first bike in an Amsterdam bike shop called "The Paper-Boy" I was enchanted and nostalgic feelings bloomed within me as I recalled the ordeal of my formative job.  Nearly every rainy, numb, exhausted day revived in an instant and then rinsed me hollow like an empty glass.  45 minutes and one pint later I saw a Dutch Postal worker delivering the mail on the very same bike. I carried the weigh of the bag on my back until that moment, and then released it. Work smarter, and not harder, came into focus.  I reconciled the paper-boy moment against the backdrop of a seemingly sturdy, tall & attractive man making a living on a bicycle, and working half as hard as I had, through a pissy rain. I then started to see good looking Dutch garbage collection workers, and custodians, and realized that a Job worth doing was one worth doing well, but this didn't define who one is.  In fact, I remarked of the prominence in America, and emerging through Latin and Asian Communities this false prestige about the work one does.  It nearly always irritates me to hear the rehearsal of praise over and again lavished upon Doctors, Lawyers, and Engineers,  conferring great respect for their standing as pinnacle achievers, whilst nearly everyone else had a "Shit Job".  This may sound far fetched, but I cannot think of any person more important in my life, than a Teacher; However they barely exceed minimum wage in some communities. Second Perhaps is a Nurse, who seems to do all the billable work for health care, and is rewarded with the salary of an american garbage man.   This is not a monologue about inequities, but about being blind to what shapes us, by what we seek. For me the option to become a  Doctor, was abstract, and hence unlikely.  There were none before me, and none to come in my generation, nor did any of my close friends, siblings, or near relatives become one.  More strangely anyone in my periphery who may have received a PHD, would still not have been called a "Doctor". Funny.

Blind to the fact that I could have amounted to far more, having chosen another path, I stumbled through my formative years creating who I would become, and eschewing the need for certain "Job" status.
I've always wanted to design things, and build things and have had several forays in these tasks. Yet the penchant to make that into my career never clicked.  I would remain a worker bee, like the handsome Dutch post-man, and never look back.  Age has a way of creating more mental space to reflect, whether by suppressing or merely forgetting, my brain now seems to have more bandwidth to look back and query the structural lattice within my head for feedback on how I ended up here. Room to roam about the cabin, I'd suppose.  I think it was the Paper Route, which forged me to believe that work was always difficult, exhausting, and uncertain, and this trinity was necessary for survival. Funny how hindsight makes itself known, and we come to discover that many friends, siblings, and colleagues really don't work that hard.  I know for a fact that this Bukowskian drama cannot possibly resonate with many readers, so I think it's important to mention that nearly every one of my friends who went on to become "Successful", never had a job until they were 19 or 20. This said, I think that has now become normal that your job as a Kid, is to play the sport that your parent wished they were good at, or that which grants them the most free-time, while your sport is usurping yours -- Even-though you may resent their desire to live vicariously through you, now it's not so odd that you seek a similar career to theirs.  I have countless friends who fit this description.  My Parents never had a paper route, nor were they ever in sports. But my grandmother worked at a candy bar factory to put my mother through school, and it's no wonder that she had full dentures at 60. Anything which hit the floor was "food".
I wanted to play an instrument in school, but the one chosen for me was so large that I had trouble lugging it home to practice. A weight like my paper-bag, I could not endure the ritual of heaving it to school any longer.  I wanted to play Trumpet, (a manageable briefcase) but my brother chose that, and I was told we could not play the same thing. Once I thought I'd play the piccolo merely because it would be light and simple to carry home. 
Fast forward, to high school, without an instrument to practice, and without a sport to ruin my idle moments playing Galaga, I set about again to invent something to occupy my free-time.  Building upon a solid past of escaping ridicule, (under the shadow of my elder siblings, and bullies), I was lean and fast, on a bike, and on my feet.  A friend came to town who'd lived in California, and he brought back a real skateboard.  It was a Black Tony Alva, with Tracker Trucks, and Kryptonic wheels, and we all kicked it around the parking lot, learning the basics.  That year when he re-visited his Dad in CA, we placed orders with him for more decks and so began my official high school sports roster.  We would build several ramps at school, home, and in public.  In fact we had a ramp in the basement of my High-school, and parking lot improvements included new berms, and curved for grinds and jumps.  There are several disqualifying yearbook images showing us jumping cars and picnic tables, and more tricks were captured there than an avery Thrasher Magazine.  Others played Sax, Guitar, or Soccer, and we attended cult ramp sessions, fueled by day-old donuts, and soda.
This is principally how I became malformed, and jeopardized my success index.  I could have played Soccer, and Violin, met important people in prep-school, and became a Doctor, or... one could deviate from that path and become a skater.  What do skaters become when they hit adulthood, and endeavor into the working class...? Not much, I suppose, or is there more to them?  The thing is that they don't change very much, principally because they form bonds, and  skills which follow them and continue to shape them, but they remain more or less the same people.  I think it is reasonable to say that each and every person that I've skated with as a youth has remained the same person to date. And every other person that I was close to, but who never skated with us, has changed significantly.  Is this a "blind-spot", or far fetched speculation? Nah!, it seems that what happens in sequence to adulthood, is a bit of the road that diverged in the wood, and some go down a path working hard to re-identify, themselves in the image of some kid of fashion, or form which represents an ideal, but not necessarily who they are/were.  Other's move to the left and solidify a stronger form of who they were, and will always be.  I say this without any reservation, but knowing full well that there will be objection.  It just so happens that for me the friends forged in the crucible of our half-pipe never became new people and if 20-30 years pass since, they are still approachable, they still offer their hospitality, a couch to surf upon, and they seem to catch-up precisely where they departed, even with a speachless chasm of several decades.
Recently I reluctantly bumped into three old skater friends in a small town, and found that they'd all moved away and made themselves, but had returned home to catch up and  pick-up with each other. We sat down, and in-spite of the time-gap, and of course our aging appearance..., we all spoke as though not a moment had passed.  Whats-more, it wasn't a "Glory Days" reminiscence, where we each re-hash how cool we were, and prod each other with compliments, but we all earnestly had interest in how our lives shook out. Everyone has a group like this, Fraternities, Unions, The Elks, Church Groups, and even Swingers, but I'm not sure these carry the same weight.  Everyone knows that a reunion is uncomfortable, whether for families, high schools, college soccer teams, or for AA. but there is always one dude who feels conceitedly confident in every nuance of her opportunity to flaunt something. This person, not surprisingly is also organizing the event.  Is it any wonder that people post their best self on the inter webs, and craft a Resume version in hopes to extract some social leverage?  Is there any doubt that the organizer of your reunion has the most to brag about,?  Perhaps this is why you skipped it.  Perhaps it didn't convene, because your cadre of classmates didn't have such a person. My blindspot is my perception that a reunion is merely about bragging, or that the organizer, is interested in comparatives more than commonality. When a rag-tag group of mad dogs re-groups to shoot the breeze, it is nothing more or less than that.  The motives are not comparative, or worse, superlative, but they are driven by the desire to re-kindle common ground. I wish I had organized a reunion. 

My friends had paper-routes, and one dropped out of High-school to help pay the family's bills, while the other joined the Marines at 17 3/4, for a chance at a better life.  I think, everyone got to where they wanted, and i know everyone struggled to do so.  Each of us had a job before 16, none of us has seen a doctor in 25 years, and none take pharmacy of any kind.  Funny that our group that seemed destined to fuck up, actually didn't, and many of those in our outer-orbit (who went to soccer practice, sorority socials, and had a full ride to the big-time), have also been in rehab, remission, prison, or are dead.  

My blind-spot, is not recognizing sooner that some of these people can or could have remained good friends in all the time which has passed.   I wish I had seen that; and recognized the need to remain close.  Ego is a blind-spot which sorts your former friends into buckets of benefit. In short, if you don't see how they could serve your advance, then they get dropped. You only carry one or two with you. But if I had a larger basket on my bike, or if I wasn't a dumb shit, I would have made space for more of them.
My blind spot is always the clearing through the trees, which often I don't have any interest in finding. But In a forest -- Who really wants to find the road again? Apparently most do!  
Most people left in the woods, are working to find the way back to town.  
Most people in a room without a TV are looking for the door.
Most (not surprisingly) cannot wait to leave church as well, but that's another story...
I think it's fair to say that not so many are content being lost, or a bit lost, if even off the grid.
As we look at our screens for support, and forgiveness; Is it any wonder that we crave an "open concept floorpan"? is it any wonder that we crave praise on the inter-webs, while pushing our family away, and our elders into a home?  If the outside world for you comes though a screen, then you have work to do.
Selfish is my blindspot. I'm never sure what I'm doing to ruin my social life until I don't have one. When I'm two-hundred pounds overweight spooning directly into the ice-cream, glued to a netflix series, I wonder how I arrived here.  If the cure for diabetes is less sugar, less carbs, and more exercise, but a drug alleviates my symptoms, then why give up anything, and recognize my shit choices until I can no longer walk? 
An honest job is one we can do daily, and then separate ourselves from, to endeavor into something fun.  An honest job is not one which we need to bring up to our friends at a party.  The best job is not having one, but that doesn't work long-term.  Asking a new acquaintance at a party "What do you do?" is loaded on both sides, and should be avoided.  If they are a garbage man, would you be comfortable finding out more?
If you are looking for comparatives, then try sizing up your free-time, not your work-time. Asking them, "What do you like to do with your free-time?," is never out of bounds, and may show you whose chosen the right path.
I should get out more.  I should ride my bike, climb a rock, sail someplace, see a punk show, and grind my skateboard on my neighbors curb.  We are blind to what we need, until we are desperate, and then we no longer have the mojo to make it fun. If we save our money and energy for a vacation, but don't take one until we are too old to wander, then we are lost, or in the least misguided.

It may be my greatest desire some days to dissolve into the ether and not return.  A long ride away from everything which grinds me against the lush consumer circus. If one could break away from everything that makes them comfortable and tell no one, where would they go? Whenever I ponder telling no one, and drifting away, I also contemplate the bliss of a specter, concealed in a wall or tree, watching how people may react to it's absence. Will you be fondly remembered? will your favorite things matter when they disappear.  Getting away is the destination alone, and wherever that is, it never seems to matter as long as I am not right here, right now.  A bit of anonymity, and a bit of adventure brings calm, anticipation, and excitement where we plan to slough off the toil of the day to day, and pretend we are out of work. ...And so it began. But, Fuck Hollywood screenplay garbage, we have serious business here... I set about to put the pieces in place for the next bikepacking trip.  Calculating the gear, the grams, and the weather, which inevitably leads to new gear, new kit, and provisions which were formerly unnecessary.
I meticulously removed tires, and cleaned the inner skin, re-seating them with new Finishline tubeless goo.  I wiped the bike down and cleaned the chain up a bit, broke the mechanism down & dressed it in foam, then zipped in into the virgin carton like a newborn papoose. I spun off the disc rotors, and packed them in padding and packs, and chose each ounce of my bare necessities until I had arrived at the most meticulously packed bike and gear to date.  The frame was an U.P.P.E.R, by Open, and the packs waterproof, stuffed with the Zpacks Two Man Dyneema  tent, Quilt by Enlightened, and all the shelf stable sealed bacon by Pedersons, that I could fit.

• Hydration?, Check! 
• Snackables?, Check!
• Obscure Midlife Crisis Soap?, Check!
• Tools?, Check!
• Spares, and Lights?, Check!

We are all good, snuggled into a fantastic carton seemingly custom built by our local Friends in Oak Park.  I perfectly Tag the two boxes with three labels each for safe measure, and take more photos.  Then it's off to the FedEx drop.  Each insured, each leaving at the same moment, and on the same truck.  Scanned and destined for the next adventure.  My trip would follow 6 days behind the bikes.  This plan also anticipates a few day's delay.
Watching the Tracking like a trans-ocean sailing race, the bikes deviate at day two and begin to divide at a fork mid-country, whereby one heads through Texas and the other through Oklahoma.  I've forgotten which was which.
Four days into the race to California, the bikes stop, along with my heart. One begins to progress again, and the other just sits there. No scan, no movement, no update, no explanation, just waypoints, without reason.  Sounds a bit like my life plan.
Have you seen that movie where the guy goes off into the wilderness ill-prepared and never returns? Yes, me too. He may have been wearing three FedEx Package labels and a cardboard box -- But you know that they don't have bar code scanners in the Canadian wilderness.  Yesterday my brother told me that, "UPS Breaks shit, and FedEx Loses it".  So if you need something/someone disappeared, then place it in a brown paper carton, and then into the capable hands of either carrier, and your outcome is a bit of roulette. Here, the day my bike and gear were to have arrived, was the tracking status:
Delivered January 1, 0001.
Odd date, yes? January 1 is a fabulous time-table considering I had shipped in In February, and that it's ETA stated March 1, 2019.  So it came and passed, and nobody knows where the package is. Literally No one.  The trace shows it offloaded into a facility, and never being loaded or scanned again.  The local warehouse manager asked for pictures of the box, so that they could look into their "Cage".  You know the land of misfit toys, or that sinking feeling when you get off your plane late for an international connection and your luggage is sitting scattered about the airport baggage area, with some scary street dwellers, and enterprising nare-do-wells lurking about.  You have precisely two minutes too little to find yours, re-check and get on the next flight?  You know that feeling when you've specifically sat on his lap, and asked Santa for Legos, and you end up with  socks, and a Book? It's like that. ...And then it was gone.

I know what you are thinking.  Your advice is that I relax, and do some mindful meditation with our friend Sam Harris. That the stress and pain is not real and that one merely needs to get out of that mind-space. Or... You are thinking I may have actually benefitted by going back in time, (considering my age and the time warm that could bend me backward from shipment on February 25 to arrive on January 1) -- So here he is; just arrived on January first, and so I should be grateful, as long as I can align my temporal plane with that of my bike, and my Gear, and then I should be great!  And who doesn't need to step back a bit in both time, and in mindfulness and hang in the shadow of what has been to reflect upon how foolish it all was? All of the toil, and the heartbreak? after all it's just a bike, and we Americans have three months of vacation each year, Right? --
So what's another week wasted?  No Bike?, No Problem, so long as you get to go back a full two months this winter, and re-live the coldest February on record.
Nah!
My bike has been off the grid for three days, perhaps with that guy in the Yukon.  Man I wish I was off the grid for three days already. I rented a minivan about an hour ago. I have a plain white minivan for my bike-packing vacation in California.  No Tent, No Bag, No Bike, No Bottles, No Bacon, and no Pedals. I suppose that this defines the "Eggs in one basket" anecdote.
I miss my bike, and worse, I really miss being able to watch the tracking as it faded into some obscure guys home between Chandler Arizona and Sacramento. The blip fades like a dot in the vector of a Tempest pattern. No place, off the radar, and into the sea of other people's orbit. Lost in space, like a frisbee into a murky pond.
Tip: When you want to disappear, be careful what you wish for,  and pack  well, because if someone gets it wrong, you may never emerge from your cardboard nightmare.
#Disappeared

Imagine a world where everyone wears Khaki Dockers, is Gluten-Free, Keto, Drinks a 6-dollar Starbucks with butter, watches the same Netflix series, rides matching Pelotons and posts midday travails about their nail technician.
Someone shows up like David Bowie, glittered in a sleek silver skin-suit, eating ice-cream, listening to LCD and reading Proust.
I thought so... Who is Proust? Well in France in 1934, clever people were gathering to ogle one of the sleekest
most innovative and perhaps technically sophisticated two-wheelers  imagined.
I've heard it all before, when we talk about Tesla, and credit the 'Genius Electric Car' to a single man.
As if Weezer wrote the catchy new song called "Africa". Hey!, by the way the electric car came out well prior to the 70's Gas Crisis, and not when your uncle bought his P75. Innovation sleeps when we all subscribe to the same playlist.  P.S. if you've never been to "Africa" (the country) then please sit on your hands, when next you imagine writing a song about it.
Thank you to Classic Cycle in Washington for your passion and dedication to the Artform that is the Bicycle; Especially in your graceful synopses of your museum collection; (as well as the above, and some other awesome images which we abscond for this discussion).
When it comes to Bike Porn, there are many repositories for reflection, and for flat-out lust, but for me -- this bike smokes them all. Being a Chicago native, may shape one's perspective of a proper bike as one which is pure of form, simply executed, and elegant, such as those produced by Schwinn, and Paramount (it's top tier).  When it comes to innovation, the Giant Schwinn Brand appeared rather common, although massive, preferring to make Quality their hallmark.  This said, We duly recognize the many innovative breakthroughs by Schwinn, Watsyn, and others who pressed technical boundaries in steel.
Being one who travels, and has a lust for good design, I am reminded of my friends '89 Vitus, and later Raleigh "Technium" aluminum bikes from the 90's, who resolved to build bikes with glue. Without even imagining Glue as a solution, the above innovation could not have come soon enough.  The resulting, Carbon revolution was poised to occur when demilitarization left a ramped-up supply chain, without buyers. Thanks to the Military, we have Carbon tennis rackets,  and cell phones. But what of the sea change that comes when someone says, "Aluminum is lighter than Steel, why don't we use that"?