“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.”

Henry Jaglom says Orson Welles told him this over lunch one day. He explained that creativity comes from having to figure out how to do something, with an example being that you don’t have a million dollars to blow up a bridge (for a film) so you have to find another way to get the effect you want.

My friend Martha wrote about limits, and a rediscovered old friend Margie quoted her brother about limits in her book “More Than Meets the Eye: Exploring Nature and Loss on the Coast of Maine”. Her brother had ALS and was about to start using a ventilator. He compared it to SCUBA diving: “You need a lot of cumbersome equipment to dive, but it’s worth the view you get from deep in the ocean. I feel the same way about a ventilator – it will be cumbersome but worth the view.”

As a (former) diver, I could relate. I didn’t like the limitation of holding my breath to snorkel when I was in water where all the action was 30 feet down. The limit of being able to breathe for only 45 minutes was freedom, not a limit. While I felt weighted down on land (the lead weights on my belt had something to do with that), I was weightless in the water. It was pretty hard to walk in fins, but they sure came in handy down there.

Likewise, we often speak of someone “confined to a wheelchair”. The alternative is often “confined to a bed”, but we tend not to see it that way. In this case, “confined” refers to a past that is no longer here. The wheelchair provides freedom (from the bed) and mobility. It also grounds us in the here and now, not an inaccessible past. While it may be a relative limit (compared to walking, which is not an option when paralyzed), it is an actual freedom. We could say that our inability to fly is a limitation, but since we never could fly we tend not to see it that way. When the day comes that I can no longer ride a bike, will I remember and experience this truth, or only experience the loss?

A limit also gives you the freedom to explore within that limit. Is it a limit, or a framework? We live with gravity and friction every day. That limits us from the ability to fly or to travel at infinite speed. Then again, would we have any of our current sports without those two “limits”?

“Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.”- “Squire Bill” Widener 1840-1920

Or as Si Kahn sang:

Also see previous post re: Django Reinhardt. Django had no use of the ring finger and small finger of his left hand. You wouldn’t know it to hear him play the guitar.

Weird clothes

People sometimes wonder why bicyclists wear such weird clothes.  Most of them make sense. This is the section for non-geeks, who wonder about the sanity of the bike geeks. I’ve been writing this post in my head since I bought my first bike shorts 40-some years ago.

Bike shorts. If you’ve ever ridden any distance in jeans, (cutoff or otherwise) you know why bike shorts were invented.  They’re shorts so they don’t impinge on knee movement. They have no inseam to chafe your inner thighs.  They fit snugly so they move with your leg rather than rub against your thigh as you pedal. They are padded because your pudendal nerve is right where the seams on jeans meet – if you press on that nerve long enough (like on a bike saddle), you go numb. There is something disconcerting about having to look to see if you’re peeing because you can’t feel anything. On bike shorts, there is no seam there.

Chamois

The padding used to be chamois and is now synthetic. Chamois is very soft when new. Once it has gotten wet and dries again it needs to be moisturized, which led to the development of “chamois fat”, various patented concoctions to replace the natural fats washed out of chamois. (The chamois fat I used to use seemed to be fish oil based, so I could absorb all those good Omega-3 fatty acids.) (No, I don’t really mean that last part, and I hadn’t heard of Omega-3 fatty acids back in those days – but it did smell kinda like fish.) With synthetic chamois, some folks still use weird concoctions, but now they call them butters, for the pun. Bike shorts are (or used to be) black because bike saddles were leather, which was oiled for softness. The oil left visible stains on any other color. Saddles are now usually synthetic, as are shorts.

Jerseys. Frankly, jerseys are (in part) a vehicle for advertising, just like the coveralls NASCAR drivers wear. If you are a professional racer, your sponsors put their logos on your jersey so they can make money from your success. If companies are not paying you to ride, it is mostly silly to advertise their products on your body. Jerseys are made to wick away moisture (they used to be wool, as shorts used to be). They fit snugly so as not to flap in the breeze. They have a zipper for ventilation because it is easier to work than buttons or snaps while riding. They have pockets on the lower back because that’s the easiest place to reach and the stuff in your pockets doesn’t make your jersey sag, as it would if the pockets were in front. Jerseys tend to be brightly colored. That way, if a car runs you over, you know they were aiming for you rather than failing to see you.

Gloves. See shorts. The pressure on your median and ulnar nerves (as well as vibration) tends to make your hands numb. Padded gloves prevent that. Leather palms protect your palms in a crash. The old-fashioned crocheted backs give you really neat tan lines. (Most gloves no longer have crocheted backs.) Gloves also allow you to run a hand over the surface of your tires if

tire savers

you ride through glass (don’t try this without gloves), on the theory that when you run over a piece of glass it only goes partway through your tire but when you keep riding on it, the pressure drives it further into your tire so you get a flat. There used to be little gizmos called tire savers for the same purpose, with the idea that they would knock a piece of glass free before you ran over it a second time.

Helmets. Because a helmet is a lot cheaper than the treatment for a traumatic brain injury.

Shoes. Bike shoes have a stiff sole to transmit power to the pedals more effectively. This also protects from hot spots and numbness in your feet. If your feet are attached to your pedals (via the cleats that make people walk funny), the power transmission portion of your pedal stroke is doubled – you can both push and pull (or, more effectively, pedal in circles rather than just a series of alternating pushes). It helps to disconnect your shoe from your pedal before you stop.

By now you’re probably hoping I’ll get on the road already and write about the scenery and post pictures of exotic places instead of my garage door. Good luck with that.

P.S. Thanks to the half-fast club for a great birthday dinner on 2/27. Nothing like stretching a birthday for five weeks.

Are you half-fast?

I once received a sweepstakes notice from Oscar Mayer that told me, “You may already be a weiner”. Likewise, you may already be half-fast and not yet know it. On large group rides, there tend to be people of varying abilities and interests. If you tend to hang out near the front of the group, you may be half-fast. If the training group of racers passes you and you latch onto the back for a while, you’re probably half-fast. If you think about latching on but think better of it, or base your decision on how far you have left to ride, you’re probably half-fast. If you used to try to latch on but now realize you are too old and out of shape, you may be half-fast.

If you sometimes ride fast and sometimes ride slow and daydream (or watch the scenery), you may be half-fast. If you have one bike that you use for everything, you may be half-fast. If you have multiple bikes for multiple purposes, you also may be half-fast.

If you ride a bike that was designed for people who ride a lot faster than you do (and get paid for it), you’re probably half-fast (unless you wear the team kit of the team that rides the same bike you do, in which case you’re something else all together). If you get paid to ride (and to wear lots of advertising), you’re probably not half-fast. If, on the other hand, your bike is old enough to buy you a beer, you may also be half-fast. If you rehydrate and replace lost carbohydrates post-ride like the guy on the left, you’re probably half-fast. Join the club.