Bike Paint Man Makes a Statement

I have this cool sister-in-law who sends me links she thinks I may find interesting. Not being a rabid cycling web surfer, she often finds stuff I haven't seen in my own online stumblings.

I have no desire to restart the ever-smoldering debate on helmets and helmet laws on this web site. Do what you want. Preach what you want. Quote whatever statistics you want. I don't care. Since even mentioning helmets seems to restart cranky debates, please know that if you must opine about it in the comments, knock yourself out, but I am staying out of this one. My sister simply found this interesting and so do I, so here's a link or you could also click the image below to go to the article.

I haven't been meeting many Monday deadlines over the past couple of months. Life and family trumps blog, which is as it should be, I know. Just the same, I hope to be getting my blogging groove back soon.

Does Bike Paint Man Speak to You? What does he say?

R A N T W I C K

Retirement Planning

Hey, this is yet another call to my always insightful if sometimes strange (talk about the pot calling the kettle black) cycling readers. I've been summer commuting on the same tires for almost three years, possibly more. I am crummy at keeping track of such things. They are Bontrager Race Lite Hardcase(s). I have been very pleased with them.

The sidewalls are in fine condition, but there are a number of decent cuts or cracks in the centre of them:

I know I am inviting the flat gods to rain bad fortune down upon me, but I haven't flatted once in all that time, which included a few longish (60-80 km) highway trips. So, should I continue to tempt fate or would you think there's a little life left in these still? I lean toward treating tires like I do cars... ride them until they fail completely. Trouble is, I don't want to experience that complete failure on a big ol' downhill stretch.

As always, thanks for letting me use you as sounding boards... I didn't want to leave this earth-shattering discussion in the hands of strangers!

Try to Stay Pumped,

R A N T W I C K

My Summer Vacation -OR- 2 X 2 Dirty Words, Plus Three More

Summer has brought with it many more things than usual to occupy my attention and rob me of free time to write for this blog. Paradoxically, one of those things was my family vacation, which consisted of a road trip to my home town of Thunder Bay to relax out at Camp (non-northern Ontario types can replace Camp with Cottage if that helps).

Camp was terrific, with fantastic weather, starry nights, fires, fishing... the works! Getting there and coming back was some work, but even the long hours on the highway were pretty enjoyable. At least nothing strapped to the van fell off...

I managed to carry 4 bikes on a rack designed for 3...

The evenings were the best of all. Fires on the beach are my and Mrs. Rantwick's favourite thing. The picture below was taken after 10 pm, believe it or not. Thunder Bay is at the Western edge of the Eastern Time Zone, which stretches the days a little.

The day after we arrived we went into town to see my Mom and get some stuff. It was at this point that something bad happened:

See that foot in the reflection on the door? That's Mrs. Rantwick's foot. You will never see any more of her than that, because I fear that if my online visitors saw her, they would be as drawn to her as I am and that simply would never do. She's mine! Go find your own perfect woman!

I put this dent in the rear door of the van by backing hard into a cement light standard in an empty parking lot. I wish I had some excuse about being startled or distracted by Mrs. Rantwick or even being angry with the kids, but they weren't in the vehicle. I am a good driver, I swear, but I haven't got a single way to rationalize what I did. That fact is shocking to me, since rationalizing the bad or stupid things I do has always been a real talent of mine. There was such an absence of obstacles or dangers around me that I failed to notice the only possible thing I could hit. I felt like the biggest idiot ever.

Now, here are the first two dirty words:

AAAAGH! Ah well, accidents happen, right? That's where the second 2 dirty words come in:

It's not that Mrs. Rantwick and I are too cheap to spring for insurance or thought it was an OK risk to take. We discussed it before renting and we both remembered checking with our insurance guy years ago to see if our comprehensive insurance covered us on some other rental occasion, and it did. What our aging brains neglected to recall was that you had to call the insurance company and explicitly transfer said comprehensive insurance before taking the trip.

When we called our insurance company, we were reminded of this fact and told we were out of luck. The credit card we used did not offer any recourse either and that is where the last three dirty words I became familiar with came up:

OOP indeed. I am not going to disclose the cost of the repair, but said pocket is still reeling. My Mother always warned us kids that parking lots were among the most dangerous places anywhere, although she was referring to lots with cars in them... in any case,

Always Heed Your Mother.

R A N T W I C K