Elegance

Two tires held in place by ribbons in the middle, thimbles on the edge.
Rubber with no tread, little weight.
Folded in a pocket with room left over.
A half inch touching earth when not.

One frame of angles connected by braze or fiber.
Smooth and shimmering paint attract the eye.
Like a beautiful woman,
or perfect sunset.

Bar with swooping curls at the ends.
Curls that drop from a straight top
and resting place for levers.
All wrapped in tape to caress the hand.

Cranks and cogs transmit force to a whirring chain.
A chain that runs to a tangle of springs and levers.
telling the machine how fast to go,
how good the beast astride.

A thin piece of leather atop a fragile post.
Material slides over the smooth surface a hundred
beats per minute driving the machine on.
Creating a vision of elegance.

All topped by an amalgam of muscle and bone.
Covered with colors of slick and stretchy fabric,
grasping the bars, sitting on the saddle,
cranking the rings that drive the chain and turn the wheels.

The whole is elegant as it slips through the wind,
along tracks, up hills and down.
Elegant, too, when still.
Waiting to be let loose upon the world.

This piece of elegant artistry that is a bicycle.

-- David Kannas, "Elegance", West Seattle Herald, 30 March 2009

Luck

Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.

-- Earl Wilson (2 October 1934 - 23 April 2005), Major League Baseball pitcher

Ghosts

The new stadium is beautiful, but I don't know if the ghosts are going to be there. You can feel that, standing here -- Babe Ruth, DiMaggio. It's not going to be the same.

-- Alex Alicea, Yankees fan from Union City, NJ, on the last game played at Yankee Stadium, New York Times, 22 September 2008

Bannister

The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the one who will win.

-- Roger Bannister (1929-), British athlete, first person in the world to run a mile in under four minutes, on May 6, 1954

Champaign Park District Mini Triathlon

On Saturday 08-02-08 I participated for the second time in the annual Champaign Park District mini-triathlon. I did OK, though I didn't win any prizes. It was a 400 meter swim, 6 mile bike ride, and 2 mile run. My time was 48:41.4, an improvement of 4:23 over my previous performance.

I finished 5th of 17 in my age group (men age 44-49), 56th of 142 among men of all ages, and 82nd of 305 among all men and women for the entire event. Of the 223 people I beat, 187 were younger. Of the 86 men I beat, 74 were younger.

I hate running, but I like both swimming and biking. If I can convince myself to do some training next summer, I should be able to improve on both my time and my placing.

I signed up 8 weeks ahead of time, but the event was full, and I was #43 on the waiting list. Usually only a handful of people drop out in time for the people on the waiting list to be helped. This year, I got a call with just 17 days to go stating that they were expanding the field by 50, so I was in. I hadn't been running at all, but was able to leg out a number of 2-mile runs to get ready.

Lost Our Collective Minds

Back before we lost our collective minds and began shrieking with horror at the thought of kids having fun on their own (as in not part of an official league or otherwise organized activity), they used to do things like find a vacant field, turn it into a makeshift diamond and spend glorious hours in the summer sun.

-- The Greenwich Time newspaper, in an editorial in support of youths who built a wiffle ball field on an empty, city-owned lot in Greenwich, CT, 9 July 2008

Asterisk

Bonds' 756th homer ball lands in Hall, finally
By Ben Walker, AP Baseball Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- Now branded with an asterisk, the ball Barry Bonds launched for his record 756th home run nearly a year ago landed Tuesday night in the Hall of Fame.

[snip]

269m

Eddy Merckx: 49.431km in 1 hour.

In 1972 Eddy Merckx flew to Mexico City to attempt one of the most challenging monuments in sport: the hour record.

Before the advent of advanced carbon materials, disc wheels and lightweight components, the hour record stood as the ultimate measure of man-powered machine.

The day's effort has only been topped twice by traditional bicycles as recognized by the UCI. In 36 years the distance traveled in one hour has grown only 269 meters.

-- Spoke 'N' Word blog

Seize It

With each game I play, with each season I play, I'm running out of chances ... You're never guaranteed next year. You're never guaranteed the next game. You have to seize the opportunity when it's there in front of you.

-- Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre, The New York Times, 29 January 2004 (Favre announced his retirement today, 4 March 2008)