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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • This was a great podcast episode that addresses the young men issue directly. Scott Galloway has been talking about it for a while.

    https://overcast.fm/+ABEb8GDsq4Q

    At about 70 minutes, he states that the greatest innovation from the United States is the middle class, and he makes a good argument IMHO. He talks about how there were about seven million men that came back from World War II having proven themselves, with some confidence, and of course being in uniform doesn’t hurt. They had opportunity for education, help with starting a career and affording a home, and all that made them attractive mates and led to the baby boom and the rise of the middle class. (I know it’s an oversimplification, of course.)

    Here’s a fun conspiracy theory for you – what if somebody recognizes that sequence of events and thinks the best thing we could do would be to replicate it? If that was your goal, what would you do to make it happen, but with a twist to the far right?






  • The people who are on them where I live are a bunch of young teenagers, look like they are around the 12 to 14 year-old range. There’s a bunch of these kids who buzz through our neighborhood on them. I have yet to see one of them wearing a helmet.

    Perhaps a month ago, I ended up following one, I was driving in this case, not biking. No helmet, T-shirt and shorts, flip-flops, in the 25 to 30 mph range. When we got to the exit from our subdivision, he cut left onto the main road (45mph) into the bike lane facing traffic, fortunately, nobody was turning right into the subdivision at the time… but at some point, somebody will be.

    I don’t really blame the kids, they are just doing what young boys do, being stupid. I would’ve done the exact same thing if I’d had the opportunity. I do, however, blame their parents – at some point one of these kids is gonna eat the front of somebody’s SUV and then their parents are going to lose their shit over their poor little Johnny and isn’t it so horrible and we should have laws against these things! and if/when they crack down that WILL affect me and that pisses me off.

    Edit to add: I should also mention that almost nobody around here wears a helmet, regardless of age, riding on the street. I’ve got kids in high school and when I’ve been over at the school, none of those kids do either. I do, 100% of the time, but I also started mountain biking before I started riding on the street, and that environment is completely different at least here. it’s a completely different group of people, and everybody wears a helmet mountain biking.




  • A belt drive with integrated gearbox (no derailleur) is imho the future of e-bikes, especially as they get more powerful. This is anecdotal but based on my own experience.

    I have a middrive bike, fat tire 9 speeds. It has a fairly powerful cargo bike motor that puts out 130Nm. The cassette is a Shimano HG-400, most durable option I’ve been able to find. I’ve had issues with it eating the 9th gear cog, just rounding off the teeth VERY quickly. I have to ride it like driving a big truck - have to get into the lower gears and never accelerate when I’m in 9th. That plus ordering a bunch of spare 9th gear cogs from AliExpress is workable but for somebody with less biking experience, this would be a very frustrating set up, especially if what they want to do is mostly ride around on the throttle.

    In comparison, I also have an eMTB, 85Nm. I can push hard on the top gear without this problem - I could break the chain overdoing it (did that once) but it can take a ton more abuse. The cassette is an SRAM XG-1275 which is without question a higher tier of component, but the point still stands, I can abuse it without it rounding the teeth.

    It comes down to the amount of power the motor + me can produce, when put through components that were designed for human output on a moderate weight bike not for human + motor on a much heavier e-bike. A belt can just take more power.