I wear a helmet. Either I’m mountain biking, or I’m in a bike lane along cars, where I’m riding in the 22-25mph range and the cars are in the 45-50mph range. If I get directly run into, it probably won’t make a lot of difference, but if I get clipped/knocked down, way more likely, it quite likely will.

I don’t think they should be mandatory, but it does bring up the same arguments that get made about motorcycles - if you don’t wear one and you crash, will the (horrible, shitty, awful, stupid, American) insurance industry try to reduce their liability? Rhetorical question, of course they will.

This only works if it’s a strongly worded letter.

Thank you, that’s super helpful. It’s coming into the right season for where he lives, hopefully he’ll be able to make it work.

My son has talked about getting into the handyman business, but doesn’t know how to get started finding customers. I’ve always been in the corporate world and I have no idea how to help him get started. Any suggestions?

We chose to do a little bit of “buying ahead.” Where I would buy one pack of TP, I bought a second one, and when we use the first I’ll get another. Nothing we’re not going to use within a few months anyway, not looking to build a TP throne but just a bit of cushion. We were already mostly doing this anyway since covid because it seems like there’s random shortages here and there that didn’t happen prior, or at least not enough to notice.

Really, nothing beyond what I’d want to have for a natural disaster where we’re on our own for a few days. Trying to be prudent without being a weirdo.

Village idiot

That’s exactly what we got, an I6. Love it.

We bought a Hyundai EV. Would have seriously considered a Tesla, but.

https://fiido.com/products/fiido-titan-robust-cargo-electric-bike-with-ul-certified

That’s the triple battery I was talking about. They claim 250 miles. Puh-lease.

Of course it can, with enough battery. There’s at least one bike out there that holds three removable batteries.

The bigger issue by far is the pure lies they tell with the listed range. Don’t tell me it can do 80 miles and not mention that’s on the lowest assist, with a 100 lb rider and overinflated tires on flat asphalt. What’s the range with a 200 lb rider on the highest mode, climbing 500 feet per mile? List both, at least.

I know the argument constantly rages - too left! Too centrist! and I don’t know which one would be more effective.

On the other hand, the closest we’ve come to a real left candidate at least in my lifetime was Sanders and the thumb on the scale against him was pretty corporate blue - and the mainstream lost, so maybe we should try it the other way?

I would support a cutoff for president at say 60 when starting office, that would keep us below 70 for a two-termer. That’s plenty old enough.

Also the 18 year rolling term limit idea for SCOTUS.

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?

I’d be happy to see an AOC/Buttigieg ticket in 2028.

Warren for sec of treasury. Walz for HUD or even better, cabinet level position in charge of figuring out the young man problem. He’s representative of the role model a lot of young men are missing imho.

I don’t wanna see another dem pres candidate that’s older than me (mid 50s) EVER AGAIN. The problems my kids are facing aren’t going to be fixed by old people, and while I’m not quite there yet, I’m fucking close enough.

I was using AI to explore this idea a bit just messing around and it brought up similarities to the Milgram experiment - “the experiment requires that you continue” electric shock experiment.

This is the AIs words to be clear, not mine: “people often obey, even absurd or cruel commands, out of fear, conditioning, or unwillingness to challenge authority—even when they have the power to say no.”

Around here is suburban Phoenix, AZ. Nice area, pretty conservative.

I will say, when I’m out biking outside the neighborhood, I see a higher percentage of surron type riders wearing helmets than most other groups. Roadies, MTBers almost always do too. The guy biking to work, or the old people on the canal path on their dtc e-bikes, and the kids at the local schools, never.

Spent some time in flow state. Pretty much every good day I have at work has some time in flow. Spending all day in meetings, interruptions, etc. is where bad days come from.

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.

I saw this synopsis a little bit ago and I thought it was a pretty good short description

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.