Letters to the Page, New
This is embarrassing hornblowing here, but what the heck.
Here’s what folks have been saying—to me, anyway. The other ‘Letters’ page was printed in OYB#7 *about* #6. These here are from posts about #7 and the OYB Page. I haven’t gotten around to the juiciest yay’s (and boo’s!) about Paper #7 yet. Follow? JP
***Jeff:
First, an apology. The counter on the coverpage for OYB7 says 394 right now, said 370-something yesterday, but my web browser keeps locking up, forcing me to shut down, shut up, restart, relogon, find OYB again, and trip the counter again. Maybe a dozen times in the last day or so. So, anyhow, there can’t be too many lurkers I guess, which is a pity in this case, and I’m proud to say I’ve been one, but I’m writing out a check for a charter subscription right now.
Kent P. sent me your way. Kent and I were buddies in college in Duluth, MN. Then we met women and went our ways and lost touch with each other for about 13 years. Then one day I found him, reading posts at rec.bicycles.tech. I’d been looking for him, kind of as a hobby, in my spare time, but when I found him, I wasn’t looking. Kent and I have had a nice internet correspondence the past couple of months. Sad thing is, talking with Kent and lurking OYB has made me feel like I’ve lost track of where I used to be going with my life. I’m not traveling light any more. I’m not getting outside enough. I’ve gained weight. My novel isn’t any better or closer to being finished than it was months ago. I spend time worrying about how to depreciate things for my taxes.
I’ve gained more perspective on my life in a few days of lurking OYB than years of reading Utne and Harper’s and Vegetarian Times have given me. I’ve realized I lost something important when I finally got that big promotion at the corporate day job and gave up tending bar three nights a week. So, here’s to a renewed commitment to keeping the margins alive in life. Here’s to not lurking where I like what I see.
I like your idea for putting together a guide for real restaurants with real food. There are some very cool places in the Twin Cities and one I know of on the north shore up from Duluth. I forgot that one’s name, but I’ll find it. It’s a vegetarian cafe on Lakeshore Drive right between Duluth and Two Harbors. There’s also the New Riverside Cafe smack dab on the West Bank of Minneapolis. A trip to the seventies. Hippies and whole veggie food served up cafeteria style with entertainment, too! I’ll revisit these places soon as I can and write reviews for you.
Thanks. –S.A.N.
***I enjoy the stories (like the one from LA). Hope this site keeps growing. –M.O.
***Keep up the OYB spirit. I liked the “Angels” article. –J.H.
***I enjoyed your article on primitive archery! I have made a couple of flat bows. Two from hickory, and one from osage. –H.H.
***Excellent. Excellent.
My co-worker here was out cruising around for Nordic skiing sites, and stumbled in Your Back Door, as it were. He turned me on to your site, and I’ve wasted an entire morning of very expensive company time perusing your zine here.
I like the bike culture bent, and as a dedicated scrape-the-frost-off-of-my-glasses-I’ve-got-to-pedal-to-work-no-matter-how-cold-it-is gutter bunny, I look forward to contributing to your pages.
My check — the miracle inspiring $15 — is in the snail mail. –T.N.
***The dog looks cool. —CJV
***from Kevin Donoghue:
Web Site of the Week
Out Your Back Door was chosen as this week’s featured site because there is no other place like it on the web. Out Your Backdoor is a montage of literary genius consisting of stories, articles and even poems dealing with the outdoors and cycling.
The site is published by Jeff Potter, who has written many of the articles found here. Jeff has also gathered articles written by others throughout the world. There are so many great stories here, you could spend weeks reading them.
When you visit Out Your Backdoor you will not find many links to other pages or logos of major manufacturers. What you will find is the most interesting and eclectic array of stories relating to mountain biking on the net!
***I love to read OYB more than all my other bike mags. I bookmarked the WWW site and dig it every week. I particularly enjoyed “Violence, Fate and the Cyclist” as sometomes I like to ride armed too. Here is something from me. If’n it is no good just chuck it!–I have no illusions about myself or my writing, I just like to get it out of my head ya know.
A few years ago I was on a training ride on my bicycle in the hills above Chico. An oncoming truck swerved into my lane in an effort to scare me. I flew the bird– mightily raised a defiant single fingered suggestion. The driver turned around and stomped on the accelerator. He ran me onto the gravel shoulder that divided the white line and a
steep bank. In the time it took me to release my pedals, the driver leapt from the tall 4×4 truck brandishing his trusty blue aluminum baseball bat. I had to scurry up the bank and run through the bushes! Well, I narrowly escaped injury but many bicyclists do not. There is a long standing alienation that exists between cyclists and motorists. The cause is due to each group’s self perceived right to use the road. Most cyclists do not despise motorists in general, but as in all quarrels, it takes two.
Cyclists do their share to provoke evil reactions. I can picture the scene as if I were the director of a cheezy seventies grammar school safety film. Barreling down the lonesome canyon road comes the Boss Power Ram with a 426ci Hemi. The driver just got laid off from the plant; he’s on his way home to beat his wife and dog. Four wide open carburator barrels are sucking air like an angry dragon’s throat. The madman launches that Boss- Hemi across the yellow line with every intent to make dinner for the three hungry vultures who are circling overhead. The cyclists eyes nearly pop out of his skull as he makes a desperate two wheeled dive into the gravel pit beyond the road shoulder. The rider has narrowly avoided the chromed jaws of the two tone orange and brown monster. At these speeds the Power Ram’s window is only down enough for a few words to escape.
“Get off the road you @#$%& skinny leg-ed fargot!”
“Up yours, gas guzzling hick!” (plus sign language)
At the end of the film the camera pans back into the distance and we see an old Indian on the bank above the incident on the road. A tender and sorrowful tear streams down his cheek.
Do motorists think that they deserve the whole road because they were built for cars; gasoline taxes pay for roads; cyclists are too slow, rude, childish? Well yes, that may be, but that doesn’t seem like a provocation enough to get someone out of his car to chase a fellow with a bat. People are mad from the day-to-day adversities they deal with.
It is most likely a roasting brew of anger that began long before the oblivious cyclist came into the picture. If you flip someone off, they might become angry– angry enough to get mean. There is an old addage that says to curse a man is likely to bring his fist justly to your into your nose. If you want to insult someone, more power too you; some
jerks need to hear it. Please though, don’t do it there on the roadside as a bicyclist. That burning anger you justifiably feel can be turned into real danger and dispair if you handle yourself improperly! When you curse some driver on the road, if he doesn’t come after you, he is going to be just livid with the next cyclist he sees–and that might be me, pal.
Cyclists feel they deserve at least a small part of the roadway because they are ecologically friendly- saving the air; they drive and pay taxes as well. Besides, it’s a free country. Of course they really do and, it really is. There are two roads to ending this alienation which must both be taken by all cyclists– fast ones, slow ones, aero
ones, and muddy ones. The first is to understand that we, as cyclists are a minority on the road. We need to increase the number of riders–especially by encouraging younger people. This will eventually desensitize motorists as the roads will be full of bikes. The second is really the most important and difficult effort; when provoked, do not
respond like a brute. The problem will never go away if we expect motorists to change their attitudes. They will flip us off, swerve and yell. But if we can shrug it off’, without retaliation, cyclists of the future will have a better ride. Try this: the next time you have a roadside misunderstanding with your friendly local hillbilly, get together with your riding buddies, have a barbeque after a ride and drink some good beer. Revel together long into the night about how it will be someday when cyclists have the whole road.
Anthony Smith
***Jeff,
Hi, sent you a check last week for a subscription to OYB. This weekend my club (that I rarely ride with because I tend to be a solitary type of guy) held a women’s only metric century called the Cinderella Century. You probably read a few of the flames and raves against us for holding such a sexist event on the net, they appeared in several discussion grouips. I registered and then drove sag for the last leg of about 20 miles. I was driving around and thinking about the zen, collecting, use of bikes threads most of the time in between fixing flats for the articipants. Toward the end of the afternoon, I stopped to help one women who had no patch kit, no pump, no tubes, nothing. I was carrying tubes, but was fresh out of 26″ mountain tubes (yes she was riding this century on a bottom of the line, unsuspended, very upright Specialized mountian bike with hmongo knobbies). She had run over a nail that went in, hit the rim, turned left, and exited through her sidewall. Her tube was filled with that Slime stuff that was oozing everywhere and I knew that I didn’t have a ghost of a chance to fix it with my patch kit.
She was only had five miles to go ’till the finish, and I suggested that I just shuttle her in. Nothing doing. She was going to finish, which meant that I had to find a tube. It just so happened that at our SAG headqauarters there was this TREK support van full of all sorts of bike stuff and the driver just gave us a tube (for a minute I dropped my natural dislike for that company). What a deal!. I fixed her tire and she insisted that I take her back to the point where she flatted so she could continue on to the finish. Finishing this ride was really a goal of hers, but more importantly it was a new way to explore and discover herself. She loved here bike and loved riding it. She talked of being really spent after a long ride and just collapsing on the couch in her bicycle shorts. It was clear that she really knew nothing about bicycling except that you get on and push the pedals. She had no remorse about not having the latest titanium bike widget, she was unconcerned with her overall time and average speed (here bike didn’t even have a computer) she was just happy to be riding, and she was going to finish. As I unloaded her bike from the rack and set her up to finish the ride, I looked at her Specialized in a different sort of way. It was really a bike serving a noble purpose. And I longed for the day that I had that type of biking innocence and could be so contented to just hop on the bike, spin the pedals and go.
I think that is what biking is all about. Not about having to have the lastest in high tech equipment, or about having the most stylish retro grouch type of stuff. I think it is about being happy with what you have and riding. If I could only do more of that.
Thanks for your thought provoking post.
R.G.
***Hi Jeff! I’m enjoying browsing your page. I’ll have to do it in bits and pieces. I was LOL at “Something Frozen in my Hair.” 🙂 —J.C.
***Jeff, I just read and really enjoyed the article on native trees.
Biodiversity is one thing you mention that I’ve heard enough about to concern me also. It’s great that these forestry companies are planting millions of trees to replace the one’s that they log. But I’m not so sure it’s great if they’re only planting a few dozen different trees (cloned millions of times).
Please forgive me though, we planted a pear tree that had been developed to be winter hardy in Edmonton… :-O
However a trembling aspen may be in our yards future…
best regards, —A.M.
***Subject: OYBD Ultimate cycling jacket
Absolutely perfect. I assume that it would be a Woolrichish shirtjack with wind proof nylon sewn to the front. I have been looking for a replacement for my old Tommaso or C’dale jacket for a while. The old half windproof jackets worked wonderfully, however they have been replaced with PI silmond and other such miracle fabrics with all the utility of garbage bags. Windproof yes but leaving you drenched from perspiration and condensation, junk. The old halfa garbage bag wind stuck to the front of the jersey, or discretely poached advertising circular down the front of the jersey
frequently workes much better. I’m off to the salvation army for a shirt, I’m certain my girlfriend has some nasty looking fabric in stock. Ten year old fixxed gear Pink Bianchi w/ fenders and a new retro-italia-lumberman jacket and I’m stylin’ for those fall tours. –M.S.
***Are you at all into poetry? I’m a BOB who climbs only reluctantly, but in the SF Bay Area I find myself in some pretty high (for me) places – I sure never thought I’d ride up to Mountain Home on Mt. Tamalpais! It was gorgeous,
though, and the ride down was GREAT! Anyway, I wrote this poem awhile back and thought other climbers might relate, even though it doesn’t specifically mention bicycles:
Mountain Path over the Bunderchrinde (for the Swiss picture on my desk calendar)
Only grey, volcanic black fills my eyes with rough moutains grown so close, jagged as an old jaw-bone; sheer peaks like bad teeth burst from the gravel-black sides; one tooth gone, its socket gumming the floss-thin path impossibly switched-back upwards; I climb like an ant, nothing else living but the threaded tracks of mountain goats braver than I; impassive, unloving face, the rock stands witheringly before me as hope drains out the soles of my feet like blood, not running on hope any more but still climbing, I remember the view through the pass from my last clear viewpoint: ringing blue peaks from soft green valleys, and continue on.
Phoebe Grigg
***Howdy Jeff,
I just sent you a check for a subscription, should be there shortly. I have some friends that run a used bookstore/less than mainstream magazine place, I fully intend to show them your deal and hopefully interest them
in carrying it.
I am currently fixing up a couple of old Mountain bikes for friends, you know the kind, u brake on the chainstays, 30 lb if an ounce. One of the fellows at the shop I buy parts from was telling me about the bottom brackets I was hoping to replace. 122 mm spindles for “old style” bb’s are becoming a relic apparently, it is getting difficult to find the NL style (same length on either side). I took one of the friends with so she could make informed choices on the parts without my admittedly biased opinions, and she asked about cartridge vs “old style”. He told her, “well if you are not into maintainence the cartridge is the way to go, it will last a year. It costs the same as the ‘old style’.” She says, “Well then what do you do with it?” and he tells her you throw it away and buy new one. He is obviously used to selling Shimano cartridge bb’s and fully expects he is about to sell yet another. He is an older guy too, in the bike biz most of his days. He says, “Now if you’re going to do maintainence regularly, 2-3 times a year, the ‘old style’ may last just as long or possibly longer, but you only have to replace the worn parts.”
She points at me and says “I have a maintainence guy, so I’ll take the old recyclable version.” He smiled real big, and two of the other shop guys looked up to nod encouragement. There is an art to working with the old style, and you always know exactly when it is going to crap out on you, and what the nature of the problem is. Course I have a Phil BB in one of my bikes, and love it dearly, but that is probably worth about 1/2 the value of her bicycle as it sits now. But I digress. Looking forward to OYB…
Curiously, D. C.
***Hey Jeff!
Got the OYB, read and re-read. Already sent catalog requests that state quite clearly where I saw the ads. I am getting ready to show it to my pals with a book shop. Great stuff.–D.C.
***Jeff, I just read your Out Your Back Door issue #7. I loved it. I am planning to subscribe this week.—S.C.
***Re: Spirit of Cycling. Jeff: I really liked that. Thanks. –E.H.
***Re: Spirit of Cycling. What you wrote was wonderful and moving, and made me feel sad and good at the same time. Thanks. –J.P.
***thanks for the issue. i’d forgotten what a treat it is to read about your views of low-intensity living, as well as the other writers in your zine. it was a good time for me to read it, too, since i’ve been stressing about finding an apartment in seattle, and i think i’ve realized that all the compromises and complexity (leases, landlords, jobs) of dealing with that kind of situation just isn’t worth the hassle, and i’d probably be better off just renting a room in a house with some other folks. anyway, reading oyb got me thinking along those lines, so thanks for that. –J.L.
***There I was humming along in cyber-space, surfing through the Red Green site and there is a OYBD reference URL! I should have known from the duct tape and low budget surplus/refuse aspects of OYBD that there was a connection. Startling!
Hoping for a more widely diseminated mag. —M.S. (of the wool sock duct tape booties)
***Re: Daisy Doodle Pumpin Poodle. What a cool story! I’m not posting this to the group, but you just pushed a whole mess of buttons and I gotta respond!
I have two dogs myself, both adorable but ill-mannered boobs. I keep meaning to take them to obedience school so I can take them places without worrying about them (I’ve never successfully trained a dog to do anything but sit and come when I call them, albeit sometimes reluctantly). But they love me and I love them and we are happy. I love dog stories and though we both know that we don’t want to start another “content war” on IBOB, I like the occasional off-topic-cool-thing article.
My girlfriend and I went to Alaska (Anchorage) for Xmas with her family and despite the general lack of snow I actually managed to go XC skiing for the first time on a pretty well-covered lake. Since then we have discussed actually moving to AK after she finishes her MA in Health Education.
Anyway, now I have a great image to keep me going all day of the neglected pup discovering something amazing in herself.
Thanks! –D.M.
