Everything Old Is New Again

During my younger and pre-motor vehicle-owning days I spent a great deal of time on bicycles which were called "English racers;" bicycles with frames much like touring or racing bikes, but with straight handlebars. I guess they would be called "hybrids" now. We didn't do a lot of riding after dark, although we could have in our little 15,000-person town. And the best bikes didn't have the big D-cell battery-carrying headlamps (who knew when those batteries were going to DIE?); they had the frame-mounted generator and the spring-loaded switch. Throw the switch when the sun went down and you could still be seen ripping around the neighborhood. And the harder or faster you rode the brighter the light would become.

Who knew in the age of halogen lamps and lithium batteries those old generators would still be relevant?

My wife and I participated in a telecommunications conference in Singapore this last week. Her technology newspaper received complimentary passes. Since I've written the occasional tech-related article (Anything vaguely related to fitness and gadgetry? I'm there.) she thought some consumer electronics toy might catch my eye and justify my holiday.

I helped Suzanne interview a couple of exhibitors on Tuesday morning, after which she cut me loose to take a look at some of the exposition booths for "cool stuff." The overwhelming majority of the exhibits were way over my head...until I got to the Nokia pavilion. Angry Birds is one thing, but when I saw the blue-framed mountain bicycle on a stand...well, I had to take a closer look.

Once I showed the booth exhibitors my credentials - it never hurts to have business cards - I was allowed to pedal the bike a few cranks and figure out the fuss.

The phone, secured to the handlebars, lit up and showed a "charging" icon at two turns of the pedals. While the charger is specifically designed for Nokia phones with two-millimeter pin chargers, it's not a serious stretch to figure what could be done for other phones. The fine folks at Nokia probably developed the charging system for the benefit of phone owners who don't necessarily have access fo reliable electrical power, or spend quite a bit of time on bicycles, which in this case makes perfect sense when one thinks about the state of affairs in Asia.

But you probably could use the same kind of device to charge a phone without getting on the grid. Take one exercise bicycle, add one generator, and voila! It's nothing new, mind you. There were folks who joined pedal power to their television set in the late 1970s.

Everything old isn't necessarily new again, as much as it is that we start to think about new ways to use the old stuff.

Get Up And Do It Again, Amen...

(PROBABLY SOMEWHERE NEAR FIRST YELLOW MARKER BUOY, UPPER CENTER)

I received an e-mail (one of many from friends and family, wondering what the hell happened and whether I was all right) the day after IM Florida from a friend of mine, Mark Sortino. Mark's an experienced triathlete; he's finished multiple IM events & qualified for his first trip to Kona at IM Louisville last August. He's one of the smarter tri-geeks I've met in the past few years. He has never hesitated to provide advice, counsel, a pat on the back or a dusting off of the bike shorts to less-experienced wanna-be tri-geeks like me. He's a F.I.S.T.-certified fitter who does bike fitting on the weekends at the local running emporium; our initial 90-minute fit session turned into a two-plus-hour discussion on nutrition, technique & the mental side of triathlon.

Mark's blog is always insightful & a lot of fun to read, because he's not talking about the nuts & bolts of training & racing all the time. He likes to look at the lifestyle part of being a tri-geek, too. When I say lifestyle I mean the balance of work, family, training & competition. He's got it fairly down pat from what I can tell, & has no problem putting things into proper perspective. The video clips taken by his wife Andi after he finished Kona said much more than thousands of words of written commentary; the mix of joy in achieving something that very few people do (complete IM Hawaii) & disappointment in not being able to give the performance he really wanted to on the day (because you never know if you'll make it there again) was palpable.

So when Mark's e-mail came into my inbox I took the time to really read through it. Not only did he knock the dust off my bike shorts but provided a little nudge (in the direction of my swim gear, mind you!) to get back on the horse that threw me.

It's hard to think about the existential 'now what?' when you're five or six hours out from sitting on the tailgate of an EMS truck on the beach with a tech worrying over you with a heart rate monitor, pulse oximeter & stethoscope. The perspective doesn't exist there...add a few more hours of hearing Mike Reilly welcome someone else into the IM family as you're going to pick up your crap in transition. That's something which hurts like a punch in the ribs. Even then the perspective is still far down the road.

I stood out on the run course outside the Mellow Mushroom, after my beer & salad, watching the athletes come through on the first - some on their second - loop. I had the privilege to see my friend & (part-time) business/training partner come through the first loop:

Steve - 'What are you doing here? What happened?'

MB - 'Bad day, dude. Now, go finish this thing!'

The perspective usually comes as a result of the same cycle a'la Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' death/dying/grief cycle: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. Kubler-Ross' stages don't progress in any particular sequence, which is a good thing...'cause I think I shot right past Bargaining. IM doesn't allow you to bargain after you are on the shore, the side of the road, or in a medical tent/emergency room.

No. There is Bargaining: 'Get me out of this alive & I'll do it right next time.'

Denial: 'I cannot believe I busted my chops for all these months & still got my butt kicked.'

Anger: 'I hate myself for not putting in more open water time. I still can't swim!'

Depression: 'I don't want to be near anyone; I'm ashamed of my failure.'

Acceptance: 'IM is not easy. If it were everyone would do it. This year wasn't your time.'

The beginning of the closure from my bad day came as Steven finished. His family, my wife & I were standing at the beginning of the finish chute & cheered like crazy people. Hey, the company had a fifty-percent success rate on the day.

I had a brief thirty-minute temper tantrum the next morning as I saw all the finisher shirts/hats/acoutrement & thought to myself: 'dude, that should have been you.' But it was balanced with the ER physician's comment: 'you probably made the right decision today.'

Today. It all boils down to today. And today. And today. And today.

So, I feel much better today. I've got a few hundred more of those on the way to the next stop on the journey.

And maybe I'll have a better today in the Gulf of Mexico on a November morning two years from today.

Thanks, Mark. Thanks also to my long-suffering wife, Suzanne...you didn't panic or freak out through the whole ordeal. We'll do it right this next time.