The Blaſphemous Bicycler

I scored an old motobecane mixte from ebay last night for 51 bucks. Not too shabby.

I’m going to swap out the saddle for the Brooks b72 I have in my box-o-bike-parts, and hopefully, that will satisfy Brandi’s cushiness requirements without further expenditure…
The Fed-ex man should be dropping it off in a couple of days. I’ll have a better idea what I have to work with then.

A couple of my co-workers took me out to a Chinese restaurant for my farewell lunch today (tomorrow is my last day with the company). At the end of the festivities, the waitress gave us all fortune cookies. This is what mine said:

Maybe I’ll just lay down that fortune for my exit interview tomorrow.

When I was a boy, I was a member of the Boy Scouts. I probably grew up to be such a tree-hugger because of all the camping, backpacking, and canoeing I did with the scouts.

When I was about 13 years old, I got all atheistic and decided I didn’t want any parts of a club that made me vow to be “reverent,” whatever the hell that meant. So, I quit.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about why it seems like most kids don’t really give two craps about the outdoors. I was wondering if scouting might actually be a good thing. So, I got to thinking; If (hypothetically) I were to have a child, would I want him to participate in scouting?

Would the BSA be welcoming of a non-theistic/Buddhist child in the first place? If one can judge from a cursory reading of the by-laws, it certainly doesn’t look like it.

The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God.
– Bylaws of Boy Scouts of America, art. IX, § 1, cl. 1

Well, there we have it. You can’t be a good citizen unless you believe in God. Apparently, non-theistic children are not welcome in the Boy Scouts. Bummer. Maybe there are secular-humanist-scouts, or Buddha-scouts I could enrole my hypothetical child in.

Just for grins, I typed in “buddhist” to the scouting.org search engine, and I was surprised to see that the BSA does indeed cater to Buddhist children.

Scouting serves an important role in youth development in the Buddhist community. Cub Scout packs, Boy Scout troops, Varsity Scout teams, and Venturing crews chartered to Buddhist organizations can be found throughout the United States. Scouts can participate within units chartered to Buddhist organizations or as members of units chartered to other organizations.

–BSA Fact Sheet on Buddhism

They’ve even got special medals for Dharma, Metta, and Sangha!

_{BSA Dharma, Metta, and Sangha awards}

There appears to be a contradiction in the BSA’s reasoning here. If you have to believe in God to be a scout, and if Buddhists don’t believe in God, then Buddhists shouldn’t be able to be scouts.

So atheists are OK, so long as they’re also Buddhists? Is that really the BSA’s position?! Are there any Buddhist scouters out there who can enlighten (har-de-har) me to what the deal is here?

It’s too bad about all this religious horse shit. The scouts would be a worthwhile organization without it.

It was beautiful out yesterday, so I managed to squeeze in a quick, 16 mile ride to burn Thanksgiving calories and do a little commute reconnaissance.

_{Willow Park}

It appears that the best / safest route to my new gig will take me across the infamous intersection of 21^st St. and the Camp Hill bypass.
This intersection is a textbook example of what you get when you outsource your urban planning decisions to a troop of drunken baboons.

It looks like it’s going to be about 13 miles each way for my commute. There is a grocery store with a big parking lot about half way, so I might just drive to there and bike in the 6 miles from the grocery store to the office. At least until I get myself used to the idea of doing 26 miles everyday.

As some of you know, Brandi does not go bicycling with me. She had some sort of horrible bicycling accident as a child and is afraid of bikes.

Until now.

She recently agreed to go riding with me, only on rail trails, provided I procure “a really cushy bike” for her to ride on. If I were a man of unlimited means, I’d pick her up a Rivendell Glorius, which is, well Glorious, but costs a small fortune.

_{The Rivendell Glorius}

I conducted a quick risk-benefit analysis. The risk is that I spend all sorts of money on building her a bike, and then she doesn’t like bicycling. In order to mitigate the effects of this risk, I intend to equip her bike with components I secretly lust after for myself. That way, if she decides cycling isn’t for her, I’m only out the cost of a frame.

So, today, I followed the Rivendell frame sizing guidelines, measured her saddle height, and set out on Ebay in search of mixte frames size (47-51cm).

I put in a bid on one such bike:

_{A mixte}

It has 27″ wheels. I don’t think anyone makes a cushy, trail-worthy tire in that size, so I’m probably going to go with the much balleyhooed 650B wheel size. If Brandi decides against cycling, those wheels will end up on my Lemond, and maybe I’ll actually start riding that bike again.

I’m also planning to put Albatross bars on it, with bar-end shifters. The bars will go nicely on the Diamondback and the shifters on the Trek, in case I end up as the only cyclist in the house.

Calamity!

As I wrote this blog entry, I lost the auction for the purple bike, so I’m in the market for a Mixte frame with a seat tube between 47 and 51 cm long. If you have one for sale, let me know.