It’s The Little Things

 It’s the little things…

How often have we heard that expression?

I learned how true it is when I taught English to people who don’t speak it as their native language. (People from Japan and France and Colombia who sound like me? Oh, dear!) “The little words are the most difficult,” I would reassure (or so I thought) them.  I wasn’t entirely wrong: Perhaps the most difficult words for non-native speakers to use properly, let alone well, are articles (Russian doesn’t have any), the verb “to be” (It doesn’t exist in Turkish) and prepositions—you know, words like “to” and “for,” which often don’t translate directly and are used differently from their English counterparts.

The little things are just as important on a bike. I, like most experienced cyclists, check my tire pressures, chain, gears and brakes before setting off on a ride. If I’ve had some bumpy treks—say, on unpaved trails or potholed streets— I might look at my racks, fenders or other accessories.

But there are some things, including some of the smallest screws and other parts, to which cyclists almost never pay attention. Cycling Weekly contributor Hannah Bussey discovered that the hard way—almost.

In addition to being a bike tester, she is a parent in a “multidisciplinary” bike family, which includes a daughter who participates in cyclo-cross. In her household, she explains, there are “more bikes than pedals.” That explains why she hastily “borrowed” a pair of SPD pedals for her mountain bike. “As I took off from what seemed a harmless jump,” she recounts, “I found myself footloose and ended up rolling around in, thankfully, a patch of bracken.”

Turns (no pun intended) out, the spring tension was “looser than I anticipated.” The irony is that people often fear the spring tension (or straps on pedals with toe clips) being too tight.  There is apparently a “point of no return” at which the rider can’t disengage because the binding is too loose. Think of a restraint that makes escaping more difficult because it stretches rather than breaks.

Photo by Hannah Bussey

The cleat retention on SPD, and most other clipless, pedal systems is regulated by a small screw or bolt that can loosen with use and time.  The same is true of the screws (typically 5mm) that hold toe clips to traditional pedals.

So now I am giving you, dear fellow cyclists and mid-lifers, the same advice I gave my language students: It’s the little things (or words).

What’s That About The Hill?

When people say that someone is “over the hill,” they mean that person is too old for some pursuit (usually in sports) or simply old.

As a cyclist, I always found that odd:  Pedaling up a hill (or a mountain), even if it leaves me tired, is a way of reassuring myself that I am not old, that I am in the middle of my life.

At Seventeen

I have never attended any class reunion of any school I graduated. And I don’t plan to be at the upcoming 50-year reunion of my high school class.

It’s not that I don’t want to remember those times.  I couldn’t forget them, even if I wanted to. Among my peers, I had only two friends. Both are long dead. Most of my “social” time was spent among adults: two of my mother’s friends and some teachers, including one whom I hated at first but who influenced me in ways I didn’t realize until much later. 

I wasn’t exactly “date bait.” To my knowledge,  none of my peers considered me physically attractive. I had no social skills. (Sometimes I feel I still don’t have any.) I was bookish, but not in the way I am now: My energies were directed, mainly by my father, toward subjects and pursuits that would help me get into West Point, Annapolis, one of the other Armed Forces academies or an ROTC program. 

And, even if I were less nerdy, I wouldn’t have wanted to date. Like every other LGBTQ kid in that place and time, I was in the closet. Other non-confirming kids might’ve “come out” if the social environment had been less hostile. But I couldn’t have: I didn’t even have the words to express how I felt about my gender and sexuality and knew of no-one who could be a model for me. So, dating anyone, whatever their identity or orientation, wouldn’t have felt right.

About my only solace was cycling: up the Atlantic Highlands scenic route; along the ocean from Sandy Hook to Long Branch, Asbury Park and sometimes beyond; out past the farms and horse ranches in western Monmouth County. That, of course, made me even more of an oddball among my peers, nearly all of whom discarded, abandoned or handed down their bicycles the moment they got their driver’s licenses.

So, if I have no plans to go to my class reunion and make no effort to recall those times, why am I talking about them now? Well, the other day I was in a store when Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen” played on the PA system. 

I hadn’t heard it in a long time, but it was all over the airwaves during my senior year—when I was seventeen. It, of course, is about not “fitting in” because of one’s looks, personality or socioeconomic class. Some, including yours truly, have also heard it as a song about being “in the closet.” That makes sense, especially when you realize that she “came out” a while back.

As much as I appreciate the songwriting talents of Joni Mitchell, John Lennon, Laura Nyro and the Bobs (Marley and Dylan), none of their works, or those of any other tunesmith, has ever meant as much as Ms. Ian’s anthem did during that year. And I daresay that even now, almost no other song can move me, again, the way “At Seventeen “ did (to tears) the other day. For that, I will always be grateful to Janis Ian.