Still a Bit Wet Out

New shoes

Today I got out for a twelve mile ride, my first for 2022, and first since October. I was tired and a little sore by the end, but no lasting pain. Very foggy this morning, and the pavement was wet and gritty, but not too cold and no rain. Some puddles remaining over the roads, however. This is on Church Road near Barnstar Farm.

Also got to test-ride some new shoes. These are Shimano brand, meant for touring and/or mountain biking, with no cleat-plates, just a flat, stickyish sole. They kind of remind me of the saddle shoes my parents forced me to wear when I was a kid, which I hated. These look pretty sharp, though, in classic black & white and coral-colored laces (they come with a spare set of black laces for a more conservative look). The sole isn't quite as stiff as I'd like, but I've been looking for something like this for a long time and I'm pretty pleased.

2022

Already two weeks in to the new year. And one year since I bought a car, after fifteen years of bicycle commuting and travel.

The editorial slant in many of the magazines I've been reading over the past year is that climate apocalypse is happening, the end is nigh, and there is nothing we can do to slow or stop it. I do believe in climate change, and that it has been influenced by human activity. I also believe the Earth is resilient, and has survived through many periods of drastic change, and life goes on. We don't know the time-line of the changes to come, and we can't be sure of what events will occur, where and when. Life goes on. It's still worth trying to repair the damage, and adapt.

Last year (or the year before?) the Washington state legislature passed a law that would have banned the sale of new gasoline powered automobiles by 2030, or maybe it was 2050, but soon anyway, either one would have been a pretty short deadline. Our staunch environmentalist governor Jay Inslee vetoed the bill, wisely I think. I agree that it would be best to phase out gas-burning cars, but this law would have started an insurrection worse than January 6, worse than anything that happened in Portland, worse than if he'd tried to outlaw guns.