The Ballad of Oscar and Reeva

(To the tune of “Frankie and Johnny”)

Oscar and Reeva were lovers;
It will come as no shock.
She was a 5-8 model;
He an Olympic jock.
He was her man, and he done her wrong.

Now Oscar was a macho gun-lover,
Sharpened his skills at the range,
The semi-automatic pistol by his bed
Didn’t seem all that strange.
He was her man, and he done her wrong.

One night the two lovers quarreled,
She hid from his anger in horror,
But rooty-toot-toot, Oscar did shoot
Right through that bathroom door.
He was her man, and he done her wrong.

Judge shook his head at Oscar:
“Son, I’d love to turn you loose,
“But you don’t have a leg to stand on
“With that sorry lame excuse.
“You were her man, and you done her wrong.”

©Arnold  J. Bradford, 2013.

Steering

I always thought I steered my bike with my hands, pulling or pushing the handlebars to one side or the other.  Then I read an article in Bicycling Magazine.  They were evaluating high-end, high performance bikes new on the market.  One review commented about how a particular bike was responsive to just a subtle shift of a hip or shoulder.

I decided to check out my actual body mechanics as I rode day before yesterday and today.  I have been aware, of course, of the way an extended knee on a sharp turn shifts the center of gravity and makes the turn quick and smooth.  And the interconnectedness of the two joints is obvious: “The knee bone’s connected to the leg bone, / The leg bone’s connected to the hip bone, / Now hear the word of the Osteopath.”  Likewise, the arm connects the bar-gripping hands to the shoulders.

But what I discovered was that all along, without knowing it, I too have in fact been steering with my hips and shoulders.  All subtle movement starts there, and the knees, as they pedal, are more or less the flunkies that carry out the orders of the hips; the wrists and hands deliver the shrugs and twitches of the shoulders to the fork.

Maybe I’ll be a better bike handler now that I know what’s going on.  It sure can’t hurt.  Knowing where motions truly originate, I should be able to control my bike’s movements more precisely.  And I should be able to initiate those motions more quickly because I have a better visual concept of the mechanics involved.

Never too late to learn something new.

©Arnold J. Bradford, 2013.