By mid-day it was absolutely beautiful spring day, but alas the clouds started to push in and by evening the wind was roaring and there was an incredibly strong band of heavy rain that came blasting through everything and then it’s cold this morning.
I won’t say it was a complete waste of a weekend, 😎 as I enjoyed the ride out to Hollyhock then Blodgett Hill in Coeymans. It was a bit cool to start out the day but by mid-day I shed the winter coat, especially after riding up Blodgett Hill then pushing the mountain bike up part of way up the steepest part of the hill. Couldn’t really ride 💪all the way up due to drainage breaks they’ve dug into the logging road. I don’t know, you’re probably not supposed to ride a mountain bike in a Wildlife Management Area, though I stayed on roads and truck trails, except maybe that short section of the blue trail, but going up I mostly pushed the bike up the hill.
Generated so much heat with the front rotator on the bike that it started smoking 🚲 — literally 👩🚒 as I rode down Blodgett Hill. I rode the brakes hard going down to the logging rode down the north-side as there was many water breaks to cross then rode the brakes to go slowly down the blue trail but it wasn’t until I picked up speed heading down the hill on County Highway that the brakes literally started smoking. The whole rotor was covered with a grayish-blackish smoke. Not sure if it was brake fluid I got on the rotator when it leaked when I changed the pads a few months back, or if it was a mixture of road and trail dust, leaves and deicing chemicals that burst into smoke when the rotator got really hot.
Of course now, my advertising feeds are full of ads for muffler shops. 👩🔧 Get the brake service you need at our shop! That said, if anything I am not sure if I need any service to bike, if anything the brakes preformed better once they got that hot, they stopped sqweaking. With a bit of chain wear, that new chain – well the one I found from old stock – is preforming well with only a bit of gear jumping at times so I’m going to hold off on replacing the cassette for a while even if I get it in the mail in next few days. I did get the chain wear measurement tool yesterday, and checked the chain wear. It was good but it’s something I’m going to check every time I grease the chain.
While this morning is cold and windy 🌬 I think I will ride out to Five Rivers for a while this morning. I do have hope though for spring sooner then later, and it might actually be a decent evening after visiting the folks to do a quick hike up Bennett Hill. Mom is cooking chicken and sweet potatoes for dinner, 🦃and I’ll do my wash out there and dump the compost buckets out there. And then this weekend will be done, and I’ll head to bed again. 🛌 I am just waiting for warmer weather and more meaningful weekends, spent out in the wilderness, though truth be cold it wasn’t a bad riding out to Blodgett Hill. It was nice seeing the Pitch Pines and Scrub Oaks up there, and that they’ve cleaned it up after the raspberries 🍓and other trash species crowding out the scrub oaks in recent years that have passed since the last controlled burn. I am so ready for a night in wilderness, not just to burn shit 🔥 and turn that junk mail and wrappers in carbon dioxide but also get my sanity back, 🤪 so I can be less extremely mentally ill. I doubt I’ll have be sane though, as I don’t worship the plastic crap that smells so bad when you toss in the fire. Just don’t tell a liberal. 🤫Just like I wasn’t riding my mountain bike on the logging trails at a WMA. 🏳️⚧️
With all the hatred directed towards Elon Musk due to his political views and involvement in DOGE government spending cutting program, one can forget how innovative his businesses once were.
Remember, it was his businesses that brought the first really-good electric car with several innovations in design such as single-pour aluminum frames, touch screen controls, self-driving. It was his businesses that brought the world reusable-rockets, which in first fifty years were considered disposable, jettisoned to the oceans after launch, lowering the cost of sending satellites and people into outer space. It was his businesses which brought StarLink Internet service to millions in remote areas, with much better service then competitors, namely HughesNET.
There is a fair bit of evidence though that his companies weren’t as innovative as they were after they starting bringing in the profits. They got fat and lazy, as did their CEO and biggest investor, Elon Musk. It seems like in the late 2010s, Musk became more obsessed with moon-shots like self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, and the CyberTruck. Then he got into right-wing politics, first by purchasing Twitter in a hostile take-over, and then becoming the right-handed man for the Trump campaign and later his head of DOGE. Why try to excel when you are raking in the big bucks? It seems like hubris which often does in highly-successful entities got to the core of Elon Musk. Younger, more nimble businesses will likely gain on his losses, while capitalism destroys the once powerful for in favor of more innovative.
