"What Stresses You Out?"

Before I tackle this old issue again I would suggest that if you haven't already done so that you read Old Johns' comment on yesterdays post. While it would certainly be nice to get a little empathy from that dickhead once in a while, for something, I must meanwhile concede that this time he has a point. How could I get so stressed about a bicycle? It's just a piece of machinery which can always be repaired or replaced. Point taken Old John! It makes me just a little reluctant to tell you what else about my bike disturbed my sleep last night.

Here's the story for your amusement. As I mentioned yesterday, as soon as I got home from the bike shop I set to cleaning the machine. I usually do some minor disassembly in order to get to the tricky important parts like the chain, the gears and the derailleurs. The rear derailleur which you can see here....

has two little identical gears which I removed in order to clean them and the bearings inside them. This is an operation I've done many times before on other bikes, so you can imagine my surprise when I suddenly realized that they weren't identical at all. Both the gears and the bearing arrangements were different, and I no longer knew which one went where. Oh Oh! After some deliberation however I decided that the difference was minor enough and in actual fact was probably a result of a minor design change and I happened to get one of each on my particular bike. So I put it back together and finished cleaning and oiling and went to bed determined not to think about it again. Alas It wasn't meant to be. I lay awake questioning the incredible odds that would have resulted in me getting 2 different sprockets if indeed there was no real difference in function. What to do? I considered calling the guy at the bike shop again, but I wasn't ready to suffer more humiliation after yesterday and so "back to the Internet". Much to my delight I found terrific exploded drawings of my derailleur on the Shimano site where they specifically show which one went where. They call the one the tension pulley and the other the guide pulley and lo and behold I had them on right! Another near tradegy averted eh John?

But back to what stresses you, or me, or anyone for that matter. To me it is simply this. Those things that are important to us, or rather that we make important to us are the things that cause us stress. We all tend to make assessments or judgments if you will, as to what things should be important and thereby worth getting stressed over. Of course we can probably all agree that things like family and health fall into that category, but beyond those basics I suggest to you that it is impossible and unfair to determine for someone else what should matter to them. And so while I accept your criticism John I would also say that yes indeed my bike is important to me, but not because the bike itself is important but rather because what it means to me is important . To me it means regular exercise, it means freedom, it means passion, it means exhiliration and maybe above all else it means a way for me to escape for at least a while some of the other stresses in my life.

I wish to dedicate day 237 to our Michaels friend James Owen, who typifies the type of terrific young person this world can produce.

"Stress is not what happens to us. It's our response to what happens. And RESPONSE is something we can choose."---Maureen Killoran

....and one of the reasons I write this blog...

“There are thousands of causes for stress, and one antidote to stress is self-expression. That's what happens to me every day. My thoughts get off my chest, down my sleeves and onto my pad."---Garson Kanin

love
peter