Escape the Digital Deathtrap... and get faster in the process

It was never in our blueprint that we would spend our days driving to and from a job, the grocery store, and sit like a stone the rest of the time, or that we would eat high glycemic refined carbohydrates and high fat foods almost exclusively. This age of distraction from our natural diet and exercise has created a deathtrap situation that we're largely unaware of due to its gradual onset.

Today's common "plagues" such as cancer, osteoporosis arterialsclerosis, adult onset diabetes, hypertension, depression and obesity were all but unheard of just one hundred years ago. Like a modern age Bugs Bunny cartooon spun horribly out of control with "labor saving" devices, we've taken the concepts way beyond our ability to judge their true efficacy and understand the unintended results of our tinkering. For every great man who invents something, like the lightbulb, there needs to be an equally great man to tell us to turn off the light and get to sleep so as not to ruin our circadian rhythms. Since profit motive reigns supreme, this simply will not happen. The greatest insult, in my opinion is the genetic manipulation of fruits and vegetables (our "manna" from heaven) so that even they lack nature's blueprint, just to make them look better. Have you eaten a trans-genic red "Delicious" apple lately... they taste terrible! Talk about eating from the forbidden tree, such defective intelligence doesn't even have to be labeled in this country... buyer beware!

Defective intelligence often stems from the broad acceptance of narrow minded "reductionist" science that claims to be the truth. Do you think it's the ultimate idea to say "all other things aside, this truth exists" when nothing remains by itself without outside influences. Every other week the "scientists" come up with a new expensive patented drug, (tested in a reduced to neutral environment claimed to relieve some obtuse condition (usually a digital age condition)) while ignoring the whole intelligence of the human system. The result is rather like the little Dutch boy whose finger in the leaky dike only causes some other leak to spring up once your run out of fingers, you're done for. Life can be just as accurately viewed as a system, a cooperative synergy with all parts interdependant. But remove or change too much and the synergy collapses into a competition for survival. Thankfully it's not too late and you don't have to be a part of the headlong rush to extinction, (the age of the 21 year old heart attack victim is almost upon us).

The most important thing to break the digitial distraction is physical play, as opposed to simply entertainment. Skating, skiing, biking, racketball, volleyball, and hockey are examples of play. Movies, video games, restaurants, gadgetryand new cars are examples of entertainnment. Play is usually cheap, healthy, and recharges your batteries. Entertainment usually earns you more fat, debt, and digital disease.

This may sound like anticommercialism, but isn't it up to you to decide what is or is isn't in your best interest, not some advertising hype. No one can really protect your best interests but you - most are really just after your money or power. There is a great societal pressure to convince you that you can't do more with less. No one is spending millions of dollars to tell you that a simple diet and lifestyle will further your health, wealth and wisdom far beyond the empty promises of the latest pill, gadget, or automobile.

The efforts to separate you from your money also separate you from your "game". Life is both work and play in balance, both sides bleeding into each other. When you settle for entertainment instead of play, you give up your natural relationship with your body and environment. Fatter poorer and distracted, you have to work twice as hard on that digital treadmill just to keep up. Natural health and motivation can become a distant memory.

Astonishingly, our generation, on many levels is becoming the poorest to ever walk this planet. We have eliminated many of the "labors" that contribute to our well being and in doing so have placed an awesome responsibility on each of our shoulders. Human beings are not just a formless mind floating around.

There is no boundary between mind, body and environment - use or lose is the only option. Once you stop living the digital treadmill all factors bleed together again; body, mind and environment work as a system again as you get fitter, faster and happier... Welcome to planet Earth!

Reading: "The Digital Mantrap" James Autio of Elite Performance technologies 1 (800) 800 WIN1
Clients include: Olympic and professional cyclists, world record holders for track as well as winners of Hawaiian Ironman and the Tour de France.
Called a training program for business professionals, the book will give you the straight skinny on how to actually improve, with the minimum of time and effort.

Alternative Gearing

With the advent of 9 spd. 34 tooth rear sprockets, the door is open for twin front chainwheels or a tighter range for fron triples. Why mess with what Shimano sells you? More usable range, less shifting and a better chainline.

Typically, a "compact device" setup is 22-32-42 front and 11-34 rear. this gives a 17 inch gear low and a 100 inch gear high, pretty darn good but is that total range necessary? That same 11-34 cogset could be used with a 28-40 twin chainring to yield a 21.5 inch low and 94.5 high basically giving up the highest and lowest gears. Sounds like a lousy deal until you think a bit deeper about the usability of the setup.

There are problems with the standard low gear. The small front chainring multiplies the crank torque quite a bit and places a tremendous load on the chain and rear wheel, causing a greater failure rate of ratchets, axles, bearings and chainlinks, to say nothing of the increased front chainsuck and sprocket wear. Also, once you have made the awkward shift down to the "granny ring", the chain is now so loose that you can use 2 or 3 of the largest rear cogs until the chain starts to skip, (on bumpy terrain) requiring the awkward shift back up to the middle ring. Not easy at a moment's notice.

Take a look at the 28 tooth front; not nearly as much wear, (aluminum rings are fine) or stress and one can stay in what used to be the "granny ring" for almost all the rear cogs, making for less shifting at crucial moments. Also, the hardest techinical climbs are just as easily negotiated since the lowest gear of a standard setup usually makes you spin the rear wheel anyway.

Now that the "big ring" is in the middle position it can be used with all the rear cogs, (the big-big combination is no longer taboo) again reducing the need to shift down to a small ring at an inopertune moment, (although it would be easier and smoother than on a standard setup).

A double front ring setup is trick and saves a bit of weight but maybe it's not for you. Consider a tight range triple (26-34-42) which would have pretty much the same advantages but tield a lower lo, higher high, and probably let you stay in the middle ring all day, (most suspension systems work better when powered by a medium sized ring anyway).

I personally have used the double setup since '99, but have to modify the front derailleur to work with a rear suspension, the tight range triple will work with any bike. The suggested size rings will have to be used with a 5 bolt, 74 - 110 mm crank as far as I know.