Ramona_W

That's one of the reasons I was determined to learn to ride a bike: being able to personally take something I'd worked on out for the test ride to check the shifting etc.

Poor Lester has been listening to me yell and use the phrase "That's bullsh*t" in an extremely repetitive manner today because of a bike shop incident. I'm grouchy about a lot of things but there's only a few things that get me really fired up and this was one of them. We have a system where once the make, model, size, color, and serial number of a bike are entered into the computer all of that goes onto a hang-tag and a red sticker is placed on the tag which goes on the bike. If there's no red tag, it's not in the computer. Bikes ready and waiting for a test ride get a yellowish sticker and those ready to be picked up or sold get a green one. They have to be seriously ready in order to get a green sticker. Or so I thought.

Last week, I found out some idiot (speaking kindly) had green tagged a bike that was nowhere near ready. The front and rear derailleur cables were rusty and frayed. The rear was in such bad shape it was unwinding along its length. The brakes didn't work. The list goes on but I won't. Suffice it to say, it was ugly, unsafe, and a generally half-assed job. (This morning someone came to pick up the bike and I discovered that, a week after I replaced the green sticker with a red one, it was apparently still being considered ready to go as no one had done any new work on it. No, I didn't do it either. I'm not scheduled to be in the shop till tomorrow plus Lester's the boss of me in the shop and he wouldn't let me.)

I'm not in charge of the bike shop so I sent a carefully worded email to the person who is in charge and asked that we please be more careful about marking bikes ready that aren't. But it still pisses me off and it's going to for a while. Some of us have worked very hard to build up the shop's reputation for doing quality work. I've spent God knows how many hours adjusting bearings and brakes on bikes we give away for free so they're as close to perfect as I can get them and then to have someone willing to send out this unsafe piece of crap. Jee-zus!

Ramona_W

Ramona_W

How can you post to a closed group? Anyway, don't feel bad. No one will ever respond to my helmet renovation thread.

rjones28 

Shoulda got down tube shifters.

nondes 

I work with hydrogeologists from time to time, and I always thought that should be their theme song.

jsharr

What has been seen cannot be unseen. I did not need to see that. Thanks for ruining a favorite song of my childhood.

Heathpack 

Lol, for twenty years now it has been *my* theme song. You could tell the hydrogeologists that they also have a theme poem, In Praise of Limestone, even though they may not know it.

(I am not a hydrogeologist, BTW.)

H

Heathpack 

Ha, Ramona, I am a member of the closed group. Its a group of the sort of people who I would have anticipated had thought about this connection- ie poetry people and music people. But, nope, No one. Just me. And now I feel so alone.

I'll post to your helmet renovation thread, if I can find it.

H

Ramona_W

Shhhh. It's in the Womens' Forum. And, yes, I would have expected people to have thought of that if they'd read any Auden which I'm not sure I have. Is he the poet who also sold insurance?

Ramona_W

Sorry. I just grabbed the first video that wasn't a live performance. But I do like to see some chest foliage on a guy and furthermore I didn't intend it that way but this would have been a fine payback for the pix people posted that got my first poll thread shut down. I dare not speak her name lest this thread suffer a similar fate but her initials are L.H.

Heathpack 

No, that was Wallace Stevens.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

"A man and a woman are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird are one."

H

RPK79

I, personally, didn't mind the turn that thread ended up making.

jsharr

My favorite poet is most probably John Lillison, followed closely by Ewan McTeagle.

patentcad

Road bike the last five straight days. I'm even too fat for Facebook.

Heathpack 

You know, I can't recall ever having read a single poem about a bicycle. Or even a poem with a bicycle it it.

Except for maybe The Cat in the Hat. Isn't there a bicycle in that?

Ramona_W

Me neither, really. My tongue was very firmly in my cheek during that last post. I'm in favor of boobs and I think all but the most uptight of either gender will admit to checking them out and maybe mentally appreciating a nice-looking set. Plus it must be nice to feel confident enough in your bike riding to be okay baring that much skin in the chestal area. I'd be afraid I'd wind up with some super-uncomfortable road rash .

RPK79

Whenever a good looking girl shows up on my Facebook feed I always show my wife so she can appreciate them as well.

rjones28 

My belt is one notch tighter than it was at the beginning of the winter.

jsharr

Wait, I missed boobs? We are talking about the nekkid Oak Ridge Boys are we?

datlas 

I don't understand this weight gain thing.

Ramona_W

There's a bicycle in this poem and this one too. You're probably talking about something from a published poet though so these don't count since I wrote them. A bicycle seems like something Pablo Neruda would have written about since he composed one about an ordinary thing like socks.

RPK79

No. No nekkid Oak Ridge Boys. It was Ramona's "What is a Female Fred Called" thread.

Ramona_W

We don't know they were totally starkers. Nope, not them anyway. I started a thread with a poll about what a female Fred should be called and someone posted a pic of L.H. and asked if she was a "Doris" and... The poll was supposed to last for a week and I don't think it made it even a whole 24 hours. LOL

RPK79

No it was opened and closed within one work day.

Ramona_W

Ha ha! I was right! There is a Pablo Neruda poem, "Ode to Bicycles". It's here but you have to scroll 3/4 of the way down the page to read it.