Review: AirStreamZ Wind Noise Reducer

 I read somewhere that wind noise at 15mph is sufficiently loud to damage your ears. I remembered that a company called Cat EarsCat Ears made wind noise reducers that attach to your helmet straps in front of your ears. I was skeptical that they work but buying things from Amazon means that you can return them.

I bought them and attached them to my helmet and immediately could hear the difference. The ride becomes eerily quiet and you can definitely hear others talking. Downhill it makes an even bigger difference. There's no longer this roar in your ears. Yes, they do make the helmet straps hotter, and will pick up sweat, but to my mind it's a worthy trade off.

I liked them so much I bought them for Boen and Xiaoqin as well. Highly recommended. I should have started using them ages ago!

Review: Not the End of the World

 Not the End of the World is subtitled How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet. It is a data-driven approach to the problems of sustainability and environmentalism by Hannah Richie, a disciple of Hans Rosing. I love it. The book starts off by defining sustainability as providing the best environment for the current generation without making things worse for the next generation. She points out that being a pessimist about our crisis doesn't help, and that one major driver of solving our environmental problems is wealth:

In rich countries carbon emissions, energy use, deforestation, fertiliser use, overfishing, plastic pollution, air pollution and water pollution are all falling, while these countries continue to get richer.vii The idea that these countries were more sustainable when they were poorer is simply not true. (kindle loc 640)

Yes, she addresses the claims that the rich countries have less pollution because they outsource the pollution to poorer countries.  She points out that the USA is an outlier in terms of per capita carbon emissions:

Living standards in Sweden are just as good as they are in the US, if not higher. Yet the average Swede emits just one-quarter of the emissions of the average American, and half as much as the average German. And some middle-income countries – such as China and South Africa – have now overtaken many richer countries across Europe in per capita emissions. And this is not just because rich countries have exported their emissions elsewhere. Sweden and France, with lots of nuclear power and hydropower, have very low-carbon electricity grids. They don’t have the massive transport emissions of the US. Living well does not need to come at a high cost for the climate. (kindle loc 1328)

 One of the things I like about the book is that she doesn't take an all or nothing approach to environmentalism. For instance, she points out that switching from an SUV to a regular car gives you much more emissions savings than going from a regular car to no car.  Similarly, switching from Beef to Chicken also gives you a green emissions savings without having to go completely vegetarian.

The book is full of such examples, pointing out how close we are to a truly sustainable future, despite it looking like we have a long way to go. She also points out that being an effective environmentalist doesn't mean you have to do everything the "natural" way:

For years I’ve battled with this personal dilemma: being an effective environmentalist has often made me feel like a fraud. My take on ‘cooking’ looks like an environmental disaster. I always use the microwave. I try to cook as quickly as possible. It nearly always comes from a packet. My avocados are shipped over from Mexico, and my bananas are from Angola. My food is rarely produced locally. If it is, I don’t check the label enough to notice. Ask people what a ‘sustainable meal’ looks like, and they’d describe the opposite of my eating habits. An ‘environmentally friendly meal’ is one that’s sourced from the local market, produced on an organic farm without nasty chemicals, and brought home in a paper bag, not a plastic wrapper. Forget the processed junk: it’s meat and vegetables, as fresh as they come. We should set aside time to cook them properly, in the oven. But I know that my way of eating is low-carbon. Microwaves are the most efficient way to cook, local food is often no better than food shipped from continents away, organic food often has a higher carbon footprint, and packaging is a tiny fraction of a food’s environmental footprint while often lengthening its shelf life. (kindle loc 4637)

 She acknowledges that our intuition on what sustainability is means we have a severe PR problem in the environmental crisis.  It's also quite clear that limiting warming to 2 degrees C is a stretch, but that just means each 0.1 C matters more and we really need to do what we can. One thing that she and I agree vehemently is that individual action is insufficient to bring about lasting change:

The reality is that we will not fix our environmental problems through individual behaviour change alone. This became obvious during the coronavirus pandemic. The world spent most of 2020 at home, at a huge cost to the quality of life for millions of people. Our lives were stripped back to the bare minimum. There were hardly any cars on the roads or planes in the sky. Shopping malls and entertainment venues were shut. Economies across the world tanked. There was a dramatic and almost-universal change in how all of us lived. What happened to global CO2 emissions? They fell by around 5%. That’s a hard pill to swallow. We want to believe in ‘people power’ – that if we all just pull together and act a bit more responsibly then we’ll get there. Unfortunately, to make real and lasting progress we need large-scale systemic and technological change. We need to change political and economic incentives. (kindle loc 4663)

If you are tired of doom and gloom environmentalism and the degrowth movement, this book is for you. It's definitely well worth your time to read it.

 

Review: Maxforce Fleet Ant Bait Gel

 We had an ant problem and none of the cheap ant bait traps on Amazon worked. Xiaoqin did some research and found recommendations for Maxforce Fleet Ant Bait Gel. At $40/pop this stuff isn't cheap but neither is pest control so we ordered it and tried it.

The dispenser is a syringe. We would apply it to a post it note and then plant the post-it note along the ant paths. We did this in several places in the house, using 2 out of 4 syringes in the box over 5 days.

Within a week the ants were gone. Just like that! It's so nice when your problem can be solved by buying things. Recommended.

Re-Read: The Curse of Chalion

 I seem to be on a re-read kick recently, and The Curse of Chalion floated to the top of the list. Lois McMaster Bujold's take on fantasy creates a world in which the gods themselves might not be able to act except through a saint, someone who voluntarily gives their body over to a god/goddess in order to actually act on the world.

The setup through the character of Cazaril is great, where we start the story in the middle and only near the end of the book do we realize that his path down this sainthood was setup ages ago. There's a section where he negotiates (on behalf of his princess) for a political marriage. The groom's father, known as a wily negotiator, tries to bribe him with all sorts of personal property and real estate. Cazaril's reply: "I've got a tumor and I expect to die soon. What you're offering is for someone who's going to live for a long time." It's a poignant moment and Bujold follows it through to the logical implications.

The writing is transparent, the plot sound, and the many clues and reveals each worthy of the reader's time. It's thoroughly enjoyable and well worth (re)reading.

New Road Bike for Xiaoqin

 After riding the Roadini 50cm I built earlier this year, Xiaoqin decided that a road bike would be something she would enjoy.

I started down the path of acquiring another Roadini, but Rivendell wasn't going to have any until September, and used Roadinis were either too highly priced, or spec'd with weird components that don't reflect Bay Area cycling requirements (most bicycles are spec'd with too high a high gear and insufficiently low low gears, and many builds seem to be for big heavy guys rather than lightweight women).

The reality is that while the Rivendell ethic of having easily adjustable stems is ideal for building a bike for a growing kid, for an adult once the fitting is done, there's little need for adjustability. I wasn't willing to buy an off-the-shelf bike, however --- again, most of the frames aren't designed for Bay Area needs and Xiaoqin's been riding off pavement on the same paths I'd take my road bikes on. I also didn't want a bike with disc brakes, since I don't really know how to maintain them. Again, most stock production bikes don't come with gears sufficiently low enough to enable a beginner to enjoy climbing hills in the Bay Area. I consider a 40x50 low gear the bare minimum for riding Bay Area hills, and the standard 36x34 or even 34x34 drivetrain would pray for bankruptcy for many of the local rides, and that's even ignoring the fact that I enjoy riding my road bike off road.

The Ritchey Road Logic came immediately to mind. It's compatible with dual pivot calipers, comes with a carbon fork (but that's designed for the off pavement work a Bay Area cyclist would want), is made with steel with external routing for easy maintenance, and can clear 30mm tires. I was nervous about cutting the steer tube on the carbon fork, but a quick message to Terry Shaw pointed me to Wade Hall of Spokesman Cycles for a fitting, so I ordered the frame, parts, and arranged for a fitting.

Under Wade's directions, I built the frame up with wheels, derailleur, cranks, chain, and brakes but no cables attached. We then showed up at the fitting with a selection of saddles, handlebars, brake levers, and pedals for him to assess. "Oh, you have the S900 brake levers --- I'd ordered those for my own bike and mine will arrive today." He approved of my selection of the brake levers at least.

The fitting took about 3 hours and was involved, first starting with measuring the sit bones, then checking on the flexibility and various physiological components of the cyclist. Then the bike was put on the trainer with frame, fork, and headset installed but uncut, and with an adjustable stem. The process is iterative, with Wade first adjusting the fore-aft and the seat height, and then adjusting the stem, and then switching over the handlebars (the Beacon bars don't come narrower than 40cm, and he'd measured her shoulders at 36cm, so wanted 38cm bars for her), and then finally the seat, and then readjusting everything. At the end of the session Xiaoqin looked more comfortable and posturally correct than many cyclists who'd ridden road bikes for years. He installed footbeds for her and you could actually see her stance change immediately!

At this point, Wade cut the steer tube, installed the correct stem, spacers, handlebars and star nut. The recommended saddle was installed onto a seatpost, and the seatpost cut to save weight. The whole affair was not cheap but the most expensive way to spend money on bicycling is to buy a bike and not ride it. The entire build for the bike looked like this:

• Ritchey Road Logic (Rim Brake) 51cm
• Neugent EZMount TwoX Wheels
• Shimano CUES 11-50 cassette
• Shimano GRX 810-1 crankset, 170mm
• Shimano U8000 rear derailleur
• Tektro Medium Reach Calipers
• Salsa Guide  Seatpost 27.2mm (cut)
• Specialized Power Arc Pro Elaston Black 155 Saddle
• Specialized Hover Alloy Flare handlebars +15 rise, 38cm wide
• Specialized Comp Stem 17deg 9cm
• SRAM S900 brake levers
• Microshift SRAM 11s bar-end shifter
• Shimano BC-9000 brake cable set
• Shimano R9100 Optislick cables
• SRAM PC-1110 chain
• Michelin Power Cup Competition 700x28 tires, tube type
• Michelin Airstop tubes
• Cinelli Cork tape

Total weight came to 8400g with heavy pedals. On the bike she's fast on the flats (enough that I have a hard time catching or over-taking her), and the bike has low enough gears to climb 9% grades on her first serious ride on it. It's a great bike. We're both excited. Even just riding it around to test ride while building the bike I could feel how light it is.