Exorcise Bike, Part 1: My Ti-Rush is Haunted

My new-to-me bike, Titania, needs an exorcism.

I bought her in June, used, off San Diego Craigslist. I’d been seeking a Ti-Rush – a rare, coveted titanium Easy racers recumbent – for years. Easy Racers is no longer in business, and used models seldom come up for sale. I stupidly passed on a size Medium right before the pandemic started; when this size Small appeared, I jumped on it, even knowing it would only just barely fit me. It took quite a bit of finagling to find someone in San Diego to pack and ship, but I managed to arrange it (and met an interesting person in the process), and the bike arrived at the end of June.

When I unpacked her, water leaked out of the frame. On our first ride, the left rear brake got loose and strummed against the spokes, which was easy enough to fix, although I did so incorrectly. I noticed her seat mesh was laced wrong. I reinforced it with zip ties, but that was an insufficient kluge.

Was the seat mesh mis-laced by a demon?

The pedals clunked; I replaced them, and when they still clunked I surmised it was a bottom bracket problem. My local bike shop replaced it, and in so doing discovered the crank bolts had been greased with motor oil. The original bottom bracket was a fancy, ceramic-bearing number, and the bike itself is fairly young, from 2014.  How did it get this much damage in just a few years?

The answer can only be A. Florida (where her previous owner rode her before he moved to California, and where humid salt air corrodes metal) and B. Demonic possession.

Over time, I came to realize that every part of her that wasn’t titanium was corroded. Her frame appears to be in fine condition, but everything else is aluminum or steel.

This kickstand is aluminum. I think the screws are steel.

The left adjustable seat support strut “sank” while I was riding, in spite of my thoroughly tightening its clamp bolt. Turns out the bolt was corroded.

The aluminum plate that holds the seat to the seat clamp broke on a ride; I had it re-fabricated by a local machine shop.

Pre-Pack Machinery made a new and improved aluminum seat plate, without the gratuitous holes.

I took apart the seat first, to find the most corroded aluminum I had ever seen. I cleaned it up with steel wool but it’s still pretty ugly.

I bought some paracord and re-laced the seat mesh (which I washed) correctly. I got new bolts for the struts.

I also got new shifters, brake levers, bar grips, front derailleur, and kickstand. The bike is currently at the shop having new parts installed. The mechanic will also clean her thoroughly and replace more bolts. Where else will he find she was lubricated with motor oil?

Meanwhile, I am preparing Titania’s exorcism, which I shall discuss in my next post.

Other than being haunted, Titania is a great bike.

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Witnessing a Miracle

The COVID-19 pandemic is a miracle.

I mean this in the biblical sense. Biblical miracles are horrific, bringing death and destruction. The Ten Plagues of Exodus were miracles, or at least “wonders.” The miracles of Revelation are even worse.

A miracle isn’t a fluffybunny event. It is an act of God.

The COVID pandemic is a power greater than ourselves. We can’t stop it; we understand very little about it. It brings us to our knees.

I am in awe of it. I have watched humanity killing the planet my whole life, with obvious warnings of dire consequences. But this Spring’s COVID shutdowns were the first time I saw humanity do anything about it. It was short-lived, but amazing: flights grounded, industry slowed, pollution abated enough to reveal long-hidden mountains for the first time in years.

All of that ended after only a few months. Nothing to see here, folks; go back to paying attention to MONEY. And so contrails again fill the skies, mountains retreat back into smoggy shrouds, and the gears of commerce grind away.

Biblical miracles are famously unheeded, which is why it took all Ten Plagues for Pharaoh to relent. God issues clear commandments; humans don’t follow them. This is the whole story of the Old Testament. Even after occupying the Promised Land, the Hebrews can’t get their shit together, and Jerusalem falls over and over again. The New Testament is no better, especially the ending.

The COVID-19 virus makes its demands pretty clear: Avoid crowds. Stop industrial slaughterhouses and factory farming. Don’t go to (non-essential) work. Spend time with your children; actually raise them. Stay home from school. Stay home, but go outside; look at the sky, feel the sun, breathe the fresh air. Attend to Reality over money. Don’t go to bars, don’t party, don’t crowd into spectacles like sportsball. Calm the fuck down. Take a goddamn break from your hyper-consumer lifestyle.

We still need food and shelter and medicine, the sustenance and maintenance of our lives, and the virus doesn’t seem to have anything against these. The virus clarifies what is essential and non-essential. It turns out much of human activity isn’t essential. We already knew that; the virus urges us to stop denying it.

The pandemic makes another biblical suggestion: a Jubilee cancellation of debt. We can’t stop the gears of commerce, we argue, because we’re all in debt – if we don’t earn money, we will die! Our society won’t forgive debts, but what if we simply froze them, until a vaccine or cure is found? A year (or however long it takes) out of commercial time. Don’t end, but suspend the non-essential economy. All debts, for everyone, everywhere, frozen*. A global time-out. That would be a miracle.

I don’t believe in the biblical god. But I do believe in Nature, and natural consequences. The coronavirus is just one of many disastrous and inevitable natural consequences of human activity. Animal agriculture and overpopulation and global industrialization will do this; it’s a wonder it’s taken so long. It’s also a wonder how gentle the virus is, all things considered. It could have been more like ebola, with a much higher death rate. Plagues of the past have been far deadlier. The Black Death killed 50% of some European regions. We are getting off lightly here.

My response to this miracle is awe. Others respond with denial, or panic, or exploitation. So it has been written; so it ever was, and ever will be. I have long felt like I’m living in a dystopian novel, but right now I also feel like I’m living in a biblical prophecy. What a wonder, to witness these times!

*What about money to run the essential services? Our economic system accumulates vast reservoirs of money in billionaires. If these reservoirs can’t be used, then what exactly is this system for?

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Four Horsemen

2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
….
4 And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.
5 …. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
….
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. 

—Revelation 6

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