Founded 1888

Tacoma Wheelmen's Bicycle Club N e w s l e t t e r January 2001

Government report bob myrick

Steve, Carla and myself attended the meeting on the Mount Rainier General Management Plan. We intend to comment further on the proposed extension to the Foothill’s Trail from the Carbon River entrance and several other items including the use and extension of the Westside Road. We announced the December 14 “Meet Your Legislator Day” at the Tacoma Mountaineers. The Washington Environmental Council is holding a legislative workshop on Saturday, January 6 from 10 to 3 at the REI store in Seattle. Their lobby day will be Tuesday, February 27 in Olympia.

The proposed safety improvements on SR167, River Road, were discussed. The Washington State Dept. of Transportation(DOT) wants to close a road that we really like to use, 62nd Avenue East. This road is part of the tranquil route to Puyallup. We have proposed that DOT should open the guard rail and put in a ramp for bikes and pedestrians. Louie Boitano attended their meeting on December 12 and reiterated our concern. On a positive note, DOT wants to widen the shoulder on River Road.

The proposed Foothill’s Trail Acquisition from McMillin to Meeker Junction was discussed. Following our meeting, the farmers along the way decided to try and block this great project thru the initiative process.

There were several other announcements. Ralph reported on the Bicycle Alliance of Washington’s legislative committee. Scott reported on his continuing work on the Statewide Bike Route project. Carla indicated that 7 bike lid racks have arrived and are ready to be installed thru out the City. She also reported that Pierce County bike helmet sales will resume after the first of the year.

I attended a Sound Transit Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting in Seattle. In Auburn, the staff is hoping to provide a bike path that would run from the Sounder Train station to the residential area south of SR18. There are bike lockers available at the Auburn station and they should also be available in Sumner and Puyallup as the stations are finished.

Our next meeting will be at 7pm on Tuesday, January 2 at the Shakabrah Java restaurant on Sixth Avenue. Please try to attend and continue to monitor your local government actions and advocate for cyclist’s rights and needs. It really does make a difference as we have seen many times in the past few years. Don’t forget the banquet on January 13. Send in your money now.

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“I’m Bob Warfield, Somewhere On The Road In...”

Now it’s time to move on. Our luxury bus, seating 27 people in business class comfort, is winding through morning rush hour from old Georgetown toward the Butterworth bridge. Newly built by Hyundai to link Penang with mainland Malaysia, the contractor is already retrofitting cables to brace its design strength, and the sun is actually visible in the sky. Both are good signs. The road is first class, selectively illuminated, well signed, landscaped and dry. ¼ Malaysia is an interesting country, bridging British colonial history and free-market instincts with modern, sometimes contentious, Muslim traditions. We’ve been hearing calls to prayer daily. An arrow on the ceiling of our hotel room reduces ones search for Mecca.

Singapore, once a part of the Malaysian federation that gained independence in 1957, seceded in 1965. Its traditions, influenced by regional colonial governance under Portuguese, Dutch and British, are most extensively invested by the Chinese with a significant Indian and Tamil communities. Of course, diverse, chaotic Indonesia is next door. But until all of their 13,786 islands are IT wired, less than very selective travel may not be advisable.

However,..the land, rolling away flat on either side of the highway, is broadly cultivated with rice or puddled under luxurious lobbies of low trees planted for palm oil. Soon the landform begins to heave and shift. Tapped rubber trees and banana row and rise into contours of tea and riotous tangles of dark tropical forest. A concrete pedestrian bridge leaps over our course. Its width sports a distinctive tee shirt for Fuji film.

Onward, grand monuments of limestone karst reappear. These oddly random, wildly jutting creations post the coastal plain and drift into collected fleets beyond the mangroves, bays and bouldered beaches of the last great shrug preceding human claim. They march, shear and improbable into the orient of imagination and timeless art. Across a dozen cultures, vaulting along the seaward flank of Asia, nearly inaccessible, mysteriously caverned, salted with relics and laced under the irrepressible purchase of rooting nature, these varied giants fascinate and challenge. How much time they may in fact bank against rapacious human plunder remains unknown. Their tops are towered with microwave impunity, and inland markets intrude and mask unbridled cravings for their rarest fruits.

The highway barely slows around a huge ascending hairpin. One obstructing hill is drilled and cleaved, another pierced and tunneled. The clouds shred. We phase into rain then rise through and into a storm filtered bronze light. The sky lifts and the land falls beyond to form a plateau under cultivation of varied trees. A caramel river meanders under the road, floating its green hem over an unseen edge, contemptuous of containment. Clouds fall close below the horizon of the visible world. It seems but a short distance to a realm of light above an unrevealed glacier or summit rather than the great green colossus, a wilderness of rain.

A toll plaza, complete for “Smart Tags touch-n-go,” and air-conditioned attendants, falls behind as the bus pulls into a rest stop. Why this could be Vermont. The language is strange, but the purpose familiar. Vending machines offer refreshment, and everything appears to work.

Two large specially fitted lories arrive. We passed them on the road. They spell trouble; loaded with Honda motorcycles. These happy little 110cc hummers swarm the Far East. A hundred here and another thousand there would hardly seem to matter. They literally deliver Asia, but with their number so great and growing, one has to wonder about the implications of a real phenomenon. If our highway from Butterworth to Johor Bahru, the continental tail of Malaysia just north of the Johor Strait is indicative, the country’s roads are idyllic. From design and drainage to signage and detailed maintenance this highway meets standards unsurpassed anywhere. From centerline barricade to security fence, it is ready for the most critical inspection. This would all seem unremarkable were it not such a contrast with roads throughout most of Asia. Oops! Was that a discarded tissue or an orange peel?

Kuala Lumpur lies 117, 80, 33, 12 kilometers ahead; and we are there. Swinging in across another broad toll plaza, 22 lanes wide, we are soon favored with a glimpse of The Petronas Towers, world’s tallest building(s). I wonder if its design team secretly advantaged one of its two spires a centimeter over the other. I think not. Like many landscapes, most often found beyond the good fortunes of those labeled “first-world,” Mayalsia’s is not totally free of economic blight, rusting corrugated roofs and those occasional elaborate developments that stand inexplicably complete but empty of light and laughter. Whether from airport or highway, “KL” is an astonishing city with its classy architecture and color, manicured traffic separations, elevated tram, turreted elevations and brocade Muslim facades - not in the least because it seeds such modernism in the veritable midst of exotic wilderness. Moreover, courtesy of Daewoo derricks and numerous investment banks, it is, evidently, far from finished.

Entering its core, we pass a giant artificial stump dominating a small roadside park. It fountains into a Disneyesque embrace of pitcher plant vines, all painted to simulate nature, before each sluicing cartoon gulp spills into a waiting pool around its base. A second fountain close by sprays jeweled droplets in radial display. By proximity, it seems the world’s ultimate oddly redundant non-sequitor; as though the two, Beauty and Beast, orbit in a screwy mutual eclipse of coherent planning. If intended, symmetry escapes me.

We have soon stopped to exchange passengers, and wonder whether we must transfer to another bus. Assured not, the luxury liner refills and once more we are on our way. Reaching the urban perimeter, we pass through another toll plaza and I wonder whether I miscounted earlier, arriving at a total of 22 gates. Possibly, but this one has 26. I count them twice.

Singapore is our destination, and tonight, our last with Odyssey. We look forward to seeing old friends from the road, exchanging news, exploring ideas, saying farewells.

Reflecting at this moment, several people recently encountered come to mind. Though not especially representative of the amazing resident kaleidoscope Asia offers, they seemed indelible. The most recent meeting first was of a young man, who wanted money at the bus stop in KL. An indirect glance showed that he was barefoot, filthy and diseased. Worse, he appeared to be drug-addicted in the heart of the capital city of a country that hangs those who are. He came close muttering incoherently, gesturing weakly, finally showing an unbandaged bloody wound or lesion above his groin. He was without a future. I am not without shame that I offered him only my now accustomed response to begging: total ignorance. I shall never know who he is or how I might have helped. I refused to take any other notice of him. Wishing otherwise remains a graceless rationalization.

The second person is a young Dutch woman who, tired of easy convention, found employment at barely three star hotel in Patong Beach, Thailand. She has before her a full life endowed with opportunity and lighted by an uncommon range of education, interests and curiosities. Thai, if you haven’t guessed, is not an easily acquired language. Her income is meager, but she is able to live quite successfully on the local economy and her future seems unrestricted.

The last person on my short list, is a young man from Chad, whom I met on the second class, air-conditioned and reasonably fashionable train that transported us from Hat Yai, Thailand to Butterworth, Malaysia. He was in his final year of graduate work at a Muslim university in KL, studying political economics. He wanted to know whether I could tell him anything about the fellow named “Person of the Century,” (Time magazine, et al). ”Albert Einstein?” ”Yes. Was he an American? When did he come to the United States?” Also, ³Who do you think was the best (American) president? ”Well, if times make the man, I’d have to say Abraham Lincoln.” ”Wasn’t he the sixteenth president?”

There is a magic, transcendence, joy and sadness in travel; like life, I guess. The Dutch woman on Phuket was white; the sick, endangered man in Kuala Lumpur, Malay; the student from Malay, black. Their prospects in a transforming world, though mixed, still reflect and confirm tradition and opportunity. But who knows? What would you change or wish for any of them? Approaching Johor Bahru and Singapore Friday, 24 November 2000, the last day of Odyssey 2000,... the first day of the rest of our lives.

All the best, Bob

Bike-Tech

Today’s “modern bicycle” comes with what one may consider vast improvements over “old technology”. Ergo shifting, dual pivot brakes, exotic alloys, threadless headsets and my favorite, sealed bearings. The old ball and cone bearing set up is giving way to the “maintenance free”, sealed cartridge units.

The main reason sealed bearings are so popular is that they save time in the manufacturing process of a complete bicycle, especially the bottom bracket (crank bearings). It takes a considerable amount of time and experience to get a cup and cone bottom bracket adjusted correctly. Sealed bearings are also “considered” to be maintenance free. Most sealed BB’s are not serviceable unless they are of higher quality. Just chuck the old and screw in the new.

Now hub bearings, that’s a different story. If you ever get the opportunity to open up the cartridge of a new, sealed bearing hub you may be wondering just where the grease went. Brand new, off the shelf, medium quality sealed bearings do not have enough grease in them. The first thing I do before building a wheel with a sealed bearing hub is pry the seal off and add grease.

Sealed bearings are not meant to last unless you get a very high quality unit like Phil Wood uses. So don’t be feeling too smug about your hubs if you have sealed bearings. They do tend to be more resistant to crud and moisture and they will last longer if you pop the little seals every year, clean them out with a pressurized aerosol solvent (automotive brake cleaner works well, but do it outdoors and protect your eyes from spray back) and re-grease them.

I personally believe that a high quality cup and cone bearing rolls the best and will last forever with the right care. Permit me to indulge my eccentricity in saying that nothing feels more velvety smooth to the touch then a Campagnolo, Nuovo Record, cup and cone hub, shear delight.

Which reminds me, when you’re checking bearings for wear, turn the axel by hand, don’t just spin the wheel or turn the crank. Only then can you really feel what your bearings are doing. Eddy (eddyj@galaxy-7.net)