Remember that line in James and the Giant Peach where the peach is careening out of control and everyone aboard is hanging on for dear life? "Well, I guess this is it, Joe" While I sincerely doubt Roald Dahl meant for his story of a giant peach full of giant insects and one normal-sized boy to be a metaphor for the trials of perimenopause, I believe he fully captured the cycling chaos and despair that is my life these days. And for those who can relate, those crotchety insects perfectly represent with Jungian clarity the perpetual internal dialogue every facet of my personality is having with the world. There is a silver lining in all this; I appear to be in the later stages of perimenopause, which means soon I'll have all the symptoms I have now, just without the period. If the silver lining catches the sun too often and hurts my eyes, it better be prepared to be yelled at.
Remember how judgmental I was last year? It is now exponentially worse, in a tragic/comic way. I think I may have even brandished an umbrella at some youths, although my memory is hazy these days and I can't be sure.
An excerpt from her masterful selection from the Cabernet Sutra
So, somehow in the midst of all this crap, I managed to get myself appointed as a Liv Ambassador, because the crabby, cynical, Snape-like contingent of women's cycling was clearly underrepresented. (Look for the picture of the woman in a black pointy hat with a greenish hue to her face.) Liv Cycling, for those of you who haven't been paying any attention whatsoever to what I think is important, is a division of Giant Bicycles devoted entirely to women, and run entirely by women, from bicycle design all the way to marketing and advertising. Every bicycle Liv makes, even though it occupies a comparable category to the men's (aero road, enduro, performance XC, etc...), has been completely redesigned based on a buttload of data on women's bodies; their center of gravity, how they physically achieve maximum power output, where they don't need stiffness in a bike frame compared to the norm. Keeping in mind that not all women's bodies are the same, the data represents an average of a very large sample, which has now been used to produce a lot of options of factory stock bicycles for a segment of the population that was virtually shut out of the industry until recently. This is also good news for men who don't conform to standard sizing who have had a hard time finding bikes for themselves. And they don't have to worry about all their choices being pink.
As for my part, I'm working hard to be the fly in the ointment, by suggesting repeatedly that Liv make road bike models in two wheel sizes, 700 and 650c. Scott has done this already, building several of their mountain bike models around 27.5 and 29 inch wheels. As far as I know, they didn't plunge immediately into bankruptcy upon introducing this to the public. Liv could probably do something similar without imploding, and probably make a profit, too! Crankenstein over here will keep moaning loudly until something happens. Or until I turn 50, whichever comes first.
