My New Bicycle

Six weeks ago I bought a bicycle at Fat Tire Cycles. I've been wanting a new bike ever since I sold my inexpensive 3-speed Spaulding with longhorn handlebars and a springy seat large enough to support a baby rhino. It was pretty, but it weighed a ton, produced random vibrations, and generated strange clunking noises that I traced to the pedals. I couldn't get rid of that bike fast enough, but I did put a few miles on it before someone took it off my hands for next to nothing before we left Florida.

My new bike is an Electra Townie, a cruising bike that uses Electra's Flat Foot Technology.

"Simply put, when the rider is sitting on the saddle, his or her feet can still stand flat on the ground, making the rider feel much safer and more comfortable. At the same time, riders can still get full extension when they pedal. [Electra Bicycles] achieved this breakthrough by combining the cruiser frame with some of the geometry of recumbent bikes, moving the pedals forward and the seat back."

The Townie seems to be the bike of choice for lapsed bike riders and (ahem) "older Americans." The price of this beauty was four times that of the electric blue Spaulding, including the high-tech removable basket and the very cool bell that says, "I love my townie."




The French racer I purchased in 1977 set me back $225 - an unheard of amount to spend on a bike, but I never regretted my extravagance. It took months to pay off, and I logged thousands of miles on that 12-speed. By today's standards, the Townie is not an expensive bike, but the price still took my breath away. Some of the bicycles at Fat Tire cost well over $1,000.

Back in the day when I was trim and fit, I biked about 100 miles a week. Weekends were saved for 30 mile bike rides. I crammed my backpack with raw vegetables (tomatoes, carrots, cukes and peppers were my favorites), fruit, a hunk of cheese, crusty bread, and sometimes even a can of Spam that inexplicably became the salty power snack of choice for a 20-something wannabe Olympian. I didn't carry much water, because it was easy to stop for frosty beverages along my route in and around Boston. Ice cold water and apple juice from Mom & Pop corner stores carried me for many miles.

While I've no expectation of biking 30 miles anytime soon, I'm hoping to build my stamina on a daily basis and strengthen muscles and bones. Mostly, though, I hope biking will mitigate my pain, elevate my mood, burn off some flab and energize this too-soft, sedentary body. Albuquerque is honeycombed with wonderful bike trails, especially the nearby paved trail that parallels the Riverside Drain and Rio Grande for many miles.

My beautiful shiny bike has been parked in the fireplace room for the past 6 weeks. My excuse for not riding has been excessive desert heat, but in all honesty, overcoming inertia has been the bigger obstacle. Yesterday morning was exceptionally cool for August, so I got up early and biked to a Chile Festival a couple of miles away. After two blocks of gentle pedaling, my legs burned enough to prompt me to question the wisdom of this possibly overzealous undertaking. It was shocking to realize how miserably weak and out-of-shape I've become. I found a more comfortable cruising speed (the hard part was determining which of 21 gears to use), pushed through the initial discomfort, and made it to the Chile Festival in about 15 minutes. I felt healthy and happy after my brief excursion on two wheels.

The weather seems to be turning cooler already, so I have no excuse for not riding every day, other than sheer laziness. I have to say, this bike is one sweet ride. The gear shifter is smooth as silk and the forward pedal position is very comfortable and less of a strain on my back. It's the next best thing to a far-more-costly recumbent bike. Though it seems a little early for mornings to feel like fall, I won't complain about the cool weather because it's perfect for biking. And, I get to annoy pedestrians with my silver bell. All I need now is a funny hat and a little dog to ride in my basket.

Exploding Food and Other Dangers

Yesterday was one of those days. I woke up feeling less than perfect and for most of the day felt like crawling back into bed. General malaise is my enemy, especially on days when deadlines loom hourly. Hunger set in at 1PM and, in spite of a 1:45 deadline, I raced to the kitchen, opened a box of tomato soup, filled a mug and set it on the revolving glass tray in the microwave. I rarely use the microwave, because of decades-old health warnings, but at times like this, I'm grateful for a quick warming device to facilitate accelerated consumption of food on the fly. Since I generally nuke my soup uncovered, there are the occasional spatterings on the inside walls of the oven. This time, however, I covered the mug with a saucer because I didn't have time to clean up spills.

The intensity of the soup explosion was surpassed only by the spillage. It was a mess of Biblical proportions. The soup was embedded in all the corners, cracks, crevices and tiny vent holes on the walls of the oven. It filled the glass tray and spilled over the sides. This was the mother of all microwave messes. When I opened the oven, the red mucilagenous substance oozed out the door like molten lava, quickly finding its way to the floor. It seemed to have a life of its own.

The thing about thick soup is that it's neither liquid nor solid. Paper towels were useless. After 23 trips back and forth between oven and sink, to rinse sponges, dishcloths, and towels, the nuker was beginning to look salvageable. There was a moment when I thought I'd simply have to trash it. And after all that, I was hungrier than ever.

It was three-quarters of the way through clean-up that I was reminded of the reasons I don't use this thing often. Though spillage was not one of them, in the present moment it topped the list. Then I recalled that microwaving alters the molecular structure of food. There is also evidence that it destroys nutrients and, over time, compromises one's immune system. Over 90% of American homes have microwaves that are used daily in food preparation.

Comparative Study of Food Prepared Conventionally and in the Microwave Oven, published by Raum & Zelt in 1992, at 3(2): 43, states:

A basic hypothesis of natural medicine states that the introduction into the human body of molecules and energies, to which it is not accustomed, is much more likely to cause harm than good. Microwaved food contains both molecules and energies not present in food cooked in the way humans have been cooking food since the discovery of fire. Microwave energy from the sun and other stars is direct current based. Artificially produced microwaves, including those in ovens, are produced from alternating current and force a billion or more polarity reversals per second in every food molecule they hit. Production of unnatural molecules is inevitable. Naturally occurring amino acids have been observed to undergo isomeric changes (changes in shape morphing) as well as transformation into toxic forms, under the impact of microwaves produced in ovens.

One short-term study found significant and disturbing changes in the blood of individuals consuming microwaved milk and vegetables. Eight volunteers ate various combinations of the same foods cooked different ways. All foods that were processed through the microwave ovens caused changes in the blood of the volunteers. Hemoglobin levels decreased and over all white cell levels and cholesterol levels increased. Lymphocytes decreased.

Luminescent (light-emitting) bacteria were employed to detect energetic changes in the blood. Significant increases were found in the luminescence of these bacteria when exposed to blood serum obtained after the consumption of microwaved food.

After reading the above I considered putting the microwave in the trash anyway, even though the spill was cleaned up. And then I came across this:

Ten Reasons to Throw out your Microwave Oven

From the conclusions of the Swiss, Russian and German scientific clinical studies, we can no longer ignore the microwave oven sitting in our kitchens. Based on this research, we conclude the following:

1. Continually eating food processed from a microwave oven causes long term - permanent - brain damage by "shorting out" electrical impulses in the brain [de-polarizing or de-magnetizing the brain tissue].

2. The human body cannot metabolize [break down] the unknown by-products created in microwaved food.

3. Male and female hormone production is shut down and/or altered by continually eating microwaved foods.

4. The effects of microwaved food by-products are residual [long term, permanent] within the human body.

5. Minerals, vitamins, and nutrients of all microwaved food is reduced or altered so that the human body gets little or no benefit, or the human body absorbs altered compounds that cannot be broken down.

6. The minerals in vegetables are altered into cancerous free radicals when cooked in microwave ovens.

7. Microwaved foods cause stomach and intestinal cancerous growths [tumors]. This may explain the rapidly increased rate of colon cancer in America.

8. The prolonged eating of microwaved foods causes cancerous cells to increase in human blood.

9. Continual ingestion of microwaved food causes immune system deficiencies through lymph gland and blood serum alterations.

10. Eating microwaved food causes loss of memory, concentration, emotional instability, and a decrease of intelligence.

Googling "dangers of microwave" returned 642,000 hits this morning. Much of the evidence is anecdotal, but there seems to be some solid scientific reason for not using microwave ovens, much of it from outside the U.S. It took a cup of exploding soup to remind me that the white appliance sitting on a cart in the corner of my kitchen just might be a weapon of mass destruction. The jury is still out on whether or not I will deep six the nuker. Should I ceremoniously retire the thing, there will be photos.