Category Archives: journal

It’s all too much: The war on the unneccessary and reclaiming my attention span

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This morning, while in my car moving at snail’s pace in Cairo traffic, I realized that sometimes the lack of options is good thing. My inner monologue went something like this:

“Should I listen to the playlist I spent an hour selecting songs for on my iPod, or the podcasts I downloaded to my iPhone? It’s nice and warm this morning, let’s open that sunroof! No. Too sunny, and I am getting all the traffic pollution in my lungs. Let me switch on the A.C. instead. Man, I wish my car had digital climate control, this A.C. is either too chilly or too warm. I need to call the office and let them know I’ll be late for that meeting. Where is the number? Oh, now I remember that I saved it to the Blackberry, not the iPhone. I need to sync everything when  get to the office. Where is my headset? Here it is, but why is it flashing red instead of blue? Did I forget to charge it? I have a portable battery charger in my bag, if I could only reach back and get it without rear-ending the car ahead of me. Why does the damn traffic keep moving the second I try to look for something in the car?  I might just use the car charger and speaker phone instead. Oh, I forgot to put on the music. Which playlist was I going to listen to again? The one on the iPhone? Yeah, ok just let me check my email real quick while I am stuck at this intersection.  Why is the signal here that weak? Oh well, I’ll check it when I get to the office. Now where was I? Ah, music. I am almost at the office, forget the music. I need to untangle this cable mess when I park”

It would’ve probably been a nicer morning commute if I didn’t have all this technological crap with me.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE technology and gadgets. Just look at some of the older posts on this blog. I just feel that I am entering a “technological burnout” phase. I am sick of screens, batteries and cables. I do not want to – and cannot – get rid of all my gadgets, I just want to trim things down a bit. In a quest to maximize my utility, I will minimize my ownership. To start using more, I will acquire less.

We have developed a weird sense of entitlement. If something does not work the way it should, even for just the shortest of times, instant anxiety and resltessness sets in. Last week I found myself complaining to about my desktop computer, saying that it “takes ages” to start. My computer actually takes about 50 seconds to start from the moment I hit the power button. Those 50 seconds, however, are spent by me staring at the progress bar on the screen, tapping my fingers impatiently on the desk and wondering if I should back up my data to a DVD and throw the damn thing in a trash can.

This is absurd.

We have also developed an unconscious “collectors” mentality fueled by the culture of availability and demand for instant gratification that we foster every day (how come do we foster such culture ourselves? Keep reading). I have 189 feeds in Google Reader. I often “star” the items that I want to read later. A look at a sample of my saved items and some quick math revealed that I have read a measly 3% of my starred items so far. Similarly, I only read a fraction of the number of books I have on my Kindle. We want to collect – to acquire -  stuff that we think that we’ll use now or later. We might, but chances are that we won’t have the time, patience or attention to use what we set aside, simply because it’s all too much.

Unless we put some kind of filter in place.

In his book (and TED talk) the Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, Barry Schwartz talks about how too much choice creates anxiety, even depression. Schwartz suggests that if some choice is definitely good, then it does not follow from that that more choice is better.

I fully agree with Dr. Schwartz in his analysis. He believes that this all boils down to the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to be “pleasantly surprised”. We cannot be impressed as easily as before. B.B. King summed it up nicely: “The Thrill is Gone

Does that mean that we have to accept mediocrity sometimes? I don’t really see it this way, but if such is the case, and only when it comes to satisfaction we gain by acquiring stuff, I’ll accept the “good enough” instead of tearing my hair out trying to decide on and then acquire “the best”.

This post is not just the result of the in-traffic epiphany I recounted above, it was also triggered by recent accounts from that echo the same feelings. Sara reflected on a similar sentiment after she had lost most of her belongings put in storage in an unfortunate and strange incident.

Regardless of income, it is no doubt that we (and when I say “we” I realize that I do not speak for all of society)  have more “stuff” and access to things, information and options than ever before. We often take this for granted. We should not.

We must acknowledge that this is a self-inflicted crime. Don’t blame capitalism. Don’t blame clever marketing. Don’t blame the Internet. It is you (and I) who seek it all out and overdose on it. We have internalized the negatives of availability and access. Once we realize the error of our ways, we must set things straight or risk becoming part of the mob.

Reclaim your attention span. Kill the distractions. Bring back the thrill.

P.S. In case you’re wondering, no you cannot have my iPhone.

Twitt

We never really grow up. We just learn how to act in public: the story of my unhealthy obsession with bikes

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The above picture is of my new toy, which I’ll tell you more about later, after I tell you how this whole cycling thing got into my head.

You may or may not already know that I have a not so mild fascination with two-wheeled pedal powered machines (aka bicycles), specifically mountain bikes.  Like many other bike-heads, this passion started in early childhood when I got my first “real” bike after the obligatory training period on a tricycle with solid rubber tires and blue bar end ribbons (I hated those ribbons). I do not have any pictures of my first “real” bicycle, but let me  try to paint a mental portrait: It was a blue steel frame, heavy as a tank, with silver and red decals. It had short, wide and slotted (for aerodynamic purposes, I believe :) ) chrome fenders, fat tires, blue flared BMX-style grips that were made out of a hellish material that made the skin on your palms and inner thumbs bleed after a few minutes of gripping those babies (imagine mixing low-grade rubber and crumpled sandpaper with copious amounts of caustic glue (if there is such a thing), putting the mix in a mould to harden, and spray painting the result and calling it a “handlebar grip”). Several articles of discarded material adorned various parts of the frame (old inner tube around the chainstay, bright yellow electrician’s tape on the handlebars, etc). It was also a single speed but the gear choice was so wrong that I spent nearly all my riding time on the streets of Cairo out of the saddle. Seated pedaling was near impossible on anything but a downward sloping street. This worked in my favor though, as I developed the legs requisite for the type of riding I now love to do. In short, that bike was a piece of #$@%, but by I loved it! I had tons of fun riding it and would spend hours on end roaming the streets of Nasr City, jumping off curbs, sessioning ramps I built out of discarded construction wood, and crashing. A lot :)

Back then (in nineteen nintey something) , and probably because the Cairo neighborhood in which my family lived was still relatively uncrowded, there was a lot of kids on bikes during the summer months. And I mean a lot. Most of the kids on my street were older than I am and usually went on “long rides” to other neighborhoods. The bigger kids, naturally, scoffed at the younger ones trying to join the fun on grounds of peer superiority, or something. One time there was this guy on an geared road bike who asked me if I wanted to swap rides (“tebadel 3agal?”). Compared to my bike, his was almost featherlight and I had severe distrust in the skinny wheels and tires it rolled on. It was a few frame sizes too large for me, of course, but I just lowered the saddle, climbed over it (not on it) and started cranking the way I am used to on my bike, and the thing flew! A few blocks down the guy who had my bike called out, red-faced and panting like a squirrel who’s been made to run on a wheel for hours. He dismounted a few meters down, left my bike on the curb, walked towards me while glancing back at it in horror. “Enta beterkabha ezay de??!” (how do you ride this thing?!). A puff of adolescent pride filled my chest.  Other older kids tried to show him what a wimp he was, but walked away to their bikes as my horrible gearing crushed their egos. From this day on I think all the older kids secretly called me the dude who rides the devil’s bike.


Fast forward to my high school and college days. I played competitive handball for close to 12 years, rowed on my university’s crew team for a couple years with a short stint on the basketball team and even tried archery (loved it, still trying to get back to it…in my backyard). I started looking for something that doesn’t require a team and/or special facilities or sports courts (I was graduating, could no longer compete, and “Nostalgic basketball Thursdays” as we came to call them were getting less and less regular as many of the participants got sucked away by the blackhole of life known as “marriage”. I needed something solo and with a bit (or a lot) more excitement than morning jogging around the neighbourhood and gym sessions. How about a bike?


Bought one a few years back and next thing I knew I was back to jumping curbs and (secretly) sessioning makeshift ramps I (secretly) built out of discarded wood. I was also crashing a lot (not so secretly, though). Ahh, long-lost joys of childhood, it is so good to see you!


Road/urban riding in a place like Cairo isn’t that great. I started taking the bike off-road in Wadi Degla. The more I rode there, the more I fell in love with the place. A vast trail network that makes for super fun desert riding.


On the solo weekend rides, I  noticed that 99.9% of the people on mountain bikes were gringos. How come more Egyptians don’t do that?! Well, a dearth of suitable equipment is one thing, but not that much of a hindering factor, I suppose. I whipped together a website with whatever information I had/found on mountain biking in Egypt. Egyptian riders started trickling in. Two years ago I either went riding solo or had one other friend along. Last Friday a total of ten riders showed up for the morning ride! To put this number in perspective, try telling a random Egyptian “let’s wake up really early on a weekend morning to go ride bikes in the desert!”. You’d get a blank stare, if they were polite. In all seriousness, this is proof that it is mostly a matter of information availability and community-building than access to equipment and locations. Egyptian youth (or many Egyptians in general, regardless of age group) WANT to do things like that, but either don’t know where, how or with who. But I digress.


With the help of an amazing team of volunteers, I organized two amateur mountain bike races in 2009, the first of their kind in Egypt. We even have our own custom jerseys, like a real mtb team and everything :)


The sport is still obscure (not so with the road cycling, where there is a national squad and even a junior league). Accessible trails are limited but we’ve got this great, massive trail network right outside Cairo. Time allowing, we would venture out to the Sinai for some epic riding.


As infinitely fun as it is, you can hurt yourself mountain biking a lot more than you can hurt yourself playing, say, basketball (although I seem to hurt myself doing anything, including a basketball game a couple months ago where someone busted open my right eyebrow. Hell, I even spilled my own blood opening my car’s trunk!). This is not a general rule, but remember that I told you that I had fun jumping curbs and makeshift ramps? Well, I have even more fun dropping off rocky ledges and hauling ass through off-camber trails strewn with sharp rocks. In 2009 alone I bruised, cut, sprained and scraped myslef more than any other time in my life by just riding my bike off-road. I have pictures for some of the injuries but want to keep this blog R-rated :) . I am not extreme or anything, I just like to do stupid things with confidence, and crash in style :)


Coming through customs in Cairo airport two years ago with a large cardboard box, the customs official had this big smirk on his face that silently said “You are going to pay through the nose now for bringing this big ass TV over from abroad!”. As he opened the box, his facial expression changed to thoroughly confused and looked up to me for explanation. “It is a bicycle“, I said. He waved me through with a look that said “What a moron. If he’s gonna haul a box THAT big from abroad he might as well have bought a big-screen TV!”


What he didn’t know is that bicycle probably costs more than many big-screen TVs. If he knew that he would have thought that I am an even bigger moron for buying it.


As a side note, I don’t own a TV. The reason why will be told in another blog post. I am sure you’ll be hanging on the edge of your seat until then.


Where was I? Ah, I was telling you about bikes and biking. To me, it is a combination of childhood-esque pure, clean fun (not so clean if you ride in the mud like we did a few weeks ago), the feeling of accomplishment you get from  endurance sports, the great outdoors and macho big-boy fascination with big-boy toys like high-end bikes and components (or cars or motorcycles or game consoles…it’s just what you choose to spend your money on. I choose to spend it on something that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases and gets the blood pumping :) . Ok, enough of the environmentally sensitive and health conscious B.S., I can almost hear you say it!).

Twitt

My MA graduation speech (that didn’t get selected)

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After I was done orating my speech, the lady on the two-person selection committee  said she liked it but…

It doesn’t have any quotes. I like quotes. It just shouldn’t be all yours.”

It shouldn’t be “all mine“? That’s a very intelligent way to put it, I would say.

She said that if I revised it they would reconsider it. I never bothered.  I decided to post it here, for shit and giggles. Consider it an open-source speech draft of sorts. There is probably someone out there who has a graduation ceremony and is Googling ideas for a graduation speech right now.

EDIT 3-29-2010: Just read The Last Lecture, and I think I know why this draft wasn’t selected:

“If you dispense your own wisdom, others often dismiss it; if you offer wisdom from a third party, it seems less arrogant and more acceptable” -Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture


Not that there is much wisdom in my words, but just thought that quote was interesting.

Written in 15 minutes and unedited. Excuse grammar/spelling mistakes.

Members of the faculty, parents, distinguished guests, and fellow graduates:

A little over a month ago, I received an email inviting graduate students expected to graduate in fall 2009 to submit a draft speech for this ceremony. “Up to 500 words…” the email defined the limit of the speech to be. Truth be told, I never was a great fan of speeches, but I was nonetheless thoroughly intrigued by a question: what can I possibly tell my fellow graduate students in 500 words? The answer is: a lot of things! I sat down with an open notebook and picked three things that I deemed worthy of emphasis. I say emphasis because what I am goingto talk to you about are things that you and I probably already know, but perhaps need regular reminders of their importance every now and then. Let this speech be one of those reminders.

I have already wasted about a hundred words of my five hundred, so let me promptly start with the first thing I want to remind you of:

You are now a proud holder of a master’s degree. You have climbed more than a few rungs on the proverbial education ladder, and you are placed even higher on the employment food chain. What we need to remember is that this degree – and today’s celebration of being rightfully awarded this degree – is not merely a rite of passage. It also signifies acquiring a powerful personal enabler. An enabler that gives us an abundance of intellectual tools, the most important of which are those of perpetual self-discovery, the constant pursuit of knowledge and the questioning of popular dogma. Which leads me to the second thing I would like to remind you of…

This enabler that we have acquired means precious little without an important realization on our part, that of the difference between education and enlightenment. Indeed, today we have formally obtained a graduate degree from a world-class university and a powerful intellectual hub in the region. What I see before me is not merely a group of happy graduate students, I see massive potential. Potential that will not be tapped into except by yourself.  Being “well-educated” only means that you have acquired credible, formal training in your discipline of choice. Being enlightened, on the other hand, means that you have further acquired knowledge that allows you to know how and where to make the best use of this education.  The future of humanity does not depend on the educated, it rather hinges on the very small percentage of those educated who are also enlightened. I call on you to always count yourselves among the enlightened and to let your actions and decisions reflect that fact.

The third and final thing I would like to remind you of is the importance of leaving a legacy. We need to remember that acquiring such intellectual enablers is not only a privilege, but also a responsibility. If you go out on campus and ask random students about what their prime goal in life is, you frequently get the answer that goes along the lines of  “I would like to make a difference”. The fact is that very few have a solid plan on how to go about this task. You now have the enabling tools to start exploring what kind of difference you can make, and where. Start looking into it!

So there you have it, three things that I believe to be worthy of constant self-reminders. If I am to put this speech in one sentence, it would be that the difference between education and enlightenment is realizing you have acquired a powerful enabler to leave a lasting legacy.

Congratulations and good luck.





Members of the faculty, parents, distinguished guests, and fellow graduates:

A little over a month ago, an email landed in my inbox inviting graduate students expected to graduate in fall 2009 to submit a graduation speech for this ceremony. “Up to 500 words…” the email defined the limit of the speech to be. Truth be told, I never was a great fan of speeches, but I was nonetheless thoroughly intrigued by a question: what can I possibly tell my fellow graduate students in 500 words? The answer is: a lot of things! I sat down with an open notebook and picked three things that I deemed worthy of emphasis. I say emphasis because what I am about to talk to you about are things that you and I probably already know, but perhaps need regular reminders of their importance. Let this speech be one of those reminders.

I have already wasted about a hundred words of my five hundred, so let me start with the first thing I want to remind you of:

You are now a proud holder of an MA or an MSc. You climbed more than a few rungs on the proverbial education ladder, and you are placed even higher on the employment food chain. What we need to remember is that this degree – and today’s celebration of being rightfully awarded this degree – is not merely a rite of passage. It also signifies acquiring a powerful personal enabler. Such an enabler gives us an abundance of intellectual tools, the most important of which are those of perpetual self-discovery, the constant pursuit of knowledge and the questioning of popular dogma. Which leads me to the second thing I would like to remind you of…

This enabler that we have acquired means precious little without an important realization on our part, that of the difference between education and enlightenment. Indeed, today we have formally obtained a graduate degree from a world-class university and a powerful intellectual hub in the region. What I see before me is not merely a group of happy graduate students, I see massive potential. Potential that will not be tapped into except by yourself.  Being “well-educated” only means that you have acquired credible, formal training in your discipline of choice. Being enlightened, on the other hand, means that you have further acquired knowledge that allows you to know how and where to make the best use of this education.  The future of humanity does not depend on the educated, it rather hinges on the very small percentage of those educated who are also enlightened. I call on you to always count yourselves among the enlightened and to let your actions and decisions reflect that fact.

The third and final thing I would like to remind you of is the importance of leaving a legacy. What we need to remember that with acquiring intellectual enablers is not only a privilege, but also a responsibility. If you go out on campus and ask students about what their prime goal in life is, you frequently get the answer “I would like to make a difference”. As to how and where to make this difference, I believe very few have a solid plan on how to go about this task. You now have the enabling tools to start exploring what kind of difference you can make, and where. Start looking into it!

So there you have it, three things that I believe to be worthy of constant self-reminders. If I am to put this speech in one sentence as a call to action, it would be that the difference between education and enlightenment is realizing you have acquired a powerful enabler to leave a lasting legacy.

Congratulations and good luck.



Twitt

A sorry excuse of a blog post

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This is one of those posts where I tell you, my real or imaginary reader, a few things about nothing in particular.

So yesterday I loaded up my blog with the intent of writing something about that bike race I organized last December (and last February), or maybe a rant about a rather frustrating experience with an experiment in IT systems outsourcing, or even some more stuff about advocacy and social/environmental entrepreneurship (I just finished my MA in Economics in International Development, so perhaps I m currently more intellectually-conscious than usual?) . All the above listed topics either require brain activity to recall events or think deep thoughts. My feet were cold. I can’t think properly with cold feet. With such a lack of mental willingness to invoke deep thoughts or remember stuff then articulate all that in a blog post, I decided to do something else. I decided to update my blog’s software, and in the course of doing that  I totally screwed it up.

My first thought was: Ugh, not again!

It is said that Murphy’s Law was invented in airports. Well, web software gave us Murphy’s Law 2.0. I’ll spare you the gritty details but what I ended up doing is moving the whole thing to a new host (after 5 years of awesome problem free and money-free hosting) and starting from a fresh installation using a database backup saved from weekly autobackups I had, thankfully, set-up earlier.

I took the unsolicited opportunity to update my blog’s theme. This is the, you know, 2010 look…or something.

Mind you, it’s not that I blog that often anyway. As inconsequential as most personal blogs are, including (and especially) mine, it would suck to have it gone in a minor data disaster like that.

So anyway, I’ve noticed that I get a different song stuck in my head for about a week or so before another one sticks in its place. This week’s song is Pearl Jam’s Garden. Very abstract lyrics. Love it.

Speaking of gardens, riding through the “rock gardens” in a short section of trail that I newly discovered in Wadi Degla last weekend reminded me of how much I miss my (now sold) bike. Can’t wait for that new frame to get here. Which reminds me that I don’t have a fork for that frame yet. Bummer. Eying a “discounted” Magura that would still cost me slightly more than a full suspension service on my car even though it is a 2008 model on closeout price (or so claimed).

Twitt

Tonight, I burn my journal

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Yes. Tonight I will set fire to the little black notebook in which I have kept a semi-regular journal over the past five years of my life. I will incinerate half a decade’s worth of mundane, important or note-worthy personal happenings recorded the “old school” way. Ink, pen and paper.

In the grand scheme of things, that really doesn’t matter much. Nonetheless, let me share with you the thought process that led me to making this rather inconsequential decision.

I previously blogged about why I keep a journal. The reasons why you would keep a journal are many. Such reasons are both highly personal and somewhat obvious. I would also say that while those reasons are not mutually-exclusive, those of us who keep a journal have one dominant drive or reason to do so. From journals of artistic inclinations, to a written form of self-reflection, to having a sort of autobiographical breadcrumb trail that provides a lead to the roots of current emotional/psychological states and acts as a witness for self-honesty.

The Rollins Band puts it very succinctly in their song “Such A Drag”:

“...so you open up your journal, and try to open up yourself, to try to find the key that unlocks the door that gets you to the point. The Reference Point. So you can say:”Right there, X marks the spot of my discontent. X marks the spot of my soul starvation.  X marks the spot. The place…where I went so wrong…”

My journaling habits were focused on, or rather driven by, the latter reason. The frequency with which I write in my journal is anything but regular: I’d go for weeks without recording anything. Total radio silence.  Then I’d be going through several ballpoint pens as I religiously (and somewhat furtively, I might confess) add daily entries, or even several times a day. The level of detail also varies. Sometimes I would barely scrap the surface of what I intended to record, but have comfort in knowing that the few lines of chicken scratch script on coffee-stained pages serve the purpose of having the mental bookmarks to that particular incident/thought/observation. I will read the first few words and vivid, life-like images of this situation or a clear recollection of that thought will instantly flood my mind. Other times, I would meticulously record everything I could get on paper before I bore myself to death with detail.

Yesterday I opened my journal and sampled entries dated as early as 2004, to date. Travels, observations, people, thoughts.

There was too much of “me” in there. It scared me a little.

Not because I have anything uber-secret in there. It’s just that I really prefer not to share too much of my thoughts with others, even those close to me. Doing so often does one of two things: 1) Poke holes into your isolated and as such often flawed inner logic and help patch up weaknesses in your personal hypothesis, or 2) morph a completely sensible and logically sound inner monologue into a screaming argument with self.

I choose to forgo #1 in the interest of avoiding #2, most of the time.

Having these thoughts on paper is like having a part of me gain physical independence. That, to me, is a very uncomfortable thought.

Which brings me to thinking about the weird dichotomy in having (some of) these thoughts in the digital form on this blog, forever archived even if I decide to delete it. You can’t get rid of all traces of things you release into the digital ether.  I am being OK with spilling out many thoughts and entries for (potentially) millions to see online, yet uncomfortable with having an analog journal in a notebook I keep in my bag. Oh, such a bizarre mix of vanity-driven personal hypocrisy.

So tonight, as i stare into the flames eating up the little black notebook. I will make my peace with the fact that whatever thoughts I intend to share would go on this blog, and the ones I must guard from unsolicited public scrutiny and judgment will stay locked in my temporal lobe.

(I am only kidding, I am not going to burn my notebook, though I did consider doing so. The idea of a ritual burning of a notebook really appeals to the dramatist in me :) )

Twitt

On the aesthetics of (way too expensive) two-wheeled machines

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When it comes to two-wheeled transport (or fun), my preference usually leans towards the human-powered family of machines, preferably the type intended for off-road use. Something about the combination of simplicity, zero-carbon footprint (if you discount the manufacturing process, that is), and the invocation of sweet memories of the of endless summer days of carefree childhood fun every time I mount my bicycle’s saddle makes the no-motor variant of two-wheeled machines particularly dear to my heart.


I often stop to look at beat-up cargo bikes abundant on Cairo streets, examining the rust patterns on the downtube, squinting at the cracks forming at the welds, admiring the the improvised underfoot actuated brake system (read: no brake system), attempting to guess the function of the various obscure non-cycling related objects affixed to the headtube, seatpost and various other parts of the frame, and marveling at the streetwise ingenuity of the jimmy-rigged cargo rack(s) that often carry loads twice the weight of the bike and rider combined. I will regard with equal mental praise (mixed with a dab of envy, to speak honestly)  the shiny new brand-name road bike with carbon fiber everything, go-faster graphics and a price tag that makes small sedans look cheap in (an unfair) comparison. I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of all flavors and subflavors of two-wheeled machines. My friends just think I am weird.


Given such fondness of cycling, I often scour the Internet in an effort to keep myself current on all things bike-related. I get excited about things like carbon drive systems and derailleur-less crancksets and similar inventions with very clever marketers behind them who come up with catchy brand names and all other manner of of marketing hype that practically put us in a state of consumerist hypnosis that make us happy to dispose of our often not-so-disposable chunks of income to have the latest and greatest to (hopefully) make us happier pedal-spinners. Hey, it makes perfect sense from an economic utility point of view (at least that’s the what I tell myself right before I click “confirm order” on yet another expensive bike part).


So, back to the original subject. It’s amazing how much manufacturers are able to differentiate their products in a market where said product is, essentially, rather simple. The basic mechanics of the bicycle have not changed much since the early bikes, but pretty much everything else did. From exotic materials, to shape-shifting frames, to premium precision components. Hell, even the bolts received some tech love.


But there is only so much manufacturers can differentiate on in standard components without overspending on R&D (and who wants to that in these day’s economy?) or creating something proprietary (which, unless it works really well, often pisses off consumers who want the frame/components to play nice with new components they want to buy at a later stage). With the exception of a few innovators, most bike manufacturers will wait until the big component giants come up with the next big thing. While they wait for that next big thing, they do some pretty amazing stuff with frame designs.


Below is a collection of what I believe to be some of the most beautiful bicycles. Having a special liking to off-road family of bicycles (and more specifically to the genus known as “all-mountain” or “trail” bike), I will start with a few trail assault steeds:


The 2010 Specialized S-Works Enduro Carbon



The two-tone carbon frame has a subdued beauty that oozes class (for a $7200 bike, it should!). The lines in the front triangle resemble something out of a Leonardo DaVinci sketchbook. If I had the money to buy this bike, I probably wouldn’t, because I’d spend more time looking at it than riding it.


The Ibis Mojo



The Moji frame has more curves than Scarlett Johansson’s body. In a thread on the  MTBR forums, someone was complaining that the Mojo “doesn’t have bottle cage mounts”. Dude, who cares about water bottles when you have a frame that looks that good (I know: the skinny fast bastards known as competitive cross country racers)


Next we look at two of the most beautiful (in my humble opinion) road racing bike frame designs around:


The BMC Racemaster



Combining aluminum and carbon fiber with a very innovative double bonding process, the Racemaster is a masterpiece of form and function. Look where the top tube joins the seat tube (a grip-like joint slide over the seattube and is then bonded to the seat tube with a special glue) and where the seat stay joins the seat tube. The attention to detail and tastefully applied graphics make a beautiful even prettier. The whole gestalt of this frame is just amazing.


Kestrel 4000 Ltd



Can you say “fighter jet”? Enough said.


Despite my bias towards motorless two-wheeled vehicles, I do like motorcycles as well and hope to one day buy one. However, given my propensity to do stupid things on mountain bikes, I will probably do stupid things much faster and more frequently on a sport bike, so I will only admire sport bikes from a distance. In a city like Cairo, a sport bike is only a catalyst for disaster. Cruisers, on the other hand, with their laid back riding position and chrome-laden exterior, are much more sanity-inspiring.


There are too many beautiful sport and road bikes out there to be able to choose one as an absolute favorite. Nonetheless, in the extremely unlikely hypothetical situation where I am being held at gunpoint and I absolutely have to choose the most beautiful motorcycle on Earth, I’d probably choose the Zündapp KS 750.



“Zün-who?”, you say? Zündapp is (or rather, was) a German motorcycle manufacturer founded in the early 20th century. The true reason the Germans lost World War II is that Zündapp was building the coolest military bikes around (or perhaps the coolest bikes around, period) and giving them by the hundreds to the German army. Nazi soldiers got too busy playing around with these mean machines that they got too distracted from shooting at the Allied soldiers and ultimately lost the war.


I was only kidding, of course. But you probably figured that out already if you successfully completed middle school.


By the way, I do own a piece of the classic German motorcycle awesomeness that is Zündapp. No, it is not the KS750 pictured above. In fact, it is not a motorbike at all, but it’s close enough species of machines. I, my dear reader, am a proud owner of a Zündapp lawn mower.




The above-pictured rare piece of lawnmower history was acquired in a flea market in Cairo for L.E. 300 and takes close to an hour to start, but that does not take away from the fact that this is a classic, a true collector’s item (some would say a “garbage collector’s item”, but I can’t disagree more). This is actually what originally turned me on to the whole Zündapp motorbike thing. Apparently, they had a side business selling lawnmoers before the company went belly up in the 1980s.


The picture below is from one of their catalogs archived by what I assume to be a big fan of everything Zündapp.



Hot bikini model not included.


I am a sucker for designs that cross the vintage with the futuristic. The Zündapp KS750 pulls that off flawlessly. What’s even more inspiring is that it was a military design, and designs for militarry applications usually have no interest whatsoever in form and aesthetics. In the military, function is everything.


On a separate note, if you’re into custom bikes and happen to have $70,000 idly lying around, you might want to checkout the Confederate line of crazy-looking  custom machines.



This bike uses human babies for fuel.


Until I save up enough for a used Harley-Davidson Iron 883, I’ll stick to riding my trail whip and old but iconic classic German sedan.

Twitt

Hellsih flight log: Oct 10 2008, NW 357, LGA-SFO

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The flight from Minneapolis (where I had a one hour layover) to San Fransisco was full to the brim. I took my seat in 22E and watched in awe as the coach class inmate in the seat in front of me tried in vain to wedge a full-sized chello between the seat next to his and the back of the one  in front of it (he actually bought a seat for his chello, now that’s love), repeatedly banging the head of the woman in said seat with the neck of the chello case in the process. My eyes were diverted from this thoroughly amusing spectacle to the seat row to my left, where a long line of passengers waited on a short, bald man in a really bad mood as he battled against futility trying to stash a duffel the size of a ballistic missile in the overhead luggage compartment, muttering various expletives under is breath.

Who the hell said onboard entertainment in coach class was bad?!

Twitt