It’s starting to get chilly here. If you live in Japan, it translates to temperatures around 50F or a little below. I would like to point out that everyone here dress up in gear to train for Antarctica expedition starting in temperatures around mid 60s. It seems that I am the outcast walking around in T-shirts and shorts, receiving the attention of a naked man jumping into a tub full of hungry pirahnas and crocodiles. I sometimes ask myself this question, “what are these people going to wear when the coldest winter days hit?” What I mean by “the coldest winter days”, is around freezing temperature. Well, I was just being a little sarcastic. Maybe not an Antarctica expedition team, but more like the dog sled team. (btw, people don’t really dress like the dog sled team, but it’s true that they wear long sleeves and sometimes down vests)
Anyways, a knee injury hampered my progress in cycling. It’s about 99% healed now, good enough to start going back to it again. I will post stuff from my future rides, if I find them to be worthy of posting.
Something I’ve been putting time into lately is job searching. I came up with several plans for the future, so the job will be something that would get me ready for it. I hope to have a job soon.
…And about a good read.
Some people might think I read books at the frequency similar to that of Halley ’s Comet visit. However, I recently picked up the translated version of a book called “Burt Munro Indian Legend of Speed”. Not because I wanted to read in Japanese, but because that was the only one at the book store. There isn’t much demand for English books in Japan, with the exception of those which teach you how to say, “This is a pen”. To make the long story short, Burt Munro is THE man. The book is a biography of a New Zealander who dedicated his life to pursuit of speed. In the days when there were better tools and technology available, he utilized old bikes, the most famous of them being the 1920 Indian Scout, to set a record. Of course, there was almost nothing left of the machine that was original. Custom pistons, valve assembly, cylinder made from an old gas pipe, homemade cooling fins, etc. Name it, he made it. He put in thousands of hours to designing and manufacturing of parts. Sometimes, the parts would have design errors. Others would perform well. But either way, he never ceased to seek room for improvement. The painstaking effort gave him what he dreamed of. In 1967, he clocked the record speed in excess of 180mph. Quite an achievement considering the machine in it’s original form was capable of 55mph. The speed record he set at Bonneville still stands today.
Burt Munro was neither an engineer, nor a man with a lot of cash. It wasn’t that he was a genius of some sort. Perseverance was what took him this far. Although the review might make you think the book is full of technical writings about bikes, majority of it is about the man and his life. You don’t need to like or know about motorcycles to enjoy the book. A good starting point might be watching the movie called “The World’s Fastest Indian” with Anthony Hopkins. Great movie, but it does not do justice to all that he has accomplished. It’s a moving book that made me reflect on myself. I highly recommend the book to learn about a life of a man who had “the courage to follow his heart and his intuition”.
(Quote taken from Steven Jobs speech)
Comments are always welcome.
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