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RIDES 2018 — add yours here
John Saxby:
--- Quote ---temperatures have been unusually warm for winter here and we're way down on snow;
--- End quote ---
Dan, you could come to Ottawa to test your new winter gear--you don't want your skills to get rusty from lack of use, eh?--& maybe hire a fatbike to check out the trails in the Gatineau hills. No green moss to distract you--it's under a couple of feet of snow.
John Saxby:
--- Quote ---That culvert goes for miles! It's the Ogden-Brigham canal
--- End quote ---
Super stuff, Jim -- I'd forgotten about Utah's canals. Great to follow you as you learn about your new neighbourhood. Would be interesting to hear about the water regime--its rules, who uses how much for what, etc.
Fifteen years ago, I spent some time in Andre's old stomping grounds, SA's Cape province. We visited a couple of friends whose smallholdings were part of rural and small-town water-sharing schemes. Hugely interesting insight into the imperative of co-operation and conservation. Then again, one could always watch Polanski's film "Chinatown".
jags:
First spin for 2018 only 12 miles pretty flat lashed rain for most of it legs felt like 2 planks :o
but great to get out,did i mention i feckin hate winter.
tried out the new camera not very impressed to be honest i left it on for the entire spin and it did record everything but dull as ditch water ,took forever to upload it then after watching i deleted the thing movie maker i ain't
ah well roll on the summer ;D ;D
anto.
Andre Jute:
I grew up in a desert that had already been substantially remade by irrigation, though the process still created large changes when I was a boy. So "Chinatown", and Jim's photo above, rang bells with me. When I visited an Israeli kibbutz, the resident intellectual, a retired French professor of economics, told me that they were envious of the scale and speed with which the South Africans tamed that part of the desert. Of course, it was a matter of people -- it always is -- and it was fortunate that a critical number of Italian and German engineers who had been prisoners of war in South Africa elected to stay after the war; their most obvious legacy being the superb road network and an extremely professional army for decades rated the second best in the world, after the Israeli, by the CIA.
It's long been my belief that future wars will not be about territory or trade or raw materials, but about water. Agricultural economists have always been more influential in policy circles than most people realize, but I foresee a day when hydro-economists will be the most important of all. There's already a hint in the nicknames of the two current schools of economists, "saltwater" for the Keynesians, "freshwater" for the Friedmanites.
Water is an important matter for touring cyclists, who cannot carry more than a few days' supply with them, and are largely accustomed to water being free, and free available, in most places. In another generation, 30 years, that is most unlikely to be true, and in the interim there will be a painful transition. Already, in the present, we hear complaints from cyclists about water no longer being free.
rualexander:
New Year's day ride in the Scottish Borders.
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