My elderly relatives came to visit my parental units, in whose sewing room I now abide thanks to a small Kenyan's fiscal policies destroying all hope. The relatives in question are both old and frail, being slightly older than my own parents. I remember them when they were younger, my current age, and loud and pompous, being raised in Orange County back when it was the bastion of Walt Disney and the Beach Boys and Ronald McDonald. They got to enjoy the peace and prosperity of Postwar America before it was ruined by the Baby Boomers.
My folks, knowing Dad's brother was coming, directed me to prepare a cheese plate. I was artistic. I'd already put champagne (Brut. How decadent at $4.50/btl!) in the fridge a couple days before so that was handled. Crackers on another plate. Some greek olives in the middle of the cheeses. Skip the veggies nobody eats. Prawns and sauce from the grocery store, still frozen but at least they were cooked and deveined.
The two parentals made an apple pie. I will not admit to helping much because I didn't. I hate making pie crust. I've got 37 years of cooking experience (including pies) and I still hate it. The balance requirements for the flour, moisture, and oil and then the sticky outcome and dealing with waxed paper are miserable to me. If I ever remarry my wife will have to be expert at pie crust because I hate dealing with it. Mom got some oil crust together, despite her own struggles with ingredients running out, etc. Dad managed the apples, possessing one of those amazing antique (thus it actually works) automatic peeler-slicers which operates by hand crank. They used the right apples. They didn't sugar it too much. I managed the baking and coated the top with cinnamon sugar, something I prepare in bulk and keep for various needs. I gave the pie another 5 minutes more than required so the crust was golden brown. All baked goods deserve a slight healthy tan.
It was heavenly. Just the right balance of sugar, the tartness of granny smith apples, the faint but not overwhelming flavors of cinnamon and cloves. No goo because the apples don't cook down, just soften.
Between the pie baking and the pie eating, there were cheeses and shrimps and the aforementioned Brut Champagne, then I chaufferred them all in my car to the local Italian restaurant for dinner. I should note that every town, no matter where in America above a minimum size, has a Chinese restaurant and an Italian restaurant. And unfortunate town also has a Mexican restaurant. Chinese food is something different and makes good takeout, usually operated by the local asian or mexican, in maximum cynicism by all parties and loaded with MSG. MSG isn't as bad for you as you think. Not compared to the aspirin you thoughtlessly consume, or the fake sugar in your diet cola. Those are real horrors of modern living. And that's saying nothing of being downstream of women on birth control pills, since those DON'T process out of water anymore than Ritalin or happy pills for the elderly. Small wonder the East Bay is nuts. Their water is massively contaminated. Anyway, towns get an Italian place because people can vary the clothing and go from family restaurant to date-night at the same place, and tips for italian waiters are much higher, and they serve wine with a nice high markup and the preps of the food, being higher in labor, also result in lower material costs and higher prices. This makes them profitable so they stick around. If you wanted to own a restaurant, that's the kind to own. If you wanted to invest in one, that's the kind to invest in. Just make sure there's fat bonuses for the managers and head chef so they're financially motivated to keep the patrons coming in.
The local Italian joint is in the old part of town, and their parking lot is on a narrow one-way street tucked into a courtyard that used to stable horses. I found good parking and we had a nice time. The parents split meatloaf. The uncle and aunt split a lasagne. I had chicken Marsala, which was tasty and I found a recipe to make it, including the additions I tasted in my sauce, which included cream, sugar, and possibly a hint of maple syrup of all things. I haven't had marsala wine so it might be from that. The chicken was nicely tenderized too, tasted like Butterball solution. This dish would work even better with turkey, btw. The mushroom and wine flavors and fats would help many game meats to be delicious. It should be bird though. Might be able to work this trick on pork or veal or venison however. The tenderization trick will need to be properly applied, possibly with ground papaya seeds. My dish also included garlic mashed potatoes, which is NOT traditional but excellent companion to the mushrooms and steamed veggies. I really enjoyed it and have leftovers for later today.
My feelings about cooking are kinda like being in a Hong Kong Martial Arts picture. I've been learning and mastering cooking since I was 4 years old. Its a lifelong thing, so intrinsic to myself I don't even think about it like a hobby. Its a big part of me. My former coworkers doubted this, as most of them were not competent people at living, most living with their parents or overly specialized or reliant on a spouse or future spouse or parent to do all their cooking. I'm not Asian so some of the gaps between our cultures are huge. Perhaps they just don't talk about it. Whatever the reason, I rarely witnessed any of my coworkers bringing in food that was hand-made. Mostly they brought fast food or leftovers from restaurants. Perhaps eating junk restaurant food was their dream? They certainly seemed to spend the bulk of their paychecks on that and Smartphone data plans. And trips to Vegas, apparently. Vegas is not for me. I would go there if I were on the way to the Sky Islands north of town. Those interest me, but I've got the whole Sierras for that so its not actually that important. Someday I'll be cured and I can backpack the Pacific Crest Trail to celebrate.
After the feasting, the skies cleared and half a moon stared down. There was a cold wind and I'm glad I retrieved my winter coat and my undershirts. This morning, we have heavy gusting winds, rain, and snow levels are just a mile up the hill, and maybe 500-1000 feet up. Its a proper winter storm. Exactly the sort of thing you prepare for with hearty foods. And pie.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Roast Beef
Yesterday, owing to the Parental Units (who are both quite elderly) going out for a wild night of partying with other elderly folk until the wee hours of the evening (9:05 PM, gasp!), I opted to bake a pot roast of beef in their oven. It was awesome. I have a lot of practice with this sort of thing so I'll keep it short.
3 lbs sirloin roast.
Marinade in Worchestershire (wooster!) sauce overnight.
Chop roughly the following: red potatoes (2), onions (2), stalk of celery, carrot (1). Add a dash of olive oil to the bottom of a big cast iron pan or dutch oven. Place beef on top so sauce drippings go onto veggies and flavor them. Place into 350'F oven and bake for around 50 minutes/lbs, or in this case about 2.5 hours or until meat thermometer shows beef is done. Not rare, not medium rare. Done. Why? Because in a chunk of meat like this, medium rare will be rare and largely inedible and capable of generating food poisoning if eaten later.
Why so few veggies? Because they only really taste good hot the first time. Reheating pot roast veggies tends to just leave you with yucky mush and you push that around the plate till you toss it. Kinda like cold french fries. Nothing you do will make those good again. I don't even recommend these for soup, since the Wooster sauce isn't often a good one for soups other than pumpkin/squash cream soup.
The difference between the above mostly-dry roast and a full on pot roast is whether you add a couple cups of water or beef stock to the pot or not. Water or stock will cause the meat to wet-cook and will cook faster, possibly going tough unless cooked extra long to make up for it. Omit the liquid and the dry roast will take a bit longer due to lack of steam but the beef flavor will be more intense and the veggies risk burning a bit. They won't be soft, at least.
Serve the above with a loaf of brown and serve sourdough (10 minutes in the same oven works fine for a crisp crust and hot interior. Serve with butter). Also serve with either a Zinfandel or a better Cabernet Sauvignon. Cheap cab is not very good. Cheap zin is often better flavor with beef so if you're on a budget, go with the Zin. If you have even more money, a good Pinot Noir would work well, or you could go with merlot, which tends to be a bit bland, imho. Don't bother with any of these if you're outside California right now. All the wine on sale was carried in uninsulated trucks so its gotten too hot and the esters were destroyed, ruined, cooked, burnt is the proper industry term. Those wines are worthless for anything but coq au vin or lapine au vin. Don't drink them. In spring, the trucks will be shipping cool wines that aren't ruined so you can safely buy again. I'm sorry if you don't like that. I was in a position to know.
I also recommend dark beers for this kind of food. I'm fond of stout, ale, and porter, which is a combination of the two. Lager is good for hot dogs or burgers or ribs, but roast beef is more flavorful so stronger beers are okay, and enhance the flavor of the beef.
If my relatives weren't visiting in a couple hours I'd be buying ingredients to make Clam Chowder, as rains are coming and the high today is 55'F, at most. Its good soup weather. And weather for sweaters and thick socks. Doesn't that make you want chowder?
3 lbs sirloin roast.
Marinade in Worchestershire (wooster!) sauce overnight.
Chop roughly the following: red potatoes (2), onions (2), stalk of celery, carrot (1). Add a dash of olive oil to the bottom of a big cast iron pan or dutch oven. Place beef on top so sauce drippings go onto veggies and flavor them. Place into 350'F oven and bake for around 50 minutes/lbs, or in this case about 2.5 hours or until meat thermometer shows beef is done. Not rare, not medium rare. Done. Why? Because in a chunk of meat like this, medium rare will be rare and largely inedible and capable of generating food poisoning if eaten later.
Why so few veggies? Because they only really taste good hot the first time. Reheating pot roast veggies tends to just leave you with yucky mush and you push that around the plate till you toss it. Kinda like cold french fries. Nothing you do will make those good again. I don't even recommend these for soup, since the Wooster sauce isn't often a good one for soups other than pumpkin/squash cream soup.
The difference between the above mostly-dry roast and a full on pot roast is whether you add a couple cups of water or beef stock to the pot or not. Water or stock will cause the meat to wet-cook and will cook faster, possibly going tough unless cooked extra long to make up for it. Omit the liquid and the dry roast will take a bit longer due to lack of steam but the beef flavor will be more intense and the veggies risk burning a bit. They won't be soft, at least.
Serve the above with a loaf of brown and serve sourdough (10 minutes in the same oven works fine for a crisp crust and hot interior. Serve with butter). Also serve with either a Zinfandel or a better Cabernet Sauvignon. Cheap cab is not very good. Cheap zin is often better flavor with beef so if you're on a budget, go with the Zin. If you have even more money, a good Pinot Noir would work well, or you could go with merlot, which tends to be a bit bland, imho. Don't bother with any of these if you're outside California right now. All the wine on sale was carried in uninsulated trucks so its gotten too hot and the esters were destroyed, ruined, cooked, burnt is the proper industry term. Those wines are worthless for anything but coq au vin or lapine au vin. Don't drink them. In spring, the trucks will be shipping cool wines that aren't ruined so you can safely buy again. I'm sorry if you don't like that. I was in a position to know.
I also recommend dark beers for this kind of food. I'm fond of stout, ale, and porter, which is a combination of the two. Lager is good for hot dogs or burgers or ribs, but roast beef is more flavorful so stronger beers are okay, and enhance the flavor of the beef.
If my relatives weren't visiting in a couple hours I'd be buying ingredients to make Clam Chowder, as rains are coming and the high today is 55'F, at most. Its good soup weather. And weather for sweaters and thick socks. Doesn't that make you want chowder?
Friday, October 19, 2012
A Governor's Job
Yesterday I went up to Donner Pass for a hike.
Interstate 80 goes through Donner Pass, one of the higher passes in the Sierras. Freeway traffic lumbers up the grades and then races down the far side at 75 mph.
To the East, quite a ways off, is Reno. In the West, quite a ways off, is Sacramento. The Sierra themselves are around 70 miles wide and hundreds of miles long. They are an effective wall that divides California from the Great Basin states (Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, eastern Oregon, and Utah). The mountains stop the rains from falling once they pass the crest since the descending air warms on the way down, which usually stops precipitation. It's very obvious by the lack of trees as you move East from Donner Pass.
One of the problems with California is that you have to have a speedy freeway capable car to get anywhere in this state. When the Interstate Highway System was built under Eisenhower, fresh from leading WW2's victory over Hitler's Nazi Germany and Tojo's Japan, Imminent Domain took precedence over the previous roads, many of them just cut off in favor of the interstate system being built. American Autobahns, really, based on the Nazi ones. They don't talk about THAT but they should. The new system was fast and let easy motoring become the dominant culture in America, enabling White Flight away from the ruined urban cores full of poor black people for clean white suburbs with onramps and freeways to rush you past those ruins and right to your office. Take that, Liberalism! If you were right, there would be no White Flight. Obviously, you were wrong.
Google Maps of Kingvale, CA including Hwy 40
But there was a catch. The new roads often orphaned the older highways, when new bridges for the freeway system left dead ends for the prior roads, as there was either no funding or no physical ROOM to build a replacement.
Hwy 40 Just Ends Here
In the Sierras, there was an old Donner Pass road called Hwy 40, which goes quite a ways from Sacramento to the East coast, but in the Sierras only in fits and starts. A governor with some sense of responsibility would petition the federal govt for funds to pay for reconnecting these old roads. Why bother? Because Freeways have minimum speeds. People on Bicycles or scooters or slow cars are not allowed there. It would be nice if Hwy 40 were fully connected up such that an ambitious bicyclist or slightly less ambitious Scooterist could climb the pass without ever setting tire (or foot) on the Freeway, just putter along at 20-35 mph on old Highway 40. The Yuba River flows alongside, tittering birds and whistling pines. Its really lovely this time of year. The top of Donner Pass for Highway 40 runs South a mile or two, past a number of ski resorts like Sugar Bowl and a series of alpine meadows and shallow lakes that freeze solid in the winter. These are worth seeing in Fall, because the alders are golden this time of year and its stunning.
Donner Pass Slideshow Fall 2012
A responsible governor would insure that the streams are planted with trout, that the highways connect at a lower speed, that the tourists have reason to come to the mountains and spend their money rather than race past to drop coins in One Armed Bandits in Reno. There are ways to do this without bankrupting the state, and cutting funds to inner city monsters is a good place to start. Think harder about California's real industries: agriculture and tourism. That's what matters, and what needs to be encouraged. Filmmakers might make more movies here if it were still practical in the high country instead of a place you rush through to get somewhere else. Making it practical means returning the slow roads. As Governor, this is one of your jobs. Use the bully pulpit and restore our parks to at least as good as they were in the 1970's. That's not so much to ask.
Interstate 80 goes through Donner Pass, one of the higher passes in the Sierras. Freeway traffic lumbers up the grades and then races down the far side at 75 mph.
To the East, quite a ways off, is Reno. In the West, quite a ways off, is Sacramento. The Sierra themselves are around 70 miles wide and hundreds of miles long. They are an effective wall that divides California from the Great Basin states (Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, eastern Oregon, and Utah). The mountains stop the rains from falling once they pass the crest since the descending air warms on the way down, which usually stops precipitation. It's very obvious by the lack of trees as you move East from Donner Pass.
One of the problems with California is that you have to have a speedy freeway capable car to get anywhere in this state. When the Interstate Highway System was built under Eisenhower, fresh from leading WW2's victory over Hitler's Nazi Germany and Tojo's Japan, Imminent Domain took precedence over the previous roads, many of them just cut off in favor of the interstate system being built. American Autobahns, really, based on the Nazi ones. They don't talk about THAT but they should. The new system was fast and let easy motoring become the dominant culture in America, enabling White Flight away from the ruined urban cores full of poor black people for clean white suburbs with onramps and freeways to rush you past those ruins and right to your office. Take that, Liberalism! If you were right, there would be no White Flight. Obviously, you were wrong.
Google Maps of Kingvale, CA including Hwy 40
But there was a catch. The new roads often orphaned the older highways, when new bridges for the freeway system left dead ends for the prior roads, as there was either no funding or no physical ROOM to build a replacement.
Hwy 40 Just Ends Here
In the Sierras, there was an old Donner Pass road called Hwy 40, which goes quite a ways from Sacramento to the East coast, but in the Sierras only in fits and starts. A governor with some sense of responsibility would petition the federal govt for funds to pay for reconnecting these old roads. Why bother? Because Freeways have minimum speeds. People on Bicycles or scooters or slow cars are not allowed there. It would be nice if Hwy 40 were fully connected up such that an ambitious bicyclist or slightly less ambitious Scooterist could climb the pass without ever setting tire (or foot) on the Freeway, just putter along at 20-35 mph on old Highway 40. The Yuba River flows alongside, tittering birds and whistling pines. Its really lovely this time of year. The top of Donner Pass for Highway 40 runs South a mile or two, past a number of ski resorts like Sugar Bowl and a series of alpine meadows and shallow lakes that freeze solid in the winter. These are worth seeing in Fall, because the alders are golden this time of year and its stunning.
A responsible governor would insure that the streams are planted with trout, that the highways connect at a lower speed, that the tourists have reason to come to the mountains and spend their money rather than race past to drop coins in One Armed Bandits in Reno. There are ways to do this without bankrupting the state, and cutting funds to inner city monsters is a good place to start. Think harder about California's real industries: agriculture and tourism. That's what matters, and what needs to be encouraged. Filmmakers might make more movies here if it were still practical in the high country instead of a place you rush through to get somewhere else. Making it practical means returning the slow roads. As Governor, this is one of your jobs. Use the bully pulpit and restore our parks to at least as good as they were in the 1970's. That's not so much to ask.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
The Trouble with Presidents
The Presidential Debate is on tonight. Both candidates are saying they did this or did that or will do this or will do that. Know what? Neither has the authority to do a fraction of what they're claiming. Most is done by Congress. All they can do is sign it into law, likely MONTHS later. They're taking credit for things done by other people. The little Kenyan keeps blathering about renewable energy, the same day that A123 battery company declared bankruptcy. The same battery company that was supposed to supply batteries for the Chevy Volt and free America from the Tyranny of Oil. So much for that. Romney and Obama are both full of crap about energy, but they might not know it. You can throw as much money at it as you want, but the outcome is this: we got the easy oil already. Only the expensive and lousy stuff is left. Their advisors don't tell them that.
This is how they think:
America is largely ignorant of the problems with Fossil Fuels. It runs out. It is running out. It has been running out since 1970, when America had to import it. Since 1980, OPEC has been consistently lying about their reserves. They're in the last 7% now, not the last 49% like they claim. They're a couple or three years away from shutdown, thus the ever rising price of oil and production cuts enable them to keep the game going. That's the reality. Its not about "speculators". That's a Con.
Its a nice claim to think that more drilling and more processing of existing energy sources in the Domestic USA will help us get free from foreign oil. Good luck. Renewables aren't easy. They're expensive. Very expensive. They're time consuming and require maintenance or rare earth elements to work, and they're worth stealing or risk breakage. There's good reason they aren't popular already. If they were good, they'd have been in use since 1970. Not so much. Most of the Altamont Wind Turbines are down at any given time. I've driven the pass many times. That's the ugly truth. There's a lot that can go wrong with them, and frequently DOES.
Someday, if science and chemistry allows, there may be a battery that everyone can have and is cheap to make and contains no rare earth elements. That will solve the energy crisis, because it will effectively replace a tank of gasoline. Until this magical battery is invented, when the oil runs out, we're walking. Smart people will bicycle. In time we'll recover far enough to have scooters. But that's about as good as it gets. Pedal into the future. You don't get a choice. Not really. Presidents don't get votes by telling us to suck it up. They get votes telling us what we want to hear: that lying about throwing money at oil drilling and coal will fix it, will enable us to keep Easy Motoring well into the future. That life won't change anymore. Sorry. It just not that easy. I hope you look good in spandex bicycle clothes. I don't.
This is how they think:
America is largely ignorant of the problems with Fossil Fuels. It runs out. It is running out. It has been running out since 1970, when America had to import it. Since 1980, OPEC has been consistently lying about their reserves. They're in the last 7% now, not the last 49% like they claim. They're a couple or three years away from shutdown, thus the ever rising price of oil and production cuts enable them to keep the game going. That's the reality. Its not about "speculators". That's a Con.
Its a nice claim to think that more drilling and more processing of existing energy sources in the Domestic USA will help us get free from foreign oil. Good luck. Renewables aren't easy. They're expensive. Very expensive. They're time consuming and require maintenance or rare earth elements to work, and they're worth stealing or risk breakage. There's good reason they aren't popular already. If they were good, they'd have been in use since 1970. Not so much. Most of the Altamont Wind Turbines are down at any given time. I've driven the pass many times. That's the ugly truth. There's a lot that can go wrong with them, and frequently DOES.
Someday, if science and chemistry allows, there may be a battery that everyone can have and is cheap to make and contains no rare earth elements. That will solve the energy crisis, because it will effectively replace a tank of gasoline. Until this magical battery is invented, when the oil runs out, we're walking. Smart people will bicycle. In time we'll recover far enough to have scooters. But that's about as good as it gets. Pedal into the future. You don't get a choice. Not really. Presidents don't get votes by telling us to suck it up. They get votes telling us what we want to hear: that lying about throwing money at oil drilling and coal will fix it, will enable us to keep Easy Motoring well into the future. That life won't change anymore. Sorry. It just not that easy. I hope you look good in spandex bicycle clothes. I don't.
The Case For and Against Biotechnology Today
In the long run, there are two remaining technologies yet to mature. One is high energy quantum physics. The other is biotechnology. Biotechnology is the science of creating, modifying, and controlling DNA. We already have the ability to synthesize modest DNA strands. Unfortunately, we don't know what they do without testing. Predictive analysis is not there yet.
33,000 years ago, humans had domesticated the wolf into the dog by selective breeding of the tamer ones away from the feral (rip your face off and eat you) wolves. They've been our animal partners of the hunting camp ever since. They helped us guard our herds of goats and sheep and cattle, which we ALSO domesticated by selective breeding. Selective breeding is a kind of primitive but effective DNA engineering. When someone complains about bioengineered food being unlabelled, they'd better know we've been doing it since the Stone age.
10,300 years ago Humans found a wild grass in Southern Turkey and Northern Syria and spent several generations of selective breeding to create the most important cereal grain: wheat. In a human lifetime crop yields massively increased and agriculture with stable housing changed human life forever. For the first time we could stay in one place and have more than enough to eat. We could have crafts and increasingly complex societies. We developed our first known real civilization, Ur, thanks to Wheat created by Selective Breeding techniques and the use of civil engineering to form aqueducts and irrigation in what is now Iraq.
200 years ago, Charles Darwin took what he'd personally observed in Pigeon breeding and wrote about it, creating the hypothesis (later Theory of) Evolution. Darwin was a devoutly religious man and believed God created Evolution so his creation could change, so life would flourish everywhere. Simultaneously, the foundations of Geology were being worked out. Many sciences were moving from occult imaginings to rational science in this period of Enlightenment, a period which is technically still going on today.
Modern Biotechnology is all about the testing of nearly random DNA strands to see what they do. We don't yet have the ability to predict the exact consequence of expression via DNA, RNA, and various Proteins on different types of Cells in Human or Animal subjects/patients. This is unfortunate, however science moves forward on documented failures and successes. The trouble is, we happen to be in a contracting energy economy, with major transition ongoing. Our civilization is built on Cheap Energy, and Cheap is being replaced by Expensive. This hitch in our git-along means we don't have the resources for high paying basic science, such as that required to move Biotechnology forward. The industry is contracting until energy gets cheap enough that Basic Science, a luxury in the best of times, can be paid for again. This is a fundamental problem.
There's currently money for biotech to make renewable energy. It is being done, too. There are serious companies working with algae that produce biodiesel (fuel) as a waste product. The best ones use closed systems so production rates can be controlled rather than suffer from the typical exponential function problem. This directly helps with the Cheap Energy problem. The trouble is the best current method costs $33/gal for biodiesel. That's not Cheap Energy.
There's money for biotech to cure cancer and certain high dollar value diseases, but only if payment for said cures is sufficient to both cover costs of R&D AND big profits. Orphan drugs are worthless to the industry. So really, there isn't much money for this. This is a Luxury. Dead people have Heirs and Foundations to pay research scientists. Not curing cancer pays better than curing it.
There's money for biotech to modify crops to deal with crop diseases like Wheat Rust and the various molds that attack grain crops. There's money to create vaccines to protect chickens (worlds most popular source of protein) from avian flu. There's money to decrease dependency on external soil amendments to crops and increase their crop yield. Reducing crop costs means crops are cheaper to produce and thus sell for less money. Super-rice, super-soybeans, nitrogen fixing nodule corn, for example. Someday there will be money to recover Phosphorus from the sea bottom below the Mississippi alluvial fan. Bio-organisms to grab plastic particles out of the sea water and remove them from the food chain, stick them together and drop to the sea bottom where they stop harming the sea life. There's money in improving fish immune systems to protect them from parasites so they can be domesticated and grown for hungry city markets and restaurants by offshore barge fish farms. Biotech is already doing these things because there's money to pay for it, and big agriculture thinks beyond tomorrow or next week. They're serious businessmen with plans to stay in business year after year. Big Agriculture is the real future of Biotechnology.
A pity that the Greek and Spanish financial crises are killing investment in Luxury science like basic research in Biotech. Contraction in industries happens. Its part of the ebb and flow of economics. Biotech will recover, but the current crop of scientists are going to have to adapt their thinking to PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS over basic science, and learn to care about that over all else. They can no longer be satisfied with the slow pace of constant failure, and focus on results that pay dividends. This is where Biotech workers and researchers need to focus, and why their industry is collapsing.
33,000 years ago, humans had domesticated the wolf into the dog by selective breeding of the tamer ones away from the feral (rip your face off and eat you) wolves. They've been our animal partners of the hunting camp ever since. They helped us guard our herds of goats and sheep and cattle, which we ALSO domesticated by selective breeding. Selective breeding is a kind of primitive but effective DNA engineering. When someone complains about bioengineered food being unlabelled, they'd better know we've been doing it since the Stone age.
10,300 years ago Humans found a wild grass in Southern Turkey and Northern Syria and spent several generations of selective breeding to create the most important cereal grain: wheat. In a human lifetime crop yields massively increased and agriculture with stable housing changed human life forever. For the first time we could stay in one place and have more than enough to eat. We could have crafts and increasingly complex societies. We developed our first known real civilization, Ur, thanks to Wheat created by Selective Breeding techniques and the use of civil engineering to form aqueducts and irrigation in what is now Iraq.
200 years ago, Charles Darwin took what he'd personally observed in Pigeon breeding and wrote about it, creating the hypothesis (later Theory of) Evolution. Darwin was a devoutly religious man and believed God created Evolution so his creation could change, so life would flourish everywhere. Simultaneously, the foundations of Geology were being worked out. Many sciences were moving from occult imaginings to rational science in this period of Enlightenment, a period which is technically still going on today.
Modern Biotechnology is all about the testing of nearly random DNA strands to see what they do. We don't yet have the ability to predict the exact consequence of expression via DNA, RNA, and various Proteins on different types of Cells in Human or Animal subjects/patients. This is unfortunate, however science moves forward on documented failures and successes. The trouble is, we happen to be in a contracting energy economy, with major transition ongoing. Our civilization is built on Cheap Energy, and Cheap is being replaced by Expensive. This hitch in our git-along means we don't have the resources for high paying basic science, such as that required to move Biotechnology forward. The industry is contracting until energy gets cheap enough that Basic Science, a luxury in the best of times, can be paid for again. This is a fundamental problem.
There's currently money for biotech to make renewable energy. It is being done, too. There are serious companies working with algae that produce biodiesel (fuel) as a waste product. The best ones use closed systems so production rates can be controlled rather than suffer from the typical exponential function problem. This directly helps with the Cheap Energy problem. The trouble is the best current method costs $33/gal for biodiesel. That's not Cheap Energy.
There's money for biotech to cure cancer and certain high dollar value diseases, but only if payment for said cures is sufficient to both cover costs of R&D AND big profits. Orphan drugs are worthless to the industry. So really, there isn't much money for this. This is a Luxury. Dead people have Heirs and Foundations to pay research scientists. Not curing cancer pays better than curing it.
There's money for biotech to modify crops to deal with crop diseases like Wheat Rust and the various molds that attack grain crops. There's money to create vaccines to protect chickens (worlds most popular source of protein) from avian flu. There's money to decrease dependency on external soil amendments to crops and increase their crop yield. Reducing crop costs means crops are cheaper to produce and thus sell for less money. Super-rice, super-soybeans, nitrogen fixing nodule corn, for example. Someday there will be money to recover Phosphorus from the sea bottom below the Mississippi alluvial fan. Bio-organisms to grab plastic particles out of the sea water and remove them from the food chain, stick them together and drop to the sea bottom where they stop harming the sea life. There's money in improving fish immune systems to protect them from parasites so they can be domesticated and grown for hungry city markets and restaurants by offshore barge fish farms. Biotech is already doing these things because there's money to pay for it, and big agriculture thinks beyond tomorrow or next week. They're serious businessmen with plans to stay in business year after year. Big Agriculture is the real future of Biotechnology.
A pity that the Greek and Spanish financial crises are killing investment in Luxury science like basic research in Biotech. Contraction in industries happens. Its part of the ebb and flow of economics. Biotech will recover, but the current crop of scientists are going to have to adapt their thinking to PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS over basic science, and learn to care about that over all else. They can no longer be satisfied with the slow pace of constant failure, and focus on results that pay dividends. This is where Biotech workers and researchers need to focus, and why their industry is collapsing.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Dear Honda
Honda Motor Company started out under a man who loved engines. Soichiro Honda was a brilliant and effusive man, apparently, and under his leadership Honda Motor Company grew from a motorized bicycle company to a world leading car company known for its quality and reliability.
Honda built the Cub and SuperCub bikes, the most popular single model of motorized transportation on Earth. They were cheap and you didn't have to pedal and the wheels were big enough to deal with crappy dirt roads across Asia. The shields kept the mud off.
Honda's next big achievement was a twin cylinder 360cc 4-stroke engine which gave them a modest motorcycle. Nothing fancy, but it worked most of the time.
Then Honda broke new ground and crushed Triumph's dominating 3-cylinder (triple) with an ultra-reliable inline 4-cylinder that became the new standard for the motorcycle industry, once they upgraded displacement to 750cc.
These are great things. That engine led to development of better engines for their small cars division, which eventually lead to the CVCC, the Civic. Later, the Honda Accord was designed on a similar inline-4 engine and added a couple more doors so it was a proper Sedan. A car so successful that Detroit is now a Post-Apocalyptic Ruin worthy of zombie flicks and First Person Shooter games, only with real bullets and a really high murder rate. Honda has flourished by being reliable, always starting, and meeting their market's needs.
Sadly, with his passing, their Motorcycle branch has drifted off, lost touch with riders. Almost like they're not trying anymore. Recently, last year, a new engine came out to replace the venerable 230 cc air cooled used for its cheapest bikes, the Rebel and Enduro.
The new 250cc EFI is a nice modular engine and they put it in their Ninja-competitor, the CBR250R. Its reviewed well, and its cheap, about $4500 with ABS. Its a good starter bike that's freeway capable and 75 mpg, with good available torque thanks to the single cylinder engine.
They have finally gotten around to putting it in the Enduro. The older 230cc was notoriously anemic and unable to do much at all, according to posts I've read about it from owners. Considering you can buy a Kawasaki KLR-650 with LOTS of torque and plenty of suspension for around $4K new, why bother with the old Honda? So I'm glad they've gone and updated this.
Here's where Honda is getting it wrong, however. They offer a few models of scooter for about double what they're worth. The Metropolitan is cute, but its Useless outside the flatlands of Davis or Sacramento. California has HILLS. Americans aren't going to pay $2K for a 49cc that isn't a Vespa. I'm sorry, we just won't. Its not transportation if it can't pull a hill at 35 mph. You (Honda) need to CUT YOUR PRICES and bring over the better bikes. The Metropolitan with front disc brakes and a 110cc EFI engine? That would be interesting, and useful. That same bike with slightly bigger wheels (12"), same vintage styling (chrome pretty), but the 125cc EFI from the PCX? That would sell.
Bring over the EFI Supercub you're selling everywhere but here. You can compete legitimately with Vespa. And your parts are easier to get because its a quick and frequent trip across the Pacific. Load a crate on a containership bound for Alameda or Benecia. You can do it! California can't really use a 49cc bike. We need minimum 110cc. And that needs to be around $600 out the door. I know those bikes cost around $150 to make. Take a small cut in the profits and make it on volume. This is an EASY DECISION. The new Elite you want $3K for? That would sell at $1500. Remember how much gas you can buy for $1500. The scooter, with all its discomforts, needs to be a legitimate argument for fuel economy vs actual volume of gasoline.
The Ruckus? With only 49cc available what was the point? Put a 125cc EFI from the PCX in there so it can climb a hill. Mountain people want to use those. Try competing with Yamaha's Zuma directly instead of giving up. Did any of your engineers point that out? If they did, promote them and give them a raise. Yes Men kill companies dead. Promote your No-Men. They tend to be smarter and more courageous.
The Pacific Coast 800 was a legendary machine. There are blogs of amazing trips on those. The 800cc is a proper long running engine. What made it good was reliability and carrying capacity, built in luggage.
Your Silverwing is a good machine, but it costs as much as a small car. What was the thought process there? Does anyone even buy that when they could get a proper cruiser or highway bike? Drop the price by half and you'll be competing with the better Vespas for the Camry/Accord drivers crowd. Include the luggage free. Make it easy to carry the groceries home, or the laptop to work. A place to store a full face helmet in grownup American head size.
Now, the SH150i is a good idea priced out of the market. It's a scooter. At $4500 that's $2500 too much for what it is. For that kind of money, what's stopping you from putting the new 250cc EFI into an updated frame, like the SH150i so the engine is on the frame, it retains automatic transmission and the improved suspension, and sell it for $3400 so it competes with the Aprilia Sportcity 250. Meet your market. People with money and wanting comfort would consider that. Cut the price of the existing SH150i to $2000 and it would sell. You can put more Japanese people to work building that. It would be a viable scooter for SF Bay Area, climb those hills.
The more bikes on the road, the more people want to buy them and watch for them so the accident rate drops. The reason I'm so fussy about pricing of scooters is twofold.
1. Two men can lift a parked scooter into the back of a pickup truck and drive off with it. Stealing a scooter is going to be COMMON. Ergo, it has to be cheap to replace, and thus lowering its value for theft.
2. They're cheaper EVERYWHERE else, in every country but here. The same model in Mexico is a few hundred bucks, not a few thousand. I feel insulted. Scooters sold in America aren't better quality. We don't get parts more easily. They aren't fancier. That's just ripoff pricing.
People are poor in America. All our jobs went to China and India. Half of college graduates are unemployed and living with their parents. It used to be NONE. People are seriously considering parking their car and riding out in the weather, sacrificing safety for fuel costs. They won't buy it unless its cheap enough to make sense. And you can buy a lot of gas for the average $3K scooter. A $500 scooter is a better argument. A $1000 scooter with a better engine (125cc) makes way more sense.
Finally, you (Honda) need to seriously offer more of your models here. Give us the new SuperCub, with the Elite's 108cc EFI engine. Nobody sells that anymore. The Symba wasn't that great and is out of business here anyway. The EFI version you've got would be dandy for $1100. Can't cost more than $160 to make. The rest is shipping and profits. Keep the greed modest and your business will grow. Don't you want more customers?
Give us the updated 400SS. Its a beautiful bike but it needs a better engine than that 1970's air-head with the sloppy rings and tolerances. It doesn't need to be a torque monster. A 400 or 500cc would be fine with a discreet radiator and fake water/air cooling jacket. Harley did that. Fix the engine so it always starts instead of being worthy of multiple YouTube videos about starting it. Keep the 1960s looks of a standard UJM (Universal Japanese Motorcycle). Kawasaki couldn't sell their W650 because they hardly shipped any over and they priced it high compared to Harley. Misread their market. If Kawasaki had sold that for $5500 instead of $9600 it would have gained fans with cash to spend. Do better. The 400SS is beautiful in black with a little chrome. I've seen the videos once it was started. It would SELL as the big brother of the Rebel. Its enough for a finisher bike. Offer some performance parts so there's an upgrade path people would invest in. That gains you some additional profits. This is EASY STUFF. Don't your Marketing people tell you this?
Give us the Honda Wave 125cc, with 3-4 inches of suspension travel so it will work on our crappy roads. Sell it for scooter money, say $1800 and they'll sell well. The entire Midwest and Mountain region would look at that seriously as a rural vehicle and kid-college commuter. Compete with the other bikes in its class like the Sachs MadAss 125. Its a better and more refined version of the SuperCub. I know there's a ton of aftermarket parts. You could be selling those here, making MONEY from those parts. Authorized aftermarket gives you a percentage at your Dealerships. Train your Honda Mechanics at the car dealerships on bikes. One car bay is enough space for 3 bike repair stations. It adds up.
Put the 250cc EFI engine in your Rebel and offer a Standard instead of just a starter-Cruiser. Call it the Hipster, if you want to be really coy. There are people buying up the old Honda 360 twins and fixing a few things, selling them used for $3K to hipsters in SF and San Jose.
That's a MARKET to exploit. Offer them a UJM Standard with the 250 EFI and you'll sell thousands a year on the West Coast alone. Compete with the Suzuki TU250X. They're very similar bikes otherwise. The TU has great reviews and people are enthusiastic because it does what the old UJM standard was supposed to do: it works. Its easy to ride. It doesn't make your behind ache. Your marketing idiots (please seppuku!) may be telling you that there's no market in America. They're wrong. There are millions of us adapting to higher unemployment, to part time jobs, to lower pay, to higher education debt. We're all getting poorer.
That little 250 EFI engine would make a good mini-truck motor, and if you have a dealer give a test ride to Western state governors (Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon) you might be able to convince them to authorize their legal use on roads under Emergency Measures to deal with the ongoing fuel crisis. I think with those for repairmen and city services fleets there's potentially a lot of profits on volume and service contracts. Maybe that seems outside the scope of a car company, but when hasn't the Honda Civic been a bone of contention for the Big 3 of Detroit? If nothing else, a concept car with a small engine and ultralight materials would get people THINKING about it. If you build the engines or assemble the cars in America, it gets around the "made in America" requirement many cities and states have. You're already doing that with the Accord and Civic.
And tell those nice people at the Car branch to release the Diesel Accord already. If you wait too long, everyone will just buy the VW Jetta or Audi or Subaru Diesel and then where will you be? SOL. (sh17 outta Luck). Stop making excuses and start remembering what Soichiro said: You meet the nicest people riding on a Honda.
Sincerely,
The Heretic
Honda Car Owner
Honda's next big achievement was a twin cylinder 360cc 4-stroke engine which gave them a modest motorcycle. Nothing fancy, but it worked most of the time.
These are great things. That engine led to development of better engines for their small cars division, which eventually lead to the CVCC, the Civic. Later, the Honda Accord was designed on a similar inline-4 engine and added a couple more doors so it was a proper Sedan. A car so successful that Detroit is now a Post-Apocalyptic Ruin worthy of zombie flicks and First Person Shooter games, only with real bullets and a really high murder rate. Honda has flourished by being reliable, always starting, and meeting their market's needs.
Sadly, with his passing, their Motorcycle branch has drifted off, lost touch with riders. Almost like they're not trying anymore. Recently, last year, a new engine came out to replace the venerable 230 cc air cooled used for its cheapest bikes, the Rebel and Enduro.
The new 250cc EFI is a nice modular engine and they put it in their Ninja-competitor, the CBR250R. Its reviewed well, and its cheap, about $4500 with ABS. Its a good starter bike that's freeway capable and 75 mpg, with good available torque thanks to the single cylinder engine.
They have finally gotten around to putting it in the Enduro. The older 230cc was notoriously anemic and unable to do much at all, according to posts I've read about it from owners. Considering you can buy a Kawasaki KLR-650 with LOTS of torque and plenty of suspension for around $4K new, why bother with the old Honda? So I'm glad they've gone and updated this.
Here's where Honda is getting it wrong, however. They offer a few models of scooter for about double what they're worth. The Metropolitan is cute, but its Useless outside the flatlands of Davis or Sacramento. California has HILLS. Americans aren't going to pay $2K for a 49cc that isn't a Vespa. I'm sorry, we just won't. Its not transportation if it can't pull a hill at 35 mph. You (Honda) need to CUT YOUR PRICES and bring over the better bikes. The Metropolitan with front disc brakes and a 110cc EFI engine? That would be interesting, and useful. That same bike with slightly bigger wheels (12"), same vintage styling (chrome pretty), but the 125cc EFI from the PCX? That would sell.
Bring over the EFI Supercub you're selling everywhere but here. You can compete legitimately with Vespa. And your parts are easier to get because its a quick and frequent trip across the Pacific. Load a crate on a containership bound for Alameda or Benecia. You can do it! California can't really use a 49cc bike. We need minimum 110cc. And that needs to be around $600 out the door. I know those bikes cost around $150 to make. Take a small cut in the profits and make it on volume. This is an EASY DECISION. The new Elite you want $3K for? That would sell at $1500. Remember how much gas you can buy for $1500. The scooter, with all its discomforts, needs to be a legitimate argument for fuel economy vs actual volume of gasoline.
The Ruckus? With only 49cc available what was the point? Put a 125cc EFI from the PCX in there so it can climb a hill. Mountain people want to use those. Try competing with Yamaha's Zuma directly instead of giving up. Did any of your engineers point that out? If they did, promote them and give them a raise. Yes Men kill companies dead. Promote your No-Men. They tend to be smarter and more courageous.
The Pacific Coast 800 was a legendary machine. There are blogs of amazing trips on those. The 800cc is a proper long running engine. What made it good was reliability and carrying capacity, built in luggage.
Your Silverwing is a good machine, but it costs as much as a small car. What was the thought process there? Does anyone even buy that when they could get a proper cruiser or highway bike? Drop the price by half and you'll be competing with the better Vespas for the Camry/Accord drivers crowd. Include the luggage free. Make it easy to carry the groceries home, or the laptop to work. A place to store a full face helmet in grownup American head size.
Now, the SH150i is a good idea priced out of the market. It's a scooter. At $4500 that's $2500 too much for what it is. For that kind of money, what's stopping you from putting the new 250cc EFI into an updated frame, like the SH150i so the engine is on the frame, it retains automatic transmission and the improved suspension, and sell it for $3400 so it competes with the Aprilia Sportcity 250. Meet your market. People with money and wanting comfort would consider that. Cut the price of the existing SH150i to $2000 and it would sell. You can put more Japanese people to work building that. It would be a viable scooter for SF Bay Area, climb those hills.
The more bikes on the road, the more people want to buy them and watch for them so the accident rate drops. The reason I'm so fussy about pricing of scooters is twofold.
1. Two men can lift a parked scooter into the back of a pickup truck and drive off with it. Stealing a scooter is going to be COMMON. Ergo, it has to be cheap to replace, and thus lowering its value for theft.
2. They're cheaper EVERYWHERE else, in every country but here. The same model in Mexico is a few hundred bucks, not a few thousand. I feel insulted. Scooters sold in America aren't better quality. We don't get parts more easily. They aren't fancier. That's just ripoff pricing.
People are poor in America. All our jobs went to China and India. Half of college graduates are unemployed and living with their parents. It used to be NONE. People are seriously considering parking their car and riding out in the weather, sacrificing safety for fuel costs. They won't buy it unless its cheap enough to make sense. And you can buy a lot of gas for the average $3K scooter. A $500 scooter is a better argument. A $1000 scooter with a better engine (125cc) makes way more sense.
Finally, you (Honda) need to seriously offer more of your models here. Give us the new SuperCub, with the Elite's 108cc EFI engine. Nobody sells that anymore. The Symba wasn't that great and is out of business here anyway. The EFI version you've got would be dandy for $1100. Can't cost more than $160 to make. The rest is shipping and profits. Keep the greed modest and your business will grow. Don't you want more customers?
Give us the updated 400SS. Its a beautiful bike but it needs a better engine than that 1970's air-head with the sloppy rings and tolerances. It doesn't need to be a torque monster. A 400 or 500cc would be fine with a discreet radiator and fake water/air cooling jacket. Harley did that. Fix the engine so it always starts instead of being worthy of multiple YouTube videos about starting it. Keep the 1960s looks of a standard UJM (Universal Japanese Motorcycle). Kawasaki couldn't sell their W650 because they hardly shipped any over and they priced it high compared to Harley. Misread their market. If Kawasaki had sold that for $5500 instead of $9600 it would have gained fans with cash to spend. Do better. The 400SS is beautiful in black with a little chrome. I've seen the videos once it was started. It would SELL as the big brother of the Rebel. Its enough for a finisher bike. Offer some performance parts so there's an upgrade path people would invest in. That gains you some additional profits. This is EASY STUFF. Don't your Marketing people tell you this?
Put the 250cc EFI engine in your Rebel and offer a Standard instead of just a starter-Cruiser. Call it the Hipster, if you want to be really coy. There are people buying up the old Honda 360 twins and fixing a few things, selling them used for $3K to hipsters in SF and San Jose.
That's a MARKET to exploit. Offer them a UJM Standard with the 250 EFI and you'll sell thousands a year on the West Coast alone. Compete with the Suzuki TU250X. They're very similar bikes otherwise. The TU has great reviews and people are enthusiastic because it does what the old UJM standard was supposed to do: it works. Its easy to ride. It doesn't make your behind ache. Your marketing idiots (please seppuku!) may be telling you that there's no market in America. They're wrong. There are millions of us adapting to higher unemployment, to part time jobs, to lower pay, to higher education debt. We're all getting poorer.
That little 250 EFI engine would make a good mini-truck motor, and if you have a dealer give a test ride to Western state governors (Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon) you might be able to convince them to authorize their legal use on roads under Emergency Measures to deal with the ongoing fuel crisis. I think with those for repairmen and city services fleets there's potentially a lot of profits on volume and service contracts. Maybe that seems outside the scope of a car company, but when hasn't the Honda Civic been a bone of contention for the Big 3 of Detroit? If nothing else, a concept car with a small engine and ultralight materials would get people THINKING about it. If you build the engines or assemble the cars in America, it gets around the "made in America" requirement many cities and states have. You're already doing that with the Accord and Civic.
Sincerely,
The Heretic
Honda Car Owner
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Transport Ladder
Most of you own cars and drive them. Here in the PRK (People's Republik of Kalifornia), cheap gasoline is $4.50/gal. That's the cheap stuff, too. The oil is running out, and people are cutting expenses like restaurants and trips to the movies, so restaurants and movie theaters are both going under. People are focusing on the simple and necessary. Simple is good.
At some point, the cost of gasoline will be so high that you (YOU!) will have to decide whether to move closer to your job or to get a job closer to where you live, and deal with either set of consequences. Many people are delaying that decision any way they can, including switching from a fuel-hungry SUV to a compact car, or going to carpool or public transit. I have found public transit to be very inconvenient, to the point of costing a couple hours each direction, which works out to 3-4 hours of lost wages per day compared to driving. Are you really saving that much gasoline compared to slower but more efficient personal transport? A used Geo Metro is a miserable car that gets around 45 mpg. It keeps the rain off.
What if that's not good enough, if the roads between you and the job are so bad the Metro won't do it? Well, there's Enduro motorcycles, with knobby tires and long travel suspensions. Long travel means how much the wheels go up and down to absorb bumps. If your roads are still paved, but you can see in the future they won't be, say 2-5 years from now, perhaps your answer is Geo Metro now, Enduro motorcycle in the future. In 2-5 years, what will gasoline cost?
You and I, here in the USA, are looking at a sort of energy apocalypse. It's not the end of the world, per se, just very unpleasant circumstances. Fuel is merely $4.50/gal now. It will be more in time. Regardless of who wins the presidential election in the coming weeks, gasoline prices will keep rising. If you lose your job, or the business goes under because too many people can't adjust to fuel prices rising too fast or it just stops making sense to work there when you're spending your whole paycheck on fuel to get there, well... things change in bigger ways, not smaller ones. At some point, deliveries to your local station drop off because people are buying less fuel because they have less money to buy fuel with, and they're working closer to home because commuting costs too much to afford anymore. That's a big change. At some point, gas stations will get deliveries then be out for the next 5-10 days. It has happened before, in the 1970's thanks to OPEC embargos.
So someday you'll find yourself with a 5-10 mile commute to your local minimum wage job and no gasoline for your Geo Metro. Hop on a bicycle. You have a bicycle right? I recently bought a full suspension mountain bike at a garage sale for $35. Turned out it was too small for me, but I expect I'll find something like it my size eventually at another sale. These things turn up. The bike was only $100 new, made for a teenager. The front shocks were actually just springs and pistons, not real shock absorbers. It did the job for bumps well enough, and should be less maintenance than a real suspension would. Imagine that for yourself. You really get your heart pumping riding a bike 5-10 miles. If it doesn't kill you, you'll get stronger and healthier, though if your job is physical labor it may be somewhat painful to get through then have to bike home another 5-10 miles.
This is where the scooter comes in. A 49cc 2-stroke scooter is around 3-6 HP, gets 100 mpg or so, and takes about 5 minutes to warm up. With a fully automatic (CVT) transmission, it comes with lights and turn signals, no pedals for you. No hard breathing required, though the engine is loud. Its twist and go throttle. Takes 5 minutes to learn to use one if you've ever ridden a bicycle. All of them are made in China, so don't get up in arms about Italian ones being better. They're all the same. The difference is you pay for warranty coverage with the Italian ones, and name brand markup. I can't stomach paying $4500 for a Vespa, no matter how cute they are. They're wrapped in plastic, not steel. They won't last any more than a Kymco (Taiwan) or other off-brand model.
The Kymco Agility 125 is the best deal in scooters today. 125cc will climb hills and $1900 (at the time of this writing) is a good price for a 4-stroke that's CARB (California Air Resources Board) legal.
Underbones based on upgraded and improved versions of the Honda Supercub sadly aren't sold in the PRK. You can get the Sachs MadAss 125cc from Germany for $3500 in a crate, of course. This is it here:
The big catch with a scooter is their suspensions handle around 2 inches of bump, and that's it. 3 inches you gotta pay another grand for. How big are your pot holes? Will a scooter throw you in traffic if you fail to dodge a pothole? This is worth thinking hard about. Because there's a better way.
A proper small bore motorcycle, in the 250cc range, come in around $1200-2000 used. It has probably been laid down, so will have scratches on the side. Maybe the plastic fairing (aerodynamics) will be cracked.
Ninja 250cc models are used for learning on. They get 70 mpg and will go up to 100 mph on the freeway if pushed. They've been around 25 years so the aftermarket parts are cheap and common. They will climb every mountain and most have 6 speeds and very good brakes. And they have 3-5 inches of bump absorption. You still want to dodge the holes, but the brakes on the bike are very good and the tires last better than any scooter.
Ninja 250 Review A little Ninja will get you through your commute, in leathers and full face helmet, in reasonable time. Don't take wild chances, and remember the combined tire contact patch is smaller than one tire of the Metro.
Just to put things into perspective. The Geo Metro is much more comfortable in the rain and snow, and while carpooling is a hassle, the combined 80 mpg (40 mpg x 2 people) with two people in the car is better than the solo 70 mpg of the bike. The Metro has a radio, but the bike has the ability to LEAN. Go with your pleasure there. Or your comfort. Its your choice.The Metro won't get you hot chix but it will probably get to you to work dry and safe.
I suspect we'll each find ourselves looking at our bicycles with a grimace someday in the next couple years, our former commute vehicle empty of gasoline and abandoned in the driveway under a tarp, dreaming of the day we get our scooter because it means we don't have to pedal to work and arrive exhausted.
You can, of course, buy a scooter now and learn to ride it. Get a job locally now, and save money on your commute immediately. You can even get in shape enough to not mind arriving tired on your bicycle. You can join the future. Or you can continue commuting by car/SUV however far as long as you can and pay off those lingering debts before they become the defining feature of your life.
At some point, the cost of gasoline will be so high that you (YOU!) will have to decide whether to move closer to your job or to get a job closer to where you live, and deal with either set of consequences. Many people are delaying that decision any way they can, including switching from a fuel-hungry SUV to a compact car, or going to carpool or public transit. I have found public transit to be very inconvenient, to the point of costing a couple hours each direction, which works out to 3-4 hours of lost wages per day compared to driving. Are you really saving that much gasoline compared to slower but more efficient personal transport? A used Geo Metro is a miserable car that gets around 45 mpg. It keeps the rain off.
What if that's not good enough, if the roads between you and the job are so bad the Metro won't do it? Well, there's Enduro motorcycles, with knobby tires and long travel suspensions. Long travel means how much the wheels go up and down to absorb bumps. If your roads are still paved, but you can see in the future they won't be, say 2-5 years from now, perhaps your answer is Geo Metro now, Enduro motorcycle in the future. In 2-5 years, what will gasoline cost?
You and I, here in the USA, are looking at a sort of energy apocalypse. It's not the end of the world, per se, just very unpleasant circumstances. Fuel is merely $4.50/gal now. It will be more in time. Regardless of who wins the presidential election in the coming weeks, gasoline prices will keep rising. If you lose your job, or the business goes under because too many people can't adjust to fuel prices rising too fast or it just stops making sense to work there when you're spending your whole paycheck on fuel to get there, well... things change in bigger ways, not smaller ones. At some point, deliveries to your local station drop off because people are buying less fuel because they have less money to buy fuel with, and they're working closer to home because commuting costs too much to afford anymore. That's a big change. At some point, gas stations will get deliveries then be out for the next 5-10 days. It has happened before, in the 1970's thanks to OPEC embargos.
So someday you'll find yourself with a 5-10 mile commute to your local minimum wage job and no gasoline for your Geo Metro. Hop on a bicycle. You have a bicycle right? I recently bought a full suspension mountain bike at a garage sale for $35. Turned out it was too small for me, but I expect I'll find something like it my size eventually at another sale. These things turn up. The bike was only $100 new, made for a teenager. The front shocks were actually just springs and pistons, not real shock absorbers. It did the job for bumps well enough, and should be less maintenance than a real suspension would. Imagine that for yourself. You really get your heart pumping riding a bike 5-10 miles. If it doesn't kill you, you'll get stronger and healthier, though if your job is physical labor it may be somewhat painful to get through then have to bike home another 5-10 miles.
This is where the scooter comes in. A 49cc 2-stroke scooter is around 3-6 HP, gets 100 mpg or so, and takes about 5 minutes to warm up. With a fully automatic (CVT) transmission, it comes with lights and turn signals, no pedals for you. No hard breathing required, though the engine is loud. Its twist and go throttle. Takes 5 minutes to learn to use one if you've ever ridden a bicycle. All of them are made in China, so don't get up in arms about Italian ones being better. They're all the same. The difference is you pay for warranty coverage with the Italian ones, and name brand markup. I can't stomach paying $4500 for a Vespa, no matter how cute they are. They're wrapped in plastic, not steel. They won't last any more than a Kymco (Taiwan) or other off-brand model.
Underbones based on upgraded and improved versions of the Honda Supercub sadly aren't sold in the PRK. You can get the Sachs MadAss 125cc from Germany for $3500 in a crate, of course. This is it here:
The big catch with a scooter is their suspensions handle around 2 inches of bump, and that's it. 3 inches you gotta pay another grand for. How big are your pot holes? Will a scooter throw you in traffic if you fail to dodge a pothole? This is worth thinking hard about. Because there's a better way.
A proper small bore motorcycle, in the 250cc range, come in around $1200-2000 used. It has probably been laid down, so will have scratches on the side. Maybe the plastic fairing (aerodynamics) will be cracked.
Ninja 250 Review A little Ninja will get you through your commute, in leathers and full face helmet, in reasonable time. Don't take wild chances, and remember the combined tire contact patch is smaller than one tire of the Metro.
I suspect we'll each find ourselves looking at our bicycles with a grimace someday in the next couple years, our former commute vehicle empty of gasoline and abandoned in the driveway under a tarp, dreaming of the day we get our scooter because it means we don't have to pedal to work and arrive exhausted.
You can, of course, buy a scooter now and learn to ride it. Get a job locally now, and save money on your commute immediately. You can even get in shape enough to not mind arriving tired on your bicycle. You can join the future. Or you can continue commuting by car/SUV however far as long as you can and pay off those lingering debts before they become the defining feature of your life.
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