C
Dear Jobst,
I thought that this post deserved its own thread.
After all, it's a lot of work to take the pictures, upload them,
provide tiny-url links for your inadequate browser, and explain the
obvious.
(Anyone not interested in dull pictures of tiny thorns that Jobst
claims aren't there in the first place and ought to be seen and dodged
in the second place should skip this.)
For the curious, here's a link to the original post:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/msg/25c117a8192028be
or http://tinyurl.com/gks2p
But what follows is fairly clear on its own.
Sorry about the slow loading from filelodge, but filelodge offers
full-size pictures, unlike flickr. At full size, one-quarter of a
picture will fill your entire screen--modern digital cameras offer
absurd detail and enlargment.
Let's talk goatheads!
Amazingly, Jobst wrote about this picture:
http://home.comcast.net/~carlfogel/download/050_spot_the_goathead.jpg
"You don't find any puncture vine in this picture because the plant
does not grow amidst grass or other dense vegetation. It grows on
barren soil. If you got a goathead in your tire, it was picked up at
another location. For a convincing picture, you'll need to focus on a
plant at the edge of this weathered path that hasn't been paved in
more than ten years."
Er, the question isn't whether you can see any puncture vine handy.
The question is where is the goathead thorn that your silly FAQ claims
riders ought to be able to dodge?
There's a goathead thorn in plain sight on the path in the easily
enlarged picture. If you can't see it here, how can you claim to be
able to spot and dodge it at 20 mph on a bicycle?
And despite your silly claim, there are lots of goathead thorns along
that path.
(If you don't like "silly," stop pretending so emphatically that you
know more about where I live and ride than I do. It makes people
wonder whether your other comments are just as ignorant.)
You see, Jobst, goathead vines line the road that the path parallels.
The road is about thirty feet up the gentle slope to the right of the
path.
You can't see the vines from the path, much less in the picture.
Funny thing, plenty of thorns wind up on that quarter-mile section of
the path below the road. They're washed down the slope by the rain and
blown down by the wind.
Please, spare us any claims that this is unusual.
Anyone who complained about getting goathead thorns stuck in his
tires, his shoes, or his dog's paw just because he sees no puncture
vine within arm's-reach would be considered an idiot around Pueblo.
And what's that weird red herring about the path being weathered
and not paved for ten years? Where does your FAQ specify that your
silly claims that everyone should be able to spot and avoid goatheads
is useless except on fresh black asphalt?
Here's a two-lane 35 mph road that's part of my daily ride:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/044 spot the goathead.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/s72e8
Are you going to claim that you can spot a goathead thorn on that
surface? It's a very nice new road for my neck of the woods.
(In fact, it looks a lot like a familiar road:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/images/tiretest.jpg
You don't seem to be worried about goatheads in that corner, probably
because goatheads are much rarer in that area than they are where I
live.)
Even more amazingly, Jobst wrote about this picture:
http://home.comcast.net/~carlfogel/download/038_goatheads_in_crack.jpg
"You'll have to show me that there are puncture vine plants in the
above pictures. I see nothing of the kind. You should be aware that
these plants produce their 10mm diameter 5-petal blossoms and thorns
through their entire life. These pictures show an asphalt path with
grass and innocuous weeds."
Let me get this straight . . .
You're claiming that I'm standing there with a camera, but I can't
tell puncture vine from the grass and other weeds, even though I
explicitly stated that it was mixed in with them?
Your evidence for this astonishing denial is that you can't see
blossoms, with some twaddle about how big you think they should be?
So when I spend a few hours weeding vines along the path every year,
I'm just imagining the vines? The goathead vines can't grow mixed with
other plants because you say so? I can't recognize the puncture vines
that I pull up every day when I walk my dog around my neighborhood?
What's the weather like on your planet?
Ignoring my text, Jobst wrote about this picture:
http://home.comcast.net/~carlfogel/download/020_dock_goatheads.jpg
"You'll notice that there is no grass or other vegetation in that
patch of puncture vine and that the plant is identifiable from a
distance."
Yes, that's a nice, solid mat of goathead thorns with little flowers,
easily identifiable.
As the text made clear, that picture provides contrast to all the
other vines in all the other pictures--you know, the ones that aren't
putting out flowers at the moment and are mixed in with all the other
grass and weeds.
What you utterly fail to notice (apparently due to limited experience)
is that all the nice, clear goathead vine in that picture also extends
throughout the grass and weeds around it. Try to walk barefoot in that
grass, and you'll leave bloody footprints.
(Yes, I've walked over that innocent-looking grass beyond the obvious
mats of puncture vine to reach the pond next to the path. The wooden
fence to the left of the bike is actually the railing for a dock.)
Then you dodged wildly:
"So why do you ride there? It's like riding in a glass recycling
yard."
Er, I could claim that I ride there because some nitwit keeps
insisting in the FAQ that I can avoid running over goathead thorns by
simply keeping an eye out for them.
Or I could point out that you seem to be admitting that there are
miles and miles of bicycle paths and roads around Pueblo where your
advice is ridiculous.
But to answer the silly question about why I ride where I ride . . .
Possibly because I live here? And that's a typical path? And it's the
only game in town? A place obviously outside your experience, but
which you keep insisting can't be different than what you're familiar
with?
Around Pueblo, goatheads are just part of life. Here, thorns on the
paths and roads and sidewalks are no more unusual than getting rained
on in other places.
You'd be astonished if I insisted that there's no need for a rain
coat, wouldn't you? (I was thirty before I bought a raincoat--it makes
a nice windbreaker, but I don't get caught in the rain as often as
most people get flat tires. It's a bit dry around here.)
It astonishes people in Pueblo when I tell them that nitwits claim to
be able to avoid goatheads by keeping an eye out for them--why not
claim that you can ride between raindrops?
Besides, I like seeing the deer, antelope, foxes, badgers, coyotes,
beavers, muskrats, prairie dogs, porcupines, bobcats, snapping
turtles, softshell turtles, box turtles, rattlesnakes, garter snakes,
red racers, bullsnakes, flat-head snakes, tiger salamanders,
tarantulas, bullfrogs, leopard frogs, toads, lizards, burrowing owls,
great horned owls, flickers, woodpeckers, crows, bald eagles, hawks,
great blue herons, inland cormorants, pelicans, quail, blue pinon-tree
jays, and avocets.
I don't pay much attention to the wide variety of ducks and geese or
to the squirrels and rabbits.
I prefer to avoid the skunks without inquiring whether they're
striped, spotted, or hog-nosed, details that would be easier to notice
than a goathead thorn lying on the road.
I haven't seen black bears, mountain lions, elk, or moose on my ride.
Before you announce with great authority that moose don't wander
around on the Great Plains, I'll point out that the local paper
reported a moose that not only wandered down from the mountains, but
managed to elude the police and wildlife officers, who chased it
around Pueblo West for hours.
No one has ever reported an armadillo around Pueblo.
Now let's see some new pictures of goathead vine and thorns in a
crack, the stuff that you claim I must have been imagining when I took
the earlier pictures.
Here's a typical crack on the same path, ten paces from the camera,
about 30 feet and one second at 20 mph:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/146 goathead crack from 10 paces.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/rwcz2
Those green vines with no visible yellow flowers on both sides of the
path are, despite your claims, goatheads growing mixed in with tall
grass and other weeds.
And something green is growing in that crack--I wonder what it is?
Here's the same crack, five paces from the camera:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/147 goathead crack from 5 paces.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/lq4cs
Still awfully hard to tell if you're about to roll over goathead vine,
isn't it? No convenient yellow flowers by the side of the road, no
tiny yellow flowers in that green stuff growing in the crack.
Here's a close-up of the crack:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/148 goathead crack close up.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/m7nrc
It's filled with goathead vines and crab grass and some weeds whose
names I don't know.
Sorry, it's far too late to dodge. Besides, you still can't see any
little yellow flowers, can you? Or the thorns, which have been
accumulating in the crack for years and are growing on the flowerless
vines.
Here's the same crack with the goathead vines pulled out and laid
sideways for better viewing:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/149 goathead crack close up vines pulled out.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/n3tnd
Look very carefully and you'll see the faintly yellow thorns growing
here and there along the vine.
Of course, you have to view the picture full size to see them, so it's
ridiculous to claim that you could see and avoid them on a bicycle at
20 mph--six of them will fit on the "B" of "Bell" on the helmet.
Still no yellow warning flowers.
Here's a view from the left side of the crack after the vines were
pulled out to make it plain that I literally touched them and was not
imagining them:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/152 goathead crack side view.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/ns233
That's goathead vine in the crack, growing from both sides of the
path, mixed with some crab grass and other weeds.
From this angle, you can see some of the tiny yellow flowers on the
goathead vine at the bottom of the picture--mixed in with the weeds
and grass at the side of the path and almost impossible to see in the
pictures taken from a rider's point of view.
Incidentally, the helmet was placed to make it easy to spot a large
green goathead thorn lying out on the path, away from the crack.
Can you spot it?
Do you think you could have spotted it at 20 mph?
This picture uses some leaves to show you where that big goathead is:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/153 goathead crack spot the goathead.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/m3kex
Please, let's not have any more nonsense about I-see-no-goathead-here.
If you can't spot the stuff in still pictures, you should keep quiet
and hope no one laughs at your claims to be able to spot and dodge
them on a bicycle. It makes people wonder about other things that you
insist are true.
I assume that you ride mostly on smooth, fresh, black pavement on wide
roads in places where goatheads aren't much of a problem. If you want
to congratulate yourself on "avoiding" the thorns, you're welcome to
your illusions.
But I suspect that most of your success stems from riding where there
just aren't many thorns on the pavement in the first place, not from
your keen eyesight or your evasive maneuvers.
After all, your evasive maneuvers aren't working too well here.
Here's a nice final picture of goathead vines growing out onto the
path:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/141 solid goatheads looking down.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/pvuod
You can see that the mower has just been by, flinging thorns
everywhere, but there are hardly any warning flowers--not that they'd
do much good on an 8-foot-wide path with miles and miles of goatheads
growing in the cracks and on either side, mixed in with all the other
weeds and grass.
You know, the kind of path that I ride and you don't.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
I thought that this post deserved its own thread.
After all, it's a lot of work to take the pictures, upload them,
provide tiny-url links for your inadequate browser, and explain the
obvious.
(Anyone not interested in dull pictures of tiny thorns that Jobst
claims aren't there in the first place and ought to be seen and dodged
in the second place should skip this.)
For the curious, here's a link to the original post:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/msg/25c117a8192028be
or http://tinyurl.com/gks2p
But what follows is fairly clear on its own.
Sorry about the slow loading from filelodge, but filelodge offers
full-size pictures, unlike flickr. At full size, one-quarter of a
picture will fill your entire screen--modern digital cameras offer
absurd detail and enlargment.
Let's talk goatheads!
Amazingly, Jobst wrote about this picture:
http://home.comcast.net/~carlfogel/download/050_spot_the_goathead.jpg
"You don't find any puncture vine in this picture because the plant
does not grow amidst grass or other dense vegetation. It grows on
barren soil. If you got a goathead in your tire, it was picked up at
another location. For a convincing picture, you'll need to focus on a
plant at the edge of this weathered path that hasn't been paved in
more than ten years."
Er, the question isn't whether you can see any puncture vine handy.
The question is where is the goathead thorn that your silly FAQ claims
riders ought to be able to dodge?
There's a goathead thorn in plain sight on the path in the easily
enlarged picture. If you can't see it here, how can you claim to be
able to spot and dodge it at 20 mph on a bicycle?
And despite your silly claim, there are lots of goathead thorns along
that path.
(If you don't like "silly," stop pretending so emphatically that you
know more about where I live and ride than I do. It makes people
wonder whether your other comments are just as ignorant.)
You see, Jobst, goathead vines line the road that the path parallels.
The road is about thirty feet up the gentle slope to the right of the
path.
You can't see the vines from the path, much less in the picture.
Funny thing, plenty of thorns wind up on that quarter-mile section of
the path below the road. They're washed down the slope by the rain and
blown down by the wind.
Please, spare us any claims that this is unusual.
Anyone who complained about getting goathead thorns stuck in his
tires, his shoes, or his dog's paw just because he sees no puncture
vine within arm's-reach would be considered an idiot around Pueblo.
And what's that weird red herring about the path being weathered
and not paved for ten years? Where does your FAQ specify that your
silly claims that everyone should be able to spot and avoid goatheads
is useless except on fresh black asphalt?
Here's a two-lane 35 mph road that's part of my daily ride:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/044 spot the goathead.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/s72e8
Are you going to claim that you can spot a goathead thorn on that
surface? It's a very nice new road for my neck of the woods.
(In fact, it looks a lot like a familiar road:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/images/tiretest.jpg
You don't seem to be worried about goatheads in that corner, probably
because goatheads are much rarer in that area than they are where I
live.)
Even more amazingly, Jobst wrote about this picture:
http://home.comcast.net/~carlfogel/download/038_goatheads_in_crack.jpg
"You'll have to show me that there are puncture vine plants in the
above pictures. I see nothing of the kind. You should be aware that
these plants produce their 10mm diameter 5-petal blossoms and thorns
through their entire life. These pictures show an asphalt path with
grass and innocuous weeds."
Let me get this straight . . .
You're claiming that I'm standing there with a camera, but I can't
tell puncture vine from the grass and other weeds, even though I
explicitly stated that it was mixed in with them?
Your evidence for this astonishing denial is that you can't see
blossoms, with some twaddle about how big you think they should be?
So when I spend a few hours weeding vines along the path every year,
I'm just imagining the vines? The goathead vines can't grow mixed with
other plants because you say so? I can't recognize the puncture vines
that I pull up every day when I walk my dog around my neighborhood?
What's the weather like on your planet?
Ignoring my text, Jobst wrote about this picture:
http://home.comcast.net/~carlfogel/download/020_dock_goatheads.jpg
"You'll notice that there is no grass or other vegetation in that
patch of puncture vine and that the plant is identifiable from a
distance."
Yes, that's a nice, solid mat of goathead thorns with little flowers,
easily identifiable.
As the text made clear, that picture provides contrast to all the
other vines in all the other pictures--you know, the ones that aren't
putting out flowers at the moment and are mixed in with all the other
grass and weeds.
What you utterly fail to notice (apparently due to limited experience)
is that all the nice, clear goathead vine in that picture also extends
throughout the grass and weeds around it. Try to walk barefoot in that
grass, and you'll leave bloody footprints.
(Yes, I've walked over that innocent-looking grass beyond the obvious
mats of puncture vine to reach the pond next to the path. The wooden
fence to the left of the bike is actually the railing for a dock.)
Then you dodged wildly:
"So why do you ride there? It's like riding in a glass recycling
yard."
Er, I could claim that I ride there because some nitwit keeps
insisting in the FAQ that I can avoid running over goathead thorns by
simply keeping an eye out for them.
Or I could point out that you seem to be admitting that there are
miles and miles of bicycle paths and roads around Pueblo where your
advice is ridiculous.
But to answer the silly question about why I ride where I ride . . .
Possibly because I live here? And that's a typical path? And it's the
only game in town? A place obviously outside your experience, but
which you keep insisting can't be different than what you're familiar
with?
Around Pueblo, goatheads are just part of life. Here, thorns on the
paths and roads and sidewalks are no more unusual than getting rained
on in other places.
You'd be astonished if I insisted that there's no need for a rain
coat, wouldn't you? (I was thirty before I bought a raincoat--it makes
a nice windbreaker, but I don't get caught in the rain as often as
most people get flat tires. It's a bit dry around here.)
It astonishes people in Pueblo when I tell them that nitwits claim to
be able to avoid goatheads by keeping an eye out for them--why not
claim that you can ride between raindrops?
Besides, I like seeing the deer, antelope, foxes, badgers, coyotes,
beavers, muskrats, prairie dogs, porcupines, bobcats, snapping
turtles, softshell turtles, box turtles, rattlesnakes, garter snakes,
red racers, bullsnakes, flat-head snakes, tiger salamanders,
tarantulas, bullfrogs, leopard frogs, toads, lizards, burrowing owls,
great horned owls, flickers, woodpeckers, crows, bald eagles, hawks,
great blue herons, inland cormorants, pelicans, quail, blue pinon-tree
jays, and avocets.
I don't pay much attention to the wide variety of ducks and geese or
to the squirrels and rabbits.
I prefer to avoid the skunks without inquiring whether they're
striped, spotted, or hog-nosed, details that would be easier to notice
than a goathead thorn lying on the road.
I haven't seen black bears, mountain lions, elk, or moose on my ride.
Before you announce with great authority that moose don't wander
around on the Great Plains, I'll point out that the local paper
reported a moose that not only wandered down from the mountains, but
managed to elude the police and wildlife officers, who chased it
around Pueblo West for hours.
No one has ever reported an armadillo around Pueblo.
Now let's see some new pictures of goathead vine and thorns in a
crack, the stuff that you claim I must have been imagining when I took
the earlier pictures.
Here's a typical crack on the same path, ten paces from the camera,
about 30 feet and one second at 20 mph:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/146 goathead crack from 10 paces.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/rwcz2
Those green vines with no visible yellow flowers on both sides of the
path are, despite your claims, goatheads growing mixed in with tall
grass and other weeds.
And something green is growing in that crack--I wonder what it is?
Here's the same crack, five paces from the camera:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/147 goathead crack from 5 paces.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/lq4cs
Still awfully hard to tell if you're about to roll over goathead vine,
isn't it? No convenient yellow flowers by the side of the road, no
tiny yellow flowers in that green stuff growing in the crack.
Here's a close-up of the crack:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/148 goathead crack close up.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/m7nrc
It's filled with goathead vines and crab grass and some weeds whose
names I don't know.
Sorry, it's far too late to dodge. Besides, you still can't see any
little yellow flowers, can you? Or the thorns, which have been
accumulating in the crack for years and are growing on the flowerless
vines.
Here's the same crack with the goathead vines pulled out and laid
sideways for better viewing:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/149 goathead crack close up vines pulled out.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/n3tnd
Look very carefully and you'll see the faintly yellow thorns growing
here and there along the vine.
Of course, you have to view the picture full size to see them, so it's
ridiculous to claim that you could see and avoid them on a bicycle at
20 mph--six of them will fit on the "B" of "Bell" on the helmet.
Still no yellow warning flowers.
Here's a view from the left side of the crack after the vines were
pulled out to make it plain that I literally touched them and was not
imagining them:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/152 goathead crack side view.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/ns233
That's goathead vine in the crack, growing from both sides of the
path, mixed with some crab grass and other weeds.
From this angle, you can see some of the tiny yellow flowers on the
goathead vine at the bottom of the picture--mixed in with the weeds
and grass at the side of the path and almost impossible to see in the
pictures taken from a rider's point of view.
Incidentally, the helmet was placed to make it easy to spot a large
green goathead thorn lying out on the path, away from the crack.
Can you spot it?
Do you think you could have spotted it at 20 mph?
This picture uses some leaves to show you where that big goathead is:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/153 goathead crack spot the goathead.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/m3kex
Please, let's not have any more nonsense about I-see-no-goathead-here.
If you can't spot the stuff in still pictures, you should keep quiet
and hope no one laughs at your claims to be able to spot and dodge
them on a bicycle. It makes people wonder about other things that you
insist are true.
I assume that you ride mostly on smooth, fresh, black pavement on wide
roads in places where goatheads aren't much of a problem. If you want
to congratulate yourself on "avoiding" the thorns, you're welcome to
your illusions.
But I suspect that most of your success stems from riding where there
just aren't many thorns on the pavement in the first place, not from
your keen eyesight or your evasive maneuvers.
After all, your evasive maneuvers aren't working too well here.
Here's a nice final picture of goathead vines growing out onto the
path:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room19/497501/141 solid goatheads looking down.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/pvuod
You can see that the mower has just been by, flinging thorns
everywhere, but there are hardly any warning flowers--not that they'd
do much good on an 8-foot-wide path with miles and miles of goatheads
growing in the cracks and on either side, mixed in with all the other
weeds and grass.
You know, the kind of path that I ride and you don't.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel