Let’s Hope Grandpa Ernie in Heaven Doesn’t Hear About This

Dan at Freewheel has, unbeknownst to himself, convinced me that it’s time to join the modern era, via a conversation we had about the Marin’s shifting, which is not very good. I bought a low-end model, figuring it was merely to be my commute bike, but I should have remembered that my commute bike is one and the same as my main bike and invested in something a bit more deluxe.

Dan said the frame is the same whether you get the low-end or the high-end Marin, and that we could make a noticeable improvement by switching out some components. He added that part of the issue is my preference for (he politely didn’t say “insistence on”) friction shifting. Everything these days is geared to index shifting, though I feel that if friction shifting was good enough for my grandfather, it’s good enough for me.

Friction shifting is where you put the bike in gear by feel, moving the lever until things are as desired. Index shifting is the click-click-click thing, one click per gear. I gave it a whirl back in the 1980s and concluded that when it worked, it was great, but usually what happened was that every shift worked but one or two, and when you tried to make those shifts, nothing would happen, and you couldn’t nudge it into gear, so it was very frustrating.

Apparently index shifting has come a long way since then, and most components are built to work in conjunction with index shifters. So you can still get friction shifters themselves, but then the whole system might not work quite properly, and you will have shifting when you don’t want it, or lack of shifting when you do want it, and scraped ankles, from the pedals, and a bruised butt—speared by the pointed front end of the saddle—when it suddenly skips several gears as you are taking off.

Shameful recollections came unbidden as Dan and I talked. In Macy’s a year ago: “Where on earth are the cloth handkerchiefs?!? If a cloth handkerchief was good enough for my grandfather … ”

Talking to a coworker a month ago: “What’s a Blackberry?”

In a pet store I happened to be passing a few weeks ago: “Where in heaven’s name is the plain, unscented, clay cat litter? You know, the stuff they dig out of the plain old ground. What do you mean there’s no such thing anymore as non-clumping cat litter? If clay cat litter was good enough for my grandfather … ”

All of that old stuff really was better, but what are you going to do? I would have stuck with it all forever, but it’s all gone.

In regard to the cat litter, I’ve been using Scamp. It’s plain, unscented, clay cat litter. It comes—used to come—in 25-pound bags. I ordered 150 pounds of it at a time. The pet store (a different one from the aforementioned) gave me a break on the price because I bought so much of it at a time.

However, the last time I ordered it, it could no longer be obtained. “How about switching to this pineapple-and-mint-scented ultra-clumping product with satellite GPS, glare screen and SPF of 73?” asked the pet store guy, or may as well have.

“Listen here, young feller. If Scamp cat litter was good enough for my grandfather—oh, never mind. Do you have anything else that is plain, unscented clay?”

“Yes, we do. We have two choices, at least.”

Needless to say, I rode my bike up, and I do mean up, to the store to find out they had nothing that fit this description. Of course. “Fine, fine, let me have some of that clumping stuff,” I said, and rode on (down) home with it.

Then I called my father to find out if there is a clumping cat litter he likes. There is not. He likes Feline Pine, very much.

Up the hill I went again to return the clumping stuff. They have Feline Pine, but I didn’t buy it there, because I know I can never think of that store again without feeling a frisson of Scamp-related heartbreak, and in any event I cannot go to that store without working up a really major dripping sweat.

I went instead to Amore, at 18^th St. and Valencia, right on my way to and from work, formerly a pet store/beauty salon, now just a pet store, and bought some Feline Pine. Feline Pine is very unlike what I’ve been using, so I had to buy something that sort of approximated Scamp, as we’re down to the dregs, in order to effect the transition, so I got some of The World’s Best Cat Litter, made of corn.

I might end up just sticking with that, it turns out, because it does actually clump very nicely, and it does in fact eliminate the smell of cat pee, just as advertised.

As for the bike, Tom reminded me that my friction shifter does actually also function as an index shifter, if you flip the doohickey. I did that, and the vexing symptom disappeared.