yaleman.org

“Saratoga Springs school district prohibits kids from biking to school, but a mom and her son defied the law. A state trooper was there to greet them.”

I’m completely and utterly gobsmacked at the nanny-state behaviour that’s happening more and more in today’s society. If a kid wants to ride or walk to school along a designated bike path with their parent supervising them no less, when does is it become the school’s choice to ban them from doing so?

I have to ask how the “State Troopers and an unhappy group of administrators” became involved, other than the fact that they had been pre warned or something else had happened to spark it.

One section of the school policy states: “The Board of Education forbids the riding of bicycles by students to and from Maple Avenue Middle School.” Another section also prohibits riding to elementary schools.

Why would they do this? What is the justification? There is mention that it has something to do with the bicycles being on the property – possibly sparked by parents making it the fault of the school for bikes being stolen in the past.

There’s a reader comment (that seems to have been written by someone with the spelling ability of a bucket of sand) which complains that if a child got injured, the town and school district would be sued.
The concept that a parent would sue the school or the town for a child’s injury caused by a motorist is nothing less than disgusting.

They go on to say that the mother is setting a bad example by teaching their child to break the rules. While I agree that while it’s bad for them to break the rules, being taught to question political decisions and perform peaceful protests isn’t such a bad idea. This is especially true in the face of a generation of children that will likely be buried by their parents because of their terrible nutrition and weight problems, poisoned by the culture that they want so badly.

I hope I’m not one of them – I am trying to cut back on the garbage and get a bit healthier these days. If at all possible my kids will walk or ride to school with me, reinforcing the message that it’s good fun to be outside and getting some road sense.

What do (or will) your children do?

Saratogian via Mother Nature Network

I attended a wonderful wedding recently in the Bunya Mountains between two friends of mine, and it was lovely. The ride to and from there was less than fun, however.

I can handle:

• A four hour bike ride, that’s easy.
• Five or six kilometres of fist-sized gravel on a sports bike.
• The seals on my front master cylinder deciding to refuse to  live up to their name.

What I can’t handle is the terrible state of back-country Queensland roads and ending up with incredibly sore wrists by the time I was half way home.

In other news, Kawasaki wins again on the parts front – went down to TeamMoto’s big warehouse store at Springwood and ordered a rebuild kit for the master cylinder ($93) and a replacement seal for the top ($25ish).

The three-brake-line system that the bike runs as standard needed replacing because the lines were bulging even under light braking situations.  I found a local manufacturer called HEL Performance and I have ordered some from for the reasonable sum of $160 delivered.

I’d highly recommend them because they allow you to choose from a variety of colours for both  the lines and the fittings and have a massive back-catalogue of supported bikes with their associated configurations of lines. I have chosen to go with a more race-like dual-line setup which runs a line for each caliper directly to the master cylinder. This configuration allows for more direct feedback and improved performance along with reduced parts count and ease of bleeding.