Word: rider
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...media companies mend their ways without government interference? There is certainly a precedent for it. In the 1960s and '70s, much entertainment, from Beatles music to the movies Easy Rider and M*A*S*H, glamourized drug use. But at some point, the world's artists, producers and media executives decided that promoting drugs was not a good thing. Nowadays the message that children receive from entertainment is strong and unambiguous: drugs are dangerous, and taking them is foolish. I hope that the future messages my two boys receive about sex and violence make just as much sense...
BRAKES. Standard brakes work much like the ones Italy's Tullio Campagnolo designed 40 years ago. To slow a bike, the rider squeezes handgrips, which are attached to cables that pull on caliper arms. The arms, in turn, clamp down on the wheel rims with rubber pads. The system is simple but doesn't always work, especially with heavy loads or on wet roads. After failed brakes sent him into a tree 20 years ago, William Mathauser, an aeronautical engineer from Anacortes, Wash., set out to improve the system. His hydraulic brake has just gone into full production...
SHIFTING SYSTEMS. Changing gears on a ten-speed can be difficult and dangerous. Riders have to look away from the road to see and adjust the shift levers. If a cyclist tries to change gears while standing up to climb a hill, the chain -- and rider -- can slip. "Gear fear" is the main reason why "so many of the ten-speeds that were bought in the cycling boom in the '70s are hanging in garages," says Fred Zahradnik, technical editor of Bicycling magazine. But with new index shifting systems from companies like Shimano of Irvine, Calif., he explains, "you just...
Borrowing the concept from automobiles, the Mathauser Hydraulic Bellowphragm replaces regular brake cables with sealed, flexible tubes that contain hydraulic fluid. When the rider lightly squeezes the handles, a plunger pushes a silicone fluid through the tubes, causing the traditional caliper arms to close. "I designed these mostly for women and children," says Mathauser, 68. "Girls don't have the grip these macho guys have...
...sure about the good doctor either (one of Longhair's foremost disciples, the winner of a 1990 Grammy Award for a duo jazz vocal and a kind of living archive of musical history). Just sit back and watch Dr. John work his way through the likes of C.C. Rider and Pine Top Boogie. You may not be able to play the tunes when the videotape's over -- it takes a pretty advanced pianist even to follow the Doc's fingering -- but you will have got a graduate course in soul. (Homespun Tapes, Box 694, Woodstock...