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Getting the full knee-down from bike fit guru  Andy Pruitt , knee guy to the cycling stars (including the US Cycling Federation).  A-fitting we will go...  Watch  VIDEOS See  PHOTO GALLERY TODAY I received some good news - and in this recession, any news is good news. My knees, which were starting to sound like I was hiking through granola when descending a stairs, are not falling apart after all. I merely have a relatively benign form of crepitus . Wiki it and you'll see it's a term for anything that leads to innoisy knees. In my case, no bones or diminished cartilege seems to be involved - just fluid. The ass-ometer measures, well... I consulted RoadBikeRider.com's Ed Pavelka on this last year, who wrote: Lynette -- you need to see a cycling medical specialist. The best in the business is Andy Pruitt at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine . If you can't go to Colorado maybe he can recommend someone in your area. Generally, ...

This morning I switched on my Blackberry Pearl and clicked on a link a customer Leon in South Africa sent me. His email simply said: When we tend to complain how bad things are sometimes we do not know how fortunate we are. This is an article out of today's Sunday Times . The first thing displayed in my little handheld window onto the world was the above picture with this caption: No grocery deliveries: Food is much scarcer in Zimbabwe’s rural areas than in the cities. Kudakwashe Chiveura prepares to catch a cricket he has dug up to eat in Mutoko, northeast of Harare. Picture: AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi When I switch on to a news site from the west, like NYT or CNN, the first thing that's windowed is "Democrats set to offer loans to Carmakers". Even on a salary of $1 a year, think of how infinitely better off an auto exec is compared to the above gentleman about to breakfast on a cricket. How ever hard it may seem, we must try to be thankful. Thank you Leon for you...

Strewth, you learn something new and wierd every day ... I just posted this video of myself getting a haircut (for NY) in Chinatown for my upcoming Cheap'n'Choosy blog post and noticed almost 900 hits on it within a day of posting. How odd ... I used YouTube's handy Insight tool and found that a large chunk of views came from the clip being linked at The Shampoo Forum . Reading through some of the posts there reveals a foamy fetish - people who love getting their hair shampooed, brushed, combed ... Now we all love that feeling, just like a dog loves a good scratch, and especially when comes with a free scalp massage - but I never thought of it as being discussion topic. The internet never ceases to amaze, eh. On this forum, "blow job" takes on a whole old meaning! Well, at least unlike porn, it's all good, clean fun, and the participants have little chance of getting pregnant or catching any communicable diseases. I wonder when the Proctor and Gamble's w...

Dumbo Feather is very nice to touch-and-sniff coffee table mag featuring interviews with people who've spent a bit of time physically and/or mentally outside their own postcode (or zipcode as they say upover). If your internet connection doesn't complain about downloading the very stylishly art directed PDF, do avaread . You can find this link to it buried in my bio . They've made some of my snapshots look very arty indeed, including a classy cropping of the above shot, which is simply a close up of a topo map of the Nanawale Estates subdivision where I have my sliver of foliated lava on the Big Island of Hawaii . I was contacted by Kiwi editor/owner Kate Bezar while downunder 2008 , and she came over to my apartment and let me ramble into her little dictaphone. Since it came out I've received emails from some wonderful people from my past: Sue Carey and Gigi, from my days at Saatchi. And some coincidences: I was wandering down 19th street in Chelsea, Manhattan a mon...

From this article by Nicolai Ouroussoff : "But traumatic events have a way of making you see things more clearly. When Rem Koolhaas’s Prada shop opened in SoHo three months after the World Trade Center attacks, it was immediately lampooned as a symbol of the fashion world’s clueless self-absorption. The shop was dominated by a swooping stage that was conceived as a great communal theater, a kind of melding of shopping and civic life. Instead, it conjured Champagne-swilling fashionistas parading across a stage, oblivious to the suffering around them. The Chanel Pavilion may be less convoluted in its aims, but its message is no less noxious." Maybe it's just as well I didn't go inside! Here's my take on something even more noxious

Thank you to Peiheng Tsai for this cellphone image, taken in Union Square, NY, 1:18am on November 5 It's the day after the election. With the line "the election wasn't about color, it was about the economy" being bandied about, I, as a person of color, beg to differ. BARACK OBAMA: The Power of Positive Discrimination is my take on my FastCompany blog. In that post you'll see I also mention Little Person (that's dwarf or short statured person - but never midget) Dan who, like Obama, is doing great things for his minority group - by being out there, and being successful. Celebrate our differences, because as Obama shows, they're the true catalysts of change. Watch Dan in action . Speaking of little people, I saw one enter the same pizza place I was in. I found myself avoiding looking at him for fear of being rude - how many of us know that feeling? OK, now imagine you are that little person, feeling people's eyes shift away from you but knowing you are...

Pictured: Not doing a century in Alaska with winter riding expert Simon Rakower of All Weather Sports I DON'T do centuries. I find lotsa miles boring. I generally do the middling option - 50-60. Even on PACTOUR events (but for that, I am always working in some capacity so can usually wag out and save face). My technique for a) getting fit and b) meeting almost everyone at some point and c) getting back early enough to still have most of the day at my disposal - is to only do the 50-60 option. The drill: leave earlyish but not real early. Hammer with the fast guys as they catch you, hanging on for long enough to impress (but BEFORE you start slipping back). Bid them adieu, drop back, take a rest, mingle and chat with different groups bringing up the rear. Wait for the next fast group. Repeat until you've worked yourself all the way to the back. By this time you've finished early enough, you've had several good hard sprints, which are better than one long middling slog (...