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Ebike? No Thanks Episode Transcript. Length - 52:03 
Magnetofunky No. 187. It's Monday, June 14th, 2021. [intro theme] Yeah. Larry here. Now that I'm slowly easing into the Pre-Launch phase of my wesr coast walkabout, I'm considering my current horse - my late-70s model steel mountain bike that's in good shape because I'm not hard riding it day by day yet, but eventually I'll need to replace it or upgrade to something new, but that something won't be an ebike, not cause I'm a hater, but for entirely practical reasons that's worth a grid segment... Anyway, the music is my annual June celebration of summer with a show full of new and vintage surf tunes... [song] - 01:27 Ok, that was Seeweeds - The Illies, a Reggae / Jazz, Surf Rock, Hip Hop outfit outta Grants Pass, OR. It's the title cut from their new album released Feb, 2020, and while some of the surf bands featured this time out have finished their run, it's a pleasure to lead-off with one you'd have a chance to see once the pandemic is really over. Nice... This is a laid back (and often explicit - you bet your ass) international podzine and personal journal of extremely eclectic music and progressive politics, with a focus on energy independence for the 99%. My podpage is 1223studios.com/mfunky.h. The Twitter is @Magnetofunky. [Grid Theory] - 05:23 The Next Horse... In Grid Theory, As I pictured myself walking my loaded bike and trailer uphill over, say, San Pedro Mountain between SF and Half Moon Bay, the fleeting notion of riding an ebike up the hill crossed my mind, and once again I rejected that idea, which I gave up on when I had to forget about a camper van, but hey, it's energy related, so I can make a grid segment out of it... So, when the camper van option became a no-go, I considered a 125 up to 350cc motorcycle, except I've never driven one, and I might blow that driving test after a few expensive lessons as well, cause a motorcycle isn't a bike with a motor. I've never been crazy about turning an old bike into a moped either, and it cuts out many bike paths and trails only available to a bike. Plus, I'd rather spend money to fuel myself instead of a gas tank... An ebike is no better; they're expensive-ass toys (including the high-priced Bafang and cheap offbrand kits), there are many brands out there that might not even exist 5 or 10 years from now with proprietary parts and the service problems that may entail. The biggest issue with ebikes in my particular situation is the batteries, as in plural cause I'd need two. Because I'll be on the road I won't have convenient AC shore power to charge the thing overnight. My 100W power plant and 60W solar panel is totally insufficient to handle a 36 or 48V battery in less than a week's time - try a 1000W system, a 100Ah battery and 4 250W solar panels (cause there's no such thing as a 1000W solar panel). That alone is impractical for bike travel, or having enough juice and time to do anything but keep a spare ebike battery charged. So it's not worth it just to save a few minutes going uphill. Now, I do expect that my current 24-yr-old rebuilt mountain bike will need to be replaced in a few years (hopefully not due to an accident), so I'm already considering an upgrade, but I doubt I'll find another identical mountain bike ready to ride, and for the prices new all terrain touring bikes can go for I want something more suited for a touring senior----[bell] Ok, my eventual upgrade in a bit... [Back To The Stage] - 08:44 Ok, Back to The Stage, continuing the surf season showcase with an all-American spread of current and archived tunes all curated from the free MP3 stacks at Reverbnation, the deep stacks, cause I went about 20 webpages into the Surf category to get past the many songs from 10 years of surf bands featured in my previous podzine Sundown Lounge. Anyway, first up it's Sun - Long Shore Drift, an indie surf band outta Miami, active from 2013 till they went on indefinite hiatus in 2018. You can find their 2015 EP "Shore Stories" on Bandcamp... Next it's The Cooler King - Thee Icepicks, surf / garage band from Portland, Maine, still active, riding out the pandemic till they can come play at a dive bar near you! And BTW, this song is more in the territory of 'monster movie surf tunes' that fits their bio: UNDEAD SNOWBOARDERS KILLED IN AN AVALANCHE WHO NOW PLAY INSTRUMENTAL SURF MUSIC TO STOP THEIR URGE TO DEVOUR HUMAN FLESH! [songs] - 10:08; 13:48 [Second Set] - 16:37 Ok second set features three bands no longer active, far as I can tell... We have Transit of Venus - Knarle Tide, a 3 piece Prog Surf Rock band from Detroit, MI. that fuses genre's like jazz, rock, blues, alternative, and indie, but I found nothing since 2014... Next up is Suddenly With Force - NEGRA, Psych noise surf punk from Nashville. Their eponymously named album is An Acid\Garage\Surf\Punk musical released September 8, 2014, but no FB or other updates since late 2017. After that it's Serotonin - The Closers, an Indie / Dream / Surf band outta LA that closed shop on Mar 1st 2014. This song is not worksafe, BTW... [songs] - 17:48; 21:23; 24:50 [Third Set] - 27:28 Ok, third short set opens with Death Surf, another dark surf punk number from NEGRA (also not worksafe), then we wrap up with Zombies Don't Surf - The Phantom Playboys, a Rockabilly / Surf outfit from Wilmington, NC. Imagine a zombified Elvis Presley joined The Squirrel Nut Zippers and Recruited Unknown Hinson to play guitar. They're very much active and playing a FB event at Lazy Pirate in Carolina Beach NC on May 30th. Cool... [songs] - 28:24; 30:52 ["Geeknotes"] - 34:22 Geeknotes: Beltway Tag Team. Hey, Geeknotes! The past couple weeks has been fairly thick with the leftover stench of PGrabby, the putrid American ex-executive who's still trying to overthrow the government just to stay out of prison - and just him, not his family. I'm not going through the laundry list of newly discovered shit that should surprise and shock nobody, I'm looking at the tepid response from the left - no, I can't say that, cause the Democratic Party leaders ain't the left, they're the soft and creamy Corporate center, the segment of the party that's still terrified of being called commie Marxists for even looking at FDR-type solutions, the segment that consistently steps on and cockblocks the progressive left that actually wants to protect the vote, build infrastructure and throw big lie insurrectionists in jail. The corporate-owned red-dog Democrats might as well be partners of the GQP, a Beltway Tag Team that reads familiar lines from an old script but will never shake the status quo cause they got cushy portfolios to protect too. That's why the Biden ship of state is starting to look like what most of Obama's second term looked like; stalled in a Sargasso Sea, where the only wind is hot air from pundits and hate radio jocks. And if we ever get to killing the fillibuster, if not before the end of summer, forget about any more moving forward, no matter how many Dems get elected next year, unless Joe Manchin gets primaried from the left by a unicorn farting pixie dust... Ok, enough of that. Let's take another detour through the deep end... [deep end] Ok, this is a serious proposal on the matter of space travel. We, as in all the current and future space faring countries, if we mean business about getting populations into space, along with Moon facilities or Mars colonies, we need an international space agency solely dedicated to garbage collection. Yes, I mean sweeping up and clearing out the virtual Oort cloud of debris that in a couple decades will become a serious hazard to satellites, shuttles and launches, precisely because so much of it is too small to detect and steer around from ground observation. Surmounting this challenge will go a long way to spreading practical knowledge of working and living in space to a sufficient number of people to make practical baby steps as a space faring planet and get us past the expensive hobby stage we're still at. [back to geeknotes] Ok, if you like, or hate the show, go to ratethispodcast.com/mfunky. And, if you have non-Zoom promos, pluggers, gig info, an art opening, etc, send me an email. The address is [email protected]. And bands, artists and poets - download links, no attachments, please, and no promises... [Grid Practice] - 38:55 Three Wheel Upgrade... Ok, In Grid Practice, Ok, back to thinking about the eventual replacement bike before starting my walkabout (and another good reason to keep a storage locker)... To start with, my current vintage bike's resale value is about $200, and I settled on $400 as the 'car insurance' replacement value. A quick check at FB's Marketplace found many suitable used models in the general Bay Area that would fit the bill. A brand new hybrid all terrain touring bike would run anywhere from $700 up to $1200, but for that money I'd rather take the opportunity to try something completely different - a recumbent trike, specifically a tadpole design of two wheels in front and the drive wheel in back, promoted as a perfect fit for a cycling senior. To be honest, over the years I never had the desire to ride a two wheeled recumbent because they were low, and being seen while keeping balance seemed just another headache, but three wheels, cool, and quite a few blog posts and videos have shown me that a tadpoe, being wider and still a relative novelty on the road makes it more noticeable to a driver, who is more likely to give it a wide berth when passing (unless you're in the middle of a busy city full of bad or a sloppy drivers). A couple six-foot flags wouldn't hurt. So I looked into tadpoles and found that, yeah, the market is full of equally expensive toys, running from $2k up to $10K, including fully decked out electric models and racers built for speed, but among those there are quite a few under $2500 new and many used that are within reach. I searched for models that come with or have the option of a rear pannier rack and it's a short list so far: HP Velotechnik Gekko 26 Sport Trike; Performer JC-70 (that comes with a free headrest & rear rack); the Sun Seeker Eco Tad SX and the EZ-Tad SX; the Trident Stowaway (with a ton of free extras) and the Trident Terrain Fat Trike. There's even a model if I wanted to sacrifice my principles - Wally World sells a tadpole for $700 that is definitely not built for speed but is selling well as an entry-level trike, but if I can't put a rear rack on it, forget it. The real determining factor will come down to how long my current bike lasts - if it has to be replaced within six months, I gotta go with an old bike ready to ride. Up to 18 months it's either an old or a new upright bike, and if my Diamondback lasts a couple years, I'll put it in storage as a backup and upgrade to a tadpole. And, coming full circle, the low gearing apparently makes tadpole trikes easier to ride uphill. I hope so, cause I'm having trouble imagining hike a bike with a trike... [One More Tune] - 43:07 Ok, for this week's One More Tune, we close out with Valhalla - Dark City, an Instrumental, Garage, Surf band over in Brooklyn, NYC. Combining the reverb soaked guitar lines of yester year with aggressive bass and drums from the infamous Mass brothers. They're also very much active, and also riding out the pandemic. [song] - 43:37 Nice... The music bed this time is Agartha - Italian ambient/electronic artist Jarguna, from his album of mystical, deep atmospheres infused with underlying rhythms ANIMAS-K, released April 27 on Projekt Records... Well, OK. [Closing] - 49:20 Hey, this show is a 1223studios joint. I'm on almost all the popular podcast platforms, the latest being Apple Podcast Connect. You can also say "Alexa, ask AnyPod to play Magnetofunky". Show notes are on the podpage. Send email to [email protected]. If you like the show, tell your friends, and, A final thought that isn't a prediction, but a sad observation - this backsliding country is so intentionally fascist, supremacist and stupid that the rat bastard Republicans don't have to pull out all the stops to steal any upcoming election. There are enough angry and terrified of equality privileged assholes here to gift the GQP with complete control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, and do it before this decade is out regardless of voter suppression, and even when the serious shit hits the fan, some Democratic Party leaders willl still try to play nice as civil liberties are burnt to the ground next to the shattered remains of the King Monument, rationalizing that losing a couple fingers ain't as bad as losing an arm or a bullet in the back of the head. Maybe by then, as NATO and the UN makes hollow complaints, some of those countries may decide to do something radical like accept a few American second class refugees without passports. By 2025 we'll see, won't we... Show themes "Rocket Power" & "Spy Glass" by NY musician and composer Kevin MacLeod. Some additional audio from freesound.org. Next episode is set for, let's say June 28th. I should have a few more new tunes from the usual suspects, unless you know a record company who'd like to showcase new bands here... I'm Larry, still trying hard to stay chill at my garrett in the Mission, and this is Magnetofunky, from San Francisco, where we go through, not into, the darkness. |
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