The Return of VW#77

 

While out on my morning bicycle ride, I spotted this Volkswagen Beetle as I passed Asian College on Locsin Street. This particular VW is actually the last Beetle I photographed on Palm Sunday of this year..

 

The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf & Yevgeny Petrov

Anyone familiar with this blog should know that I'm of a fan of the Commentary Magazine podcast. Two of the books on my Reading List for September 2023 were recommended at one time by one of the podcasters.

I've just finished reading The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf & Yevgeny Petrov, and while this novel was not recommended by the podcast, I would not have read this book had it not been for the podcast. The music at the beginning of each podcast episode comes from the 1970 film adaptation of the novel by Mel Brooks. Hearing the music five days a week, it was only a matter of time before I searched for and downloaded the book.

The novel has been adapted several times - there's even an unfinished operetta based on the novel by Dmitri Shostakovich. According to wikipedia, Brooks' version follows the novel more closely than most of the other adaptations, but even Brooks wanders from the original story. The book is humorous, although not nearly as slapstick as Brooks' film.

In both, the main character is Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, an impoverished aristocrat from the days of Tsarist Russia who now lives in the Soviet Union of 1927. At the death of his mother-in-law, Vorobyaninov learns that she had hidden a fortune in jewels in the seat cushion of one of the twelve chairs that made up a dining room set owned by her family prior to the Russian revolution. The book tells of Vorobyaninov's quest to find the chair that holds the jewels.

Another big difference in the book and Brooks' film is the ending. I'm not going to give spoilers, but I'll say that Ilf & Petrov's original ending would probably follow the Stalinist censors views better than Mel Brooks' ending.

The New App

After posting about yesterday's flat tire adventure I realized that it had been far too long since I last posted anything about my bicycle rides through Dumaguete and Sibulan and I haven't made any comments on the new bicycle app I installed on to my phone.

As I mentioned in a post from March of this year, I purchased a traditional odometer for my bicycle sometime around April, 2022. This odometer has a part connected to a spoke on the front wheel which sends a signal to another part attached to the bicycle frame whenever the wheel makes a revolution. The computer in the odometer uses π (pi) and tire size to calculate the distance traveled with each revolution. This worked well until around July of this year when the bike computer began to malfunction. Although the clock on the device works fine, the odometer was way off in it's measurement of speed and distance. It might show me traveling 80 or 90 kph when it was obvious that that number was impossible.

My first thought was that the battery needed replacing. Replacing the battery did not fix the problem.

In August of this year I installed a phone app which would provide the data I want using GPS. I began using the app on August 3. I've found this app to be so helpful that it has pushed me to ride farther every morning.

As seen in these screen shots, my distance for August was slightly more than 400 miles. My distance for September was just over 404 miles.

This app not only measures distance traveled, but the duration of the ride, the average and maximum speeds, calories expended, the elevation gain (and loss) and the average pace. It even records a video of the ride using Google Maps.

 

Today's Flat Tire Adventure

 

After my bicycle ride yesterday morning, I determined that I only needed about 36 miles, spread over the three remaining days, to achieve 100 miles for the week. My average daily ride for the first half of the week was just over 15 miles. I wasn't certain that I wanted to do 45 miles in the last 3 days, but 12 miles a day shouldn't be a problem.

This morning, about 8 miles into my ride I got a flat rear tire. I think it's been six or eight months since I last got a rear flat. I turned off the bike app I was using and started pushing the bike in search of a vulcanizing shop. Fortunately, I only had to walk 1/4 mile.

As it turned out, there were 2 pin-prick punctures. Two patches. The cost for the repair was ₱60 ($1.06 USD). I felt it was worth a ₱40 tip (0.71 USD).

With my tire repaired, I turned on the bike app and continued my ride, getting a total of 13.7 miles for today.