Comment by aurizon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aurizon | Hacker News Reader

4 of my friends who smoked 1-2 packs/day were able to transition to smoking alternatives, 2 went to nicotine pills, 4 Mg from Walmart, stayed on 2-3 of those/day from the morning. The other 2 went to suck-in inhalers. None of them went to visible cloud of smoke emitters. They all eliminated their prior shortness of breath problem, when biking/jogging. I never ever smoked, but I find the 4 Mg pills are good for appetite suppression when I occasionally pork-up - mainly in winter these days as Covid closed the gyms and weather makes some days times of no biking. I used to be a bike courier in Toronto back in the 60's - could be 200+ miles/day - fits and starts type of riding, lots slower on weekends. All manner of bikes, mainly fixies (to non bikers = a fixed sprocket = no freewheel no gear changes, but some had Sturmey-Archer hubs they could change but they often were troublesome) Toronto is flat for most document work, so a fixie was fine and if you went up the Avenue road hill, you could quickly use a lower gear freewheel on the other side -(if you rotated to drive the other axle) Mostly delivering documents and small packages (food was not yet a thing). The midnight courier bike race is amazing, 100-200 bikers on an after 12 PM bike race on city streets - I do not know if it still runs - used to be every few months in the summer time. The police hated it as bikers stopped on no lights and the light traffic after 12 PM was the only saving aspect. There were so many back lanes etc in Toronto where the police cars could not go that they only grabbed people if there was a multi bike crash (often happened at the start) Quite the life and society, many are hard riders/drinkers/smokers/druggies, but the last 3 tend to get weeded out. Most leave in their 20's, got real jobs, I went to college = engineering, and it was a summer job after that - all cash based. One guy, Greg, was a real iron man - went to Australia with GF when he was 55 years old about 10 years ago and we lost contact, but he rode hard until he left. I am 82 now, still bike a lot - mainly in warmer times. my 200 mile days are gone - my knees are worn out and limit my extreme behaviour. I meandered - sorry, but it was a true reminiscence.

I have ridden as a courier in Toronto. For me, it was the 80s, and IIRC, I rode for Sunwheel Couriers, who had an old-school (even by the standards of the 80s) touring/randonneur culture. I was riding a bike very similar to what you describe: Flip-flop hub from a BMX bike with a fixed gear on one side and a freewheel on the other. Frame was an old CCM that weighed a ton.

What can I say, I idolized Nelson Vails!

The owners admonished me to get a bike with gears before I destroyed my knees. I did not listen, and perhaps that—or twenty years of Ultimate, or twenty-five years of rock climbing—did them in for me.

When I was riding most of the couriers I met were chain-smokers, often cruising the streets with a cigarette hanging from their mouths. Very insular counter-culture, very opinionated about bikes. And in my limited experience, very little overlap with the rest of cycling culture.

It never occurred to me to use nicotine pills as an appetite suppressant, though I don't doubt at all that it works. I wonder what other side effects it might have, aside from being potentially habit forming. Does it increase blood pressure? That's the main thing that keeps me from ever indulging in tobacco use.

> Does it increase blood pressure?

Yes. [1][2] Most studies are on electronic cigarettes and gum but they show the effects are dose/absorption dependent with pure nicotine, so pills are extremely unlikely to behave differently.

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40138-020-00219-0

[2] https://ascpt.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1038/clpt.1...

Well, it does raise BP, and I am on BP medication and I only use them sparingly and I chart my BP and am fairly fit. They also have 2 mg, so get a Walmart BP tester -$40 or so. They have a wrist one, which I tried and found it a battery eater as it powers a small air pump that is the main power drain = eats a set a week and the NiMh have too low a voltage as well as need recharging after 2-3 days.

Is there a pill that makes me wait for hunger before I eat? That's what I need :P

I personally cannot stand eating food if I'm about to engage in physical exercise, unless I'm legitimately seriously hungry. So if I have a random midday idea-of-food, I picture myself about to sprint to the nearest park, or about to swim a few km. Then I check my stomach again - how hungry is it now? I generally don't want anything at that point, but sometimes it does (begrudgingly) need fuel for the imagined activity - only then do I eat.

Hmm, I'll try that, it does sound like it'd work. Thanks!

Mix up a cup of fiber supplement (I use BeneFiber) and drink it 10 min before you plan to eat. You will eat less and feel fuller for longer (eating slowly increases the effect). If you're already choosing healthy foods, portion control is the last barrier to conquering waistlines.

Many people don't get enough fiber in their diet anyway. Just be sure to start drinking more water to overcome the, err, digestive difficulties of higher fiber consumption.

Meditate, listen to your body and mind.

thanks for sharing, I can relate a bit. I was a bike courier in San Francisco off and on for a few summers and it was a very fun/hard job. It was mostly legal docs going back and forth between the courthouses and the financial district. This was several years back. Anyways, I aspire to be riding my bike when I'm 82!

Much the same doc pattern here - legal and architectural/engineering drawings and small stuff - could even be drugs - I never looked?. Back in the day you carried pagers and they had a lookup book with a number to get a package at #86 - you look it up = go get -take there, give invoice copy - paid that stuff monthly. Some were get #58, $22 - go to 58 get package and prepaid $22 - take there. We speculated some of these were drugs, but we just carried and asked no questions -esp if a house/apt at each end I aspire to be riding at 90...if I make it...

> The midnight courier bike race is amazing, 100-200 bikers on an after 12 PM bike race on city streets - I do not know if it still runs - used to be every few months in the summer time.

For the broader public, Bike R a v e and Bike P a r t y are the Toronto events that usually happen over summer. Usually starts a bit earlier (9PM?) with various stops in parks and blocking of intersections to keep the group together. obviously there’s zero chance of getting a permit. Fun times!

There’s also some alley cat events that are races.

> you could quickly use a lower gear freewheel on the other side -(if you rotated to drive the other axle)

Wait, what? You had a sprocket on each side of your rear wheel and you flipped the wheel around to change gears?

Or did you exchange front/rear wheel, each having a different sprocket?

First one is correct, you can even have a fixed / freewheel combo with one on each side. Gears have to be close in size to allow chain slack to be taken up by the axle slots. Second one would only work on a few bicycles as generally the front hub is narrower tan the rear.

Yup (to the first). Fixie riders can achieve two 'gears' by mounting a sprocket on both sides of the rear wheel and flipping the wheel round if needed. More, as always, from Sheldon Brown: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/fixed-conversion.html#flip-flop

If only there was an invention that enabled you to change gears on the fly with the push of a stalk on the handle bars…

It's a pretty common thing called a "flip-flop hub."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-flop_hub

Flip-flop hubs are a thing:

https://cyclistzone.com/what-is-a-flip-flop-hub/

In my case (scroll back 35 years), I would ride a fixed gear around the city, but change to the single-speed freewheel for Toronto's legendary "Doughnut Ride" that left Laird & Eglinton every weekend rain or shine, snow, sleet, or hail.

In very olden times, riders would dismount and flip their wheels around in the middle of a Grand Tour before climbing the big mountain. But in contemporary riding, flip-flop hubs are just a convenience of sorts that make it easy to decide what gear you want to use for each ride, I have never flipped the wheel in the middle of a ride.

p.s. I still have one bike with a flip-flop hub: It's a 24" trials bike, and while I run an 18t freewheel on the cranks, the flip-flop lets me choose between a 15t for pure trials work or a 12t for goofing around and having a tall enough gear to ride places, like on my local double black-diamond MTB trails.

If you haven't written any kind of memoir, you should. You have a good tone in your writing.

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