Fahrradkaffeeklatsch

• It shouldn't seem like such a big deal, riding with folks two decades one's junior. And most of the time, it's not. We're all just punters on wheels, huffing and puffing our way to the coffee shop. But that's just it; in my mind, both the destination and the journey, are fundamentally socializing events. I know that I'd be a bit of an ogre (or a hermit?) were it not for these rides. Most of the time it's just fine: we'll gossip about urban planning, crummy professors, and the primaries. I'll get an earful about Indonesian linguistics or Game Theory or Kant at the cafe, and then we'll talk lugs for a bit. Shimano. Butted spokes. Tire pressure.

  That I find it difficult to sit through thirty minutes of academic doublespeak worries me, because it's the second language for a majority of my customers, many of whom find smalltalk insipid. What to do? What to do? Redirect the conversation to technical bike nerdery? Recount the latest blow by blow of the current doping scandal? Bemoan the demise of Astana and beloved Vino?

  Smile and nod. The problem is that I generally know enough to follow but not enough to comprehend.