Somebody once managed to photograph the eye of a fish. The picture showed a railroad bridge and several details of the landscape, but the optical law of fish-vision showed all this in an improbably distorted manner. If someone managed to photograph my eye after reading what some of you have written about Masi, the result would be a picture no less unexpected than the world seen by the fish. Should people like me have and ride a Masi? NO, they shouldn't. And in order for me to preserve my healthy philological sense, I will add that one can easily feel the contagion of snobbery when reading about Masi. And I tell myself (Please note that I don't own a Masi): "Yanko, your life needs Classicism, your life needs Hellenism, your life needs a heightened sense of imagery...and you should buy a Masi because most people on the CR list do not recognize other bicycles..." And under the muzzle of these demands leveled at me, I shy. You might say all this is irrelevant. Yet what a difference between my lack of knowledge and the superiority of the Masi specialists. The Hottentots, to test their old men, would make them climb a tree. Then they would shake the tree: if the old man had grown so weak he fell out of the tree, that meant he had to be killed. Some members of this wonderful forum imitate the Hottentots; their favored method recalls the ritual I have just described. But we must distinguish between those who are interested in bright joy of bike riding and those who are interested in a Hottentots amusement.
Yanko Damboulev
Los Angeles, CA 90069