Just Deserts

Arizona is an intriguing place. It is one of few places on earth that has the distinction of having barren, scorched wasteland and lush, green forests within an hour's drive of each other, and it is home to some of the world's most spectacular sunsets and night skies. It is certainly not my ideal home, but it still manages to make me grin from time to time.

Asphalt is a substance that, under extreme heat, is able to be spread like ribbons of frosting on an earthen cake. The machines required to manipulate it into streets are large, messy and expensive, but like toothpicks or exacto-knives shaping a cake, certain smaller implements can be used to manipulate it on a smaller scale.

Today, due to a very sore back, I left my bike in an open parking lot in favor of Phoenix's light rail system. Today's high was close to 110 degrees, and without realizing it, I had parked my bike facing west; this gave the steel kickstand a constant solar exposure and heated it up like a knife over an open flame. It also had a similar effect on the pavement, and where the two items met, another familiar maxim played out:




Like a hot knife through butter.




By way of explanation, that knob-like extension (meant to catch with the rider's heel to raise and lower the kickstand) is a little more than two inches from the ground. Warm asphalt + hot kickstand + 550 pounds of pressure = 2 inches of sinkage. Physics is occasionally fun.