-> WS> KP> Does anyone know why a reasonably intelligent, experienced
-> rider to > KP> put a banana in his seat pack?
SS> What do you think of this idea?  Personally, I find that
SS> having a banana along with me on a ride can be a lovely,
SS> convenient snack.  If of course you eat it right away.  Normally,
SS> I just bring it with me in my jersey pocket and eat it at
SS> the beginning of the ride.  How 'bout yourself?
Well, I often find that I have several bunches of bananas around the
house in various states of ripening.  This is a problem, especially
when those money hungry Chiquita people insist on shipping the bananas
in a much too green state - there's never ANY in the grocery store that
have so much as a hint of yellow in the skins, if you know what I mean.
So I set these bananas up on top of the fridge, hoping that they'll
ripen nicely.  I'll take one or two to work once they've been there a
while but I really prefer them when they've got an even smattering of
brown sponts over a golden yellow skin.  It never fails that I end up
with three or four that kinda slip by with my noticing that they've
gone from green to gross.  My wife doesn't always have time to make
them into banana bread (yes, I'm a male repressor - she cooks for me).
When I'm in doubt about whether a banana has really gone too far in the
ripening process, I find that by putting a banana in my jersey pocket
for a long ride 80-120km or hiding them in the bottom of my backpack
and going for a long hot day hike removes any question in my mind as to
whether it is suitable for human consumption.  I end up with this black
"bio-mass" that would be better described as the 'all natural' drink
box if I had a straw to go along.  It reminds me of this really warm
March day when I was in second grade.  My mother insisted that I put on
a coat because it was cold in the morning.  She also packed my lunch,
in the _Six Million Dollar Man_ lunchbox, which included a banana.
Now, a banana usually doesn't take well to being transported 2 miles in
a metal lunchbox by a seven year old, so when it came time for lunch, I
kinda decided I'd pass on the banana and put it in my coat pocket.  I
hung my coat on the class room coatrack after lunch and forgot about
it.  With the warm weather I went home with out the coat.  For some
reason, my parents never noticed that the coat was missing. In June the
teacher decided it was time to clean all the lost and found stuff out
and clear the shelves and coat room.  I didn't remember that the coat
was mine until she pulled that banana out of the pocket - Wow!  It was
a beaut, almost unrecognisable as any form of plant life.  I'll spare
the analogies.
With the trend for "convenience" foods and chemically engineered sports
bars packed with diabetic killing predigested carbohydrates, I'll
gladly take the ole black banana.  I wonder if freezing them before a
long ride would be effective?  Sorta like having an ice cream free
banana split in the midst of a long century.  Hmmmm
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