May is Bike to Work Month

I was looking at my ride log on mycyclinglog.com the other day, and noted that I am on track to exceed six hundred miles for April. This will barely beat my mileage total for March.

I've not done many club rides these last two months. I drove out to Westport to do a couple of Larry's excellent WINGS (Westport Incremental New Goal Series) rides--once on my own, and once with Jenn. I've done a couple of the Saturday afternoon LBC rides from Bluegrass Bicycle after my Saturday shifts there as well. I've even managed to do a couple of the Sunday afternoon rides from either Heine Brothers' or Baptist East/Milestone Fitness. However, I've not done a lot of long-mileage days.

In other words, most of my riding has been getting back and forth to work. The last time I drove to work was in March.

Accordingly, I'm not really in the target audience for things like Bike to Work Month/Week/Day, despite being a staunch proponent of biking to work.

Instead, I'm one of those folks who encourages others to try it. Once a week. Once or twice a month. A few times a year.

I've heard the usual excuses--"I can't arrive at work all sweaty," "I can't afford the extra time," "I have to haul stuff," "Work is too far from home" and more. They are just that--excuses. If one really wants to ride to work, one can do so. Where there is a will, there is a way, as the old saying goes.

I don't mean for that last paragraph to sound so condescending. I also fully recognize that for some, the idea of riding a bicycle two miles seems an almost Herculean task. "Five miles? Ten? Impossible for me!" they say. I'm fond of recounting a friend's confession that "seven miles is a goal" when it comes to riding a bike. As an advanced cyclist, I find it useful to think of such folks and remind myself that I, too, once considered seven miles a long bike ride.

At any rate, Bike to Work Month is coming. Soon. There are all manner of local challenges and celebrations in the works, aiming to get folks to consider riding instead of driving. There are education programs, as well--both the Louisville Bicycle Club program, which I manage as the VP Education, and those presented by Bicycling for Louisville.

I fully realize that most of those who read my online blathering are already bike-friendly. Many of you ride to work or to do errands at least once in a while, if not often. To a large degree, Bike to Work Day/Week/Month observations, while they celebrate your efforts, are also to encourage our friends who are not so enthusiastic about the idea. We want to help them get that old bike out of the garage/shed/basement, air up the tires, lubricate the chain and cables, do that ABC Quick Check, strap on that helmet and go for a bike ride. There will be a few preparatory rides leading up to Bike to Work Week and Bike to Work Day--one is on Saturday, so that folks aren't pressed for time and can figure out routes without the stress of having to look great at the end of the ride (and share tips for regaining that great office-ready look once at the office), there is another the Friday before Bike to Work Day (May 14th), and of course on Bike to Work Day itself (May 21st). On Bike to Work Day, there will be an assortment of incentives--I think Heine Brothers' Coffee is going to offer a free cup of coffee to anyone stopping by on their bikes during their trip to work, for example. The Bike to Work Day team are working at getting more incentives implemented as I type this.

As I learn more, I'll post more here. Encourage your friends to try biking to work.

Hooray!!

I just heard from our realtor: We have a signed contract on a house! There were a few nail-biting moments, as is often the case with house purchases, and there is still much to do before we move in.

Next step for me is to decide on a home inspector and termite inspector. We get to do the loan application in the next few days as well. Hopefully we can lock in a decent interest rate that will remain in effect until closing. The seller is delaying the closing a bit due to some family plans, but we'll get possession of the house in early June.

I get to move again. Right after coming back from our RAAM trip. I get to go from driving an RV for a week to driving a moving van for a couple days. It will be a LOT of work, and a good part of it is going to have to be done in May (packing stuff we don't use all the time, mainly).

Time to buy the boxes...

Drat

For several months, I've been hearing periodic ticking from the rear wheel of the Vanguard. I've put threadlocking compound in the rim joint, I've inspected the spokes numerous times to see if any were broken, I've checked the cassette and freehub mechanisms, and have never found the problem. The noise went away for a time, but recently has not only returned, but gotten worse.

I had some down time at the store today, so I got the bike in the stand and removed the rear wheel for more detailed inspection. The spokes are all nice and tight, none are broken, and the cassette is fine. In the course of cleaning it, however, I noted that there was an odd line of schmutz around the shell, parallel to the flanges. I cleaned it off, but there was still a line. Sure enough, I have a crack in the hub shell. It's all the way around the shell. My hub is being held together by the collective forces of all that spoke tension and the axle holding the flanged ends to each other.

There doesn't seem to be any danger of catastrophic failure--it's been like this for a year or more. Still, it's an opportunity for me to build a new wheel for the bike.

This is the second wheel built on that hub. I built it early in 2001, shortly before I bought my V-Rex. It remains the only wheel set I've built using all alloy spoke nipples--and purple ones, at that. The hub dates to some time in 1999, when I installed it to replace the Sovos hub original to the bike (the rim on the original wheel was about dead, due to an assortment of pothole mishaps).

More than ten years on a hub and nine years on a rim, with something like ten or twelve thousand accumulated miles, is good enough, I suppose. They are wear items, after all. I'm no small guy at 220#, and the Vanguard has a heavy rear weight bias. Since I built this wheel, and have not been gentle to this wheel, I'm okay with needing to replace it. I built it to ride it, not to hang it on a wall and look at it.


On other fronts, I've been surprised a few times of late by folks who tell me I look thinner. I've not been doing any active work on weight loss--indeed, I've lost maybe fifteen pounds (or ten, depending on what the scale says tomorrow morning) since this time last year.

I suppose I may be altering my body composition a little bit by riding instead of driving. Logging my miles has proven to be even more effective than this blog at helping me make sure I ride to work more often than driving (although the fact that the car is in Georgetown with my younger stepdaughter is also a factor over the last couple weeks).

That I am apparently building muscle mass while losing body fat is interesting. I'm not losing any inches off my waist, I don't think, but my kilts are fitting a bit more loosely around my hips...

No stress today...

We got a counter-offer from the home seller. Wow. She came down a whole six hundred dollars from the listing price.

We've countered the counter-offer, and expect to hear a response tonight.

No stress at all. Nope, no sir.


On my ride to work today, I got to enjoy tracking an eastbound train as it went eastbound from St Matthews by listening to its horn. As it neared various crossings the horn would sound, and I could hear it clearly from Westport Road. It seemed that I was almost keeping up with it--the timing of the horn and the angle relative to where I was told me which crossing the train was nearing.

angst-laden day

"When in trouble, when in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout!"

I'm reminded of this expression when I think about my level of angst today, where it originates, what I'm going to do about it...

We made an offer on a house last night. To finalize the sale, we have to get financing, pay for an assortment of inspections and insurance plans--the usual first-time home buyers' hurdles. Lots of folks do this sort of thing every year. Some of those folks have more financial resources than we have, some less. Some have good reason to worry, some ignore those reasons and buy more than they can afford.

We looked at our budget pretty closely prior to this decision. There isn't as much room for error as I'd like, but this house is in excellent condition, it's fairly new (ten years or so since construction), and our incomes should improve over the coming year or two. We'll figure something out.

In any case, I have a raft of errands to run soon--starting with a trip to the bank once it opens, and continuing with an assortment of not-really-related-to-home-buying tasks. Life goes on regardless of what happens with the offer we've submitted.

We've looked at eight or ten houses, after culling from dozens more based on their MLS profiles and a few drive-by looks. There have been some that we really liked, but couldn't afford, some that we sort-of liked, but which were almost inaccessible, some that we could have lived in, but were never passionate about, and some on which we differed sharply in how we responded to them. Some had decent locations, but were crappy houses. Few have walkability ratings on par with the house we have been renting for the last two years.

I hope we get this house. It's a charmer. It's in a decent area, our commutes are shorter by a few miles, and the trips to the grocery won't take much longer. I can envision riding to Jenn's office with her on my way to the store in the mornings, without being far out of my own travel path.

It's going to be an adventure.

More Saturday thoughts on Sunday morning

There wasn't enough house-hunting to be done Saturday afternoon, so I rode the club ride from Bluegrass Bicycle before heading home. I wound up with just under fifty miles for the day--and had I gotten organized, would have ridden another few on the Raleigh to do some shopping just to trip the next color in the MyCyclingLog report.

I rode yet a different bike on the club ride. I'd ridden Jenn's Giro a couple of times, including once on the club ride last season, because it was a) there, with my Strada at home, b) I either didn't have one of my own bikes there or c) didn't want to ride the Vanguard, wanting to ride something faster. On that fairly hilly/rolling twenty-four or so mile course, I managed to average a bit over 17mph. I have not yet gotten around to attaching the cadence sensor on this bike, so I couldn't monitor that, but I could still feel it pretty well.

On the way home--on the Vanguard--I had another ugly-attitude motorist encounter. It would be pretty funny except that such twits (or their female counterparts) are herding large, dangerous hunks of metal in such close proximity to me as I travel from place to place. I also wonder whether such people recognize the example they are setting for their children who happen to be in the car with them when they act such jerks, or whether they see any sense of irony in their being such jerks when they accuse me of being selfish by cycling instead of driving.

In any case, I was feeling pretty good as I rode home. I was pedaling well, feeling reasonably strong if not fast. In one somewhat odd moment, a motorist pulled up beside me a bit west of Westport Middle School and opened his passenger-side power window to ask if he could take a picture with his cell phone. Aghast at the attempt to multi-task in traffic, and not interested in having my picture taken, AND conscious (far more conscious than the driver, apparently) that there was other traffic wanting to pass me, I waved him off. Thankfully, he took the hint and drove off. I don't know whether he realized the danger in which he could have been putting all of us, and doubt that he did.

A bit later in my ride, as I was nearing the construction (constriction?) zone on Westport Road, my legs started telling me that they could cramp if they wanted. I kept the cramps at bay until I was well off Westport Road and into the neighborhood I often use to get out of the constriction zone--indeed, I was in the parking lot behind the Hubbards Lane Kroger store and the attached shopping center before having to stop and shake out my leg muscles a bit. I didn't have the severe cramps I've had on other rides, but it was worth stopping for a moment and letting the muscles settle a bit before riding the last mile or so to get home.

Saturday thoughts

I started this blog in part to keep myself accountable for riding to work instead of driving most of the time. At some level, I feel I have to justify driving, simply because I prefer riding and like being able to look back on all the days I left the car at home.

A month or two ago, a friend sent out a link to mycyclinglog.com, with a request that folks creating profiles there join his Louisville commuter group. After tinkering with it on a day off work, I figured I'd continue playing along. It gives me a better record of what cycling I'm doing than this blog does.

I can (and have done so) look back on my entries here and get a pretty good idea of where I rode and how far. However, if I lack time to post each day, I have to think about it enough to give myself clues and so on. MyCyclingLog works a bit better for me in this way.

Being part of the group also gives me a gauge against which I can compare my riding to that of others in the group. I must admit that it's fun being in the top five members...

I also find that MyCyclingLog has some easy-to-use reports so I can compare my riding this month to prior months. For example, by the time I log my round trip to work and home today, I will have logged more miles for April than the entire month of February, and that even if I re-route my trip home to meet Jenn during our house-hunting. Looking at my March report, I doubt I'll exceed those commuting miles in April, although I will likely find more opportunities for club miles that will add to my April total faster than commuting does.

Of course all this commuting comes with its downside. Twice in the last two days, my trips to work have been punctuated with "ugly motorist" encounters. Friday morning, a guy in a pickup truck going the other way blew his horn a long time upon seeing me, and flipped me off as he went by. I don't know why--I certainly was not a factor in his drive at that point. I can only figure he likes being a jerk.

This morning, as I crept up the rise on Houston Lane approaching Mt Mercy Drive in Pewee Valley, a different pickup truck came up behind me. That section of Houston Lane is very narrow--probably less than twelve feet wide. There is no way in the world I am going to let a motorist try to pass me there. Of course, the guy had to run his window down and cuss at me for blocking his way, complaining that he couldn't get around me.

I didn't take the time to remind him that there is exactly no legal support for his sense that slower traffic must yield to him simply because he can climb that hill faster. Or simply because he wants to be jerk. I largely ignored him, or appeared to from his perspective. If his threats had escalated, I would have reported him for terroristic threatening at some point, but at this point it's not worth the trouble--it's enough to think in terms of "he likes being a jerk," and go on enjoying the rest of my ride.

The fantasy of having a sympathetic police officer who would be a hard-nose with such twits witness such events is still fun, though.


On the house hunt: There was a house in Middletown that we liked, but there was a house of Westport Road that appealed more for a variety of reasons. Sadly, we got beat to that house, and there was enough other interest in the house that a bidding war could have begun. While still thinking about the house in Middletown, we've opened the search a bit more.

I was reluctant to consider houses off Murphy Lane, for example, as I do NOT like Murphy Lane as a bike route. I looked at a map of the area, though, and have found some work-arounds which open that area a bit. Sadly, many of the houses in that area are reminiscent of "Vinyl View Vista Village" stuff, and I really dislike vinyl siding for a variety of reasons (some of which are even logically supportable). I'm having to resign myself to the idea that unless I can come up with an extra hundred thousand bucks for a down payment, I'll have to deal with at least some measure of vinyl exterior cladding or siding. I'm not terribly happy about it, but there it is.

On a windy day...

...you either feel REALLY slow, or that you are exceptionally fast.

I kept thinking of this adage as I rode to work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. I felt stronger than usual, and noted that I was using higher gears than I usually do when riding to work.

On the way home, I felt like I was riding into more wind than usual--I was--but I still did well on my speeds and times.

On Tuesday, Jenn showed up at the store a bit before closing time, so that we could do some drive-by house inspections. She's pushing to buy a house while we can get the big tax credit, and I have agreed with the prospect--as long as we can get a house we can afford to buy AND maintain.

In my work with New Directions, I saw a lot of folks who bought houses based on their ability to get credit, but who didn't think in terms of having enough room in their credit rating or budgets to allow for repairs and maintenance of those houses. Decades later, the houses are in disrepair and they don't have the money to get things done. I don't want to put myself in that position.

On the other hand, houses that I think are in a reasonable price range tend to be well outside my commute range from work. The effective cost of living in such a house would be unreasonable in terms of additional commute time/costs or other values. It's tough to find a house that meets both sets of needs, especially since we didn't get started on this process until late in the tax credit timeline.

Sunday afternoon club ride

My bike ride for the day wasn't my usual commute, but the Sunday afternoon LBC ride out of the Heine Brothers' on Chenoweth Lane (actually the office building across the street). Jenn wasn't going to ride today, so I took the Bacchetta, figuring on pushing myself harder than I do in my commuting.

I rode out with some fast guys, and was able to stay with them through Cherokee Park--probably because they didn't drop the hammer until they got well down Lexington Road. The stretch between Grinstead Drive and Baxter Avenue usually is the site of a fast pace line. I was feeling pretty good until the first curve, when the front guys wound up the pace a few notches more than I had on tap.

I managed to catch them, mostly a function of a traffic light that caught them just before they hit Jefferson Street. I rode hard for a bit, but was dropped by the time we got to downtown.

As a result, I wound up riding River Road largely by myself. That's okay--I needed to focus on a workout, and did. I kept my cadence up around 95 RPM for the most part, and my speed above 20 MPH for the most part, until turning onto Glenview Avenue for the ascent part of the ride.

My climb up Glenview was slower than I like, and a little more painful than I like, but I soldiered up the hill anyway. I was able to stay in the middle ring, though, which hasn't always been the case on that climb. Once on Lime Kiln, I usually accelerate through a couple more gears than I was able this time, but I still was able to crest over the I-71 bridge at eighteen or nineteen miles an hour.

I finished the ride with an average speed of 18.2 miles an hour, which is a bit off my peak-condition pace. I attribute the shortcoming to the fact that I haven't been doing hill workouts in some years, and my resulting sluggardly climbing. It really is my biggest weakness on the bike. My second largest weakness is a lack of courage on the descents that I blame on a fall I had several years ago. I am not sure how to work on fixing that one, but figure that doing a series of hill repeats on familiar roads would probably help.

BIG durned birds!

In a recent post, I yammered on a bit about seeing Cooper's Hawks. I enjoy seeing the larger raptors--they have an important role in our ecosystem, and they are simply gorgeous birds in most cases (allowing that at least other Turkey Vultures think a Turkey Vulture is attractive in some way...).

Imagine my delight, then, that there is a nesting pair of Bald Eagles in Jefferson County, Kentucky! I have no idea how long the link will work, as the Courier doesn't seem to do permanent archives online (at least without some fee involved), but the bit in the paper shows how excited many are at this news.

Things that make one think, "hmmm..."

In the course of my errand-running today I saw something that was a bit of a head-scratcher. Florescent-colored shirts are gaining in popularity, it seems, as many folks who work on or near roadways wear them, including the recycling workers, pavement crews, delivery drivers (I'm surprised that UPS hasn't figured out a way to incorporate more reflective piping in their uniforms), and so on.

Apparently, the guy I saw riding a scooter on Taylorsville Road today was such a worker on his way to his job. The usual sense of such wear is that it also increases safety awareness in one wearing it, but this guy wasn't too worried about safety--he was not wearing a helmet, or even sunglasses, as he rode his scooter down the road.

unposted comments from the last week

I may have mentioned that we have hawks living in our neighborhood. I am not sure whether they are Cooper's Hawks or Sharp-shinned hawks, but I think they are Cooper's Hawks. I hear them calling regularly. Friday morning, while toying around in the garage with a new-to-us toy (more on that in a moment), I heard one very close by. I backed out of the garage and looked up, and there were two in the tree at the other end of the garage. Sadly, I didn't have a camera in hand--one had some freshly-caught food in its talon, and flew off to savor it after watching me for a moment to see whether I was a threat.

Saturday morning, on the way to work, Jenn spotted one on a fence right by our intended route in time for me to stop the bike and enjoy watching it for a moment before it flew away. Again, sadly, no camera in hand--these are pretty raptors.

The new-to-us toy is a Burley Lite trailer that Jenn found during one of her thrift-store jaunts. She called me on Thursday to verify whether I'd want her to buy it. The price was excellent, so I agreed. Digging around on the Burley site, I found the owner's manual for the thing, suggesting that it is at latest a 1998 model. The copyright date on the manual is 1992, suggesting the model was built for at least a few years in the 1990s.

It differs from my existing trailer in several ways: the frame is similar in construction, as it's aluminum tubing. This one has hoops that guard the wheels, though. The wheels are larger (406 ETRTO), and built more like regular bicycle wheels (steel spokes, alloy rims), with quick-release hubs, compared to the 16" plastic wheels on my Safety-1st brand trailer. The hitch attaches to the chain stay and seat stay, unlike the existing trailer that only "grabs" the chain stay.

We've not decided how we are going to use the trailer. We are considering keeping it as a second cargo buggy, and have thought about adding a wood floor supported by the frame to protect the nylon pack-cloth floor already there. The wood floor would have the additional benefit of being able to support Cisco should we take him for a ride.



Jenn is certain that Cisco would enjoy going for a bike ride with us. I figure he'd enjoy it more if he got to sit/lay down on a more solid floor than the existing one, and if I make a plywood floor for the trailer, I'll add a layer of closed-cell foam so that his claws don't slide around so much.

Of course, another option is to sell one or the other trailer, and keep the one we like best. Both trailers are rated at a hundred pounds carrying capacity, but the larger wheels on the Burley should make that one easier to pull. I can pull the Safety 1st one with my Vanguard, as it only connects to the chain stay--the Burley attaches to both the chain stay and the seat stay, and the Vanguard already has its kickstand mounted there. I know I can pull the Burley with my Raleigh, and that Jenn can pull the Safety 1st with her Peugeot. We haven't tried the Burley hitch on her bike yet--I'm sure that "connectivity" will be a factor in our decision.

I'll have to get some pictures of this thing and post them soon.

dam(p) Sun(less)day

Blah. It's been raining off and on much of the day, and I am known for my dislike of riding in the rain. The title is a bit misleading, as there were moments of sunshine during the day, but still...

I did go out earlier on a two-mile grocery run round trip.

My older stepdaughter's birthday is coming up in a couple days, and she came over to celebrate with Jenn a while ago. She's looking for digs closer to work and school, and has mentioned to me that she wants to ride her bike more for transportation. I've offered her help in the past with bike-related stuff, and she's ready to start taking me up on my offer.

Jenn and I put in some time on the tandem yesterday. We rode to the bike shop, where she worked on the web site a bit (she does some of the web site maintenance for us). We did the LBC ride out of there in the afternoon before riding home. Total mileage for the day was a bit over fifty, and it felt good to get out like that. We wound up driving to a friend's house for dinner instead of riding, as Jenn's legs were tired.

Cars take up a LOT of space!

I have sometimes observed that "population density is not always measured in terms of people per square mile."

While some of you find and enjoy the double meanings, I will share another bit of population density information--this from the How We Drive blog of Tom Vanderbilt. If the roughly three hundred thousand US citizens lived in a concentrated area, at the population density, of, say, Brooklyn, which US state has enough area for us to live within its hypothetical borders? Have a look at this chart as you ponder this--the answer may surprise you.





Quoting from Vanderbilt:

An interesting point of departure from this graph that’s been making the rounds of the U.S. packed into one Brooklyn-style New Hampshire is one I’ve mentioned before, via the work of Brian Pijanowski:

If the percentage of parking lot area in the county (0.44%) is scaled to the area occupied by the conterminous United States, the entire states of Connecticut, and Massachusetts (12,550 + 20,305 = 32,855 km2 ) would be paved over with parking lots.

To put this another way: The American parking lot currently consumes much more space than the entire country’s population would if it were scaled to Brooklyn-style density.

I saw a comparison recently discussion cost-per-mile of roadway construction vs. vehicle-specific taxes paid on one automobile (can't remember where...). The summation was that the average motorist pays enough taxes on his or her car (license, fuel taxes, insurance taxes excise taxes on other car-related purchases) to pay for about two feet of roadway. Given that most cars are at least fifteen feet long, and given that there is no way anyone could drive anywhere if the roads were fully covered in cars, there is a LOT of space paved for car traffic that the car-specific taxes are not paying for.

I'd be interested in seeing some hard data on this, and will have to dig around a bit. Even if the numbers are off by a factor of two, it takes lots of wind out of the sails of the argument that "bicyclists don't pay for their use of the roadway!"

Seasonal milestones

I enjoy thinking about seasonal milestones. A few weeks ago, I realized that I had walked the dog every morning for several days without wearing gloves. On my rides to and from work, I've gone from a long-sleeve base layer under the reflective jacket to a short-sleeve jersey under the jacket, with perhaps a sleeveless runner's top under the jersey. I rarely wear my silk balaclava now.

I even did a couple of club rides over the weekend, wearing (gasp!) shorts instead of long tights!

Since we are on Daylight Time now (for about two weeks as I type this), I've been expecting to ride home from work without having to turn on the headlights. Today was my first time for that this season--and my first ride home from work wearing--you guessed it--shorts instead of tights for the season. I wasn't even wearing socks with my sandals--another seasonal first for the ride home.

How did that silly rhyme go? Oh, yeah, I think this is it:

Spring is sprung
The grass is riz.
I wonder where
the bikers is?

As nice as the weather is and has been lately, I'm disappointed to not see more folks riding instead of driving. Even riding instead of driving to the corner tavern, for crying out loud!

Oh, well. I got to ride today, so life was better than it might have been!

Sunday wrapup

Interesting thought of my day, prompted by the folks at the Freedom From Religion Foundation:

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”

— Blaise Pascal, French philosopher, Pensees (1623-1662)

This is the same Pascal who is so often quoted by those who would impose a theocracy upon us, in the form of what is often called "Pascal's Wager." The Wager is often simply stated as, "would you rather worship a god and find there is none or ignore said god to find that he will damn you to hell for not being worshipful?"

Of course, Pascal's wager ignores that there may be hundreds of other equally-likely options rather than merely two choices as presented, among several other logical failures.

In other news, Jenn and I rode two club rides this weekend, for a total of fifty-five club miles or so. The Saturday ride was, as mentioned in the previous post, a scenic one from Westport.

The Sunday ride was a typical 2:00 PM ride out of Baptist East/Milestone Fitness Center (once a month location), with the threat of rain. We had a few drops of rain close to downtown, a few more as we rode along River Road, and a few more later in the ride, but rode the longer route anyway. It was fun to ask Jenn to reduce power by ten percent a couple times so that I could modulate our speed more easily when riding in a pace line at close to twenty miles an hour!

There was a club meeting afterward, and an executive committee meeting after that. By the time we got to leave Milestone, we were facing a ride home in a rain shower. Aside from getting wetter, riding in the rain isn't so bad--unless the temperature is low enough to risk hypothermia. A ten-minute ride home is not likely to create such a problem, and ours certainly did not.

I think I've logged all (or at least most of) my miles from February and January on the MyCyclingLog.com site. I'm still behind David Crowell for our group's miles, but he has a longer commute than I do. He also did a better job of riding to work in cold weather.

Saturday once more

On Friday, I didn't get to ride much. The weather was GREAT for cycling (or doing just about anything outdoors), but my riding was limited to an errand or two in the early evening.

I drove out to Mom's in the morning to do some yard work for her. I weeded much of the landscaping across the front of the house, and put out the contents of several bags of mulch. This took about five hours--much of it digging wild onions out of the landscaping (ugh!).

When I got home, I HAD to get on the bike, even if only to do an errand or two. I had ordered a couple of books from Carmichael's Bookstore on Frankfort Avenue earlier in the week, and received a call telling me hat they had arrived. Especially given that both books have to do with cycling as a transportation mode in our society, I rode to fetch them.

Today's riding involved driving, though. Jenn and I took the tandem to Westport for one of Larry Preble's WINGS rides, this one a thirty-mile example of what I call a lollipop ride. The route goes out to a short loop, then returns from that short loop the same way we got to the loop. It was a scenic ride, as are many of Larry's routes. There were a few hills, and a few little rollers. We had a good ride, though. No, make that "we had a great ride." Larry has a batch of pictures on his site, including several of Jenn and me.

good moments and bad moments

Yesterday morning, I was pleasantly surprised when Jenn informed me she was riding to work. I was elated. She'd been driving to work too much of late, for a variety of reasons.

I was teaching the last session of the March installment of our store's Tool School classes when Jenn called to check on something--I'm not really sure what--and was reminded that I was teaching still, and would have to get back to her. I called her after my students left to find that she was still at her office. I rode there to ride home with her--something I enjoy.

For an assortment of reasons, though, I was unable to get my morning routine done in time that I could ride to work. I missed my departure window by ten minutes or so, and opted to drive on this gorgeous spring-like morning rather than be late to work.

Bah!

Oh, well. I get to build a bicycle wheel today. Things will improve.

Or not. One of my mother's dogs has been having trouble with a tooth, and is going in today for some more diagnostic examination. The tooth damage may (or hopefully may not) be severe enough that dealing with it would be a major (as in, over $1000) expense and still not greatly improve his quality of life. It's hard to justify doing that much work when on a limited budget, and still leave the dog with ongoing problems. He's a sweet-natured dog, and I'd hate like heck for Mom to have to euthanize him over this, but I also understand not being willing to go to heroic measures that have little chance of really helping. I'm hoping for the absolute best results for all.

Car-Free Happy Hour

Another Car-Free Happy Hour is behind us. There was some competition for attendees, as the Urban Design Studio of University of Louisville had a presentation conflicting with the CFHH, but that just meant that those of us at Sol Aztecas on Fourth Street (just up from Theater Square and just down from Fourth Street Live) got more food and beer.

The food was great, and portion sizes were HUGE.

Even so, the main point is socializing with folks who don't always use cars for transportation. The highlights of CFHH are the speakers Katie McBride manages to find and the social time after their presentations.

Presenters this time were David Burman (I hope I got the spelling right...) and Chef Ian.

David Burman has been a plumber for a couple decades, and got to thinking about all the time he was spending on the road in his van full of tools and supplies instead of actually doing revenue-generating work. His ponderings eventually led to considering a bicycle as his vehicle of choice. He's working up a box bike from Joe Bike, with the idea of riding a quick bike to the job site (in his chosen service area), figuring out what he'll need to do the job, and going back to his office/workshop to collect the necessary tools and supplies, using his "Box Bike" to haul the stuff to the job site.

For the time being, he's limiting his service area to a couple of ZIP codes in the Highlands area, but envisions a time when he can have several plumbers working for him based in other neighborhoods to expand his customer base even more.

In other words, he's thinking locally!

Chef Ian, on the other hand, is set up to deliver over much of the metro area (at least within the confines of the Watterson "Distressway"). Ian operates Soup Bycycle (web site not yet launched--send an email to soupbycycle@gmail.com for menus and delivery schedule). Order before midnight Friday, and one day the following week he'll ride his bike to your house (or office) and drop off your soup (and Blue Dog bread), collect your money, and wish you good eating! It reminds me of the days when the milk delivery person put the twice-weekly delivery in the box on my front porch--you can leave a check taped to the inside of a cooler if you won't be home at delivery time.

After each presented on his business model, we wandered outside to ogle their bikes. David's plumbing bike isn't done yet, but is well on its way to becoming a great rig for the job. Ian uses a Surly Big Dummy, with a modified Trek kids' trailer to haul his cooler. There was discussion of minute details of each others' bikes, of course, even among the rest of us. Folks at these gatherings love seeing rebuilt old bikes, relatively new bikes that are set up as commuting rigs--the whole gamut.

In honor of the event, I did all my errand-running on a bike instead of in a car. The Raleigh still does a good job of pulling the trailer, especially now that I have the larger cog on the rear hub.

Bad driving, celebrated?!?!?!

Maybe I'm missing something, here. There is a new show on The Travel Channel (which I don't get, BTW, since I don't have a television), called "America's Worst Drivers." The web site claims it to be a reality-show elimination (a good metaphor?) challenge with the worst driver's car eventually going to the crusher (and the worst driver gets a bicycle to ride instead of driving--now THERE is a positive message for cycling as transportation!).

My computer won't even let me see the "sneak peek" video to see if there is anything of merit in t he show, so it must be bad.

From what I can tell, they are trying to find a humorous way to say, "get the really bad drivers off the streets." I hope so, anyway. What I see so far is that they are putting the contestants, nominated by friends/family as bad drivers, through obstacle courses designed to humiliate them into becoming more aware as drivers. The whole concept sounds a bit like a Jerry Springer stereotype, to me. I mean, who is going to set themselves up to be ridiculed like this, and for how much money?

On a rainy Sunday, with what little hopes I had of riding a century washed away, I was poking around online for a while. A discussion on bentrideronline's forum regarding traffic lights led me to a slide show presented here, most notably, here.

With due credit to Dual Chase Productions, LLC, I'll present one of their slides.




I really like this one for many reasons. It shows how a cyclist should situate himself/herself in an intersection to be "seen" by the sensors that operate the traffic light. Coincidentally, such intersection placement also serves the function of making the cyclist FAR more visible to other traffic in and around the intersection, aiding in the eventual safe passage of the cyclist through the intersection once it's legal to proceed.

Their slide shows could be some nice teaching tools. I may have to invest in them.

internal conversations

As I rode to work today, I had several internal conversations going. An assortment of things went wrong before leaving the house, distracting me to the point that I was almost too late to ride (driving is quicker by ten or twenty minutes). As a result, I was not in the best of moods when I got on the bike.

I figured that riding to work would improve my mood--it usually does, even when my mood is already positive. It did, despite the driver that cut me off approaching a traffic light.

One of the internal conversations was yet another review of anti-cyclists' argument that bikes should not be on the roads (I had a brief real conversation on this with a motorist a couple days ago...). The details aren't so important here, but ran to thinking that it's a shame we don't educate motorists better before we allow them the privilege of driving. The few questions on the test now are hardly enough to suggest that driving is a big deal, not a given.

Of course, society largely considers driving an unassailable right, unless one is found guilty of pretty heinous crimes at the wheel (and even then...). It's taken a long time to educate folks that driving while inebriated rises to that level, and will take another long time to convince them that cell-phone use while driving is similarly problematic.

A shorter, but more entertaining, internal conversation regarded a license plate I saw on my way to work. The plate read: 1XY 4XX I can only presume it to mean that the family consisted of the father, the mother and their three daughters, although it could have meant that the man has four wives/girlfriends (I think it was the former rather than the latter). A friend of mine has three daughters, and referred to life in his house as being "full of Estrogen." His daughters have grown and, with maybe one exception, have moved out of the house (I think), but some of the stories he shared...

Anyway, there were a couple of other moments when other road users seemed to conspire to slow me down, adding to my frustration at running behind schedule. It was tight, but I got to work on time (I like to have a few extra minutes before work to shift my mental gears).

As I type this, it's raining. Hard. Gulley-washing hard. I hear thunder. The sky is very dark. The satellite radio is playing Texas Flood, the tune Stevie Ray Vaughn made famous twenty years ago. I'm hoping the coincidence is not an omen.

We need the rain. It will be good to wash the salt off the roads, and dilute it a bit so as to ease its effect on the plant life alongside the roads. I hope it doesn't shut off the electricity...

Edit: Not five minutes after hitting "publish post," the electricity went off for a fraction of a second--long enough to reboot the computer. I also got to see that the roof has a leak under severe weather--something that will be brought to the landlord's attention.

Documentary of note

I've been seeing some forum and blog traffic about Bicycle Dreams. I finally got around to checking out the film's web site, including the trailer for the movie:



The film was shot during the 2005 RAAM, and focused on several of the solo racers. Aside from being of interest to me as a cyclist, it's especially interesting to me at the moment due to my involvement in the 2010 Race. I've not seen the entire movie yet, but will be ordering the DVD from the web site so that I can digest it in chunks (and perhaps watch it multiple times or share it with others).

While the motivations that drive solo RAAM competitors fascinate me, I have no desire to attempt such a thing. It's simply too far outside my personal physical fitness/mental toughness envelope. However, I'm looking forward to being on the crew for Team Type 2 as they compete this year, knowing that at the end, I'll be almost as exhausted as they are from lack of sleep, almost continuous adrenaline surges, and the rest of the excitement of making it happen.

Club ride for a change

I managed to work out the details so that I could ride one of Larry Preble's WINGS rides this morning. WINGS denotes Westport Incremental New Goals Series, and is a group of progressively harder rides of various lengths, all starting in Westport KY, right against the Ohio River.

As I was doing this one solo, I took the Strada out for the first time in at least a month or two. It was good to get back on that bike, and enjoy its capabilities for speed (which far outstrip my own) and crisp handling. Oh, and it climbs faster than my other bikes, too.

Climbing is important for any ride starting in Westport, as anyone familiar with the area knows. KY524 loops into Westport, with each end reaching US42. Of course, since it's a Larry Preble ride, it's scenic as he can make it. We got to climb a few grades, and I got to use my small ring a few times over the course of the thirty miles I enjoyed today.

I felt VERY slow for much of the ride, but I found that by the time I was halfway done, my legs were warmed up and spinning comfortably. I was still slower than I like to be on the climbs (who isn't slower than he or she would prefer on EVERY climb?), but overall I felt good to be on the Strada, and I was wishing I'd had time to ride that far again.

Since I did the club ride, I didn't ride to work. I drove, so that I could make it to the club ride with the fast bike, and I'll haul it home tonight after showing some folks how to do things to their own bikes.

Blogging and logging--more online toys

A friend of mine posted on one of the local list servers recently, asking that folks log their bicycle miles on My Cycling Log. His idea was that there is no good way to gather statistics on how much folks are riding, and it would be cool to have some more concrete numbers than we have.

The drawback, of course, is that not everyone who bikes for utility a) has web access, b) internet savvy enough to use the site, c) cares to do so. Any benefit to the community based on cycling rather than driving would thus be under-reported by an unknown percentage.

Still, it's yet another way to spend time online, so I created a user account and joined in the fun.

I was able to use cues from this blog to figure out when I rode, where I rode, and will plug in rides as far back as the first of the year over the next few weeks. After entering the data for the last two weeks of my own riding, I played around on the rest of the site a bit, to see what it does. It's kind of fun to see how my friends are doing with their riding, all in one easy-to-find place.

For my own part, I've ridden to work twice this week (and tonight will mark twice that I've ridden home from work...). I wandered around a bit on Monday, after meeting with some bike education folks over lunch to discuss topics including the upcoming Bike to Work celebrations. All that got duly logged as above.


There is some buzz about Google making an option in their Google Maps directions for bicycle friendly routing. OF course, as with any on-line tool, it helps to know the tool's limitations and prepare accordingly. One person commented that it suggested a route from Lexington to Somerset that spends FAR too much time on US27.

However, Google admits that the system needs input. There is a method for giving them suggestions on roads that are safer or less safe than the routes the system devises (I've not toyed with it enough to figure out that process as yet, but will probably do so soon). It will take time for their algorithm to get sorted to the point that it's more useful, but it's a great start.

Yet more challenges

The few of you who have read this for a while know that Jenn got bitten by the century bug last year. Her first hundred-mile bicycle day was on the Pottershop Century that is part of the Old Kentucky Home Tour. A couple weeks later, there was the Louisville Bicycle Club's "Pretty good first century" ride, which we also did.

Interest piqued by those experiences, and perhaps some interest in getting me on the bike more, led her to suggest that we go play with the Mad Dogs yesterday morning--despite that it meant her getting out of bed before 8:00 on a Sunday morning, which is often a challenge.

Yesterday's ride wasn't a century--good thing--but rather a time trial that serves as the prologue for the Tour de Mad Dog, a series of twenty-some-odd century rides through the LBC Touring season.

While the contest of Tour de Mad Dog depends on things other than how fast one rides ("stage winners" are selected by a drawing at the end of the ride), contestants still have to ride a fair number of century rides to stay in the game. We'll see how our cycling year goes, but apparently our goal is, in part, to complete the Tour de Mad Dog challenge at some level.

The time trial was short--less than six miles, which didn't even reach the standard of a 10K. It was billed as challenging, but given the terrain, it was one of those "it's as challenging as you make it" time trial courses. Neither of us were in top form for such an effort, but we didn't do badly, either. Our time--16:56--put us in the middle range of riders. Our legs feel good this morning, suggesting to me that we didn't put every ounce of effort we could have into the race. That's okay--I'm happy that my legs feel good this morning.

During our race, I admittedly wasn't as focused on racing as I might have been. My mind kept wandering over to the place where I pondered putting forth an effort like what I was doing, for about that length of time, then doing it again three-quarters of an hour later, repeating that cycle for eight or ten hours, then sleeping while my other four teammates did that for their shift. That's how the Team Type 2 and Team Type 1 racers will do RAAM, while I drive one of the RVs the team and crew will use as portable sleeping quarters during the race.

I'd have to train myself quite a bit to do that...

Random thoughts on a Friday morning

Tomorrow, I will celebrate the anniversary of my arrival in this world. I am twenty-five, with almost that many years' practice. As is seemingly common in our society, ruminations happen at such junctures. Where am I, where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket?

We had some discussion over age at dinner with a friend the other night. I had been saying for some time that I had more fun between thirty and forty than in the fifteen or twenty years prior to turning thirty. Since turning forty several years ago, I've had a fair bit of fun as well. I don't mind that I'm going to be fifty in another year, although I may change my mind by then. Life is good.

During that discussion, I recalled hearing a radio station advertise that they played the music of "the best years of your life." Regardless of when the music they played was recorded (I think it was WRKA, when they played mostly music from the 1960-1975 era), I took exception to their claim--the music from the best years of my life has yet to be recorded. Life keeps getting better for me.

It's gotten better in increments, of course. Sometimes the increments are subtle. Sometimes they seem to be measured in negative values, but only momentarily--the overall trend remains in the "improvement" realm of the gauge.

One of the improvements over the last few years has been being with Jenn. With some prior girlfriends, there was hesitation on my part--I wasn't sure enough of her, myself, or the relationship between us to commit to lifetime partnership. Each former partner has affected who I am, to be sure. I cannot deny that, nor would I--it would demean myself and each of them.

But I feel more stable with Jenn. I'm more willing to be interdependent with her--helping her when stuff goes awry for her, and accepting help from her when my own stuff goes haywire. Celebrating the good that happens with and for us.

Each of us came into this with the explicit goal of having a healthy positive relationship. Neither of us was willing to spend time on something that would be detrimental to our health or well-being. I have my mother's marriage to my stepfather as a far better example than her marriage to my biological father (among others I've observed), and my stepfather's example of what it means to be a man in society and in close relationships, as proof that good can happen, and that I can be an agent of good happening.


Now that I've wandering far afield for a moment, I want to type out some other thoughts while they are in mind.

Jenn and I have been, perhaps simply by accident, tinkering with a "car-free lite" type of lifestyle. Her work has been pretty hectic of late, to the point that she feels it prudent to drive to work instead of cycling (she has hinted that there is more to it than energy levels, but I haven't pushed it). Her car goes a week or more at a time without being used--she prefers driving my truck in general (again, I have been willing to accept this as apparent reality without asking for elaboration). I've been riding to work more reliably (and the absence of ice on the roadways has been a factor in this).

I've been saying for some time that my ride to work is between thirteen and fourteen miles. Out of curiosity, I reset my trip odometer for the first time in over seven hundred miles yesterday, so that I could tell just how far it is. When I got to work, the odometer showed 11.8 miles, a good mile and a half less than I thought it would. The thing has had gaps in readings before, but once it's reading it usually continues for the day, so I think the number is valid. The average speed I saw before resetting the trip distance was consistent with my sense that it takes me about an hour to get to work or back--I'm no speed demon on this bike!

But it still puts the lie to the sense that Crestwood is "way out there" from Louisville. It's twelve freaking miles from Trinity High School, for crying out loud, not twenty or forty. The round trip is about as far as the Sunday Afternoon ride from Heine Brothers' Coffee shop purports to be (although there is more variation in terrain and traffic). It's not a difficult ride by most standards (well, by club ride standards, anyway--I'd figure it an honest 2 on the 1-4 difficulty rating system, although that system doesn't really have a traffic component to it).

People who learn that I ride to Crestwood from St Matthews for the "get to work" thing seem astounded--even some cyclists think it's a long way to ride (What? You just rode fifty miles on this morning's club ride, and you think twelve miles is a long commute on a bike?).

Preparations continue for RAAM. We have our flight reservations in place. Jenn is helping recruit more crew members (she recruited a friend of ours recently, and our friend has made the crew!).

The last Tool School session for the season (unless we get a group that wants to do one) will begin this Sunday. As I type this, there are a couple slots open for folks to join in the fun. We'll see how it goes.

Saturday again

Try as I may, I couldn't get up the gumption to ride to work in the morning snow flurries. They stopped by the time I got to work, of course, in strict accordance with Murphy's Law.

It's been a quiet week as far as riding. Little of significance went on for me with regard to bike riding. Even the ride to work on Wednesday was low on the drama scale. Well, mostly. It was a slightly different route, which made for some fun.

I needed to make a side trip to make a deposit. The bank in question has a branch across SR 22 from the Summit shopping megaplex, so instead of continuing out Westport Road as is my wont, I went north-ish on Hurstbourne Parkway to KY22, stopped at the Kroger there for a few (I was early for the bank, which opened at 9:00), and waited for the bank folks to open their doors. It seemed they decided to humor the bike rider waiting in the snow flurries and open thirty or forty-five seconds early!

After taking care of that bit of business, I opted to take KY22 out to Crestwood instead of going back south to Westport Road and coming into Crestwood from the south/west. I typically avoid riding KY22 anywhere west of Crestwood (and for some miles east of Crestwood, save for a few short patches), as it's narrower than KY146, and the speed limit is higher (45 instead of 35 on a narrower road?!?!). I figured that one time would be okay, given that a) it was daylight, b) I was going the opposite direction of any heavy morning traffic, c) I am EASY to see from a long way away, d) since it was snowing a bit (although nothing was really sticking), people seeing a bicyclist would figure the rider was either pitiable or crazy enough to hurt them if they tried anything aggressive and e) I didn't feel like going out of my way to get where I was going.

As it happened, things went quite well. Sight lines are pretty good on KY22, so folks could see me WELL before they came up to me (I had both flashers going). I could tell when folks noticed me, in the main, as they would slow dramatically or change lanes (!!!) well before they got to me. I never felt concerned that a motorist didn't see me in time. It's still not a road I will travel often (it's out of my way most days), but the occasional trip that way won't bother me as much as I thought it would.

Saturday turned out to be a surprisingly busy day for this time of year. Not necessarily profitable, but busy. Lots of folks came in the store to get various small items or start their research on more expensive ones.

Sunday hot Sunday

Well, hot by February standards, that is. The afternoon high temperature was in the upper fifties Fahrenheit. In keeping with my occasional observance of seasonal milestones, it was my first ride of the year in short sleeves.

I rode the LBC 2:00 ride today. Once a month, this ride starts at the Baptist East/Milestone Fitness Center parking lot, and this was the day for February. Just to be different, I rode the Raleigh.

I've ridden the Raleigh on a couple of these Sunday afternoon jaunts over the last year and a half or so. I usually find that I'm tired of the saddle by the time I'm done, having spent so many years doing my long miles on 'bents. Today was no exception--I was ready to go back to my Vanguard or my Strada by the time I got up the small hill on Glenview.

I was pleased, however, at how much faster I was on that bike than the last time I did a club ride on it. As mentioned before, I recently changed the rear cog to a twenty-tooth one, from the seventeen-tooth one originally on the bike. The resulting increase in my pedaling cadence has made me a bit faster on the bike--better take-off acceleration, and better use of the three gear choices are more comfortable for my legs. I still wasn't fast by my standards--I fell behind the top two clusters of riders, and should have been able to stay in one or the other of those clusters had I been on the Strada--but the bike moves far better with the larger cog. Not bad for a fifteen-dollar investment in cog and a few chain half-links (retail).

Even better, I get to ride to work tomorrow! YAY! Tomorrow will be the final session for the February Tool School, so I'll be a bit late getting home. I'll enjoy the lighter traffic, I'm sure.

More blog crawling

In my wanderings through the various blogs I watch, I found a link to a Los Angeles-based blog called Neighborhood Pride (Thanks, Branden!). The link I followed went to the post on "Ten ideas to boost block spirit." There are some fun ideas in her post!

I walk Cisco, Jenn's dog that she adopted from the Humane Society eleven years ago, just about every day. Cisco gets to walk his rounds two or three times a day, inspecting his "dog newspapers" (aka sniffing every tall blade of grass, tree, shrub, and garbage can within range of his leash), and whichever of us is walking him stops to talk to whatever neighbors are out and have time to chat a moment. During the power outage following Hurricane Ike a year and a half ago, we got to talk with neighbors quite a bit, and have made a point of continuing dialogs with them. In most cases, the response has been something along the lines of, "I'm glad we're talking--it feels more like a neighborhood this way!"

Other ideas that would be less likely in Good.is contributor Kyla Fullenwider's home of Los Angeles: Shovel the snow off your elderly neighbor's sidewalk and driveway. Shovel the snow off your own sidewalk, so those walking instead of driving aren't struggling through the ice and snow left after a partial melt. I admit to some enlightened self-interest here, of course. I take it the next step, so to speak, and clear a path for our mail carrier, who covers our neighborhood on foot.


Following another link in the Good.is listings, I found this discussion of a new traffic sign idea. I've not yet read all the commentary on it, nor all of the underlying thoughts going into its creation, but on the surface it makes too much sense for it to ever get into the MUTCD. Of course, the same was once said about the Sharrow, which IS in the 2009 MUTCD. As one who is interested in roundabouts as a way to smooth and calm traffic flow in our suburbs, I read this as an alternative when the immediate topography won't allow the space a roundabout requires, and it will receive more of my attention soon.


Yet another Good.is link led me to musings on whether we need to limit car advertising, much as we do with tobacco and alcohol advertising (expanded upon here). Of course, this one really grabbed my attention. I'm not sure how well the concept would work, given the human tendency to ignore reason and follow emotional stimuli, but it's worth trying. There would be the usual knee-jerk reactions from the anti-cyclist crowd--mostly the same crowd that gripes about "business owners' rights" when smoking bans are discussed (a "smoke screen" meant to obscure the real issue if ever there was one).

I want to read more, but have stuff to do. I'll have to come back to my reading. Ah, the magic of bookmarks!

radar camera thoughts

After a celebration of Car Free Happy Hour last night, I wound up driving to work today. Blah!

It wasn't the temperature--that is above my threshold. It wasn't the roads, I don't think--I haven't scouted the one section that usually gives me trouble when the roads are snowed-over, but the rest of my route was clear enough.

Both of us were running late, though, so I dropped Jenn off at her office on my way to work. Her task load at the moment is such that I may be picking her up on my way home tonight. Since her office isn't far out of my way, we are at least taking one car off the road.

As I drove to work this morning, though I had WFPL playing on the radio. They were broadcasting the NPR story over the angry folks in Arizona griping about traffic ticket cameras.

As I listened to the report, which gave some views from folks who decry the system as invasive to their privacy, illegal, and so on along with those who have found great benefit from the camera's placement, I thought about my own progression as regards traffic law.

You see, once upon a time I was one of those hot-headed motorists (still have a bit of that, sad to say) who felt that traffic enforcement wasn't "real" police work--their time (and thus my taxpayer dollars) would be better spent catching robbers, burglars, murderers, and so on.

I didn't think about motorists being murderers, despite that motor vehicle crashes cost our nation more than 40,000 deaths annually. I didn't think about motorists being terrorists, despite that society seems bent on terrorizing vulnerable road users into staying off the roads, lest we be run down by some clueless twit herding his car along while paying greater attention to his GPS, cell phone, the brat in the back seat hitting his sibling, and his breakfast than to the road around him. I like to think I've matured a bit since then, despite having a short temper when I'm in the car. I have re-calibrated my private rantings a bit, though. I fuss about folks blowing stop lights--regardless of their vehicle choice. I fuss about people following too closely (I've been known to "brake check" on such folks, usually after a warning taking the form of several rapid taps on my brake lights).

It has always been thus, or so it seems. At least since the dawn of the Automobile Age. The Copenhagenize blog had a post the other day on a poster from London in 1908. Despite that we knew this about cars a hundred years ago, we still kowtow to the addiction of using them.

I also thought about our societal attitudes about traffic law a bit. I've often observed that those most insistent on "law and order" are the most cavalier about their own obeyance to the law, especially as regards their driving. It's as if the law's main purpose is to get folks out of the one person's way so that one person can disobey the speed limit at will.

I won't say there is no valid point against traffic cameras used for law enforcement. I'm sure there is potential for misuse and simple error. If someone borrows your car, speeds, and you get the ticket/fine/points, you have incentive to not lend your car to that person ever again, and use the resulting tiff between friends as argument against the camera system. If Jefferson County or Kentucky were to consider doing such a thing, I'd want to see measures in place to guard against misuse and a way to deal with the "borrowed car" phenomenon. I don't see it happening here for a while, though, simply because most such systems depend on the car having a front license plate, which neither Kentucky nor Indiana have.

One possible by-product of the cameras' presence is that there has been a sharp reduction in traffic fatalities near them. Causality is unclear--the statistics don't support anything beyond a correlation--but it seems reasonable to think that motorists near those cameras are paying better attention to the road and how they are using it, reducing at the very least one of the largest causes of death in our society--inattentive motor vehicle drivers.

Those who claim the cameras are an invasion of privacy would do well to remember that if you have such an objection to getting a ticket from such a system, don't speed/run the traffic light/pass illegally/whatever. Some of the loudest protesters are ready to protest that the police department isn't proactively preventing burglaries/muggings/murders, and would be happy to invade the privacy of others to prevent such things. See my comment above about motor vehicle mis-use as causes of death.

More snow? So what?

More snow. Something like another three to seven inches expected from onset last night until it finally quits dumping on us later today. Of course, a lot of locals are already weary of snow--good thing they don't live in, say, Minnesota, where a friend commented he hadn't seen grass since before the holly-daze season. Or, perhaps they'd like to trade places with a relative of mine a bit north of Baltimore, who got out of her house the other day for the first time in over a week, and is expecting lots more snow that they don't need this week. It's a shame we can't redirect the snow storms and get them to unload on the Winter Olympic Games--they've had to truck in snow for some events.

Getting to work today was done with four wheels rather than two--too many non-drivers herding their cars between the ditches (sometimes without success...). There were a few intersections where the remains of the snow created very slick slushy spots making it hard to get moving, but overall it was one of those "take your time, don't rush, be SMOOOOOOOTH" drives. Apparently, even those who should know how to drive in snow don't always--I saw one truck--with City of Anchorage logos on the doors and a plow on its front end--in a ditch alongside LaGrange Road. There was a picture on the Courier-Journal's web site of an Oldham County road department truck on its side in another ditch, along KY393 near Buckner.

We have our last class of the February Tool School this evening, unless the roads get really bad and I have to reschedule it. Two of the students have already called me to check, and both want to be in class rather than reschedule.

The March Tool School schedule has been set, and should be on the news page in http://www.bluegrassbicycle.com/ tonight.


Don't forget! Tuesday, 16 February, starting at 5:30 or so, it's Car Free Happy Hour at The Bodega at Felice! The Bodega is on East Market Street, between Shelby and Campbell Streets. It's becoming a happening thing to do. Jenn and I plan to be there.

Saturday wrap up

I got to ride to work today! The roads were clear enough, I was up early enough, and the air was warm enough to meet my weather minima, so I enjoyed a bike ride getting to work.

My feet were cold by the time I was halfway there, but I still enjoyed the ride!

After store hours, we had the third of four classes in this month's Park Tool School series (Oh, by the way, we have decided on one more series for this winter--a Sunday, Wednesday, Sunday Wednesday set starting on March 7th! More on that in a moment). As we were waiting for the last student to arrive (not remembering that he'd told me he wouldn't be there...), the topic of the letter that prompted my post "Riding at Night" was raised. I was asked about the exchanges, and what I had been doing since. It was cool that I had the bike in question there to do a brief "show and tell," as well.

I've been giving some thought to this whole thing. I do appreciate the perspective that Mr Tucker gave me. His statement boils down to that if I am between two motorists, one behind me traveling in the same direction and one coming the other way, the oncoming car's headlights make it hard for the motorist behind me to see me. As difficult as it is for me to believe that, I'll accept it at face value for the nonce, and play with the concept for a bit.

Having ridden that section of Westport Road a few dozen times, it's now almost indelibly burned into my brain's metaphorical DVD player. Riding it on the way home tonight didn't change my thoughts, but rather confirmed what I'd been thinking: If someone is likely to be blinded to my presence by oncoming traffic, they have already been dealing with my presence for at least a few seconds, and are well aware (or should be) of the fact of my being there. My bike is hard to ignore, especially at night.

In comments on my first post about this, Timothy mentioned that since I'm at about car headlight level, there may be something to the idea that car headlights overpower my blinkers and reflectors. One suggestion was to add lights higher up, say, on top of my helmet (or on a flag pole, by someone else). Given that motorists are (hopefully) spending at least part of their time looking at where their headlights are shining (road surface, for clues on where the road is, including painted lines on the road ahead of them), having most of my reflectors and lights in that area rather than where motorists are NOT looking (above their eye level) makes sense to me. In other words, I don't see a lot of value in putting lights where folks are not looking. That is not to say I'm against having a light on my helmet (indeed, I have a helmet with integrated lights). I would say that without a LOT of effort, it's hard to have a helmet light aimed in such a way as to help make me easier to see. Reflective stuff on the helmet makes a lot of sense to me, though, as it's easy to put there and low-maintenance (and low weight).

The pictures below were taken with a digital camera, using its built-in flash unit that I have previously described as being far weaker than electronic flash units built for amateur photography twenty-five years (or more) ago. I have a couple of Vivitar flashes programmed to work with my Canon film cameras (A-1, AT-1) of late 1970s or early 1980s manufacture that will reach into the drum kit that is upstage of the act currently entertaining the nightclub crowd from ten feet AWAY from the fifteen-foot deep stage. The current flash might reach the stage from the same chair. If there is nothing the camera's sensors figure is more important in the foreground. I've seen the side reflectors on my bikes with light from the back porch when I opened the back door to walk the dog, and they show up better than they do here.

Side view, obviously enough. One thing that comes to mind looking at this one is that it's time for a new front tire with the snazzy reflective sidewall. I can see it being difficult for folks who know nothing of recumbent bicycles to figure out what this apparition really is, aside from that it's clearly moving when they see it. Headlights were not turned on for this shot:


Front view, again obviously enough. This is the opposite side of what oncoming motorists would see (right instead of left), but it's clear enough (at least to me) that SOMETHING is moving here, or at least worthy of a second or two to see what the heck it is. This is pretty much what the clown SHOULD have seen, had he been looking, from Northumberland Drive as he pulled out almost into my right side a few weeks ago. I shouted him down, he stopped and lowered his window and listened as I told him he didn't stop for the stop sign, let alone look to see if there was anything coming before he blew the stop. He drove behind me until the road widened to four lanes! Anyway, here's the front view:


And, again, the rear view, this time with a left turn signal extended. The picture is a little blurry, despite the tripod use, possibly a function of the camera's difficulties in finding the bike before setting its auto focus. I may have moved at just the wrong moment, too. Anyway, this is the view Mr Tucker says would be washed out by the lights of an oncoming car, if the angles are just "wrong." Again, my real-world experience suggests that by the time a car is close enough to me that oncoming headlights would make me hard to see, the driver of said overtaking car has had ample time to realize I'm there. Indeed, he (or she) has been driving behind me for a few seconds at slower than the posted 25 MPH speed limit.


I didn't get to participate in the Bicycling for Louisville moving day extravaganza. Jenn did, however, and used the trailer to help haul stuff. Kirk Kandle has put a bunch of pictures up on his Flickr pages. Frequent readers will recognize my trailer (it's one of the smaller ones in use). Jenn is wearing the blue and yellow Kucharik jacket with the recumbent rider centered on her torso. Jenn told me she had a good time and got to meet and talk with some great folks. She also got to experience pulling a loaded bike trailer!

More from the blogosphere

Another blog had a link to this study, done in Oregon. They started with an advert titled, "Should cyclists pay a road tax?"

Despite an assortment of misgivings I (and others) have over the way the "study" was designed and implemented, it suggests a couple of glaring points of ignorance among the motoring public: that roads are fully funded through vehicle-specific taxes (like those associated with fuel purchases and license plate renewal) and that cyclists pay no road taxes (I think the tired old expression is something like "as if"). Yet again, it's clear that many people have no idea how road work is funded, nor that folks who cycle instead of driving, who have payroll taxes withheld by their employers and who pay sales tax on things they buy, underwrite road construction and maintenance costs in large measure.

I've mentioned this point of ignorance before. It would be really cool to see some analysis on a local basis, detailing how much money comes from vehicle-specific taxes and comparing it to how much is spent on road work.

Recall drivers?

From the "blogosphere," one of several interesting concepts: Recall drivers.

There has been much news coverage over the Toyota recall of many of their popular car models, the focus being on unintended acceleration (remember the Audi 4000?) due to sticky throttle systems, and faulty brake algorithms (what happened to direct-action hydraulic brake systems like the one on my 1972 Cutlass?). In short, nineteen deaths over a decade or so have been attributed to these problems, and eight million vehicles are perhaps going to be recalled as a result.

Counter this with over 400,000 deaths due to automobile crashes (from FHWA), in which anywhere from forty-five to seventy-five percent have as a major factor "driver inattention."

Los Alamos Bikes author Khal is now suggesting that, if Toyota is to face big-league excoriation over those nineteen deaths, the US Department of Transportation should also show outrage over the far more serious "faulty drivers" threat evinced by the huge number of crash fatalities.

I don't know to what degree this is "tongue in cheek," but it is being said to bring home the point--that finding mechanical solutions for inherent human problems is not addressing the problem.

Big moves afoot (or a-cycle!)

Looking for something to do Saturday? Help the folks at Bicycling for Louisville move their stuff from their old office to their new office--by bicycle!

From the Bicycling for Louisville web site:

When: Saturday, February 13, 10 am -1pm

Where: Starting at 425 S. Second St, in the basement, and ending at our new office-- We'll be renting office space at 2132 Frankfort Ave., adjacent to the Bike Couriers Bike Shop.

How: by Bike, Trike, or other human powered vehicle

Who: YOU and your friends

Why: Because it's fun, and we'll have coffee and snacks!

Please come and be prepared to haul cargo on your bike, even just a small box. The more the merrier! Please bring trailers, baskets, rope, bungee cords, even empty boxes if you have them. You get the idea. And be prepared to smile for the TV cameras.

If you can't join us Saturday the 13th for the move, you can help us a couple other ways:

1) Be a bike-powered box-packer--Monday 2/8, Tuesday 2/9, or Friday 2/12, from 2-5pm at 425 S. Second St, in the basement

2) Be a Bike-powered box UNpacker at our new office on Frankfort Avenue, Monday 2/15 from 6-8, or Tuesday Feb 16 2-5pm (before Car-Free Happy Hour)

As noted, there will be some sort of video recording of the process, in order to show the world that it can be done.

Sadly, I'm scheduled to work that day, in Crestwood, and am teaching that afternoon, so I won't be able to be there.

I got out on the Raleigh for a few minutes yesterday, to try the new lower gear. I wasn't able to really test it in depth, as I was busy navigating the left-over crud on the road, but the fifteen-percent lower gear is going to be nice. Just enough to take the edge off, without being a shock to my system. I have a twenty-two tooth cog that I may try at some point, but I think the twenty will be fine.

Yeah, we got some snow, but so what?

It's snowing as I type this. A little while ago, I shoveled six inches or so of accumulated snow off the driveway, sidewalk, and street-side parking pad. I had "dog help," though, so it wasn't bad.

It certainly was not anything comparable to what the folks within a couple hundred miles of Washington D. C. are fighting. Believe me, I am NOT complaining about the "heavy flurry" we got.

I used to tell folks that "snowfall is measured in feet, not in inches. Anything less than a foot is a heavy flurry." I said so partly in jest, as I fully recognize the difficulty many have with snowfall of more than a few inches. Heck, even my little truck has its problems, partly due to the lousy tires that are on it nowadays.

But I learned to drive in snow during the early part of 1978, when the Louisville area had something like two feet of snow on the ground after one storm went through, and that snow stayed on the ground for weeks afterward. The car I had at the time was a 1967 Pontiac Tempest that I had bought from the original owner. The only upgrade on the car from the base model was the two-speed automatic transmission (base transmission for that car having been the old "three on the tree"). It had inexpensive bias-ply tires--not even cheap snow tires, let alone radials (which were becoming popular about that time). I got around, got to work and back, got stuck a few times, dug myself out as many times, and learned from my mistakes (and successes).

I also drove tow trucks later in life, and learned a heck of a lot about dealing with less-than-adequate traction situations doing so.

I don't always keep from getting stuck, and it's been partly a function of luck, partly a function of being careful about what I'm doing that I've not needed a tow truck myself. I've learned, though, that I don't have to get wound up over a little sideways action if I'm leaving myself enough of a safety margin.

The biggest thing is to leave oneself that larger safety margin, expect to take a bit longer to get from point a to point b, remain calm when stuff isn't quite to one's liking, and above all BE CAREFUL.


On the bicycling front, I ordered a larger cog for the back of the Raleigh, based on information from Sheldon Brown suggesting that I likely had an 18-tooth cog on the bike. I tried counting the teeth on the existing cog without taking the wheel out of the bike, which is always a hassle, and apparently mis-counted, as I found it has seventeen teeth instead of eighteen. No big deal, I suppose, as the cog I installed today has twenty teeth. It's a bigger step down than I thought it would be, but fifteen percent drop instead of ten percent will actually be more to my liking.

My Raleigh, like many of its kin, was originally geared a bit high "by modern standards," as Sheldon put it. I prefer a fairly high cadence, compared to the folks for whom this bike was made thirty-five years ago. The lower range will allow me to better utilize the overdrive gear, AND make for easier climbing and better acceleration from stop signs. I'm looking forward to testing it soon. Since I'm off work tomorrow, and have a couple errands to run, I may see whether folks are paying attention to their surroundings and ride to the grocery.

riding at night

From a post to kycyclist, the local bicycle-focused list server:

Just an FYI to anyone on this list who may be riding regularly down
Westport road at night.

For the last several weeks on Monday and Tuesday nights while I have
been Driving West on Westport Road, under I-264 in the construction
zone, I have come up behind a recumbent rider (sometimes alone or
sometimes with another cyclist) between 6:15 and 7:40 p.m. (I don't
recall the exact times)

The rider(s) are lit-up pretty well with red lights in the back and very
bright headlights in the front. For the Most Part, they "Take the
Lane."

HOWEVER, THE RIDERS ARE STILL VERY VERY HARD TO SEE FROM BEHIND. I have
come up behind the rider(s) several times in my car and it's a little
surprising. I worry that those that are less attentive to cyclists may
not see them at all.

As you know, it is very dark on that section of road. There are no lane
markings and with cars coming the other direction, the red lights on the
bikes blend in.

I cycle pretty regularly down Westport in the daytime and at dusk and
dawn when I commute to work. I also know that there are really no other
alternatives to get from the East End inside I-264.

But, and some of you may be annoyed by this comment, Please Consider
whether you really need to be riding on this stretch of Road at Night.
I understand that if you are commuting you may have no choice. Is there
a way to become more visible?

I also know that every lane is a bike lane and we cyclists have the
right to be on the road, but ... I also have the right to smoke 4 packs
of cigarettes a day and eat fast food every meal, but I don't do it
because I know its bad for me (and its disgusting- but you understand my
point).

Frequent readers of my blog have seen images of my bike, including the one I linked for Mr Tucker (the author of the missive). Given the lights and reflectors mounted on my bike, I find it hard to believe that anyone who is not legally sight-impaired would have trouble seeing me or picking me out of the (scarce) light points on that section of roadway.

However, perhaps he's right. Perhaps I need a bit more light back there. Like, for example, a 100-watt driving lamp from a race car. With a flash mode. Or a Xenon strobe! Yeah! Make road users behind me TRULY blind! THAT sounds like a winning idea.

How about, instead, we address the root cause of the danger? Why not some better enforcement of the 25 MPH speed limit on that stretch of road? It's a construction zone, so fines are doubled--the police department could generate a windfall profit there in no time (said knowing full well that traffic tickets are not a good revenue source).

driving it home

Branden Klayko made mention the other day of the Disney cartoon Motor Mania. I've linked to it before, David Crowell linked to it some months before that, and Copenhagenize linked to it a week or two ago.

It's a popular video in my circle of online friends, to be sure.

It also illustrates one of the reasons I am leaning more and more toward riding a bike instead of driving: I dislike who I become when I'm at the wheel of a car. I find myself far less patient with the world and the road users around me. In my own defense, I don't get upset at cyclists for slowing traffic, but I am frequently frustrated by the zoned-out inattention I sense in other drivers, and can see where many of those drivers fail to differentiate between cyclists and slow-moving motorists in terms of "get the F*@$ out of MY way!"

Jenn and I were talking about bikes as transport mode the other night, and how far toward or whether I wanted to go car-free. I keep coming back to, "I prefer to ride," as a simple statement.

Sure, the money-saving part is nice. The exercise part is good, too--I get over a hundred miles in each week just by riding to work instead of driving, not counting any other utility bike uses I find on days off. "Doing my small part" for the environment is probably offset by the goofball in his outsized Suburban Assault Vehicle with the monster tires, loud exhaust, louder stereo, and various ego problems, but I figure I'm also showing that it can be done, and it's the example I like to set.

But at the end of the day, as the expression goes, the bottom line is that I simply enjoy cycling more than I do driving.

Numbers games and driving competence

In my reading, attending bike-related meetings, and generally being who I am, I come across a BUNCH of numbers. Some of them mean something, some are simply indicators of how well I'm sleeping (my CPAP machine records my Apnea/Hypopnea Index...).

A couple of numbers related to transportation drew my attention, though. Here are some scary ones:

• According to studies cited by Liberty Mutual Insurance in the Winter 2010 issue of LibertyLines, 5870 people were killed by distracted drivers in the United States in 2008. 515,000 others were injured in crashes caused by distracted drivers. That's almost twice as many lives lost to distracted drivers than to the terrorist-driven debacle of 11 September 2001. Per year. Is there any wonder some people refer to the automobile and our dependence on it as a war on ourselves? And that's just distracted drivers--it doesn't count things like the stupid twits who think they can beat the train, or the folks who simply fall asleep at the wheel because they didn't get enough sleep the night before.
  
  
• Texting drivers have their eyes off the road to send their all-important messages for an average time of 4.6 seconds--enough time to travel the length of a football field at 55mph. And to think that people send text messages to one-another, knowing that the other party would be driving at the time, and expecting someone to read it and respond.
  
  
• Embroiled in a cellphone conversation? The distraction fouls up your reaction time as badly as having a Blood Alcohol Content of .08...and a .08 BAC will get you arrested for DUI.
  
  

Distracted cyclists don't have enough mass to do that kind of damage--except to themselves. I've not tried texting while riding, and have no intent to try it in the foreseeable future. I've tried talking on a cell phone, and even then only on very low-traffic streets without any other cyclists around. In general, I won't even answer the thing if it rings (although if I'm expecting a call I might pull over and call the person back, while sitting still).

In a meeting a couple weeks ago, I heard another number that was pretty astonishing: the cost to build a parking lot or parking garage. Similar numbers are on WikiAnswers.com: Surface parking lots cost, on average, $4,000 PER SPACE. Multi-layer parking garages? $20,000 PER SPACE. Below-ground garages? $30,000-40,000 PER SPACE!!

A few months ago, Kirk cited a statistic claiming that there are roughly three times as many parking spaces as there are automobiles in our country. Even if that number is off by half--say, one and a half times as many spaces as cars, our parking spaces may be worth more than our cars! I've asked before about the ecological effects of all this parking space--storm water management, chemicals dripped from parked cars leeching into our groundwater, the asphalt itself breaking down over time and that oil seeping into the water. It numbs the mind.

It's easy to see how bike parking spaces would cost more than the bikes--let's face it, many utility cyclists get around on machines that cost them less than a week's pay, and dedicating six or eight square feet of space to parking a bike could cost a couple thousand dollars or more (based on the square footage used in the car space figures above), especially if bike security is part of the equation (cars typically having their own mobile security systems, even if they are so rudimentary as simple door locks). Still, it doesn't take long to see how bike riding is much cheaper for society when compared to motor vehicle use. We can build a LOT of bike parking for the cost of a few car spaces in an underground parking garage, and take up a lot less space. Remember the video I found for my post of 12 January?


I found myself driving somewhere last night. I was coming up on a traffic-light-controlled intersection, and the person opposing me but waiting to turn left had her brights on. I flashed my brights at her (saw her in the car as I went by), but she never seemed to have a clue why I was flashing my headlights. I guess she was too wrapped up in her cellphone conversation (her cell phone was attached to both her head and her left hand). Even if I hadn't been coming along, her left turn was blocked by the fact that a train was moving along the tracks parallel to the roadway.

Do people not notice the little blue (or in some older cars, red) light in their instrument cluster that tells them their headlights are on bright, potentially spot-blinding other road users? Have they quit teaching that someone flashing brights at you means your lights are probably on high beam? Do some of these folks even know what "high beam" means?

Or are the cars figuring that since the drivers aren't bright, the headlights might as well be?

RAAM update

I've had an email exchange with the Team Type II manager, confirming my spot on the crew. It's a mild change from what I'd been expecting--I'm now slated to drive one of the RVs instead of the team car. This is fine with me--I'll have more time to do transition point stuff, including but not limited to fixing bikes (although I doubt there will be much to do on that score most of the time).

As before, I have just a small idea of what I've signed up to do. I won't fully "get it" until some time after the event. It will interrupt my riding preparation for RAIN, but I expect I'll do well enough on that ride.

On the "keeping up with when I rode to work" scale, I didn't get to ride today--I have a large sociable tandem trike to haul home this evening. I rode the Vanguard to work and back Monday. On the way home, I met Jenn at her work place so that we could ride home together--something I always enjoy doing.