Sunday thoughts

At some point, this blog was to be a way for me to hold myself accountable in keeping the "car-reduced" thing going.

Over the last month or so, however, I've not been very good at leaving the car at home. Much of it has been weather-related--my commute is such that I don't care to be outside for an hour-plus bike ride in sub-threshold conditions that I wouldn't mind if a) my commute was more urban in nature or b) my commute was less than ten miles instead of thirteen or fourteen or c) I wasn't so concerned about other road users crushing me as they lost what little traction they had on the ice we had this past Tuesday morning.

I took the Raleigh to work a few weeks ago, to test the bus/bike multi-modal thing, and found that much more time-consuming than simply riding. I also found a broken fulcrum sleeve on my way home that evening. I was able to tighten the fulcrum clamp enough to ride the bike, and have gotten a replacement sleeve to install later today.

If the temperature will stay above 20F overnight, I'll ride tomorrow morning.

The second round of Tool School starts Saturday evening. It's not full yet--there are two spaces available as I type this. Drop me a line if you are interested.

Hawk sighting

I was off work today, and had some errands to run. While getting ready to go, I heard a hawk calling near the house. VERY near the house. I looked for her, and saw another hawk getting ready to light onto a tree over my driveway. About then, I heard the first hawk scream again, and sure enough, there she was (I'm assuming gender, here, as a) I can't tell whether it's a male or female just by looking at that distance, and b) it could have just as easily been male--I don't know their calling habits well enough to say). Both were sitting in the neighbor's tree, on a branch above my driveway.

Sadly, my cell phone's camera memory was full. By the time I got a picture deleted, both hawks had flown away.

I've been hearing them calling in the neighborhood for a while, but rarely get to see them. Their call is more of a scream than the calls of songbirds--it's quite distinctive. I love seeing the big raptors around. They are quite attractive birds (well, the carrion fowl are not so pretty, but they serve an important function in nature).

Hawks are pretty timid, apparently. I often see them being chased by crows, despite that a hawk could easily turn on a crow and take it out of the sky if it wanted. Hawks are opportunistic feeders, too. I once saw a youtube video of a kid playing with his pet rodent on the backyard picnic table, only to have his pet taken by a hawk that was quick on the draw. The video may or may not have been staged, depending on which of the attached comments you choose to believe, but it looks pretty much like what I've seen them do.

My errands took me to Home Depot, then on to Hikes Point for some CPAP supplies, then a stop at Feeder's Supply for dog food, then a search for a replacement for the mattress foam inside the dog's bed. The latter is proving to be hard to replicate--I measured the thickness at 2 1/2", but 3" "eggcrate" foam found at Gould's Discount Medical supply was not as thick. The search continues...

He's seen a light

...if not THE light.

My friend Kirk had a nice chat with David Osborne the other day, mostly centered on the latters HB255, mentioned here previously. It seems that Mr. Osborne had encountered a cyclist, who was making a u-turn on the back side of a blind curve, and barely had enough room to avoid a collision with the cyclist. There was a child in a trailer attached to the bike.

The two of them, Mr Osborne and our mystery cyclist, exchanged a few words at the scene. Apparently the cyclist expressed that it was legal for her to be on the state road (although the wisdom of making a u-turn that close to a blind curve is debatable). Mr. Osborne claimed to have contacted the two larger bike clubs in the area for clarification, and got no response (I can vouch for the education@louisvillebicycleclub.org not getting anything from him...). He went to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, and got no results (they would say "enact a law..."). So he (or his staff) wrote the bill as presented.

Mr. Osborne heard from several cyclists--local and national--who expressed shock that he wasn't being mindful of KRS himself. Reading the Kentucky Driver's Manual, one will find several admonitions regarding looking ten to fifteen seconds ahead, not driving any faster than your visibility allows (including slowing for curves, in case there is a stalled vehicle just out of sight...), and so on.

I forwarded him a link to Copenhagenize blog entry regarding the Sacred Bull loose in the china shop (or shoppe). While there are valid criticisms of the entry, it does serve to make a point for politicians with their limited ability to focus on one topic for long.

The upshot is that Mr. Osborne has no plans to carry forward with this poorly-written bill. My only problem with this is that it's still there for some other misguided lawmaker to revisit at some later time--blaming the victims yet again for something that would be the motorist's fault.

Merchant of the week

Here's a jersey even an atheist like me can find humorous. It's from ElevenGear, who also bring you the kit from the Republic of Anaerobia National Cycling Team:

What you can't see in the image is the citation, "Revolutions 53:12" on the sleeves...


They have posters, too. Ah, 'tis a shame I cannot make this image my new email signature...

What in the world is up with this guy?

Kentucky House District 59 Representative David Osborne needs to hear from you. He has introduced House Bill 255, a curious piece of regression if ever there was one. It reads:

AN ACT relating to bicycles.
Create a new section of KRS Chapter 189 to prohibit the operation of a bicycle on a state-maintained highway while transporting a person under the age of 18 years in an attached trailer or other apparatus.

The reasons for such a prohibition are unstated, but are probably related to some constituent feeling put out that he rounded a curve on Covered Bridge Road to find a cyclist in his path, tooling along enjoying the day at ten or fifteen miles an hour in a thirty-five zone forcing said motorist to slow from fifty-five in said thirty-five zone. The motorist, like many not-so-well-meaning motorists, decided that the parent hauling his child in a child trailer was endangering the child by doing so, ignoring that speeding into a blind curve so fast as not to be able to properly deal with foreseeable road conditions presents a far larger danger to everyone.

Yeah, that's one of the arguments anti-cyclist cagers use for prohibiting cycling: they come around a curve and suddenly find themselves behind a cyclist going a third as fast as they are. This ignores--pointedly--the reality that there are few if any curves where a motorist traveling at a sane speed would not be able to know well in advance that they will overtake a cyclist--if the motorist would bother to look more than ten feet ahead, and travel at a reasonable and safe speed instead of ten (or more) over the posted limit.

It's easy for me to see folks in Mr. Osborne's district using this spurious argument to support a prohibition of cycling on the roadway. In my own cycling, I've found motorists to behave differently toward cyclists in correlation to where I am in town, and that area is one of the worst for ugly attitudes from motorists (sure, there are ugly attitudes all over town, but I get more concentration of such ugliness in the Prospect/Goshen/Skylight corridor than most).

I'm not the only one worked up over this. There has been a busy thread on the topic on the League Cycling Instructors' list server. Kirk has made a blog entry on the topic (to nobody's surprise), and in it, he quotes a contributor to the kycyclist list server.

In various ways, all are pointing out that Mr. Osborne is ignoring what Copenhagenize calls "Ignoring the sacred bull in society's china shop." Rather than leash or contain the bull, he wants to isolate people from each other.

Make sure you contact your own representative as well, and alert her or him to how you feel about HB255.

Now I've gone and done it...

Folks who have read this blog for a while know that my wife, Jenn, volunteered for a RAAM (Race Across America) team last year. The team, Team Type II, is of bicycle racers who all have Type II Diabetes, and is a companion team to Team Type I, who are all insulin-dependent Type I diabetics. One need not have Diabetes to be on a support crew, and while Diabetes is a part of the qualification for being on the race team, there is competition for slots on the race roster.

At any rate, the team and crew are organizing for the upcoming RAAM, which will start on June 12th or so. They've been having a series of phone conference calls to deal with team needs, and it was brought up that Team Type II needs a few folks, including a team car driver/mechanic. Jenn piped up and reported that she and I had been discussing whether I would volunteer this year, with one factor being whether I was needed.

I am now penciled in as a team van driver/bike mechanic. I get to take two weeks off from work in the height of our busy season to fly to California, assemble a few bikes, drive halfway across the country (in shifts with someone driving the same vehicle the remaining half) at speeds from stop to race in support of a rolling relay of bicycle riders, get a little bit of sleep here and there between stints at the wheel, eat when I can and make magic happen for bike racers and their machines whenever needed.

The support team for an eight-man race team is pretty big--twenty folks in addition to the eight racers. We'll be using five vehicles--two RVs, one each for crew and team for shift sleeping, and three vans--one to follow the racer of the moment as a safety precaution, one to carry the other three racers in current rotation to their respective relay points and a third to function as a utility vehicle for backup in case one of the other vehicles breaks down, run errands like grocery shopping and laundry details or find parts for broken bicycles.

Jenn drove the utility van last time, partnered with David. They made a great team, and enjoyed working together immensely. A friend of mine is trying to make the team roster for his second year.

Jenn had a great time last year, despite getting little to no sleep for the week. I do better on short hours rack time than she does, but since I use a CPAP machine, I don't know how the machine will fit into the program on the RV. With almost twenty folks "hot bunking" in an RV made to sleep eight folks, luggage space will be at a premium.

Thankfully, I don't have to invent anything. The team has functioned for a couple years, now, and the guy running the show knows what he's doing. All I have to do is show up, work hard, smile, be creative if something goes awry, and drive with some sense as we cross the country at a bit more than the speed of smell (we expect to make the crossing in something like seven days).

I can't wait.

stoplights

Yeah, I do a fair bit of urban cycling. I also do a little bit of blog reading, often focusing on other urban cyclists and cycling issues.

I do some group riding as well. I'm always surprised at the number of riders who are not aware of what I consider easily-accessible general information on some issues important to anyone riding (or even driving, for that matter) in an urban setting.

Take stop light technology, for example. I'm not talking about understanding all the science and programming inside their control boxes, nor that we've moved most of our signals to LEDs instead of incandescent bulbs (saving energy AND making the lights more visible). I'm talking about how those signals recognize our presence.

In the downtown grid, many of the lights are set on timers, and those timers are coordinated to allow traffic to move at a certain speed. Jefferson Street is an example--one can stand at the east end of Jefferson Street and watch the lights change in sequence over the course of a couple minutes.

Away from the "grid," though, many lights are triggered by sensors. Some of us remember the old weight-sensitive plates placed in the pavement a few feet or yards before the stop line (that wide white painted strip at the intersection). Those were not as reliable as the current (pardon the pun) system that uses properties of electromagnetism to detect vehicles waiting for the light to change (no moving parts in the newer system, for example).

Many of these traffic lights have quadripole sensors. I'm not an engineer, so I am not able to fully explain what makes them quadripole, but I know that they are easy to spot--they are the ones with the squared-off figure eight cuts in the pavement, as the following diagram shows.






The picture shows that the Public Works folks have painted a bicycle with rider on the sensor loops. This shows where the sensor is tuned to be more sensitive to the wheels of a bicycle. A cyclist can trigger the stop light to change at this spot on the pavement.

Barry did some blog posts on this topic some months ago, when he went out with Dirk Gowin and some Public Works folks to test a few traffic lights.

Cyclists are not the only ones who don't know this about traffic lights, though. I have often seen motorists sitting in an intersection, with their rear bumper over the stop line, wondering why the left turn light won't turn green for them... It's the sensor, dude. If you are not on it, the light doesn't know you're waiting!

I'm still a club officer

It was almost a foregone conclusion, but I always allow for surprises. I was unopposed running for the VP Education slot again this year. It's always possible that someone would nominate from the floor in one of these elections, but the VP Education post is pretty low on the scale of likelihood for that to happen.

In any case, now I can set to my plans for the upcoming season in earnest. I have a lot I want to do, including re-working the education program from top to bottom, to closely follow the LAB TS101 course outline and have the certificate hold the same value. Folks who earn this certificate may go on to earn their own League Cycling Instructor license at a later date.

Indeed, I have at least one assistant instructor who is eager to earn his LCI. He'd been working with me over the summer, and when I asked him about helping teach another session at another location, his only reluctance was that he didn't have the formal training to be the teacher. I'm working on that, too, but in the mean time, I surprised him by naming him my Volunteer of the Year in the Education Program at last night's club banquet.

The only changes in the officer listings were to President, Vice President for Racing and Vice President for Advocacy. Laura stepped up to join the Executive Committee as VP Advocacy, and Andy, the prior VP Advocacy has stepped up to the President's position, allowing Earl to step down after eleven or twelve years in charge. Mark stepped down from the VP Racing post, and Travis has taken his place. I look forward to working with these folks this coming year--I know all of them well enough to expect good things from them.

Amanda Fuller, the interim Executive Director of Bicycling for Louisville, came to the soiree with her husband. Both were a bit blown away by the size of the gathering and the amount of stuff happening in our club. We also had a member who lives in Alabama (but who is in town quite often and used to live here) join us, so that she could compare our meeting to her club in Alabama. She expressed surprise at how many people were there, and what sort of craziness happens at our annual business meeting.


In other news, my first Tool School class of the season is going well. I have seven excellent students this time around, and all are learning about as fast as I can teach them. They ask good questions, and absorb information quickly. They've had fun getting their hands dirty working on their bikes, too, including replacing brake cables, removing and re-installing their cranks and bottom brackets, truing wheels and adjusting bearings. They get to learn about adjusting derailleurs on the last night of the school this coming Wednesday, and they are excited about it.

Car-Free Happy Hour fun

Car-Free Happy Hour has apparently grown. I got to attend last night's "incarlessnation," and it was a good time by all accounts.

Of course, I got there by bicycle. I opted for the Raleigh, simply because I could. I pulled the trailer along--empty--again because I could (although I also used the rationalization that it would make me more "un-ignorable" on the trip home). When I arrived, David and Manton were outside, discussing the cool bikes already locked to the railings. David said something along the lines of, "When I saw the trailer, I should have recognized it as yours."

Katie's cargo-bike was already locked to the fence, as was her husband's LHT with its bright blue fenders. There were a couple more bikes of various makes and models, but none that I recognized as belonging to particular people (I'm a bike guy, okay? I can look at many bikes and say, "oh, that's so-and-so's bike.").

David, Manton and I exchanged greetings and entered the Monkey Wrench to meet the rest of the folks. Rick, Allison and Eric were talking together at one end of the group of tables; Amanda, the interim director at Bicycling for Louisville, was there, eventually joined by her husband Justin; Nina, Bryan, Dominic, Kirk, Ron and quite a few others whose names I either didn't catch or cannot remember showed up as well.

Kirk showed up in grand style, as one would expect if one knows Kirk. Eric was talking to me about my Raleigh--he even made a mock offer to buy it from me--and he said something to Rick along the lines of, "You have to see this bike." They went outside to have a look at it, and when they returned to the table, Eric was excited that Kirk had arrived while they were outside.

Kirk, of course, was riding his Pashley Roadster Sovereign--a most elegant commuter rig--and in Kirk style, he was wearing a business suit and tie.

Katie opened the event with a few thank-yous, then introduced the speakers for the gathering. We got to hear about Ticket to Ride, and their van pools, car pools and bike pools (yes, bike pools). Amanda spoke briefly aboutBic ycling for Louisville's goals for the coming year as well. Katie mentioned the Louisville Bicycle Club's upcoming Mayoral Forum, and asked that I say a few words about that event. After all that discussion, folks went to socializing for a while.

As the party wound down, folks drifted off in ones and twos, and several of us stood around in the parking lot oohing and aahing over Kirk's bike and Katie's cargo bike. I got to take Katie's bike for a loop in the lot, and found it to be easy to ride (not that I was expecting it to be a problem). Eventually, we all had to head home, so Kirk, Manton, Dominic and I headed east. The four of us made for a sight cruising along Grinstead Drive, with all the reflective clothing, bright lights, and--"wow, those guys are actually riding bicycles in this weather!"

Kirk and Manton split from my path at Grinstead and Lexington, continuing on Grinstead. Dominic and I went out Lexington Road together, as he lives near me and I had offered him some reflective vinyl from my stash. As we were standing at the light, waiting our turn to turn left on St Matthews Avenue, Manton rode up with a horn-honk greeting, before heading on his way to Middletown.

What a day--I didn't have to drive at all!

As for today, I'm going to work a bit late this morning, as I'm teaching Tool School tonight. It's warm enough that I get to ride to work, so I'm riding the Vanguard.

Periodically, someone "gets it" with respect to bicycle transportation issues on a large scale. Of course, those folks are rarely here in town.

A recent post on Copenhagenize.com reminded me of some folks in Japan who most certainly "get it." Oh, to have the problem here that they are solving there! They are parking hundreds of bikes in secure, weather-proof underground silos through the magic of robotics (at the risk of perpetuating a stereotype, is it any wonder that the Japanese would be at the forefront on this?).

Have a look at the video on the design and construction. One thing I really liked about the voice-over script is that, not once but several times, bicycles are referred to as vehicles. Simply vehicles, with no drama about the use of that word.

Multi-modal trip

It's been a while since I used TARC much. I used to ride TARC when I was a student at Spalding College in the early 1980s, but rarely since. I rode TARC partway home one day last spring, due to a bit of rain, and that was my first "real world" use of the TARC bus bike racks. Aside from the bus trip, it was a "vacuum day." When the bus trip, soggy as it was, served as the high point...

Anyway, I've mentioned using the "Bikes on Board" program to alter my commute a bit before. As mentioned, and as tested today, it takes about ten minutes longer than I usually do on the Vanguard, and requires that I ride the Raleigh (the Vanguard will NOT fit the bike rack on the bus). Aside from a few intersections near the Jefferson Freeway and the construction zone near the Watterson Distressway, the most challenging segments of my route are well outside the range of the TARC route.

Sure, there are express routes that get to Crestwood and LaGrange, but they are simply not feasible for me. They don't go when I want to go, and don't stop where I need to be. All in the fun of working in the hinterlands.

As I started to say, I found that while it's okay to be on the bus in foul weather, to get one's feet warm or get out of a thunderstorm, it's even slower than being on a bike.

All the more reason to ride, in other words.

Oh, yeah, I rode from the end of the bus route to Crestwood, a distance of something like five miles. I rode back from Crestwood, braving the ice patches on Houston Lane, got to the bus stop ten minutes or better before the bus was due, and simply rode the bike the rest of the way home. It didn't make sense to me to wait ten minutes to sit on the bus and get home fifteen minutes or more later.

From time to time, I encounter motorists who seem to be genuinely nice folks. I assume that the vast majority of motorists would prefer to not hit me, they just want to get where they are going without a lot of drama, and want to know what I plan to do as I interact with them. Sometimes, though, someone goes out of his or her way to be nice. Last spring, a motorist followed me across the Clark Bridge, at a polite distance, blocking overtaking traffic from my lane during a rain storm. A month or so back, I mentioned the woman who apologized to me for her inattentiveness and the resulting dangerous pass she performed.

Today's "Polite motorist" award goes to the person who was driving that big honkin' Suburban Assault Vehicle, but who nevertheless let me go down Houston Lane ahead of him or her, following at a polite distance yet providing more light than the SOTA circa 1995 headlights on the Raleigh can create as I navigated the various ice patches on that stretch of pavement.

I'm hoping that ice goes away tomorrow and Wednesday. I may have to drive to work Wednesday, despite the warmer weather in the forecast. I may be able to ride--I'll see how things go Wednesday morning.

I'm off work Tuesday, though. I have some errands to run (by bike), some work to do around the house, and am scheduled to attend the Car Free Happy Hour at The Monkey Wrench in the evening. Jenn won't make it this time, however, as she is hosting this month's edition of Bunco at the house.

Which to attend--Bunco, or Car-Free Happy Hour? Decisions, decisions...

See you at The Monkey Wrench!

blah title

We had a busy day at the store, surprisingly enough.

Most days have gone by slowly. I have stuff to do, mostly in preparation for the coming season, but sales are off this time of year. The recent cold snap hasn't helped much. Small stores like ours have to set aside operating funds for winter.

Nonetheless, we had some great activity today. We filled the last two slots for the Tool School I'm teaching this month (starts tomorrow), and had at least one more guy commit to the one in February. At this rate, we'll have to schedule a third session, in addition to the "advanced" modules I plan to offer in the next month or three. In any case, the group for this session should be a good one. I know most of the folks (big surprise), and like them.

No riding since Wednesday, due to lack of interest in playing in the snow, interest in riding to work in sub-20F temps and lack of interest in dealing with motorists sliding around on slick roads.

I keep thinking about using TARC to "go multi-modal" for some of my trips to work. It really wouldn't save me any time, judging by the schedules posted on their site, but it could get me out of some weather time. If it's snowing, riding TARC gets me out of riding the easier part of my trip, rather than the part I'd prefer to avoid in snowy weather. Using TARC to haul a bike also makes it necessary that I use the Raleigh, as the Ryan won't fit the bus rack AT ALL. The Raleigh is probably a tad bit more reliable in snow (simpler systems), but I'm more comfortable on slicker roads with the Vanguard--something about being closer to the ground.

I drove today, and I didn't think to drive my side roads to see how they look. I don't know whether I'll ride or drive to the store for Sunday's Tool School class. I should be able to ride to work after Monday, though.

This Tuesday is the monthly Car-Free Happy Hour, held from 5:30 to 8:00 PM at The Monkey Wrench, located at Barret and Winter Avenues, not far from Bardstown Road. I've not attended any of these to date, having been at work for the last several, but I'm making an effort to go this time. It could be lots of fun--usually is, judging from the posts I have seen after the parties in prior months. Ride on by!

Okay, I'm jealous

My friend Kirk, who has been conducting his own car-free experiment of late, got a new vehicle.

He'd been building up the suspense for several days, asking folks for their opinions on what sort of vehicle to get. Of course, many (to some degree, myself included, embarrassingly enough) thought he was talking about getting a car (in my defense, he did indulge in a bit of misdirection). My suggestion? Get a velomobile. I wasn't even thinking in terms of his purchase of yet another bike. However, the Pashley Roadster Sovereign he bought (and had already chosen, in all likelihood) is a marvelous machine. It's a purpose-built commuter, from a company that has been building such works of utility art since 1926. It has all the esoteric stuff--Brooks B33 saddle, Brooks stacked-leather grips, and smooth-riding 28" (635 ETRTO)Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires, er, TYRES, the fully enclosed drivetrain, and a proper Brooks saddle bag. I can already see some green on my own jealous brown Raleigh--another purpose-built commuter (albeit a less-sophisticated one). Did I mention that Kirk got an awesome bike?


In the course of Kirk's blog entry on his new bike, he inserted a link about Walk Score--a way to see how an address fares when it comes to stuff to do within walking distance. I tried it, even though I already knew the score for my home would be fairly good. My score? 78/100. There are LOTS of restaurants, pharmacies, shops, taverns, and other places to get what I might want within a mile or so, and many more within the two mile radius I've mentioned before as part of the Clif Two-Mile Challenge.

Still, I am in a better mood this morning, and not entirely jealous. I awoke to an ambient temperature of a balmy 20F outdoors, meaning I can do my errand-running by bike today! Yay!

I'd better get busy...

B-r-r-r-r

I have a couple of friends who are still riding their bikes to work this week.

I have not. Probably won't, either, for a few more days.

It's just too darned cold for my tastes.

I didn't used to be a cold-weather-wimp. In younger days, I was able to deal with temperatures down into the single digits wearing little more than a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled. I was a high-strung kid, burning hundreds of calories just standing still (well, as still as I could stand at the time). I'm still more tolerant of cold than many folks I know--to a point.

As I get closer to fifty, my tolerance for cold decreases. It's a fact of life.

I pressed my temperature minimum down a bit this year, with better gear. If the low temperature would stay above twenty or so, I'd be fine. Spending an hour on a bike in ten-degree weather (not counting wind chill index) doesn't appeal to me.

If my commute was fifteen or twenty minutes, or half an hour, I'd probably go ahead and ride. I don't know what it is about that extra half hour that buffaloes me into driving, but I just don't enjoy the prospect.

I mean, the bike is plenty reliable. It's not like I am using a crappy bike that breaks down all the time, and flats have been thankfully rare on this route. The headlights don't much like the cold, but the biggest problem coming from that is a short stretch behind Pewee Valley (Of course, my sense on the headlights could be left over from times using the SOTA Circa 1995 Vista Light set that's now on the Raleigh. The new lights on the Vanguard may be more cold-tolerant--I haven't tried them yet).

I could go multi-modal, I suppose--TARC has a line that would get me about halfway there--I just need to get organized a bit to use it...and use the Raleigh, since the Vanguard won't fit on a bus-mounted bike rack. After all, that's one reason I bought the Raleigh--to make it possible for me to go multi-modal.

At the time I bought the Raleigh, I was working in the urban area of N'Awb'ny. I was riding through the urban area, not out in the 'burbs. "See me" lights were far more important than "see where I'm going" lights. The multi-modal route now would have me riding the more challenging part on the Raleigh--the darkest segments, the hilliest segments, the narrowest roads--and that is taking the fun out of the idea.

I'm off work tomorrow, and will spend most of the day working on some last-minute weatherization chores around the house. Maybe I can tinker around with the bikes a bit--move the light set over on a short-term basis, re-install the small panniers that I took off since I use the trailer with that bike so often, and set up the Raleigh to be my multi-modal commuter for a while.

We'll see.