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.