One door closes...

and another opens. That's the saying, anyway.

Bluegrass Bicycle, LLC has, for all purposes, closed the doors. There is still some inventory to sell off, but I also need to move on and get started on my new sole proprietorship thing.

Also sadly, I drove to work the last three days at the store. This was due to several factors: heavy weather Tuesday morning (rain, wind, thunder, lightning, did I mention lightning?), the need to haul stuff to Red House Bicycle for staging and future sales, and having Jenn ride with me all three days for moral support and her invaluable assistance in packing and tracking the inventory so that Bob could figure out what he has in which box going forward.

Oh, and, that Thursday saw the arrival of a fairly large box, containing one size 18" Surly Big Dummy, to be used by Tom Armstrong Handyman Service for house calls involving estimates and sometimes actual work. The cardboard got wet on the way home (the rain was borderline torrential), but it seems dry enough to leave alone overnight. I'll build it Friday or Saturday.

On Friday, I will be conducting a "Lunch and Learn" at a health-care company's office building, in part to encourage the folks there to ride bicycles for utility. I am not expecting a large group at this point, but who knows what folks will decide at the last minute?

Saturday, I am teaching part two of "Bicycle Superhero Basics," essentially a TS101 class. I won't take the new bike, as I will not have had time to learn to do the parking lot drills on the longer wheelbase it has. I expect to take a few days to sort out the handling on that bike before using it to actually haul heavy loads.

By Monday, I will have decided on which insurance company will get my premium payments to get liability insurance as a handyman. I plan to be conscientious enough that there won't be any claims on me, but insurance is about protecting one's own assets, and I do not wish to risk what assets I would be deemed to have by some court without some coverage. It's a business expense, just like paying myself or consumable supplies.

Listening to the thunder outside, glad I was not riding in that rain.

Memorial Day weekend activities

This post really belongs ahead of the last post if one is going to be a stickler about chronology, but I needed to write the depression post first to get some of that out of my system so that I could write this one. I didn't feel like going through the metaphorical hoops to rearrange them. I trust that both of my readers can deal with it.

About a week ago, I stopped at my mother's house to fetch my canoe, which had been in her yard for some years, unused. Jenn and I had decided to use it for the Mayor's Hike, Bike, and Paddle event this Memorial Day weekend, in order to take a break from participating in the bike ride after several years of that event. As I drove home with it on my truck, I encountered my stepdaughter as she left the neighborhood on her way to a friend's house. She and I talked for a moment, and she expressed interest in participating in the paddling event.

I have a kayak in addition to my canoe, so we figured that she could use it while Jenn and I used the larger boat. It was decided that spending some time on Long Run Park lake the day before would be a good idea, as it would give Rachel a chance to learn the basics of operating the kayak before having to deal with doing so on the river around other folks (safety being a big thing for me...).

So, Sunday afternoon, the three of us drove to Long Run Park to spend some time on the water. Rachel opted to jump in the water a couple of times, mostly for fun, and I figured it would be good for her to learn how to reenter the boat from the water in case she ever needed that for self-rescue. Jenn and I enjoyed watching her have fun with this exercise, but opted out of doing so ourselves. As we loaded the boats to go home, a fellow approached us, asking whether we had scissors or a knife, as the goose he was carrying had what appeared to be some fishing line wrapped tightly around its leg. The goose's foot was swollen due to the poor circulation, and had to be in some discomfort. However, it was surprisingly docile for being held still by a person. After some deliberation, attempts at explaining where the nearest twenty-four-hour veterinary clinic was, and seeing what tools were available on site, Jenn decided that the best thing for the goose was for us to take it (I'm not good at determining the gender of a goose. I assume geese can tell...) ourselves.

We spread a tarp over Jenn's lap to contain goose poop and help keep the goose from getting too active in the cab of my truck, and off we went. Again, the goose was amazingly calm about things, never making any noise and not really fighting Jenn's efforts to keep it from biting either of us. The Veterinarian was quite nice about things as well, and came out to the truck rather than having us come inside with the bird. One or two snips of the scissors and the fishing line was gone, and we drove back to Long Run Park so that the bird would be returned to familiar territory.

When we got the goose out of the truck at the park, it waddled away as if it had no foot pain, then jumped in the lake and swam around to get a drink and go on with its life. The family who had brought our attention to the bird's plight was glad to see us and the goose return, and thanked us for our kindness. We thanked them for their good deed of helping the bird get help.

It was a goose of who-knows what mix of varieties--it wasn't a Canada Goose, for example. But it certainly didn't deserve to lose a foot to some lazy person who didn't remove fishing lines after snagging a lure on a pond that contains fish that should not be eaten. I'm glad we were able to help, even if it meant that the tarp needed a good scrubbing afterward.

depressing day

How does one make a small fortune while owning a bike shop?

First, one will need a large fortune.

This has been axiomatic since I first started watching the bike shop "biz" as a teen. It was an old joke then. I've heard it applied to many other types of business as well--horse farms among them.

I mention this because Bluegrass Bicycle is closing. Thursday, May 31, is the last day we will be in the space we've occupied for over four years. Unsold inventory is staged at Red House Bicycle, in Buckner, until such time as it can be sold--potentially at a loss, but hopefully at something that will at least offset the expense of having it so far. I will be ending my involvement with that process Thursday evening, as I must move on to the next phase of my life.

Today was an exceptionally depressing day. All the tools and much of the store fixture stuff was sold to Mike's Hike and Bike in Richmond, as they prepare for opening a second location in London, Kentucky. Mike rued that I live so far from London, as he would love to have someone with my skill set to run his new location, but a three-hour commute each way is beyond what I'm willing to do. I treasure my time at home too much. Part of the reason I stepped down from my activities with the Louisville Bicycle Club was that I want to spend more time with Jenn.

Despite the depressing--nay, heartbreaking--day, good things are on the horizon. I will be doing the self-employed thing soon. My handyman business has potential, if the expressions on friends' faces when they hear of my plans are any indication. I will probably take a few days to get reoriented, do start-up things like get the insurance going, get my name registered, get an ad or two to show up in local print media, and so on. I hope to do at least some of my work-related transportation by bicycle, using my Bikes at Work trailer as necessary to haul tools, equipment, and supplies to job sites.

This, of course, reminds me that I need to do some sort of web site, along with some social media time (like that facebook thing). I haven't explored twitter, and am disinclined to do so, despite its apparent popularity.

I have business cards, which will help. I'll spend some time figuring just what other stuff I need to do to get the word out about what I'm able to do. Word of mouth will be a key component of my business plan--a sign in the first bike shop to employ my services proclaimed that word of mouth can be one's best advertising or one's worst, and that it was up to me to decide which. Several folks seem to trust me based on who I am and how I treat the people around me, which I must say is gratifying. To those of you who feel similarly, thank you. I really appreciate it. It means a great deal to me.

That was a busy weekend...

This past weekend, my younger stepdaughter graduated from Georgetown College. In four years, no less--something that is becoming more and more remarkable. My own four-year degree took me over twenty years to earn, if one includes the various false starts.

I struggle with saying I'm proud of her, as I have had little real influence on who she is or on her work ethic that helped her earn the degree. I am excited for her. I want her to have due credit for what she has done--I don't want any of the credit that is rightfully hers.

Getting ready for this event, though, involved a few hurdles. There are hurdles yet to be overcome, and that are tied in ways to my own job hurdles of the coming weeks and months.

Wednesday evening, Jenn came to the store with the truck so that we could haul a load of stuff from Rachel's dorm room. I rode to work that morning, and left the Vanguard at the store overnight. I pulled the long trailer to work with me Thursday so that I could haul it home. It made quite a sight for some passing motorists, based on the looks I got! I thought I had taken a picture, but the camera doesn't seem to have it for some reason.

Friday was Bike to Work Day. I (ironically) took the day off from work to participate in the celebrations. I had thought it would be fun to pull my trailer, carrying a ladder and some tools, to show that a tradesperson could get to a job site by bike, even hauling such tools and gear. A couple weeks before the event, email traffic within the committee (of which I'm part) indicated that coffee for the event being donated by Heine Brothers' Coffee would be available at their Douglas Loop location. I wondered in response whether the coffee could be collected along my route to Seneca Park, so that it could get to the event by bicycle instead of by car, and was pleasantly surprised when the Heine Brothers' representative agreed to change the location to Westport Village! So, yes, I hauled nine or ten gallons of coffee to Fourth Street Live for the event on my trailer. I hauled the portable containers back to Heine Brothers' afterward, as they needed them for another event the next day.

I had to do this earlier than originally hoped because Rachel wanted Jenn and me to attend her Senior Banquet Friday evening. I was glad to be included, to say the least. It made for a bit of a rush to get cleaned up after all the riding and get to Georgetown in time, but we made it. Christian colleges like Georgetown make a big deal of their Baccalaureate rituals, and while the religious aspect of such services is a focus of derision for me, we attended. We did sit in the back row, so as not to offend as many folks when we sat instead of standing for prayers.

Graduation itself was Saturday morning. Much of what was said was reasonably ecumenical for a Christian college, and the keynote speaker was pretty good.

Rachel's father and stepmother held a party in her honor Saturday after the ceremonies, and since Jenn and I were not invited, we used the time to get a nap and start getting ready for our own such party on Sunday.


After all that, I got to ride to work again yesterday. I have errands to accomplish today, so will be riding some more shortly.

file cleaning

Until fairly recently, I had not paid much attention to all the features offered by blogger.com. It seems there is a stats page that shows me how many people look at this blog on a daily basis. It also tells me how many posts I've made, how many I've started but not "published," where visitors were before they came to see my blabberings, and so on. Apparently, I've posted about 490 times since starting this blog in 2008.

Apparently, nothing I've posted has warranted comment in a while, either, despite that people are seeing my blabberings.

The Bluegrass Bicycle ride is ending.

It's now official: Bluegrass Bicycle is going to close. Bob posted the following in a couple of places this morning:

  Well fellow riders, all epic rides must eventually come to an end.  Bluegrass Bicycle is closing.


While the shop has been a labor of love, and we've made some lifelong friends, at the end of the
day we could not operate the shop profitably, and so we must say goodnight.

To all our supporters, we love you and have truly enjoyed riding together and getting to the next
level.  Thank you!!

We've got some inventory left that we need to clear out.  Come on in and we'll make you a deal. 

Good luck and God Bless!  We've enjoyed serving the community and seeing so many folks share our
passion for spinning those hoops.  Hope to ride together soon!

I don't have a specific timeline on this at the moment. I will be setting aside two of the kid bikes for a niece and nephew, and perhaps a few other odds and ends for friends and family, but most of the deals will be first-come, first-served.

Louisville Free Public Library "How-To Festival"

Some weeks ago, I received a phone call from the folks at the Louisville Free Public Library, inviting me to do a presentation on "how to buy a bicycle" during the How To Fest  (this link may go away soon, since the event is over). In short, it was an ambitious schedule of fifty or so half-hour or forty-five minute talks on a range of topics including gardening, kayaking, basketball, bar-b-q making, bicycling, and much, much more.

I don't know why they chose me for the bit about buying bicycles, as there are many bike shop guys in town who could probably have done as well, but I was honored to participate.

I figured that I could bring a couple of bikes from the store as "show and tell" pieces, so I dragged the long trailer to work with me Fried-day morning. Before leaving the house, I did some drilling and cutting on some aluminum bar stock I bought the other day, so that I could mount a couple of fork blocks to the trailer, making hauling a couple of bicycles easier. I was pleased that the fork blocks worked as expected. 

Having pulled the empty trailer a week and a half ago to be sure it would go through the various obstacles I expected to encounter during next week's Bike to Work Day, I realized that pulling that trailer "dead head" makes little sense if it has no capability for hauling stuff. Like, for example, the many bottles of beer that I could have purchased at ValuMarket in Mid City Mall that day, since I didn't have a bin to keep the bottles from falling out on the street. As a result, I decided that, even if I'm dead-heading the trailer around for some silly reason, I want to load a bin aboard, just in case I decide I need to get something while I'm out. It is such moments that I think of the utility of a Big Dummy...

Anyway, I told Jenn what I was doing, and about the How-To Fest in general, and she decided that she wanted to go, too. This is one of those good things of which we sometimes hear.

Jenn has, over the last several months, become a volunteer escort at a local women's health clinic. Some of the trials and tribulations of such a position are discussed on the blog a few of the escorts maintain. Jenn rode her Vanguard to the clinic this morning, despite that many of the escorts agreed to meet early today. Since I was going to be in the downtown area, I was invited to eat breakfast with the group at their super-secret after-action meeting place. Sounded like fun--I get to meet more of Jenn's friends, with whom she helps protect folks exercising their right to choice in personal matters from religious wack-jobs who would shame people into kowtowing to their twisted "morality."

As I'm fond of digressing, I will interject here that, in some ways, I differentiate between ethics and morality in a way I found eloquently expressed by Stephen William Rimmer in his "Less Obvious Laws of the Universe" page:

Ethics and morality are not interchangeable. Ethics are what happens when intelligent people reason through issues of logically-defensible right and wrong. Morality is what happens when unintelligent people find themselves unable to understand what ethics are.

Once done with breakfast (which was quite yummy, by the by), we pedaled the rest of the way to the Library, met Luke Stiffler (who got us to the place where we could keep the stack of bikes), and enjoyed a couple of talks by other folks before I went "on stage." 

It was fun, and I got to heckle Kirk Kandle a bit. Of course, he returned the favor!

After all the festivities, several folks helped us haul the bikes back outside so that I could reassemble the rig for the homeward trip. Since I'll be hauling the bikes back to the store on Monday, I figure it's easy enough to leave the trailer loaded, and slip it into the garage for safe keeping.

We are getting one of my stepdaughters a bike, and it's due to arrive at the shop on Monday. I will--conveniently--have the trailer at the store to enable me to haul it home as I return from work.

I took a day off work today, partly because there was talk of a Bike to Work Day/Week meeting. I missed the meeting if it did happen, as I never got confirmation (to be fair, I could have called the guy...).

I took advantage of the morning to deadhead the long trailer through the bikeway down by Beargrass Creek--the one that links Lexington Road at Grinstead Drive with Spring Street (more precisely, the end of Locust Street...). I wanted to be sure it would go over the bridges on that trail--the transition from pavement to bridge deck is sharp enough a vertical bend that I wasn't sure. Happily, I don't need to modify anything, although I may move the trailer axle back a bit anyway. The trail was, as I expected, given the recent wet weather, silted and slick in places, and I alerted Metro Call to that fact.

In the same phone call, I reminded MetroCall that Louisville Metro Government is responsible for sweeping the so-called bike lanes along Westport Road west of Fenley Avenue. I don't expect much action on this, of course, given prior experience, but weekly calls by all who read this won't hurt--give them a squeaky wheel to grease!

One reason I was reminded to call about junk in the bike lanes was a twenty-pound rock that had apparently fallen from some truck or other and had landed in the bike lane. I stopped to toss it beyond the sidewalk, but not before snapping a picture of it and sending the image to MetroCall. No word on whether they received it...

The whole experience made me wonder--if only very briefly--whether it was time for me to get a smart phone, so that I could use the MetroCall "app" (if that's the right techno terminology...). I've only within the last couple years gotten to the point that I'll use the text message function of the phone I have. I refuse to use its web browsing capability, such as it is, as it's just too darned cumbersome, what with the teeny screen and keyboard, and given that my experiments with Jenn's smart phone haven't been all that pleasant, I largely think smart phones not worth the money. I prefer a nice, big screen at a desk for web browsing, and my hands are large enough that a full-size keyboard is important to me (I'd almost go for an over-sized board. I had a split board for some years, and liked it quite well until it died three years ago).

Anyway, it's Bike Month! A friend resolved to ride every day in April, and reports that keeping up with that promise to himself has helped him ride more. I don't know that I will be able to do a similar challenge for myself this month, given that I will be attending a college graduation in Georgetown Kentucky on the 19th, but I plan to continue riding most of the time instead of driving, just because I can.