CX mania

Last Thursday was a busy day off work for me. I had a stop in Hikes Point for some CPAP supplies, then wanted to be at the dedication ceremony for the new Cyclocross facility at Eva Bandman Park on River Road.

I'm not historically a 'cross racer kind of guy, but I'm quite impressed by this facility. The racers I've heard discuss the course give it high marks for being tough, challenging, and creative. That we are getting the Masters' World Championships here in 2012 and the World Championships here in 2013 says a lot about where this site rates for the cyclocross racers.

I only hope they work out something for those auto-centric folks so they have a closer place to keep their cars, only to improve spectator attendance. Most of us would ride there and find a place to lock our bikes.

After the dedication and unveiling of the new sign, I went to do some shopping in town. Jenn wanted me to get some stuff for her howloween costume (she won the contest at the party we attended Saturday evening), and I needed some lunch. Sol Aztecas was a good choice for lunch!

Then it was out to beyond Iroquois Park a bit for some new shoes at Swag's. I've been a periodic Swag's customer for fifteen years or so, and enjoy the quality of service and knowledge Swag has his staff exhibit. After choosing and buying the shoes, I opted to enjoy some solitude in Iroquois Park.

When I lived in Old Louisville twelve years ago, I had a Wednesday afternoon ritual I enjoyed. I would get the latest issue of LEO on my way home from my day job, get on my bike and ride to the top of Iroquois Park. I'd find a quiet place on the upper meadow, sit and read the LEO, maybe read a chapter of whatever book I was enjoying at the time, and ride home. I sometimes stayed up there until dark (I had lights on the Ryan even then), and got to see owls seeking their evening meals, deer grazing in the meadow, and other dusk-time wildlife. It was good to revisit that simple pleasure, if only for a little while.

Then it was on to the First Birthday Party for Car-Free Happy Hour, held at Vernon Lanes that evening. It was good to see the friends old and new that were there. I even tried bowling again--scored something like 89 for the game! I have a bowling ball at home, but hadn't thought to bring it with me on the bike. It needs some redrilling before I want to use it much, though, as the thumb hole has gotten small over the twenty or thirty years since it was drilled. I didn't know that bowling balls could "heal" by making a hole smaller--or did my thumb get larger in diameter since I was twenty-three?

The USGP Cyclocross races were held at the new park over the weekend. I didn't get to go Saturday (someone had to mind the store while the boss raced...), and Jenn and I had stuff to do around the house Sunday, but all accounts I've read say it was a great course and a grand weekend of racing. Sounds like a lot of pain to me, but some folks seem to enjoy it.

Visibility

I've discussed visibility a fair bit lately. One thing I haven't mentioned in the "motorist claims (s)he didn't see me" bit is that as I travel Westport Road, I am able to notice how far back people pay attention to my presence. When they see me, some even use their turn signals to indicate to others their intention to change lanes. Many motorists see me far enough back that they are able to integrate into the left-lane traffic as far as a couple hundred yards behind me.

Rhetorical question time: If they can see me that far away, why can't the rest?

To play with that question a bit, one possible answer is that so many motorists simply don't think that far ahead. They are too busy fiddling with the doo-dad of the moment, whether it be their cell phone, their fast-(urp!)food, their GPS navigation, radio, electric razor, makeup or what-the-hell-ever to pay attention to their surroundings in a meaningful way. As a result, they are surprised to see a slower road user, and their surprise leads to their anger, which in turn becomes a tirade at me when the real problem is their own inattention.

Think they are mad at themselves? I doubt they would admit it. They are too busy blaming "that d@#$%! cyclist" for making them pay attention to their driving.

One of the reasons I like my Vanguard is that visibility from the bike is wonderful. I'm in a fairly natural seated position, with my head upright--much like the position of an automobile driver. I have good lateral vision, and excellent long-range sight lines without neck strain. My view to the rear is a bit different than what someone on a conventional bike would have, but I'm also pretty adept at using a helmet-mounted rear view mirror. Since I'm not wrapped in a glass, steel and plastic coccoon, I can hear other traffic from far enough away to tell something about the intentions of the operators.

Given that folks so often change lanes so far back from me, I have to believe I'm fairly easy to see as well. I've made it easier, certainly, with the large reflectors I made and my habitual choice of brightly-colored shirts, not to mention the various "be seen" active lights I use (I counted the Planet Bike Superflash lights in my garage the other day--not counting the two on Jenn's Peugeot that are now in Sarah's keeping, we have about a dozen). All of the bikes used for commuting have reflective stripes on the tires (the lone exception being the front tire on my Vanguard, and if that tire ever wears out...). All of the utility bikes have extra reflectors in addition to the CPSC stuff. And Jenn's bike has those Halo rims...

In short, anyone who cannot see me is either a) not looking, b) is vision-impaired enough that they shouldn't be driving or c) lying about it. I've had reports that I was hard to see in certain situations, even from a fairly astute driver. Those situations included a fair number of reflective barrels lining the roadway (construction zone) on which the speed limit was 25 (and was not enforced, but that's a separate issue), and where motorists are supposed to be going slower and watching for unusual things to happen. What do I need to add there? A Xenon strobe? How irritating is THAT for a motorist who gets stuck behind me at a long traffic light?

How well do YOU know the rules?

During the hour and a half to two hours I spend getting to and from work most days, I have a bit of time to ruminate on the state of drivers' education--and several opportunities to see just how poor that state is.

I frequently think that we don't retest enough (ONCE being more than we do...). I'm sure that many folks would have trouble passing the same test they took at the age of sixteen (or whenever they take it now--I've lost track since I don't have any kids who are just learning to drive).

Imagine how pleased I was to find this online test, then. It's a "written" test put out by GMAC Insurance, as a way of bringing attention to the need for more knowledge about driving.GMAC reports an over-20% failure rate (defined as score less than 70%). Kentucky ranks 42nd in the country at passing this test, with state average score of 74.9%. It's appalling to me that drivers don't know any better than this, but not terribly surprising.

When I am driving, I sometimes think along the lines of "would I pass a driving test today?" I'm not always so sure. I know I do things that would cost me points (one hand on the wheel, protocol issues regarding my use of the clutch and shifter, I'm not always good about using my turn signals (although I do use them more than the average motorist in this town, I don't use them all the time), and who knows what else. Given my score on the written test (90%), I suspect I would do well enough--especially if I would be aware of being tested.

As a League Cycling Instructor, I have reason to say that I know the traffic rules better than many motorists. Indeed, I frequently encounter motorists who I am SURE would flunk this written test, and who I'm equally sure would not care that they flunk it unless they would lose their current driving privileges by failing. Of course, some of them probably know this at some level, and would refuse to take the test out of fear of what they would see quantified.

I think the same thing about vision testing. I get the occasional motorist telling me I'm hard to see. Mine is the one on the left, but neither of these bikes are hard to see:

I have to think that a person who cannot see me on this bike is either a) vision-impaired to the point that it would be illegal for him or her to drive or b) needs to scan for smaller other road users. There is no third option that does not challenge the honesty of the person claiming to have not seen me. Given the number of crash reports where the at-fault party has said, "I just didn't see that car/bike/pedestrian," I think people are showing criminal neglect when driving. Paying attention to one's surroundings is of paramount importance when using the roads. Knowing the rules of the road--and following them--is part of the contractual obligation of a driver's license.

News Flash: Red Pickup dude found

I'm admittedly short on the details, but rumor has it that the Oldham County Police have found the owner of the red Dodge pickup that has been harassing cyclists. The OCPD asks that if you have LEGITIMATE information about incidents you have had or experienced others having with this guy that you please contact them with that information. I don't think they want speculation or second-hand stuff so much as first-hand accounts with time and date at this point.

My hopes are that they will find a way to use him as an object lesson on traffic safety. Perhaps this series of events will aid efforts to get HB88 passed in some legislative session SOON.

I'm for public service work for this guy, partnered with a few hours of instruction and a requirement that he ride a bike for a couple thousand miles over the next year.

It rained last night

Yes, it's newsworthy that we had rain last night. We had more rain from that storm system than we had experienced in over a month, mostly as a function of drought conditions from the latter part of August until, well, last night.

The official (or officious) weather service report called it at a bit more than a third of an inch, with a total for October of .44 inches. I've fired pistols with wider bullets (I was in ROTC in high school, and during summer camp got to fire a total of six rounds of .45 caliber ammunition--haven't fired a pistol or rifle since about that time in my life).

Of course, the weather was coming my way as I was heading home. There is an observation involving my old pal Murphy and his law somewhere in all this...

As I was getting ready to leave the store, Jenn called to see if I needed a ride. I told her I'd be fine for a while, and would call her if I changed my mind at some point. Three minutes later, as I was spooling up the revs on the pedals, I heard my cell phone ringing. I'm not in the habit of answering the thing when I'm pedaling, so I left it be.

As I was working through Crestwood and toward Pewee Valley, I decided that instead of going via Westport Road as is my usual route, I would go through Anchorage and follow LaGrange Road home from there, to put me closer to Jenn's workplace should I need to get her assistance (she had driven the truck to work). I was seeing lightning off to my north, but it wasn't close enough that I felt threatened. I got to Lucas Lane in Anchorage before I started getting rained on, but it went from sprinkle to hard rain in moments. Visibility was getting worse, but was still manageable--until I got in front of Central State Hospital (not to be confused with Central (state) High School at 12th and Chestnut in Louisville, my alma mater).

I stopped for a few seconds under the Hurstbourne Parkway bridge to clear my eyes a bit--salt from my helmet was washing down into them causing part of my visibility problems. Deciding my stopping place was not as safe as I'd prefer, I got moving again and went to the "stop and rob" at the corner of LaGrange Road and UPS Drive.

I called Jenn, to find that she was out looking for me, and had gotten off my usual course by a mile or more. I told her where I was, and she was amazed that I'd gotten that far without being concerned over lightning strikes. She came to where I was, and as there was still a fair bit of lightning in the area, took me the rest of the way home.

An hour later, the rain lessened enough that the visibility was again tolerable, but I'm just as glad I wasn't waiting out that hour in front of a Circle K "stop and rob" store. I could find edible food at home, for example...

The episode will, I'm sure, lead to some discussion over how I deal with weather when I'm on a bike. I apparently have a different idea of what is manageable from the bike seat than Jenn, even setting aside my well-known dislike for riding in rain. Of course, rain and night mixed are even less fun than either alone, but can still be managed with reasonable care. I have no desire to get hit by lightning, but haven't done any deep research to tell me how much of a problem that is likely to be when cycling on a thirty-pound steel bike with an additional ten or fifteen pounds of stuff hanging on it.

Christian rudeness

I was riding home from work the other day, and near the intersection of Westport Road and Indian Springs Drive, a motorist honked his horn at me just before passing me too closely. I caught up to him at the Freys Hill Road intersection, and challenged him on his horn use. He claimed it was to let me know he was passing me. I told him I could hear his car from more than a hundred yards away, and blowing his horn was viewed as more of an "in your face" statement--sort of a "get the F&$^ off the road" thing. He replied that he'd blow his horn any time he wanted.

It was no real surprise to me that there was one of those little icthus things on the rear of his car--no doubt put there to proclaim that he's a good Christian. The overwhelming majority of the people who are rude to me on the road has either one of those little fishy things, a license plate with "In God We Trust," or some other broadcast of "I'm a christian!"

If they have to tell the world that they're Christian, instead of letting us figure it out by their acts and attitudes, are they really? Or are they, as a friend of mine quipped a couple decades ago, "hypocristians?"

In other words, I found this motorist's behavior decidedly un-Christian, or decidedly christian in its hypocrisy--you decide.

It's ROADWORTHY!! Jenn's bike update project, part II

In June of 2010, I presented Jenn with her birthday present: Her own Ryan Vanguard. A week or so later, I had accessorized it so that she could show it off during a "show off your ride" day at work. It looked like this until recently:


With the new parts installed, it looks like this:

In the second picture, the bits of reflective vinyl I put on the handlebar to make the bike a bit more visible show up a bit more. The reflective stripe on the tire shows well, too. You can get a sense of the reflectivity of the back rim, but it is overshadowed, if you will, by the reflective sidewall stripe on the tire. The rack trunk is mounted above the rack instead of right down on it to facilitate easier pannier installation and removal.

Part of the component selection included that the Apex parts are black. The brakes I chose are dark grey enough that they look almost black at a glance. I had to replace the fork, as noted before, to allow using linear-pull brakes at the front wheel. The caliper brakes that were on the bike originally were what a friend and I refer to as vacuum brakes. Yes, they suck.

The hardware issues I mentioned in a prior post were easy enough to resolve, once I focused on them. One fender strut was rattling against a rack stay, so I adjusted its angle a bit to separate them more. The screw holding that rack stay to the frame had loosened a bit as well, so it now has some threadlocking compound on its threads (as does its companion on the other side) to keep such from being an issue going forward. I raised the rack trunk a bit more from the rack, as the panniers were getting hard to mount and remove.

It's little tweaks like this that make a bike far more enjoyable--one doesn't have to worry about things falling off, and can thus focus more on keeping the bike upright and in the right part of the road. The bike rides well now. Jenn is happy with her birthday present.

A couple of quick disjointed items:

Car-Free Happy Hour is back for its first birthday bash! The latest event will be held at Vernon Lanes on Story Avenue on the 21st of October, starting at 5:30 pm!

On my way to work, I sometimes see a recent-model Toyota FJ. You've probably seen them, even if you paid them no mind. They are a "sport cute" designed to evoke sentimental memories of (or wishes for such sentimental memories of) the Toyota Land Cruisers of the mid-1970s, but with lots more luxury. It looks like this:

Supposedly making you think of this:

At any rate, the one I have seen a couple times now has a sign on its back window that reads, "It's a mid-life crisis thing...you probably understand."

I didn't understand.



Jenn's bike rode well for her on its test ride last night. We went on a five- or six-mile shakedown run, and the biggest complaint is that there seems to be some loose hardware in the rear rack or fender mounting systems. I need to do a minor tweak on one shifter's position to make it easier to use as well. I hope to get some images in the next few days.

Jenn's bike updates, part I

When we returned from our RAAM adventure, I presented Jenn with her birthday present--a shiny black Ryan Vanguard of her own. I had planned on updating the drive train from the beginning, but it was a while until I could make it happen.

Over the last few weeks, I've been gathering parts, ordering stuff, having Jenn take part in selecting components and so on. Everything finally was on hand at the end of last week (or so we thought--more on that in a moment), so reconstruction started yesterday.

I had offered to Jenn that she could do the work if she wanted--after all, she wanted to do the overhaul on her Peugeot she used as her commuter rig until this summer. She responded that she wanted to think of the bike as custom-refitted by me, so I have been doing the work.

I enjoy doing refits like this, so that's a good thing.

A partial list of upgrades:
SRAM Apex drive train (crankset, derailleurs, chain & cassette), black in color
Avid Single Digit brakes and levers, dark grey in color
new fork to support the linear pull brakes, black powdercoat to match the frame
Velocity Aeroheat rims in their nifty Halo powdercoat (reflective!!), which is dark grey in daylight
Schwalbe Marathon Racer tires with reflective sidewall stripe (hey, it's a commuter rig--I want there to be NO mistake that someone is there!)
black spokes with nickel-plated spoke nipples for durability (and a little "pop" against the darker rims and spokes)

and the low point: the only hubs I could find that were a) black in color, b) reasonably priced and c) didn't have disc mounts were Shimano Deore. Given that these are essentially the same as the 2001 LX hubs, and as good as the late-90s XT stuff, I think they'll be fine. They may have the Shimano labels removed from them at some point, though...

The wheels went together well, of course. Velocity rims usually build well for me. The fork installation was no problem, either--of course no problem was expected. Components that bolt on rarely give me troubles, either, and didn't this time.

Murphy's Law did rear its ugly head a couple times, though. The shifters (SRAM TT bar-end shifters) wouldn't fit into the ends of the handlebar extensions without some filing. I spent some quality time with a file, and resolved that issue. Then, as I was installing the cables, I was reminded that the front brake requires a tandem-length cable, of which I had exactly zero on hand. I'm not satisfied with my routing of the rear brake cable, but that's a five-minute fix. The front cable will take me another five or so to install and adjust.

Hopefully I will be able to get some pictures online soon. I sent a few to Jenn by phone while I was working, just to tease her a bit. They were phone images, so they weren't as useful as they would have been had they been from a decent camera.

I figure she'll get to test-ride it tonight. I know I'll have some tweaking to do with shifter angles, brake lever angles and such. The shifting adjustments should be done already, though. I found that the deraileur hanger was bent a little bit, which was keeping it from shifting as well as I would expect Apex to work. Having the tools to deal with that problem, I made the adjustments and things worked as expected.

Maybe I'll get some pictures on here in the next few days...

car free lite, sort of

I got to spend a short week totally without a car.

My 1994 Ford Ranger has over 220,000 miles on it. Stuff has worn out. Stuff has rusted to breaking point. I think I did a post on here over a year ago telling how I had dropped it off at a service provider after realizing that a support for one of the rear axle springs had rusted to failure.

Some time last week, I discovered that the rear end of that spring was unattached to the frame of the truck. I took it to the same garage Monday morning and left it with them with instructions that it didn't have to be done that day or the next. I also asked them to inspect the drive shaft, as I suspected failed universal joints and carrier bearing. Sure enough, all three universal joints were worn out, as was the carrier bearing. After having a little sticker shock over the estimate, I approved the work. The next day, I received a call informing me that I could pay an extra $40 to have the truck back the next day, or not pay it and pick it up Friday--it seems a part was not on hand in town and had to be shipped in from out of town.

Of course, I chose to wait another day. I can do without a truck for a day for $40 without much drama, even if I want to haul boxes (as I did Thursday) or rims (as I did Friday).

In the course of the week, it occured to me that I was REALLY car-free for a few days. I didn't have the option of the fallback position of driving if I was late to work, or whatever. It was neat to think that I'm in a much better place to deal with that than many folks in town who would have to rent a car to deal with their auto-addiction.

I don't pretend to be car-free. I still have uses for my truck, and am not ready to get rid of it. I'll keep it--or one like it--as long as I feel justified in maintaining the thing (and price for the work done this week is a factor I had to justify), as it enables me to do things I want to do, like haul a kayak to the river or the lake, haul the tandem to a bike ride that's farther away than I want to ride, haul material for home projects in one trip rather than buy a Bikes at Work trailer and need to make two or more trips, and so on.

It's also nice to have the truck when the roads are too crappy for me to enjoy my ride to work, as I'm sure will be the case some time in the next six months or so.

My log shows that I rode a bit less than six hundred miles in September. I have not corrected entries for the computer mis-calibration noted before, but I don't think the error is large enough to get me to seven hundred.

The numbers on a web site, however, are just that. They are only numbers. My leg muscles aren't as worried about the formal number--they just know I'll be riding until they won't work any longer.

The last couple days have seen me pulling a trailer a bit. We had a part-availability issue at the store, so Thursday I went to another shop to get the right size part (none of our suppliers carry Cannondale-specific hardware, and Cannondale won't sell to non-dealers). We had a couple boxes of stuff to donate at Goodwill, so I stuffed one of the boxes in my non-Burley trailer for drop-off at their St. Matthews location. I stopped at Kroger to get some stuff for dinner later that day, as my path to work would go right past the house (more or less--we aren't right on Westport Road). From the house, where I got the smaller box of donation stuff, I stopped at the Whipps Mill Goodwill store which is closer to my to-work route.

That got the trailer closer to work--enough so that it made as much sense to dead-head it to work with me as take it home before going to work. Since the rims for Jenn's bike upgrade were scheduled to arrive yesterday, having the trailer at the store was a good thing--it's easier to haul them in a trailer than on top of my bike. The rims (and the trailer) are at home now, and the wheels will likely be built this weekend.

Tomorrow is Harvest Homecoming bike ride. We have not pre-registered. We may go, or not. We may ride out to watch some Cyclocross racing at Fisherman's Park. We may stay home and rebuild Jenn's bike.

Cyclometer calibration

I rode the Strada to work the other day, as noted in my pages on mycyclinglog.com. When I got home, I looked at my average speed and distance, and was puzzled that I was showing over 25 miles instead of my 22 miles I usually got on the Vanguard.

The next day, I watched for--and found--mile markers on Westport Road. I found that over the course of four miles, I was off by half a mile--eleven percent.

The cyclometer on the Vanguard is a Vetta RT55, purchased when BikeE was still around. It's served me with minor problems--mostly that the bracket kit was not well-designed and has to have the contacts tweaked from time to time to keep the thing working. I've gotten to work some days to find that the thing didn't read a mile of my journey and was in sleep mode. I haven't bothered to replace the thing for one reason or another--mostly bordering-on-apathy. Still, having it work right is a good thing. Anyway, it doesn't keep its calibration when I change the battery. I had calibrated it well years ago, but at the time of the last battery change I couldn't find the paper on which I had written the calibration number. I got lazy, and used the number I thought was right, based on memory of calibrating another model of computer a LOT of times over the years I worked at Scheller's.

It was off by eleven percent.

Rats.

I was off that bike for a few days--the last day I rode it was Tuesday the 21st. I tried re-calibrating the computer that day before I left the store, but used the online instructions rather than actually measuring the roll-out, and was off by even MORE than eleven percent.I had some time Thursday, and measured the roll-out to calibrate the thing properly, but didn't test it against mile markers until this evening on my way home from the store.

It was within a few yards of dead on. I MIGHT tweak the calibration a bit, but I may leave it alone.

Now to decide whether to edit all my mileages for that bike since early this year based on more accurate calibration. It will add another couple hundred miles to my overall total, of course.


On a different topic--at least slightly--one of the things I enjoy about riding instead of driving is the amount of cool stuff I find along the roadside. I have, among other things, two or three pair of Vice-Grip pliers (the real deal, not imitations!), a four-D-Cell MagLite flashlight, and a couple of screwdrivers that were roadside finds. I've found several dollars in change over the last six months that I would have missed had I not been on a bicycle. This morning, I found a pair of bandage scissors in the middle of Goose Creek Road at Westport Road. They had not been damaged by tires going over them, as they were in one of the inevitable gravel patches found in such an intersection.

Finding stuff--yet another reason to ride instead of driving!

UPS Flight 6

A few weeks ago, UPS had an inflight disaster involving a 747-400 freighter. You probably saw something about it in the news.

It was especially poignant for me, as the pilot's wife is a customer of ours at the store. Jenn works for UPS, and reported that it was a day of interruptions in the work schedule (to understate things a bit). The UPS Air Group building has been flying the UPS flag at half-staff since.

The remains of the air crew are to be repatriated Friday morning. As an employee of the UPS Airline, Jenn is able to go. I may get to go also--an opportunity to pay my respects.

There has been much speculation regarding the cause of the crash--much of it including discussion of smoke in the cockpit and ways UPS could have equipped the airplane to improve survivability of such a thing. I don't know enough to say that this or that could have made things better (or worse). I only know that UPS lost some important people that day--important to UPS, to their families, to their friends and neighbors.

And to me.

Oldham County News

Over the last couple weeks, I've been reading about incidents involving a red Dodge pickup truck, the driver of which seems to have a thing about bicyclists being on "his" roads. Todd (coincidentally, a recent (ringer) student in the LBC New Rider Clinics) reported that the guy driving the truck came across the center line to play head-on chicken with him, resulting in Todd's departure from the pavement as a self-preservation move.

As the Oldham County Attorney is a cyclist (and a customer of ours at the store)--or perhaps regardless of her being a cyclist--the County is taking this seriously. There is now a blurb about it in the Oldham County Era newspaper.

Bubba truck driver has been warned, at least in public. It would be purely speculation to say that Bubba will read about his exploits and cheer about his notoriety. Perhaps his literate cousin will tell him he's doing a good job "scarin' them durned bikers off'n the roads!"

The ideal goal is to get Bubba (or whatever his name is) to treat bicycle riders as people, not as targets for stupid games of chicken. Of course, one can imagine Bubba saying to himself something along the lines of, "them durned bikers ain't got no reason to be on my roads, and any lawman who tells me otherwise is bullshittin' me."


Bubba is not alone. He has friends and other allies who would like me off the road, just as I have friends who want him off the road. I have a right to be there. He has the privilege to drive there--a privilege that may have to be revoked to get him to realize that aggravating cyclists is wrong. Even losing his license may not convince him--one can readily imagine Bubba blaming cyclists for his misfortune should he be jailed for harassment or terroristic threatening.

It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Seriously? Can this guy be for real?

While not a huge issue in world events, it's still puzzling that the head of what used to be considered an institution of some sort of higher education would post such comments.

I'm referring to Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Bat-shit, er, Baptist Seminary, and his opinion that the practice of yoga is antithetical to christianity.

Huh?

Okay, he's entitled to his opinion. I get that. I have opinions to which I'm entitled, also. I can be batshit about them, too, but I usually try to support my position with facts rather than scripture, as the latter is, at least to many of us, purely conjecture and not supportable with anything approaching the rigors of scientific research. Christianity is one more in a long line of mythologies, designed to explain what humans did not understand and keep said non-understanding humans in line with what the power structure wanted (want everlasting life? Do as I say and worship this deity...).

Yoga is, to be sure, closely associated with Hinduism and/or Buddhism, and is thus decidedly NOT something Mohler wants christians to practice, lest they lose some perceived favor with his god. In his blog post (which was painful to read, I might add, given the level of dogma so often found in writings of the pious), he admitted that the physical exercises associated with yoga are not in and of themselves bad for christians, but that following the spiritualism associated with many forms of yoga is a bad thing to do.

He even said something about christians having to meditate on sentences from the bible rather than on incomprehensible syllables. I guess he never heard of "speaking in tongues," which I hear of from time to time in certain other christian sects--notably not baptists.

What a shame that this guy is given any status at all...

It's Car Free Day!

It would be no surprise to any regular reader of this blog (I think there is one) that I rode a bicycle to work today instead of driving a car.

At Car-Free Happy Hour last week, I scored several copies of a poster made for the 2007 Car Free day from Tim Darst. I brought a few to work with me yesterday, intending to give one to the store owner so that he could put it on his car when he rode his bike to the store today. He wound up having to stay home with a sick kiddo today, so I'm by myself at the store (It's a quiet day, so we don't need more staff than me. The repair work is done. The parts order gets submitted in a couple hours.).

Anyway, I kept a couple copies for myself, and gave a couple more to Jenn. I taped one to the back of the Burley trailer, and pulled it to work this morning. I'm sure I over-politicized something I do on a regular basis in the eyes of a few motorists that had time to read my sign. As I rode to work, I realized that I had a good reason for having the trailer with me beyond having a place to put the sign--there is a box of parts at the store to fit Jenn's bike that will be easier to haul home this way. Of course, in strict accordance with Murphy's Law, the rims haven't arrived yet, so I'll probably have to either leave the trailer at the store for a couple days or pull it back another day (more likely the latter, as I have some minor need for it at home). At least it pulls well.

Car-Free day coming up

This is especially for folks who don't typically ride to work: This Wednesday, the 22nd of September, is "Car Free Day." The challenge is to do as many of your daily tasks that involve transportation without using a car or other form of motorized transport.

CART is planning a celebration of Car Free Day that includes a parking space on Market at Fourth (unless I got that confused with the discussion of Park(ing) Day this past Friday).

Going car-free takes a bit of planning, to be sure. I often do things like pre-place clothing at work, plan errands that require I carry large items or lots of stuff for other days (or use a bike trailer for what I can haul--up to a hundred pounds or a few cubic feet, depending), plan trips longer than I want to ride (or to those few areas where cycling is not a good idea for whatever reason) for different days, and so on. Over time, the planning becomes more automatic, though.

Two of my three bikes are rigged to carry at least some cargo beyond the volume of the seat back bag I have on my Strada (which is huge by performance bike standards--I can put a spare helmet in there). I can pull a trailer with my Vanguard, my Raleigh, or the tandem (Jenn and I did an errands run on Saturday using the tandem and one of our trailers).

My ride to work is eleven miles or so, each way. It takes me less than an hour by bike--usually fifty or fifty-five minutes each way. It takes me between twenty and thirty minutes by car, depending on traffic volume and my fortunes with traffic lights. That extra twenty minutes each way allows me to get miles on my bike (more on miles in a moment), NOT have to pay for gym membership to get a cardio work plan going, pay less for car insurance, improve my health and mood without drugs, and more in addition to the more obvious benefits like paying for less gasoline and less frequently having to work on the car.

I'm tempted to use the expression from those old television commercials for Alka-Seltzer: "Try it! You'll LIKE it!" However, in that context, the food being pushed was considered the cause of gastric distress, so I have to consider it a bit more.

Yeah, there are elements of cycling instead of driving that raise one's awareness of one's frailty. Some of those motorists are really jerks about sharing the road with cyclists. The law is what it is, however, and they have agreed to act in accordance with the law when they obtained their drivers' licences.

My observation, though, is that most drivers are pretty good--even those who don't really know as much as I'd like for them to know about dealing with bicycles. They don't hold any malice toward me--or you--as cyclists or as road users. I like to wave at them when they've given me more room than they might have (with all five fingers, of course!), to show them I've noticed their kindness and encourage further kindness to other cyclists. It's not entirely altruistic, of course: I want them to recognize me in the future as a legitimate and courteous road user, as well, since I ride the Westport Road corridor almost daily.


I was running late for my normal departure time this morning. I could have opted for the car, but I chose to ride a bike I don't normally use for my commute. My Strada is MUCH faster than my Vanguard--I averaged about 18 miles an hour on the way to work instead of the usual 12 or so. I didn't get to carry some things I wanted to carry, as I don't have the cargo capacity, but I got to work on time.

A peek at my stats on mycyclinglog.com showed me that I will break four thousand miles for 2010 later this week--probably some time Thursday or Friday, depending on what I do Thursday. A bit over twelve hundred of those miles are club miles. A bit under three thousand of those miles are in leiu of using a car (i.e. utility cycling), something that touches on that planning stuff I mentioned earlier.

I find that by using the bike instead of the car, I do my errands more efficiently. I plan them for loops instead of multiple trips when I can. If I don't really need something, I leave it at the store. I get to re-allocate money I would otherwise use for gas or other stuff I don't need to buy nicer food instead.

Share the lane with whom?

Most mornings, I have uneventful rides to work. This morning was almost uneventful.

I was on Westport Road, approaching the traffic light just west of Hurstbourne Parkway that gives access to the shopping plaza where Kroger and Louisville Athletic Center are located. A motorist in a Honda CR-V rolled down his window and opined that "we would all be safer if you stay farther to the right." I replied that, no, he was wrong--I was far safer where I was in the lane (about the middle of the lane, tending toward the right tire track). He would hear none of it, of course, as he was plainly not in the mood for dialog. I offered to discuss it with him, and share with him why I felt I was safer, but he drove off, yelling something about the world revolving around me, and no doubt muttering to the two small children in his car how "that cyclist is such a selfish bastard."

Motorists make such claims to get cyclists out of their way. They think that having a cyclist out at the edge of the pavement is somehow safer, or at least that telling me it's safer will get me out there so they can pass me illegally in my lane instead of having to slow down a bit and wait for a chance to use the next lane over. Their imprecation for me to change my behavior has not a whit to do with my safety as much as it has to do with their perceived inconvenience at having to deal with a cyclist on "their" roadway.

I periodically sift through the Kentucky Driver's Manual looking for passages that support such viewpoints as expressed by that motorist from this morning. I've yet to find any. I keep finding things that are directly opposed to his viewpoint. It makes me wonder whether that driver ever read the manual he was required to read when he "earned" his license. I keep wanting to challenge people like him with a copy of the manual, and ask them to find for me the part that supports their outlandish claims. Of course, none of them want to take the time to find it--they are in far too much of a hurry to get where they want to go to have any dialog at all about traffic rules, especially a dialog that could lead to their discovery that they are wrong.

Keri posted on her Cycling Orlando blog about Cyclist Inferiority Complex, in the context of her description of what otherwise was an excellent trip. I don't think anyone would diagnose me as having it, given what I freely admit is something of a metaphorical chip on my shoulder regarding my place in traffic. I really need to get some signs made with the image on the back of Keri's jersey, and mount them on flags hanging from my bike.

I was reminded recently of the horizontal flags that some cyclists had a couple decades ago. They seem to be available in other countries even today. I keep thinking about having one with a very sharp barb on the end for motorists that crowd me as they pass--maybe even figuring out a way to spread acidic gel on a car that is especially egregious about crowding me...

Then I find something better to do than daydream.

Second place!

Since starting to log my miles on mycyclinglog.com, I've bumped along in fourth or fifth place among the Louisville group started by Dominic. I'm sure that at least a couple people in that group have ceased logging their miles, as I'm sure they are still riding. However, as noted, I've bumped along behind Rick, Ray and David, sometimes behind Manton, for most of the year. June saw me drop further behind, since I was off the bikes for the two weeks that I was out of town working Race Across America.

Imagine my surprise, then, to note that I'm now in second place. Ahead of David, who has been a more steadfast commuter than I for much of the last two years!

I had a good month in August, as previously discussed here. I rode a LOT of miles in August and July. I may ride a fair bit in September as well, although I'm going to be driving this weekend.

I'm driving because I'm going to be hauling more tools and supplies than I want to carry by bike as I support the Old Kentucky Home Tour. I'll be staffing the store during business hours Saturday, then hauling my self and my supplies to Bardstown to work on bikes for a while. I'm scheduled to leave Bardstown about 0700 Sunday to do roving support for cyclists on the route home, which includes the famous "cookie stop" near Wilsonville, about half-way home. It's a good time for me, to be sure, as I get to put on my metaphorical white hat and rescue folks' bike rides.

The Old Kentucky Home Tour won't be over for me until the coolers, water jugs, tables and supplies are stowed in the club's storage unit, though, and that will be some time after five pm that Sunday. Still, it's a good time, and a great cycling party.

I hope you will join us on the ride!

Labor Day weekend stuff

I finally got Jenn on our new-to-us tandem today!

She decided some days ago that she would use riding the tandem as a reward for doing some paperwork she's been putting off. I finally sat her down and got that done last night--at least far enough along that she'd ride the bike with me today.

Of course, by the time we were getting ready to go, we were going to be a bit rushed to arrive at the 2:00 PM club ride and do all I wanted to do. Still, we got there with enough time that I could fiddle with the steering a bit before the club ride left the parking lot (I needed to fine-tune my adjustments a bit). While riding, I learned what Larry meant when he was telling me that the captain's seat has an unnerving roll about the axis of the main frame tube. I'd heard that some of these seats did that with the Rad-Loc mounting system, but had no idea how disconcerting the experience was.

The roll-axis motion in the seat mounting was most of why the bike felt squirrelly compared to Bill and Kate's bike. I hope so, anyway. I'll need to have some conversations with the folks at RANS this week, as this will not do for long-term use. Otherwise, the bike felt good. I need to fine-tune the rear shifting a bit--the barrel adjuster on the shifter wouldn't move for me during the ride, and it's not quite where I want it. Hopefully I will remember to work on that before we leave for the Mayor's Hike and Bike in the morning.

As it turned out, some of the problem was loose hardware on the "sprint braces" supporting the seat back. Some of the problem was resolved--at least until I discuss the situation further with RANS--by adding some aluminum foil at the Rad-Loc rail to shim the seat in a more upright position. I'm not sure all the creaking has gone away--I didn't have enough time to fully test my work before departing to meet a friend with whom I planned to mark part of the Old Kentucky Home Tour route.

Yep, that's right, it's OKHT time again! This weekend will see the Bardstown ride in its thirty-third iteration. I don't get to ride it this year, but will see folks in Bardstown Saturday evening and Sunday morning in my bike-fixing-person capacity. I'll be wandering about the route on Sunday, looking for folks who need help getting their bikes working as well.

See you out there!

August is over already?

August was a good month for me, cycling-wise. I looked at my log on mycyclinglog.com, and realized that there were exactly five days in August on which I didn't ride at least twenty miles. Given that three of those days were Sundays, it also means I rode to work every day I worked in August--the second month this year I've been able to say that. In April, I rode to work every day, but Jenn brought me home using my truck twice--once to look at houses, once because it was raining cats, dogs and the occasional pot-bellied pig.

Jenn bailed me out one time in August--after a club ride I captained got rained on heavily shortly before we finished. Even so, that day was good for thirty miles. She also picked me up one other time, as we were attending a party one of her co-workers was having that afternoon. The remaining day for which I logged less than twenty miles was the day I had the road and written tests for the New Rider Clinic, as I was stuck at the parking lot proctoring the written test while others rode the road test for me.

All in all, August was good for 710 miles. It still didn't beat my high-mileage month for this year--July, with 777, but I haven't done any centuries or RAIN in August.

Naturally, I wound up driving to work on Wednesday. I had an appointment to meet a reporter from the Ceej in the afternoon, and as the appointment was in Fern Creek, I opted for a faster mode of travel to minimize my time away from the store during the day. I'm not sure whether the story he was writing will be published, or when, so I'll leave it for a later discussion. I'm not sure I'm happy about things at the moment, anyway, as I would have preferred to know a bit more about the issue at hand before commenting. That said, knowing what I know today, I probably wouldn't have changed a whole lot of my comments. We'll see how it sounds when the article shows.

I still haven't gotten Jenn on the tandem. There is this issue of some paperwork she's been putting off, and she has decided that it has to be done before she'll ride the bike. It looks like I'll have to do this paperwork--the things I will do for my wife--but she's going to have to help. Maybe I'll find time to do it this week.

A couple summers ago, I bought a real, er, reel mower. I found it at Home Despot, and as the packing materials were missing, I looked it over a bit closer before loading it on my cart. One of the smaller wheels was damaged, so I asked the sales guy what kind of discount I could get on the thing.

I got it for half price--about $65.

A month or so later, I found a flier on my front door advertising a lawn mowing service that was going to charge me $35 per week to cut my grass. For less than two weeks worth of such a service, I had a perfectly serviceable mower. My mower is quiet, so I can mow whenever I want without disturbing any neighbors. My mower doesn't kick up the clouds of dust I associate with gas-powered rotary mowers, so my allergies don't flare when I cut the grass.

The handle broke when I was cutting the grass a week or two ago. The front yard at the new house grows pretty slow this time of year, and judging from the assortment of lawn care herbicides and such the prior owner was having something of a battle getting nice grass to grow consistently. When I do cut the grass, I keep wondering about re-seeding the yard this fall with something that will do better at choking out weeds and not need expensive fertilizers.

Anyway, back to the broken handle. I contacted a company online that advertised the mower, and learned that they don't carry replacement parts like handles. The manufacturer is willing to deal with end users, however, and I called them to order a replacement part. I was informed that they had changed the handle design a bit, in part due to failures like the one I was reporting. The nice woman on the phone decided that my mower was new enough that it was under warranty, and sent me a new handle assembly (not just the part that failed) at no charge. It arrived today.

I get to cut my grass tomorrow evening. My yard will look better. I'll be happier.

Ironman

I saw not one, but two of these on Sunday:The occasion was that I was volunteering for the Ironman race here in town, as a kayak paddler, to help ensure that all the swimmers got where they were going without mishap. I did my part--chased down a few folks who were veering off course, allowed one swimmer to rest by hanging onto the front end of my boat for a few seconds, and paddled beside one slower swimmer who was going to just make the time deadline.

There was talk of a shuttle for getting our boats back to where we put in, but it seemed like more fun to propel myself back without adding to the gasoline usage.

I was thus also able to see a need for my help breaking down and packing the stuff Ironman brings to the event so they could haul it to the next event. I had something to do before lunch time that way.

After lunch, Jenn and I moved down to the bike/run transition area, and helped there for a little while before going to her scheduled shift helping racers at the end of their event. The finish line at the Ironman is a phalanx of folks that the racer must navigate--health care folks, the team that removes racers' chips (timing system), the guys who take pictures of happy finishers, those who distribute t-shirts and hats to finishers--before being released to the care of either family members or providers of more intense health care. That was pretty cool. While I hadn't signed up for doing so, I decided to give it a shot, as it was something that needed doing.

I mentioned to Jenn that it would be cool to "catch" one of the frequent customers of Bluegrass Bicycle. I saw a couple of our folks come through, but was not in a position to help them at the time. However, one racer I helped had, indeed, been a customer. He came to town a month prior to the race to familiarize himself with the bike course, and during his ride had had a wheel failure. I sold him a new wheel that he could use for training the rest of the year, and suggested that he take his broken wheel to his home shop and try for a warranty fix. He reported that his wheel was replaced under warranty, and was glad to see me to tell me so.

Another racer I helped expressed great surprise that Ironman would be able to find so many volunteers who knew what was going on. She reported that many small running races where she lives have trouble finding any volunteers who know where basic needs can be met, yet every volunteer she encountered at this event knew what she'd need and how to get it to her or her to it.

That makes me feel good about the local volunteer community. Y'all Rock!

Tandem Tweaking

Here I am, two whole days into owning a tandem I've wanted for over fifteen years, and I haven't even ridden it. Much.

Jenn had to work late tonight, so I spent some time sorting out the steering adjustments for the forward cockpit. Larry (who had last ridden the captain's position on this bike) had a very different idea of best position for things. He never got really comfortable with the "gerbil steer" nature of the RANS design.

In the process of sorting the steering, I rode the bike a couple blocks. It's interesting how this bike differs from Bill's bike in subtle ways--this one handles better solo, surprisingly. The Aerospoke rear wheel has a different freehub sound than the Shimano hub on Bill's bike. I was a bit disconcerted to feel the front tire wandering a bit at low speeds--something I've not experienced with Bill's bike--so I'll have to examine that tire for faults and perhaps replace it. I have a spare--bought in preparation for RAIN--so I can try it to see if it's simply a faulty tire (that I can get replaced by Schwalbe should it be defective).

I have computers coming (a matched set), along with taillights. We have enough front "be seen" lights at the store that I can get one from stock. I'm fine with the pedals that are on the bike, although Jenn may opt for double-entry pedals instead of dual-use pedals for the stoker position.

The bike came to us with Mirricle mirrors mounted at each end of the handlebar. I have no real use for these, as I prefer a helmet-mounted mirror, so they will be coming off soon. I don't know whether Jenn will want them mounted on the tops of my seat, as I did with some other Screamers, but that is one option. I will likely get a helmet to dedicate to use with this bike, as is my habit, and that will have a helmet-mounted mirror.

In July, I bought a TerraCycle Fastback piece so that I could carry a two-liter water bladder. I couldn't find my Camelbak bladder before RAIN, so I kept the FastBack for when this bike is mine. My Camelbak bladder is probably in a box in a closet, and is thus inaccessible for the time being, just because there are too many boxes in FRONT of the closet at the moment. I'll dig it out soon enough, I'm sure.

Tomorrow, it will be Jenn's turn to do some adjusting. We'll get her seat in the right place and at the correct angle. We'll adjust the third brake lever to suit her. We'll mount the computers and taillights.

We might even get to ride it more than a block or two.

We are now tandem owners

I've been wanting to own a recumbent tandem for something like fifteen years--ever since I first saw pictures of a Ryan Duplex (or was it still called the Fleetwood then?). The idea of riding WITH someone instead of at the same time as that person has long appealed to me.

Fortunately, Jenn also enjoys being on the tandem, as we've found over the last couple years.

After about a year of long-term loan of Bill's Screamer, that bike went home yesterday, so that we would have room in the garage for our own Screamer, purchased from Nita yesterday evening.

We had agreed to buy the bike a couple months ago. However, Nita had suffered a shoulder injury, and wanted to keep the bike for a bit so that she could ride without hampering her healing process. Then we had to coordinate a few other things before we could bring it home.

We woke up this morning wondering why we haven't taken time to ride it yet. By the time we got home, we were thinking about getting ready for Monday stuff, and simply put the bike in its parking slot for the night. We might find time to enjoy a trip around the neighborhood this evening, but it's unlikely we'll go far as it has no lights and it'll almost certainly be dark when I get back from the New Rider clinic.

Speaking of the New Rider Clinic, tonight will be Test Night. I have a couple people who will take the test next week due to work conflicts, but most will earn their certificates this evening. The total number of certificate earners for the summer will be close to thirty--more than three times the number we had last year. I may offer the TS101 class through the store in October, as there is some interest, but we'll see.

Rainy morning ride

This getting rained on during a Saturday bike ride is getting old.

A line of storms went by shortly before I left the house. Figuring that my window of opportunity was open, I got on the Raleigh and pedaled away. Jenn called me while I was climbing Houston Lane's little riser to Mount Mercy Drive, but I was more intent on getting toward the end of my ride than answering the phone. I got onto LaGrange Road, and was about half a mile from Crestwood proper when she called again. As there was traffic around me and the rain was intensifying, I kept going rather than stop to spend time on the phone that I could spend getting to shelter.

I stopped at the Dairy Queen for a bit and called Jenn back to assure her that I was fine, almost to work, and that she need not come get me. Yeah, she knows how much I like riding in rain, but it was almost over for the morning and quicker for me to ride it out than for her to come get me.

Besides, she's coming to get me after work. There is a party we are going to attend this afternoon.

Musings

In the "Let's catch up with my writing by tossing random thoughts out there" category:

The ever-thought-provoking Mikael at Copenhagenize offered some discussion on automotive design and marketing recently. He spoke at a conference on design, and while waiting his turn, listened to Chris Bangle, former head of design for BMW.

The point Bangle made, and that Mikael works with in the linked essay, is that cars are part of what Bangle dubbed, "Personal Emotional Mobility." More on that in a moment.

Bangle went on record as noting that Americans between sixteen and eighteen, an important-to-them demographic group, are increasingly "not bothering to get their drivers' licenses. These folks just don't care to drive, for whatever reason (or perhaps they figure on driving without their licenses...).

I mean, what is the matter with these kids? Don't they know that driving is as important as breathing? Oh, you mean it ISN'T?
/sarcasm

Anyway, Bangle's contention is that the automotive industry must, "...hook them back to the car."

As stunning as Mikael found that statement (and I have to agree), it is, after all, part of the marketing steamroller that is the auto industry. They are fearful of losing even a fraction of a percentage of their market for newer, fancier more expensive machinery with which our inattentive motoring public can continue to wreak havoc on society.

As for "Personal Emotional Mobility," well, yes, many of us are emotionally attached to our modes of transportation. I see evidence of this from time to time, when motorists rather emotionally express their displeasure with my slower-than-theirs mode of transport because I've seemingly cost them hours of their time in transit (knowing, as do most who read this, that it's mere seconds, and those angry motorists will just as easily make up that lost time by going even further above the speed limit in effort to reach their destinations before anyone else). I admit to being somewhat emotional about my choice of transit modes--I LIKE riding a bike. I feel happier about life when I ride instead of drive.

Yeah, Personal Emotional Mobility works for cycling as well as, if not better than for, motoring.


On another note, I enjoyed hearing Jenn the other day, as she struggled to rationalize driving to work instead of cycling. It's a sign that she really does prefer riding at some level. I suspect that she could have seen herself reaching this point in that hypothetical three-or-four-years-ago conversation (the "if someone told you four years ago that you would prefer to ride a bicycle to work instead of driving, what would you say?"), at least far more likely so than if the same conversation told her about riding RAIN in 2010. Still, it's somewhat unlike much of society, and is worth celebrating. Car-free-light, here we come!


Yesterday was the LBC Picnic. Associated with this event were a trio of rides of various distances, as is the norm. I took my Strada this time, as Jenn had some work-related reading she needed to do. It made for a weekend that accounts for about eighty miles on the Strada, which is almost a third of its miles for 2010. That bike is a lot of fun to ride--it's certainly a fast mount and is the fastest bike I've ever owned. That I've not been riding it as much reflects a couple of things: a) that I'm not doing as much club riding as I once did (I have about a thousand club miles for the year at this date), b) most of my club riding is on other bikes (at least a quarter of my club miles this year have been on the Vanguard and the Raleigh since I use those bikes for the New Rider Classes, and I often do club rides with Jenn on the Screamer). It was fun to ride some different roads, even though the small group with whom I was riding opted to re-route our return to Farnsley-Moreman a bit.

The next-to-last meeting of the New Rider Clinics for 2010 is tonight. Next week will be road/written test night. I might do some make-up work with a couple of students the following week, but that will be pretty mild stuff. Summer as we know it is almost over--although you wouldn't know it based on the temperature readings of the last week.

As of yesterday's return home from work, I now have three thousand bicycle miles for 2010.

It's a nice milestone, but it really doesn't mean that much in the overall scheme of things.

It does mean that I've ridden to work instead of driving over half the time in the last eight months. It does mean that I've done a fair bit of my errand-running by bike instead of by car. I've driven to work a few times in the last couple months, but not a lot. In April, I rode to work instead of driving, and got rides home from work (in the car) twice--once to look at houses, once because it was raining VERY hard.

May wasn't so car-free, and of course June went crazy what with my RAAM work and moving (which also affected my July riding). Now that we are officially out of the old house, the moving stuff is reduced to sorting through what's in the house and hauling stuff we no longer want to places like Goodwill or a garage sale of some sort--much of which can be done by bike.

To change my ride a bit, I rode to work via LaGrange Road yesterday morning instead of my typical trip on Westport Road. I use a couple side streets to avoid particular stretches of LaGrange Road, most notably the stretch between I-265 (a.k.a. the Jefferson Freeway, or if one insists on calling it by it's now-better-known name, the Shameless Political Hack, er, Snyder Freeway) and Pewee Valley.

On the way to work, LaGrange Road has some other challenges. I often follow Houston Lane to Mount Mercy Drive, and that end of Mount Mercy is legally inaccessable from LaGrange Road (the crossing is marked one-way). I wound up riding on LaGrange Road the length of Mount Mercy Drive--a bit more nervy than I'd like, but something I can do once in a while.

On the way home, though, it's a little better. I can use Mount Mercy for its entire length easily enough. When I got past Hurstbourne Parkway, I stopped to call Jenn and see where she was in her day. She was still at work, so I diverted a couple blocks from my route and met her so that we could ride home together--something I enjoy doing. Her route uses New LaGrange Road from Whipps Mill to Lyndon Lane, while I tend to use Old LaGrange for that stretch, despite the detour. The detour is due to some construction to repair a drainage ditch a few hundred yards from the Lyndon Post Office. It's a couple hundred foot walk for me, but it's a nice change of pace once in a while compared to my Westport Road route.


Much noise has been made on blogs I watch over comments made by a candidate for Governor in Colorado. Apparently, he believes that being a bike-friendly community is part of a United Nations plot to somehow harm some ephemeral essence of who Americans really are, or some such nonsense. I'm not sure but what the guy needs to have his tinfoil hat recalibrated.

Miles-o-matic

According to mycyclinglog.com, on which I've been logging my miles since the first of this year, I'm about seventy miles short of three thousand for the year. That's a bit more than three days of riding to and from work. If I work the rest of the week, including Saturday, it's a cinch that I'll break three thousand for the year by Saturday afternoon.

Wow. That's a lot more than I've done in prior years, although I may have done close to that by this time last year, riding to work in N'Awb'ny as I was at the time (I noted a couple weeks ago, although I didn't mention it here, that I was one year out from having worked as a property manager, and that I'm quite happy that such a position is in my past).

Almost fifteen hundred of that is on the Vanguard. A bit more than six hundred of it is on the Raleigh. Given that those are my two primary utility bikes, that's more than two thousand miles of utility cycling, not counting what utility cycling has been done on other bikes (I've ridden the tandem to work a couple times with Jenn, and I've ridden the Bacchettas to work a couple times each). I've done some club miles on the Raleigh and on the Vanguard, almost entirely within the new rider clinic format, although I've ridden the Raleigh on a couple of club rides just to be different.

At this rate, I'll probably log a bit over five thousand miles this year, and roughly a fifteen hundred of that in "club miles." Surprisingly, I've logged a bit more than a thousand club miles so far this year. I really haven't done much in the way of club riding, what with my work schedule and the various other projects in which I've been immersed this riding season--I usually manage about twenty-five hundred club miles a year.

I've been losing weight. Not much--only twenty or thirty pounds in the last eight months--but some. Even better, I've changed my body composition a bit--trading body fat percentage for muscle mass to some degree. I feel good. The regular commuting and general "not-using-a-car" to do stuff is paying off in how I feel, how I feel about myself, and to a lesser degree in how my wallet feels (the house purchase taking care of any perceived excess money...). I've not done the calorie-counting thing, nor really worried about my dietary intake all that much. The biggest change has been riding more, drinking water instead of tea while at work, and a couple fewer beers a week.

Did I mention that we are fostering a couple of cats? Yep, we have five cats in the house right now. Aside from the occasional hissy fit, it's gone well. There is not a lot of fighting (good thing), and most of the time the family cats and the foster cats ignore each other. All five are affectionate cats in their own ways. The foster cats are here because their human moved to Hawaii, and that state has strict guidelines keeping rabies off their islands. I don't know how well either of these cats would do with the plane ride to Hawaii, so we may be finding a new home or homes for these two cats.

Meow.

First of August

Cycling-wise, the last week of July didn't turn out as I'd hoped. I didn't break 800 miles for the month--fell short by less than twenty-five miles. I got to ride to work one day this week--Tuesday--and rode another ten miles or so proctoring a road test for the New Rider Clinic my friend David taught at Iroquois Park.

Oh, well, it gives me a goal for some other month. I'll just have to remember to ride a few centuries that month.

On the other hand, by driving I saved a paltry few minutes that allowed me to work a bit more on the former house. Our lease on the house we were renting in St Matthews expired at the end of July, and getting our stuff out of there came down to the last minute.

But we now have (almost) all of our stuff out of there. There are a couple things outside that I'll sneak back to fetch in the coming week or so, but if I don't get them, I won't worry too much.

I had to work, so Jenn did the walk-through with the agent. It turned out to be a pretty cursory inspection--we aren't sure but what the guy expected to find things a certain way given the sort of tenants we'd been, saw it looked close to that and didn't look any closer, or if they really aren't worried about wear and tear on the house.

Our house, on the other hand, is over-full of stuff. Boxes and boxes of stuff. Piles of stuff. FAR more stuff than we need, or particularly want, let alone want to maneuver around in the course of doing what we do at home. I can't just get a bike out of the garage--I have to move a few things first, and put them sort-of back before I close the garage door.

I've always heard that folks use a move to cull stuff from their personal inventories. We wanted to do this, but the last four months have been packed with other time-taking tasks and we had little time to reduce the amount of stuff we had. Now that we are in our house, we have extra incentive for getting rid of some of the things we don't use enough to justify keeping.

I have some black-and-white photography gear that is about twenty years into obsolescence. I have a few old computer towers that will be missing their hard drives but will be going to a recycling place (along with a few CRT monitors). I'll probably donate some of the clothing I no longer wear (like most of the blue jeans and other long trousers I own...).

Adding to the confusion in the house, a friend who moved out of state needed a foster home for her two cats. She had been trying to find someone who would help her, but could not--other than us. We now have five cats in our house. There is the usual occasional hissing discussion, but no real fighting so far.

Oh, and my stepdaughter arrived home from her father's house last night. I briefly got to meet her half-sister, but there was not enough interaction to give me any impression of who she is as a person. I don't feel compelled to know her--she has more importance to my stepdaughters than to me.

Overall, I'm enjoying the interactions with my stepdaughters. I've told each of them that my goal is to have a positive relationship with each of them and both of them, however our mutual definition of that evolves over time. I'm not so worried about whether they like me--I cannot control that. I figure that if I am myself, and am consistent in who I am and how I treat them as people, things will work out okay. So far, that seems to be working.

Durn, it's hot!

With public school returning to session soon, Louisville Metro is renewing their "Street Sense" ad campaign. One site where one can view the press release is of course the Ceej. Predictably, there is a fair bit of nonsense being spewed on the comments section attached to the article. A couple of intelligent folks are posting, too, trying to educate the twits, but the twits generally refuse to learn factual information.

I'm nearing three thousand miles for the year. I don't know that I'll best that number before the end of July, with a hundred fifty miles or so to go, but it won't take much longer to get there. I am likely to exceed eight hundred miles for July, given that I only need another fifty or so--two days of riding to work will get me within a grocery trip of that goal.

I'm signed up to ride with the non-partisan bike ride for attendees of the legislators' conference later this week. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details of the conference, but my part is to be bike-friendly without getting into the politics of the thing--a challenge for me, but one worth doing. That will give me a few miles on the bike, as will going to the final session of the Wednesday evening cycling class out at Iroquois Park later in the day.

As sometimes happens when I travel by bike, a motorist rolled down her window a week or so back, as we were sitting at a traffic light, and remarked that she was having trouble seeing me. I was a bit shocked, given that I was on the Ryan at the time. Mine is the one with the red reflectors:



I wanted to suggest to her that if she couldn't see me, she may want to have her vision checked, as she likely had problems that needed to be addressed, and was perhaps impaired enough that she should surrender her license if she had one.

I think about whether I'm seen. It's important to me that I'm seen, for what are fairly self-evident reasons. I get to tell whether I'm seen frequently as I ride, too.

When I'm on a four-lane road like Westport (my primary corridor for my to-work commute), I can watch in my mirror to see whether overtaking motorists see me. It's clear to me that I'm seen from well away, judging by how many folks change lanes hundreds of yards before overtaking me. If those folks can see me more than a quarter-mile away, and move to avoid confrontation well ahead of the need, why can't others?

I've long said that too many motorists have their focus too close in. They don't look "outside the cockpit" much, if at all. They fail to plan for things they could reasonably foresee if they bothered to think about stuff a bit.

Some complain about the sun being in their eyes. Folks, the earth orbits the sun such that the apparent path of the sun in our sky is predictable. As in, there is a listing called Civil Twilight based on sunset times, and the table presented is accurate to within a few moments every day. Even without knowing that such a table exists, we know that the sun sets every day, and that at times nearing sunset the angle is such that if we are driving in certain directions it will be hard to see what is happening. Intelligent drivers take action to minimize the problems this could present--we slow down, or drive in a different direction if practical, or wait a bit if practical (I've planned meals stops on road trips around sun angles, for example).

Maybe they are metaphorically blind in addition to being willfully blind. In any case, anyone who honestly cannot see a bicycle in daylight is either not looking (and is thus at fault) or cannot see well enough to drive legally (and is thus REALLY at fault). The only third option implies that the person claiming he/she can't see me is not telling the truth.

Doing a century and RAIN in one month will change one's monthly total. I now have a year-high 700+ miles for the month, and it's only the 21st. I still have ten more days to pedal another hundred or hundred-fifty miles (or maybe a few more).

The ride that tipped me over the 700-mile mark was the thirty-six mile round trip that encompassed the New Rider Clinic happening in Iroquois Park on Wednesdays for June and July this year. Adding this third session has been a very good thing for our program--there is a group of something like sixteen students that are VERY good about attending, excited about learning their skills, and looking forward to riding more. One woman in that class has already ridden a century this summer!

Although I've been encouraged to ride a club century this coming weekend, I won't have time. We still have some cleaning out of stuff to do at the old house to get it "broom clean" by the end of the month. Jenn is having some folks over Tuesday evening, so we need to sort/arrange/clean some stuff in the new house as well.

I wonder what my mileages would be if I had time to ride club rides...

brief RAIN comments

Another RAIN is in the books. Wow.

It was my slowest RAIN yet. However, it was a day of firsts for us: Jenn's first RAIN event (mindful that when she and I met less than three years ago she hadn't been on a bike in over fifteen years), it was my first RAIN on a tandem with a "significant other" as stoker (my first RAIN event was done on the same tandem, but with Larry as the stoker), it was my first RAIN "flying formation" with another tandem (at least part of the way)...

And it was a heck of a way to celebrate my first wedding anniversary!

It didn't all go as planned, of course. One lesson learned is that each of us has to take ownership of making sure our gear is loaded into the car--in this case, Jenn's cycling shoes didn't make the trip. The only other shoes she had with her were her Vibram Five Fingers Classics, which were NOT going to work, especially on SPD pedals. After some fretting, we noticed that Nita's pedals were "dual use" models, allowing for use with street shoes. Nita loaned her Teva sandals to Jenn, we found another rider who had a pedal wrench we could borrow long enough to make the physical switch of pedals, and off we went.

I'm sure Jenn's output was reduced a bit by her not having ideal footwear. Even so, I always knew she was putting effort into the system.

Larry and Nita rode her Screamer, and logged a rolling average some mile and a half better than ours. I'm okay with that--both of them have been riding long miles more than either Jenn or I have this year. Indeed, almost all of my miles are utility miles this year, and I've had two days this year that saw me ride more than sixty miles--one of them being RAIN. Jenn's "training" for RAIN wasn't even as extensive as mine.

Our rolling average of 16.43 for the 158 miles my cyclometer recorded (Larry insists that it's 162 miles per GPS) is fine by me. We didn't crash, did not SEE any crashes (I was VERY glad to not see a repeat of last year's car-vs.-motorcycle incident), and aside from the pedal/shoe stuff had no bike problems.

Phew! I'm still tired.

Time to get on a different bike and go to the grocery store.

Ride Across INdiana this weekend

Warning: blog post topic wanders (or should I say, "meanders?").

In a bit more than thirty hours, I'll be setting up for RAIN. This will be my seventh in the last eight years (I missed 2006 due to a work-related SNAFU).

This will be an interesting trip on RAIN for me. I will be celebrating my first wedding anniversary by riding a tandem recumbent bike 160 miles or so with my wife.

I think it's cool to think that three years ago, she hadn't been on a bike in over a decade--perhaps over fifteen years. Now she's excited about riding 160 miles in one day. She rides to work much of the time (on her own Vanguard, now!). We use bikes for much of our errand-running--something I'm not sure she had even considered three years ago (we met a bit less than three years ago). It was almost like some part of her said, "Wow, this is a great way to do things," as I showed her my own modus operandi (and how my own methods have changed over the last three years).

Yeah, I've been a sometimes-bike-commuter for over fourteen years--indeed, I have used a bike for transportation (albeit sporadically some years) since I was a kid (I rode my bike to work for my first job--pretending to be a fledgling bike mechanic--as a fourteen-year-old). In my late teens, I still used my bikes for transportation when it was necessary (although like many in that age group, I LOVED to drive a car!). I lived in Denver the summer after I turned nineteen, and didn't have a car there at all. I could sometimes drive a car my aunt had, but typically rode instead.

I haven't always thought about being car-free, and I still have things that are most easily done with a car. I'm kind of enjoying the "car-free-light" life, though. Jenn and I are managing, for the most part, with only one gas-powered vehicle these days (one car has been out of service since April, and we haven't gotten around to fixing it simply because there has been too much else happening). We borrowed a car from her folks for a week or two, but used it little enough that I haven't really missed it since we returned it to them some weeks ago.

Oh, well. Lots to do yet in preparation for tomorrow. Off I go...

Finally, a long-mileage day!

With a sense of "what am I doing here?" and a sense of "I can do this, I ," Jenn and I rode the LBC "Pretty Good First Century" today.

In Tom fashion, I rode to the ride (and since we were on the tandem, Jenn rode as well...). A bit short of ninety miles into the official ride, we were done enough that we split off and rode on home. Jenn was having some heat issues, I was getting very tired, and we still had to get the bike (and ourselves) home, so we split off when the ride crossed Kentucky Street and worked east--Mad Dog course rules be damned, as we covered more than a hundred (107, to be more precise).

With this ride, my mileage for July exceeds my mileage for all of June, and the month isn't half done. Next weekend will be another high-mileage weekend, as we plan to do RAIN.

After today, we are having to re-think whether either of us is really ready for 160 miles in one day. However, the plan is to take the tandem and my Strada, so that if Jenn decides to stop at some point I can finish the ride on the single bike. We'll see how things go--I find the tandem tiring sometimes, although I think it's a function of lack of miles on the bike rather than anything specific to how the bike is built.

In any case, I'm now tired enough that I need to go to bed a bit earlier than usual. I have a lot to do tomorrow before teaching the class on tire repairs in the evening.

Other thoughts for today

While thinking about and writing my last post, I also got to thinking about convenience. I do a lot of thinking about why I ride instead of driving, as I am asked that from time to time in face-to-face discussions. I keep coming back to that I enjoy riding more than driving, even when I can discuss the long list of other benefits.

One of those benefits is the perceived convenience. I see it as more convenient for me to ride a bike when doing my errands. The time involved isn't a big difference--it takes me perhaps twice as long to ride as to drive within a five-mile radius, and about the same amount of time within a two-mile radius. My ride to work--all eleven miles of it--takes me less than three times as long as I can do it in a car.

However, in that extra time, I get to: a) exercise, burning carbs and fat grams instead of petroleum, b) think about stuff that I wouldn't have time to ponder when driving thirty-plus miles an hour (not that others don't let their minds wander...), c) re-allocate gas/insurance/car upkeep money into the grocery and bike parts funds (I far prefer eating to filling the gas tank).

I also get premium parking spaces, often right at the door of whatever shop I'm patronizing! It's nice to not have to walk across acres of hot asphalt parking lot to pop in to the local grocery store, although one could say I'm paying for that by riding my bike for more minutes than the guy who is walking across the parking lot. I figure I'm more acclimated to the heat by riding, so it doesn't bother me as much, so I'm ahead. Or I think so, anyway.

In my errand-running today, I hit on an idea that solved a problem I've been perceiving for some time. The problem: convincing motorists that it's a good idea to stop with their front bumpers above the Stop Bar (that foot-or-so painted strip across the lane at a stop light). I had dropped off some paperwork at an office off Millbrook (near the Northeast YMCA), and my next stop was the ValuMarket on Whittington Parkway. Rather than ride Hurstbourne Parkway all the way to Whittington, I opted to use the roadways within the ShelbyHurst development that used to be called Shelby Campus for the University of Louisville (and which was Kentucky Southern College before that). Recent construction has changed the entrance of the campus to be directly opposite the Shelbyville Road end of Whittington Parkway, conveniently enough.

As I neared this intersection, I was passed by a guy in a pickup truck. He reached the light, and stopped with his back bumper above the stop bar. The light is set up so that it will only offer a green if its sensor is tripped, and his truck was not over the sensor at all. I pulled up beside him, and suggested that he'd get through the light quicker if he backed up over the sensor, and that the stop bar was a guide as to where the sensor is so that he could use that information on other intersections as well. He genuinely seemed to appreciate the information, telling me that my tactic was well-received. It didn't hurt anything that almost as soon as he backed up, the light turned green for him. I was in the process of getting back in line behind him, and the short light there almost caught me, but I made it under the yellow...

Parenthetically, one of the things I like about the new house is its proximity to ValuMarket. It's a great, locally-owned grocery that stocks a much wider variety of food stuffs than any Kroger I've seen, preferring to simply stock one row of a given item than six to allow for better selection. They have a lot of things I have no idea how to prepare, but that they have such things makes them stand out as local merchants.

Sure beats going to Kroger. It's a fifteen-minute bike ride home from ValuMarket with a trailer full of groceries, by the way.

musings on what it means to be a Vehicular Cyclist

Earlier this month, Mikael at Copenhagenize posted on Vehicular Cycling as a philosophy. His posts usually make a LOT of sense to me, and the two or three of you who read my musings often enough know I quote him from time to time--probably more often than most blogs I read.

In this post, he explains Vehicular Cycling in ways I had not considered. Prompted by this, I pondered my own outlook on VC, as I certainly consider myself a Vehicular Cyclist.

He has a lot of valid points. More or less separate infrastructure for cycling, even to the exclusion of cars from certain urban areas, would be wonderful. I would love to see bike lanes like those in Copenhagen in Louisville--all over the place, used all the time, cleared of snow before the main roadways, and all that.

I'm pragmatic enough to know that just about any philosophical position will have inherent compromises, though. VC is no different, to me, as there is a severe lack of political will to create the infrastructure like that in Copenhagen, let alone the dollars to do so. There is, in many places, a severe lack of room to emulate the Danish model. We are a young country by European standards, and much of our cityscape has been fashioned in the post-World-War-II era, with the assumption that if you were you would drive everywhere instead of walking/riding public transit/bicycling. There simply was no impetus for leaving room for bicycles in the traffic plan, such as it was. VC is thus a compromise, cognizant that unless our politicians develop brain functions more complex than, "I must work to be reelected to this office or a higher one," and the citizenry who bother to vote develop more of a conscience than to simply say, "it's so much more convenient for me to drive than to walk/ride/cycle, I won't vote for anyone who threatens my status quo as a driver!"

In the comments attached to Mikael's post, Anna opined, in part:

My opinion on this is different, because I can partially understand this behavior. It is not that "vehicular cyclists" are against bicycle infrastructure (although they might not know that themselves), but they are against crappy bicycle infrastructure.

I could not agree more. "Crappy bicycle infrastructure" is far worse than nothing, in many ways. Creating it, municipalities say, in effect, "Cyclists are inferior/second-class road users, so we leave them with inferior lanes so as to discourage them from using the roadways. Let the trash/debris/detritus from the traffic build up in the lane we leave them, further discouraging them from obstructing traffic with their fly-weight machines. Then rail against them even more when they refuse to use obviously-more-dangerous-than-necessary lanes we made for them." Sort of a parallel to the Jim Crow laws, in a way, if you will allow the analogy.

An anonymous respondent typed, "This is a strawman depiction of Vehicular Cycling." To some degree, I agree. Another opinion was that realists like Anna, whom I quoted above, are quite different than hard-core Vehicular Cyclists who decry ANY bicycle-specific infrastructure.

Yeah, I've heard that one before, too. I went through a brief phase of that myself, some years ago. I quickly figured out, though, that Multi-Use Paths (MUP) have their place in giving folks a place to ride as leisure riders, or semi-neophyte riders, or those of us who have the skill set and the confidence to ride on the roads but who want a low-stress alternative for a different style of ride, or whatever.

Since I'm all about getting folks on bikes, I figure that having a place for those with less of a chip on their shoulders than I to ride is a good thing.

Just don't tell me I have to ride there to the exclusion of roads that take me where I want to go.

We are a 'bent-up family

...and that's with the two of us!

The stable currently consists of the following bikes, roughly in order of their acquisition: my 1996 Vanguard, my 2002 Bacchetta Strada, Jenn's 2002 BikeE RX, her 1980-something Peugeot mixte-frame commuter, my 1975 Raleigh Superbe three-speed, her 2009 Bacchetta Giro 26, and her 1995 or-6 Vanguard, shown below:






Jenn's employer is big on United Way as a charity. There was a United-Way-based fundraiser at her workplace on the 30th of June that involved showing off rides, so we dolled up her birthday bike for the occasion. We mounted a good rack, a set of Axiom waterproof panniers, Planet Bike fenders, Planet Bike taillights and forward blinky light, Cygo-Lite Dual Cross Pro headlight set, a Delta AirZound horn (LOUD), and a Planet Bike rack trunk. Shown are two of the limited-edition RAAM Polar bottles that we managed to score during our trip.

In the long-range plans for this bike, I intend to upgrade the fork to accept modern linear-pull brakes, install such brakes front and rear, and modernize the drive train. I'm toying with getting SRAM X-7 rear drive parts, now that the 2011 model is ten-speed. The SRAM mountain derailleurs are compatible with the bar-end shifters of their road/time trial groups, so I can go that route with a compact crankset and give Jenn all the range she needs with two chainrings instead of three.

Oh, yeah. Not in the list, but in our garage nonetheless, is the younger stepdaughter's BSO, given her by her father several years ago. It's far too small for her now, but she is not ready to part with it.

Another Moving Experience

I've said it before: A change of address is a moving experience.

And of course, all the boxes have been emptied, the dishes and clothes put away, the books alphabetized, the rental house cleaned and ready for its next tenant.

If you believe that, I've also got a bridge to sell you. You can make money on this one, too--it goes up and down in the middle, so you get to charge a fee to get across (or threaten to interrupt travel if someone doesn't pay...).

I don't know if I've mentioned that Jenn's birthday was last weekend. We were on our way to Annapolis in the last few hours of RAAM at the time, so we didn't get to celebrate properly on that day. However, on our return home last Monday, she got her big birthday present from me: a Ryan Vanguard much like my own. She zoomed around the block on it, then put it back in the garage as there was so much work to do (on the houses and on the bike).

Last week, she called me about getting it set up to be her commuting rig. Her employer is big on United Way stuff, and is doing a fund-raiser this week in which employees show off their rides and garner votes. Jenn figured this was as good a time as any to trick out the bike, so we went through a few catalogs and accessorized for the hard-core cycle commuter.

I got to put the toys on the bike yesterday, in between sessions of preparing for testing my riders in the New Rider Clinic and dealing with little things on the new house. Jenn got to do a bit longer ride on her bike last night, despite not feeling well. I fine-tuned the handlebar placement a bit, and may need to shorten the seat-to-pedal distance a bit, but we got it mostly right the first time. I rode the bike briefly before moving the seat to fit her, and was quite pleased with how an unladen Vanguard feels after riding my heavily-outfitted bike so much.

She now has: a rack (Axiom brand, with some ridiculous weight capacity), a Planet Bike rack trunk (into which she can lock her lights rather than tote them inside when she's at work), fenders (Planet Bike), taillights (Planet Bike Super Flash), a be-seen headlight (Planet Bike Blaze half-watt flasher), headlight set (Cygo Lite Dual Cross Pro NiMH), and a Delta Airzound horn. We also got her a set of Axiom Typhoon panniers, into which we could pack a week's worth of laundry.

Will she win? Who knows? She'll get a few votes, just because there are a few folks at her workplace that are willing to buck a trend. She works in a four-story building, and is known as the one office worker that rides (some of the cafeteria help ride some times, but Jenn is the only office person there who rides regularly).

With the move, my internet access has been interrupted for a few days. I'm typing this during a break at the store, but must get back to work. Sadly, I won't be able to make it to Car Free Happy Hour this evening, and will likely miss Drinking Liberally this Thursday too. One of the things I liked about the rental house is that I could walk to a nice tavern like Brendan's or BBC, enjoy a beer or too many, and stagger home without having to drive or even ride a bike.