bike lane rant

As some folks know, I am not generally in favor of bike lanes as they have been painted here in town. I have been getting some push back from some engineers on this, based on some vague perception that bike lanes are safer and that studies show this, or that studies show that bike lanes lead to more bike usage. Or something. There is much belief in magic paint.

I've been saying that bike lanes are a detriment to safety. Yeah, I get that folks who don't know any better think they make things safer--they don't. Just like wider lanes with huge zones of no solid obstacles don't make for safer traffic (such places encourage speeding, for example, as opposed to narrower lanes with trees closer to the roadway that tend to slow motorists and make them pay closer attention to their surroundings), bike lanes that take cyclists out of motorists' consciousness diminish safety.

I've been reminded of the Lusk study recently, as supposed proof that bike lanes are a good idea. It has some VERY big holes in the methodology that a first-term statistics student would recognize, with a horribly biased result.

I'm also reminded of all the bike infrastructure in Copenhagen or Amsterdam--two cities in countries that, by law, assume any car-vs-bike crash to be the motorist's fault unless some fairly strong contrary evidence is presented, with the result that motorists have been socialized over a long time to keep their heads out of their rectal canals. I would also offer this video of how things are perceived by a tourist in Holland. It isn't all rosy, there, for certain.

Statistics can be useful, but correlation does not imply causality: a textbook example of this is the correlation between ice cream sales and boating emergencies. When ice cream sales are high, more folks drown. Should we then ban ice cream sales? Ban boating as a way to reduce ice cream sales? The Lusk study has other, larger, problems than the correlation/causality issue, of course. It also ignores the problems created by bike lanes, as shown in analysis of this crash (ironically, this crash was in Montreal, where the Lusk research--such as it was--was done).

Anyway, here's a list of studies that supposedly prove that bike lanes are a good idea, with annotations regarding the poor statistical analyses.

I know that one big concern in Public Works is pedestrian safety. I understand that improving our numbers (reducing pedestrian injuries and deaths) is hoped to have the additional benefit of reducing car crashes in general, and car-vs-bike crashes in proportion to reducing car-vs-pedestrian incidents. I'm in favor of that goal, of course (who wouldn't be?).

I would prefer, however, that we put more emphasis on addressing the cause of the perceived danger--poor operation of those big hunks of metal--rather than making the rest of us pay by reducing our mobility. I've too often gotten the "stay in the effing bike lane" motorist harassment when the bike lane is not usable for any of several reasons, and paying money for poorly-designed bike lanes that less-confident cyclists than I will feel compelled to use despite that they put those same cyclists in greater danger is a bad thing.

 

Them's the brakes!

About a month ago, my stepdaughter borrowed my truck to help a friend of hers move some furniture into storage. The next day, she reported that the brake pedal was going very low and that the truck wasn't stopping well. I declared the truck out of service until such time as I could get around to fixing it.

Of course, being able to bicycle to jobs meant that I was not in a big hurry to fix it. Over the course of a couple weeks, I tinkered with it, and found that a brake line had rusted to the point that it had a pinhole. Of course, it was the longest line in the system, going from the distribution block under the master cylinder to the rear axle (or at least the fitting where the flex hose to the rear axle attaches). That brake line is installed to the frame rail before the wire loom and fuel tank are added to the chassis, so it doesn't come out. A replacement line is routed differently as well.

I bought ten feet of replacement brake line, a junction to connect the two segments, and an adapter to connect this line to the distribution block. Of course, replacing brake lines leads to bleeding the air from the system. In strict accordance with Murphy's Law, both rear bleed screws sheared off when I tried to open them. Next trip to the parts house was for a rear wheel cylinder, to enable bleeding the rear system.

A neighbor arrived at his home about the time I was ready to bleed the brakes, so he helped me do that. The brake pedal never seemed to build pressure, however, so I let him go home and poked around a bit more. Sure enough, the union fittings were not quite tight enough--there was a small ring of brake fluid on the driveway. That wasn't the larger problem, though: there was a much bigger puddle of brake fluid by the right front wheel!

There is a flex hose that connects at the frame and at the brake caliper. It had sprung a leak, and a fairly bad one, judging from the amount of fluid on the underside of the car and on the driveway. No wonder the brake pedal wasn't giving any feedback. I had the hose, having bought it when I put new brakes on the truck a few years ago. I dug around in the garage for a few minutes and found it, then set to installing it. The frame-end fitting was in an awkward enough place that it took a while to change out, but it eventually went back together. By this time, of course, I had to go get more brake fluid...

After a number of trips to the parts supplier, a couple of trips to a different store for brake fluid (the parts house is only open until 7:00), and a fair bit of cussing and fussing, I now have brakes! The truck is more-or-less drivable once again.

Oh, except for that when I got the report about the brakes, I also got a report that a rock had hit the windshield, causing a crack. Once I'm confident that the truck is indeed operational, I'll call the insurance company and arrange to have a new windshield installed.

...and people wonder why I prefer to ride a bicycle!

Rain barrel experiment, stage one

Well, maybe stage 1.1.

After getting half a dozen barrels, some with fittings that connect to the collection pieces, I installed two diverters in separate downspouts the other day.

One of those downspouts handles at least a third of the rainwater runoff from my roof. That gutter, like most of the gutters on my house, is equipped with one of the leaf guard things. During a moderate or heavier rain, though, the sheer volume of water is enough that much of it simply flows over the edge and never hits the gutter, let alone the downspout.

To modify this a bit, I removed a couple small sections of the gutter guard, closest to what I imagine the heaviest water flow off the roof would be. I then added the diverter in the downspout, and connected a length of hose from it to the first rain barrel.

I connected a second diverter to another downspout, and to the same barrel. I figure that this represents about forty percent of the rainwater coming from the roof.

It rained last night. The rain was pretty heavy at times. I was not home, and couldn't see how my modifications to the gutter helped or if they helped. The one barrel had filled to overflowing, and I have no idea how much water flowed out of the barrel.

Now to connect more barrels to that collection point...

Three years!

Today marks three years that I've been happily married! Who'd a thunk it?

Also, it marks three years since my last official day of employment at New Directions as a property (mis)manager. I had scheduled the day as  personal time a few weeks before, in preparation for doing RAIN that year. As it turned out, my last day on site was that Thursday--I was notified that Wednesday that Friday was to be my last day with the agency, and the wedding--planned for that September--happened earlier to avoid having to mess with COBRA for insurance coverage.

We held the ceremony at my mother and stepfather's house. Despite that Mom was sick at the time, they managed to pull together a nice place for a wedding. My sister officiated (she is ordained as a minister and recognized by Kentucky, although I'm not certain in what religion or sect her ordination occurs), so she will sometimes tell folks she married her brother. Then, after a pause, she will add, "To his wife."

Within days after my termination from New Directions, I started spending a lot more time at Bluegrass Bicycle. That was a good ride, but it has since ended.

Now I need to generate more business for my handyman service.

rain and barrels

Too late for the rain we got Saturday and this morning, I bought a few barrels fitted to be used for collecting rain water from our gutter system. I got them home, installed a couple of diverters in downspouts, connected them to a barrel, pondered placements for other diverters and barrels, poked around on facebook, and learned that a friend can get me as many more barrels as I need for the price of going to get them.

So, figuring to make use of a few more barrels, I went and collected a few.

The two or three of you who have read this blog for a while already know I hauled these barrels by bike trailer:

I really enjoyed seeing the looks on motorists' faces as they tried to figure out what I was hauling! 165 gallons of dehydrated DiHydrogen MonOxide doesn't weigh much more than the barrels to contain it, until one adds water...

Now we'll be able to collect rain water from our roof for additional supply to a few trees and other important-to-us plants in the yard, and for next year's garden project.

Hard to turn away work, but...

I had a call from a potential customer yesterday, and even before going to see the site I had reservations about how it would go. This fellow had hired a landscape designer for a fairly large project, and construction had begun. However, there were quality issues being discussed, and I was asked to come consider reworking things to the homeowners' satisfaction.

Work being something for which I would anticipate reward, I went to see what was what. On arrival a minute or three early, I found the landscape designer's truck in the driveway. When the homeowner arrived, I got more of the story.

Standing inside the house, examining the unfinished work through a patio door so as to be semi-discrete with regard to the current contractor, I was shown some of the details of why the existing work did not meet the homeowners' expectations. It became clear to me pretty early on that I had to finesse a way to politely decline the job. I figured that the size of the project was an easy enough out for me, as a sole proprietorship, and simply said that I was not equipped or staffed to do the work they wanted done (I was only speaking to the husband--the wife was not in at the moment--but it was clear that the homeowners were united regarding their problems with the contractor's work to date). I suggested a friend who has a crew that does such work as perhaps being a better fit, only to learn that this friend had visited the site, speaking with the wife instead of with the husband, a few days prior.

During the entire discussion, it was apparent to me that the homeowners were desirous of fine cabinetry-level carpentry for terracing and fencing using lumber treated for outdoor exposure. Some of their complaints regarding cuts to posts (35 degree angle instead of, say, 40 degree, makes for a bad fit for the railing being nailed to the post) were valid, to be sure. There was a joint in a handrail that looked pretty rough from forty feet away, as well. That some of the 4X4 treated posts lying on their sides as part of a terracing wall had bowed a bit was, to my eye, to be expected. It's treated lumber. It "moves around," as my friend put it.

There is little good that can come of being in the middle of a dispute between the homeowners and an existing contractor (a point on which I was a bit uneasy before I arrived at the house). Also, even if I were able to get it looking "fine furniture good" at the time I completed the project, the appearance would degrade within a year--there is simply no good way to keep treated wood from warping in some direction in response to weather.

CyclingSavvy

CyclingSavvy is a relatively new education program that has its roots in central Florida. Some of us in the bicycle education community have been noticing the results the CS folks get, along with dribs and drabs about their teaching philosophies and how the classes work to empower cyclists. I keep hearing and reading good things about the program, and how it teaches people to be part of traffic instead of being afraid of traffic.

A month or so ago, I learned that there was to be a CyclingSavvy class close enough to home to make the logistics of taking it workable. Four of us went to take this class to experience for ourselves what makes it so much better than the TS101 class we have all been teaching.

While I consider the experience as being overall positive, I have mixed emotions about the weekend.

It comes down to thinking in terms of a) what I learned from the class itself, b) what a relative neophyte student would learn from such a class, c) what I learned about the teaching methodologies, and d) how I feel about the instructors' personal styles.

What did I learn about cycling from this class? As far as class content, not much. This was as I expected, although I was hoping to find more tools for that toolbox. I did have some long-time training challenged with regard to lane choice as exiting intersections, and need to do a bit more research along that line (it's possible that what I had been taught is in error, for example, although there were things said by instructors that I also challenge as exhibitions of selective revisionism).

What would a prospective student that lacks my teaching experience learn? TONS. I know long-time cyclists who would benefit greatly from taking this class. Of course, I know a lot of long-time cyclists who think they already know all they need to know, and who would refuse to learn anything from this class if they did take it. Compared to the TS101 curriculum, it's decidedly better. The stepped success into more challenging or complex situations works quite well. Many of us learn to deal with new hurdles best when we feel good about the last hurdle we jumped, and this class is structured with that in mind.

What did I learn about the teaching methods? This was my major reason for taking this class. I really wanted to think about how this material--much of which is already familiar ground for me--is taught differently than I have been teaching it, the better to evaluate whether I want to bring Cycling Savvy to Louisville. I had to consider some of this carefully, as teaching styles vary from person to person enough that it was tough to see what differences were core to the course and which were more personal in nature. CyclingSavvy as a class is somewhat proprietary, despite that much of the curriculum is based on best practices that are widely known in segments of the cycling community. The CS folks don't post their electronic presentation online, for an assortment of good reasons, although the Truth and Techniques session includes a lot of video that is already available online. I knew something of the strategy employed for the "Tour of (insert city name)," but wanted to see how it worked in practice. I like it. I think the extra time involved compared to other methods is inevitable if the goal is to get folks to ride a featured trip segment for themselves rather than just having them "follow the leader" without thinking about it. In many ways, I think this is (for me, at least) the core positive difference from TS101, and much of the rest of the class is a build-up for success in the road segment by necessity.

As for instructors' personal styles, there were some troubling points. I believe both to be competent instructors, despite that one has far less experience teaching this class. I am sure that, with some practice, the less-experienced instructor will do quite well. Having to practice my own teaching spiels has led to great improvement for me over the last few years--I'm a far better teacher than I once was, although still no "SuperDuck" teacher. The more experienced teacher must have been having a bad weekend. There was some egregious rudeness to students and her co-instructor that raised quite a few eyebrows during the weekend. There was a demonstration that was, in the opinions of several, poorly-conceived and poorly explained beforehand.

None of this, of course, addresses the weather we experienced in Columbus, as that was clearly not the doings of CyclingSavvy. If you had not heard, Columbus had some severe weather Friday evening (the storm also affected folks farther east, including a relative in Richmond Virginia), and tens or hundreds of thousands are without electricity as I type this. Many are being told to not expect electrical power to be restored until late this week or some time next week. A lot of trees broke, not a few fell, and there was much damage to the electrical grid. We saw dozens of trucks from out-of-state utility companies heading north, presumably being driven by folks going to help rebuild the power system. Aside from a bit of time spent in the shelter of a convenience store, the storm had little effect on our weekend--we were quite fortunate.

We also missed the worst of the traffic nightmare that was loosed on I-71 once the NASCAR Sprint Cup race was over!

The "Way-Back Machine," again

...but not as far back this time. In the early 1980s, I worked for a couple years as a pump attendant in a full-service gas station (remember those?), and became friends with the assortment of coworkers. Louisville is a small enough town that I would encounter one or another of those guys--or a wife of one--from time to time in my getting around town, but I didn't keep up with them on a daily, weekly, or even annual basis.

One of that crew died a few days ago. I hadn't seen John in five or ten years, and regret not keeping up with him. I was glad to go to the visitation and funeral--well, glad is not the right word, as it implies, well... I was glad to see some of John's friends and family--his first wife, who remembered me immediately, although it had been thirty years since I had seen her, the gang from my time at the gas station, and a few new connections as well. I would not have not gone, as I told some of the folks there.

The focus of the gathering was not as much fun as the last time I cranked up the way back machine, but I'm glad I went. There are some good folks who have influenced my life, and it's worth paying homage to those influences from time to time.

500th post!

Five hundred times, I've posted thoughts here. Some pertinent, some more like mental flatulence.

I think the colloquialism is, "Meh." It's another number...

Anyway...I had a phone conversation the other morning that keeps coming back to what some would call my mind. Glenn and I knew each other in high school, in the time I misspent at "Louisville Central State High School at Twelfth and Chestnut, not to be confused with Central State Hospital." Yes, it was the alma mater of one Cassius Clay AND Greg Page. I even saw Greg Page in the hallways a few times while I was a student there.

Glenn and I reconnected a bit via that common social networking site. We've had some interesting conversations by way of catching up on thirty years of not having seen each other. A segment of the phone conversation we had the other day keeps coming back to me, though.

It seems I'm a source of inspiration for Glenn, in that I'm doing things by bicycle that most folks won't do. Apparently I'm one of very few people who are willing to, for example, do handyman services and get to job sites by bicycle.

Glenn asked me what led to my decision to do things this way, as if it was a sole moment in life. I don't think there was a single moment that led me to this point--extreme as it may seem to folks who drive by default. It's been a process. I've always enjoyed using a bicycle--I was three when I got my first one, and the training wheels fell off soon after (since I apparently didn't need them, Mom decided she wasn't going to fix them). My first job was as an apprentice bike mechanic, and since I wasn't old enough to drive legally, I rode to work. I rode to work when I was at a grocery store in my late teens--usually because one or the other car was out of service, but I rode.

I was thinking about my conversation with Glenn, and realized that I've worked very few places that I couldn't get to by bicycle. I even ended a job interview fifteen years ago in part by recognizing that I would not be able to ride to work, and that was but one reason I didn't feel the job under discussion would not be a good fit for me. When I started this blog, about five hundred posts ago, I even stated that it was in part a way for me to hold myself accountable and ride to work more, despite that my commute route went over a bridge that is considered terrifying by many in the cycling community.

When Jenn and I bought our house, we had been looking in areas that allowed each of us the ability to get to work by bicycle. Now that we are in this house (two years, already??), I am keeping my primary service area close to home (although I'm willing to cover more territory...).

It's been a process. I have made refinements over time, and came upon the idea of biking to work sites as part of that process. I mostly like where I am, I like where I think I'm going.

For someone who doesn't feel as confident as I am, I encourage trying things like the Clif 2-mile Challenge. Or, if that seems daunting, a 1-mile version of it. Take a class on how to ride as part of traffic--safely and intelligently. Just like doing an ultra-distance event like RAIN, it's one pedal stroke at a time. Build on small successes, learn from setbacks.

And keep riding!

way-back machine

A couple months ago, I caught wind of a gathering scheduled for today, in honor of the band director under whom I played and marched in junior high school and part of high school, Dennis Anderson. It took until today for me to decide to go.

Not that I didn't want to see Mr. Anderson, as I still address him sometimes--he was definitely one of those teachers that had a highly positive influence on my high school years.

To backtrack a bit, I'll mention that I have attended exactly one class reunion since leaving high school--the fifth. The invitation I received--later than most--showed that the organizers of the reunion had difficulty finding me (this in spite of the fact that at twenty-three I was still living in my mother's house, and had my name in the telephone book!). I spent much of that event getting drunk with people I didn't really like five years before. When the ten-year reunion was announced, I figured I could get drunk with people I hadn't liked ten years prior any night of any given week in any of several local taverns, without having to pay a then-exorbitant cover charge for the privilege.

I eventually decided that this reunion had potential to be different (in that the filters of "band members" and "band members likely to show for this sort of thing" made the above scenario far less likely, plus I didn't have to drink), and that if things weren't going to my satisfaction, I was free to leave. I figured I'd go and have a good time, or, if not, I'd leave.

There were a couple of lists going through my mind as I went to the hostess's house: The first one was of folks I hoped I'd see there, the second was of folks whose presence was of little consequence to me either way. There was a short list of folks whose presence would have had me leaving pretty soon after arriving, but I doubted any of those folks would have gone, anyway. The first two lists changed almost by the minute, with some folks moving from list to list, some joining a list and staying there, and a sizable number of folks who were out of mind altogether for one reason or another (the party was open to any who had been in the band during a ten- or twenty-year period, so I figured there were a lot of potential invitees I would have not met).

I had a good time. I saw a few folks I had no prior expectation of seeing. We chuckled about all manner of memories from that era of our lives. We felt bad that some of the folks we knew then are no longer alive to join in this sort of fun--a sobering thought to me given that I'm only fifty-one, and given that the average life expectancy is supposedly over seventy, and that some of those who have passed away have been gone for over two decades.

All in all, though, I'm glad I went. Whether having re-met some of these folks will broaden my social circle again is unclear at the moment, and I'm not really concerned about that. I may get some more work out of having had some of my business cards on hand, which is not a bad thing at all.

bike lanes and filtering

I had a conversation with a customer from the bike shop the other day, in which he told me of his recent bike crash.

It seems he was in a designated bike lane, moving at a pretty good clip, alongside a line of cars stopped for some reason. As he approached an intersection, one of the cars in the line opted for a right turn, with predictable results: a right-hook crash that led to a cyclist who has a broken clavicle (five pieces!). He is going to be healing and undergoing rehabilitation for some months before he knows whether he can ride a bicycle again.

I feel bad for the guy. Cycling is an important component of his physical and mental health maintenance plan. Summer is almost here--a time when a lot of cyclists do most of their riding.

How could this have been prevented? It won't surprise either of my two readers that I have some opinions.

He was, despite the presence of the magic-paint bike lane, clearly at risk for right-hook crash (any motorist can turn right into any driveway or side street and likely won't even THINK to look for someone in the bike lane). It's almost the same thing as "filtering," or moving up past a line of cars waiting at a stop light. Yes, he had a bike lane in this case, but the dangers involved in filtering are still all too present. If there is a hard curb outside the bike lane, even more so. Once a motorist starts to turn right from the lane to the rider's left, there is no place to go but into the car. If someone had opened a door at an inopportune moment, the rider would have faced injury as well. To some degree, my customer contributed mightily to the crash factor list by putting himself in a dangerous position--partly by letting the paint think for him.

Then, of course, there was the motorist, who failed to check over (presumed) his right shoulder for overtaking traffic in the marked bike lane before turning into the path of a fast-moving bicycle rider. Given that this motorist was in the right travel lane of the roadway (except for that magic-paint bike lane that contains folks moving slower than "regular traffic"), he was (I suspect) not accustomed to having to look for overtaking traffic from that quarter. Should he have been? Yes--the lane was probably marked about as well as bike lanes often are(n't).

Yeah, I have a problem with right-edge-of-roadway bike lanes. They make cyclists an "out of sight, out of mind" non-issue for motorists. They give cyclists the false sense of security that comes with having their own lane. The "magic paint" does NOT protect anyone, except for perhaps when there is a line of parked cars just to the right of the door-zone bike lane, and there is no cyclist in that lane when the car door gets opened--the bike lane serves as a buffer between the parked cars and the moving-too-fast-for-conditions cars.

When operating in these bike lanes (and I understand that there is social pressure to use them if they are available), be just as vigilant. You are often in the blind spots of motorists who want to turn right. Don't go so fast that you cannot keep from crashing in such situations. Better yet, know that there is an "out" for not using the bike lane when it puts you in greater danger than taking the lane in the wider lane.

Assorted thoughts

In the nine or ten days since my last post, I've gone to a couple of job sites with the new operation, done some revenue work (although I haven't billed for it--yet), completed a couple of smaller jobs (for which I HAVE been paid), and wondered how I'm going to find enough gumption to really chase after enough work to keep me busy and be profitable.

I needed a mental break, after the shop closed, and still find need for one, but don't have the money for an extended vacation. I must get some work and do it.

I had need of some tools and supplies for a job I'm doing tomorrow, so I rode the Dummy to Lowe's. My route to the nearest Lowe's store goes south on Lyndon Lane, crossing Shelbyville Road, east on Nottingham Parkway through the City of Hurstbourne (in defiance against the "no through traffic" signs, figuring that a bicycle guy isn't the main target of the objection). As I rode east on Nottingham Parkway, I noticed a something ahead. As I neared this something, I wondered whether it was a cyclist pulling a child trailer, or a recumbent trike rider, or just what. I got closer, and realized that it was a young teenager driving a riding lawn mower, as if for transportation. She had traveled BLOCKS from where I first saw her, and didn't seem to be riding to get the mower to her next lawn-mowing gig.

I had to wonder what she thought when I passed her--on my bicycle. If she was using the mower for transportation, I thought, she was being ridiculously lazy. There was no weed whacker in evidence to suggest that she was mowing lawns for teenager money. I wonder what her parents think of her use of the gas and mower? Do they encourage such waste of resources (well, it IS Hurstbourne, after all...).

One of the items I bought was an extension pole for use with either a paint roller or (as I plan to use it tomorrow) a scrub brush (I'm cleaning some mildew off some siding for a customer). It's about six feet long. I used bungee cords to secure it to the deck of the Big Dummy, then went to the Contractors' Sales area to snag a flag and some twine to make the end of the pole a bit more visible for following road users. I'm sure I got some folks wondering what I was doing as they saw me working my way home.

I got it built Friday evening, and rode it up and down the block to be sure everything worked. Jenn rode it briefly, made a comment about having trouble staying on the saddle, and I rode it again to see why that would be. I moved the saddle back a bit, and that helped. In total, the bike had about two miles on it--until today.

For its first foray out of the neighborhood, I chose to use it for a grocery run. The nearest, easiest to get to grocery is a Kroger (Hubbards and Westport, if it matters). It is a bit over two miles each way.

For the one or two of you interested, I've changed a couple of key details from the stock parts list. First to go was the Wilderness Trails Bikes saddle--its shape is all wrong for too many folks, myself included. I've been pleased with the Brooks B66 that is on my Raleigh, so opted for a B67 for this bike (same saddle top, same suspension, but single rails to work on this seat post). I bought a Surly handlebar with an almost-beach-cruiser profile (if inverted, it would be pretty close to a mustache bar), and had initially chosen a shorter stem. I found an adjustable-angle stem that we had taken off a bike sold through the store some time back, and kept it in reserve if the stock stem doesn't suit me. I recently upgraded the Ergon grips on my Globe to some with bar-ends, and moved the older Ergon grips to this bike.

First impressions on the Big Dummy: Wow! I can feel the extra rear length on this thing. It pretty much feels like riding a tandem bike solo, with less noodle-ness. The handlebars feel big and wide, adding to the substantial feel of the bike overall. With a modest-weight load, the bike feels quite stable (I didn't take time to weigh the grocery load seen below, but there is about $140 worth of food and stuff in the bags). It didn't feel heavier, the way a trailer similarly-loaded feels behind my Globe.

I'm not quite done dialing in the fit adjustments. I built this bike thinking that Jenn will be able to use it from time to time, but it will mostly be my bike for use in hauling job site stuff to and fro (the insurance guys have been bemused when I told them that I intended to do what hauling I can by bicycle, naturally). I may eventually letter it to reflect that it's a work bike used by a tradesman, not just a goofball's toy.

Another bike in this category that caught my eye was the Yuba Mundo. The folks at Joe Bike, in Oregon, claim that their staff has a Mundo ownership ratio of 1:1.5 or something, suggesting that several of their staff have two or more Mundos. None of their staff have Big Dummy bikes, and the implication is that the Mundo is more stable under heavy loads. As I was a bit pinched for time at purchase, I opted for the Big Dummy for a couple of reasons--the larger of which was timeliness of delivery, and the other was the component package on the stock bike.

I'm not normally one to worry a whole lot about component packages. My Globe has an Acera 8-speed rear derailleur, for example, and I see no reason to upgrade it. I tend to value the overall ride of the bike, and the frame is the single biggest factor in how a bike rides (well-built wheels tend to be wheels, a given tire tends to be that same tire regardless of what bike it's being used on, and so forth). If I were to get a Mundo, I would have to start with a frame set (which doesn't appear to be currently available...), as the stock configuration confuses me. The stock rear wheel is a freewheel-type using a seven-speed drivetrain (well, it DOES have triple chainrings, but a freewheel hub? Really? Move the drive-side wheel bearings away from the frame another inch--the axle won't bend?). Rather than fight all those headaches of piecing together a custom-spec bike, I went with the Surly.

This is not to say that I won't, at some point, trade up for a Mundo. I like that their front carrier is frame-mounted instead of fork-mounted. I like several things about the accessories that Yuba offers (and that Joe Bike offers), when compared to the Xtracycle options that the Big Dummy is made to accept. I'm not in a hurry to change bikes at the moment, though. I'm happy with what I've experienced so far with this Big Dummy.

One door closes...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Memorial Day weekend activities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

depressing day

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

First, one will need a large fortune.

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was a busy weekend...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

file cleaning

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

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

The Bluegrass Bicycle ride is ending.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Louisville Free Public Library "How-To Festival"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dumb Domino's pizza driver

Once in a while, I get reminded that some folks just don't think. Such was the case last night, as Bob and I rode through Crestwood toward Pewee Valley--I on my way home from work, Bob out to spin the pedals for a few minutes before family responsibilities yanked him back into that wonderful maelstrom of being a dad.

We were on KY146, that being the only good way to get from Crestwood to Pewee Valley by bike, unless one wants to go some several miles out of one's way, only to have to cross it at some point, anyway. About half-way between Crestwood and Pewee Valley there is a greenhouse operation. As we passed that greenhouse complex, there was a line of cars behind us--in part because oncoming traffic prevented safe passing by the truck at the front of the line. I could hear an impatient-sounding horn behind the truck, but could not tell how many cars were back there. The truck driver found opportunity to pass, and did so, immediately followed by a white Volkswagen sedan with a Domino's Pizza sign magnetically attached to its roof. The driver of this car was wearing a Domino's uniform shirt, suggesting that he was on duty at the time. He had a couple windows down, and yelled something as he pointed to the side of the road (unintelligible ululations being a favorite form of expression for angry motorists). No big deal, except that he then "jinked" toward us a bit, then got back in the oncoming lane long enough to make the pass a bit more safely.

That "jink," to me, constitutes an active threat, as if to say, "Get off the road or I'll push you off."

I had a chat with a woman who identified herself as the delivery manager for that location. She thanked me for informing her of the incident, and at least made the right noises as far as recognizing that safety of all road users trumped the perceived convenience of a pizza arriving a few seconds earlier. She closed the conversation by saying that no driver from her store would ever harass a cyclist again if she had any say in the matter.

We'll see. Sometimes, strident measures from bosses lead to retaliatory actions by drivers. Of course, she'd hear about any such nonsense, should anyone I know experience problems from a Domino's driver near Crestwood.

I would have threatened boycotting them, but I haven't eaten a Domino's pizza in years. I find them even worse than Papa John's pizza (and John Schnatter is a Mitt Romney fan, making it even more certain I wouldn't patronize his chain). Hopefully, the manager who spoke with me gets it, without having to use such threats.

I drove to work today.

I keep hearing that other bike shops are bustling along this time of year. The one where I work is not. I'm sure that part of what's causing it is that word is out that the store is for sale and/or closing. Folks don't want to do business with a store that won't be there a month or two from now. A few folks haven't yet gotten the word--indeed, some of the repair traffic is folks who are just now noticing us. There isn't much traffic, though. It's pretty demoralizing.

I have a couple of potential customers lined up to get a handyman business started--have even done some such work recently. I figure that while being self-employed has a number of drawbacks, it is something I'm able to do, I can often get to job sites by bicycle (even if I'm hauling a couple hundred pounds of materials--part of why I got the Bikes at Work trailer!), and, as I found out recently, just being out on a job site can bring business my way (a neighbor of the folks for whom I was building some deck stairs came by to get a rough estimate on a replacement for his current deck).

I was never in good practice at estimating the variety of jobs I anticipate doing, but have done some estimates as part of other work I did (I was a Home Repair Coordinator for New Directions Housing Corporation before I started this blog, and part of my tasking was estimating roof replacement costs). I know what I need to learn, just haven't developed the sense of material costs. It will take time.

I haven't been crowing about mileages this year, figuring that a) I won't be topping last year's numbers this year, and b) it's not really about the numbers as much this year. Still, it's nice to look at my logs, and see that of the 2100 miles I've recorded so far, all but 44 are utility miles. Friday's trip home from work brought the commuting total to 1600 miles.

Bike Month is coming, too. Because I don't know when/if the store will close, it's hard for me to plan for "bike to work day." The celebration day is May 18th this year, and there will be some excitement in Louisville on that day and in the weeks prior. There is a utility cycling contest, in which I can have several relative neophyte commuters join me in logging trips taken by bike instead of by car, with a chance at some cool prizes. Bike month is not about folks like me. I already ride a lot instead of driving--at least by average American person standards. It's about helping folks who are interested but unsure of themselves, or who would like to ride but need help figuring out how to deal with the various challenges in being different than the statistical norm.

We can help.

More trailer fun

Bearing in mind that 2012 is, among other things, the year in which I want to finish moving into my house, AND that I have this nifty Bikes at Work trailer just begging to be used, I put the trailer (and my leg muscles) to use on Friday.

Jenn and I had a stack of old computer towers, a couple monitors, a printer or two, a few keyboards, and such that had accumulated over the last dozen years. It was occupying too much space in the garage, and needed to go away. I put it in an assortment of bins on my trailer, and pedaled to the recycling place to get rid of it.

I had a stop near Frankfort Avenue, to drop off some spokes I had cut for Barry. I parked my bike at the curb rather than mess with getting in and out of the driveway. This was not the best move, as it was recycling day on his street, and the city recycling guy got to wondering what my bike was doing there. He even went to lift it, but I started calling out that I was simply parked there and he put it back down.

Note to self: don't park too close to a recycling bin--some folks will be confused.

I had been discussing my planned route with Barry up until then, but decided to go in via Lexington Road to Barret Avenue, then west on Broadway to somewhere near Smoketown, where I would start heading south. Traffic was such that I opted to turn north briefly, then make a u-turn to reorient southward. While just north of Broadway, I encountered my friend James Rockhold, and had a brief chat.

Bluegrass E-Cycle is in a small industrial park off Seventh Street, a bit north of Algonquin Parkway. It's about twelve miles from my house, by the route I took. I managed to avoid big hills, but still had a few smaller ones to climb--the biggest descent was on Lexington Road by Cherokee Park, and I managed to keep it slowed to twenty-five or so to keep from letting the load get out of hand.

The loaded trailer tracked quite well, I'm glad to say. Part of that was that I kept the load balanced just about right, I'm sure. I never had to use my small chainring, but I did become much more familiar with my largest rear cog than I have been.

After dropping off the computer stuff, I stopped at UofL to pick up some Louisville Bicycle Club schedules for the store (the Club has them printed at UofL's print shop), then worked my way to the Highlands. My next planned stop was to be in Hikes Point, and it's tough to get there from the other side of Old Louisville unless one gets closer to downtown first--any way I would go, I'd have to cross the Watterson "Distressway" at least once, if not three times. I skirted Cherokee Park on its western edge for a bit, then went across the southern boundary by using neighborhood streets. I used Kings Highway to get outside Bowman Field, then Taylorsville Road to get outside the Watterson, Furman Boulevard to get closer to Hikes Lane, and again neighborhood streets to avoid some of Hikes Lane.

The entire ride was mostly uneventful. The biggest asshole motorist of the day award would go to the guy who, deciding I was going far too slow for him, used the right turn only lane to pass me in an intersection, blew through a stop sign, and turned left from that right turn only lane. Had a conscientious police officer seen him, he would have gotten enough points against his license to keep him from driving legally for a couple years (disregarding TCD, left turn from compulsory RTO lane, passing in an intersection, passing on the right, and probably reckless driving from the amalgam of the rest, each worth at least three points, and twelve gets the ticket pulled). It's happened to me before at that intersection, so I wasn't really surprised. I was, of course, prepared for it, being semi-alert all the time when on a bike. Just because he got away with it doesn't mean it's a wise course of action.

Total for the day was something like 32 miles.

Then I got to work on John's FAW+.

He and I encountered each other on that social networking site some months ago, when he expressed home that he'd make it to a Car-Free Happy Hour with his velomobile. That was not to be at the time, alas. However, he's been enjoying it a bit since he built it (from a kit), although his enjoyment of it had been hampered by some directional stability problems. I looked at it a few weeks ago, and we found that the front end alignment was way off. We found time to work together on it on Friday, and apparently my efforts have succeeded in improving things. Once he got a chance to test-ride it, he gave me a chance to ride it. It's a gas. I still want one, even though I think I'm a bit wide in the torso to be comfortable for long days in the seat (my arms rub the insides of the cockpit walls a bit more than I'd like).

All in all, a great day to be on bikes, working on bikes (and bike-like contraptions). I even got to ride a different bike to dinner with Jenn, her daughter Rachel, and Rachel's friend, Steve.

Normal vs. the law

Mighk Wilson, of Cycling Savvy (among other fine sites), put this on Facebook this week: 

An idea for discussing lane control with non-cyclists (and perhaps even cyclists): I've tried this a couple times and it certainly gets people thinking.

I either show them an image or video of a lane-controlling cyclist on a high-speed arterial, or just describe it, then ask: "If you saw that, what would you think?"

Of course, the usual answer includes terms like "crazy" and/or "dangerous."

Then I ask: "What if you saw this once a month?"
"Once a week?"
"Once a day?"
"Every hour?"
"Every ten minutes?" (pause and let them think/answer after each)

It gets them to realize that perhaps their perception of what is PROPER is based on what they believe is NORMAL, and not based on the law, data or reasoning.

Read that last sentence again. Many motorists don't know the finer points of the law, so they follow what they imagine the law should be based on what they see as "normal." They were taught to stay out of the way of cars when they rode bicycles as small children (insert digression about their maturity here if you like), so they think normal is "bikes stay out of the way of cars."

Never mind that there is exactly nothing about the car that gives it any priority over any other road user (unless that car happens to be equipped with "first responder" lights and siren). Never mind that it is quite dangerous for me to hug the fog line (that white line at the edge of the road), because it puts me out of sight of the overtaking road user and/or invites that road user to squeeze past me in MY LANE rather than change lanes, as is the legal standard.

Of course, most motorists that fuss at me are not interested in dialog. They want to get past me because they are late for that cup of caffe latte mochachino or something, and just want to vent their frustration over their own tardiness and lack of time-management skills at me as they rush past.

Nice day for some utility cycling

I decided I wanted a plywood floor/deck for my recently-acquired Bikes at Work trailer, so I asked my stepfather if he had any scraps in his workshop that I could use. He had most of a sheet we could rip to size, so I pulled the empty trailer to work this morning, then stopped at my mother and stepfather's house to get that plywood.

Having done that, I had a couple errands in Middletown, so I went that way. I lived with my folks for a while in 1999, and rode to my job in Middletown quite often. It felt good to be able to ride those roads again, although traffic out that way has gotten even more impatient with the passing years.

On the way home from Middletown, I decided to pick up some mulch for a yard project Jenn and I had been discussing. I got three bags at three cubic feet each, partly to see how far they would go on the project and partially because I figured that load would give me a feel for how much more I could haul if necessary.

After using all three bags, I estimated that six more bags would finish this portion, and felt that I could haul that load easily enough. I went back to Lowe's on Hurstbourne Parkway and got the additional mulch.

I suppose I could have used the pickup truck, but I had fun imagining the thoughts going through motorists' minds when seeing me with my payload.

Once home, I finished spreading the mulch, but not before Jenn brought out a bathroom scale so we could estimate the weight of my trailer load. Each of the two bags we weighed was roughly thirty pounds of mulch, meaning I'd hauled a hundred eighty pounds my second trip. I felt like I could have hauled all nine bags at once, given the fairly flat terrain involved.

I'm going to have fun with this trailer. I can see myself looking for ways to use it, now that I have it. I'd better think carefully about whether to get that Big Dummy...

End of March

I haven't had much to post here recently. The odd pithy comment has wound up on the dreaded facebook, proving that I've gone overboard in my internet activities.

Latest milestone, though, is that I saw my first red-wing blackbird of the season on my way to work this morning.

In other news, I'm now the owner of a Bikes at Work trailer. Ian had a spare, since he closed the SoupBycycle operations a few months ago. I had heard that he was selling a section of it to some other friends (it's the newer modular design, more on that in a moment), so asked him about the rest of it. We worked out a deal, and I've used the trailer to haul his Surly Big Dummy a couple times (part of the deal being some maintenance work on said bike).

I got in touch with the folks at Bikes at Work, and ordered a hitch that would work with my Globe. Why not the Vanguard, as I used it for the bike move in February, you ask? Well, to use a BaW hitch, I had to move my kickstand to a not-kickstand-friendly place. I like having kickstands on utility bikes. I can likely manage heavier loads with the Globe, anyway, due to its lower overall gearing. Disc brakes are also a factor--a couple of factors, honestly, since the rear caliper is located in such a way as to make use of the standard BaW hitch impractical. The Bikes at Work folks were able to make a hitch that mounts to the site where the Globe accepts a proprietary kickstand.

I miss that kickstand, but it's easy enough to switch to using it when I'm not using the trailer. The bike also accepts a conventional kickstand mounted right behind the bottom bracket, and I can leave one there even if I have the rear-mount one on and in use.

For those two of my readers not living in Kentucky, many of the locals around me are caught up in the excitement that UK and UofL are playing each other in the NCAA Semi-Final. Not being a big basketball fan--indeed, as one who is turned-off by all the hoop-la--I have other things to do. As a UofL graduate, I would prefer UofL win, but beyond that, I'm not overly concerned.

mileposts

I had forgotten to post a couple of cycling mileposts for the season, like the first time I rode to work in short sleeves (a couple weeks ago). I rode to work in short pants for the first time this season this morning, though.

Jenn and I went to see Bicycle Dreams last night. If it's showing near you (Lexington, KY on Tuesday, the 13th, for example), you owe it to yourself to see it. Having been on a crew for the 2010 event (most of this movie was shot in 2005), I can attest to its realistic look at what drives folks to do such things, and the dangers they face.

To throw down the mileage numbers: January's total was 562, February's was 570 (more miles than seven months of 2010, and a touch more than three or four months of 2011). March is off to a slow start--I've driven to work three times already this month, due to lack of gumption in wet weather. I'm not going to stress over it, though.

As noted in a prior post or two, Bluegrass Bicycle, my employer for the last couple of years, is for sale. I have a couple of options I'm exploring, but nothing definitive at the moment.

Storms

I'm fighting some depression. Much of it has to do with my job--the bike shop where I work is for sale, and unless a buyer comes forward (and I can work with said buyer), we will be having a going-out-of-business sale soon. Special-order stuff will not be part of this sale, of course, and special orders will come to a halt in the next week or two (if you want me to build a wheel for you in the next month or two, now is the time to order parts!).

My first thought is that at least in the short term I'll be working some combination of part-time jobs. I have a couple of teaching gigs in the queue, and some home-repair work possibilities here and there. I'm spending some time networking as well.

Jenn has suggested that I get my "elevator sales pitch" together--a thirty-second (or so) spiel on what I can do well enough that someone would pay for me to do it. It's hard to do--I've done so many things over the years, and some of them interest me more than others, but are harder for me to do given my current situation.

One possibility is a car-free home repair service. I'm in negotiations to get a used Bikes at Work trailer, and working with Bikes at Work to get a hitch made to fit my Globe (really trick hitch that uses the Globe's kickstand bracket at the rear dropout, apparently). I figure that for most of my jobs, I'll know most of what I need to haul in terms of tools and materials, and that a sizable percentage of that stuff can be hauled by bike (bulky but not terribly heavy). It's not like I'd be hauling fence posts and sixteen-foot fence boards, after all.

I was planning on building some bookshelves in our front bedroom/office. That plan has been put on hold for the next couple of months--not just that I don't want to spend the money on the materials involved, but that we may have other plans for the room. More on that in another post if it's warranted.

All of this seems pretty small compared to what has happened in southern Indiana today. We had a horrible series of tornadoes come through, and reports have suggested that Marysville Indiana "is gone," at least according to one or two law enforcement officers. Six deaths have been attributed to the storms by the time I'm typing this. I don't envy those folks at all. I have a house that is intact, all my stuff is still inside it, my wife and other family members are still uninjured by the storms. Some of them are scouring the countryside for their treasures. Some of them have lost loved ones.

Needless to say (or perhaps not), I drove to work today. I didn't feel like getting picked up by the wind or beat up by the rain.

Brownsboro Road reconstruction--again

Probably not in direct response to my questions about the opponents' reasons for resistance to the Road Diet plan for Brownsboro Road in the Clifton area, but I'm glad to see it nonetheless:

Several folks involved in the plan and advocacy for the road diet have put up a site to refute the opposition from the folks who brought us "Save42." The site name is a clever twist on the opposition's site name--safe42.org--and gives real information instead of simply pooh-poohing the opponents' claims.

If you read the paper or follow the televised news (the latter of which I generally ignore), you've heard the claims--businesses will go under for lack of customers because nobody will want to drive on that road because it will be so clogged with folks who can't get anywhere because there are only two travel lanes (never mind the "suicide lane" in the middle...) because, well, the whole project was developed in secret without input from anybody with skin in the game.

Never mind that I've known about the efforts for over a year, and I don't even live in that neighborhood. Never mind that public meetings on the topic get advertised in Councilwoman Tina Ward-Pugh's weekly newsletter, along with ways to contact folks who would have some influence.

I've wanted to reach out to opponents and address their concerns respectfully. Having read some of their missives, it's hard to respect their attitudes, let alone their stance. I am convinced of the value of reconstructing Brownsboro Road as planned, but want them to be as well. The more I read of their objections, though, the harder it is for me to take them seriously. I realize that part of their reality is that "more lanes = less congestion," although that idea gets debunked fairly often (build more lanes? more people will use them and clog them as badly as before).

I especially enjoyed reading Ms Ward-Pugh's letter to Jim Dahlem and his group of oppositionists. It lays out their misinformation campaign and points out that there was no secrecy in planning the road diet. They had chance after chance to bring forth data that would refute the notion that the road diet would be a positive step, and either ignored or refused those opportunities. This, of course, suggests that they had no data to bring to the table--only misrepresentation and fear of changes that would be good for the locals at minimal expense to through traffic.

Once the road diet is done, I wonder what Dahlem and his crowd will say when the businesses along there start flourishing? What happens when they find that they can get through there with less stress and no real loss of time after all? Will they apologize?

I doubt it.

Brownsboro Road Reconfiguration, revisited

I've heard of folks who think that traffic moving faster and safer is a better thing for the section of Brownsboro Road being reconfigured. Faster AND safer? That seems paradoxical to me. Smoother might be safer. Slower (within reason) could be much safer, especially on a road where there are (or would be) pedestrians of all ages, including vision-impaired or mobility-impaired.

Yes, traffic engineers used to hold that wider roads were safer. More maneuvering room, and all that, never mind folks on the sidewalks. In my last post, I mentioned this post from Strong Towns blog poster Charles Marohn.

I wasn't always so down with speed limits. I liked going faster, feeling like I was getting where I was going more effectively if not more efficiently. Several people tried to tell me otherwise, and in my youthful ignorance, I blew off the idea. I often say that riding a bicycle as much as I do makes me a better driver when I'm in a car. I am more focused on the task, being used to that when I'm on two wheels. I'm more aware of my surroundings, by habit formed of necessity. I also think that compulsory bicycle miles for able-bodied drivers would be a good thing for traffic safety, but I realize that it would never happen in the United States of the Automobile.

A friend recently got a speeding ticket for going twenty miles an hour over the posted speed limit. He was griping about it being a "total speed trap," never mind that it was an area known for fairly careful enforcement of speed limits and not far from his home (as if it was a surprise that someone would be *gasp* enforcing the law). The speed limit doesn't abruptly change from fifty-five to thirty-five, and any change is well-marked with MUTCD signage showing that a lower speed limit zone is ahead.

Twenty-five or thirty years ago, I would have had more sympathy for him. Perhaps even twenty or even fifteen years ago, although I would have been more sympathetic had the differential been more like ten miles an hour. Now? It's hard for me to empathize with anyone going twenty (or probably more, especially if the officer gave him any break) over the speed limit.

I bring this sentiment back to my discussions about the Brownsboro Road reconfiguration by noting that in my own travels along that road, I've seen folks going way too fast for conditions, treating the road like a raceway rather than a road with lots of stores (and thus driveways) on either side, sidewalks (and potentially pedestrians using those sidewalks), folks wanting to turn left into this or that place of business, and other reasons why a thirty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit makes far more sense than one set at fifty-five. Yes, it's a fairly major through-way for a lot of commuters, but that doesn't give them reason to expect to go at interstate speeds.

It's worth a moment to compare my feelings on this to how I feel about the way Oak Street was "fixed" between Floyd and Seventh Streets some years ago. On Oak Street, the city changed it from one-way eastbound to two-way traffic. I get that it makes it (hopefully) safer for pedestrians to get across the street to patronize local businesses. The down side in that location is that, to conserve on-street parking (parking being at a high premium in Old Louisville), one travel lane and one parking lane were maintained in each direction. If one wishes to make a left turn off Oak Street, and opposing traffic is heavy, one will block an intersection for sometimes multiple cycles of the traffic light. This is partly a good thing--it deters through traffic. It's also a bad thing, in that it now takes several cycles of several traffic lights to get through that piece of Oak Street, making someone who was accustomed to going through on one or perhaps two cycles of sequenced lights angry and less likely to consider doing business in the area. I wonder whether limiting on-street parking to one side of the street and creating a left-turn-only lane would help, here. Of course, then the decision is "which side of the street loses on-street parking?" The answer was apparently more complicated than they wanted to fix at the time.

What makes neighborhood roads safer?

I think I remember mentioning this blog post before, but I don't have time to go looking. It's from a traffic engineer who is rethinking the priorities of street design. It's a good quick read.

blog goals

Change sometimes prompts us to ruminate on things. With the changes recent and upcoming, I've been thinking about all sorts of things. Some more time-sensitive, like my own preparation for last weekend's bike move, and others less urgent. Some more big-picture, some less so.

This blog pops into my mind from time to time when I'm doing such reflecting. I think about some of the blogs I read, and their purposes and purposefulness. Some bloggers keep a very tight focus on one facet of their lives, and write about that focus in a way that attempts to be accessible to lots of people. I admire their discipline in maintaining such focus. I sometimes wish I had such discipline. I occasionally consider such folks to be over-achievers.

Then I remember the concept that we look at others' personae and only see the good stuff. We don't see the behind the scenes frailties and foibles. We think about our own perceived shortcomings in that light, and consider ourselves less valid somehow.

My own purpose for this blog has varied a bit over the three years or so since I started keeping it. At first, I wasn't even sure what I wanted to do with it. It became a diary of sorts, in part to help me keep myself accountable in my goal of riding to work more and more. I added little bits of celebration or at least recognizing little mile markers along the way--the first ride to work of the season in short sleeves, or short pants, or the first ride to work in sub-freezing temperatures (something I didn't even think to make note of this last season, as my utility riding has become more of a given for me).

It's been more public about seemingly private stuff at times. I've managed to hold back on other things that didn't really need to be said, but that I needed to put into words in order to help myself figure out where I was on those issues. In other words, I've found myself using this blog as a metaphorical mirror for my thoughts, helping clarify them for myself and being open to other folks acting as sounding boards (and have even gotten some helpful feedback at times).

So, yes, this blog is serving an assortment of purposes for me. I get to share blogs I've found and comment on posts and comments from those blogs. I get to clarify my own thoughts on things. I keep track of little things I want to remember, and my thoughts on those points, and revisit my typed-out thought-dumps once in a while. I get to read thoughts of a few others as they respond to points I make.

It's sort of like having friends might be, if I got to sit and chat with the several of you more often.

Bike Move, version 2012-2, complete!

Despite less-than-ideal weather (!), we did it. We moved boxes and boxes and boxes of books and stuff, a couple of dressers and file cabinets, and even a sofa (as Mary Beth said, "It's not a bike move until you haul a sofa!").

There were an assortment of news folks on hand, due to some pre-event crowing by Kirk the Media Maven Kandle. Links (with pics and video as appropriate) can be found here, here, here, and over there. I didn't even take my camera, figuring that there would be enough picture-taking done by others--I was there to move stuff.

And move stuff I did. Yes, that is me pulling the trailer loaded with the sofa. The Courier's picture of me pulling it had a caption that was not well-written or proofed (peddling instead of pedaling, coach instead of couch), but most viewers would get the idea. The route to the destination house involved a short 7% grade on Pope Street in the Clifton neighborhood, which is fun with a three-hundred-pound (guesstimated) trailer payload. I need to do more climbing like that, but not right away. My legs need to recover just a bit more.

Moving van, er, BIKES

This Saturday will be yet another household move by bicycles. Yes, I get to help!

I spent some time with Andy Dyson today, making some temporary repairs to his trailer so that I can use it this weekend. The current plan is for me to use it with my Vanguard, which could be interesting. There are some mild grades to climb this time that are a bit steeper than stuff we've done before. I'll be able to carry more weight than before.

Should be a good time!

It's been a few days

...and I haven't seen any comments on my last post. Figured there would be, given the nature of the news, but that's the way it goes some days.

Since that day, I've had a few other things happen--some good, some not as much. Rather than focus on the not-good, I'll mention a few good things.

I have stepped down as VP education with the Louisville Bicycle Club. I don't begrudge the time and energy I spent educating cyclists--quite the contrary! It was a lot of fun, and I got to learn stuff along the way. Some of the Ex-Comm meetings got to be tiring, some of the club politics got bizarre, but that's the way things go in an organization like this. David Wittry is the new VP Education, and I am sure he'll do well. I'll give what help I am able.

I'm still logging bike miles as part of my "ride instead of drive" transportation plan. As I type this, I'm in the lead in utility miles logged by Louisville Bicycle Club members by forty miles or so. The current second-place rider logged about as many miles last year as I logged in 2010, and a few more than I logged just commuting last year. Like several of us, he all but doesn't drive (I've not seen him drive a car).

Jenn and I have made some progress on the house--mostly reorganizing and making rooms more livable so far. The big project--shelving in the "office"--is waiting on me to overcome some inertia and buy wood and paint. Oh, yeah, cash would be good--the job situation is making me a bit more careful about cash outlay. At least I can do most of the labor on this shelving project myself, reducing the overall cost to easier-to-manage levels.

I really don't know what the coming year holds in terms of total bike miles. I'm not going to stress over it, and have adjusted my goal to simply be ride more than drive. If work opportunities that totally preclude bicycle commuting present themselves, I would have to think carefully about such gigs. I can't refuse a job offer simply based on that, but having to pay for a car for such use would offset quite a bit of the potential earnings.

I hear a change a-comin', comin' round the bend...

Ending some period of speculation by several folks in the local cycling community, Bob announced yesterday that Bluegrass Bicycle, LLC is for sale. In answer to the obvious questions, "I don't know how much money," "I don't have a definite answer for number of days or weeks," and "I don't know whether any future owner would get along with me or I with that person or persons."

In other words, I'm now looking for work, both short- and long-term. Part-time and full-time positions will be considered, mindful that any part-time position would have to be coordinated with other part-time positions.

I'm fortunate, in some respects. Jenn is employed, and has benefits that cover me. Indeed, those benefits were one of the reasons we married when we did, which was almost two months ahead of our planned 09/09/09 date (flip it over and remove the zeros for the sardonic anti-religious message).

I don't expect to find work in the bike biz for a while. I don't know. It's certainly possible that one of the local bike shops wants to deal with my ego to get the motley bunch of occasional customers I would bring in their doors, but would I be able to deal with the people in such a store?

*sigh*

tiny ironies

One of life's little ironies: I bought a new bike in March of 2011, primarily because it would accept off-the-shelf studded snow tires. Ten months later, I have not had need for those tires. The bike is out of service for the nonce, as its rear rim has some cracks at the spoke nipple holes (new wheel coming from Specialized, due to arrive next week).

My bike miles total since the start of the year has already exceeded my January 2010 mileage. I was living in the rental house at that time, griping about cold weather that I've since found I could tolerate more easily than I thought at the time, and thinking about using the TARC Bikes on Board program to lessen my weather exposure a bit.

Now, I'm thinking more and more about getting a velomobile for much of my transportation. I have read of folks who, once they got one, all but abandoned their bicycles as utility vehicles. I honestly don't know how I'd go on that--I like to think I'd still ride two-wheels a fair bit for fun and utility, but I can also see myself choosing the velomobile on a daily basis as a default mode, just as I found myself doing with the new bike this year (result: new upright bike got three hundred miles more use than the long-cherished Vanguard).

With that new bike, much of the increase in use over the Vanguard was that the new bike has brakes that are MUCH nicer. Some of the difference had to do with anticipated parking places--I can comfortably lock the new bike places I am less comfortable locking the Vanguard. Some of it was that I was using my bike as a teaching tool, and I figure that students will find it easier to relate to a bike more like their own than my recumbent. Some of this feels like rationalizing not riding a favorite bike, as if I was somehow betraying the Vanguard or something within myself by riding the Globe.

In the end, though, it comes down to one of the lines on that old list of "Why bicycles are better than women" (see also: Why bicycles are better than men): the bike doesn't care if I ride other bikes.