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.