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!