Wednesday post of the week--odds and ends

I happened onto a blog by my friend, Kirk Kandle, today. His latest experiment is to go "car-free." I suspect he will do well at this, as he has been an active commuter for a long time.

I know a few couples and a couple people who are car-free. I admire their tenacity. I admire their ability to make their lives such that they can do that. I admit to being still a bit addicted to owning a car, in that I use my small truck to haul stuff often enough, and far enough, that it's good to keep it for now.

I do, at least, go for being less car-dependent. I ride to work a lot, by many standards (although not as much as I'd prefer recently). I like the Clif Bar 2-mile challenge idea, and would like to see the concept used here with greater impact. As mentioned before, I bought a used kid trailer with the intent of using it to better meet this challenge. It's usually connected to the Raleigh these days, ready for action, as I prefer riding the Vanguard to Crestwood.

Most of the week has been get to work, work, get home in the rain, read, eat, sleep, get up and walk the dog, repeat. However, today I got to lead a lunch-time discussion on bicycle use in traffic. During this session, I met a woman who, with her husband, is car-free. I'm looking forward to meeting her husband, as he is another Ryan owner. He's in charge of sustainability efforts at U of L, and I can't tell you how excited I am that the University has such a position. I'm looking forward to all manner of future discussions with both of them. New friends!

When I got home from that, though, I learned that one of the springs for my garage door had broken. That door is heavy without those springs! By the time I got organized in my search for a replacement, the best source for them was closing for the day. Oh, well. The springs are about $25 each, and I should probably get two of them. I think I can charge them to the landlord, though, so it won't be too big a hit for the bank book. I even get to charge labor for the repair work against my rent (the board anchoring the spring snapped off when the spring recoiled into it after breaking). Nothing else in the garage seems to have been hurt, however. This is a good thing.

Odd and ends time:

Early last week, I learned that a chap on one of the kilt forums I'm on was to be in town. Jenn and I met Keith at a nearby brewery's restaurant, and enjoyed a couple of tasty local products along with our friendly conversation. His work will bring him to town from time to time, so we'll get to see more of each other.

David is getting ready to do the Ride to Conquer Cancer this weekend. I wish I had some money to toss in the pot, but I'm tapped out these days. I'll have to settle for putting some good mojo on his bike for him, so that he can ride without worrying about mechanical issues.

The big bicycle-biz trade show, Interbike, is going on now. Bob is there, getting information on all the latest and greatest stuff. Maybe I'll go next year. I went in 2001, right after the WTC disaster. It was in Vegas, and Vegas is a place I'd just as soon not visit, but the show can be pretty cool.

Playing catch-up

Taking a break from doing some catch-up work around the house today. Lots to do, so I won't type much (or maybe I will).

A post on a list server I watch mentioned Copenhagenize.com, a blog that has a lot of good reading in it. Needless to say, it will be on my watch list for a while.

An anonymous response to one blog entry included the gem: "...I came to realize that it is the attitude and the motor that moves the bike forward, and that obstacles are there to be overcome."

This blog entry has some poster ideas worth considering. I'm sure that many of the motorists' lobbying efforts to reduce bicycle traffic stem from "Traffic safety" messages similar to those cited in this entry. I'm also convinced that to truly do something to improve the safety of our roadways, we need to address the deeper problem--inattentive or scofflaw drivers of motor vehicles and the law enforcement process that allow them to continue--rather than the perceived threat to manic motion of a bicycle in the roadway. David Crowell linked to Motor Mania, a video done by Walt Disney some sixty years ago in his blog several months back. I see elements of that in myself at times, and it's one of the reasons I prefer riding--I don't especially like who I become when I'm driving.

Oh, well, back to the chores.

We did it!

Jenn got to ride her first century over the weekend, and a challenging first century it was!

Yep, the Old Kentucky Home Tour's Pottershop Century!

The bike was great--thanks again to Bill and Kate for letting us borrow it for this event!

As the morning progressed, the buzz had gotten around that Jenn and I were going for her first century ride. By the time we got to the fifty mile point, also the decision point for doing the century instead of the seventy-mile option, Jenn was pumped up and raring to go!

Everyone who rides the OKHT knows of Pottershop Road. Duc Do provided this entry in his list of one hundred (or so) hills in the area. Pottershop Road features three climbs of note (along with several smaller acclivities) to make for a challenging bit of work ninety-five miles into a century. The first averages thirteen-something percent grade for a third of a mile, and it has a relative easy spot in the middle of it. There is a lot of chip-seal road repair on Pottershop Road, which despite its appearances, is fairly stable (albeit worse than sandpaper if one falls on it). A few feet beyond the first patch of chip-seal, my legs cramped, forcing a halt to our first attempt. We sat out the cramps, turned the bike around, and rode back down to the stop sign to try again. Second try was successful, riding (for me, at least) on the verge of leg cramps much of the time. Lowest speeds were in the three miles an hour range, so we got to work not only on keeping it moving, but balancing at that speed.

Much fun was had at the club's rest stop at the top of that first hill, when Jenn and I stopped and she jumped off the bike on her adrenaline-fueled excitement. I stayed on the bike and rested a moment, knowing I was going to need a lot more power to get over the rest of the climbs. Folks thought I was exhausted, and I was certainly tired.

Carl and Sandy Davis, who were staffing the rest stop, had a special treat for us at the stop. Carl opened a bottle of wine to celebrate that Jenn and I were (fairly) newly married, and that part of our honeymoon involved riding Jenn's first century on the OKHT. We didn't drink much--just enough to taste it and celebrate, but it was quite thoughtful of them! Pictures were taken, bottles were refilled, and down that hill we went, looking forward to the several more small climbs and two major ones remaining.

On the last one of the major pitches, our lowest observed speed was two-point-eight miles an hour. It's a little challenging doing a near-track-stand on a tandem, anyway, but at full power to boot? Wow.

Total time for the century was about ten hours. Ride time was about seven hours. Before reaching Pottershop Road, our average speed was about 14.2, down from a high of 14.7 at some point in the day. Our final average rolling speed was something like 13.7 miles an hour, giving an idea of how slow we were on Pottershop Road.

The word got around, though, and Jenn earned lots of props for doing Pottershop as her first century, and we got some kudos (and not a few "are you nuts?" comments) for riding that one on a recumbent tandem.

With all that excitement, I was tired on Sunday. It took me almost thirty miles to loosen up and be able to ride with anything approaching power. It was easy enough to get things rolling when going downhill or on fairly level ground. However, my climbing just flat stunk--my legs simply didn't want to work on anything above a 4% grade.

Oh, well. Off to work. Maybe I'll have more to say later...

Another Fried-day post

Today is 11 September, 2009. It has been eight years since an event that will be a landmark in our psyche for generations to come--the falling of the World Trade Center towers. Much as my parents' generation can to this day remember where they were when they learned of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, I will remember where I was when I learned that hijackers had flown aircraft into the Trade Center Towers.

Indeed, I remember many things in terms of "before" and "soon after" the WTC disaster.


In the last ten days, Jenn and I have ridden more than 125 miles on the tandem. We are preparing to ride the Old Kentucky Home Tour this weekend. Indeed, I should already be in bed asleep. I'm apparently waiting for the sister of my stepdaughters' father to arrive on a social call. It's 2300 hours as I type this, and I was under the impression that she'd arrive some time ago. Oh, well, it's only sleep. My gear is mostly packed, aside from things I need tonight that I must pack tomorrow morning. I've discussed the time line for the morning. We'll see how that goes.

At any rate, over the holiday weekend, we got to log more than a hundred miles on the tandem, in a variety of situations. Saturday evening was "country riding" time--we rode the LBC ride out of Bluegrass Bicycle for 25 or so miles, then rode north out Glenarm Road to Hall's Hill Road for some hill practice of our own (climbing Old Zaring's narrow section is great practice). That was good for a total of about forty miles. On Sunday, we rode the LBC afternoon 25-miler, which gave us some practice at stoplights and some time at steady-state motoring along on River Road. Monday morning, we rode to the Mayor's Hike and Bike event, and got some practice at riding on wet roads in rain. The rain stopped soon enough that the event itself was under clear skies, and a good time was had by almost all. After the ride, we rode home, had lunch, then rode out to Lyndon to help with rider packet preparation for this weekend's Old Kentucky Home Tour.

Our plans for OKHT are to ride the seventy-some mile route, deciding at some point whether we are up to riding the century route, and hoping to do so. I am looking forward to that. It would be Jenn's first century ride, and it's a challenging first century route for anyone. It should be a bit easier for her on the tandem. I don't know whether it will be harder on me or easier. I'm sure my average speed will be down a bit from my average speed on my Strada, but I expect I'll have a great time anyway.

Late in March, Jenn proposed to me. The original plan was for us to marry on 9 September, the day before yesterday. Other events prompted a change of plans, and we married on 17 July. We chose to recognize 9 September in our own way, sitting under a neat tree in George Rogers Clark Park for a while and exchanging rings that are indeed ours, not borrowed from each other or whomever. My ring is a size 14...

And the ride to and from the park was good for another eighteen or twenty miles.

I'm settling into the new job duties--it's sort-of official, now, that I'm the Service Manager at Bluegrass Bicycle! I'm sure things will take all sorts of turns and twists (or is that twists and turns?) as we decide what my responsibilities are and how I will discharge my duties (and delegate stuff).

And, tandem preparation goes on apace. After a thorough drivetrain tuning Sunday morning, Jenn and I took it out to see a bit of the Ironman competition and shake out the bike a bit. We rode something like thirty miles, mostly at a fairly relaxed pace, and had NONE of the shifting problems I'd had Saturday. We even got the front computer calibrated correctly (I think--I'm going to check it at least once more in the next few days). We'll have to see how the rear computer calibration compares to the front one, and adjust it accordingly, of course. I have new brake pads for the bike, as the owner mentioned he'd like for the brakes to be quieter and I've learned of a pad that may be quieter AND have better stopping power (always a good thing to have that latter one), compared to what is on the bike now. The current pads are not terribly noisy at the moment, but I had done some adjusting to their positioning before riding the bike the other day, and I don't know how they were with the owner.

He and I talked of the kickstand that is made for the bike, but we will likely hold off on getting that--it's pricey, and the lack of it doesn't hurt how the bike rides.

I've started riding to work again. Before riding home Tuesday, I spoke with Jenn, and since she was still at her workplace, offered to ride by there and ride home with her. It was a slight detour for me, as opposed to a ride in the opposite direction from home as it had been with my last job, so it was a good thing. I like riding with her, whether we are on singles or on a tandem. Good thing, considering we're married! ;-)

Lots of cycling-related undercurrents afoot, too: I'm now on the city's "E-Team" for bicycle education, and will be working on helping create a Bike Ambassador program in the coming months.

Where's he been?

Not sure why I haven't been posting of late, but it's probably a combination of things, as such things tend to be. My current job doesn't have the dead periods I had at the apartment building, so I don't post from work. I've not had anything dramatic happen on the roads of late, save for some surprising leg cramps on the club ride Saturday afternoon. We as a nation lost a champion the other day, but I never felt a personal connection with Ted Kennedy and aside from a community loss, don't feel as personally deprived.

On the other hand, a couple of cool things have come down the pike. Jenn and I will be riding OKHT on a tandem this year--BOTH DAYS! We borrowed a tandem for the second day last year, so that I could ride the century and she could volunteer at a sag stop. Our volunteer duties are such that we can ride this year, and we have borrowed a different bike for the ride (and some fair bit of riding beforehand).

The bike we're on this year is one of the first RANS Screamers to hit Louisville. I took the order for this bike in March of 2001. When they came to pick it up, Bill brought the family to the bicycle store, and asked me if we had any tandems to rent. I told him that we might be able to work out something on the BikeE E2 on display, and Bill asked if we had something a bit sportier. I suggested that he might want to look at the new bike beside me, mostly hidden from the view of one just entering the store. Bill brought Kate over, and murmured something along the lines of "Happy Anniversary, Honey."

Kate almost hit the floor in shock...

Anyway, we get to use the bike for a few weeks. Jenn is stoked at being the stoker--she really enjoys being back there pedaling away while I manage the bike.

I felt compelled to ride the John Carr tribute/fund-raising ride today. I didn't know John, but as a fellow cyclist, his death by motorist was a terrible event for me.

It was good to see so may riders out there today. I was somewhere near the latter half of the group, and enjoyed seeing the large front groups go by the other way on Northwestern Parkway.

The C-J article said something like "over a hundred" cyclists were on hand. I would say they under-estimated, by more than half, how many were there.

Uh-Oh

A writer to the editor of the Tuesday, 18 August C-J all but named names when referring to a pack of scofflaw cyclists. The letter writer would not have had names to enable public calling out of miscreants, but it will be easy to figure out who was at fault. I wish there was a meaningful enforcement we could do...

‘Safe' bicyclists?

Last Sunday morning while heading to church services around 7:40 a.m., my wife and I encountered a group of bicyclists (which we assumed was some sort of club because several had the name “Mad Dogs” on their jerseys) who were pedaling through downtown La Grange.

Over a four-block stretch, this group of “safe” bicyclists blew through three stop signs, rode four and five abreast and zigged and zagged in and out of the two northbound lanes, which had been reduced to one lane for construction at the railroad tracks at Main Street (where they also failed to stop).

Then, as their final insult to traffic laws, these “special people” continued straight (north) on Highway 53 at the intersection of Highway 146 from the “right turn only” lane, also without stopping at the four-way stop sign.

In this four-block stretch, we did not notice one person driving a motor vehicle ignore the traffic laws or who even gestured to these lunatics about their disregard for traffic laws or about their rudeness. And isn't it curious that we keep hearing from the ultra-loud bicycle community about how motorists who disobey the traffic laws create issues for them.

Some of the riders are among those I call "friends." The ride captain, if who I think it was, is a close friend.

Within the club, there is a "obey the law, wink, wink," mentality. I am not immune to it, but I'm more careful about it than many. Part of my caution has manifested itself in doing fewer club rides and more solo (i.e. commuting) riding.

Oh, well. Off to work for the day.

Fried-day post of the week

Not much happening today at home. I got to have lunch with the Bike Louisville team today, to see what is happening in terms of bike-friendly stuff. Drove out to Crestwood to haul back Jenn's fast bike (we keep it there during the week for demonstration purposes), and a wheel from a repair that has been problematic. I was hoping to remove the freewheel at a shop by the house, but they don't have the right freewheel tool, either. I may have to make a stop at the Big S in Middletown on the way out to the shop tomorrow morning, meaning a drive to work instead of riding.

Yep, I'm doing the bike-fixing thing again as my main employment. It's working out pretty well, although I expect I'll be encouraging a few operational changes over the coming months.

One of my side conversations today at the lunch involved the possibility of turning my skill set into a part-time gig with the city's Bike Louisville team. Could happen, depending on the funding sources they find. We'll see. Anything involving money coming from the city is always a "don't believe it until I get the money" thing.

At least the bikes are behaving.

I took the Raleigh out Tuesday for a jaunt, to get in some miles for the heck of miles. Made the trip take on multiple purposes, though, as I needed to get cat food and cat litter (thus dealing with the ins and outs of having cats in the house, AND justifying pulling the trailer around), and it gave me an excuse to take David his repaired rear wheel for Nermal. On the way home, I stopped at the Kroger on US42 in the Clifton area for a few more groceries (jug of distilled water, some lunch stuff, etc), and had about forty or fifty pounds in the trailer when I left there. As I was leaving, another customer called me to arrange drop-off of a wheel set for rebuilding (new rims for a tandem! YAY!), so I hustled home. For the heck of it, I went up the first cross street I found that I thought would take me to Frankfort Avenue--I think it was Jane Street. Boy, is that a chain-strainer with a trailer attached! I was pulling on the handlebars to make that last bit of climb--I don't know what the grade is, but it's fairly steep--even for walkers!

Rain, rain, go away

We've had too darned much rain this year. Last night's storms added to the woes of many in our area who have to deal with bailing water from last week's flash floods. Local entities, including our public library, have millions of dollars in damages caused by the six-inch deluge we had in about two hours last week.

And other parts of the country are facing droughts--again, or still. I heard somewhere that the entire state of Texas is under an outdoor fire ban, although I've not substantiated the claim.

It's a shame we can't send them some of our rain...

Club picnic

Today was the Louisville Bicycle Club's annual picnic, held at the Farnsley-Moreman grounds in the southwestern part of the county.

Jenn and I opted to ride the "show and go" offered by a couple other club members, meeting at the Yellow Lot for Waterfront Park and riding to the picnic. We used a mixture of surface streets and the River Walk extension and Levee Trail to get there.

We also opted to take some salad and a couple gallons of lemonade to share, best hauled in a cooler, along with some lawn chairs, all of which fit handily in the trailer, so I pulled the trailer all day. The payload probably weighed about fifty pounds, and I was starting to get tired of pulling it. Since the ride was mostly flat, I never really got to coast--always a knock against really flat rides for me anyway--so before returning home, I dumped as much weight as I could.

It was hot, and we had a headwind a good portion of the way there. It was hotter on the way home, although the headwind was not as much of an issue.

Still, we were both glad to get home--it was a long, hot ride home for both of us, even if I'm better able to deal with heat than Jenn is.

Today is her day

Today is the day my ex got married, according to posts her fiance made a few weeks ago.

Better him than me. I'm a much happier person than I was when I was with my now-ex-girlfriend. That happiness allowed me to find Jenn, and we are doing well together.

I briefly entertained the notion of driving down to her folks' house, just to see if the wedding was happening there. Aside from the waste of gas, I figured the other likely outcome would be something involving a shotgun, so I went to work instead.

New toy

Well, maybe toy isn't the right word.

I've been watching places like Craigslist and a few consignment shops for a trailer, to haul more groceries by bike than I had been able to do. I saw a Trek Transit a few weeks ago, but before I could get back to buy it, it was gone.

I wanted something that would connect to the chainstay of the bike rather than to the axle, to better enable moving the trailer from bike to bike (among the three bikes in the garage that get used for utility stuff). I saw one close to home that was in the price range, but it was axle-connect.

There was one on Craigslist that seemed like it would work. It was out in Valley Station, so knowing the main question to ask, I called. As it sounded like it would work, I drove out and had a look.

I now have a cheap bike trailer, and have already done a grocery run with it, hauling home some bulky stuff I would not have hauled as easily with panniers.

My next task will be to drive out to the shop, as Barry's frame has arrived, and I've contracted to assemble it for him. Jenn plans on riding some long-for-her miles tomorrow, so I'll bring her Bacchetta home, too.

I've worked at the shop most of the week so far (all day Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, most of the day Monday), and it was good to be busy instead of sitting around the house.

This and that

As with other things, I wanted to tell some folks face-to-face first.

Now that that is largely done, and now that it's online anyway (I put up a Facebook page the other day, just to see what the buzz was, and Jenn linked to it from HER Facebook page, and it "told" all her friends that she hadn't yet told, and...)...

Part of the fallout from my job loss is that I was faced with doing the COBRA thing for health insurance. Getting insurance through Jenn's employer would be less expensive and gain better coverage (they are far larger than my prior employer, so got a better group rate), so we sped up our plans a bit. Instead of waiting until the intended 09/09/09, we went ahead and married on 7/17/09. Instead of having the 9/9/9 thing going, Jenn got two primes and a square (no prizes for guessing who is which).

I've been married for a bit more than two weeks, now. Each morning, when I get up, I've set another record for how long I've ever been married (this is my first marriage).

It's all good.

On the employment front: I've been working part-time for Bluegrass Bicycle for some time--about two years--on an "on call" basis, consulting with him to help make his shop more solid, and so on. We've decided to get a bit more in-depth with this, as I have found I really miss the "Bike Biz." I am, as the saying goes, "all about getting people on bikes," and being in a shop again will give me a much-missed venue for feeding that part of my psyche.

I rode the club rides Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. Did some errand-running on the Raleigh last night. I'll probably use the Vanguard for the class tonight--the lessons are on rock dodging and quick turns.

Get the torches and pitchforks

A participant in the E.P. "Tom" Sawyer Park Triathlon held this morning was hit and killed by a drunk hit-and-run driver. There is an article on it on the Courier-Journal's web site, and I'm sure there are other articles on other local news stations' sites.

The photo of the driver at fault (allegedly) shows a young man whose life has changed dramatically since a month ago. Ten or eleven days ago, he was cited for driving under the influence, and was awaiting a court date on that offense when he and a buddy chose to drink and smoke dope all night (according to quotes in the paper's article), then run over a cyclist on his way home this morning. I have no pity whatsoever for the driver.

Predictably, there are a few posts along the lines of "get the damned bikes off the road this wouldn't happen," all of which ignore (of course) that it happens to passengers in other cars quite often.

Damn.

The Big C misses one

My mother is one step closer to considering herself a breast cancer survivor. This is a good thing!

Her diagnosis was met with the customary, "what now?" and "why me?" feelings, along with some heavy depression. Let's face it: It was scary at best.

On the other hand, her prognosis was always better than that many face. The cancer was low-grade, it was operable, and they could do radiation treatments only rather than the full battery of radiation and chemo. Her last radiation treatment for her program was earlier today.

Still, the radiation treatment program and the accompanying healing has made her extremely tired. All the time. As in, she takes a nap every day, something I never remember my mom doing unless she was very sick.

I'm not as worried now as I was, although there is still that chance that some cancerous cell escaped the wrath of the wroentgens [sic, I know, but alliterative, and no apologies for the pun].

On her way home, she stopped by the house to celebrate for just a moment, and so that she could meet her new grand-cat. Captain Kangaroo Jack Sparrow (the cat) was reluctant to come out, but tolerated the pets from Mom and my sister before going back into hiding for a while.

I'm glad she got the chance to see her grand-kitties again. I'm glad she's going to be a survivor. It goes without saying that I'd much rather have her around than an insurance settlement.

A few more miles

Wow. After a season that has mostly been "ride to work, ride home from work, MAYBE ride an evening club ride for somewhere in the 11-25 mile range," I've had a high-mileage month for a darned change.

I rode the Madison Century on July 4 (actually, I think it was 96 or 98 miles). I rode RAIN (160 miles). And I rode the club century today (112 miles).

For today's ride, I even rode to the ride start point AND home from the start point (rather than breaking off near home and taking that little shortcut of ten miles or so). My total for the day is 125 miles. My rolling average speed was 17.2--not exactly the 20.2 of RAIN, but on a much hillier course.

Today's route was essentially the course used for the Ironman triathlon in August. There was a seminar of some sort in town this weekend, and many riders attending that seminar had planned to ride the course yesterday, but had been rained out. They were out there today. There were a LOT of people on bicycles on those roads today.

Larry, Ed and I rode together again. Toward the end of the ride, Ed was having leg cramp problems. I'm too familiar with leg cramps--I get them from time to time and haven't completely solved the problem, although in my case, they tend to result from under-fueling unless I'm really over-using the muscles (as if riding thirteen mile each way commuting for several months then going to long hard fast miles is not abusing the muscles just a wee bit...). I even had a couple minor cramps today, but nothing I couldn't ride through and work out as I rode. I felt bad for Ed, though, knowing quite well how painful the cramps can be.

Still, the three of us ride well together, sharing pulling/drafting duties.

Oh, and if we hadn't had all those dratted flat tires today, we probably would have been back to the lot forty-five minutes earlier. Ed had a flat early in the ride, after he and I had hit a pot hole on River Road. Right as we get his tire fixed and all the bike bags zipped, I discovered that my own front tire was very soft, so I unpacked my bag again to change my own tube. Between the first store stop and the lunch stop, Larry had his own front tire go down. The p*nt*r* f**ry had it in for us today, pure and simple.

Blah week

As mentioned previously, I'm out of work. It's depressing, but not as bad as the job I had. I really didn't like being there, and being home feels much better.

I've taken some time this week to just veg out a bit. Did some errands, got a few odds and ends done, but haven't worked hard at anything. There is stuff to do, of course--laundry that needs to be done, a job search to organize and begin, computer issues I now have time to address--but little emotional energy to do them.

In short, the job had sucked a lot of my energy away, in ways I hadn't fully recognized. It may take a while to regroup, but I need to do it. I need to feel productive--something I haven't felt for a long time in the work environment. I had a few moments of "oh, this works" when a property manager, but they were too few, and too often offset by the drudgery of trying to convince someone whose income fits in that narrow range required by the set up of the apartment building that this is THE place to live, and oh, by the way, you also have to pay the rent on time each month. The sob story about your car dying, causing you to lose your job four miles away, doesn't go very far with someone who rides a bike thirteen miles to get to work. Your insistence that you keep your word to make up late payments doesn't say much when the signature on your lease is, to put it bluntly, your word that you will pay on time. Going to court to evict you for not paying your rent does NOT make me happy.

Oh, well. That's behind me. I've been saying that, aside from the loss of income, I'm already in a better place than I was two weeks ago. I still have friends and family on whom I can rely for moral and immoral support. I have Jenn. I have my bicycles, so I can get around. I qualify for unemployment compensation, so while the money will be tight for a while, I can still breathe and eat a bit and keep a roof over my head, for a few months, anyway.

I put the car away the other day, and aside from driving to Okolona for a Chiropractic appointment, have not driven it since Monday. I probably could have ridden to Okolona, but it was raining, and I really wasn't in the mood to deal with being soggy all day. For my errands on Tuesday and yesterday, though, I rode. So that I could do my errands wearing a kilt instead of p@nt$, I rode the Raleigh.

One of my errands was a visit to the St Matthews Police Department. During a ride I was captaining a few years ago, I enjoyed striking up a casual friendship with the Assistant Chief of that department, Major Kathy Eigelbach. I've chatted with her from time to time over the last couple years, especially now that I live in St Matthews. There was a blurb in the paper recently informing us that she is retiring soon from that department. I went by to congratulate her on her retirement. While I was there, she made sure I got to say hello to one of their long-standing officers, Debbie Marasa, who I had known in high school. It was good to see them both, and good to have positive interaction with police officers. I doubt I'll need any special favors from them in the future, but their knowing me can't hurt anything.

Weekend RAIN report

I rode RAIN (Ride Across INdiana) over the weekend. If you've not heard of it, it's a one-day, one-way ride from the western edge of Indiana, near Terre Haute, to Earlham College in Richmond, on the eastern edge of the state. This was my sixth time over the last seven years.

My riding partner each year has been Larry Preble. Last year, Ed Scharfenberger joined our team, and returned this year. Each of us rides a Bacchetta--Larry a Corsa, Ed a 2008 Strada, and I my customized 2002 Strada. One of the things we enjoy on this ride is hearing some of the comments from other riders on the course, like, "This guy's in a hurry on that laid-back bike...oh, so is his friend, on HIS laid-back bike...wow, here's a third one!" as we go past a cluster of DF riders. Of course, there are those who get all parochial on us, and have to try to prove to themselves and all around them that THEY won't get passed by some old coot on a 'bent, even if that "old coot" is younger and stronger than they are and on more efficient bicycles to boot...

Our ride was not marred by flats this year (Ed had one last year in downtown Terre Haute, Larry had one a few years ago near Franklin), nor by overly-severe cramps (although both Larry and Ed experienced some painful cramps, they didn't have to get off their bikes for long--I fared better this year than they did). We didn't see any bicycle crashes, although we did see one rider being attended by EMS shortly before lunch.

Our ride pace was good this year, although not a personal best. Any time three guys (including this out of shape guy who has done precisely one century since September of last year) can average 20.2 miles an hour over 162 miles is a good ride.

We did witness a disaster for a motorcyclist, though. We were stopped at a stop sign, waiting for a safe opportunity to cross IN 267 south of I-70 a bit after the second rest stop in Plainfield. A southbound motorist slowed, as if to allow us to cross. A northbound motorcyclist slowed dramatically, for reasons we couldn't decipher. A northbound motorist failed to notice that the motorcycle had slowed, and hit him from behind at high enough a speed that the motorcycle was shunted some hundred feet or more, the rider tossed in the air like a rag doll to land behind the car as it passed under him. The driver apparently froze on the gas pedal, and careened off the road through a fence into a nearby field.

Larry's account, as posted on the KYCYCLIST listserver, includes some links to Google Maps and their surface views of the intersection, albeit at a time far removed from when we were there:

Sixty-Eight miles into the ride, in Plainfield, Indiana, we were stopped
here, waiting for traffic: http://crashscene1.notlong.com Just behind where
you see the white car in the picture, a large motorcycle was coming to a
stop, close to the shoulder of the road, when a small sedan barreled into
him from behind at high speed. The motorcycle was hurled more than a
hundred feet forward, smashing into pieces while the motorcyclist was
catapulted into a back flip straight up in the air about 15 feet. The driver
must have panicked at that point, because as her vehicle passed under the
airborne rider, she hit the accelerator instead of the brake sending her
crashing through the fence and at least 300 feet off into the adjacent
field. The rider completed a half turn in midair and slammed down onto the
pavement striking his shoulder and his head. Unfortunately, the motorcycle
rider was not wearing a helmet. The point of impact was here,
http://crashscene2.notlong.com, just to the right of the medium-sized bush
in the center of the picture. The car continued into the field, here on the
right. http://crashscene3.notlong.com. And here is an overhead view of the
scene: http://crashscene4.notlong.com. We were stopped at the intersection
to the left, travelling West to East. The collision was just South of the
intersection, travelling South to North.

It was harrowing to see the rider flying in the air as he was. It was scary to see his injuries, although there were others more qualified to help on hand soon after, and I stayed out of their way. What really got to me, though, and bothers me still, was witnessing the man's struggle against the aid workers who were trying to get him immobilized in preparation for transport. He was coming to, in immense pain, couldn't really tell what was happening, and despite the efforts of those workers to tell him what was happening, they couldn't get into his consciousness that they were trying to help him. He was yelling and fighting their efforts for some time before we left, and still was when we left him to the care of EMS and fire department folks.

I've not been able to find any news reports on the incident to link here. I wonder whether he survived, or how he's doing. It's going to be a rough row to hoe for him for a long time, if he ever does recover.

The driver who hit him was inconsolable, sobbing over and over, "I didn't even SEE him." None of us wanted to talk to her, each for his own reasons--most were focused on aiding the motorcyclist or keeping cars out of the crash site. I could not have said anything approaching, "there, there, it's going to be okay." It was most certainly NOT okay, nor would it be any time soon. Her inattentiveness had cost someone a lot of time with a family member, and perhaps cost that motorcyclist his life. The car she was driving had a HUGE dent in the front end from the impact with the bike--it was a big heavy cruiser-type motorcycle--and her repair bill on the car would likely be in excess of the car's value. I didn't have to scold her, either, as she will live with what she'd done for the rest of her life, which seems more punishment than I'm authorized to mete out to anyone.

Needless to say, our ride pace was a bit subdued for a while after that.

I'm glad to be alive.

chance meeting

On my way home yesterday, as I neared the bridge, I encountered a couple who were bicycle-touring. They had missed a turn, so I helped them with that. They were excited to see my Ryan with the panniers mounted, initially thinking me also a touring rider. I told them I was commuting, of course, but we got to talk a few moments about their trip before a motorist interrupted our conversation to ask me about my bike.

With the interruption, I didn't get to talk more with them than to find out they had left New York (not sure where in New York, upstate or wherever), ridden to Florida then to California then up toward Washington state before heading home via Jeffersonville IN. They were on their way to Charlestown Indiana via Utica, from what I could tell, but we never got to discuss, "Why Charlestown?" They may have been going to visit David, for all I know, but I had no way to know.

They had been out ten months--what a trip to remember!

As mentioned, a motorist interrupted our visit to ask me about my bicycle. After chatting with him a minute or two more about recumbents and availability of same, I went on home. I wanted to ride the Tuesday evening ride from Burdorf's, as it would be my last opportunity for some hard pushing before RAIN this coming weekend. My average speed for last night's ride was a tick over 19 mph, and the climb up Glenview really slowed me down. I've not been climbing well the last couple seasons, mostly because I haven't been out climbing a lot the last couple of seasons.

Maybe I can work on that a bit in the coming weeks...