Every ride is an adventure

Some rides are more of an adventure than others. Sometimes, I could do without the excitement.

Yesterday morning, for example. As related in my prior post, I got to watch a school bus pass me unsafely.

Or this morning, as another example. A motorist came up behind me, going at least the speed limit (45, on Westport Road), with nobody in the left lane. Clear weather, pretty morning, little other traffic. I waved my hand (wearing my Glo Glove, as usual), which broke through the fog in the driver's head enough that she saw me and went around me. A quarter-mile down the road, I got the same experience, except that this time, the driver was in an Acura coupe with tinted windows. When I waved, she realized I was there and hit the brakes hard enough that I heard a chirp from her tires.

Why are folks so clueless and blithely ignorant of other traffic?

On the other hand, some of the adventures turn out to be pretty funny. Wednesday evening, on my way home from work, about 7:15, I had stopped at the light on Westport Road, heading toward town and home. I was at the front of the line for the light. A van came up beside me suddenly, and the driver said something along the lines of "do you have a license to operate that bicycle?" The light was bad, so while I could see his face, the question and the motion of the van on my right side like that put me immediately into a thinking mode of "am I going to have to tell some twit what the laws are, or defend myself in some way?" and I didn't recognize him immediately. His daughters were in the back seat of the car, and ran their window down to talk a bit. I quickly figured out that the driver knew who I was, and that I knew him, but I was busy getting back out of defensive mode so didn't realize who it was right away. Then he told his daughters that "this man used to ride across Grampa's bridge every day," and it clicked--it was George Cronen, son of Chips Cronen, who had been killed on the Second Street Bridge in July of 2007. George and I have talked several times, in person and via forums here and there, and I felt bad for not realizing just who it was at first.

George reported to me that he'd seen me as he was going the opposite way out by the Jefferson Freeway, and had to turn around and say, "hello." My headlight was easy for him to spot, and seeing my other lights convinced him of who it was (the Ryan does sort of sit out in a crowd...). We had a laugh, and the light changed so it was time to get on with my trip home.

auto-centric concerns

One way I can tell that utility cycling is still too far outside the norm is that folks, even experienced cyclists who know me fairly well, will offer--insistently at times--to give me a ride in their cars if it's rainy and/or dark when I'm going home.

It gets to be mildly offensive at times. I mean, really! Offering me a ride home, as if the three or four or ten or fifteen miles is a huge thing better done by car than by bike. To some degree, I can excuse one offer as being an attempt at politeness. By the time the same person offers three or four times in one event, especially if it's someone who is capable of riding thirty or fifty miles without a whole lot of preparation, and who knows I'm just as capable, it's really baffling, and not a little annoying.

Unlike the bike I use for club rides (which I've not ridden in over two months as I type this--all club riding has been done with Jenn on Bill and Kate's tandem), my commuting rigs are both well-lit and well-marked. I have reflectors facing most directions, and wear a jacket of Illuminite if it's cool enough that I can tolerate the extra layer (I have a couple of reflective vests for warmer-weather use). The Raleigh has a SOTA-circa 1995 headlight set mounted, in addition to the Planet Bike front flasher and rear SuperFlash. I kept a second LED flasher on that bike until recently, but it died of old age and over-use. I wasn't and am not too worried about replacing it, as that bike usually pulls the trailer which blocks the view of the flasher and has two flashers of its own on it. The Vanguard has two SuperFlash lights on the back, plus two reflectors that are my home-made four-inch-square things. I have recently added a CygoLite DualCross Pro NiMH LED headlight to the SOTA-circa 2000 VistaLite Nightstick Code 15 set (that has had the 5-watt bulb replaced with a 10-watt one), along with the Planet Bike 1/4watt flasher. Anyone who cannot see either of my commuting rigs when I'm on the road is either not looking or cannot see well enough to drive legally.

I'm also an experienced utility cyclist, and while some motorists get through my safety perimiter, I usually know where they are ahead of time. I ride as if they won't see me as much as I can, so that when they don't, I'm not in such a precarious position.

I suppose it falls into the realm of perception of relative safety. Folks are taught that cycling is a dangerous activity--witness how we are always told to wear our helmets--when it's typically safer than many other common pursuits, like driving a car. The perceived safety margin due to the cage structure of a car is an illusion--far more folks are injured in car crashes than in bicycle wrecks. Mixed modalities on one road is not the big problem, either--I'm visible enough that motorists, most of whom would rather NOT hit me, can see me easily from a fair distance.

The things that scare or spook me when I'm riding are the same things that do so when I'm in a car--things like the clown who passed me on Westport Road last night, well after sundown, in a light rain shower, driving a dark-colored car with no lights illuminated at all. The only way opposing traffic would know he was there was that he had the sense to use his turn signal for his left turn off Westport Road. If that driver is so oblivious that he's doing without his headlights at that time of day, I wonder about his ability to pay attention to his surroundings enough to be a safe driver.

Oh well. At least he wasn't driving a school bus...I got passed by one of those this morning, and it merited a call to the driver supervisor at the bus compound. When the driver passed me, two drivers coming the other way had to divert from their travel paths to avoid colliding with the bus.

I'm used to folks crossing a double-yellow line to pass me--it happens many times each trip to work or home. I often see folks who have to move to the right to keep from hitting the car that's passing me illegally, attesting to the idiocy of the drivers' choices. When it's a school bus, though, I expect a bit higher level of safety-consciousness, as I told the supervisor this morning when I called to complain about it. I'm not bashful about calling companies if their vehicles pass me illegaly or in an unsafe manner, either (although I make a point of calling while standing still in a parking space or other site out of the roadway).

More training for that driver!

Now USA Today is in on the BS...and a rant about car costs

In addition to local rants, we now have a national columnist with USA Today, part of the (Gag)net, er Gannet corporate ruination of the print media, asking if "motorists (have) let bicycle 'rights' go too far." The columnist presents distorted opinions of two bicycle-car crashes as if they are factual, then goes on to rail against the cyclists for being "in the way" or being at primary fault. One case was of a woman who hit a cyclist who was taking the whole lane, and who the driver simply did not see (right in front of you? You didn't see her? Where was your attention?). The other was the fairly infamous case of a doctor who angrily passed three cyclists near Los Angeles, then allegedly swerved in front of them and hit his brakes hard enough to force the cyclists to rear-end his car. Not surprisingly, many people posting on the related forum cite the analogy of blaming a rape victim for dressing provocatively. Read the column, and see what you think. If you feel compelled to respond to USA Today telling them that their columnist is a twit, feel free.

Anti-cyclists often say things along the lines of "bike riders don't pay their way to use public roads." They seem to think that roads are paid for purely as a function of fuel taxes and vehicle taxes. Aside from the inanity in their failure to recognize that none of the tax revenue dollars are so discretely channeled, their claim is specious on many other grounds.

There is much documentation on how much the car-centric facet of our society costs our society--both in real dollars and in terms of lost opportunity/productivity and damage to our environment. Kirk puts some numbers out in a recent post on how society is subsidizing auto use. A couple data points in particular jumped out at me: we have three parking places for every single car in use, and over 90% of those are "free" to the user. I don't know whether this number includes the spot where the car is kept when the owner is sleeping--if so, it would be FOUR parking slots per car--but that we as a society feel it necessary to devote so much real estate to empty parking spaces seems pretty insane to me. As Kirk points out, the cost of creating and maintaining those parking spaces is paid by all of us, in higher retail prices and higher taxes. This says nothing about the ecological impact of all that asphalt (more on this in a moment).

Several years ago, I was working for a company that sold small storage buildings. Part of my job there was to secure building permits for those buildings that required them--anything with a one-hundred square feet or larger area, and anything on commercially-zoned property. In the course of doing that part of my job, I learned a bit about parking lot size rules. I've forgotten the details, but a business is required to have adequate parking for its clientele unless certain other factors are in play--a coffee shop that is a couple blocks from Kirk's home is allowed to use on-street parking shared with several other businesses in that block of Frankfort Avenue, for example, because most of those buildings were already there before the coffee shop opened. Another location of that coffee shop company a mile or so away (and right around the corner from where I live) must have at least so-many spots, because there is room for that many spots. They cannot enlarge the building if their business grows to need the room inside, as it would require them to sacrifice parking spaces to do so.

Granted, there are a few times a day that the parking lot is full--those slots are pretty important to the business. However, if one considers a parking lot like that at, say, Oxmoor Center, where there are slots that are filled perhaps once or twice a year, the picture changes a bit. The lot at Oxmoor covers acres and acres--I am not good at counting acreage, so I'd be hard pressed to estimate how many acres of asphalt is there, but it's probably over forty (George Rogers Clark Park, on Poplar Level Road across from Audobon Hospital, is roughly forty acres in size, and Oxmoor is larger). That's a lot of asphalt, and with all that pavement, rainwater control is a big issue. None of that ground under the asphalt gets a chance to help control run-off. All the water goes directly into Beargrass Creek, which runs UNDER the south wing of Oxmoor.

And Oxmoor is not the largest sprawl of open parking lot in our town. There is as much, if not more, parking at a popular mega-church a few miles east of there. Since it's a church, the community doesn't even get tax revenue on the property (and I could go on a long separate rant about that church's impact on the local ecosystem, with its many massive traffic snarls per week of people driving cars to the see-and-be-seen church services).

When a road is repaved, I always have mixed emotions about it. Like most road users, I certainly enjoy a smoother road surface and the resulting comfort and safety benefits. I can't help but think about the ecological impact, though. That's a lot of oil holding that aggregate together, and where does it go as the roadway wears to the point of needing to be repaved? When road crews grind old ashpalt away before repaving, they do so to re-use the aggregate. I'm fine with that, to a point--re-use of gravel means less quarry digging, reducing somewhat the impact on the ecosystems AND is less expensive for those funding the road repairs (you and me). The rough surface left between the grinding process and the repavement work is a temporary inconvenience, for the most part, although it does require a bit more vigilance when riding a bike on it. To make that reclaimed aggregate into asphalt, though, they have to add oil. That's a LOT of oil. Again, where does that oil go as the asphalt wears?

I mentioned that a parking lot creates problems in terms of water run-off. If there is an acre of asphalt parking lot, it's reasonable to assume that a good portion of the ground under that lot gets VERY little water in it. Sure, the water table rises from time to time (witness floods), but there remains a section in the middle of that acre that doesn't get much chance to absorb, even for a little while, its share of that water. The water goes into our storm sewer system until that system is over-loaded. A couple months ago, much of Louisville got to see first hand how bad things get when a storm sewer is forced to operate far beyond capacity.

Concrete lots are not much better than asphalt. While there is not as much oil in concrete, there is the silica dust of concrete production.

In both cases, there is the cost--financial and ecological--of moving the materials from where they are produced to where they are used. Those are big, heavy trucks, and the roads have to be built to withstand the abuse from those vehicles. Those trucks take a fair bit of fuel, oil, and other resources to operate. They drip oil (as do most vehicles to some degree or another).

Rain, rain, go away--AGAIN

Then again, I'm kind of glad I drove this morning. I really dislike riding in the rain, and it rained hard while I was on my way to work (it isn't like we really need more rain right now). I would have arrived looking like a drowned rat, and we really don't have an ideal place to "freshen up" at the store (unlike Kirk, who has a gym and shower facilities at the Humana Building he can use).

Speaking of Kirk, his entry for today mentions "invisible cyclists." Not surprisingly, I recognize a few of the names in his list and *woah!* How'd MY name get in there?

Yeah, I'm car-lite, not car-free, but Kirk and I have known each other for some years through cycling-related social circles. He's a good guy, and I'm enjoying reading his tales of being car-free.

Ceej editor receives more screed

There is a letter to the editor of the Ceej today, blasting bicyclists as mere hobbyists with no rights to the roads (some idiotic rant about taxation being required for road use). Its titled, "Tax this hobby." A friend of mine has already posted a few comments in rebuttal, but I expect there will be numerous counter-claims by anti-cycling lemmings of the petro-collapse.

On top of that, it's raining as I type this, and I haven't ever liked riding in the rain. I don't have the right rain gear for the bike I ride to work (I have some that is so-so for use with the Raleigh, but it does NOT work on the Vanguard). I'll probably end up driving to work today, which is less than optimal for me, as the weather in expected to improve after the morning drive time and I could ride home happily.

I may ride anyway, just to be contrary.

More light, please!

As I've noted, my current commute includes a stretch of road that is quite dark at night. I've been on dark country roads at night--I used to commute on Aiken Road going east from Middletown to near the Shelby County line, and with SOTA 1995 headlights (Vista Light VL-430, two lamps at 6VDC/10 watts with 4- or 5 AH lead-acid rechargeable battery), and was more-or-less happy with the light output (one almost cannot have too much light for night cycling). The newer Vista Light NiMH NightStick set (bought circa 2000), originally a five and a ten-watt light, but eventually upgraded to have two ten-watt lights, is no better, albeit lighter in weight.

When I was in my teens, I discovered car headlights made by a French firm, Cibie (said, SI-bee-a, I think). By my early twenties, I had installed 85-watt low beams and four (yes, 4) 100-watt high beam headlights in my '72 Cutlass. I could see two full seconds at 70 mph without blinding oncoming traffic (the lenses were that good) on low beam, and could tell where there was a reflective license plate more than a mile away on high beam. I miss those lights.

In other words, I like to see what I'm doing when I'm operating a vehicle. Call me crazy, but, well...

I decided a couple weeks ago that my weak, lame, twenty watts of halogen light was not enough, so I bought a new handlebar-mounted headlight: a CygoLight Dual Cross Pro model, found on sale at one of the bike shop's suppliers. This is a $250 light, and while perhaps not state of the art (SOTA), it's far better than what I've had for the last several years. I opted for the NiMH version, as it's a) cheaper and b) offers more run time. I suppose the LiIon version is probably lighter, but since the bike weighed over thirty pounds BEFORE I mounted the fenders, rack, bottle cages, kickstand, panniers, rack trunk, and lights, a couple ounces of battery weight won't be a big deal.

I've had the lights on for one trip home so far. My first impression was that I was going to have to rework the mounting system. This was not the fault of the light set--the light bar on my Vanguard is a Chromium-plated section of steel handlebar, cribbed from some wrecked junker bike over a dozen years ago. The plating is thick, chip-resistant, and SLICK. Most bar-mounted lights I've had would pitch over with little provocation, and an end-heavy light like the Dual Cross re-aimed itself by thirty or forty degrees going over a rail road crossing.

Once home that night, I rummaged around in my toy, er, tool box for solutions, and found that I had some double-stick black stuff in a thickness that seemed appropriate. I cut a piece of it to roughly the length equal to the circumference of the bar stock, applied it, and re-attached the light. I took it out on a short test hop in the 'hood, and was happy with my results. I will see how things go on the homeward trip Thursday--I have a rail crossing to navigate early in the route (Pewee Valley), and a couple rough spots closer to home (Westport Road under I-264) that will test my reworked mount thouroughly.

As for brightness, though...WOW. I've had Quartz Iodine car headlights long before they were the norm--the new stuff isn't quite as good as the lights in my old Cutlass, frankly, even some of the radically high-output stuff I see on upper-tier imports is pale by comparison (but, then, I DID have 400 watts of high beam available--and could scorch paper at a foot from the headlight. I'm talking bordering on airplane lights). Even with that benchmark, these things are bright for road use.

I have noticed that my halogen lamps get "washed out" by other road users at times--usually when I most need their illumination to get around pot holes in the road, of course. I haven't yet been in similar circumstances with these lights, so I'm curious about how they'll fare. Otherwise, I'm quite happy with the amount of light and the beam pattern given by this set. I'm sure there are better options--more lumens, lighter weight, easier to attach battery, whatever, but these will do well for me.

I mentioned to Jenn that I want her to have more light for her night riding, especially with Westport Road so fouled up with construction for the coming year. We'll have to rearrange some of the stuff on her handlebar to make room for this light, but it would be worth it. I have some other upgrades I want to make to her lighting, anyway, as I think we could improve on how easy it would be to see her from behind and from the sides. She leaves the house before I do, and while she could ride a mile or so and catch the bus, it's almost quicker for her to ride straight to work instead (it's something like six miles each way), so it makes sense to have her lights do as well as mine.

Now to pay for this stuff...

Hauling the load

Wow--three posts in one day!

Well, one of the first two posts came to me while posting the other one, and the topic was different enough that it warranted its own post.

I took the Raleigh out for some errand-running today. First trip went east, to Westport Village, more specifically the Trail Store. I was looking to see what they had in the way of headgear, as suggested to myself in my post on seasonal milestones. I was looking at all sorts of things while there--it's a cool store, after all.

On the way home, I stopped for a few odds and ends at the grocery store. Not a big load for the trailer--just one cloth bag full.

Once home, I put away the groceries, then gathered the jugs we use to buy bulk cat litter for a trip to Feeders Supply on Baxter Avenue. The Feeders closest to me, in Shelbyville Road Plaza, doesn't stock cat litter for bulk sales, sadly--it's less than two miles away and it's a flat ride. The Baxter Avenue location is about five miles away, and the haul home is uphill for a good part of the way.

On the way to Feeders, I was pedaling along Frankfort Avenue near the Water Company's site, and got to enjoy seeing a hawk swoop from the trees across the railroad tracks to a tree along Frankfort Avenue. I called out, "Aren't YOU a pretty bird!" which apparently wasn't the right thing to say, as the hawk then flew back across the railroad tracks and out of my sight. It was a gorgeous and somewhat uncommon site for me along that stretch of road, and one I would have missed had I been driving a car.

I'd lost track of the last time I got cat litter, but if memory serves, I only bought two or three jugs of it at the time--probably forty pounds or so. This time, I had our largest jug, two of the three mid-sized jugs, and an empty Perpetuem (one of my drink mixes for longer rides) jug. When we rang up the bill, I was hauling eighty-three pounds of cat litter home in my little trailer.

Eighty-three pounds is not that much in the overall scheme of things. I weigh a bit less than three times that. I weighed more than twice that when I was a senior in high school. There are bike trailers that are rated for several times that weight, too.

But, I am using a kid trailer rated for one hundred pounds, and pulling it with a three speed, not a mountain bike. It's a little bit different.

The trip home was a good hill workout.

commute differences and related puzzles

I keep trying to put into words what I like and dislike about the current commute. I don't ride to work as often as I would like, these days, and am trying to figure out why that is. My default mode on this sort of thing is that of "problem solver." I believe in the scientific method. Define the puzzle, create a hypothesis, test against it, reformulate it, etc. until the puzzle is solved.

Since I use this blog to "think aloud," so to speak (or type), I'll play with what's in my head here.

My commute to N'Awb'ny was enjoyable in many ways. It made sense in some way. It was more urban, so traffic speeds around me were a bit slower. There were more frequent stop lights. I got to see the sun rise over the river when crossing the Clark Bridge many times. I enjoyed crossing the bridge most times (weather became an unpleasant factor on some rides, heavy traffic on others).

While I don't mind the commute to Crestwood that much, it's not as pleasant for some reason (or set of reasons). For the first mile or two, I'm working on getting to Westport Road. There is a large construction project along Westport these days, widening it from the under-construction interchange with the Watterson "Distressway" west to about Thierman Lane, where there is a new Target store (yippee...). I've found back streets that get me past the worst of the construction, and use the new, not-yet-open-to-traffic section to get past a bit more of the rough pavement (I have mixed feelings on this). I enter Westport Road just west of the new interchange, and soon there are two decent lanes in each direction so traffic can better deal with my being there.

While traffic on this four-lane stretch of Westport Road has a speed limit of forty-five miles an hour (and some motorists even abide by this limit), the lanes are wide enough, the sight lines good enough, and traffic light enough at the time of my going-to-work ride that I have very little trouble for the six or so miles of that leg of my commute. While not particularly scenic (strip malls and such are all over the place), it's not as bad as it could be.

Westport Road narrows to two lanes less than a mile east of the Jefferson Freeway (its proper name), or as some call it, the Snyder Freeway (its public name). There are still several industrial sites beyond that point, so I get to be passed by the occasional large truck. The road gets "curvy" in that stretch as well, so the sight lines shorten. There are not many places where I can pull to the side to let a longer line of traffic pass, so I'm sure folks get frustrated at how slow they have to go when I'm doing fifteen or so in their forty-five zone (I do sometimes stop in a driveway or something if I realize I'm holding up several cars).

The next leg of my commute is Rollington Road. I really like Rollington--it's fairly quiet, and there is a shaded descent that is lots of fun. When I was captaining club rides out of Scheller's in Middletown, I had a ride that featured Rollington Road (the cue sheet for this ride can be found on kybikerides.org, along with MANY others). I don't follow Rollington all the way to its end, though, as it goes out of my way after a bit. I take Houston Lane up to Pewee Valley's "main drag," Mount Mercy Drive, which is parallel to LaGrange Road. At the far end of Mount Mercy, I get on LaGrange Road for the last mile or so to Crestwood. Depending on the day and my mood, I may stop at the IGA in Crestwood for some snacks for later and follow LaGrange Road the rest of the way, or follow Ballardsville Road out of downtown Crestwood until I reach S.R. 329 By-pass, then take Old LaGrange Road until I cross the railroad track at Camden Station, almost across LaGrange Road from the shopping plaza where the store is located.

None of these roads are bad. None of the intersections is terrible. The scenery isn't ugly, at least not on order of some places I've cycled past here in town (tasteless or tacky, perhaps, but at least fairly clean and of recent construction). On my commute to N'Awb'ny, however, I had Frankfort Avenue, Payne Street, the bridge, Spring Street in N'Awb'ny--all places where there are older buildings with loads of character and fun "local color." Much of Westport Road looks like suburbia in Anywhereville. It lacks soul or something. LaGrange Road is too narrow for the traffic it carries, and being on a bicycle on that road takes a lot of confidence and assertiveness (and I'm known for having something of a chip on my shoulder about riding where the roads take me).

Then there is the trip home. Houston Lane is almost a wide lane worth of width--it's a very narrow two-lane road. On the way home, it's a descent, and it's a dark one. The road surface is not pristine by a large margin. I have stronger headlights on order to more comfortably deal with this segment of my trips home in the coming seasonal earlier darkness.

One thing that puzzles me about this desire for more lighting is that ten years ago, I was riding from Scheller's in Middletown to my mother's house near Aiken Road. I was riding on Aiken Road, in the dark, when the bridge across Floyd's Fork was a one-lane span in the middle of an ess-turn, with no street lights within a mile or three, as much or more traffic, and didn't feel like I needed a lot more light. What's different? What has changed?

Was it that the increased traffic gave me more ambient light--that I was using the headlights of passing cars to see farther ahead? Was it something else entirely, something related to the fact that I'm ten years older?

I am certain, however, that I am more visible to other road users than I was ten years ago. On the same bike I was riding then, I have installed much brighter rear flashers and reflective panels. At the time, I was wearing an Illuminite jacket when the weather was cool enough that I could tolerate the extra layer, just as I do now. Some parts of my commute route are a bit more hostile as cycling environments, and the extra visibility I've gained makes me less uncomfortable in those sections.

I don't know. I'll have to think about this stuff some more before I've solved the puzzle. Maybe the one or two folks who read my ramblings has some ideas for me.

Seasonal milestones

In the spring, I was posting about seasonal milestones I enjoyed--first ride home in shorts instead of long tights, rides without this or that cool-weather item, rides during which I got to enjoy a bit of sunrise as I pedaled across the Clark Bridge and the like.

This time of year, I think of the reverse milestones--yesterday was the first day I wore a balaclava on my ride to work. I wore the Illuminite jacket to work for the first time earlier in the week (although I drove the other days, as I'm not outfitted quite to my liking for riding to work in the rain--more on that in a moment). The balaclava in question is not a heavy one, however. I have three or four of them made of silk--I found them at Campmor a few years back. I assume Quest Outdoors would order them if I pushed them hard enough, and I'd prefer to buy from a local vendor...I'll have to ask at the Trail Store in Westport Village, too!

Anyway, I like the silk balaclava for many reasons. It's very thin, so it fits inside my helmets easily. It's just enough to keep the hard edge of wind off my face and ears without making me overly hot (although I do sweat through them in vigorous riding). It's washable (I have a load of stuff I wash on gentle cycle then line-dry, even though some of that stuff is robust enough that it could be machine dried--I don't need to run the dryer as much this way).

On the rain thing: a friend contends that there is no bad weather, only bad gear. My current commute is such that I'm not as inclined to ride the Raleigh, and my rain gear, such as it is, is better suited to that bike than to my Vanguard. I've never been fond of cycling in the rain in the first place, for various reasons. I'm somewhat more willing to ride in the rain when cycling for utility than I am for fitness or leisure riding, and as the Raleigh is more of a utility bike, I'm also more willing to ride it in the rain than I am the Vanguard. I'll have to think about this some more...

Seasonal lighting reminder

Prompted by the latest post on Kirk's blog, it's time to do a seasonal reminder to be seen at night. About this time last year, I added some reflective stuff to my Ryan, the better to be seen any time the light isn't ideal. Here's a shot from about that time:





I used to work in a sign store, and collected some scraps of reflective vinyl when there. I went back there and bought some more, in different colors, and received a big piece that had been mis-cut for one of their projects as well. I have a LOT of reflective vinyl.

I also have some scraps of various substrates, like Alumicor and DiBond, each basically two thin sheets of aluminum on either side of a sheet of corrugated plastic or sheet plastic, respectively. I can cut this stuff to whatever size and shape I desire with a fine-tooth saw (or even a circular saw), file the edges, drill mounting holes, apply the vinyl and presto! I have custom reflectors!

The vinyl adheres to my fenders as well, as you can see in the above picture.

Mindful that some of my grocery shopping will, of necessity, be done after dark, I outfitted my little trailer with a panel as well. For this one, I used some Alumicor, and removed enough from the unseen side to allow me to install a pair of Planet Bike Superflash taillights. These dudes are BRIGHT. Anyone coming up behind me has no excuse whatsoever for saying he or she didn't see me.




Soon after this picture was taken, I picked up a piece of 1/4" threaded rod to complete the flag pole. When I bought the trailer, the lower portion of the pole was missing, and threaded rod--available in the hardware store a couple blocks away from the house, was just the ticket. The flag pole has a bit of reflective tape on it as well. I have to chuckle about the brand name on this trailer, though. I consider it far from the safest kid trailer on the market (I used to sell Yakima's kid trailers, among other brands), but as I don't have small children and am using it for cargo instead, I'm fine with what it is. I only paid $50 for it, and have enjoyed having it already.

And, of course, there is my helmet, mentioned in a post a few days ago. Some time in the next few evenings, I'll get pictures of all this stuff in low light--partially to see how I'm doing on the "be seen" scale.

I know I need to add some stuff to my wife's bike, too. She rides to work often, and is wearing an Illuminite jacket I've had for several years, in addition to her own blinky lights front and rear, a few reflectors I made for her bike, strips of reflective vinyl on her pedals, her pair of traffic officer gloves, and the like.

"Traffic Officer Gloves." A friend calls them "Tom Armstrong gloves." I started seeing traffic control officers wearing these several years ago and thought them a neat idea. Most police uniform dealers can get them for you if they don't have them in stock--I've bought mine at the place on Second Street just south of Breckinridge Street in the Old Louisville area (sort-of across Second from the Kroger). Here's a shot of them, taken from the Chief Supply site:



I like these for several reasons: I can wear them any time of year, they make most folks' hands look HUGE and easy to see, they fit over most gloves (even some of mine, and I have big hands), and the red triangle on the palm automatically becomes a brake light when one is making a slowing signal to other road users. I can turn my hands in such a way as to make the reflective "flash" as a turn signal would as well, hopefully getting a following motorist's attention more readily.

My younger stepdaughter made a derogatory comment about them recently, but she's nineteen and likes to talk disparagingly about stuff that isn't her favorite. Her older sister thinks it's cool that her mom and stepfather ride for utility, and that we teach following traffic law as well as follow it ourselves. She's been known to call out folks she knows who are riding in ninja mode or on the sidewalks--both things that are horribly hazardous to all around.

cranky update

Since I started working on bikes as a teenager, I've had to deal with cottered cranks. I've worked on many bikes and pieces of exercise equipment that had them (including Air-Dynes), and have only had two I had to really beat to death to remove. As I mentioned, one of these was on my own bike, my Raleigh.

I installed new pins the other night, when I overhauled the bottom bracket on that bike. I rode the bike beyond a mere test-ride for the first time last night, and noticed pretty quickly that at least one of my crank cotter pins was not holding well.

I got home from the short errand, set up my brace, drove the pin home again, tightened the retaining nut, and tried a test-ride. It failed again. I got Jenn to help hold the bike still while I drove both pins in again, only to find that one of them had become mis-shapened and was in need of replacement. The pins we have for Jenn's Peugeot are not large enough in diameter, and won't do the job.

I found another batch of pins at Bicycle Couriers' Bike Shop on Frankfort Avenue, and will install them shortly. In the mean time, though, I've been irratible about my bike not working--cranky, you might say.

Jenn and I considered riding another century today, but I wasn't interested in doing so if the wind was as strong as it had been the last couple days. As it turned out, the weather would have been quite nice for it, but by the time we figured that out, it was too late to do the century.

Instead, we made a trip out of cycling to brunch at Ramsi's Cafe on the World, a spot we whole-heartedly recommend, then cycling to the St James Court Art Show, as Bicycling for Louisville had free valet bike parking. I took the Raleigh, as it's the easiest for me to pull the trailer (I don't like having it hitched as far forward as is necessary on the Vanguard).

We spent a few hours wandering around the show, and while we didn't buy anything today, we got contact information for several vendors who had stuff we may want to get later (i.e. as finances allow). We cycled home, by which time I got tired of how noisy my bike was being.

I'd been putting off overhauling the bottom bracket--mostly a function of not wanting to deal with the cottered crank on that bike. I decided that this was the day.

I don't know how many cotter pins I've removed from crank arms over the last thirty years. I've had two that refused to come out in the normal manner--the right one on my Raleigh was the second one. After mushrooming the threaded end trying to drive it out with a hammer and punch, I took a suggestion I'd seen some time back on Sheldon's site, and started drilling. This didn't get the job done, so I put it all back together and tried riding the bike. Sure enough, the remnant of the pin collapsed enough that I could extract it, and I could continue with my work.

Now that I have clean grease in the bottom bracket again, and I have adjusted it properly, and have fresh cotter pins in place, AND have lubricated the chain, this bike is MUCH quieter! It pulls better, too, which I mostly ascribe to the fresh lubrication on the chain, although fresh grease in the crank bearings can't be a bad thing. The fact that I didn't have the trailer connected during the test ride may have been another factor, but who knows? ;-)

A job that typically takes about half an hour took me three hours. The biggest surprise, though, was that with all the drilling and pounding, I did no damage to the crank arm or the spindle. ALL of my drilling stayed within the cotter pin, and this with no drill press!

Friday update

As a sometimes-urban rider, and as a League Cycling Instructor who also likes for other road users to see me (the better to avoid hitting me), I've watched others' efforts to attach lights to our helmets. I've added one of the tiny Sigma lights (picked up at the last Mayor's Ride) to my own lid, and thought about having more candlepower up there, but never really got beyond the added weight factor.

I've also eyed the Bell urban helmet, with its more commuter-friendly features, but, alas, cannot seem to get one in a size that fits my head any more.

I was poking around in a vendor's catalog at work a while back, and was intrigued by the Lazer Urbanize model. The idea of integrated lights appealed to me, as did their claims of better rain shedding. I've not tested this last claim--yet--but I will soon, I'm sure.

It also looks quite different than the typical helmets we see. I ordered one recently, and received it a couple days ago.

As with any helmet, the most important thing to me, after ascertaining that there is a CPSC label, is that it fit me. The Lazer Urbanize has their Rollsys (tm) fitting adjustment, which uses a nifty cable arrangement that allows quick adjustment to the circumference to allow for under-the-helmet things like balaclavas or hats. The ear/chin straps adjust in the manner common to better-quality helmets.

Ventilation is another big issue for me, especially when moving slowly in town compared to "smartly down the back road," as I do on my club ride bike. This one has HUGE internal vent channels that feed from under the molded-in bill and the external vents shown in the pictures linked below. During my errand-running today, I tried to pay attention to the airflow through the helmet, and could tell it was venting. Whether it's as cool as my Trek helmet I've been using for commuting of late is hard to tell, as today was not the hottest day I've ridden in a long time. However, it seems to do well enough for commute distances.

The lights are powered by nickel-sized watch batteries, and are thus probably going to need replacement batteries often. Given that I've not seen rechargeable batteries in this size (CR 2032, I think), some on this list will eschew them. They are most certainly not going to be "see where you are going" lights, but do fairly well at being "see where I am" lights. I, of course, have already augmented the lights with some reflective vinyl from my stash. The photos linked below were taken with enough ambient light that my camera refused to use its flash setting, so the reflective stuff doesn't show very well. It's visible as a slight color change on the white of the helmet. I'll probably add a shot or two later in the day to get the flash to do its thing. The lights are readily removable to allow for battery changing or if you want the extra ventilation through their holes in the helmet. Replacement lights are available, too.

It's not a bargain-priced helmet, at about $100 retail, but our heads are important to us. There is limited availability without the lights, at $80 or so.

Just about any bike shop should be able to get you one of these, especially if your bike shop of choice is Bluegrass Bicycle in Crestwood or a shop that buys stuff from QBP, the domestic distributor for Lazer Helmets.

Each of these pictures are "clickable," meaning that if you want to see the entire image, you can click on them. I don't know why this blog cuts off the sides of the images, aside from that the images are too big for the format. They are not huge images in other formats.








The helmet mirror shown is one from Buddy, here in town. He, like a few others around the region, re-uses old stainless steel spokes to make them. If you want one, drop me a line off-list and I'll forward contact information for his wife, Laura, who does most of the sales stuff.

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.