Another long spell of not writing

It seems the spells between posts get longer.

Since my last post here, I've had opportunity to visit my grandmother (how many men can say that at 52?). She is doing pretty well, considering that she's ninety-seven. She lives in the home she and my grandfather bought in the late 1940s. My father lives there most of the time to be sure she gets her needs met. As a result, I have to interact with him to visit her. This is awkward, as I have no real interest in having him in my life, for reasons I don't need to discuss here.

Anyway, my sister, my wife, and I drove over for a short visit, which seems to be better than long visits for my grandmother. We were driving through West Virginia during the big chemical spill hooplah, and had to be very careful where we got water.

I think it criminal that a company can allow a leak like that, declare bankruptcy, and let its assets be taken over by another company run by the same people created for the specific purpose of shielding the mismanagers from their responsibility.

On other fronts, I recently learned that the Cycling Savvy "Truth and Techniques" class material is undergoing a major update. I'm looking forward to the results, and holding off further preparations for my own presentation until I see the new materials. We hope to hold our first Louisville classes in either late March or early April--most likely early April.

Tonight there is a celebration of the Roe v Wade decision, that holds that any abortion discussions between a woman and her doctor are private matters, and that the government cannot prevent those discussions nor any procedures decided upon in those discussions.

There are too many who insist on butting into those decision-making processes, usually in the name of some deity or other. They refuse to accept that it's none of their business, so they "counsel" (read: harass, harangue, and bully) clients, their companions, and even those who are there to simply allow the clients space to exercise their own choices. In some states, there are buffer zones around clinics, which help enormously. In Louisville, however, the clinic door is very close to a public sidewalk, so a client must navigate a gauntlet of self-sanctified bullies who spew all manner of misinformation and vitriol their way (and have the nerve to call it "counseling").

I've stood at the door of the clinic a few times, and it's amazing to me how people can think that yelling at women for taking care of themselves the best way they can is somehow a positive thing. Some of the "antis" stand in front of the waiting room window and preach--loudly--as if they might change the minds of at least one client. I really think they are yelling to themselves more than anything else--they get to watch their own reflections in the window as they pontificate. Some of their claims are so absurd as to be laughable, and I cannot help but laugh as it is my only way to keep from challenging them on their nonsense (and challenging them leads to escalation, which is a bad thing--it doesn't help the clients one bit, and the clients are why escorts are there).

It should be noted that there have been almost exactly zero times when an American pro-choice person has pushed hard for an anti-choice person to have an abortion. We basically feel that if a person doesn't want to have an abortion, it's that person's choice.

2014 Bike Kick-Off this Wednesday

I'm looking forward to being there. Jenn and I get to have a table where we can sell folks on the idea of taking Cycling Savvy, the better to move between the quiet neighborhoods and networks that Bicycling for Louisville and Bike Louisville are trying to create.

Won't you join us?

What? No NYE Resolutions?

Again with the changing of the calendar year!

I hope your celebrations didn't leave you too wiped out. We have a lot to do this coming year.

Pretty early in the list is the 2014 Bike Kick-Off, being held at the Clifton Center. I'll be there, wearing my Cycling Savvy metaphorical hat (and my CS Instructor shirt), with plans to talk up education of cyclists as a way to bring lower stress to cycling around town.

Won't you join me there?

Numbers post

Two years ago, I was posting about numbers. A lot. The numbers in question had to do with a "personal record" season of cycling--I nudged out a bit more than eight thousand miles of bicycling in a calendar year. Things changed the following calendar year.



On January 1st of 2012, I rode what was to be my last ride with the Louisville Bicycle Club. At the time, I didn't feel any animosity toward the Club, but there was some sadness that the Club had not been as supportive of Bluegrass Bicycle as we had hoped. I was stepping down as VP Education, after three years in office, as I wanted to spend more time on my house and more time with Jenn (it may or may not surprise one or two who read this that some of the projects I envisioned for that year have yet to come to fruition). Since I no longer had the responsibility to participate in the Club education program, I no longer felt compelled to ride to Iroquois Park for the New Rider Clinics, or to the Clinics Jenn and I hosted in St. Matthews or at Waterfront Park. After a disappointing experience or several in long-distance cycling, I realized that I didn't have the interest in that sort of riding I once had.

About five months later, my job at Bluegrass Bicycle came to an end. With it, roughly 5600 miles of commuting went away.

Oh, I bought a bike to pull a trailer so that I could do handyman work, and even did some actual work.

I spent the year after the closure of the bike shop fighting off some level of depression, though. My bike mileage suffered, which correlated highly with my mood suffering. The direction of the causal arrow is not certain.

Since then, I've taken a part-time job at a megacorporate retail chain. At some levels, it is as the pay suggests: a soul-sucking servitude to some corporate big wig who makes more money off me than I make. There are things about the work that I enjoy, to be certain--helping folks figure out just what it is they seek in a store that has forty thousand or so SKUs, and how to make that bit of hardware or lumber do what they want to do is gratifying.

I'm still doing some home repair stuff, too. I'm not being aggressive enough about going out for the work, but some work is coming my way, and I'm enjoying much of it. Again, it's helping customers solve challenges.

In the process of all this, I've remained true to my email signature, a quote from Sir David Attenborough that reads, "If I can bicycle, I bicycle."

And I've put almost four thousand miles on bicycles over the last twelve months. I've spent more than three hundred hours on bicycles over the last year--132 of them on my newest bike (the Surly Big Dummy). Just over a third of those hours have been spent commuting. I used my Raleigh for a bit more than forty-three hours, WAY up from 2012, but down from 2010, when I used it quite often for errands and some commuting (which was also before I bought the Globe bike).

The year isn't quite over. I still have time to ride that last hundred or so miles to make it to four thousand miles for the calendar year. Maybe. If I'm really worried about that number.

I'm not as concerned about it as I was a couple years ago.

Sleeze as a weather form

Just less than three years ago, I started thinking about getting a bike that would accept commercially-available studded snow tires. My commute at the time involved Houston Lane in Pewee Valley, a lane-and-a-half (sometimes less) wide rural road that was part of how I avoided using LaGrange Road from the end of Westport Road to the northeastern end of Mount Mercy Drive in Pewee Valley.

Houston, being so small, rarely got plowed after any snow or ice, making it a difficult road for bicycle travel. LaGrange Road would be even more problematic under snow, as it is narrow for the prevailing traffic speeds and volume.

By February of 2011, I had made the decision to get a Globe Vienna 3 Disc, as: 1) Specialized had them on closeout pricing, which was very good, since I was working for a Specialized dealer at the time and had employee-purchase privileges, 2) It has "hard points" for mounting front pannier racks, fenders, and even a disc-type frame-mounted lock, 3) it uses 700X32C tires (or wider), meaning that Schwalbe Marathon Winter tires could be had to fit it, 4) it has disc brakes, for all-weather stopping power.

At some point after ordering the bike and ordering an assortment of stuff to go on it (did I mention that fancy Euro-style frame-mounted disc lock?), I ordered a couple sets of snow tires from Schwalbe. Their documentation recommends a run-in period of forty to fifty miles at dry-road pressure (85psi) to "bed" the studs (although some knowledgeable sources, such as Peter White Cycles, say this is not needed on tires from their inventory, as they do an additional quality-control step before shipping), so I rode to work on them a couple times late in 2011 or early in 2012. Aside from those two trips, totaling something like fifty miles, I haven't needed them since I bought them.

Until now.

Louisville's weather had a bit of a rough patch over the last few days--at least by local standards. It wasn't hurricane-level, or even tornado activity, but plenty of rain and cold temperatures (although we got it a lot easier than many parts of the country). I walked out to Westport Road to ride the bus to work Thursday and Fried-day rather than ride in the cold rain of Thursday or the rain/freezing rain/sleet (aka sleeze) on Friday.

Since I usually bicycle to work, one topic of discussion was whether I had ridden. I decided that I would install my snow tires so that I could ride to work today.

I installed them last night, and took a short spin around the neighborhood to see how they did. I realized quickly that riding them at full pressure was a bad idea--they were not connecting well at all, and the bike was not stable. I lowered the pressure (minimum rated pressure is 35psi, but since I would be on pavement a fair bit of time I opted to try 55-60 psi)--MUCH better!

Since this was to be my first real foray onto icy roads (at least as an adult) on tires that would actually have some traction, I figured a backup plan was a good idea. I checked the TARC schedule, and found that I could catch a bus at 7:00 or so, or another one at 8:20 or so, and get to work on time if all went well. Given the ice on the roads, I was concerned that the arrival time of the latter (or later, if you prefer) bus would make for a close thing when it came to my start time, I rode out in time to catch the 7:00 bus, in case Westport Road was bad or I was having some other trouble.

When I got to Westport Road, however, it was MUCH better than Warwick or Washburn Avenues had been, so I rode all the way out to the store. I of course had a plan for that eventuality, as well--I enjoy reading.

Having read the relevant page within Peter White's web site (linked above), I was not looking for race tires. During a couple of winters working as a tow truck driver, I got to see a lot of the results of people who overestimated their competence on bad roads (and have made my own share of errors on that score).

I didn't set any speed records, but I didn't fall, either. I got to work much faster than I could have walked. I got to the bus stop much faster than I could have walked, for that matter. And, yes, I am continuing my reputation as something of a nut at the store.

Does Hi-Viz clothing really make a difference?

---

These folks challenge the assumption.

On a first quick read-through, one of the ways that the authors were trying to minimize variables was to keep between 0.5 and 0.8 metres (or meters, if you prefer) from the kerb (or curb, for those of us on this side of the pond--it would perhaps be an acceptable assumption that if there was no curb as I know it, the fog line would have been a comparable marker).

Some folks I know criticize this study (admittedly not to the level of scientific, according to the authors) for not having a variable for driver behavior compared to edge-riding behavior (0.8 meters being less than three feet from the road edge, and far closer to the edge than I ride as a general rule). One reason could be that in the earlier paragraphs, the authors cite the Walker (2007) work suggesting that cyclists who ride centered in a lane get less passing clearance (which contradicts tests by Gutierrez, et al, and the results of many of us who ride well left in the lane in drive in the right lane countries).

At any rate, I'm not sure what this study means to me, if anything. It doesn't give me any reason to doubt that being visible and relevant at greater distance is important to my own safety, and I continue to hold that the relevance is more important than simply being visible (there are many signs along my commute route that are quite visible, but are irrelevant to my commute, so I ignore them with regard to whether I use my brakes or change lane positions--being viewed as relevant at greater distance gives overtaking road users more time to adjust their speed and lane choices, as you've seen me post before).
 

I'm reminded of a post I saw a couple years ago, from "The Lazy Rando Blog."

MoveLouisville

As disappointed as I am with the local engineers and others within Public Wrecks (sic), including the "bike/pedestrian coordinator" who trumpets that his survey mirrored the Geller whackonomy,* I wonder how much of their fealty to bike lanes is driven by their bosses, who look at stuff like mode share for the sake of mode share or as a metric of how friendly a place is to those using that particular mode of travel (without realizing that individual safety is a prime component of how to build mode share)?

Louisville's "next big thing" (without even finishing the last "next big things"--those being the $300,000 in paint spillage that *might* include some decent bike boulevards, locally defined as quieter streets where cyclists are encouraged and motor traffic is all but discouraged and the boondoggle called the Ohio River Bridges Project--is being called "MoveLouisville."

I attended an informational presentation recently, and aside from being another opportunity to get involved at the planning level, I am warned that there will be a push for "Bike Infrastructure" as part of this 20- to 25-year plan.

Louisville is one of those cities that has little in the way of a grid system--many of our primary arterials are radials from near downtown, and there are not many good arcs between those radials. It doesn't help that well over half of the county was farmland or fallow until after that world-wide dustup in the 1940s, and was developed in the 1950s and beyond with the assumption that if one is anybody at all, one would not deign to use a bus or bicycle (or even walk) to get to anything more distant than one's next-door neighbor's patio. It will be exceedingly difficult to rework our street network to correct that, considering that there are several physical barriers (cemeteries, creeks, wetlands, single-family housing developments, etc.) to get around to get from one radial to the next.

"MoveLouisville" is a multi-modal approach to changing the way we as citizens get around town. It's a recognition that things are in some disarray now, and wanting to help our community build intelligently (we could spend time grousing that it's already too late for that, or work to undo the damage to the extent that we can).

One comment I heard that was encouraging to me was along the lines of, "we need to think of our streets as public space, not as hard-set asphalt or concrete streets or roads. We can change how they look--add trees, add curbs, subtract or reallocate parking spaces. The current configuration is not forever."

I must admit that my own imagination is not up to but so much of that task, but I hope to help shape things for the better--better for the community, not just for cyclists or folks who walk instead of drive, but for all of us.


* The Geller "taxonomy" is famous--or infamous--depending on one's outlook. It seeks to categorize people on a scale of whether they would ride bicycles, and is often used by people who think that mode share is of paramount importance as a way to guide spending on projects that would lure folks onto bicycles.

Never mind that rider safety is a product of individual riders' behavior, supported by well-designed infrastructure that doesn't violate the rules of motion that underlie well-written traffic law. I can teach a neophyte rider successful behaviors that obviate any perceived need for special bike facilities.

Never mind, either, that those who fall into the "interested but concerned" category will quite often find other excuses for not riding. Or that those who currently ride on sidewalks will continue to do so right beside a painted bike lane (as I see at least a couple times a month along Westport Road), suggesting that even they realize that the bike lane is a bad place to be.

'Tis the season

Well, not quite, but it's getting disgustingly close--close enough that some of the extreme whack-job pseudo-politicians and talk-show goofballs are, again, trumpeting on about this country's "war on christmas."



Warning: This is a long post, even from me. It's not exactly a positive post, either. My inner curmudgeon is bursting through. If you read this whole post, you'll learn a lot about why I am who I am. I've inserted a break so that you can be warned.

Cyclist Syndromes

One of my stepdaughters recently took a new job. Her first day at work is later this week.

When she announced that she had gotten the position, one of her comments to me was along the lines of, "I want you to help me find a good bike route there."

At first, I wanted to celebrate--at least to myself--that she was making such a plan. Then I remembered that we have one car for our three-adult household, and she was simply being realistic about the availability of the car. "Smugness level = off."

We got to chat about the options today. Her first route choice was to ride from our house in Westport Road to the Kroger store at Hubbards and Westport, then get into Beechwood Village to cross Shelbyville Road at Bramton Road (using the traffic light). Her job is at one of the stores in the Shelbyville Road Plaza. The Google Maps "get directions" function shows this as something like three and a quarter miles, for a six- to seven-mile round trip.

When I drive my bike to stores there (I frequent the Feeders Supply location there, for example), I use New LaGrange Road to get to Shelbyville Road, then enjoy having Shelbyville Road almost to myself for a good while as I near the bridge supporting the Watterson Expressway and its access ramps, then usually occupy the left lane so that I can make a timely turn off Shelbyville. I will sometimes, depending on traffic volume, stay in the right lane until I reach Stonehenge Drive, then turn right into Beechwood Village and cross at the light on Bramton. This gives me a round-trip distance of less than four miles.

When I mentioned this route to my stepdaughter, she refused to ride that way. I tried to be gentle in asking why she objected to my choice, she responded that she gets irked at cyclists if she is on Shelbyville Road, so doesn't want to irk motorists.

I find her reaction interesting, and thought-provoking. Sad, too, as it's a theme I've heard elsewhere in society, sometimes cited as a reason why a person won't ride instead of driving a car.

Howl-o-ween!

It seems that if I have something to say, it's brief enough or pithy enough that it just goes on Facebook. If I have something complex to say, I might put it here, but I haven't had a lot of complex thoughts bouncing around of late.

I'm still bummed that we had to cancel the Cycling Savvy class for this weekend, but I'll get over it.

To improve my mood a bit, I indulged in a little "cash therapy." I try to avoid doing this most of the time, as its benefits are usually pretty short-lived. However, when I do indulge, I try to get stuff that I'll be able to use rather than stuff that will simply sit on a shelf.

Today's purchase was the Surly "Nice Rack," to add some flexibility to how I haul stuff on the Big Dummy. I have mounted a pair of smaller panniers that I bought for the Globe (they are in the same style series as the rear panniers on that bike). I can, alternatively, use my JANDD grocery panniers (sized for paper grocery sacks). Or, following Ian's lead, use a pair of cat litter buckets converted to panniers with a few bucks' investment in hardware.

A couple weeks ago, while riding home from a job site, I realized that some of the cargo in my right cargo bag was pressing against the rear derailleur, preventing use of the outer two cogs on the cassette. Since my load was also a bit heavy, I wasn't too worried--I would have been more concerned over not being able to use lower gears--but I still missed the functionality.

I stopped at a local bike shop and found a derailleur guard that came off a 24-inch-wheeled kids' mountain bike, and finessed mounting it.

I haven't had that sort of load on the bike since installing this cage, but it should alleviate the problem.

Many people express amazement when they learn about this bike and what I can do with it. They can't seem to grasp that human-powered vehicles can be used to carry so much. I, on the other hand, keep finding myself hauling stuff I don't WANT to haul with a car--too dirty (bags of mulch), or too long (ladders), or too awkwardly-shaped (my kayak).

Life got in the way, again!

Sometimes things just don't go as planned. Sometimes life interferes.

To the point that I've had to put this message out in several places:

Friends,

Unforeseen circumstances have arisen that have forced us to reschedule the Cycling Savvy class. If you have registered, we will be in touch to discuss your options. If you have not registered, please watch the Commute Louisville web site (http://commutelouisville.com/) or the Commute Louisville page on Facebook for our spring schedule. We look forward to your participation as we move forward with launching this program in Louisville.

And, of course, I'll be saying something about the class here when I'm ready to have folks register.

Cycling Savvy tour pre-ride

I have spent some time trying to create a tour route for the upcoming Cycling Savvy class here in Louisville. An important part of the creation process is what we call "ground truth" examination. This gives us a chance to look at the features we want to teach in real life (instead of using the satellite view and Google car camera view), in part to be sure that a road that appears to go through actually does, to get up to date information on road conditions, and better decide where to situate the gatekeeper and receiving instructors for each feature.

I finally got to ride my route today. Jenn will get to ride it with me over the next few days--indeed, I may give her the cue sheet and have her ride it herself and compare notes afterward, then hit it one more time over the weekend and fine-tune things a bit.

For some reason, I was thinking about my bike miles today, and wondered how many miles I've ridden in what I think of as my bike-driving era, compared to how many lifetime miles I've ridden. I have no way to even guess at the latter number, as I didn't really keep track of such things until I got my first recumbent bike in 1992, and then only sporadically until the beginning of 2010, when David convinced me to start using MyCyclingLog.com to track my riding.

In 2003 or '04, I had a minor crash while riding my Bacchetta Strada in Iroquois Park. At the time, I figured I had ridden something like thirty thousand miles since getting my Linear recumbent bike in '92. I probably rode an average of twenty-five hundred miles a year between that time and my first posts on MyCyclingLog.com, for ten or fifteen thousand more miles--I'll call it forty thousand from 1992 to January 2010. My stats on MyCyclingLog.com show that I've ridden over twenty thousand miles since January 2010, and over a third of those miles in 2011 (my banner year).

This number pales compared to many racers' results, and even compared to several club members I know. However, it's significant that I've had few crashes, NO car-vs-bike crashes (I count my fall on the Frankfort Avenue rail crossing as a solo crash, even though it was partially influenced by a motorist who cut me off), and no crashes that required hospital visits.

Well, not really significant, when one considers that cycling is safer than many more mundane activities, like being in a car (by half, based on injuries per million hours of exposure), or taking a bath, or walking in a room where there are loose rugs.

Savvy Cycling

I don't know why I haven't posted on my blog of late.

Especially troubling is that I haven't mentioned Cycling Savvy here lately, knowing that there are a couple of folks who read this who don't necessarily keep close tabs on the Commute Louisville site and its blog, and/or dutifully ignore Facebook and other social media sites.

Anyway, Cycling Savvy is coming to Louisville!!

The class cost is $75, for which one gets a nine-plus hour class. The first three hours or so are indoors, and it's not necessary to bring your bike (although bicycles will be welcome...). That segment will be on Friday evening, November 1. We call this class session "Truth and Techniques."

The rest of the class will be on Sunday, November 3, and will consist of the sessions we call "Train Your Bike" and "Tour of Louisville." The Train Your Bike session is a series of drills held in a parking lot, to help folks master handling their bicycles and learn some tips for easier riding. The Tour segment is not an exhaustive tour of the city's sights, but rather a ride to a series of features--intersections or sets of intersections--that give participants a chance to try for themselves the strategies we help them learn.

Oh, and if you are an experienced cyclist, there is very likely a bit of learning you can find here as well. A long-time commuter took the class in Saint Louis a while back, hoping to learn one or two new things. He reported that he learned six new things, and that was just in the Truth and Techniques portion of the class.

The registration form is here, if you already know enough to sign up without following the other links I've offered.

September catch-up, and it's October!!

I keep having gaps in my interest in writing, then a flurry of posts, then another gap...

To update on a couple things: I had a tree company haul off the limb that was leaning on the house a couple weeks ago. I haven't gotten the bill, but the estimate was pretty reasonable, given the scope of work involved. I fixed the roof that Saturday. I spent more time on it than I expected, mostly because the pitch for that section of my roof is steep enough that I wasn't comfortable working on it. It wasn't bad, but I felt it appropriate to take my time, rather than fall off.

Yeah, I've heard the expression, "It's not the fall that hurts, it's the sudden stop at the bottom." Add the abrasions of sliding down a shingle roof, and, well, it seemed better to avoid the experience altogether. I took my time.

The shingles turned out to not be a really good match, but I'm not worried. The angle is such that most folks driving by won't notice the difference. I know my roof isn't leaking, so I'm okay with how it is.

This first picture is of the roof deck, once I removed the damaged shingles. It's easier to see the size and location of the hole this way:

 It took less than a third of a sheet of Oriented Strand Board (OSB) to fix the roof deck. I bought a bundle of shingles, and used less than a dozen of them. I used a piece of Roofer's Felt about five feet long. First the deck repairs:

I didn't bother taking a picture of the roof between this step and having installed the shingles. It's just a roof, after all.

However, the shingle color difference is striking when viewed from above. Part of this is that the original roof on the house is now fourteen years old. It's probably a twenty-year roof, but might have been done with twenty-five year shingles. We are planning for replacing the roof within the next five years, based on the wear I noted while playing around on the roof this time.

I was able to straighten the drip edge (white aluminum seen in the second image) enough that it looks fine from below. The shingle color difference isn't as striking when viewed from the street.

One thing that came out of my several trips up on and off of the roof was that my ladder was beginning to worry me. If you know much about ladders, you know that they are rated for their weight capacity--Type IA, Type I, Type II, and Type III are common ratings, with Type III the lightest, at two hundred pounds capacity. I jokingly called my ladder a Type IV. I found it beside a dumpster behind a paint store seven years ago, and kept it around because it was good enough to do most of what I needed it to do. However, the locking mechanism on one side had a recently-broken spring, and I was only willing to carry a couple shingles up at a time (rather than an entire bundle), lest the thing fail on me.

I decided that it was time to buy a good ladder.

I rode to work (my part-time job at that orange box store that sells lumber, shingles, and all manner of other home repair and maintenance stuff) the next day, pulling my trailer so that I could bring home a good ladder.

The old ladder was nominally a sixteen-foot extension ladder, meaning that its full extension was roughly fourteen feet. There are a couple of places on my house that I cannot safely reach, so I opted for a longer ladder. I now own a 20' Type II extension ladder.

And, yes, I used my bike trailer to get it home, for a couple of reasons: I could, and it was actually a better choice than using the car. To use the car, I would have had to use padding of some sort to protect the roof, PLUS ropes to tie it to the car. I would still have worried about tearing up something on the car. The trailer almost looks like a ladder to many who ask about it, so it was a simple matter to haul the ladder home. Jenn needed the car that afternoon, and I typically ride to work anyway, so...

The hole in the roof deck shown above came with a corresponding hole in my soffit. The soffit pieces are aluminum, and I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to straighten the damaged pieces enough that they would look okay.

The soffit after the storm:

 

After I spent about five minutes actually working on the pieces and reinstalling them:

I was surprised at how good the repaired soffit looks.

And, since the tree outfit removed the big pile of debris from my driveway when they removed the limb, I can get in and out of my garage much more easily!

Driver comments

Over the years, I've begun to train myself to ignore the unintelligible (and often unintelligent) ululations that emanate from the windows of passing motor vehicles. I get such comments from far less than one percent of the motorists who pass me, after all, as they are easily classified as "territorial noise."

To explain that concept, I'll put forth a word picture: When walking along the neighborhood street, a dog barks at me from behind his or her fence. I'm not hurting the dog, I'm not a threat to the dog in any real way--I'm on shared public space. The dog, not having the same understanding of property lines as a human, is still at some level sounding a warning, both to me to not come closer to his space and to his pack (if his pack is only his human caretaker) that someone is close.

It doesn't matter that I am on shared public space--the dog barks. It doesn't matter that I have no intention of invading the dog's space as I understand it to be, the dog barks.

Same thing with most of the very few motorists who yell silly stuff out their windows as they pass me. I already got what I wanted from them--a more-or-less safe pass (although I admit I could do without the extra drama and noise). They have already proven that I was seen in time that they could avoid hitting me.

So, the message I choose to receive often differs from the message these motorists think they are conveying. I hear it as the motorist saying, "I'm happy for you to consider me an even bigger jerk than I think you are for daring to bicycle instead of hewing to the status quo and driving a car!" Part of this is that I rarely hear more than one syllable out of whatever the motorist is yelling, due to the dynamics of sound and background noise and such.

Even so, every now and again I get to hear enough syllables to make some sense of what the motorist said, and I wonder whether the motorist thought through his or her comment at all (lending credence to the idea that it's just territorial noise).

Two sort-of recent examples:

I was cycling through Seneca Park one day, en route to a job site in the Highlands area. I was a hundred yards or so from the four-way stop sign-controlled intersection near Big Rock. There is a marked shoulder of some width on each side of the road, and there are often folks running or walking in that shoulder area. A guy in a white pickup truck blew his horn as he approached me from behind, and opened his power window on the passenger side to tell me that "there is a lane over there for you!" while pointing at this shoulder.

Of course, he was wrong on several points: A) it is a marked shoulder, not a lane. As such, I *may* use it, at my discretion, under KRS or KAR (I'd find the exact citation, but it's not the point), but I am not required to use it. B) That it was paved space to the right of a solid line, just as many bike lanes are marked elsewhere in town, does not make it a bike lane. C) Even if it WAS a bike lane, and thus subject to 601 KAR 14:020 (9)(2), there are many reasons why it would not be feasible for me to use it as such--at least thirty reasons ran by during the next five minutes, those reasons being human beings who were using the shoulder as a firm place to run rather than be in the traffic lane.

His language confirmed that my reception of the message as indicated above was spot on.

The other happened one morning, as I was riding to another job site in the Highlands area. I was on Lexington Road, having just turned off Shelbyville Road (or is it Frankfort Avenue there?), heading toward town. A guy in a sedan lowered his power window to helpfully let me know that it was rush hour.

How about that? What about it being rush hour changes any of the rules for polite behavior? What about it being rush hour (ignoring for the moment the oxymoronic nature of the expression, given that traffic so often moves more slowly during peak travel hours) changes whether I have reason to ride my bicycle to get where I am going?

And what of this issue of courtesy? Those who value themselves over all other road users tell me that a cyclist would be more courteous to get out of the way of faster, presumably more legitimate traffic. They ignore something that is pretty basic to the human experience: the principle of first-come, first-served.

I was there first, it's my turn to use the shared public space in a legal and legitimate manner. Just as you wait in line at the bank or at the grocery checkout lane, your turn at that piece of roadway will come, and you may then use the road in a law-abiding manner, just as I have. It shows amazing hubris to think that because my turn takes a few seconds more than yours, you should go first despite that you arrived after I did. THAT is rudeness.

Oh, and because I sometimes enjoy numbers, this is post 579 for this blog.

Stormy skies

A few hours after I typed my post ending August (or so I thought at the time), we got hit with a rain storm. Jenn and I were at a friend's house, celebrating her birthday, and returned to find a limb from the next-door property against the roof of the house.

In the rain, I went up for a look around. The only damage I found at the time was a hole in the roof between the front wall of my garage and the "show rafter," with some damage to the soffit between them on the underside, plus that several ridge cap shingles had gone missing. Jenn followed me back up to hold the light while I nailed down a heavy-duty garbage bag that was big enough to cover the hole.

The next afternoon, I took to removing a lot of the smaller branches from the limb that had fallen, to better assess the damage to my house.

the base of the limb, where it broke from the tree:

 

After a couple hours of sweaty sawing, I could get to my (not damaged) Bikes at Work trailer!

 

The view from the roof peak, prior to the sawing of branches:

 

After sawing some branches, looking away from the street:

 

After sawing some branches, looking at the damaged gutter (more inspection of which being difficult until the big limb was removed):

 

And a small pile of debris developed as we cleared stuff away from the house:

All in all, the damage to my house was minimal. The materials for the roof repair set me back less than fifty bucks. I'll do the work in about two hours, possibly less, on some cool morning (perhaps Saturday, the 14th). There is some gutter work to be done, in addition to the soffit repair. I'm hopeful that the reduction in tree cover on that corner will reduce the "need" for the gutter helmet--I'd rather clean my gutters easily once a month or so than fight that stupid system, as it lets junk into the gutters anyway and makes it harder to clean them. Don't even get me started on the very short gutter in front of my front door that collects water from a third of my roof...

Also on the damage list is the corner trim, hidden in these photos by the black compost bin. There was a six-inch branch pushing against the house at one point, and when I cut it away, it broke when there was a bit more than two inches to go in my cut, indicating the amount of tension on it.

All in all, however, if this is the worst damage my house ever gets due to storms and downed tree limbs, I'll be a happy camper.

There were, of course, additional concerns. The tree from which the limb fell stands on the property next door, on which a multi-unit apartment building stands. This tree lost a limb a couple summers ago, and THAT limb fell on a tenant's car. The tree has been deteriorating since, and should have been removed more than a year ago. That the tree also hosts a couple of two-inch-thick poison ivy vines has also been a concern for us and for the tenants next door. Although Kentucky law holds that I am responsible for paying the bills involved in repairing my house, AND removing the tree debris from my property, and that it's incrementally more money to remove what limb remained on the neighbor's property once the tree guys got there, it seems I would have a cause to ask for some assistance in paying the tree guys' bill. I've spoken with the property management company, and the folks there were cordial. They got me in touch with the property owner, who seemed cordial as well. We'll see what develops on that front, but in any case, I am going to continue pushing for removal of what's left of the tree, before it has a chance to fall on any building (like my house), a car, or a person.

Cycling (and cyclists) in the news

There has been a veritable flurry of bicycle-related news on the local front over the last week or so.

Sadly, one large bit of news came to us from the family of Joe Ward, as he passed away Thursday morning. Much has been and will be written of Joe, his gracious riding manners, his depth of cycling and local knowledge, his two books (I have autographed copies of each, and am mentioned in the foreword to the second one), and his sartorial style (he was one man I've seen make the corduroy knickers actually work!). As much as I would like to think otherwise, I don't have much to add to that commentary, aside from that I will miss him. He was a great guy.

The comment mill (actually, a different comment mill) got cranked up over a recent article in the CeeJ regarding the MUTCD R4-11 signs that have gone up on River Road.

Predictably, there were some who sided with Council Member Kelly Downard, who fails miserably at understanding the traffic laws applicable to the commentary he provided. I participated in the online melee, attempting to give rational basis for the positions I took.

A day or two later, a couple of letters to the Editor appeared, one even citing some sort-of relevant Kentucky Revised Statutes in favor of his apparent position that cyclists should stay to one side of the road. No, I couldn't resist the call to comment on those, either.

As a side note, here is an essay that helps one understand some of the irony in the anti-cyclists' position. In a nutshell, it details how cyclists' rights have been eroded over the last hundred years, and why that matters.

An anniversary

When Jenn proposed to me, way back in March of 2009, and I accepted (having some modicum of sense about me, even though I thought she had lost her mind for proposing...), we eventually figured out that our wedding date would be 9/9/9 (mindful that turning the numbers upside-down would yield 6/6/6, which gave us something of a giggle).

Events of that July were to intervene, and rather than pay COBRA insurance rates for two months, we married on July 17th. My sister observed that at least Jenn got two primes and a square, in addition to her somewhat-square hubby.

So, today is what would have been our fourth anniversary.

It still is our fourth, although not the one on the marriage license: we exchanged rings on 9/9/9, as by then we had gotten one that actually fit my finger (the largest ring Jenn had prior to that almost fit my little finger), and had gotten rings for Jenn sized properly.

Our honeymoon, such as it was, became riding the Century route on the Old Kentucky Home Tour a few days later.

And, here I am, four-plus years later, happily married. It's been an unbroken string of days, I'm happy to say.

Ironman, the end of August, and other odd thoughts

I seem to be going on a ten-day cycle with posting here of late.

Events of the last ten days include a couple trips to the Ohio River with the kayak in tow, in support of a big international triathlon of long distance, aka Ironman (tm), an event that for the athletes begins in January of a prior year in some ways.

Yes, folks who compete in Ironman (tm) prepare for it for months, in many cases, and even years. I've heard several folks declare, after watching a friend complete the event, or after volunteering in support of the event, that they will do it themselves. Maybe the coming year, maybe the following year, but they WILL do it.

Some others of us come to a different conclusion: There is no Ironman in my future. I swim to stay off the bottom of whatever body of water I toss myself into to cool down (pool, river, creek, lake...). I run very short distances, and then only if circumstances dictate that running is better for me than walking.

I am, however, happy to paddle my kayak for a couple hours so that people swimming a couple miles in the river may have a place to hold on and rest for a moment or two, or to help them make sure they stay close to "on-course" (I mean, who wants to make the swim 2.6 miles instead of 2.4 miles?).

And, since I can, I'm happy to haul my boat to and from the event using my bicycle, cementing my place in the cadre of boaters who do this as something of an oddity.

And, had my degenerating vertebral disc not flared a bit the Friday before the event, my right leg would have been far more comfortable during my time in the boat.

I still enjoyed being out there.

I was given an assignment this time, instead of taking my accustomed place just down-course of the turn buoy. I found myself in the channel a couple hundred yards from the start of the course, across from the Metro Police substation, helping swimmers avoid collision with a downed tree near Towhead Island.

From my vantage point, I could see athletes as their line progressed behind the police substation--even thirty minutes after the first athletes were in the water, I was seeing folks in line up on the main Riverwalk, and those folks had to get all the way to Tumbleweed before following the ramp down to river level then snaking back to Tumbleweed before hitting the water.

Shortly after the last athletes went in, I was asked to move down-course, to a section between the Big Four and Kennedy bridges. I spent much of the next hour or ninety minutes attempting to keep station just upriver of the Kennedy Bridge and just to the Kentucky side of the course (as marked by buoys), and help athletes who had gotten too close to shore get back on course.

It wasn't made any easier when the buoy just upriver of my position broke free of its tether to the bottom, and started drifting down- and across-course.

I usually hear about swimmers who don't make the cut--all are supposed to finish their swim within a specified time after the last athlete crosses the start line and hits the water--but didn't hear of any who got pulled out of the water. I don't know of any injuries or other problems that led to athletes abandoning their race during the swim segment, but some may have.

With my leg in some discomfort, and as the race buoys had not been pulled when I got to the dock, I loaded my boat and prepared to ride home. I have found that if I pedal along the park, rather than using River Road, I can get to the Butchertown Greenway, cross under River Road and I-71, and reach Story Avenue, then Frankfort Avenue, without any interaction with the road closures for the bicycle segment of Ironman (tm).

On the park route, I encountered a couple of cycling friends, one of whom took a few pictures of me with my rig for his Facebook page. After some catching-up with them, I got back on my bike, noting that the crew responsible for pulling in the buoys had just gotten to the turn buoy at the upriver end of the course.

I rode home (stopped for lunch on the way), unloaded my stuff from the boat, and rested a bit, then went back downtown to help at the finish line, as the athletes reaching the end of their long day sometimes need a bit of guidance getting through the rigamarole of getting their timing chip removed, collecting their finisher's swag, and (sometimes) getting medical help.

Jenn and I noticed that our shift was over at about the same time. An influx of new volunteers had arrived, which was certainly a signal. Jenn needed to be at work early the next day, so we walked to the car (she had parked near Tumbleweed a bit after four that morning), and went home (I by bicycle, her by motor vehicle).

This weekend is Labor Day weekend, and a local feature is the Mayor's Hike, Bike, and Paddle. This event has been drawing thousands of folks each year--estimates reached ten thousand for the Memorial Day event a few months ago. Jenn and I have ridden the bike ride several times, but took a break from that after the Labor Day event of 2011. We paddled the Memorial Day event in 2012, but haven't been to the last two. This time, however, the paddle portion of the event features a trip through the McAlpine Locks--something I haven't done since the early 1970s--so I wanted to go. Jenn decided that she wanted to go, too, so we'll haul the canoe down Monday morning, hang out for a bit, then play like we know how to paddle the canoe to New Albany's waterfront, one of us catching the shuttle back to get the car and haul the boat home.

It'll probably be hot in the lock, but I'm looking forward to getting to see the canal from the water.

And this turned into a teachable moment!

I had a couple of bikes in my garage so that I could do some maintenance work on them, and had to take them back to their owners. I loaded them onto my Bikes at Work trailer, connected the trailer to the Big Dummy, and hauled away to the other side of Saint Matthews.

As I rode home, I saw a BUNCH of club riders heading for the Tuesday evening club ride that leaves from the Burdorf's parking lot off St Matthews Avenue. I had some friendly interactions with a couple, and cordial interactions with a few more.

As I passed the lot where the ride starts, a few riders were leaving early. I passed one fellow, as he was riding slowly so his riding partners could catch him, then we approached the stop sign at Westport Road.

I must admit that my mind was on the other traffic in the intersection--there was a motorist who had approached the stop sign from the west, and who would have priority over me when it was time to transit the intersection (she reached the stop sign before I did). She, in turn, was waiting for a safe opportunity to go, as there was another motorist approaching from the east, and that motorist does NOT have a stop sign.

I was busy watching all this, and didn't realize that the cyclist I had passed had come up beside me on my right, in what was something of a blind spot, given that my attention was on other road users entering the intersection. When it was my turn to proceed, there was some confusion over who was going which way (he was apparently planning to go north on St Matthews Avenue, which involves a right jog before turning left to cross the railroad track, and I planned to go east on Westport Road--see this map (http://goo.gl/maps/JTh4G) to help envision this, and be mindful that my cardinal directions are approximate).

We managed to sort things out without unpleasant outcomes, or ugly words, but the teacher in me found it impossible to not think about what we--myself included--can learn from what could have happened. Since I was pulling my long trailer at the time, I of course was reminded of this excellent blog post from Commute Orlando's Keri Caffery (http://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/2008/11/30/what-cyclists-need-to-know-about-trucks/).

As I am not sure whether my trailer was ever in front of this other cyclist, I could not be angry at him. I would like to think I passed him far enough in advance of the stop sign that I was clear of him, but I never did check my mirror or do a shoulder check to verify that I was past him. Prior to that, I should have made sure I could make a complete pass before reaching the stop sign, or if not, should not have passed him--just as one would do if operating a car properly. Because my focus was on other motorists IN the intersection, whose transit through the intersection had priority over my own, I wasn't watching him. Because my focus was on other road users, I did not have my right arm extended as a right turn signal.

On the other hand, in the time I was watching others, while stopped at the stop sign, he could easily have gotten from well behind me to beside me.

Had I been in his situation, I like to think I would have held back, to see which direction the cyclist pulling the trailer was going to go. I learned that concept many years ago, watching drivers of large trucks turn very wide to make right turns, so that the trailer wheels would clear the curb at the corner (or stay out of the drainage ditch, or in general stay on the pavement). There is a reason for the signs seen on the rear of big box trailers advising against passing on the right!

The lesson, for me, is a reinforcement of something I already knew: We can only track so much information intake at a given time.

For me as "riding in his shoes," the lesson also included "stay out of the blind spot of a road user pulling a trailer." That road user is already tracking a fair bit of other stuff in front of him or her, and approaching in a blind spot can lead to big problems. It's also a reminder that "filtering," or riding up the right side of vehicles stopped for a traffic control device such as a stop sign or traffic light, is a bad idea.

It is our mutual responsibility to avoid crashes. If other road users make minor errors, we need to be able to compensate.