Got a lot of laughs out of this, this morning.
We’re looking at some wonderful weather this week. Be nice, ride your bike, ring your bell.
A commuter’s perspective on bike lanes in the city of Albany.
I think this picture pretty much sums it up.
This was taken a few weeks ago on Clinton Ave, headed up hill. This is one of the “new” bike lanes they put down in the fall of last year. The paint is pretty messed up and cars use it like a right turn lane.
The other “new” bike lane they put down, the sharrows on Washington Ave, was covered by snow most of the winter.
I appreciate the new riding spaces. I use them daily. I think Albany could do a lot to make the city more bike friendly by clearing/cleaning the WHOLE street, from curb to curb. If half of the sharrow paint is covered by snow, it’s not helping anyone to have put it there. If the bike lane is filled with broken glasses and potholes, it’s not helping anyone to have put it there. If the WHOLE street, curb to curb, was clean, you could actually ride in the street- whether there were marked lanes or not.
Word is they intend to make more bike lanes. Which is a great thing. But if they aren’t going to be kept clean and clear, this is going to be an ineffective gesture. If the lanes become invisible due to paint loss after a few months, this will be a complete waste of time. Please Albany, let’s do this right.
This is great. I like the video. I like the message. People For Bikes: Why Do You Ride?
(via EcoVelo)
Part of one of the gifts I got for Christmas was a copy of Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac. It was a joy to read.
It begins with the following, from the editors:
“Bicycling, not bicycles, because it’s an action and a purpose and a way to move and move and move.”
It goes on to be filled with lots of little short pieces. Interviews, poetry, book reviews, an advice column, thoughts one commuting by bike down south, and some excerpts from touring cyclists.
It’s a little book, it fits in your pocket so you can take it anyway. It’s rugged. It’s printed in elegant type. Highly enjoyable.
Survived another ride home in the snow, so I thought I’d offer some “tips.”
Before:
Waterproof. Lights. Don’t over-layer or you’ll sweat inside. Do not let drivers psyche you out.
During:
Go slow. Take it easy. This is not a race. Focus on keeping your bike straight and your breathing even.
Don’t be afraid to take the lane. In fact, take the lane. Trying to ride in the crap at the side of the street is often dangerous. You’re better off holding up the cars behind you.
Pull over every once in a while. This lets the cars get on their way (which, admittedly, it often not very much faster than you were going anyway). More importantly, it gives you a chance to catch your breath, shake the snow off yourself, and appreciate the winter.
Signal your turns. You do that anyway, right?
Be aware of (lazy) drivers who do not clear the snow from their cars. Many of them cannot see out their snow covered windows and will not see you. This applies to cars already on the road, but also cars pulling out of parking spaces. Refrain from yelling into their open windows as you pass by- you need to stay focused on the street ahead of you.
Side streets that don’t see a lot of traffic are nice because there are not a lot of cars on them. But they don’t get plowed as quickly, either.
After:
Get the snow off your bike. A rag is a good thing. Take a hot shower.
This looks heavenly. I’d definitely like to do some sort of tweed ride and pizza run this spring/summer. I need to get myself a nice tweed jacket. (Yard sale season is coming.)
Riding home through the “snow.”
First, let me say that I did not have my studded tires on. I will blame the weather people for that. For weeks they’ve been saying “omg blizzard we’re all going to die” and I’ll put on my snow tires. And then it won’t snow. At all. And then I have to take the tires off again. Which means I’ve wasted two hours of my life because somebody on tv lied to me. Sigh. So this time I called their bluff and did not put my snow tires on. More on this later.
I did have waterproof clothes and a ton of lights.
So we start from the bottom of Orange Street, which wasn’t bad. It was less than an inch of snow, really. After a block I turn right and climb a steep but short hill that is all snow. My back tire is slipping but I keep it upright and make it to the top to wait for the light. Studded tires would’ve been nice here, but the hill was short so…
The light turns green and I go left up Clinton. The conditions here are slush-tacular. The bike lane is at least visible, if not clear, and I easily pedal my way up the hill. At one point I think to myself “all you haters can eat my slushy wake” and then remind myself to breathe and pay attention.
I take a left on Lake, which is pretty clear. I cross Central and then take a right on Brandon. Brandon is a little one way street with no traffic. I go two blocks in peace, slowly cruising through the coating of snow and trying to enjoy what winter there is.
Left on Ontario. I have to pull over to let a bunch of cars by. No biggie. The first part of Ontario is a mess, in my opinion. It looked like they plowed it, but all they had really done with turn snow and slush into a layer of ice. I wasn’t having any problem with it, taking it slow and steady, keeping my bike straight and moving forward without any sudden movements. Cars, on the other hand, were not having as good a time as I was. Tires spinning all over the place.
The second part of Ontario, which would be after Madison, had some nice wide patches of fresh snow, so I stuck to that. Downhill past the Playdium, slowly, letting the hurried drivers go do whatever it is they’re in such a hurry to do.
Right on New Scotland I pick up a set of tire tracks. This is like one cyclist unintentionally leaving a long greeting in the snow. New Scotland is pretty heavily trafficked so it was clear enough. I took a left near Sycamore, and so did the tire tracks I was following. Those were some skinny tires.
My neighbor said “doesn’t matter what the weather is, you’re on your bike.” I replied, “hell yeah. This is the most fun I’ve had in a week.” And then I banked up the driveway. Strangely enough, the driveway had 3 inches of fresh powder in it.
A really enjoyable ride. There were only two or three spots I thought my studded tires would’ve been nice, but I didn’t regret calling the Weather Channel’s bluff this time. It was also nice to have an excuse to ride slowly, and just enjoy riding my bike, and enjoy winter.
Today, with gray skies and whatever it is they are passing off as snow, I am thinking about this.
I’m a big fan of pandas. Not the bear that eats the least nutritious kind of bamboo it can find and will not breed to save it’s species. Panda portraits. The Flickr group says
Why are these called “pandas?” Well, ya see, there’s this rad chick who goes by the name faster panda kill kill. She takes rad self-portraits while riding her bike. They are so rad, in fact, that a group was formed to record similar self-portraits cuz, really, just about anyone who has a camera and rides bikes also takes these self-portraits.
Here are some examples
Here are some, done by other people, that I really like
Check out the Flickr group, get out your camera, and have some fun!
This is a good read. Funny and true. And I’ll second Jarred Walker’s favorite:
9) It’s just as fun as when you were a kid. You go zoom! and whoosh! You’re a sky creature, not a miserable earth-crawler. And you get to the end of your commute feeling invigorated and intensely alive.
So the other day I roll up the driveway, home from work, and prop The Bastard Son of The Frost Giant King against the garage while I turn off the lights. This guy comes up the driveway on foot asking if I have a minute. High on endorphins, I say “sure.”
He’s from the cable company. I tell him we don’t watch much tv and he can understand that doubling what we pay for cable doesn’t make a lot of sense. Then he says, “one more question, where do I go to get a real man’s bike?”
To be honest, the first thing I thought of was something you’d see bombing around London in the 1920s. But I guess that’s just me. I must’ve looked confused, so he explained, “you know, you go to Toys R Us and they have ladies bikes and kids bikes. Where do I get a real man’s bike?”
Ah.
We had some conversation about getting what you pay for. I explained that I paid $500 for my bike when it was new, which may sound like a lot of money to someone who buys a bike at Toys R Us, but I’ve had it for almost a decade. It’s my winter commuter and I put it through hell. It’s worth buying a real bike.
I told him to go to Downtube, because that’s my local bike shop and I’m loyal. I also told him about Klarsfeld’s way up Central. He knew where they were, but it had never occurred to him to go there. I said, “yeah, if you go to a real bike shop, you’ll get a real bike.” He laughed and said thanks.
A week later, I still feel good about helping someone who wanted a good bike.
(Be sure to read Part 1 before you read this post. It may not help, but it probably won’t hurt.)
An elevation map of the completed portion of our ride.
It doesn’t look all that bad when you map out the elevation on the graph above. A few hundred feet of climbing, a couple 4% and 5% grades, but not too bad.
Oh wait, I forgot that there were 400+ pounds of Rotarians on one bike. That’s why it was so hard.
The plan was a simple one: Keep the gears low. Have the SAG wagon stop every couple miles and wait for us to pass. Take a break whenever necessary. Don’t fall of the bike, get crushed by a tractor trailer or keel over from the exertion. No problem, right?
We rode and climbed and rode and climbed. A few miles along, there was our SAG wagon. Pren gave us the mileage count (there was no computer on the bike) and we kept going. We had enough air in our lungs to chat most of the time, and we told each other about our careers, our families, and why we would never, ever, ever, ever, ever volunteer for anything at Rotary ever again. Ever. Really.
Bill and me, smiling through our tears.
You know how when you have a really nice bike seat that’s like a couch cushion and you’ve been riding it for years and then you switch to a hard bike seat with no cushy properties at all and your rear end really hurts? No? Well I do. The seat on the tandem was apparently an unpadded piece of steel, possibly studded with spikes. I neglected to wear padded cycling shorts under my clothes. I never do, because the seat on my Xtracycle is so comfortable that I could bike naked if I wasn’t afraid Marlin Perkins would be overhead in a helicopter with a dart gun.
This bike seat, though, would have been better suited to transporting prisoners during the Spanish Inquisition. A few miles on this thing and they’d be converting to Catholicism faster than you can say, “Fetch the comfy chair!” I could go only a couple miles at a time before I had to stand up and stretch my … um … whatever it is that stretches down there.
Bill, meanwhile, had seat issues of his own. His seat wasn’t actually screwed tightly onto the bike, and it was constantly shifting position, forcing Bill to hang on for dear life like a rodeo rider on a bucking bronco. To Bill’s credit, he never said a word about it. Hey wait a minute — he kept offering to switch seats. Biiiillllllll! (Picture me shaking my fist.)
Another few miles, more hills, Pren in the SAG wagon. Nine miles (halfway there), more hills, Pren in the SAG wagon. Twelve miles, more hills, no Pren, but he must be just up ahead. Thirteen miles, more hills … uh … where’s Pren, exactly? I’m sure we’ll see him over the next hill. Nope. Maybe the next one. Nope. Maybe–
What’s that noise?
At about 13 miles we heard a sharp metallic pinging sound, followed immediately by a rubbing sound. (Excuse all the technical language.) I don’t know about other physical activities, but those sounds usually don’t accompany successful cycling trips. We hopped off the bike to see what was what, but we didn’t spot anything. I thought it might be the rear brake, which I’d had to disconnect and then reconnect when we changed the tire at the gas station back in Part 1. Soon, though, Bill figured it out: We’d broken a spoke and the wheel was becoming less round than is ideal for a wheel. The rubbing sound was caused by the now elliptical wheel wobbling into the brake pads.
I don’t know how well you know Bill and I, but although we’re renowned for our looks, charm, virility and spring-fresh scents, we are not, apparently, known for our brains. “What the heck,” quoth we in beautiful harmony, “it’s only six more miles. And we’ve got no tools! And our SAG wagon is missing! Let’s do it!”
We were entering East Greenbush, which meant a long downhill into the town of Rensselaer before we crossed the Hudson River and reached Albany. Bill suggested we go slowly down the hill, using only the front brake and the gears to control our speed. I did my best. We made it gently down the first hill and up the next.
Well, we made it most of the way up the next hill. At about 14 miles into the trip, we heard, and I quote:
Hisssssssssssss…
I’m sure you’re way ahead of me here, but unless you’ve brought a snake on your bike ride, hissing ain’t great. The wheel, which had been rapidly deteriorating, finally got to the point where it pinched the tube, which popped, letting out the air in our rear tire.
We pulled into the first driveway we came to — a Burger King. We had no means of repairing the bike, and no SAG wagon. Even better, as I might have mentioned earlier, Bill didn’t have the cell phone number of the SAG wagon driver, so we had no way to contact him. Nor did we have any idea where he was. “Maybe he went on to the auction without us,” we thought.
We sat in a booth in the Burger King, where I put on a paper crown while we tried to figure out what to do next. I used Bill’s cell phone to call my wife, but she wasn’t home. While I was calling her, I noticed that the phone was nearly dead. Bill said he’d charged it fully before we left. We hadn’t reckoned on the cold, though, which must have sapped the battery. We probably had enough charge for one more phone call.
It was then that Bill remembered that he had the number for Wolfert’s Roost Country Club, where our fellow Rotarians were having lunch and the auction at that very moment. Also at the meeting was Greg, who had brought his pickup truck for the express purpose of delivering the tandem bike to the winning bidder after the auction. Bill called the Roost, the Roost found Greg, Greg found us, and all was well.
As we crammed into the cab of Greg’s truck, we inquired about the health and safety of our SAG wagon driver. “He’s in the buffet line at the Roost,” Greg said. Ah.
Within a few minutes we were at the club, where we entered to thundering applause. We auctioned off the bike (and many other items) to raise more than $5,000 for various international projects, including ShelterBox, clean water projects, and Rotary’s nearly complete effort to eradicate polio from the face of the planet.
In the days since our ride, Bill and I have received even more money than was pledged to us, which will enable the club to buy a third Shelter Box.
Richard, who won the bike, discovered that in addition to the broken spoke, we’d also bent the axle of the rear wheel. He had it repaired and all is well. He will now be tormenting his teenage daughter by making her ride tandem with him.
My rear end has recovered, and Bill and I are already planning our next adventure. It will probably involve bikes. And maybe weight loss. And definitely cushier seats.
First, some background points that will help make the story clearer:
And so, the story:
At a Rotary meeting several weeks ago, Charlotte, the president of our club, announced that she had a tandem bike to donate to the 2009 auction. The bike was used by two people during the Cycling The Erie Canal event. These two folks rode the tandem from Buffalo to Albany. When they got to Albany, Rotarians from my club were there to give all the riders rides to their hotels or to the train station. The tandem crew surprised the volunteers by donating their tandem bike for use at our auction. Cool, right?
So now this bike was at Charlotte’s house, and she didn’t have a way to get it the 16 miles to Albany. Either my fellow Rotarian Bill Corbett or I — I’m not sure who gets the blame — suggested that we should ride it. (You make recognize Bill’s name because he’s contributed to RocBike in the past.) I chimed in to say that we should be paid for doing so through charitable donations toward the auction proceeds. Everyone in the room agreed to pay us $16 each ($1/mile) if we rode the bike from Niverville to Albany. We agreed. It was on.
The auction was supposed to happen in December, but a blizzard ended up canceling our meeting, and we rescheduled for January 6. Bill and I met that morning at Wolfert’s Roost Country Club, where we hold our meetings. Another Rotarian gave us a ride to Niverville to get the bike. That person was also going to serve as our SAG wagon in case any problems occurred.
It’s at this point that I would like to make note of one difference between drivers and cyclists. Our club president, who drives from her house to the meeting, told us it was 16 miles. It’s actually 19.4 miles. That doesn’t mean much when you’re driving, but when you’re riding in 20-degree weather up big hills, those extra miles count. And no, 19.4 miles isn’t that far. Bill and I have both ridden farther than that on many occasions. (See here and here for the tale of my most recent long ride, which was also a fundraiser.) But it’s far enough, as you’ll see.
Our first mistake occurred in Charlotte’s kitchen. Pren, our SAG driver, got Bill’s phone number and put it in his cell phone. Then he asked Bill a question that would resonate later on: “Do you want my number?” Bill replied: “No, I’m not going to be calling you.” Foreshadowing, anyone?
Bill and me with the bike in the garage
We encountered the next problem as soon as we looked at the bike — the rear tire was flat. We already knew this, though, so Bill had brought a pump. As it turns out, this was the only useful item either of us had brought along. All of the other useful things that became necessary later on? Not so much.
Bill pumped up the tire, we said our goodbyes, handed over the life insurance paperwork, and prepared to ride to Albany. We got as far as the end of the driveway before the rear tire was flat again. Luckily, the donors of the bike had also donated two brand new tubes. So we got out our tire levers and–
Oh wait, we didn’t have any tire levers. Nor did we have a wrench to take the wheel off. As it turned out, neither did Charlotte or her husband Paul. Not to worry, though, down the road about a half-mile was a gas station. Off we went, pushing the bike. Surely, even in this day and age, a gas station would have a wrench or two, right?
Wrong. The gas station attendant had a screwdriver large enough for a sword fight, but no wrenches. As it turns out, though, the cycling gods were with us, because there in the gas station parking lot was a Snap-On Tools truck. Yes, a truck with every kind of wrench and useful implement known to man was parked at the out-of-the-way country gas station to which we happened to push the bike. Within a few minutes we had the tire changed and inflated and we were pedalling toward Albany.
It was cold that day. Very cold. And windy. Very windy. And I made what can only be classified as a rookie mistake. Having never ridden a tandem before, I told Bill that he could choose his seat — front or rear. He chose the back because, as it turns out, he’s not an idiot. He knew that it would be much nicer to have a very large guy blocking the wind for 20 miles than to be the windshield. (In his defense, he did offer to switch after several miles, but by that time I had warmed to the role and was enjoying being in front. That decision also saved me from the blame for … well, I’m getting ahead of the story.)
In the next installment: 400+ pounds is heavy … we climb and we climb … the SAG driver and the buffet line … axle me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies … we meet the Burger King and obtain his crown … and more!
The New York Times ran a piece today on bicycle clubs of yore. Here’s the intro:
The Bittersweet History of Bike Clubs
By J. DAVID GOODMANNeither snow, nor sleet, nor bone-chilling cold can keep the members of New York’s assorted recreational bicycle clubs from the swift — or, often, leisurely — completion of their appointed rides around and out of the city. The New York Cycle Club, the Five Borough Bicycle Club and Fast and Fab, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender bike club, are some of those that lead outings and other events year round. And while none of these was around at the turn of the last century, each traces its lineage back to the ubiquitous clubs that dominated the earliest years of cycling.
In the 1880s and 1890s, growing middle-class participation in cycling lead to the formation of hundreds of clubs across the United States. The first to form was the Boston Bicycle Club, created on Feb. 11, 1878. The following February saw a club formed in Buffalo, and the first New York City club came in 1880, also in February (something about the cold seemed to drive riders to associate in those days, perhaps for the warmth of the pack).
It’s not specific to cycling, but some RocBike readers may be interested in my post today at HandCraftedLife on reasons to get out and be active despite the weather.
Democracy Now! is covering every day of the climate summit in Copenhagen. The segment below features Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Damon Moglen, who works on global warming for Greenpeace. I’m posting it here because midway through, Hickenlooper talks about bicycling in Copenhagen. He mentions that 30+% of the population commutes by bike now, and the city’s target is 50%.
Thanks to Utility Cycling for the link
The Guardian is featuring a story today by Peter Walker about the bicycle as the vehicle of civil disobedience. Here’s an excerpt:
So what is it that makes the bicycle and the demonstration such good companions? To me, there are two factors at play.
Firstly, if you’re in a group, there is something undeniably liberating about riding around a city surrounded by cyclists. I’ve never been on a Critical Mass ride, so going to Blackheath was a strange sensation – no longer a vulnerable solo rider lined up against the massed metal forces of the motorised traffic, I was part of an entity too big to ignore or shove unthinkingly into the kerb.
Second, if you’re a solo campaigner in an urban environment then the bike is the mode of transport most guaranteed to get you to your protest on time and – perhaps more important still – give you the best chance of slipping away from pursuing authorities. When I worked for another news organisation in Beijing I’d regularly pedal to meetings or protests, nipping down narrow lanes to shake off the unmarked police cars, which routinely trail foreign journalists in China.
There seems to be a lot of hostility in bike blogs these days. Everyone has an opinion about wearing helmets (or not), vehicular cycling (or not), bike trails (or not), and so much more. Having an opinion is a great thing; forcing it down others’ throats with vitriol is not.
I just have 2 things to say about all this. First, cycling is not an individual act; it is inherently social, simply by the fact that other people are using the trails/roads/sidewalks. I am both a driver and a cyclist. When a cyclist is biking erratically or is not visible in the dark, it affects me as a driver, by increasing my stress level as I am driving and trying to be safe. Further, if I were to hit that cyclist, it’s not just the cyclist who would be affected. I would be emotionally devastated. Our health care system would take another hit. My loved ones as well as the cyclist’s would be impacted. Insurance costs would go up. So, yes, individuals have the freedom to make choices about how they want to bike. But that freedom does not exist in a vacuum.
Second, could we be a little nicer to each other and to those with whom we share the transportation infrastructure? There’s a great post at EcoVelo to this point.
Read the comments too, where you’ll find, among others, this gem from the post’s author:
“The idea that acting courteously as opposed to confrontationally is somehow going to put us on a slippery slope leading to “laws demanding that all cyclists get out of their way” is a fallacy that has been used all too frequently to justify rude, aggressive riding tactics. What’s going to get us kicked off the roads is disregarding traffic laws, riding irresponsibly, and treating other road users as if we bicyclists operate under our own set of rules (see it too often). You are right, the car is “almighty”, but fighting its supremacy with a head-on frontal assault is not the answer in my opinion. I believe we need to build good will with the general public and politicians to gain the political capital necessary to instigate the infrastructure and policy changes that would make our roads (and trails) more attractive to new bicyclists, thus growing bicycling to the extent we’re all hoping for. In my opinion, the “us versus them” mentality is counterproductive to this goal and has gotten us nowhere in the U.S.”
