Category Archives: Biking

Positive framing

I love this excerpt from a blog post by bike commuter and advocate Mighk Wilson:

“We are citizens who often drive bicycles.  We are confident road users who pose very little danger to others, and only rarely are we seriously hurt ourselves.  We are highly competent and predictable.  We work to make our public roads safer for everyone, especially pedestrians and children.  We are healthy and positive because we get regular moderate exercise; we engage positively with our community, instead of being walled-off behind steel and glass.  We believe anyone can quickly learn to bike competently and confidently on our roads, and offer a variety of fun and effective ways for people to do so.  Many of us wear helmets because they are cheap insurance to protect against the rare head injury, but we don’t get too worked up if others don’t wear them.  We encourage federal, state and local governments to treat us as vehicle drivers with the same rights and responsibilities as all other drivers, and not as second-class citizens who are “in the way.”  Please come join us!”

Here is the link to the entire entry on Mike’s blog: http://mighkwilson.com/2009/10/which-cycling-politics-doom-or-possibility/

Fall maintenance

Most people are aware that an oil change every “3 months or 3,000 miles” is overkill for today’s cars.  A quick glance in your owner’s manual will most likely reveal the manufacturer’s recommendation of every 5,000 miles or so.  We made the executive decision that if the mileage to an oil change could be extended, the time could be extended as well, to every 6 months.  (There are sources that back me up on this.)

When six months rolled around, we had not even hit 3,000 miles, much less 5,000 miles, so we let things slide.  Monday night, still under the 3,000 mile mark, but past the 6 month mark, we dropped the car off at the shop and jogged home.

But bikes need maintenance, too!  (Free tune-ups for the life of the bike are a major advantage of purchasing a brand new bike from a local bike shop.  This weighed heavily in my new vs. used debate.)  We managed to convince our bike shop, that, no, we cannot drop the bikes off and leave them there for A WEEK, we ride these bikes to work every day and is there any way you can get them done in a day or evening if we schedule it ahead of time?  Pretty please with a bike helmet on top?

Now both the bikes and the car are ready to roll.  We plan to do more rolling on the bikes than in the car in this beautiful fall weather!

At first it was thin and wispy . . .

On Wednesday, I rode to work wearing real gloves, not my fingerless biking gloves. The morning was just a bit nippy. As I topped the hill approaching the park, a foggy scene greeted me. No fog anywhere else, but the park was covered in it. I’m sure my husband would be more than happy to give you a detailed scientific explanation for this, with lots of details. Did I mention it would include science and details?

Lacking his scientific expertise, I debated whether or not to ride into the fog. Would I enter some strange alternate reality? Was it just harmless fog, or was it toxic, the result of an inversion, like in London in 1952? How was I to know? Throwing caution to the wind (or perhaps to the fog), I plunged into the abyss. I emerged on the other side of the park, with no ill effects, feeling warm enough to switch back to the bike gloves and unzip my jacket.

The transition was a bit abrupt, one week I’m biking in shorts, the next I’ve switched to capri exercise pants, but this fall weather makes for perfect biking.  I don’t mind the slightly chilly mornings, and the afternoons are glorious.  Welcome, autumn!

Stop and stare

I have run out of fingers to count the number of awkward stop sign encounters (ASSEs) I have endured in the past week.  An ASSE occurs when I am approaching a 4-way stop, and a driver on the intersecting street has already come to a stop.  Clearly, he/she has the right-of-way, since I am still approaching.

Instead of continuing through the intersection, as would be appropriate and normal, the driver is overcome by great confusion: Is that an alien life form approaching?  What is that crazy, futuristic transportation device with two wheels and pedals?  I have never seen such a thing!  What should I do???  I think I will just sit here and watch it approach, thereby completely confusing the issue of who goes next.

Bike dreams

I woke up the other morning with the feeling that I had just been having an interesting dream, but I could not remember anything about it.  I dismissed it, because you know how dreams are — the harder you try to remember, the more they slip away.

As I was biking to work a bit later, I heard a dog barking, which was all the trigger I needed for the dream to come flooding back to me:

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There is a bike path through a park, or maybe a golf course, with a home close to the path.  The homeowners chained their large and energetic/aggressive (?) dog in the yard, but the chain was long enough that the dog could access the bike path.  I observed the dog chasing/jumping up on other users, but decided that I needed to use the path, as there was no other way to my destination.  I took my chances, and sure enough, the dog jumped up on me, jaws snapping, and tore a hole in my trusty sun shirt with his teeth.  At least there was not a hole in my arm!  I decided the best way to notify the owner was in person.

The owner comes outside and we talk in the yard.  I [somewhat angrily] recounted my encounter with his dog, and informed him that he needed to chain the dog so that it did not have access to the bike path, and furthermore, he owed me money to replace my shirt.
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Fortunately, I have not had any bike-dog encounters outside of dreamland, but I’m sure this dream was in part fueled by the stretch I ride past the humane society, where volunteers are out walking dogs that sometimes lunge at passing bikers.  All I can say is, “You better be paying attention and holding that leash tightly because I don’t think attacking a biker will do much for that animal’s chance of adoption!”