flash flag

I emailed cycle9 to inquire “ever put one of these on an Xtracycle?”

Of course, Elise replied, I have one on mine.  She sent pictures of how she used a hose clamp to put it on the back.  Now, soon as I have both a flathead (for the hose clamp) and a phillips head (for the flash flag) and a wire cutter (to make room for the screw from the flash flag in the hose clamp), and the flash flag and the xtracycle all together at one time, I’ll make it happen.  In the meantime, I wrapped it around the buckle strap and it’s sticking out to the side or straight up but being a nice flaggy flag.  Yes, it’s   Retroreflective *really* grabs oyour eye stuff and yes, I got three of ‘em so I can share.

A little more trash than usual on Bradley at Parkland – but not much.  More a testimony to people not walking on teh sidewalk than their cleanliness, I fear. Lots of fireworks signage left but it seems they were mindful of keeping the sidewalks accessible. I thought about the fascinating potential for making Civic Impact with bicycles at big-crowd outdoor events. They wouldn’t be any faster, perhaps, getting through people crowds — but I could be wrong.  Hmmm…. how ’bout some experiments?  Would riding slowly or just using the thing as a “plow” of sorts be the best?   It’s the traffic stuff that could be more interesting… sticking hte right lighting on the Xtra and people could think it was Official.  Then there are the interesting potentials of car-bike combos.  A folding bike to escape through car-impassable territory… with a car to toss it in …

TIme to get productive

Now channel 17, too ;)

Last week channel 3, Channel 15 for next THursday, and today a spontaneous interview from Channel 17.

Parade — “rain or shine.”  “Still on.”  (two hours ago Twitter.)   Oh, but at 12:30… cancelled.  Weather and low spectator turnout.  So the reporter is standing there with gear and umbrella and nothing to film.  Rick Langlois and I provided, with the Share the ROad bus in the background.  Yea, I called all them car people wimps for not being able to handle a little weather

I was disgusted and wondering how much overlap with Habitat for Humanity there is among the staff, since they, also, canceled after folks had committed time and effort without regard for same – but realized that unlike the Habitat Ride, there well could have been lots of miserable people begging to go home instead of trudge down the not-too-crowded streets.

Suggestions:  take “rain or shine” away. Say “if it looks like it won’t be fun, we won’t do it.” Maybe even say “we’re weenies, after all.  People may have sacrificed for freedom, but this is just a parade!”  Waiting ’til everybody was out there in the rain just to PROVE that it was miserable for those who’d made the commitment is incompetent… yes, the weather’s fooled us but *absolutely* by 11:00, things weren’t going to get much better.

and…  If you saw it was raining and you were going to be miserable, YOU should have stayed home.  It’s just rain, fer cryin’ out loud.  Toughen up!

All those floats talking about the Sacrifices For Our Country – and we can’t even walk in the rain to commemorate it?

Parade position

I think it’s 26.  If yer lookin’.  See ya there!

Camera being put on my bicycle Wednesday.

Dahon on Xtracycle, back at home.  Duly note that there is no longer a screaming orange chain.  I love CHampaign Cycle

Stan’s truck at new member ride.  Homemade ice cream and bike-blended peach smoothie.  Life is good!

Got Dahon back and 70 miles :)

Did “C-U Around” ride today, with a full Mahomet Lake-of-the-Woods Loop.  (Tentative Next Week:  go out and test drive CUAP route…. leaving early so I can get back in time for stuff.)

Possibly my favorite ride of the season.  A dozen or so of us went out to Mahomet, at 14-ish mph, but pausing at the Old HOuses, the Rising Grain Elevator (the womannequin is there but ensconced in fur and hardhat – can’t see handcuffs or dog collar or riding crop, but perhaps it’s just not the season in wommanequin fashion), and Casey’s.  A truly fun, friendly ride.   Then at the end of the bike path five of us went north while the others went back, and Eliz. and I peeled in on the Urbana side of town (we went in Highcross, cutting into Beringer Circle and Main Street).  There were dogs but the one that actually went into the road retreated when I told him to   (Yea, I used *that* voice )

Then hopped on Xtra to go out to the other side of town… then down to Champaign Cycle to get my Dahon which, when I left it, had the recalled handlebar and a chain that was. well, um, a little rusty.  Day-glo, more like.  Welp, no rusty chain now Elves, I tell ya Nothin’ in the recall about chains….

Yes, one day I *will* sing my song, like really sing it in there with bikes  for props even.  Hey, if somebody finds a keyboard and can bang out a chord or two, we could record it there    I was almost tempted to try the WSD Madone 5.2 in a 56 … but the *truth* is… I luv my Xtra.  I think I would break the Madone. (And no, I don’t have three grand lying about.  But, okay, I shall buy a lottery ticket…)  It’s on sale, along wiht some other carbon fiber bikes… and I know they ride sweeeetly…

THink I’ll sneak out before the sun goes down an the rain comes in just to see what the Dahon feels like.  Why stop at 72?  Could I do a second 1000 mile month?  I’m already 133 miles into it….

Flash Flags arrived.  Designed to be installed on Seat Stay.  What in the world is a seat stay????  Address given to inquire about installing on carriers for some other part – but the part would go on the carrier.  Will see if there’s anything from that company online … or it might be ductape time…

Oh… and Rich was describing the assorted singing that was happening on GITAP, and the concept of the “Singing Paceline” came up.  The very image … hmmm… I think that *would* have to be Photoshop…

Smoothie day

So, may they wonder … did I *really * clean the blender jar out with that sock?  I did ride ahead, you know, to get ‘em started.

Peach smoothies (frozen peaches, yogurt, and ice ridden into a blend) and home-made cinnamon ice cream from Bonnie with those VANILLA SPECKS of pure pleasure.

If it is natural, it is HEALTHY, right?

Welp, when the sock dangled and I suggested that I’d used it to clean the blender (I’ll let you decide)… the question was not whether it was sanitary but whether it lent a special flavor to the mix.

I     have    the     right   friends   

Cycling is Slashdotted!

the little laser bike lane line thingy

Odd that yesterday I was compelled, finally, to register to reply to a comment on something I can’t even remember.

Yes, the comments include the expected “what are they doing on the road anyway” but I think (and would like to know) that statistically speaking, there are more pro-cycling responses than there would have been X years ago.  There is *definitely* not a mob-consensus of scorn

(But yes, it *did* kill a good half hour I should have been more productive in…)

Journalism II -local this time

Have pics – will post if I have time, but I’m budgeting the minutes. Channel 3 folks came by work at 5:00 for a story on commuting and the relationships between cyclists and drivers.

As with when the News-Gazoo did the story with Joyce Mast, I’m easily impressed with any story that goes beyond “Some people ride their bikes.  You should wear your helmet.”  “Things” really have shifted.  A person gets accustomed to that “You are so AMAZING” (or crazy…)  and a need to find all the assorted eccentricities that would conspire to make a person, OMG, ride a bike when  s/he really COULD be driving a car.  Now, I don’t know what reporter & video guy were thinking, but there seemed to be a little less of a canyon between us.  We’ll see how it spins out, but I didn’t get the feeling that they were doing this story  like the story about the Florida speedo-wearing cyclist … the questions were more about cycling — as if it were something worth considering — than “what would inspire a person to do such an odd thing.”

I didn’t tell ‘em that this very morning when, on CHurch Street I was asserting my lane position and the yahoos that passed me hollered out the window… but then, again, the passenger hollered while the driver passed me with well more than the three feet required by law, so it didn’t have the “hollering in your ear” effect that the guy probably desired.  More evidence that Holding Your Lane Works

I did totally and completely lust after the cute cameras they hooked up to my bike.  Oh, my.  I did a running commentary as I rode, wishing I had practiced my “Camtasia voice,” but knowing that actually the audio was going to have that tinge of smugness that sends  nonverbal cues I don’t intend.  Riding home I was reflecting that cycling has improved my visual “nonverbal interpretation” immensely.

It’s 9:00 and the time is budgeted for strawberry and banana slicing, ’cause I’m a-gonna try to achieve Sanitary Smoothies tomorrow.  Pictures to come

Journalism!

Long Beach bicycling article -- I’d say this is testimony to the INternet having enough space to really tell a story.  Yes, it’s long – but it’s reasonably deep, as well.  “The scoop,” as it were, I say with happiness that something would make me say a phrase reminiscent of the Old Days of reporting.

It includes tasty tidbits like that Long Beach got a bronze award for bike-friendliness… but, um, it was based on bogus information and outright lies, and lots of bike activists were kinda sorta accidently not included in the process.

YEt the story wasn’t spun into an oversimplified “it’s all bogus politics” cotton candy article.  It’s much more challenging to digest.  I’m going to defy the current culture and take the time to do it, especially since I’ve already said I’m taking some “sick time” tomorrow.  I have enough of a cold to need more sleep but not enough to *stay* in bed. Cycling kinda ups the health level, ya know, and those Emergen-C rations prob’ly aren’t hurting, either.  It’s a nasty, though not systemic, critter – coughing *hurts* — but no more than getting up a steep hill, and I do know the value of Thoroughly Expunging Mucosoids. (Alas, one way I know colds from The Usual Allergies is that the snot rockets don’t work so well.)

Got 1025 miles on the month    Time for Nyquil … when you decide to have some wine and then realize you got down a *bowl* from the cupboard, it’s time for bed.  (THat was after the recognition that a minute is TOO LONG for an already toasted bagel to be microwaved, but it makes an interesting color smoke.)  Think I’ll avoid sharp objects… Channel 3 called and will interview me on the morrow so I was reflecting on driving and cycling and that I decided to thwart the cultural acceptance that people just do kill people with cars and that’s just too bad…  I don’t *deny* that it’s true – but I refuse to spend more time using those dangerous and inherently destructive things than I have to.  Yes, that sounds BIZARRE – but only because, I sincerely believe, of the cultural inertia that means that “every body does it — so it *must* be okay!”  and … because denial is *so* much more comfortable.  THen there was that reflection about the “but you’re stupid to ride a bike because cars can hurt you” – which is accepting that Might Makes Right, and of course tractor trailers can hurt you, too, but you’re taking that HOnda on I-74, aren’t you? Yes, I think a lot of our Powers that Be think that as long as you are the biggest oppressor, you’re nto an oppressor because you’ll trample anybody who calls you one.

But I think I’ll try to keep the positive Urbana vibes goin – the “this is how you live IN the world, as part of it” instead of crashing through it with the toughest armor you can find.

From cycle-licious -  link to a real story about a Tallahassee bikini=clad bicycle ‘bum’ - just read it.  He could get a verse in that song about recovering heroes…