INteresting “justifiable annoyed driver” experience today. I’m cruising down Country Fair, Southbound, and cyclists are going North, an older and hyounger (possibly father-daughter) pair. They signal that they are going to turn left, ever so tenuously, but they’ve got all kinds of room.
Then they pull over to the right… where there really isn’t that much room, and slow… and the SUV driver with the Fire Dept. stickers has slowed ‘way down and gives ‘em a honk and a holler. Didn’t singe the air or anything… but dudes! PREDICTABILITY is the watchword. Okay, *if* I were sensitive to the tenuosity of those signals, I *might* think “they will not have the cahunas to actually make a left turn.” However, personally I had kinda thought that seeing a confident cyclists such as myself, my confidence would rub off on ‘em. Perish the thought. More likely I was the last straw in the “oh, no! we can’t turn, there’s a vehicle there after all!” even though we really weren’t in conflict. Lesson: signal and then DO IT.

Yesterday after the club ride I drove the car. There’s a poem in it. First there was that feeling that it ought to be criminal to get into a CAR on a 70 degree sunny day to drive to a bike shop and pick up a bike (even if I was taking a bike out there ’cause I couldn’t get the wheel on it, and I’d be taking *two* bikes back. I have the Tray Bien for doing that.)
Was a time when I welcomed that womblike feeling of being in my little safe capsule, breaking the time-space continuum and catapulting myself to another place. Now I feel like I’ve been shoved back into the womb and I want to be out there in that treacherous world because I’m not an embryo any more. (Resonates with the usual seasonal yearnings for new horizons and adventures, too.)
Going to get “stuff” done to the car ’cause it would be cheaper here than where Big Brother lives. Two headlights would be nice, eh? What will it feel like without a car? I know the garage will be bigger

http://www.bfw.org/btww/bike.mov

Bike to work commercial (it’s short!)

Is it addiction or is it Gore-Tex?

It wasn’t raining when I finally got myself out of the office at 5:30 yesterday, and the bike – kinda like the bike in The Lively Ride. (Sit through the short self-promo… this little clip is cyooot!) – took me out the back way.
Over the overpass with major tailwind. Traffic not too happy. Holes in road at top of bridge enough to throw a person – take the far right for the safer spot. If I dropped some plywood there, would it stay?
South on Rising for five reasonably peppy miles, keeping the speed at faster-than-four-minutes-to-the-mile, a.k.a. 15 mph, thinking I need to put that speedometer on the bike. Then Bwaaaap! Left turn INTO the wind, and the drizzling starts. I’m going ‘way slow but in a mile or two the mental adjustment happends and I find a smoother stroke and a higher heart rate. Through Savoy. ONward. Tried to cast a happy-web over your house as I drove by Bwaaaaack… a little more open into-the-wind, then left and down Race street. Took the bike path for the last two miles ’cause I wanted a cool down. Home by 7:15, wet from the inside out.
Gore-Tex is good
Took the short way in this a.m. dodging maintenance trucks and FedEx, UPS and DHL in a three block stretch of White Street. Is this national Deliver Me day or something?

I’m still trying to gather the mechanical momentum to stick the connections together from my baby MP3 player to that speaker I have and to put some fun sounds on it such as screeching brakes or gobbling turkeys so that I can make creative sounds as I’m riding by.
SOmebody’s taken it a step further and hooked up the sounds to a motion detector, so that the faster you’re going, the louder the horse or the motorcycle sound is, with video

(Now, I still want good old fashioned turn signals, which just shouldn’t be that hard with LED… what I *really* want is solar powered ones, of course )

How to blend around a fender. Dremels rock Now I have to find the assorted missing pieces of the blender so that it works right. I k new I was missing the O ring, but it did alright with that (I just didn’t set it down on anything that couldn’t get a little seeped on). Don’t know what it was that made the whole thing go round instead of just the blade I know I wanted to scout out the bigger-than-five-cup jug that the fella at the Springfield ride had on *his* alternative-power-source blender.

The other reason I want to bring camera on the Saunter is to capture things like the speed bumps that now grace the roads of Philo. THey have little openings about a foot wide in them. I don’t know if they are placed at exactly the width of firetrucks or soemthing, because I have difficulty believing/hoping that somebody could have said “that way bicycles can scoot through!”
But! They can. It’s pretty cool.

Gazelles are nice for days when you oversleep and can just pour yourself onto the bike and get there, lock & all, in your church clothes. Turn signals would be nice.

I decided to take my old route in this a.m. since I had an early start and I’m going to be talking about commuting. The time warp effect was remarkable. The bus marquee that said “SMILE ITS SUNNY” inspired me to do so. I remembered the routine as it unfolded, tho’ I felt like a stranger. I may have to ride it for the next few weeks just to see whether or not there really is a sense of “who is usually here.” I arrived at Neil and Hessel at 7:27, recalling that 7:30 was the “okay” time, and did the right-left to Avondale and scooted up Randolph to John. I’d forgotten those charges up that hill… and oh, my, I’d forgotten the tradition of trying to reach 25 mph on the downgrade to Mattis. No computer and overdressed, so I didn’t try. Arrived at Parkland at 7:49, which bears noting since it could be a “longer distance faster travel” route. We’ll sprint it next week and see; Sioux *likes* more miles faster.
Conclusion: this route is more physical, less social and less mental. SOme mornings it’s good to be physical.
Yesterday’s night sky was the stuff of romantic postcards. Crescent moon with some planet in close proximity, vivid and … oh, stellar… in the center of the sky. Just out there sayin’ “tonight *I* want to be center of the universe.”

Successfully toted Pie Monday, as pictured and chili yesterday. I kinda like the basket The pie I think is a more popular comestible I am the queen of meringue – I suspect because it’s such a novel act that I’m giving it the attention it demands. I successfully prevented Pete from introducing a white that had had a broken yolk “but I got every bit out!” into the mix. Talk about Breaking THe Laws! I only have about five Things I KNow about cooking, but one of them is “when you separate eg whites, if the yolk breaks, don’t EVEN use it.” It’s not quite like dividing by zero …

Construction to start on Bradley April 28. I think I will strive to ride a longer route and come in on Duncan, even though the construction might not… no, it will. I have to get onto Bradley and I won’t be the expected entity. Besides, longer is better, especially since the weather is betteR!
Ride tonight

Midwestern Margin

So I’m taking the cheesy through-the-campus-sidewalks route to church (it is the most direct) and coming up on the all-way stop (as in, traffic has to stop both ways for the pedestrian traffic even tho’ there is no cross street except a driveway to a parking lot on the other side, which I can’t remember whether has any yieldage or not, except that everywhere else in life where a sidewalk meets the street you’re supposed to look both ways)…
… the car pulling up to stop there a: was getting there first, and b: would have had time to paint her toenails and have three cell phone calls and then pull out even had I accelerated from where I was (the “cut curbs” aren’t a straight shot so I have to do some serious weaving)). Still, in the instant-assessment-process I knew she was trying to figure out “wait for the bicycle?”
I squeezed the brakes and sat up higher. I didn’t actually *apply* the brakes. (The Gazelle.) SHe smiled and went through.
It took 5 seconds (maybe) – and the more experienced commuters are doing that, the easier it gets for everybody. Get out and practice