I believe these are the abandoned bikes to be picked up andsorted thru Friday (I won’t be there to help ). Lots of bikes!

Woke up to Ed Kieser saying (no kidding!) that if I were heading to the west, say the eastern mountains of Colorado, that it will be quite warm and even hot there. I’ve heard of personalized radio but that’s ridiculous – I *am* heading out to Colorado tomorrow.
Yesterday on LM_NET a librarian asked about comments on her blog that seemed to be glorified spam… I suggested delete it, and gosh, today I got some of my own. Don’t people realize that form letters have their very own taste and smell? Yes, it’s related to my blog but I ain’t buyin’ it.

Hey!!! THe widget works!!!

I went to the Trek website just ’cause there’s a link… and to check out the “women who ride” blogs. No real surprise that they’re not linked to from anywhere I went, including the “Trek life blogs” link. That would require considering those blogs as, um, “real” bicycling blogs, not just some offshoot marketing thing.

Really did wake up in time to go out and do 20 miles before the Saunter. Then after the saunter I took the folder out to test its calibration on those grid roads – seems pretty accurate. Managed to get in 67 miles in the mix – and enough cans so I think I have a dollar’s worth.
H – 1.5 right now… Howard rode 8.7 miles yesterday to the memorial service for a bike advocate in Fort Collins who got killed by a drunk driver. (The driver has been arrested. Seems there have only been four bicycle fatalities in ten years in Fort Collins – and that’s not because nobody rides a bike. Makes me want to put speed bumps everywhere so nobody wants to drive and so drunk people will throw up.
Leaving for COlorado Wednesday unless I get so packed and prepared that I decide ot go a day earlier. Guess I’ll go to my house and get htat process going

Did a can cruise. Snagged 20 of ‘em – and saw a big ol’ plastic bucket and thought, “A person can always use a big ol’ plastic bucket” – except this one still had its contents, except for the three or four 3-inch chlorine tablets that were on the ground next to it, killing hte grass rather thoroughly. I rode the five-mile loop around (confirming that yes, that half mile of Old CHurch Rd. East of Philo is still totally nasty gravel) and then put the stuff on the bike. We’ll see just how bleached the saddlebags get. Alas, I am reasonably sure that I touched enough of the stuff and touched my clothing that that particular black blouse will have bizarre and conspicuous white streaks after its next wash. I should hve changed to a cylcing t-shirt

I suppose now I’m ready for whatever natural disaster would mean I needed to purify water…

another urban homestead tangential link (I’m not lookin’ for ‘em, but they keep plopping by): http://quinceurbanhomestead.blogspot.com/

(and I am *not* going to raise chickens. I am allergic to feathers and it would trigger an entropy field the likes of which the planet cannot handle.)

And even more mainstream media going xtracycle at salon.com (which is so ad-infested I generally don’t bother going there). This fella from D.C. went the Xtracycle route and even got the blender

Maps are here!!In Urbana

Urbana City Building, 400 S. Vine
Urbana Public Works
Urbana Free Library
Strawberry Fields
Durst Cycle and Fitness, University Avenue
Urbana Business Association Office in Downtown Urbana
BikeWorks
Urbana Park District: Phillips Center, Nature Center, Administration Offices, and Maintenance Building
IMC (coming soon)
theBikeProject (coming soon)

In Champaign

Champaign City Building
Champaign Police Department (coming soon)
Champaign Public Library (information desk, 2nd Floor)
Champaign Public Library Douglass Branch (coming soon) and the Bookmobile
Durst Cycle and Fitness, S. Mattis
Champaign Cycle
Fiesta Café (at the intersection of the1st Street Bike lanes and White Street)

In Champaign CampusTown

That’s Rentertainment

“Time for a little fluff, because my ACHING legs will not allow me to do anything of substance. I am trying my very hardest to be one of those eco commuting biking chicks. For lots of reasons. I’m just fed up with the whole gas thing. Traffic in Seattle makes me homicidal. Parking makes me omnicidal (want to kill everything, not just people.) And, frankly, I’m vain as can be and want the hot bod that all that biking will give me. So, here’s some insight into being a successful cycling executive – specifically a CHICK.”
From Seattlepi .
I have to agree that what firmly plants some folks in the “cycling is a wonderful concept but beyond me” camp is the fundamental fear of Looking Silly – or of Being NOticeably Different … or being categorized as being in an “outlier” social group. (Of course, one person’s outlier is another person’s in group…)
Who knows, enough press like that and helmet hair could be the new “got milk” moustache

From today’s “Food for thought” that one of our English professors sends out… this is formal and tastes of testosterone and I still like it… it doesn’t necessarily say it’s a *good* thing ot be brave…

Let Each Man Remember

There is a terrible hour in the early morning
When men awake and look on the day that brings
The hateful adventure, approaching with no less certainty
Than the light that grows, the untroubled bird that sings.

It does not matter what we have to consider,
Whether the difficult word, or the surgeon’s knife,
The last silver goblet to pawn, or the fatal letter,
Or the prospect of going on with a particular life.

The point is, they rise; always they seem to have risen
(They always will rise, I suppose) by courage alone.
Somehow, by this or by that, they engender courage,
Courage bred in flesh that is sick to the bone.

Each in his fashion, they compass their set intent
To rout the reluctant sword from the gripping sheath,
By thinking, perhaps, upon the Blessed Sacrament,
Or perhaps by coffee, or perhaps by gritted teeth.

It is indisputable that some turn solemn or savage,
While others have found it serves them best to be glib,
When they inwardly lean and listen, listen for courage,
That bitter and curious thing beneath the rib.

With nothing to gain, perhaps, and no sane reason
To put up a fight, they grip and hang by the thread,
As fierce and still as a swinging threatened spider.
They are too brave to say, It is simpler to be dead.

Let each man remember, who opens his eyes to that morning,
How many men have braced them to meet the light,
And pious or ribald, one way or another, how many
Will smile in its face, when he is at peace in the night.

–Josephine Jacobsen (from In the Crevice of Time: New and Collected Poems, John Hopkins Press, 1995)