rail trail MD

I decided to scoot back from Baltimore Saturday so I could avoid the sloppy weather.  It prob’ly wasn’t too sloppy, but I figured the Sunday after T-day, everybody and her sister would be driving so all it would take would be one oopsie adn I’d sit for hours (though I had my usual handy supply of books, just in case, because of my Aversion to Being Stuck Somewhere with Nothing To Do). I couldn’t resist the signs for MD Rail-Trail and ducked off the road, even tho’ the sign said “8 miles,” which meant passing easily 50 trucks on the side of the road ’cause it’s a huge hunting day. I was glad I had my orange helmet cover, ’cause I didn’t have real bike stuff handy.

It’s a sweet trail (at least the 9 miles at the west end where I was); fully paved, well kept up with lots of descriptions of local landmarks. There were  other folks: parental-type units with a child, an “older couple” and two single riders. It was 40-something so the fact that my gloves were nowhere to be seen was only uncomfortable for a few minutes (and that other single rider didn’t have ‘em either ).  Turns out I left ‘em at Enterprise.

The rental is a cute red sporty thing so I figured I’d have to watch my speed more carefully, but now I understand that newspaper article about the guys who go for super-hgih mileage.  When the dashboard calculates it as you drive, a person could get inspired.  THanks to holiday traffic and a stiff tailwind I kept it over 40 mpg from the Continental Divide to here.

It’s Advent I’m endeavoring to be prepared (No, not per Tom Lehrer…)

This a.m. the snow greeted me and I instantly realized that I really didn’t need a new bolt (nut?)  for the front wheel of the Gazelle – that, whereas I don’t ride two bikes at a time unless it’s the Xtra and the Folder, I could borrow one.  Alas, though, the Gazelle is at the bike coop and nobody went there this weekend that I know of. I don’t even know what it’s called but it has a nice Gazelle on it, except it’s on the Xtra beause the one that had the SA for Sturmey-Archer went missing for that. Perhaps on the floor of the garage.

My camera manifest itself this morning – I have finally gotten accustomed enough to it to miss it (such as on the rail trail), tho’ it still takes a lot for me to actually get it out and use it.

I figured out how to do INternet on the Blackberry (when I went by the kiosk to let ‘em scan my driver’s license ) and it’s extra sweet to be able to access email and internet from Wherever, even if I do not ever want to type with it. I’m just a qwerty kind of girl. (And wherever doesn’t include everywhere, such as the mountains.)

Tomorrow it’s bringing the car back first thing (and getting my gloves) and seeing how those fat dahon tyres do on whatever is on the roads. If I were ambitious I’d switch tires to the fatter ones it came with, but such projects always take me much longer than they should and I”m still, um, right now, um, catching up on housekeeping (hence the long, procrastinatory post ).

Tomorrow is a new month!

Almost holidays

Tomorrow will be a driving day. I replaced my driver’s license today, being as it’s been AWOL for about 8 weeks.  It’s not like when my whole wallet was for … welp, enough time so that I felt a very small solidarity with undocumented citizens, since I had no ATM card and no ID for cashing checks so I had to be fairly creative about paying for the necessities of life.

It was relatively painless; the hoarse lady was impressed that I rode my bike to work regularly; the usual “that’s why you’re so thin!”  (which, by the way,  I’m not – honestly I can’t really use either the beer belly or the wine rack (PG-13) as my hydration devices… but as the t-shirt says “I’m not fat, I’m American!).  I called out the numbers for her

Bikejournal is back – I mean the whole thing and the forum too.  It’s *hard* to develop an online community.   Three weeks off… and folks are back.  LUrkers post “I didn’t realize how much I missed it!”  I missed it right away but was still surprised at how glad I was when it was back. Snork.

random web opinion gatherers

http://whitehouse2.org/priorities/649-bicycle-and-pedestrian-infrastrucure

So far people are opposed to making cycling infrastructure a priority.  I reckon they *don’t* believe that will solve our economic difficulties, end the wars (in victory of course!) and put an end to terrorism (oh, and uphold the constitution, too).

Bicycle Billboard

http://www.bikebillboards.blogspot.com/ – not the only reference to bicycle billboards.  Hmmm… so bikes *can* pollute – visually…

Took Gazelle to bike coop and put tube in the studded tyre and put it back on the bike.  (Swiped the tube for the Xtra when I kept killing tubes trying to get the silly Hard Case tire on the rim and learning that it’s better *not* to partially in flate the tube for that particular rim and wheel combo.)  Took an hour or two to get it done, between putting up the “twinkle tree” that I got at Meijer – no picture online that I can find.  It’s basically *just* the LED lights on slightly stiff wire so you can spread it out a little like a tree… *very* like that pathetic one in Charlie Brown Christmas.  The on switch is on the bottom, so taping it to the snapdeck wouldn’t work… so I took an old tube and used that to lash it down, and then realized that gosh, I could stick ornament hooks right into that tube and hang stuff on it.  No, I haven’t figured out how to turn the flash off on the camera even to attempt to take pcitures of lights but I’ll see what I can do when I have found some.  I found the big pink Christmas tree, but may forego getting out the floral wire and lashing that big boy down.  Might try to fashion a dove instead.

MUPs in Portland?

I cruised to http://bikeportland.org/index.php to see an all kinds of excited post about a proposed stretch of separate path for cyclists, comparing it to some lovely looking facilities in Copenhagen. I was getting happy, too… but then I kept reading and hearing that, well, it wouldn’t be *exactly* like those in Copenhagen and… they’re *thinking about* how to address conflicts with traffic and… welp… it sounds an awful lot like they’re going to have the equivalent of our Windsor path with the added confusion of parked cars on either side.

happy people don’t watch tv

Today’s “grand blanket statement of correlation” seen in the NY Times is that a consistent difference between self-described “happy” and “unhappy” people is that the unhappy ones watch more television, and the unhappiest ones watch the most.

It was duly noted that the factor contributing most to watching lots of television is not having a job… so there might be lots more tv watching in the future…

Yesterday was a 3-toot day.  9 o’clock arrival so more traffic, including a scurrying squirrelly pedestrian whose path probably wouldn’t have crossed mine, but she certainly didn’t so much as look down my side of the road.  She was probably listening hard, especially since she just about jumped out of her skin at the air horn tapped five or six feet from her. Then, approaching Mattis on Church a car was backing out and I thought, “even if she doesn’t see me, there’s another car coming, too” but toodled anyway on general principle.  At the light, I looked back at the van (“Slam 5″ on the vanity tags – um, yes, I think that’s what made me decide to toot anyway… something about the instant image it created) and she rolled down the window and I saw a tiny hand waving in the back seat… and she said somethign completely unintelligible but seemingly interregatory in a conversational tone.  I said “I just wanted to make sure you knew I was there,” and she much more intelligibly said, “I’m so *glad* you did that! Thank you!”  with an emphatic gesture, as the light turned green.

The third toot was returning on university – driver simply deciding that I wasn’t there after stopping at the stop sign and proceeding across University in what would have been my path.  My candy canes weren’t on, so I didn’t have side lights, and I wonder if that was a factor.

Then it was the CCB meeting, with an LIB conference call in between.  It was sweet to be able to step outside, pull up the email with the phone number and click to call.   More on that later…

19 degrees this a.m. so I did All Four Layers.  (Tights, ‘base layer,’ sweats and the smart-tex pants on the bottom, ‘base layer,’ fleece top, jacket and jacket on top; balaclava and hat under the helmet… and real socks under the squall shoes.)  Chilly digits for a little while but they got toasty.  Saw not a single cyclist (but it’s the early arrival, so there are generally fewer) but there was one completely headbare, relatively scantily-clad soul skateboarding down the middle of Race Street.  I have no idea.

Oh, and yesterday, for the third time, I went out to the bike to discover it was unfettered but undisturbed.  My keys and the lock were sitting in the bag, neglected.  Weekend goal:  get the stuff of life in its correct cubicles so that I forget less stuff

Economy Noatz

Gas down to $1.71

Stocks down under 7600.

Makes me want to go buy another house or something.

Marketing 101

Some people might think that Xtracycles are catching on because of changes in the economy and people’s attitudes towards cycling.  I propose that it is because they have *finally* taken my advice and improved their website    Today somebody asked about what kind of bike I rode to school and … welp, I had taken to googling Xtracycle images and showing them the picture of me that comes up fairly quickly, because the Xtracycle site, for years, had a lovely picture of… its inventors, standing there, with a lot of text talking about “you’re a ductape kind of guy…”

I really did email them occasionally about the matter.  Welp, now, they really do address the shopper. They say the stuff *I* say to people who are inquiring, and of course, I’m an expert Most importantly, they actually have a picture on the home page, front and center, of their product in use.

There’s still the culture gap problem.  I had some metamorphosizing to perform to understand the idea that not being able to take it off was a good thing,  because when you make that transformation to “the bike is how I get around,” you really do want to be able to carry stuff *whenever,* because unlike before the morphing, you really do ride the bike *whenever,* not just when you’ve planned and considered and decided that yes, you can do it.  And, conversely, it’s the Xtracycle that enables you to do that; you don’t *need* to plan and strategize as much.  Because you’ve been able to use it more, you ride more, so getting ready isn’t “planning,” it’s routine.

brisk and 22

They say the wind chill is 10 but that’s invalid whilst moving. Last night I had a “tailwind creep” ride – where I feel all creepy because it’s too quiet and I’m wafting along as if in a hot air balloon, except it’s too cold, too ’cause I would have to go too fast if I worked that hard. (Yes, having a working speedometer might help ’cause I would fixate on going faster… one of these days…)  I promptly had bad dreams that I dearly hope were a function of creep and not prescience.

Seeking driver’s license, so I cleaned off my whole desk, to the amazement of da boss. I told her I couldn’t do it without involving public safety, since in the process a book fell onto the phone, right on the 9-1-1 button and I had to explain the “nature of my emergency.”  I dare say sometimes it’s good to be a known space cadet DL still AWOL.  Okay, I promise not to stop straightening when I find it?

I seem to remember that when it was rully rully cold the signal at Church & Mattis automatically went to walk giving me lots mroe time.  It’s not really cold yet

Cranksgiving, yea :)

I was number 28 to register for “cranksgiving.”   I was curious about just what scavenger hunts entailed, and could see the appeal for ‘commuter type’ cyclists, even ones who aren’t guerrilla types (but especially those who are).  The area was split into four zones, and we had to go to one of the stores in each zone, get something for the food bank from the shopping list, and bring it back with receipts.  We had a good 16 miles of riding because the zones covered C-U.  I rode with Fred and Helen and Sonny and we weren’t going for speed at all.

We got back in oh, 3 1/2 hours with lots of stuff (an Xtracycle is a good thing on these ) and added our stuff to the well-stacked table.  There was a sprint contest and then the bikes came inside for assorted little handling contests.  My competitive vein was activated a little by the track stand contest once it was obvious it required quad muscles – but it would seem it would also require a fixie to really have fun with it, and I’m not ready to go there.

Was it anthropology or sociology that I was pondering, wondering about the “urban cycling culture”?    I don’t know if they all had fixies; perhaps fixies are the coalescing force that let “around town” cyclists find each other, since their interests are significantly different from touring riders… where do advocacy and/or critical mass fit in the mix?  Most importantly, what role  hats with ear flaps hats play?  I ordered mine ’cause I thought it was cute… what cultural message is it sending? I *did* think it was an anomaly, but now I realize it’s fashionable for somebody.  I wonder if the makers of the hats know who they are being sold to. The fact that I first called them tassled… then googled “ear flap hats” and found them… says they have  a niche, albeit perhaps fleeting.

Oh, my…. This picture makes me, honestly, want to take up knitting (which I did as a youth to reduce times sent to the office for misbehaving).