Your Tax Dollars At Work

Last Saturday was something of a novelty, a day free of obligations. For the last year and a half there have been pressing priorities, resulting from my father's deteriorating health, the decision to move him to a nursing home in northeast Iowa near one of my sisters, the need to move some of his possessions up there from Des Moines, to deal with the rest, to work on the house and sell it, to host his sister, my aunt, visiting from England. Much of this weighed heavily this past spring as my cycling buddy Paul and I worked on the house, starting in February, stripping wallpaper, ripping up carpet, painting, jacking up one settling floor, changing locks, all the details of an older house's need four hours from home. My last trip down was in early June and the house got listed, but then it was the bike races, not an obligation, but another event in a crowded spring.

It came to closure this past few weeks. The last Thursday in June my aunt arrived from the UK for her visit; the next day Dad's house sold, and I no longer had a real estate interest in Des Moines. Margaret's visit was two weeks long; as soon as she left, my mother in law arrived for a couple of days. She left, and a weekend loomed up with no obligations. Happily for me, the latest Harry Potter book was arriving. Henry rode up to the Har Mar Mall bookstore for the party and to buy the two copies we'd reserved; he rode home about 1:30AM and the next morning the household plunged into Pottermania. Nobody was even going to notice if I were gone.

I rode off east to start with, following a ride mapped on Map My Ride. It's 20 miles and passes near the house, so I thought I'd follow the eastern bits, not all of which I've ridden. I did this, riding down Summit to the end and decided I didn't want to go home yet, it was a gorgeous day and at home would be hungry cats and oblivious Potter-obsessed humans. I rode across the Lake Street brigde and up to the Midtown Greenway, and headed west.

At Hiawatha I was pleased to see that work is progressing on the bridge over Hiawatha, which will circumvent the current level crossing. Not only is work progressing, they were working on this lovely Saturday!

Your Tax Dollars At Work I


The cable support and crane for the Hiawatha Bridge.


The cable anchors on the west side.

The grading is looking done on the east side. It looks like this bridge might be open this fall.

I rode on. Is there anything more luxurious than a beautiful day, a lovely bicycle, and absolutely no agenda whatsoever? I rode to the end, then backtracked to the Cars'R'Coffins where I settled in to read a 'zine, drink a latte and consume a delicious ginger and currant scone.


Riding up Bryant Avenue there were new markings on the street. There's not room for bike lanes, but these get put down. I guess they've been trying them in some cities and they serve as useful reminders for motorists that bicycles are there and to cyclists which direction to ride (just tonight, coming home, I had to make room in my lane for a wrong-way cyclist). Plus they're cheap. It's the first time I've seen them in person.

I rode on, back to the Greenway, out to the end of the path, then back up the Kenilworth Trail. It leads to the Cedar Lake Bike Path and I've never ridden on this. I got on it and rode into Minneapolis.

I have to say, it's a pretty greasy way to enter Minneapolis. It goes by highways, past the impound lot, past vast dunes of sand the city keeps to scatter about in winter, growing a crown of weeds now, by piles of smashed concrete. Minneapolis is a lovely city in many parts, but the Cedar Lake Trail is not the way I'd bring in a first-time visitor!

Ominous signs loomed up. TRAIL CLOSED AHEAD. I idled up to the sign and peered on down around the bend. A young couple pulled up. Do you guys know if this goes through? I asked. One of our friends says it's ok said the young lady. I have no schedule, what can happen?, I ride a mile and have to turn back? I head on past the sign and the young couple follows.

The trail carries on for a mile or two, the scenery not improving, and finally does come up to a read end, another sign, but backed up by a fence next to a steep dirt hill leading to a parking lot behind a warehouse. The young lady, the couple having caught up, muscles her bicycle up the path. The young man gets a phone call and takes it and I head up the hill too, having noticed a grisly-looking homeless person watching us with interest. I hung around in the parking lot with the young lady and the homeless guy who kind of grunted at us and sidled off, until the young man showed up, then I clipped in and headed around the corner.

The fencing that ends the trail is blocking off the site of the Minnesota Twin's new ballpark. There is some pissing contest going on about the price of this unpromising-looking bit of real estate, the price having gone up once the Twins got interested, but despite the lack of resolution on price, work has started.

Your Tax Dollars at Work II


A panorama of the ballpark site.


It would be aggravating to work in the building in the background since there was a continuous headache-inducing pounding going on on the pilings in the foreground. Sure are a lot of construction guys working this lovely Saturday!

I was getting kind of hot so rode over to One on One Bicycle Studio, locked up, and got a cold drink and sat reading a book for a few minutes. I took my leave and rode home, stopping for a photo or two, idling along, up the Hendon hill off Como Avenue, cutting through the U of M Saint Paul campus only to find that I was locked out of the State Fairgrounds due to some event, backtracked, took Como Avenue home and arrived back before teatime. I popped my head into Geneva's room and she was crying into the book; the house orca had just died or something. Bummer. I couldn't think of anything appropriately soothing to say so just went back downstairs and put the water on.

It wasn't a fast ride, it wasn't a long distance (about 38 miles in the end and some pathetic average speed, par for the course when I'm exploring, lost or taking photos), there was absolutely no purpose to it at all, but it sure was delightful to just wander along without an agenda and follow my nose. For all their utility as transportation, bicycles are just plain fun as well. I hope I have more days like these, and I hope you do too.

Daily Reading

While I have been preoccupied the past month with various duties, visitors and trips, I have begun reading a couple of fun blogs pretty regularly. I really like the locally-done Pinch Flat News, which comments on bike industry trends and seems unduly hostile to folding bikes (I don't have one, but like the idea).

Separately, the New York-based Bike Snob NYC has a hilarious take on bicycle fashions, especially the Fixie Phenomenon. I can laugh at this with a clear conscience, never having had a fixie and having dispensed with singlespeed bicycles when I got my Columbia Tourist 3-speed for my tenth birthday. However, I can also recognize the passing fads of cycling when I see them and know that I haven't always been immune. When I was that age, it was lugged steel ten-speeds with too-high gearing and sew-ups. It's funny, and a bit rueful now, to look back and think that I couldn't possibly live without the superior handling of the silk tubulars whilst riding my bike to work at Sears.

2007:
Rational Observer: "But your bicycle has no gears or brakes."
Earnest Enthusiast: "Yeah man it's pure cycling and I have mad skillz and don't need gears or brakes."

1977:
Rational Observer: "But your tires are skinny, hard, fragile and expensive."
Earnest Enthusiast: "Yeah man but when you have exquisite cycling sensitivities such as myself you demand only the finest-handling gear to ride to work."

A rational look would have had me riding to work on a three-speed, probably, with the gear ratios knocked down a bit, but the early 20s are not a rational age and are informed by fashion, style and a painful earnestness. The crowning mercy for those of my vintage (nearing 50) is that we pretty much embarrassed ourselves among a limited circle of friends whereas now any clownish hipster can proclaim their painful earnestness and infatuated enthusiasms to The World on the web. This scrap of self-knowledge doesn't keep me from enjoying Bike Snob; take a look, you might like it too.

I've been workin' on the races

I worked on the 2007 Great River Energy Bicycle Festival/Nature Valley Grand Prix races last week. With a bit of effort they might be able to come up with a longer name! Here's how it went.
(Note: I actually am posting this July 16th, having just had a frantic couple of weeks with an aunt from England visiting, but I'm leaving the post date as the date I wrote most of this)(It may seem cheesy post-dating, but on the other hand all the camera crews filming this race do so for a program that won't air until August on the Poetry Channel (Verses)).

Wednesday June 20

It started Wednesday. My cycling buddy Paul rode up from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to work the races on his Stealth Bike (a black Nashbar cyclocross frame outfitted with virtually all black components). I figured he'd call or something when he got to downtown, but he didn't, so I went down in my truck at about 5:00 to do course-marshalling. Paul was already there, having arrived at about 1:00 and spent the afternoon setting up including doing the giant inflatable Wheaties box.

I checked in at the volunteer tent, was issued the standard orange vest, flag and whistle and sent to the northeast corner of Mears Park to be a course marshall. This is the fancy name for crossing guard and the main task is to keep onlookers from going onto the course in front of oncoming cyclists. The main challenge here can be on big open corners with lots of drunks, but this night the corner was just medium-sized (and we narrowed it down for the men's race for better crowd control) and the crowd was well-behaved.

This was my corner in Saint Paul. While standing here I saw a guy walk by with the best t-shirt of the entire five-day affair. On the back it said "The Older I Get, The Faster I Was".


Paul took this photo. The only thing notable about it is that I'm in it, corner marshalling on the left in the yellow shirt, olive shorts and white baseball hat.


I shared the corner with Nora.


Clouds threatened all evening, but it didn't rain until the teardown was nearly complete. It did rain and storm quite a lot elsewhere around East-central Minnesota this evening.


One of the women zooms past.

I figured we might get wet this evening as huge impressive clouds built up and moved around us, but all night long the weather held and the storms went elsewhere (tonight and Thursday the insurance company for which I work would get several hundred hail damage claims from north, south, east and west of Saint Paul) until well after the races were over. Once the men's race was done, I traded in the orange vest for a yellow one and worked on teardown duty which seemed to go pretty well. At about 10:00 we got done just as a thunderstorm finally hit downtown Saint Paul but it mostly just rained on us as we walked to the parking ramp to get the truck and go home.

This criterium was new to the Nature Valley Grand Prix. The last couple of years when I've worked multiple days on the event, the Wednesday Saint Paul race was a time trial along Shepherd Road. While pretty user-friendly for a time-trial (there is a parallel bike path along the whole thing), the race ran mid-day down the hill from downtown Saint Paul and attracted only very modest crowds. Time trials can be a bit dull, too, from an observer's point of view. The criterium format in the evening is much more of a crowd-pleaser, with the racers going round and round a course including Mears Park right in the core of downtown Saint Paul. This seemed to go very well.

Thursday June 21

Thursday Paul and I didn't work any races. We instead went to Cannon Falls to watch the road race. Cannon Falls is about 50 miles south of Saint Paul, so we just drove down. We went downtown and wathced the start of the men's race, then drove out into the country to catch them at a couple of spots. Last year we went to the transition from pavement to a couple of miles of gravel but this year the course was altered somewhat due to some highway construction on Highway 1.

The race leaders are presented at the start line in Cannon Falls.


Paul has actually met this guy. A couple of years ago Paul did a tour of the Tour of Georgia. They'd ride the course, travel in a bus with some racers, meet some afterwards. This guy was one of the racers on the bus. He had perhaps the best hair in the race.

Once again, weather threatened. There were dark clouds and even cumulus mammulus overhead but it never did rain. In fact, compared to last year's heat and brutal wind out of the south, the occasional breath of wind and cool overcast skies made for a delightful evening to ride 60 miles in 2 hours and 21 minutes, which is what the men did.

The lead police car ahead of the racers.


The peloton heads through the corner.


Hey! A guy racing on a steel-framed bike! Of course, he is well-behind the peloton, looking hopefully back.

We caught them at a couple of places and waited for the women to come along as well. There were dark hints of gravel again this year, and word out that a couple of women had crashed in the practice ride and that the women anyway had agreed to take it easy on the gravel, but nobody seemed to know where it was. I had my trusty DeLorme map with the course highlighted (as well as last year's, so I could compare and contrast) and once the women had gone by, Paul and I headed back to town. The men weren't due for a bit, so I idly drove through town and out onto a county road and, Bingo!, the gravel! It was just a short stretch, right before coming into Cannon Falls, and on a road that's normally closed off.

Dramatic clouds, often associated with violent weather, above the course.

There was just one guy there, and when the race came he was going to have to pull fencing across the road, stop traffic and direct racers. This seemed like a lot to do for one guy, so Paul and I donned our vests and helped him.


The men's peloton approaches the gravel.


The men transition to the gravel. This would be pretty short; last year it was a couple of miles.

The men came by and made the transition without incident. We reopened the road and stood around talking with this gentleman, a retired malted barely salesman. Apparently there was a big barley malting operation in Cannon Falls at one time and Goodhue County had been a big producer of barley for malting and thence beermaking. Budweiser one day dropped their business and the operation never really recovered, and eventually shut down. We chatted about a bankrupt development across the street, landscaped, roads, lights and sewers, but lots of problems with the soil which is full of blue clay and causes heaves in the roads and disrupts foundations, I guess.

About 50 minutes after the men came through the lead vehicles came into view and we again dragged out the fencing, stopped traffic and pointed down the road. The women made the gingerly transition to gravel and disappeared over the hill. The support cars and motorcycles all came through, a couple of stragglers, and we reopened the road. The volunteer guy's car wouldn't start, a dead battery, and we didn't have jumper cables, and his OnStar wouldn't work in the car because of the low battery, and his OnStar number was busy from his cellphone, so we promised to stop back after dinner to make sure he was ok, and went into town. The Mill Street Cafe or something like that is where we ate, good beer and mediocre food (at least the bourbon marinade salmon sounded much better than the overcooked fish we got), and then popped back out to see if the volunteer guy was ok. He was gone, as was the fencing. Just out of curiosity, I drove up the gravel road to see where it came out, but the chain that closes it off was already back across the road and I had to go out the way I came in. We headed on home.

Friday June 22

Friday started off with the Time Trial. This was run in Saint Paul, but instead of sending them down main artery Shepherd Road (there was at least one complaining letter to the editor about this last year), it was on the south side of the river starting under the High Bridge and running along Lilydale Road to the Saint Paul Yacht and Pool club. This is a very un-busy road and its main defect as an event venue was that there isn't a continuous bike path alongside so that you can ride down to the end from the start line. At one point the road jogs under what used to be a railway bridge (the short bridge is gone, but the approach trestle is still there), then down a hundred yards and across a small bridge. There is a bike path up to the trestle crossing and then after the small bridge, but that's a hazardous gap in between with the racers coming out every 30 seconds and no clear view through this jog.

The women were already racing when Paul and I showed up on our bicycles about 9:00. When this had been the first event, the order was pre-established. Now that the Saint Paul criterium and Cannon Falls road race were under their belts, there was a General Classification order and the judge was having trouble making herself heard. I asked if she wanted help getting racers up to the start and she said no. A few minutes later number 11 barely made it, rushing past the line, up to the start, and stabilizing for maybe 10 seconds before being launched off on her run.


Kristin Armstrong starts her time trial. She'd be back 10 minutes 24.36 seconds later, well ahead of the others. She would also win the whole Grand Prix by the end of Sunday.

With not much to do, Paul and I watched the women go. We drank some free coffee and laughed at ourselves: You know, without dedicated volunteers like our noble selves, who would make these events possible by standing around drinking free coffee? We wandered down to the trestle. We stayed here quite a while as the men went by. There is a bit of abandoned roadway that bears left and it turned out to be a handy place to pee and also it led past some trash to a path down to near the stone bridge. I took some photos there, then helped a bunch of the women racers in getting across the road and down the course to where the bike path resumes.


Riders going both ways. The abandoned railway trestle ends on the right, a judge guy with a radio checks off riders in the middle, and two inbound riders come through the swerve as an outbound rider heads west. That's an abandoned generating plant across the Mississippi, in the background, and an active grain elevator.


Two riders inbound over the narrow bridge.


Three riders coming through the road bend. I'm not sure who's the hunter and who's the prey here, but someone's having a bad time.

After a while I went back to the trestle. One of the motorcycle guys pulled off and parked. He said one rider had a deer run across the road just in front of him. He couldn't tell from behind quite how close it had been but it looked close, he said. A judge was across the road checking off riders on a list. He had a radio and would let us know how far along we were. The last five men went at one minute intervals. Once the last of them came by we rode back to the start/finish line, parked the bikes, and worked on teardown. This went quickly; there was only a bit of white fencing up. About 12:30 or so Paul and I rode off and headed home.

We packed some lights for the bikes, raingear, a snack or two, and rode off to downtown Minneapolis to help on setup for the Friday evening Criterium there. We couldn't go through the Fairgrounds due to a big Back to the '50s event complete with lots of old cars

I rode Paul past a bunch of the landmarks for my usual cycling rounds; the entrance to the Intercampus Transitway, the Raymond Street turnoff, past Muffaletta where I took girls other than my wife on dates as far back as 1984, down Como, over the Talmadge St. level crossing the railway wants to dump, over the Stone Arch Bridge and through downtown Minneapolis. We got to the Volunteer Tent erected on Nicollet Mall just outside the Dakota, locked our bikes up to one of the tent poles, put on the reflective vests, ate a sandwich and then looked around for the fencing truck.

One of the coordinator guys came up. You guys looking for something to do? Yep, I said, we're looking for the fencing truck. You wanna do sandbags? Sandbags? Nope!

This is the third year I've taken time off from work to work these races, and a couple of years before that I just course-marshalled the Friday night Minneapolis Criteriums (Criteria?), and I have figured out what I like to do and what I don't. I'm happy as a clam with the fencing truck, whether pulling fencing off and setting it up, or taking it back down. It's a lot of work, as with many simple tasks there are a couple of tricks to it, but when you get the experienced volunteer group, it all happens in an unspoken coordinated fashion from which I derive some satisfaction. I don't mind taking down the start/finish structure, I don't mind cutting the zip ties to remove the sponsor banners, I did CAUTION taping for the first time this year and that was OK, and course marshalling is fun. However, there are some things I don't like. Sandbags is one of them, I'm 6'5" tall and have a sometimes-wonky back, the last thing I need is to be bending over and lifting damn sandbags all over the place. The same goes for banners; I'll happily snip them off the fencing and even brought along two pairs of wire cutters to do it with, these things being at a real premium at teardown time, but you need to find someone shorter and younger to roll the damn things up. I'm not fond of collecting the haybales, either. There's nothing wrong with these jobs, mind you, I just don't like 'em. Sandbags? Not just No but Hell No! Where's the fencing truck?

I found it. We don't get to close off the streets until 6:00PM but a lot of the white fencing can be set up alongside the streets and pulled into place when the time comes. During this period it rained. It always rains on the Minneapolis Criterium Friday. I put on my comical Ortlieb Waterproof Hat and my raincoat and we set up fencing in the rain. Last year there was lightning and hail and it rained later and delayed or shortened the races. That storm during teardown was of epic proportions and I have never been so wet without actually going swimming. This year the rain all fell during setup. I went to get the raingear and found the Volunteer Tent was draining about a quarter of its rainfall collection onto our bicycles, including Paul's 1973 and my week-old Brooks saddles. I put a garbage bag over them. Can't possibly let a Brooks get wet, you know, might shrink or dissolve or something, so They say. We got all the fencing out in place and Paul and I mooched a Buy One Get One Free Caribou coupon out of a volunteer swag bag and went to Caribou and had a cup of coffee.

Did it rain? Is the pope Catholic? This is the Minneapolis criterium, of course it rained! Not during the race, though, just during setup. Here are some of the Minneapolis skyscrapers wreathed in clouds as the rain cleared.


Some of the crew working in the rain. We're moving the fence truck to another part of the course.


Andy's the coordinator for a couple of these races. A spot of rain's not going to slow him down!


Andy may be in charge but that doesn't exempt him from helping! Here we're setting up in front of the Hell's Kitchen restaurant on 10th Street. You can see one of the loathsome sandbags on the right.


Setting up fencing is a two-person operation--pick it up, install the feet as you walk into position, hold them in place until the fence is down.

Emerging, one of the leaders asked if we'd do CAUTION taping. I don't know, I've never done it, I can think of no reason not to, it's not like it's stinkin' sandbags. Sure. He gives us 3,000 feet of CAUTION tape, says we need some sort of dispenser (you can buy nice ones for about $9 but we made do with a course marshall flag pole) and said to tape both sides of the street. Paul and I walked off full of swagger and confidence only to discover that we weren't sure exactly where the course went. Hmmm, we could sent them down the I-394 entrance ramp, never to be seen again! We walked back and found another volunteer coordinator and confirmed where the course was supposed to go, then spent a happy 45 minutes running CAUTION tape from light pole to parking meter to flower planter. It's no white fencing, but it was OK. I'd do it again.

By the time we reported back the course marshalls had already been dispatched around the race course. We put on orange vests, collected flags and a whistle (I still had mine from Wednesday, although it turns out they run them all through a dishwasher each night) and walked back up the north side of the course with all the lovely CAUTION taping. At one intersection there were a couple of uncertain-looking marshalls, both newbies, it turned out, so Paul took one side and I the other and spent the races helping out. Crowds were nice again, once again I was on an inside corner, a couple of times we had to move people back a bit, but I also had the pleasure of lining up kids (stand right there and don't move!) so they could see the racers go zooming past.

Races over, we went back, changed into yellow vests and went to work. I cut banners with my handy side-cutters for a while as a guy came along rolling up behind me, an ideal situation, then the fencing truck showed up and Paul and I spent the rest of the night pulling in fencing. Once that was in, and the finish line thing was down and apart, we unlocked the bikes from the Volunteer Tent, helped take it down, looked longingly at the lovely rare beef and large glasses of wine being eaten by the beautiful people in The Dakota (wanna trade for some peanut butter Nature Valley granola bars?) and rode off. We stopped by One on One for a short time, talking to Gene and drinking a beer and a half, the half being half a can each of Surly's Furious which I found annoyingly hoppy. I've made beer before, this stuff made me wonder if the guy tripped and dumped a whole bucket of hops in the brewpot instead of a cup and just said screw it, let's bottle it, maybe someone'll buy it. Paul figured Gene was happy to see us since that made him the third oldest guy there. We chatted with some of the kids back there who all seem really young, just out of college, first jobs, fixies, full of the joys of life, younger by a decade than Paul's saddle or my front hub. We rode on home and turned in.

Saturday June 23

Saturday, no bike races. It's in Mankato and I've never gone down to see those. However, we did some planning. Paul's off to the Boundary Waters with the Boy Scout troop his son is in next week, and the forecast the next couple of days was hot and winds out of the south. On Saturday I suggested he take the train to Winona or La Crosse and ride from there--the eastbound train is a 7:50AM departure (if it's on time). He decided this was a good idea, it pares 100 miles off the ride on a day that promised heat and headwinds.

There was one issue: Amtrak wants you to box the bicycle. This seems silly, it's just Saint Paul to Winona, the next baggage stop down the line. Maybe he could talk them out of it. Paul shaved ("I do it once a week whether I need it or not") so he'd look respectable and we popped by the Amtrak station to see if he could just do a roll-on, roll-off, not disassemble and box the bike. Nope. You know, it's just the next stop, and I'll be riding it away. No, sorry.

Bummer. On some routes, Amtrak has a program (Bikes on Board) where you can do this, and it would be great from here east, where the luggage stops are Winona, La Crosse, Madison, Milwaukee and Chicago. But they don't offer it (yet--I think I'm going to write Amtrak and my Congressman and inquire about this).

We went to find a bike box. My first thought was Erik's in Rosedale. I find Erik's a really boring bike store and I change radio stations when and Erik the Bike Man commercial comes on, but they are large and must sell tons of bikes, so they ought to have boxes. Nope. You have to reserve one. They get bikes in twice a week and immediately recycle the boxes unless you reserve one, so they have a modest collection off to one side but they're all for specific people. We hadn't reserved any of Erik's garbage, so next came County Cycles at Lexington and C2. I like these guys, and sure enough, they had a box Paul could have for free.

Paul was impressed with County Cycles. People are impressed with bike stores for funny reasons. With Paul, it was because they had:

1. Individual tire patches. He needed a couple.


2. Individual allen wrenches. Need only a 3mm? You can get it here.


3. A big spoke display of different sizes out in the open along with...


4. rims. No tubular rims, but still, they did have...


5. a selection of tubular tires.
   

Oh sure, they had bikes too, but it's the details that differentiate a cool bike shop from a boring one.

Anyway, we went home and worked on packing the bike into the box. It was enough of a squeeze that I wonder what I'll do with my enormous Atlantis. Still, we got it in and taped it up.

Sunday June 24

So Sunday we got to the train station about 6:45AM to check the bike in. We'd been warned to do it early because of all the extra handling. The train was running late, so we got a coffee and then I drove Paul around, showing him the Midtown Greenway both east and west of Hiawatha, the Short Line Bridge and the Hiawatha bridge a-building over the road and light rail tracks.

Back to the station, where we poked around a bit. Security's a bit loose, and we looked at the train cars sitting around until some lady came out and yelled at us. Then the train showed up. Paul got in line to board, I took a couple of photos of the luggage car getting loaded, and off I went home.


If you've read my Lake Pepin Three Speed Tour write-up, I mention at the very end seeing a cool custom railcar go by on the end of the Amtrak train. This is the car, I'm certain of it. It must be quite a view out of this car!


Paul's from Cedar Rapids, and that's what the car is named.


The logo would make a great headbadge!


Paul's bike on the luggage cart on the right, waiting to get loaded. The annoying thing about this photo is that he had to box his bike but on either side of the door of the luggage car is a bicycle logo; this car is equipped with hooks for roll-on, roll-off Bikes on Board service! Grrrrrr!


Tell me again why I have to box up the freakin' bike when you have bike logos all over your Baggage Car????


The train sets off to Winona and points east and south.


In the Amtrak parking lot was a bike with this unusual display of what gear you're in. I suppose people in the bicycle business would know what this is and when it's from, but I've never seen it before.

I changed into biking gear, got out the Atlantis and rode to Stillwater. This was 21 miles and I hadn't been out for several years. I liked the new underpass at County 12 and the Gateway Trail, much safer than the old level crossing. I was overtaken by many people along here including one large group that refreshed my memory on how much faster it is to ride in a crowd than it is solo, which I virtually always do. They caught me about half a mile from County 12 and for a brief time I was suddenly faster. I don't ever ride in groups, and I'm not sure of the etiquette; could I just ask to join them? I was uncharacteristically bashful, they moved onto the road at 12 while I took the bike path and I watched them ride away and disappear from view as I lumbered along solo. I might have to try some group rides.

Once I'd plunged down the hill into Stillwater I was starved and ate one of the volunteer ham sandwiches. I pretty much lived on free sandwiches, Nature Valley granola bars, Sport Beans and Cokes during these volunteer stints. The women's race was already in progress and I was due to relieve a course-marshall at 1:30. My position was pointed out to me; it was right by the Expo where the racers would start, in full sunlight. The past couple of years I've been up on the brutal but shady Chilkoot Hill at the top of which lies the finish line. That's OK, I slathered myself in sunscreen, suited up with shirt, vest and whistle, and took over.


Oh No! Look Out! This camera (a Kodak V705) does in-camera panoramas, but there's a bit of delay between each shot. The result is this three-shot, left-to-right image, what looks like a soon-to-be-fatal breakdown of course-marshalling as the unsuspecting pedestrians on the left are in dire peril of getting hit by the zooming racers on the right.


The racers gathered at the start. The guys with the rope set the front row, which was widely ignored, and here are trying to gather up their rope while the men's field bakes at the start line.


This guy's chain came off partway up the hill and he couldn't get it back on. He coasted back down and a mechanic works furiously on it. He got going again, but only after the peloton came by, leaving him a lap back. In a race where the judges began pulling racers two laps in, this probably wasn't good news for him.

It was easy course-marshalling, the crowds mostly having gathered up on the hill. The racers all assembled right there in front of me and I could see them getting pulled, some as early as two laps into the race. It went on for an hour; 45 minutes at speed, then 5 laps declared and counted down. The field was winnowed severely, probably more than half pulled by the judges. With two laps to go there was a crash at the corner near me, one guy running wide into the fence, another crashing trying to miss him, another hitting him and flipping over the bars. There was nothing for me to do; other marshalls, a race judge and a cop ran over, a couple of marshalls waved their flags at oncoming racers who couldn't see the fallen riders, but in a couple of minutes it was all cleared out and the race carried on to its conclusion, cheering and excitement up the hill, some uncertainty about whether the racers would be back, and after a few minutes, everyone began milling about, cleared out briefly for a kids race.

The same routine; switch vests, spend some time snipping down sponsor banners, then look for the fencing truck (of course, it was up the damn hill which is hard to walk up, never mind ride) and set off after it. By the time I got there it had moved on and I helped disassemble the finish line scaffolding, then the truck showed back up with only two people aboard, woefully shorthanded, so I joined them and spent the rest of my time taking in fencing.


Man, this was hot. I eventually went and sucked down a couple of ice waters, then rejoined the teardown efforts.

About 5:00, the fencing in, me wilting in the sunlight and heat, I turned in my vest, drank some water, mounted up and rode off. I thought about a beer and snack along the river, but wasn't really that hungry yet, so set off up the hill out of town.


Since I was last out this way, the Gateway Trail got an underpass under County 12, much safer than a level crossing. It's shared with a horse trail, as you might see.

This hill isn't as steep as the one on the race course, but it was all I could do to slog up the bloody thing. I found myself getting hungry for something other than Sport Beans and granola bars and came across a farm selling strawberries. I bought a pint and sat in the shade at a picnic table and ate the lot. Ahhhh, much better! I rode on home, County 12 to the Gateway Trail, that to Arlington, then surface streets home, not riding very quickly, and arrived right at 7:30, tired, grubby and hot, to take a lovely shower and change.

Another race set over. It's a lot of hard work even as a lowly volunteer, but it's also a pretty satisfying time. I don't regularly do much in the way of physical labour and there's a refreshing simplicity to dealing with fencing and CAUTION tape and sponsor banners and even to course-marshalling with it's opportunities for public interaction. The races are good fun to watch, and they're satistying to work. You might consider doing one or both next year.

Great River Energy Bike Festival

The Great River Energy Bicycle Festival/Nature Valley Grand Prix bike races are coming up. This is a series of five races running Wednesday June 20th through Sunday June 24th. I volunteered as a crossing guard and for setup and teardown in the past, including last year's Minneapolis Criterium, cut short by thunderstorms with teardown in belting cold rain. My buddy Paul rode up last year and is doing so again this year. We're volunteering at the Wednesday Criterium (changed from the Time Trials they've done on Wednesdays in the past) in Saint Paul, Friday afternoon's Time Trial in Saint Paul (along Lilydale Road this time) and Friday evening's Criterium in Minneapolis (will it rain again? good chance!). Paul's heading back Sunday, but I'll be at the Sunday afternoon Criterium in Stillwater with its brutal hill climbs. I think they still need volunteers, so if you have an interest, go to the site's Volunteer Page and sign up. Setup and teardown are pretty easy and being a crossing guard is straightforward. I personally take along foam earplugs (stacking the metal fencing in teardown Friday evening can leave your ears ringing), leather gloves and a pair of diagonal cutters, useful for snipping the sponsor banners' Zip-ties off the fencing. Sunscreen is good, raingear has been essential.

On the off-days, we're just going to hang out. We'll probably go down to Cannon Falls to watch (and not work on) the road race. The race loop is such that you can catch several bits of the race by moving around a little.

Volunteering isn't too hard, you get a good view of the race and, if you see Paul and I around, you can join us for a beer afterwards.

Great Moments in Bicycle Mechanics, or, my Atlantis 3-speed

As a self-taught bicycle mechanic of middling ability I have learned from many mistakes, both mine and others', over the years. Oh those fond memories of carefully repacking the bottom bracket only to find a ball bearing left over, the tremendous stopping ability of a brake block carefully adjusted to grab the tire or, my favorite, the surprise of discovering that the left pedal is left-hand threaded after a wrestling session involving two guys, a big wrench and a pipe. Happily, that last one happened to a couple of friends of mine and not to me, and they eventually gave up and took it to the bike shop where the mechanic got if off, though not before asking what sort of gorilla had installed it. You'd think that eventually every iteration of error would have been made but, no, there's always new frontiers.

Last night I installed a Pletscher/ESGE two-legged kickstand on my Atlantis. I got tired of my best bike having the worst kickstand and really like these two-legged units. I meticulously installed it, measured, cut off some of each leg, reinstalled, re-measured, trimmed off a bit more. No, the obvious error of cutting the legs too short so they dangle helplessly from the bottom bracket 10mm off the ground wasn't my problem. I got them trimmed to the right length, carefully installed the kickstand, rode it around the driveway and packed up for the night.

So today I'm riding to work, taking the Atlantis because the big blue Chatsworth is having some fiddly clearance issues with the fenders, and I go to shift with my excellent Dura-Ace bar-ends and....nothing. The lever will hardly move. I stare down at the crankset as I ride along and realize that, yes, I have carefully and meticulously clamped my rear derailleur cable to the chainstay along with the kickstand! D'Oh!

I rode along. This wasn't a critical service item, no need to return home and drive. This must be what singlespeeds are like. I kept peddling. At least it's in a decent gear--a lot of the time I shift to the largest cog as I wallow through the yard from the back gate. I wonder if I can shift chainrings...yes, I can. Hey! It's a three-speed!

I pulled off at the Lake Josephine changing house to see if I could loosen the clamp and free the cable but the 6mm allen wrench on my cute little Crank Bros. multi-tool won't reach in there. I also have a small allen wrench set, but it stops at 5mm. I really must rethink my field service tools! I rode on to work and parked it, and will ride home tonight on what may be the world's only three-speed Atlantis before making the needed repairs.

You Can't Spell Carnage without Car

One of the aspects of motor vehicles that isn't often remarked upon is the number of deaths we accept each year for our convenience. In 2005, the last year for which figures are fully compiled, 43,443 people died in motor vehicle crashes, an average of 119 a day. On average, then, it takes about 3 1/2 weeks to kill as many people in motor vehicle crashes as died in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Those attacks have dramatically altered our country's behaviour, reputation, finances and politics, yet the death toll continues to tick upwards on our roads with hardly any comment. It is so widely accepted as part of life that it seems we all know somebody killed in a car crash (one of our old employees' sons was killed a few days ago in Boston, a passenger in a taxi rammed into by a car being chased by police) or someone who has killed someone in a car crash (Laura Bush, for instance). In among the dead are 750+ bicyclists a year and around 4,800 pedestrians, though I think this undercounts pedestrian deaths.

Since I work for an insurance company, I get the industry rags that come around. Most of it is dull stuff, new insurance commissioners, competitor filings in different states, ongoing industry debates about various lines, but the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety does a number of good publications. They have just released a special Status Report called One Day of Crashes, which looks in detail at several of the crashes that killed people on Tuesday June 7, 2005. June 7 was chosen because 119 people were killed that day, the average daily total in a year with a low of 67 deaths (February 17th) to a high of 197 (June 25th). As it happens, there were no motor vehicle deaths in Minnesota that day, though there were two each in Wisconsin and Iowa.

The first death that day was at 12:05AM in Mooresville, Indiana, when a 16-year-old driving 90mph lost control, hit several trees and ended up upside-down. His father came across the wreck on the way to work and identified his son in the car. He is interviewed for the article and you can feel the unspeakable grief coming through. There are several other crashes detailed, ending with a newly-married couple clobbered by a drunk Marine in a pickup who ran a red light in Arlington, Texas and the final death of the day, when a motor scooter in Fort Worth ran into the side of a tractor-trailer at 11:55PM.

One story is a bicyclist death, one of four that day. A 61-year-old woman in Ocean Springs, Mississippi was riding her bike home from Wal-Mart when she was hit from behind by a Ford pickup driven by a 75-year-old man. He didn't stop until a policeman who'd seen the collision pulled him over. He claimed not to have seen the cyclist. There were 782 bicyclists killed in crashes with motor vehicles in 2005. Most died of head injuries, and 86% of those killed were not wearing helmets.

Another is a pedestrian death. An 83-year-old woman was crossing the street on a Walk signal when she was hit by a 74-year-old man in a Lexus SUV. The driver said he didn't see the pedestrian until his wife pointed her out and, startled, his foot slipped off the brake and onto the accelerator. The SUV lurched into the woman and she died of head trauma, one of 8 pedestrians killed that day, one of 4,881 killed in 2005.

It makes an illuminating litany of the daily carnage with all the usual causes; teenage stupidity (driving fast, no seat belts, inexperience), drunkenness and running red lights (the Marine t-boning the couple), inattention (two sleepy truck drivers, one runs off the road and kills himself, another runs at 53mph into the back of a stopped car and kills the driver), bad luck (the motorcyclist hitting a cow in the dark, a couple killed when a car crossed the centerline and hit them), speeding (a factor in nearly 1 in 3 fatal crashes), older drivers (75-year old hits cyclist, 74-year old hits pedestrian). They are often referred to as accidents, but many are not, they are behaviours people consciously choose. For all the motorist ire about cyclists always running stop signs and red lights, it is the ubiquitous speeding, cell phone talking, red light running, drunkenness and inattention which kills people by the score every single day. Yes, I know, I'm too important to obey those dreary speed limits, this phone call demands my immediate attention, that was close enough to a stop, I didn't drink that much, I am too important to be inconvenienced by legal behaviour and if more than 40,000 people a year have to die because of it, so be it.

You can read the IIHS Status Report here if you're interested.

In the meantime, be careful out there.

Three Speed Tour, Three Music Events

Last weekend was the Lake Pepin Three Speed Tour. It was great fun. It took me a few days to get my account and photos posted, but they are up now and can be read here. I went as the Quicker Vicar this year and even ran a short service in the parking lot before we set off. Here I am Sunday in Old Frontenac:


When I'm not out in public as a Vicar (ordained in the online Universal Life Church!), I actually sing in the church choir directed by my wife. We're in the rotation for the Lake Harriett Bandshell service and our Sunday is this one, at 10AM. If you're in the area, stop by, and hear us sing. It's not as traditional as The Blessing of the Bicycles and in fact we're singing some pretty catchy tunes.

Sunday afternoon there's a benefit for Chris Zito, who was hit and badly injured by a hit-and-run motorist on March 30th. The benefit is Sunday the 27th starting at 3:00 at the Nomad World Pub on the West Bank of Minneapolis. There's a ride to the Nomad World Pub originating at Minnehaha Coffee (4554 Minnehaha Avenue) in Minneapolis at 2:00, there's music, there's food, there's beer.

Finally, next Saturday, June 2nd at 7PM, my son Henry and the Minnesota Boychoir are singing with the Twin Cities Gospel Choir. They'll be at University Lutheran Church of Hope at 601 13th Avenue SE in Minneapolis. It ought to be a cookin' concert.

I Did My Part

There has been an email going around suggesting that we all boycott buying gasoline on May 15 to bring the oil companies to their knees and compel them to reduce the price to $1.30 a gallon, where it apparently belongs. Well, dubious though I may be about these efforts, I dutifully did my bit and didn't buy any gasoline yesterday. Due no doubt to you petrol-buying slackers, these efforts appear to have been for naught. Oh well.

I did go to the Saint Paul Bicycle Advisory Board Bike Summit down by Boca Chica. It was ill-attended, probably due to the lack of publicity. I think my blog entry was about the most obvious announcement of the meeting, so the handful of non-BAB, non-presenters at the meeting was a disappointment compared to last autumn's 100 or so attendees. This session was really looking for comments on the bicycle portion of the transportation plan, not as open-ended a discussion as at last fall's Summit. There was some discussion of the power of the railroads in the context of the Midtown Greenway (which is now looking to build its own Mississippi River bridge rather than share the railroad's existing Short Line bridge), the Saint Paul part of the Greenway and the powerlessness to do anything about the Raymond Street bridge, which has a fairly horrid bend in the road and blind spot.

One interesting discussion during the break was with the City of Saint Paul engineer talking about Stop signs. Apparently, most residential streets used to have no Stop signs, they were uncontrolled intersections. The resulting accidents prompted the city to put in Stop signs on what he called a basketweave pattern, e.g., one every two blocks in opposite directions. Accident figures dropped, everyone was happy. Now, as time has gone on, people have become used to these signs and, as I noted in a recent entry, don't really stop, but slow down, take a quick look, and roll on through. By people, I mean motorists, not just cyclists. Accident rates at these intersections are now back to pre-Stop sign levels plus the city has got the cost of installing and maintaining all these signs. One proposal is to make all these intersections four-way stops which means, as one citizen apparently put it, it takes two idiots instead of one to cause an accident. This of course chops up travel even more--stopping (or pretending to) every block instead of every two, and is twice the number of signs that the city has to install and maintain and undoubtedley people will adapt to this, roll through these as well and, after an initial drop in accidents, no doubt the rate will creep back up.

I noted that there are some uncontrolled intersections in residential Minneapolis and I always creep up to them, afraid of someone barrelling down the opposing road. The engineer guy said that is often the case, that the responsibility is on the drivers and they take extra care. He said often as not, the safest bits of the highway are those known as Dead Man's Curve or Suicide Hill because everyone knows they're dangerous and takes extra care. Uncontrolled intersections are the same; people are cautious because they don't know what to expect.

In the insurance industry, we've seen the same sort of effect with anti-lock brakes. When they first came out, the assumption was this wonderful technology would make driving safer. In fact, the loss experience for ABS-equipped and non-ABS equipped automobiles is virtually identical. Where once, pre-anti-lock brakes, you'd creep gingerly up to icy intersections ready to pump the brakes, now you just zoom right up and stomp on the pedal, knowing the clattery ABS noises will keep you from locking up your wheels. It's been noted that people would drive a lot differently if there was a pointy metal spike sticking out of the steering wheel rather than a pillowy airbag. They'd drive differently if residential intersections were all uncontrolled, too.

It's been done. Here's a brief excerpt from an article about it:

Hans Monderman, the pragmatic Dutch planner who was one of the first to introduce the naked streets concept in Holland, reorganized streets so that cars had to proceed as cautiously as pedestrians. Drachten, a city of 45,000 people, has removed more than 80 percent of its traffic lights and more than half its road signs under Monderman’s guidance: the number of accidents has dropped dramatically. “I am used to it now,” Drachten resident Helena Spaanstra told one newspaper. “You drive more slowly and carefully, but somehow you seem to get around town quicker.”

This also ties into another bike program, the Share the Road signage. Saint Paul has Share the Road signs on a number of streets, which is good I guess, but many have their own poles and, speaking as someone who lives on a busy street, I'd be really annoyed if someone came along and slapped a pole in my front yard with a Share the Road sign on it. I was relieved a couple of years ago when some motorist crashed through our telephone pole, mailbox and street sign into our lilac hedge (then, in true motorist fashion, left the vehicle and ran off into the night). The power company replaced the telephone pole, I fixed the mailbox (which has since been hit again, again by someone who took off) but I just cut off the bent-over street sign and it was never replaced, which made me happy. I hate to say this, but I think Share the Road signs are just more visual clutter, something we can do with less of rather than more.

I rode to the Summit on my Atlantis dressed in regular work clothes--dress slacks, dress shoes, white shirt, tie. It was a good evening for this, as riding there involved a ferocious tailwind and 200 foot drop in altitude, and the wind was mostly gone by the time I rode home. I did pass a couple of Mormon missionaries proselytizing some guy at a bus stop. They, too, were on bicycles, with helmets, in white shirts, ties, dress slacks and shoes. This makes the Dressed Up Cyclist the perfect cycling uniform--if you overtake a slower cyclist, it's extra-humiliating for them to be overtaken by a guy in a tie; if you get overtaken, well, it was just some guy all dressed up, who couldn't overtake someone like that?; and strangers won't bother you for fear of being recruited into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Cyclists. When I told my wife that I looked like a Mormon missionary she pointed out that, no, they're usually young and attractive. Ouch.

Bikey Week

There are a couple of bicycling-related things going on next week that may be of interest. First, for Saint Paul cyclists or those who have an interest, the Saint Paul Bicycle Advisory Board's revised Saint Paul Bicycle Transportation Plan is going to be presented for public comment on Tuesday May 15 from 6:30 to 8:30 at the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center for Community Building, 179 Robie Street East, Saint Paul. There is a link to the plan and map at the Midway TMO website, look at the upper right. In the way that these things work, this plan has been distributed to District Planning Councils for comments, this meeting is for public comment and it will be forwarded at the end of the month for inclusion in an overall Saint Paul Transportation Plan.

Then, on Friday May 18, it's Bike to Work Day! I've never participated in the events since they seem to be very oriented towards people going to the downtowns whereas I start in Saint Paul and head north, but this year I may help out in downtown Saint Paul. I expect that if you are reading this blog you know about commuting; if you're new to it, May's a great month to start. There are a bunch of rides planned, so maybe one will fit your needs. Hope it doesn't rain!

Stop Dammit! But not in front of me!

One of the most common complaints aimed at cyclists by motorists is how cyclists never stop at stop signs or red lights, but just sail on through. This complaint is levelled as if motorists were all innocent little law-abiding lambs when in fact almost all motorists speed almost all the time (try driving the speed limit all day one day, and you will discover that speed limits are viewed as suggested minimums rather than legal maximums) and a huge percentage don't stop at stop signs, either. Just watch the wheels--if it's an uncontested stop (no opposing traffic), motor vehicles will slow down, look back and forth, and go on through without ever coming to a complete stop.

Is this outrageous behavior? Not really. It's how I drive, and so does virtually everybody else, though for some reason when cyclists slow down, make sure it's clear and then proceed, it raises the ire of motorists.

There's a good reason for this behavior, and it has to do with conserving momentum. It's a somewhat bigger deal for cyclists, who have tiny reserves of power and hate to squander it in coming to a complete, track-stand or foot-down stop, then have to accelerate from zero, over and over again (read about this in a couple of articles by a prof at Berkeley here in English and here if you want to check the math). It's a factor for autos, as well, and people who swear that they stop will slow down to 6mph or so (I've paced many motorvehicles through stop signs to see how slow they were) and then go.

Well, one guy stops. In Slate magazine one of their columnists made a comment about this yesterday, in relation only to cars and having nothing to do directly with bicycles.

Possibly bad idea of the day: I got a ticket a couple of years ago for failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. I was so guilty. Ever since then--and after I was admonished by a cop I met at a party--I've tried to come to a total, 100% stop, with the weight of the car falling back on its haunches, before stepping on the accelerator to get moving again. When I do this I can hear and actually feel the engine sucking in vast quantities of precious refined petroleum to overcome the inertia of 3400 pounds of metal at a dead rest. Which leads to the thought: Wouldn't we save a lot of gasoline quickly and cheaply if we replaced most of our "STOP" signs with "YIELD" signs? I'm sure there is a safety argument against this, but I'd like to hear it, along with up-to-date comparisons with countries that rely on "yield" more than "stop." ... N.B.: a) You could still require that everyone slow down to under, say, 10 miles per hour. It's the first 10 miles per hour starting back up that seem so gratuitously wasteful. (Maybe "YIELD" is the wrong sign. Maybe it should say "SLOW to 10.") b) Traditionalist drivers--e.g. geezers--could still come to a complete stop and retain the right of way. c) Policemen could still raise revenue for their employers by giving lots of tickets--they would just be tickets for "failure to slow" or "failure to yield." ... 3:51 P.M. (here's the link).

People already do this. Interesting that he picked 10mph when people often do 6 or so already. Maybe a car going from 30 to 6 looks like a stop but a bike going from 14 to 8 doesn't. (I've written about this before, in July 2005: you can read my previous masterpiece here if you missed it the first time around).

Separately, there's a flap on in Toronto where a motorist got pissed off at a cyclist (ironically, for stopping for a yellow light), got out of his car, and punched the cyclist, breaking out a tooth. Nothing out of the ordinary, except that some school kids were filming it. It turns out the motorist was an off-duty cop. One wonders at the message being sent: "You cyclists piss me off because you never stop at stop signs or red lights, but by God, if you do stop at one in front of me, I'm going to punch you out"? You can see the video over at Martino's Bike Lane Diary and the links flowing out from there. Reading through the comments can be both entertaining and annoying--some note that the teacher was hot, others say they have conceal and carry laws in Florida and that they'd just shoot the cyclist in the face. That seems like a twisted fantasy; if you want to kill a cyclist, all you have to do is run them down and you're likely to get away with it. Just make sure no school kids are filming you at the time.

And now the news from Europe

The Wall Street Journal yesterday ran an article titled Building A Better Bike Lane. It starts off with a slight sense of wonder about how Europeans use their bikes:

COPENHAGEN -- No one wears bike helmets here. They're afraid they'll mess up their hair. "I have a big head and I would look silly," Mayor Klaus Bondam says.

People bike while pregnant, carrying two cups of coffee, smoking, eating bananas. At the airport, there are parking spaces for bikes. In the emergency room at Frederiksberg Hospital on weekends, half the biking accidents are from people riding drunk. Doctors say the drunk riders tend to run into poles.

Some 40% of people commute to work by bike in Amsterdam, but...

Even in Amsterdam, not everyone is pro-biking. Higher-end shops have already moved out of the city center because of measures to decrease car traffic, says Geert-Pieter Wagenmakers, an adviser to Amsterdam's Chamber of Commerce, and now shops in the outer ring of the city are vulnerable. Bikes parked all over the sidewalk are bad for business, he adds.

Still, the new measures in Amsterdam and Copenhagen add to an infrastructure that has already made biking an integral part of life. People haul groceries in saddle bags or on handlebars and tote their children in multiple bike seats. Companies have indoor bike parking, changing rooms and on-site bikes for employees to take to meetings. Subways have bike cars and ramps next to the stairs.

Then there's the best part:

Within the past four years, the city increased the fine for buying or selling a bike in the street. Punishment for stealing a bike is now up to three months in jail.

You need a subscription to see the WSJ online, but I did a PDF of the article which you can read here.

Speaking of Amsterdam bikes, there's a web page with some interesting photos I like despite myself. It's at Amsterdam Bicycles and is 82 photos of bikes in Amsterdam taken in 73 minutes last autumn. Here, let me be catty for a second and say what I don't like about this page.

1. Deficient Photos - many of the photos are blurred. He needed a faster shutter speed or to pan with the bikes and in some cases the autofocus picked up on subject matter behind the bikes. This can probably be forgiven since he wanted to run all the photos he took. I've certainly had that impulse before.


2. Unfamiliarity with subject matter - this shows mostly in his vast overestimation of the effort required to run a bottle generator but also on his frequent reference to $15 or $20 bikes. Generators take little effort and free you from batteries and these bikes are worth lots more than $20. Many of his mistakes are gently pointed out in the comments that follow.


3. Annoying tic - in this case, "riding his bike in Amsterdam". Over and over again, it's Here's a lady in a dress talking on the cellphone riding her bike in Amsterdam. Yes, we know she's riding a bike and it's clear from the last 20 times you said this that it's in freakin' Amsterdam, so stop it already.

OK, I feel better now. Despite these gripes, it is an interesting set of photos because the mode of dress and riding is so much different than what we normally see here and the photos get this across.

Although I haven't previously posted this link, I think Cleverchimp did, and it's another set of Dutch cylcing photos from an apartment's second story. Again, a completely different riding vibe than we get in the Cities. Note that when you open this the use of white space on the front page of this PDF makes it look like it's blank. It's not.

Finally, the Cleverchimp guys are opening a bike store carrying some of the Dutch Cargo Bikes. It's called Clever Cycles and will be open soon (and, as I copy the links to put in here, I see he beat me to the WSJ story...oh well).

Heb een groot weekend!

Blueberry

Blueberry died today. She was our dog, just over a year old, we adopted her in September. She worked her way into the family, becoming a fixture in the house, with the usual dog adventures of accidental poops in the hall, eating Henry's unattended hamburger, Geneva's entire birthday cake and annoying the cat. We got used to each other and she was one of us. We are generally responsible pet owners, keeping her shots current, feeding her decent food and walking her on a six foot leash. Today, though, she got out, chasing after some bunnies and squirrels. Karla went out after her, but Blueberry on the loose can be elusive. Karla was behind the house when she heard the skid and the Yipe! from out front. Karla ran out there; the car had left, but Blueberry was on the curb. She was badly hurt, and snarled when Karla touched her hindquarters. Her tongue was bleeding. A policewoman showed up, and she and the mailman and Karla got Blueberry on a blanket and into the car; to the vet, fortunately close by; it was morphine and a muzzle and xrays; a tearful phone message on my voicemail while I was at lunch; a broken left rear femur, collapsed lung, perforated organs, internal bleeding, air and blood bloating her abdomen; off to get Henry from school; me back from lunch and off to the vet; the dog, sleek and clean after the bath Geneva and I gave her last night, a mask on, asleep on her side, with labored breathing; a sombre talk with the vet; Henry and Karla tearfully out of the room; stroking Blueberry gently as she got the shot; twenty seconds and the breathing just stopped; a brief search for a heartbeat; Blueberry was gone. I went to get Geneva from school as well, plucked her from class for a tearful ride home, all Kleenex and remorse about having been annoyed about having to help with the bath, home for hugs and tears and tea.

And so tonight we find ourselves missing her presence already, no excited dog tumbling down the stairs to greet us, no hesitation before getting up from the recliner to allow Blueberry to leap out of the way, no "Walkies!" with her tail wagging so hard her whole back end goes back and forth. Her sudden departure has left us with the towel still damp from last night's bath, some fur from the bathtub a forlorn reminder in the garbage.


Blueberry at the farm at Thanksgiving. She was about 50 pounds, mostly Lab, who knows what else, with striking pale blue eyes and delightful ears.

Does this have anything to do with cycling? No, not really, other than to remind us how quickly things can change, to remind us that too many motorists will just drive off, maybe it was just a dog this time, but a couple of years ago a couple of blocks away it was an older gentleman, he was dead too, and that motorist didn't stop either, and they still haven't found him. It could be any of us. Be careful out there.

The Practical Pedal

Someone's trying a magazine about Practical Cycling and subscriptions for the first year are free, with the first issue due out this summer. Here's what it says:

The Practical Pedal is a quarterly journal of practical bicycling. What's practical bicycling? It's bicycling for transportation, be it on the daily commute, the run to Costco, or a trip around the world.

Bicycling is good for the environment, good for the body, and good for our cities. We're convinced it was a mistake to relegate the most efficient means of transportation devised by man to the aisles of recreation and sport alone.

The first issue of the Practical Pedal will be out this summer.

The subscription page is here and they have a blog called The Practical Pedal as well. I'm not sure a magazine about Practical Cycling is a way to wealth and fame or even keeping all but the smallest wolves from the door, but I wish them luck and signed up.

Odds'n'ends

There have been a number of things go by in the last two or three weeks that I thought worthy of mention but haven't got around to. Now you get 'em all at once!

Hiawatha Bridge

The Midtown Greenway is a great installation, a serious transportation-oriented bicycle and pedestrian facility, but the crossing of Hiawatha Avenue hasn't been great, a crosswalk across many lanes of traffic. The plan is to put a bridge in to carry the Greenway over Hiawatha, and construction has begun. This photo is actually from March 24th, my first outing on the Atlantis this season:



The Greenway website is uniquely uninformative in telling about this but my recollection is that it won't open until next spring. Still, given the long lead times on these kinds of projects, it's good to see concrete being poured.

Handlebar Review

The kids went to Kentucky for Spring Break to visit one of my sisters in Pikeville, deep in the heart of Appalachia. They went by Amtrak. They've never travelled alone and I had some anxiety about the outbound connection, a 2 hour layover in Union Station. If they were late and missed this, the next train to Ashland wasn't until Tuesday and I didn't like the idea of 15-year-old Henry and 13-year-old Geneva alone in the Big City. Given all this, I flew down to ensure things went well, show them the ropes, etc. I put them on the train at 7:30AM in Saint Paul, caught a very full flight to Midway in Chicago, took the CTA into the Loop (you can buy a $5.00 24-hour transit pass, a great idea), found Union Station and checked the train status (a bit late), then had some time to kill and was hungry. I decided to go to the Handlebar.

There was a blogger called Den of Awkwardness (the blog's still there, but has been dormant since last fall) who is a young lawyer riding in the Big City. Along the way, she bought into a bar called the Handlebar, which is bike-oriented, and it sounded like a hangout for cyclists. When planning this I noted that I had time to kill before the kids showed up so I thought I'd pop into a few bikeshops and did a google. The Handlebar had popped up in this search and is close to one of the shops I wanted to visit, so off I went to lunch.

The reviews on the Handlebar are mixed, from "greatest place in Chicago" to "interminable wait for surly service". I took the CTA Blue Line out to the Damen Park, made a couple of false starts (Milwaukee Road comes through the grid at a diagonal right here, cutting up the usual grid), and went to the bar. Here it is:


A couple of reviewers mentioned the tuna, tomato and avocado sandwich, so I had that and some local ale. It was delicious. I actually was very fond of the spicy coleslaw but only got a little dollop of that. The place does look pretty attitude-filled (I liked the bumper sticker "Only Users Lose Drugs"), lots of urban hipsters, young, tattooed and perforated, but my waitstaff was polite and the service pretty quick. Of course, it was about 1:45 on a cloudy Saturday afternoon, maybe it would have been different at 6:00PM. Bike attitude can take you only so far, good food and drink is necessary, and the Handlebar makes it on that point. I wandered down to the bike store (Rapid Transit Cycles and poked around, then caught the train back downtown.

Here are some other Chicago views:

Iconic Chicago view I: The Sears Tower. This is actually very close to Union Station.


Iconic Chicago View II: Razor Wire. When you ride the trains, this stuff's all over the place, in this case, at the Damen Street station. Chicago was just selected to make the U.S. bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics, so I figure their logo ought to be the Olympic rings in razor wire.


You think they'd have wicker chairs in Wicker Park. This is also right next to the Damen Street station.

I flew home that night and the following week the kids came back. I didn't go back to meet them, my point on the outbound leg was to show them the ropes, and they successfully made the homebound connection and got back Easter Saturday, 15 minutes early.

Motor Trend

I'm guessing that most readers of this blog, a number thought to be well into the double digits, don't subscribe to Motor Trend. I don't either, but one day a couple of weeks ago I was in my dentist's office about to get a new crown installed and the May 2007 issue was sitting there. The cover story is about the Subaru WRX, a hot little overpowered sports car, and I noticed it because I've been involved in a VIN re-symboling project at work (tedious enough to be fatal to the uninitiated) where WRXs are real outliers. I picked up the issue and paged through and there's an interview in there with former CIA director James Woolsey. He's a strong advocate for energy independence and has attitudes that are right in sync with many cyclists: We are funding both sides of the War on Terror, gas pumps are collection plates for Al Qaeda, his Prius has a bumper sticker saying "Bin Laden Hates This Car". It was kind of unexpected for a magazine that usually salivates over the prospect of new V-12 engines to have this interview in there. It's worth a read, it's not online, but you can stand around in Barnes and Noble or your local library and get through it.

Peak Oil: Mexico's Cantarell Field

I read some of the Peak Oil stuff and believe that we are at around the Peak Oil point, that there will be an imbalance between energy supply and demand and that energy will get more expensive. I think those that believe energy will be cheap again are being unrealistic and hope that those that expect total societal breakdown are wrong. The Wall Street Journal on April 5 had an article entitled "Mexico Tries to Save A Big Fading Oil Field" about their Cantarell Field. Here are the first couple of paragraphs:

In March 1971, a Mexican fisherman named Rudesindo Cantarell took a few geologists from state-run oil company Petróleos Mexicanos to this spot, where he had seen oil slicks. Mr. Cantarell didn't know it, but he had stumbled across one of the largest offshore oil fields ever found.

A few decades and 12 billion barrels of oil later, the field that bears Mr. Cantarell's name is dying, and Pemex, as the state-owned company is known, is struggling to stave off the field's demise. From January 2006 though February 2007, Cantarell lost a staggering one-fifth of its production, with daily output falling to 1.6 million barrels from two million.

The oil industry was stunned. Cantarell, which currently produces one of every 50 barrels of oil on the world market, is fading so fast analysts believe Mexico may become an oil importer in eight years. That would batter Mexico's economy, which depends on oil exports to fund 40% of its government spending.

The continued deterioration of the world's second-biggest field by output would also put pressure on prices on the global oil market, where supplies are barely keeping up with growing demand as it is. And it would leave the U.S. even more dependent on Middle Eastern supplies -- and that much more vulnerable to political tumult in that region.

The Oil Industry was stunned? Even I have read about the likelihood of this happening, and I think the estimate is that production will decline another 15% this year. I do like the almost whimsical way the field was discovered, this fisherman who kept complaining about his nets getting ruined by oil and travelling hundreds of miles to complain to company officials until they finally came out for a look. Anyway, I find it interesting when the Peak Oil stuff makes its way into traditional business media. Eventually, the facts can't be ignored.

Drilling my Dropout

Long term readers may recall that I bought a big Schwinn World Sport a couple of years ago, fundamentally an ok bike but in kind of rugged shape; that I changed this to a 3-speed internal hub for last year's Lake Pepin Three Speed Tour, then switched over to a Nexus "Redband" 8-speed internal hub; that I ended up liking this bike much more that I thought I would, and that I am now going to get it painted.

One quirk of this bike which makes it problematic for internal-gearing is that the left rear dropout was partially filled-in with steel, meaning I had no back-and-forth adjustment to get the chain tension right and thus severely limiting the choice of rear cog. Here is a photo of the dropout right before I rectify this:


It wasn't just my bike; by buddy Paul has one of these and his has the same situation, but his is now a derailleur-equipped Xtracycle so the horizontal adjustment is not critical. Time to fix this.


First, drill the hole. There's a hardware store nearby going out of business and I got this cobalt bit from them. I was concerned that the dropout might be forged and tough to drill, but it didn't take long at all. It did make for an awkward setup on the drill press, a 68cm frame held by my wife and I and several clamps and props in position. Even with the hole drilled, I still have a bunch of material in the dropout to get rid of.


Dremel to the rescue! Unfortunately, my cutoff disks were pretty small and I had to go at an angle, so I couldn't tidy it all the way up. Instead, I moved out most of the remaining steel in a dramatic shower of sparks and acrid smoke.


All done! I filed the remaining material down until the right dropout was cleaned out. Oddly enough, the left dropout (on my bike and also on Paul's) didn't need this. There must be some reason they left the dropout partially closed, but I'm damned if I can figure it out.

Headbadges

The Schwinn had a headbadge on it and I had to take it off before going in for painting. It was two small rivets and drilling them out was quick work. The frame was now close to ready for painting. (I did go ahead and sand off all the decals too). I looked at the headbadge and thought, wow, that's lame. Headbadges are a bit of the bicycle that allow for real artistry. There's a Bicycle Head Badge group on Flickr and I was looking through that. There are some wonderful badges in there, and the Atlantis of course has a magnificient one. There is a woman named Jen Green who does custom headbadges (you can see her work at Headbadges.com though the site design kind of blows) but I didn't want to spend $80+ on a headbadge. At the other end of the scale, while paging through the Flickr Group I saw that there is a bike shop called The Bicycle Escape that does badges by hammering flat beer bottle caps and selling them for $1.50. You can see a photo here.

Damn, that sounds easy. I happen to have a box of about 3,000 bottlecaps in the basement (I use them for homebrewing, from a brewery I once ran for about 2 months as it was going out of business, it's a long story) so went and got one and hammered it flat. Here you go:


I'm not going to use a Joseph S. Picketts & Sons bottlecap, boy they're dull, but as a proof-of-concept it looks to be just about the right size compared to the original Schwinn. Cool! I could even use beer can material, as far as that goes, and as I clean out my Dad's house in Des Moines there's a bunch of steel beercans down there....the Tuborg Gold bike, or Billy Beer bike. We actually used to cut a bit of aluminum can material and put it in the bottom bracket to keep grit from falling into it down the seat tube, but I never thought of beer packaging as a fashion statement.

Anyway, I'm going to give this a try. I just got the bike back from being powder-coated Friday and it looks wonderful (full story in a couple of weeks, I am going to be gone for a bit here), a RAL 5002 Aquamarine that probably looks different on your monitor than in real life. I went to my local liquor store and decided that LaBatts Blue caps looked great, so bought and dutifully consumed a six-pack and am going to try hammering those out. The best thing is, the more you screw up, the more you can drink (oh darn, out of bottle caps, need to get another one).

Once back, I'll write up the paint job. Anybody can paint a bike frame, I had the frame painted, a Wald steel chainguard that I'd had de-chromed, and, in what I feel will be the beginning of a fashion trend, a set of smooth Honjo aluminum fenders. It's going to be built out next weekend and I'll run photos after that. In the meantime, I like this bottle cap idea and think I might tap and thread the rivet holes in my headtube and bolt on the headbadge with tiny stainless steel allen bolts so I change it when I so desire.

Shimano's newest product

So far I haven't jumped on the fixed-gear bandwagon, fearful of the constantly turning cranks, the lack of brakes and the hordes of women I'd have to fight back because I'd be so irresistibly cool especially if I got a few tats and maybe a nose ring. However, I'm leaning more towards a fixie now that Shimano is throwing its technological expertise into the arena:

Shimano Announces Patented BioWheel
Irvine, CA (04/01/2007) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Shimano today announced its newest entry into the growing field of fixed-gear bicycle equipment with the introduction of the Shimano BW-700C/29BS Biowheel™ fixed-gear rear wheel. This wheel combines in a single unit Shimano's most advanced wheelset features including a one-piece solid mandrel construction, angular contact bearings and an oversized 7075 axle with the patented point-symmetric egg curve form factor at the wheel's rim. This allows BioWheels to offer the cyclist healthy, efficient pedaling at slower cadences than is possible with round wheels.

"Previously, the Biopace™ solution had to be implemented at the chainring" said Shimano USA President Kozo Shimano, "but the rising popularity of fixed-wheel bicycles with an unchanging crankset/drive wheel relationship allows us to apply the solution at the rim of the drive wheel and alleviate the chain tension concerns of fixed Biopace users." Shimano went on to note that a regular round front wheel is sufficient for most applications but that Shimano is also introducing a BioFront™ front wheel for cyclists who prefer stylistic consistency. Difficulties in the design phase have delayed the introduction of the matched BioBrake™ sidepull brakes so Shimano has made the BioWheel wheel disc-brake compatible for those who feel brakes are appropriate on fixies.

Google Bikes

Wow, this is a nice benefit. Getting feelthy steenking rich is a good one too. I wonder why they aren't doing it in California? Poor climate?

Google is improving its green credentials by offering all of its employees a free bike to ride to work.

The bikes, manufactured by Raleigh Europe, will be offered to around 2,000 permanent employees of the search engine giant in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. All of the bikes - plus free helmets - will be branded with the Google name.

Holger Meyer, Germany's first Google employee, came up with the idea and staff will be able to choose from a range of models including a "cool cruiser" - a folding bike for those that only make part of their trip to work under pedal power - and men's and women's hybrids.

The whole article is in The Guardian.

Burma-Shave

Minneapolis is doing a Share the Road day or something like that next month. During my first meeting as a member of the Saint Paul Bicycle Advisory Board in early March it was suggested that Saint Paul should do something in coordination with Minneapolis for this day. One idea that was floated was to do a series of Burma Shave-like ads for the sides of the roads that day.

If you're not familiar with Burma Shave signs, they were an advertising campaign by a shaving cream maker involved bits of doggerel on signs along the highways and always ending in Burma Shave. Each line of the little poem would be on a separate sign spaced a few seconds apart with the last one reading Burma-Shave. These started off in 1925 and the last new ones were posted in 1963 which means that they overlap my life though I don't actually recall seeing any.

Here are a couple of examples:

Dealing with the product:

His cheek was rough
His chick vamoosed
Now she won't
Come home to roost
Burma-Shave

A whiskery kiss
For the one you adore
May not make her mad
But her face will be sore
Burma-Shave

And with driving safely, which many did. It's hard now to remember how narrow the roads were and how bad the tires, brakes and even windshield wipers were in those cars, which of course had no seatbelts or airbags:

A guy
who drives
his car wide open
Isn't thinking
He's just hopin'
Burma-Shave

As you can tell, these aren't as rigidly defined a style as haiku or limericks.

Anyway, the challenge is to write some of these that will end with Share the Road rather than Burma Shave. Here are some of my attempts:

On my bike
I may look dorky
but because I ride
I'm not porky!
Share the Road

Diabetes, strokes,
cardiac disease
riding your bicycle
can help avoid these
Share the Road

Driving to
Your Spinning Class?
Ride your bike
and save the gas! (alternatively, you lazy ass!)
Share the Road

Your auto weighs four thousand pounds
My bicycle weighs thirty
If you hit me when you drive
Your grille will get all dirty
Share the Road

On my bike
I work and toil
to Support the Troops:
I burn no oil!
Share the Road

Some would be for cyclists:

If you ride
your bike at night
Get a Clue
Turn on a light!
Share the Road

One of the other BAB members has written some as well. Sadly, I don't have them with me, but one I liked went something like:

The cell phone is
A wonderful invention
Perhaps you could hang up
And call me an ambulance
Share The Road

which I like because it doesn't even attempt to rhyme.

There's more time for ideas! Leave them in the Comments below so all can see! And Share the Road!

Some Bike Porn

The North American Handmade Bicycle Show was in San Jose the weekend before last, and Cycling News has posted a heap o' photos. You can see them here. There were a lot of utility bicycles this year, and there's a Gallery of Handmade Townies posted. The photographer does a good job but doesn't recognize some items, like the Stokemonkey or Tubus Cosmo. I did note that Vanilla Bicycles, which I've regarded as what I'd order if I won the lottery, now have a four-year wait. Holey smokes! Ahearne Cycles was there with one of their very nifty cargo racks with a slot to carry your U-lock though I think of them more as the cool flask cage maker. ANT from Boston was there; the Boston Roadster I think looks like a great utility bike. They also had a Rohloff-hubbed frame which would be deeply appealing though very expensive.

I don't know, though, my suddenly very modest-seeming Atlantis is expensive enough that I typically won't ride it somewhere where I have to park it outside for a couple of hours (like to a movie); I don't know what these bikes are running, but I'd be really nervous about a $5K or $8K or $10K bike to pop down to Rainbow for some milk. Still, they look fabulous and it's fun to see something other than just another (yawn) racing bike.

In other news, I stripped down my Schwinn today, starting preparations to get the frame painted. It needed some work when I got it, but new wheels (internal hub gears, dynamo hub), pedals, seat and handlebars looked after much of it. One thing I never looked at was the bottom bracket. After I got the crank arms off, I tried turning the bb axle and it is so tight and rough I can't turn it with my fingers! Yikes! I've never felt a bottom bracket so wretched. Think of all the newfound speed I'll have when I get it all put back together properly!

Finally, in the Tale of the Knickers, the lady around the corner couldn't handle buttonholes but there is a tailor in the strip mall nearby and he's going to do my conversion of a pair of summer weight black wool dress trousers to knickers for about $40. My legs will be 3 inches longer than the Bicycle Fixation knickers. I even got to choose the color of satin for my gusset (I went with blue, to match the frame color I'm likely to get). I also admired the achingly beautiful fabric samples for custom suits, which start at $1,300. I didn't tell him my trousers were $20 from Sierra Trading Post. Can't afford a custom bike, I can at least get handmade knickers. Anyway, these things'll be done next Tuesday. I'll let you know how it goes.