Saturday, April 28, 2012
Mad Traffic Skillz
Today was the second Saturday of Traffic Skills class, taught through the auspices of the League of American Bicyclists. I was one of the instructors, and we had the rare opportunity to have our class do their qualifying ride in sleet, steady rain and 40F temperatures. Yeah, I tell you, those who last week laughed at my RainLegs assless bike chaps were singing a different tune by the time we got back in today! Anyway, congratulations to Erik, Daria, Roy, Courtney, Andy, Nate, Ruby, Jeff, Sheldon, Scott & Jay for completing the course and doing the skills riding and road evaluation in conditions approaching those I consider the worst for riding or camping (33 and rain). For some of these folks, last week and this were the first time they'd really ridden in traffic. Doing it in cold, windy, wet conditions showed that it is possible, though not exactly a picnic, to operate in adverse weather.
After class was done, and after downing a major burrito and beer at The Muddy Pig, I met Vickie, a woman from work, to take her on a 20 mile loop around Saint Paul. She's relatively new to cycling and has started commuting once a week. This doesn't sound much, but she's just part time and it's 15 miles one way, a pretty serious commute. Vickie's discovered she likes cycling and has signed up to do a 60 mile ride in early June, and asked if I'd ride with her through the the Saint Paul loop. I barely made it on time due to the Muddy Pig's indifferent service. Sadly, I hadn't brought along any dry socks, and my wet shoes and socks kept my feet chilly, but we did the circuit. No rain now, and it had warmed up to 46.
It's encouraging, in a quiet way, to have these folks interested in enhancing their riding skills, to have someone discover the joy of riding, to see a group learn directly that it is possible and not even that bad to ride in shitty conditions. It's also a quiet satisfaction to stop by the Trung Nam bakery for a chocolate croissant on the pre-ride, checking out the circuit before the class, and to hang out afterwards with the other instructors and several students at the Muddy Pig while the rain slowed and stopped outside. I didn't get much else done this rainy Saturday, but am pleased with what I did achieve.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Thar She Blows!
I went off to see BikeSnobNYC at the Coffman Memorial Union at the University of Minnesota. I don't ride over to Minneapolis as much as I used to. It wasn't the ideal day to ride:
...Wind Advisory Remains In Effect Until 7PM CDT This Evening...
*Winds...Sustained Winds Increasing To 25 To 35 Mph This Afternoon...Gusting To 45Mph.
*Impacts...Hazardous Driving Conditions...Especially For This In High Profile Vehicles. Unsecured Lightweight Objects...Such As Trash Cans And Lawn Furniture...May Be Blown Around.
And so on. Long experience cycling in the Midwest teaches you to do your rides outbound into the wind and homebound with a tailwind. It's a painful lesson the first time you think you've got new strength and vigor and head 30 miles out in the country going, Man, I'm like freakin' Eddie Merckx (it's been a while since I've done this), look at me, then you turn around and struggle back into the teeth of your former tailwind as it drains all hope and spirit from your sorry corpse. Anyway, as it happened, I set off into the teeth of 25 to 35mph sustained winds.
I went down Hoyt and my usual crossing of Snelling into the open gate of the State Fairgrounds after a long delay from a slow light.
That gate is left open most of the time, except most of August as the Fair sets up. Waiting to cross Snelling I could appreciate the bucolic aromas blowing my way from the University of Minnesota's livestock barns. They would only get more intense until I passed by.
Once at the University's Minneapolis campus, I found Washington Avenue all torn up as they add in Light Rail. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but it caught me off guard. I rode to Coffman Memorial Union and locked up the bike in the crowded racks out front, then went down to the bookstore.
The BikeSnobNYC had met some cyclists at the Freewheel Midtown Greenway store and ridden to Coffman Union with them. I thought about it, but didn't leave work early enough to labor another 7 or 8 miles into the wind. Thus, I missed out on bonus Snob time but did get a seat at the presentation.
Here's Snob:
We were kind of wedged in there, and those who had ridden had to stand for the presentation or sit on the floor. I think it was more people than they had expected. Snob followed along with the theme of his book, pointing out that we were relatively powerless in economic terms, the $6 billion spent in the bicycle industry being dwarfed by auto companies, pharmaceutical companies and oil companies, but we could become a religion. He promoted his Lobster God, pointed out how religions are an excuse for all kinds of odd behaviours and funny clothes (he didn't mention the Mormons' special underwear, perhaps a corollary of cyclists' shorts) and then cyclist abuse could become a hate crime. Some of the time he talked about being a good cycling citizen, which forms a large theme in his latest book, The Enlightened Cyclist: Commuter Angst, Dangerous Drivers, and Other Obstacles on the Path to Two-Wheeled Trancendence. One of the great things about Snob is that he is cynical and funny as hell in the blog yet there is an underlying good nature. It comes out in the books (his first book was Bike Snob: Systematically & Mercilessly Realigning the World of Cycling). I'd recommend reading these books.
There were questions afterwards, including a couple of mine, particularly wondering if Snob was working full time when he started the blog. When I first started reading him he was only a couple of weeks in and I was pretty amazed at the volume and quality of the writing (the photography traditionally blows). Could this guy be working full time? Yes, at least to start with. He quit about the time his first book came out.
People lined up to get books signed (defaced, as he calls it). He signed mine. Then I wandered on out in search of Objective 2 of the evening: trying a Chick-fil-A. I went upstairs and asked where it was. Back downstairs, but closed. It's only open 10:30 to 2:00 on weekdays, not on Saturdays or Sundays at all. What? I went back down and found the place.
Yep, closed. Those are some stringent hours. So, if I want to try a Chick-fil-A, I've either got to get myself to the Union on a weekday at lunchtime or, alternatively, fly somewhere, get fondled by the TSA, and try the one at the airport. Fil-A & a Fondle. Sounds like a decent night out.
Well, time to head on home. Now comes the reward for the slog over to the Union into the teeth of the gale: the return trip. The wind was still pretty snappy:
Those flags are at the University of Minnesota golf course. As bad as it is being tall on a large bike frame going into the wind, it is superb with a ferocious tailwind. I got into my highest gear (a relatively modest 91 inches, something I rarely use) and spun along Larpenteur towards home. It sure is fun to clip along at 22 mph without even trying very hard! I've heard of people doing Tailwind Centuries where, on days like this, they are taken 100 miles out into the wind by motor vehicle, then ride back for an easy 100 miles. It hardly seems fair, but I can see the allure.
Having failed to get Chick-fil-A, I stopped at Stout's, a relatively new place plagued with utterly inadequate bike parking. They have some outdoor seating with a cage around it, so I locked up to that while I ate.
Maybe restaurants don't want cyclists, maybe they just don't think about us, at least they're better than Caribou Coffee who have almost universally absent bike parking yet often have banners of cyclists hanging inside. I'm going to have to write page on retail establishments and bike parking. Plenty of places that you think would welcome cyclists (including, for instance, most bike shops) have nowhere to lock up despite acres of parking for motor vehicles.
Sated, I cruised on home with the tailwind. I liked actually meeting BikeSnob, it was fun to hear him give a talk, good to put a face with the online persona so many of us know. I think his presentation needs a bit of work yet, but he's off to a good start and is anyway preaching to the converted. And, for all the joking about religion and barking at poor cyclist behaviour, the message is pretty classic; be nice to others, treat them as you would be treated, and try and love your fellow man despite his foibles.
...Wind Advisory Remains In Effect Until 7PM CDT This Evening...
*Winds...Sustained Winds Increasing To 25 To 35 Mph This Afternoon...Gusting To 45Mph.
*Impacts...Hazardous Driving Conditions...Especially For This In High Profile Vehicles. Unsecured Lightweight Objects...Such As Trash Cans And Lawn Furniture...May Be Blown Around.
And so on. Long experience cycling in the Midwest teaches you to do your rides outbound into the wind and homebound with a tailwind. It's a painful lesson the first time you think you've got new strength and vigor and head 30 miles out in the country going, Man, I'm like freakin' Eddie Merckx (it's been a while since I've done this), look at me, then you turn around and struggle back into the teeth of your former tailwind as it drains all hope and spirit from your sorry corpse. Anyway, as it happened, I set off into the teeth of 25 to 35mph sustained winds.
I went down Hoyt and my usual crossing of Snelling into the open gate of the State Fairgrounds after a long delay from a slow light.
That gate is left open most of the time, except most of August as the Fair sets up. Waiting to cross Snelling I could appreciate the bucolic aromas blowing my way from the University of Minnesota's livestock barns. They would only get more intense until I passed by.
Once at the University's Minneapolis campus, I found Washington Avenue all torn up as they add in Light Rail. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but it caught me off guard. I rode to Coffman Memorial Union and locked up the bike in the crowded racks out front, then went down to the bookstore.
The BikeSnobNYC had met some cyclists at the Freewheel Midtown Greenway store and ridden to Coffman Union with them. I thought about it, but didn't leave work early enough to labor another 7 or 8 miles into the wind. Thus, I missed out on bonus Snob time but did get a seat at the presentation.
Here's Snob:
We were kind of wedged in there, and those who had ridden had to stand for the presentation or sit on the floor. I think it was more people than they had expected. Snob followed along with the theme of his book, pointing out that we were relatively powerless in economic terms, the $6 billion spent in the bicycle industry being dwarfed by auto companies, pharmaceutical companies and oil companies, but we could become a religion. He promoted his Lobster God, pointed out how religions are an excuse for all kinds of odd behaviours and funny clothes (he didn't mention the Mormons' special underwear, perhaps a corollary of cyclists' shorts) and then cyclist abuse could become a hate crime. Some of the time he talked about being a good cycling citizen, which forms a large theme in his latest book, The Enlightened Cyclist: Commuter Angst, Dangerous Drivers, and Other Obstacles on the Path to Two-Wheeled Trancendence. One of the great things about Snob is that he is cynical and funny as hell in the blog yet there is an underlying good nature. It comes out in the books (his first book was Bike Snob: Systematically & Mercilessly Realigning the World of Cycling). I'd recommend reading these books.
There were questions afterwards, including a couple of mine, particularly wondering if Snob was working full time when he started the blog. When I first started reading him he was only a couple of weeks in and I was pretty amazed at the volume and quality of the writing (the photography traditionally blows). Could this guy be working full time? Yes, at least to start with. He quit about the time his first book came out.
People lined up to get books signed (defaced, as he calls it). He signed mine. Then I wandered on out in search of Objective 2 of the evening: trying a Chick-fil-A. I went upstairs and asked where it was. Back downstairs, but closed. It's only open 10:30 to 2:00 on weekdays, not on Saturdays or Sundays at all. What? I went back down and found the place.
Yep, closed. Those are some stringent hours. So, if I want to try a Chick-fil-A, I've either got to get myself to the Union on a weekday at lunchtime or, alternatively, fly somewhere, get fondled by the TSA, and try the one at the airport. Fil-A & a Fondle. Sounds like a decent night out.
Well, time to head on home. Now comes the reward for the slog over to the Union into the teeth of the gale: the return trip. The wind was still pretty snappy:
Those flags are at the University of Minnesota golf course. As bad as it is being tall on a large bike frame going into the wind, it is superb with a ferocious tailwind. I got into my highest gear (a relatively modest 91 inches, something I rarely use) and spun along Larpenteur towards home. It sure is fun to clip along at 22 mph without even trying very hard! I've heard of people doing Tailwind Centuries where, on days like this, they are taken 100 miles out into the wind by motor vehicle, then ride back for an easy 100 miles. It hardly seems fair, but I can see the allure.
Having failed to get Chick-fil-A, I stopped at Stout's, a relatively new place plagued with utterly inadequate bike parking. They have some outdoor seating with a cage around it, so I locked up to that while I ate.
Maybe restaurants don't want cyclists, maybe they just don't think about us, at least they're better than Caribou Coffee who have almost universally absent bike parking yet often have banners of cyclists hanging inside. I'm going to have to write page on retail establishments and bike parking. Plenty of places that you think would welcome cyclists (including, for instance, most bike shops) have nowhere to lock up despite acres of parking for motor vehicles.
Sated, I cruised on home with the tailwind. I liked actually meeting BikeSnob, it was fun to hear him give a talk, good to put a face with the online persona so many of us know. I think his presentation needs a bit of work yet, but he's off to a good start and is anyway preaching to the converted. And, for all the joking about religion and barking at poor cyclist behaviour, the message is pretty classic; be nice to others, treat them as you would be treated, and try and love your fellow man despite his foibles.
Friday, March 16, 2012
I've Been Working on the Railroad
We've been uncommonly warm here the last few days, after an unusually warm and snowless winter. One of the big markers of springtime in Minnesota is "ice-out", when the ice on the frozen lakes melts out and the lake returns to open water. On March 15, Como Lake was on the verge.
The ice has gone black and there's some open water at this end of the lake. The next day it would be in the upper 70s and the ice would go out of Como. I don't pretend to know what average is, but I expect it is 2 or 3 weeks later. Heck, the last date for getting fish houses off the lakes was February 29, just two weeks ago.
Ice out has nothing to do with cycling, of course, other than the warm and lovely weather has got lots of people out riding. I was among them, riding down to see how this season's construction on the Central Corridor Light Rail was going to affect my usual southbound routes.
Chatsworth crosses University and makes a dandy north/south route if you don't mind one informal railroad crossing. Once the light rail is in, this will be a signalled crossing. Going north from here you run into the informal railway crossing issue, then into navigational confusion around Como Lake. Southbound, Chatsworth goes all the way to St. Clair, then, with a one-block detour, down the hill to Jefferson and West 7th.
One irony of the light rail is that the Twin Cities used to have a wonderful streetcar system. Many of these streets are excellent cycling streets nowadays since they are pretty wide. University Avenue had streetcars (one of the reasons it is so wide and has always been a useful if not scenic cycling route, something that is likely to change if Saint Paul Public Works has their way) and so as they tore up the street they unearthed the old streetcar tracks. At one point, they are said to have tested the tracks to see if they were usable. Had they gone with a more modest streetcar installation (like Toronto has always had, or Portland has installed), one can't help but wonder it they wouldn't have worked, but instead it's going to be a much heavier "light rail" train and have a major railbed.
If you're driving, you can't cross University at Chatsworth, but there is still a pedestrian crossing. They'll work the south side of the street first, with all traffic funnelled along the north two lanes, then switch and do the reverse. I think pedestrian access will be maintained all along, and happily, it's good enough for cyclists.
Hamline is the same sort of arrangement; no traffic access across University, but a pedestrian accomodation big enough for bicycles.
How this all ends up laid out when done is still open for discussion. The plan is to do four traffic lanes with no on-street parking. This is going to suck in many different ways, mostly because it will put high-speed traffic (yeah, yeah, 35mph limit, but these will be 12 foot lanes, the same width as Interstate Highway lanes) right next to the sidewalk, not pleasant for pedestrians and offputting for, say, sidewalk cafes. I'd like to see one through lane and one parking lane with a bicycle lane between them. It's not perfect; it's a bike lane running right in the door zone, but it allows on-street parking for the small businesses which populate University, those which survive construction anyway.
In the meantime, we can still get across University by bicycle and keep an eye on how construction progresses. They've sure got an early start on it with this weather.
The ice has gone black and there's some open water at this end of the lake. The next day it would be in the upper 70s and the ice would go out of Como. I don't pretend to know what average is, but I expect it is 2 or 3 weeks later. Heck, the last date for getting fish houses off the lakes was February 29, just two weeks ago.
Ice out has nothing to do with cycling, of course, other than the warm and lovely weather has got lots of people out riding. I was among them, riding down to see how this season's construction on the Central Corridor Light Rail was going to affect my usual southbound routes.
Chatsworth crosses University and makes a dandy north/south route if you don't mind one informal railroad crossing. Once the light rail is in, this will be a signalled crossing. Going north from here you run into the informal railway crossing issue, then into navigational confusion around Como Lake. Southbound, Chatsworth goes all the way to St. Clair, then, with a one-block detour, down the hill to Jefferson and West 7th.
One irony of the light rail is that the Twin Cities used to have a wonderful streetcar system. Many of these streets are excellent cycling streets nowadays since they are pretty wide. University Avenue had streetcars (one of the reasons it is so wide and has always been a useful if not scenic cycling route, something that is likely to change if Saint Paul Public Works has their way) and so as they tore up the street they unearthed the old streetcar tracks. At one point, they are said to have tested the tracks to see if they were usable. Had they gone with a more modest streetcar installation (like Toronto has always had, or Portland has installed), one can't help but wonder it they wouldn't have worked, but instead it's going to be a much heavier "light rail" train and have a major railbed.
If you're driving, you can't cross University at Chatsworth, but there is still a pedestrian crossing. They'll work the south side of the street first, with all traffic funnelled along the north two lanes, then switch and do the reverse. I think pedestrian access will be maintained all along, and happily, it's good enough for cyclists.
Hamline is the same sort of arrangement; no traffic access across University, but a pedestrian accomodation big enough for bicycles.
How this all ends up laid out when done is still open for discussion. The plan is to do four traffic lanes with no on-street parking. This is going to suck in many different ways, mostly because it will put high-speed traffic (yeah, yeah, 35mph limit, but these will be 12 foot lanes, the same width as Interstate Highway lanes) right next to the sidewalk, not pleasant for pedestrians and offputting for, say, sidewalk cafes. I'd like to see one through lane and one parking lane with a bicycle lane between them. It's not perfect; it's a bike lane running right in the door zone, but it allows on-street parking for the small businesses which populate University, those which survive construction anyway.
In the meantime, we can still get across University by bicycle and keep an eye on how construction progresses. They've sure got an early start on it with this weather.
Bike Snob in Minneapolis March 27
I've followed BikeSnobNYC since he started his blog and have had a link to it in the sidebar pretty much since the beginning. Snobby wrote a book Bike Snob: Systematically & Mercilessly Realigning the World of Cycling which, for all the snark and hilarity in the daily blog, was a thoughtful and even earnest book (though still with plenty of snark!). Well, Snob's written another book, The Enlightened Cyclist: Commuter Angst, Dangerous Drivers, and Other Obstacles on the Path to Two-Wheeled Trancendence, and he's off on a BRA (Book Related Adventure) including a stop here in the Great Balmy North. I haven't read this book yet but it promises to be good.
Here are the details:
First, a 4:00PM ride:
Tuesday, March 27
Midtown Bike Center by Freewheel Bike
2834 10th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55407
(612) 238-4447
apparently heading to the 4:30 booksigning at the U. I guess we're going to show off our defective infrastructure as Snob'll be able to admire the underside of our out-of-service Sabo Bike Bridge over Highway 55. Snapped cables, you know.
4:30pm talk and booksigning
University of Minnesota Bookstore at Coffman Memorial Union
300 Washington Ave. S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 625-6000
Once the adulation of Snob is over and he's defaced our books, the next big feature of the evening can be a visit to the Coffman Union's Chick-fil-A restaurant, the only one in the Twin Cities not protected by the TSA! They sponsor one of the crappy college football bowls, now I can find out what all the fuss is about. It promises to be a great Tuesday.
Here are the details:
First, a 4:00PM ride:
Tuesday, March 27
Midtown Bike Center by Freewheel Bike
2834 10th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55407
(612) 238-4447
apparently heading to the 4:30 booksigning at the U. I guess we're going to show off our defective infrastructure as Snob'll be able to admire the underside of our out-of-service Sabo Bike Bridge over Highway 55. Snapped cables, you know.
4:30pm talk and booksigning
University of Minnesota Bookstore at Coffman Memorial Union
300 Washington Ave. S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 625-6000
Once the adulation of Snob is over and he's defaced our books, the next big feature of the evening can be a visit to the Coffman Union's Chick-fil-A restaurant, the only one in the Twin Cities not protected by the TSA! They sponsor one of the crappy college football bowls, now I can find out what all the fuss is about. It promises to be a great Tuesday.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Note to Saint Paul Bicyclists: Your Lights Suck
The last few months on the second Tuesday I have been bicycle counting as part of the Transit for Livable Communities' monthly bike counts. Several of us from the Saint Paul Bicycle Coalition have been doing counts along University Avenue. I took University just west of Raymond Avenue where I can conveniently sit in the front window of The Edge Coffeesop and do my counting. In the summer, this was nicely air-conditioned. They play fun music, Edith Piaf yesterday for a while, I settle in with my coffee, and for two hours am on high alert, counting bicyclists and bikes on bus racks (my own addition). It's kind of nice to quietly observe the neighborhood traffic for two hours once a month, you notice things.
Anyway, with the end of Daylight Savings Time, sunset now happens in the middle of the 4:00 to 6:00PM counting period. The sun disappeared behind the horizon at 4:50 and at 5:00 I went outside to be able to see better, since we classify cyclists by helmet/no helmet, gender, road or sidewalk and 15-minute period.
I had to be extra vigilant. There were 28 cyclists in the 5:00 to 6:00 hour, lower volume now than in the lighter/warmer months even though it was unseasonably warm, and I think maybe 6 or 8 had adequate lights. I didn't formally count light quality, but maybe half the people showed no lights at all and most of the remainder had dim tailights.
People, this is a busy four-lane street with lots of truck traffic. There is a left turn lane for people wanting to get on Highway 280/I-94, with brake lights and turn signals. There is a utility truck parked along the side of the roads with blinking strobe lights and a big yellow arrow telling traffic to move over. There's traffic lights and a big flamboyant neon sign on the liquor store. Throw into this mix an old, dim, mis-aimed blinkie and you are just about invisible.
Look, I know you can see fine. That's because you're 25 and your eyes are young. The people driving these motor vehicles are 40 and 60 and 80 years old and I can tell you that night vision doesn't improve with age. Don't rely just on reflectors or your own mad cycling skillz, get a damn light! If your blinky is more than about 2 years old, get a new one, the LEDs have been improving tremendously in brightness.
About 750 cyclists are killed by motor vehicles each year in the U.S. Stats aren't kept on the fault in these accidents, but reading daily accounts for a while leads me to believe that in about half the cases, the cyclist is heavily complicit through some sort of bad behaviour. It's easy to fix; don't run Stop signs and red lights, don't ride drunk, ride with traffic and not against it and put on some damn lights.
Trying to count the stealth cyclists riding by lightless makes this obvious. I was absolutely alert and looking to see you and it was a challenge. Think about the motorists driving home from work, going to the grocery store, fiddling with the radio, looking to see if they can change lanes left. They're worried about all sorts of things besides trying to acquire visual contact with unlit cyclists.
I don't know all the lights the lit people were showing but the Planet Bike SuperFlash has a pretty distinctive flash pattern (we have 4 or 5 of these lying around the house for use in the fleet) and the most visible cyclist was a young lady showing two SuperFlashes, one low on the bike (rack or seatpost?), and one high (on a backpack or helmet). I could see her for several blocks after she went by even amongst the cavalcade of lights on University. She is a model to us all.
I personally like to run two taillights, one blinking (a SuperFlash) and one steady (Busch & Müller 4D Toplight). A lot of people don't seem to care and run nothing at all. If you're one of them and get hit, I will feel the same lack of sympathy for you as I do for drivers who text while driving and run off the road and get killed. Remember, stupidity has a way of catching up with people.
Don't be stupid.
Anyway, with the end of Daylight Savings Time, sunset now happens in the middle of the 4:00 to 6:00PM counting period. The sun disappeared behind the horizon at 4:50 and at 5:00 I went outside to be able to see better, since we classify cyclists by helmet/no helmet, gender, road or sidewalk and 15-minute period.
I had to be extra vigilant. There were 28 cyclists in the 5:00 to 6:00 hour, lower volume now than in the lighter/warmer months even though it was unseasonably warm, and I think maybe 6 or 8 had adequate lights. I didn't formally count light quality, but maybe half the people showed no lights at all and most of the remainder had dim tailights.
People, this is a busy four-lane street with lots of truck traffic. There is a left turn lane for people wanting to get on Highway 280/I-94, with brake lights and turn signals. There is a utility truck parked along the side of the roads with blinking strobe lights and a big yellow arrow telling traffic to move over. There's traffic lights and a big flamboyant neon sign on the liquor store. Throw into this mix an old, dim, mis-aimed blinkie and you are just about invisible.
Look, I know you can see fine. That's because you're 25 and your eyes are young. The people driving these motor vehicles are 40 and 60 and 80 years old and I can tell you that night vision doesn't improve with age. Don't rely just on reflectors or your own mad cycling skillz, get a damn light! If your blinky is more than about 2 years old, get a new one, the LEDs have been improving tremendously in brightness.
About 750 cyclists are killed by motor vehicles each year in the U.S. Stats aren't kept on the fault in these accidents, but reading daily accounts for a while leads me to believe that in about half the cases, the cyclist is heavily complicit through some sort of bad behaviour. It's easy to fix; don't run Stop signs and red lights, don't ride drunk, ride with traffic and not against it and put on some damn lights.
Trying to count the stealth cyclists riding by lightless makes this obvious. I was absolutely alert and looking to see you and it was a challenge. Think about the motorists driving home from work, going to the grocery store, fiddling with the radio, looking to see if they can change lanes left. They're worried about all sorts of things besides trying to acquire visual contact with unlit cyclists.
I don't know all the lights the lit people were showing but the Planet Bike SuperFlash has a pretty distinctive flash pattern (we have 4 or 5 of these lying around the house for use in the fleet) and the most visible cyclist was a young lady showing two SuperFlashes, one low on the bike (rack or seatpost?), and one high (on a backpack or helmet). I could see her for several blocks after she went by even amongst the cavalcade of lights on University. She is a model to us all.
I personally like to run two taillights, one blinking (a SuperFlash) and one steady (Busch & Müller 4D Toplight). A lot of people don't seem to care and run nothing at all. If you're one of them and get hit, I will feel the same lack of sympathy for you as I do for drivers who text while driving and run off the road and get killed. Remember, stupidity has a way of catching up with people.
Don't be stupid.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
My Indirect Commute
So I went to the dentist yesterday. My dentist is in downtown Minneapolis, a holdover from when I worked down there 15 years ago, but twice a year I go down and get my choppers looked at. Unbeknownst to me, yesterday whilst sitting at the desk after the appointment, I dropped my cell phone. It's not really mine; my iPhone 3G took an untimely plunge into the Des Moines River last week while I was leaning over a bridge railing taking a photo of the floodwaters (they've had a lot of rain down there). I have an iPhone 4 on order but it hasn't come yet so I have a temporary SIM in my daughter's old Pantech.
Anyway, I didn't notice this until yesterday afternoon, when I called the dentist and sure enough, they had my phone. I said I'd pop in and get it. So this morning I rolled out a little after 7:00 and, rather than the usual 4.9-mile run directly north to work, headed downtown, about an 8-mile ride.
This is kind of fun. I see a limited number of other cyclists on my simple commute and it hardly feels like an urban commute at all. Nobody is ever going to film riding through Roseville to Arden Hills and then set it to "Welcome to the Jungle". Going to downtown Minneapolis is different, lots more cyclists of all ages and bike types, much more traffic, buses, light rail, the Missisippi River. I rode through the Fairgrounds and the Saint Paul University of Minnesota campus, down Como, across the Stone Arch Bridge and to the dentist's at Fifth and Marquette, then rode back across the Stone Arch Bridge, a little ways up Como Avenue, then cut off to catch the Minneapolis Diagonal Trail. I hardly ever ride this (usually going to work from the dentist's or to Home Depot from work). It's pretty pastoral and there wasn't much traffic on in this morning. I went along County C, up Cleveland, over to and around Lake Johanna and then to work.
My Atlantis doesn't have a computer on it at the moment (I'm about to do a bunch of work on it, including reinstalling the computer) but Google Maps tells me I rode about 19 or 20 miles. I rolled in at 8:45 or so, showered and went to work.
When I ride to work, which is not all the time by any means, I usually ride directly there and directly home. Sometimes I pop into a store or go to a meeting afterwards, but I have never incorporated a longer recreational ride into the commute. I might think about it. It requires an earlier departure but it's kind of fun to get out and about in the cycling ecosystem in areas I hardly ever travel during the work week.
I'll be riding home, and then to a meeting this evening for the Saint Paul Bicycle Coalition. On the off-chance somebody reads this before then, we're meeting at the Jimmy Lee/Oxford Rec Center at Lexington and Marshall in Saint Paul at 7:00 to 8:30. We are an outgrowth of the Saint Paul Bicycle Advisory Board, which is now on hiatus, but independent of the City and looking to become an advocacy organization. Come and join us if you have an interest, we're there every second Tuesday. You can check out our website which is pretty lame at the moment (I did it) but which we expect to improve quite a lot in the near future.
Anyway, I didn't notice this until yesterday afternoon, when I called the dentist and sure enough, they had my phone. I said I'd pop in and get it. So this morning I rolled out a little after 7:00 and, rather than the usual 4.9-mile run directly north to work, headed downtown, about an 8-mile ride.
This is kind of fun. I see a limited number of other cyclists on my simple commute and it hardly feels like an urban commute at all. Nobody is ever going to film riding through Roseville to Arden Hills and then set it to "Welcome to the Jungle". Going to downtown Minneapolis is different, lots more cyclists of all ages and bike types, much more traffic, buses, light rail, the Missisippi River. I rode through the Fairgrounds and the Saint Paul University of Minnesota campus, down Como, across the Stone Arch Bridge and to the dentist's at Fifth and Marquette, then rode back across the Stone Arch Bridge, a little ways up Como Avenue, then cut off to catch the Minneapolis Diagonal Trail. I hardly ever ride this (usually going to work from the dentist's or to Home Depot from work). It's pretty pastoral and there wasn't much traffic on in this morning. I went along County C, up Cleveland, over to and around Lake Johanna and then to work.
My Atlantis doesn't have a computer on it at the moment (I'm about to do a bunch of work on it, including reinstalling the computer) but Google Maps tells me I rode about 19 or 20 miles. I rolled in at 8:45 or so, showered and went to work.
When I ride to work, which is not all the time by any means, I usually ride directly there and directly home. Sometimes I pop into a store or go to a meeting afterwards, but I have never incorporated a longer recreational ride into the commute. I might think about it. It requires an earlier departure but it's kind of fun to get out and about in the cycling ecosystem in areas I hardly ever travel during the work week.
I'll be riding home, and then to a meeting this evening for the Saint Paul Bicycle Coalition. On the off-chance somebody reads this before then, we're meeting at the Jimmy Lee/Oxford Rec Center at Lexington and Marshall in Saint Paul at 7:00 to 8:30. We are an outgrowth of the Saint Paul Bicycle Advisory Board, which is now on hiatus, but independent of the City and looking to become an advocacy organization. Come and join us if you have an interest, we're there every second Tuesday. You can check out our website which is pretty lame at the moment (I did it) but which we expect to improve quite a lot in the near future.
Friday, June 11, 2010
The Perfect Computer for the Cyclist?
I got an iPad 3G the day they came out and have been using it a lot in the subsequent few weeks. I think it could be the ideal computer for the cyclist (though not a cycling computer!). I have a MacBook Pro which I occasionally have taken with me to meetings and work and stuff and I worry about it because it's got a 500 Gig hard drive in it which is getting bumped and jostled. Sure, you can buy big solid state hard drives, but they cost a fortune. Sure, the odd ride here and there isn't going to hurt it, but a day-in, day-out commute can't be healthy for the hard drive. Also, it weights like 5 pounds.
You could do a MacBook Air (with SSD if you're worried about the hard drive) but those are even more expensive and still weigh three pounds.
Or you can do an iPad. It weighs 1.6 pounds and the separate BlueTooth keyboard I have must take it over 2, although you can at least leave the keyboard behind if you don't need it on a given day. The battery life is nice and long, the screen is lovely and big, the Maps feature is superb when mated with the 3G's GPS, and there's no moving parts. Worried about dampness? Get an Orltieb document case for it, basically a heavy-duty roll top ZipLoc baggie. I know, I know, it's not a real computer, you can't run the heavy-duty spreadsheets on it that I routinely work with, the Pages word processor has it's limitations and it's not possible to print at the moment (there are third-party software packages for this, but I haven't tried them), but for note taking and email and web reading and writing this blog entry, the device works great.
I still use the MacBook for the serious work in life, long documents and big Excel spreadsheets (run in Windows on the Mac) at home, photo editing and all that sort of thing, but the iPad makes a smaller, lighter and surprisingly useful device for the cycling geek.
You could do a MacBook Air (with SSD if you're worried about the hard drive) but those are even more expensive and still weigh three pounds.
Or you can do an iPad. It weighs 1.6 pounds and the separate BlueTooth keyboard I have must take it over 2, although you can at least leave the keyboard behind if you don't need it on a given day. The battery life is nice and long, the screen is lovely and big, the Maps feature is superb when mated with the 3G's GPS, and there's no moving parts. Worried about dampness? Get an Orltieb document case for it, basically a heavy-duty roll top ZipLoc baggie. I know, I know, it's not a real computer, you can't run the heavy-duty spreadsheets on it that I routinely work with, the Pages word processor has it's limitations and it's not possible to print at the moment (there are third-party software packages for this, but I haven't tried them), but for note taking and email and web reading and writing this blog entry, the device works great.
I still use the MacBook for the serious work in life, long documents and big Excel spreadsheets (run in Windows on the Mac) at home, photo editing and all that sort of thing, but the iPad makes a smaller, lighter and surprisingly useful device for the cycling geek.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Snow Clearing on Marshall Avenue: A Meeting
No, our snow is all gone. Rather, this entry is about the snow clearing project on Marshall Avenue this past winter. There is a meeting this evening regarding the project, at:
Concordia University
Buenger Education Center
275 Syndicate St N
Saint Paul, MN 55104
Monday April 26, 7:00PM
The topic is the pilot to keep Marshall Avenue clear of snow from the Lake/Marshall bridge up to Cretin or Cleveland (I forget how far exactly). The bridge is one of the few Mississippi River crossings in the Cities, and Marshall Avenue is the street on the Saint Paul side. Heading into Saint Paul, the street climbs a hundred feet or so, meaning eastbound bicycles are slogging uphill.
The problem is that in the winter, snow is scraped off to the side of the road. As happens, the angle of repose is such that it tumbles back in. Cars park out so they can open their passenger-side doors and bicycles get shifted farther and farther out into traffic, annoying to motor vehicles and less safe for cyclists. The plan was to have No Parking on the street during snow emergencies so that the street could be plowed full width, allowing room for the parked cars and for bicycle traffic as well.
This didn't work out.
Part of the reason was that on Christmas, when we had a decent snowfall followed by drizzly rain, the City decided not to be Scrooge-like on Christmas and declare a snow emergency. This holiday gift meant that the piles of snow, then soaked with rain, subsequently froze into immovable ice castles. It certainly happened at our house, where the width that I blew the driveway out Christmas Day was the width it would remain until well into March when it all finally melted away.
It may have been aggravated by Public Works employees slacking off when they should have been working, caught on tape by a local tv station and precipitating the resignation of Public Works Director Bruce Brees from that position (although he fell comfortably back into his old $111,000 a year job as "Administrative Manager for Public Works", man, no wonder my property taxes keep going up!). To be fair, the actual video was people who were supposed to be filling potholes, but one wonders if the same level of effort went into the snow clearing. And commications between departments wasn't very good, so that Traffic Enforcement wasn't aware of the parking ban until quite late in the winter.
Tonight's hearing, on short notice for those of us who don't live in the immediate area, is asking for input on the project. The main effect on the neighbors was the parking ban on selected days, and the way these things are likely to go, those will be the people who show up to complain about it. Not represented unless you and I go there will be people who use the street but don't live right there. We're taxpayers too, remember, it's our street as well, and if you are a Lake/Marshall user, you would be smart to show up and have your say.
If you can't be there in person, you can submit a comment to the Union Park District Council here. You can read about the meeting on the Union Park District Council website.
In summary, Marshall is an important bicycling route year-round because it is one of the few Mississippi Crossings. The road width is such that, if left not fully plowed, parking and then bicycle traffic gets shifted out further and further into the road as the winter goes on. The pilot project and the proposal is not to ban parking entirely; rather, it is to ban parking on specific days so our hard-working Public Works employees can clear the road full width, keeping it safe for all users. For a variety of reasons, it didn't work very well this year. It deserves to be tried again with a better effort next snow season.
Concordia University
Buenger Education Center
275 Syndicate St N
Saint Paul, MN 55104
Monday April 26, 7:00PM
The topic is the pilot to keep Marshall Avenue clear of snow from the Lake/Marshall bridge up to Cretin or Cleveland (I forget how far exactly). The bridge is one of the few Mississippi River crossings in the Cities, and Marshall Avenue is the street on the Saint Paul side. Heading into Saint Paul, the street climbs a hundred feet or so, meaning eastbound bicycles are slogging uphill.
The problem is that in the winter, snow is scraped off to the side of the road. As happens, the angle of repose is such that it tumbles back in. Cars park out so they can open their passenger-side doors and bicycles get shifted farther and farther out into traffic, annoying to motor vehicles and less safe for cyclists. The plan was to have No Parking on the street during snow emergencies so that the street could be plowed full width, allowing room for the parked cars and for bicycle traffic as well.
This didn't work out.
Part of the reason was that on Christmas, when we had a decent snowfall followed by drizzly rain, the City decided not to be Scrooge-like on Christmas and declare a snow emergency. This holiday gift meant that the piles of snow, then soaked with rain, subsequently froze into immovable ice castles. It certainly happened at our house, where the width that I blew the driveway out Christmas Day was the width it would remain until well into March when it all finally melted away.
It may have been aggravated by Public Works employees slacking off when they should have been working, caught on tape by a local tv station and precipitating the resignation of Public Works Director Bruce Brees from that position (although he fell comfortably back into his old $111,000 a year job as "Administrative Manager for Public Works", man, no wonder my property taxes keep going up!). To be fair, the actual video was people who were supposed to be filling potholes, but one wonders if the same level of effort went into the snow clearing. And commications between departments wasn't very good, so that Traffic Enforcement wasn't aware of the parking ban until quite late in the winter.
Tonight's hearing, on short notice for those of us who don't live in the immediate area, is asking for input on the project. The main effect on the neighbors was the parking ban on selected days, and the way these things are likely to go, those will be the people who show up to complain about it. Not represented unless you and I go there will be people who use the street but don't live right there. We're taxpayers too, remember, it's our street as well, and if you are a Lake/Marshall user, you would be smart to show up and have your say.
If you can't be there in person, you can submit a comment to the Union Park District Council here. You can read about the meeting on the Union Park District Council website.
In summary, Marshall is an important bicycling route year-round because it is one of the few Mississippi Crossings. The road width is such that, if left not fully plowed, parking and then bicycle traffic gets shifted out further and further into the road as the winter goes on. The pilot project and the proposal is not to ban parking entirely; rather, it is to ban parking on specific days so our hard-working Public Works employees can clear the road full width, keeping it safe for all users. For a variety of reasons, it didn't work very well this year. It deserves to be tried again with a better effort next snow season.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Happy Earth Day from the NYPD
President Obama was in New York yesterday giving a talk on the need to pass some inadequate financial reform with insufficient consumer protection. Before he came, the New York Police Department went along the route his motorcade would take and removed all the bicycles, citing fears that they could contain pipe bombs because, you know, there have been so many bicycle-based terrorist attacks in this country. And those mouth-foaming Obama haters are all such big cyclists. There are a couple of photos posted here. I wonder if they told the workers these might be pipe bombs, since they seem to be protected only by nylon windbreakers.
Would it be unworthy to wonder if this has something to do with the current trial on one of New York's finest who assaulted a Critical Mass rider a couple of years ago in what looks to be an episode of douche-on-douche assault, then lied about what he did (what? cops lie?) but was caught on video and has since, umm, retired. Or the other recent NYPD-to-cyclist payouts, like the one at the end of March where the city paid $40,002 to two people who filmed police cutting locks and removing bikes in 2007. Police and the security state hate the first amendment, and these two were arrested for disorderly conduct for refusing a lawful order to disperse and blocking the sidewalk. These charges were later adjourned and dismissed, and the city spent an estimated $72,000 defending the case and for the payout. And just last week another $98,000 was paid to five cyclists for being harassed during a Critical Mass including another case of a cop knocking a cyclist off his bike.
Fortunately, the NYPD Bomb Squad seems to have managed to defuse all the pipe bombs without any injury.
Would it be unworthy to wonder if this has something to do with the current trial on one of New York's finest who assaulted a Critical Mass rider a couple of years ago in what looks to be an episode of douche-on-douche assault, then lied about what he did (what? cops lie?) but was caught on video and has since, umm, retired. Or the other recent NYPD-to-cyclist payouts, like the one at the end of March where the city paid $40,002 to two people who filmed police cutting locks and removing bikes in 2007. Police and the security state hate the first amendment, and these two were arrested for disorderly conduct for refusing a lawful order to disperse and blocking the sidewalk. These charges were later adjourned and dismissed, and the city spent an estimated $72,000 defending the case and for the payout. And just last week another $98,000 was paid to five cyclists for being harassed during a Critical Mass including another case of a cop knocking a cyclist off his bike.
Fortunately, the NYPD Bomb Squad seems to have managed to defuse all the pipe bombs without any injury.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Gee! Maps!
I heard on the radio this morning that Google Maps now has an option to map routes for bicycles. This sounded cool; I've been generally impressed with their auto mapping and even their transit mapping works well here in the Twin Cities, telling you which bus you need and when the next one should arrive at your location. It would be an exaggeration to say I leapt immediately out of bed to give the bicycle routing a try, but once I did slither sluglike from my repose and completed my elaborate morning ablutions I did give it a common destination pair for me, between church and home. This is about 14 miles one way, crosses the Mississippi and can involve several bicycle-specific shortcuts or route options. How would Google do?
Google did pretty well. From north of Como Lake in Saint Paul to just east of Lake Harriet in Minneapolis it selected a route that used both the Intercampus Transitway and the Midtown Greenway. The Intercampus Transitway runs between the Saint Paul and Minneapolis East Bank campuses of the University of Minnesota and is limited to buses, emergency vehicles and bicycles. As a cyclist, it took me a while to notice it because it was so off my radar as a motorist, but it is a useful shortcut and google selected it.
The Midtown Greenway is a bicycle and pedestrian path from the Mississippi to Lake Calhoun that runs parallel to the very busy Lake Street in an old railway trench. It's like a bicycle Interstate, with limited on and off ramps and it goes under dozens of bridges carrying the surface streets. It even has a big swoopy bridge over Hiawatha/Highway 55/the Light Rail line just for bikes and pedestrians. It's not open to motorized traffic at all.
Google didn't select my usual route, down Hoyt and through the State Fairgrounds to either the Transitway or Raymond, but, to be fair, the fairgrounds aren't open all the time. They shut down for most of August for the State Fair and for selected weekends when they have boat shows or classic auto rendezvoux. The rest of the time, bicycles and pedestrians can slip through the NE gate (always open about 3 feet wide) and cruise through the grounds in splendid solitude.
I have to say Google does a much better job than my GPS unit. I have a Garmin Nuvi 275. I got this last year in anticipation of a trip to the UK and France because it has both the North American and European maps built in. I got it a bit early to see how well it did locally on roads and destinations I know, and I have to say, it did really well. It knows all the little back roads and residential streets in the Twin Cities (not sure about the bleeding edge of suburban sprawl, but certainly in our area it was good). It has lots of businesses in it. Once in Europe, I was delighted to find that it knew its way around medieval York, Winchester and Bayeaux as well as it did around 1950s Roseville. It knew speed limits, traffic camera locations and the number of exits out of roundabouts. It was particularly delightful that I could load in the Campaign for Real Ale's (CAMRA's) Good Pub Guide point of interest file, which cost six pounds, and the GPS would ding whenever we got within a mile or two of one of the pubs. You could select the pub and it would set it as a waypoint and guide you there, off the main roads and down the lanes to The Swan or whatever back in the countryside. All this of course is built into the GPS, it isn't picking up data downloads like the iPhone maps application, data downloads that can cost the unwary a fortune whilst overseas. I think the GPS unit is the single most impressive piece of computer gear I've ever used and is extremely useful in a country where the only straight roads are the ones the Romans built.
Anyway, back from our sojourns, I decided to try selecting "bicycle" as the vehicle type and see how it worked. It was hopeless. Basically, the route selection algorithm is the same but the average speed used to calculate time of arrival is much lower and it doesn't use Interstate highways. Put in home and church and tell it you're a bicycle and it sends you down every major arterial street clogged with traffic, transit, doorzones, intersection conflicts and highway on and off ramps. It even sends you down Snelling, perhaps the most gruesome bit of bicycling roadway in Saint Paul. It doesn't use the Intercampus Transitway or the Midtown Greenway at all. As brilliant as the GPS is for motor vehicle navigation, it really is pretty useless for bicycle navigation where, in my opinion, thoughtful route selection that is almost always different from what you do in a car is key to happy and safe cycling.
The only bad news about the bicycle option on google maps? It's not in the iPhone Maps application yet, where the choices are still motor vehicle, transit or walking (and yes, I checked the App Store for updates). I suppose it's still a beta product (I think gmail is too) so maybe they're going to get some feedback first, but it would be very useful for cyclists on the iPhone.
Google did pretty well. From north of Como Lake in Saint Paul to just east of Lake Harriet in Minneapolis it selected a route that used both the Intercampus Transitway and the Midtown Greenway. The Intercampus Transitway runs between the Saint Paul and Minneapolis East Bank campuses of the University of Minnesota and is limited to buses, emergency vehicles and bicycles. As a cyclist, it took me a while to notice it because it was so off my radar as a motorist, but it is a useful shortcut and google selected it.
The Midtown Greenway is a bicycle and pedestrian path from the Mississippi to Lake Calhoun that runs parallel to the very busy Lake Street in an old railway trench. It's like a bicycle Interstate, with limited on and off ramps and it goes under dozens of bridges carrying the surface streets. It even has a big swoopy bridge over Hiawatha/Highway 55/the Light Rail line just for bikes and pedestrians. It's not open to motorized traffic at all.
Google didn't select my usual route, down Hoyt and through the State Fairgrounds to either the Transitway or Raymond, but, to be fair, the fairgrounds aren't open all the time. They shut down for most of August for the State Fair and for selected weekends when they have boat shows or classic auto rendezvoux. The rest of the time, bicycles and pedestrians can slip through the NE gate (always open about 3 feet wide) and cruise through the grounds in splendid solitude.
I have to say Google does a much better job than my GPS unit. I have a Garmin Nuvi 275. I got this last year in anticipation of a trip to the UK and France because it has both the North American and European maps built in. I got it a bit early to see how well it did locally on roads and destinations I know, and I have to say, it did really well. It knows all the little back roads and residential streets in the Twin Cities (not sure about the bleeding edge of suburban sprawl, but certainly in our area it was good). It has lots of businesses in it. Once in Europe, I was delighted to find that it knew its way around medieval York, Winchester and Bayeaux as well as it did around 1950s Roseville. It knew speed limits, traffic camera locations and the number of exits out of roundabouts. It was particularly delightful that I could load in the Campaign for Real Ale's (CAMRA's) Good Pub Guide point of interest file, which cost six pounds, and the GPS would ding whenever we got within a mile or two of one of the pubs. You could select the pub and it would set it as a waypoint and guide you there, off the main roads and down the lanes to The Swan or whatever back in the countryside. All this of course is built into the GPS, it isn't picking up data downloads like the iPhone maps application, data downloads that can cost the unwary a fortune whilst overseas. I think the GPS unit is the single most impressive piece of computer gear I've ever used and is extremely useful in a country where the only straight roads are the ones the Romans built.
Anyway, back from our sojourns, I decided to try selecting "bicycle" as the vehicle type and see how it worked. It was hopeless. Basically, the route selection algorithm is the same but the average speed used to calculate time of arrival is much lower and it doesn't use Interstate highways. Put in home and church and tell it you're a bicycle and it sends you down every major arterial street clogged with traffic, transit, doorzones, intersection conflicts and highway on and off ramps. It even sends you down Snelling, perhaps the most gruesome bit of bicycling roadway in Saint Paul. It doesn't use the Intercampus Transitway or the Midtown Greenway at all. As brilliant as the GPS is for motor vehicle navigation, it really is pretty useless for bicycle navigation where, in my opinion, thoughtful route selection that is almost always different from what you do in a car is key to happy and safe cycling.
The only bad news about the bicycle option on google maps? It's not in the iPhone Maps application yet, where the choices are still motor vehicle, transit or walking (and yes, I checked the App Store for updates). I suppose it's still a beta product (I think gmail is too) so maybe they're going to get some feedback first, but it would be very useful for cyclists on the iPhone.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Hummer? Bummer.
The Hummer in many ways represented the worst of the excesses of the last decade, consumerist, credit-driven, confusing militaristic with patriotic, fuel-guzzling, road-hogging, wannabe SUV. I remember seeing them in one of their original breeding grounds, an actual H1 (the military-sized and highly capable off-road vehicle) being driven by a cute blond in Sun Valley in 1996. Later, GM grafted a lookalike body on a Tahoe frame and charged the earth for them as H2s, then later yet, added a more compact H3 for those with the Hummer personality defect who couldn't cough up the $50K+ for the H2. They had a bunch of dealers build special Hummer areas including big rocky things to park them on out front.
Well, it didn't work. Gas got expensive, leading to the ironic situation where the biggest complaints about both the Hummer H2 and the Toyota Prius was the mileage, the H2 because it guzzled gas so voraciously, the Prius because it would turn in 43 mpg and not 52 as its buyers had so fervently hoped.
Gas got cheaper, but then credit got expensive, unemployment went up, houses went underwater, repo men got busy and Hummer sales tanked. The rugged image of the highly-capable military vehicle was diluted as it became an under-armoured deathtrap susceptible to Iraqi IEDs mid-decade. GM would have gone belly up if the government hadn't stepped in to rescue it, and the company has ruthlessly cut brands, closed plants and terminated dealers. A deal was reached to sell the Hummer division to some Chinese company, but even they don't want it. From today's New York Times:
I won't miss them, but I was never the market anyway. I have to say that for all the hatred Hummers inspired (and it merited it's own site, FUH2.com, consisting of photos of people flipping off Hummers), I've never been yelled at or otherwise abused by a Hummer driver. It may be because there aren't that many of them compared to, say, pickup trucks, who as a class are the most frequent communicators with me while cycling. And once, while looking at some actual facts, I noted that the footprint of a Hummer was actually slightly less than that of a Honda Odyssey minivan, though the H2 was wider and therefore blocked the views from behind more than the minivan. Maybe it was the whole fake-military attitude at a time when a bunch of chickenhawks had taken us to war that was so aggravating. Anyway, may those Hummers rest in peace.
Well, it didn't work. Gas got expensive, leading to the ironic situation where the biggest complaints about both the Hummer H2 and the Toyota Prius was the mileage, the H2 because it guzzled gas so voraciously, the Prius because it would turn in 43 mpg and not 52 as its buyers had so fervently hoped.
Gas got cheaper, but then credit got expensive, unemployment went up, houses went underwater, repo men got busy and Hummer sales tanked. The rugged image of the highly-capable military vehicle was diluted as it became an under-armoured deathtrap susceptible to Iraqi IEDs mid-decade. GM would have gone belly up if the government hadn't stepped in to rescue it, and the company has ruthlessly cut brands, closed plants and terminated dealers. A deal was reached to sell the Hummer division to some Chinese company, but even they don't want it. From today's New York Times:
DETROIT — General Motors said Wednesday that it would shut down Hummer, the brand of big sport-utility vehicles that became synonymous with the term “gas guzzler,” after a deal to sell it to a Chinese manufacturer fell apart.
The buyer, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines, said in a statement that it withdrew its bid because it was unable to get approval from the Chinese government, which is trying to put a new emphasis on limiting China’s dependence on imported oil and protecting the environment.
In addition, people close to the negotiations had said that the biggest obstacle to emerge in the last few days was not regulatory approval, but rather bank financing. While Tengzhong has the cash to pay for the Hummer brand, it needed bank financing to operate the division, redesign vehicles and set up new production plants in China.A spokesman for Hummer, Nick Richards, said G.M. had no specific timetable for completing the wind down, but left open the possibility that G.M. would be open to new bids...
About 3,000 jobs in the United States could be affected by the shutdown, including positions at G.M. and the brand’s dealerships. A factory in Shreveport, La., that builds the Hummer H3 and H3T and other G.M. trucks already was scheduled to close by 2012. The larger H2 was built for G.M. by A. M. General in Mishawaka, Ind., until December, when production was temporarily halted to allow for the sale process to conclude.
The deal would have made Tengzhong the first Chinese company to sell vehicles in North America, though it planned to keep Hummer’s operations in the United States.
“Tengzhong worked earnestly to achieve an acquisition that it believed to be a tremendous opportunity to acquire a global brand at an attractive price,” Tengzhong said in its statement. “The renewed investment to be made by Tengzhong and other investors would have provided Hummer’s existing management team the ability to build greener utility vehicles that would have been attractive and useful in new markets such as China as well as the existing core markets.”
Mr. Richards said Hummer dealers in the United States have about 2,500 vehicles in their inventories. In January, the brand made just 265 sales in the United States. Hummer sales plunged 67 percent in 2009, to a total of 9,046.
I won't miss them, but I was never the market anyway. I have to say that for all the hatred Hummers inspired (and it merited it's own site, FUH2.com, consisting of photos of people flipping off Hummers), I've never been yelled at or otherwise abused by a Hummer driver. It may be because there aren't that many of them compared to, say, pickup trucks, who as a class are the most frequent communicators with me while cycling. And once, while looking at some actual facts, I noted that the footprint of a Hummer was actually slightly less than that of a Honda Odyssey minivan, though the H2 was wider and therefore blocked the views from behind more than the minivan. Maybe it was the whole fake-military attitude at a time when a bunch of chickenhawks had taken us to war that was so aggravating. Anyway, may those Hummers rest in peace.
Friday, February 19, 2010
On the Manliness of Cycling
I liked this comment on the inestimable BikeSnobNYC blog, by a guy watching the Olympics:
I'm really enjoying these winter Olympics in Vancouver, between men's figure skating and short track speed skating relay, these sports make road cycling in lycra and shaved legs look like Aussie Rules football.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Those Darn Red Lights
There is the usual flap going on in the letters to the editor and blogs right now about cyclists on the streets, with the predictable arc including the most common gripe amongst drivers, that cyclists never stop at stop signs or red lights. There is some truth to this, just as there is to my counter-assertion that motorists don't stop at stop signs or red lights either. Today I got a dramatic demonstration of this.
I was going to Siwek's Hardware over by the Lowry Street Bridge to get some 10" wide cedar siding for my house. It's an odd size, but Siwek's carries things like this. I was driving my pickup truck, since I'd be hauling lumber. I drive north on University and wanted to turn left, west, on Lowry. I signalled. There was someone wanting to turn left on the other side of the intersection who'd blocked up a line of traffic. They were impatiently pulling out of line to get around her, so I waited. The light turned yellow, she turned. I hesitated while a last couple of cars came through on yellow, irritated that they might miss the light, then completed my turn onto westbound Lowry.
A van went by eastbound, pretty fast, I thought, and I looked in my rear view mirror just in time to see a Jeep Liberty come into the intersection on the red (the van had the green, the Liberty was northbound on University like I was). The van caught the ledt rear of the Liberty which carried on through the intersection.
I went on to Siwek's, got my lumber, then came back. The Liberty had got spun around and the rear wheel had come completely off, so that it was sitting on three wheels and a shock absorber. It was some young lady driver, and she was now talking on a cell phone.
The Lesson? Well, the point is that motorists are pretty bad about stopping at stop signs and red lights, bad enough that I am impatient with the constant accusations that cyclists never stop at these traffic control devices.
Also, the van had the green light and the right of way and was probably pretty surprised when the Jeep suddenly materialized in front of them. On a bicycle, this could have been a real shock! I always check intersections because there are sometimes late or oblivious red light runners coming along.
Finally, this chick just blithely sailed through the light and got clipped. She was probably embarrassed, undoubtedly late, her insurance is about to go up and her nice shiny silver Jeep is kind of messed up. But, she is basically ok, well enough to be jabbering away on her mobile fifteen minutes later. A cyclist running that light like that and getting clipped by a van would be badly injured or dead. Drivers are dense and oblivious enough as it is, if cyclists really just ran red lights all the time they'd be dead.
There are plenty of lousy cyclists out there but they're armed only with 30 pound bicycles. There are plenty of airhead drivers out there and they're armed with 4,000 pound steel motor vehicles. Be careful out there.
I was going to Siwek's Hardware over by the Lowry Street Bridge to get some 10" wide cedar siding for my house. It's an odd size, but Siwek's carries things like this. I was driving my pickup truck, since I'd be hauling lumber. I drive north on University and wanted to turn left, west, on Lowry. I signalled. There was someone wanting to turn left on the other side of the intersection who'd blocked up a line of traffic. They were impatiently pulling out of line to get around her, so I waited. The light turned yellow, she turned. I hesitated while a last couple of cars came through on yellow, irritated that they might miss the light, then completed my turn onto westbound Lowry.
A van went by eastbound, pretty fast, I thought, and I looked in my rear view mirror just in time to see a Jeep Liberty come into the intersection on the red (the van had the green, the Liberty was northbound on University like I was). The van caught the ledt rear of the Liberty which carried on through the intersection.
I went on to Siwek's, got my lumber, then came back. The Liberty had got spun around and the rear wheel had come completely off, so that it was sitting on three wheels and a shock absorber. It was some young lady driver, and she was now talking on a cell phone.
The Lesson? Well, the point is that motorists are pretty bad about stopping at stop signs and red lights, bad enough that I am impatient with the constant accusations that cyclists never stop at these traffic control devices.
Also, the van had the green light and the right of way and was probably pretty surprised when the Jeep suddenly materialized in front of them. On a bicycle, this could have been a real shock! I always check intersections because there are sometimes late or oblivious red light runners coming along.
Finally, this chick just blithely sailed through the light and got clipped. She was probably embarrassed, undoubtedly late, her insurance is about to go up and her nice shiny silver Jeep is kind of messed up. But, she is basically ok, well enough to be jabbering away on her mobile fifteen minutes later. A cyclist running that light like that and getting clipped by a van would be badly injured or dead. Drivers are dense and oblivious enough as it is, if cyclists really just ran red lights all the time they'd be dead.
There are plenty of lousy cyclists out there but they're armed only with 30 pound bicycles. There are plenty of airhead drivers out there and they're armed with 4,000 pound steel motor vehicles. Be careful out there.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Henry in Velonews!
Yes, my son has made it to Velonews! The shot shows the tight group of men racing for the finish line at the end of the Mankato Road Race last Saturday. The arrow picks out Henry.
Yep, that's my boy, holding up the orange flag! I was a Volunteer Coordinator for the races this year and one of my main responsibilities was the course marshalls. Henry worked Wednesday and Friday nights and all day Saturday. The glory boys may be those sprinting to the finish line, but the volunteers make this all work. I had the privilege of working with dozens of these folks and the races went great. Henry was one of many who worked multiple shifts and days and I am legitimately proud of him. You can read the account of the racing stuff in Velonews; this photo is from Mankato's Stage 5. The photo is by Kurt Jambretz of Action Images, though I added the arrow!
Yep, that's my boy, holding up the orange flag! I was a Volunteer Coordinator for the races this year and one of my main responsibilities was the course marshalls. Henry worked Wednesday and Friday nights and all day Saturday. The glory boys may be those sprinting to the finish line, but the volunteers make this all work. I had the privilege of working with dozens of these folks and the races went great. Henry was one of many who worked multiple shifts and days and I am legitimately proud of him. You can read the account of the racing stuff in Velonews; this photo is from Mankato's Stage 5. The photo is by Kurt Jambretz of Action Images, though I added the arrow!
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Sprocket Man
I was at Barley John's with some of the other nutters from the Three Speed Tour and there's often a show'n'tell. Many times these are old English bicycle parts of such rarity that I have no idea what they are, other times it's more recent but interesting stuff. I hardly ever have anything, at least since I last modelled my Rainlegs.
This time, though, Juston showed up with a comic book called "Sprocket Man". Here's some of the cover art:
This comic book isn't dated, but a close reading says it's probably 1973/74. Old bugger bike guys notice the high-flange front hubs, suicide brake levers, automobile styles, leg lights, lock styles and of course the fashions. This would also be in the midst of the 1970s Bike Boom.
Now, this isn't the weirdest bicycle safety material ever (the undisputed top place has to go to 1963's One Got Fat, sort of Planet of the Apes version of the League of American Bicyclists material and well worth watching) but it must rank right up there. In this comic book, Sprocket Man, complete in superhero outfit, dispenses advice on bicycle safety. Even more than One Got Fat, the material is well-thought out and remarkably relevant even 35 years later. The 1970s Bike Boom was a time when adults were riding bicycles in traffic in the U.S. for the first time in decades, and you'll notice the Right Hook, alternative left turn possibilities, ride with traffic, obey traffic signals, signal your turn, stay off the sidewalk, be courteous to pedestrians on the trails, use lights and reflectors, etc. I borrowed Juston's copy and scanned it in; you can read Sprocket Man here but be warned it runs 12 Meg (it started out at 62 Meg, so I've cut it down for you).
Comic books can be an effective communication tool, combining pictures and text (see the entry on Making Comics in Cool Tools) and Sprocket Man is actually pretty good once you get past the superhero thing. Now people draw on computer, and the pen-and-ink thing looks old, but it's still pretty cool.
Credits: Louis Saekow, Artist; John Troja and Julia Molander, Directors; developed by the Urban Bikeway Design Collaborative, a project of Urban Scientific and Educational Research, Inc., Washington, DC; this copy originally distributed by Pavlak's Pedal Palace, Mt. Clemens, Michigan, a Raleigh and Rampar Bicycles dealer. There is a Stanford Univeristy article from 2002 describing Sprocketman's origins. Finally, the CPSC has its own 24-page Sprocketman comic, apparently much the same material without the glossy cover which takes my PDF to 28 pages. Their copy is a smaller PDF but not as clear as mine; you gotta make choices in life.
This time, though, Juston showed up with a comic book called "Sprocket Man". Here's some of the cover art:
This comic book isn't dated, but a close reading says it's probably 1973/74. Old bugger bike guys notice the high-flange front hubs, suicide brake levers, automobile styles, leg lights, lock styles and of course the fashions. This would also be in the midst of the 1970s Bike Boom.
Now, this isn't the weirdest bicycle safety material ever (the undisputed top place has to go to 1963's One Got Fat, sort of Planet of the Apes version of the League of American Bicyclists material and well worth watching) but it must rank right up there. In this comic book, Sprocket Man, complete in superhero outfit, dispenses advice on bicycle safety. Even more than One Got Fat, the material is well-thought out and remarkably relevant even 35 years later. The 1970s Bike Boom was a time when adults were riding bicycles in traffic in the U.S. for the first time in decades, and you'll notice the Right Hook, alternative left turn possibilities, ride with traffic, obey traffic signals, signal your turn, stay off the sidewalk, be courteous to pedestrians on the trails, use lights and reflectors, etc. I borrowed Juston's copy and scanned it in; you can read Sprocket Man here but be warned it runs 12 Meg (it started out at 62 Meg, so I've cut it down for you).
Comic books can be an effective communication tool, combining pictures and text (see the entry on Making Comics in Cool Tools) and Sprocket Man is actually pretty good once you get past the superhero thing. Now people draw on computer, and the pen-and-ink thing looks old, but it's still pretty cool.
Credits: Louis Saekow, Artist; John Troja and Julia Molander, Directors; developed by the Urban Bikeway Design Collaborative, a project of Urban Scientific and Educational Research, Inc., Washington, DC; this copy originally distributed by Pavlak's Pedal Palace, Mt. Clemens, Michigan, a Raleigh and Rampar Bicycles dealer. There is a Stanford Univeristy article from 2002 describing Sprocketman's origins. Finally, the CPSC has its own 24-page Sprocketman comic, apparently much the same material without the glossy cover which takes my PDF to 28 pages. Their copy is a smaller PDF but not as clear as mine; you gotta make choices in life.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Volunteers Needed
I'm a volunteer coordinator for the Nature Valley Grand Prix/Great River Energy Bicycle Festival which is coming up next week and we're still looking for more volunteers. I thought I'd post the info and see if anyone bites.
There are races on five days, Wednesday June 11 to Sunday June 15:
Wednesday 6/11 (evening) – Downtown St. Paul Criterium
Thursday 6/12 (evening) – Cannon Falls Road Race
Friday 6/13 (morning) – St. Paul Riverfront Time Trial
Friday 6/13 (evening) – Minneapolis Downtown Criteirum
sure hope Friday the 13th isn't a Portent of Doom
Saturday 6/14 – Mankato Road Race
Sunday 6/15 – Stillwater Criterium
(and yes, it's Father's Day)
For each race, there is setup work to be done, course marshalling during the race itself, and then teardown afterwards. There are volunteer shifts for all of these work needs at each event and I'd like to ask you to consider signing up to work a shift or two.
One of the women zooms past. The course marshalls are very close to the action.
Don't care much about bicycle racing? Yeah, me either. However, there is fun to be had working on events like this with friends and, in the end, the profits from the races go to Children's Hospital and Clinics of Minnesota. I've volunteered for several years but last December, now part of the organizing committee, was at the meeting where we presented one of those big printed checks to a doctor at the Clinics, who went on to discuss the palliative care for terminally ill children he works on. There were suppressed sniffles throughout the room. I hadn't worked these races for noble purposes, but felt privileged to be there for this presentation and an aspect of the races I hadn't considered.
The setup work is important stuff and goes on even in the rain. We've torn down in roaring thunderstorms before. This is 2007 in Minneapolis.
Like to see what to expect as a volunteer? You can read about my experience last year, in 2006 (you have to scroll down) and even in 2005 (you have to scroll down here too).
Interested? You can sign up on the NVGP's website volunteer pages. If you don't want to work out on the races but wouldn't mind hosting a bike racer or two for a few nights, we have a Host Housing signup too, though it might be getting late for that.
Thanks for reading this, and I hope to see you at a race or two as a volunteer or spectator!
Thanks
Matt Cole
NVGP Volunteer Coordinator
Website: http://www.minnbikefest.com/
"Karla reminded me of something I'd said when she asked me about why Paul would do this, why would he ride up here to work like a dog for several days? She said I responded "Oh, Paul's always up for a bad time". On the face of it, working nights like Friday moving fencing in an unbelievable downpour doesn't sound like a great time, but it's a bonding experience. I wouldn't even say male bonding, because there were several women out there in the rain working away as well. And as they say, of those to whom much is given, much is expected. We are blessed with decades of fun on bicycles, good health, the flexibility to get the time off and the attitude that hard work shared with old friends can be enjoyable. It's also a great time of year to be outside doing stuff. You should consider joining in next year."
There are races on five days, Wednesday June 11 to Sunday June 15:
Wednesday 6/11 (evening) – Downtown St. Paul Criterium
Thursday 6/12 (evening) – Cannon Falls Road Race
Friday 6/13 (morning) – St. Paul Riverfront Time Trial
Friday 6/13 (evening) – Minneapolis Downtown Criteirum
sure hope Friday the 13th isn't a Portent of Doom
Saturday 6/14 – Mankato Road Race
Sunday 6/15 – Stillwater Criterium
(and yes, it's Father's Day)
For each race, there is setup work to be done, course marshalling during the race itself, and then teardown afterwards. There are volunteer shifts for all of these work needs at each event and I'd like to ask you to consider signing up to work a shift or two.
One of the women zooms past. The course marshalls are very close to the action.
Don't care much about bicycle racing? Yeah, me either. However, there is fun to be had working on events like this with friends and, in the end, the profits from the races go to Children's Hospital and Clinics of Minnesota. I've volunteered for several years but last December, now part of the organizing committee, was at the meeting where we presented one of those big printed checks to a doctor at the Clinics, who went on to discuss the palliative care for terminally ill children he works on. There were suppressed sniffles throughout the room. I hadn't worked these races for noble purposes, but felt privileged to be there for this presentation and an aspect of the races I hadn't considered.
The setup work is important stuff and goes on even in the rain. We've torn down in roaring thunderstorms before. This is 2007 in Minneapolis.
Like to see what to expect as a volunteer? You can read about my experience last year, in 2006 (you have to scroll down) and even in 2005 (you have to scroll down here too).
Interested? You can sign up on the NVGP's website volunteer pages. If you don't want to work out on the races but wouldn't mind hosting a bike racer or two for a few nights, we have a Host Housing signup too, though it might be getting late for that.
Thanks for reading this, and I hope to see you at a race or two as a volunteer or spectator!
Thanks
Matt Cole
NVGP Volunteer Coordinator
Website: http://www.minnbikefest.com/
From my 2006 write-up, referring to my old friend Paul who rode up here from Iowa to work on the races for multiple days:
"Karla reminded me of something I'd said when she asked me about why Paul would do this, why would he ride up here to work like a dog for several days? She said I responded "Oh, Paul's always up for a bad time". On the face of it, working nights like Friday moving fencing in an unbelievable downpour doesn't sound like a great time, but it's a bonding experience. I wouldn't even say male bonding, because there were several women out there in the rain working away as well. And as they say, of those to whom much is given, much is expected. We are blessed with decades of fun on bicycles, good health, the flexibility to get the time off and the attitude that hard work shared with old friends can be enjoyable. It's also a great time of year to be outside doing stuff. You should consider joining in next year."
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Bridgework on Sunday
As is often my custom, I took my bicycle to church Sunday to ride home after the early service, in which choir I sing, while my wife the Music Director stays on to play the late service. These are usually nice rides home without much in the way of time pressure and I can wander a bit.
I'd seen that today the construction guys working on the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi were going to lift into place a couple of big concrete segments using some enormous crane on a barge. This sounds fun! So I rode past the West Bank of the University of Minnesota and onto the 10th Avenue Bridge immediately adjacent to the I-35W bridge construction site. This makes a marvelous viewpoint, by the way, and is fabulously accessible by bicycle. Here's what I saw.
Jeez, fellas, I hate to be critical or anything, but it looks to me like these aren't level. This is the land side of the approach to the southern bank of the bridge. This would be by the Holiday Inn, for the locals.
There were a bunch of workers here where the big concrete bridge deck segments were to be placed. I kind of wonder what individual workers do in a lift like this. A bunch were taking photographs. In the background you can see part of the Stone Arch Bridge, now used only for pedestrians and cyclists to get across the Mississippi. On the lower right you can see the downstream lock doors for the Upper Saint Anthony Lock.
This is one major crane. It's two barges side by side and moored to the river bank against a pretty strong current. That's a towboat parked behind the two barges. Off to the right is another barge with the two bridge segments to be lifted with a towboat that had moved them into position. These things are cast in the Bohemian Flats area about half a mile downstream. This used to be a neighborhood full of (you guessed it) Bohemians but it was prone to flooding and they were moved out in the 1960s. It's normally open parkland now, but has proven darn handy in the event a major bridge falls down a few hundred yards upstream. They moved a lot of the steel beams there to figure out what had happened, and now are casting these concrete segments there. The little tiny tow nestled in at the bottom of the photo seems to be a water taxi...at one point, it chugged across the river with somebody, then came back. I suppose getting from one side to the other would be a real pain otherwise.
The overall lift scene. You can see downtown Minneapolis in the background and the Upper Saint Anthony Lock and Dam in the middle distance. The river has some real current to it at the moment.
The crane was going to lift this thing, which the workers are fiddling with. Each bridge section had four long rods sticking out of it; near as I could tell, those would go through the four yellow holes in this puppy and be secured somehow, then lifted into position. The pulley on this crane has lots of mechanical advantage and they have to pull oodles of cable to get it move anywhere.
Unfortunately, there was lots of standing around activity going on and I had tickets to The Triangle Factory Fire Project ("a whimsical lighthearted romp!") at the Hillcrest Center Theatre at 2:00, so at 12:30, just as some actual activity was stirring on the deck, so I took my reluctant departure and rode on home and didn't see the actual lift.
The play was excellent, by the way, but today's performance was the final one. This was opening day for bridge segment lifting, and there are 120 sections to be done, so you still have plenty of time to see more.
I'd seen that today the construction guys working on the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi were going to lift into place a couple of big concrete segments using some enormous crane on a barge. This sounds fun! So I rode past the West Bank of the University of Minnesota and onto the 10th Avenue Bridge immediately adjacent to the I-35W bridge construction site. This makes a marvelous viewpoint, by the way, and is fabulously accessible by bicycle. Here's what I saw.
Jeez, fellas, I hate to be critical or anything, but it looks to me like these aren't level. This is the land side of the approach to the southern bank of the bridge. This would be by the Holiday Inn, for the locals.
There were a bunch of workers here where the big concrete bridge deck segments were to be placed. I kind of wonder what individual workers do in a lift like this. A bunch were taking photographs. In the background you can see part of the Stone Arch Bridge, now used only for pedestrians and cyclists to get across the Mississippi. On the lower right you can see the downstream lock doors for the Upper Saint Anthony Lock.
This is one major crane. It's two barges side by side and moored to the river bank against a pretty strong current. That's a towboat parked behind the two barges. Off to the right is another barge with the two bridge segments to be lifted with a towboat that had moved them into position. These things are cast in the Bohemian Flats area about half a mile downstream. This used to be a neighborhood full of (you guessed it) Bohemians but it was prone to flooding and they were moved out in the 1960s. It's normally open parkland now, but has proven darn handy in the event a major bridge falls down a few hundred yards upstream. They moved a lot of the steel beams there to figure out what had happened, and now are casting these concrete segments there. The little tiny tow nestled in at the bottom of the photo seems to be a water taxi...at one point, it chugged across the river with somebody, then came back. I suppose getting from one side to the other would be a real pain otherwise.
The overall lift scene. You can see downtown Minneapolis in the background and the Upper Saint Anthony Lock and Dam in the middle distance. The river has some real current to it at the moment.
The crane was going to lift this thing, which the workers are fiddling with. Each bridge section had four long rods sticking out of it; near as I could tell, those would go through the four yellow holes in this puppy and be secured somehow, then lifted into position. The pulley on this crane has lots of mechanical advantage and they have to pull oodles of cable to get it move anywhere.
Unfortunately, there was lots of standing around activity going on and I had tickets to The Triangle Factory Fire Project ("a whimsical lighthearted romp!") at the Hillcrest Center Theatre at 2:00, so at 12:30, just as some actual activity was stirring on the deck, so I took my reluctant departure and rode on home and didn't see the actual lift.
The play was excellent, by the way, but today's performance was the final one. This was opening day for bridge segment lifting, and there are 120 sections to be done, so you still have plenty of time to see more.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
OK, I'll Tutor You on How To Commute
My class on Bicycle Commuting was a bit of a bust. The young lady from the TMO was there and was apologetic from the beginning because the neighbourhood newsletter advertising a whole series of classes, seminars and rides (of which mine was the first) hadn't gone out yet. I noted in the last entry that it could be anything from three to 175 people. I was too optimistic. They'd been touting the class at Bike to Work Day and other events, but in the end, one woman showed up.
I ran through my spiel anyway. It was more responsive to audience input than it might have been with a larger group. On the off-chance it was a hit, I'd done thirty copies of my Bicycle Commuting handout and brought along a stack of the Trek One World Two Wheels (great name!) brochures. There were plenty of spares!
Despite the thin audience, it reaffirmed several points I made in the handout; both women were confused by derailleur gearing (they knew how to shift, but not about how to think about it or the amount of overlap and duplcation derailleur drivetrains have); the TMO woman does intermodal transport, taking her bike on the bus to work, then riding home, due to lack of shower facilities at her place of employment. I mentioned this as an alternative. She also said that the bike racks on the buses are getting more use, and she has had a bus come along with both slots taken even though she's early in the route; I mentioned that as well.
We went on for about an hour and a half when I detected fatigue setting in and wrapped things up. I packed everything back up, my 29 spare brochures (actually, I left one for the church, who I had credited on the back cover) and laptop, on which I had a pile of relevant photos in a Powerpoint show. It was beautiful outside, maybe 60. I had changed upon arrival to dress trousers, shirt and tie to make the point that it could be done, and decided to ride home all dressed up, just changing to cycling shoes.
Despite the lame attendance, running through the presentation in some semblance of order was worthwhile. The deadline helped, as well, as it made me write my handout. I consider this a beta version, but if you want to read it, it's called Bicycle Commuting: Making a Simple Thing Sound All Complicated and runs 20 pages. After Thursday's experience with my rapt audience of two, I'm tempted to make it longer, filling out the Gears and adding to How To Ride in Traffic in which, at the moment, I don't mention the Door Zone, for instance. If you read it and have comments, I'd like to hear 'em. My e-mail address is printed on the back cover (and the next version won't be quite so time-specific but will still make many references to the Twin Cities).
Anyway, I was riding home and going up Victoria saw a bicycle ahead of me which I easily overtook. It was a lady pulling her daughter on an Adams Trail-a-Bike. Her daughter was ringing her bell, so I rung mine back at her as I went by. I stopped at University at a red light and she caught up. She asked if I was riding home from work (still in tie, remember). Nope, I said, I actually just taught a class on Bicycle Commuting. Really, she asked, we're on our way home from church at the cathedral. We're trying to use the bike more. She was proud of her bicycle, a stylish new Trek. The light changed, we exchanged farewells and rode across University. Then it occured to me; I've got a couple of dozen spare handouts with me, why not offer her one?, so I pulled over and rummaged around in my pannier as she came up and stopped.
I asked if she'd like a Commuting handout. Sure! I gave her one and said I'd appreciate any comments she might have. She thought riding more sounded like a good idea, and thought maybe Commuting seminars are something they could sponsor at church. That probably wouldn't be a bad idea. We again exchanged goodbyes and rode on.
I wonder if this is finally Our Moment. My Trail-a-bike lady mentioned gas prices; my single outside attendee talked about her Suburban and gas prices and her commute. Is gas finally costing enough to make people begin to reconsider transportation options? I've seen false starts before, with the first oil embargo along with the 1970s Bike Boom, with the 1979/80 Iran embargo and high prices then. Cars got smaller, the speed limit dropped to 55, but then oil prices dropped dramatically in the mid-1980s and those efforts faded. The speed limit crept back up; our national fleet mileage peaked in 1986, the year oil dropped from around $30 a barrel to around $10; the young adult baby boomers who had driven the Bike Boom and cycle touring in the 1970s settled into middle age in motor vehicles. With oil so cheap it was hard not to partake of the cheap energy situation. This time, though, it doesn't seem like oil and gas will get cheap again. Is this the inflection point when some more permanent shift in transportation takes place? It feels like it, and hope to be able to help those wanting to incorporate cycling into the mix.
I ran through my spiel anyway. It was more responsive to audience input than it might have been with a larger group. On the off-chance it was a hit, I'd done thirty copies of my Bicycle Commuting handout and brought along a stack of the Trek One World Two Wheels (great name!) brochures. There were plenty of spares!
Despite the thin audience, it reaffirmed several points I made in the handout; both women were confused by derailleur gearing (they knew how to shift, but not about how to think about it or the amount of overlap and duplcation derailleur drivetrains have); the TMO woman does intermodal transport, taking her bike on the bus to work, then riding home, due to lack of shower facilities at her place of employment. I mentioned this as an alternative. She also said that the bike racks on the buses are getting more use, and she has had a bus come along with both slots taken even though she's early in the route; I mentioned that as well.
We went on for about an hour and a half when I detected fatigue setting in and wrapped things up. I packed everything back up, my 29 spare brochures (actually, I left one for the church, who I had credited on the back cover) and laptop, on which I had a pile of relevant photos in a Powerpoint show. It was beautiful outside, maybe 60. I had changed upon arrival to dress trousers, shirt and tie to make the point that it could be done, and decided to ride home all dressed up, just changing to cycling shoes.
Despite the lame attendance, running through the presentation in some semblance of order was worthwhile. The deadline helped, as well, as it made me write my handout. I consider this a beta version, but if you want to read it, it's called Bicycle Commuting: Making a Simple Thing Sound All Complicated and runs 20 pages. After Thursday's experience with my rapt audience of two, I'm tempted to make it longer, filling out the Gears and adding to How To Ride in Traffic in which, at the moment, I don't mention the Door Zone, for instance. If you read it and have comments, I'd like to hear 'em. My e-mail address is printed on the back cover (and the next version won't be quite so time-specific but will still make many references to the Twin Cities).
Anyway, I was riding home and going up Victoria saw a bicycle ahead of me which I easily overtook. It was a lady pulling her daughter on an Adams Trail-a-Bike. Her daughter was ringing her bell, so I rung mine back at her as I went by. I stopped at University at a red light and she caught up. She asked if I was riding home from work (still in tie, remember). Nope, I said, I actually just taught a class on Bicycle Commuting. Really, she asked, we're on our way home from church at the cathedral. We're trying to use the bike more. She was proud of her bicycle, a stylish new Trek. The light changed, we exchanged farewells and rode across University. Then it occured to me; I've got a couple of dozen spare handouts with me, why not offer her one?, so I pulled over and rummaged around in my pannier as she came up and stopped.
I asked if she'd like a Commuting handout. Sure! I gave her one and said I'd appreciate any comments she might have. She thought riding more sounded like a good idea, and thought maybe Commuting seminars are something they could sponsor at church. That probably wouldn't be a bad idea. We again exchanged goodbyes and rode on.
I wonder if this is finally Our Moment. My Trail-a-bike lady mentioned gas prices; my single outside attendee talked about her Suburban and gas prices and her commute. Is gas finally costing enough to make people begin to reconsider transportation options? I've seen false starts before, with the first oil embargo along with the 1970s Bike Boom, with the 1979/80 Iran embargo and high prices then. Cars got smaller, the speed limit dropped to 55, but then oil prices dropped dramatically in the mid-1980s and those efforts faded. The speed limit crept back up; our national fleet mileage peaked in 1986, the year oil dropped from around $30 a barrel to around $10; the young adult baby boomers who had driven the Bike Boom and cycle touring in the 1970s settled into middle age in motor vehicles. With oil so cheap it was hard not to partake of the cheap energy situation. This time, though, it doesn't seem like oil and gas will get cheap again. Is this the inflection point when some more permanent shift in transportation takes place? It feels like it, and hope to be able to help those wanting to incorporate cycling into the mix.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Teach You To Commute I Will
I'm teaching a class on Commuting by Bicycle on Thursday. This is being done on behalf of the Midway TMO (actually, it merged with the Saint Paul TMO and became Smart Trips). It was to be publicized in a mailing but the mailing hasn't gone out yet. I guess they've been flogging it at some events, but there's no signup required so there's no idea how many people will show. Fifteen, they guess, I'm printing 25 copies of my handout, and this is one of those events that could end up with 3 people or 175.
In the event you feel the need for advice from a dilettante commuter such as myself, it will be Thursday May 22 from 6:00PM to 8:00PM at Dayton Avenue Presbyterian Church at 217 Mackubin Street in Saint Paul. Maybe only two civilians will show up and we can impress them with the beauty and efficiency of bicycle commuting by having a bitter and recrimination-filled argument about clipless pedals.
I did commute today, what a hero, Me commuting isn't that notable except today I went to Home Depot after work. We're in the midst of a slowly-evolving kitchen renovation and this was the day to talk Cabinets. This isn't all that fascinating, either, but I rode the new bike trail that parallels Saint Anthony Boulevard. This was a disused train line, and in fact where the trail starts off Walnut just south of County C, there is a sign saying that this right of way is reserved for commuter rail use. The implication; the bike path is temporary, and don't whine you cyclists when we take it back. For the moment, and at the rate those projects move, for many years to come, it makes an excellent alternative to ridng on Saint Anthony Boulevard itself, which is four-lane divided and likely to be regarded as almost Interstate-like by motorists.
To get to the trail, I rode down Cleveland and took County C west. County C west of Cleveland pretty much blows. East of Cleveland there's a superb bike path south of the road AND a four- or five-foot shoulder for those who disdain sidepaths. West of Cleveland there's hardly any shoulder beyond the two travel lanes each way and it's concrete with lots of cracks and potholes indifferently filled in with asphalt. At least there's plenty of truck traffic and impatient motorists. Since it's outside of Saint Paul, it's not under the purview of the Saint Paul Bicycle Advisory Board and I don't know of any plans for the lousy bit of County C, but if they rebuild it to the standards of the road east of Cleveland it would be an excellent route towards downtown.
Although this isn't exactly unexplored territory for me (although I hadn't been on the trail, which opened last fall), I did consult my excellent Twin Cities Bike Map, 9th edition (that's the brand new edition, just out). Little Transport Press has become Bike Everywhere which I think is just a new name. I really like this map and am constantly surprised by the number of cyclists who don't have it. I'll be urging it on those who attend my Commuting Class because I have found it very trustworthy over the years. The price went up to $11.95 from $9.95 but it's printed on some kind of waxy paper that is supposedly water resistant, which is good because my older ones have gotten pretty worn being carried around. You should get one of these maps.
I did like this bit from the new edition:
The I-35W bridge over the Mississippi is missing on the map. He'll have to put it back in, of course, but it won't affect cyclists other than to reopen the bike path on the east bank.
Speaking of bridges, I got an email noting that in the flurry of self-congratulatory bill passing at the last minute by our government (our Governor Tim Pawlenty seemed more agreeable than usual, perhaps hoping that next year he'll be Vice President) was a couple of million bucks to remove and rebuild the Cedar Avenue Bridge over the Minnesota River in Bloomington. This will be for cyclists and pedestrians only and is a useful connector across the river. Doug will have to update the map again; right now, his says "Bridge Out" at that spot. He also still shows the Lowry Avenue bridge open; it had a pier move 11 inches and our suddenly bridge-sensitive government closed it down (the same happened to a bridge in Saint Cloud, and the Hastings Highway 61 bridge is down to 1 lane due to buckling gusset plates...sheesh, you have one Interstate Bridge drop off the map and all of a sudden people give a damn about our crumbling infrastructure). It's getting hard for a cartographer to keep up with the bridge status in this state.
In the event you feel the need for advice from a dilettante commuter such as myself, it will be Thursday May 22 from 6:00PM to 8:00PM at Dayton Avenue Presbyterian Church at 217 Mackubin Street in Saint Paul. Maybe only two civilians will show up and we can impress them with the beauty and efficiency of bicycle commuting by having a bitter and recrimination-filled argument about clipless pedals.
I did commute today, what a hero, Me commuting isn't that notable except today I went to Home Depot after work. We're in the midst of a slowly-evolving kitchen renovation and this was the day to talk Cabinets. This isn't all that fascinating, either, but I rode the new bike trail that parallels Saint Anthony Boulevard. This was a disused train line, and in fact where the trail starts off Walnut just south of County C, there is a sign saying that this right of way is reserved for commuter rail use. The implication; the bike path is temporary, and don't whine you cyclists when we take it back. For the moment, and at the rate those projects move, for many years to come, it makes an excellent alternative to ridng on Saint Anthony Boulevard itself, which is four-lane divided and likely to be regarded as almost Interstate-like by motorists.
To get to the trail, I rode down Cleveland and took County C west. County C west of Cleveland pretty much blows. East of Cleveland there's a superb bike path south of the road AND a four- or five-foot shoulder for those who disdain sidepaths. West of Cleveland there's hardly any shoulder beyond the two travel lanes each way and it's concrete with lots of cracks and potholes indifferently filled in with asphalt. At least there's plenty of truck traffic and impatient motorists. Since it's outside of Saint Paul, it's not under the purview of the Saint Paul Bicycle Advisory Board and I don't know of any plans for the lousy bit of County C, but if they rebuild it to the standards of the road east of Cleveland it would be an excellent route towards downtown.
Although this isn't exactly unexplored territory for me (although I hadn't been on the trail, which opened last fall), I did consult my excellent Twin Cities Bike Map, 9th edition (that's the brand new edition, just out). Little Transport Press has become Bike Everywhere which I think is just a new name. I really like this map and am constantly surprised by the number of cyclists who don't have it. I'll be urging it on those who attend my Commuting Class because I have found it very trustworthy over the years. The price went up to $11.95 from $9.95 but it's printed on some kind of waxy paper that is supposedly water resistant, which is good because my older ones have gotten pretty worn being carried around. You should get one of these maps.
I did like this bit from the new edition:
The I-35W bridge over the Mississippi is missing on the map. He'll have to put it back in, of course, but it won't affect cyclists other than to reopen the bike path on the east bank.
Speaking of bridges, I got an email noting that in the flurry of self-congratulatory bill passing at the last minute by our government (our Governor Tim Pawlenty seemed more agreeable than usual, perhaps hoping that next year he'll be Vice President) was a couple of million bucks to remove and rebuild the Cedar Avenue Bridge over the Minnesota River in Bloomington. This will be for cyclists and pedestrians only and is a useful connector across the river. Doug will have to update the map again; right now, his says "Bridge Out" at that spot. He also still shows the Lowry Avenue bridge open; it had a pier move 11 inches and our suddenly bridge-sensitive government closed it down (the same happened to a bridge in Saint Cloud, and the Hastings Highway 61 bridge is down to 1 lane due to buckling gusset plates...sheesh, you have one Interstate Bridge drop off the map and all of a sudden people give a damn about our crumbling infrastructure). It's getting hard for a cartographer to keep up with the bridge status in this state.
The Three Speed Tour
The 2008 episode of the Lake Pepin Three Speed Tour was this past weekend. As always, Jon and Noel organized a wonderful event. We gathered in Red Wing, rode to Wabasha Saturday with some tailwinds and a spot of rain to make in an official Three Speed Tour, had the usual bash at the Eagle's Nest Coffee Shop Saturday night, then gathered to ride back Sunday. It was cooler Sunday, sunny, but we had stiff headwinds. Fortunately, these were often screened along the river but the group that took the highlands route out of Wabasha suffered for their decision though I gather there were terrific views. There was a Brew Up in Lake City, the usual social gathering in Old Frontenac, the excitement of the Hill Avenue climb and descent for many of us, then the slog into Red Wing into the teeth of the wind and the post-ride gathering at the Staghead. This was of course all done on three-speed bicycles whilst dressed in proper ladies-and-gentlemen fashion. In my case, I again went as the Quicker Vicar, seen here at the Lake Pepin sign on the Wisconsin side.
Last year I took the easy way out, sticking to Highway 35 south of Maiden Rock rather than taking the County AA/E climb to the top of the bluffs. This year, I climbed. Actually, I walked a bit of it, but it turns out that not much easier on the legs than riding. Once atop Maiden Rock, which had been ridden to by a tandem pulling a trailer and many riders including several young ladies in skirts and heels, we fell about to bask in the view and the sunlight.
That's Wisconsin Highway 35, the lowlands route, down below. The ride across the dandelion meadow is just about the only off-road riding I do all year. The reward is great, since two years ago I'd done the Death March selection for the loop and bypassed this outcrop by accident. It's worth going out to.
I'll write more, but it'll be a few days. Got a busy week coming up. To all who rode the Tour, thanks for a great event, it's terrific how our little bit of alternate reality for two days creates such a high and it's a priviledge to ride with you. It makes a great kickoff to the summer cycling season.
Last year I took the easy way out, sticking to Highway 35 south of Maiden Rock rather than taking the County AA/E climb to the top of the bluffs. This year, I climbed. Actually, I walked a bit of it, but it turns out that not much easier on the legs than riding. Once atop Maiden Rock, which had been ridden to by a tandem pulling a trailer and many riders including several young ladies in skirts and heels, we fell about to bask in the view and the sunlight.
That's Wisconsin Highway 35, the lowlands route, down below. The ride across the dandelion meadow is just about the only off-road riding I do all year. The reward is great, since two years ago I'd done the Death March selection for the loop and bypassed this outcrop by accident. It's worth going out to.
I'll write more, but it'll be a few days. Got a busy week coming up. To all who rode the Tour, thanks for a great event, it's terrific how our little bit of alternate reality for two days creates such a high and it's a priviledge to ride with you. It makes a great kickoff to the summer cycling season.
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