Fall Flowers - I Love My Commute

Today I stopped and took a few quick pictures on my way home. This is one of the reasons I love to commute on the greenways. These fall flowers are so much more enjoyable than a bunch of cars.

Get a local bike map, pull up Google maps and find you a good route. The fastest way is not always the best.

Witnessed a Bike Collide With a Police Car

On my ride home today I witnessed a bike collide with a police car. I looked up the location on Google maps and added some visual aides. The green line is where I cross on my commute. The blue rectangles are two police ars that were in the parking lot. The red line is where the cyclist was riding on the side walk. It is downhill had he had picked up some speed. The police car rolled forward like you would to see around the wall and bush on his right. His front bumper moved into the part of the driveway that would intersect the sidewalk path just as the cyclist arrived. He hit the corner of the front bumper and took a spill in front of the car. 

An officer got out of each car and checked on the rider right away. He seemed a little stunned but OK. He had a scrape on his shoulder and elbow. He was not wearing a shirt or a helmet. He said he was 18. If the collision had not involved a police car I suspect he would have gotten up riden away. But the police insisted he wait for the ambulance. The officer asked if I had seen what happened and when I said yes, he asked me to stay and talk to his supervisor.

Before the supervisor arrived, a fire department vehicle arrived. Three guys got out and started attending to the rider. Then an ambulance arrived and the rider received more attention. Next a fire truck arrived, I guess just to make sure enough traffic was blocked. Finally the supervisor arrived and took a statement from me.

This was the kind of incident that shows why it is dangerous to ride on the sidewalk if you are not a child. This rider was moving fast and on the sidewalk where he was moving toward traffic. The spot is a blind one. I don’t think you can see a car pulling out because of the wall and bush and the car can’t see the sidewalk for the same reason. The parking lot is also downhill from the wall which makes it even harder to see. It is not up to me to decide fault, but it is clear a rider moving quickly down the hill on the the sidewalk is taking unnecessary risks.

Bike To Work Indonesian Style

I ran into this video at Taking The Lane. It shows a grassroots organization, Bike To Work, that has 50,000 members. It shows a 6 hour time slot when the main streets were closed to cars named Carfree Day. The daily traffic looks very heavy and any extra space the bicycles can use is shared with scooters and motorcycles as well. As too often happens, when a bicycle path was built it doesn’t go anywhere that people want to go and is used less than planned.

The video certainly shows a range of modern bicycles being used.

Bikes on Big Brother

It has come to my attention that this summer’s Big Brother TV show on CBS has a lot of bicycles used as decoration for the house. Actually I have to confess that it comes to my attention because I actually watch Big Brother every summer. The bikes don’t seem to have anything to do in the show. After all the people are trapped in a house and yard for weeks on end. There is not enough room to really ride them. I wonder if they will get bored enough to ride them anyway at some point. They mostly seem to be part of the decor. It does speak to bicycles being used more in popular media.

I found some pictures showing some of the bikes, but they are not the main subject of the pictures. Does anybody recognize any of the bike models? These kind of TV shows are big on product placement, but if these are all the same brand it is very subtle. They are all what are often called transportation bikes, not racing bikes or mountain bikes or even hybrids.

Just outside the door were people exit when they are voted out is the bike in these two pictures. A nice city bike with fenders. You can’t see it in this picture but it appears to have an internal gear hub.

Then off the kitchen there are two bike racks. The one in this picture has two bikes in it. The other one faces it just outside this picture has one more bike in it. These appear to be the ones that could be ridden.

In the last picture and this next one you can see some partially disassembled bikes mounted on the wall.

Here is another nice city bike hanging in the yard as decoration. This looks like it could be the same model as the one outside the door.

I have also seen a tandem hanging above the door to the Head of Household room, but I didn’t find any pictures of it. By the way, my wife just sees me noticing the bikes at all as just another sign of my obsession. I have been married over 20 years and I know enough not to disagree with her.

100 Miles of Nowhere

On Saturday, May 28, 2011 I road the 100 Miles to Nowhere. This is the first time I have ridden this event even though it is the 4th time FatCyclist.com has organized it.This event was evidently dreamed up by Fatty after a bad batch of burritos and some Utah mountain cabin fever. The good part is that you get to make up your own version. The original features rollers and I don't ride inside. Instead I spent some money on enough winter clothes to ride through the winter. Of course our NC winters feature a lot less snow than Utah.

But I didn't need any winter clothes this late in June. In fact I won my division finishing with temperatures over 90 degrees. My division was the 60 lap, multiple 20th century bikes (no carbon
fiber), 50 to 55 year old division. So if anyone else that age rode exactly 60 laps to total a 100 mile and road more than one bike made between 1900 and 2000, let me know and we can compare times.

And when I say multiple bikes, I don't mean I have 4 nice road bikes to switch between. Here are the bikes.

87 Cannondale I call Alfred. Read more about Alfred in Old Enough To Drink. Alfred does have the distinction of being ridden in a century or longer 14 months in a row and counting. Some of those definitely involved the winter clothes I mention before.

87-88 Cannondale special edition MTB setup for my wife to ride. She likes this crazy bench seat. I can't say the seat is uncomfortable but it does feel kind of strange.

90's Trek Mountain Track converted for commuting where I do about half my yearly miles. While not fast this was easy to ride since I am so used to it. It is setup for a twisty path and keeping your head somewhat up.

90's Huffy single speed beach cruiser that I restored for my daughter. It is really not my size and there were enough hills on the ride to make it a challenge. The handlebars are swept back so much you can't get much leverage when you stand up to climb. It does cruise nicely along the flats it was designed for.

The loop was 1.66 miles and winds through two neighborhoods. The start, finish, bicycle swaps and all rest stops were at my house. I have ridden lots of well done charity rides, but I will say this one had the best bathrooms.

The Best Laid Plans

Scottish poet Robert Burns said the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. So was the case of my plan for a Sunday bike ride in Pune, Maharashtra, India.

I was planning to ride on little sleep but I figured it would help adjust to the 9 1/2 hour time difference. Besides I figured it wouldn't be any worse than the last 100K of the 300K I rode last month.

Fog on Friday morning in Chicago started the break down of the plan. Chicago O'Hare is the third busiest airport in the world after Atlanta and Beijing. Once they are behind it usually takes until the next day for them to catch up.

I had a business trip to Pune and had asked a co-worker from the Pune office if anyone in the office was a bicyclist. He said none of them where but he had a friend who was. He put me in contact with his friend and the planning began. He borrowed a bike from a friend, planned a route, and shared advice about what I would need. We were set for a 5:00 am start to avoid both traffic and heat. Some of our planning was about water. I packed two bottles and a Camelback with the intention of filling them with bottled water at the hotel before leaving for his house. We were going to ride 60K or maybe up to 100K depending on how the ride went.

The plane we were meant to take from NC to Chicago just flies back and forth. It was delayed leaving Chicago and we watched our departure time get later and later. In the meantime the schedule for our flight from Chicago to Delhi remained unchanged. Eventually it became clear we were not going to make the connection. They rebooked us for the next day, we went home and our extra day in India was lost.

The next day (really 2) after 33 hours of travel, 6 hours in the hotel (maybe half of it sleeping), we headed to the office Monday morning.

But the goal of riding in India was not dead. But more about that later.

Dopers Suck

While I follow bicycle racing, it is not what this blog is about. And I don't intend to go off on a rant about doping, but I am going to sum up my feelings. Dopers suck.

And I guess I am not alone, because Sock Guy sells socks saying the same thing.

And Twin Six as well.

Enough said in this forum.