Veloquent

Book Review: Off to the Races

2009-12-27T12:25:00.000-08:00

I'm lucky enough to have good friends of the non-bikey persuasion who know me as a bike geek. One of those friends found a blast from my past at a garage sale in the form of the book Off to the Races (copyright 1968) written by Fred and Marjorie Phleger and illustrated by Leo Summers.

I owned a copy of this book way back in my tricycle days, long before I graduated to two-wheelers, and -- now that I see it again and the memories come rushing back -- I think it's probably my favorite kids' bike book, even outstripping the famed primate on wheels Curious George. It's the story of a boy who's told that he's "too young" to make the two-day bike trip with older brother Bob to a bike rally. Undeterred, our hero sneaks a peek at Bob's maps, sees his brother off, then sets off himself in a solo pursuit. Thus begins a trip that cyclists of all ages can relate to -- hills, fatigue, rain, mud, darkness, and even an encounter with a bear. At the risk of minor spoilage, our hero does finally reach the rally -- which includes, among many other events, a "wiggly board race." Let's see Lance Armstrong do that!

With simple full-page colored drawings and just a couple kid-friendly sentences per page, the Phlegers and Leo Summers still manage to convey an epic adventure on wheels. I remember worrying about that kid as he rode alone through the rainy night searching for Bob. I remember wondering if he would ever make it to that rally. Three decades later, I still worry and wonder, even though I know the ending by heart. Best of all, even though the bikes and outfits look dated (it's like Dick and Jane meet The Rivendell Reader) and I've never heard of a rally like the one described ("wiggly board race", remember?), the book rings true to me as a cyclist now that I've finally taken the training wheels off and set out on my own two-wheeled adventures.

All in all, it's a book that bikers of all ages can appreciate. If you can find a copy (it seems to be long out of print, unfortunately, although there are usually used copies on Amazon), I highly recommend it.

Bob's Bike Shop

2009-09-29T07:59:00.000-07:00

Note: the following is an award-losing bit of fiction I wrote for Dirt Rag's literature contest. If you want to read a better story than the one that follows, pick up a copy of Dirt Rag #145 and read the one written by Kevin MacGregor Scott. That fellow can really tell a good tale.

Here, for free, you can read my effort. I'm releasing the story under Creative Commons (see the license at the end) so feel free to pass it around. The story is totally free but if you want to toss some money my way, I won't argue. Any money I get from the story goes into my 2010 Tour Divide Race Fund. The little button at the bottom will let you send any amount to my Paypal account at kentsbike@fastmail.fm

Bob's Bike Shop

by Kent Peterson

Steve rolls up, five minutes before closing time with a seriously tweaked wheel and a sob story about a race tomorrow. I try to put him off, but when he offers to buy us all burritos, Tess and the boys out-vote me. Tess takes Steve's cash and the evening's bank deposit, promising to return with burritos for all. I pop Steve's wheel into the truing stand and the boys each keep working on the bikes in their respective stands.

As I turn my attention to the wheel, Steve asks an innocent question, "So, how did you ever get into the bike business, anyway?"

My younger son lets out a groan and his older brother turns to Steve and says "Oh man, why did you have to ask that?"

"What?" Steve says.

"Pay them no mind," I say, "they've heard this story a few times..."

"More like a few dozen times," the one with the smart mouth interrupts.

"Maybe a hundred times," the one with the even smarter mouth adds. "But now you've done it. Did you know Dad used to have a car?"

"Strange, but true." I say to Steve, "I used to have a car. Back when I was your age," I add, addressing my son, "I wasn't that bright..."

------------------

It took all winter and the first part of the spring, but by April I'd saved up enough snow-shoveling and lawn-mowing money to buy Tex's brother's old MG. The car was my British racing green ticket to freedom and in my dreams I'd give Cathy rides home after school, her blond hair flowing in the wind, her laughter like music as she chuckled at my latest observation of the human condition.

The car was great, with real dials and an honest-to-god rag-top but it had its quirks. The car had an unhealthy thirst for oil and it spewed smoke like Q had rigged a smoke screen that would let 007 leave any villains coughing in confusion. The electrical system would've been more at home in Dr. Frankenstein's lab than under a car hood. Excuse me, bonnet. When you own an MG, even if you've lived in Wisconsin your entire life, you start dropping British-isms into your speech and you wear one of those tweed driving hats. At least that's what I did.

I drove the car back and forth to school and I got a job where I learned to smile as I asked "You want fries with that?" My paychecks all seemed to go into gas, oil, big checks to an insurance company and fixing the latest and most drastic of the MG's quirks. The only times I got to see Cathy outside of the couple of classes we shared would be when she and big dumb Todd would stop by at Gordy's and I'd ask if they wanted fries with their order. I'd hear her laughter like music as Todd made some obvious observation of the human condition. God, how I hated Todd.

I was on my way to work when the MG broke down.

Again.

This time, some hose cracked and something leaked and a ton of smoke poured out of pretty much everywhere. I coasted to a stop in front of Bob's shop. Of course, I didn't know then that it was Bob's shop. I didn't know Bob and I'd never had any reason to go into his shop. Bob's place was a bike shop and what would I need a bike for? I had a car. Bikes were for kids.

I was still swearing at the car when Bob came out to ask if I need any help or a fire extinguisher or anything.

"A phone," I said. "Can I borrow your phone? I gotta call work and tell 'em I'll be late."

"Sure, sure," said Bob, and I followed him into his store.

The place was packed with bikes and smelled like old tires. There was stuff everywhere. Tires hung on pegs above the rows of bikes and there were baskets and bells and brightly colored shirts and a board with a bunch of gears hanging on it. Wrenches hung, each on their own hook, next to tools I didn't recognize above a workbench containing a vice and some gadget with a wheel clamped in its jaws. Posters advertising brands I didn't know flanked pictures of skinny guys I didn't recognize sprinting across some finish-line somewhere in Europe.

"What's a Molteni?" I asked, pointing to the picture of some dark-haired guy with big legs. I'd read the word off the front of his shirt.

"Molteni?!?" Bob paused, then followed my gaze to the poster. "Oh," he laughed, "some Italian company, I think they make sausage or something."

"Who's the dude?" I asked.

Bob shot me the look you get when you ask a really dumb question and then smiled broadly and said "Merckx. His name's Eddy Merckx. Don't you have to make a call?"

"Oh yeah," I said, as Bob pointed me to the phone. "I'm not looking forward to this. Gordy was so pissed the last time I was late."

"Gordy?" Bob asked. "You work at Gordy's? The burger joint?"

"Yeah, " I said. "I know you... Double Cheeseburger, no mayo, right?"

"Yep." Bob laughed. "I guess it's true, you are what you eat."

"I'm supposed to be at work in twenty minutes. I betcha Gordy fires me this time."

"Ride there," Bob said.

"What?" I said.

"Ride there," Bob repeated. "I'll loan you a bike."

"But - but it's too far," I protest. "And it's up a big hill."

"Geez!" Bob exploded, "Hand me the phone and I'll call Gordy myself and tell him to fire you! It's two miles at most!" Then he paused for a second and added, in a quieter tone, "Look, I ride there darn near every day and I'm an old man. You can certainly do it. You know, bikes have gears these days."

"I dunno." I paused, still holding the phone.

"Look," Bob said firmly. "You're burning time debating this. You can take my burger bike. It'll take you ten min..." he paused for a second, looked at me and quickly amended, "You can make it. At Fourth Avenue cut over to Maple and take it up the hill instead of Pine. It's a block out of your way, but it's not as steep."

"OK," I said, kind of relieved not to have to make the call. "But I've got a dumb question. How do I work the gears on this thing?"

Bob gave a half-roll of his eyes as if to say "Kids these days!" and then patiently explained the two levers that work the gears. "The lever on the left controls the front der... chain shifting thing. Moving the chain over to the smaller ring up front makes things easier. The right lever controls the rear derailleur, we call the shifting things derailleurs, and the back is the opposite of the front. In the back, the smaller gears are harder and the bigger one is easier. Oh, and you shift while pedaling."

"Where's the clutch?" I asked.

"No clutch," Bob replied. "Bikes don't have clutches. But they don't like to shift under load, so downshift before you need to. You'll catch on, it's easy. It's like riding a bike."

We agreed that I'd bring the bike back after I'd finished my shift at Gordy's.

"I'll leave my car as collateral," I said.

"I'd rather have something of value," Bob grumbled in response. "Bring me a burger and we're square."

I made it to work with three minutes to spare.

Riding back to the shop was easier than riding to work. The wind blew through my hair and for a few minutes at least I out-rolled the smell of french fries that clung to my work clothes.

The shop was closed by the time I get there, but I saw Bob inside. I knocked on the glass and held up the greasy burger bag. Bob opened the door and let me in.

He went back to working on a wheel that was clamped in what I'd later learn is called a truing stand. "You're working late," I said.

"I've got a lot to do," Bob said. "It's my busy time of year. So, how are you going to get that car out of my parking space?"

"Oh - I, uhmm..." I hadn't really thought this through.

"It's got a blown head gasket," Bob explained, "I checked it out after you left. You're not driving it anywhere for a while. You got money for a tow?"

"Uhmm..."

"That's what I thought. OK, I'll help you push it around back. I've got some space back there and you won't get ticketed. When is your next paycheck?"

"Friday, no, a week from Friday. Crap."

"You're burger-based career plan seems to have gone slightly awry, my friend. How are you getting to work between now and next Friday?"

"Maybe I could bike there?" I ventured.

"My generosity has its limits, kid," Bob grumbled, but then he went on. "Look, you need wheels and I can use some help, so here's what we do. You keep the burger bike for the next couple of weeks, but you come here before and after your shifts at Gordy's. You don't seem that bright but you can probably get the hang of sweeping up and putting away parts and things..."

And so I rode for the next couple of weeks. I swept and shelved and Bob decided that maybe I could learn a few more things so he showed me the differences between brake and derailleur cables, how to adjust brakes so they don't squeal, how to lube chains and true wheels. I listened as he debated the merits of drilling out brake levers and derailleurs with various customers.

"How much is Gordy paying you?" Bob asked one day and when I answered he followed up with "Heh, I guess the burger business is every bit as lucrative as the bicycle business. If you want, you can keep working here and I'll match what Gordy's paying you. Your hands will still get greasy, but at least you won't smell like fries."

"But - but," I protested, "Cathy never comes here."

"Cathy?" Bob asked and I told him all about the goddess with the golden hair and the lilting laughter and that someday she'd see that she would be much better off with me than with big dumb Todd.

Bob nodded sagely and said "Let me see if I have this straight: you're working at a job you don't like, to pay for a car you can't afford, to impress a girl with an established track record of liking big, dumb guys. Right?"

I admitted that it sounded kind of stupid when he put it that way.

"Oh no," Bob countered. "The plan will work. You've got the dumb part down and you just have to shoot up another six inches and she'll fall for you like a ton of bricks." He dropped the sarcasm from his voice, shifted gears with just the slightest pause and went on, "Look, kid, I'm sure she's a looker and hell, maybe she's the one for you. And when I was your age I was probably twice as stupid as you are now. But there are lots of gals out there, some that are pretty and some that are smart and a lot that are both. I'm sure you don't believe me, but it's not worth settling for a woman who will settle for dumb. And you know," he added, "some cute gals come into bike shops, too."

I gave notice at Gordy's the next day. When school got out for the summer, I started working full time at Bob's.

I learned a lot that summer and some of it was about bikes. Bob helped me replace the head gasket in the MG and then I sold it to Todd's little brother. I used the money I got out of the car to buy an old Peugeot PX-10. "Oh God," Bob said, "going from a British car to a French bike. You must be one of those guys whose not happy unless he's got something to tinker with."

Bob taught me how to tinker with a lot of stuff. Sometimes in the busy season we'd stay late, after we'd closed up the shop just to catch up on repairs. At night the skip off the ionosphere would let the shop radio pull in the blues station from Chicago and we'd listen to B.B. King and John Lee Hooker and Billie Holiday.

One night after work Bob popped a tape in the VCR and we watched a documentary about Eddy Merckx. The guy came in second in some race and we watched as his shoulders dropped and he looked sadder than any blues song I'd ever heard. He wasn't pissed, he was just sad. And then he went and rode. In the rain and on rollers next to his washing machine. And he rode and he rode and he rode. And he won. "See that?" Bob said. "You keep going."

And Bob kept going. He was twice my age and twice as fast on a bike. As I got to know Bob, I learned his story. He talked about his wife a lot, even though she'd died a few years before, a victim of a hit-and-run. I thought maybe that was why Bob hated cars, but that turned out to be one of those simple and wrong conclusions that kids jump to some times. Bob kept talking about Martha because he still loved her and he didn't stop loving her just because she was gone. He told me that she was pretty and smart and that she'd been worth waiting for. And he didn't work all those hours in the bike shop because he hated cars, he did it because he loved bicycles. You find someone or something to love and you stick with it. Bob didn't hate cars, he really seemed to enjoy himself when we were working on the MG, but he never loved cars the way he loved bikes. I think Bob was one of those guys who was happiest when he had something to tinker with.

"You should go make something of yourself," he told me. "It's a big world, check it out." On Saturday mornings, before the shop would open, we'd go down to the long, flat Sawmill Road with bikes and a stopwatch and we'd time-trial. Thursday nights after work, we'd do laps out by the Airport. And at least a couple days a week, I'd do burger runs up to Gordy's. I no longer needed to go a block out of my way and go up Maple. I'd punch it straight up Pine, just like Eddy Merckx.

-----------

A knock at the window puts an end to my story. I slide the deadbolt and give my wife a big kiss as she rolls her bike through the door.

"Finally!" says Eddy. "We're starving here."

Tess shakes her short brown hair free of her helmet, her laughter filling the shop like music. "It's up a big hill!" she says, repeating one of our oldest family jokes. "Actually," she adds, "I've never seen the taco truck that busy. I guess the word has gotten out." She hands Steve's change to him along with the first burrito and passes a second one on to Eddy. Turning to grab his supper, Eddy notices for the first time that his older brother is getting red in the face while pushing on a big wrench.

"Hey, College Boy," he says "you'll never get it out that way. It's Italian. Right-hand thread on both sides."

My eldest son gets that "Doh!" look on his face and Tess and I exchange a half-roll of our eyes as if to say "Kids these days!"

My lovely wife hands me a burrito. "Miss me?"

"Every time you go," I say, "but you're worth waiting for." Turning to our son I add, "Take a break, Bob. It's burrito time."

Bob's Bike Shop by Kent Peterson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Lapsed Veloquentia Meet on Start Line

2009-09-24T22:21:00.001-07:00

First I was on the starting line at SSWC09 in Durango.

Then Jacquie coalesced next to me.

Then I said, "you know, we both sort of blog on veloquent."
And she said "whats veloquent?".
And I was all like "that blog that Kent set up."
And she said, "oh yeah, I should write more for that."
I said, "me too."

Anyhow, it was a pleasure meeting Jacquie for real. I think we had met 13 years ago at the Marin Fat tire festival, but she was busy playing the Banjo and selling naked posters of herself and I was busy saying, "holy shit that's Jacquie Phelan." But that was then. This time, she was busy being fabulous and I was busy saying, "holy shit that's Jacquie Phelan."

My SSWC09 race report
Jacquie's SSWC09 race report

Corn Country

2009-08-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

Aside to Christopher: I'm working on my assignment, honest! But in the meantime, this came to me on tonight's ride.

I'd forgotten what an August ride in corn country really smells like until tonight, that thick humidity hanging over the fields, rich with pollen. Here on the flatlands, you'll never ride up out of it, so you just wade through, breathing in what the corn exhales. It takes me back to so many places... standing in the front yard shucking the sweet corn grandpa just picked, peeling back the thick husks to expose the delicate white-green silk over the plump yellow kernels. Or spinning down a country road on my dad's wheel, hypnotized by the drone of our breathing, our chains running over the cogs, and the cicadas.

Out in the sunlight, the smell has a spicier edge to it, almost a garlicky overtone, but when you ride into a rare patch of shade, it mellows to something mildly sugary -- maybe it's just an illusion, the perception of sweetness that comes from that sudden cool respite from the sun. I can almost taste sweet corn right off the cob, even though I know that what I'm smelling is nearly-inedible field corn destined to become cattle feed or high-fructose corn syrup.

In a week or so, the ragweed will overtake me, and my allergies will prevent me from smelling just about anything on these evening rides. But for a brief, blissful moment, I'll suffer through the heat and humidity just to enjoy this scent from my childhood.

Through Tough Times

2009-07-25T08:14:00.000-07:00

At the outset, Kent said this about Veloquent...

"The idea behind Veloquent is good writing about good riding."

This collaboration of authors has done just that. Still, it appears that the skilled writers who were invited to contribute to this blog have focused recently on their own individual, and wildly popular, blogs. As someone who is not a blog celebrity, I don't have an obligation to an adoring public, so I'll take this opportunity to challenge the other authors to share their skills here. Consider this post a creative writing assignment.

The topic is "How riding a bicycle helped me through a tough time". Most of us have been through some tough times. As cyclists, surely the bicycle, in some form, served as a coping mechanism. Write about it. Perhaps, you'll find you have something in common with others in this community. Maybe, you'll develop a new appreciation for your time on two wheels. Best of all, you might even help someone who is struggling at this moment. Wouldn't that be grand?

The following is my pump primer...

It wasn't the bicycle exclusively. It wasn't even the bicycle most of all. In all honesty it was God and people who helped the most. A network of family and friends were invaluable, and my wife was the greatest earthly comfort of all. That said, my time on the bicycle provided a key ingredient and helped me mentally, emotionally, and physically through my two plus years of hell.

I'll not go into details. That is a another story for another time. I'll simply say that it involved violence, checking a loved one into psychiatric hospitals in the middle of the night, ambulance rides, confusion, loss of sleep, worry, family strife, anxiety, relocating to a different part of the state, and struggling to find ways to love more than I had the capacity to love. Compared to anything before, or since, it is the only truly difficult thing I've ever faced. During this time, my use of the bicycle was transformed.

Before the great turmoil, the bicycle was an instrument of training. During my struggles, it was a coping strategy. When life was easy, I had cycling objectives and I trained my body to meet them. When I struggled to get through each day, cycling was a short reward for surviving a little bit longer. My longer rides were less about a higher average speed or another set of intervals, and more about clearing my head, making difficult decisions, and shedding stress...or tears. I began to grab short pockets of time, even 5 or 10 minutes, to go outside and ride circles in the cul-de-sac in front of my house. In those precious longer rides that came less often, I remember feeling my legs pumping endorphines into my system. When I returned, I figured I could somehow make it through the next real challenge.

The worst of those 2 years is behind me now, but that time taught me something about what love is and the importance of people. I ride my bicycle more frequently now than ever, but it distracts from my obligations to people less than it once did. I'm not as fit and I'm not as fast, but in this more healthy balance I've found, I enjoy the bike more than ever. So when the minor frustrations (or even crisis moments) of life arise, I have learned first hand that the bicycle is good medicine.

Phantoms, Part 6

2009-07-23T17:52:00.000-07:00

By the time I started mountain biking, Dad couldn’t follow. He could remember his old Schwinn, but the feeling of that heavy bike under a ten-year old boy was lost. He could only recall the shame of dragging it home, axle snapped, to face a mother’s “wait-till-your-father-gets-home” and the long, punishing wait until that father got off his late shift at the power plant. What he didn’t remember was the instant of silence when sixty pounds of Schwinn steel lifted off from the curb. Who could blame him? On that much bike, time in the air didn’t last. Landings were what stuck in the mind, the splay of the front fork, the crunch, the consequences.

But I remembered. I grew up mountain biking before I knew such a thing existed, cruising my parents’ farm. A downhill chute, four feet wide, ran between the east cornfield and the machine shed, opening in the gap between the shed and the barn, closing down to a green tunnel between barn and field which would spit me out near grandpa’s garden at top speed. I’d veer out of the chute at the corner of the barn, cross the broken concrete of the empty cattle lot, pedal frantically to the two-foot drop at lot’s edge, and lift off, a frenzy of sound meeting the anticipatory silence of flight. Landings in the garden meant flat tires, bloodied elbows, a mouth full of dirt, ringing ears, but who cared about consequences when you were in the air? Were the astronauts, my childhood heroes, worrying about the landing when they saw sky give way to space?

My father doesn’t mountain bike because it’s marketed as an “extreme” sport. He doesn’t understand or want to understand all this “extreme” nonsense. As if on schedule, exactly thirty years after leaving Kent State as an idealistic liberal, he has become a grumpy old bastard. “What’s this Mountain Dew commercial about? All these mountain bikers screaming at me... what’s the point of that? Stop screaming. Go get another piercing.” He puts on a good show, but I can see the fear and bewilderment. In a span of time that must seem sudden to him, the counterculture has gone from peace signs and pot to nose rings and heroin. The new teachers he hires at his school are younger than his own children. A stomach which once tolerated morning pizza heated over a dorm desk lamp has become delicate. On his forehead, the hair has gradually crept away at the corners leaving only a narrow peninsula in the center. After fifty-three years and two heart attacks, he is just starting to accept the possibility that he might be getting old.

Schwinn first reissued the Black Phantom in 1995 to celebrate both their centennial and their return from the ashes of bankruptcy. The company had gradually cashed in on the growing rush for “retro” bikes with some less-expensive replica cruisers, but the ‘95 Phantom aspired to much more than these novelties could ever hope for. It was to be an exact copy of the original, top to bottom. The project was to create pure anachronism, bicycles designed from crumbling original blueprints, constructed with tools that had not been used in almost half a century. Where original tools could not be found, they were built, created from history and memory to fabricate one small production run at an astronomical cost. The 1995 Phantoms were born of human touch in an industry dominated by computer-controlled robot welders. The project cost a fortune, well beyond what the company could recoup from the sale of the bikes, even at almost three-thousand dollars each. It made no sense. It was beyond business. It was irrational. And it was beautiful, all the way down to the tiny ridge across the bottom bracket replicating a flaw in the original casting process. I imagine the idea taking root not in conference rooms, but during a ride. A group of true bicycle nuts pause after a long, hard climb to catch their breath, and in the dizziness of oxygen debt, someone jokingly says, “why don’t we build a Phantom?” After the ride, over coffee and donuts, someone else starts drawing on a napkin, tracing the chromed curve of a springer fork, a design Schwinn hasn’t built in decades, and something in that curve sticks in the imagination.

However the concept was planted, it slowly grew from silly idea to fully-realized rubber and steel, history rendered in metal. The company had faced death, become an industry joke, and come screaming back to legitimacy. What better way to announce its return than with a piece of the past, a bike that, like its parent, would surprise the industry simply by existing, enduring? So Schwinn created the 1995 Black Phantom reissue, a small pocket of 1950s America, a testament to durability, to timelessness. At work, when I walk past the reissue, I cannot help but pause, awestruck. The bike is 1955 made tangible, a blend of deco design and car culture lifted into another era. It is graceful. It is brash. Ridable examples of the original Phantoms still exist today, and I don’t doubt that this reissue will still be begging to be pedaled forty years from now. The bike laughs at time, dares aging to touch it.

Those original Schwinns would eventually become the first mountain bikes. In the early 1970s (while I was busy navigating sidewalk cracks on a green tricycle) a group of riders were resurrecting big Schwinn cruisers from California junk piles, driving them to the top of mountain roads, and riding down at top speed. Each run burned most of the grease out of their antique coaster brakes, forcing the riders to repack their hubs with fresh lubrication. To most of the 1970s cycling world, this new kind of riding made no sense. In a bike culture enamored with slender European road racing machines, the very idea of riding down mountains was laughable. Yet, each weekend, a group of accomplished road racers donned jeans and flannel shirts and did just that, sliding through switchback corners on their sixty pound relics. They fell. They drew blood. They broke bikes. They broke bodies. Then, they laughed, went back to the top, rode again, fell again, bled again, laughed again. And those bikes, those abandoned, rusted relics raised from the dead refused to act their age, taking flight just as they had under exuberant ten-year-olds in 1955.

unsteady states

2009-06-06T08:29:00.000-07:00

As the weather finally warms up in the Pacific Northwest, I am finally past the worst of my allergy onslaught and am able to ride my bike more. And as my distances and the number of bike trips increase, I find myself wavering back and forth between two very distinct cycling states.

State One: I wear padded bike shorts, a jersey with rear pockets and stiff-soled bike shoes, and take the drop-bar road bike out for a longer ride. This ride is often done alone, though occasionally with faster friends who need a "rest day" ride and are therefore more willing and able to match my pace. We average speeds of 13 to 14 mph, which is on the speedy side of things for me. The reason I know how fast we're going is because my drop-bar bike has a computer on it, something I added when I started riding populaires a couple of years ago and needed a computer that was accurate enough to sync up with the cue sheets. On days when I feel limber and fluid, my pedaling is effortless and smooth and I enjoy the feeling of fleetness, even as I struggle to keep up with my faster friends. On the days when I'm wrestling with my perennially bad knees and my breath is wheezy from allergies, or I'm beset by too many bathroom stops, my pedaling slows and I feel frustrated. In this state, trying to be an athlete reminds me precisely that I am NOT one.

State Two: I wear street clothes, occasionally with special, padded cycling underwear but more often not, and I am more inclined to ride my city bike with its upright bars, racks and heavy U-lock. Although there is an old-school mechanical cyclometer on my front wheel, I usually have no idea how fast I'm going, and most of the time don't care. My flat-soled sneakers push BMX platform pedals with toe-cages bolted on, the toe-cage a holdover from my teenage years that I cannot let go of even in street clothes. I still wear a helmet -- I like my brain too much to take chances without it -- but the rest of my ensemble seems to give me permission to putter along, spinning in low gears and not worrying in the least when I am passed by every other rider on the road. I make many stops, at yard sales and gardens and friends' homes, and don't pay much attention to the clock. In this state I don't mind looking -- or riding -- like a non-athlete, a "schlub", a regular person with no pretensions to athletic greatness, and no concern about it either.

The odd thing is that I am unwilling to give up on either kind of riding. And so I waver back and forth, seeking out a new "athletic" cycling goal each year and trying it on for size. For the last two years it's been long-distance riding, hanging out with the Rando crowd. The rides, mostly on the west side of town, have been beautiful, and I've enjoyed -- or suffered -- my way through each. With distance rather than time being the primary goal, I've surprised myself and achieved things I didn't think possible. Now I know I'm capable of metric centuries (100k/62.5 miles) and have completed several of them. Will I try going for a 200k brevet? It's not clear, and lately it doesn't seem to matter so much. The fact that I've ridden SIX metric centuries in the last two years is amazing enough for someone like me, and knowing that I can go out and do it again feels good.

I have observed many lovely days in which I ride my bike just to ride it, and wonder if ultimately I can give up the desire for athletic "greatness" and just settle into a steady diet of State Two and stop worrying about being a jock already.

But in truth, I can't just let things go. This year, in what feels like another grasp at athletic greatness, I've decided to try my hand at cyclocross, that crazy sport where people buy fancy, knobby-tired bikes and run through the mud while carrying them over their shoulders. Why on earth would I even attempt this?

The awful truth: I grew up in an extended family of schlubs, super-ordinary people who did not engage in anything athletic and who in fact were so sedentary that most of them grew fat and slow and horribly unhealthy. I came from people who were known for mental calisthenics, not physical feats of strength and agility. While I was certainly smart, I was also the odd child with the short attention span, the one who could not sit still long enough to read a chapter in a novel -- or even sit all the way through a hourlong TV show -- before I got itchy feet, "shpilkes", and had to get outside and just move around, climbing trees, wading through creeks and riding my bike all over town. Short and skinny and plagued by the recurring fatigue of a disorder -- Crohn's -- that would not be diagnosed until I was in my thirties, I sometimes nearly killed myself trying to do crazy stuff that perhaps I shouldn't have done, and never stopped dreaming of being a real athlete. I marched in drum and bugle corps, wilting in the heat and staggering under the weight of an enormous drum my wiry frame had no business carrying. I went out for track, ran the middle distances and sometimes collapsed from fatigue while trying to keep up with bigger, stronger kids. A running injury diverted my path towards bicycling, with twenty-mile rides in the country and Breaking Away and still more dreaming. And that dreaming is what has kept me coming back for more; more of State One and the lycra and the helmet that makes me look like an angry insect, more of the 60-mile rides and now this venture into the insanity that is cyclocross.

I come from a people with virtually NO history of athletic prowess; Hank Greenberg and a few other stars aside, Ashkenazic Jews are generally known for their brains rather than their brawn. My father was a child prodigy who studied piano at a conservatory; my mother was a writer, singer and would-be fashion designer. P.E. class was something to be suffered through, the only class in which a "C" would be a perfectly acceptable grade, and nothing more. When my physicality expressed itself my parents looked on in confusion, not really knowing what to do with their active younger child except to let her be. They never came to my drum corps or marching band contests, or to my track meets, but they did let me go for those long rides in the country and gave me money to bring back treats from the farmers' stalls. I grew still more wiry and tan and became a weird object of both admiration and envy for my parents, both of whom smoked, ate badly and were sedentary; and neither of whom lived to see 70.

When I look back on my beginnings, it is sometimes amazing that I have made the choices I've made -- to ride my bike as much as possible, to try my hand at unlikely things that make no sense and to see what I can do with this body before it gets too old to find out.

So this summer it will be short-track mountain biking; and in the fall, look for me out on the cyclocross course. I'll likely be in last place, schlepping through the dirt and mud and dragging a cheap mountain bike behind me, stutter-stepping and hoping that, if I don't finish before getting lapped, I'll at least get filthy and have a grand time breathing hard and being among people who understand my need to get out and move.

(graphic designed by J. Edgar; t-shirts available at http://www.cyclofiend.com.)

The Answer

2009-05-08T19:51:00.000-07:00

A friend, who happens to not be a cyclist, once asked me what I enjoy about cycling. I think he was mainly making polite conversation. Even so, he might have been mildly curious about what aspect holds particular attraction for me. He might have been trying to get at what specifically is the reward to spinning pedals, round and round, for hours without end, in weather he thinks is best endured indoors.

I had not answered this question before and I did not have a prepared reply. The usual questions are how I deal with traffic, or how can I stand to sit on such a hard, tiny saddle, or what kind of unique athletic power do I have that enables me to ride to a location more than 5 miles away. This question was new, and I liked it. So I paused for maybe 1 or 2 seconds to ponder.

During that brief pause, something surprising happened. I couldn’t answer. It wasn’t because I couldn’t come up with anything. Instead, it was as if I had been slammed with a wave. A flood of information came to mind. My brain raced with various aspects of cycling. It created a checklist of a thousand items and put a “check” by each one. I was inundated with answers and had so many things running through my head that I was paralyzed. Like my old computer when I ask it to do too many things at once. Thinking of all these things I really, really love prompted excitement and my heart rate increased. A friend asks a simple question, and I freak. I know how much I enjoy cycling, but my emotional response shocked even me.

I finally gave an answer. It probably only took 3 or 4 seconds to work myself into this hyper-alert state, and then I said, “Everything. I like everything about cycling.” Being all pumped up with all these ideas, that answer was the opening of a flood gate. It all gushed out. I talked about flying down hills, suffering during a race, rambling through the countryside with friends, buying new gear, fitness benefits, washing the bike…on and on it went. He's a pretty big guy and a former football player, so I left out the part about shaving my legs.

What I haven’t mentioned yet is that he and I were on a multi-hour car trip and he was my prisoner. After we arrived, the pressure within had be released and I was feeling great. I was looking forward to my next ride.

It was a very quiet drive home. I must have given a great and complete answer because I don’t think he ever asked me about cycling again.

Tour of California devilsh details

2009-02-22T17:53:00.000-08:00

Chas keeps an eye on the Amgen Tour from the telly.

I prefer le plein air.

I went up to Santa Rosa (with Peter Rich, future inductee of U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame)and down to Sausalito, both quite rainy days, in order to witness the goings-on.

Crowds like in Europe. Maybe this will be the beginning of something like the Tour de France.

Not surprisingly, there were old friends like artist Taliah Lempert and Dave Perry in the crowd. Bumping into them seemed miraculous. Dave’s a champ racer from the early 1970’s, and he blethered with P.R. while I blagued with Taliah, and somehow we got talking with Connie Carpenter (my old racing colleague as well as boss at 1989 CarpenterPhinney bicycle greatness camp).

It was all very cool. About 48 degrees, and wettttttt.

I went home and scribbled a bit for the Pacific Sun, and am happy to see that people like the story.

Charlie told me about what I missed on TV…something the announcers refused to comment on: a yellow and black caped devil brandishing a HUGE twin-speared syringe pitchfork, jogging along one of the snow-edged roads, jabbing at the riders until Lance shoves him into the snow. I found a decent sequence onlline…but doubt the mainstream media will show what a gadfly with the words Live Clean on his cape has to say about pro racing (several of the riders are back from 2 yr drug suspensions).

Phelan peckish? Check our hoard oeuvre…

meant to be used

2009-01-28T16:46:00.000-08:00

Last week I noticed that my Simplex B & B front derailleur, after ten years on my bike, had cracked at the clamp. Not sure how long it had been that way, but knowing I needed to replace it, I began scrounging around in my stash of bike parts until I found its replacement.

I'd obtained an even older Simplex Super LJ derailleur about a year and a half ago and stored it away in anticipation of this event. Last night I made the swap, and rode home with the new dearilleur secured to my bike. It worked fine and I was happy.

(Side Note One: All bike mechanics have a private stash of parts. The variety and generation depends largely on the generation of that mechanic and the beginning of his/her serious technical interest in bicycles. Most of my parts, for example, reflect a mid- to late-1970's sensibility; while a younger mechanic might have a collection of early-generation mountain bike parts. Most of us keep a small supply on hand with which to repair our own bikes, and perhaps family members' bikes as well. We also tend to hoard parts if we know it will be difficult to replace a part we particularly like. For example, I have this wacky thing for Suntour Power-Ratchet stem shifters, and I have five sets in my parts box. Since there's not much call for this component I don't feel especially guilty for hoarding five sets. If it were something rarer and more in demand -- like 1970's-era Campy Record derailleurs -- my level of guilt might increase, at least a little.)

Because Simplex is a company that no longer exists and whose components are of historical interest to bike tech freaks, I posted photos of the repair on my Flickr page.

Within hours of posting the photos, I received an email to my Flickr box from a fellow who scolded me for using such a rare and valuable component on my bike. "You should remove that part immediately and either store it, or put it on ebay. In fact, if you want I'd make you an offer for it that I suspect would be far more than you paid for it."

Well, he was right. I'd paid only ten bucks for the derailleur, because it came into the shop as part of a large lot of used parts, and I'd bought it with my worker discount. As for storing it, well, I'd already DONE that for a year and a half; now that I needed it, it was there for me. I figured my mission had been accomplished.

(Side Note Two: when I first started working in the bike shop where I remain employed today, we kept a large case of vintage bike parts on display. We mostly kept the nice stuff in there, like early Dura-Ace and Campy. A couple of times a year, a Japanese businssman would come through town, and he'd call ahead to see if our case was full. It usually was. He'd swing by an hour or so later, and proceed to virtually clean us out. We'd be several hundred dollars richer and he'd walk out with a box of fancy old bike parts. This had gone on for a few years by the time I was hired.

One day we asked him where all those bike parts were going. He replied, "I take them back to Tokyo, have my doctor friend clean them in a sonic cleaner, and then I put them on display in one of the glass showcases in my office lobby."

We were dumbfounded. The guy was buying up all these parts and then just sitting on them? "Don't you ever use any of them on a bike?" I asked politely.

The businessman shook his head emphatically. "Oh, no," he said. "These are special parts that are no longer being made. They are status symbols in Japan. To use them on a bike would be to destroy them." Seeing that we were still confused, he added, "I and my friends are great lovers of bicycles, and we collect and trade these parts with each other to complete full component sets."
I imagined twenty such offices in high-rise towers throughout Tokyo, filled with gleaming, restored Campagnolo parts that would never go outside again.

We thanked the man for his business. He loaded the box of vintage parts into his rental car and drove away. We decided then and there that we would never again allow him to clean out our case. We'd rather sell at least some of those old parts to people whose old bikes actually needed them to keep going. When he called us the following year, we lied and told him there hadn't been much to come in lately. He was surprised but accepted our story. Seven months later, he called and one of my co-workers did the same thing. He must have gotten the message because I'm told he never called or came by again. But by then, Ebay had begun to siphon off the supply of good, older bike parts from the shops.

Within a year of that man's last phone call to us, we'd noticed a real falling-off of higher-quality used parts and frames coming into the shop. The genie had been let out of the lamp and could never go back; people began to perceive that their stuff was worth far more than shops had traditionally paid out, the parts began appearing on Ebay and Craigslist more frequently. That was pretty much the end of the "innocent" age. Unfortunately, it was also the end of being able to easily find old parts that fit older bikes, and our vintage parts case has never been quite as full since then.)

I wrote back to the fellow who'd emailed about my derailleur swap. I thanked him for his advice and his interest, but explained that I bought that derailleur with the intention of using it, as I feel that bike parts were meant to be used on bikes. I planned to ride with that derailleur until it crapped out, and would not feel a shred of guilt at the idea.

I haven't heard back from him and I suspect he thinks I'm nuts. That's okay by me.

Too Many Options?

2009-01-10T18:37:00.000-08:00

Sometimes. Maybe. There are too many options. There is, perhaps, something to be said for doing a thing well rather than adding complexity to make it easier.

On the bicycle, the simple, fixed-wheel doesn't give many options. One either develops a certain skill and rides well, or he probably doesn't ride. The rider of the simple machine learns efficient cycling experientially. He masters the preservation of momentum by doing. He works with the terrain and circumstances given. Like a craftsman, he applies practiced skills to make something of beauty of his resources.

Might this be true in living? Perhaps we reach a point at which we have too many options. We come to a place where we spend too much time evaluating choices. Or we devote too much of our resources developing, maintaining, repairing, rehabilitating, and upgrading complexity...so life might be more convenient. Or faster. Or more entertaining.

Recently, I removed the complexity of coasting and the option of shifting gears from my bicycle. I returned to the simple, fixed-wheel configuration of last summer. Riding the bicycle is a little more work. It is arguably slower in some conditions. But I believe it makes me a stronger, more skillful rider.

I wonder if the same disciplined approach to remove options in other areas of life would build in me a stronger character and make me a more skillful friend.

Phantoms, Part 5

2008-12-25T16:44:00.000-08:00

Author's Note:
It's funny, I'd walked away from this piece for a while, picked today to look it over again, and realized just how appropriate it would be to put up the excerpt where I'd left off.

This is dedicated to my late-Grandmother Nunemaker, who sent me on the wild-goose gift chases described below every Christmas (the most memorable led to my first computer, appropriately enough), and to my late-Dad, the first person out of bed on Christmas morning his entire life, even after he had kids of his own.

In the bike shop where I work, I hear it almost every day: “Oh, I had one just like that.” The customer is usually male, mid-fifties, responding to the Schwinn Black Phantom reissue cruiser that hangs from our ceiling. I would guess that eighty percent of these glassy-eyed nostalgia sufferers never owned a Phantom. Most probably owned another model in the Schwinn line, or perhaps a bicycle built by Schwinn to be rebadged as a department-store model. After all, in 1950s America, the Schwinn Black Phantom was, without question, the best - and most expensive - bike a kid could have. Granted, from a strictly utilitarian perspective, the original Phantom was nothing new, borrowing from balloon-tire technologies Schwinn perfected two decades earlier. However, unlike its prewar ancestors - the Motorbike, the Autocycle, the DX, the Excelsior - Phantoms had all the toys. Deep black and red enamel, blinding chrome on just about everything, tubing junctures smooth as poured liquid, flowing curves, long antique white pinstripes, real leather saddle, drum brakes, fenders, built-in wheel lock, rear rack with working taillight, working headlight growing organically from the line of the front fender, and a small button on the side of the imitation gas tank controlling the battery-powered horn inside. Everything about the bike was big and overbuilt, from the wide balloon tires on rolled steel rims to the long cowhorn handlebars. In one bicycle, Schwinn blended all the fantasies of postwar Americans, adult and child alike. Style, polish, power, and features - if they sell cars, Schwinn reasoned, why not bikes? The Phantom brought ten-year-old boys to tears of desire, a machine-as-identity lust that would eventually be transferred to four-wheeled vehicles like Mustangs, Corvettes, and Camaros. In its time, it was simply the ultimate bicycle. Even fifty years later, the Phantom still stands as a defining moment in bicycle history, pursued by collectors like a two-wheeled Holy Grail. So I can’t blame these glassy-eyed men in my shop for the blur in their memories, the hardening of want into remembered ownership. My own father, now fifty-four, suffers the same illness.

On March 3, 1954, for his ninth birthday, my father received what he remembers as a Schwinn Black Phantom. That morning, my grandparents probably gave him something small, pretending that the gift-giving was over. Then, just as disappointment set in, they handed him a small note: “Look in the hall closet.” In the hall closet, another note: “Look under your pillow.” I see my grandparents exchanging smiles over coffee as their son scurries around the house. Under the pillow: “Look on Mom’s dresser.” On the dresser: “Look in the garage.” Since it was March in Illinois, I’m certain my grandmother stopped him on his way out the door, insisting on a coat and hat, adding one more delay just as the suspense reached its zenith.

Finally, a warm coat wrapped over his pajamas, he burst into the garage, and there it was: his Schwinn. Black, with cream trim. Black-painted fenders with matching cream pinstripes. A rear rack. Chrome springer fork. Big. Gleaming. Most birthday presents would require a bow, but the Schwinn had enough style simply propped on its kickstand. They rolled it outside into the bitter Illinois winter, stood boy and bike in front of the garage door, and snapped a picture in the snow.

In the next four years, my father would shear off the coaster brake fixing strap (as well as several of grandpa’s replacement straps) and shatter the front axle jumping the bike off what he calls “a small wall.” The social mores of preteens would shift, decreeing that bikes were no longer “cool,” and the bike would be abandoned in the garage, then sold. But forty-four years later, if I could just find that photograph, my father would still be a pudgy, grinning nine-year old in his winter coat and hat, the piles of snow would never melt, and his Schwinn would remain unridden, unbroken, and unquestionably cool. Would I have the heart to tell him his bike was the less-expensive, less-coveted Panther, not the Phantom it has become in his mind? Would it matter?

Cool New Bike Porn

2008-12-09T15:22:00.000-08:00

The Competition Bicycle
A photographic history
By Jan Heine and Jean-Pierre Praderes

There is almost no bicycle book I don’t love, and this latest coffee-table book, weighing in at three and a half pounds, is a velo-bibliophile’s dream tome. It could be the coffee table itself, so long as you wrapped it in two layers of plexiglass to keep it pristine.

The well-reproduced color photographs by renowned French photographer (himself a devout randonneur) Jean-Pierre Praderes show every gritty inch, er..millimeter of the legendary frames that propelled the greats from Coppi to Merckx to Lemond (with a couple of feminine detours thank goddess) across destiny’s finish line.

Jan Heine, the author and publisher (www.vintagebicyclepress.com) is a rabid Paris-Brest-Paris competitor. When he called me a year ago about photographing my bicycle Otto, I was astonished to learn mine would be the only mountain bike in the book.
It’s an honor
Said Heine: What other mountain bike was twenty years ahead of its time?
Eat yr heart out, Tom (name withheld to protect ego). Sometimes steel IS real…real heavy!
Settle down, girl. This is a magazine. Not a gossip sheet. (Feel free to hurl, o editor mine)
The fast majority of the bicycles shown are indeed steel, custom machines that reveal over 150 years of improvement the leapfrogging improvements that allow us to enjoy multiple gear choices, modern materials and sometimes even evolutionary cul-de sacs (psst: “Dursley Pedersen”)

Many of the original machines (flown in for the photo shoot) reveal details of workmanship that cannot be found anywhere else, unless specified to a custom builder today.

Artsy touches appear in the mass-produced chainrings of British Short Arms bikes (BSA spelt out in the chainring) and ALCYON cast into the pedal cages).

The reader will at first page through this book slowly, savoring the pictures—most of which have never been seen before—bicycles seemingly track-standing mid-air…and action shots of the great racers. Later, the reader will return feverish for more intimate details of bicycles hard-ridden and put away, but not forgotten.
The book costs sixty (swiftly deflating) dollars, plus about thirty dollars post (THAT is not gonna go down, with fuel costs rising)… it’s the perfect stocking stuffer if you have a sock the size of Santa’s size fourteen platters tacked to the mantel with a grade twelve alloy steel 10-32 socket-head cap screw with cold-rolled threads. Ahem.
Santa? Got that?

The Stubborn Season

2008-12-04T17:18:00.000-08:00

Commuting on a bike.

In Iowa.

In December.

Sometimes it's a mirror I'd rather not see.

Think about it. There's the gear collecting and bundling: heavy tights, thick wool socks, wool sweater, windproof jacket, two pairs of gloves, hat, and facemask. Then there's the routine of firing up a cluster of front and rear LEDs that could distract low-flying air traffic. Then there's the ride: two miles at about 10 miles per hour, picking through slush stalagmites, plow droppings, and black ice.

Twenty-five minutes of preparation for fifteen minutes of misery.

Then I have to peel all those layers off again so I can change into work clothes and sit in a cube for eight hours.

Then, I do it all over again in reverse.

Without special studded tires -- at about $50 a pop for the heaviest, most sluggish-feeling rubber you'll ever turn over -- it probably wouldn't even be possible. And let's not even talk about gunked up bearings. Crusty chains. Frames eaten out from the inside by salt and rust. Frozen cables. Brakes that barely qualify as a cruel joke thanks to ice-glazed rims.

People ask me why I do it, and I honestly don't have an answer. I just shrug.

Is the bike industry sustainable? Can it be?

2008-12-03T21:22:00.001-08:00

Every day at my job, I have to sort through new and used bike parts and decide what's worth keeping in stock and what's not. If it's a used part, it's easy; the stuff that's worth keeping we put back in the bin, perhaps updating the price if we think the last person to sort through the box underpriced an item, or cleaning a part more to justify the price they put on it. We don't always pay money for the used parts we sort and save. Sometimes they come in as trades, sometimes they're pulled from a bike with a dead frame.

If it's a new part, it's a bit harder. We always pay money for the new stuff, and sometimes we make mistakes. We order something thinking it will serve a specific purpose, or because it's what a customer insists they want; and the part comes and suddenly it's not what anyone expects or wants. Sometimes we can send it back, but not without more expense at our end (it costs money to ship things back and forth). Most of the time, we keep it, knowing that the cost of correcting our mistake is more than the cost of keeping the now-unwanted part. Thankfully, through a combination of care and luck we manage to avoid making too many such mistakes. For a small business like an independent bike shop, those mistakes can add up quickly.

But sometimes the shops don't make the mistakes, the manufacturers do. They bet on what they think will be a great idea, they manufacture it in the hundreds of thousands, and hope to God it sells. And most of the time, it sells well enough. But sometimes the idea isn't so great, or the public has a hard time understanding it, or the public just flat decides that they don't need it, even if it is so great. When that happens, you see the Next Big Thing end up on ebay and craigslist very quickly. (Remember Samson's clipless pedals? Mavic's foray into electronic shifting? The first year that Shimano's "Coaster" came out? Initial sales of these items were not promising, and many of these things wound up in the want ads months after being released on the market. Shimano is still struggling to gain market share with folks who aren't quite sure about Coaster, and not only on the public side of the retail counter.)

The big thing these days, if you've been paying attention, is carbon fiber. For the last several years, more and more bicycle parts are being made from the stuff. It's "space age" material, light as a feather compared to the same components made of any kind of metal, and it looks cool with all that fancy lattice-work weaving going on there (see derailleur, above). I went to my first trade show this year, Interbike, and nearly got lost in a sea of carbon fiber: forks, derailleurs, shift levers, stems, even rims are now made of the stuff.

If you look more closely, you'll notice that most of those really cool-looking carbon-fiber bits are being installed on bikes meant for racing or for what's often called "sport" riding (where you look like a racer but don't pedal your bike quite as fast as the pros do). I think racing's cool, by the way; some of my best friends race, and do it quite well on the amateur level. But what bothers me is how temporary all of it is.

Think about it: bikes that are made mostly of carbon-fiber work well for a time, and then they begin to wear out. When they wear out, those parts cannot be serviced and made to work good as new again, or even close to new. Those parts are removed from the bike and replaced with brand-new parts. The bike runs like clockwork again and the rider is happy. But -- and this is the question I kept asking folks at the trade show -- what happens to the old parts?

The answers ranged from shrugging (lots of shrugging, actually) to shaking of the head to "I don't really know". Only one person out of the dozens I asked told me his company sends factory seconds (the stuff not quite ready for prime-time, so it doesn't leave the factory) to another site to be dismantled so the metal hinges and pivot pieces can be retrieved for recycling. But the carbon-fiber itself is apparently quite difficult and costly to recycle, so no one's doing it on an industrial level, at least not among the folks I spoke to at Interbike. No one was willing to come out and say that the stuff was going to a dump, but no one would flat-out deny it, either.

Add this little tidbit of reality to the scenes from big races like Le Tour, with its caravan of dozens and dozens of "official" motor vehicles following the racers all over France, and the thousands of cables, housing pieces, nuts and bolts and handlebar tape and tires that get removed from these bikes every night and replaced before the next day's stage, and you've got a sport that is among the most wasteful I've ever seen.

If that was where it stopped perhaps I wouldn't worry so much. But the problem with this reality is that racing drives innovation among bicycle and component makers. Without innovation, sales slump and profits go down. So to promote innovation, you have to promote racing. The issue with that is that the big sell in typical bike shops now is that you need a new bike every couple of years or so (because, well, the pros get a new bike every time they sneeze or the sponsors change, right?). If you ride in lycra -- and for heaven's sake you ought to, you know -- it has to be the lightest, most space-age stuff money can buy (which means it falls apart after a season and has to be replaced). And if you want to ride the lightest bike possible -- because, well, that's what you ought to want, seriously -- then , well, that bike is simply going to have to be replaced every few years because -- and here's the ugly little secret, as far as I'm concerned --

it's not supposed to last that long.

That's right. It only makes sense. For a bike and all its parts and accessories to be very, very light in weight (meaning that you're supposed to be able to go faster, because, well, the pros can, after all), that stuff has to be built with thinner walls, tight tolerances, ceramic bearings (they weigh less than steel ones) and tires made with silk or some space-age (there we go again) micro-fiber in the belt. For all of this lightness, something has to give and that something is durability. What's criminal to my thinking is that bike riders spend so much money on stuff that wears out so fast, and stuff that can't be refurbished or fixed up to run again at that. The more stuff wears out, the more stuff shops can sell, the more stuff companies can make, and all the right people are rolling in dough. That's the way it works. Now, racing is not about planned obsolescence, it's about winning -- but the obsolescence is a side effect of all that time spent on getting lighter and faster. So it happens anyway. And lots of people who love bicycles are starting to grow tired of it.

Thankfully, we are seeing a move back towards things that are built to last. Steel bikes are coming back. All-metal components aren't, not yet, not any that are of decent quality anyway; but you can find old ones in decent condition on ebay and in slightly lesser condition in the bargain bins at a shop that carries used parts. People are beginning to ride for transportation again, just like they did the last time gas was expensive in the 1970's. Racks and baskets and bags are making a comeback as more folks discover (again) that bikes are useful vehicles and not just sporting equipment. I only hope that the bike industry wakes up and pays attention, and starts not only making but really promoting the kinds of things that will really last again. Let's make durability and thrift cool again. Let's teach people how to do the simple stuff at home so we who work in shops have more time for the big jobs, and to refurbish more old bikes and get them out on the road again. I want the bike magazines to focus on real-world bikes, new and used, and just forget about the trickle-down from racing for awhile. Let's leave off the bikes that are here today, broke tomorrow and off to a landfill next week. I'm tired of that stuff, and grateful my shop doesn't sell a lot of it. I want the bike manufacturing industry to really wake up and start making affordable, durable, decent-quality bikes for the rest of us, for the majority of us, for the folks who don't race or even fantasize about it, who just want to ride our bike to get from one place to another and enjoy the ride -- today, tomorrow and for years to come.

I Am the Wind

2008-10-22T18:30:00.000-07:00

A bicycle is an instrument of transcendence. It carries its rider from the common to the special. Those smitten with the bicycle sometimes describe the sensation as flying. Gliding downhill effortlessly, carving large arcs with wind in my face is how I imagine flying. Each swerve I make is a banked turn on outstretched wings. The only sound is rushing air moving past me as I soar through it. Bicyclists tell of this feeling, but there is another.

Sometimes I am more than a bird in flight. I become a force of nature. When the wind blows steadily and directly down the road, we synchronize pace. At once, the air is still and silent. Tires quietly hum. I and my bicycle move, but with no effort. With a rolling gold-orange-brown wave of fallen leaves, we surf across the earth. We glide in startling stillness, a massive train of air. I've been carried to a special place. I am the wind.

My Six-Fingered Man

2008-10-20T09:12:00.001-07:00

I just finished reading The Princess Bride by William Goldman. I've seen the movie about a dozen times -- though not as many times as my wife, who can proudly quote just about anything in the film: Cliffs of Insanity, Miracle Max, Battle of Wits, you name it. I'd meant to actually see the words on paper for years, but never quite got around to it until now -- which, as Vizzini (played in the film by the incomparable Wallace Shawn) would say, is "inconceivable!"

After I finished up, I went for a bike ride, Goldman's wonderful characters and hilarious asides still fresh in my mind. As I got warmed up and felt my legs settle into a rhythm, I kept hearing the voice of Mandy Patinkin as the vengeance-seeking Inigo Montoya, facing down the six-fingered man who took his father's life. "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. HELLO, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. HELLO! My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

I ride my bike for a lot of reasons. It's fun. It gives me an excuse to take things apart and put them back together. It gets me to work or to the store. It lets me live out fantasies of being faster or stronger than I really am. It reminds me of being a kid. But the one I don't face up to often is my very own six-fingered man. My father had his first heart attack at age 44 when I was a teenager. He survived. His second came at age 50, when I was in college. He survived again, though not by much. And his final heart attack struck at age 54, when I was just 28 years old. That one ended his life.

You don't get to duel with heart disease. You don't get a climactic battle scene in a castle, your sword flashing, blood pouring from your wounds, your enemy vanquished. All you get is another day marked off the calendar, another day healthy, another day survived, an endless series of scratches tick-marked in the enemy's flesh. But when I'm out riding, feeling the strength of my own heart banging against my ribs, I feel like I'm winning. I can look my enemy in the face and see the fear in his eyes.

Hello. My name is Jason Nunemaker. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

Proper bike usage when confronted with shovels

2008-10-07T07:24:00.000-07:00

Things seem to have been a bit slow here at Veloquent of late. Hopefully this will get the creative sparks a flying.

Via Chris C on the boblist

Oh no, it's me!

2008-09-28T14:14:00.000-07:00

I submit that most of us who think ourselves to be serious cyclists have goals. Perhaps “dreams” is a better word. It might be a transcontinental tour, to go carless, or notch that first century. Some might be pursuing Kent Peterson’s, “ride 12,000 miles a year and eat what you want” concept, a complete brevet series, or simply to commute to work for the very first time. I think most of us are chasing something.

As time flows steadily by, dreams change. Regardless of the dream, however, riding more has consistently been a path to my destination. I have continually sought to overcome obstacles that would stand between me and my bike.

Now that years have passed, I have systematically confronted and defeated darkness, cold, and road conditions. My children have grown and my fatherly duties have diminished. I have moved to a rural area with abundant low-traffic roads. So you might be surprised to learn that, with no decrease in passion, I ride less now than a few years ago. I seem to be losing the battle and struggle to find ways to ride more.

Just recently I was slapped silly by the realization, “Oh no…it’s me!” I am the obstacle and a formidable one. There are numerous sobering examples of people that overcome so much more to achieve their dreams with so much less. How do they do it?

Maybe I’ve been focusing on my constraints while they’ve focused on the possibilities. While I’ve been making excuses to hide my own laziness and fear, they dream and do. Yes, friends, I think I’ve found the true obstacle. It is not methods, training, traffic, or gear. Oh no, to be sure, it’s me.

I’ve read your stories and they inspire me. For those who overcame themselves, tell me please, how was it done?

bikes as trucks

2008-09-07T17:16:00.001-07:00

I began this year hoping to ride a 200km brevet, which would be a new distance record for me. I figured that after riding four metric centuries (62.5 mi/100km) last year this was the next logical goal. Life and other stuff got in the way, and my longest ride to date has been 55 miles of the 70-mile Livestrong course which I rode in late June.

Meanwhile, I've been discovering another approach to riding: one where not distance, but cargo capacity, is the measuring rod.

I had a Burley kid trailer. In the four years I owned it I used it perhaps a dozen times. When not in use it hung folded on the wall of the shed and sometimes got in the way when I needed to get at other things. I wanted to find a better way to carry stuff, and lots of it; but the trailer just wasn't working for me.

Enter the longbike.

I had an opportunity to buy an Xtracycle kit and add it on to the rear end of an old-school 1980's ATB, thus turning it into some kind of human-powered pickup truck. The longbike solution would take up more floor space than the trailer, but if I used it more then that tradeoff would be justified. It turned out to be a marvelous idea.

I started out doing basic things: going to the farmer's market or the grocery store; bringing home the occasional frameset or wheel from the shop. Riding was easy because I'd selected a wide range of gears and also because I had readjusted my definition of "fast" to accommodate travel on this longer, heavier bike.

Then, I got ambitious. I started bringing home larger loads, more unwieldy, oddly-shaped objects -- not on a regular basis, but just to see if I could. The ladder was free, a leftover from work that was no longer needed, and if I wanted it I had to get it home. No problem with the longbike:

What has happened is that I find I have less time and energy for "training" rides per se -- I simply haven't been able to make regular, consistent time for many long weekends rides this summer -- but instead I have made time for shorter rides with heavier, bigger loads around town. Not sure what this will do for my "fitness", and the more I ride my longbike the less I worry about that.

My best ride of all so far happened the Thursday before Labor Day, when I loaded up the longbike with lawn chairs and a picnic basket. My partner and I rode our bikes downtown for the Oregon Symphony's annual Waterfront Concert, a free event that attracts thousands of people and ends with the playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and a glorious fireworks show.

After the concert, we rode home again, attracting stares and some good-natured smiles along the way.

My bike isn't unusual anymore; there are hundreds of these Xtracycles and other versions of longbikes (like Bakfietsen, Brox [recumbent] longbikes and Mondo-bikes and such) around town now. My hope is that more people who see this kind of bike will come to accept it as yet another form of serious, real-world transportation. I'd like drivers to give me a little slack at intersections because it takes a little longer to get a longbike going from a standstill. I'd like traffic engineers to think big-picture and longer term when they plan future streets, to make a little bit more room for these bikes because they could really ease congestion in cities. And I'd like to think that this kind of utilitarian riding will help me ride stronger, even if it doesn't help me ride longer. Mostly, I have to say that although I didn't really go for my original riding goal, I've had a marvelous bicycling summer anyway discovering another kind of riding.

Down in Texas

2008-08-05T17:50:00.001-07:00

Down in Texas, the north grass land grows thirsty and stalks of kindling wave in the wind. Since morning, a mockingbird has been working the fenceline, and the cattle have congregated at precious trees. They follow the shade from long to short to long again as it crawls silently from one side of the tree to the other. Pick-up driving ranchers motor by with regularity, but to pasture dwellers it is routine background noise.

First one head, and then a few, lift and look for an odd new sound. Barely audible, is it danger? What is that continuous peeling of asphalt moving steady toward us? That’s no rancher. It’s stealthier. Be ready to flee.

Two wheels roll on hot pavement. Their tires adhere to the hot, sticky black. Then the sound of stainless steel spokes, so many useless fan blades, spinning and beating the air. Finally, rhythmic breathing grows louder...and then fainter as the cyclist glides on by. A few wary heads turn and follow, but the spoke sounds disappear. The peeling fades to nothing but the same hot breeze through brittle grass from only moments ago.

One by one, heads drop back down, tails flick flies, and the hot work of summer sustenance continues in the pasture.

Phantoms, Part 4

2008-07-27T17:51:00.000-07:00

My grey Trek 830 went from first love to rusted beater in the span of four years: accessorized, stripped, cared for, neglected, covered in stickers, abandoned in Dad’s garage, abused, left in the rain, and taken to college because it was finally too ugly to steal. In 1991, when my affections were finally stolen away by a big, tennis-ball yellow Trek 6000 with its six extra gears, ultralight aluminum tubing, stop-right-now brakes, and (finally) quick-release wheels, I stripped my first love bare, painted it black, swapped out the teal stem because it didn’t match the new paint, reassembled it with some help from the shop, and sold it cheap to my then-girlfriend’s father. He rode it a few times and hung it in his garage, too polite to admit it didn’t connect for him like his old Schwinn three-speed. I don’t doubt it’s still there, hanging from the rafters. I’ve considered calling, perhaps offering to buy back his piece of my cycling past, but I can’t figure out a polite way to say, “This is your former future-son-in-law... I know I’m no longer in love with your daughter, but that bike...”

A true bike nut remembers them all fondly. Each bike sticks in the mind like an old friendship I’ve grudgingly outgrown. The orange-and-red banana-seat Murray. The chrome Huffy BMX bike. The royal blue Murray mountain bike knockoff. Dad’s brown Free Spirit ten speed. The sky-blue hand-me-down Schwinn Continental from my cousin Dale. My blue Schwinn World Sport. The grey 830. The yellow 6000. Schwinn 974 racing bike. Cannondale M400 mountain bike. Cannondale T700 touring bike. Specialized Epic racing bike. Schwinn DeLuxe Twinn Tandem. Nishiki Citysport cruiser. GT Slipstream hybrid cruiser. And finally, my current friends, the Specialized Rockhopper mountain bike and Schwinn Paramount road bike. I learned to ride a bike twenty years ago. Seventeen bikes in twenty years. And I remember them all, because every one helped me live out a fantasy of who I wanted to be. At seven, I carried the absolute conviction that my banana-seat Murray looked just like a California Highway Patrol motorcycle. As I cruised the long gravel driveway of my parents’ farm, twisting the plastic grip like a throttle, I was Jon from my favorite TV show, “CHiPs.” I chased down the car thieves, rescued children from burning buses, wrote out speeding tickets. On my bike, I was the hero. It sounds funny to me now, but even today, when I shift into the big chainring on my road bike, somewhere in my mind I see Greg LeMond tucked low, methodically reeling in Laurent Fignon to take the 1989 Tour de France. Different bike, different fantasy, but I’m still trying on identities, wanting to be more than simply me.

Do You Respond?

2008-07-20T20:43:00.000-07:00

Good Morning! Hey There!
Good Morning! (quietly) hello
Good Morning! Mornin'

It was a great Wednesday. Friendly cyclists responded to my Good Morning! with their own greetings. Every single one had some sort of reply.

That was a rare day. Friday was typical. Two of nine riders encountered on my way to work responded to my hellos. It's a shtick I have, greeting bicycle riders.

Good Morning
Mornin'
Hello
Howdy
Hey There

It's not like there are so many of us. My commute doesn't cross one of the bridges into downtown Portland. Those routes have hundreds of cyclists passing through each hour. Just a few miles east of the cycling crowd a reverse commute rider like me will encounter only a handful of cyclists each day. To almost all of them I call out a greeting. A few reply.

Would you? Do you?

Its the little things

2008-07-17T07:31:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a short trip to france and the streetside bike scoping is outrageously fun. The nice part is the sheer volume of 50's-70's era production city bikes with nice details that make looking at the bikes more fun than looking at, say, thousands of schwinn varsities.

I can't get over the number of stamped dropout seventies city bikes that had details like these headlight reliefs in the front rack:

So so so so good.
Lots more french street bike pics:
in dijon
in paris

what is 'bike culture"? (part two in an occasional series)

2008-07-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

While I was out of town on vacation this week, there was an incident between a bicycle rider and a car driver in southeast Portland. It got ugly and nasty. Alcohol was involved. So, apparently, was a lack of good judgment on the part of several individuals at the scene. Since I don't know the full story, I suggest you check out the details at the Oregonian newspaper:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2008/07/angry_bicyclists_gang_up_on_th.html

and perhaps also at the website Bike Portland:

http://bikeportland.org/2008/07/10/road-rage-incident-sparks-media-frenzy-spurs-us-them-mentality/

I have taken some time to read these articles and a host of comments that were typed in response to each, and I am struck by one thing. Many of the comments made by folks who identified themselves as being staunchly "pro-bike" referred to the "bicycle community". Until tonight I used to think along those lines myself, without question or deeper thought. But tonight, I remembered a comment my friend made a couple of weeks ago. In a brilliant flash of serious forward thinking, my friend Ian said that he looked forward to a time when Portland -- and other US cities -- would be so bike-friendly that the very idea of a bicycle culture would be redundant. "It'd be like Amsterdam", he said, and they don't really have a 'bike culture'. All they have is a town that was designed so that a whole bunch of people could ride bicycles as transportation. And that's it. That's all."

What great event, what momentous agent of change will be required for enough bicycle riders and pedestrians to rise up in anger at the sheer stupidity, wastefulness and unfairness of our present oil-fueled, freeway-ribboned, car-centric landscape and say, enough is enough? What will be the tipping point that leads us to an age where we no longer identify ourselves as a "bicycle community", where lots of people just ride bikes because it's the easiest and cheapest way to get somewhere?

The thing is, there are times and places in the here and now where many bicycle riders feel a need to identify themselves as being part of a "bicycle community". There are lots of places where it is simply scary to ride a bike for transportation, and simply moving to another, supposedly safer city is not an option. So people naturally band together. Portland is an insane, ridiculous example of a town with so much Bicycle Culture (capitalized and on display in bright neon in every bike shop and bike planning bureau office window!) that it's crazy. People move to Portland and tell me that they did it "for the bike culture, for the bike community". And that's great. Welcome to Portland! (I hope you can afford the rent here.) Go and enjoy the bike polo, the Sprockettes bike-ballet shows and the bike-art installations, the Multnomah County Bike Fair and everything else. I know that lots of people -- especially older adults -- don't feel welcome at those events, which are staffed and organized primarily by the under-thirty set and take place on city streets where most inexperienced riders don't feel safe riding a bicycle. Then whose bicycle community is it?

Or what happens if the most extreme car drivers, already angry at having to share the road with anyone else (whatever vehicle they're operating, frankly) and getting frustrated with the rising cost of gasm see an adult pass them on a bike looking calm, mellow, even happy? Might we see some road rage incidents based simply on drivers' growing anger at The Way Things Might Become? How might a "bicycle community" respond?

Finally, what about the very poor, who have ridden cheap bikes for years because that is all they can afford? What about the homeless man who is dirty, who smells bad and acts worse and tows a shopping cart behind a cobbled-together Magna mountain bike that's five sizes too small for him? Would the hip, self-proclaimed "bicycle community", the raison d'etre for many in Portland, accept him? Would they accept him as warmly as they accept me on my nice bike, with my helmet and the whole aura of One Who Is Employed And Housed And Otherwise Normal? Would they? Honestly? REALLY?

Where's the place in our highly-touted "bike culture" for those who don't see themselves as being part of one?

And what about those in the landscape who cannot ride, either because they are infirm or too old, or because they simply prefer to walk or take the bus? Almost everybody walks somewhere, sometime. And the busses are packed with folks of many different stripes now that gas is over four bucks a gallon. Is there a self-proclaimed "bus community"? Is there a self-proclaimed "pedestrian community?" Do we see "bus culture" or "pedestrian culture"? Not really. The very idea seems almost silly.

Lately I find that the very term "bicycle community" has as much potential to divide as it does to unite, and I find myself wondering about whether it's a label I would like to continue to use. I have no easy answers as yet, but perhaps my friend was onto something.

what to do with those old bike parts

2008-07-06T08:13:00.001-07:00

Karen's New Xtracycle

2008-06-24T14:46:00.001-07:00

Karen's first ride on her old MTB+new Xtracycle Kit

The Obvious Answer

2008-06-24T07:31:00.000-07:00

I broke my leg in a crash last year. Freak accident, patch of mud on an otherwise clear paved trail, wheels gone sideways, bad landing, and crack. Split my femur like a wishbone in what's called a "spiral fracture."

For the curious, no bikes were harmed in the making of this anecdote. Bent derailleur hanger, a little paint loss, and a missing frame pump. And the rider recovered, in a grisly tale of titanium implants, staples, crutches, and Vicodin that I will -- thankfully -- spare you.

But what I find telling, even a year after that crash, is the reaction of other people when they hear about it. Bikers and non-bikers alike will -- without fail -- ask the same question first:

"Do you still ride?"

I can take it in stride now. I expect it. But it threw me the first few times, and the repetition of it -- the sheer critical mass of that one question -- continues to throw me, especially when I keep hearing it from people who call themselves cyclists. I'll admit, there were dark moments during my recovery where I thought I would never get a leg over an upright bike again. Yet even in those dark moments, my mind turned to recumbent trikes. There was no question that I would ride something. The question was simply what I would be able to ride.

It's funny. Most of the people I know -- myself included -- have been in some form of car accident, from a paint-scraping fender-bender to a full-on, airbag-popping rollover. Some have been injured. Some have been seriously injured. Yet no one asks, "So, you giving up driving?" We accept (or more accurately, deny) a given level of risk in our most common transportation choice. Ironically, it's the statistical anomaly, the freak accident, that makes the safer, saner choice seem extreme.

Sure, I'll give up riding someday. The grisly recovery taught me that I'm stuck in a mortal, fallible sack of skin. This body won't be able to make the pedals go around forever. But to just walk away, 35 years old, perfectly functional (and ever-so-slightly bionic), for one bad day, one moment of inattentiveness, when I've seen that the number of riding days on my calendar is finite? Hardly.

Do I still ride? Ask me if I still breathe instead.

The Difference

2008-06-14T13:05:00.001-07:00

Ask a bunch of bicycle commuters to describe the commute experience. Then do the same for a group of automobile commuters to do the same. What do you think the #1 difference is going to be? Think about that for a moment while I digress.

Spring is almost over, like we're in our last week folks. Today I took on a long overdue Spring Cleaning task. Part of it involved going through boxes and piles of clothes and sorting them into piles: keepers, charity donation and rag. I'm sure this work will have its own reward in the resulting order. Yeah, right. In the meantime I am having fun trying on shirts that I haven't worn in five years. (Did you think I did this spring cleaning every year?) The real reward is easily slipping into something that, before bike commuting, I could not squirm into. Wheee!! New clothes!

How about that commuter difference? The #1 difference is that most bike commuters describe the commute as fun or enjoyable. Car commuters never use those terms. Think about that the next time you prepare to leave home on your way to work. Are you going to have fun on the way?

What Randonneuring Is All About

2008-06-09T05:46:00.000-07:00

Tom Petty once wrote:

Every now and then I get down to the end of the day
And I have to stop and ask myself why I've done it.
It just seems so useless to have to work so hard
And nothin' ever really seems to come from it.

Jennifer Chang just finished the Seattle International Randonneurs 600 kilometer brevet and posted this eloquent answer to Mr Petty's question on the SIR mailing list:

Hello Randonneurs,

In an impulsive moment, I've decided to post my 3:30 am journal rambling, as I feel it reflects sentiments of all of us, who attempt these hard rides. Thank you to multitude of SIR organizers and volunteers, who make these rides possible!

Jennifer

Monday, June 9, 2008, 3:30 AM

After SIR 4 Passes 600K

I've slept, and it's 3:30 am, and I'm up because I can't breathe and my system seems to be shutting down, but I am happy! How do you explain that!

I keep waivering back and forth about this randonneuring stuff. It's really one of the most difficult things I've done in my life and I am SO miserable, while I'm doing it, though I have moments, like when I was climbing White Pass and the sun rose slowly over the creek, and I knew I was one of the few that witnessed the light hitting the craggy walls and mountain grandeur, and I was going wow, and wow, you know.

The worst moment is when you've done over hundred miles and the sun is setting and it's beautiful, and you want the ride to end, just like that, in ease, after the hard day, you wish to literally ride off into the sunset, into hot showers, warm food and soft bed, and you've got OVER hundred miles to go! That's, for me, psychologically, the hardest part.

But, these randonneur rides end in crescendo, in heart beat, in racing beat, as you race against the time, hard, into finishline and you cross, not really into beautiful sunset, but into someone's garage, in dark, or a strange motel lobby, and there are lights, late into the night, and there are friendly cyclists, who are staying up, waiting for you! Looking out for the lost sheep. And you go, wow, I did it. I finished it. And it's an addicting high. Very, very addicting.

I always love the randonneuring ride, after it's done. How could you not? I love the other rides, too, for the comfort at the end of the hard, beautiful day. I don't have to choose, but does that mean I have to continue with randonneuring?

It's hard on my body. So hard on my body. Takes me to my limits: physical, mental, emotional. Period. But, in those limits, I am aware of my boundaries. Boundaries that define, I. And I feel sizzlingly alive, within my set limits. I am not infinite, but I am I.

It's addicting. It's the high.

Paul "Dr. Codfish" Johnson shares the control worker's view of this ride here:

http://drcodfish.blogspot.com/2008/06/make-mine-mocha.html

Crossing the Bow River

2008-06-01T07:57:00.001-07:00

Dwayne riding over the Bow River on a RANS Street crank forward bike,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

The luxuries of leaving the city

2008-05-31T21:47:00.000-07:00

Day 7: Leaving Cortez. Sept. 19, 2002.

One of the most difficult aspects of bicycle touring in the rural southwest is the way slow travel spaces points of civilization so far apart. Every service station becomes a necessity rather than a luxury - if you miss one, the next could be more than a day’s travel away. It almost echoes the sentiment of a exhausted pony express rider in the 1860’s, galloping into a remote mail station after a full day only to have dirty, well-drawn water and a thin blanket awaiting his arrival. Their journal entries show how many riders relished in these barren conditions, if only because it beat the weary road.

Day seven of our 14 day, 600-mile trip through Southern Utah and Colorado brought us to the only distinguishable “city” we would pass through during our entire trip - Cortez, Colorado. A week through the rugged and rural San Juan mountains had nearly exhausted most of our resources, so with the destination came the unavoidable chores of shopping, buying supplies, and filling up water for the long stretch of
desert ahead.

The entire morning had brought us mostly downhill,away from the San Juan mountains and the beautiful Dolores River valley. The motion of traveling downhill had become so fluid that we scarcely glanced off to the side as we flew through the busy streets of Cortez. We stopped at a large supermarket for food and supplies, and decided to get water and lunch on our way out of town. We passed a dilapidated downtown area and several uninviting chain restaurants before the rows of buildings started to stagger away from the highway, and we realized we had already passed city limits.

“Should we go back?” I asked Geoff.

“No,” he said. “There’s got to be at least a gas station on the edge of town.”

And there we were, headed out into the reservation and the desert. It would be at least two full days before we’d reach the next town we were sure existed, at least two full days before we’d ever see another gas station or any type of business, at least two full days before we’d have any chance of getting water, and there we were, bicycling away from the last signs of civilization.

We reached the edge of a long downward slope toward the open desert below, marked by two tiny truck stops. Geoff indicated we should go to the furthest one, because of pizza symbol on the sign. We were starving. But more importantly, we needed to get water for the next 48 hours. I parked outside and tore open all of my panniers.

One by one, I pulled out an assortment of empty bottles I had collected over my travels - Nalgenes, 32-ounce gatorade bottles, spring water bottles, tall bottles, short bottles, fat bottles, and finally, my 100-ounce camelback pouch. Inside the gas station was a single bathroom with a tiny sink. I twisted and angled the bottles in every direction, to no avail. Nothing fit underneath that dingy faucet.

I gathered up my assortment and walked outside. “I’m going back to that last gas station,” I announced, and left Geoff sitting in the parking lot.

In quiet defiance, I rode the two and a half blocks back to the Chevron on the wrong side of the road, facing traffic. The blur of vehicles rushing by almost seemed to brush my open panniers, but I didn’t care. The extra effort to cross the street just wasn’t worth it. I walked into the second-to-last gas station in town with nine water bottles pressed beneath both arms. I bee-lined to the bathroom, again a tiny service closet with a toilet and a cracked sink so small I could barely fit my hands, let alone nine bottles, beneath the nozzle. My groans echoed off a maze of pipes that ran above the nonexistent ceiling.

Head pounding, frustration coagulating in my stomach, I gathered up my bottles and the last few ounces of my dignity, walked to the drink coolers and grabbed two gallon-sized jugs of spring water. “Just these,” I told the clerk, and handed her three dollars.

And with that, we set out into the desert, the sagebrush and sand universe of the reservation, precious water safely tucked inside our panniers, without a glance back at civilization’s shadow. I left the gas station angry at the world, at the tedious chore of surviving, of having to gather and carry resources where none exist. I pedaled away from Cortez as if the city were reaching out to pull me back in, afraid that it might. I had no desire to go back to the city. But the unknown desolation ahead had to be worse.

Oddly enough, with each furious pedal stroke I found myself becoming more and more relaxed. The dimming light of sunset unleashed a blaze of lights behind me, and it felt good to move away from them. The landscape ahead was dark and unfocused, fading into two-dimensional black shapes against the muted orange sky.

“It feels good to get away from there,” Geoff said. And it did. But it didn’t make sense. All week I had been looking forward to the supermarkets and Pizza Huts and running water electrified convenience of the city, only to find myself feeling better about getting away. All I had to look forward to now was a simple dinner of spaghetti and canned sauce and sleep beneath the clear, star-drenched sky.

Funny how a bicycle can so easily, so completely draw time and space backwards. My panniers sagged from the weight of food and water I was forced to carry, but at that moment I would have happily doubled the weight if it meant another two days away from the city, into the sweet, simple luxury of the open road.

Going On A Cruise

2008-05-22T18:57:00.000-07:00

Part 1

At a business lunch this week, the two other gentlemen in the party revealed that they each had plans to take a cruise this year. One will be leaving for Alaska soon. The other will be flying to Spain to begin a Mediterranean cruise in September. They spoke of prior cruise vacations. They spoke of the places they'd see and the things they'd do. They spoke of travel logistics. They contrasted the two eagerly anticipated trips to exotic locations. I couldn't add much to the conversation. At one point, one of the gentlemen turned to me and asked, "Chris, have you ever been on a cruise?"

"No", I said, "but I hear they can be quite pleasant." Then I think I mumbled something about there being plenty of food. He turned back to resume his conversation with someone who knew of which he spoke. I took another bite of my lunch and listened.

Part 2

This morning, while the birds were singing at peak volume, I opened the back door, let in the cool, morning air, and the coffee finished brewing. I pulled a small, familiar cup from the cabinet. When the coffee flowed slowly from the decanter, aromatic steam rose up and filled the space bounded by face, cup, and hand. The hot brown liquid swirled...and then settled, but the fragrance continued to rise up and stir the senses. Pleasant, simple, quiet, earthy contentment. Then, there was a realization. Perhaps, during that lunch meeting, I mis-spoke.

Actually, I've been on thousands of cruises. They've just been much less expensive, much more simple, and closer to my home. In fact, this old saddletramp has another land cruise planned very, very soon...and the anticipation gives me great joy.

Phantoms, Part 3

2008-05-09T09:10:00.000-07:00

My tires crunch on the gravel, spitting out rocky shrapnel when I stand and accelerate. The path follows the Hennepin Feeder Canal out of Rock Falls, Illinois, a tiny waterway originally designed for barge traffic. The track, once worn bare by mules pulling loaded barges, has been turned over to the park district as a recreational area and buried in white sandstone to create a trail. It is the only off-road riding within range for a kid still working on a driver’s license, my first opportunity to take my new mountain bike into its element. The canal is on my left. On my right, a thin strip of trees separates my ride from the strip malls, hotels, and restaurants of Rock Falls. The illusion works; under the canopy of overhanging branches, I can convince myself that I am alone, that I no longer follow Dad’s wheel.

After a quarter mile of flat gravel riding, the real trail begins. A worn dirt path breaks away from the canal into the woods, cut by renegade motorcycles, kept open by kids on BMX bikes. I veer into the trees and climb the ridge that separates canal from city. The riding is frantic silence, rubber tires on dry earth, trees passing like telephone poles on the interstate. The branches close in, no wider than my handlebars, leaves brushing my knuckles. My pulse presses out on the foam shell of my helmet. Lines of dusty sweat creep down my cheeks. The trail begins to roll, its rise and fall like slow breathing under my tires. Each downhill slope loads my momentum, carrying me over the next rise, picking up speed with each trip across the trail’s wavelength.

My front wheel strikes the knob of a half-buried root, knocking the handlebars from my hands. For an exhilarating instant, I lose control. The wheel chatters out of its line. I grab for the bars, but the distraction is too much on such a narrow trail. A branch snags the bar and rips it from my hands. The front wheel turns sharply off the trail into the brush. I have no choice but to follow, slapped by branches. The bike finally strikes a tree, tossing me over the handlebars head first.

When I reach up to wipe the grit from my forehead, half my helmet is missing. On impact against the tree, the foam has split in a jagged arc across the top of my head. The rear stays in place, held by nylon straps, but the front swings open like a door. The helmet comes apart in my hands when I release the straps and take it off. I sit in the dirt -- dizzy, aching, with a hemisphere of helmet in each hand -- and laugh, because I am sixteen and don’t know any better.

Jason Nunemaker
Des Moines, IA

I'm not a Cyclist, I'm a Bicycle Rider

2008-05-06T22:52:00.000-07:00

I rode a lot last year, a WHOLE lot, for me anyway. While most of that was for transportation, a significant portion of it involved long-distance recreational riding. And the use of the term "recreational" seems, well, a little confusing at times.

I started riding longer distances in order to train for a big charity ride. I got involved with some really nice folks who do long-distance riding on a regular basis, for fun. I practiced my form. I got a little bit faster (attaining a cruising speed of almost 12 mph). I got stronger. I completed three populaires (rides of 100km, or 62.5 miles) last year and dreamed of riding longer distances, growing ever stronger and more invincible. Randonneuring really woke up the sleeping Walter Mitty inside me. And I did achieve some things I'd never thought possible on a bike. At the end of last year, I had racked up over 2,700 miles. I had completed three metric centuries and successfully completed 141 out of a possible 210 miles on that three-day charity ride. I made some new friends through my involvement in the local randonneuring club. And I began to plan my 2008 riding season. Among my great plans for 2008 were more populaires (those metric centuries) and an attempt at a brevet of 200km.

This spring, my riding plans have been repeatedly stalled; my drive and desire for athletic greatness diminished.

So what happened?

Well, LIFE happened. My partner lost her teaching job last fall and became "underemployed"; and I needed to work more hours to help make up some of the shortage. Important time spent with family and friends took priority over some of my planned rides. The cold, wet winter and early spring made it difficult to go long on the weekends. A series of cold and allergy distresses forced me indoors more often and made it hard for me to ride longer than my typical morning commute (indeed, even my commutes were hard and I wound up tossing my bike on transit more often during the winter). I had a Crohn's flare-up over the winter that kept me off my bike for nearly two weeks. In short, I made plans and other stuff happened that got in the way.

So how am I working with it now?

Well, the 200km is out for the year. I simply cannot set aside enough time to prepare for that distance safely and effectively; and I am not angry or sad about it at all. It's just life. As for the populaires, I had hoped to enter an early one in March but the weather and my colds combined to keep me out of it. The next organized group populaire I can hope to find time for isn't until early November. (I could sign up to do one by myself but there hardly seems any point in that; the truth is I'd rather just go out for a 25- to 35-mile ride with friends and have a nice lunch somewhere along the way. If I could do this two out of four weekends a month I'd be pretty darned happy.) I am doing another charity ride, a shorter one-day event that's close enough to home for me to take public transit to and from the start. If I complete this ride -- and I'm pretty sure I will -- it will likely be, at something like 70 miles, the longest distance I ride in one day this year.

And something else has happened. I have not felt the least bit stressed about how things have turned out. I still ride my bike nearly every day. When I'm tired I take the bus part of the way. When I feel an extra burst of energy in the evening (especially since daylight sticks around till 8 pm now), I'll ride a longer, more "scenic" route home. And as I read ride reports by some of my new randonneuring buddies, I find that their descriptions of literally suffering through a particularly challenging stretch of a ride no longer hold the same allure for me. I feel as though I've found my limits, and I am turning them into my groove.

It's natural to want positive reinforcement simply for being the people we are. When I look around for that reinforcement, encouragement for the bicycle rider I am, I have to look a little harder. It's not found in the popular bicycle literature, in the magazines and articles found at most bike shops. It's not found in the popular media, who still equate Most Things Bicycle with Lance Armstrong. And it's not even found in most mainstream advertising for bicycles and bicycle-related product. Pick up any major bicycle catalog and the first thing you will see is someone who is young, sleek and ferociously fit, most likely a guy, clad in lycra and pounding his way up the mountainside with a determined grim on his tanned face. One must look and dress the part in order to Be A Cyclist.

I'm not so much a Cyclist as I am a Bicycle Rider. And I find that reinforcement by looking at my family and friends, at my co-workers who ride every day, and at regular folks who are just going from place to place on a bicycle, wearing whatever clothes they grabbed off the top of the clean clothes pile, ferrying their groceries or nothing at all while they pedal and smile and enjoy the ride. They are becoming my model of choice more and more, every single day.

That doesn't mean I've given up on riding those longer distances. I get a sense of accomplishment from doing those rides that's hard to explain, and they give me a chance to ride out in the country where it's quieter and there's more wildlife to see and hear. I love those longer rides and plan to do more of them, for as long as I'm able. But they are not the majority of the riding I do, and that is totally okay. Most of my rides are five miles or less each, and they are often as enjoyable as the country rides are. Because the point isn't speed or distance, it's simply that I get to ride my bike.

Any day I get to ride my bike is a good day.

Is it Spring for You?

2008-05-06T06:21:00.000-07:00

I'm riding with bare knees. Enough of Spring is here for me to ride that way. The fig and pear trees aren't showing any fruit yet, the grape vines haven't leafed out. So Spring really isn't here.

Spring will really be here for me when I have my first Hawaiian shirt day. On that day I’ll ride in a billowing silky colorful shirt and be really comfortable. It's as close to being naked on the bike as I get.

What's your "it's Spring!" ride moment? Has it arrived this year?

Where Else?

2008-05-05T18:42:00.000-07:00

I work in a secure facility. This means there's guard shacks in the driveway and employees need to show their corporate ID to get into the parking lot. Today as I rolled up I noted there was a new guard on duty. I slowed down a little extra, he wasn't going to recognize me. Held out the ID and he waved me on.

"Where's your car?"
"Where it belongs."

Home in the driveway.

Coupleafewthings Monday

2008-04-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

Go go go go go:
ok, well don't go, the image is gone, torn from the internets like a $1 off burrito coupon from the student paper. Stupid internets...
(was once an image of a guy riding a bike on a line of soda bottles)
Next:

My race bike racked for the ride home.

I have been waiting years to do this well. A decade ago I occasionally carried frames on my back to customers when I worked at a small frame builder. Many a times I have steered another full bike down the road, one hand on the stem, whilst riding another. But I think I this is the apogee of swellegant bike on bike hauling. That was 9 miles and 800 feet elevation change each way to get to the race.

Lots of reasons to hate pro cycling right now, here is a reason to start watching again:

click for source
Go read this nice fluff article on Taylor Phinney and family over on Sports Illustrated. If you don't know who he is or who his parents are, go read it.

Taylor is 17 and one of the top five pursuit cyclists in the world and will be representing the US in Beijing this summer in the Olympics. He rides for the Slipstream Chipotle team and with any luck, will be doing one day races in Europe flying the plaid colors and possibly a tacky mustache within a few years.

Addicted to darkness

2008-04-23T06:59:00.001-07:00

Ever since my Down Low Glow lights arrived, I've become completely addicted to nighttime cruising. I've always been a night person, and I love being outside at night, particularly on nights like tonight, when the air is like silk and the stars are out clearly, even in the city.

Night riding is completely different from daytime riding, and not just because it's dark. You see things in the city at night that you can't see when the sun is out. It's been my experience that most cities have two populations -- the folks who inhabit the office buildings by day and retreat to their pockets of suburban safety during the night, and the people for whom the city isn't even open until about 9 or 10 p.m. That's a broad-brush statement, of course, so please don't take offense.

I recently moved to Albany, NY, a small city with fewer than 100,000 people. Despite its size, the center of the city and the neighborhoods immediately around it resemble similar spots in most of the larger cities I've lived in. Folks sit out on stoops in the warm night breeze, relaxing with a drink and grilling mouth-watering food on small hibachis or on grills much too large for their porches. Professionals, many still dressed in their work clothes, walk dogs of all sizes, many of whom bark in what I believe to be admiration as my brightly lit bike passes.

Tonight I rode to Buckingham Lake, a small pocket of countryside right in the heart of Albany. Nestled at the end of several city streets, Buckingham Lake (which is really a small pond) has been a relaxing oasis for Albany residents since the colonial era. I went there for the first time the other day. In the sunshine, the lake was filled with ducks and geese. Mountain bikers rode around the one-mile trail that surrounds the lake, and families of all sizes and kinds walked along the shore or played at the playground.

At night, it was very different.

For one thing, it wasn't as dark as I'd hoped. There were quite a few lights on tall lamp posts around the edge of the lake, and the streets on both sides were lit up, too. I hopped on the gravel trail and passed two high-school-age couples walking the trail and -- to judge by the smell -- smoking pot. A businessman stood on the playground in front of an expensive car, talking on his cell phone. One picnic table was occupied by four or five people talking and laughing. Around the first bend in the trail, the light poles stopped and I got a bit of darkness. The far side of the pond was the brightest area, and then the trail dropped down a few feet to kiss the water. Here I actually needed my headlight to see well enough to avoid a late-night swim.

Leaving the lake, I rode around the circular roadway the surrounds New York State's Harriman Office Complex, and then headed over to cruise around the University of Albany. Given the gorgeous weather, the campus was surprisingly quiet. Maybe everyone was studying for finals. I did pass one large group waiting for the bus, and heard several comments about my glowing Xtracycle. ("That's sweet!" "That's f***king hot!" "Cool bike!" "You're going the wrong way!" That last one turned out to be true, but only for a few hundred feet.)

On the way back to my house I passed three young guys crossing West Lawrence. "That's a hot bike," one of them said to his friend. "I like your bike, man!" the friend yelled, raising one fist in the air. I thanked him and headed home.

I'm not a cool guy. Despite having several careers that people might consider cool -- including salsa and funk musician, radio DJ, foreign correspondent and hip hop label producer -- those cool vibes have never really rubbed off on me. I just got my first tattoo (a chainwheel with a peace sign in the middle), but I still look more like the Pillsbury Doughboy than a rebel without a cause. But at night, on the Xtracycle with the Down Low Glow, even I get a little taste of the hip life. And I'm not gonna lie, I dig it. I mean c'mon -- who wouldn't like to ride around with people actually cheering for your bicycle?

So I highly recommend some nighttime cruising on your bicycle. Just make sure you've got a lot of lights, and choose your route well. And be careful -- once you get out there at night a few times, you'll become addicted, too.

Jason Crane is a union organizer, jazz broadcaster and action dad. Find him online at RocBike.com and The Jazz Session.

Commuter God

2008-04-19T06:17:00.000-07:00

"You're a commuter god," was what the email said.

A fellow north-Texan saw a photo of my favorite bike recently submitted to the Fixed Gear Gallery. He emailed me that he believed that we'd met briefly before. Turns out, yep, it was me he flagged down in Denton several weeks ago. After mentioning that I'd ridden the bike in the photo to work in Denton on that day, he must have considered the distance, the fixed gear drive train, and weather conditions that day (a 20+ mph headwind with gusts to 35 mph) before he offered the kind, but greatly exaggerated, compliment.

I enjoy compliments as much as anyone, but I am not a commuter god. I am not a finely-tuned athlete and do not have a love for discomfort. Thanks in large part to stories and encouragement from many of the authors of this blog, I have begun to identify selected days to commute by bike. As so many of these authors have said, one can greatly expand his understanding of what is possible.

I've now commuted to work several times at distances I once thought were impractical. My job involves professional attire and numerous out-of-office appointments from 30 to 50 miles away, so days with no appointments work best. I've learned-by-doing how to strike a balance between carrying stuff and staying prepared by keeping stuff in my office when a commuting opportunity arrives. By simply trying, one might learn what was once thought to be impractical, can actually be preferable. My commute by bike takes me three times as long as driving. But being good for the environment, good for the community, good for the body, and good for the spirit, it is a preferable way to use time.

I'd like to encourage those who might be considering riding the bike for utility purposes. It is a simple way to transform the mundane into the delightful. Whether it be commuting to work, running errands, or social activities, give it a try. Does it take anything like "a commuter god" or special powers? Hardly...just someone who likes to ride a bike.

Closer to heaven

2008-04-14T15:47:00.000-07:00

Climbing over Lizard Head Pass, Colo. Day 6

Morning came with the incandescent reflection of unobstructed sun on a fresh layer of snow - warm, awake and alive. Geoff prompted me out of the tent with the first big breakfast of our trip - French toast, eggs, and orange juice - the subtle luxuries of staying in town. It was the perfect prerequisite to our day - the day we would climb over the mountains and the highest elevation of our entire trip, Lizard Head Pass.

The storm had moved on, leaving behind only the snow-coated mountain peaks as proof that it ever existed. Fall colors blazed across the foothills, but those peaks make the deep yellows and greens seem almost unreal - as if a cinematic Technicolor brush saturated half of the landscape, leaving everything else stark white on black. In the smog-laden valleys of the Intermountain West where I come from, elevation equals clarity, and today we’re headed as high as this road goes.

I expected this day to be physically grueling, but unlike the grade that soared toward Telluride, this slope is surprisingly gentle - rolling hills that rise through canyons and drop back into valleys. Maybe this climb is just easier than the roads through southern Utah, or maybe my strength is really increasing that quickly - a possibility that never occurred to me until I glanced back at a sign on the left - warning truckers of the 8 percent grade I was currently ascending. And that, fellow desk potatoes, is a great feeling.

And my day is so bent on climbing, so prepared for work, so apprehensive for the zenith of the entire trip, that I’m almost disappointed to roll over that gentle mound that is Lizard Head Pass - 10,222 feet in the sky - and stare down the Dolores River canyon and the 55 mile descent ahead. A cold wind blows up from below and pounds my face, the only skin not buried in winter clothing.

But the thing that hits me the hardest is the contrast. Here I am, standing is the midst of 14,000-foot peaks, snow-covered islands in a sea of yellow aspen and deep green pine - when just five days ago I was rolling through the vermilion sandstone cliffs of the desert, air still stagnant in the lingering heat of summer. And I made this transition on a bike. With my own wimpy legs and inherent fear of physical challenge. The prospect still staggers my imagination.

The next 15 miles fly by in 27th gear, a blur of blues and greens through my tear-soaked eyes. In just over a half hour we have already arrived Rico, our lunch stop, and are back at the riverside; this time, the Dolores. Things are getting back to normal, elevation dropping, snow-capped peaks fading into the background. By this time tomorrow we’ll be back in the desert.

Wasn’t it Ernest Hemingway who said “Only by bicycle can one truly know the contours of the land?” All the distance I’ve traveled in the last six days would take me just over four hours to traverse in a car. And yet, it feels like I’ve traveled so far, so long, that I can barely remember the landscape of my home in Salt Lake. But everything between here and Moab is burned in my head, and I can’t help but find familiarity in this strange place.

Hawkins Family Bike Tour: Day 5

2008-04-12T23:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

This last day of our family bicycle tour brings us from Battleground WA to Seattle, through Portland and vicinity. Our tales of adventure up to this point had only hardened the misgivings Claire's family have had about our trip and bicycling in general. Monique in particular stated on many occasions that she "would never, ever do anything like that". So I did what every cycling evangelist does. I put her in the stoker seat.

It turns out that she just loves riding and really had a good time tooling around the neighborhood. We also put some of her kids in the trailer and they had a great time too. You just have to try it. Once you do, you may never think the same way again.

We took off from Battleground at 10 AM after a leisurely breakfast and play time with the kids. The road into Vancouver was a delight with flat to downhill farm roads with wide shoulders marking our path. There was eventually quite a bit of road construction but I've found that road construction is nice for bikes as long as the flaggers believe that bikes belong on the road and well, around these parts things are pretty positive. In fact, every flagger we encountered made sure that we got through without stopping and smiled and waved as we passed.

This was also the first fully sunny day we've had. Friday was just a joy and our main concern was making sure that Thorvald wasn't overheating and that he had plenty of shade. Riding on these kinds of days makes you feel like you're getting one over on the world. I spend so much time riding in the rain at 40-50 degrees that I start to overheat myself when things get too sunny. Perhaps my blood has thickened into a higher viscosity that doesn't handle temperatures above 65.

Vancouver has beautiful bike amenities and we found our way to the I-5 bridge without a hitch but with some help from smiling people. Tandems with kids is the way to engender love and understanding.

Well, love and understanding only go so far when you get to the Oregon side and the signs to downtown are spotty to be charitable. We had a whale of a time trying to figure out how to get downtown and by following the Vancouver bike map and taking MLK south into Portland, we found ourselves on the least hospitable road of our entire trip. We even got honked at. I don't know what kind of cromagnon honks at bikes with kids, but we got our share and were nearly run off the road on an on-ramp by an Oak Harbor Truck Lines driver pulling two trailers. He also gunned his engine hoping that we would be scared and pull off. A little "peter principle" at work I'm sure but it also gives lie to the notion that Portland is some kind of cycling paradise.

Anyway, the Vancouver bike map was incorrect. We asked around after getting a little hot under the collar, ok, a lot hot under the collar, and found our way to Vancouver Ave where things were much more sedate. This road wasn't even shown on their map nor was Interstate Ave, the apparent super highway for fast north-south cycling traffic. Maybe next time. Maps are only as good as the committees that approve them.

We got to the train station after a nice stop in the park for Thorvald, dumped our non-essential stuff, and took off to see the town. We rode up Broadway, toured Portland State University, met a couple of my old professors, hung out in the Park Blocks, had a nice lunch, played some more, got provisions, and then went down to the waterfront.

Claire was pessimistic at first owing to Seattle's rather utilitarian waterfront style, but upon arrival, her heart was softened and we took another nice break. We then cruised around the Esplanade and talked to some other bikers, traversed some nice bridges, and had a good time. My opinion of Portland was elevated somewhat by workers installing the new green bike boxes and by the sheer volume of cyclists present, but I have to say that Delta Park and North Portland are a mess.

Now I have a technical question for all of you bike know-it-alls. The wonderful 35 mm Paselas that I installed have expanded enough that their undulations sometimes rub on the chainstay. I know I'm not within my warranty to do so, but do you think it proper to crimp the chainstays so as to garner more tire clearance on a steel framed bike? Your help would be very much appreciated.

Also you should know that with knowledge comes danger. The Portland Amtrak office charges tandems at two bikes and trailers as one bike. The Seattle office counts it all as one bike and a stroller that is not charged separately. Riding under the radar so to speak has its advantages when train employees don't know the rules because they don't have the constant experience. Count your blessings, dear Seattlites!

So we paid the surcharge ($5, don't tell them about the airlines!) and happily boarded the train. This was the biggest surprise of the trip. It turned a little long, but Thorvald had napped plenty and was ready to play, and play he did all the way home until 11 PM when we got him home. I love that boy, but he really liked riding and wasn't so involved in the train experience. It was shot in the arm that with children, you can't know what to expect.

So we covered 25 miles into town and goofed off another 15 or so just tooling around town. The day was sunny, and our dirty, road battered tandem looked a little out of place with much of the sleek Portland fare, but we had a great week and look forward to further adventures. The trains work well, allow you to play with your kids, and get you there eventually. Bicycle travel is surprisingly nice and and we'll be doing much more of it in the future.

Thanks for reading and let me know about crimping the chainstays. I could just go with 32mm tires but I'm curious.

Brad, Claire, and Thorvald Hawkins

Hawkins Family Bike Tour: Day 4

2008-04-10T21:07:00.000-07:00

This was the marathon. This was the day that Claire and I proved ourselves in the family bicycle tourist continuum. This was the day that Claire and I rode from Onalaska to Battleground, a distance of 80 miles. This was the day when we really needed to make sure that Thorvald was enjoying himself so that he will still trust us when we put him in the trailer. This was the day when Claire and I would ride together on the same bike longer than we ever have before.

None of those things happened.

It was nippy and Claire's great uncle Jerry informed us that he was driving us to Toledo. I had to find out where Toledo is because we did the whole trip on a cue sheet and I wasn't carrying a map. O.K. Toledo. That's kind of close. Upon reviewing our options, the secondary and close city of Vader was chosen because it was actually on our route. This isn't bad.

We found out that the derelict semi-trailers parked at the corner of Hwy 508 and Jackson Hwy that we guided ourselves to their place with (as markers) are actually his. We found out that as a contractor, you can bid on something, lose money, and you are still stuck with the contract, even if you end up paying for the opportunity to do the job, and we found out that one can easily spend $100 filling up a pick-up truck. No wonder those guys are always so mad at us cyclists; always cutting close, always flooring it as they go by, always letting the engine idle at the gas station while they fill up or go inside to buy that 20 ounce energy drink. I understand more fully now.

We started off from Vader and had a down hill (Jerry is very thoughful that way) at 9:00 AM and while getting situated, an old Suburban pulling a 50's Chevy wreck came slowly down that same hill. About 100 ft after they passed us, the hitch broke loose and the wreck slammed into the back of the Suburban. We coasted down the hill to see if we could help and they just said "Nah, this ole' truck just doesn't seem to want to go to the wrecking yard. Say, didn't I see you guys in Centralia yesterday?" We responded in the affirmative and that we really enjoyed Centralia and then we were off on our way, trying to make good time just in case they "fixed" the hitch quickly.

The road winds around but follows roughly the RR tracks and we soon found our way into Castle Rock. Claire and I noticed that Diesel was selling for $4.29 but that didn't stop two fine gentlemen from idling their Dodges in front while they went in for their aforementioned energy drinks, Corn dogs, and Little Nickel publications. Fascinating!

One guy came out and gave us a better route than following the 411 into Longview and so we took it and were happy. Pleasant Hill Rd. is pleasant indeed. We passed a street cleaner and found to our liking that the road before the street cleaning machine was clean as well. The trees were in full bloom and we saw a blue bird or a bluejay. We don't know. It was nice.

Next up, we cruised through Longview and then Kelso and then Longview again (that's just the way they are organized; we went in a direct path) and since Thorvald was sleeping well, we trudged on to Kalama where we arrived at 12:00 'noon. We spent about 2 hours in Kalama at different places, learned how to pronounce the name (you'll have to ride with us to find out), and generally worked Thor until he was docile and ready for riding (napping).

Between Kalama and Woodland lies a cycling conundrum. You don't really want to ride on the freeway because that's kind of like cheating and it's kind of loud, and everybody thinks it's dangerous. The only problem is that the only connecting road looks like this: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1780769

Look at what happens when you start up Line Road. That sucker was so steep, we pushed the thing up most of the way, and then high fived each other, not realizing that we were only half way up! It was laughably difficult and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a cycling challenge. On the way down, I couldn't tell if the drag brake was working and once on the flats, found that the brake had stuck closed. Apparently, it still works.

The rest of the ride was punctuated by rolling hills, Thorvald's constant sleep (we're going to pay for that tonight, I tell ya') and a very helpful cyclist named Greg who led us on a new path that turned out perfect. Claire might correct me on his name but he had an older Trek 520 with nice, old brifters. Nice guy.

We arrived in Battleground around 4:30 or 5 and had a great time with Tom and Monique, of which, Tom is Claire's cousin.

We didn't break anything except perhaps the drag brake which is sticky and I haven't tried since, and we parked the bike in the chicken coop, where I'm sure it will work better tomorrow.

Total mileage was somewhere around 60-65, down from 80 because of the ride from Jerry, but felt like more because of Green Mountain Road (#^$%^&^%^%#^%*&^, I mean highlight of the day). Thorvald is having a great time with the 4 kids who reside here and we're having a great time. The weather turned from nippy and rainy to sunny today. Tomorrow will be great!

Well today was pretty fun too.

Brad

Hawkins Family Bike Tour: Day 3

2008-04-09T20:45:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

Some of you are wondering what this all means. I know, it's pretty tricky. Claire and I are riding from Seattle to Portland and taking 5 days. Usually people think of that ride in terms of something only done in the middle of July, on two days of a weekend, with 8,000 people whom you should not trust on two wheels with your safety, ahem I mean, 8,000 of your closest friends.

Nay, Claire and I are taking advantage of the fact that I have 4 different weeks when some percentage of my students are on spring break and this is the week with the largest percentage of students missing that didn't take place in February. You take what you can get. We have also started a silly and self indulgent pattern of going to crazy places for our anniversary (roughly) and here is this year's installment. Just so you know, the first year was to Mexico City (the concierge wouldn't let us ride bikes nor tell us where we could rent them), yes, the city; the second to Romania (we couldn't stomach $320 to cart our bikes over when a train ride across that country was $12 first class), the third to Ashland and environs (Claire was very with child this time last year), and this year finds us on a bike, just one, riding to visit family.

With that, today's story begins with last night. After a nice dip in the hot tub, Claire's cousin Jordan informed us that global warming doesn't exist. Jordan is a contractor who specializes in sewage mains and water mains and any kind of pipe for liquids or cable or anthing you like as long as you have to dig to install it. We were about to agree with him based on the nippy weather yesterday and the fact that it took us quite a while to warm up. But I pointed out that global warming really has more to do about accounting for all of your costs, that if you are dumping something into a river or burning some hydrocarbon, that you should pay the entire price for its use. He was in complete agreement because his job is figuring out what things are actually going to cost sometimes years in advance and I'm glad we could reach some rapprochement. I also think that he would love that I used "rapprochement" with reference to him.

So for today's ride, we went from south Tumwater/Littlerock to Onalaska (just look it up. It exists). I think it kind of fun that all of our family live in deep exurbia and riding our bikes there provides for some really great riding atypical of our downtown Seattle regular commutes.

Ah yes, the ride. We got loaded up. Thorvald is getting used to the pattern and really likes hanging out with us. He's really adapting to trailer life and goes to sleep most easily there, inexplicably to our better senses. The roads back to the main one are much shorter than we remember, and soon enough we are charting new ground, cutting east so as to meet up with good ole' state route 99. We ride east then south, passing through Tenino, Bucoda (originally a Romanian name but who knows, it was settled in 1853), and then we catch lunch in Centralia.

In the middle of Centralia is a park with a Carnegie library and a statue of a WWI soldier. It's a memorial but not to what you would think. It's dedicated to the men killed in Centralia's famous labor riot of 1919. How completely cool is that. These guys were soldiers, marched in the Armistice Day parade, and spoke up somehow for worker rights, only to be gunned down.

I don't know that I've ever done anything that courageous, but seeing that statue was the high point of my riding day, oh, that and the great weather we had, and the sickeningly flat route (sore bums for both of us; Claire switched her saddle out; we carry two for her), and of course, the Yard Bird.

You just have to go to Chehalis (twin city to Centralia) to see the paper mache exquisiteness that is the Yard Bird. It must be two stories high and 60 feet long and stands at the highway as a sentinel, inviting passers by to feast on the Yard Bird flea market. Oh, you must go. It's a very good time.

We got in at 3 PM, left at 9:30 that morning, covered 45 miles, had a nice lunch, let Thorvald run wild in the labor/philanthropist park, and talked to all kinds of people who love bikes and love their families. It was a great day.

Day 4 is the marathon. Stay tuned. We haven't done it yet.

Brad

Hawkins Family Bike Tour: Day 2

2008-04-09T20:43:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

So for our second day in the saddle, and knowing that we had a bike locked up at the Pt. Defiance dock in north Tacoma, but knowing also that bike shops don't open before ten, we took a leisurely morning and had breakfast at Shari's. I'm not typically a fan of the place and the potato pancakes were pretty heavy on the potato, but if you get an omelet with pancakes and add the strawberry sauce and whipped cream as Claire did, you can pretty much forget about bicycling disasters and threatening rain.

Once the bike shop opens however, you must face reality, the reality of the bicycle, the reality of tools and weather, and hills, and scheduling your ride time around baby feeding and naps. The family bike tour is super fun and very bonding, but keeping Thorvald happy is of primary concern, enjoying the ride yourself secondary, and mileage goals come in somewhere around 7th, right after, heck, I can't even think of what fits in the middle but I sure know it's more important that mileage.

So Chip (my father in law) drives me to the bike shop where I pick up a chain tool (eureka!) a new chain, and come to think of it, nothing else, drives us back up to the dock, drops me off to fix my bike, and then I ride a more or less stripped down tandem from Point Defiance to Lakewood.

Now I have to say that Tacoma's idea of bike accomodations borders on the silly. Pearl St is beautiful and wide and flat and runs right down through Tacoma. Vassault Way or Narrows Way or Mildred Ave or whatever it happens to be at any given point is a hilly, chip sealed mess. Note to all road contractors: If you have to chip seal a road, you don't have to pour gravel on the shoulder/bike lane because that part doesn't wear out. Save your money, short the city a little bit, and only hit the lane. Everybody comes out ahead! Got that contractors? Good.

The hills are fun though and I much prefer them to most other bicycling difficulties because they get me out of the saddle, change up the gears a little (sometimes a lot) and provide me with short term goals. Just don't ride the Burma Road on Vashon without a chain tool. Mark my words.

I arrive in Lakewood, around 12:30 but not before the drag brake cable snaps and I have to replace the now missing bolt assembly (and I thought STI was high maintenance!) and get a new cable (back at the same bike shop; they were quite happy to see me again and see the rig. Bike shops take great interest in people doing things that bike shop employees dream of doing themselves) and put it all together and then ride home. I'm talking about you, adventure lovers!

We get loaded up and take off, deciding to skirt the hills for a while, and head through north Fort Lewis, I-5 for 2/3 of a mile, Nisqually and Pac Highway (old 99), and then up the hill to east Olympia where Claire's cousin Joe and family reside.

Joe works for Intel and has recently replaced his Lexus convertible with a white Ford Econoline with flame decals so we know that at 36, he is well past his midlife crisis and is embracing a new, more adventurous life. His wife Coriell has not been told that we are coming but we have a nice visit anyway. The kids are beautiful.

The ride into Olympia is a whole different cycling universe and is far and away better than anything I've seen in Seattle. Whereas Seattle has one real bike trail with stop signs all the time and political impasses keeping it from being finished, Olympia is in full bike path nirvana with interlocking trails that get out into and out of the city with complimentary bike pathed roads along the way. The signage is a little lacking but they really have it going on. We took wide street to the Chehalis Western Trail, which then intersected with the Olympia Woodland Trail, which then took us to a wide, pathed road, to another pathed road, to the Capitol. Don't tell me government can't get anything done!

We futzed around the Capitol and found a woman with a shiny Co-Motion who directed us out of town to the southwest toward Littlerock, and then found a biker going our way who works in fish biology for the state. I don't know why so many engineers and scientists ride bikes, but they are some of the nicest people we know (you know who you are) and we love riding with them. John Forrester has a convincing theory, but I think it's just because those types are deeper thinkers than the rest.

So we ride a very flat, very straight road down almost to Littlerock, turn right into the Delphi valley, and then visit with another of Claire's cousins and his family, wherein we also stay the night. They have a hot tub, lovely children, and being contractors, lots of fun machinery to talk about. This would be Jordan and Jill, and their three girls. Life is pretty great. We get in around 6:30

Thorvald up to this point has tried to time his naps perfectly to our riding time and thus took two 2 hour naps, covering our 4 hours of riding time. He's so understanding that way. What a nice boy. He's turning 1 this month too. Come to the party if you can.

The weather was a little odd. We got rained on twice but not convincingly. The strange part is that that a blue patch kind of followed us along the whole way. We would ride though areas that had just received a deluge of water and our bike is a dirty mess, but we had a great time and ducked inundation with the best of them. No real breakdowns today except that I had to true my rear wheel a little, oh and I fixed the chain at the beginning, and dealt with a broken cable and a bolt assembly. At least we didn't have to walk today.

Mileage: about 40 miles, broken up into two roughly equal sections, with a 13 mile pre-ride shakedown without the gear. Life is pretty cool. Don't wait for late summer for your bike rides. These are just the greatest.

Brad

Hawkins Family Bike Tour: Day 1

2008-04-09T16:50:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,This will be put into a larger format but yesterday was quite the shot in the arm.

Claire got slammed by work on Monday so we got a late start out of the house. We left around 3 PM for West Seattle and the Vashon Ferry. This was nice enough. The Paselas that many scoff at ride just beautifully in their 35 mm form, and the tandem seemed immune from the massive wind gusts along the waterfront as we made our way south through the industrial district.

Thorvald needed his seat adjusted so we stopped and moved things around only to discover that I had not pumped one of his tires up enough. I went to the location where the pump is held and lo and behold, it was not to be found!. What the....? Going on a bike tour without a pump? Crazy! There was still enough air to get places so we climbed into West Seattle and stopped in at Aaron's bike repair, and excellent resource by the way. They have more X-tra cycles and cargo bikes than anywhere I've seen and while in, Aaron was working on a customer's new X-tra as well.

I got a pump, and got it situated and we bounded off into parts unknown along Fauntleroy towards Lincoln Park. Upon arriving at the ferry terminal, I bought tickets and then we waited for the cars to load. Presently, up comes a very nice, be-tattooed young guy bearing my credit card. He had brought it down from the shop. Fantastic. We bid our good tidings and many thanks and then boarded, knowing full well that things were looking up.

Being last off a ferry is one of the nicest things to do. You don't get passed while trudging up the inevitable hill from the dock, and you never see any of those infernal motorcycles who seem to enjoy cutting lanes with cyclists. The hill out of the Vashon ferry dock is, shall we say, perfect for the contemplative. You just climb and climb; not letting any shoulders assist or passing dump trucks destroy.

We reached the top and looked for a fun little road which G-maps thinks is just dandy for bicycles, that being Burma Road. Now for the uninitiated, Burma road is an unused, twisty, west side road of Vashon that hooks conveniently into the West Side Hwy on the way to the Tahlequah ferry dock. To a fully loaded tandem with a trailer and kid, this is one of the craziest roads I've been on. We should plan it as a training ride, and no, I will not bring my fixie. No way. It's one 25% hill after another and it was hard on our gears. So hard in fact that I ran the chain into the spokes on one hill, and then two hills later, I broke the chain. You read that right. We sat there, three quarters of the way up a crazy hill, with the drag brake on, the caliper fully closed, incredulous.

Well, wouldn't you know it, I had brought extra chain, a master link, but no chain tool! How about that? Thankfully, Thorvald was still asleep.

So we pushed the bike up and down two more hills, pushing up, and then coasting down, until we reached Cedarhurst, where we climbed up to the Vashon Hwy. On the way up, we stopped a guy in a pick-up who offered some advice and some help, but we declined, thinking we would run into a cyclist who might have such a wonderful tool, and finished the climb up.

We walked along the Hwy into Vashon (the town) and and after about an hour, this same guy comes along and stops, waiting for us. At this point our determination towards self sufficiency had softened and we tore the rig apart and put it in his pick-up. (pictures are coming) His name was Gene and we soon found out that he had just moved out here from Wisconsin, was into living off the land, had 7 kids, and was pretty handy. When he mentioned that he had found a place to stay through church, we inquired and found that he is Mormon. Well, isn't that dandy?! A real mormon. Well, so are we! We had a good laugh about the lost missionary opportunities (we are, as a religion, famous for our missionary zeal), and then found our way to the south ferry dock.

We had a nice 20 minute wait for the ferry, and then pushed our still hobbled tandem down the plank and onto the ferry. The ride was nice and Thorvald had a great day with us. I might interject that while pushing the bike, Thorvald just giggled and gaggled the whole way. He though this was a fantastic game we were playing!.

I locked up the bike and trailer down in the marina, stripped it down for a night alone, and Claire's dad picked us up and we had nice Mexican at a place on Proctor, the Wallingford of Tacoma.

So now, I'm waiting around for the local bike shop to open where we can get a chain tool, and extra chain, and a ride back up north to the ferry dock.

Mileage for Monday: 15 out of a possible 34 miles. Special thanks to Gene, Chip, and the nice guy who brought my credit card down from the bike shop. We're off to a rip roaring start. Oh and I've got to say, the weather was fantastic!

Brad, Claire, and Thorvald Hawkins

Carfree Mom

2008-04-04T06:49:00.000-07:00

Bike commuters are familiar with the "How can/do you it it?" question. Really though, riding your bike to work is pretty simple. For an example of dedicated cycling you need to look elsewhere. Today I'm looking at the example of Marion Rice, carfree Mom.

Marion has a five and two year old she takes to school on her Xtracycle enhanced bike. Two kids and/or four bags of groceries are typical loads on her 10 to 16 miles of daily riding for daily life. Marion is going to be writing a regular column on "Carfree Families" on BikePortland.org.

Sasek RULES

2008-04-02T12:22:00.001-07:00

Can't help but notice that over to the right there is a book by one of my FAVORITE AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATORS OF ALL TIME.
How amazing to have him there, next to me.
Back in the day when I had "Life In The Fat Lane" (BIKE magazine in the mid-1990's, when we all were awash with cash and bonhomie) my 'neighbor' ad was SIMPLE shoes....I rather liked it...despite the fact they were made in China, and smelled horrifically of rubber for the duration you kept them in yr closet, they were a shoe company with a very interesting way of supporting at least two artists, me and the much more talented creator of Moonlight Chronicles, a sort of sketchbook/diary that was if anything, a print version of a blog.
A chapbook if you will.
The makers of Simple shoes paid him to keep on drawing...and the man, (forgot his name, twill arrive in my head tonight) would duly observe his very richly arrayed surroundings...he lived in a hut, or a tree stump, I forget which...had a son, not a baby but not grown either...very very interesting...
So anyway eventually 'my neighbor' changed from Simple to....a switchblade knife manufacturer...then....a gun!!! I complained to Rob Story...
Then the coup de grace: a Porsche ad, right next to my story about how cool our magazine is, because WE DON'T TAKE AUTOMOBILE ADS.
Well, I guess they DID take that ad, but they sure didn't tell the idiot that had written that column for the previous five years, month in, month out...
Profiles in discourage...
BUY ANYTHING by M. Sasek (I have "this Is Edinburgh" and have borrowed all the other dozen books, Hong Kong,London, New York, Ireland, San Francisco, Paris, even TEXAS .... from our library which has the sense to keep these classics, only just now re-issued by Universe, a subsid of some other big house.
Really. You deserve to learn what mid-century cities of the world were like through that man's eyes...

Cycling toward the future

2008-04-02T05:17:00.001-07:00

(Originally posted at FortOrangeCycling.com)

So.

Over the next weeks and months, I'm probably going to write here about my wife's and my attempt to get back to the values we started with as a married couple. Ever since we had our two lovely boys, I think we've been sliding away from the course we had charted as we are being slowly but surely co-opted by modern cultural "norms."

For months now, I've had this really positive, hard-to-pin-down feeling that something good is coming. I told Jen then other day that I feel like I'm simultaneously riding many tributaries on the way toward a great river, and that once I hit the main body of water things will be clearer and brighter and better. I think the way to get there -- the way to find the river -- is to take intentional action, not just to be swept along by the current.

One intentional action we're going to take is to severely limit our car usage on the way to eliminating it entirely. I have a car that's provided by my work (as I've written about here and here) and we also own a 2001 Subaru Forester that's a year from being paid off. I think we're going to get rid of our car and park my work car except when I need it for work, which is very seldom. In addition to the workers I represent in downtown Albany, I also represent two hotels in Schenectady. I discovered that it's a fairly easy bike trip to Schenectady if you go straight there, so that cuts out another need for the car. And I can take my weekly trip to Saratoga Springs by train and then walk a mile to the office.

Anyway, I don't have this all fleshed out in my mind yet. But good things are afoot. Positive change is happening. Life is starting to come into focus in a way it hasn't before. And bicycling is part of this new world.

Whenever I want to remind myself about the beauty of the bicycling lifestyle, I ride my bike. And I watch this:

So why bike?

2008-04-01T22:43:00.001-07:00

Musings on unconventional travel: Day four, Sept. 17, 2002.

The morning arrived with the soft glow of sunlight shimmering off dispersing storm clouds. The night before we had met our first storm, wind and rain pummeling the ground as we rushed to cover our bikes in a tarp. But the morning is blue and warm, and we only have 22 miles ahead of us to our next destination - Telluride, Colo.

Just over two miles outside the mountain resort town, the highway turns away from the canyon and the pleasant incline of the San Miguel River. All we can see ahead of us is elevation, 1,000 feet to Telluride, and a steady stream of cars winding on the narrow highway corridor climbing toward it.

A so we climb, two miles over a tenuous shoulder in the shadow of heavy traffic. The ever-steepening San Juan mountains cradle the highway in virtual suspension, and the only thing between us and a thousand-foot tumble down a rocky slope is a few inches and a mangled guardrail.

Over a mile and a half goes by before we even reach the first pull-out to stop. My lungs are burning from a combination of exhaust and the thin air of high elevation. I stand by the side of the road, wheezing - I’m still out of shape. A couple of mountain bikers, bicycles still strapped to the top of their jeep, greet us. We tell them we’re on our way to Telluride, and they tell us they just came from there. They point out a network of trails weaving their way to the river, now several hundred feet below us. Beautiful single tracks that rip through trees, bounce over rocks and generally make for one exhilarating bike ride - one that my IBEX roadie will never experience.

And as I glance up at the half mile we have yet to climb, the envy sets in. Oh, the convenience of being a day rider - the effortless exhilaration of a one-way downhill trail, the weightlessness of full-suspension, the cool comfort of the jeep waiting below. I lean over my 90-pound bus of a bike and try to focus on something positive.

So why bike? Why load every heavy thing you need to survive on a two-wheeled vehicle powered solely by you? Why the effort? And why, in this fast-paced age of information, would anyone waste so much time moving at 12 mph?

In a word, sustainability - the very essence of survival. Short of throwing on a backpack and walking into the wilderness, there is not a more self-contained mode of travel than a bicycle. Everything that you put into it, you get out. All those backward aspects of living that have been lost over generations of progress become essential again.

Calories, rather than an enemy, become a necessity, and you cherish them. You learn about the excess of modern novelties such as iceberg lettuce, which, at 45 calories per pound and nearly no nutrients, won’t get you very far. You rediscover simple mechanics and learn to fix your bike. By spending vast amounts of time outdoors, you become dependent on nature. You observe the movement of clouds and rotation of the sky, and use them to gauge weather and time. You no longer have computers and TVs and magazines to tell you what to do all the time, and you learn to trust your instincts. You hold your body in the highest regard - it’s your only means of movement - and all of your other possessions become secondary. You discover the contours of landscape and develop an acute sense of place. And through it all, you learn to love the land and yourself in ways that modern living has adamantly denied.

So why bike? Because biking is the only means to escape civilization in a civilized society. Biking is the only way to crawl along the car-choked Interstate and still feel like part of a natural flow. And, short of hiking into the wilderness with a fishing pole and a Swiss army knife, biking is the shortest route to independence in an increasingly dependent world.

And damn if these mountain bikers didn’t catch a glimpse of that feeling as they barreled down the trail - I know they did. But the reason we suffer the uphill battle is to sustain that feeling, to slow progress down a little bit before it passes us by

Getting Started

2008-04-01T16:29:00.000-07:00

Pretty cool stuff you've been able to read about here on Veloquent. Riding stories from the tropics to the arctic, beloved bikes chosen from lust or reason, epic tours forging relationships, adversities (pain!) overcome, great achievements and experiences from exceptional people. It makes you want to, want to ... well ahem, maybe, um admire those superhumans!

Or maybe even be one of them by riding your bike, kinda like they do.

First though you have a huge obstacle to overcome. It's an obstacle shared by the vast majority of the people you encounter on a daily basis. That obstacle is just getting started. You've got to go out and ride your next (or is it your first?) ride and pedal closer to making that ride.

Getting started really is the hard part. Keeping going is so much easier. Even if you've already ridden, today!, further than you've ever ridden before riding the little bit further is easier than starting for the first time. When you read the Veloquent stories of travel and pedaling and adventure and you think about you'd like to, how you wish you could, ride like that ask yourself "can I go out and ride my bike now?" and answer the question not with wistful words but with physical action. When you make that physical answer, you've done the hard part, you've started.

I first formed this thought to share with you about three blocks from my house as I puffed up the broken Boise street pavement between 42nd and 45th streets. I hadn't wanted to get on my bike to commute to work. It took about an hour to jolly myself into getting dressed and getting on the bike. Yet here, four blocks from my house, after just a very few minutes of pedaling I was feeling the spreading glow of enjoyment. The temperature was close to freezing, but I was warm. Well, warm enough. I almost turned around when I opened the garage door and felt the morning air. Now, just three blocks later there was no way I was going to turn around and go home and not ride to work. I'd already done the hard part.

A daily commute or an epic journey have only one real impediment to being accomplished: getting started.

Mumm's in your eye

2008-03-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

Who here has ever sampled aged Champagne?

Sounds like an OXY(dized) MORON, huh?

Well listen up you Urban Gleaners....
Two years ago, in a neighborhood dumpster, I found some seemingly nice bottles of booze…the kind you put aside for a special occasion.

They'd been forgotten by the original (and presumed dead, judging from the contents of the good in the rubbish tip) owner.

….Evidence that life is indeed too short!

Having dessert first–and perhaps even Champagne for breakfast in ones’ later years wouldn’t be completely off the mark…

I dug around and found some 1970s port, this single Champagne from Reims (no date on it) and a few reds. None had shattered.

All were hot from laying in the summer sun, and had to be sped home to the Taj Mahovel Recovery Room (the crawl space under the house where we hide in the 100-degree days that will become more numerous in the coming decade).

Since then, I enjoyed each from that trove, save one.

Until now I was too scared to try it.
I ‘d never heard of ‘antique’ Champagne, and like your average person, understood that super-young was the only way to have it. Crispy, light, dry with very little fruit discernible.

Turns out that the stuff can age, as long as it's lying on its side (”on the lees”) in a carefully controlled environment, away from light and vibration.
While Champagne makers have an economic interest in selling more wine by convincing us it’s best consumed within the year, much Champagne improves with some [cork] aging.

Jancis Robinson notes that some Champagnes can become significantly more complex with aging on the cork–”if properly stored”.

I imagined the jolt inflicted on the stiff-upper-lipped Mumm’s, hurled over the dumpster’s edge and coming to rest atop sofa-cushions, baling wire, wood chips, shoe boxes, golf clubs, plastic flowers, dishware, shoes and other junk.
That bottle was meant for me, and intended to be enjoyed despite its sketchy background.

For the slimmest of reasons I decided to open it up today: as a budget tribute to the great and ever so humble, complex and intense Sheldon Brown.

Ian (”evolnollidge”) and I did our Sheldon Ride earlier in the afternoon, though we attracted no other ‘Sheldonysians”.
Four year old Kai braved the rude winds in the ten mile Get To The Start Of The Ride portion, and entertained himself in the back seat of dad’s Dutch bike by doing a reasonable imitation of our prattle. I presume he was a trouper in the (headwinds both directions) ten miles home.

I like to think Sheldon would have appreciated the toasty maderized (doesn't mean ruint) notes in the bottle I literally broke into.

A crumbling broken cork meant no dramatic pop; the color was amber with superfine bubbles racing in thin lines up the glass. A candy aroma hovered over the surface and I realized I was going to be amazed with my ‘find’.
So this is “maderization”? Is a Maillard reaction likely to improve what’s left during the years on the cork? Or am I just trying to type words here than might then brand themselves into my mind, since I'm pretending to know what they mean?
I gotta learn how to do links...

For once Charlie didn’t make a face after one tiny sip. I can offer no greater accolade from a non-drinker for whom everything one imbibes and ingests must have a Nutrititve Purpose.

Burnt bread, raisins and even some brandy flavor dwelled in the ruddy liquor.

It was a revelation….complex and rewarding.

Heaven knows the price was right…here’s Mumm’s in your eye, Sheldon!

Fear is the Mind Killer

2008-03-28T18:18:00.001-07:00

I love Baja Mexico. I've spent more than 12 months there spread over a few trips. It's a beautiful part of the world with spectacular scenery, generous people and lots of open space. I find that I spend a lot of time just looking around and drinking in the scenery. I've sea kayaked, beach camped, ridden dual sport motorcycles, eaten way too many tacos and imbibed countless beers in Baja. I've also done some bike touring.

On the surface a bike tour down the Baja is not a good idea. The only "real" road is a narrow highway with a single lane in each direction. When working on this road the highway crews just pile more asphalt on the old stuff which means you often have a 2"-5" vertical drop off from the paved portion to the steep narrow dirt shoulder. Then consider all the traffic for this part of Mexico speeds down this road at way over 100kph. To make things even worse lots of the traffic consists of folks in RVs who seem barely able to control their rigs as well as all the tractor trailer trucks hauling supplies to this remote part of the world. Oh yeah I forgot about the crazy mountain roads with loads of blind corners and heinous cliffs that would mean sure death to any bike tourist foolish enough to ride them.

Is it really that bad? Well I have friends in San Diego who have spent more than a decade in Baja and they made it sound even more insane than I did in the paragraph above. In fact they pretty much assured me that I'd either die or turn back soon after I started. Before I rode my bike in Baja I had been there on a motorcycle and in my 4x4 pickup several times. I had to agree the roads were not ideal and traffic was crazy.

So why even bother? Well I truly love Baja like no place else on Earth so the thought of getting to experience a new side to this old friend was very attractive to me. Secondly I had seen folks on bike tours during my vehicular visits, not many, but the ones I did see were looking quite alive - smiling even. What finally pushed me over the edge was meeting a 55 year old Swiss lady at a beach camp near Puerto Escondido [a location which will have some significance later in my story]. She was in the middle of a 5 month bike tour. I stopped my truck and got out to talk to her. I was amazed she was touring by herself in Mexico and she was 55! She laughed at me remarking what was the big deal - it's just riding a bike - nothing to stress about.

So there I was rolling down Hwy 1 in Baja. Having a laugh with my tour partner [BTW - she writes a mean bike touring story and takes some kick ass photos]. It quickly became apparent that at bike speeds you didn't encounter traffic that often and most of the time traffic coming from the rear had the whole oncoming lane free to pass us. Not only were Mexican drivers polite and courteous, they were genuinely excited to see us. When I saw a long line of trucks coming towards us in a convoy I got ready to wave back non-stop until they passed. Frankly, coming from a car-centric culture, it was awesome...=-) We did have the very odd driver, often in an RV, who wasn't as considerate, but with the judicious use of our rear view mirrors this was never a problem. One of my favourite memories is a truck diver who stayed behind us for ages in first gear as we climbed a mountain - simply because it wasn't safe to pass. No honking, no yelling, no problemo. I honestly can't say it enough - the people in Baja are wonderful.

After a week of smiles, miles and too many tacos we found ourselves at that beach camp near Puerto Escondido where I had met the nice Swiss lady. I smiled inside with the memory of that encounter and the profound power we have to inspire each other. I ran into some old friends RV camping on the beach so we took a couple rest days off the bike. Between hikes and more taco/beer sessions we chatted with the beach campers - all Americans or Canadians. To our horror we heard one terrible bike/car story after another. Muggings, killings, accidents...you name it. Some of them recent - such as the story of a couple touring down the main highway. The husband was a bit in front of his wife when a car cut her off and robbed her. They stole important documents, cameras and money - plus they destroyed her front wheel....=-( Everyone urged us to end the trip and get home safely. To say we were bummed is an understatement.

Regardless we decided to ignore everyone and started off down the highway. We had an awful day. People weren't as friendly, drivers were aggressive, the riding was harder - all in all in was a bad day. As we rolled up to our crappy hotel and tried to get some food I remarked to my tour partner that maybe nothing had actually changed since our previously positive touring experiences - except our attitudes and expectations after "beach gloom and doom". She concurred and we tapped our beer bottles together promising to start the next day with the same easy going vibe we had shared before our break.

Well the amazing thing was the next day [and the rest of the tour] was back to smiles and laughs all the way to Cabo. The whole bad day had been in our heads - residual negativity from our RV friends. I'm not suggesting nothing bad ever happens in Baja, but in over 12 months of travel there I've never been attacked, robbed, insulted, cheated, etc... In fact the reverse is true. I've been over whelmed by random acts of kindness from Mexicans and Gringos alike.

Later in our trip, as we were preparing to leave La Paz on a final push to Cabo, we ran into a friendly American ex-pat who wanted to know where we were headed. When we told him we were taking the mountain road around the East Cape and into Cabo he warned us it was suicide. Too many trucks, deadly mountain roads, banditos and corrupt police. We didn't bother arguing we just smiled and replied - "...absolutely....it would be sure death...you probably can't even get there by bike....thanks for the warning we'll take the bus!" The ride through the mountains to Cabo turned out to be some of the most fun riding of the trip!

A Buddhist friend of mine once told me - "...you don't live in the world...the world lives in you..." I try and remember that I have a huge influence in how I experience my life. I don't let fear get me down any more.

- The Lazy Randonneur

Phantoms, Part 2

2008-03-25T17:25:00.000-07:00

1988. My father and I pause outside the door of Mr. K’s Bicycles and Billiards, our first stop in the search for my first mountain bike. Dozens of “Authorized Dealer” decals radiate out in a confetti blast from their point of origin near the Business Hours sign: Cannondale clothing, Finish Line Authorized Service Center, Oakley eyewear, Brunswick pool tables, Trek bicycles, Park tools, Specialized bicycles, GT BMX... I can hardly find enough glass in the door to see inside. When my father pushes it open, there is no bell or buzzer to announce our entrance. A strip of rubber-backed red carpet runs from the door to the counter at the back of the store. On the left stand two new pool tables, fields of untouched green felt broken only by cardboard pyramids touting “Marble Base” and “Financing Available.” Locked glass cases of cues line the left wall like weapons on display. On the right, three rows of new bicycles sit in formation, a fourth rank hanging from hooks in the ceiling. The front windows on both sides are lined with bikes. Nylon saddle bags, plastic water bottles, and shining Lycra shorts fill the gaps in the pegboard walls.

“Here’s what Dale got.” Dad leads me over to a pearl-white Trek 830 mountain bike with teal decals, the exact same bike my cousin bought just two weeks ago. “I love the paint. Not just white. See how it catches light, like a shell?”

Roland, the owner (Mr. K himself) comes out of the workshop, wiping the grease from his hands onto his denim apron. “Afternoon, Gordy. What can I do for you fellas?”

“My son is looking at mountain bikes.” So true. I am looking at them all, awed by the thick rubber tires and shining frames in symmetrical rows. The bikes form an impenetrable line of toughness, of attitude. If internal combustion engines had never been invented, this is what the outside of a biker bar would look like.

“Thinking about that 830?”

I nod, thinking about it a lot, even though the paycheck burning out of my pocket - the first of my working life - won’t cover half of the $350 asking price.

“Did you see the one in the window? The grey one?” He leads me back across the border to the front of the store. At the end of a gleaming row of identical Specialized Rockhoppers sits a lone Trek 830, dark grey, with the same teal decals and a painted-to-match teal stem. “This is last year’s model. Brand new, never ridden. A leftover. It’s on sale, fifty bucks cheaper than the ‘88 for just about the same bike. Looks to be your size, even.”

“We have a trade in,” Dad announces, calling Roland back and giving me time and space to think. My father’s haggling is a warm murmur on the periphery. I’m too busy falling in love to notice. This grey leftover is different, the last of its breed. I decide, without hesitation, that I don’t want Dale’s bike. I want Jason’s bike.

Like any good salesperson, Roland wasn’t telling me the whole truth. After five years of on-again, off-again work in bicycle sales and repair, I now know the differences between 1987 and 1988 beyond paint jobs. The frames were the same, but the ‘87 had lousy brakes, fewer speeds, and oval chainrings designed (in theory) to increase the rider’s power, a theory which has since gone the way of the flat-earth hypothesis. The wheels bolted on instead of using the more convenient quick-release levers, a difference I would come to appreciate with each knuckle-skinning slipped wrench. Color-matched stems were a cycling fashion trend that came and went in the span of two model years, right before neon paint jobs took over. Side-by-side, despite sharing a model number, they were two completely different bikes. Roland was dumping, getting rid of old stock with a customer who didn’t know any better. Having done the same thing, I’m in no position to question the ethics of the sale.

What Roland saw, and what any good bicycle salesperson comes to recognize, is the connection. That’s why I still respect him, despite what my after-the-fact mechanical knowledge tells me. When someone makes a real, visceral link between their identity and a bike, you can talk quick releases and skinned knuckles all day, but it won’t matter. They may not understand the link consciously -- I can only verbalize mine with a decade of hindsight -- but when they feel it, the sale closes. Something about one specific bike meshes with the person they want to be in a way that the other bikes simply cannot. Try to convince a ten-year-old to ride a blue bike when she has her mind set on a red one and you’ll see just what I mean. Kids just haven’t learned how to justify their paint-job instincts with technical specifications yet.

With my decade of hindsight, I know what connection I made at sixteen, what I needed. My old ten-speed was slender, perched on delicate tires, designed for long, meditative journeys down empty county roads. It didn’t fit under an overweight, insecure teenager looking to test his limits, his identity. I was tired of those long, boring rolls through the country watching my father’s back wheel. When a territorial farm dog made its sprint for the property line, teeth bared, aiming for our spinning calves, Dad reached for his Dazer -- an electronic dog repellent which looked like a garage door opener but emitted an ultrasonic squeal dogs couldn’t tolerate. I sprinted, daring the beast to give chase, standing on my pedals, laughing as teeth snapped shut inches from my leg. Dad lagged behind, giving the tired animal a half-hearted Daze once it gave up on me. When we challenged Moonlight Bay Hill, a quarter mile stretch that shot defiantly out of the Illinois plain, Dad shifted to his lowest gear and fought his way up, one painful pedal stroke at a time. I raced past him to the crest, turned back, rode down to where he labored, and raced up again. My young legs could do three laps before he made it to the top. He probably hated me, but he always graciously bought two Cokes at the McDonald’s up the road to celebrate our defeat of the worst hill in the county.

Jason Nunemaker
Des Moines, IA

More on unions and personal transportation

2008-03-25T09:44:00.001-07:00

Once you start thinking about a topic, you often see it pop up more and more often around you. For example, I rarely noticed cyclists until I became one, then I started seeing them everywhere -- on the streets, in movies, in ads, etc.

In a recent post here on Veloquent, I wrote about my life as a union organizer and the intersection of that work with cycling. I also mentioned that I thought it was cool to strike a blow for environmental justice at the same time as I'm working toward economic justice. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not ascribing any huge impact to my decision, but I've come to believe that most successful change starts out locally anyway.

Today, writer and labor commentator Jonathan Tasini wrote a piece on "Clean Air and Labor Rights" that talks about a combined campaign for air quality and unionization at the Port of Los Angeles. While this campaign will still end up with drivers, not cyclists, it's an important step in the labor/environmental alliance.

This morning, I watched a short film called Matamoros: The Human Face of Globalization, which was on this month's DVD from Iron Weed Films, a wonderful progressive film club that I just joined. The documentary showed scenes from the maquilladora zone in Mexico, where hundreds of U.S. companies produce goods with cheap labor and little or no environmental standards. One of the chief products? Car parts.

Yesterday, I rode my bike to a union rally at Albany's Channel 13, where the workers have been without a contract for 6 months. One of my coworkers asked my if I used the bike for work. I said yes, and he decided right there on the spot to start taking the bus for his Albany shop visits. "Most of my members take the bus to work, and there's no reason I shouldn't do the same thing," he said. It serves two purposes -- he'll see many of his members on the commute, and he'll also be using one less car for that part of his job. He also mentioned getting a bike, and I'll certainly encourage that.

All of this to say that I think there's a real space for creative work where labor rights and transportation choices meet. My experience in Rochester was that the majority of cyclists were urban poor, and that seems to be holding true here in Albany. Many of those folks are among the workers we'll be trying to organize in the coming years. It's also the case that many of our members get to work without a car because they don't have -- or can't afford -- their own car. Why not do something to convert some of these folks into cyclists?

It seems to me that the more people start to broaden their view of economic justice -- for example, connecting petroleum use with environmental and economic exploitation -- the more we'll be creating a real labor movement in this country. Given that most of the newly organized workers these days are immigrants from countries where bicycles are more common than they are here in the U.S., my guess is that introducing personal transportation as a topic will be fairly easy.

Is this the answer to all our problems? No. But in a world where transportation is a large piece of the race to the bottom that American and multinational companies are engaged in, it's time for a real conversation about how to make smart choices for the good of our brothers and sisters around the world.

Pain is temporary...

2008-03-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

...but so is pleasure.

Ever since I heard the LA quote, "Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever." it has been the mantra that gets me to dig deep and push through my athletic goals. It reminds me how relative time really is, and how as much as I think I'm hurting at any given moment, I'll soon be looking back on it from the other side, and wondering, "Could I have gone harder/faster/farther?" With that thought in mind, I push through the pain of the moment to find my inner potential, and never quit.

So if we understand the impermanence of pain, why do some of us struggle so with applying the same concept to pleasure? Oh, get your minds out of the gutter (there's not enough room for all of us in there!)... I'm speaking of the pleasure of the pallet! For one week, I abstained from my guilty pleasure of vanilla lattes and scones, and I FELT GREAT! Then came bike expo, with it's long hours, and high energy expenditure... we all fell off the health wagon at expo. But apparently the wagon took off at lightening speed because try as I might, I can't find it to GET BACK ON!

I know it's that damn hypothalamus! And if you're a fan of the Set Point Theory, you'll agree. I am currently at my lowest adult weight, but still carrying 23% (+/-) body fat. That's quite a few useless pounds that I'll be carrying over 140.6 miles. Improving body composition is one of the easiest (easy for who??) ways to improve VO2max, and hence, race performance. But if your body is happy where it's at, who are you to argue?

These are the kinds of things I contemplate on long runs or rides. Not long swims... on long swims I'm too busy trying not to loose count of my laps! Ha!

Another thing I've wondered about lately is self-imposed stress, and how people from all walks of life seem to do it, just in different ways. This idea started rolling around in my head when I started running downtown, passing by countless homeless on the streets of Seattle. I started wondering what they must think of me running by, with my matching technical outfit, $100 running shoes, ipod, etc. How ridiculous & indulgent I must seem to them, as I put myself through this rigorous training while they struggle to survive another day. I know that beneath the surface crap we're really not all that different. Bear with me here...

Any Matrix fans out there? Of course. Remember when Agent Smith tells Morpheus how the first matrix program gave everyone a perfect life with no struggle? And that it was a failure because the population rejected it? Well, I am not homeless (at least not today), so I train for Ironman.

I should have majored in philosophy. Did I tell you about the time I wrote a paper that won the class "think off" in Philosophy class? No? Well, another time...

Reprinted from No Try

bike love: feels like flying

2008-03-24T07:36:00.000-07:00

This bike, a mid-70's Centurion, was my primary bicycle for several years. It was light and fast, and it's what I first learned the art of bicycle mechanistry on. My boss and teacher, Quinn (z'l)*, bought it with me at a yard sale somewhere along the Alsea River, took it back to his tiny bike shop in Waldport, Oregon, and together we tore it apart. He showed me how to clean and re-lube each component. We stored the freshly-cleaned parts on a shelf, and then he handed me the frame and fork and told me to strip the paint. By hand. "I know the guys down at the True Value," he growled, "and I've told them to tell me if you buy any chemicals from them. No chemicals!"
He handed me a bag of steel wool and an enveloped of emery paper and told me to have it stripped within the week. That meant every morning before my shift at the coffeehouse, and every evening after my shift at Quinn's shop, where I was working under the table and learning how to fix bikes. I stripped off the paint and watched in wonder and fascination as the brazing began to show underneath, all silvery-brass lines and gleaming as I sanded with finer and finer grades to get rid of the streaks. I brought the frame back with broken fingernails and scabbed knuckles and nervously presented it to Quinn, who turned it around and over several times and finally nodded his approval.

We put the stripped frame upside-down on a broom handle and stuck the handle into the repair stand. Quinn taped the threads and head badge with masking tape, carefully cutting away the excess around the headbadge with an exacto knife. He brought out a case of spray paint, handed me goggles and a can of primer and told me to start painting. While I carefully applied the first coat of primer, Quinn began pulling out box after box from his truck -- he'd gone all over town and borrowed some cheap suntan lamps, six of them. When each coat of paint was done, we'd set up the tanning lamps around the frame and turn them on on the lowest setting. By the next morning, the paint would be baked on. We did a coat of primer and three fine coats of dark royal blue this way. After the final coat, I asked Quinn to wait before applying the final coat of clear. I pulled out a white paint pen, and Quinn watched in surprise and then admiration as I carefully applied pinstriping to the lugs around the head tube, seat clamp and bottom bracket. After the final coat of clear gloss went on, Quinn and I assembled the bike using most of the old parts I'd cleaned and re-lubed, plus a few new replacement parts and a new set of upright handlebars. The maiden voyage out to Bayshore Spit and back, an eight-mile loop with celebratory picnic lunch, was a revelation. After four years on an old, heavy mountain bike, riding the Centurion felt like flying. I never forgot that feeling.

I rode that bike daily, and brought it back to Portland in 1995 when I came home to help care for my mother. Even after getting a job at Citybikes, when I could have had my pick of any cooler, fancier used bike in the place, I stood faithfully by my Centurion. In May of 1997, I was doored by a very large pickup truck. I got a concussion that left me sort of stupid for several days. My hand was seriously injured and my Centurion was damaged. After the surgery and the casting, while still on medical leave, my sister and I brought the bike to Citybikes, where I watched two of my co-workers attempt to straighten the frame. Cracks began to appear in the head tube lugs, and we all knew the bike was totaled. I went outside, sat down on the curb, and to my surprise I put my head in my arms and began to cry softly. Finally, one of my co-workers came over, and tried to comfort me: "look, it was the lady's fault, right? So you can get another frame with the settlement check, maybe something way nicer than this old Centurion."

I sighed. He couldn't get it and I couldn't explain it to him. We put the bike in my sister's truck and she drove me home. I carefully removed the head badge as a keepsake, hung the dead frame on a wall in the basement and thought about what to do next. A year of physical therapy and a second surgery followed, and I rode my roommate's bike perhaps five out of the next eleven months. I did a lot of walking and bus-hopping over that fall and winter.

In time I did heal, and in July of 1998 a settlement check arrived. It was fairly large, taking into account the severity of my injuries and nearly five months of time-loss. After considering my options, I decided to buy myself a custom bike frame. For someone on my budget it was a big step. I'd never ordered anything custom-to-fit-me in my life. Wanting to get it right, I even sent them my old frame, with the note: "I like the way this bike felt. Please imagine what it would've looked like un-bent and try to replicate the feel of this frame if you can. I will ride it with upright handlebars and a comfortable saddle." Several conversations back and forth helped to finalize my vision and the framebuilder's suggestions into a cohesive whole. After a year of waiting and riding a dirt-cheap, ill-fitting replacement bike in the meantime, I took delivery on The Rivvy in August of 1999.

I rode it as an upright citybike for several years. I tried it with drops for a couple of years but found I didn't like it. When another frame came my way that felt much better with drops, I immediately put uprights back on The Rivvy and now pick daily between the two bikes. Both bikes are pressed into regular service as commuters, load-carriers, trailer-towers. When I feel loose and stretched out and want to push myself to go longer or faster, I ride the drop-bar bike. When I just want to feel like I'm flying, I ride the upright bike.

In the right frame of mind, riding an upright bicycle IS like flying. Imagine a cockpit that looks like a sort of wingspan:

... and maybe you get the idea. Spindly and gangly, sort of like the paper-and-glue planes of the early years. Flying seems either foolhardy or glorious, depending on the results. And riding a road bike with upright bars can feel like that. It's not exactly the feeling I had with the Centurion, but it's close enough to make me happy.

It's sunny out this morning, and I feel like flying. I'm gonna ride The Rivvy to work.

*(z'l: abbreviation for the Hebrew term zichronah livrachah, translated as "of blessed memory"; to honor the name of a loved one who has passed on. Michael Patrick Quinlan was a gently misanthropic, dope-smoking hippie and bike shop wizard who taught me much and died much too young, and to whose memory I lovingly dedicate this post.)

Sprung

2008-03-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

In a moment, like the flick of a switch, the landscape has been transformed. Only two weeks ago, even in Texas, we had a half foot of snow on the ground. Today, we gasp in the midst of a wildflower explosion.

The harsh, biting wind screaming across the thousand-shades-of-brown has given way to sunlight, warm breezes, and the scent of freshly mowed grass.

With bare skin exposed, the commute home was supercharged by solar powered optimism and a 20 mph tailwind.

Good news, my northern friends, Spring is coming. It just passed by Texas on its way to your town.

The rules of bike touring

2008-03-22T22:54:00.000-07:00

Day three: Sept. 16, 2002

It's amazing how quickly the daily occurrences on a bike tour become routine.

The nuances of "normal" life - day after day staring at a computer for eight hours a day, driving home, making dinner, reading the paper, and going to bed - suddenly seem distant and strange. Peddling along a crumbling highway in the hot September sun - this seems normal.

As soon as routine begins to kick in, general truths come into view. On my recreational rides, hills were always an ominous presence, something to be avoided if possible. Here, in southwestern Colorado, they're just part of life. The foothills of the San Juan mountains roll away in the distance as far as I can see, gently caressing the San Miguel River Basin in a symbiotic wave, and in making my way over them, I learned that the general effort on a hill is always in your favor.

See, since most longer rides, regardless of distance, start and end at about the same elevation, the general truth of "what goes up must comes down" applies. Say you go up a five-mile long hill at maximum effort, moving at 5 mph. You reach the top, and start barreling down at 40 mph, tears streaming down your cheeks, smile stretched across your face - needless to say, you are exerting no effort. Though your average speed is only 9 mph, generally less than the flatland average, total energy exerted is only 50 percent per mile, also less than the flatland average, which hovers around 75. A steady stream of hills and drops allows you much needed rests wihtout stopping, plus it breaks up themonotany. So yes, I believe in the long run, hills are an advantage.

Here are a few other "rules" of bike touring that I have found along the way:

- The amount of room a vehicle leaves you while passing on the highway is inversely related to its size: small sedans will give you an entire lane while 18-wheelers are content to edge you into the shoulder as they blow by at 60 mph. Oncoming traffic is almost never a factor in this case.

- Do not collect the loose bolts on the road. What starts as a quaint souvenir quickly becomes a 20 pound zip lock bag filling up your rear pannier.

- Foods that do not require refrigeration: mustard, cheese, produce, fruit, and mayonnaise.

- Foods that do require refrigeration: BUTTER! (I learned this at the expense of a perfectly good cotton T-shirt)

- I don't care what anyone tells you, but chocolate is THE perfect bicycling/ backpacking food. It's tasty, it's compact, and at 150 calories per ounce, with a few pounds and a jar of multivitamins, you could head out into the wilderness for a month. In theory.

- Padded biking shorts are a necessity. I was once a scoffer myself, but a few 70 mile rides in nylon cargo pants have shown me the error of my ways.

- Bicycling jerseys, on the other hand, are a waste of money. Unless you are trying to shave two tenths of a second off each mile of a 3,000 mile trip, don't bother with head-to-toe skin tight clothing. Unless, of course, you bought the bicycle jersey because it is made of non-cotton material. Anything non-cotton is good. Cotton = wet and cold for an entire day.

- It doesn't matter how thick your tires are, your bike will always jackknife if you hit the breaks on a patch of ice. This rule applies to cars as well.

- The best campsites are nearly always the ones you just happen upon after walking your bike through the mud for half a mile.

- Do not burn dry cowpies. While a good rule of thumb for surviving a cold night in an area that's short on timber, this does not make for a pleasant campfire experience.

- The morning hours just before sunrise are really the best time for bicycling. Traffic is sparse, the lighting is good, and it really works up an appetite for a big breakfast. However, crawling out of a warm sleeping bag before the sun comes up is damn near impossible.

- When staying at a motel, avoid getting a room on the upper deck; 80 pound bikes do not go up stairs.

- Before leaving on the trip, print out some "business cards," detailing your point of departure, destination, average speed, average mileage per day, and the phrase, "Yes, I do get tired." This is a quick and easy way to answer all questions you are likely to hear a million times.

- And, finally, the unknown is the reason for putting one pedal in front of the other. Never fear it.

Phantoms, Part 1

2008-03-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

Prequel/Preamble/Author's Note
First, many thanks to Kent Peterson for inviting me to this little party. It's quite an honor to be sharing electrons with some of the 'net writer-riders who first made me think that my dual passions for words and wheels might not be mutually exclusive.

I'll spare everyone the "get to know me" initial post and get straight to what I hope will be the good stuff. "Phantoms" was an essay I wrote in a previous life as an aspiring MFA student. It's quite massive, so out of respect for the reader and the rest of the Veloquencia, I'll feed it out in blog-sized morsels. I just noticed that the first one's out of season, as Iowa is just now creaking toward Spring rather than the impending Fall that inspired the original piece, but I hope you'll bear with me in spite of the disconnect. And, like most bike addicts, none of the rides mentioned are still in my stable. "Hello, my name is Jason, and I have a bike problem..."

Bike season just ended. Although I dutifully commute to and from work on two wheels well into the Fall, when daylight savings time runs out I give up. “Too dangerous,” I justify to myself. “Pitch black when I get off at 6:00, isolated country roads, weather getting colder, asthma kicking in.” My road bike now serves a six-month sentence indoors, bolted to a trainer in front of the TV for winter workouts. I can’t stand to look at it. A classic Schwinn Paramount, Italian steel tubes hand-brazed into long, traditional road racing lines, painted in thick coats of pearl white, hung with Campagnolo parts. Decades of racing tradition, rendered in steel, aluminum, and rubber. The bike wants to be on a road, diving through corners, attacking hills, rolling for long hours on endless pavement. It seems offended, immobilized on living-room carpet, propped up and secured like nothing more than a hamster’s exercise wheel.

“At least I’m using you,” I want to say, trying to appease my guilt. “And you get to stay in the apartment.” In the garage, my mountain bike isn’t so lucky. It hangs from an angular black storage stand, abandoned until the spring thaw, waiting impatiently. It is big, loud, modern, ignoring the history of its older, more refined cousin in the living room. Its brash blue paint bears the scars of past crashes, caked with the dirt of the just-ended season. Even on the hooks, five feet off the concrete floor, the bike wants to run things over, deep knobbed tires longing to bite fresh soil. I built it from the ground up, matching each part to my own preferences, choosing everything from the extra-durable wheels to my favorite saddle. A small plastic Chuckie Finster (the redheaded toddler of “Rugrats” fame) dangles from the handlebars for luck, features frozen in his trademark apprehension, splattered with months of mud. The bike’s shifters and brakes are now three seasons out of vogue, but I prefer these designs to their more cutting-edge equivalents, resisting the siren song of “new and improved.” In another two seasons, these parts will be old enough to be called “retro,” and both my bikes will have slid into cycling history, relics of another time. In cycling, obsolescence can be quick and cruel.

When I throw my leg over these bicycles, cleats on my shoes click into retention mechanisms on the pedals. The handlebars rest naturally where my arms fall. The grips show wear in the spots where my gloves rest. After years of bearing my weight, the saddles have shaped themselves to my contours. These three parts - pedals, handlebars, and saddle - are called contact points, the three places where the rider’s body touches the bike. After years of connection - the sound of my cleats snapping in, the shape of my palms pressed into the grips, the relief outline of my pelvic bones on the saddle - these bikes can no longer be entirely separated from their rider. Without their reassuring familiarity under my body, a part my identity seems absent. They are part of their owner, my attempt to define and redefine myself. When I hunker down on my road bike into a low aerodynamic crouch, hammering along an empty country road, I can momentarily forget that even in peak condition, I am thirty pounds heavier and ten miles per hour slower than the professional racing legends I pretend to be. And when I crest a hill on my mountain bike, slicing between trees, my tires sliding through corners and banging over logs, sometimes I forget that I am afraid of crashing.

Jason Nunemaker
Des Moines, IA

What It's Like

2008-03-19T17:03:00.000-07:00

I will not hesitate to credit Kent’s, “Frost and Moonlight” post (when originally published on his blog) as inspiration for this story from December 2007. Nor will I hesitate to credit that same work for inspiring many magic hours of cycling in darkness. Thanks, Kent.

Janet was surprised to learn that I took no photos during my early morning ride.

"Most of it was too dark", I replied without elaboration.

The truth is that there were several things about the ride that made an impression. A mental image, if you will. I thought that some readers of this blog might not have experienced an early morning, start-in-the-dark, chilly, bicycle ride through a rural area. If you can use your imagination for a minute, I'll tell you what it's like.

Leaving my lover all nestled under cover is like a lingering goodbye. It needs to happen, duty calls, you've really got to go, but you don't really want to leave her behind.

Rolling along in the pre-dawn darkness is both spectacular and eerie. To borrow a phrase from a Charlie Daniels Band song, the stars are like "diamonds on black velvet, stretching from horizon to horizon." The silence and limited vision are like walking into your dark house after being away. You know that it is unlikely that some stranger has broken in and come inside, but there is always that slight chance that he did and he's hiding in that dark corner.

The post-warm-up rhythm of climbing, descending, rounding corners, and adjusting pace to match terrain and wind conditions is like performing easy familiar work. It doesn't require thinking. The automatic motion of completing every climb and reaching the next curve in the road, provides a slow-burning sense of satisfaction like a job skillfully done.

On a clear day, the orange glow on the eastern horizon is like a visual trumpet fanfare signaling the imminent arrivial of some important dignitary.

The solitude is like owning the moment and owning everything you can see. With no one sight, it is like God personally hands you, and only you, this time and His creation to enjoy as His gift. You roll by every farm, every pasture, every creek, and every tree and admire them as if you went out to survey and admire the extent of your own vast empire.

Climbing a road that rises up to resist you is like having a tiny army to stoke the fire that burns in your legs. They provide all the power needed to meet the challenge and conquer all who dare to stand in your way.

When the just-before-sunrise temperatures reach their minimum and fog appears in low areas, it is like God signaled his servants, in an instant, to spread a thin blanket over the pasture. It can sleep a little longer.

Returning home as the sun leaps into the sky and light spills across the valley is like a celebration. It is a joyful homecoming, a reunion with a lover, and a hopeful expectation for what the day has yet to bring.

It's kinda like that.

Only better.

The Bedrock Store

2008-03-19T16:47:00.000-07:00

Day 2 of a 600-mile bicycle tour in the Four Corners area of Colorado and Utah, Sept. 15, 2002.

By Jill Homer

An exhilarating descent down sharp switchbacks drops us in Colorado, land of extremes. As Geoff and I spin through the Dolores River Valley, our bikes drift into the middle of the road. No car has passed by in half an hour.

We're about nine miles from Bedrock, Colo., only the second town we'd pass through in over 50 miles. Geoff tells me to keep my eye out for a store, as ice cream has become our main motivation on this trip. Sandstone walls box in an sprawling agricultural oasis, still green and glowing from heavy rainstorms the week before.

Bedrock, on the other hand, looks dirty and worn. Those rainstorms that drenched the fertile fields west of here drained into the Dolores in a rush of saturated water. Bedrock, sitting just of the river banks, took the brunt of the drainage. Streets, tree trunks, and foundations are caked in red silt. Everything else in town appears beaten - 1970s-era trailers, vehicles on blocks, boarded windows, crumbling cabins all occupying a four-block radius that just happened to make it on the Rand McNally map.

"There's not a store here," I say, feeling that disappointed pang in my stomach. There's not another town for 21 miles, and we won't pass it today.

And we're just about to blow on by when I catch, out of the corner of my eye, a sign on one of those deteriorating buildings: "Bedrock Store, est. 1891." And in the clouded window is another one: "Open."

As we pull up to the door a scraggly mutt limps up to me, but doesn't seem to care one way or the other if I'm there. The person I assume is owner, a large graying man draped in dirt-caked denim, stands on the porch chatting with a mousy middle-aged woman and a teenage boy. A sign on the door reads "Help stop cattle theft," and I wonder how - and more importantly, in this day and age, why - someone would steal an entire cow.

The cashier doesn't even look up as we walk inside. A man sitting in a chair in the middle of the small single-room market continues making comments about his newspaper to the cashier. The plywood floor creaks under his work boots - again, dirt caked - as he stands up to get more coffee. We don't even exist to them.

Neatly stacked on dusty wooden shelves is, Geoff tells me, any and every kind of food we could ever want to buy. Cans of spaghetti sauce. Black beans. Macaroni and cheese. Kipper snacks. White bread. The brand already chosen for us. Selection means nothing here. If you want ketchup, you get Heinz. Period.

But here, that makes sense. I settle on grapefruit juice, an ice cream sandwich (the generic kind that come in packages of six for a dollar) and a giant russet potato, chosen from a produce section that contained potatoes, onions, carrots and iceberg lettuce - the hardiest, longest-lasting vegetables known to man. Geoff buys chips and Gatorade, and we sit on the balcony to eat. The mutt shuffles around the gravel parking lot. The cars that pass by keep on going, onto Naturita, only a half hour drive away.

In the early 1970s, The Flinstones established Bedrock as the origin of all human civilization. In geology, bedrock is a description for foundation, the first layer of earth. Bedrock is solid, planted, unmoving. Entire formations grow and then deteriorate around it, but Bedrock stays where it is.

Bike touring is such that life starts to move backwards. Technology gives way to the tried and true. Convenience loses importance in the face of survival. The hectic rush to get things done returns to a lingering meander without a destination. On that path, you'll always end up back where you started. And from there on out there's only the retrospective and rose-colored landscape of history ahead.

Before we leave, I make a stop at the outhouse - the perfect stereotype: all wood, a little moon cut out of the swinging door, the toilet just side-by-side holes with no seats, and no toilet paper for miles. This, by far, is my favorite bathroom of the trip. I could stop at a thousand truck stops that I'll never remember, eat a thousand different kinds of ice cream sandwiches and not recall how any of them tasted, but Bedrock, Colo. is burned in my brain - a permanent foundation.

Rock (Me) Hard Place

2008-03-18T20:05:00.001-07:00

Last summer, I became a bike commuter. I'm an organizer for the labor union UNITE HERE during the day, and I host a jazz podcast by night. I was covering the Rochester International Jazz Festival last summer. Parking ain't great for the festival, so I decided to do it by bike. That was so much fun that I just kept pedaling through the summer and into the fall, when I was transferred from Rochester to Albany.

Let's take it as read that very, very few people who do what I do for a living do it without a car. For front-line organizers (which I am not these days), that's almost unthinkable, because so much of the work involves visiting people's homes. Except in the most densely packed urban areas, doing that work without a car is just too slow. In fact, cars are so much a part of the job that our union provides them to us. As the organizing director for upstate New York, I was able to bike a fair amount and resorted to the car when necessary.

Now, though, I'm doing a different kind of organizing, mostly focused on strengthening our existing union shops among Albany's hotels, restaurants and cafeterias. Most of my hotels and other shops are packed into a very small downtown area. I live about 2 miles outside downtown. It's eminently bikeable.

But I still have a company car.

When I was transferred here, I was living 40 miles away in Saratoga Springs, and that -- combined with a wider turf to cover -- made the car a necessity. Since then, my area of responsibility has been changed to be almost exclusive to downtown Albany. I can see some of my shops from the house I'm renting, for Pete's sake!

But I still have a company car.

Last week, though, I decided that the company car would be just as wonderful parked in the driveway as it is on the road. I got back on the Xtracycle and did my first day of bike commuting since November 2007. (You can read about it here.) It was a blast! I'm still figuring out how to dress nicely (which I now am required to do) while keeping to the cycling lifestyle. My "commute" is less of a commute than a route or circuit. I travel at various times to different hotels and then return to my home office. So I have to wear my snazzy clothes while biking, because I have nowhere to change when I arrive at my destination. Thus far, it hasn't been much of a problem, and I'm looking forward to the warm weather, when I can combine my bowtie with my bike helmet for that true wanker look.

As it turns, out, I'm not really caught between a rock and a hard place after all. I can do my job effectively and efficiently while not only striking a blow for workers but also for their environment. And, unlike most union organizers, I can probably do it while getting healthier, not fatter and closer to a heart attack.

Is this a bold new chapter in the Labor Cycling movement? Stay tuned!

Jason Crane is a union organizer, jazz broadcaster and action dad. He is the founder of RocBike.com and FortOrangeCycling.com, and also host and producer of The Jazz Session.

Size does matter...

2008-03-18T10:49:00.001-07:00

I've got a lot of bikes. I'm not going to tell you how many, but it is somewhere between "a lot" and "that's crazy!" I take pride in the bikes I own as they are all very good at specific bicycling missions. I've got a European lowracer recumbent that can cruise at high speeds for long distances with all the comforts of a lazy-boy recliner. I've got a touring bike that can tackle the most rugged remote roads on the planet and beg for more. These are the sorts of bikes that other cyclists really dig and are the bikes that visitors to my apartment [A.K.A. bike storage space] are drawn to. Frankly these are the bikes I daydream about when I'm not riding. I picture myself zooming along through the mountains on my lowracer on my way to completing a brevet or perhaps on a multi-month long bike tour through Mexico and Central America on my touring bike.

So what bike do I ride the most* ? Surprisingly none of my "serious" bikes. It is my 16" wheeled folding bike - a Bike Friday Tikit - that sees the most action. Honestly I don't day dream about my Tikit. It isn't sexy and it is so small it is often ignored in the back of a closet when people are looking at my other bikes. Yet time and time again it is the bike I find myself riding. I use it for errands, to get to work, to meet friends for coffee, for fun rides, etc... I pretty much use it for everything except those specialist bike missions that my other bikes were designed to excel at. Although I like to think of myself as a brevet riding bicycle tourist the fact is most of my riding is pretty mundane - renting a DVD, buying a few groceries, grabbing a bite to eat or commuting to work.

The Tikit's small size makes it easy to get out of my apartment without dominating the whole elevator. Once on the road its quick handling makes it a nimble ride to get around the many obstacles that are the urban landscape in the centre of my city. Once at a destination I don't worry about locking up my bike. I just take it in with me. I can take it on public transit during rush hour when full size bikes are banned. I can also easily throw it into a car if I am meeting up with a friend who is driving or carpooling with a co-worker.

Although it looks small Bike Friday makes the Tikit in 3 sizes so my little bike fits me the about the same as my 58cm road bike. The small wheels and upright posture are not going to win me any races on the open road, but in town the fast acceleration and nimble handling more than make up for any other performance losses.

I knew something interesting was going on when two of my friends who are not bicycling obsessed got so excited about the Tikit they bought their own folding bikes and a co-worker's brother is about to pull the trigger on a folder. It just goes to show you - good things do come in small packages...=-)

In the interest of giving credit where credit is due I need to thank Kent Peterson for turning me on to the possibilities of the folder world and Alex Wetmore for posting lots of great information about the Tikit.

* most being defined by # of trips not total distance.

Calling me down to their watery graves

2008-03-18T06:44:00.000-07:00

This post first appeared on moscaline 4/1/2006

One of the nicest things about riding in Knoxville is the third creek greenway. A twisty strip of asphalt wending its way through a riparian zone, an urban oasis sandwiched between railroad tracks, old neighborhoods and crumbling industry. A healthy dose of hobo singletrack leaves and joins the paved path at frequent intervals. While I am generally no fan of cycling on mixed use paths, this one is special.

Particularly pleasant is riding the path at night. There usually is just enough ambient light to guide your way as the path morphs into a shimmery silver strip through the forest. However, it can be slightly disquieting. As you crest a small hill and drop into the low spots on the trail next to the creek that gives the path its name, the temperature drops noticeably. Then you hear it: the call of the peepers. From the swamp on either side a cacophony of calls emits, growing to a deafening crescendo.

As you ride along the peepers on either side grow quiet as you pass until you are enveloped in a rolling enclosure of brief silence between frog cries. But woe be the traveler who stops on their way. At first you are in a temporary silence between the far off peeps, but slowly the nearby frogs, sensing your stillness, begin to call out to you. Impelling you to follow them into their stagnant inches of dank swamp. The call is irresistible to some and many a weary nomad has been called to their watery grave by the siren cry of the peepers.

My definition of bicycle touring

2008-03-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

Hi. Jill here. I keep that Up in Alaska blog that seems to have gained me a reputation as a crazy snow biker. Fair enough. But here on Veloquent I hope to contribute essays about the love of cycling. I started out in the sport as a tourist, still learning the dynamics of pedaling and shifting even as I dragged 40 pounds of gear and a flat-bar hybrid across the driest, most remote regions of Utah. I wrote a bunch of essays following the trip on a Web site that has long since been sucked into the black hole of cyber space, so I'd like to post a few of them here. The first one was written Sept. 14, 2002: An account of the first day of my first bike trip.

"My definition of bicycle touring"

That annoying little voice inside my head tells me to crank it. My wheels are spinning, barely. Sweat drips through my helmet and streaks of red dust stick to my arms.

You never realize it when you're driving, but the only way out of Moab, Utah is up, a nearly-continuous climb. As Geoff and I lumber up the shoulder of Highway 91, I fix my gaze on distant buildings scattered near towering vermillion cliffs. They take forever to reach me.

Before this trip, it's hard to remember what exactly I thought bike touring was. Lingering views, sprawling vistas, maybe a little work. I sure didn't imagine burnout on the first day. When daylight will allow us to go no further, we pull over and park a mere 50 yards from the road.

And thus ends the first day of my very first bike tour, Moab to Moab via the San Juan mountain range and 600 miles of the most remote highway the lower 48 has to offer. It was supposed to be a simple day ... 30 miles from the Colorado River valley to the base of the La Salle mountains. In front of me now is an expanse of sagebrush-dotted range cut off only by the horizon, deep orange and shimmering in the September sunset.

We kick cowpies from a small clearing and set up our tent just as the landscape descends into shades of purple. As a lay in the spiny grass watching erratic bats chase bugs visible only to them, I regret not getting in shape before the trip. Every muscle, every bone in my body is melting into the warm soil and I doubt my ability to get up, even to go to bed. The camp site, hidden behind a barb wire fence in a cluster of pinion pines, feels stark and uninviting on private property, a grazing range. We should have made it at least 10 miles further tonight, but night snuck up on us. The next 500 miles feel like an eternity away.

Geoff, most likely just as worn out and tired, musters up the energy to lean toward me.

"Isn't it amazing?" he says. "We just biked here."

While working as a journalist during the 2002 Winter Olympics, I only heard mirror responses from everyone I talked to ? "the experience of a lifetime," "a once-in-a-lifetime experience," "a lifetime of experiences in one." The Olympics were a splash of snow in a colorful racing whirl. The world blinked, and they were gone.

Bicycle touring is anything and everything but a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It is tamarisk dancing incessantly on the layered shores of the San Juan river. It is a flapping tent standing against a lightning storm on the open plateau. It is a tiny roadside grocery store in a town that by car would be nothing more than a blur. It is wildlife in the form of flattened fur on a roadside and literature in the form of faded
billboards. It is slow and lumbering, discarded bolts rusting on the highway. It is adrenaline-inducing at 35 mph and agony-inducing at 5. Itis hills that will stop your heart and views that will stump your soul. It is pinnacles and peaks and houses and streams and desert and forest and road, open road, endless roads, but it is not, I am convinced, not a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

It, simply, is life.

One that I should keep on living.

Sensational

2008-03-17T05:36:00.000-07:00

Not being a linguist, I honestly don’t have a clue about the origin of the word “sensational”. However, it seems a perfectly appropriate word to blend the ideas of “sense” and “satiate”. In other words, according to my opinion, something that totally satiates the senses could be called sensational. Of course, this fabrication of word history is pure fiction on my part. As long as we’re making stuff up, however, it also seems that a word combination like that could have come from a cyclist.

Unlike so many pursuits of our spectator-dominated lifestyles, cycling is a participant activity. It is something we DO and it tickles the senses it ways motor vehicles and other spectator-based entertainment can not. Cycling is a sensual experience. During most rides, doesn’t cycling touch each of our senses?

For example, imagine the cold, dark, rainy, morning ride. We feel the brisk air on the tips of our nose, fingers, and toes. Rain water intercepted by helmet or glasses, drips down, still cold, to our tongue. Our eyes dart from side to side, scanning the shadows for looming danger. In the dark, our ears are especially alert. We listen carefully through hissing tires rolling across wet pavement and through shallow puddles for cars approaching from behind. With each revolution of cranks, we breathe in rhythm the scent of fresh, rain-cleansed air.

The experience might be totally delightful, like those times on quiet, empty roads when you cross a bridge and hear the sound of the creek flow below. Or it might be one in which there is more than enough of one type of sense-tickling going on. Whether it’s too cold, too noisy, or like early spring in rural Texas, too many squashed skunks on the road. There is no question that cycling fills the senses.

Ahh…sensational.

Why are you riding your bicycle?

2008-03-16T09:34:00.000-07:00

I wrote this a long time ago when I still did triathlons. If I wrote it today, it would be about a bike ride, but the point I was trying to make then is one I still try to remember when I find myself watching my bike computer, thinking faster is better.

I did a workout last Sunday for no reason. It was a brick -- I rode about ten miles to Discovery park, ran two trail loops that made a little more than an eight mile run, and rode back home. I’m not training for a future race. I didn’t do it hard enough to test myself or push my limits. I certainly didn’t set any personal records with it. I wasn’t really trying to lose weight or improve my health. I did it alone, so it wasn’t a social event. It was a workout without any of those reasons, and it was exactly what I wanted it to be.

What was special about Sunday? Both nothing and everything. It was a crisp fall day without a cloud in the sky. Traffic was light. My legs were a little stale from my ride the day before, but mostly that just made a good reason not to push hard. Discovery park is always beautiful, with a mix of forest, sand bluff, and Puget Sound beach. Halfway through the first loop a bald eagle flew overhead. Later, along the beach I watched as dozens of small sailboats raced on the Sound, with the sun making their sails shine brilliantly white. It was a good day to be alive and moving, but the difference I’m trying to point out isn’t about the outside, it’s about the inside. Sunday was special because I was out there riding and running simply because I wanted to be out there.

Am I really being completely honest here? Are all the reasons I listed earlier completely irrelevant to me? In reality, many of them are relevant, at least indirectly. I like staying thin and feeling healthy. I may choose to run or ride in a race sometime in the next few months and will depend on workouts like Sundays in order to complete and enjoy it. I’m sure that I could think of other things that I get from working out, and they are all important. Still, I don’t want them to be the reasons I get up off the couch and put on my gear. I enjoy myself less when my workouts are a means to those ends. The best workouts are the ones that I recognize to be an end in themselves.

I used to go hiking sometimes with a friend whose life was completely entertwined with climbing, hiking, and skiing. He would call me up on the phone and say, "Hey, do you want to go play tomorrow?" I used to think of it as just a quirky phrasing and shrugged it off. Now, I think he was using the language intentionally and truthfully. We were going to go play. My best workouts -- the ones that are an end in themselves -- the ones like Sundays brick -- are the times when I simply go out and play.

****************************************************

There are quite a few words above, and they are primarily my attempt to articulate an interpretation of the story below. Maybe it means something different to you. Maybe it will mean something different to me in the future. Whatever it means, I don’t think its as trivial as it first appears.

(Copied from an unattributed posting on the net)

A Zen teacher saw five of his students returning from the market, riding their bicycles. When they arrived at the monastery and had dismounted, the teacher asked the students, "Why are you riding your bicycles?"

The first student replied, "The bicycle is carrying the sack of potatoes. I am glad that I do not have to carry them on my back!" The teacher praised the first student, "You are a smart boy! When you grow old, you will not walk hunched over like I do."

The second student replied, "I love to watch the trees and fields pass by as I roll down the path!" The teacher commended the second student, "Your eyes are open, and you see the world."

The third student replied, "When I ride my bicycle, I am content to chant nam myoho renge kyo." The teacher gave praise to the third student, "Your mind will roll with the ease of a newly trued wheel."

The fourth student replied, "Riding my bicycle, I live in harmony with all sentient beings." The teacher was pleased, and said to the fourth student, "You are riding on the golden path of non-harming."

The fifth student replied, "I ride my bicycle to ride my bicycle." The teacher sat at the feet of the fifth student and said,"I am your student!"

The Fun-Time Continuum

2008-03-16T09:28:00.000-07:00

I recently did a very simple, very unscientific survey over at Kent's Bike Blog. I asked my readers to answer the questions Why Do You Commute By Bicycle? or Why Don't You Commute By Bicycle? I got a lot of very good responses to those questions and a couple of big themes became apparent as I read through people's answers.

The number one reason listed by folks who do commute is Fun. The number one reason listed by folks who don't commute is Time. Fun and Time. I thought about this. Fun and Time. I thought about this a lot. I thought about this on my three hours of daily bike commuting. Fun and Time. Fun Time. Funtime. Naturally, I thought of Debbie Harry.

I don't think of Debbie Harry as much these days as I did back in 1977 when I was an 18 year old bundle of testosterone and she was the most beautiful punk in the world, an ex-offender in a too-small CAMP FUNTIME t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. Debbie's pictures were on my walls and her records were on my turntable (remember those?), her voice asking me to tell her of my dreaming. Dreaming was free.

Now you could say I wasted a chunk of my youth listening to Debbie but as Meatloaf pointed out to me a few year later, "a wasted youth is better by far than a wise and productive old age." Back then, and to this day, I don't view the time I've spent listening to Debbie's voice as wasted. It's time I enjoy. It's fun. It's funtime.

I think we all spend our lives within this fun-time continuum. As adults we do responsible stuff, things that aren't always fun for us, because we think about more than just ourselves. But when we're making a better life for our kids or saving for our retirement or going to the boring city council meeting to talk about the crosswalks downtown it's still part of that fun continuum. It is the part of the continuum about avoiding the not-fun. Being old and broke is not fun, being a kid who never sees their parents is not fun, living in a city where you can't safely cross the street is not fun. So we do the real work, the sometimes not-so-fun work to avoid what Swobo calls "the bummer life."

Now because we all are just as unique and special as our moms always told us we were, we each have our own paths in the world and our own little ways of balancing the fun and avoiding the bummer life. A good example of this can be found in bicycle tires. Bicycle tires, as you know, are not just physical objects, they are actual embodiments of our personal locomotive philosophies. They are, literally, where the rubber meets the road.

My friend Jan and I have divergent tire philosophies. I can't stand the tires he rides and I know he hates the tires I ride. And yet we're still friends because we each can appreciate the other's rationale in tire selection. Even if we don't agree with it.

I hate flat tires. I like to get on my bike and go and go and go. I do not like changing flats in the rain. I do not like being late and I budget buffers of time into my schedule just in case I do have a flat. But, and I hesitate to write this lest I rouse the vengeful god of punctures, these days I rarely flat. That is because I ride tires with names like Armadillo or Marathon. My tires perhaps add five minutes to each commute but I love to ride and I hate flats. My tires are worth it to me.

Jan values a lively ride. His tires are lighter and faster. Not fragile, he does not ride the lightest or the fastest tire, he picks his tires with care. But he will deal with a flat now and then. More often than I do certainly but not that frequently. And from a math perspective, Jan is wiser than me. Let's say that if his commute was the same length as mine he'd save ten minutes a day. Say he commutes twenty days per month and flats once a month. He's saved 200 minutes and maybe spends fifteen minutes changing the flat. Actually he's faster on the tire change, he's had more practice. Clearly Jan is making better use of his time. And he loves the ride of those tires.

But here's the thing. I hate flats more. I hate them enough that I love my Armadillos and my Marathons. Jan's favorite tires find no favor in my house. Flats are more of a bummer for me. I'm a commuter, not a racer. I'm doing what I can to avoid the bummer life.

Driving is another thing I just completely avoid. I never liked driving and I like to ride. This made my choice really simple and I quit driving over twenty years ago. People are amazed when they find out my 36 miles of commuting means I'm on my bike 3 hours a day. "Yeah," I say, "I get to ride my bike three hours a day. How cool is that?" Nobody ever says "Oh, I had to hike for a couple of hours on Tiger Mountain" or "I had to go to that Springsteen concert" if those are things they enjoy. Springsteen claims he found the key to the universe in the engine of an old parked car. I don't claim that I've found the key, but I'm having fun looking for it at twelve miles per hour, perched on the seat of a bicycle, rolling around on very tough tires.

Freddie Mercury perhaps sang it best:

I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

---

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent Peterson
Issaquah WA USA

Just Because I Could, Doesn't Mean I Will...

2008-03-15T23:48:00.000-07:00

Assumptions are funny things. For instance, sometimes, okay-most of the time, I will stop at an intersection, look... and if it's clear, but still the red light glows big-n-strong, I'll go. I always feel a little guilty about it.

I wonder to myself, "Suppose you're giving cyclists a further bad rep?". Or... "Maybe some little kid watched you do that, and now they will think it's alright to do the same and maybe, just maybe, they'll get hit/hurt -or worse?". Even occasionally... "Maybe you're helping, in some smallish way, to keep the hate directed at cyclers for being off-the-grid, non-law abiding freaks who only eat granola [or space-aged Gu simula-foods], stink of patchouli & B.O. and only ever vote the Green Party?".

So tonight, on tonight's ride, I tried something a touch different...

Every intersection I came to with a stop sign or a traffic light, I stopped. Man, it took some time too. Should say, "Added some time to the ride".

I'm talking E V E R Y intersection: after dark, no signs of ANY car lights, certain streets didn't have any streetlamps... but still I stopped. Still stopped like some Grandma making a midnight run for her Knitting Journal Monthly magazine that she forgot earlier today at the supermarket.

It felt odd. Excessive. Weird. Made me feel like a Brown-Noser. A Narc. Made me feel like this girl I knew in the 2nd grade who would tell on any classmate she saw picking their nose and chewing up/on the net gain of the aforementioned finger-plunge.

Near the end of my 18.76 mile ride tonight, exhausted from all the stop/starting, wondering if I'd just shot through a not-very-old [until tonight] set of KoolStop Salmon brake pads, I came to a complete stop at the intersection of 39th Ave. & Lake St. here in Minneapolis... right beside an also stopped Buick Electra. The light had just turned red. One car passed thru the opposing intersection as we waited, and that was just after our light turned red. I waited, the car next to me waited. I waited, the car next to me waited. Finally, as I was watching the opposing traffic light go from green to yellow-mercifully, I heard the whine of an electric window. This older woman leaned halfway across the passenger seat of her car and said to me, "Hey mister... what the hell is your problem? I have to wait at these fuckers... you don't. Jesus, you're an idiot!". And with that, her window went up as our light went to green, and she sped away... leaving me in a fairly large cloud of oily blue smoke.

That girl by the way, the one I knew back in 2nd grade, yeah that one...

...did I mention I would spend my days at recess watching her go over behind the big oak tree in the eastern most edge of our playground and pile-drive her nostrils endlessly?

-Scott Cutshall Large Fella on a Bike

how many bikes?

2008-03-15T19:45:00.000-07:00

I have often been asked by friends who don't ride much, "How many bikes do you own?"

I currently own three: a mountain bike and road bike that have both been repurposed into upright city bikes, and a road bike with drop bars. I also own a couple of trailers and am in the process of deciding which one to keep and which to move along.

I like all of my bikes, for various reasons. Mostly I like the two I use most of all because they fit me and are comfortable and fun to ride. The ATB I like because it was cheap to put together and it's tough and sturdy. With the lowest stand-over height of the three, it also serves as a loaner for out-of-town company. But mostly I just like to ride -- for fun, for transportation, just because it feels good to pedal my bike.

My occasional-riding friends think that three bikes is, while not extreme, perhaps more than any one person needs to own. And they're probably right. But because I work in the bike industry, these same friends cut me a LOT of slack. They figure I know what I'm doing, so of course I ought to own three bikes instead of just one.

When my bike-enthusiast pals ask me "how many bikes do you own?", they are shocked when I tell them I have three bikes.

"ONLY three?" they ask, astonished.

If I raced, I suppose I would probably require a bike for whatever kind of racing I did, whether cross, crit or road racing.
But I don't race and in fact, only dabbled in it briefly. Like I said, I just like to ride. I rather like the fact that at least two of my bikes could, in a pinch, serve almost equally well for those day-long rides I mentioned earlier. I just happen to prefer the bike with the drop handlebars for anything over, say, 20 miles. But really, I don't have to be so picky. I just ride.

Most of my bikey buddies own a minimum of five or six bikes. Each is special, no doubt. If they race, certain bikes are probably more necessary for the job. But not all of my bikey pals race, and some don't even commute by bike every day. Yet, they're convinced that they "need" their five, six, or fifteen bikes. "You never know," one friend said to me when I asked him to explain his collection of over twenty bikes, only a dozen of which were actually in rideable condition at the time.
"I never know what?" I asked.
"Well," he shrugged, his voice growing softer and trailing off, "well, um, ah, you know..."
I never did figure out what he was talking about. But when I see this same guy on a different bike each week and he's wearing the same happy expression on his face, I figure it's better to let him be. Because if our house had a full-sized garage instead of a tiny shed, who knows how many bikes I'd think I just HAD to have? Space limitations are actually good for me that way.

Roger, the fellow who founded Citybikes (the cooperative shop where I am one of 12 co-owners), recently "retired"; essentially, he asked not be written into the schedule ever again but is happy to remain very occasionally on-call. Roger owns in excess of 50 bikes, in various stages of repair or disrepair. When I was first hired at Citybikes in 1995 he had nearly 70 bikes, and I used to chide him about it: "Roger, you got seventy bikes and ONE butt. When ya gonna ride 'em all?" We'd both laugh out loud and then get back to work. He recently told me he plans to spend more of his free time at home fixing up and selling off most of these bikes, accumulated over 30 years of working in the bicycle industry. Roger has three or four bikes that he actually rides, and only two that he rides most of the time. Having recently moved to a smaller house, I guess he's ready to own fewer bikes. Space limitations are helpful, like I said.

Many of the customers who come into my shop own just one bike, and they're glad to have it at all, even if it's heavy and rusty and old. It's a bike, it works, and it gets them where they're going. I try to keep those folks in mind when I am tempted by a shiny new bike. Just that thought is usually more than enough to remind me I have all the bikes I need, and then some. In the end, I am reminded to just be grateful, and to just go out and ride my bike.

Beth Hamon is an owner and member of Citybikes Workers' Cooperative in Portland. She has lived without a car of her own since 1990 (though she will grudgingly take her turn behind the wheel of her partner's car on very long trips). Beth is also a musician who composes music and plays several instruments. Her personal blog can be found at http://bikelovejones.livejournal.com.

Frost and Moonlight

2008-03-15T13:02:00.000-07:00

Note: this essay first appeared on Kent's Bike Blog on February 1st, 2007.

What can I tell you about today? I can tell you that I leave a warm home, a warm bed and step into pre-dawn world that is black and silver. The light from a low full moon shines on a million minute reflections, fog that has frozen into frost. I do not think of myself as a thing separate from my bicycle, my tires crunch with carbide certainty and I roll on dark familiar streets. I know these shadows, I know these street lights. My LEDs, my cat's eyes, cast their own mimicries of moonlight. Bits of gravel crunch up in my fenders, light crystals swirl and eddy in the breezes from each passing car.

Most of my fellow travelers are more confined, comforted in mobile rooms where they squint at a world moving quickly in their headlight beams. Perhaps their radios are telling them the news, their coffee cups urging them toward wakefulness.

I am looking beyond my lights, a trick that has become a habit. A wise man taught me that to see in the dark, you must look in the dark. He learned this in London, in the war, and taught me this on a still and peaceful night, much like this one, many years later and several years ago.

But this night is becoming dawn, the sky holding not only moonlight but the promise of an eastern glow. But for these last moments, it is still the cold light, the silver and the gray. Bits of black resolve in the sky, a murder of crows crossing from the foothills, to the island, to the city. Like me, they are commuters, their daily trek a ritual that is never quite routine.

Sometimes the moon is full and the night is clear and I get to see that each patch of frost is more precious than all the diamonds DeBeers wishes everyone would buy. Sometimes I remember to marvel as I glide with my wheels rolling on concrete that floats on water as I watch a seagull drift without effort six feet to my starboard. I roll on miracles of ingenuity, bridges and tunnels and I come so close to flying with some bits of metal and rubber and air imprisoned in Dunlop's amazing donuts.

The moon that set behind the city, behind the Olympic mountains in the morning rose again this evening. The warmth of the day is leaving as I leave for home and the light again is getting low. The city streets are familiar, the rhythm of red and green and four-way stops, the tide of traffic, the workday workers working their ways away.

I meet my friend Matt at a traffic light and we chat and ride our way up the hill. Convivial conversation and chance meetings are benefits of a life awheel and we quickly bring each other up to speed on schemes for future adventures. At the bridge Matt heads north and I head east.

The day never warmed much above freezing and fog frost still lies in the shadowed places. The moon is vast and white and too photogenic for me to photograph. It is the moon that would make Basho compose poetry, make Lon Chaney into a beast and make sane men wonder if lunatics know something that the rest of us only suspect.

I roll through air that is cold enough to make every sound clear. There is a tick in my right pedal, keys clink in my pocket, my bell rings itself on the rough pavement of the Bellevue Slough. The freeway drones like our entire planet has tinnitus and I wonder if it is good or bad that I can manage to tune all this out almost all the time.

As I climb the edge of Cougar Mountain, a poetic name left over from a wilder time, the moonlight and the frost are all I see. It is a night without darkness, the moonlight is everywhere.

If I were standing I suppose it would be cold, but I am rolling and layered in wool and nylon and I know just how fast to go to be warm enough.

My home lies in a moonlit valley and it is time now to be home, with a cup of hot tea. And maybe a grease gun. There is a tick in my right pedal.

---

Kent Peterson
Issaquah WA USA

Toe Clips Gains a March

2008-03-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

When I was racing, one of my few talents was getting a great start. A skill especially valuable because so many of my cohorts (thanks for that word, Kent, "grown together" I think is the origin of the Latin) used to complain loudly (at the finish) how they'd been doomed by a rotten start.

In a fifty-lap race.

I decided that I would practice a bit, and maybe beat THOSE PEOPLE in the next race.

Worked pretty well.

The payoff came at the Chico Criterium in 1981. That was my inaugural year of bike racing. Chariots of Fire was in the theaters, and politics-wise, women (for the first time in Olympic history) were at last allowed to straddle a bike and go for the same Olympic glory. In LA, no less. My hometown.

Digression: it is customary to visit the Olympics upon the hottest, filthiest possible cities in the world: Tokyo, Mexico City, Atlanta and Beijing. Centers of commerce. The health of the individual athlete is...a smaller priority.

Looking back at Chariots, the lesson I retain to the present was the one about difficult moral choices. The dude 'couldn't' race on a Sunday, remember?
Well, along with selection races, the (male) Olympic coach enjoyed a timeworn team selection technique that took place between the sheets. Since Olympic glory was just a fantasy goal for me, I didn't succumb to any official coach's 'charm', nor could I ride for an automobile company (it's against MY religion).
But back to Chico, California.

Criteriums are those lung-ripping lap races around a city center, minimum four turns per lap.... there are prizes given after a bell rung mid-race. They're called 'preems' (spelled P-R-I-M-E), and their function (along with promoting certain stores and services) is to keep the riders' speed up. Lest we just parade lazily around for most of the race.

The announcer, I believe, was Jeff Lindsay (local frame builder of the great Mountain Boat bicycle). From our spot on the line, we heard him say "the first woman across the line wins a pair of Birkenstocks from blabhblah bootery".

I was off, with no chasers.

Those German-made sandals cost SIXTY BUCKS ( that would be about two hundred clams in today's money).

I had wanted them for years, but I never found them in the thrift shops.

I solo'd across the line, and in few seconds Cheryl Lloyd drew alongside. Over the next lap or two, we discussed how to split up the remaining primes....odd ones for me, evens for her and the last lap was up for grabs.
Somewhere behind us were eighteen young women putting in some miles, perfecting group-cornering, and duking it out for third.

One lap, I won a sack of groceries.

The next, Cheryl won a bouquet of flowers.

We agreed to swap since my fridge was full and my table could use some glam.
Chico is bicycle mad, so every imaginable retailer was donating stuff.

At the last lap, with a summertime crowd cheering so you couldn't even hear your own roaring breath, we both charged the line blindly.

I 'd read somewhere that flinging your arms up in victory never hurts, if it's a close call.

They gave me the win.

And I've been ashamed of "dirty racing" ever since (I have no idea who was in front. I doubt there was a camera...).

The Birkenstock sandals I chose for my Lap One Prime were those ugly sort of flesh-colored leather two strap sandals. The nice store owner opened the store just so I could pick 'em (between races).

Still have them. They've been re-soled (at sixty bux a pop, funnily enough) a couple times.

Welcome to Veloquent

2008-03-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

I wish I could take credit for the word veloquent and indeed for a few minutes on my cycle commute home I thought I'd actually invented the term. At home, however, a quick Google search led me to the Canadian cycling instructor Bruce Mol, a nice fellow who coined the term several years ago. Bruce describes the veloquent cyclist in the article here:

http://www.gonecycling.com/commuter/aspects.htm

Bruce generously gave me permission to use the term veloquent for the name of this blog.

Veloquent
Velocopedian Information and Inspiration

Yeah, it's an odd title, but my cohorts and I couldn't come up with anything we liked better.

For the past few years I've been posting a variety of stories and bicycle-related news to Kent's Bike Blog. Veloquent will continue that tradition, but Veloquent is different in that it is far more than a one man show. Veloquent is a multi-author blog and I've recruited a small bunch of my veloquent pals as contributors. I'm not going to name all the contributors here, over the next weeks their own words will introduce them.

The idea behind Veloquent is good writing about good riding. We will post some technical articles, tidbits we find interesting, obscure bits of nearly forgotten cycling lore, and tales from the road and trail. We don't know exactly where this path leads, but we're loaded up for the trip and headed out the door. Veloquent is the journal of this journey.

Kent Peterson
Issaquah WA USA