Posts Tagged ‘road bike’
my interesting day on a bike »
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
Saturday, I was tasked with going into work for testing of our new release.* Having spent the winter on trains and holed up in our apartment, I’ve been trying to get back to regular cycling. Conditions were good, so I gave it a go.
First, there were the crowds. According to some research after the fact, I ran smack into Ragnar. I swerved my way gently and attentively through the crowd. It was a total mess.
Organizers failed to mask off any area for other path users. Sure, it’s nine in the morning on a Saturday and who can be bothered to recreation at such an hour, but still. Not two feet for a bike, a jogger, or two? (more…)
anyone up for a bike ride? »
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010
There are a few things we’ll need. Enough food for two meals and a few snacks (nothing crazy but enough to counter roughly seven thousand calories burned). Some pedal shoes, lights and an iPhone or Android with bike maps are helpful. (With 120-some turns, I don’t want you getting us lost.)
We’ll want to get racks and panniers for the supplies. No one wants to be hauling weight over our shoulders for almost ninety miles. Well, maybe you do, but I’m not an idiot. Where are we going, you ask?
The Small City, that’s where. If you’re a huge wuss, maybe we’ll stop at a friend’s place (that’s only eighty miles, weakling) for a break, some water and to slap the crying girl out of you. (His young son would be happy to oblige.) (more…)
so many reasons to hate the suburbs »
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
I get it. We were afraid of brown people, looking for cheap housing and lived in our cars. Why not sprawl, right?
Things are different now and we need to call off this failed social experiment. Its detriment far outweighs its benefit.
The same faux-patriots that hate other cultures, crave war and ignore the poor saturate these once-desirable puddles of white that encircle metropolitan areas. They must be stopped.
I read somewhere that if we all lived with the population density of Brooklyn, the entire nation would fit into New Hampshire. The driving between these vastly separate locations has us dependent on nations we label enemies.
Does that make sense?
Whatever, maybe I’m just fuming over the absurd of yesterday…
HOOOOOOOOOONK!!
At first I think the giant beige (fact: color of evil) SUV is upset because I left the trail for the road after it ended. I’d just come through another intersection, though, so SUV had to hold a grudge.
Stopped at the next light, an interchange with a heavy-traffic local highway, SUV rolled down the window.
She’s about sixty but doesn’t look a day under seventy-two. A thick cake of something meant to conceal them accents her abundant wrinkles. Her eyes —
“Get off the road!” (She doesn’t even let me take in her whole horrifying face before screaming at me.)
It’s a road bike. I’m stunned, so it sounds like a question. Which is stupid because it’s obviously a road bike.
“I don’t care if it’s a road bike! Get off the road!!”
Umm.
I couldn’t do anything but laugh as she sped off to her probably-very-important somethingorother. I sighed, clicked in and went on my way.
… But yeah, that’s maybe why I’m so anti-suburb today. I don’t necessarily feel safe on my bike in Uptown, but I know the people there have seen a bike. Some have maybe even taken a drivers’ test in the last decade and had to answer bicycle-safety questions.
Maybe.
Photo courtesy Streetsblog (also: what the — !?)