that which rolls

From March 2010

I’ve taken the new bike out for a couple of rides as the roads have started drying up a bit. I’ve never had a bike with drop bars before. I’ve been riding the hybrid for so many years and for so many miles that every other bike feels weird & the drops add to the weirdness exponentialy.

I rubberbanded my gps on to the handlebars because I thought it would tell me how awesomely fast I was going. I wanted real evidence… you know… for the traffic courts. I was going faster will less effort but I was also feeling so unsure of myself, wobbling around, brake location and shifter location not so burned into my neural network that I can use them without thinking. Plus the higher pressure tires and all the sand and grit on the shoulder of the road were making me nervous. I was riding slow. I felt really slow, nervous & hesitant, but I still averaged 11mph. (11mph is a pretty good average for the hybrid loaded down with all my unnecessary junk.)

Also I started to have some vague idea of why people feel like bike specific clothing is important. I think it’s less so when you’re upright on a hybrid or whatever. This bike is a whole different creature. I think we’ll need a lot of hours together before I manage to tame it.

From March 2010

It’s true that you can’t lock your bike to the snow, but if you just need something to prop it against because your kickstand flew off inexplicably in heavy traffic and you didn’t want to retrieve it, snow is a great tool.

Usually in the spring when I’m working to get myself back in to a regular routine of bike commuting I find that there are a few things I have forgotten from last season.

My important lesson from yesterday’s commute? 

Backpacks suck!

I went with a backpack because it’s the simplest solution and I didn’t want any hurdles or excuses to keep me off the bike for yet another day. During the 12 mile leg of my commute the kryptonite that the backpack is made from started to wear on me. It was as though someone turned the gravity up to 11. I’m sure I was carrying too much stuff. I’m always carrying too much stuff. That’s why I need racks and panniers and… everything. I carry stuff just because I can. Do I need this brick? Hmmm. Well what if I need to fix a sidewalk on the fancy side of town? Well, I guess I’d better take it just in case.

If the spare bricks I was carrying were in panniers instead of the backpack I would have just gone a little slower instead of whining and complaining (to no one in particular) the whole way about how horrible it was. I was like one of those city kids in a scared straight by camping program.

Lesson 2

Water is good. Drink more of it.

Yeah. It’s cold. You don’t feel as thirsty as you would if it was hot but you’re still sweating. Drink your stupid water. I had a headache for a while after the ride. I’m sure it was because of the water.

Lesson 3

I need to upgrade the video card in my brain. I was riding through Egypt and a deer ran so close to me that I probably should have freaked out and swerved or something but it didn’t because the brain is so slow.

It processed like this.

Oh. a thing.

what is that thing?
It’s a moving thing.

a moving furry thing.

squirrel?

not squirrel.

brown.

MUCH bigger than squirrel.

Aaaaargh.

Deer. Deer close. Deer running at me? Cars. Aaaargh.

Luckily the deer ran past me on my left instead of running in to me. But it was very close to me and I didn’t even recognize it as a deer until it was withing 10 feet of me.

In my bike repair class this weekend we talked about brakes. I have actually replaced my brake pads before. But I’ve always thought… I’m pretty sure these long stringy cable things are important. I wonder what I’m supposed to do to take care of them. Early on when I would take the bike in for a tune up I would secretly hope they would tell me if something needed to be done with them but I would never ask. Later I just knew no one would say anything but I still wouldn’t ask.

Eventually I started to pretend it was an experiment to see what happens to unmaintained cables. But really, I wanted to do something about it. I just thought it was outside of my abilities.
So we learned all about brakes including replacing the cable housing and cables. I bought the stuff and came home and today I did it. I got the front brakes adjusted just right. The back brakes are still being kind of funky but funky in the same way as before so I’m choosing not to blame myself.

Next week we can bring our bikes in and ask specific questions like “how badly did I screw this up?”. I will have to put my bike on the car and take it to the car wash before I bring it in there. It looks bad enough when it’s clean. Right now with all the salt on it it looks like holy hell. I’m tempted to bring my brand new bike to class, because… then I will fit in and won’t be taken out back and shot for bike abuse.

I took lots and lots of documentation pictures to make sure I remembered how to reassemble things. Mostly they are documentation of my cruelty. Also, is that lichen growing on that little rubber gasket? Is that possible?

From February 2010

From February 2010

The same Facebook conversation that resulted in a badly photo shopped meteorologist, Kevin Williams, making a sacrifice to Snowthar, produced this. Unfortunately, I had no part in it. My cousin, Cindy (not a Snombie) is it’s maker. What you can’t see well in the photo is the brains in it’s mouth.

Cat Lady staring at me. I think she thinks I should fix this. From February 2010

It was finally time for the first two calves to get weaned this weekend. I think they were born in May and June. My dad separated Cat-Lady and Betty-Ann from the herd, they’re probably both pregnant again & I believe weaning is necessary to allow them to recover before their next calves. The calves, Trillian and Thor, got to stay with the larger group so as not to traumatize them too much. Betty-Ann didn’t get too worked up about it all but Cat-Lady is not happy. She has been mooing almost non-stop for the past day and a half. She’s mellowed out a little bit today but she still gets going again every once in a while. And these cows generally don’t make a lot of noise. They do get mad when they get separated from the larger group though.

From February 2010

I think this is from the week before last. I just finally downloaded photos from my camera yesterday. I was out riding around the block in the dark in the snow. It was really slow going because of the snow so I started taking photos of the monkeylectric lights while I rode. This one was my favorite.

I went out briefly to get a few photos of the storm. Unfortunately my camera battery was long past needing to be charged so I only got a few. I’ll go get some more interesting ones later.

It’s hard to explain how this came about exactly. It was based on an amusing facebook exchange which I was going to do a goofy 10 minute illustration for, which turned in to something much more… and the gimp crashed like 3 times while I was doing it so I didn’t bother to clean up the jaggies.

This is Kevin Williams (local weather man) making an offering to Snowthar bringer of snowicanes (so we can all have a snow day.) Yeah… when I write it here, it just sounds silly.

Anyway, it worked. We had a snow day.

On my way home through the snowicane yesterday I stopped to get catfood and a bota box of red zinfandel, just in case we got snowed in. The catfood was for the cats and the wine was for me (in case you weren’t sure).

From February 2010

This bike was parked in a car spot in front of the CVS. I don’t know why, but I do love seeing bikes parked in car spots. I don’t do it because it would be too easy to steal, but on a day like yesterday, I don’t think this person had anything to worry about.