4:20

haha. you thought this was a blog entry about smoking pot. but it's not. in fact this in a record of the fact that comrade and i went on our first trip to the vet via bicycle/trailer. trailer trailer trailer. our appointment was at 4:20 and we were late by about 15 minutes due to traffic and the fact that hauling a dog and trailer takes significantly longer than hauling just myself through south austin.

whatever. we did it. and on our way out of the office some crazy old lady with a white haired poodle asked if i always carried my dog in "that thing." i lied a little bit and said "yes" thinking that "i always carry my dog in this thing" is pretty much the same as "i will always carry my dog in this thing." she wrinkled her nose a bit and observed, "it doesn't look very safe...." off the cuff i made up a statistic, "more people die in car accidents in austin every year than in bicycle accidents." just to shut her up. i'm pretty sure it's true even if i don't have the NHTSA report to prove it.

let me tell you, cars give a bike+trailer much more space than they give just-a-bike. and most people (who are not old ladies) love seeing a dog out and about in the city. we got a lot of expository "A DOG!"s yelled at us. i mean, my dog is super cute, and now she's got a trailer to make her look even cuter. and i am her homely, sweaty rickshaw driver.

french connection

hiya

i got a new (used) bike. a good condition older motobecane super mirage. steel, french, vintage. my favorites. attention to detail is amazing on older bikes. seam-stitched (faux?) leather grip tape. amazing, i say.

the only thing that isn't ideal about it is the gearing which is a bit too easy to be entirely useful. i can't really accelerate the way i would like to down hills. i talked to tom and he said that changing out the rear cassette is pretty easy unless it's a high-end french monster, which of course it isn't.

w00t!

ow.
i just crashed. i might have been drunk. my hand hurts.
bleedy bleedy.

harvest moon bike ride

wow.

last saturday at 2am i went on the harvest moon bike ride here in austin. It was pretty amazing....we met on the lamar pedestrian bridge like always but there were a lot more people there this month than last month. i would guess about 500 or so. you could see the bridge undulating under the weight which sort of distressed me a bit, but no one else cared.....

we went up exposition blvd which has some crazy hills, and we passed the restaurant i used to work at which is still nothing in its stead.....the gaggle of kids i found myself riding with sped past the first pit stop cuz we thought we were behind everyone else when really we were in front of everyone else.....silly......

the ride went all the way up to anderson lane and came down burnet/guadalupe and ended up at the top of a parking garage near the capitol downtown.....pretty amazing......i got back home around 6am and was pretty exhausted.....i saw the cute boy i flirted with last month but chickened out when it came time to walk up and talk to him. and by the time i got my nerve back, i realized he had left the ride (to go home i guess).......oh well....

i love these rides. they are empowering (i can ride to anderson lane and back) and community reinforcing (look at all my friends that i know who are here) and superfun.....

moving on

well well well

so i am feeling modertately anxious about this whole "getting money out of ups" thing because i found out the other day that my claim has been contracted out to a group called Galligar&Co which i don't think is a good sign. i felt better when i was dealing with Liberty Mutual, which was at least a name i recognized.....whatever....i'm still waiting to see what will happen. after consulting bicycleaustin.info i found some lawyers (all of whom were very eager to call me back after my initial phone call to them), none of whom were willing to take my case, since my injuries were negligible, in terms of $$.

and i had been borrowing a mountain bike from my friend tom, but i couldn't really get into the way it felt. so i tried harder to buy a road bike and i found one in san antionio for $95 which will suit me until i can get a better one. it's nice. older, steel, light, basic. bikes in SA are much cheaper on craigslist than they are in austin, which is good to know. the dude i bought this bike from is almost exactly one hour from my door. so that's not bad. the picture above is my new bike. i like it ok, but i feel like i will never get over the loss of my first road bike and her untimely demise.

i was almost run over by a ups truck yesterday. coming north on congress, downhill. the truck made a right hand turn into me and i had to ditch my bike to avoid getting run over. the truck rolled over my bike a few feet from my face....i am mostly ok, except for a few scrapes, but my bike is totally FUCKED......i just met with the insurance adjuster, and he took a statement.....i need to get some insurance money from them ASAP so i can get a new bike. it's hard to say yet how skeezy these people are gonna be.....it'll be a learning experience......

moonlight

oh my goodness

i went on the moonlight bike ride this past monday and it was totally awesome. it was my first critical-mass-ish activity (this was not technically critical mass, but i'm sure there was a lot of overlap), and it was super-fun.

the route was ten relatively flat miles that started at the lamar bridge and then went east on cesar chavez through downtown, then west through downtown on 6th, then north through the capitol to 51st, then east, then south to long branch on 11th.....just in time for last call....w00t!

anyway, i met some kids from nuage days of yore and some new friends as well....everyone was happy & amicable, and i learned that not only does "green mean go" but also "red means run it!"...which is to say: when there are 100 of you, it really doesn't matter what color the light is.....

the one next month is gonna be at 2am....which seems a bit too late for me but we'll see....the one for OCT is on the 25th and at midnight so i'll probably do that one for sure.....

summertime in the city

oh jeez

it was a wet summer in austin..... very very wet.....i think it rained every single day in june....and what did i learn from it.....well for one.... is that i need to get some fenders if i intend to ride in poor weather conditions. otherwise, i get splattered all up my butt and back. i read somewhere once about stealing one of those plastic "we buy houses" signs that people put at intersections and cutting that into strips and then attaching that to my frame as a fender using zip-ties......i meant to do that all summer but instead i just ended up driving a lot.....hmm.....matt tells me that if i want to keep my feet dry while biking in the rain i should put a plastic bag (like from a grocery store) on over my socks and then put my shoes on over that.....i guess i also need a ziplock bag for my cellphone....

and man, i still haven't rigged up comrade's trailer b/c i still haven't had the money to do so.....i think i'm gonna apply to be a pedicab driver. my friend james from the thriftstore gave me the contact info for capitol pedicab which is what he works for. he said that capitol doesn't require you to use your own bike, which is good b/c my bike would die under the strain.....james said that he makes good money but is occasionally groped uncomfortably.....

but nowadays it's sunny and hot as fuck. and so i'm trying to compile a list of drinking holes that are easily accesible and free and preferably cool, here in austin.
some places that have a water cooler around town for public consumption are:
jo's coffee, little city, and runtex.

finally!!!

I haven't seen chris in days but I have seen his car, so he's doing a good job of staying on two wheels. My big news is that yesterday I biked home from work for the first time (from this job)! That's over [pant] sixteen [pant] miles but it was worth it. It actually wasn't very enjoyable for a bike ride but it was more enjoyable than driving. For several hours before I left work, I tried to find a route that wouldn't take me on the roulette roads. Jeez, I'm not sure I succeeded. Mapquest crashed on me twice; google maps, yahoo maps, and some Austin bike maps I found to be a bit unwieldy. Anyway, I wrote down a rough route but never found a key backstreet and rode Metric to Rundberg to N Lamar. Metric is the quietest, traffic-wise but some fucking asshole got pissed I was on the road and revved up his engine to what sounded like 100mph and screamed past me, narrowly missing a car in the other lane. Where's a cop when you need one? On North Lamar I did something I really never advocate (aside from a few bridges over highways). I rode on the sidewalk. Bike research shows that riding on sidewalks is more dangerous than the road because drivers don't notice bikes in driveways when they are turning into businesses (in fact, I just heard about a guy that got hit in that exact situation in S Austin.) But my fear of the busy street with no bike lanes convinced me to take sidewalks until I got to this side of 183. The whole ride took an hour and a half. Notes for next time: change into shorts & tank top, ditch bag or bungee it to my rack, and if I want to do it frequently--get a road bike. Anyway, it was the longest direct ride I've done in Austin. The only bike ride that tops it was a 20 mile journey I had to take in Brazilian sands to track turtles--on an ill-fitting bike.

i can has bike to work day?

so i haven't updated lately because, when i started this blog i wanted it to be entries of only success stories, and my latest bike project was outfitting my dog's trailer. BUT i royally fucked up the retro-fitting and, well, have run into snags in fixing it. but whatever, i'll fix it, it'll just take some time. i'm moving right along. the best thing, bike-wise that has happened to me in the past two weeks is that i lost my job and got a new one much closer to me that doesn't care if i arrive all sweaty. yes. doggy day-care is the best bike thing to happen to me in a while. even despite the ridiculous early hours and the constant poop-scooping and the poor pay, doggy day-care is fantastic.

(dot dot dot) lest it go unsaid. (dot dot dot)

Bike Month

So much fun. Let's all go to everything!

http://www.austincycling.org/bike_month.html

bike shops

i had some more flats so i decided that there was something in my tires. i didn't really have time (or the expertise really) to look into it myself so i dropped my bike off with a flat front tire at bicycle sport shop yesterday before work. i explained to the tech that i was having flats on both wheels and i didn't really know why but i wanted them fixed as cheaply and as permanently as possible. i left my bike and picked it up. a patch on my front tire and $8 of labor and everything seemed aired up and good to go. i put it in my car and drove home. then when i went to get my bike out of my car and ride it to the bus stop, i noticed that my rear tire was flat. FURIOUS, i drove to the shop and presented my bike to the same bike tech, who explained that he only touched the front tire since that was the one that was flat. in my head i was sure that i had made it clear that i wanted him to look at both tires. but i didn't want to get angry about it; i just wanted it fixed. so he replaced the rear tire and tube. in theory i think the tire should have been patchable but i just wanted it worked out as quickly as possible because i was running late for work at this point. but seriously, i was angry at our communication problems. and i think the dude was a stoner and/or has aural comprehension difficulties. and i don't appreciate that.

this is not the first time a bike tech has minorly fucked up my service at BSS. but in the end they always get it right. and the only other shop i've been to, Southside, didn't give me a permanent solution to the problem i had at the time, but BSS did.

so is there some really awesome bike shop in town that i should know about?

Aesthetics.

On our way to Houston, Chris and Matt started talking about how beautiful road bikes are and how unattractive they find mountain bikes. I appreciate the efficiency of a road bike but I was shocked to realize that I've always found mountain bikes more attractive. But then again, I have an affection for all that is butch. Nonetheless, I have been thinking that eventually I'm going to have to get a road bike if I ever get serious about riding to work or doing the MS150 or the Hillcountry AIDS Ride. But a question came to mind yesterday. Doesn't it fucking hurt when you hit a bump on a road bike? Seems like your body is the only thing to take the shock. The larger frames and knobby mb tires are luxurious, where uneven roads and rough terrain are concerned...

fixing a flat

on monday i got a flat on my rear tube (in the rain). boohoo. today i changed out the tube and felt along the inner surface of the tire and found no sharp debris. so the cause of the flat is unknown. i even inspected the old tube and it looked pretty ok to me. but maybe the lighting is poor in the garage i don't know.... anyway, as an exercise i timed myself to see how long it would currently take me to change a flat, and all told, including frustrating and extraneous "fitting the wheel back into the dropouts" time, it was 27 minutes. not bad, but if that happened on my way to work i would pretty much be fucked. and i have one stray scratch from the derailleur cable. let this be a record to be compared against my next flat-changing experience.

3-wheelin'

last night we tightened the front brakes on arwyn's tricycle which was a feat more difficult than anticipated. she was having stopping trouble and the only brakes she has are a (noisy) coaster brake and a front hand brake. i got the pads closer to the rim but the toe in was a little off. oh well. it stops better now.

after the adjustment i gave it a test ride around the block. just for fun i tried to test its limits. i had never ridden an adult trike before and i have to say that it is not as stable as i thought it would have been. if you take a sharp turn and one of the rear wheels comes off the ground you basically tip right on over. also the steering is really susceptible to suggestion, which is aggravating and i think the result of having a really light front end as compared to the rear end. i don't really know what the solution is to either of those things. also i noticed that the 3 gear options were not what i would consider to be the most practical. i'm worried about her ability to go up moderate or steep grades.

contagious.

I'm excited that chris is going to be car free this month and it's got me thinking about how much I love biking and leaving my car at home. I have trouble with planning and scheduling and well...I pretty much always run late. That's my biggest obstacle because if I'm running late to work I'll miss the bus or I won't have time to air my bike tires, etc etc etc. But, I do want to reduce driving as much as possible. I think about the burden of using fossil fuels everyday. I hate having it on my conscience. I hate sitting in traffic. But I love *not* driving. I love being active, I love winding down from work open to my environment. I love riding home from the bar and getting fresh air before I go to bed. This is a good way for a group of people to support each other in these efforts. I actually thought about a similar idea (bike blog) yesterday. Thanks, Chris, your example is contagious.

gettin' ready

so may is bike month and i am totally psyched to ditch my car next week.
monday i replaced my rear derailleur with a newer one from yellowbike and now my chain doesn't slip on my rear gears when i go up hills. so that's awesome! and a few weeks ago i bought a bike trailer off of craigslist for 20$ with the intention of carrying comrade around in it, so today i gutted the dorky child's harness out of it, and this weekend i need to fabricate a cushy platform for comrade to rest on.