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.