Atlanta Intown Cycling

Gay Pride combines forces with Critical Mass

2009-10-30T22:51:00.000-04:00

As we rode over to Woodruff Park for Critical Mass, we picked up other riders headed in the same direction. Our pilgrimage to the holy land of cycling was made more exciting as we picked up numbers. Riding along the Freedom Park Trail, I heard "On your left" just before a guy in a green dress shoots past us riding a fixie. Everyone knows who wears the green dress and I called out "Angel", but it wasn't Angel. For Halloween, guys were dressing up as the most familiar green dress in Atlanta Intown.

Of course, this weekend being Gay Pride, I should have guessed there would be several guys wearing green dresses.

Ride Summary

Round Trip Distance: 11.6
Number of Cyclists seen: hundreds
Number of Green Dresses: 5
Weather: Not the best: mild, but drizzly with a few drops

One Less Brain Thorn

2009-10-26T17:59:00.003-04:00

Good memories often come with souvenirs. Sometimes, the bad memories have souvenirs too. I got rid of one by sneezing.

If you're the sort of person who gets grossed out, have no fear. This isn't a gross post. Only certain types of surprises are allowed in my posts.

This post is about a spooky front tire on my bicycle. Halloween is coming up, and supernatural forces did make the short list of probable factors, but this isn't a violent kind of spooky. It's the head game kind of spooky. Head game surprises are allowed.

I can't say what month or year it started, but the mystery has always been associated with my front tire. In the middle of riding, the tire would slowly leak air, but I could pump it up and keep on riding. Weeks later, about the time you could start to believe the mystery went away, the tire would go flat again.

I like a puzzle and this was turning out to be a good one. I started to study the different angles and take some notes, but this only served to document the degree of weirdness.

One morning I noticed the tire was completely flat, like "someone was playing a trick on me" flat. I pumped it up to the max and waited. It held air. I came back the next day and it was still full. Day after day, the tire would be full so I would get bored and stop watching. Then, it would go completely flat again.

Someone was playing tricks on me. I thought the best thing to do would be to pretend like it didn't happen and just pump it back up to the max. I actually thought pretending would work.

In the beginning, it only happened once every few months, but as summer rolled around, it was happening almost every ride. Since the whole group would stop while I pumped up the tire, everyone I was riding with was also getting "tired" of the tire. My brain thorn was pricking other minds besides the mind that was mine.

We had our theories. Since it didn't matter if it was a new tube or an old tube, 19mm or a 26mm, high pressure or normal pressure, we thought it might be squirrels that latch onto my wheel while I was riding. They would wait until I was on a downhill with the wind at my back so the wheel would be spinning around so fast that you couldn't see the squirrel, and then suck out a few puffs of air through the stem and then run away. Of course, it was the front wheel they targeted because they wouldn't have to worry about the derailleur getting in the way.

This theory matched the facts, but we felt compelled to come up with other theories. One theory was that a special straw-like device stuck itself in the tire. This device could create a hole and meter out the air at a controlled rate. It also had a way to tell when I pulled the tire off so it could automagically patch the hole. A remote control option was considered, and that was the brain storm that led us to the next theory.

The mental powers of any cyclist who needed to catch their breath may have been sufficient to make my tire go flat and stop the ride. Around the middle of July, people realized that everyone expected Jett's front tire to go flat, which removed all suspicion of supernatural involvement, and allowed anyone to secretly flat my tire. The overnight flat tires challenged that theory until we realized that this would be the perfect cover.

Some mastermind had it all planned out: Make Jett's front tire go flat a few times to build up his reputation, and throw in a few overnight flats just to throw everyone off the trail. We started paying attention to who was out of breath when the flat occurred.

Of all the souvenirs I collected over the summer, this brain thorn might have occupied the largest share of my remaining brain cells (4 out of 6). Saturday, it was with great relief I removed that thorn from two places at the same time.

Wednesday's ride I did something a little different when Old Faithful began to leak. Instead of pumping up to the max, I put in only enough air to make the tire safe. This meant pumping it up three times on the way back home, so I was ready to trash the cursed tire. She didn't look like a witch, but I was ready to burn her. (It did occur to me I could dress her up a bit.)

The softer tire also meant the sharp piece poked the tube in multiple places and that made the hole bigger. Submerging the inflated tube in water -- which hadn't worked in the past -- revealed the hole. I matched this up with the tire and put the tire under the spotlight. Usually you can find the sharpness that punctures the tube by feel, but this one I found by looking at the outside of the tire while pinching it to open any gaps in the surface. There was a tiny bit of metal flash under the bright light. In the past I had pulled out tiny pieces of wire worn from the tread of a steel-belted car tire, but those had been much easier to find than this one. The piece of wire I found was shorter than the width of my tire -- no more than 2mm long -- polished on one end and needle sharp on the other. Neither end of the wire protracted outside the surface of the tire. The culprit had lain hidden beneath the surface.

How did it patch the hole it was making? Well, I've got another crazy theory. The piece of wire was actually too short to damage the tube. I think that while riding, the needle point of that little wire would tickle the tube instead of puncturing it. The tube would laugh so hard that air would escape one molecule at a time.

For the overnight leak, someone was playing a trick on me. That's the only explanation that lets me keep on pretending that the mystery really is solved.

What does the sneeze have to do with this? Well, I wanted to take a picture of the piece of wire, but I sneezed and now it's gone.

Skirts and Geeks - 3rd Friday Commute

2009-10-14T16:43:00.004-04:00

The title might make more sense if it were Skirts and Greeks, or even Togas and Greeks, but Skirts and Geeks is more accurate, if not rather ... um, intriguing?

Most of the Geeks are not in Skirts, although some may be, but there's a different reason that Skirts and Geeks go together on bicycles.

The 3rd Friday Commute is coming up and we'll be following our monthly ritual of making other people wish they were having as much fun as us: Meet in Decatur at the Square, ride a few miles toward Midtown/Downtown, stop along the way at a breakfast spot with good bike parking, refill our tanks (28 miles per biscuit), and -- leaving nothing to chance -- a new part of the ritual: pre-planned discussion topics.

Here's where we get to the Skirts and the Geeks.

At the October Bike Commuter Breakfast we discussed "What Women Want (from cycling)". The discussion was purely conjectural since no women were present. For Friday's breakfast, we should have some women to help us out. If not, we may have to rely on this post from a fellow Georgia blogger Sweet Georgia Brown. So far, we've got at least one woman cyclist sharing her thoughts about getting "more skirts" on bicycles, and we hope to pick up a few more by discussing what women want.

Another proposed topic is something a few of us have been knocking around for several months. We call ourselves the Atlanta Bike Geeks and look for opportunities to help cyclists using technology and more specifically, computer technology. We're Geeks who ride bikes, and some of us do wear skirts. We had proposed to discuss how technology could help the cycling community. It was yesterday however, that I received an email about how Atlanta is working to become the most digitally mapped city in the US.

Running and cycling around with GPS's so we can create an open-source map is the cool sort of thing that gets a geek excited. Better than skirts. (But maybe not better than skirts on bikes.)

Wings for the Bike Angels

2009-10-05T18:41:00.006-04:00

From Atlanta-13.1-2009

Maria Isabel was collecting hugs. The wheeler that Doug escorted repaid appreciative dividends that exceeded Doug's investment. Butch was sharing the great feedback we got from the runners. We were all glowing.

From Atlanta-13.1-2009

The photo above is at the starting line of the Atlanta 13.1, a half-marathon starting and finishing at Oglethorpe University. The cyclists pictured escorted the lead male and female runners as well as a single wheelchair racer.

Once we escorted the leaders across the finish, we were ready to do it all again. So we did, falling in behind the end of the pack to escort them through the course, at a much different speed, but no less rewarding.

You can click on these next two images to view a short video clip.

Here's the #2 female at the turn from Peachtree onto Lanier next to Oglethorpe escorted by Jonathan:

From Atlanta-13.1-2009

This is the wheeler Peter as he approaches the finish line:

From Atlanta-13.1-2009

When we talk about the economy, we measure our lives in dollars, but dollars really have no meaning. Conversely, what is meaningful -- how we feel about ourselves and others -- has no price. I'm going to feel priceless for quite some time.

Turning the Pancake volume "Up to Eleven"

2009-10-03T21:27:00.002-04:00

We'll get to the pancakes, but this story starts out the night before. (I needed some tie-in with cycling in the streets of Intown Atlanta and this one is a stretch.)

The first Friday of the month is wine-tasting at our neighbors across the street. For most of us, it is really just wine drinking, but the few folks who actually know about wine aren't offended, and the food and company are always excellent.

My daughter Ansley is in eighth-grade at Inman, and she likes to bring a few of her friends to the wine-tasting. I guess it's cool to be at a "wine-tasting party" with your parents even though you can't drink any wine. Eight girls walked over to our house after school to leave their bookbags.

This same evening, there were a few other activities. The girls and my wife Beth headed to a cookout at the school. I got to go and ride bikes at an Art Party in Castleberry Hill called Le Flash. This was the destination for the Light Up the Night ride sponsored by the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition. Last year we saw the Speed Vest, but people really came out for this ride. (The weather was much warmer this year.)

Now that I've covered the cycling tie-in, we can proceed with the pancake story.

The girls usually spend the night at our house after the wine-tasting party, and I usually make pancakes when the girls get up the next morning. The pancakes get favorable reviews, but the head-liner at the Marks' household is the cream-cheese grits. (even before they filled my pannier one morning.)

Out of the eight girls that dropped off their bookbags, eleven of them spent the night, some I had never seen before. I've never turned the pancake volume up that high before, but I learned that I could go "one louder". Mine goes to 11.

Ride Summary

Round Trip Distance: 12.8
Number of Cyclists seen: More than 100 rode
Occasion: ABC's Light up the Night
Destination: Le Flash in Castleberry Hill (downtown's best-kept secret)
Weather: Magnifique! Lots of people out on the streets under a nearly full moon.

What Women Want

2009-10-01T15:08:00.003-04:00

Except for a brief appearance by Colleen, women were absent from ABC's Bike Commuter Breakfast this morning. I was disappointed, because I was looking for something only a woman can provide.

The Scientific American recently ran an article about what it takes to get more cyclists on the roads. The byline of this article summarizes the conclusion: "To boost urban bicycling, figure out what women want".

Now, men have been trying to figure out what women want for ages, and I can't say that too much progress has been made, but as the guys came in and sat down, we announced the topic of conversation: "What do Women Want". Each of us could only look at the ground and shake our head.

We were on more comfortable ground once we narrowed this topic to what women want from cycling.

Since no women were present, we were left to form our own opinions of what women look for in cycling:

We agreed that a cultural shift without the women being involved really isn't a cultural shift. It would just be the guys doing their own thing, and in Atlanta, that's exactly what cycling is: a testosterone-fueled race. Guys do like testing themselves against others, but this doesn't easily translate to running errands. Perhaps an intermediate stage between racing and utility cycling would be represented by the following exchange:

"I can beat you up this hill towing my 8-year-old to soccer practice."

"Yeah, well I'm carrying 3 gallons of milk, 24 rolls of toilet paper, and about 26 pounds of canned goods."

Another aspect of the cultural shift is exemplified by Sweet Georgia Brown, a fellow blogger who endorses the "slow bicycle" movement (Style over Speed). Her posts are consistently about how one looks on a bike instead of how much the bike weighs. And what you wear on a bike just starts the conversation about grease.

Heels on Wheels is a dress-related exploration of what women want. Literally. A group of women plan to get dressed up, hop on bikes and go "bar hopping" along Peachtree. (I could be confusing this with "What Men Want".)

The article mentions women being more risk-averse. This suggests that one measurement of a cycling facility's usefulness can be determined by the ratio of female cyclists to male cyclists. Certainly cycling training that boosts skills and confidence can expand the range of routes a rider will find within their acceptable level of risk, but to compare two routes, look at the routes that females prefer.

And then, there's this quote from "Stuff White People Like" about what women want from cycling:

White women have a lot of fantasies about idealized lives, and one of them is living in Europe and riding around an old city on one of these bikes. They dream about waking up and riding to a little cafe, then visiting bakeries and cheese shops and finally riding home to prepare a fancy meal for their friends who will all eat under a canopy with white Christmas lights. This information can be used to help gain the trust/admiration of a white woman, especially if you can pull off a lie about how your mother told you about how she used to do all of these things when she was younger.

OK, women. Now's your chance to set the record straight. What do you want?

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 5.6
Number of Cyclists seen: 4 on the way over, 6 at breakfast, and lost count on the way back, but more than 20.
Weather: Getting close to the limits of nothing more than shorts and a technical shirt. Most people wearing a wind-breaker.

Bike Angels earning their Wings

2009-09-20T12:59:00.003-04:00

Atlanta has had 3 month's of rain over the past 5 days. My lawn is happy, but the bicycle miles are drooping. We discussed canceling a scheduled ride this morning because the rain was still coming down, but I announced via email to the group that I would ride anyway.

The ride we had scheduled was a practice run for escorting runners in a new half-marathon scheduled for October 4: the Atlanta 13.1. The bicycle escorts are often referred to as Bike Angels.

Looking at the red bands of heavy rain on the weather radar -- and we've had a few of these recently -- I couldn't help but think "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Perhaps my desire to get more cycling miles suppressed my fear, or perhaps I'm not a very good angel, but I decided that 1) I wouldn't be rushing and 2) on a bike, you're not technically treading. The phrase "earning our wings" was more appropriate to the state of mind I wished to carry.

Maria Isabel, Butch, and Jeff met me at the usual spot for our Sunday morning ride and as soon as we start out, the rain begins to drizzle. We didn't know how much we would have to endure to earn our wings, but our mood remained upbeat.

There were a few question marks on the course. The main reason we ride the course ahead of time is to answer those questions and learn the turns without thinking. I got lots of practice trying to see where I was going with fogged-up, droplet-covered glasses.

Through Blackburn Park, the course follows the PATH trail. These are not marked on the Google maps, and the satellite image is only good for showing the spot where the PATH disappears into the trees, so we needed to perform a ground survey for that stretch. Coming out of Blackburn Park, the route follows a road that is a dead end on the map, and magically shows up on the next street over.

Blair Circle didn't connect to Durden Drive and it looked like you would have to go through someone's backyard on the satellite view. I drew the route (in purple) that accomplished this feat of magic.

During our survey, it appears the backyard is no longer there. Or the house. In fact, we found that most of the houses were gone and that a new road had been recently built that follows the path in blue below.

Our contact for the race course details has thrown in another twist. Somewhere in this vicinity, the course will add in a short section to make it exactly the right race distance. I haven't attempted to draw this, but I expect we'll be following the "red" route on the map immediately above.

There was one more correction to the course map that I had entered in bikely.com: at the end of the race, we believe we have figured out the route inside of the Oglethorpe campus. The cue sheet simply says "follow the cones", and the streets aren't marked within the campus, so we wanted to sort this out before we had a 5-minute per mile racer waiting for us to decide which way to turn. The map reflects our new knowledge.

Although we got plenty wet, the buckets of rain never came. It actually slacked off as we got back near Virginia-Highland. We won't know until race day whether or not we've been awarded our wings, so we'll keep working at it until then. I wouldn't mind if we were tested with 72-degree sunshine and horribly blue skies next Sunday.

Ride Summary

Round Trip Distance: 30.1
Number of Cyclists seen: 2 (not including the 4 of us), and one of those had full rain gear.
Weather: Not quite blinding rain, but maybe an inch of it over the course of our 2 hour ride.

Removing Excuses

2009-09-12T17:23:00.003-04:00

I grew up in Savannah without air-conditioning. When we moved into our current house, we didn't have air-conditioning. My sweat glands have had lots of training.

When I ride my bike to the office, it doesn't matter how slow I go, or how cool it is, I sweat. There's less sweat during the winter, but even on the day it was 11 degrees, I still managed to break a sweat. Sweat is what my sweat glands have been trained to do and they do it very well.

Many people won't ride a bike to work for this reason. (Well, because of their own sweat, not mine.) Not having a shower at the office is the reason I frequently hear for not commuting by bike. Since AT&T doesn't have showers, I've had a hard time convincing co-workers they should ride a bike to the office.

I haven't had a good answer for sweat control until the Shower Pass became available.

For $15/month, the Plaza Executive Health Club (PEHC) offers a showers-only membership. This is a good price and I plan to try it out starting next month. I'll be posting my experience -- complete with photos <wink> -- after I give it a try.

The folks over at Midtown Transportation Solutions were kind enough to make arrangements with the PEHC. These are the same guys who put together the Commuter Rewards program that has put a bunch of cash in my pocket.

There's one personal excuse that may go away. By way of introduction, I have a confession to make: I don't ride my bike to the office every day of the week.

I've got the option to work at home, and on mornings I miss my time slot to get in the shower, I often stay at home and shower later in the day. If at all. This was good during Atlanta's water restriction period, but it's been bad for my commuting miles. Why miss out on a commute to the office just because I couldn't get into the shower on time?

The Shower Pass has removed that excuse.

Prepared for most Emergencies

2009-08-31T20:44:00.003-04:00

Knowing how to maintain your bicycle and being prepared for common roadside repairs is the source of pride for many cyclists. This article is not an example of that.

Finding you don't have the right tool, and then calmly mapping out a well-reasoned plan of attack is the hallmark of a disciplined mind. This article is not an example of that either.

I think if I hadn't found so much grits (yes, the southern ones made from corn) inside my pannier, this article could have served as some small, positive example of exemplary behavior, but then again, it might not have been written at all.

It started yesterday when I noticed my left cleat was a little loose at the end of the ride, but I thought it might have just been the rain I came through. I also paid no heed to the fact that a fellow rider had just adjusted probably the same screw earlier that same day.

So, I get to the bike rack at the office this morning and my left foot doesn't clip out of the pedal. I turned my foot as far as it would go and could feel the cleat turning. One of the screws had fallen completely out.

I untie my shoe so I can get off the bike, and then standing in one sock, one shoe, I start to investigate how to get the shoe off the bike. To hold the bike still, I pull out my lock. The key is missing. I can't leave my bike without it being locked. The most important phone call of the week is happening in 17 minutes. There *might* be enough time to get back to my house and in front of the computer, but I'm first on the agenda. Certainly I can find the key. It's probably in the bottom of one of the panniers.

I knew I was going to regret not cleaning out the panniers. I like carrying extra plastic grocery bags, but did I need eleventy hundred of them? After hiding a large portion of my immediate surroundings under the contents of my panniers, I finally get to the bottom and find the grits. There's enough to make breakfast for everyone on this phone call and the key is probably underneath all the grits. Should I try walking into the office with my bike? Not with one sock and one shoe. 12 minutes. I start digging out the grits. I'm not exactly "throwing" them, but they do become widely distributed.

The grits must have come from my trip to the grocery store on Saturday. I wonder if the key poked a hole in the grits and now the key is inside the bag of grits in the pantry? Should I call the house?

Cyclists are a tight-knit group. When we find one of our comrades stopped alongside the road, we're quick to offer help. If I had come across a cyclist however, with one sock, a shoe still dangling from the pedal, and the grits/plastic bag explosion, I might have kept on going.

I start shaking all the bags in a reserved -- and I thought rather dignified -- sort of frantic. Oh look, I forgot to pack a lunch today on top of all this! 9 minutes.

Finally, the key falls out and lands on the ground. I move with focused purpose now and a sense of calm takes control. I lock the bike in place. I twist the shoe beyond what I think it would reasonably require and it comes off the pedal. The screw was trapped between the shoe and the pedal so I recovered this and the bags, if not the grits.

It's nice being able to walk into the office with both shoes on. We should take the time each and every morning to express our appreciation for a shoe on each foot.

The trip home is where I found I didn't have the 4mm wrench to repair the cleat, but at least I had a dock-sider on each foot for the trip back home.

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: less than I wanted.
Number of Cyclists seen: I forgot.
In-bound Route: Normal
Out-bound Route: Abbreviated
Weather: The grits had absorbed a good bit of the humidity, but weren't quite done.

Any Future I Want

2009-08-29T20:53:00.003-04:00

One sign of being married for 22.33 years is when you find yourself at home on a Saturday night decommissioning one of the two Linux servers under your desk. It was while I was finding a replacement for the 'fortune' program that serves up my cycling fortune cookie that I was reminded of the fortune cookie I got last night at Mulan in Midtown.

It was empty.

I was the only one at the table with an empty fortune cookie. We debated what it would mean to have no fortune. Does it mean the future is too cloudy to predict? Does it mean that the news is too involved to fit in a sentence or two?

Before we could list out all the possibilities, the waitress brought me another cookie. She felt bad that I was missing out on this important piece of information (or she was secretly afraid that I had no future).

I got my second cookie, and it did have a fortune. It was exactly the same fortune that my wife had gotten. That was my wife's fortune, not mine.

Another round of "What does this mean?"

I finally decided that I could decide my own fortune. I don't need anyone telling me what my fortune will be. It's in my hands.

Dr. Seuss said something like this: You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

What would make good routes for Sharrows?

2009-08-27T20:48:00.004-04:00

Atlanta has an opportunity to be at the forefront of cycling. Although we're not banning automobiles from all surface streets just yet, there are only a handful of municipalities in the US that are considering sharrows.

What are these innovative lane markings for cyclists?

The Wikipedia article for Shared lane marking (or sharrows) describes sharrows as markings on a road where the lane is too narrow for a bike lane or the bike lane would put cyclists in the "door zone" of parked cars. They indicate the location on the pavement where cyclists are expected to travel (typically about where the right wheel of a motor vehicle would be).

The intent is to mark favorable bike routes and help both motorists and cyclists understand the best lane position for a cyclist to maintain when the lane isn't suitable for bike lanes. Atlanta has a number of good roads for cyclists that are a little narrow for bike lanes. Sharrows are the proposed way to indicate those routes.

I had put together some criteria for choosing appropriate roads in Atlanta that would be suitable for an initial set of sharrows:

Minor thoroughfare with substantial, but not heavy traffic;
Single travel lane too narrow for bike lanes;
On-street parking;
Intersects with other facilities (planned or actual).

For initial selections, the following criteria will improve the chances of acceptance by both motorists and cyclists:

Already has substantial bike traffic;
High visibility;
Pleasant route regardless of what it connects. In other words, the route can be its own cycling destination.

It was several months ago that I posted about sharrows. Since then, the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition has started talking with the City of Atlanta about a pilot program to introduce sharrows within the city. Starting with the criteria above, we've proposed a few routes:

This website allows browsing the map and getting more detail about the routes. The website will be updated as we generate more proposals for routes.

I'm interested in hearing your suggestions for either routes or criteria for selecting a route. The routes listed are examples we'd like to expand upon.

Clear sky, cool temps, and SUNBEAMS

2009-08-24T20:59:00.002-04:00

It was in August of last year that I stopped for sunbeams along this stretch of road, so I'm not surprised I'm stopping for sunbeams once again in August.

This image has a lot of blue light matching the sudden cool temps. Fall is on its way even though the dry air isn't here yet. Of course, we wouldn't have the sunbeams if there wasn't so much moisture in the air.

The few spots of light and warmth contrast with the coolness, a fitting visual for the sensations I felt riding through the shadows and bright spots.

As I travelled a few pedal strokes around the corner, the scene below unfolded.

These images are less than 100 yards and less than one minute apart, yet feel so different.

As I stopped to take these photos, a neighbor paused her walk to chat. How often can car commuters say this?

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 18.7
Number of Cyclists seen: 30 (14 inbound and 16 outbound)
In-bound Route: Goofin' 9.6
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton
Weather: I was getting on my bike whether I came into the office or not. "Must ... Get ... Outside" sort of day.

Revival of 3rd Friday Commute

2009-08-21T12:03:00.003-04:00

It's been 18 months since the last 3rd Friday Commute. A schedule change at work prevented me from organizing this ride for about a year, but Stephen recently asked if we could start it back up.

And here we go.

Thumbs Up was excellent as always. Lots of stories of poor behaviour by both cyclists and motorists and also some discussion about how to deal with poor behaviour. (There was also a TV show discussion, but my this isn't my best subject.)

Next ride will be Friday Sept. 18. There have been inquiries about other routes/destinations/breakfast spots. Much of this discussion is happening on Facebook's Bike Commuters of Atlanta group, but add a comment here if you're not on Facebook and would like to participate.

Commute Summary

Distance: 5.5 miles from Decatur Square to Thumbs Up Diner on Edgewood
Number of Cyclists stopping for breakfast: 9
Route: McLendon/Edgewood
Weather: Humid, but no rain as had been predicted

Progress?

2009-08-09T19:23:00.007-04:00

We rode across a new bridge today. Cyclists would generally appreciate the fact that this bridge was wider and was higher so we didn't have to climb as far to make it back up the hill, but this one was disappointing.

The town of Rex is on the Quad County route that we rode this morning. One of the picturesque highlights of this route is a one-lane bridge that passes next to an abandoned mill.

The mill was built in the 1820s and had been used off and on until the 1930s. In 2007 when these photos were taken, the sluice is nearly completely gone and the site is overgrown, but you can see what the site looked like 25 years ago.

The new bridge diverted us around both the old bridge and the mill. We missed the highlight of the ride!

Next time we ride this route, we'll skip the new bridge, take the slow route, and climb the extra few feet so we can recall a piece of watermill history. At least the cars won't be in our way anymore.

Clicking the images will bring up a full-size image. Helps you climb into the scene.

Ride Summary

Round Trip Distance: 51.5 miles from Virginia-Highland
Number of Cyclists on the ride: 17 initially with 14 finishing with us.
Route: Quad County (courtesy of L5P Flyers) with modifications on the return to avoid Bouldercrest but catch a bit of fun on Weelaunee (between River Road and Flakes Mill).
Weather: Warm, but not as warm as we expected.

Fourteen Black Paintings

2009-08-08T20:49:00.004-04:00

The musician Peter Gabriel released a song called Fourteen Black Paintings in 1992. Although I have been moved by this song and its five short lines of lyrics for 17 years now, it has only been this past week that I looked into the meaning of this song's name. I never suspected there were 14 actual black paintings.

The artist Mark Rothko never saw the completion of his final art commission. He took his own life a year before the chapel housing the 14 Black Paintings was dedicated. This non-denominational chapel is dedicated to human and civil rights; a sculpture "Broken Obelisk" at the chapel is dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr. The chapel and its mission inspired Peter Gabriel to write these words:

From the pain come the dream
From the dream come the vision
From the vision come the people
And from the people come the power
From this power come the change

Why would a cycling blog write about this? The connection is subtle.

It is darkness that gives meaning, but it would be wrong to remain in darkness. Darkness can and should foster a dream, a dream that should be brought to the light of day. It is the dream spelled out in the light of day that forms a vision, a vision that people within the darkness and pain can relate to. The vision gives us a way out of the darkness and that is its power and meaning. Then, can change occur.

Whereas I find much joy and brightness in cycling, there is no shortage of darkness and pain: cycling will never catch on, cyclists aren't respected by motorists, cycling is too dangerous. I want to reach beyond to the bright side.

A vision for cycling must recognize that people harbor this darkness, and help move them toward the power to bring change. It isn't enough to complain about the darkness -- that's the easy part. We want to create a vision that gives the people the power to make the change.

That change occurs within ourselves first. One-by-one, individuals make the change, and the whole world begins to change as we notice each other's brightness.

Peter Gabriel and Mark Rothko both recognized the spiritual nature of the transformation from darkness to light. It is our spirit that lets us choose to abandon the darkness.

So, perhaps it is fitting that I ride my bike on Sunday mornings when everyone else is in church.

Decatur Full Moon Ride - The Report

2009-08-05T23:43:00.003-04:00

We never found out who "Amoonymous" was. He (or she) may have been with us on the ride this evening, but even with the unsolved mystery, we still enjoyed their route.

We plan to do this one again.

Ride Summary

Farmer's Almanac: Sturgeon Moon
Round Trip Distance: 24.9 miles from Virginia-Highland
Number of Cyclists on the ride: 18
Route: 15.5 miles starting/ending at the Decatur Square and passing by a cemetery
Weather: Perfect for riding, but a little hazy for moon viewing; the moon came up right as we started our ride.

Decatur Full Moon Ride

2009-08-03T21:07:00.004-04:00

I had heard about Full Moon rides from a fellow blogger up in Massachusetts so I'm jumping at the chance to ride a local version on Wednesday night Aug. 5.

The 6AM Arches group brought to my attention the Decatur Full Moon Ride on Wednesday August 5 at 9PM at the Decatur Square. I don't know if there is a separate website for this, but VaHi Velo has posted an event on Facebook.

The world is a different place on a bike at night and it's a different place during a Full Moon. We'll see what that combination brings.

No matter where we go

2009-08-02T22:08:00.004-04:00

We have to remind ourselves to look up at the sky, but it remains a wondrous place. It's the same sky that everyone else on the planet sees. We've only got one moon and one sun, and anyone who looks at the moon sees the same moon that we see -- across all generations too.

It was a fellow cyclist who pointed out a recently released web site that has quickly become my favorite for checking out what is currently in the sky. There is much more that this website can do -- and I encourage you to explore it -- but checking out the sky is a great example of what this recent tool can do.

I obtained the image above by typing "sky chart" into WolframAlpha. The website knows where you are based on your IP address and uses this to tell what the sky should look like from your location.

If I want to know where Saturn is located, I type "sky chart Saturn". Since Saturn has just set for the evening, it tells me when it will rise next: "next rise | 9:56 am EDT | Monday, August 3, 2009". The sun will be up at that time, so we'll get a better view after the sun sets. I try "sky chart Saturn 9:30PM"

Saturn is low in the sky after the sun sets, so this won't be a good time of year to look at Saturn's rings. We'll have to wait until Saturn is on the other side of the Sun and becomes a "morning star", rising before the sun.

The Perseid Meteor Shower is peaking next week. I entered "sky chart Perseus 3AM" since the best time to see meteor showers is just before the sun comes up. This shows the constellation at 3AM over Atlanta. From this, we know to face NorthEast to get the best view of meteors.

I mentioned that WolframAlpha is a general purpose computational engine. I thought I would explore what knowledge it had about the bicycle.

Apparently, the bicycle is rather closely associated with the word "excruciate" and also with the "calendar method of birth control". The connection with "excruciate" needs no further elaboration, but I really wish I could follow the links that lead from "bicycle" to "birth control". That could explain a lot.

Reloading the Sweat Guns

2009-08-01T17:37:00.000-04:00

I lost a lot of sweat today. It was humid, so my body decided it needed to sweat more to try to keep cool. Sweat was shooting out of me and getting other people wet. Bugs were hanging onto me thinking I was a salt lick. My glasses crusted over. I turned my bathtub into the Dead Sea after rinsing down.

So this afternoon, I've been craving salty food. I gave in.

Yellow Rice = salt
Artichoke Hearts = salt
Black Olives = salt

I wrapped up some of the paella in a tortilla with cottage cheese (= more salt). All of this was washed down with about 2000 mL of water (less than my shower, but more than I carry on my bike).

Sweat guns will commence firing at 8AM tomorrow morning.

Ride Summary

Ride Name: Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth
Explanation of name: My sore thighs felt better after riding a while. Barry's cold improved. Howard's knee got better. We even got 60+ miles out of a 40-mile ride.
Round Trip Distance: 64.1 miles
Number of Cyclists riding: 13
Crafty Coder's (Josh's) Ride Report (including route).
Weather: overcast, humid and mild to start, warmed up as sun came out, but remained pleasant.

Make it up as we go along

2009-07-26T13:35:00.003-04:00

Today's ride goes along with a Talking Heads song I've had stuck in my head recently. "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)", like many of the Talking Heads songs is upbeat, quirky, and just fun. Most of the time, I want to get the song out of my head, but this one I don't mind staying a while.

Our Sunday Morning group has a special charm because we never know where we're going until everyone is ready to start riding. It's almost like unwrapping a present.

This morning, we rolled out of Aurora Coffee with only a vague idea about getting to Silver Lake and using Shallowford to cross I-85. Michael T suggested this and the idea quickly gained momentum. It's been a while since we visited Silver Lake and the shade would be welcome on a warm day. Dave suggested an neighborhood approach to Shallowford, and someone else suggested the secret short-cut by the pool. Michael N suggested an alternate to Windsor Parkway. I lost count of how many different ride leaders helped us "make it up as we went along".

So I guess I must be having fun
The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet [ed. wheels] on the ground
Head in the sky
It's ok, I know nothing's wrong . . nothing

Today's route can be found on Bikely.com at http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/SilverLake-via-Shallowford.

Recent VaHi Velo routes can be found at: http://routes.cycling.jettmarks.com/showRoutes.html?tag=vahivelo

Care and Feeding of the Recreational Cyclist

2009-07-25T16:29:00.003-04:00

Today we're discussing the Recreational Cyclist and how to keep one happy. When stroked the right way, it's really easy to get your Rec Cyclist purring. All you need to remember is a few key points:

The first thing to remember is the Rec Cyclist is a social animal that enjoys traveling in groups. This social aspect is significant for a number of reasons, but if you can arrange for a group of cyclists to ride together, keeping the cyclist happy will be much easier.
Cyclists have a sweet disposition -- any animal that will intentionally shove a butt-torture device between its legs and call it "fun" demonstrates a level of brain evolution that is rare in the animal kingdom -- but sometimes you may run across a grumpy one that isn't having a good day. In the interest of maintaining an advanced level of group purring, it is OK if you don't include the grumpy ones next time.
When selecting a route to take your cyclists, you'll want to favor shady over exposed, trees and grass over asphalt and concrete, and long stretches over stop-and-go. Hills make it interesting, but you don't want it to be too interesting. Some cyclists avoid hills and you want to be sensitive to this, but fortunately, like the ladder to the top of the sliding board, the rec cyclist views climbing as the price you pay for the downhill reward.
Like any pet, the cyclist needs food and water. Be sure to schedule refreshment breaks. Of course, this is another opportunity for socializing which will doubly please your cyclist.
Fully-grown and even adolescent cyclists are typically kept off-leash, but this doesn't mean you shouldn't exercise caution. Like all pets, they need to learn not to "play in traffic". They have a hard time learning about stop signs in particular, but again, the social nature of the rec cyclist can be used to your advantage. Just ask them to alert each other, and they will happily yell short phrases like "Car Back!", "Clear!" and "You dropped your water bottle!". Like the four-year-old when you're baking cookies, the Rec Cyclist is always willing to help out.

Try these steps and listen for the purring. A little attention, the right stroke, and you and your rec cyclist will share many happy days.

Light One Candle

2009-07-18T19:38:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, when I'm working through a difficult situation at the office, I get frustrated that the person I'm working with just doesn't get it. It might be their lack of time, or their lack of interest or knowledge, but I become convinced that if only I were working with a more capable person, we could reach a solution more quickly.

Wayne Dyer once sarcastically asked an audience to round up all the people who were making them miserable, bring them to him so he could give those people therapy, and then the audience would be better. The point is: Why should we let our happiness depend on the capacity of others to treat us well?

It certainly is nice working with good people, but we don't always have that choice. It's up to us to decide how we want to react when our options are limited.

Gandhi had said, "It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness." Sometimes it gets dark at the office. I have to remember to light a candle instead of cursing that darkness.

For commuters in their cars, the darkness might be rush-hour traffic. Gandhi's quote then becomes: "It is better to remove one car than to curse the traffic."

Cycling through Forest; sometimes over it

2009-07-13T22:07:00.000-04:00

Atlanta has lots of trees for an urban area, and this greatly improves the cycling experience. The lure of deep forest has not quite yet enticed me to get an off-road bike. In part, this is because I can spend a lot of time amongst the trees even while riding my road bike.

Sometimes however, the trees impose on the roadway.

Sunday evening, the rain was so hard, winds were being kicked up by the volume of rain coming down. The thunderstorm pushed things around even more so there were a few trees down. Statistically, a lot of trees to knock down means a lot of trees will come down.

And so, we're riding not only through the forest, but sometimes over pieces of it.

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 18.7
Pace: Recovering from Sunday's Recovery Ride which was to recover from Saturday's Ride.
Number of Cyclists seen: 19 total, 3 in AM, 16 coming home.
In-bound Route: Goofin' 9.6
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton
Weather: Humid from the storm that came through the night before.

Taking the bike to go exercise

2009-06-29T16:59:00.000-04:00

One of the parents on my daughter's soccer team has gotten the girls together over the summer to work on strength and fitness. He's modeled it after the various fitness boot camps that have become popular over the last decade. Player participation has been high partly because the parents come along for their workout and compete against their kids.

Since I ride with many of the same soccer dads on Sunday mornings, it is fitting that we ride with our daughters over to Piedmont Park where we gather for boot camp.

Ride (and workout) Summary

Round Trip Distance: 3.5 miles
Number of planks: 3 sets at 40 seconds for each of front, back and sides for 12 total.
Number of 'suicides': 1 more than I should have done.
Post-workout Meal: Willy's at Piedmont Park (with three refills of lemonade)
Weather: Open your windows and let the breeze come through the house.

Making Way - Part 2

2009-06-09T20:08:00.001-04:00

Barry had commented that the great big overhead limb was slowly sinking to where you couldn't fit under. The cyclist in the photo above (#4 on the day's commute) had to dismount to get under the limb on Friday (June 5).

By Monday afternoon, a crew cut out the limb and the limbo log was gone:

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 18.7
Number of Cyclists seen: 18
In-bound Route: Goofin' 9.6
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton
Weather:Warm, but not as warm as usual for June

Atlanta Intown Cycling

Gay Pride combines forces with Critical Mass

Ride Summary

One Less Brain Thorn

Skirts and Geeks - 3rd Friday Commute

Wings for the Bike Angels

Turning the Pancake volume "Up to Eleven"

Ride Summary

What Women Want

Commute Summary

Bike Angels earning their Wings

Ride Summary

Removing Excuses

Prepared for *most* Emergencies

Commute Summary

Any Future I Want

What would make good routes for Sharrows?

Clear sky, cool temps, and SUNBEAMS

Commute Summary

Revival of 3rd Friday Commute

Commute Summary

Progress?

Ride Summary

Fourteen Black Paintings

Decatur Full Moon Ride - The Report

Ride Summary

Decatur Full Moon Ride

No matter where we go

Reloading the Sweat Guns

Ride Summary

Make it up as we go along

Care and Feeding of the Recreational Cyclist

Light One Candle

Cycling through Forest; sometimes over it

Commute Summary

Taking the bike to go exercise

Ride (and workout) Summary

Making Way - Part 2

Commute Summary

Prepared for most Emergencies