Chafe City

There are things I dislike.

2013-06-11T09:50:00.000-07:00

The road leading up to my office is Not My Favorite. It does not have a bicycle lane. It's suface is pretty craptastic with lots of loose gravel. Although there is room, the cars pass me too close because they are determined to get to the parking lot first this despite there being no competition with me for a parking space because I bring my delicate flower of a bicycle into the building in which I work for safe-keeping.

For them it is a pretty anonymous experience, buzzing some old lady on a bicycle and then haw-hawing the rest of the way up the hill but between you me and the internet I memorize license plate make and model (also loopback addresses, but I digress) faster than a goathead gives you a flat. I see the same cars and I notice that the ones who are a jerk one day will probably be a jerk the next day. The reddish Prius with license plate frame "Proud Dad To [redacted]"? That guy is such a wanker. He should hope that if his kid is ever on a bicycle she encounters drivers who are less proud and more responsible.

That was the situation up until recently. A two direction road with no bicycle lanes and some agro cars. Nothing new, nothing to see here, just steady-state for a bicycle commuter. Then the road got ripped up. One side got this long deep ditch thing dug into it. Fine. Detours. Maybe a slight delay but hardly anything to get your panties in a bunch over. I went around and waited for road workers to cross and the day arrived when the work was complete. Tada.

Did you guess that they put in a bicycle lane with a barrier to keep cars from crossing over into it? Ho-ho-ho. You must be new here. No bicycle lane was added.

Instead of a bicycle lane, instead even of re-paving the road with something smooth and fun to ride on, instead of even restoring the road to it's previous uninspired but vaguely functional state they created a bicycle trap along almost the entire ride side of the road.

Where the bicycles ride (the shoulder, essentially) there is a shallow long skinny ditch cut into the road and dotted with loose gravel. It is maybe 36" across and is where a bicycle would try and ride to be out of the way of the speeding cars. At places it is flush with the road. At other places it has a lip on either side that can be as high as 4 inches. Riding in it or next to it feels awful. I ride next to it because I am sadly panty-waisted when it comes to my skinny tires and uneven pavement. The cars find this aggravating. Sure they can still get past me but they have to think about it a little if they don't want to be slowed down by a screaming greasy torn up mother of two.

What do the cars say? They say "get over into that bicycle lane!" Yeah but here is the thing, cars. THAT IS NOT A A BICYCLE LANE. IT IS A GUTTER. I know, shocking. The cars have modest simple minds and when they see some differentiation to the pavement on the right side of the road, no matter how skinny or torn up, their brain screams "bicycle lane" and follows up immediately with "why is there bicycle still in front of me? Why he no get into that thing on side of the road?"

Because., Thag, that thing is not a bicycle lane. It is a gutter. Pro-tip: if there is no white paint shaped like a bicycle, it's a gutter. If it's a gutter with a steep edge and tons of broken glass and gravel the bicycle may not want to ride in it.

PG&E Pipeline Work. The gift that keeps on giving!!

2013-05-22T12:43:00.003-07:00

I've made previous mention of the extensive work underway that attempts to ensure that no more California towns explode in a fireball. There was absolutely nothing funny about the 2010 San Bruno gas explosion and if you stop to think about it, there is nothing funny about how much work is underway that is ostensibly required to prevent another explosion.

The traffic resulting from the road work however is very very funny. Like laugh out loud funny. And believe me I do laugh.

The road will be a parking lot. People wait and wait for a green light only to see it turn yellow and red with no opportunity to get across the road. What they do is drive their cars into the middle of the intersection. THEN when the light turns red and they are stuck there, traffic in the opposing direction goes absolutely apeshit. I kid you not. Grown men and women just sitting there honking their horns over and over while sitting in their cars. I nearly fell off my bicycle I was laughing so hard as one car driver gestured furiously at another car driver and honked his horn and turned red and none of them were going anywhere. The place was a parking lot. Just two fat middle-aged babies shouting at each other. Extra bonus is when they enact this drama from their positions in cars worth upwards of $100,000.00 USD.

Which part is a little dangerous for me but still pretty damn funny?

I'll be bicycling up the bike lane. The bike lane is bike-sized, meaning, you can't fit a Fiat into it and you extra can't fit a Bored Shovinator into it. The cars are literally going nowhere. They just sit there with their engines humming. Some of them get so incredibly freaked out at their static experience that they inch over until they can get a tire into the bicycle lane. Just a tire but it appears to make them feel better to put a toe over onto our side of the fence.

What happens when the bicycle lane widens out enough to fit a car into?

Free lane! They start crowding into the bicycle lane and driving up. After all it's basically a turn lane, correct? You can drive up the bicycle lane if you are important (and of course you are important) and if you plan to turn right at some point? Turn out the answer to that one is a big "no." What was waiting at the top of the road? A police car issuing tickets to all the cars driving up the bicycle lane. So they spent 45 minutes in traffic that they could have biked in 15 minutes and just before turning off and finally going home they get a $200 ticket. If I were nicer I would feel bad for them but I'm not nice and I don't feel bad.

What is funny but possibly stupid?

Taking their picture. But we did it anyways! Behold! A zillion people who would prefer to sit in traffic going nowhere than bicycle and be awesome. You can't see their glum frowny faces but I guarantee you, they are there.

What's the ugliest thing about you?

2013-05-21T13:53:00.003-07:00

What's the ugliest part of her body?

Margery Eagen says there is "no more road to share." Apparently Boston's streets are just not wide enough for cars and bicycles alone and we know what that means, it means we must ban bicycling in the city because Boston is totally full. No room at the inn. Joseph and Mary can go find another city because this one is FULL baby.

Some say it's her nose!

According to herself, poor the old Margery has been driving "forever." Forever I tell you! She got out of her car just long enough to breed and divorce. The rest of the time has been spent in her Toyota. Margery finishes her short, boring and self-important troll bait by saying "this is not about disliking bicyclists or disliking bikes. This is about ever more bicyclists trying to “share” roads with cars when there’s no room to share....This is about denying reality." I really appreciate her clarifying that for us. It must be very peaceful to live in Margie's reality where the highest levels of C02 in millenia and melting glaciers and disappearing polar bears and Maldive Islands don't exist. She doesn't mention motorcycles, is there room for motorcycles? She doesn't mention sidewalks - time to axe those as well? How about homeless people?

I mean really, what does Boston not have room for these days?

(a) Aging Catholic biddies with long yellow teeth (curious, did she get one of those dispensations from the Pope for annulling the marriage? Did it say she was a virgin?)

(b) Toyota Sienna Minivans

I picked (a) and (b) myself and poof. Turns out we don't need Marge or her car to have a great city.

You do need bicyclists to have a great city. Bicyclists create community. They spare the air. They talk amongst themselves. They don't need much parking. They take up way less room than Margie's minivan. They make the city a better place for people other than themselves.

Some say it's her toes....

Reality is a funny thing. There is the reality of a boring old white woman who writes hack pieces for a dying old media rag and has been driving "forever." During that time she has dumped her carbon crap all over Massachusetts a state that has some very attractive features. She has lived way the fuck out in Fall River but commuted to wherever she felt like, oblivious to the impact of her behemoth metal ass on the people who live where she pollutes. Her reality is that the streets are narrow in Boston and there is only room for Large Marge and her car. That's the reality that says "if it's good for me, it's reality. If you're a bicyclist well, go eat some cake?"

What's the ugliest part of her body? I think it's her mind.

What's the Ugliest Part Of Your Body - Frank Zappa

because the night belongs to lovers

2013-05-20T13:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, not often, I have to come in to the office really early, like at 5am. This week it was Thursday and I had to be in at 5:30. Actually it would have been better if I'd been here at 5:15 but the calendar entry said 5:30 and that is when I arrived. Oops.

Gettings up at 4:00 is not a great pleasure to me. My days of unhappy infants are done with and also I am well over the hill and extra appreciate a decent night sleep. I miss my family something awful when I do not see them in the morning, I don't mind at first but when I see that they would be getting up and I am not there to greet them I feel a bit low. But we're talking a few times a year here, people, and I can handle the missed morning a few times a year, plus there is one thing which is totally wonderful about bicycling in to the office at 4:30 in the morning and the name of that thing is...

....pretty much zero traffic.

I love bicycling at night. I love the way the air flows around you. I'm reminded of those car commercials that show a car in a wind tunnel with the air flowing smoothly around it except instead of being an ugly old car I am a bicyclist, small and quiet and fast. Something about bicycling at night reinforces the truth of air being composed of atoms of nitrogen and oxygen. It is not emptiness, it is not a vacumn, it is a sea that parts around us as we fly along.

Traffic lights trigger immediately or are in a default state of flashing yellow or flashing red. The occasional cars are calm and sober and easy to side-step. The drunk cars are long gone home by 4:30am and the few remaining cars do not need to jostle for space and be aggressive horrorshows.

The lighting is not good in the bicycle lane on Sand Hill so I skip it and bicycle in one of the two empty car lanes. Here the lighting is much better and the pavement is nice and smooth and finished and there is almost no broken glass. Bicycling in such a huge clean lane makes me feel posh and expensive.

my bicycle stepped in something and the results were unpleasant

2013-05-17T13:18:00.002-07:00

Yesterday (actually now several days go alas) I finish my work day and get my bicycle and roll it down the hall and into an elevator and down a bunch of floors and then out the door into a pretty California evening. So far so good. The lucky thing about being me is that I can park my bicycle in a secure situation that is also indoors, ensuring that when I retrieve my bicycle it still has the same parts that it had when I left it to go earn money with the added bonus that it is not sprinkled in bird poop and caterpillars. Personally, I think every bicyclist deserves to return to their bicycle at the end of the day with this kind of confidence but many companies treat our slender theftable vehicles as if they were something dirty that should be hidden out of sight. If it costs 4k per space to build a parking lot, wouldn't it be better to pay the bicyclists 2k for our trouble and let us put our delicate flowers into a hothouse where they can grow and flourish un-molested?*

Now outside I get on my bicycle and start pedaling and it is the same perfect experience as it is every day.** I think this must be what a bird feels like when it takes flight. Suddenly you are no longer clodding along on your two*** legs totally gravity bound. You glide. You're effortlessly fast. You feel free. If you do any amount of bicycling at all you barely notice the work of your legs you are just suddenly skimming through the air albeit fairly close to the ground.

So yes, that. And then I see a bus round a corner and I touch my brakes and I hear the most incredibly bad sound ever, so bad that I briefly think somewhere someone is tearing a cat apart inch by inch and we know I really like cats. The very awful noise turns out to be me. The bad noise is my bicycle, specifically my front brake. I stop and stare at it, concerned. I try the front brake. It open and closes but reluctantly on that second. I eyeball it wondering if I have worn the brake pads down to the metal. I wonder if using my brake will injure my rim. I stare at my rim. Arg, I want to go home! Damnit!

I pedal some more and experimentally brake and each time the noise is worse, if that's possible. The noise is a high pitched screaming. The noise is nails on blackboards times ten or styrofoam rubbing manically against styrofoam. The noise is ten excited toddlers trying to eat ten balloons. The noise is very very bad.

I limp along until I reach the Contraption Captain in Palo Alto and he of course offers to look into the problem but I say that we should get home first. We get home. He swaps out my front brake pads (I love this man) and they are worn but the screaming problem is elsewhere. My wheel, the metal part above the tire, the rim, the part where the brake pads clamp down on when I want to stop is...sticky. Like I rolled through something clear and very very tactile with my front wheel but not my back wheel. As if I had spent my day not working but putting duct tape down on my front wheel and peeling it off. #wat???

The Contraption Captain is able to clean my wheel with alcohol and the next morning me and Delphinium (my little flower of a road bicycle) are back in relatively noiseless business. Yay team!

This post should conclude with a post-mortem and a root cause for the failure but really? I have no idea. How did I get something all over my wheel but not on the tire? I still don't get it at all.

Update: Contraption Captain says to tell you that the sticky stuff was black, not clear. I remember the black streaks now that he mentions it. Still not sure why the front wheel got gummed up and not the back. There was some road work on the way in to the office though, could account for it. Thankfully no recurrences.

*Yes. This metaphor has gone on too long and I can't figure out what I'm talking about anymore. Yes I'm a total amateur.

**Yes. It is a perfect experience every day. Rain or shine. I really really like riding my bicycle. My only imperfect experiences are cars. I really really dislike cars.

***Yes. If you are lucky. If you are unlucky you are hopping along. If you are more unlucky you have no legs and are in a wheelchair. Interestingly enough I have seen fast bicyclists with one prosthetic leg. I have seen very fast bicyclists with no legs at all, pedaling with their arms. THis is because bicycling is the badass sport of all time.

in which the cars scale new heights of ickiness. there will not be pictures. you may thank me now.

2013-05-13T13:57:00.000-07:00

It is this Friday past and I am bicycling home from work. I am not in a one hundred percent awesome mood because of having read that C02 is at it's highest level in millions of years and reading reports like this make me uneasy no less when I am surrounded by hot cars breathing hot exhaust on a hot day.

I look around a lot when I bicycle. I look around a lot almost all the time, bicycling or not, because I am a tiny bit paranoid and I want to make sure no one is thinking about killing me and I also look around because the world is very interesting. It is due in part to this looking around that my trips are never boring to me but sometimes I see things I would rather not have seen and then I have a few regrets. Friday was such a day.

We started off innocuously enough. A car pushed up next to me and stopped at a red light. I look over in time to see the driver pick up a ballpoint pen and start digging around in his ear. He extracts a clump of something. He examines it pensively. He wipes the pen on something I can't see, either his pants or his car seat. He re-inserts the pen in his ear and returns to excavating. I avert my eyes and remind myself that although bicycling with blinders on would save me from situations like this one, bicycling blinders would come with its own risk factor. And the day can only get better, right?

At San Antonio I am in the middle lane. In the right turn lane is one of the new Tesla sedans. As promised, it is a very quiet car. I dislike Tesla cars a little less than I dislike cars that are not electric. Since I am just sitting there, and the car is right next to me, I have time to admire the way the car door handles are totally flush with the car door. I wonder a little about how that might work. My gaze travels up to the driver. Mistake. He's smiling faintly and he has his finger deep inside one of his nostrils. He gouges around in there and withdraws some material which he gazes at affectionately and then puts in his mouth and eats.

It's really easy to see the extent to which people in cars become divorced from their surroundings at moments like this. Despite sitting in a box smaller than their bedroom and surrounded by windows on all sides these car drivers are totally comfortable with picking boogers out of their respective noses at eating the product. Yuck, car drivers, yuck!!

The light turns green and I pedal off, assuring myself that it is Friday and I should be happy and that the law of averages suggests I will be spared the sight of any other car people excavating their orifices and although this last turns out to be true the events of the evening are also not entirely complete.

It begins in the usual way. I am desperately trying to hold onto a lane (I don't take a lane when bicycling so much as grab onto it by my fingertips while someone pounds my hands with a hammer) because there is no bicycle lane and to my right there is a right turn only lane and I am going straight. Two lanes for people going straight. Mine will actually vanish at the next rapidly approaching traffic light but the cars want to be in my soon to be gone lane because if they use the actual lane for people going straight they might get stuck behind some cruel monster who slows to take a left at the intersection.

So there I am, in my soon to be gone lane, pedaling desperately towards a red traffic light when a large SUV "passes" me on my left. Since I'm in the middle of the lane and since it is very wide and also since after "passing" me it has to immediately slam on it's brakes (remember, the light is red) it's kindof an unpleasant experience. I don't die but I do scream a little girlish screen and then we are sitting there at the light and I eyeball the license plate frame. It says University of Arizona. I think "I hate you Arizona bleach blonde asshole driver. Go the fuck home and bake in a desert you ugly stupid fuck."

The SUV has a dog in it. The dog begins to bark furiously at me, almost as if it has read my mind and does not approve. That's cool, bark on. I'm only afraid of cars and trucks, dogs not at all. I pull my bicycle a little closer to that fat bumper and stare at the dog. It barks louder. I smile hopefully, imagining how loud a barking dog would be in an enclosed space like an SUV.

The light turns green and the SUV tears off and I pedal off and then, tada, we are all at the next goddamned light because almost killing me is so damned worth it on a road with a traffic light every tenth of a mile. The SUV wedges itself into the space between the curb and the car in front of it effectively preventing me from taking a right turn. It puts on it's turn signal. I pull up behind it. Does the dog remember me?

It does! It barks with renewed frenzy and I arch my eyebrow at it and make a small growly noise for it's benefit. It goes totally nuts. Just as the barking seems on the verge of crescendoing the dog whirls around and I see a splash of yellow on the window in front of me. Holy dog testicles! The dog is peeing on me! Yeah well this is why dogs are incredibly stupid. If you want to pee on the bicyclist waiting in traffic behind you for all that is holy, roll the window down first, right? Otherwise you know, you're peeing all over yourself and your owner's car you damned idiot.

Light turns green. Car drives away. I try and pedal away but I am laughing so hard I can barely see staight. My bicycle and I stagger up the road with me nearly falling off once or twice because I'm laughing so hard and then, and then...yes! It is...another light! Now I am waiting to turn left onto East Meadow and SUV is waiting to go straight! Does Arizona realize that her idiotic dog has pissed all over the backseat of her car? I'm laughing so hard people are looking over, wondering what the deal is. Arizona looks over also. She looks confused and suspicious, like a driver who is pretty distracted but starting to wonder what that bad smell might be.

I turn off and get onto Bryant and I can't stop laughing. I laugh until my legs are weak. I stop laughing and then remember that stream of yellow dog pee and I start laughing all over again. After I stop laughing, mostly because I'm exhausted, I still have a giant wide grin on my face which has the unintended result of causing every other bicyclist that passes me to wave joyfully in my direction because apparently I look so friendly.

So today I wondered if this whole disgusting thing was a trend and if a whale would throw up in the road on my way to work but apparently last Friday was a one off and I got in to the office with nothing more worthy of comment then a purely blue sky.

what is best in life, bicyclist?

2013-04-29T10:04:00.003-07:00

Thursday was Take Your Child to Work Day at some companies and in some parts of the US. As is now usual, Pele had too much of her own work to take time off and see her mother at work but Rapunzel starts looking forward to TYCTWD in, ummm, January.... so I knew she'd be going.

Rapunzel's mother (that would be me) commutes to work by bicycle, a trip of about nine miles through sometimes heavy traffic. Rapunzel gets to work (okay school) by bicycle also, a trip of about one mile through sometimes heavy traffic.

Rapunzel announces her intention to bicycle to work with her mother.

I smile the smile of an animal that is dead by the side of the road, one of those smiles that is made less genuine by the way the lips are pulled back courtesy of rigor mortis and not happiness.

Ok not really as bad as all that. I'm proud of Rapunzel's bicycling and I know she is getting stronger. Last year she biked half the distance despite cold drizzly weather and then rode the rest of the way in our Burley wagon. In years before this, both kids rode on the back of our Extracycle because I am a total work horse hear my roar! Or neigh. Bicycling is how our family likes to get around and the more I thought about Rapunzel (who makes the trip to the Farmer's Market without turning an eyelash) the more I was pretty sure Rapunzel could handle the trip. I was less sure about whether the cars around us could handle Rapunzel with the respect she deserves.

After careful thought I beg Contraption Captain to ride with us even though I know it will make him a little late for his own job and he says "yes" and I am about a hundred times less worried. I feel tons better when we "fly in formation" as I like to think of it. Captain leads, scouting for people making unexpected right turns and car doors and utilizing his admirable rear-mirror-fu to watch for cars and trucks driving up the bicycle lane. Rapunzel rides in the middle, paying attention to the leads of her more experienced parents which means she moves to whatever side Captain steers her towards, she's a good attentive bicyclist. I ride in back, always somewhat to the left of Rapunzel so that the cars cannot pass her too close. Also, in the manner of a mother, I like to be in back so that if someone plows into us I can break up some of the impact of the collision with my body and bicycle, possibly sparing Rapunzel. Yes, I do think like that. Aren't you ashamed, American drivers, that it's come to this? That I ride hoping that my body will be a softening pillow between my daughter and your Ford Explorer?

...but all went well. We had a safe and peaceful ride in to the office even if the sky was not it's usual cerulean blue. Once at the office we went to focus groups on network and software engineering, had a nice lunch, and did some work together. When asked what her mother did for a living Rapunzel said that I work with computers and "open bugs." Hearing this a project manager said gloomily, "That's certainly true."

Mongol General: Chafe! What is best in life?
Chafe City: To bicycle with the wind on your face, to ride un-trammelled in the company of your people, to hear the lamentations of the cars stuck in self-imposed traffic jams.
Mongol General: That is good! That is good.

fun things you can do with stuff you probably have lying around your bicycle route

2013-04-23T16:52:00.000-07:00

Party fun game the number one:

Equipment needed to play this game:

you.
a bicycle, preferably not a stolen one.
a stretch of bicycle route with a bike lane, straight works best, the kind that runs on the side of the road not down the middle.
a rear view mirror mounted to your helmet or bicycle

Begin the game by pedaling in the bicycle lane on the side furthest away from the cars. Get comfortable watching the cars coming up behind you and hopefully passing you and not running over you. The majority of them should be driving in the car lane, with no tire rubber in the bicycle lane. If the majority of the cars are in the bicycle lane abort game and save yourself.

You notice a car driving close to the bicycle lane. Watch attentively. Move over so you are bicycling on the side closest to the cars. If the car corrects away from you, move back to the curb side. Otherwise start bicycling on the white line and then abruptly correct back hard to the curb side. Watch to see if the car moves away from you. If you play this game carefully you can move the cars around the road at your leisure.

Variation on this game: Stay perfectly and entirely in the bicycle lane but ride as if you were being chased by a swarm of hornets, weaving back and forth and madly swatting at yourself. Watch in rear view mirror to see how far away from you the cars will move to avoid coming down with whatever contagion you contracted.

Party fun game the number two:

Equipment needed to play this game:

you.

a bicycle, preferably not a stolen one.
a narrow quiet residential road lined with houses and parked cars on both sides. road must be dotted with 4-way stops at each block for this game to be fun.
there should be no bicycle lane

This game is very easy, you have probably played it already if your route has a quiet residential street with many parked cars and travelling cars going in both directions. Start by pedaling far enough away from the parked cars so that if one of them unexpectedly flings the door open you will not be killed. Are you there? Good. You're probably about 25% of the way into the car lane. Any car passing you is going to have to cross the center lane. Bring up the speed until you are hauling along at a respectable 17mph or more. Wait for a car. Car will approach and want to pass you despite the fast approaching stop sign. Car will step hard on the gas (for a residential neighborhood) and launch itself into the oncoming traffic lane to go around you. Take your bicycling speed up a notch if you have it. Now both of you come to the 4-way stop. You will be there in the lane. The car will be in the lane for opposing traffic. Cars travelling in the opposite direction will honk in a frustrated way. Smile benignly and come to a complete stop. Un-clip if you ride with clips. Then continue through the intersection with the confidence of the righteous.

in which I discover the bicyclist version of navel gazing

2013-04-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

Some months back the Contraption Captain won a prize at work (because he is the best engineer in the known universe) and the name of that prize was... a GoPro camera. This weekend past he got around to mounting it to the front of my bicycle. I know my chances of seeing another bicyclist stick his hand up a car's wheel well are slim, but I still feel like there is a lot of potential for fun in filming cars behave like cars meaning, film cars break every rule in the books and thumb their noses at the rest of the world. Monday I took it out for it's first ride to the office. Captain, Rapunzel, and I all bicycled to Rapunzel's school and then Contraption Captain and I bicycled to his work and then I continued on solo to my own place of earning the money to pay the bills.

...and Monday afternoon I had my first recorded freaking out at a car. I'd been doing pretty well at not frothing at the mouth at cars so I was mildly disappointed in myself but on the other hand it was (as is pretty usual) an undeniable good time. The freaking out followed what I have come to see as a relatively common pattern that has well-defined stages of freakitude.

Stage 1.

I see something that really pisses me off or I am threatened by a car but manage to keep a lid on things. This time I was waiting at a left turn arrow, with one car in front of me and more behind. To my left, waiting on the sidewalk for a walk signal, was a young boy with a bicycle. The walk signal came on and he hesitantly walked into the street/crosswalk but was driven back almost immediately by a car turning right and ignoring him. As I watched (and filmed it turns out) I saw car after car go by, not pausing to let him cross the street. By the time he gets out to the road the walk signal is over and he retreats back onto the sidewalk and pushes the walk button again. I am quite upset. I want to help but I am in the middle of the road. I should have probably found my way across the road to help him but when his light went red mine turned green and the cars wait for middle-aged moms even less commonly then little boys. I pedal forward and we enter Stage 2.

Stage 2.

I am threatened personally and scarily. I am pedaling after car1 and a car from the opposing direction wants to turn right. They elect to use the bicycle lane as a merge lane which is a shame as that is where I am heading. Meanwhile behind me the car is facing this right turner and all of a sudden there is a huge honking as the two cars threaten and posture each other and now I am trying to get out of the car lane but the bicycle lane is full of car and I panic a little and scream my Conan the warrior scream and one car tears off and I can finally get into the bicycle lane. I stop to collect myself.

Stage 3.

The car2 stops also. But it is not to apologize. I'm in the bicycle lane, she's in the car lane. She looks at me as if I were something she'd stepped in which in fact almost came true. She says nothing. I say something like "What the fuck is your problem, you drive like fuckall, get the fuck out of here, I want you in front where I can see what the fuck you're doing." She blinks at me in a reptilian way. I notice the white ear strings of her headphones. One in each ear. All of a sudden, I am incensed which means I am really really really mad. I say "get those things out of your ears. That's not legal in California." She still hasn't driven off, maybe wondering what new tricks I have. But she finally opens her mouth to say

"These? These have nothing to do with this."

Stage 4.

I go from incensed to action. I lunge through the open window of her car (yes, really) aiming for the headphones, I don't have the reach for it though and I connect with only air. She is very very surprised and jerks back and I am happy to see that her "what me worry" expression has been erased. She says "Don't you assault me! You're crazy" and I slap her car door really hard and say "You're a fuckup get out of here."

Stage 5.

She drives away. I realize I filmed the entire thing. I wonder if Contraption Captain will still love me if he sees me attempt to poach and stamp on someone else's iPod. I turn off the camera.

What happens much later?

I watch the video. The first part I watch is the trip in to the office. It is just me bicycling along but I have this weird experience, I adore it. Look at that bicycle go! Look at me pedal! See that car cut into the bicycle lane? I almost made that light! It was probably the most boring movie ever and yet I loved it.

And then we get to the trip home. There is the traffic light. There is the boy trying to cross and then... there is Alvin and the Chipmunks totally going nuts on someone. It turns out that the GoPro doesn't have great sound pick-up and that goes extra when the camera is mounted on the bicycle handlebars. So there is this very tiny high-pitched voice saying "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck yooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooou......"

Anyways. If I can learn to edit a little, I will post short lovingly captioned video clips here for your edification. But I'm going to spare you the 50 minute "day in the commuting life" complete with the long pause during which my bicycle sits around waiting for me to kiss Rapunzel good-bye and also the obscenity laden rant punctuated by my attempt to put my hand on someone else's headphones.

how do you sleep when your bed is burning?

2013-04-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

A hearing has been scheduled for April 23, 2013 in the Assembly Judiciary Committee for Diane Harkey’s AB 738, which exempts public agencies and their employees of all liability if a cyclist is injured or killed on any street where a bike lane has been painted.

Ohmigosh, April Fools everyone! I mean who would sponsor a bill which absolves people of responsibility when they kill or maim a bicyclist pedaling along in the bicycle lane.

Not a joke it turns out. Read for yourself. They copied this one directly from the Dutch Highway Manual. Now I really am kidding. A bicycle friendly nation would never propose a law whose goal was to ensure that anyone killing or injuring a cyclist could be guaranteed a get out of jail free card. So what's the deal with this?

Wait I have an idea. It's the public agency part. Road workers have a golden track record of not killing bicyclists. Most public road work is done by people on bicycles and the equipment they operate is all light weight and pedal-powered. Except that's not true either. How about: bicyclists have been assaulting public service workers from their place in the bicycle lane and public service workers encounter lawsuits if they try and retaliate?

You look skeptical.

Maybe bicyclists have been using the bike lanes for armed robbery? Drug running? Those Surly long haul bicycles are just a cover for moving meth around the Bay Area? No again.

So what's the deal. We don't know, but we have a few guesses. The name of guess number one is.....$49,000,000.00. can you say forty-nine million dollars, friend bicyclists? I thought you could. Forty-nine million us dollars. Most of us agree that that represents a decent chunk of change. It happens to be the amount of money awarded to a bicyclist who was struck and paralyzed while bicycling in the bicycle lane. HAHAHA. JUST KIDDING. Taking out a bicyclist has close to zero repercussions in this country.

The 49 million dollars went to two deserving women who were jogging in a bicycle lane and were struck, and apralyzed, by a truck. Pro-tip for bicyclists: if you get struck and paralyzed while riding in the bicycle lane, it might be better to tell everyone that you were jogging. The two women, unhappy to no longer be able to move their legs (I know I'd be unhappy) sued. You might think they sued because an asshat with a truck struck and badly injured them, but they discovered (as numerous bicyclists have discovered before them) that this is a dead-end. No one cares. So instead they sued the city because the bicycle lane was overly wide and lacked sufficient bicycle marking and so teh poor car was confused into driving up the bicycle lane and hitting them and can't really be held responsible.

And now the county is out a cool forty-nine million dollars. It's definitely enough cash to make anyone a little gloomy, or if you are going to be confined to a bed for the rest of your life (both women are now quadrapelgics) it is almost enough to provide for the care you suddenly need and the help required to raise your children.

What chafes me?

Was the answer to this lawsuit, build better routes for runners?

No.

Was the answer to this lawsuit, mark existing bicycle lanes more carefully?

No again.

Ok was the answer (and I wouldn't like this one in case you wondered) to make bicycle lanes skinnier?

No.

The answer was to suggest AB 738. A law to prevent lawsuits. I mean I appreciate that bicycle lawsuits against people who cream them don't generally go very far anyways but to outright ban them? Really? REALLY?

Assholes.

But as they say, every cloud has a silver lining and this instance is no different. I've learned that you can actually write a bill forbidding one group of people from suing another, even if they get injured or killed. No surprise, I have a few ideas for bills of my own!

1. Exempt all bicyclists from liability or prosecution in instances where they let the air out of the tires of anything with a motor.

2. Automatically indemnify anyone who exceeds the speed limit.

3. Assert that passing cars must stop if they see a bicycle with a flat tire. The driver then must get out of his car and carry the bicyclist home horsie-style.

Don't worry. Other ideas will come to me.

le tire, she is la flat

2013-04-18T19:54:00.000-07:00

So today the Contraption Captain and I are on our way into work and we are swoopity-swooping downhill and I hear this loud pop and Captain says something to the effect of "oh shit" and I scream "AHHH!" because I'm kindof paranoid about cars and the pop makes me think that one of them shot me. We stop bicycling and I notice that stopping has a different feel than usual but I still am a little confused and that's why it's Contraption who has to point out the obvious. My back tire is dead flat.

We begin the bicycle walk of shame. It is the walk that says "yes, although I do a lot of bicycling, I don't generally bother with a pump and tube and tire." It is a walk that says "When my tire goes flatter than old roadkill I must turn and walk back to my house or on to the nearest payphone." The cars drive by and they all look very smug and self-contained because cars do not get flat tires. Captain texts my boss to say why I will be delayed. Boss (who understands these things and if you see this, boss, I love you man) writes back with a single sad emoticon.

We get home and Captain takes the wheel off and then takes the tire off and hands it to me. I love this part! I feel along the inside and the outside. I find a big wound in the tire itself and a smaller mouth like wound in the tube. While the Captain checks the rim and installs a new tube and a new tire I have a little silent conversation with the hole in the old tube. I make a frowny face. "You made me get a flat tire" I then pinch the tube so that the hole in it makes a smiley face. The tube says "You will be sooooo late."

The tube is right. I pull into the office at 10:30am. Boo.

What was good. I did get a lot of work done and ended up having a nice day even though I had to make up lost time by skipping lunch. What was also good. The area bicyclists came by to commiserate and talk about flat tires. The one of them got a fork stuck in his tire. The other couldn't get his wheel off his bicycle at a critical juncture and was mocked when he got into the bicycle repair store. These are the war stories of the 2-pedaled kind.

In totally other news, the weather has been mostly lovely. Last night on the way home from work I saw this very cute pair on their way somewhere and asked if I could have a picture. The friendly lady tells me that the dog is her training partner. Nice, yes?

By the way, do you see all the cars in the background? These are some of the most disgustingly behaved cars on my route. They squabble for space like meth addicts for a hit. They block the entire intersection and stare stonily ahead when the cars coming from the other direction start honking.

Onwards.

Further along the road we met this nice gentle man or gentle lady. He stood quite motionless in his grey morning coat and allowed us a picture before we continued on to hearth and home.

in times of trouble

2013-04-16T10:47:00.002-07:00

A few weeks back the Contraption Captain and I are bicycling home and considering the evening ahead. It involves transporting Pele to soccer practice which is not our total favorite job. “Well” I said of soccer practice, after we worked out the logistics, “it’s cheaper than therapy.” I had never put it that way before but I knew all of a sudden and absolutely that they were true. Pele’s therapy, for much of what ails her, is playing soccer. She loves the discipline. She loves toying with the ball and faking out her opponent. When she’s frustrated she likes to boot the ball as hard as she can over and over until she feels better. In some broad general way, practicing soccer and playing in soccer games makes her truly happy and contented. It doesn't solve problems specifically but a good practice puts her world and it's trials and triumphs into a useful perspective.

Fast forward to yesterday. I had a good day at work, I felt very productive. I solved a few problems. I met with someone who intimidates me and the meeting was productive and I’m looking forward to the work we will do together. And in a small corner of my mind, and my screen, I watched the drama unfold at the Boston marathon. I watched but mostly I worked and did not think too much about the city whose streets I had haunted as an unhappy kid.

At the end of the day I put on my helmet and my bright yellow jacket and got my bicycle and headed outside. The weather was cold and bright and sunny and very very windy. Windy enough that I struggled at times to keep my bicycle in the bike lane. Windy enough that I had extra anxiety when I was taking the lane because my bicycle was weaving more than usual and I was afraid some desperate car would pass too close and hit me.

I bicycle along, fighting the wind, and I’m somewhat under-dressed because it’s cold and all of this occupies most of my cpu cycles. But there are always a few left over. These few cycles slowly start to spin up and in this somehow safe and quiet place of bicycling home I think about being a runner, I think about bombs and Syria and mailboxes. I think about races I’ve run and the time Pele and Rapunzel were waiting for me at the finish line, how good it was to see them smiling and proud of me.

I meet up with my husband and we pedal on together and finally I see what has been there all day. I am deeply saddened by the events in Boston. If you had asked me earlier what I thought I would have said “so sad” or “so terrible” but it is only after I’ve ridden for awhile that I feel the sorrow in a real way. I guess this is because while Pele’s therapy is soccer, mine happens to be bicycling.

So to people in different states and different countries, runners or pedestrians or bicyclists. I hope you find something that brings you peace when you find yourself in times of trouble.

here's the tiniest violin in the world

2013-04-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

Sent to a group of road bicyclists of which I am one. I'll wait while you pull yourself together after that fit of hysterical laughter.

"Pretty, pretty, pretty please, don't ride three abreast (as best I could count) south down [redacted-road] in the morning. I just got threatened by another driver because I wouldn't hit you. Seriously."

The reply I thought about writing but did not send because although it came right to the point it didn't seem to add much to the conversation:

"Counting to three is a stretch goal for you? Really?"

The (entirely ignored) reply that I actually did send:

Hey everyone, I'm sure [redacted-person] sent a second also polite email to the Road Car list asking them to "pretty, pretty, pretty please not resort to threatening and road rage when they are slowed down. Seriously."

What happened next? The predictable squabbling among the bicyclists. Here are the camps they fall into, you may have seen this argument play out in your own home town flame wars if you do any semi-urban or urban cycling:

1. Bicyclists should share the road and follow all rules, damnit!
2. Cars should not threaten to kill bicyclists, the fuck?!?

What did I do next? I really did wonder if Ms Pretty Please had sent an email to the car people asking them not to threaten her when her way was slowed by thoughtless inconsiderate bicyclists who rode together, possibly talking to each other. Answer: No, she did not. Of course she didn't. Who asks the cars for anything? The cars are like the weather. Immutable and unchanging. You don't ask the cars to slow down for the same reasons you don't ask the wind to stop blowing or the granite to be a little bit softer.

....but I owe Ms Pretty a giant thank-you because lurking the car-people list has provided me with hours of entertainment. I had no idea!

Stuff Chafed Guessed Cars Talk About Among Themselves Without Actually Knowing:

1. What are nice tires for my car? I am going to guess this one because on the bicycle list we obsess endlessly about which tires are fast but not likely to go flat. We have a long painful discussion about our bicycle tires about once a week or whenever anyone gets a flat tire, which ever comes first.
2. They talk about who has the nicest car. The bicyclists love to gossip about their bicycles. It just makes sense that the car people like to talk about who spent the most amount of money on their car.
3. Where to go to get their car repaired when it breaks down. Bicyclists talk bike shop and making their own repairs, car people probably talk car garages and making their own repairs.

Personally I think these are all very good guesses.

Stuff Bicyclists Talk About Incessantly that you will notice is not on the above List of Stuff Chafed Thinks Cars Discuss:

1. Is it ever ok to ride two or even three abreast?
2. How wrong of us it it to slow down but not un-clip at a 4-way stop?
3. How can we avoid being run over by a Hummer? What about an Odyssey?
4. If there is a bicycle lane but we are afraid of the parked cars dooring us, can we ride outside the bicycle lane?

And now. What do the car people actually talk about???

1. Be careful, there are "tons of cops" along $road. They must be trying to increase revenue again at our expense.
2. Don't you hate the way pedestrians will sometimes have not finished crossing the street when the light turns green? I think it's illegal of them, has anyone checked?
3. Since everyone speeds, it is totally unfair that I was the one who got pulled over.

Do I have a point with any of this other than pointless whining? Not really I guess. I accept the reality which is that the cars have taken over most of the road and that most of the laws are in their favor, at least in this country. I accept (but do not like) that in a collision the bicycle will always get the short end of the stick. What I object to is how the cars are just there, doing their car thing, threatening someone who slows down and that the answer to the car asshattery is to tell the bicyclists to be more careful and less annoying, and that the bicyclists totally accept this answer without question. And finally what I am surprised about is that from their place as kings of the road, lords of all they survey the cars can make so much time to complain about having to wait for pedestrians (wtf, pedestrians???) in crosswalks.

Final tangential point. It's a known fact that I get mad and make insulting and personal remarks at drivers who scare me. So do cars ever get mad and act out? I did some very easy research and it turns out the answer is yes.

My personal favourite: "I went for all 4 tires and so should you. That was the best dollar I ever spent."

and last Friday I fell off my bicycle which was about as much fun as you might expect

2013-04-09T12:55:00.000-07:00

Friday I am bicycling to work and coming up on the second to final stretch which is pretty straight, half up hill and half downhill, has a bicycle lane, and features the following hazards:

1. several (five or so) opportunities to be right-hooked by cars turning in to parking lots
2. at the end you need to cross two lanes to get to the left hand turn lane

There I am, pedaling along as fast as I can heading up hill towards a green light and feeling mildly protected by my skinny little bicycle lane which has only the usual amount of trash and broken glass. The cars are to my left and they are also excited by the green light, accelerating past their usual 15 - 20mph over the speed limit to just a bit more although they are of course constrained by the bumper of the car in front of them. Such is the life of the car. All that engine coupled with all those other cars.

One car does not seem to be stomping the gas quite as aggressively as the other and I survey it warily, wondering if it means to take a sharp right into the driveway of a parking lot. I survey and pedal. It drives and does not signal a right turn. Now the driveway opening is immediately in front of me and my heart has time to beat twice and my bicycle and I are at the start of the opening to the parking lot - it's just wide enough for cars to go in and other cars heading towards the road to head out. No cars are exiting.

I have time to feel rather than see the white car that is to my left suddenly accelerate (because they can't just turn, there is a fucking bicycle in the way) and then I have time to think "it's happening" and then instead of seeing open bicycle lane in front of me I see the passenger side door of a white sedan and I am screaming loudly in a very shouty kind of way and braking and twisting my bicycle to the side and getting tangled up with myself and hitting the curb and falling down in a heavy awkward middle-aged way.

I am not happy about this development.

The car completes its turn but they've seen me fall and have not gone into the parking garage. I kindof stagger up pulling my bicycle with me and the car prepares to continue on it's way because hey, she can still stand up, right? Everything is aok! Time to bake the donuts!

No. Things are not ok. I yell "Stop." The car stops. My bicycle and I gracelessly walk stumble to the driver side door. Nothing happens. I knock on the window. It is not a friendly knock. The window rolls down. My jaw drops.

My only thought for a long minute is "I was attacked by a Tusken Sand Raider."

You say "no way." I say "WAY!" The driver was wearing a thing on it's head that entirely covered the head and mouth and nose with a long column of snaps holding it in place. Also, the driver was wearing bug-eyed black sunglasses. My shock must have shown because the driver put up a hand and started un-snapping itself until the face was revealed. Then the sunglasses came off. I collected myself.

What I said:

"You could have killed me."
"I had the right of way."
"You were driving too fast."
and then, a little sadly, "I have children."

What I did not say: anything with bad language. Go me. You all have been a good or bad influence depending on your perspective.

What she said:

"Sorry."
"Sorry."
"Are you hurt?"

What she added:

"My sunglasses get in the way of my seeing."

What I added:

"Maybe you shouldn't be wearing sunglasses!"

When she said "Are you hurt" I paused, unsure how to respond. I was pretty confident nothing was broken. I thought my bicycle was probably ok and the Contraption Captain would fix any broken bits. But I felt hurt. Being scared had hurt me. Falling had hurt even if nothing was broken. My right knee felt stiff and...older. My wrist which I had stuck out to break my fall now hurt. I knew I had been injured and some part of me wanted to injure her back but I was collected enough to stop and shake my head and walk back to the road. I got on my bicycle, and I continued on to work.

Wow I'm so sorry about that. I can't imagine what I was thinking.

2013-04-06T08:31:00.003-07:00

Yesterday evening the Contraption Captain and I are at the long light whose name is El Camino and Sand Hill. If you're thinking that all of my bicycle stories are on the way to work or the way home you'd be right. I'm basically a commuter type of bicyclist. For special hundred mile tour accounts through Big Sur you are going to need to go elsewhere, at least until I hit the lottery or similar.

At the traffic light is one of my favorite pedestrians, also on the way home from work. He's this classic old-skool Palo Alto type. Older guy. Tall. Slim. Intelligent. Fit. He works at USGS and commutes by foot. We greeted each other and he said that we had just missed one of those fairly typical rush hour interactions where as he put it "two over-entitled cars fought it out." So we joke about cars which is pretty much like shooting fish in a barrel.

Then he told us of the following encounter.

He was in an underground parking garage, with his car. He was waiting for a second car to pull out of a parking space so that he could park. A big shiny black Mercedes pulled up behind him and became obviously agitated at having their way (briefly) blocked. The parked car left and he parked his car and the woman in the black Mercedes rolled down her window and said...

"You inconvenienced me."

I don't know about the rest of you but I thought this explained so much about how people drive their cars and generally behave towards anything that slows them down. I tried to think of a good response. Contraption Captain said that he applauded her honesty.

My supposed responses:

"Want me to come over there and inconvenience both headlights?"
"You've obviously mistaken me for one of your serfs."

the diversity is the message

2013-04-05T10:45:00.001-07:00

Something I like about bicyclists is tat they come in lots of different flavors which means if you encounter a bicyclist you do not like, say a fashionista riding up the wrong side of the road or a roadie bullying pedestrians well..go ahead and pick another one off the bicycle tree.

just a few types of bicyclists:

mommy bicyclists on their way to yoga class with baby in a wee-rider
daddy bicyclists herding their children to softball games on the weekends
athlete bicyclists training for triathlons and road races
just you and me bicyclists on their way to work
college student hipster bicyclists who are totally self-conscious
migrant workers riding beat up bicycles into town
little kid bicyclists, totally unpredictable but also very cute
high school bicyclists more looking at each other than the road
unicyclists doing it with one wheel
tandem bicyclists, couples riding together
retired person cyclists on their way to the bookstore or out to visit friends
recumbists who have back problems and can't ride a diamond frame
Contraption Captains who can't figure out why anyone would voluntarily ride a diamond frame
people who build their own bicycles from spare parts
people who spend more on their bicycles than the sum national debt of Guatemala

So yesterday I bicycle home and meet up with the Contraption Captain and after successfully crossing El Camino Real (go us) we see this guy up ahead and since he is conveniently walking his bicycle we pull over to talk and check out his ride. I asked if I could take his picture and he kindly said yes. Nice guy, if you see this and want the picture removed, just email me.

Ever seen a cat take notice of a bird or mouse? The cat doesn't immediately move but it's entire body becomes silently taut with focus and attention. The ears shift fractionally forward. The cat pours all of it's attention into looking at the bird. That's the way the Contraption Captain looked at the wheels on this bicycle.

The tire were almost as big as car tires. The bicycle itself set the guy back ~200 usd at WalMart although he's made a few upgrades since then. Unfortunately he had a flat, but not caused by any special design issue, he had a screw embedded in the poor thing and was walking home for a repair.

Who needs a fun bicycle?

Everyone needs a fun bicycle.

The fun bicycle is the one you ride.

guess who we (kindof sorta) saw on the way in to work|school today. no really, guess. did you guess President Barack Obama?

2013-04-04T15:37:00.001-07:00

It was raining this morning, a soft misty rain that might have been a feathery snowfall but everything outside was green and it never snows in our part of the bay area. At the ordained time Contraption Captain, Rapunzel, and I rolled out down the driveway, turned right onto our street and then left onto the main drag that takes us to her school.

We could see something going on up ahead, a big array of police cars with whirling lights, some fire engines, and a group of people. We got closer and could see that the people were shaking signs up and down. Someone yelled "better hurry up or you'll miss it" but we rolled on at our usual pace until our progress was stopped by a police barricade.

As we waited a long row of giant black SUVs with lit headlights and black tinted windows rolled through the intersection escorted by police on motorcycles and in cars. It was President Obama on his way to a fundraiser being held in the uber-wealthy town of Atherton. The signs were anti Keystone XL pipeline and the people chanted "Hey, Barack, you talked the talk now walk the walk."

I think they also said that the oil should stay in the ground. I felt the faint embarrassment that an introvert experiences when a group of people do a lot of shouting. It was early morning and I wondered what it would be like to go to a boring fundraiser event and be screamed at from street corners. By everyone everywhere all the time. That's a lot of screaming, I guess it comes with the presidential territory.

I asked the Contraption Captain, of the protesters, "how did they get here?" He wasn't sure what I meant so I clarified. "Did they bike here?" I don't think they rode their bicycles out this morning with their signs. I think some walked maybe and some biked but most drove their cars. Why it matters. If we do not want pipelines in our backyards, we have to look attentively at why the demand for the pipeline is there at all. It's there because this country has an incredible appetite for petroleum products and a sad reluctance to slow down conveniences.

We were the only three bicyclists waiting in the soft rain for the President to pass so we could continue on to work and school. We didn't say anything at all, we just stood there, but I found myself recalling the sign that Ellen Fletcher had mounted to her bicycle: Bicycling. A Quiet Statement Against Oil Wars.

I'm not smug and I don't have a high horse to get on, I drive to way too many sports events to start copping an attitude. But I also don't think it's enough to shake a sign and then get in your car and drive away.

get yer war on

2013-04-02T14:35:00.001-07:00

If you are older than dirt (I am older than dirt) you may remember the most fantastic on-line comic ever, Get Yer War On. It's over now and I still miss it's awesomeness. Reading it was like discovering that you had four more eyes on your head that worked but whose data you had been ignoring since you were three years old. Go get some war on and then come right back because I want to talk about patriotism and how we wankers have let our respective countries (except Holland apparently) be overrun by baboons.

Back? Great. I'm subscribed to a number of mailing lists and one of these is for area parents. Fine. Good. Parents trade suggestions on where to find a nice ballet class, what summer camps do not suck blah blah blah. And. Certain totally favorite topics come up on a regular basis. For example:

1. What is the best preschool for a future Nobel winner?

2. My kids spend all their time playing Cut The Rope on my iPad. Is that ok?

3. My child is a prodigy. Should I apply to Stanford now or wait a year?

4. My wife is pregnant and I have too much money. What car should I buy?

5. My kid can't walk and chew gum. Is it too late to trade him in for a newer model?

Ok. I made 2 up. No one worries about iPad usage.

Anyways the stars aligned and the timing was correct and the parents decided to have their bi-mobnthly discussion whose name is "What Car Do I Buy." I know you guys are totally desperate for the answer so I'm going to tl;dr the experience since the parents can jaw about their favorite cars for hours, nay days, nay months. And it is really boring to listen to them natter on about three rows of seats.

The results of which car do I get now that I have a baby fall into two groups:

Camp #1 says "get a minivan, the sliding doors are so fucking awesome you will cry with joy on rainy days although admittedly it rarely rains here."

Camp #2 says "only pussies drive minivans, get the biggest SUV you can afford. That's the only way the world will know that your woman is getting satisfed every night by a [redacted] that is bigger than a baseball bat.

Blah blah blah.

I can't call it camp #3 (to be a camp you need to be more than one person) but on this occasion there was one dissenting opinion and his answer went like this:

"...my advice (as a parent) would be to get a Prius or an electric car, because you want your kids to grow up with a healthy planet."

Cue laughter from everyone else.

After the helpless mirth died down there was a short silence followed by a single response before the parents returned to "tastes great/less filling" aka SUV/minivan.

Here's that one response:

"That's sooo UnAmerican. You need a Suburban!!! :)"

Yeah well fuck you. Fuck you and the Suburban you rode in on. Fuck your over-sized cars and your making fun of the one poor bastard who at least showed some vague cognition that taking a giant fuel dump and setting it on fire was a little sick. And a special fuck you for calling the guy unAmerican. How the fuck did we get to the point where being an American meant buying the biggest fattest oiliest car we could fucking afford? I call bullshit on your so-called Americanism.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, concieved in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

Equal, my friends. Not Equality for those with the largest automobiles. Equality for all of us.

What tenets define your country? How does your country imagine itself? Americans may speak of their proud individualism. They like to toss the word "freedom" around quite a lot. They like to point to the American Revolution and say that they will not be ruled by a king, they will be ruled by someone they elect. Americans like to say that anyone who works hard can come to this country and be a success.

What do Americans NOT say when they lovingly define themeselves, possibly jerking off as they do so if they are in the privacy of their own homes. They do not say "Being American is to be dependent on foreign oil. I proudly encourage that dependency by buying the biggest most inefficient car I can find." They do not say it because it is lame and embarrassing and the soul of un-American.

There is nothing more individual, more "take responsibility" more indepedent or more free than choosing a bicycle. Screw the middle-east with it's absolutely disgusting and un-democratic politics and it's "we hate our women so much that we insist they go around wearing giant black bags despute the temperature being 110 degrees in the shade." Screw them. Screw the way they throw acid on the faces of women who turn down their puny sexual advances. Screw their oil. Definitely screw their oil. Let them keep it and roll around in it.

What's your country made of? What makes you proud about being Scottish, Australian, British, Ethiopian? Is it your ability to make rainbows from shoe strings? Is it your friendliness? Is it your calm in the face of danger? Whatever your particular flavor of patriotism, it probably does not include "we are so lazy that we drive to the corner liquor store preferably in the biggest fattest car available."

So take it back. Ride your bicycle.

bicycle spring

2013-04-01T13:30:00.001-07:00

Every spring the household bicycles begin sounding like arthritic Golden Retrievers. They shuffle when they change gears. They stumble at the starting line when the traffic light turns green. They squeak like unenthusiastic field mice when called upon to corner. Winters here are so mild as to barely earn the moniker winter but it does rain and we do ride a lot and by spring, just when the bicyclists begin to feel their oats the bicycles are feeling their age.

A month or so back the Contraption Captain decided to investigate why his bicycle was softly saying "wibble-wibble-wibble-wibble." Turns out the rear wheel was missing two spokes. Fortunately the average bicycle has many many spokes, n +a_bunch and so for awhile he did nothing at all, a situation sure to cue horror from more attentive bicyclists. I know people who spend time cleaning their bicycle after every ride and I totally salute those people in the same way I salute people who can fold their towels so that they line up perfectly in the linen closet and then they bundle each set of towels with an organic ribbon so it's ready to set out on a perfectly made guest room bed when company arrives. Go those people!

But I am not one of them and neither is the Contraption Captain. My bicycle gets ridden (mostly back and forth to work, but other errands as well) about four thousand miles each year. I wear a chain out something like once every eighteen months. My brakes wear down and need replacing and sometimes a cable gets used up. Some of the wear could be minimized but not a lot and the happy news is that bicycles just don't need a lot of attention and most of the attention they do need can wait until the problems reach such a point that they are totally driving you up the wall with their wailings and grindings of gears and you break (brake) down and do some repairing or if you are me you look soulful until Contraption Captain does the repairing.

The spokes and the wibbling and more worrying, the something Not Quite Right with the rear brakes worked on Contraption Captain until he took his bicycle out of commission a week back and Rapunzel, Pele and I crowded into the shop (technically a garage but we call it the shop because our car hasn't been indoors since...well...ever..) to stare at the Tour Easy which he had tied to the ceiling.

What happened next:

replace 2 broken spokes, including trimming length and re-threading replacements
re-true the wheel
repack the wheel bearings
replace worn bearing surfaces on axle

Notably, what did not happen? Correct. The rear brake is still not totally okay where by "not okay" I mean "the brake does not stop the bike." Fortunately the front brake works. For now.

How'd we manage while down a bicycle? Mostly ok. Pele had soccer training on Saturday and Sunday and I bicycled out to drop her off and collect her. She's a not so little anymore workhorse who is happy to pedal to a practice because of the chance to get some additional cardio done. Her bicycle is just visible to the left in this picture just as the front wheel of my bicycle is just visible to the right.

What is not visible? The orange flag on a stick that I made Contraption Captain buy and mount to the back of Pele's bicycle. The flag was the newest manifestation of my compulsive need to barricade my family from cars. Pele now has two (two! wtf, two?) rear view mirrors and one orange flag and a bicycle helmet. I haven't started pricing out Kevlar vests just yet but I suppose it's on the horizon somewhere.

Anyways. Stay tuned to find out the answers to burning questions like: Does Contraption Captain fix his rear brake? Do I find a way to install a cow-catcher to the front of Pele's bicycle? Do I surreptitiously add a klaxon to Rapunzel's bicycle?

Dirge Without Music

2013-03-29T13:39:00.000-07:00

(warning. unfunny and unhappy)

If you have been around and survived more than one rant you may recall that I completely lost my shit a month or so back when I came across a white child's bicycle chained up to mark the place where a pick-up truck killed a fourteen year old girl. If you think that my selective memory took over and I have conveniently forgot about that child or her family you would be mistaken. I think of her often. I daydream of a special car-free route from her neighborhood to her school that would be named in her honor. I think about fire-bombing that piece of shit corner where she was killed, also in her honor.

I am tormented because beneath my pissed off countenance lies a nearly endless pool of fondness for children and for bicyclists. I am unhappy because I have my own fourteen year old who loves to bicycle and I sense that the day will come when she will be out there, as I am, and it can be dangerous out there but how can I deprive her of the feeling of being a falcon that takes flight with the most ordinary of circumstances, a bicycle? I cannot deprive her.

I haven't done anything very constructive to change the world since this death in the next town over, and this embarrasses me, but despite my silence I do not approve and I am not resigned. Maybe you bicyclists will be interested to hear that it is said that this fourteen year old girl was at fault in the collision that killed her. It's said that she should have slowed down, she should not have gone into the turn at the same time as the pick-up truck, side by side as if they were equals when we all know that they were not equals. There is a lot in this article that is not said.

It is not said that we should change that corner so that only children bicycling to school can make a turn before reaching the traffic light.

It is not said that too many children have died, that we must ensure that this is the last fourteen year old to be killed and we should build a separate infrastructure for bicycles.

It is not said that every day people driving cars and trucks and sport utility vehicles do not slow down or show caution and care as they drive past their neighbors and their neighbor's children.

It is not said that we could do better. That we must do better.

Instead, it is said that this fourteen year old girl, adored by her friends and family, missed by her community, is an acceptable casualty, that she made a mistake, that we agree that there is nothing to learn from this death.

Do you know software? If you are running a program, and it behaves in an unexpected way, perhaps fails to log a change or display a result or maybe it shuts down altogether? That's a bug. You encounter a bug and you file a bug report and that report is picked up by the software engineers who support that product. They look at the bug, they try and reproduce your results, they run the software in debug mode, and sometimes quickly and sometimes after a lot of time goes by they find the problem and they correct the code and submit a change list and verify the fix. Then they mark the bug as fixed. Sometimes they just cannot reproduce the bug and they mark the report "could not reproduce." Sometimes they discover that the problem was with the user and they respond to the user saying what was done wrong and they mark the bug "working as intended."

Is this death, our idea of "working as intended" Really? REALLY?

I do not approve. I am not resigned. I ask, "How many more children and parents and friends and sisters and brothers have to die before we agree that it is important for people to travel to work and to school in safety?

What I really wanted to say. Also, WAY TOO LOUD.

2013-03-25T16:09:00.000-07:00

One reason I had to start writing here was because I lied (not just a little either, pretty much all the time) whenever people would talk to me about bicycling. They'd say "I don't know how you can do it!" and I'd kindof simper prettily and smile and hate myself in the morning because what I really wanted to say to them was "if you got off your sorry ass once or twice a year you might be amazed at what you could do." In keeping with that, there is this one thing I reliably hear that I have been routinely extra-nice about, because on an important quiet level I sympathized with the sentiment.

What I hear: I'd like to ride my bicycle to work but I'm too scared to do so.

What I say: Yeah well I get that. Cars can be really scary. Choosing a good route can make all the difference though, where are you coming from?

What is slowly dawning on me: It's total horseshit. They aren't scared at all. They've never bicycled to work, they have no idea if it would be scary or not. If they have any ideas on the topic they come from driving like a total bastard and scaring themselves.

With this new understanding, what I would really like to say (but probably will never be drunk enough for it unfortunately): "A coward dies a million deaths, a hero dies but once." So wander off, Coward, and piss on someone else's parade. You're tedious.

Yes the weather here has been lovely. Thanks for asking. Onward.

Probably three weeks back now it is Friday and I am happily pedaling my way home for the weekend. I do not make the traffic light at Charleston and Amp and I pull up behind a very shiny black sports car. It's a long light and I have time to consider the shiny car. The label on the back says "Lamborghini." Ok. It's a Lamborghini. Whatever, right? Wrong, my friends. Wrong. A mid-sized sedan pulls up immediately to the right of the shiny car and windows are rolled down. High pitched squealing emits from mid-sized sedan. The softy-looking Laborghini driver responds by gunning the apparently massive fucking engine of his car which, if you will recall, I am immediately behind. Me. Not in a car. With nothing in between me and what feels like about a billion decibels. Do you know that expression "made my ears bleed"? Turns out having your ears bleed is super unpleasant.

The revving stops so that the two monkeys can return to assessing each other's genitalia, I have time to look around and see a bunch of guys, also on their way home from work, all driving Nissan Leafs or Prii. They look tense and unhappy but not deaf.* To those guys I say "Don't look so worried. No woman worth keeping is attracted to you because your car is loud. Just saying. It's like attracting a guy by stuffing toilet paper in your bra, eventually you'll be in bed and he's going to notice the difference.

...and revenge is always there and always fresh and interesting. The light turned green and the black car stomped on the gas and exploded out of the gate and I started pedaling. Pedal-pedal. As I biked across the 101 overpass I looked down and saw the usual bumper to bumper parking lot that is the 101 on Friday during rush hour. And I saw that the Lamborghini hadn't even made it onto the highway. He was stuck in traffic waiting to get onto the highway which when he finally arrived at would translate into more traffic.

Buh-bye you worthless jerk. Maybe if the traffic gets bad enough some floozy in a sedan will crawl in your window and show you a shallow time.

Take this lane and shove it.

2013-02-21T16:17:00.001-08:00

Some phrases are containers for bundles of information of varying sizes and shapes.

For instance "going to the airport" contains data about: parking your car, over-priced duty-free liquor, the super-shuttle, going through security, taking your shoes off, delayed and cancelled flights, being strip-searched and otherwise totally violated by a bunch of illiterate gorillas.

"Taking the lane" is only superficially about a bicyclist riding in the middle of a car lane just as "going to the airport" is on the surface about going to a place where they keep airplanes but actually contains far more nuance where by nuance I mean suffering.

If you unpack "Taking the lane" you get: riding in the non-gutter part of the road, angry cars breathing hot wet alcoholic fumes down your neck while you pedal like a house burning down on Christmas, peeing the seat as some joker forces their way past you in the third of a lane that you are not dominating, being shouted at by random strangers, all this while being encouraged by the bicycle safety manuals that "taking the lane is safe" despite needing to re-up onthe anxiety meds each time you venture away from the gutter.

I am not saying "do not take the lane." I do think it is a bit of a joke to think that bicyclists get to "take" anything when it comes to the roadways. A more accurate phrase would be "borrow the lane please don't kill me omg!"

So yes, I am not saying that a bicyclist should not take the lane or even saying that it is unsafe or unwise to take a lane. I'm saying "Stop acting as if bicyclists avoid taking the lane because we lack the brains to figure out that it is a good idea to do so." We avoid taking the lane and we ride too close to the side of the road and too close to car doors because we share the road with a giant bunch of bullies and on any given day 20-40% of those bullies are in a bad mood and are not very happy to be paused even briefly behind one of those ridiculous little bicyclists.

My route is selected for bicycle friendliness and maximum bike lane-age. The instances where I find myself "taking the lane" are few but mostly unpleasant. In case #1 I have a short piece of road where the lane on my right is an on-ramp to the highway and the lane to my left is for going straight and the lane I "take" for a short period is also going straight. A bike lane appears at th e next light and I pour right into that. I always think that cars getting on the highway are not obstructed, and that cars wanting to go straight can wait briefly behind me or if they are in a hurry, use the lane on my left. What actually happens is that several times a week a car follows behind me, way too close, and then pushes awkwardly around me and I scream like a little girl.

beautiful day

2013-02-06T11:47:00.000-08:00

same thing we do every night, Pinky

2013-02-04T12:05:00.001-08:00

Today on the way to work.

1. I saw one of my favorite bicycle people on Bryant Street. He has this big peaceful sunny smile. We always wave and wish each other a good morning or evening. I've pretty much given up on being one of those types who spray rainbows wherever they go but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate it in someone else.
2. I saw a bicyclist with matching purple shoes and sweater. I mentally awarded her the prize for best-dressed.
3. The Contraption Captain added a red LED light to the back of my bicycle hopefully making me harder for cars to ignore. A blinky Valentine from my favorite recumbist.
4. The fog took the edges of the houses and the trees. It smoothed the world along including a few of my own rough edges.

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

-Carl Sandburg

always the way forward. good-night small prince.

2013-02-01T15:39:00.002-08:00

Monday I had a busy day planned at the office, some project work that had me amped in the low key way I get excited about figuring out all the angles and engineering something nice. As I got younger child ready older daughter came and got me and towed me towards the door. She had tears on her face. Older daughter only cries under the gravest of circumstances. I got outside and Contraption Captain had our cat in his arms. Curi. Curi who had spent the night on our bed sprawled and warm and then had eaten breakfast and then had gone outside had been hit and killed by a car who knocked him dead or close to it and then continued on it's way.

This I have not been able to write about but by today the misery of not setting the words down is like the grief of losing this cat and so here I am telling this story.

We acquired this cat in May, he came with our house. His owner could not keep him at the retirement home she was moving into. We were cat-less, ours had died after a long battle with cancer. Curi looked like a Manx, he had no tail. He had no tail because he had been hit by a car as a younger cat and the tail had been amputated. Curi was an "easy" cat said his soon to be ex-owner. He spent all his time outside. He had no litter box. He was allowed inside in the morning to eat and then went back outside. We hoped for more because we love cats and slowly Curi allowed himself to make his way into our lives.

We got him a litter box and he sniffed at that, surprised. Afternoons and evenings experimented with stepping inside the house and looking around and then when the nights got cool he started to sleep on our bed. He diffidently used the kitty box a few times. He had a lot of personality. He drooled. If you scratched his ears it gave him this huge joy and his mouth would fall open and he would drool. We introduced him to treats, strips of cheddar cheese were a favorite. We had him de-wormed and de-flea'd and he tolerated it with patience and good humor.

Outdoor cats are at risk but keeping this cat indoor did not feel like an option. If you did not let him out he would go and sit in this quiet desperate way on the tiles by the washing machine where he could breathe the fresh air best. Outside he looked joyful always. Lying in the sun beneath a bush by our door. Sitting in the driveway waiting for us. He was five and outdoors was all he knew, I thought and hoped he could be safe. Hope is definitely not a strategy.

At Christmas he slept under the tree amidst the parcels.

I miss him with a deep and raw grief that taps into my feelings of not being able to keep myself safe on the roads or my kids safe or my husband safe. The day Curi died I stayed home from work and Contraption Captain dug a grave for him in our yard, by our apple tree. I wasn't able to bicycle to work. I was so defeated. I am so defeated.

A close family friend saw him in the road as she was driven to school that day and they did not stop so she would not be late. I hate the way people drive on by. More defeat.

Tuesday I got out my bicycle and pedaled into the office and tried to catch up on my missed work. Wednesday and Thursday and Friday I pedaled in. Some of the time I cry as I pedal because I feel so incredibly guilty. The bicycling makes me feel a little better but good feelings are subdued. He was a good cat. In the end I just want to write down to him that I'm sorry, that I apologize, that we all miss him terribly.

I'm still a bicyclist but I feel the defeat behind my ribs as I breathe.