After my accident lost me six weeks of riding time, I got on the bicycle, but it just didn’t feel right. So I decided I ought to take my bike to the shop to make sure it’s OK. Between the time it took the shop to get to my bike in the queue, them actually fixing it and me getting to it, a total of ten weeks of prime riding time was killed, alas!
So I am on my bike, functionally for the first time in two and a half months. It feels foreign, strange. The seat had replaced as were the pedals. The seat needed adjusting – it was too high; as did my helmet – it was too tight. So I decided to ride on the sidewalk the three blocks from the bike shop to the church so I could get back to the church picnic I had left to get the vehicle in the first place and do my adjustments then.
I pass a woman on the sidewalk, not a half a block from the shop, passing her four feet wide of her, going quite slowly. And what does she say? “You’re not supposed to ride on the sidewalk!” Of course, she was right, but I was rather hoping for some cosmic grace. But explaining all of this would have taken too much time, so I just said, “Not without getting killed,” which was true enough; I didn’t feel in control of my vehicle. Then she said something I didn’t hear, and I rode back, sighing.
Back at church, I then made the appropriate adjustments so that I could ride on the street.
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“The cyclist is a man half made of flesh and half of steel that only our century of science and iron could have spawned.”
– (19th-century author) Louis Baudry de Saunier
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“My family car is an SUB and I love it. On my new ‘sport utility bicycle’ I can cart groceries, take my kids shopping, haul a barbecue grill and make a margarita,” by Mark Benjamin. Complete with video.
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More bikes as transportation.
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Brilliant Bike Locking:
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The Bike to Work book.
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“When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.” – Arthur Conan Doyle.
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How high are those gas prices?
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A Borgman cartoon.
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“A seat and handlebars have a magical way of bringing out a childish enthusiasm
that is too often thrown by the wayside as we grow up.
It’s always there. Waiting to be revived.
And when you find it again, it’s fun and strangely familiar.
Just like riding a bike.”
– Mary Buckheit
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Actual sign: “Burn Fat Not Oil.” True that.
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Bicycle service and parts.
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Someone e-mailed this; don’t know the original source –
Green Machine
What’s your carbon footprint? And I don’t mean your cycling-shoe size.
No, I’m talking about the color of the moment: green.
“Puh-leeze,” you say, “I ride a bike. I’m greener than a hung-over Carnival Cruise passenger in a hurricane.”
Is that so? Then you won’t mind taking this climate-change quiz designed just for cyclists:
I commute by bike . . .
(a) every day
(b) couple times a week, if it’s not raining and the alarm goes off
(c) I no longer commute since getting fired for making fun of the boss’s Prius
My frame is made of . . .
(a) steel, aluminum, carbon or titanium
(b) bamboo, hemp or old Clorox bottles
(c) spent nuclear fuel rods, covered in baby seal fur
I only eat energy bars made from . . .
(a) endangered white-rhino meat
(b) locally grown, fair-trade, organic ingredients
(c) ethanol waste products
I clean my chain with . . .
(a) jet fuel
(b) citrus-based degreaser
(c) nothing, thus allowing it to exist freely in its natural state
After cleaning my chain, I . . .
(a) hose the drippings into the nearest storm drain, which empties into the local orphanage’s playground
(b) take the gunk-filled degreaser to the recycling center
(c) like I said, I don’t clean it, you fascist chain murderer you
When my water bottle gets moldy, I . . .
(a) chuck it in a roadside ditch
(b) cut off the top and recycle it as a planter
(c) use it to plug the exhaust pipe of Hummers
If I can’t ride my bike someplace, I . . .
(a) drive my SUV there as fast as possible, with my tires under-inflated and the AC blasting out my open windows
(b) walk, car-pool or take bio-diesel-powered public transportation
(c) ride the indoor trainer while watching my Al Gore videos
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Why Bike? Top 5 Reasons to Ride
ROG