Simple or Complicated?

I'm in a mood to categorize bicycles. Two categories: simple and complicated.

Where does your favorite bike fit?

I don't have a favorite bike, but the one I ride every day is complicated: gears, fenders, rack, lights, bag. I keep forgetting to add the handlebar bell.

I have a couple of simple bikes, but I keep trying to make them more complicated by adding stuff.

I've had several single speed bikes, but they always lack something for me. I appreciate that many riders love singles and get along with them better than complex bikes. That's great and I admire it.

I want at least a few gears. I want some fenders. I think lights are really important in the dark. I like a rack or bag to carry things. Next thing you know, I've got a complicated bike. I guess that's just the way I am.

Thoughts on the Recent UK Helmet Study

Random Thoughts Related to the Recently Released Helmet Study

• The study was conducted in England, so I'm not sure what we can safely learn from it that will apply to the U.S. But it should create some good discussions about helmets.
• They apparently conducted the study in only two cities in the UK.
  
• I hope we see more studies like this that dig into the issue with some science rather than the typical Myth and Lore of Bicycling Knowledge (MLBK).
• Information like this might prove helpful for people trying to decide about helmet use.
  
• I oppose any helmet requirements for bicyclists based on the study that shows bicycle use goes down when mandatory helmet laws exist.
  

Helmets Cause Auto Drivers to Hit Cyclists?

I want to be the first blogger to link to this one:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/5334208.stm

A study showed a cyclist wearing a helmet is more likely to get knocked off the bike by a passing motorist than a non-helmeted cyclist.

This is very interesting. I need to digest this and gather my thoughts before I make a comment.

St. Paul Bicycle Survey

The city of St. Paul is conducting a survey for bicyclists.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=885612383161

Here are the results of the survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/DisplaySummary.asp?SID=2383161&U=238316133123

St. Paul Classic after Ride Report

I rode the St. Paul Classic this past Sunday. I met a friend at Hiawatha Cyclery before the ride. No one else could make it.

I decided to adjust my seat height and broke the binder bolt. So I rode home, (only about 2 miles) standing up the whole time, grabbed a different bike from the garage, and rode to St. Paul.

We crossed the Ford Parkway bridge and ran straight into the ride route. We couldn't figure out why we needed to check in, so we joined the ride. We had already paid anyway.

A light mist was falling and throughout the ride increased to a light rain. We never complained. It was fun to ride without auto traffic through beautiful St. Paul. It's more hilly than my normal riding. I felt like I had a good workout even though the entire distance was only about 42 miles.

I had one of the best cookies at the last rest stop located in the Como Lake Pavilion. It was a large chocolate chip and raspberry cookie.

I saw at least three chainsaw-carved bears along the ride route. One was a panda. No photos, sorry.

At the end of the ride, we tried to check in, but couldn't find the right tent. We rode home.

I needed time to prepare for my daughter's bowling alley birthday party. That was lots of fun also, but it's another story.

Just a thought about working from home

Where I work, we're allowed to work from home pretty much whenever we want. We use IM, email and phones to communicate. It usually works great, but I'm trying to get in touch with a working-at-home-today coworker and I'm having trouble.

My IM client shows his status as online. I've tried to send him messages, but he's not responding. There are two possibilities. He's ignoring me or he's not really online.
He says he's working at home. Home is where the heart is. His heart is on the golf course right now.

My New Headlight Works Great

It's this time of year when I install my serious bike lighting. I have a spotlight for seeing the road and a white blinky for being seen. I wear a couple of red blinkies on the my back.

I couldn't find my 10 watt spotlight last week. I dug around everywhere I could think of. I found the mount, the battery, and the wires, but no light. So I rode with only the white blinky in front and didn't feel very safe. I missed the big light.

A couple days ago after giving up the search for the headlight, I bought a Inoled 1 watt LED headlight that works with my current battery and wiring setup. Hiawatha Cyclery had it in stock. I doubt any other shops around here do.

It is noticeably brighter than my old 10 watt halogen (the one I lost). Once again cars stop for me at stop signs and I can see the road well enough to avoid potholes and roadkill. Don't laugh. I once rode with a guy who purposely rode over a well-dried opossum and got a puncture from one of the bones. Smartasses always get what they deserve.

This reminds me that I've often wanted to see what I look like to others on the road (not as roadkill, but at night with my lights on). Maybe I can find a friend or loved one to ride my bike at night and I can follow them in a car. A photo of that would be nice.

The St. Paul Classic

I plan to ride in the St. Paul Classic next weekend, Sunday, Sept. 10. I've always wanted to ride on car-free streets through St. Paul. It's pretty expensive ($30), but I've missed it 11 years in a row.

If anyone wants to join me, let me know.

The next weekend, is the All British Cycling Event (ABCE). I'll attend the swap meet and ride. I plan to ride to that one also. That will stretch my personal one-day mileage record for the riding a 3 speed. The ride starts in New Brighton. I guess that's about 12 to 15 miles from my house. The ride is 45 miles. That should be at least 70 miles. That distance is more of a chore on an upright 3 speed than some might think.

By the way, even if you are not interested in this sort of event, take a minute to read the ABCE website. The writing is lots of fun. The guy who puts it all together is very talented in many ways.

This Morning's Ride

My legs feel tired lately. When I start my ride, it feels like I just completed a few intervals. Later in the ride, when I should be warmed up and ready to ride faster, I still am tired and don't want ride fast.

Instead of fighting this feeling, I rode the 3-speed today. I wore my sandals and just toodled into work. (Toodle is not a real word, but I like it.) I stopped at Brueggers and bought two bagels. The Brueggers is located in a terrible place for bicyclists. It's surrounded by a fairly busy intersection and no way to just safely jump into traffic. I usually ride down the sidewalk a bit and jump off the curb in a burst of speed to fit into a gap between cars.

I took a different tactic this morning leaving the Brueggers, because the 3-speed is not a very good curb hopper. I continued further down the sidewalk and rode under a rail bridge. The sun was rising and threw light through the steel bridge supports. I stopped for a moment and looked at it. The rust on the steel was highlighted by the rising sun. Although I didn't have the creepy cam with me, I have a distinct picture of the bridge in my head. I like it.

I took that with me on the rest of the ride to work and didn't think about my legs until now.

I Predict More Cycling Injuries

With the price of gas convincing more people to ride their bikes and perhaps walk instead of always driving their cars, I expect we'll see more cars crashing into cyclists and pedestians and the other way around, of course.

This isn't the sort of prediction that will get me any respect, but I won't be surprised if it comes true.

First of all, I want to know if anyone has real information about whether people are riding bikes more and walking more. If you see something written about this, please let me know.

So far, it's all anecdotal. I see lots more cyclists than I'm used to and I bet most motorists would say the same, but they'd sound growly as they said it. "Yes. I see more of those bikers in their tight, shiny pants riding in the middle of the road." (That's a parody of what I hear people say about cyclists.)

Cycling Deaths are Up

I regularly receive an email newsletter from the American Bicyclists League (ABL). In the lastest issue, they say cycling deaths increased in 2005 according to a NHTSA report (this links to a PDF).

The most interesting thing to me about the NHTSA numbers are that deaths and injuries of non-occupants (this is their term) increased while deaths and injuries of vehicle occupants decreased.

ABL says the change is due to distracted vehicle drivers. The NHTSA report offers no opinions, just the facts. My initial thought is that cell phones have something to do with this. But the more I think about it, the less sure I am. If cell phones are distracting drivers, then wouldn't all categories see an increase in deaths and injuries? I'm sure it's not so simple.

Anyway, as I paged through the report, I found something interesting on every page. I imagine we've already seen some of the statistics in news stories, but it's much more informative to see the numbers for yourself instead of a filtered version in the news.

Why do you think non-occupant deaths are up?

Mountain Biking is Harder on a Rigid Bike

I rode the trails at Theodore Wirth park today on my backup bike. That's it in the overexposed garage-backdrop photo.

I've ridden the trails at Wirth many times, but only on my dual-suspension bike. It's quite different on a bike with no suspension (don't mistake the springy stem and seatpost for suspension). It's a total body workout. My legs feel like they have growing pains. Remember those? My legs ache like that right now.

Dual suspension is a pain in the butt for maintenance, but it keeps the rider fresher. I'm in the market for a new mountain bike and I'm not sure what to think of all this. I've been through it before with two other dual suspension bikes. One time, I conducted a sort-of experiment. I brought a dual suspension bike and a hardtail to the same trail and rode laps with both. There was no question that my laps on the dual-sus. bike were more comfortable and easier. I didn't time the laps. I don't really care much about that.

Maybe I should get used to my flip flopping opinions and just buy all the bikes in the world. That will allow my to ride whatever I want.

I almost forgot to mention that I really like the trails at Wirth. They are lots of fun to ride.

French Roast and Bagel

I bought a garlic bagel on the way to work this morning. I was dripping sweat all over the store. I leave my helmet on in these situations where I am in and out of the store really quickly. That way they know why I'm sweating and they're reminded that some people chose to get around on a bicycle instead of a 4-door F-350 with smoked windows and a duck head cover on the trailer hitch. I bet they just wanted me out of there.

I toasted the bagel at work and made a pot of French roast. The garlic alters the taste of the French roast into a very strong flavor that I love. In the past, I've always thought the two foods went together well, but this morning I realized a new flavor is created by combining them both. I'm sure this flavor isn't for everyone. My sister, for example, might suggest that I just eat dog turds instead, because they are probably a strong flavor too. I'm not sure that's what she'd say, but it sounds like her. She has a great sense of humor and can stab a nice one in ya and still make you laugh about it.

Anyway, this flavor combination is one of life's little pleasures.

Another broken wheel

I broke another wheel. About a month ago, I put a dent in the rear rim of my number one off-road bike. I had a replacement rim ready and laced it up.

Then I broke a suspension bolt on the same bike due to my ham-fisted inattention while tightening the bolt.

Then on Sunday, I was riding my backup bike, which took lots of work to get together for Sunday's ride, and I potato chipped the rear wheel. It was a pretty funny stunt and might have been worthy of viewing by other people had any been there.

I wore baggy cycling shorts that day. I was descending a trail with sharp rocks and picking my line carefully, when I got a little fast and and the trail became steeper. I slid my butt off the back of the saddle to prevent myself from going over the bars. It worked well, I saved my skin. At the bottom of the trail, I needed to turn left, but I couldn't get back on the saddle. My baggy shorts were caught on the back of the seat. I unclipped my right foot and fell over on the left side. This was a very slow crash. Crash is too strong of a word. It was more of a slow motion tipping maneuver. It didn't hurt. I got up feeling a bit awkward, jumped on the bike and it didn't go anywhere. The wheel was very potato-chippy shaped.

I pulled the wheel out of the frame and wrestled it into a decent enough shape to fit in the frame and rode home with the tire buzzing on the chain stay. The lack of tire clearance on the chain stay of this bike has always been a complaint of mine.

The rim was really too light of duty for an offroad bike. I bought it from Rivendell and they warned of exactly that. But I'm a cheapo and these rims were a real bargain. (That's sarcasm, you know.)

This time, I'm buying a Sun Rhyno Lite replacement rim. They're known for strength. I'm not using anymore lightweight stuff unless it has a reputation for being bullet proof. I'll pick it up today, maybe have it built tonight and ride it tomorrow. That bike deserves to have its photo posted here.

Powderhorn Park Art Fair

My son took this photo at the Powderhorn Park Art Fair

My family attended the art fair this past weekend. We had a really nice time. I've been there at least twice before in past years with my kids. This is the first year my kids didn't ride in a stroller. They're just too big for strollers. The last time they rode together in a stroller, they looked like two big goons stuffed in an old Volkswagen Beetle. They were elbowing each other and had lots of problems getting along.

This year was different. My wife and I expected them to get tired and want to go home or take breaks because they had to walk. Instead, it was my wife and I doing the complaining. My kids looked in far more tents than we did. Everywhere they looked they saw art that interested them. My son liked the photography and my daughter liked anything with color. They both liked anything that was on the lighter side like cartoon-style paintings.

My daughter loves tie-dye clothing. She stopped in one tie-dye vendor's tent and bought a t-shirt. She already has at least five tie-dye pieces of clothing, but this one was really nice, so we allowed her to buy it. While paying, she asked the people running the booth if they were hippies. I wonder if they saw my face turn red. They told us they considered themselves hippies and so I asked what it means to be a hippy. One of the them told us hippies are people who don't judge others. They just get along. The other added that they don't take plastic either.

I really like the part about being non-judgmental. We could use more of that. I thought about this for a while and wanted to add that hippies are more cooperative and less greedy than most of us. At least, that's my impression.

My friend, who is a police officer, would add that hippies tend to pass out on lawns more often than the rest of us.

No Race for Me

I planned to ride a 12-hour mountain bike race a couple of weekends ago at Mt. Kato in Mankato, MN. On the preceding Thursday while checking the tightness of the suspension pivot bolts on the bike, I snapped the head off of one of them. Yes, I have a torque wrench, but that didn't help.

I took the bolt to the local shop that sells this brand of bike and they didn't have the bolt in stock. I didn't expect them to anyway. There are far too many suspension components for a dealer to stock. They said they'd order it, but I know that will take weeks.

I could have ridden my wife's bike, but it needed many changes to make it 12-hour worthy. I gave up and rode a long ride on my road bike Saturday instead of the race.

I was only a little disappointed. I didn't feel like I wanted to participate in a whole-hearted kind of way. However, if the bolt hadn't broken, I would definitely have raced.

This situation has brought up a line of thinking I've been developing for a couple of years now. I don't like the idea of putting my bike on a car and driving to an event or special ride. I've been doing much less of it recently. I've taken to riding my ATB to the trail heads instead of driving a car there. I ride to the Minnesota River Bottoms trail head and Theodore Wirth Park. I need to try riding to Lebanon Hills and Salem Hills parks. All my road bike rides start at my garage. My daily rides go from the garage to work and back. So my off-road rides all start at my garage now also.

The great thing about bicycling is that I can enjoy it right out of my garage door without going to any exotic places (not that Mankato is exotic). I also have lots of really great places to ride in the Twin Cities and this area enjoys lots of cycling events. For example, this coming weekend there's an Alley Cat race and bike scavenger hunt right here in Minneapolis. The St. Paul Classic is coming up soon. This fall, we have a couple of cyclo cross races right here in the city. I have countless group rides to attend in this area. I could even do one or two off-road races each year without traveling by car.

I'm not trying to throw a guilt trip on those of you who carry your bikes to events, but I've decided to drive less and this is an outcome of that decision.

I Forgot the Creepy Cam

On my ride this morning, I noticed they repainted the lines on the Lake Street/Marshall Street bridge. (Or is it Marshall Ave? Ray will know.) I forgot the creepy cam. So the photo above is from Google.

They must have cleaned the street before painting, because there was very little of the usual debris. I noticed only three types of items were on the shoulder: little tiny rocks, cigarette butts, and lottery tickets. I think that says it all.

Well almost. I'd like you all to congratulate me on not using the work detritus. I've seen it used quite a bit in the last two years or so. Maybe it's been used all along and I haven't been paying attention, but my impression is that detritus has become a trendy word for the hip people to use in writing. I haven't heard anyone use it in speech though. I just listened to the pronunciation of it from Merriam Webster's website. It's funny to hear words come out of my computer. Try it for yourself.

There is no way I could say that seriously without breaking into a laugh.

Beer Brewing

One of the guys I work with decided to brew a batch of beer for our upcoming company picnic. I went to the Vine Park Brewing Company with him yesterday to start the batch. That's the step where you end up with a fermenting barrel of stuff.

We'll return in two weeks to bottle it (and sample some, I'm told).

I brewed beer with a friend several years ago in his apartment. At the time, he had his masters in Chemistry and was working a his PhD in something related. I was sure he'd be a great partner. I figured because he works in labs, we'd have clean and sterile stuff and we'd follow the directions exactly.

It didn't work out that way. We boiled the wert over the pot on his stove. It went behind his stove and inside every crevice in the stove/oven. We couldn't get it all out. His apartment smelled badly for ever after. When I helped him move out many months later it still smelled a bit.

Our beer turned out to be some of the worst crap ever produced. My friend suspected that we had some bacteria get in the ruined it. We didn't keep a clean enough environment. I knew after a couple of sips that our beer sucked. I felt as if it were my duty to drink the first few bottles though. But I couldn't make it through the entire case. I threw out the last bottles without telling my friend. He kept asking for the bottles back. They save those, you know.

He continued to brew and got some good batches, but I had no interest.

I had bad memories of brewing the beer and the disappointing taste of our work.

None of that's going to happen to this batch. The Vine Park Brewing Company is perfectly clean and everything is organized. The guy who helped us, well he did most of the work for us, made sure we didn't make any mistakes. It was fun and the people who run the store were fun to talk to. I enjoyed the brewing.

It'll be tasty beer, I'm sure of that and I'll report on it when I have some.

Riding in the Rain

I haven't ridden in the rain in several weeks. However, that changed on yesterday's journey home. I stepped into the parking lot headed for home when the skies opened. I got soaked within a couple of blocks. It was a warm rain and I enjoyed it.

This morning, on the way to work, it was about the same situation. As I pushed the bike out of the garage, the rain started to pour. For a few moments, I felt chilly.

"I remember that feeling."

It's a huge change from a couple of days ago, when I swear I felt my cerebral fluid boiling. If I had a little teapot spout installed on my head, it would have whistled all day long last Sunday.

It's difficult for me to imagine the weather will be cold ever again. But that's the way I always feel when we have a stretch of extreme weather. When it's 0 degrees (F) for an extended amount of time, I can't imagine what it feels like to be hot and sweaty.


The seasonal changes in this climate really make life interesting. I've lived in places with less seasonal personality and that really gets old.

Street Repair Examples

In a recent post I said I've found a difference in the quality of street repairs between Minneapolis and St. Paul. I took some decent photos today as examples using the Creep Cam. I realize my experiences are merely anecdotal. I am not sure why there seems to be a difference. I'm not sure anyone else cares. But here they are:

St. Paul manhole cover repair on Raymond Ave.

Minneapolis manhole cover on 42nd Street (thanks Ray)

Both of these repairs are at least a year old. The Minneapolis one was in this condition before summer. I like the Minneapolis repair, because the asphalt has flowed over one of the manhole covers. It's like they used black gummy bears to fill in the hole. They get an A for creativity. The St. Paul repair doesn't compare with regard to creativity. It's very square and even. I usually avoid manhole covers regardless of how smooth they are, but I ride over the middle of this one in St. Paul and don't even feel it. Where's the fun in that? I'd get some air off of the Minneapolis one, but it's located at a stop sign and I'd have to run it to get enough speed to catch air.