Day 4 - Wednesday
Ride in to the office - routine.
I went on an afternoon ride at 4:30 or so... and disaster befell me! While riding along Fairview near 23rd or so, next to some large vacant lots, suddenly I heard the telltale click-click-click and could see that I'd picked up something in the front tire. Turns out it was somethings - FIVE goathead thorns! What the?!!? I've never had more than two at any given time! If somebody didn't deliberately scatter 'em, I s'pose it's possible the wind blew 'em out. Fortunately that's pretty close to my office, and the tire hadn't deflated by the time I arrived. The tube already had two patches; I normally replace a tube once it has four or so patches - so this one was done.
The flat tire adventure made me fashionably late for the Mia Burke presentation at city hall. But I didn't miss too much, hopefully. What I heard was excellent. She is an awesome advocate; she really has the technical savvy, plus she's genuinely passionate and smart about cycling. (On the questionnaire they asked attendees to fill out, I suggested that she move to Boise... you know, maybe for five years... to become our pro-cycling bomb thrower!)
I also had the pleasure of crossing paths with several old friends - Clancy who reads and comments here regularly, plus Lynn who used to serve on bicycle committes with me, and Gary Richardson, who was an ACHD Commissioner some years back, and was famous (infamous?!) for his bike-friendly attitude. Unfortunately, his attitude was played up as anti-car. "Can't we all just get along?" (We could use more people of conviction and courage serving in public office.)
The ride home from City Hall was routine. (No more flats!) I finished the day with 21-odd miles. (And turned over 2500 miles for the calendar year.)
Tireless advocate for the most efficient form of
human transportation ever devised - bicycles!
2 comments:
There were 11 of us at the Ride of Silence. Turnout probably would have been higher if there weren't so many conflicting events. Same route as last year.
I'd guess there were 60-75 folks at the Mia Birk thing, Bob. Probably 10-15 "wonks" and the rest cyclists.
Ya know, even among the "cycling community," I'd say the vast majority are recreational/sport cyclists, rather than transportation cyclists, and don't really get involved in policy and activism -type endeavors.
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