A month 'til spring fever

You can feel it in the air.  Here it is early February, and the forecast of rain was way off!  We had sunshine and temperatures in the 60s - on a Saturday!  Woo-hoo!  I took advantage of the nice conditions and did a mid-winter drivetrain overhaul on the #1 bike.

My son told me his bike was making a "crunching" sound and the chain wouldn't stay on... I but told him to bring it over for a diagnosis (expecting perhaps bottom-bracket destruction).  His chain was totally rusted up!  He parks it underneath a balcony, but apparently it isn't adequate to stop the precipitation.  I did my best to loosen up his chain... gave it the WD-40 treatment, and a good lube afterwards... improved things immeasurably.  (But I also advised him he probably ought to replace that chain... and put a tarp over his bike, if it has to be outdoors.)

Then this afternoon I grabbed my granddaughter for a little riding on the Greenbelt.  She'll be 2 later this month and has just about outgrown the baby seat... maybe we can still squeeze her in for some summer riding.  Our rides are observations of wildlife, and singing.  (She always has the "great stone face" for the camera, but believe me... she's happier than she looks here!)

Bicycling as social statement

Steve Henning is a textiles-industry executive.  He was working in Australia, and bicycle commuted almost exclusively.  His associates admired him for it.

Then he was relocated to China, where he assumed he could continue riding... after all, bicycle is a very common mode of transportation in that heavily-populated country.  But then he made an unfortunate discovery.  "My team was humiliated that their boss rode a bike to work like a common person. While Chinese bike to work infinitely more than Australians, among the wealthier Chinese, bikes are not an option. There are plenty of bikes on the road, but biking is for the lower classes only. So my team felt it was an embarrassment that their boss rode a bike to the office. They felt it suggested to the entire company that their boss was unimportant, and that by association, they were unimportant, too."  (Story HERE.)

Wow!

Can you imagine being socially-pressured on account of your bicycle riding?

But as I think about it... what kind of social pressures do we have, here in the U.S.A., regarding our transportation?

There is no doubt that in many eyes and minds, choice of vehicle is a very significant "statement."  If you don't believe me, spend an evening watching network TV, and observe the car and truck commercials.  If they are to be believed, your wheels are everything!  If you don't drive their vehicle, you might as well tattoo LOSER on your forehead!

Ride the bus?  Are you kidding?  Do you eat at the rescue mission, too?!?

Ride a bike?  A grownup riding a bike?  Pitiful!  Lost your driver's license, huh?  What are you, some kind of tree-hugging liberal?

Of course, there are exceptions.  Among the "hipsters" where image is EVERYTHING, it's very stylish to ride a vintage single-speed... and particularly if you're wearing the proper hipster clothing style (which seems to change somewhat regularly - ya gotta pay attention to these things).  Perhaps as they graduate to full adulthood, bicycle-as-transportation will continue to evolve into respectability?

And of course there's a subculture of "equipment fethishists" in the world of bicycling as everywhere else... people who derive satisfaction from having the very top-level gear.  Surely part of the appeal of titanium carbon fiber / Dura-Ace / Campy Record is other like-minded riders making note of your awesome steed.

If I'm making a "social statement" by my bicycling, it's at the subconscious level.  (In my mind, transportation by bicycle is superior in pretty much every way.  I'm saving a boatload of dough.  I'm not contributing to the inversion.  I could do what every motorist is doing... but relatively few of them could do what I'm doing.  But I don't care whether they recognize any of that or not.)

Excuse me, while I wax nostalgic for a moment...

When I was a kid, most families only had one car... or at least that's my memory.  (More moms stayed home back then.)  But still, it was a very unusual sight to see a grownup riding a bike, other than for recreation.

Wesley Goodson was well-known in my neighborhood - for bicycling.  He rode an ancient "cruiser" style bike that was festooned with baskets, several headlights, horns, and literally hundreds of reflectors.  He was an adult - but not a normal adult.  I'm sure he was mentally impaired to some degree... he mowed lawns for pocket money and constantly smoked a pipe as he rode.  He'd ride his bike to Roosevelt Market, right across the street from my elementary school, where we would admire it while he leaned against the wall and sipped beer from a quart bottle.  (Thinking back... Wesley was a pretty cool character!  Although he was hardly a role model, he certainly didn't feel any pressure to "fit in."  He was his own guy.  And - he probably was role model in the sense of his transportation... for me.  Here was a guy who didn't have much in the way of prosperity, but he got around the neighborhood in style, and on the cheap!)

There was another fellow - I don't know his name, but I knew of him from the same Roosevelt Market connection.  He'd park his "English three speed" out front, while he ran in for provisions... on his way to work downtown.  He worked at the music store.  (When I was a bit older, I'd hang out there, admiring electric guitars and horns and pianos and such.)  He bicycled to work regularly... you could say it was his daily transportation.

And my dad rode a bike to work sometimes, but only maybe once a week and when the weather was nice.  I always thought it was pretty cool when his bicycle was cabled up in his office parking spot.

Dashboard enlightenment

I came up behind a car a couple mornings ago, that had the "smart phone" (quote/unquote) mounted on the dashboard, in roughly this fashion...

Right there where the driver will be constantly tempted to stare at it.  (Like they do when they're lurching about, eating, using the potty, walking the dog, bicycling, worshiping, and pretty much everything else.)

Probably has some sort of hands-free technology, that gives owners/operators the false sense that it's safe.  In reality, studies consistently support the theory that, hands-full or hands-free, conversing via cellphone has roughly the same effect on driving ability as being legally substance-impaired.

Speaking of worshiping, sometimes I long for the days when car dashboards were more likely to be adorned in this fashion...

Pre-Super-Bowl bike ride

Defensive end Michael Bennett, of the Seattle Seahawks, was feeling celebratory after the team's playoff victory over the Packers... so he hopped on a cop bike, and took a spin around the stadium, doing wheelies and high-fivin' fans.

Is there a better way to celebrate anything?

Story HERE.

The first thing I noticed is how tiny that 26-inch bike looks, underneath that mountain of man.

Apparently the police were okay with it - they just asked him to return the bike before the Super Bowl.  The Seattle Seahawks meet the New England Cheatin' Ball-Deflators on February 1.  Go Seahawks!

Nature gained and lost

Alongside our Boise Greenbelt, not far from downtown, is a true curiosity of nature. It is a tree that sprouted up next to a chain link fence, obviously quite a few years ago. As it grew, a couple branches found their way through the fence, and in the ensuing years those branches have grown until they encompass multiple links of the fence.

Over the years, I've ridden past it hundreds of times, never failing to notice and appreciate it. And several times I've snapped photos of it.

I took what may be my last photos of it yesterday - January 16, 2015. It may soon be no longer.

The city is closing that stretch of Greenbelt temporarily, to modify a canal channel and to start work on a new city park. Since the tree is dead-center in the construction area, I emailed the Parks Department, expressing my fondness for the tree, and asking them to preserve it and a short stretch of fence.

A representative replied, which was nice. She knew exactly which tree I was referring to - she even sent me a photo of it. But she said, "[The tree] may not be affected by the Farmer’s Union intake structure that is going on this winter, but most definitely will be removed with the installation of Esther Simplot Park."

You've got to love the irony! "We can't save that tree - we're building a park there!"

I asked them to reconsider if possible. I'd love to take granddaughter Bonnie to see where I snapped her photo next to that tree when she was barely a year old. But I'm not hopeful. And currently I'm not in a position where I can build a hut, high up in the canopy, and refuse to come down... like the Northern California Redwood Warriors.

I'm sure the new park will be nice.

Fat girl on a bike!

Andrea Parrish is a cyclist in Spokane.  But she's no ordinary cyclist - she's 6 feet 4 inches tall, wears a size 24 dress, and tips the scale at 325 pounds.  She's also a gifted writer.

Andrea deals with unique challenges because of her "super human" status.  She has learned (as have I!) that bicycles are generally designed with smaller people in mind.  She's hard on wheels, hubs, frames, saddles, etc.  She observes that women's cycling-specific clothing - "incredibly cute" and "full cycling kits" - aren't available in Size 24.

But she loves cycling.  "The feeling of freedom, the sense of accomplishment, and even the stares I get as I pedal by. I am a fat girl on a bike, and I love it. Biking allows me the chance to get in a workout in the time I would normally spend driving. Biking is the one thing that is easy to fit into my (sometimes far too busy) schedule."

Andrea rode a century ride last summer - awesome!  And she says she's lost 85 pounds since she started riding.  That is SO impressive!

She points out that we all stereotype bike riders, and anybody who busts the stereotype makes us react, perhaps more than is merited.

Every once in a very great while, somebody will comment about my physique.  How could I get upset?  They're almost always driving - frequently in a pickup truck.  But Andrea makes me think.  Sometimes I'll see a "super size" guy or gal on a bicycle, and my first mental reaction is probably harsh.  But it's always followed by a "mental slap in my own face" - how can you possibly find fault with an overweight person riding a bike?  Would it be better if they were driving... or sitting on a sofa downin' the snacks?  GOOD FOR THEM, for making cycling part of their life!  (If it weren't for cycling, I'm confident I'd have to be much more aware of my weight, and food intake.)

Read what Andrea wrote HERE.  It's excellent.

New year - why not new saddles?

Whew!  We made it thru 2014, huh?

As a new year commences, I'm giving my back end a sweet bonus!

A benefit I enjoy at work (funded via another government program) gives me up to $240 per year to spend on bicycle bits and maintenance.  I used about half of my 2014 allotment recently to purchase a new saddle - a Brooks Imperial.  It's my first experience with a Brooks saddle, although the Anatomica is similar in concept.  Since everything I've ever heard about Brooks saddles is positive, that's how I anticipate my ownership experience will go.

So - my saddles played musical chairs.  I installed the Brooks on my primary bicycle - the Cannondale skinny-tire bike.  The Anatomica came off the Cannondale, and took the place of my "beater" bike's $15 Nashbar Inquisition-Torture saddle, that I've been riding on for a year or so.  (I believe they used that last-mentioned saddle as part of their terrorist interrogation regimen - for the really hard cases that wouldn't break with just the water-boarding.  It's all in the report.)  (But seriously - that saddle would probably work fine for some tailbones - it's all in the fit.  And it didn't fit me very well.  The leather "hammock saddles," like Brooks and Anatomica, are more pliable, so they'll fit more tailbones... or that's the theory behind 'em.)

I actually swapped the saddles a few days ago - as of today I've got 40 or 50 miles on the Brooks, and maybe 20 on the "beater Anatomica."  The Brooks will be fine - I can already tell.  It feels different - it's probably an inch shorter than the Anatomica, and they require a bit of "breaking in."  And the Anatomica on the beater bike has brought HUGE relief.  The last day on the Nashbar saddle was within the past week, and the 10 miles I rode was an ordeal.  The very next day, after the swap, a 10-mile ride was significantly more comfortable.

A note about durability... I'm on my third Anatomica saddle, the first two having broken.  After the second one broke, I exchanged messages with the company.  The company president told me, "11K miles may be the limit of our saddle, given your size and riding style."  That's a bummer!  (They claim they've changed the steel rails... and I sincerely hope that'll improve things.  My current saddle has been problem-free for just over 9500 miles.  But both of the others worked perfect until they day they went "snap"!)  I have no expectations that a Brooks saddle will last a lifetime - like 75 or 80 years - but it has a 2-year warranty and claims "this is a product for a lifetime."