Do the Test

Transport for London and other London government agencies have been pushing real hard for cycle awareness. Their latest effort is their best so far and can be seen here:

http://www.dothetest.co.uk/

I don’t want to spoil it for you so I’ll post my reaction later today. Please wait until that post to comment so that you don’t spoil it for others.

P.S. For those of you interested, the Silver Strand ride last Monday was better than before, but still not as good as I hoped. Took a spill trying to get out of my cleats in front of 300 sailors and missed the ferry again. The good news is that I found a bus that will carry me over the Coronado Bridge and into downtown. This might actually be fast than the ferry and in certainly cheaper (since I already have a bus pass).

So many stories, so little time

I have a lot that I want to talk about, but just not enough time to get all the posts done so here is the key synopsis of everything I want to talk about

Occasionally check the cleat screws in you cycling shoes! - I had one fall out and couldn't get my shoe uncleated without taking it off. Luckily, I was in a position that I could do that will out falling over.

I'm re-riding the Silver Strand tonight - I guess I won't get the great sunset this time because of the time change, but I am confident I will make the ferry. Hopefully I'll be able to post a summary tonight.

Couple of new blogs on the Blogroll - Bike commuters is an excellent read!

Bought a new light - I'll post a review after I've used it more than once.

Tomorrow Morning's Weather will be off for a week - off the bike too. Heading to Vegas for the Mountain West Conference basketball tournament. Still haven't got a folding bike so looks like I'll be using the shuttle if I care to make it over to the strip from our hotel.

To tide you over here are some bike safety tips from The Onion:

• Always use hand signals when turning at intersections. There's nothing motorists pay more attention to than hand signals from bicyclists.
• Leaving your bike out in the ice and cold all winter may cause serious damage. But it makes a nice subject for the cover illustration of a short-fiction quarterly.
• Always wear a helmet. If this makes you uncomfortable, think of the helmet as a crown and yourself as King Dorko.
• Placing your feet firmly on the pedals of the bike will help reduce the "Wheee" sound emitted from your mouth while going downhill.
• Insist on a bicycle made of solid matter. Liquid and vapor bikes are a passing fancy; argon frames are particularly shoddy.
• Taking your bike in for a professional tune-up is a great way to waste $25.
• Be sure to wear your seatbelt, even if just biking down to the corner store.
• Fat-bottomed girls may be riding today, so look out for those beauties, oh, yeah.
• Visibility is crucial when biking. Ride with a lit highway flare in each hand.
• Every three to four weeks, lightly oil the chain. Then dip it in flour and fry it for a real taste treat.
• As soon as you buy a bike, talk to your friends about how great Shimano crank sets and STX hubs are.
• Does your city have adequate bike paths? If not, consider bitching about it to your local government for the next 40 years.
• If rich, spoiled Francis Buxton steals your bike, go on a hilarious and heartwarming journey through the American Southwest to get it back.
• Bike safety can never be stressed enough. If you doubt this, try stressing it as much as you possibly can. It won't be enough–guaranteed.

Two Stories from SignonSanDiego.com

Two news articles pulled from the local paper's website (Union-Tribune's signonsandiego.com).

The first is a story about a new commuter light rail in north San Diego County:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080310/news_1m10sprint.html

The second is a Reuters article that talks about how public transit numbers are going up:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20080310-0847-us-gasoline-mass-transit.html

Both are good news. Enjoy.

A note on Sustainability

There are three main reasons I have started to cyclocommute (a word I just made up): financial, physiological and ideological. Financially, I was spending $4.50 each day in gas on my commute. That is at least $90 a month, before you figure in wear and tear on my car. A bus pass only costs me $64 each month. Physiologically, getting on my bike several times a week is good for my health. I’ve started stretching again and I have more energy throughout the day.

The most important reason, however, is ideology. Driving myself by car is not a sustainable exercise. What I do at work in no way equals the resources it takes to get there. Sustainability is about doing things in a way that does not leave a debt behind you (in this case, an environmental debt). Eventually all the chemicals and fuels we use are going to make the world unlivable. So I ride my bike to cut down the amount of chemicals and fuels.

There is something that happens when you get out on your bike; you become part of the community. No longer encased by metal, glass and plastic, you no longer shy away from conversations with neighbors and other commuters. You learn more about the area and more about where you fit.

There are many other areas where sustainability matters. One of the biggest (and most written about) is food. Learning how much of the food in this country is grown will destroy your childhood ideas of farms and farmers. Sustainable food is organic, free from pesticides and naturally fertilized. It is also tastes better and has more nutrients.

Take some time to look at your life; the things you use that you don’t really need, the things you waste and the things you throw away. Try to eliminate those things; (I know this will sound cliché) reduce, reuse and recycle (in that order).

Site News Update:

You may have already noticed, but I have added a blog roll in the right hand column that will give you a taste of the blogs that I am reading. There are two sections: the first is bicycling and commuting blogs, the second is sustainability and environmental blogs.

Learning My Lesson

Yesterday’s ride was a doozy. I left work with high hopes of a great ride and got home four hours later tired and cranky. My plan was to ride to Imperial Beach up the Silver Stand to the Coronado Ferry and then catch the bus home from downtown. Unfortunately, I did several things wrong which made the ride more difficult than it should have been.

What I did wrong
My first mistake was made in the morning when I forgot to grab a packet of GU to use as back up food. I’ve found that lately I’ve underestimated how much food I will want to eat during the ride and have been fortunate that I generally pack some extra, ‘just in case.’ This time I did not. I also decided to try out an ‘energy’ drink mix that a good friend gave me. This mix created a caffeine based energy drink, and I wanted to see how caffeine would affect my riding. (Some cyclists use caffeine to help keep them alert and focused.) Also, because I was auditioning this caffeine beverage, I did not have a place for my usual Gatorade bottle, so I did not have that source of calories either. Finally, I failed to check the bus and ferry schedules so that I could ensure a minimum of waiting.

What went wrong
The main thing that went wrong was that the caffeine beverage failed the audition. Miserably. On top of not actually providing any energy that I could use to power my bike, it interfered with the digestion of the one source of calories I did have (a fantastically delicious peanut butter granola bar). Once I ate the granola bar, my stomach knotted up around it and I had to ride the rest of the route with a cramp that impeded my breathing. As if only to top that, the ferry left the dock while I was purchasing my ticket. This left me with an hour to sit on dock waiting for the ferry to return. Once I disembarked downtown (at 8pm) I stopped at the first stop where I could get on a #15 bus. After a 20 minute wait, I jumped on the #2 bus which would get me within 10 blocks of home. Had I been more patient, the #15 was just a few more minutes and would have gotten me home quicker with less cycling.

The good news from all of this is that I learned a lot about riding and commuting. First, caffeine is not good for me so I will just stay away from it. Second, always check to see when busses and ferries run. And finally, even if I’m dead tired, sporting a stomach cramp and not really feeling that great, I can still finish my planned ride, which will be useful knowledge when I ride my first century.

Despite the seemingly bad experience I did enjoy myself and plan on making the ride again. I achieved my mini-goal of getting to the strand before sunset so that I could watch the setting sun as I rode along the beach. I got in a total of 27 miles on the day and I got to catch up with an old friend on the phone while I waited for the ferry. Looking at it from that angle, it wasn’t a bad commute at all.

Leap Year Mass

I want to start out by apologizing profusely for not mentioning Critical Mass last Friday. Despite being excited for it all day, I forgot to mention on this blog. I’m sorry.

[For those of you who don’t know what Critical Mass is, check Wikipedia, they have a good write up there.]

Leap Year Mass last Friday was a great time. The announced count was 475 riders and my mileage calculation was around 35 miles (which is pretty long for Mass). I, of course, did not have my camera this month, but promise that I will post at least pictures if not video of March’s event.

At some point I hope to figure out how to give the route graphically, possibly through Google Maps, but for the time being, the following word description will have to do:

This years event, as usual, began at the fountain in Balboa Park and we started out heading west across The Prado. We then headed south into the Gaslamp Quarter and then out along Harbor to Ocean Beach. From there we went north to Mission Beach and took the boardwalk to Pacific Beach. From there we headed down Garnet Ave through the bar district and to the east shore of Mission Bay. Followed that back to Pacific Coast Highway which took us back downtown.

All in all a pretty good Mass. I witness very little hooliganism and there seemed to be only a few crashes. The vehicular traffic was unobtrusive and there was no police action.

For those of you interested in attending future Critical Masses, the meeting point is the fountain in Balboa Park in between the Natural History Museum and the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center; on the last Friday of each month at 7:30pm (we don’t usually hit the road until 8ish). Everyone is welcome; this month we had people from 12 to 65 years old riding everything from BMX to single speeds to vintage road bikes and hardcore mountain bikes.

I’ll post a reminder here before next month’s event.