Smooth rolling

Two more surprising traffic occurrences today: driver A, we shall call him, yielded to my right of way and waved as I went by, and Driver B didn't cut me off.

Hmm...

Waiting at a stoplight, sitting perfectly comfortable on my top tube, fat and cable-less so it doesn't pinch my loin, no saddle poke, no silly wobble. Looking down my line, ready to take my lane. At ease, but ready. Look out the corner of my eye at the traffic light. Green? Yellow? Flashing ped? Don't turn your head, they'll think you are signaling. Hello? Should I use my "go straight" signal now? Anybody in there? The attentive ones judge me. Staring. Geek. Nice paint. Will he go straight? Fast? Can I beat him through the intersection if I stick my foot in it? Will he kick my car? Duh?

My shifters are finally working right, which, they being a fickle mix of Campyshram Noplastic, is a kind of predicted surprise, a light snow is on everything above road level, dry and clear, with no wind or heat or cold or rain or dark, all in perfect mid-season grey neutrality. Still. Quiet. Nature could care less, and lets me slide right on bye. Finally.

For now.

Bicycle Tour of Colorado

My bike: a. creaks, b. clicks, c. squeaks, d. rattles, e. grinds, f. makes noises, g. doesn't climb well, h. my cleats are dirty, i. doesn't descend well, j. is new just last week and now my derailleurs and brakes don't work and the wheels are out of true and the saddle hurts and my hands go numb and I just don't feel so good do you have any aspirin can I borrow some WD-40 why does it always rain here at 1:00 they never said anything about that in the brochure!!!


Aid station on McClure Pass. Good luck with that cel phone.


McClure Pass.


Aid station on Independence Pass. Paul's Mobile Cyclery nearest, with Rich wearing three jackets, the 500-gallon water truck next, then the food court and d.j. Twenty toilets on the right, out of view. A guy on a recumbent trike showed up here mid-afternoon after cartwheeling down Cottonwood Pass the previous day. He was wearing at least three large bandages, one sandal, and his hospital gown, and his big chainring was ruined. I think he was on painkillers of some sort.

Bike to Work Day 2009

The Table. Thanks Peach and Ed, couldn't have done it without you. And also thanks to Starbucks and Entenmann's for the goodies.









The Handoff. Thanks Pat!

Great Things Gone Away

Thing was so big that I'd have wrecked had I run over it. Right there in the middle of the trail, the size of a golden Costco ham. A humongous frog. A bullfrog, I think one would say. A damned huge Arapahoe County Grand Champion Jumping Frog bullfrog. I didn't know they grew them that big around here. Amazing, green, wet animal, holding his ground. Top of his food chain. Frowning. Drooling, maybe. Waiting for a squirrel to get just a little too close.
I stopped to observe, and to wonder. Where is he going? What's he doing here? Should I move him? What if someone came around and ran over him? Why here? Why now? What does this mean? Who am I?
I stood there transfixed, and at the moment I thought to reach down and touch him he was suddenly flying through the air, all legs and arms flailing in a fifteen-foot Superman leap down onto the rocks, with a quick recovery and then another stupendous jump into the river. And then he was gone. And I, inexplicably, thought to myself that no-one would ever see him again.
Next time I was there, that path was gone. The great old timbered walk hanging out over the rocks, with the splintery rail and the fifteen-foot drop into the rapids, ripped out and hauled off, the trail moved up-grade away from the river and paved with nice smooth safe boring blacktop. With a painted centerline. Improved, as they say. And as I rode past and looked through the fence to where there was no longer a trail, I remembered that frog, and I understood.

F**king cyclists

Driving my car, I pulled up to a stoplight the other day. Two vehicles in front of me, another behind, at least two on the other side of the intersection, all of us waiting for the red light. A cyclist pulls up to the front on the other side of the intersection, slows down just long enough to look both ways, then crosses under the red light. Right in front of at least five drivers.
As he is passing me, I say out the window, "Sir, that's a red light and you have to stop and wait for it."
He couldn't believe that someone would chastise him for exercising his right to do whatever the hell he wants, so he pulls around my back, circles the car and comes up to my window, just out of my reach. He says, "Is it any of your business how I ride my bike?"
I say, "Yes, it IS my business how you ride your bike. I own a bicycle shop, I contribute to bicycle advocacy organizations who lobby for YOUR RIGHTS, and I ride around this city all the time. And I'm telling you with great certainty that YOU MUST STOP AND WAIT FOR THAT RED LIGHT."
He just stood there, dumbfounded. Surprised, that it really IS my business how he rides his bike.
Now the light is green, and he's stuck there in the wrong lane and people are honking. So I turn away from him and drive off.
Amateur. Selfish clown. Does he have any idea how much damage he does with a stupid stunt like that? Does he realize that he makes us all look bad? What does he think all those drivers are thinking when he blows off the red light?


I'm riding to work one morning, and I pull up to a red light westbound at Chenango and Broadway. It's one of those intersections that aren't timed-if you're a pedestrian you punch the button and if you're in a car the sensor in the concrete picks it up and you're in the system. If you're on a bicycle you are screwed-the light doesn't even know you're there-you either have to go over and hit the button (leave your bike parked in the street, because you can't have a vehicle on the sidewalk) or you wait for a car to pull up and trigger the light, or you wait forever. Or you blow off the light. Tough choice.
On this particular morning, a car was opposite me waiting for the light, so I knew that it would turn green soon. I'm in my lane, there's no doubt which direction I'm going, and there's another car pulling into line behind me. We're all waiting patiently for the light, when another cyclist pulls up beside me. On a fixed-gear, with cards in the spokes, stupid-narrow handlebar, dirty little bikey cap, faux-broken-in messenger bag, cutoff plaid pants, tattoos, piercings, chains, the whole poser deal. He touches down, he's looking both ways and inching forward like he's going to just go on through, so I say, "How are you doing this morning?"
This puts him off his guard and, surprised, he looks over at me with a "you talking to me?" look.
"Where you headed?" I ask.
"Downtown" was his curt reply. And he's inching forward again, looking both ways.
"How long you been riding a fixxie?" I ask. He gives me another one of those "why the f**k are you wasting my time?" looks.
I smile.
"Seven months," he says. A real pro. And he starts inching forward again, in a terrific hurry to get to the coffee shop I guess.
I know what's going on here, and so does he, so I'm ready now to stop messing around. "You need to wait for that red light," I say, "we don't want to make a bad show for these drivers."
Which he did.
The End.

Ride More

WHAT ARE YOU STANDING THERE FOR?
GET YOUR HANDS OUT OF YOUR POCKETS.
DID YOU RIDE HERE?
HELLOOO?
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?
GET BACK TO WORK.
WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?
KEEP AT IT.
STOP WHINING.
FOCUS.
PUSH.
PEDAL.

O The Horror

I acquired a cool old German trombone a few weeks ago, actually a VERY old (100 years?) trombone that had evidently been sitting in someone's attic or barn for a few decades. I'd been looking for a good example of an instrument like this, at a reasonable price, and finally found one. Big bell, wide bore, no modern features like tuning slide or spit valve or leadpipe, just a long sliding tube with solid nickel ferrules and some snakey decoration. They are reputed to have a unique sound, appropriate for Wagner, Brahms, Mahler, and other romantic-era orchestral works. If not to actually perform on, an instrument like this at least gives a valuable insight into a certain repertoire.

It arrived in a giant box full of packing peanuts, completely assembled in the state it was recovered. I couldn't help myself, as soon as I had it removed from the packing I wiped off the mouthpiece and blew a note. Kinda stuffy. Try a different note. Still awfully stuffy. I pushed out the slide (awful), blew through it, checked both inner tubes, looked fine. Then I looked into the bell. Something was stuck in it, looked like a rag or some leaves. I ran a brake cable backwards through the bell section and this popped out:



ARRGGH! PTOOEY! BLECH! PFFT! PFFT! Wiping my mouth on my shirt, spitting, horking, ack where's my toothbrush?! YUCK! PTOOEY!

There are actually two mice in that blob. Count the legs and tails. Evidently the horn was stored bell-up, and some hungry little guy went snooping around where he shouldn't be, fell in, and couldn't get out. So his friend comes over to see what happened, and he falls in too. And here they are, decades later, dead, rotten, and mummified, exhumed from their brassy tomb. What a way to go.