Bike Week 2011: Tuesday

The highlight reel from my homeward commute. The raw footage would be about half an hour of yawn-inducing banality. I have distilled said yawns into approximately four minutes of the most interesting perspectives of an average commute home. For the record, the guy I pass at 1:30 or so was precisely the second bike commuter (not counting my own person) that I saw today. The guy at 3:00 was in full race kit on a road bike, not carrying anything. Maybe a homeward-bound leave-everything-at-the-office commuter, but not likely.



For those curious about the gear I'm using (Amazon affiliate links): 
Kodak Play Sport
Flashpoint Action Mount

Bike Week 2011: Monday

Before work yesterday, I decided to ride to the Overland Park breakfast stop at Deanna Rose farmstead. I didn't sleep well the night before (long story) and this jaunt added about 10 miles to my usual 6-ish mile commute.Chilly: lower 40s.

When I pulled up a few minutes after 6:30, commuterDude was already at the stop. We'd been trying to talk to one another on the radio most of the morning, but either the repeater we were using was having problems, or we were both in the wrong part of town to punch into it.


Suburban bike rack:


Drew also showed up, still rockin' the FCR.


In the evening, it seemed to be a case of someone jettisoning bad music* from their cars, as I found two separate audio CDs on the side of the road about half a mile apart from one another.
Mercy Me and Switchfoot, in case you cared.




As for today? I'm going to ride to work and ride home, just like I do most of the time. Tomorrow, Overland Park hosts another breakfast event as part of their Wednesday Farmer's Market. I look forward to meeting some more folks there!

* Not a statement of artist talent. I like some Christian music, but neither of the two are really my style.

Kicking off Bike Week 2011!

Yesterday started Bike Week in Kansas City. Bike Week and I go back about 4 years. Bike Week 2007 was when I set myself to riding both ways to and from work as much as possible. I'd ridden the entire trip home from work a few times, but Bike Week was a turning point to my commutes. It was the week I realized I didn't need to rely on the bus; that I could get around under my own power. The switch had flipped on: "Any distance is biking distance."

There were many inspirations for me to start this journey, from picking up a bike in the first place, to trudging through the winter, to writing about it. Even though I now have a more modest distance to work, I hold Bike Week dear for getting me into longer distance commuting. There's been a lot of comeraderie around it as well. I genuinely love meeting other bicycle commuters. I love talking to inquisitive folks about it. I love showing people good routes and little-known shortcuts.

I didn't go anywhere yesterday, but today, I had to get some groceries.



Here are some other recent photos.




Up really late doing some data recovery for someone who installed Ubuntu over Windows without making sure everything was backed up.


Our two cats, tolerating one another.


I'll leave you with this slide show of all the photos I've taken during Bike Week the past 3 years.

Finally.

Shorts for the morning commute!

Friday AM commute: 45 degrees (brr!)
Today's AM commute: 75 degrees (perfect!)

Now, Mother Nature: Let's discuss these 90 degree afternoons. It's only May. For real.

My S24Os have nothing on this guy...

As seen on the surly blog, via Lorin's Google Reader feed: This one time, at raft camp...

Ragchew

Okay, I swear this isn't going to turn into an amateur radio blog, and I swear I'm still riding, albeit not as much as I wish. While en route between home and work, I'll often participate in one of the local commute-time discussions. A few regulars tune in to the frequency used by a local repeater, discuss current events and shoot the breeze. Some of these guys are a riot. It beats morning radio, for sure. I do more listening than talking. On the bike, I leave a radio in a pannier pocket and hook up a handheld speaker/microphone.



I've been doing a bit of work on the side to drum up funds for a things I want or need. One of those was decent ham radio to to use at home; something 25 watts or better. A few weeks back, I went to what was essentially an amateur radio swap meet. I scored two used dual-band mobile transceivers with accessories for considerably less than the price of a single new unit with the comparable gear. Both are capable of pumping out 50 watts. One of them is tiny -- about the size of a hard drive.





But then, the real surprise was that c'Dude himself also picked up a tiny handheld that same weekend. It's not too much different than the VX-2R I have, but it's got some more features. I've known he was a ham since I met him. While he's had a license to operate on the air for a long time, he hasn't had a radio, as far as I know, in quite a while. This should be fun!

We've talked on the air a few times, but I think our commuting schedules are far enough off that we probably won't be ragchewing from the bikes at the same time too often. This should be a pretty cool addition to darkside rides and bike camping trips, though.

Bike Lanes are Security Theater.

That is all.

Update:
Dan Kaminsky calls bullshit. And that may be check mate for me. Of course, if people would quit riding on the sidewalks, quit being scared gutter bunnies and FOR CRYING OUT LOUD quit being bike salmon, bike lanes wouldn't likely help. But apparently, they gently nudge cyclists out into the road where they belong in the first place.

I personally think there has to be a better way, but whatever.

Oh, yeah. Just take the damned lane already, if there's not a little stripe of paint on the road to segregate you.

For Sale

It makes me sad, but my wife has asked if I could find a buyer for her Electra Townie 3S. She bought the Townie back in 2008 with her health already in decline, hoping that it would help her become more active. She went on a few short rides with it, but eventually her doctors advised her to stop and persue less intense therapy under the supervision of a physician. Last year, the government declared her 100% disabled. She makes frequent visits to the ER. Her symptoms continue to baffle doctors and the diagnosis seemingly changes every two months. That means that doctors are still guessing and don't really know what's wrong.

It's hard to justify holding on to this really nice bike when the government says she's disabled and her doctors say she should not be on a bicycle. She's logged 54.9 miles on it. It's never been left outside, and I've kept it clean and in good working order. It's got a Shimano Nexus 3 hub, coaster brakes, front suspension and a chain guard. The riding posture is very relaxed and fun. It's got the soul of a beach cruiser. Included is the add-on townie cargo rack and trunk bag, a handlebar bell and a CatEye Enduro 8 cyclometer. It's the perfect bike for urban commutes, short errands, or enjoying a day on the bike path. All combined, that stuff set her back $550 when she was still working. My wife would like $300 for it. I honestly don't know what it's worth, but I told her I'd post it here for her.

I'm hoping to eventually find a wheelchair that I can tweak to double as a bike trailer so that we can still enjoy the bike paths together, but for now, she wants to find a new home for the Townie.

*Feline companion and helmet not included.

Springtime!

Wait. What?



Temperatures have been fluctuating wildly this month. We've had some beautiful warm weather, several little snow storms, and a whole bunch of bland, overcast days between them. This weekend, it seemed to never stop snowing, but it was all very light snow for the most part, and with temperatures so close to freezing that nothing ever really stuck to the roads. In fact, the road was mostly dry on the way in. It was almost surreal seeing yesterday's snowfall sticking to cars, grass and trees.

The thermometer on my bike computer pegged the temperature in the mid-30s, not even freezing. A hoodie over my normal long-sleeve get-up was just about perfect. 

Supposedly, we're in for another multi-inch snow storm tomorrow.

Dear Winter,
Just give up. We're ready for springtime.

Sincerely,
Bicycle Commuters in the Midwest.

Hamming it up

I've been interested in Amateur Radio since I was 8 years old. Back then, you had to know Morse code well enough to encode and decode a few words per minute.  Try as I might, that part gave me the most trouble. By the time I graduated high school, the FCC had ditched the Morse Code requirement. Then, the cost of equipment had me in sticker shock. All my life, I've been friends with various amateur radio operators.

A few weeks back, I got a good deal on a pair of handheld transceivers from a friend in California, a Yaesu VX-2R and Yaesu VX-7R. This turned a "pie in the sky" thing into a tangible, attainable hobby.


The VX-7R is beefy and heavy. It's got an alloy case, and it's submersible to 3 feet for 30 minutes, and can withstand hours upon hours in the rain. The VX-2R fits in the palm of my hand. It's light and packed with features. I don't really know how well either of them transmit just yet.

Few things motivate you to get licensed like having new hardware and being unable to legally use it to its fullest potential. I've been cramming these past few weeks, and a group of Volunteer Examiners was hosting a testing session tonight. I went in knowing I'd do really well on the entry-level Technician test. The group let me take the next-level General exam as well, but I missed one question too many to get that license. I hadn't even studied for general, and I guessed at more than half of the answers. I'll go back and take that test sometime later.

Anyhow, looky looky!


That VX-2R is definitely going on my S24O adventures, and there's actually a lot of entertaining banter on some of the nearby repeaters.

More bikey adventures coming soon!

New Personal Record

I woke up to see this:


Definitely time for a ride. The main roads have been clear enough to ride on for the past few days, but over-eager drivers combined with shoulders made of 3-foot (or deeper) plow banks means that my usual rush-hour bike commute is still kind of on hold. An early morning ride a little longer than my usual commute was definitely in order. Partially to shake down Frank in real snow, testing out the new cyclometer (which read -5.2°F by the time I got back home) and partially just to say I've ridden in colder than -5. My previous cold record was about 2 and a half miles at -4.



As for snow handling, these 2.25" tires handle amazingly well, but they still don't have the floating capacity to handle the un-plowed church parking lot down the road from me. In fact, powering into the un-plowed mass grabbed my front tire with enough oomph to throw me into what had to be a comically slow-mo endo. As usual, I love playing in the snow.

On a lighter note...

I spent most of the weekend at KU Medical Center with my wife.


On Friday, my sister-in-law and I had a nice lunch with Eric while my wife was getting this behemoth shoved into her brachiocephalic vein.


Forget those wimpy IV lines you may have seen in the past. This is called a "Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter" (pronounced: "ouch") The skinny end of this beast was hanging out in the right atrium of my wife's heart! She said she could feel the end flopping around when she was laying on one side. I'm not sure if that's possible or not, but either way, the mere thought freaks me out just a little bit.

I spent a lot of time in mechanical awe as I watched a tower crane get assembled from the ground up over the weekend. I guess KU Medical Center is adding a few floors to the heart center. After a few vertical sections were in place by a Link Belt 348 crawler crane, the crew started assembling the tower crane's cab.


It didn't take long for the whole thing to go up after that.


The view from my wife's room was interesting, in that I got to look out over the cooling towers and chimneys and across State Line into Midtown.


And as we were preparing to leave the hospital, I got to watch hard-hat-wearing acrobats set up pulleys for the main cable.


As for my wife, the procedure got us some good news and some bad news. The initial problem the doctors were trying to diagnose isn't as big of a deal as originally expected. That means something else is wrong. There's a lot to be thankful for, but a lot of unanswered questions.

Parking Rage

Lead Sled parking rage, originally uploaded by KC-Bike.

Figures. Right after my wife finally gets out of the hospital and it looks like I might have a clear shot at picking up the bike again, we have today's icepocalypse followed by tomorrow's snowgasm. Us midwesterners certainly love our wintry neologisms.

I'm generally pretty tame whilst driving, but I kind of screamed in a fit of rage when I saw that my neighbor (we shall call her "Negative Jenn" per her snazzy license plates) has started to make a habit of increasing her double-parking overlap by about an inch each day. As I'm parked, she still has enough room to wiggle into the driver's side door of her 4,000 pound 3.8L supercharged lead sled. I must admit, however, that I miss being able to nonchalantly park my battered 1989 Ford Aerostar perfectly 2" away from the driver's side of offending vehicles without the fear of cosmetic repercussions.

I really should have just ridden today.

Say it again, folks: "Take The Lane."

That new critically-acclaimed bike lane is buried. Now what?

Wide outer lanes are a good start, especially on bridges. As long as they're wide enough to accommodate plowcrap. Really, though, this is the primary recurring problem with grant-funded bicycle/pedestrian specific infrastructure. It's no one's job to make sure it's maintained. A few weeks ago, it was littered with street sweeper debris and broken glass. Today, it's buried in plowcrap (a delightful blend of ice, sand, salt, glass, cans, cigarette butts and fast food packaging) and in a few years it'll be a blighted craterscape that no one would want to ride a bike on. Just like all of the other bike lanes.

Adventures in bicycle repair

Bar tape, originally uploaded by KC-Bike.

Most of the work has been done on The Twelve. Here's a sneak peek of its new handlebar tape, but you can see the new brake hoods, cables, and cable housings as well.

Believe it or not, I've never had the levers off of a road bike before, nor have I had the (ahem) pleasure of running new cable housings for STI brakes or shifters. While the bike was under warranty, I had the cables (but not the housings) replaced and I watched while it was done. I'm also pretty good at grokking mechanical things without referencing manuals.

Still, this was an interesting and fun project. The hoods were totally trashed, and it took an experienced bike wrench a few weeks to find the right parts to replace them. They were kind of a pain in the butt to replace. The housings, bar tape, cables and all of that can be replaced without tearing the levers off the handlebars, but not the brake hoods. They're also a pretty tight fit, but they are indeed the correct ones. They look and feel AWESOME.

This bike came with black tape from the factory. When I replaced that a few years ago, I went with black and white zebra stripes. This time, I'm going black-on-red. It still matches the theme of The Twelve's Black, White, Red and Brushed Aluminum motif.

Also up are well-past-due replacements of the chain and cassette. The new brake pads went on last month.

Aside from headset bearings and a new bottom bracket, this seems like a total overhaul. And when I need a new BB, I think commuterDude has me convinced to drink the square taper kool-aid and get a new crankset to go with it.

I also picked up a really cheapo wireless cyclometer for Frank. Aside from lacking a cadence sensor, It's got more functions than the $80 wired Trek Incite 11i that got stolen with Hybridzilla back in '08, including a backlight and thermometer, both of which are pretty handy for those cold, dark winter rides.

Doomed, I say.

Mall security camera footage.

I'd bet some personal records fall this morning.

Ah, the "Personal Record"

When you're a bike commuter in most parts of the US, you usually don't have anyone to compare yourself to. If you do run across another cyclist, they might be going the other way, they may already be 10 miles into their commute, or more often than not, they're recreational cyclists without much cargo. Most of us just try to best our own records when we feel some kind of competitive streak. Fastest time to work, most consecutive days, or this time of year the cold-weather record. I've ridden 2 miles to a bus stop at -4°F and the entire 14.5 mile length of my old work commute at -1°F. As of 4:00 this morning, the temperatures were as low as -5 in the suburbs and -12 out west a few dozen miles. I always say it's not cold if it's above zero (Fahrenheit)

I have been seeing a lot of long-time "fair weather" bike commuters stay on the bike this winter. More than usual. I'm almost certain some of them will be on the road this morning just so they can have a really good below-zero personal record.

Of course, I also usually say "If I'm too sick to ride my bike, I'm too sick to go to work." and that's generally true, but I've spent all week with a sinus infection-turned-bronchitis and I frankly don't have the time saved up to blow a whole week of work. Last weekend, I finally got my car back up and running for the most part, with new tires, a battery and some oddball repair work. This was mostly so I have a way to promptly get around town when my wife isn't feeling well, but this week it's getting me hither to yonder while I'm on the mend. And I have to be honest. I'm a car guy at heart, and I absolutely love my little Focus. It's more than a decade old, it's paid off, it gets decent fuel economy (can't match the bicycle) and it's an absolute blast to drive, even in the snow. Especially in the snow.

And speaking of snow, Monday's 6" of accumulation was enough to make bicycle commuting impossible along my route. The roads I use are rarely plowed, have no shoulder and become very narrow and hazardous once the snow starts building up. Without a homeward-bound bus to use, there will be days I have to drive or at least car-pool, and paying a bus driver $2 each way to effectively travel 6.2 miles is bit crazy. I could almost hire a taxi to haul me around for those prices.

The good news is that I also scored a bunch of parts to do a complete overhaul of The Twelve, although I'm waiting on the specific handlebar tape I want before I dive too much further into it. I replaced the brake pads a few weeks ago, but now I have brand new cables and housings, chain, cassette and lever hoods ready to go.

So, who of you have set new cold-weather records for yourselves so far this winter?

A Secret That Can Change The World.

via Andy Beals

The hard facts.

With my wife's medical issues, I really need to get my old Ford Focus back up and running. We've essentially been a one-car family by virtue of one of our vehicles simply being out of commission. Last winter killed the battery, which was last replaced in the summer of 2004 - it's long past due. I could probably throw a battery into it and it would run. But it needs new tires for winter. The ones on it wouldn't handle snow. Once it warms up there's an entire litany of things that I really should get around to replacing. It's more than a decade old, now, with a little under 120,000 miles on the clock, which means I've driven it less than 1,000 miles since this time last year.


My wife went to a doctor's appointment today, only to be admitted to the hospital. Not just any hospital, but one of the furthest away from my office. I had to swing by the apartment first to pick up a few things my wife needed, and I'm no stranger to loading lots of stuff onto the bike. I loaded up and rolled out along my old commute route from 2007-2008. Man, I miss this route!

Visiting hours are over at 8:00 PM, and it's going to be a close call as it is, so I'm hammering away as fast as I can given the sub-freezing weather. At the bottom of the last and most arduous climb to get to the hospital, my right STI shift lever goes totally limp, followed by a ratcheting noise from my rear derailleur and a massive increase in resistance.


Yep. The shifter cable snapped clean off, and it ghost-shifted all the way to high-gear right as I was trying to make a climb. With all the cargo on The Twelve, I couldn't make it up the hill. Not even cross-chaining the triple crank, not even standing up. It was 8:00. I was at the bottom of Rainbow Boulevard, and I was going to perform... THE WALK OF SHAME.

Of course, I was basically turned away after handing over my wife's belongings. I got to see her for a few minutes, but only out in a lobby. I felt like I had failed her in the most basic way one human can fail another: by not being there for her when she needed me. Had the Focus been road-worthy, this wouldn't have been a big deal. Ride home, hop in the car, and drive to the hospital. Get there with an hour or more of visiting time. This is far from the first time that our single-car-ness has led to major inconveniences.

Sure, having my own functional vehicle may increase my temptation to drive on some days, and I will probably give in to that temptation once in a while. I'm not here to prove how hardcore I am. I just want people to know that if a fat computer nerd can bike commute in all four seasons, pretty much anyone can do it. That said, I think I see a little more driving in my immediate future. You know, as soon as I save up for a car battery and some cheap tires.

Frank

This bike, as far as I can tell, is a 1995 Schwinn Moab-S frame with a dizzying pile of upgrade equipment bolted to it. Here's a sampling:

The OEM fork was a cheapo RST from the mid-1990s. That got upgraded to a Marzocchi Bomber Z2. It's an older fork but fully adjustable. I wish it had lockout, but it doesn't.

The OEM rolling stock was a pair of reasonable 1.95" Kenda tires mounted to some crappy off-brand rims and entry-level Shimano hubs. This got upgraded to a pair of Bontrager Corvair rims with asymmetric drilling on the rear wrapped in 2.2" Bontrager JonesXR tires.

Brakes: Upgraded all around, with Shimano Servo-Wave levers going to some really nice V-Brakes.

Crankset and drivetrain seems to be stock entry-level Shimano Acera stuff from the factory, but with different chainrings and cassette gearing.

And then there's my added flair: Lights and a rack. Now all I need is a nice pair of fenders. Despite the massive tires, there's plenty of clearance.

Over the past few weeks, this bike has revealed itself to me. It's a well-mannered Frankenstein bike. It's big. It's slow. But it gets through all kinds of stuff. With its insane 22x30 gear combo on the low end, I wonder if it could pull tree stumps out of the ground or be used to tow an SUV. The high gear leaves a lot to be desired, but it's not about getting around quickly. It's just about getting around.

Anyhow, meet Frank, my winter bike. I didn't actually ride this bike today. I opted for The Twelve instead, since the roads were clear.