See and be seen

Daylight savings time is an odd beast.  I’ve heard several explanations on its origins – ranging from bankers and stock brokers, to farmers wanting their children to be able to get chores in during daylight hours before school, to railroad interests.  Clearly they didn’t consult with bicycle commuters on their opinions, though, as the time shift puts the normal commute home into complete darkness.

It is a very subjective opinion, but city traffic in the mornings seems to be less hectic than traffic on the evening commute.  Perhaps it is because folks are anxious to get home – or to the pub – quickly after work, but not quite so rushed to get to the office in the morning.  Whatever the cause, I much prefer to ride in morning darkness compared to evening darkness.

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A view of my commute to work

It has been a while since my job switch, and things are starting to settle into a routine (which also means I’m getting back up to speed with regular posts here!)  Of course, being JustAnotherCyclist would require me to post the obligatory commute to work video.  Well, here it is folks.  This was taken with my GoPro camera mounted on the handlebars of my Cannondale R300 commuter.  I set the camera to take one shot every 3 seconds, and stitched them together into this short video.

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Helmets clearly don’t rock

Bicycle helmets.  They are the subject that I just can’t seem to leave alone.  As my daily commute has significantly changed, so as my approach to that commute.  One of those changes – without any specific intent that I am aware of – is the fact that I’ve shed the helmet for more of my commutes than not.  Perhaps it is the influence of all of the urbanite riders I come across.  Whatever the reason, I’ve mostly been without ye ol’ brain bucket lately.

My wife, on the other hand, is a stanch helmetarian.  She is often gently (or not so gently) ribbing me about my cycling-cap-only head.  I was this ribbing that prompted me to put on the helmet before I left for work the other morning.  As I’ve said before, I’m not against helmets, so riding with it is not something that really has to be forced on me.  This wasn’t a big deal.  Grab it, throw it on my head, strap it around the chin and forget about it.

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South Seattle Cyclists – Be Heard!

The Cascade Bicycle Club are not only responsible for the great Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic, but also do amazing work throughout the greater Seattle area to improve life for cyclists.

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Cycling to work when work is soccer

Now all of you footballers (aka soccer players) can have a role model to inspire you to join the 15mpd movement!  According to ghanasoccernet.com, Chelsea FC midfielder Michael Essian has decided to make his 10 mile round trip to the training grounds via bike – instead of sporting the Lamborghini.

Shocked Premier League buddies have even nicknamed the £120,000-a-week Ghana midfielder “Lance”, after Tour de France legend Lance Armstrong.

While the rest park up their Bentleys and Porsches, Michael, 27, cuts a cool figure in helmet and wraparound shades as he gets off his £1,300 two-wheeled racer.

— From “Michael Essian goes into cycling

But watch out Essian!  I just happen to know of another footballer that may just be nipping on your heels – both on the pitch and the bike!

Riding across the Dumbarton

Part of my Sacramento to Palo Alto commute has me transferring to a bus that drives me across the bay into San Francisco.  Unfortunately, the company that Amtrak has contracted for the bus service has removed the bike racks from the front of their busses.   This is a little frustrating given the fact that they finally just got them on 6 months to a year ago.  It is further frustrating because they took them off so that they could install the FastPass transponders that tick when the go through the toll booths.  I’m not exactly sure why the entire front of the bus doesn’t allow for both the 8-10 inch transponder and a bike rack, but whatever. Keep reading →

Tip: Keep your bike parts attached!

It was a normal commute home. I’d gotten off the train, was making my way home, warm night, light traffic. There were an unusually large number of folks riding their bikes too. It was sometime around 9:00 or so.

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That’s when I found myself at the intersection of W and 11th, heading towards Riverside Blvd.  I go through this intersection a lot, so I know the timing of the lights on this particular stretch of road.  If I hit the pedal really hard and sprint all the way to Broadway, I can just make it through the light at Broadway and Riverside Blvd.  I’m feeling kinda spry tonight – so I’m gonna shoot for it.  I’ve got a perfect track stand going – no need to be delayed by clipping into the pedals.  I’m totally gonna make this light.

As soon as the light turns green, I’m hard on the pedals.  One revolution – I’m in a fairly high gear, so sorta slow launch.  Push harder.  Two revolutions…  Three revolutions…  Bike is leaning hard to the left.  Wait… What?  I’m on the ground! I’m on the ground!  How the hell did that happen?

I’m in the middle of the intersection, laying on my elbow. A car slowly moves around me through the intersection, so my immediate thought is to get out of the road. I start to stand up and realize that I’ve still got the “sprint grip” (not to be confused with the “death grip”) on my bars. And that is when it hits me. I’m standing up with the bars in my hands, but the bike is still laying on the ground. The freaking bars are no longer attached to the stem.

At intersection, immediately after incident

Apparently I apply a fair amount of force to the bars when I attempt to sprint. I’d snapped the quill stem completely apart right at the weld point. Seriously something of a predicament. I had about 5 miles or so to go to get home. Walkable maybe, but not an easy walk. Especially difficult with a broken bike. Clearly I’ve got to call the SAG wagon for help. Or, as the rest of you may know her, my wife. Only problem is – no answer. Ummm… what do I do now?

D’uh! You take pictures and post them to twitter!

Well crap. Now how do I get home??? http://twitpic.com/2bpr49

Ok – then I try and call SAG… er, I mean my wife… again.

I get an answer this time, and she is already getting ready to come and get me when she asks, almost as an afterthought, “What happened?  Are you OK?”

“I kinda ripped my handle bars right off my bike.”  I reply, trying to make the situation sound all the more dramatic.

“Oh.”  That’s pretty much the full response.

Well, a few minutes later the car, complete with all three kids, arrives at the gas station just past the intersection where “the incident” took place.  The kids seem pretty excited about the fact that my handlebars are all the way down by the hub of the front wheel – hanging by the cables and swinging around aimlessly like a broken limb.  I manage to get the bike on the roof of the car and, after making a couple of half-hearted attempts to somehow contain the swinging handlebars, decide that we’re not going that far or fast so it’ll be just fine.

It's just a scratch...

We get home and Melissa helps dress my elbow.  There was a small patch of abraded skin that was bleeding all over the place but not especially painful.  The fact that the whole thing happened after just a couple of pedal strokes was nothing short of amazing luck.  Things could have been a whole lot uglier if I’d crashed after I’d gotten up to speed.  Road rash is not something to look forward to.  However, the bar had been set pretty high in the “crashes won’t stop me” category, so I scrubbed out my elbow abrasion extra hard – just because.

On the ride home in the SAG wagon the Prius, I actually realized that just a couple of days earlier I’d heard a creak coming from the bars when I took off from a light.  At the time I didn’t give it much thought as it is not entirely uncommon for the bars or stem to creak as bolts slowly loosen up over time.  In retrospect, though, it was likely a harbinger of the eventual failure.  If only I’d recognized it as such.

One somewhat coincidental part of the whole thing is that I’d already been planning to get rid of that stem for different reasons.  Might have to expedite that project now.

Oh man have I got a commute for you!

I’ve yammered on a bunch about my 125+ mile, 3 day a week Sacramento to Palo Alto commute.  In a couple of Follow Ross to Work Day posts, I’ve detailed my use of my bike, trains and busses to make the commute – keeping me out of the car and out of I80 / I680 traffic.

But now I’m going to mix it up a bit.  August 22 I’ll be doing my Sacramento to Palo Alto commute entirely by bike! Some of the more observant among you will notice that Aug 22 is actually a Sunday.  Well, I’m not quite ready to do a 134 mile bike ride prior to a full work day, so I’ll stay Sunday night in Palo Alto or somewhere near there.

This will also be a rather big test of the bike functionality of Google Maps, which has laid out a supposedly safe bike route for me.  Of course you can expect tweets and posts here about the conditions, cursing the delta breeze, and probably some video from the Benicia-Martinez bridge.

Stay tuned!

Tell a cyclist to “Break an Elbow”

Pretty much everyone is familiar with the tradition in theater of wishing well to actors before a performance by stating “Break a leg.”  Well, now cyclists can have their own silly superstition.  Next time someone is heading out for a ride, yell at them “Break an elbow!”

We can thank Mayor Villaraigosa of Los Angeles for setting us up for this.  He recently found himself involved in a right-hook incident with a taxi cab while he was riding his bike on Venice Blvd, which ultimately resulted in a broken elbow for the mayor.

As a result of this incident, the mayor has declared his desire to put together a bike summit.  According to an LA Weekly post:

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently reached out to the bicycle community via YouTube and announced — more than a week after he broke an elbow in a bike accident on Venice Boulevard — that he would help organize a summit about the future of pedal power in L.A..’We’re going to work with the bicycle safety community to put together a bike summit,” he said.

It is unfortunate that someone in a position of power has to be injured to drive the point home about the need for more understanding and protection of cyclists.  However, it is totally understandable why, as a human, the mayor would be more sensitive to cycling issues after an incident such as this.  “Have a good ride mayor!  Break an elbow!”

The time seems ripe in LA for a change in culture.  The LAPD was already making strides to improve bicycle safety.  From the LA Times blog post:

Police Chief Charlie Beck has made overtures to bicyclists, promising to make their safety a bigger priority and sending some of his officers to ride in the monthly Critical Mass bicycle ride in June. The LAPD issued a directive instructing officers that a motorist can be held responsible for causing a bicycle accident even if he or she did not make direct contact with the rider — and can be arrested for fleeing the scene, Box said.

The LAPD involvement in the critical mass ride, while reported as wildly successful by both sides, unfortunately also only arose in response to an unfortunate circumstance.  A previous ride in LA staged to protest the BP oil spill was met with what was perceived by many as unwarranted aggressive behavior towards cyclists.

I fully applaud the actions of both the mayor and LAPD, acknowledge that all folks make mistakes, and give kudos to LAPD for recognizing a poorly handled situation and taking actions to correct the damage. However, I can’t help but find it frustrating that so many times it requires a tragedy in the cycling community to bring about any real, positive change.

Be safe, keep your helmet above your saddle above your pedals, and by all means “Break an Elbow!”

Doing three grand tours of my own this year

There are numerous races both large and small that make up the pro cycling season.  However, none get quite the attention of the three grand tours:  the Tour de France, the Giro de Italia (Tour of Italy) and the Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain).  However, this year I’ll also be doing three of my own grand tours:

* My wife Melissa will be with me on these two rides

Wait.  The Tour de Ross’s Commute?  What the heck is that??

For over three years now, I’ve been commuting an average of 3 days a week between my home in Sacramento, CA and my work in Palo Alto.  It is about 125 miles or so by car.  Of course, I don’t do it by car.  However, after a couple of the “Oh – did you ride here from Sacramento” jokes from coworkers as I rolled my bike into the office, I decided to make it so that I could actually answer “Yes!”

That’s right, I’ll be throwing my faith (and bike, and life) into the hands of Google maps and their new bike route mapping to plot my safe path the 139 miles I’ll be riding.

There are some interesting challenges and points of interest in my route:

I don’t fully know what to expect of this ride yet.  That is part of why I am so excited about it!