Bikey St. Patrick's Day!

Even the bike is green!

Have a bikey St. Patrick's Day!
 

Blog Break!

The new 7th Avenue underpass along the ACDC in Phoenix

I'm taking a break from blogging for a little while to take care of some stuff, and to gather up some stray thoughts for possible future blog usage. There's just a lot going on, which requires some additional time and attention. Some of my meatier recent posts have some indication of the themes I'm reflecting on. I plan on continuing to reading other blogs in the interim. Keep on riding, and writing. I will.

 

A Moving, Encouraging Video from Brazil via Copenhagen

I found this video from Copenhangize.com both moving, and encouraging.

Moving, because of its portrayal of the enthusiastic young cyclists riding boldly and with ease and grace through a crowded, car-centric city. That, and it's just incredibly cool.

Encouraging, because some of the scenes reminded me of the car-centric city I live and ride in, and if they can do it, so can I, was my reaction. I am looking forward to seeing more about Mikael Colville-Andersen's trip to Brazil, hoping that he puts some of his presentations online to view. Since I live in a 1% bicycle commuting city (approx), more encouragement, and examples, and information about what it might take to really improve that extremely low rate, from someone who knows and has an extremely compelling messages, encourages me. 

This is a great video. The combination of music, flow, and joy of riding style gets to me. With this music and video playing in my head, I'm headed out for a ride, to see if I can find something like this in my city.


Sao Paulo Bikecapetas from Copenhagenize on Vimeo.

Welcome to Phoenix, Cyclists!

Lo the night was quiet and dark, as the beam from my bicycle headlight cast a warm and welcoming glow.

Go, ride, have an excellent weekend.

 

A Proper Response to Motorists Yelling "Get Off the Road!"

With considerable deliberation I formulated a proper and effective response...

The motorist traveling the other direction yelled at my back, as he hit the gas and made his loud engine even louder, something angry, along the lines of "GET OFF THE ROAD!" I considered his apparent demand seriously. What should my reaction be? Should I reply?

My first reaction, which I quickly damped down, was to spin around, chase after him, and just ask him what he meant. No-win response, though, no chance of actually finding out what he meant by doing that, so I quickly ruled that out.

Next, I considered shouting back an anatomically impossible demand of my own. For, while being anatomically impossible for him to do, the demand seemed to satisfy some need I had to lash back out at him, as it queued up in my brain and headed toward my mouth. But, no, I damped that down, too, another no-win, as he was not likely to even attempt my anatomically impossible demand, but rather, would be angered further by it, if he even heard it. Which was unlikely, since he was speeding off into the distance. Probably the only person who would hear it would be some kid, who would then ask his parent what the anatomically impossible demand meant, and I didn't want that, either.

I considered actually doing what he told me to do, and get off the road. Immediately. This was hampered by practical considerations primarily, since I was riding in a bike lane on a street with no sidewalks. I pictured myself turning 90 degrees to the right and getting off the road immediately anyway, waving back at him, "Sure thing, mate! Any other demands?", and then just riding across the lawns, churning up the expensively manicured sod, hoping that someone would yell at me to get off their lawn so that I could go back to riding in the bike lane. "Why the hell are you riding on my lawn?" one of the lawnowners might inquire, to which I would reply, "Because a motorist demanded that I get off his road, and this seemed like the only alternative available!"

But no, I decided that I would not get off the road, and furthermore, that probably NO ONE EVER WOULD, in response to such a demand. In the history of bicycle riding, has anyone, anywhere, EVER, actually gotten off the road when a plain old motorist driving the opposite direction yelled at their back to do so? I think not. Furthermore, I believe that the motorist knew this when he yelled it, that there was no chance whatsoever that I would actually get off the road. So what would possess a motorist to yell such a thing, knowing that it was an absurd, impossible, and entirely unlikely to be obeyed demand? Desperation driven to such lengths of untoward impossible irrational absurd unlikely blurting and shouting is difficult to fathom, but I would wager some form of mental insufficiency, or personal frustration, or unresolved deep-seated emotional trauma, which just explodes out of him at the slightest provocation, and pushes him even further into the dark depths of dysfunction and failure.

On the other hand, I found that my previously advised response to such situations, to disengage, to take away the power, to escape, evade, and move on down the road, lacked a certain feeling of closure to me. It was unsatisfying, frankly. I was still simmering. It felt like I couldn't let it go, and shouldn't just ride on passively the next time someone yells something impossible at me, either in terms of anatomical impossibility, or as a demand that no one would accede to, ever. Put that way, there's a clear and simple response, that I will always have ready for now on, whenever a motorist yells something at me. This response also has the virtue of being appropriate for more or less any pointless, absurd, impolite shout or act by a motorist toward a cyclist on the road, so I like it. It feels like it would give me closure, while still accomplishing my desired end of not stooping to the depths of dysfunction despair and failure which lurk in the interior of the vehicle the shout or act originated from in the first place, no I won't go there. That's their zone, not mine.

Next time this sort of thing happens, which is infrequently by the way, people seldom yell at me, I have my reply ready. I will instantly turn, and shout at the top of my voice at his back (since that appears to be his preferred mode of communication, back-shouting), NO!!!!! That's it. Nothing more than NO!!!!! I have no need to dignify the dysfunctional back shout with further elaboration or action. Moving on now.

It seems perfect to me. GET OFF THE ROAD! NO!!!!! End of discussion. Having answered his impossible demand in a clear and logical, definitive manner, I will ride on without further ado. Useful in reply to any foul-mouthed, angry motorist, with a sense of closure and clarity. I like it. Let them roll on down the road with their full load of dysfunction intact and on board, since you reflected it right back where it came from.

I even imagined this becoming a sort of secret handshake greeting for cyclists who pass each other going opposite directions, one yelling at the back of the other GET OFF THE ROAD!!! and the other responding back at the top of his voice at the back of the first, NO!!!! a challenge-response style of greeting of mutual acknowledgement and confidence: in the face of absurdity and irrational demands, our unassailable, rational, and powerful response is known in advance: NO!!!!

Commuting Heaven and Hell

Guess which one this is...

A coworker was telling me about his terrible former car commute in LA, 1.5 to 2 hours each way, parking lot mode, to cover 26 miles on the 405 or something like that. That is, without reservation, my idea of hell on earth. I would be driven to heights of creativity, and physical exertion, to do ANYTHING to avoid three hours plus per day trapped in a car in a simmering, polluted, barely moving parking lot, to move my 4000 pounds of metal 26 x 2 miles. No no no.

Compared to my bicycle commute, above (for example). Twenty-five minutes of pure bicycling pleasure in the open air, sunshine, and as fast or slow as I please. Heaven.

Nowhere Places I Keep Riding Back To

One nowhere place of return: ACDC canal path, next to the freeway frontage, across from the amusement park

There are some nowhere places I keep riding back to, and I'm not sure why exactly. I ride along the canal, up and back? Back and up? Out and down? Down and out? Along and along, really, from nowhere, to nowhere, from X₁ to X₂, turn around and go back, on a bicycle that feels right, on a warm (almost hot, 81°F) spring day. 

The bougainvillea do their level best to make it somewhere

Is it some kind of sneaky effort on my part to find a nowhere place, and make it into a secret somewhere, a small place of my own? If so, couldn't I chose a better place than this, perhaps one with shade, benches, water, away from the freeway and mall? I have those kind of places, too, but they already feel more like well-trodden somewheres, while this is still a random nowhere place. It's sort of an even number of miles from my house, but that ends up being beside the point, because there are an infinite number of nowhere points around the circular radius of that same even number of miles from my house, so why not one of those? Why this one? I don't really know. But if I count up the number of times I have paused in this spot, to take a drink of water, stretch my legs, ponder the ducks and the open sky for a moment, this spot starts to feel like more than nowhere to me. But it's a mystery why this one instead of the others. 

On analysis, I'm fairly confident in suggesting that it has more to do with the ride to get there, than the arrival. Which may not make a lot of sense unless you are a frequent practitioner of the Ride to Nowhere: some of my best rides have been precisely that.

I tidy up some nowhere places, merely because other people ride there, and I can't leave it alone

Some upstanding citizen left this shattered 40 of malt liquor all across the path with no real way around, so I paused to do the best I could without a broom to scoot and kick its sticky shards off the path. Now that I'm using the roomy Carradice saddle bag for more and more rides, it may be time to carry the little whisk broom/dustpan combo I picked up a while back, since bike shoes make very poor sticky glass shard path sweepers. But it was a job that needed to be done, such that my conscience would not permit me to ride on past it without taking care of that glass. While sweeping, I saw no less than five other riders go by in the space of a few minutes, so I must have saved a few tires at least. I wouldn't want to see such a fine day for nowhere riding sullied by the hissssssss [flopflopflop] of glass piercing rubber. The path to nowhere places should be free of such worries, so that one can maintain a state of mind appropriate for riding to them. Thank you for reading.

OSG mobile shattered 40oz malt liquor bottle path clean-up system (OSGMS40OZMLBPCUS)