... keeping it real Thursdays

I was dismayed to read that a new ghost bike has been chained to a signpost at Fulton and Washington where Julian Miller was fatally struck by a motorcyclist on September 18.


I really don't feel like getting into a road rules debate right now, but this article about what supposedly lead to her and the motorcyclist's death kind of got under my skin...

The article even relates one person's corroboration of reports of two guys on crotch-rockets racing up and down Greene Ave before the incident. I've got nothing wrong with clubs, or even gangs, that center around a particular vehicle, hobby, or sport; but I'm pretty sure everyone in Brooklyn is intimately familiar with the growing popularity of driving a motorcycle like a goddamn maniac in the middle of the night. So why aren't we doing something about the ones who are flagrantly disobeying both common sense and local law; and instead pleading with cyclists to be more "defensive," "watchful," and "vigilant" of them?

Since when is it the duty of the law-abiding citizen to accommodate the transgressions of the law-breaking citizen? All this mentality does for us is perpetuate this disgusting culture of fear we've submitted to both consciously and unconsciously.

Though after reading the "account" of what transpired, it seems that Ms. Miller was salmoning up Greene or riding off the sidewalk between cars in the dark of night.

If you'll recall, I recently be-frogged my bike in a clever lightway that helps me and my penchant for dark clothing stay visible when riding after hours, and as a result I've become keenly aware of many bikes' extreme lack of illumination. I don't want to encourage people to bedazzle their bikes with those stupid peel-n-stick neon green reflectors, but some lights or reflectors are always a good thing (bear in mind, if you have lights theres really no point in having reflectors too, since the light should outshine the light bouncing off the reflector; if it doesn't, you need new batteries for your lights).


I've also started riding around Prospect Park on Tuesday and Thursday evenings since I'm somewhat unhappy with the speed my fitness allows me to ride at. In doing so I notice an irritatingly common problem with bicycle traffic at this time of day: people salmoning, lightless, through the pitch-dark park to (I assume) save a few seconds on their evening commute.


But recently I haven't been vocalizing my disdain for bike salmon, and instead have adopted a live-and-let-live policy, only saying something when they directly affect my safety or path of travel. I figure nobody wants to get lectured at anyway, and hopefully one day they'll realize that riding with traffic is far less scary than the opposite by their own volition.

Then again, the Police certainly aren't helping the situation (that is assuming they lead by example, which we all know, they don't), as evidenced by this occurence I was fortunate enough to capture this morning as I walked my bike to the service entrance of my office building:


Yes, thoust eyes dostn't decieve thee; that is indeed a Cop-salmon. I thought i was going to catch him sidewalk-salmoning, but right as I managed to free my camera from my bag, he rode into the new protected bike lane on Broadway... Oh well, this just as bad if not worse in my opinion.

Not to leave you with a sour taste for cycling, I was heartened to see that the Bergen St. 2,3 station in Brooklyn now boasts bike racks for commuters to use.


I only wish we could see this at every train station instead of having people to resort to vertical locking jobs on scarce bike racks, fences and signposts... But it's nice to see people are at least riding part of the way to work...

...the weekend madness (installment 10)

Last week I decided that this weekend past I would go out and do something interesting or exciting for a change, so I decided to wake up at 5:30 am Saturday and join the Escape New York ride presented by NYCC.


The ride set out from Sakura Park on 122nd St and Riverside Dr. at seven in the morning, so I had to ride up there from Brooklyn starting at 6:00am. I stress the extreme earliness if the ride because I'm not what one would call a "morning person" and not having registered for the ride beforehand, I was pleased with myself for not making an excuse not to go and rolling over back into sweet cozy slumber.

I arrived at the staging area exactly when I had planned and after forking over $50 to take part, I downed a few cups of coffee and some pastry before loading my pockets with Boudreaux's Butt Paste, super foods, half a banana, and chocolates.


After a getting a cue sheet (map and list of turns in sequential order) and stretching a bit, we were off!


Once in NJ, the pace quickened by a considerable amount and the cyclists began grouping into pacelines... I joined this one as It overtook me in part because they seemed to be riding efficiently, but also because of this orangey jersey that said "Formaggio" on the front and back. Being a big fan of cheeses, I decided this was the paceline for me and grabbed this guy wheel as they passed.

The route took us winding through upscale new jersey suburbs where the road quality rapidly changed from 'newly paved' to 'riddled with pot-holes' and back, lending an epic quality to the ride, fit for grey-scaling in the Rapha-way. Before getting to the first rest stop, my average speed was a whopping 26 mph... gotta love the drafting.


I didn't spend much time at this stop, only enough to relieve my bladder, fill water bottles, and take in a pb&j or three. Then we began to really get into hilly sections and the larger groups broke into smaller grupettos, selecting against weaker climbers. This group of three formed when the guy in second position and I caught up to the guy in blue and the guy in rear.


We traded turns pulling at the front but eventually the riders we caught up to wore out on a particularly steep section of residential road and from there on it was me and this guy:



After stopping for a terrestrial goose paceline (pictured above), I eventually got dropped by him and gathering what was left of my shattered ego, I huffed on alone for most of the rest of the way (sound familiar?). Heres a close up of the geese "threading the needle", as they say in cycling parlance:


I encountered some pretty dramatic climbs (one of which is a fabled climb of 8% average with the last section at some 19% grade) and also some killer descents, my max speed here was 39.9mph (note: photo below is a dramatization of that experience, I'm not dumb enough to try and go that fast one-handed)


Eventually I reached the halfway point (judging by the cateye) and turned south along the Hudson, just short of Bear Mountain.


I liked this ride specifically because though it took us through a veritable cycling mecca, we rode routes entirely foreign to me, leading me to feel lost much of the time, which strangely, I enjoyed. What I didn't enjoy however, was the unseasonably chilly weather; I assumed I'd tough it out until we got riding and my internal temperature would elevate to a comfortable level, but I didn't think it would be quite as cold as it was.


by the time I reached the last rest stop in Piermont, I was none too pleased with my lack of weather appropriate attire, quite unlike this 'double century couple' I saw (behind the normal people, standing at the counter); both wearing the kind of skinsuits that help perpetuate the negative stereotype of horribly dressed cyclists.

Conversely there were a surprising number of guys completely decked out in Rapha gear, which of course in turn made me green with envy at their 'epic style' and 'timeless cycling traditions.'

Any way, I got the requisite shot of manhattan coming back over the GWB,


And hurriedly made my way back to the start so i could get the hell home and warm up. Once i got into the city, however, I was surprised to find it a good five to ten degrees warmer than out in the boonies. I was also surprised to find mega-size heros and napkins;


Though realized that the only variety of heros available were meat, cheese, or vegan. I covertly aprehended one of each (not the vegan though, blech!) and proceeded to mix their ingredients by hand. Satisfied with my sandwich renovation, I turned around and witnessed incontrovertible evidence that the universe was likewise in favor of further meat-cheese collaborations:


I agree universe, I like cheese too.

At this point I knew it was safe to head home after watching a few gripping rounds of flat fixing contest.


Which, I have to point, out seemed obscenely wasteful of tubes, not to ruin the outro here...

...video Wednesdays

Sorry for the late post... Just saw this and laughed my ass off for a good ten minutes or so:



Arguably the best part is the helmet cam inset, so in case watching him from the side is too suspenseful, you can look down and quell your fear of his raw speed.

I like seeing ideas like this realized, though it seems somewhat useless on the downhills; I mean, all you can really do is coast right? Uphills are understandably the focus of much innovation in bicycle design, though are only one aspect of cycling (lets not forget about downhill and flats).

I think negating utility in one place in favor of high mechanical advantage in another is a little like buying new jeans to make cutoff shorts; then again, riding this slow would also likely force you to become masterful at bike handling, so maybe its not so half baked after all.

...roller bored

So I was perusing the cycling blogs and whatnot just now and came across this interesting video of professional skateboarders talking about something that I'm not terribly interested in. What I am interested in is Eric Koston's little skid there at about the halfway point and what this means in regard to inter-subcultural trading.

I honestly had no idea that for some reason, skateboarders were turning to cycling (fixed gear riding, specifically) in droves. While I was aware that many of the bike shops that seem to be popping up all over the place happened to sell decks, trucks, and wheels; I'm amazed at the number of former skateboarders (such as myself) that have turned to cycling in great numbers.

Well, its pretty obvious that freestyle fixed gear cycling would draw constituents from skateboarding as both sports revolve around hanging out at strange locations and hucking oneself off of and over objects and obstacles; something John Prolly can certainly attest to.


Then you've got people like me who take on hobbies or sports for entirely different reasons... Personally, I gravitate toward activities that allow me to be somewhat antisocial since I detest the idea of team sports.

I started skating in sixth grade (I guess that means I was about 11 or 12), the most socially formative years of one's life, in part to have a hobby and develop skills at something I enjoyed, but also because it allowed me quiet, deeply personal time for solitary thought.

Getting out of the house and rolling around by myself were some of the fondest memories I have of growing up in Texas; given that, its really no stretch to see why I like road cycling so much. I enjoy letting the miles slide by in silence, simply enjoying the moment, taking in the scenery and getting a lot of thinking done in the process.

While skating is a decidedly introverted sport, cycling is even more so, which makes me wonder if I would do well to join a cycling team next season. As I'd stated before, I plan on racing as much as I can next summer and will hopefully manage to make it up two categories in one season (cat5 - cat3). However I'm hesitant to join a social cycling group despite the benefits I may reap from such involvement (racing tactics, fast group rides, snazzy logoed-up club kits, etc).

Being a highly critical person, I must very carefully choose which cycling club (if any) I would join. On one hand, there are big teams like Kissena and NYCC that everyone and their mother belong to, and on the other hand there are very small, tight knit clubs that are "invite only" status.

Initially, my rough plan of attack is as follows:

1. Train all winter against category 3 race times.
   
2. Buy USAC racing license as an "Unattached Rider"
3. Attend 10 races and category up to 4 by early next summer
4. Enter Prospect Park Race series and ride in all races.
5. THEN I will toy with the idea of joining a cycling club.

Hopefully this approach will allow me to have a broader reputation and subsequently an easier time courting smaller clubs with (I hope) cooler people.

At any rate, starting last week, I'm training at Prospect Park as often as possible. I'll be doing race-pace rides around the 3.4 mi loop on Tuesdays and Thursdays every week at 8:00 p.m. with the remaining days being devoted to honing bike handling skills, endurance, climbing, and interval training.

If anyone feels like coming out for a zippy ride on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, you're more than welcome to join.

...the weekend madness (installment 9)

So this weekend past, I had planned a number of exciting activities for myself in attempt to stave off boredom more effectively than in previous weekends. Friday I did essentially nothing, I presented myself at work in a timely fashion as usual, and then went home and caught up on satirical punditry before going to bed.

On Saturday I did manage slightly more productivity, doing laundry and cycling around from bike shop to bike shop hunting for another knog frog to compliment the two I already own. I had noticed that not only were my knogs getting dimmer with age, my front light needed a compatriot so that I could mount them on the fork blades without worrying about which side I was weighting more.


At any rate, I found the "frog" surprisingly difficult to track down as it seems Knog is promoting their "beetle" light now and all the LBS's are flush with beetles and devoid of frogs. Because of that, I was forced to finally settle on a frog in the clear-ish 'colorway' as opposed to my usual choice of black (depicted above).

Still not wanting to appear unbalanced, I removed the electronics from the new clear-ish frog and swapped them out with the red light from one of the frogs I already owned. This allowed me to be able to affix the two black frogs to my fork blades and the clear-ish frog to my seat post, where the red light would be more visible from the sides through the rubbery housing.

Also, I bought new batteries for the two frogs I already had, but was shocked at the steep cost of frog ownership, for the batteries it requires (2032's I believe) are "medical batteries" and $8 a pair at Duane Reade, which is just crazy. On that note, I needed to buy batteries for my camera as well (hence the extreme lack of first-person documentation on this blog recently) but opted to wait since I was going to see the Decemberists at Terminal 5 later, and didn't want the hassle of toting around a brick of AA's at a concert.

As I had come to expect from these Oregoners, the concert turned out to be pretty awesome. They got some MC to draw songs written on plastic balls from a tumbler that the band would then play before a preppy looking tennis guy came out to lob the song ball into the audience.

I didn't manage to catch one of the balls, but I did catch a cool vibe from both the band and my fellow spectators. This was the first crowd I had pushed my way through (in following the much smaller girls toward the front) that peacefully accomodated my path by scooting aside as much as they could or pointing out gaps that I could exploit to that end.

For me, the Decemberists were merely an indie-rock group that my girlfriend liked, and that was the end of it until I actually took the time to listen to their work. I'm no musical authority, but I found that I really enjoy their music and even moreso their good-clean-fun approach to putting on a show.


After the concert, we went home to sleep though I was having trouble doing so, either because of or in spite of the fact that I was planning a ride to Bear Mt for Sunday morning. I washed my bike, filled my water bottles and tires, packed a fresh tube into my seat bag and set out all of my gear and clothing for the morning.

Then Sunday morning everything went off without a hitch, I left pretty much right on time and was well on my way out of the city enjoying the cool weather when my bicycle broke.

I'm being vague about what "broke" because to be honest I have no idea what happened or why. All I know is that while riding normally, my pedals seized up for a split second, then made a very loud snapping/cracking sound and then I could no longer shift smoothly in the rear or at all in the front.

Using my meager set of bike maintenance skills, I attempted to reset my front derailleur but could not get it to work, so I pedaled back to Soho from about 170th St in my next-to-lowest gear (aka slower than molases). Once I made it to Bicycle Habitat, the head mechanic, Hal, corroborated that my front derailleur was both out of alignment and bent badly. As usual, he happily fixed it while dropping some lesser known bike facts on me about the parts he was fixing.

(my derailleur looked like the photo on the left, above, though much more exaggeratedly bent)

For a while I had noticed that though I have only two chainrings my derailleur was indexed for a three-chainring setup. Not quite understanding why this was, I chalked it up to the fact that my bike came with mid- to low-end components that may not have been paired properly with my setup. Hal elucidated for me why this was: apparently its just easier for companies to include triple-indexed front derailleurs on all the bikes they make. This, like the tire misconception, is another instance of people's stupidity driving product development.

If you have a geared bike, one of the first things you will read about shifting gears (If, like me, your inclined to read at length about such topics), is that the #1 no no is what's called "crossing over". This just means that its bad for the life-span of your sprockets and chain if you get into the habit of riding with the chain on the leftmost (smallest) sprocket in the rear and the right most (smallest) chainring in the front, or vice versa. So Shimano, Campy, and SRAM all offer triple indexing so that you can "trim" the derailleur position if the chain is rubbing it when you're crossing gears badly.

Hal went on to say that if bothers you to the point where money is no object, then the top-o'-the-line Dura-Ace comes in a "double indexed" variety; but at those prices, most people are content to deal with the extra click required to shift.

Anyway, by the time He straightened everything out and bent the derailleur cage back into position, it was already well into the afternoon and thus far too late for me to get anywhere interesting and back before nightfall (though I am still itching to try out my new 'lightway'). Knowing this and bummed that my ride was scrapped before it even really got started, I rode home and cleaned house with my roomate.

Oh well; 'til next time y'all, maintain your drivetrain...