Sometimes when you’re on a bike, you end up buying something bigger than what you expected and it doesn’t quite fit your carrying capacity.
In those cases, you improvise:
That’s right. That is a bigass whiteboard in my not-bigass trailer, propped upright by my backpack and tied in place with my jacket. And however hokey that setup looks, it made it all the way up the hill to the zoo.
I’m glad it didn’t rain on me:)
Posted in Materials and Gear
For a long time, I’ve had bike bell envy. My handlebars–both the ones that were stolen and the new ones I got to replace them–are super thick, and I’ve never yet found a bell mount that fits around them. So while people cheerily dinged their bells on the Eastbank Esplanade, say, I was relegated to saying “on your left” and hoping my voice would carry over the sounds of nearby I-5.
Sure, I probably could have cobbled something together, but this was a case where the activation energy required was just that much higher than how much I cared about it;)
But! Enter David! For my birthday, he got me a bike bell that mounts on the stem. Which is awesome not only because it means I can actually attach it to my bike, but I can also attach it to my bike while still using my handlebar bag!
(isn’t it awesome?? Ding ding!! :)
I’ve had this bell on my bike for two and a half days now, and I’ve gotta say–I feel like I need to re-learn how to interact with people now that I have this whole new gadget.
I sort of thought I would just put a bell on my bike and then I could ding it when I passed people, but it turns out that doesn’t feel quite right. If a person’s not actually in my way, for example, but I just want to let him know that I’m going past, a bell ring seems almost like overkill. Not quite aggressive, but even this super cheery bell seems somewhat intrusive in that case.
On the other hand, I don’t like to pass people without at least letting them know that I’m there. So for right now, I’ve been using an only-slightly-more-rational-than-random approach of saying “on your left” or “hello” or “how’s it going” when I go past someone without them necessarily having to do anything, then using my bell when I want to make absolutely sure that someone ahead of me knows that I’m coming up.
I just want people to feel acknowledged and warned but not pestered. And I’m not quite sure yet how a bell fits into that.
But I sure do like that shiny, happy little bell! :) Thanks, David!
Anyone else out there have a bike bell? Is there any common bell etiquette that I should know about? Please enlighten me.
Posted in Materials and Gear, Road Etiquette
These are my running shoes:
They have gone many, many miles with me, through mud, grass, rocks, dirt, puddles, rain, even snow. They’ve run in Washington Park and Forest Park and Mt Tabor. They’ve run behind countless waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge. All summer, I wake up often in the dark and they take me through Oxbow, Wildwood, and Eagle Creek before the sun rises and work starts. They’ve taken me through Ashland and Sacramento and Morgan Hill. They’ve run the hills of Tahoe.
Basically, they come with me everywhere.
Sometimes, they make me feel like I’m flying; sometimes, it feels like I can barely drag them over the ground. Sometimes, especially in the dark, they catch on tree roots and send me tumbling. They’re not magical, but despite the random tumbles it’s also true that I’ve never been injured in them the way I eventually have in most of my previous running shoes. It may just be that because they’re so minimal I don’t run on pavement with them, thus sparing my joints the extra shock of “civilized” surface. Perhaps any shoes run only on trails would behave similarly.
I have loved these shoes. But today, it’s time for them to retire.
As you can see from the picture, they’re a little bit shot. My foot sticks through the front where I’ve worn out the fabric. The balls of both my feet hammer the ground through the barely-extant bulge of stretched rubber that used to be a sole. They’ve never been much for padding anyway, which is why I like them, but I think the day has come for me to admit that these shoes are done.
I sort of hope that my life can be like these shoes–except longer;) I hope to feel, eventually, like I’ve worn out through good use, that I’ve squeezed every last drop of usefulness out of my time, that my days have taken me to all the beautiful places–physical, mental, whatever–that I want to go.
Heh–and then, when I wear out, I want to be able to replace all my parts and start over, just like buying new shoes:)
(My new shoes!:)
Tonight, I christen these new shoes, which are actually just a new version of my old shoes. May they also have a long and fulfilling life of much happy running:)
Posted in Materials and Gear
(YES!!!! Back up and running and sexy as ever!!:)
This morning I had a date with Mark from Upcycles to fix my poor little scavenged bikey.
Getting my bike to their shop in NE to fix it was sort of an adventure. I definitely wasn’t riding it up there:) And remember that it was in two pieces: a frame, and a fork/front wheel that looked like it could be a fun unicycle but without the handlebars and stem had no means of staying attached to the rest of the bicycle.
In Portland it’s no problem to take a whole bike on the bus, you just put it in the front rack–but bike pieces? I wasn’t too sure about that. So when I was at Upcycles the first time, Mark had given me a stem to take home (how rad is that?) so I could re-attach the front wheel and fork enough that they would stay together. Then I pilfered a back tire (much too large) from James’ old, semi-functional bike, just so that my bike pieces would sort of act like a real bike and I could put them on the bus. Of course, since the back tire was so big I couldn’t actually roll it, so I carried my bike down to the bus stop like a broken baby. Which I guess it kind of was.
And the first thing the driver said when I got on the bus was “what happened to your handlebars?” Good question man, good question.
Anyway. Mark had agreed to meet me an hour before Upcycles actually opened, and we proceeded to have an excellent put-my-bike-back-together party. I did as much of the work as I know how to do and Mark filled in the rest, showing me some of the stuff I wasn’t sure about and stopping me before I made any grievous errors. It’s a nice way to get your bike up and running, the assisted-and-supervised do-it-yourself technique:) It was incredibly gratifying, not only because I’m always excited about learning new stuff, but also because it feels good (at least to me:) to have a hand in your own bike’s functionality. Plus it was nice to hang out with Mark:)
(compact handlebars: a new configuration for me. So far–all 7 miles I rode home from Upcycles:)–they seem nice!)
Mark and Kai, his business partner, were so super awesome to find me used parts that they had around their shop and then order me the balance of what was missing. But what was even more awesome was that they gave me so much time–not only time to use one of their stands (in a teeny tiny shop where space is quite precious!) but also hours of mechanical help. I’m super grateful for everything they did to get me up and running again. They’re pretty solid dudes, those two.
And I rode my bike home!!! YES!!! (I don’t think I can use enough exclamation points here to express how excited I am about this:)
Thank you, Upcycles!!! You guys are the best:)
Tomorrow is breakfast on the bridge, by the way. I made some celebratory vegan/gluten free zucchini muffins and will be on the Steel bridge with my bike giving them out between 7 and 9am. I might even have my mom with me, if I can convince her to get up that early:) Come say hi and celebrate reborn bikey!:)
(And stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 of Dieter’s San Juan Islands guest posts–I just got excited about my bike and had to interrupt:)
Posted in Materials and Gear