The Ride Report

Today I almost got hit by a car. This car was not doing anything wrong. In fact it was my own fault. I was going the wrong way down a narrow street. Several things were in my favor however. I was going slowly, as was the car. I had to go slowly to avoid sleeping cars, as did the car. And the car was a mini-cooper, leaving me room.

I didn’t however get hit by this car. I instead braked hard, swerved, threw a hard skid to bring my back end out of the way and kept on going. I didn’t even think about what I was doing, and the car never even honked. We were two kinetic beings and we had passed in the street as easy as you would pass someone while walking past them. I never even though “ohh crap!”, I simply reacted, I just kept moving.

That car might have thought I was an asshole, or maybe just thought I was crazy. But I thought nothing, my mind was free of all worry and honestly I wasn’t even bothered. My hands feet and legs knew what to do and they did them. I made a mental note to be more careful on that turn, and filed it away. Some would hear this story and take it as one more reason not to ride your bike, or one more reason why you should follow traffic laws. I see it as a beautiful dance.

So lets play a game. Pretend you are a car. You are driving down the road, and all of a sudden another car just decides that they want to turn left right in front of you. There is a very good chance you would crash right into them, hurting you both, and bending your fender and making your engine all broke and whatnot.

Today a minivan decided to do the same to me, lucky for me two things were true. One I was able to swerve into a nearby driveway, and two I was able to skid to a stop. The best part of minivans antics was that it then saw that I had stopped, and as I started moving forward again, it tried ONCE AGAIN to move through me. Enough already minivan! These sort of things happen for one simple reason, cars are not paying attention. If you are a car, you need to be looking for us adventurers, because we are much smaller than you, and it hurts when you give us hugs.

Other than a minivan trying desperately to give me it’s crushing love, the ride home was pretty good. I saw a very pretty lady adventurer and had a bit of witty banter with her. “On your left” I mentioned as I rode up past her on the left. “Nice day for a ride” I say, she responds, “Yes beautiful.” Clearly I am a pimp. Then she went right, and I went straight and the romance was over. Such is life.

The temperature outside was so perfect for riding, and I had a very pleasant time on the ride home. It was a gentle uplifting ride that just really made me feel good. You get one like that every once in a while, a perfect ride that just makes everything right. Until next time, I wish you all a perfect ride.

Nature shined on me a bit, and only drizzled listlessly on me as I rode home. There is however a simple principle of physics that I was dealing with all the way home. Skinny tires, no tread, lots of rain = no braking power, and lots of skidding. I rode slowly trying to be as safe as possible, but still found myself riding the skid for many feet on several occasions.

One memorable vignette, let me set the scene. I am in the right lane, mini-van wants to rush past me, then to my horror, pulls into the right hand lane almost directly in front of me and throws on the brakes for a right hand turn. I crank on the brakes, feel them engage, feel the back tire lock up and we are skidding. When you start to skid the bike often will start to shift, with the back wheel pulling to one side. This can be very fun, and also a bit scary. My solution, let go of the brakes, this made the wheel shoot back to the middle, then I would crank on them again, skid to the side, let go, rinse repeat.

The best part of all this was the really long and fun skids that I got to ride, the second best part was the horrified/sickly fascinated face of some huumans on the side watching me. It was like they both wanted me to crash, but also didn’t, and were both disappointed and thankful when I didn’t. After that little experience, and almost getting doored (gah), I decided not to press my luck, and walked it down a rather steep hill near my house. There would have been no way to stop in time if I had needed to, and with all the rain my swerving was gonna come up short.

I had pretty bad Swamp ass when I got home from the wheel fling, but a little toweling and me and the bike were dry. My bar tape is a bit wet from sitting out in the rain all day, but it should dry. I recently greased up the chain so it should be fine as well. Thursday is supposed to be warm and sunny again, so it looks like it is back to being able to brake for me, hurrah! Till then, ride it like you stole it.

You get wet, thats what. Been pouring outside all day, will check back in when I get home. Should be fun 🙂

It was sorta rain mist today on the ride home. Made for some fun times. The ride was fun, and the cool temperatures kept me from overheating.

Here is one tip for you cars. If you pass me on the left, and then gun it to get past me, then pull right over into the right hand lane, you should know I am STILL there. Just because you put me behind you doesn’t mean that when you fly over into the right hand lane I will have vanished.

I almost got eaten by one particular car today (again it was the ever cranky taxi, that breed just isn’t right somehow), it gunned past me then pulled right in front of me, luckily I know how to brake and skid. Never even took my feet out of the clips. It is kind of fun if you are ever in a parking lot with no cars around, go real fast then slam on the brakes, crank the handle bars to one side, see if you get fully perpendicular, then do a little bunny hop, turn straight and keep riding, it helps to do this all in one fluid motion. Makes the huumans think you are crazy/fancy.

Supposed to be cool again in the morning, lets hope so I like riding in this weather. Till then bike hard.

Took the old hex wrench to the bike Sunday night and raised the seat post about two inches. For a long time I had ridden with the seat very low. This is bad for a lot of reasons, but the main one being is that the most powerful part of your pedal stroke is when your leg is all the way extended with your toes a little bit pointed down, that when the “umph” kicks in. Previously I had not really cared, I just moved my legs faster if I wanted more power.

I have however found it to be to my advantage to have a little extra “umph” when it come to avoiding cars and huumans. That extra speed might save me from eating curb, or fender. So can I tell the difference, you bet I can. It makes a lot of difference. I can feel more juice going up hills, can feel more power when I accelerate, and overall I up higher so I get that much more visibility.

Now before you go home and start cranking up your seat post you should know a couple of things. One the higher up you are the higher your center of gravity is. If you are new to riding at the height you might feel a bit wobbly up higher. I would suggest you do it in stages, an inch here and inch there till you feel good. Also, because you are up higher it is a little more tricky to dismount. Your feet will just barely touch the ground when your but is on your seat, but you get used to it pretty quickly.

So the ride this morning was uneventful. There is one light when I can always be sure of having a couple cars lined up ready for me. This is my “race” light. I know that if I time it just right the cars and myself will both be entering the intersection at just the same time. This road is wide, and cars never park on it, so I have a lot of room on the right, and cars have a lot of room on the left. This is the time when I really stand up on it, burn them legs and pedal for all I am worth to see if I can outrace a car. It is simple fun, and most of the time the cars play along with the game. I usually win for the first half mile or so, then they take off, but I always catch up when they have to slow for the red at the end of the block.

It has gotten cooler, so I wasn’t even sweaty when I got to work. I did run into a huuman lady who informed me that she lives above me. She apparently recognized me from my helmet which she often sees leaving under her window to go ridding, hey that’s me! She was impressed that I ride “that far” every day. I was impressed by her skills at recognizing bike helmets. It wasn’t even weird that she watches me from her window. I wonder if she heard the porno sounds from the love scene in the movie I was watching last night.

It has looked like it might rain all day, but I don’t think it will. The ride home should be nice and cool. Might stop by the library first and pick up a book, I like books. Maybe some books about bike riding. Till then, happy pedaling.

It rained for about an hour Saturday night which thankfully removed a lot of the heat.  I went for a long slow ride today, exploring some roads I have not been down, and also picking up a smaller map to help me navigate downtown better.  I figure if I am going to try and get a job with a pedicab company I should at least know where things are.

The huumans were acting so strange today.  It was as if the sudden departure of the heat made their brains snap.  One rather rotund huuman was slapping a tree vigorously as if the tree had insulted his mother.  While others didn’t seem to know if they wanted to cross the street or stand in staring blankly at me as I rode past.  I  have never had so much trouble with the huumans before.  Usually it is the cars that try and get me.  Must have been that most cars were sleeping today, giving the huumans a lot of hiding spaces in between them.

I might need a different ride.  The one I have now has been so good to me for so long, but it has been pampered with smooth concrete, and level asphalt, two things Boston has little of.  My Giant Ocr3 has too many parts that rattle and creak when I hit bumps.  I am instead thinking of getting a strong steal framed fixed gear.  Or maybe because I am not so hot at fixy riding just yet, one with a flip/flop back hub so I can go single speed in a pinch.

I have been on my bike every day for several weeks now, and it has been great.  I yearn for the breeze in my hair, and the sound of my chain kissing the rings.   I wonder if Boston has a “bike culture” that I just haven’t found yet.  There just has to be some sort of group I haven’t tapped into yet.  When I find them, I hope they will like me.

Are you from Boston?  Do you know where the adventurers are? Do tell.

Imagine Hell. Imagine the devil in hell doing jumping jacks. Getting hot and sweaty in a lake of fire, now imagine his balls, even hotter and even sweatier in his demon boxers. Now imagine if you detonated a thermo nuclear device on his balls, and you will approximate just how hot it is right now.

I went for a slow rambling ride around town today, and the whole time was strictly BYOB (bring your own breeze). I saw some street shows, got some ice cream and saw a fellow adventurer (my old roommate )who was of all things working for a pedicab company. I asked him about getting a job at the place. Turns out that it would be completely feasible. I could adventure, and get paid for it at the same time! All while keeping my day job. Paid adventuring would be pretty sweet.

The herd is always thin on the weekends. Only the most ambitious cars are out on a Saturday morning, giving me plenty of room for adventuring. You still can’t let your guard down, you could still get hit by a door, or a huuman walking out between a car. But it is much nicer to have more of the road to yourself.

On the way home I had to stop at a pizza place and ask the huuman behind the counter for some water, it was a long hill and I just didn’t have the water to make it to the top. After a quick power-up I made it home and took a very cold shower. I will be pursuing employment as a pedicab driver tomorrow. I will let you know how it goes. As always happy pedaling.

I thought it was going to be hot, boy was I right, it was and is very hot. I am still kind of sweaty (gross huh). The ride home was pretty easy. I wasn’t “feeling it” so I stopped in the commons and sat on the “industry bench.” There is a little plaza circle thing on treamont street and there are a bunch of benches eat with a statue of a guy doing something. I sat on the industry bench for a good half hour and just watched huumans walk past. There were many huumans and they were  all interesting. I also discovered that you can “see” the trains coming into the station below the commons. You can feel the vibrations of them coming and going. It is pretty neat. I don’t know if it works on the other benches, I didn’t try them.

My ride home was interesting as well, one of the more aggressive species of car, the taxi,  tried to eat me, lucky for me it was stalking huuman and was moving pretty slowly, so I easily avoided its gnashing bite. I almost made it through the rest of the ride without incident, but for one thing.

I am not sure if it was the heat, or me just being stupid, but as I was coming up a good size hill, I managed to get my front wheel stuck up against the curb. In a dazzling display of my lack of coordination, I flew off the bike and executed a rather graceful landing. Lucky for me my backpack absorbed most of the blow. The local cars looked concerned but when the herd was given the green light, they all left without so much as a “hey you ok?” That ok, I was fine, I even managed to avoid all but a tiny speck of road rash. The worst kind of rash.

I guess I will have to be more careful of those curbs, they can just jump right out at you. Thats the ride report, happy pedaling.

Every day is different. I have been finding that depending on when I leave my home the cars seem to act a bit different. This morning they seemed to calmly allow me to ride among them. These beasts of the road can be fickle but today the herd was passive. Met three fellow adventurers today.

Two guys on old mountain bikes, and a young lady on a hybrid. All seemed nice, and all responded with a smile when I said good morning. They all were on the correct side of the road, and all interested in riding in one direction, which is something that can not be said for all adventurers. I wish I knew more people in this giant brick forest, it would be nice to talk to another bike love, maybe I will meet some cool people on the road.

If you plan on adventuring, don’t ride down the wrong way on a busy street and suddenly dart out in front of me from behind a sleeping car. This makes me cranky and forces me to jump into the herds way which can get me killed. A no no for sure. The temperature has been steadily rising all day, it is nearing 90 degrees outside so the ride home should be a sweaty production, we will see. Till then, happy pedaling.