American River Bikeway

I call it the American River Bikeway in the way that someone might refer to the Capitol City Freeway or the Dan Ryan Expressway.  It's that sort of way.  Being a bike route, there are more opportunities for a pleasureable experience than on either of these other sorts of "way"--but it is certainly more of a "way" than a "path."  I imagine a bike path and I imagine a quaint, windy route through the woods which allows much leisure and is wholly unsuited to transportation.  This is a bikeway.  

My commute takes me from downtown Sacramento, near the Alkali Flat Light Rail Station, to my office near Fulton and Cottage Way (in the western portion of sprawlsville).  It is a little more than eight miles each way and I have several options as far as route.  The option I use most often is this bikeway. 

This route has no stops.

This route is fairly direct.

This route tends to be free of automobiles. 

Sometimes I have to dodge pedestrians on the downtown end of the route.  Other than that, it is a fairly open ride.  I start pedalling once I cross the River and can roll most of the way to work without touching my brakes.  When I get to Northrop Avenue, almost to the office, I am a little more than ten minutes' ride from my office on mostly residential streets. 

I could ride Fair Oaks Blvd to "J" Street or "H" Street.  Either route is slightly shorter.  On either route, though, I will undoubtedly stop and wait for a traffic light or be threatened by someone operating a motorized, four-wheeled weapon. 

Usually, I take the bikeway. 

I have had jobs where biking to work wasn't a good option.  The commute was a stressful part of the day--I've had situations where I spent an hour on the freeway each day before and after work.  No thanks, no more. 

This morning, during my forty-minute bike commute, I was able to stop for a moment of beauty and silence.

I have worked in some beautiful places.  Even driving to my office at the King Range, on California's Lost Coast, though, I was unable to relax during my commute.  The road was windy and dangerous--mostly dangerous because of unpredictable motorists. 

Someday I may be in a bike-on-bike collision.  If I can have that instead of the altercation with an automobile, I'll take it. 

I almost hit a deer on the bike trail yesterday... that would have been the second time for me. 

Pretty dark out there, eh?

So it's winter now.  I mean, the calendar says "winter" next week but if you look at the sky you can see winter.  Yesterday, riding home, I realized that I hadn't seen the sun in four days.  Good thing I've got weekends free.

There has been a lot of cyclist-talk about winter and darkness, lately (http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions) so I will dive into a little incident that I had this week. 

I was riding along the bike trail, night before last.  I was going a little fast, maybe--I was planning to meet up with a friend and wanted to get to my apartment first to eat a little supper.  It is dark out there in the middle of December.  I have a Planet Bike half-watt white light which illuminates the ground right in front of me--but no more.  That's mostly okay because I know the route pretty well, usually there's moonlight or just city-glow off of the clouds.  Maybe I should get a big, bright, portable sun like some of the other cyclists have... more than anything I dislike those because they blind me and ruin my night vision. 

So I'm riding along and I hear a squeal, ahead of me in the darkness.  Then there is a giggle.  Just as I'm touching my brakes, I notice two cyclists as I whiz past them.  They are on old cruisers with no lights at all.  Apparently they were riding two-abreast when I came around the corner and if one of them hadn't braked (the squeal I heard) and turned off of the bike trail there would have been a collision.

I have a lot of lights on my bike--mostly so that I am visible to others.  I have the white light that I mentioned earlier.  I wear one red flashy-light on the back of my helmet.  I have a silly-bright red Planet Bike tail-light on my seat post.  I have two spoke-lights on my wheels, also flashing red.  After this incident, I am planning to put another white light on my bike, maybe on my helmet. 

When I came around that corner, I didn't see them at all.  They could obviously see me, which is what saved us. 

I ride around a lot at night in Mid-Town Sacramento.  It's a grid of streets with lots of two-way stop-signs, a fair number of cyclists, and several one-way streets.  When I ride around Midtown, I don't worry too much about motorists.  What I worry about is the cyclist with no lights running the stop-sign, travelling the wrong way on a one-way street.  For this reason, I always look BOTH ways when I intersect a one-way street.  At some point, I just know it, I'm going to T-bone somebody and it's going to hurt. 

All I can do is keep looking! 

Can't we just all get along?

I was on my way home from work yesterday, cycling along a familiar stretch of road in Sacramento.  The last intersection before I get onto the bike trail is not really set up in a cyclist's favor.  In my direction of travel, there were two left-turn lanes and one narrow lane for traffic going either straight or to the right.  In order to get to the bike trail, I needed to go straight.  Unless one is heading to the bike trail or the wastewater treatment plant, there is little reason that one would go straight at this intersection.  Here I was, nevertheless.  I got there just as the light turned red, so I was sitting right behind the crosswalk, in the middle of the lane.  Ordinarily, I try to scootch over to the left-side of such a shared lane, but there really isn't any extra space here.  It is a narrow lane.  I believe that the CVC would call it "substandard width". 

After sitting there patiently for about thirty seconds, a car pulls up behind me.  It was a small car.  I looked over my right shoulder to see if its turn signal was on.  Nope.  If it was, I might have considered crowding the car next to me--the one in the nearest left-turn lane--to allow this compact to pass me.  No turn signal, though.

So I sat for a few more moments.  Behind me, I hear a shout.  "Get out of my way!"  I get hollered at from time to time, but this one seemed a little unusual.  Nobody was going anywhere, after all, and I double-checked--no turn signal.  He saw me look over my right shoulder.  "Get out of my way, let me turn!" 

So I looked a third time.  "Use your turn signal!" I responded. 

"What?!" was the driver's retort.

"Your turn signal!  Use your blinker!" I made a hand gesture suggesting a flashing light, opening-and-closing my right hand. 

He shouted some explicative and gunned his engine several times.  I faced forward, choosing not to crowd into the left-turn lane on this fellow's account.  After all, his turn signal was still not flashing. 

He gunned his engine again and put it into first gear, roaring right up behind me.  Then he put it into neutral, returning to his original position, still gunning his engine. 

How am I supposed to respond to this?  I sat calmly, watching for the light to turn.   There were probably ten cars waiting to turn left--I had plenty of ready witnesses, should this guy decide to use his vehicle as a weapon. 

The light changed and we all went.  I went straight, the impatient shouter turned right (still gunning his engine, of course), and everyone else turned left. 

I am not clear as to how anyone benefitted from this situation.  If I had been on a motorcycle or in an automobile, me getting out of his way wouldn't have been even an option--and if I drove such a vehicle to work each day, I might have been sitting right there in my motorized rig waiting to go home, just as I was yesterday on my bike.  He gunned his engine and got his hackles up, burning a little extra petrol--which annoys me a little.  I'd rather he'd saved that money to fix his turn signal, if it truely didn't work. 

I certainly didn't benefit and neither did the cause of cyclists.  If I had cowered over onto the sidewalk or into the left-turn lane, I would have only encouraged his future similar behavior toward cyclists.  By doing what I did, I only angered him which probably leads to more aggressive behavior toward cyclists.  It is difficult for me to communicate with every such driver that, if they follow the rules and use their turn signals, I will go BEYOND what the law requires and give extra space.  They don't realize that by giving this extra space, I am endangering myself a bit and probably making the folks in the left-turn lane nervous. 

It's a no-win, but whos-it in the beat-up little compact probably feels slighted that I didn't allow him to get onto his destination twenty seconds sooner.  Gunning his engine, I wonder if he considered killing me over those twenty seconds? 

"There's no Fun in Safe"

Some dude hollered this at me last night when I was getting off of Amtrak.  I had just come into Sacramento Station from Oakland.  There were about thirty passengers--six of us had bicycles.  Two of us were walking our bikes among the crowd in the space between the trains.  The other folks rode their bikes among the pedestrians... one of them shouted that at those of us walking. 

We were SQUARES, obviously.

I walked my bike, commenting to the other cyclist that it wasn't about fun--it was about living with our neighbors, whether they have bikes or not. 

Despite walking my bike all the way to the road, I caught up with the guy riding his fixie along H Street.  I couldn't think of anything to say--I mean, what do you do?  So I didn't.  But what the hell? 

It was funny because I had just seen the Facebook page put together by some UCB freshmen who are trying to resist traffic laws.  These are students who have not yet learned to take responsibility for their own actions:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/BikeBusters/154749877901782

It struck a chord with me.  I just got rid of my car--I think more people should.  Just the same, I believe that cyclists can share the road with motorists.  The trick is to follow the rules.  The trick is to remember that they are people too. 

Even people we don't agree with are people that we have to share a planet with.

Bad weather on weekends mostly.

When I was a little kid, I believed that adults intentionally set it up so that it would rain on the weekend and be beautiful all week.  I was a pessimistic child.

Since then, I have learned to appreciate that bad weather is likely to get you wet no matter what day of the week.  I like having beautiful weekends--cool and sunny, not too breezy.  On the weekends, though, I can usually make an excuse to not go outdoors if a squall blows in.  On weekdays, I have certain obligations which put me on the Sac North Bikeway at quarter after seven each morning. 

The photograph above is of the Sac North Bikeway where it crosses the American River, utilizing the once-upon-a-time Sacramento Interurban commuter train's trestle near the Blue Diamond Almond plant.  It's a little foggy.  It has been most mornings this month.  The big rain storms have swept through on my days off for the most part, which is kinda nice. 

I have options.  I took light-rail and a bus (with my bike) on Monday morning.  It was drizzling lightly and I felt like I might be coming down with a cold.  No big deal.  The rail stop is two blocks away, the bus transfer is pretty painless most of the time, and the bus drops me off two blocks from work.  It takes a little more time than a bike ride but it's okay. 

I'm glad to have the option of taking transit, but the sun was out again this morning and I was on my bike. 

At my last job, I was out hiking most of the time--at least once a week I would have good reason to go out and walk some trail for work.  I got to see a lot of beautiful country in all the weather you can imagine--from blazing sun to sideways sleet.  I'm pretty happy to get a little dose of Mother Nature every day, sandwiching my hours in front of this computer with a half-hour on the saddle. 

Ain't life grand? 



More flats and broken spokes!

I have have had a lot of flats this fall.  This has been due to a combination of things.  I had a piece of rim-tape die on me, which caused two flats (I didn't see the broken bit when I fixed the flat).  Then I had a Presta valve break on me one morning, when I was in a hurry and topping off the tire pressure.  Then on Thursday, when I was riding in...

Bang!  Right through the Armadillo!  Note that the nail went in through the tread and came out through the side-wall, putting two holes into my tube and probably ruining that tire.  Armadillos can take a lot of abuse, but that was too much!  One friend suggested that I get a cow-catcher for the front of my bike. 

I have broken two spokes this month, too.  One of them, just yesterday morning.  If you work at a bike shop, you know to roll your eyes when I say, "I was just riding along when..."  Well.  That's the way it happened!  Sure, I'm a little heavier than the average rider, but I didn't do anything stupid!  So.  Broken spoke on a wheel that's less than five months old--back to the bike shop this week.  I expect it to be covered under warranty--it was when the first spoke broke, three weeks ago. 

Anyway.  This is why I keep three bicycles in my tiny studio apartment in Sacramento.  When I got up in the morning, I found a broken spoke.  So I topped off the rear tire of my back-up roadbike... but broke the Presta valve off.  I rode the mountain bike into work that morning. 

How I get ready for a rainy commute:

Last night, I knew that it would be raining this morning.  My commute usually takes about 35-minutes, each way.  Eight miles and flat, mostly bike trail.  When I went to bed, I figured that if it were POURING, I would take transit with my bike and maybe ride home in afternoon.

It was not pouring, though.  It was raining lightly and a little windy.  If it wasn't a short week, I might have chickened out and taken the bus.  I only work three days this week and I hardly got to ride last week--I was on travel--so I rode. 

As you can see in the photo--and as you probably remember from an earlier post--my bike now has its own rain pants.  I got the set of Planet Bike "Hardcore" yellow fenders about a month ago.  They are pretty burly, designed for touring.  They are also eye-catching--which I wanted because I do not trust my motorized bretheren on the roads of Outer Sacramento.  The fenders are great because they keep me from getting soaked by my own tires.  Riding on wet roads--even under clear skies--I would get soaked by the water flying off of the tires without them.  These allow me to cruise right rough a mud-puddle with not even a splash on my clothes. 

They don't protect me from rain, though.  Yesterday, I bought a high-quality rain jacket for cheap at a Mountain Hardwear factory sale.  It's durable, stretchy, waterproof, breathable, and MATCHES MY FENDERS!  This last attribute is of course not required, but it is really cool and it makes me very visible in the misty rain.  I also have a pair of Patagonia rain pants that I bought years ago on Ebay.  I got dressed in a Patagonia silk-weight top, boxers, socks, and the rain gear.  I usually don't wear much under rain gear when I'm cycling because I just get TOO WARM!  The temperature was 48F this morning, and I was just fine dressed this way.  Part-way to work, I had to open the pit-zips on the jacket. 

Over the rain gear, I wear a pair of old-beat-up gaiters.  These keep the rain pants from funnelling water down into my low-top cycling shoes. 

I have a wool cycling cap which I wear under my helmet.  If it had been pouring, I might have put on a helmet cover to keep out the rain.  Either way, the woolly keeps me warm even when it gets damp. 

I wear neoprene paddling gloves when I go cycling in the rain.  I have a pair of NRS guide gloves that I bought for rowing the Grand Canyon, last year.  These are great--they get wet but still keep me warm and have a fair amount of cushioning. 

My shoes are Keen's Austin pedal shoes.  They look like sorta-dressy brown shoes and go well with my office clothes.  In their soles they hide SPD clips which attach me to my pedals! 

My helmet is a Specialized--Prospero I think.  I got it for the high degree of ventilation it offers--it gets hot here in the summer.  On a day like today, ventilation isn't much of a help, but whatever.  That's why the wool cap. 

I have a piece of double-sided velcro that I have wound through the back of the helmet.  I have a second tail-light mounted there.  I have a front-and-rear set on the bike.  I worry more about cars not seeing me from behind than from the front--my reaction time is better for problems in front of me. 

All suited up like this, I ride to work.  When I get here, I pull clean, dry clothes out of my pannier and change in the restroom.  My cubicle becomes a drying rack for a bunch of damp raingear.  And now, I'm sitting in my cube... eating lunch... looking out the window to see what this afternoon's ride will be like!  In the afternoon, I leave here after dark!

The Big Change

It doesn't seem like much of a change.  I mean, after all, I hardly drive my car anymore.  Since I moved to Sacramento, I mostly drive it from one side of the street to the other, avoiding the street sweeper.

It's nominally for sale, but I cannot find the title so that's kind of on hold.  The new title application is floating around the DMV somewhere.  The registration is up and it needed a smog test before I could pay that bill, so off to the smot test shop I went last week.

Is it good news or bad news that it did NOT pass smog?  I guess I'm upset to learn that my car has been an NO emitter for I don't know how long.  It has been two years since my last smog test.  It is true that I haven't driven much since July, but before that I was driving 500+ miles per week back and forth to Humboldt.  That could have been a lot of pollution. 

I guess it's good news that now I know.  Even better, since it is a smog car and the repair--new catalytic converter--probably costs almost as much as the car is worth, I may be able to sell it to a State of California program designed to remove such cars from the road.  If that goes through, my car will be crushed and hopefully recycled.  Maybe someday the aluminum in my car will go into the tubing for a mid-range road bike.  One can only hope. 

Part of me is sad to see it go.  We've been a lot of places together.  This car and my last one, an 88 Honda Accord, have been all over the West.  These little cars got good fuel economy and were decent at getting into remote places.  I once drove the Accord up Courthouse Wash, in Moab.  The Ford Escort once carried me up the Shaffer Trail, also in Moab.  Both of these cars carried me to dozens of off-the-beaten-path trailheads all over the Sierra Nevada.  Though not what you might think of as 4x4's or rock-crawlers... these cars did all I needed them to do.  After all, hiking and biking were always at the destination! 

At this point, I have no plans to replace my car.  That feels great and somehow revolutionary.  I know lots of people don't have cars.  All my life, though, I have been so surrounded by car culture.  It's exciting to move away from that. 

My bikes, Amtrak, RT, and BART carry me most everywhere I go on a regular basis.  For what I'll be saving in insurance and fees, I can certainly afford to rent a car a couple of times a year to do a backpacking trip somewhere remote.  It's like $40 a day to rent a compact!  So that's my plan.  If you aren't there yet, join me!  If you're thinking about it and want to start a conversation, post a comment! 

OH!  The best part of all of this.  I think I'll get enough from sale of the car to buy a Bikes-At-Work trailer--the 96A.  With that trailer, I will have probably more cargo capacity than I did with the car.  What justice!  Trading my car for a bike trailer! 

November Commuting

This was the view from the bike bridge over the American River, on the Sacramento Northern Bikeway yesterday morning.  I usually head out on my bike just a little after 7am for the eight-mile ride to work.  The whole way in I was riding through postcards.  The sunset just got redder and redder.  Last week's rains have a lot of the sloughs full of still water... which reflected these colors into the bottoms of the trees.  Many of the box elders have lost their leaves now, which opens up new views that haven't seen in a long time.

With the recent rain, I went out and got my bicycle a rain jacket.  The Tempo is now festooned with bright yellow touring fenders which go great with the 80's teal-on-white color scheme.  One of these days I'll get a photo that does the color justice.  It's been nearly 80F this week in the afternoons when I leave work--unseasonably warm.  It seems a sure sign that you can make the rain stop by putting on a rain jacket!

I'm starting to think about my winter rides, what I'll wear, what sort of weather I will make grounds for taking the bus in the morning.  I took the bus a couple days this week because I thought I was getting a cold--even with the perfect cycling weather.  Those couple days were fine but I'm glad to be on the saddle again! 

Next week I'll be out of town.  I will be visiting the old homeland--Northern Indiana and Chicagoland.  Today there is lake-effect snow in LaPorte.  It should hit 75F here in Sacto. 

I'll be in touch when I get back.  Have a great week! 

New Bottom Bracket = Good

The old bottom bracket just ain't what it used to be.

Or at least that's my guess.  I bought the Tempo about a year-and-a-half ago, when I was working up in Humboldt County, California.  I didn't right the bike much, up there.  The commute was nearly twenty miles each way on a steep, windy road with no shoulder.  Deranged tweakers drove the road on a regular basis as a community service, just to clear it of cyclists and pedestrians.  I never did try riding my bike from Redway to Whitethorn.  So the cool old Schwinn stood in my living room, occasionally coming out for a quick spin around town or a trip to the laundry.  I can't really speak to this bottom bracket's history. 

Since July, I've been riding 16+ miles a day just commuting.  Wow.  It's been fun.  In early October, I started to feel a little looseness in the bottom bracket.  I could feel a wiggle in the cranks when I was pedalling.  Being a DIY bike mechanic, I took the cranks off and adjusted the bottom bracket to remove the wiggle.  (One sentence makes this sound so easy... in reality it took me more than a week of trying different things to figure out how to get the plastic plugs out of the cranks so I could remove them!).  That worked for a couple of days, then the wiggle came back.  I took the cranks off again, retightened, and replaced the cranks.  That worked for a few more days.  I removed the cranks, pulled the shaft and bearings out (bearings went all over the floor), cleaned and greased everything, then put it back together.  In this process, I noticed substantial wear both on the bearing races on the spline and on the bearings themselves.  The carriages looked pretty beat-up, too.  So I put it all back together and ordered a brand new sealed bottom bracket--the old workhorse, Shimano UN-54.  Good thing, too, because now no matter how I tightened the thing, it was loose again in less than a day's riding.  I guess that by removing all of those metal shavings, I made it even looser! 

Those metal shavings were probably pieces of the left-side bearings and bearing race.  The drive side of the shaft had a deep gouge in it.  The new sealed bracket is such an improvement! 

Part of me wanted to replace the shaft and loose bearings--it is a more durable system than the tiny bearings in the sealed BB--but the sealed BB is such a no-brainer!  There is no adjustment, very little grease (just the threads on the non-drive side of UN-54), and it goes very quickly.  I did the replacement in about fifteen minutes.

We're on the road again with good bearings between my feet!

OH!  And here's a quick shout out to the guy I watched in his pickup truck on 16th Street, last night under the UPR tracks at about 8:10pm.  There was a cyclist in the far-left lane, pushing at about 18mph.  The guy in the truck came up behind the cyclist at like 30mph and laid on his brakes, following the cyclist closely up and over the rise as far as I watched them...   Hey!  Guy in the pickup!  What was on your mind?  What did you expect the cyclist to do?--did you think he'd speed up to 30mph by the time you overtook him?  18mph is a good, solid pace for a commuter-cyclist.  AND!  There are three other lanes for motorists to choose from!  Good work to that guy on the bike, who did everything legal, held his ground, kept moving, and was easy-to-see. 

Anyway.  That gave me pause. 

My weekend ride: ~Early 90's~ Sakae Litage Prism





SR Prism Litage on top of Twin Peaks, San Francisco October 19, 2010

   On the weekends I put away the Tempo--which is a great bike--and usually spin around on my "shiny bike".  It's a Sakae Ringyo butted aluminum frame back from way back.  I picked it up off Craigslist a few years ago, last time I learned the hard way how not to lock my bike.  You can see in the picture above that this awesome light-weight frame is here burdened with a U-lock.  It's a necessary evil if I plan to run errands in the city in the background. 

So this frame is really light for an old bike and it's got beautiful lugging.  It really stands out.  I bought it as a frame-and-fork only and have built it up Campagnolo Veloce... now I am slowly upgrading it to a Chorus group.  This is taking a long time, though, because it doesn't make a lot of sense to discard perfectly good and functioning components.

As you can see I don't have integrated shifting--parts of this bike are still in the early 90's. 

The bike was--I'm guessing--probably originally all-Suntour.  If my memory serves, these SR bikes were made by Suntour so it seems to stand to reason.  It's a guess, though and it doesn't matter at this point.

I have two of these bikes--the other one is mostly Shimano 600-Ultegra with old-time integrated shifters.  The bikes fit me pretty well and I haven't seen anything else that looks so slick and weighs so little for under $500. 

Someday I might get a new road bike, but I'm not sure of that.  I never have had a new road bike and there are so many wonderful old frames out there--we can buy high-end 70's racing frames now for comparative peanuts--that I may not ever.  I believe in recycling and I really enjoy building up old bikes. 

I will admit to having just bought a new mountain bike... I'll feature that one one day not too far off in the future.

I introduce these bikes so that "strangers" in the photographs can be recognized as family.  These Litages are great climbers and so they often get photographed at the top of hills.

Cycling -- more than recreation, more than a commute.

Yeah.  I know.  It's all about bicycles with me.  Sometimes it is.  I don't expect everyone to do as I do (though some part of me wishes that more would).  I do hope that my stories help others realize that driving a car ANYWHERE is not the only option.  ANYWHERE.  From 19th Avenue in San Francisco to Mount Desert Island in Maine--there is a way to get there without a car. 

Travelling with my bicycle on transit, I have so much flexibility.  Traffic is just something out the window.  If the bus is a little late--and I miss my connection (like I did yesterday)--then I have a backup plan.

Yesterday, I had a site visit to do at a rural property south of Sacramento.  I hatched up a plan to travel from my office to the site using a combination of transit and my bike.  Seeking to be honest and considerate, I ran the notion by my supervisor first and got his approval.  "The agency doesn't have a policy on bicycling.  I don't see how it's any different from you walking from an airport terminal to a rental car agency.  Just be careful out there."  So off I went, with my bike, to the bus stop about two blocks from my office.

The bus was nearly ten minutes late and arrived at the transit center after my planned connection had already left.  I was able to catch light rail instead, which didn't take me as far as the planned bus route, but at least it was in the right direction.  I was already planning to ride my bike five miles from the bus... instead I got to ride nine miles from rail.  No biggie--there was a bike lane most of the way out of town and no wind. 

When I got out of town--about thirty minutes into the ride--I had to remind myself that I was at work.  I rode on rural roads through pastures and oak savannah.  Beautiful, picturesque.  It is the sort of ride I might do for recreation.  Despite missing my connection, I arrived at the site in time to stop under a tree and eat my lunch.  It was truely a wonderful afternoon. 

I met my contact at the wildlife refuge and rode around with her in an SUV for a few hours, doing the sort of work that I do on refuges. 

At the end of my visit, I looked at my watch.  If I had driven one of the agency SUV's from my office, I would have been diving into rush hour traffic.  I would have had to return the vehicle to the motorpool, on the other side of the city, before returning home. 

Instead, I got back on my bike and headed back to light rail.  From there, my bike and I took the train downtown, to within three blocks of my apartment.  I was home from work about twenty minutes earlier than normal, ready to set about preparing supper. 

So.  I do the bike commute thing.  It's great and I think many more people should try it.  I ride my bike to the grocery store--people should try this, too, even if it means buying or making a basket for your bike!  Each week, I take my bike on Amtrak so that I can go home to Oakland to see my family and work on my house.  I ride my bike to the hardware store pulling a trailer.  And now, I am seeking to bring my bike into my workplace.  Our agency is seeking to show a smaller carbon footprint and 'be greener'.  Well.  I can get on that bandwagon and shoulder a little of the necessary work to make it happen! 

Out of this, I get a fun ride mixed in with my regular work schedule.  It's a nice diversion from sitting at my desk, composing more emails. 

Maybe you aren't ready to take your bike on the bus for a cross-town excursion.  Maybe you aren't equipped to carry all of your groceries home from the grocery store.  That's fine.  It's like anything else--work in increments.  Set goals that move you toward indpendence from the gasoline pump. 

This sort of independence is more than just being prepared to do a bike ride that might make you sweat.  There is something to being prepared to walk into your workplace with your bike helmet.  Believe it or not, though you think you look like a goober with that thing on, a lot of people respect a person who rides into work. 

It might be a big deal to sell your 4x4 and trade the Jeep in for a Specialized Stumpjumper.  I know there is a lot of testosterone wound up in off-road riding, mud-bogging, muscle cars, or just driving around in the sort of equipment that helps people understand just how tough one is.  We all have our insecurities.  Those will start to vanish when you've been riding a bike ten miles a day for a month and gas prices hit $5/gal. 

Cycling is something a lot of people do for fun.  Cyclists on the road, following the rules, and using their bikes as a means to accomplish missions that we ordinarily do from the seat of a motor-vehicle... those folks are honestly trying to take one for the team. 

Go team Human. 

The Railroad Bridge on 16th Street

So I have a new personal initiative.  No one is required to follow me.  I know that I often pontificate as to how others "ought" to behave but I make no such announcement here.

The Tunnel under the SP railroad tracks on 16th street in Sacto is intimidating on a bike.  Traffic there is moving fast and goes over a blindish rise after coming out of the tunnel.  Signage (as you've seen in earlier photos, below) suggests that bikes "MAY" use the sidewalk. 

Well.  The sidewalk is for WALKING in my opinion.  In many places,  local ordinances agree with me.  The sidewalks on this tunnel are also tunnels--and none too wide.  They are barely wide enough for a cyclist and a pedestrian to pass.  I have ridden through these tunnels many times and have often inconvenienced some poor pedestrian trying to pass in the tubes. 

In the mornings, when I ride to work, I am now riding IN THE TRAFFIC LANE.  And not off to the side somewhere but in the MIDDLE of the far-right traffic lane.  My route allows me to turn onto 16th when all the traffic is stopped at a light.  I can ride into the tunnel with no traffic and be quite visible to the motorists behind me--they cannot miss my flashing tail light.  There should be no excuse for someone hitting me. 

There are FOUR lanes in the northbound direction here.  Plenty of room for motorists and cyclists alike.  I expect that many of the motorists that I see every morning are doing just what I am doing--driving their usual commute route to work.  Well.  Over the next few months I hope the horns stop blaring and they start getting used to seeing me here.  After all--I just need to get under the tracks.  I turn onto 16th street immediately before the tunnel and turn off of it to get to the bike path immediately after the tunnel.  Nobody has to put up with me for long.  We just all need to share the road. 

Wish me good health! 

What a perfect day for cycling in Sacto! Not too cold in the morning and not too hot this afternoon. I am so happy to be on my bike so much again!

Bike repair at 80MPH!

It was such a joy last night to be able to just sit back and relax a bit, fix a flat, and continue rocketting across the Central Valley at 80 MPH aboard Amtrak Capitol Corridor.  Yesterday was a rough day--nothing seemed to work right--but when I finally got on the train there was nothing left to worry about except fixing my flat. 

Yeah.  I had a flat tire on top of everything else--but at least it was a slow leak so I could limp into the train station on two wheels rather than walking.  There was no one else in the cab car I rode in, so I sat in the lower level with the bike racks.  Ordinarily, I sit upstairs to leave these seats for people who cannot negotiate the stairs.  With such a quiet train, though, I could open my bag up on the table and take my time hunting down the leak and making sure everything went back together perfectly. 

It turns out that this was my second flat of the day.  Earlier, I had agreed to meet a good friend for lunch in Alameda.  At the time I had one of my road bikes in pieces in the dining room--I was in the process of replacing a freehub.  So I grabbed the other bike.  It had a flat.  In the rush to meet my friend, I did a really shoddy job of fixing that flat.  So.  On Amtrak I had an opportunity to redeem myself, sanding off the old glue and putting the patch on properly. 

Sometimes it is these quiet, practical moments that connect me with my bike. 

Oh.  And it is worth noting in the picture that--if you didn't know it--each cab car on Capitol Corridor has space for SEVEN bikes.  This is in addition to the three bikes on every other car.  And if your bike is big and heavy--like mine sometimes is with panniers on--the new racks don't require you to lift the bike.  Pretty alright. 

Cyclist vs. Ped vs. Car?

A couple of times, this week, I have nearly been in a collision with a pedestrian who decided to suddenly strike out from the sidewalk and march across the bike lane, mid-block.  Usually it seems that they are wearing some electronic device which provides both amusement and distraction.  I haven't seen one "look both ways" yet--that's certainly what I was taught to do. 

I say this as though it's just peds.  Half the cyclists I see are playing the same game.  No helmet, riding in and out of traffic, wearing ear-buds.  One guy I saw last week did lazy circles in the middle of the intersection at Arden and Bell while waiting for eastbound Arden Way traffic to let off a bit so that he could run the OTHER HALF of the light.  We were both waiting to travel south on Bell--the light was red the whole time. 

So I cannot and would not endorse any sort of battle to the death between cyclists and peds.  We are often pitted against one another, though, for our little share of the road.  In the photos above and below, cyclists and peds are marginalized together and more often then not wind up bickering amongst themselves rather than noticing the real problem.  How many times have we inconvenienced one another in the 12th Street railroad underpass, on the Fair Oaks Bridge, or on the submarginal surface that blends sidewalk with minor freeway along any of the hundreds of miles of street in Sacramento's Sprawl-ville?

The fact is, if you look at either of these pictures, both are wholly dominated by the automobile.  These aren't really exceptions to the rule, either.  Sure, Mid-Town is pretty bike friendly.  If you ride across either river or venture south of the 50 Freeway, it's a whole different world. 

Motorists have demanded and do receive the vast majority of the space needed to travel to and fro in Sacramento--like most places in the U.S.  Indeed, motorists alone receive sufficient continuity in travel-ways to go where they want to go pretty much whenever they want to go.  On my bike, I have one safe bridge across the Sacramento River--and I must share that with pedestrians.  Motorists have three bridges. 

These riches have led motorists to think of themselves as having exclusive right to travel-routes.  Horns blare and fists shake.  "Get out of the traffic lane!" one fellow shouted to me, forgetting that I was traffic.  Indeed, had I moved aside, he could have gotten closer to the next car in line, also stopped at a traffic signal. 

Motorists may claim to be a majority.  Remember, though, that nearly EVERY ONE of us is a pedestrian.  Improvements to pedestrian infrastructure stand to benefit everyone.  I really intend to toot the horn for cyclists... but for all the new bike lanes I have seen in ten years, I have seen precious few new pedestrian spaces.  We were all pedestrians first. 

I believe that an important step toward winning back some of the Road from the Motor is to remember that as cyclists and peds, we really can travel together on the same surface--even if the vehicle code calls bikes vehicles.  Bicycles travel at human-scale speeds, whereas automobiles might as well be rocket-ships. 

Further, I believe that as cyclists and pedestrians, we must use what space we have--each one with the other in mind.  It's going to be a while before one of those lanes in the 12th Street underpass is dedicated to two-way bike traffic.  In the meantime we must ride responsibily.  For the most part, sidewalks are for WALKing.  Bike lanes are for biking--and bikes are allowed the full-use of a vehicle lane on the road. 

TAKE THE LANE!  Smile at a pedestrian.

My Everyday Ride: 1985 Schwinn Tempo

Here is the bike that I ride most days.  In this image, you can see my Tempo all loaded up for the weekend, waiting for Train 536 on Amtrak's Capitol Corridor.  In the photo is the California Zephyr at the Emeryville Train Station. 

Working in Sacramento and living in Oakland, I spend a lot of time either on my bike or on the train.  I'm no stranger to the inside of BART, Amtrak, or Sacrameto's Regional Transit.  The image above is of my bike ready to help me do what I do.  Panniers are full of the week's laundry.  The OnGuard U-lock is always onboard--truely indispensible and most useful used with the Zefal locking wheel skewers.  My bike uses Shimano 105 components--all original from the 80's.  In this picture, the front wheel is the original Rigida rim with a no-name hub.  Rear wheel is a Mavic Open rim with a Shimano 600 hub--off of one of my other bikes.  The original wheel just won't hold a true anymore--I'm in the process of replacing it so that I can put the 600 rear wheel back on the bike it came off of. 

I got this bike about a year-and-a-half ago, when I started really looking for a job in the Bay Area.  At the time I was working in Humboldt County and the four-hour drive twice a week was getting to be a little much. 

Now here I am in Sacramento--not quite Oakland but much closer than Humboldt--and this bike is doing what I intended for it to do when I bought it.  It is my primary mode of transportation. 

We go nearly everywhere together.  To work, to the grocery store, to the lumber yard (often with a trailer), and on recreational outings.  This past weekend, I was up in the mountains for a couple of days--my mountain bike went with me.  When I got back to my apartment and saw the Tempo waiting for me... I couldn't help but feel glad to see it after two whole days! 

I envision a world where we can work together and cooperate--step one is taking responsibility for ourselves!

I've been that gov't employee and I did pick up people's trash but I had so many other responsibilities that needed so much of my attention!

The idea that "others" are hired to pick up our trash--that one can simply walk away from a mess--is such a drag on resouces.

New Bike Routes = New Bike Routes!

The bike path across the Benicia-Martinez Bridge has been open for a little while now.

I cannot help but still be excited about it.  I don't even live in Benicia or Martinez and I'm excited about it.  Yesterday, I was in Benicia for work--yes, with a company SUV.  After my meeting, though, I took a little detour to find the entrance to the new bike route.  And I found it with no trouble, just up Park Road from the Benicia Arsenal.  I took my lunch out on the bridge for a walk. 

In a couple of weeks, some friends and I are planning a ride which may take us from Berkeley and across the Zampa/Carquinez Straits bridge to Vallejo, thence to Benecia, and back to Martinez and home.  This ride was not even an option, just a little more than a year ago before the new bike route opened.  I have a house in Oakland and I work in Sacramento--this bridge is a MAJOR piece of the jigsaw puzzle for me to connect these dots by bike--which I sometimes do.  The Carquinez Strait bridge is beautiful but it means riding through hilly Vallejo to the other side of a bridge with no BART station in sight.  Right across the Benicia bridge, the North Concord BART station isn't too far. 

I can just imagine the options that having this link open provides for people living on both sides of the Strait.  It's hard enough to make a living without owning a car when you have freedom of movement.  The opening of the bridge creates a lot of new potential for people living on both sides of it. 

When I was standing on the bridge, yesterday around one o'clock, I saw one cyclist whiz past me all festooned in spandex.  With no panniers and no shoulder bag, she didn't look like she was headed to a board meeting and probably wasn't on her way to staff the counter at Starbucks, either.  The ride was probably recreational--as most of the bridge's current use probably is.  If we were to open the Richmond-San-Rafael Bridge tomorrow, the story would be the same.  It takes time, you know, to get a job and it takes a while people to take full advantage of opportunities like this.  Mark my words though, now--five or ten years from now, there will be a rush of bike commuters on Benicia's new bridge each morning and evening.  People will be riding that bridge from Benicia to catch BART every morning to go into Oakland or the City.  I'd bet somebody's doing it right now!  If you're that somebody--GOOD SHOW, you're the vanguard! 

The first time I rode from Oakland to Sacramento was three years ago--even in that short time I have seen the opportunities increase noticeably for those of us who seek to get around with automobiles.  The first time I rode that ride, it meant tossing my bike over a barbed wire fence to get from Vallejo to Fairfield.  One day soon, McGary Road will be open too.

"Take the right onto McGary Road--which is technically closed, but the fence can be climbed."  Bikely.com

It would be easy for me to say that I need my car because I cannot get around by bicycle alone.  There are places one cannot get to by bike.  But that's just because we have designed so much infrastructure for fifty years thinking only of autos.  More of us riding our bikes and demanding bike routes will lead to more options for cyclists, more reward to being a cyclist, and more cyclists. 

Let's ride!

Today my bike took a break. I did my commute on Sacramento Regional Transit--a train to a bus in the am then reverse for pm. Sometimes I gotta change it up!

The Bicycle Salmon

When I ride my bicycle, I try to do so thoughtfully. I won't suggest that I am always-perfect-all-the-time. Far from it. I make bonehead decisions like anyone. When I am riding on a city street, though, I try to be predictable.

California's vehicle code, for many of its eighteen divisions and 42,000 sections, does not differentiate between bicycles and automobiles. The Code describes "vehicles". Bicycles are recognized in the law as vehicles--and act like other vehicles on the road, I should as a cyclist.

So I go along, riding on the right side of the road. I ride in the middle of the lane unless there is a wide shoulder or a bike lane. I signal--something that only about two thirds of vehicle operators do, but there I am. I use turn lanes, I yield when others have right-of-way, and I just generally seek harmony with other travellers.

I want very much to be a positive force on the road. Sometimes I shake my fist and sometimes I swear... but never, I should hope, with less cause than my neighbor.

And then I find myself sharing the road with the Bicycle Salmon. The Bicycle Salmon travels against the flow of traffic on busy one-way streets, always upstream, relentless, unphased by cyclists riding with the flow of traffic, unconcerned with traffic laws or narrow bike lanes. Often they carry the oft-abused banners of Huffy or Murray. They do not need helmets! They must keep moving UP--OR OVER THERE!--across three lanes of oncoming traffic!

I ask myself, as I ride in the narrow bike lane on Sacramento's 12th Street, under the SP railroad tracks, "If salmon swim up a fish ladder, do bicycle salmon ride up a bike ladder?"

Perhaps 12th Street is a bike ladder.

And somewhere among the twenty cars in sight, I know some motorist is thinking, "Those guys are both on bikes--they must be together--what crazy move is the one in the bike lane going to make?"

And I sigh, signalling my right turn.