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Bicycle
Surprisingly mandatory
If the bike radar is out of juice, I don’t go until it’s recharged. That’s almost true of the HUD. And I’m going to cry when that dies, because they don’t make it anymore, and the alternatives are 1) expensive 2) proprietary and 3) made by small companies likely to go out of business. Like […]
Buy once, cry once
It turns out that bike clothing is another buy once, cry once item. Generic $50 bike store and manufacturer jerseys and chamois suck. Mid-level ($100 on sale) are somewhat better. But the $200 on sale stuff is the shit. Zippers that work with one hand. Padding that doesn’t roll up and cause sores. Pockets that […]
Borked
Thinking about it, if it’s not the weight, it could be: Psychosomatic – I am totally susceptible to superstition, placebo, imposter, dunning-krueger, and the oxford comma. Aerodynamic – For all that it weighs the same, the new bike is burly. The frame is almost twice as wide. Wheels are 35 instead of 23. Discs instead […]
Tagged bike, rantBiked
I got a new bike. Not really because I wanted to, but because it’s basically impossible to get replacement parts for the groupset on the old bike, and replacing the groupset would require new wheels, and… for want of a nail, etc. At some point maybe it’s just better to put that money into a […]
Tagged 5200, bike, Domane, Trek, weightParking
I tend to think that the lack of parking for the n-thousand employees where I work, even after recently spending tens-of-millions on a (too-small-even-when-planned [1]) parking garage, was just general bureaucratic ineptitude. But since the general result is that you have to come in early to get parking, and you can’t leave to take an […]
Left behind
Has there ever been a more useless convention than “On your left” (or right) when passing a pedestrian or slower bike? Nine times out of ten, the passee just goes in the direction you just hollered. It’s human nature! You hear “left”, you move left. But not always, so you can’t rely on it and […]
Perfect
This is perfect. Pasadena Police Department will step up Bike & Pedestrian Safety Enforcement Operations on Monday, May 15, 2017 with focused enforcement on collision causing factors involving motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists. This operation is also in remembrance of [a seven year old kid], who at the age of seven, was struck and killed by […]
Menacing
There are few things more dangerous than a mom with a mobile in a minivan and a moppet at 7:45.
Plate of shrimp
I was literally just thinking I hadn’t had a flat in a long time. As I pulled away from the intersection, my tire was completely flat. One second full, the next empty. There’s one in every car, you’ll see.
LBS
Like the local hardware stores (ahem, Berg Hardware Store – good riddance), the local bike shops are going to drive themselves out of business. They don’t even need online stores to do it, but that’ll help. Steve’s $75 tune-up cost me a $300 wheel-rebuild. He ripped three spokes out of the rim overtightening them. Oh […]
Seven years
I bought two pairs of these bike gloves on Steap and Cheap in September 2007, $28, after my former Olympian bike racer friend convinced me it wasn’t sissy to ride with gloves: “It’s not for padding,” she said. “It’s for the inevitable road rash. You want to be able to use your hands to change […]
Mouse
Brent Simmons wrote a short essay about his cat, and the point of view of the mouse. Picture the equivalent for a human, he says. As if it were a fiction. Scary. But it isn’t fiction. That’s how I feel every night cycling home on the unlit Forest Service road, overhung by trees. I’ve seen […]
Doored
Pasadena still hates bikes. They make bike lanes to nowhere (Sierra Madre Villa – best bike lane in Pas, goes nowhere, gets driven in by cars, no enforcement. Also see Marengo for about a mile), refuse to pave bike lanes that are guaranteed pinch flats at any speed (Raymond), get buffaloed when they try to […]
Tagged bicycle, bike, bike lanes, PasadenaRant Comments Off on Doored