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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Climbing: El Chontacoatlan, Taxco del Alarcon, Guerrero, Mexico, Thanksgiving. I sent Mantis, the first pitch of Mala Fama, and Procopio, all third try. Great climbing, fun partners, one of the best trips ever. This is my favorite kind of climbing. Close second: Maple, May and September. Sent ZT and 49, several one-fall burns on Dry […]
19:58. The route changed, so I've been averaging 21:30 for a slightly longer, hillier, and more trafficed route. But today I hit all the lights, so about halfway through, what was gonna be a casual ride turned into a PR attempt. Traffic going down the hill, and half the ride not even trying, so I […]
One of the most frequent comments one sees anytime there's a news article about cyclists, cycling, or the death thereof, is how cyclists are scofflaws. We don't obey the rules. We weave about, we ride on the sidewalk (or we don't ride on the sidewalk), we ride on the right, we don't ride on the […]
New Personal Record: 17:37 Old PR: 17:45 That's with no angry ex-con pool boys. I made two fast lights, missed two, and got caught behind the bus into the entrance gate. Also cranked up the hill at 20 MPH for long sections. Now I think 17:15 might be possible if everything went right. I was […]
17:52. Seven seconds off the PR. Could have made it if not for the pool boy first trying to kill me, then trying to stop me to get in a fight after I flipped him off (wait, you’re in so much of a hurry that you’re willing to kill me to save the seven seconds […]
You think this guy's even going to notice when he sweeps me with his sprinkler pipe sticking out three feet on the right? Be awesome if we had a three foot rule, so thanks, Jerry and Arnold for vetoing that.
This is not a bike lane. This is an invitation to get hit either by a car or by a door: This is not a bike lane. This is a stripe painted on the pavement in which cars park, which makes city planners feel better about themselves, but makes both cyclists and motorists angry, because […]
Tagged bicycle, bike, bike laneKids rode bikes, and old people drove everywhere. Now only old people ride bikes, and kids get driven everywhere. Walk? Nobody walks in LA.
What Atrios said.
And cops. Today a motorcycle cop almost hit me when he swung out and made a (what would be for any of the rest of us) illegal U-turn in order to give someone a ticket for DWB. Guess it was important to give that ticket Right Now, and not wait three seconds for me to […]
Everyone on the road is trying to kill me. Everyone. Trucks, vans, cars, motorcycles, pedestrians, cats, dogs, squirrels, rabbits, and cyclists.
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.