In Which CR Biker Is Calvin’s Nerdy Dad

Comic is from http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2013/01/04. 

My niece wrote in a Facebook post that this cartoon reminds her of somebody—me.

I can’t say I blame her.  The dad in Calvin in Hobbs is younger and in better shape than I am, and apparently willing to ride on snow, although I’ll also admit CR Biker is stretching that envelop a bit more than he did in the past.

So, how do you ride on snow?

First of all, don’t.  I’m serious.  The pavement has to be mostly bare before I will there.  When you cross a substantial patch of ice, always do so with one or both feet on the slippery surface.  From a previous fall, I know how instantly a bike on ice can tip beyond control—the human nervous system and muscular structure has no hope of coping with such an instant event or preventing such a fall.  So, to paraphrase my own words of wisdom:  If the pavement isn’t bare, then just don’t ride there.  I don’t ever walk up hills in summer—hill-climbing gear is for hills—but there is no “snow climbing” gear.  I’ve been riding this J term, and it’s been a bit of surprise to me, but I am trying to be careful to ride only on pavement.  I do walk my bike in spots on my route.

Second, dress for the part.  One of my sisters posted on Facebook that her feet get too cold for biking when the temperature gets under 30.  I wear very thick warm fuzzy grey winter socks, which I have on over fairly heavy gym white socks.  Couple that with at least two shirts, including a warm sweater or sweat shirt, skiing gloves, long underwear, a light jacket that none-the-less totally cuts the wind and that features a thin hood I can wear under a bike helmet—well, I’m ready for the weather.  My ears, nose and toes are the extremes of my body and the parts that are likely to suffer most—but honestly, even on these mornings when the lows have been in single digits, the temperature has not been much of a problem.  I do think I’ve been more uncomfortable when the temperature is in the 20s and I decide it is too warm to wear the long underwear—then my toes are sore by the time I get to work.   Zero while wearing long underwear and my full winter regalia?  Not a problem.

Third, slow down.  Especially at night.  In sunshine, you can gauge the quality of the pavement more easily—you can see ice and you can see powdery snow and you can see bare pavement.  It’s tougher at dusk.  So go slow.  Audrey got me an extra light for Christmas—an actual headlight, as in a light meant to be worn on your heard.  Like the hood, it fits beneath my helmet.  It is a bit cold on the forehead, but the extra illumination has been much appreciated on dark winter evenings.  I am riding the same route as I do in the light, but going the other way, and trust me, the streets change.  Stuff melts and freezes in new places, and you’ve got to go slow and pay attention.

Anyway, just the thought of my commute may be enough to make my pulse race.  But that’s what biking is supposed to do, so for now, tallyho!  I will be on two wheels.

In Which CR Biker Admits He Is A Liar

Corner of Collins Road and F Avenue NE this morning.  A fine, sunny, cold winter morning--with mostly bare pavement.

Well, sort, of.  Not actually, because lying involves intent to deceive, I and was merely unintentionally misleading, which is not the same thing.

I wrote in late December that snow had ended the biking season, until further notice.  Further notice is hereby given.

It was cold this morning, what one of my daughter’s friends used to call “psycho cold.”  The temperature was in single digits Fahrenheit, which puts it way into the negatives Celsius, and a nice breeze made the outdoors feel like below zero in the Fahrenheit scale too.

But, I was bundled up.  I have new gloves, which proved very warm indeed. I wore my long johns, I had my two pairs of socks, two shirts including a fluffy warm MMU sweatshirt and my wind-cutting light biking jacket.  I even had on my jaunty green Nepalese scarf.

All in all, cold really wasn’t that much of a problem for me.  Ice was, in spots.  There are plenty of quiet residential streets in Cedar Rapids where black ice has been smoothed by the passage of traffic.  Even many cleared streets were edged with ice, making the traffic way narrow for your two-wheeled correspondent.

Still, the pavement is mostly bare.  I felt a bit silly starting off, but decided when I got there that it had not really been that bad of a ride.  I should be able to leave campus early enough tonight that I won’t be going home in full dark.

All in all, the first real commute on the new, stronger rear wheel was a success.  The most treacherous part was the Rockwell-Collins parking lots—I think they’ve been so closed down recently that there has not been enough traffic to wear away the ice—but even those were passable, with caution.

I am ringing bells as part of the MMU bell choir Thursday night.  Given the state of the streets, I may drive that evening, just to avoid a ride in full darkness—that black ice may be a bit too hard to spot, sans the help of our sun.

Still, I’m glad that 2013 sees, at least at its start, some biking commuting weather.  Take my word for it, if you want to.  But then again, maybe you should not.  I’m a known liar.

Not sure why, but at MMU I had the bike rack all to my self.  Guy in the background sure has a cold job!

In Which CR Biker Contemplates An Escape From Iran

From the official movie site, http://argothemovie.warnerbros.com. Ben in grey jacket, back to us, with fleeing diplomats pretending to scout movie locations in a (sigh) yelllow VW bus.  Where are the bikes?

I just saw the movie “Argo” at the Collins Road Theater in Cedar Rapids.  It’s nice to see Ben Affleck in a historic drama in which he doesn’t have a silly romance or an urge to re-write the history of the Doolittle Raid.

And, among many memorable actors, it has Alan Arkin.  It’s a genuine pleasure to see you again on the big screen, Alan.  Hope to catch you again soon.

It’s an excellent movie, and it featured a tense scene of Ben driving the fleeting Americans around Tehran in a VW microbus.  Among my other reactions to the movie was: “Where can I get that bus?  That looks fun to drive.”

Argo has a more relevant—more relevant to this blog—mystery.  Six Americans fled from the US Embassy in Tehran, and ended up being sheltered by the Canadian ambassador.  To get them out, there were competing ideas, including the “Bicycle Idea.”

It’s 300 miles from Turkey to Tehran, according to the film.  Some characters in the movie suggested the BI—getting the diplomats bicycles so they could cover that distance on two wheels.  Thus would have been born USGBRAI—Uncle Sam’s Great Bike Rice Across Iran.  If it worked, and they decided to repeat it, it could have been USAGBRAI, pronounced “us-ag-brie.”  Taking place each winter, with small Persian towns competing to attempt to thwart the fleeing band of Yankees with roadblocks, USAGBRAI would be the hostile off-season counterpoint to RAGBRAI.

I wonder what bikes they would have used?  In the late 1970s, I was riding what is still my favorite bike, a 1974 Schwinn Continental, which sadly broke for good in this century, but I’m not sure those would have been good for a 300-mile stealthy journey across semi-mountainous terrain in winter.

Would they have been on six fat-tired mountain bikes?  Did such things exist in 1979?

Anyway, I suppose the “Argo” ploy worked better.  Still, it would have been nice if bicycles had somehow been part of the plot.

Then Ben and Alan could have told each other: “Argo bike yourself.”

John Goodman, Alan Arkin and Ben Affleck. All were good in the movie "Argo."  Image again from movie's web site.  I'm sure Goodman is just saying "Argo bike yourself."

In Which Snow Ends The Biking Season For Now

Snow-covered sidewalk at MMU on Sunday.  They do a good job clearing walks, but the U is closed.  Most streets are better than this, but some are like this, and it's not clear enough for biking.

A snowstorm on Thursday of last week has left the streets of Cedar Rapids too slick and snowy for biking.  To give the city credit, I scouted the streets to MMU and found that that weren’t coated with that special white snow icing CR usually leaves behind on quiet residential avenues—but there’s still too much snow and ice to make two wheels a practical way to get around.

Today is Christmas Eve, and a light frosting of snow, less than an inch, was added as a nice holiday frosting to the world.

Well, even if it might be a while before the streets are bare enough for me to resume commuting via bicycle, I still say Merry Biking Christmas to all of you out there.  And here’s hoping for bare pavement in the new year!

First Ride With Basket-to-Wheel Renewal

Views of my new wheel and new basket. 
Note how clean the new chain looks! 
Blogger is being poppy about the vertical photos, again. 
So you'll have to turn your heads to the side.

Well, I manage to hook on two lights to my new basket, so this morning was the first ride on the new “strong” rear wheel and with the new front basket.

Both performed well, as far as I can tell.  The ride home tonight with lights ablaze will be a bit of a test (although it won’t be a late ride).

Anyway, the new basket caused the biggest adjustment, and I’m not sure I’m totally done.  The front lights I have are constructed on the assumption that a biker would hook them to a stem or handlebars—but because I put a large briefcase in a front basket, those placements don’t work for me.  The old basket had an open design which made it easy to MacGyver the lights into place.

The more closed-mesh design of the new basket meant neither of my customary front lights had an obvious place to be installed.  So, I enlarged two holes of the mesh with a screwdriver to put one light in place, and simply used a bungee cord to attach the other light to the bottom of the basket.

I think that will work.  As Red Green once said:  “This is only temporary.  Unless, of course, it works.”

Well, the new wheel was fine.  It had one huge advantage—I could use the ultimate hill-climbing gear without having the derailleur grind against the rear spokes.  I hope that lasts.  I know, I know, I should have learned to turn the adjusting screws to prevent the problem on my previous bike—I just never seemed to find the time when the penultimate gear worked well enough on the steepest hill (“the” hill at MMU) that I normally climb.

Still, hill-climbing gear, I’m glad you’re back.  Please say a while.

It spit a bit of snow on me as I rode in, so I parked inside to keep the new chain dry.  It’s about 3 p.m. right now and I’ll be leaving soon—but it’s cloudy enough that it already looks fairly dark.  So I’ll be testing the lights in their new configuration.

Here’s hoping that all goes well, although I expect it will!

In Which CR Biker Is Seeing Future Snow

KCRG weather map of snow forcast, which I got from The Gazette, www.thegazette.com.  Cedar Rapids is right in the pretty teal "y'all are gonna get dumped on" zone.

I regret that I did not bike this morning.  The reasons are complex.

The bike was in the shop Thursday of last week for what I thought was a broken spoke.  Turns out the rear axle had also snapped, so the bike shop recommended a new, hardier, wheel.

In the meantime, Audrey and I picked out a new basket, and installed the bracket to hold it.

But what with one thing and another, including an enjoyable time performing with a bell choir in a concert Sunday and some nice family time that day, I didn’t get my lights switched over from the old basket, and ran out of time this morning before I had to get to campus to give students a final exam.

“Give,” I suppose, is not as good a word as “administer.”  The A word sounds more sinister, and I’m sure in this season of giving that my students thought of it that way.

So I drove today.  It was cloudy and cool, but I totally could have biked.  And now this is in the forecast.

Well, I hope I get those lights in the right spots tonight.  I for sure want to ride Tuesday—it may be the last time for a while  Snow is finally on the way.

In Which A Faithful Friend Fails

Above:  Note the "hook" on the right, which is not hooked to anything because the basket is broken.  Below: The whole photo is a bit on a slant, but note how one side of the basket droops.

Epic fail.  My beat up old front basket is now beaten.  12/12/12 wasn’t a lucky day for it.

The basket predates my bicycle—it was the front basket on a previous bike for several years before that bike fell apart and Audrey bought me my current bicycle.  This basket has been on RAGBRAI twice—as much as I have.

But yesterday, when I parked my bike and then intended to go into the house to open the garage door, the bike suddenly tipped and landed, as it usually does the infrequent times when it falls, on the front basket.

Well, that’s happened several times before, including at least once on each RAGBRAI.  Part of the basket frame actually snapped due to a RAGBRAI fall, but I was able to fix the basket, two years ago, with some wire.

It’s a peculiarity of my particular bike that it tends to be a bit tippy when using the kickstand so there is a fall now and then.  So I merely picked the bike up and put it away.

This morning, when biking into work, I noticed the basket looked drunkenly lopsided; it was badly leaning, tilted to the left.

Well, it would.  Lean to the left I mean, since it’s the bicycle basket of a southpaw political liberal.

On closer inspection, a weight-bearing wire that connects to the brace that holds the basket on the bike is snapped.  That’s the death knell for this particular basket

Anyway, it’s not the first, but rather the second, front basket I’ve had for bike commuting purposes (and no, I am not counting the small plastic flowered one that a daughter of mine got for me as a joke).  This one has lasted longer and been more places, but it’s just a basket.

It’s we who endow things with meaning, we who miss the house we grew up in or the old family sedan or that fire-engine bedspread that was on our bed during our childhood.  It’s not the things so much that mean much to us—instead, it’s the memories and feeling we have which the things trigger.

Anyway, it’s a mere basket.  It’s a utilitarian thing.  It’ll easy to move on to a new basket.  But I admit on an irrational level a tiny bit of silly sadness as if a friend were passing out of my life.  It’s not you, basket, it’s me.  Still, so long.