Can a commuter morph into a roadie?

I ride my bike nearly everyday, although I don't log very many miles. I live about 2 miles from my work, so my daily mileage is around 7-10 miles, depending on how many errands I run, or if I decide to take the 'long way home'. Every once in a while I have to go to a meeting in a neighboring town, if that's the case I may ride up to 25 miles round trip. I do this on my commuter bike. I don't own a road bike, however, I may soon.

During the hubbub of the Tour de France and the STP my brother threw out an idea: "Why don't we try and do the STP next year or the year after". You see, he recently inherited our child bike seat and has been biking all over Renton with his almost two year old. He's been bitten by the bike bug and I couldn't be happier.

I thought about his challenge, the STP, huh? Well, the furthest I've ridden in one day is 30 miles, and that was to go to work meetings, so it was split up. Also, like I said above, I don't own a road bike. As much as the idea of doing a LONG ride (60+ miles) on Fred, my Big Dummy Complete intrigues me, I'm pretty sure my body would be happier with an actual road bike. Not to mention the skinny tires, it'd be so much easier, well as easy as 60+ miles can be.

So now I'm in the conundrum of buying another bike. But I'm a commuter, not a roadie. I don't know the first thing about road bikes. If you've read the book Bike Snob, you can laugh with me about the different types of bicyclists and how they may or may not get along. If you haven't read it, you should, it's hilarious!

A trip to my local bike shop was educational, I learned a lot about road bikes and the different components. I'm still not sold yet, I'll admit. While I can justify spending a lot of money on my commuter bike, we only own one car, I'm getting exercise, it's awesome, I use it every day, etc. It's harder for me to justify spending a lot on a road bike that I will ride a couple times a week. So to answer the question, can a commuter morph into a roadie? I honestly don't know. I like the idea of doing a century, I'm just not so sure about the the spandex and $800+ price tag of a new bike.

What do you think? Can you convince me to do it? Do you have a similar story to share? Do you have tips on buying a road bike?

Bicycle Haiku

Bicycle kanji

A few months ago, just for fun, I posted a bicycle haiku that I had written on the Bicycle Alliance's Facebook page:

With tailwind and smile
I roll through many landscapes.
My bike sets me free! 

Then I invited our Facebook friends to share their own bicycle haiku, and they did!  Here are a couple of them:

Fresh smooth roadway calls
Tires gliding soundlessly
Speed and balance sweet.
- Anthony Medina 

li'l stardust rider
swaying with each pedal stroke
six-year-old freedom.
- Claire Petersky

I quickly discovered that bicycle haiku, or baiku as it is sometimes called, is a popular subset of this poetry form and there are websites dedicated to it.  For instance, there is the Baiku blog written by a cyclist and poet in Portland.  A website called Bike Reader has a page dedicated to bicycle haiku and contains over a hundred bicycle haiku submissions.

Now, dear cyclist, it's your turn to spin your creative wheels as I invite you to submit your own bicycle haiku.  Please follow the standard haiku form of three lines--5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables.

The “Mutual Responsibilities” Bill—What’s Up?

The legislature won’t act on the proposed bill to set out drivers’ and cyclists’ rights and responsibilities until cyclists’ concerns are met; next steps will be taken at Bike Alliance Legislative Committee early summer 2011 meeting

“Rumors of my death,” Mark Twain once remarked, “have been greatly exaggerated.”

The opposite might be said about the existing version of House Bill 1018, the proposed “Mutual Responsibilities” law introduced at the beginning of this year’s legislative session. Internet rumors to the contrary, the bill isn’t going anywhere, this year or next, without more input from cyclists and a thorough vetting to ensure that concerns have been met and it accomplishes its intended goals.

HB 1018 was an attempt to set out motorists’ and cyclists’ rights and responsibilities—including more specific language about safe passing distances. The Bike Alliance’s Legislative and Statewide Issues Committee, comprised of cyclists from around the state, drafted the bill; and Rep. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, agreed to be its prime sponsor. A number of other legislators joined as co-sponsors. A companion bill, SB 5193, was introduced in the senate, with Sen. Scott White as its prime sponsor.

However, after the bill’s introduction a number of cyclists raised concerns about some of its provisions, some believing that it reduced cyclists’ existing rights. Because of these concerns the Bike Alliance asked the bill’s sponsors not to take action on the legislation, as reported earlier on our web site’s legislation page and blog.  The sponsors in turn asked the legislature’s Transportation Committee chairs not to schedule the bill for a hearing during the 2011 session. In fact, no legislative action has been taken on either the House or Senate versions since January.

Nothing more will happen until the Bike Alliance’s Legislative and Statewide Issues Committee discusses the bill and conducts further outreach to the bicycling community. Committee members will discuss the bill at their early summer 2011 meeting, which will take place in a few months. (Check the Bike Alliance website and blog, where information on the meeting’s date and location will be posted once they are confirmed.)

However, a recent post in the Seattle Likes Bikes blog has apparently raised concerns among some that the legislature will act on essentially the same bill next year.  Not to worry: these fears are misplaced.

Technically, the state legislature operates on two-year cycles, each of which includes two regular legislative sessions, as explained on the Washington State Legislature’s “overview of the legislative process” web page.  The 2011 legislative session is the first of the current two-year cycle. Bills that are introduced during the first regular legislative session of a cycle don’t “die” if they aren’t acted upon; instead they carry over to the second regular session.

Thus, it’s literally true that HB 1018 isn’t “dead.” But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the same bill (or any bill) will be resurrected and acted upon in 2012.  Practically speaking, this will happen only if the bill’s sponsors ask the committee chairs to set some version of the bill for a hearing---and that won’t happen until both the Bicycle Alliance and the bill’s prime sponsors are convinced that the bill meets cyclists’ needs.

In the meantime, we’d like your input. Take a look at the bill and forward any comments or ideas to Bicycle Alliance Executive Director Barbara Culp at barbc@bicyclealliance.org. 

Bicycle Ballet—The Aesthetics of Cycling

Here at the Bike Alliance, we tend to focus on political and policy issues and leave the aesthetics of cycling to others.

That’s only natural. We’re a cycling advocacy organization, not an artists’ collective or small-scale bike frame builder. And with the legislature in session and our own strategic-planning summit in the offing, it’s important to focus on the basics.

But in the midst of this work it is nice to take a few minutes occasionally to remember that cycling can be a beautiful thing.

Take the machine itself: it’s spare, light and efficient—in fact, the most efficient means of human locomotion ever invented.  And like a suspension bridge, a bicycle is beautiful in that special way that happens only when form gracefully follows function.  

There’s also an aesthetic pleasure in riding a bicycle, which can bring the same sense of fluid motion that you get when skiing or swimming.

There can even be a gracefulness that’s evident when watching others cycle—especially when seen through the lens of an artist.

Which brings me to Ed van der Elsken, a 20^th-Century Dutch photographer and filmmaker whose work I recently discovered via the Dutch Amsterdamize blog.

Born in Amsterdam in 1925, van der Elsken initially aspired to be a sculptor, but had to abandon his studies during World War II when the Nazis occupied his country.  He later became interested in photography and moved to Paris, returning to his native Netherlands in 1955.  He became one of the most influential Dutch photographers of the postwar era, capturing every aspect of life in Amsterdam in photos and movies. One of those aspects was, perhaps inevitably, Amsterdam’s ubiquitous bicycles.

Today there’s a plethora of websites and YouTube videos that visually celebrate cycling. But for me a short van der Elsken movie from 1965 captures the aesthetics of bicycling better than anything made for the Internet. Titled simply “Fietsen” (bicycling), the film captures an era, but is also timeless. Here it is:

Traffic as a Tornado

Jef Mallett is the cartoonist who created Frazz, an accomplished triathlete, and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. He recently moved to a new house in a new city and set out to explore the nearby streets and training routes by bike. He posted a blog entry a few days ago in which he said the conditions were surprisingly good, not nearly as bad as people said. Drivers were more tolerant, streets in better shape than he expected. Later that evening, though, a road rage incident on a street near his new place involving a cyclist and motorist resulted in an injury and an assault charge. Jef's post yesterday, here, reviews the event and reflects a bit on what to do when confronted by a similar situation. Jef is a very thoughtful person and his take on dealing with errant road users is the best I've heard. Key quote:

It's not that I've never been harassed or threatened or scared or that I've never done anything dumb myself. It's not that I've never wanted to set someone straight. But to me, drivers are another form of weather. Some good, some bad, some types more common in certain areas than in others. With bad weather, you have a choice: You either prepare for it and accept it, or you stay inside and avoid it. Trying to educate a bad driver on the spot is akin to trying to lecture a tornado away from your trailer park.

The temptation to try to communicate with an errant motorist (or cyclist) is pretty high, and I have succumbed. In traffic you just don't have time to have an effect. I've heard many times the maxim that "You can't change the world, you can only change how you react to it." Picturing an attempt to lecture a tornado is a good way to think about that.

Cyber Cynic

What is that sucking sound?

I am new to blogs and blogging, with less than a month of online posts under my belt. I receive at least two emails a day at work that link me to seemingly unending information and opinions about all things bicycle, and the number is rising. The only reason these emails get past the spam filter is that the folks sending them are on my contacts list.

Reading these blogs about bicycling was for me like going to sea for the first time: I can tell it will take awhile to keep from getting dizzy from the constant back and forth, up and down, and the feeling of being trapped. I love getting on the boat that is the article on the other end of the link, but then we leave the dock. An instant rough sea waits at the end of the blog post, with all of the comments, and comments on comments, replies to replies, and often a chance to jump overboard with MORE LINKS.

Reading blog commentary, I am sucked into the brains of other people, and I reflexively try to follow the reasoning (and even the unreasonable). It seems that the internet' ability to allow instant letters to the editor (sans the editing), attracts extremes of point of view and experience. Bicycling blog commentary seem to follow a pattern:

first comment--usually thumbs up, with a shout out to the credibility of the commenter’s reply.
Reply to first comment--you are nuts!, and here is why...........
Reply to first reply's reply--come on now, why can't we get along.....

second comment--usually thumbs down, with a discrediting reference to data that is may or may not be backed up by a LINK to a study disputing some content of the article, plus maybe a little snipe at first commenter
Reply to second comment-- a LINK to a study disputing the above non supported data and a LINK to data that supports the writer's right to dispute to second commentator's comment
Reply to second reply's reply--come on now, why can't we get along.....

third comment—cynicism or lame attempt at using a previous posting as the butt of a joke.

I just finished Josh Cohen’s PubliCola post about putting in a Cycle Track on Dexter. Josh’s blog was simple, factual and educational, and something about bicycle infrastructure that I have not seen in the Seattle Times, yet. OK, so no links to follow in the comments section, but 62 postings all culminating in what? Did anyone commenting change their opinion, or was it just a morning fix of agitation (political caffeine)?

Please believe me when I say that I am not one of those “let’s all get along” idealists. But I would hate to become so cynical and isolated that all I did anymore was fire off one-liners in cyberspace, entirely intent on polishing my cynicism. I happen to like observing human behavior.  My Mom was a great people watcher and could make up a life story for anybody, usually focusing on the good in a person without judging the book by its cover. I also know that she drew on her infamous photographic memory---recalling relevant information that came from one of the three daily newspapers she took---and she enjoyed pointing out an Op Ed writer’s misstatements, or a politician’s rhetoric.

I try to imagine what she would have had to say about a bike blog’s detractors and champions. I truly appreciated her prowess at critical thinking and fact based schooling of loud mouths, and I feel her distaste for the blood sport of attacks on life choices, or mean spirited aspersions on anyone’s desire to influence change for the common good.