Still here

My work schedule went pot, and I'll be pulling long days for the next few weeks. That means little time to ride and very little awake time at home. Hopefully I'll get some posting done soon.

Simplicity

When I first started this blog I intended to write not just about cycling, but about Zen (as I see it) and some politics. This is the first of what I hope will be a series of periodic posts on Zen (as I see it). I am adding the modifier to indicate that I have no formal training in Zen, and will be writing about the path as it appears to me, not according to doctrine.

Simplicity of life is one of the tenets at the heart of Zen practice, and one of the things about it that most appeals to me. Interestingly, there is now an active movement, that I encounter mainly through other blogs, on ways to simplify your life. Something I find interesting about much of this movement is that the way towards simplicity expounded is often by adding complexity. The most visible form of this is the Get Things Done way of thinking. At its heart this involves adding small things to your life which enable you to more-effectively use your time, sounds good. However, many of the practitioners I've encountered talk about convoluted systems where there is a specific time to do everything that you can conceive of, which doesn't sound very simple to me.

I am a fan of achieving simplicity by removing the things that make life complex. What got me thinking about all of this was doing yard work. This is the first time in many years that I have lived in a house that had a yard which requires maintenance. I have small front and rear yards, with lawns to mow and plants to trim. As I was working on the yard this weekend I found myself thinking about how much more sensible it would be to have a "native garden" type yard. Simply put this is a yard planted with native vegetation and allowed to grown more naturally. All told it means less work, less water use, better habitat for local wildlife, and an extension of the local wilderness into your yard. Given that my rear yard backs up to a creek, going native would allow me to incorporate some of the creek wildlife into my yard. However, since I'm only renting there is little I can do for now.

Another way I strive towards simplicity is biking and walking rather than driving. I don't imagine that I am rare among car-free commuters to find it more mentally relaxing to walk or ride rather than drive. As I continue working towards a more simple life I will continue to post the little things I find that help. My goal is not to create some artificial zone of emptiness around me, but to have those aspects of my life I have control over to be as stress-free as I can make them.

And that includes not adding stress by overdoing the attempt to simplify.

A different spin on car-free

Continuing in Monday's vein about car-light living, I bring you this:

That is a pedal-powered roller coaster from Japan, the Skycycle at the Washuzan Highland Park in Okayama to be precise. I first saw it written about on the Everyman Triathlon blog, as a way to actually combine the very disparate concepts of "endurance training" and "fun". The post there has more information and pictures, as does this one from Geekologie, from March of 2007. Finally, there is this page, linked to in the Geekoligie article, which has a lot of details on the Skycycle.

I don't know about you, but I would love something like that to play on. I mean, I live in the SF Bay Area, one of the most dedicated liberal/green enclaves going, and we don't have a human powered roller coaster? What are you greenies thinking?

The self-perpetuating nature of car-light

One thing I have noticed since moving into my new house is that living car-light is a self-perpetuating thing. I chose a house that was close enough to transit (BART) that I would be able to take it without biking or driving to the station. When I was staying with my dad I was far enough away that I had to bike/drive, and various things meant I was driving most of the time. Now, I'm a short walk away, and the truck sits in the driveway five of seven days by default. What I've been noticing more though is that I avoid driving on the weekends. 

When I was in Baltimore I would avoid driving because of parking issues - I lived in neighborhoods with street-parking only and it was often a fight to get a place. Now, I have a driveway that could hold two or three cars without issue and I still avoid driving. As I was thinking about the around-the-house chores I need to take care of this past weekend I realized that I was avoiding some (yard work) because I need to go pick up a few things from the hardware store, and the distance/roads means that I have to drive there. I am actually excited about some of the work, but the idea of driving to get the implements (and it's not expensive stuff, brooms, dustpans, and a new ribbon for an edger) has me turned off.

Funny how something that most people think is the easiest way to get around, driving, is actually preventing me from going out.

I KNEW Twitter was a bad thing

Recently I went on a bit of tear about Twitter. I just don't get some of the excitement people seem to feel about it, and one of the podcasts I used to really enjoy (net@nite, part of Leo Laporte's Twit Network) has gotten almost impossible to listen to due to all of the rhapsodizing about the wonders of Twitter (I get it, it's a Web 2.0 thing, but there must be others). Anyway, imagine my surprise, after all my whining, to see a fellow cyclists and blogger (although I'm nowhere near the calibre) getting Twitterjacked...

Just days after I discovered that a certain online retailer is using this blog to market yet another inexpensive singlespeed road bike, I've now learned that somebody has taken the liberty of creating a Twitter account in my name

I'd like to take this opportunity to say, "Hey there! I am not using Twitter." If you're reading this blog you know I'm wordy, and there's absolutely no way I could restrict myself to 140 characters per post. And naturally, since it's not my Twitter account, I can't access it.

From BikeSnobNYC: The Indignity of the Internet: Twitterjacked!

So there you have another reason not to go within a mile of someone using Twitter - they may not be the person you think! I'm looking at you, Fritz...

Goop

I've been meaning to test out Green Slime for a while. Not because I just like the idea, but because I keep getting slow leaks in the rear tire on my commuter bike. Since it has an internal-geared hub, getting the wheel off and on is a bit of an issue, and then I have to make sure the chain is tight and occasionally readjust the cable tension to keep it in the right gear. Add to that the fact that just flipping the thing upside down to get the wheel off is a significant challenge due to weight, and you'll see why tire changing/patching is low on my list.

(Keep in mind, I do have liners in the tires, but I think the spoke ends may be poking through the rim tape and causing little tiny holes.)

The last time I flatted, a few weeks ago, I just stuck my tongue out and left it flat. Last weekend I picked up a tube of slime and went to work. The bottle has pretty clear directions on it, and I went by them. I won't repeat them (rote) here, but roughly:

• Let the air out and then pull the valve core (the top of the bottle has a built-in removal tool).
• Use the hose to pump slime into the tube, about 1/2 the bottle for a bike tire
• Replace the valve core and inflate.
• Roll the tube to distribute the slime and remount.

That was the basic chain of events I followed, and it was almost that easy. The biggest issue I ran into is that the goop is thick. It took a lot of squeezing on the bottle to get it moving. Another thing to be aware of:

DO NOT REMOVE THE BOTTLE FROM THE HOSE, OR THE HOSE FROM THE VALVE STEM UNTIL THE HOSE IS EMPTY!!!

I cannot stress this enough. If you do (like I did) the pressure in the tube will pump all of the goop back out and it will go everywhere and be a pain to clean up. I had the advantage of having a utility room that I could work in and worry about cleaning up later, but had I been in my old apartment I would have been in trouble.

So far the slime is holding. I've done a few rides of varying length, and haven't had the slow leak problem again. If it holds I may go ahead and slime all of my bikes, just in case.

Off-topic rant: Why is Twitter taking over the world?

I am not a Luddite. I blog, I love my various high-tech devices, and I am looking forward to the day I can get a computer jack implanted in my head so I can interact with my computer mentally. One thing I cannot get excited about is Twitter, and it keeps invading my life.

There are certainly limited uses for this sort of micro-blogging. The best that comes to mind (for cyclists) is the use by mass transit agencies like Caltrain (mentioned regularly by Fritz at Cyclelicious) to inform riders about issues with service. OK, that works for me, an alert about delayed service doesn't take a lot of detail to be useful.

Where I get grumpy about Twitter is when things I would otherwise care about (read: giveaways) use Twitter as the notification and/or entry system. Recently Fritz has done this (and it's completely his prerogative to run his contests the way he wants, but he did write a post asking for feedback...) and now there is a project to use this tech to track issues with people traveling to Obama's inauguration.

Great idea, but what about people who try to live at least occasionally away from their computers? Isn't one of the big draws of cycling the fact that it takes place outside? Why would I want to take a tether like Twitter everywhere I go? My previous job included a Blackberry, and my current one would if the budget included it, and after that I can say thanks but no thanks.

Maybe I am Luddish (it's a word now) but I just can't think of any person I care enough about to want to read insignificant bits of trivia from at all times of the day. So Lance is on Twitter, whoopee! I'd rather be on my bike than reading a 144-character report about someone else on theirs.

A ride to work (sort of)

"Sort of" to work, I mean, not a sort of ride. Most of this week I'm in training away from the office. The training is a couple of miles from the closest BART station and makes it a perfect ride. The area of Dublin where the training is has a lot of new development, including new wide roads with nice new bike lanes.

There were a couple of downsides, which go more to show how long it's been since I did a bike commute than anything else:

• The stairs - the BART platforms are raised, somewhere between two and three stories high. My bike is a tank (and I love it) and hauling it up all those stairs was a little rough.
• The climbs - the office we're meeting in is up a mild slope. I have said before (and will say again) that I hate gentle slopes because I always think I can take them in a manly gear and then bonk about halfway up. To some extent this, is mitigated by using the Schwinn since it's only a three-speed, but still.
• The weather - not a big deal, but it was five-ten degrees cooler when I got off the BART train in Dublin than it was in San Leandro when I left. Nothing significant, just surprisingly chilly.

All that aside, I'm glad to be on the bike for the week.

A short follow-up

A little while ago I got up on my soapbox and ranted about some of the cases I'd seen where advocacy had gotten a little out of control. The particular thing that set me off was an article I'd read about a proposed rule change that would allow MTB use in some national parks (which I agree with). The article included some comments from a few hiker groups who were opposed to the idea, and I found it a little depressing that two pro-environment, pro-outdoors groups like MTB riders and hikers were fighting when there really should be enough space for all of us.

A few days ago a post on BicycleSpokesmen.com brought the issue back to mind. This article pointed out the oddity that new park rules had been proposed to allow concealed-carry weapons in national parks (in states where concealed-carry is already legal) and that one seemed more likely to go through than did the rule change to allow bikes in parks.

The way I see it both groups mentioned above (cyclists, gun owners) are the victims of the public image of their membership but we don't have the benefit of being included in the Bill of Rights. As long as the public image of cyclists comes mainly from news footage of fights between cops and Critical Mass riders we're going to have an uphill battle.

Unfortunately, the hill we have to climb isn't one in a national park.

Back in the Saddle (almost)

I'm moved into my new place and have gotten about half settled in (what I have is settled, now I need furniture). Hopefully this afternoon I'll get the trainer unpacked and start some light riding again. I have figured out where I'll be training - in the nice, mostly enclosed rear patio.

My patio - full of greeny-goodness

The patio opens off the downstairs den, and I think will be the perfect midline between being outside and protected from the cold. And before any of you start giving me grief about the "cold" in California, it has been sub-freezing here in the evenings (when I'll be training) for the last few weeks. I have a utility room I could train in if it gets too cold, but prefer the openness of the patio.

(See, it does get cold in CA)

I've tried trainer riding once before, last winter in Baltimore, and it was a disaster. I did two days (I think) and just couldn't do any more. It bored me to tears. This year I have a few motivators which I hope will keep me at it:

• Being back in the Bay Area and near a largish group of cycling friends I have to be able to keep up with
• The Oakland Hills rides I loved a few years ago, which would demolish me and my pride should I attempt the climbs in my current sorry state of health
• The LiveStrong ride I've registered for and must complete
• Being in a place where there are S24O options in every direction

Like I said, I hope these will keep me slogging away on the trainer, but I honestly don't know.