A break

I'm going to be taking a short break from this blog. The last couple of days the bike blogs I normally love seem to be filled with little more that hatred directed at people who drive and it's left me unable to write anything at all. I have the LiveStrong San Jose ride coming up, and hopefully the bike-positive (as opposed to car-negative) vibes of the rest of Team Fatty will renew my love of the sport.

I really hope so.

Being too close to transit

In one of my last posts I mentioned that one of the things making it tougher for me to ride is how easy it is for me to take public transit. I want to expand that a little so I don't sound like a whiner without anything to really complain about.

Previously, when I lived in the Bay Area, I lived a few miles from BART, and my work was more than a few miles from BART at the other end. That meant that getting to work required me to drive the whole way, including fighting the San Francisco commute both directions, or biking. Easy choice most of the time, even when biking meant leaving home ~ 04:00.

Now, I live a 10 minute walk from BART and my work is directly outside of a BART station. This means that biking is almost more hassle than not. I have to get up in the morning, pack my work clothes into a bag, kit up (for the ride home), haul my bike up to the platform and then down at the far end. The payoff? A fantastic 12 mile ride home. It really is a conflict.

I plan to join a gym near my work when I get back from my latest trip. This will give me access to showers, which might, let me repeat and be honest MIGHT, be what I need to get me to bike both directions at least a few days a week.

Anit-cancer loot

I've mentioned before that I'm doing the LiveStrong ride in San Jose, as a member of Team Fatty (and again, feel free to GO HERE and donate to me). One of the things that our team captain passed on recently was a link to the Team Estrogen site to get a pair of "Cancer Sucks" socks. The idea is that the whole team will show up with the Team Fatty jersey and the Cancer Sucks socks and make a strong statement. Today when I got home from work this is what I found in the mail.

Nothing like having anti-cancer kit for riding. I am going to look like a bit of a frilly bike-ninja though, with my all-black-and-pink ensemble for the ride. Maybe I should find an old helmet to paint...

On not riding and physical well-being

It has been a while since I've been on my bike, or physically active in any real way. This is due to two things - work-related travel (15 days away from home with no bike or running shoes) and the ease of getting to work on public transit. Something I've noticed is that the more time passes between my last workout and today the worse I feel. It's funny, in some ways I feel like it's the day after a good ride/run because my legs are tired and sore. The problem is that they are tired and sore from underuse, not exertion.

Obviously, my weight isn't going in the right direction since I'm not exercising. I do have some rides planned for later in the week when I head out of town again, this time for my nephew's first birthday. Hopefully I'll be able to get back into a rhythm.

Three about Boris Johnson

For US readers, Boris Johnson is the bike riding mayor of London. I'll freely admit that I don't know much else about the man, although he does get some discussion on "Politics Weekly", the Guardian weekly (natch) political podcast. I noticed that I had saved a couple of different stories about Mr. Johnson and since I'm not in a position to write extensively about any of them, here they are all at once.

Boris Johnson unveils blueprint for London's 'cycling revolution' - article outlines the mayor's announcement of a bike share program for London with an aim of 6000 bikes at 400 stations about 300 meters apart. Quote the Mayor:

"Much like hailing a cab, people will be able to pick up one of 6,000 bikes, and zip around town to their heart's content – not only a quick, easy, and healthy option, but one that will also make London a more liveable city."

Boris Johnson's 'near-death experience' with lorry caught on camera - a disconcerting article describing how a ride intended to show the transport minister and a deputy some sites for bike "super highways" the Mayor hopes to bring to London almost came to a catastrophic end. From the article:

In what is being described as the mayor's "near-death experience", the lorry's back door then suddenly flew open, dragged a parked car into the street and smashed into another – just feet from Johnson, Adonis and Ranger.

Most of it was caught on CCTV, and the article ends with an aide to Mr. Johnson making the incident an argument for the bikeways he (Johnson) is pushing for.

My "100 miles of nowhere" ride

Last Saturday I participated in the 2nd 100 Miles of Nowhere Ride, from the one and only Fat Cyclist. (Note - he is the only capital F capital C, I most certainly am a fat cyclist.) The whole thing got kicked off last year when Fatty had the (INSANE) idea to raise some money for LAF by doing a century ride, on his rollers. He took "bets" in the form of donations on whether or not he would finish it (he did). This year he opened it up to other riders (read suckers/nuts). For a small entry fee you got some great loot and the comfort of making a donation to LAF, oh, and the opportunity to hamster-wheel yourself a century.

The day of the "race" was the day before I had to get on a plane for a 5+ hour flight to Hawaii (don't get jealous, I'm working including working on Memorial Day) so I didn't have as much time to set aside as I'd hoped. I also realized that I didn't have a computer on the bike hooked up to the trainer making accuracy a problem. So I opted for the "5 hours of nowhere ride" with the following logic: my average roadspeed (baring wind) is 13 miles/hour; my goal was a metric, which is about 62 miles; at 13 MPH 62 miles should take 4:45; so if I ride 5 hours I can call it a metric and we're good.
In total, I spent about 6.5 hours for the ride, with some stretch breaks and bathroom runs. I ripped through most of the last half of The Black Donnelys (Netflix), with some breaks for Simpsons to mellow things out. It was about what I expected - uncomfortable after a while (I don't have a good seat on the trainer bike), not very exciting, and surprisingly fun.

Oh, and I'll probably do it again next year if it happens.

On the road again

Unfortunately, not on my bike. I'm traveling for work for the next two weeks and will try and get some things that I've been sitting on written up to post. One I need to do is my write up of my participation in the 100 miles of nowhere ride yesterday.

My commute

I've been meaning for some time to take my camera with me on my commute home from work (the to-work commute is mostly me in the BART train, not very exciting) and get some pics up. I finally got around to it. I've posted more, along with the little map thingee, at flikr. Keep in mind that I don't have a camera with a GPS, so some of the map placements are rough.

Approaching the Oakland AMTRAK station at Jack London Square

Two-way bike lane on one side of the street to provide access to the ped/bike bridge from Alameda to Bay Farm Island

On the ped/bike bridge

Crew team (one of three I saw) working out in the channel near the Oakland Coliseum

The entrance to the Oakland International Airport

I have a heap more (72 pics total) at the flikr link above. They run from the bike room at work to my workshop at home. Hope you enjoy them, I know I enjoyed the ride where I took them.

My bike-to-work day

I have been off and on with biking to work lately. A combination of being a short walk away from BART and working some long/tiring days have had me in kind of a funk. For bike-to-work day I made an extra effort though, and it paid off with pancakes.

Someone in the City of Oakland hierarchy organized a pancake breakfast/booth show/speeches event in front of city hall, and I work all of two blocks away, so I pretty much had to stop by. Because I was still in my bike funk, I rode the Schwinn and planned on only riding the short hops from my house to BART, and from BART to the office. I had forgotten how much of a workout (on the quads specifically) pedaling that monster was, and in my nice clothes no less.

I was met at the first BART station by some early volunteers. They weren't supposed to be up and running until 07:00, and I went by about 06:45. One of the guys came over to give me a bag and asked if I wanted any of the beverage/food they had, but since I was hopping a train I passed. When I got to Oakland I got a nifty "I biked today" sticker, like the "I gave blood" ones you get at blood drives. I also got a couple of pancakes, some coffee and OJ, and saw some interesting booths. I was pretty early (07:30) and most of the booths were just getting set up. I hung out for a little while and then wandered back to work.

There was one other guy from my office that rode, and where ever it was he went, he got a t-shirt. We did run into another guy in the building when we were heading out that night who had ridden for the first time that day (although I got the impression he had ridden before, just not to that particular location). All in all, a lot of fun.

Judging fitness

As I rode home yesterday I found myself thinking about the different ways I judge my fitness, or more accurately my cycling strength. I was started on this line of thought when I realized that I was in a much higher gear (big chainring rather than middle, nearly the same cog) and was still feeling pretty strong. Then I looked at my speed and found it significantly higher (16 MPH vs 12) than normal. Finally, I took the few mild hills (overpasses) by standing rather than having to downshift.

All of this has got my thinking about the best way to really judge my cycling strength. I don't race, nor do I care to (and let's face it, if I tried to they'd have to create a whole new weight class, what would you call a Clyde class for someone in the Clyde class? Clyde-squared? sounds too much like the chi-square from biostats to me) so simple road-speed calculations don't mean much. I also only record my cadence to see if I'm steady, so that doesn't mean much. I used to use gearing as a judge of fitness/strength, by which I mean that the steeper the hill I could climb without shifting the stronger I felt I was, but does that mean anything about fitness?

I'm going to shift to the miles-to-bonk (MTB) standard, by which I mean how far can I ride before I stand up in the pedals, breathe deeply, and say "Wait, I have to go how much farther?" I figure this standard will come in handy as I torture myself on the 2nd Annual 100 Miles of Nowhere Ride (or in my case, 50) at the end of the month. Yes, I have done the insane and registered for the ride, and for some reason I'm looking forward to it. What does that say about me?