Report: July 9 – 15

Trips -
MinusCar: 11
Multi-occupant Auto: 8
Single occupant Auto: 3
Destinations: 42

The usual trip for The Boy pickups and another day of driving to work so I could drive to the across town FAB board meeting. Ugh...

My Car Miles: 50
My Bike Miles: 119

Scored a 50 mile Sunday by rolling with a group of 9 for breakfast…in Dell Rapids. From there I went on to lake country to hook up with The Family for the rest of the day.

Five weeks in a row of 100+ miles. I’m pretty pleased with that.

Hard Core Detours

I headed downtown Monday afternoon for a meeting with The City: four cyclists and four city employees (The Planner, an engineer, a risk manager, and a parks guy). The four of them had already put their heads together to come up with something for us to look at.

They're not too excited about the term "detour." These will be "alternative routes." Apparently the term detour implies a level of safety equal to the intersection and automobile free bike trail. They are reluctant to encourage use of the road for cycling. It didn't occur to me until now they seem to be equally reluctant to encourage the use of the sidewalk for walking. The City would assume too great a liability to imply either is a safe activity.

"That is an S.U.V; Humans ride in them because they are slowly losing their ability to walk." - RJ, Over the Hedge

My favorite take-away from the meeting was an empirical measurement for a definition of hard-core cyclist. Ready?



That's all...1/2 mile. Ride that, you qualify.

It's always hard to measure what sort of progress is made (if any) from a meeting like this. The guys on the other side of the table have the juice, we're just the sweaty ones trying to help one or two more people ride their bikes for utility.

Snakepants wrote up a nice report of the meeting. I have a few comments there too.

Acess

This one's for you TL.

This Week In Bike Photos

Friday - Schwinn LeTour. It's 35 years old, just ask her.



Bikes line the railing outside Tuesday's city council meeting.

Report: July 2 – July 8

Trips -
MinusCar: 9
Multi-occupant Auto: 6
Single occupant Auto: 2
Destinations: 43

Two single occupant trips for The Boy pickup duty. If I could just get The Boy 5 to like the trail-a-bike…he doesn’t.

My Car Miles: 15
My Bike Miles: 101

Sunday morning I was at 99 miles for the week. Sunday afternoon I rolled to the local Stop-n-Rob for hot dog buns. 1.1 mile round trip.

Stuff

Ever seen a guy address a city council in a Primal Wear jersey and sound reasonable doing it? Well now you can with windows streaming media, right here. He's within the first five minutes. The prayer, the pledge, the approval of the agenda, showtime.

Does he have a silver tongue? Well he had an awful lot of calls from city officials Monday...maybe they know.

I've driven 50 miles so far this week. The Boy 5 began his initial venture into soccer yesterday. It's a long drive to the field. Today. I. Just. Didn't. Feel. Like. Riding. To add to the misery I had to fill up with gas to make it home tonight. Haven't done that since 5/17.

The Living on Liquid blogger found his way into the the USA Today...uh...yesterday. Here's his ecologically friendly money quote, "I'm spending a small fortune on gas for my boat." I know this because my Google news alert told me so...and then he blogged it. Stay cool Tom.

Endurance Parenting

Much of the rest of the weekend featured cranking the thermostat to 85 and heading to the pool. I participated in The Boy 9’s Terrace Park Circuit Training. Begin with a 35 ft climb to the top of the water slide, great for the legs. Strengthen the core with a 35 ft plunge to the water below while keeping the body rigid for speed (Luge is an Olympic sport). Endure a head full of water and increase coordination while regaining footing and clearing the way for trailing participants. Repeat ad nauseam at the pace of a tireless 9 year old.

Saturday I was able to recover from the stair climb waiting in lines for the slides. I passed this time by mentally exorcising the desire to toss some young men over the railing after observing them spitting on fellow stair climbers, including me. Ah yes, the fun of youth.

Saturday was good warm up for Sunday when there were no lines. As I awaited lifeguard permission for the plunge portion I remarked to him about the lack of Sunday’s recovery time. His response was to drastically reduce the wait time (by bending rules) between The Boy 9’s departure and my own. I’m amazed to discover being as old as I am, that it still felt like I was getting away with something for him to do that. Ah yes, the fun of youth.

Respect respectable authority.

Endurance Bike Fixing

Apparently Al Gore was in town Saturday. I’m surprised. It seems like he was just here a few weeks ago.

And you; how was your vacation? I’m glad you’re back. I missed your visits.

Tuesday I received an e-mail (I assume most bike bloggers did) from the makers of Accelerade. “On behalf of Accelerade, I have recently visited minuscar.blogspot.com where you have shown an obvious interest and great understanding of endurance sports.”

Ha. Sorry girlfriend, 100 mile weeks do not a great understanding of or obvious interest in endurance sports make. Endurance bicycle commuting isn’t a sport you’ll make money on anytime soon either.

--

Saturday morning, bright and early roll out to meet Snakebite downtown for the 8am opening of Michelle’s. I needed to leave early as The MinusCar Bike was loaded down with tools and gear. The intent was biscuits and gravy prior to the 8:30 FAB event. Turns out 8am simply marks Michelle’s arrival. Biscuits and gravy is warm at 8:30.

We headed to The Diner where we added our bicycles to the 12 already parked outside the venue!!! Amazing. On the patio we were surprised and delighted to discover the FAB Communication Director/CycleSD blogger half way through his breakfast. At 8:30 we sent him to collect the ride arrivals (which turned out to be The Dad) while we wolfed down 2 + 2 + 2, bacon for me, patties for him. He got the jump on me, but in the end I beat him by half a pancake.

The five of us headed to the Center of Hope. On the way we collected The Sailor after spotting him crossing a bridge with a telltale bike pump extruding from his backpack. We happened upon a biker down, cradled in his SO's lap. He was well attended by other rollers and an ambulance was enroute. I’m just guessing, irregardless it remains true, helmets are good and collarbones heal. We arrived at the destination and were joined by The Kernel, BriMan and LevisGhost.

It turns out the immediate area around hope has no trees, so we opted to perform our services just below the center of hope in the cooler yet very moist basement. CycleSD was unable to wear his glasses because of the humidity.

We spent three hours truing wheels, adjusting brakes, swapping parts. In the end we’d placed 10 Magnas, Huffys and Roadmasters in the done row and delivered 3 bikes to The LBS for some additional work. Two television stations and one (public) radio station visited us. The Center of Hope’s administrator gave three interviews. The FAB Communications Director does a nice job doesn’t he?!



These bikes will go to people who are in need of transportation. Priority goes to people departing prison sentences and needing to get on with employment (not unlike Scooter Libby I suppose). In other words, used by people for their primary means of transportation. These are things that are important to me. This FAB event fit nicely with The MinusCar Project.

Tomorrow: Endurance Parenting

PS: If you roll and you're in the area hit the city council meeting at 7pm Monday night. Snakebite's asking the city to do a better job detouring bike trail disruptions. I've seen his words. Go and see if the snake's got a silver tongue.

Weekend Photo Time

First the current installment of the garden photo. The clothes line is retractable. I'm hoping for a big impact with this. Reducing use of the electric dryer. Might also reduce the need for a basement dehumidifier by putting more moisture outside.



Not only did the content of this post - "how many gallons is this?" - at the Sew Green blog impress me, but I enjoyed the approach in writing it. I think I might get a bucket.

Did you see the Banjo Brothers ad featuring the Lunartic Biker? If you're a bike blogger you probably did...but not all of you are bike bloggers, and some of you stay away from the naughty ones anyway.



Clicky for bigger picture. This ad was created to run in the Urban Velo magazine which I really like.

The Boy 9 celebrates his independence.





Finally, here's a nice picture that I found over at the Bicycling in and Around Sioux Falls blog.



I wonder what this would look like printed on card stock, laminated and hung from a sign downtown on the bike trail.



Huh. Pretty good I think.

I may or may not have had something to do with the hanging of this sign. I may or may not have intentionally spelled Lunatic wrong earlier in this post.

I did however have a nice 30 mile day, thanks to an after supper run to Staples, the Snakepit, the downtown bike trail, and back home. You know, urban cycling.

Hope's Center

I found this on local blogger Snakebite's site. Edited to ummm...make myself look smarter than I am. The original is here.

Saturday July 7 from 9am to 12pm FAB members will converge on the Center of Hope in a voluntary bike fixing effort.

The Center of Hope accepts bicycle donations, fixes donated bicycles, and gives them away to men and women in need of employment related transportation. Individuals departing prison are first priority in an effort to assist in keeping them from return visits.

A few weeks ago the Center of Hope had given away 190 bicycles so far this season. The only thing keeping them from giving away a record 400 bicycles is the number of functioning ones they have. Not too long ago they received 50 or so bicycles from Northwestern University in Orange City, Iowa.

What sort of bicycles are these? Imagine a college bike rack full of your sisters abandoned Magna at the end of a long year of college…then account for your sister’s 50 riding buddies who abandoned theirs too.

So bring your crescent wrench, your metric socket set, and other wrenches and let’s go!

Center of Hope at the top of the hill formerly known as Cliff Ave is best approached from the north. Head south from the Benson Road/Cliff Ave intersection; it’s one of the last couple buildings on the east side of Cliff Ave. I’ll lead a ride from the downtown courtyard just south of 334 S Phillips Ave at 8:30am.

Later Saturday is a Greenpeace global warming awareness event at McKennan Park. A number of bands are playing including The Body Electric. You may remember The Body Electric from previous events like Bike To Work Day. Related website here. This would seem like the perfect sort of event to wear one's The MinusCar Project t-shirt.

(Uhhh...sorry dudes that I am in debt a t-shirt too. I've sorta dropped the ball on that...for now.)

Report: June 25 – July 1

Car? We don’t need no stinking cars!

Trips -
MinusCar: 10
Multi-occupant Auto: 4
Single occupant Auto: 0
Destinations: 34

Did you hear the one about the single occupant of the SUV? Stopped at a red light he rolled down his window to inquire of the single occupant tandem…”where did your stoker go?” (honestly I saw this story on someone’s blog a few months ago, but I can’t escape it. It’s one of the first things I’m going to try when we finally get a tandem.)

My Car Miles: 0
My Bike Miles: 135

Yep. Zero miles on my car. I drove this morning, I had to wash the dust off the windshield.

Saturday morning I enjoyed a trip downtown for pumpkin pancakes at Café 334. I took the scenic route through Crooks and Baltic. Them is some yummy pancakes.

FAB Snakebite Scavenger Hunt

Here is my route for last weekend’s scavenger hunt. Clicky-click for a larger image.



It’s tough to come up with an efficient route when presented with 15 locations and a time limit (3 hours). My first stop would have been much better placed between stops 9 and 10. It was disappointing to ride by stops 5 and 6 after leaving stop 15.

I’m quite happy with my choices from stop 8 to the end. It was and adventure riding down the Terrace Park landscape on a road bike.

The stretch with 13, 14 and 15 was all against the wind with the clock ticking down. I opted for the flat bike trail instead of hilly Kiwanis Ave between 14 and 15.

I took a big risk going for item 15 but it was a good thing I did. Fetching it gave me 8 points 5 of which I lost for being 5 minutes late. I won the event by 1 point…which could have been the difference of one more red light.

In other news, here’s my latest garden picture. Isn’t it fabulous?

Report: June 18 – 24

It was a very nice MinusCar week, capped by a very nice bicycle weekend. I was in a car Monday, and didn’t get in one again until Saturday. Friday evening and Sunday was all bike all the time.

Trips -
MinusCar: 14
Multi-occupant Auto: 2
Single occupant Auto: 2
Destinations: 45

I had to take a solo trip in the car on Sunday because I was late to the Sunday school class I was guesting for.

Destinations are unusually high because I participated in FAB’s Snakebite Scavenger Hunt Sunday afternoon. 15 destinations in 2.75 hours. $125 gift certificate was the top prize. I wonder how much crusier bike I can get for $125.

My Car Miles: 23
My Bike Miles: 138

Of course, running 15 "errands" doesn’t hurt the bike mileage either.

Hope, Dilbert & nonAccidents

I cut out of work early to get to a meeting. I left late.

Downtown was experiencing Automania causing many of the main roads to be closed. 5pm traffic chaos. I took some alleys to get through the best I could but eventually I found myself wanting to exit a parking lot where a law officer was directing traffic. I stopped appropriately at the apron, communicated my intent to the officer by, you know, left arm extended.

Oh how I wish I had a photo of the exact moment the officer realized what he was going to have to do to let this left turning bicycle riding scofflaw through. Priceless. His professionalism and knowledge of, you know, the law quickly returned and I was able to get back on the road toward my meeting.

Next up, road construction. I missed a memo on some major road construction. Road deconstruction is a better description...the entire area is just gone. I bet I rode half a mile through a construction area. I was nervous, alert and knew I didn't belong there.

But I was late.

I arrived at The Center of Hope for my tour. They collect used adult bikes. They repair the used bikes (to the extent your abandoned Magna can be repaired). They deliver the repaired bikes to individuals with a specific need.

The specific need? Adults who will use the bicycle as their primary mode of transport to work.

They'll give away 400 bikes this summer if they can get 200 more donated and repaired. Want to help?

--

Dilbert was excellent today (6/20):



---

Finally, Cycling Sasquatch reposts Elly Blue's post from the BikePortland.org blog.

Entitled "Our 'Accidental' Car Culture" it's about the use of the term accident to describe automobile crashes. Most stunning is her referral to this text that appeared in the New York Times:

"May 18, 2006 Man Strikes 5 With S.U.V. in North Bellmore, N.Y. By JENNIFER 8. LEE A man intentionally ran over five people in North Bellmore, with an S.U.V. after a fight last night, the Nassau County police said. The driver fled the scene of the accident, at 2800 Pacific Ave. But the police later located the vehicle they believed was involved in the accident in Garden City and took the driver in for questioning. The victims were taken to Nassau University Medical Center, the police said. One was in critical condition, a hospital spokeswoman said."

When is attempted homicide an accident? When it's attempted with a motor vehicle.

The rest is excellent too. I'm glad I didn't miss it. Thanks Sasquatch.

"Why have we built our communities around driving, stranding those who cannot, should not, or just don’t want to drive a car?"

Report: June 11 – 17

There’s a posting on the De-motorize Your Soul Digest webpage from a guy claiming to have a blog called The MinusCar Project. That’s remarkable. He even lives in the same city as I do. Who’da thunk it?

Trips -
MinusCar: 11
Multi-occupant Auto: 4
Single occupant Auto: 4
Destinations: 30

Rain. Lots of rain caused half my single occupant trips. I made up for some of them with a meandering 26 mile ride with B.O.B. to the Downtown Farmer’s Market. I purchased baby cucumbers, some tomato basil parmesan bread and cabbage. I went back to the booth with the “cheddar” cauliflower but it was sold. All they had left was purple. The Boy 5 isn’t bothered that it doesn’t taste like grape.

My Car Miles: 29
My Bike Miles: 123

Between lightning strikes on Saturday I planted (with help) two 4x4’s in the garden. Look how fast they grew! I think they look sturdy enough to hold up a clothesline. Perhaps maybe a solar panel? They withstood Sunday’s 40mph winds.



The Boys are calling for a compost bin too.

Coffee And Doughnuts And Folding Bicycles. Oh My.

Over at the Pinchflat News site they’ve made a bit of ado about the solution in search of a problem that is the folding bicycle. I don’t have to agree completely with their sentiments to get a kick out of their cheeky snarkiness. Neither do you.

So it is that as last weekend’s FAB Coffee & Doughnut Ride approached the 12th mile (it’s about the journey) in the 3 mile (not the destination) trip to Black Sheep Coffee we discovered a rare folding bicycle in its natural habitat outside Michelle’s downtown coffee serving eatery known as Michelle’s.

Those with cameras (seems those with cameras are also the ones with blogs) and an appreciation of the moment immediately started shooting pictures of the contraption as it rested in the glow of it’s own hipness. Not wanting to miss the opportunity for a two-fer I snapped a shot of two internet bicycle community phenomenons in a single frame.

A Snakebite taking a photo of a folding bike.

Report: June 4 – 10 (with bonus material)

One of my favorite things happened tonight. Upon arriving home from work The Wife declared I would be riding to the store tonight to pick up a few things. I made the best of it and stopped at four places after The Boys were in bed - 8 nighttime bonus miles.

I saw The Iconoclasts today after work on my way to The LBS. The authors of MinusCar Essay #9, they live in town without an automobile. They walk. They talk. They spend time together. Hmmm…could they be on to something? Do they love each other enough to not want to rush their trips? They look good together too!

I also learned this weekend we found The Wife’s indoor temperature threshold. She topped out at 83 degrees late afternoon Sunday and the air conditioner got turned on for the first time this year. I think that means our threshold went from 74 two years ago to 78 last year to 83 this year.

One final note… No Impact Man referenced some suggested concrete numbers for reducing ones personal carbon emissions. Interesting numbers, they are very small. Gasoline – 50 gallons per person per year. There are other numbers in six more categories.

If you haven’t heard of No Impact Man you should. He began his project last November. He began his blog in March.

"Stage one was figuring out how to live without making garbage: no disposable products, no packaging, etc. Stage two was figuring out how to cause the least environmental impact with our food choices. Stage three is figuring out how to reduce our consumption to only what is necessary and how to do that sustainably. The whole thing gets harder and harder as we add each stage."

He composts his poop. He disconnected his electricity. He and his family live in New York City.

Now, on to the weekly report.

Trips -
MinusCar: 13
Multi-occupant Auto: 6
Single occupant Auto: 4
Destinations: 45

Three of the single occupant trips involved a single day. The Boys had early morning dentist appointments. As I dropped The Boy 5 off his daycare provider strongly urged me to not ride to avoid the nasty weather that was approaching. I should have ridden. The nasty weather didn’t materialize.

Two multi occupant trips involved the necessity of sober transport. The high cost of friendship. I’ll pay it every time.

My Car Miles: 33
My Bike Miles: 94

It's gonna get better from here (I think).

Where's Your Cargo?

Everytime I turn around somebody's giving up a car! There's Sue in Illinois leaving me comments, "Since I was already completely at the "weather forecast: what do I wear?" (as opposed to "what will I drive?") it hasn't been too hard of a transition..."

Snakebite's got his truck up for sale. He's trying to lose weight, "I’m going to lose 3,762 lbs in the form of my vehicle..."

And now, The Parents! Sold the OldsmoBuick, selling the light truck and purchased some sort of 30mpg little thing. Wow!

Me? Welp, after a year and a half of being volunteer water fetcher for my work crew, I get to trade the once a week car assisted 15 gallon water run for...once every 11 weeks. I am pleased to get to share this task.

Report: May 28 – June 3

Let me get this straight – the longer I take between posts the more the readership drops off. Who knew?

Trips -
MinusCar: 8
Multi-occupant Auto: 6
Single occupant Auto: 10
Destinations: 50

Six of my single occupant trips occurred on the day I attended the Grand Opening of the Museum of Visual Materials. I did a lot of back and forth trips as I car pooled with The Owner to the event, met The Family for dinner, and headed to the stadium for some baseball. I guess I’m saying the 10 looks worse than it was.

Remind me to write about the Museum of Visual Materials sometime soon.

My Car Miles: 59
My Bike Miles: 87

The Coming Storm

As I anxiously await nature's coming destruction...


I've retrieved my copy of the KELO Storm Center Drinking Game...

"Every time you hear the word 'rotation' take 1 drink."

I stepped out to take some pictures of the babies...


Just in case a 12ft wide hail stone lands on my garden...


There was a time, not very long ago, that I would fail to recognize just how amazing this is. I used to live in a world where things coming out of the ground would ship hundreds of miles, turn into high fructose corn syrup, and ship back to me as sugar pop. Now it's shipped to me so I can feed it to my car.

It's a jungle out there. It used to be a garden.