Today I woke up feeling somewhat like a human being for the first time in quite a while.
Normally, I would address this very development by jumping on my bike and riding until my legs fall off. However, I have decided to try to treat my body a little more kindly than that. As such, my goals for today include getting the two desert bikes tuned up and taking a little spin. I just need to figure out what 'a little spin' actually means.
What I'd like it to mean is rolling a mile or two, grabbing a coffee at Sister Bean's, and rolling home, on pleasant, quiet streets.
Where my neighborhood is concerned, though, one of the things I'm not really keen on is the fact that to get to the pleasant riding, you first have to escape the neighborhood by traversing a number of narrow, busy roads with poor visibility on which people routinely exceed the speed limit by a significant margin . The nearest really pleasant rides are Iroquois Park (so not doing that today) and Southern Parkway. The nearest destinations where one can sit and have a snack (unless you count the hospital, which probably has a coffee shop of some sort) are only mile or so away -- but it's a stressful mile, rather than a relaxing mile.
Right now, I really miss living in the Highlands, where even if I wasn't feeling too hot, I could easily go out and spend and entire day doing short flights from shop to shop, enjoying used books, ice cream, and other such pleasures. I didn't like riding on Bardstown Road* -- and still don't -- but the Highlands offers plenty of parallel routes and is dotted with neat retail and service venues.
Here, we are not completely without neat little shops to visit, but this part of town was definitely designed around the automobile. This 'goes double' for my neighborhood. Even Iroquois Park, which is almost literally in my back yard, is not directly accessible from Arling Court, or from Arling Ave. Walkscore.com rates my current address a 25/100 -- car-dependent, in their eyes, though I do fine without a car most of the time. My old address rated an 82 -- really quite high, for any address in the United States. The city's average stands at 48/100, almost twice as 'walkable' as Arling Court.
I don't know how or even if we could really transform my neighborhood into a truly walkable one. The Highlands (and its sister neighborhood, the Frankfort Ave/Crescent Hill corridor) works so well for walkers and cyclists because it was built before the private auto was a primary means of transit, and is zoned accordingly. Neighborhoods like mine, on the other hand, were deliberately designed to create a sense of separation between residential and commercial districts -- so even when they're close together as the crow flies, one can only make a direct trip by trespassing in people's yards, hopping fences, and so forth.
Across Taylor Boulevard (or New Cut), a similar neighborhood has dealt with this situation by creating easements to allow shortcuts for pedestrians and cyclists. My guess is that the neighborhood in question had no choice; kids walking to school follow the path of least resistance, and it only makes sense to codify that path, rather than punishing the kids. As a result, the neighborhood in question feels much more pedestrian-friendly, and if you're feeling lazy on your bike, you can use the cut-through paths to get from Point A to Point B without wandering from -4 to 4 and back to -4on the corresponding Cartesian grid in the process.
However, my neighborhood is triangular and is laid out across three rather forbidding hills. Its design doesn't really allow for neat little commercial spaces -- to incorporate them, some of the residential-zoned area here would have to be converted to commercial, and even then, the kind of commercial venues I'd really love to see here -- quirky Mom-and-Pop businesses -- would find it difficult to survive, hidden as they would be in the hills. Likewise, significant changes to infrastructure would have to be made to make those businesses accessible to the folks within the neighborhood: for example, sidewalks would have to be added (they should be anyway, but that's another fight), and speed limits would absolutely have to be enforced (they should be anyway, but that's also another fight).
It's not that I really believe this stuff couldn't happen -- but I live in a low-rent kind of neighborhood. We don't add a great deal to the city's tax base. We don't attract tourists. We have no commercial presence to speak of outside of a couple of small places that front on Taylor or Bluegrass, and I doubt anyone associates those businesses with my neighborhood. Technically, we don't even have a school; Hazelwood Elementary and Iroquois High School are, respectively, across Bluegrass and Taylor, and thus not really in my neighborhood, since those roads act as neighborhood boundaries.
Essentially, what I'm saying, is that while I live in the kind of neighborhood that most needs small businesses and improved infrastructure, it is also, by its nature, among those least likely to attract businesses and least likely to receive infrastructure updates from the city.
As someone who believes deeply in starting where you are and also in the power of just up and doing it, I'm not sure how to approach the problem of my neighborhood. We have seriously discussed moving, but part of me thinks that's the wrong answer -- not to mention throwing the baby out with the bath water.
While we don't really know anyone on Arling Ave, Arling Court is a neighborly place. It's a village-within-a-village. I like and trust my neighbors, and we're all on friendly terms. It's the kind of neighborhood where you could throw a picnic in the middle of the court, and everyone would come (in fact, I should really think about doing just such a thing). Yes, there are little things we grumble about, but we also overlook most of those little things in the interest of neighborly peace. We don't have an official neighborhood watch because we don't need one -- everyone looks out for everyone else anyway, and that's how it should be. It is, in these ways, very much like the place where I grew up.
If we could encourage that kind of neighborly atmosphere to spread throughout the Arling Ave area in general, and add some little businesses, we would have quite a thing going, here. That seems like a better plan than moving, especially since DD has lived here, in this house, for some twenty years. The thing is, I don't know if we can make that happen. I'm an optimist about many things, but not pulling the area surrounding my lovely little cul-de-sac up by its bootstraps.
Anyway, I've now spent way more time writing this than I intended to. Basically, what I've been trying to say is something like this: being unwell, and feeling puny and weak as a result, makes it much easier for me to remember why people are afraid to try riding their bikes and walking for transportation in neighborhoods like mine. Poor infrastructure coupled with an entrenched car-culture (which is, in part, responsible for the poor infrastructure) make for unfriendly streets, especially for people on foot (lack of sidewalks isn't a problem if you're on a bike, but is a huge problem for pedestrians and creates unfriendly-looking neighborhoods).
My goal, when I leave home, is to escape from my neighborhood to places where I can relax on the road (once I cross Taylor, or proceed up Taylor, I have achieved escape). Normally, I rely on a combination of stupid, youthful bravado and proven physical prowess to do so; right now, I don't feel like I have either of those.
I would love to find a way to transform this neighborhood so it is no longer somewhere people want to escape, but instead a pleasant escape from the outside world, complete with pleasant places to spend time away from home.
Notes
*This is partly a lie. There are times that I like riding B-town Road: specifically, those times when I am feeling really strong, and keeping up with traffic, and I have the legs and the lungs to sprint like a cheetah.
Right now, though, is definitely not one of those times, and the thought of riding on B-town Road is up there with, you know, hanging from a cliff by my fingernails with a churning horde of hungry sharks a hundred feet below.
Showing posts with label traffic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label traffic. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Friday, July 08, 2011
A Nice, Safe Red Herring
In a recent article cited by the famous, infamous BikeSnob, New York Times writer Christine Haughney observes that women still lag behind men in the ranks of New York's bike-riding crowd at least in part because they simply don't feel cycling is safe.
However, she also says this:
Hm.
Not to make light of those twelve deaths, but has anyone tallied up the automobile-related traffic fatalities in New York for the same year? I suspect there were probably more than twelve -- but few of us hesitate to hop in the car because it's 'not safe,' and we tend to snicker at those who do*.
I can't help but think that the statistics rather give the lie to the notion that cycling is super-dangerous. Even if you consider the fact that there are probably fewer people who ride bikes in good ol' NYC than there are people who drive cars, you're still talking about a small fraction. Likewise, those statistics probably include people who (again, not to blame victims or make light of their deaths or their families' suffering) might still be alive if they adopted safer cycling practices.
Moreover, I would hazard that at least some of those deaths could have been prevented if more of their fellow New Yorkers piloted bikes instead of automobiles.
Why?
First, more cyclists means safer streets.
Second, more cyclists means fewer cars -- and fewer cars should, in theory, mean less traffic congestion, which should mean less driver frustration, which should mean less aggressive driving: all good things, if you're on a bike (or in a car, or on a rolling sleigh drawn by eleven Canada geese, for that matter**).
Third, where there are more cyclists, drivers are more likely to become accustomed to bikes as part of the flow of traffic. If you want to see a good demonstration of this idea in action (and you have ... ahem ... nerves ... of steel), ride Broadway towards the highlands at rush hour, then ride south on Dixie Highway at ... well, pretty much any time, really. Drivers on Broadway tend to accept bikes in the flow of traffic and to behave themselves reasonably well; drivers on Dixie ... well, not so much (even though one of Louisville's longest-lived bike shops is on Dixie Highway). Dixie Highway is one of the few roads in the immediate area by which I feel pretty darned intimidated -- and that's not because it's like nineteen and a half lanes wide, with a speed limit of Mach 5. It's simply because drivers on Dixie often don't seem to know how to react to bikes, and so they do strange, crazy, and sometimes dumb stuff.
What I'm trying to say, here, is that perceived safety has a great deal more to do with things than actual safety.
Driving is inherently unsafe -- not only to driver and passengers, but to everyone and everything in sight. To a lesser extent, riding a bike is also inherently unsafe -- but mostly to the person sitting in the saddle. And only one of those options saves you money and leaves you with buns of steel.
What it boils down to, really, is that life is inherently unsafe. My Mom once read a book called In the Long Run, We're All Dead. I was about seven, and was never sure whether it was a statistics manual or a murder mystery -- but that's about what it boils down to. We are all going to die, even if we do everything in our power to eliminate all potential sources of danger.
Likewise, there's a great deal that can be done to suck a lot of the danger out of cycling. I frequently see folks riding the wrong way up one-way streets, helmetless, on poorly-maintained bikes that barely fit (if at all), on the sidewalk, running red lights*** all the way ... yet they believe riding on the sidewalk is somehow safer than riding in the road, and apparently also makes them immune to the dangers associated with all the other crazy stuff they're doing while riding on the sidewalk. Needless to say, I imagine many such riders, when they eventually have a run-in with a car, blame the 'danger' of cycling.
The folks in question perceive their method of riding as safer, even though it is probably the single most unsafe method of cycling known to man (perhaps riding on a high wire suspended over a tank of angry sharks is less safe).
Meanwhile, women in New York City apparently perceive cycling as far more dangerous than driving or riding in cars.
Likewise, it's human nature to report sad tidings -- our newspapers rarely say, "No Car or Bike Accidents All Week!" They don't remind us of the sixty-eight bazillion miles of perfectly safe driving and cycling that take place in the US every day. They only tell us when bad things happen -- when a cyclist gets badly hurt or killed, or when the same happens to a driver, a passenger, or a pedestrian.
Most of us have enough exposure to cars that we automatically see those unhappy events as exceptions to the rule -- but only those of us who ride bikes a whole lot come to feel that way about cycling. Instead, we hear about accidents in which cyclists get hurt or killed (and minor-injury inducing bike accidents, like all three of mine -- only one of which involved a car; the other two were just me being a dumkopf all by myself) are pretty much never reported in the papers****. Thus, excepting those of us who rack up miles like they're going out of style, most of us imagine that all bike wrecks are catastrophic and life-threatening.
So what, you may ask, do I propose to do about this problem?
Honestly, I have no earthly clue. The United States has become a disturbingly alarmist place (OH NOES!), and I suspect that, to some extent, our unrelenting fear of cycling is a function of our addictive alarmism. Likewise, we seem to have lost some of our intrepid spirit -- it used to be that we, as a people, were up for anything; now we're up for anything as long as we might not break a sweat or possibly be in any real danger ever for even like eleven seconds.
At the same time, though, we admire people who take crazy risks, as long as we understand why they're doing it -- so maybe the problem is as much one of understanding as anything.
Last night, DD mentioned that it's hard even for him to understand why someone would choose to do everything by bike. He doesn't find it offensive or anything, just a little alien. Foreign, perhaps. As a guy who didn't even learn to drive 'til he was twenty-five, he wasn't commenting on the use of 'alternative' transportation -- just specifically on why someone would choose cycling specifically.
It never would have occurred to him, really, until he met me, that riding a bike was actually a feasible mode of transport. Now bikes are constantly on his radar, almost as much as they're on mine -- we went out with some friends last night, and the TdF was on TV. I passed a lovely hour or so explaining racing tactics (also, why cyclists all have great butts) and so forth; DD asked intelligent questions (OMG! He's been paying attention!). But, still, at the end of the day, I'm someone who made a choice a long time ago to ride my bike everywhere, and who -- for some reason -- saw that as a viable mode of transport, while other people might not, and he isn't. And both of us are curious as to why.
In the breakdown, I will always say that I believe automobiles are useful: DD's truck, in fact, is really useful for getting my bikes to distant events (or getting them and me back home when they explode). As much as I am a proponent of a bike-oriented lifestyle, I also probably wouldn't want to attempt to move a grand piano by bike (though now I want to do it just to prove it can be done). Especially not uphill.
However, I believe that for most trips, their flaws outweigh their strengths. They insulate drivers and make it easier to forget that the people and animals outside are real living, breathing things; they do nothing to improve one's physical fitness; they eat money like cyclists eat pasta; they inhale non-renewable fuels and exhale poison. Perhaps more importantly, they make us feel caged in and cut us off from a lot of the beauty of life.
And, regardless of what anyone may think, they're pretty darned dangerous -- yet we accept the risks associated with driving as a matter of course, because we don't see it as a choice.
One last thought: as Americans, we tend to buy into the idea that childhood is a happy and carefree time when the world is new and wonderful, and that as we grow older and novelty wanes, so does wonder.
I suspect that if you interviewed a bunch of us crazies who have chosen to ride our bikes everywhere, you'd find that, at heart, we're largely big kids who have maintained our sense of wonder, and for whom novelty really isn't all that important. We love our old bikes just as much as our new bikes, and we have never lost the thrill of the first fast descent. I suspect many of us -- even those of us who are not, as 'grown folks,' racers or speed-demons -- were the kids pedaling our brains out heading down the hill, as our parents shouted after us, "SLOOOOOOOOOW DOooooooooowwwwnnnnn!!!"
We were the ones who went over the bars, bashed our chins on the pavement, got up, got back on, and did it again.
Maybe that's the thing that makes us who and what we are -- and maybe that's what makes the 'safety' argument sound just as alien to me as it must have sounded to DD the first time I said, "I ride my bike to work."
In the end, I guess only time will tell. My totally unscientific sampling method (riding around and noticing more and more bikes) seems to indicate that more and more people -- at least around here -- are overcoming their fear of riding bikes. Perhaps as more guys get out on the road and don't wind up as overpriced Cinelli pancakes, more of the ladies will follow (for the record, I don't think it's that women are less brave than men -- just less dumb, and they probably realize that it makes strategic sense to let someone else test the waters first). More riders will draw more riders. That's just human nature.
And that -- I hope -- will really make us all a little safer and -- paradoxically -- a little braver, too.
Notes
*I will freely admit, by the way, that riding bikes has made me much, much warier of riding in cars. I may be in danger of becoming a snicker-ee.
**Like cyclists, Canada geese employ rotating pacelines, echelons, and other formations to conserve energy. Also like cyclists, they are known to throng local parks during most of the year, eat everything in sight, and will bum-rush anyone who shows up with a feed bag. They do not, however, wear sponsored logos on their jerseys, and only the French Canada geese refer to their feedbags as 'musettes.' Also, it is rumored that Canada geese eschew the club-ride scene in favor of tweed rides, if only because they are restricted by their very natures to the wearing of tweed at all times and in all places.
***If you roll through a crosswalk against the light while mounted on a bicycle, is that jay-biking?
****I can totally see the headlines now: "IDIOT CYCLIST WIPES OUT ON WET PAVEMENT YET AGAIN; BOYFRIEND/TEAM CAR DRIVER/SOIGNEUR/MASSEUR KISSES BOO-BOO AND MAKES IT ALL BETTER. Related: TEGADERM STOCK UP 4.5 POINTS."
However, she also says this:
Data tracked by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the nation’s 10 largest cities shows that in 2009 New York City had 12 cycling fatalities. But the city ranked fifth in per capita deaths.
Hm.
Not to make light of those twelve deaths, but has anyone tallied up the automobile-related traffic fatalities in New York for the same year? I suspect there were probably more than twelve -- but few of us hesitate to hop in the car because it's 'not safe,' and we tend to snicker at those who do*.
I can't help but think that the statistics rather give the lie to the notion that cycling is super-dangerous. Even if you consider the fact that there are probably fewer people who ride bikes in good ol' NYC than there are people who drive cars, you're still talking about a small fraction. Likewise, those statistics probably include people who (again, not to blame victims or make light of their deaths or their families' suffering) might still be alive if they adopted safer cycling practices.
Moreover, I would hazard that at least some of those deaths could have been prevented if more of their fellow New Yorkers piloted bikes instead of automobiles.
Why?
First, more cyclists means safer streets.
Second, more cyclists means fewer cars -- and fewer cars should, in theory, mean less traffic congestion, which should mean less driver frustration, which should mean less aggressive driving: all good things, if you're on a bike (or in a car, or on a rolling sleigh drawn by eleven Canada geese, for that matter**).
Third, where there are more cyclists, drivers are more likely to become accustomed to bikes as part of the flow of traffic. If you want to see a good demonstration of this idea in action (and you have ... ahem ... nerves ... of steel), ride Broadway towards the highlands at rush hour, then ride south on Dixie Highway at ... well, pretty much any time, really. Drivers on Broadway tend to accept bikes in the flow of traffic and to behave themselves reasonably well; drivers on Dixie ... well, not so much (even though one of Louisville's longest-lived bike shops is on Dixie Highway). Dixie Highway is one of the few roads in the immediate area by which I feel pretty darned intimidated -- and that's not because it's like nineteen and a half lanes wide, with a speed limit of Mach 5. It's simply because drivers on Dixie often don't seem to know how to react to bikes, and so they do strange, crazy, and sometimes dumb stuff.
What I'm trying to say, here, is that perceived safety has a great deal more to do with things than actual safety.
Driving is inherently unsafe -- not only to driver and passengers, but to everyone and everything in sight. To a lesser extent, riding a bike is also inherently unsafe -- but mostly to the person sitting in the saddle. And only one of those options saves you money and leaves you with buns of steel.
What it boils down to, really, is that life is inherently unsafe. My Mom once read a book called In the Long Run, We're All Dead. I was about seven, and was never sure whether it was a statistics manual or a murder mystery -- but that's about what it boils down to. We are all going to die, even if we do everything in our power to eliminate all potential sources of danger.
Likewise, there's a great deal that can be done to suck a lot of the danger out of cycling. I frequently see folks riding the wrong way up one-way streets, helmetless, on poorly-maintained bikes that barely fit (if at all), on the sidewalk, running red lights*** all the way ... yet they believe riding on the sidewalk is somehow safer than riding in the road, and apparently also makes them immune to the dangers associated with all the other crazy stuff they're doing while riding on the sidewalk. Needless to say, I imagine many such riders, when they eventually have a run-in with a car, blame the 'danger' of cycling.
The folks in question perceive their method of riding as safer, even though it is probably the single most unsafe method of cycling known to man (perhaps riding on a high wire suspended over a tank of angry sharks is less safe).
Meanwhile, women in New York City apparently perceive cycling as far more dangerous than driving or riding in cars.
Likewise, it's human nature to report sad tidings -- our newspapers rarely say, "No Car or Bike Accidents All Week!" They don't remind us of the sixty-eight bazillion miles of perfectly safe driving and cycling that take place in the US every day. They only tell us when bad things happen -- when a cyclist gets badly hurt or killed, or when the same happens to a driver, a passenger, or a pedestrian.
Most of us have enough exposure to cars that we automatically see those unhappy events as exceptions to the rule -- but only those of us who ride bikes a whole lot come to feel that way about cycling. Instead, we hear about accidents in which cyclists get hurt or killed (and minor-injury inducing bike accidents, like all three of mine -- only one of which involved a car; the other two were just me being a dumkopf all by myself) are pretty much never reported in the papers****. Thus, excepting those of us who rack up miles like they're going out of style, most of us imagine that all bike wrecks are catastrophic and life-threatening.
So what, you may ask, do I propose to do about this problem?
Honestly, I have no earthly clue. The United States has become a disturbingly alarmist place (OH NOES!), and I suspect that, to some extent, our unrelenting fear of cycling is a function of our addictive alarmism. Likewise, we seem to have lost some of our intrepid spirit -- it used to be that we, as a people, were up for anything; now we're up for anything as long as we might not break a sweat or possibly be in any real danger ever for even like eleven seconds.
At the same time, though, we admire people who take crazy risks, as long as we understand why they're doing it -- so maybe the problem is as much one of understanding as anything.
Last night, DD mentioned that it's hard even for him to understand why someone would choose to do everything by bike. He doesn't find it offensive or anything, just a little alien. Foreign, perhaps. As a guy who didn't even learn to drive 'til he was twenty-five, he wasn't commenting on the use of 'alternative' transportation -- just specifically on why someone would choose cycling specifically.
It never would have occurred to him, really, until he met me, that riding a bike was actually a feasible mode of transport. Now bikes are constantly on his radar, almost as much as they're on mine -- we went out with some friends last night, and the TdF was on TV. I passed a lovely hour or so explaining racing tactics (also, why cyclists all have great butts) and so forth; DD asked intelligent questions (OMG! He's been paying attention!). But, still, at the end of the day, I'm someone who made a choice a long time ago to ride my bike everywhere, and who -- for some reason -- saw that as a viable mode of transport, while other people might not, and he isn't. And both of us are curious as to why.
In the breakdown, I will always say that I believe automobiles are useful: DD's truck, in fact, is really useful for getting my bikes to distant events (or getting them and me back home when they explode). As much as I am a proponent of a bike-oriented lifestyle, I also probably wouldn't want to attempt to move a grand piano by bike (though now I want to do it just to prove it can be done). Especially not uphill.
However, I believe that for most trips, their flaws outweigh their strengths. They insulate drivers and make it easier to forget that the people and animals outside are real living, breathing things; they do nothing to improve one's physical fitness; they eat money like cyclists eat pasta; they inhale non-renewable fuels and exhale poison. Perhaps more importantly, they make us feel caged in and cut us off from a lot of the beauty of life.
And, regardless of what anyone may think, they're pretty darned dangerous -- yet we accept the risks associated with driving as a matter of course, because we don't see it as a choice.
One last thought: as Americans, we tend to buy into the idea that childhood is a happy and carefree time when the world is new and wonderful, and that as we grow older and novelty wanes, so does wonder.
I suspect that if you interviewed a bunch of us crazies who have chosen to ride our bikes everywhere, you'd find that, at heart, we're largely big kids who have maintained our sense of wonder, and for whom novelty really isn't all that important. We love our old bikes just as much as our new bikes, and we have never lost the thrill of the first fast descent. I suspect many of us -- even those of us who are not, as 'grown folks,' racers or speed-demons -- were the kids pedaling our brains out heading down the hill, as our parents shouted after us, "SLOOOOOOOOOW DOooooooooowwwwnnnnn!!!"
We were the ones who went over the bars, bashed our chins on the pavement, got up, got back on, and did it again.
Maybe that's the thing that makes us who and what we are -- and maybe that's what makes the 'safety' argument sound just as alien to me as it must have sounded to DD the first time I said, "I ride my bike to work."
In the end, I guess only time will tell. My totally unscientific sampling method (riding around and noticing more and more bikes) seems to indicate that more and more people -- at least around here -- are overcoming their fear of riding bikes. Perhaps as more guys get out on the road and don't wind up as overpriced Cinelli pancakes, more of the ladies will follow (for the record, I don't think it's that women are less brave than men -- just less dumb, and they probably realize that it makes strategic sense to let someone else test the waters first). More riders will draw more riders. That's just human nature.
And that -- I hope -- will really make us all a little safer and -- paradoxically -- a little braver, too.
Notes
*I will freely admit, by the way, that riding bikes has made me much, much warier of riding in cars. I may be in danger of becoming a snicker-ee.
**Like cyclists, Canada geese employ rotating pacelines, echelons, and other formations to conserve energy. Also like cyclists, they are known to throng local parks during most of the year, eat everything in sight, and will bum-rush anyone who shows up with a feed bag. They do not, however, wear sponsored logos on their jerseys, and only the French Canada geese refer to their feedbags as 'musettes.' Also, it is rumored that Canada geese eschew the club-ride scene in favor of tweed rides, if only because they are restricted by their very natures to the wearing of tweed at all times and in all places.
***If you roll through a crosswalk against the light while mounted on a bicycle, is that jay-biking?
****I can totally see the headlines now: "IDIOT CYCLIST WIPES OUT ON WET PAVEMENT YET AGAIN; BOYFRIEND/TEAM CAR DRIVER/SOIGNEUR/MASSEUR KISSES BOO-BOO AND MAKES IT ALL BETTER. Related: TEGADERM STOCK UP 4.5 POINTS."
Thursday, July 07, 2011
How to Work an Interval Workout Into a Busy Day
Downtown Louisville.
Broadway.
Rush hour traffic.
Why was it I thought I wasn't going to get my intervals in today? ;)
Today's riding was the kind of solo riding I love -- intense, focused, fast. I also like long solo cruises, but they need relaxed roads (and a relaxed mood). Today, I was downtown at the shop (drooling over Hg's new bottom bracket), and needed to be in the Highlands stat. Broadway was the quickest route, so Broadway it was.
I had kind of forgotten how amazing it feels to pilot a bike in those conditions. Fast, intense riding in traffic rockets me into that beautiful zone where you really feel like one with the bike, and you forget that failing to trust the bike and your body is even a possibility. You're alert but focused; the monkey mind turns off, and it's cycle-induced serenity all the way. There is no room for anything else. This, too, is why I ride.
It seems simultaneously like yesterday and like a really long time ago that the climb up Broadway into the Highlands used to kill me. At some point, I started taking a different route -- Stoneware Alley to Mercy Way -- because even though the climb up Mercy Way is way, way punchier than the one on Broadway, traffic was rare, and I could take as long as I wanted spinning up it and not feel intimidated (it so happens that when I'm heading for destinations east on Bardstown road, that route is generally more efficient anyway).
I was thinking about this while I was cranking up Mercy Way today. It was rush hour still, the sole time of day one is particularly likely to encounter traffic on that route at all, and I wanted to get out of the way -- so I got my butt up off the saddle and hammered, and it actually felt really good. The funny thing is that a year ago, I probably couldn't have done that -- and almost certainly not on QS, whose smallest gear isn't really all that small.
On Sunday, Tim and I talked about riding rollers; I realized I like rollers in part because I can simply pound up them. Right now, I'm less effective on long climbs than I'd like to be, but I like the way shorter climbs feel. Likewise, I've realized that the term 'shorter climbs' is relative -- there are climbs that I now consider 'short' which felt really, really long a year ago. I wonder what the climbs that feel long now will feel like a year from now?
I am grateful for today's ride -- grateful that I lingered in the shop far longer than I meant to, so I would have to really punch it getting up to the Highlands.
I'm grateful because it reminded me that it's good to appreciate the now.
Lately, I've been spending too much time thinking ahead -- thinking about 'cross season, or next spring, and whether I'm actually going to manage to take off some poundage or which water-stop's closed-circuit television security display was more accurate -- the one that makes me look like a lycra sausage, or the one where I just look kinda chunky, but not totally ridiculous?
It was nice to be reminded that I've come a long way since I started riding again, and that I'm actually riding pretty darned well right now (I 'climb well for my weight,' I guess ^-^). Especially for a (still) overweight asthmatic in the Asthma Capital of the Universe, in the dead of summer. Lately, I've really lost sight of that fact.
More importantly, it was really good to be reminded of the singular role that riding the bike plays in my life as a vehicle for meditation.
My mind has never been quiet during a session of sitting meditation. I suspect I could sit for a solid week and my mind would still be busy chattering away like a deranged squirrel in an espresso factory (also, my face would be horribly, horribly itchy). But somehow, on the bike, in those moments of fierce, fast grace, it happens as if by magic: I clip into my pedals, drop into high gear -- and my mind is silent. It's just the bike, the wind, the world around me, and I am wholly in the moment.
The best moments of Sunday's ride were like that, too. There was one point at the bottom of the last gravel descent where I let go of brake levers and trusted the C'dale to do its thing -- and, amazingly, we did not end up rubber-side up, nor did I crash out the entire group ... and for a beautiful, blissful moment, my mind was totally quiet.
In those moments, I can see why so many people seek Nirvana with such dedication. That particular kind of being is bliss.
Anyway, Hg should have his new bottom bracket installed tomorrow (huzzah!). I can't wait to try it out. We sprung for the fancy ceramic one, since it should last a long time and I plan to ride the bejeezus out of that bike. From what I've heard, it probably won't feel terribly different than the original, but it'll be nice to ride without fear of imminent crankarm ejection.
Broadway.
Rush hour traffic.
Why was it I thought I wasn't going to get my intervals in today? ;)
Today's riding was the kind of solo riding I love -- intense, focused, fast. I also like long solo cruises, but they need relaxed roads (and a relaxed mood). Today, I was downtown at the shop (drooling over Hg's new bottom bracket), and needed to be in the Highlands stat. Broadway was the quickest route, so Broadway it was.
I had kind of forgotten how amazing it feels to pilot a bike in those conditions. Fast, intense riding in traffic rockets me into that beautiful zone where you really feel like one with the bike, and you forget that failing to trust the bike and your body is even a possibility. You're alert but focused; the monkey mind turns off, and it's cycle-induced serenity all the way. There is no room for anything else. This, too, is why I ride.
It seems simultaneously like yesterday and like a really long time ago that the climb up Broadway into the Highlands used to kill me. At some point, I started taking a different route -- Stoneware Alley to Mercy Way -- because even though the climb up Mercy Way is way, way punchier than the one on Broadway, traffic was rare, and I could take as long as I wanted spinning up it and not feel intimidated (it so happens that when I'm heading for destinations east on Bardstown road, that route is generally more efficient anyway).
I was thinking about this while I was cranking up Mercy Way today. It was rush hour still, the sole time of day one is particularly likely to encounter traffic on that route at all, and I wanted to get out of the way -- so I got my butt up off the saddle and hammered, and it actually felt really good. The funny thing is that a year ago, I probably couldn't have done that -- and almost certainly not on QS, whose smallest gear isn't really all that small.
On Sunday, Tim and I talked about riding rollers; I realized I like rollers in part because I can simply pound up them. Right now, I'm less effective on long climbs than I'd like to be, but I like the way shorter climbs feel. Likewise, I've realized that the term 'shorter climbs' is relative -- there are climbs that I now consider 'short' which felt really, really long a year ago. I wonder what the climbs that feel long now will feel like a year from now?
I am grateful for today's ride -- grateful that I lingered in the shop far longer than I meant to, so I would have to really punch it getting up to the Highlands.
I'm grateful because it reminded me that it's good to appreciate the now.
Lately, I've been spending too much time thinking ahead -- thinking about 'cross season, or next spring, and whether I'm actually going to manage to take off some poundage or which water-stop's closed-circuit television security display was more accurate -- the one that makes me look like a lycra sausage, or the one where I just look kinda chunky, but not totally ridiculous?
It was nice to be reminded that I've come a long way since I started riding again, and that I'm actually riding pretty darned well right now (I 'climb well for my weight,' I guess ^-^). Especially for a (still) overweight asthmatic in the Asthma Capital of the Universe, in the dead of summer. Lately, I've really lost sight of that fact.
More importantly, it was really good to be reminded of the singular role that riding the bike plays in my life as a vehicle for meditation.
My mind has never been quiet during a session of sitting meditation. I suspect I could sit for a solid week and my mind would still be busy chattering away like a deranged squirrel in an espresso factory (also, my face would be horribly, horribly itchy). But somehow, on the bike, in those moments of fierce, fast grace, it happens as if by magic: I clip into my pedals, drop into high gear -- and my mind is silent. It's just the bike, the wind, the world around me, and I am wholly in the moment.
The best moments of Sunday's ride were like that, too. There was one point at the bottom of the last gravel descent where I let go of brake levers and trusted the C'dale to do its thing -- and, amazingly, we did not end up rubber-side up, nor did I crash out the entire group ... and for a beautiful, blissful moment, my mind was totally quiet.
In those moments, I can see why so many people seek Nirvana with such dedication. That particular kind of being is bliss.
Anyway, Hg should have his new bottom bracket installed tomorrow (huzzah!). I can't wait to try it out. We sprung for the fancy ceramic one, since it should last a long time and I plan to ride the bejeezus out of that bike. From what I've heard, it probably won't feel terribly different than the original, but it'll be nice to ride without fear of imminent crankarm ejection.
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