Bike Blog

Okay, so I don’t do movie reviews anymore, and I hardly commuted by bike this week (raining). But still, we watched Premium Rush tonight. While fictitious and unlikely, it sure made me smile. It’s a true biker’s movie. See, Wilee, ex-law-student, NEET and now bike courier, is just doing his day-to-day risk-taking in traffic, just one miss after another. And he’s on a suicide ride, one of those fixees, steel frame, no gears and no brakes, what the true risk-takers ride (no shit – about a year ago, one of these guy got crushed by an ambulance in town). The […]

There is a chic set of apartments off the corner of Lake Ave and 17-92, shoppes on the bottom, clock tower on the top, so cute. I check the time when I make my left onto Lake on my bicycle commutes in the morning. So I’m coming up 17-92 today and I’ve got one car (if a hulking Armada can be deemed a simple “car”) coming up in the far left lane. I could get across in front if it, over to my left turn, but I’m not sure where this person is going – no signals. Of course, as it goes by, its […]

So what was the blue minivan thinking? The driver must have seen my bike well over to the right side of the road but still in front of him. I’m wearing a bright yellow shirt and an orange safety vest – I’m so bright, you can see me through your eyelids. A right turn lane opens, which I center down. So what was going on in that suburban-fluff, middle-class-distracted, attentioned-deprived brain of yours that you think that pulling ALONG SIDE me and then slowly merging INTO ME was a good idea? Why not just stay behind me – I’m doing […]

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t mentioned bike commuting recently. That’s cuz I haven’t done it. There is this Corporate 5K in April I signed up for (much in the way eager boys in Britain and Germany signed up for service in 1914). Then I started to figure out this jogging thing. Went jogging with Manjula, a coworker of mine. And yes, in two miles, I pulled something. After that healed, I tried jogging every morning. Started getting into it. Every day, I went a little further. And in a week’s time, I pulled something else and was racked up […]

JB and I have been talking about tandems a lot. We used to own one years ago, a weird thing called a “Love Bike” (I think they are also called “Buddy Bikes”). The problem is that you sit pretty close, and the captain in the back has his knees out around the posterior of the stoker. Trust me – a couple of miles like this and you feel like you’re grinding flour with your hips. Oh man, do you. So we’ve been looking at tandems and don’t want to just buy again and find out it was a mistake. The […]

I don’t like riding with other bicyclists. I groan under my breath when I overtake one in my commute. I like being alone. Another bicyclist adds speed issues, competition issues and passing issues. Which is why I groaned Friday on the ride home as I passed under the 1792 railroad bridge, banging along on the southbound sidewalk, spotting a guy way up ahead, also on the sidewalk, also on a bike. My route varies from his at this point. As soon as I’m past the car lot, I’ll swing off the sidewalk and cut a half-block west, running the N-S […]

In the paper today, there was a bit about three local riders doing a DC to Orlando ride in support of Beautiful Feet International, a Christian charity. But their ride home turned tragic when they were struck by a van in Georgia and two were killed. And my opinion is against them on this. I know they had rights to be on that road, that they were keeping well to the right (as I do), had reflective gear and lights (as I do) and helmets (as I have). They should not have been killed. But then again, they shouldn’t have […]