Fall Approacheth

Nights are getting chilly again, into the lower 40s. Yesterday at noon when I went jogging I noticed the angle of the sun is much lower already, it felt more like 3:00 than 12:00. The maple tree in my front yard started dropping leaves a good week ago, although there aren’t enough to bother raking up yet. I have a hard time raking them anyway. This tree goes bright yellow, not red, and when the leaves are all down on the lawn, and the sun hits them in the afternoon it casts a bright golden glow into my living room. I hate to see that end. But the yard nazi neighbor will probably report me to the city if I don’t rake them immediately. The guy who used to live across the street (nice older man, retired) took out a wonderful old oak tree on the west side of his house. I guess he was tired of raking up the leaves. Now there are just the two birches in the front yard that mostly shed into my yard. One after another people have removed so many trees since I moved in here 16 years ago. My poor old apple tree is in desperate need of pruning, one branch actually broke from the weight of the apples on it this year. The saddest thing is this tree is so tall you can’t get at the apples. I’d need a cherry-picker or a helicopter to fly over and lower me in a basket to pick the apples. Seriously, this tree is at least 30′ tall. The birds and squirrels get most of the good apples on the top.

The shot of the front yard shows my blue spruce, and part of the maple tree. The little faux well is actually my neighbor’s.

looking east in the morning

Here’s a shot looking southwest from my front porch. The road is wider than it looks here, two cars can pass comfortably. The wide swath of open grass there on the other side is where the oak tree used to be.

my street

When the maple turns gold I’ll get a photo of it posted.

Fourth Day Commuting by Bike

I am proud to say I am persevering, and this is the first time I’ve ridden in twice in one week! I’m becoming more accustomed to the routine, which was a huge shift for me. Just packing the panniers the night before and making sure I didn’t forget anything vital had me on pins and needles. Even when I rode in on Tuesday I could feel I was a little nervous sitting with traffic at stoplights, but lo and behold, I experienced none of that nervousness today. Yay! Real progress! The hills are still tough, but maybe just ever so slightly less tough.

Tuesday afternoon as I was changing into my biking clothes to ride home I ran into another woman who also bike commutes. We had a great chat about our rides. She rides a recumbent bike because of a problem with one of her knees, but despite that she was working up to five days in a row riding this week!

My de facto cycling mentor is back in town for a couple weeks so I’ve been having some great conversations with him about all things bikey. He’s actually one of the managers I support but has been over in the UK on a lengthy assignment. He should be returning to the States permanently by the end of September. He’s been cycling a looong time, he’s one of those typical tall, lanky fellows who looks like he lives in the saddle (which he largely does). He observed that the roads in England are not as smooth as in this area, but a huge plus to cycling over there is he feels much safer on the road and cars don’t seem at all bothered by bikes. Maybe someday it will be that way here. We live in hope. He even rode his bike in Tuesday and was surprised to find so many more people cycling now than when he left back in February. I’ve noticed there are more women among the cyclists I see, which is great. And as always, almost everyone at least nods their head in passing, most actually called out “Good morning” across traffic as we passed eachother. It’s so much more pleasant than being in a car, with some tool tailgating me all the way down the road at 55 mph. I had a dump truck tailgate me most of the way home yesterday, and almost called the police, but he finally turned off. He may not have been as close as it seemed, but that rig wasn’t going to stop on a dime if someone had pulled out in front of me and cut me off.

Biking is better.

A Little Bike Humor

Compliments of a fellow blogger, McBloggenstein

Latest on Dr. Jekyll (aka Christopher Thompson)

I’ve been trying to find any news on this case, this is the only thing I’ve been able to find recently. It includes a video from CNN. Not surprisingly the good doctor pleaded not guilty. And in case anyone thinks he might have been in a hurry to get to the hospital for an emergency, he is a FORMER ER doctor. He now runs a medical billing company. Maybe he was afraid he was going to miss his tee time at the local driving range.

Better and better

I rode in again today, 13.5 miles (ok, technically it’s 13.48, but I figure I make up the other 2/10 of a mile walking from one building where I shower down to my cube in another building). I think I did a little better today. There are a couple of fairly steep hills coming in, and I stood up and pedaled which seemed to help power up them, but I was definitely huffing and puffing. I did seem to recover my breath a little faster, and I felt great by the time I reached the campus. Interestingly, two large semis heading in opposite directions were sitting on the road on campus blocking both lanes, and the drivers were talking about who-knows-what, with one car sitting behind one waiting for them to finish. Haha, I rode onto the grass around them and kept going! Neener-neener-neener. Ok, so I’m five-yrs-old. I shaved about 5 minutes off the ride this morning from the last time. There’s a school I ride past that has a permanent electronic speed sign to keep people from whizzing through which is fun to use to clock myself. Last time I went past I was just coasting at 8mph. Today I was pedaling semi-hard, I hit 15mph.

But dang it was cold out there. I need to look into getting those wooly tights, these shorts are not going to cut it much longer. I could see my breath, and there was fog in places again. I need to remember my camera next time, I can get a really nice shot of Mt. Hood in one place. Once one of the fields I pass turns back into a pond during the rainy season, and I’m hoping to get a shot of a large white bird (not sure if it’s a heron or a great white egret. Great Blue Herons are common around here, the white ones not so much) that hangs out there. Haven’t seen him since the pond dried up over the summer.

So the bike is parked in my boss’s cube (too much crap in mine, my cube looks like a little warehouse) which he’s fine with ’cause everyone will think he’s the athlete!

Doctor Jekyll Drives in LA

For those who may have missed this incident (and I just heard about it yesterday), we have this story of a doctor in LA who allegedly used his car as a weapon against two cyclists on July 4. It seems pretty clear that he intentionally tried to cause these cyclists to crash. I won’t even get into the whole doctors-with-god-complexes issue. This wasn’t his first offense, either, and the police not surprisingly did nothing after the first complaint was filed against this guy back in March.

Before I even pose this question, a disclaimer so no one mistakes my meaning: I am in NO WAY excusing what the doctor did. I don’t care what the cyclists were doing, there is no excuse for intentionally using your car to injure someone (ok, maybe if you’re being abducted at gunpoint and you crash your car to get away… but I digress).

So a question: Should bicyclists be riding two abreast like this, on a narrow road with no shoulders? According to Oregon law, you are allowed to ride in the traffic lane if you are moving at the same speed as the traffic. I don’t know what California law is on this issue, but from what I read and heard in the video, it doesn’t seem like these guys were riding at the same speed as traffic. I’ve seen people do this in my area as well, ride side-by-side which is all well and good if they’re in the shoulder and it’s wide enough to accomodate two riders. 

Personally, I am opposed to this riding side-by-side when the road is too narrow, the same way I would be annoyed if someone was driving along at 15 mph lower than the rest of the traffic because they just wanted to take a leisurely drive. Intentionally riding in the traffic lane knowing you are impeding traffic when you could easily move over and let the cars go by is rude, arrogant, and dangerous. Bicycles do not have special rights, they have the same rights as cars. Common courtesy, people, common courtesy.

Rain, rain

After sweltering in 100+ degree heat for 3 days, it dropped into the mid-80s yesterday, although it was very muggy (at least for this area). Today, it’s pouring and we’re having thunder and lightning (wow, lots of thunder).

It’s pretty unusual to have rain and thunder/lightning storms here in August. East of the Cascade Range they get them far more often than the west side, it’s a rarity over here. Due to the heat I hibernated over the weekend. I think I stepped outside the house twice on Saturday – once to get the mail, and once to turn the soaker hose on for my roses. Too dang hot to ride, even at the crack of dawn. I don’t think it got below 80 even overnight.

Glad I didn’t plan to ride today, but I haven’t been on the bike since I rode to work last Tuesday. Tomorrow is supposed to be dry, so I think I’ll plan on riding in again. If all goes well, Friday is looking good too. Still have to get the fenders, and rain gear to ride in. This has been kind of expensive getting all outfitted for this. But by god I love my bike. Did I tell you it lives in my living room? Kind of makes it look like a college dorm room, but there’s no room in the garage, and I like having it right there if I decide to hop on and go for a spin. Besides, it’s pretty

Shop by Bike

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to how I can incorporate my bike into my weekly (and mid-weekly) shopping trips. Now that I have a rack on the bike and panniers, I can certainly carry some stuff by bike from the shopping center a mile down the road. The problem is where to park and lock up the bike. I could even ride to Blockbuster to rent and return movies but there’s no place to lock up. They have those huge pillars around the building holding up the roof and covered sidewalks, but who wants to carry 30 pounds of chain long enough to reach around one of those things? Those skinny cables as we know are pretty much good for nothing, even if you could find one long enough. It’s great if you have two people, one person to shop and one to watch the bikes, but if you’re on your own as I am this is more problematic. I had hoped to make a quick run over to the local pet store for food, and the craft store for some stuff, and I really didn’t want to have to take the car. I guess I’ll just have to start making a pest of myself when I go shopping and bug the management about installing bike racks.

Photos on Google Maps

I just found a very interesting feature on Google maps that I had never seen before. I opened a new Google page, clicked on “Maps”, typed in a city, and of course the map came up to the right, but on the left, 3 small photos of the area also showed up. Under them was a caption, “More Photos”. I clicked it. That brought up a page with something called Panoramio. Suddenly the map was speckled with tiny photos all over the map. Each one was clickable and came up larger, with a caption of where or what it was. I can’t seem to figure out how to get a screen shot embedded here, unfortunately.

I can see “addiction” written all over this. Looks like some areas have more photos posted than others, but what fun to pull up photos of places I’ve lived before!

Book Suggestion

Living in the Portland area gives me access to the center of the known universe, aka Powell’s Books. This is a vast repository of new and used books, actually in several locations around town and out into the ‘burbs even. The city location is so big you need a map when you go in to find your way around. The place occupies an entire city block (eat your hearts out, booklovers!).

Anyway, I subscribe to their newsletter, and get book reviews sent to my e-mail. I found this yesterday, “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What it Says About Us)” by Tom Vanderbilt, review by Edward L. Glaeser.

Traffic book cover

Since we’ve been talking about bike commuting, driving, city design and so on, I thought it sounded interesting. I haven’t actually picked it up yet, but I’m definitely adding it to my reading list.