Yikes!

So, I felt a bit draggy on the way home from the rock gym this afternoon, and stopped outside my building in the parking lot to check the back tire, and see if it had deflated or something. And realized that the wobble I've been noticing, where my tire's a bit oddly lumpy, is the result of a rupture in the tire. Like, the inner tube is peeking out through a little diagonal slit in the rubber.

Yikes!

I think I even know when it happened - coming down Bank Street a couple of weeks ago I remember hitting a small rock and hearing it just 'ping' out from under the tire. That almost metallic sound that means your tire has really delivered some force in a tangential kind of direction. I should remember to work harder on avoiding those small bits of junk that wind up at the edge of the road, but there are just so darn many of them... 

You'd think I'd also have learned after last year's multiple-flat-tires-in-one-week debacle that anything wonky with your tire will probably, if left unchecked, turn into something that will just shoot down your whole day. So, this afternoon it's time for fun with duct tape to try and reinforce the inside of the tire (I love duct tape: as I said to a friend this afternoon, it's like the Force: it has a light side and a dark side and it holds the universe together... and the Force is strong with Mike.) With luck, I'll feel secure enough to take Mike out to the show I'm supposed to be seeing tonight. And tomorrow I think I should probably find time to stop at a bike shop and replace the tire. Sigh. I'll be waiting for the inevitable *pop*hissssss...... otherwise.

Bamboo Bike

Well, pretty much yeah. The title says it all. (Actually, it looks kinda Ghost Riderish-cool... and while I'm looking at various forms of bike innovation, I gotta say this one I can get behind, if it works. It must weigh nothing.) I know nothing more: the photo just drifted up onto my beach out of the vasty ocean of the web. Time to go off looking for more information!

Snizzle

That's the only word for it. Snizzle. It deposits an unbelievable layer of slush, glop, and slooshy icewater in piles (yes, this is the only way I know of for water to 'pile,' outside of laboratory conditions) all over the edges of the road, and leaps up and away from the tires of passing traffic (and directly at your face.) Sometimes it's snowing, sometimes it's raining, sometimes it is, incredibly, doing both at the same time. And it's been coming down for three days.

As my grandfather would have said, "Yack."

I'll admit, it's keeping me off the bike, although I keep thinking that if I was truly as hardcore as I'd like to think I am I'd be forging my fearless way out into it anyway, armed with my waterproof gear. But, then I look at the 4- and 5-inch piles of crap lining the roads and I think better of it. At least until cabin fever drives me out there.

I suppose I shouldn't complain too much: it's been a very dry winter, with days on days of clean cycling weather. This is just February being February: and I bet March decides to be March too.

And this all serves to convince me that although reinventing the wheel may be a nifty intellectual challenge, it's probably just a good rule for engineers to let ancient, fully functional designs well enough alone: a class of engineers at Yale have come up with a spokeless bicycle wheel that would almost certainly gack and die if faced with the crap lying around on Ottawa's streets right now.

Two words I really don't like:

Mixed Precipitation.

Shoulda done this a while back...

... why haven't I posted this before? I don't know. 

My friend Katie, who has contributed stuff to this blog in the past (and who is the only other woman I know whose bike has a boy's name: her bike's name is Stephen), is going to be riding from Toronto to Montreal this summer in support of the Toronto People With AIDS Foundation. Toronto to Montreal. That's one seriously long ride for an urban cyclist. I may be posting a link over on the sidebar to her sponsorship page: for now, click here to donate. Any amount helps, and it goes to a truly good cause.

Dutchmen in Istanbul

This morning I stumbled across this article from a Turkish online newspaper: about a stalwart group of Dutch ex-pats who, against all odds and in defiance of self-preservation and rationality, are cycling around in Istanbul. They go on cycling tours to the Black Sea and organize early morning city trips so they can avoid the worst of the traffic. It makes me smile. 

"Except for de Carrasco, the members of the group are Dutch and they are determined to lead lives loyal to their own culture. How? by riding bikes, of course.

They challenge the chaos of the metropolis and its intensive traffic. Obstacles created by the municipality, aggressive taxi drivers, crowds in the streets, people screaming, “What the hell are you doing?” and people looking at them in weird ways don’t bother them a bit."

Something about the mental image of a bunch of Dutch guys, placidly cycling along in the face of honking horns and people yelling, "you're too fat, you should drive," just makes me happy. I like to think of them as unflappable. Maybe with little Mona Lisa smiles on their faces as they pedal along. It's such a comforting image somehow. These guys are my new heroes.

I want this on a T-shirt...

... for those days when "Share the Road" just doesn't quite cut it.

 

Like it? I threw it together today after being buzzed by a few too many trucks.