I'm not updating much these days, but i'm thinking about a new project that I'll bring out in a few days.
As for biking...I'm still at it. I saw this in the Vocalo blog this morning and it made me chuckle:
You know it’s winter in Chicago when…
Hipsters DON’T roll up their pant leg when riding their bikes down Milwaukee Ave.
See the link for the picture:
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
I’m excited about taking my first ever fully biked camping trip. Here’s my packing list for the trip:
Rear Pannier 1
Tent
Swim suit
Towel
Rain Gear (jacket and pants)
Misc. Clothes
Rear Pannier 2
Sleeping bag
Sleeping pad
Majority of clothes
Rear Rack:
Tent Poles
Front Pannier 1
Cooking pan
portable stove
Fuel canister
Wash Clothes (around fuel)
Food (Lentils, oatmeal, couscous, peanut butter, pita bread)
Front Pannier 2
Insect Spray
Sunscreen
Toiletry bag
In Dry sack:
crank radio/flashlight
Book
Reading light
Cell phone charger,
In top of bag:
cell phone
Camera
Maps
Seat bag:
Tools, pump, CO2, tube, patch kit.
On bike:
Two water bottles
Front light
Helmet with rear light
Rear Pannier 1
Tent
Swim suit
Towel
Rain Gear (jacket and pants)
Misc. Clothes
Rear Pannier 2
Sleeping bag
Sleeping pad
Majority of clothes
Rear Rack:
Tent Poles
Front Pannier 1
Cooking pan
portable stove
Fuel canister
Wash Clothes (around fuel)
Food (Lentils, oatmeal, couscous, peanut butter, pita bread)
Front Pannier 2
Insect Spray
Sunscreen
Toiletry bag
In Dry sack:
crank radio/flashlight
Book
Reading light
Cell phone charger,
In top of bag:
cell phone
Camera
Maps
Seat bag:
Tools, pump, CO2, tube, patch kit.
On bike:
Two water bottles
Front light
Helmet with rear light
Monday, June 08, 2009
Perfunctory recap
And again I have neglected my bike blog writing. It looks like the last time I updated was towards the end of January. A lot has happened since then. I don’t know if I will do individual updates on all of these things but perhaps I shall give it a try.
January was really when winter was getting rough. The winter really seemed to drag on and on until at least March. Then Spring was just kind of generally crappy. I managed to get my first bike camping trip under my belt. It was a quick slingshotted voyage out to Chain O Lakes State park. Naturally, it rained just about the entire time that I was there.
I’ve done a couple of other rides as well, which all deserve their own posts: Midnight Marauders, Hubs and Spokes, Drunken Easter, Three Floyds…..I think that is most of the rides. Let me know if any jump out and I can write about them first!
The most recent bike adventure was probably my recent move…by bike. Check out the video of my bed going the two blocks to my new place.
Anyway, I now have a new computer, so this blog will hopefully receive slightly more attention.
Ride On.
January was really when winter was getting rough. The winter really seemed to drag on and on until at least March. Then Spring was just kind of generally crappy. I managed to get my first bike camping trip under my belt. It was a quick slingshotted voyage out to Chain O Lakes State park. Naturally, it rained just about the entire time that I was there.
I’ve done a couple of other rides as well, which all deserve their own posts: Midnight Marauders, Hubs and Spokes, Drunken Easter, Three Floyds…..I think that is most of the rides. Let me know if any jump out and I can write about them first!
The most recent bike adventure was probably my recent move…by bike. Check out the video of my bed going the two blocks to my new place.
Anyway, I now have a new computer, so this blog will hopefully receive slightly more attention.
Ride On.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Line of Sight Conversation Devices
This morning I rode in with my friend Anne. We did a little bit of chatting while talking. I wish it were easier to talking while riding single file down a street with lots of cars. Actually, that brings to mind a great idea.
A couple of months ago I read a Nancy Drew book. Actually it wasn’t JUST a Nancy Drew Book, it was a Nancy Drew: All New Girl Detective book. I was only reading it because it was a bike race mystery. . It was called Nancy Drew: A Race Against Time.
The book itself was rather forgettable, but they did have some neat gadgets. I like that Nancy Drew and her pals are all high tech. I wonder where they get the money?
So the best gadget was a helmet radio transceiver. I don’t know much about racing, but I can’t imaging that most racers would use them cause they are probably heavy.
Now what I’m thinking would be cool would be to set up a kind of CB radio system for people on bikes. .I’d only want to do line of sight. It would kind of be like the Nintendo DS (I once talked to some people in a different car on the interstate in Pictochat), but we’d be talking verbally.
Of course, we’d only be talking in one ear and would still be able to hear everything else going on around the bike, but having a better means of talking would definitely make group rides much more interesting for me.
I’m sure a product like this already exists, but it would be even cooler if everyone had one and you could just beam your voice directly to the other cyclists. It would probably also serve to get rid of a lot of miss connections on Craigslist.
Now, if it were like CB Radio I wonder what my nickname would be? JamisJami? GarbageDay? Balloonbiker? The possibilities are endless.
A couple of months ago I read a Nancy Drew book. Actually it wasn’t JUST a Nancy Drew Book, it was a Nancy Drew: All New Girl Detective book. I was only reading it because it was a bike race mystery. . It was called Nancy Drew: A Race Against Time.
The book itself was rather forgettable, but they did have some neat gadgets. I like that Nancy Drew and her pals are all high tech. I wonder where they get the money?
So the best gadget was a helmet radio transceiver. I don’t know much about racing, but I can’t imaging that most racers would use them cause they are probably heavy.
Now what I’m thinking would be cool would be to set up a kind of CB radio system for people on bikes. .I’d only want to do line of sight. It would kind of be like the Nintendo DS (I once talked to some people in a different car on the interstate in Pictochat), but we’d be talking verbally.
Of course, we’d only be talking in one ear and would still be able to hear everything else going on around the bike, but having a better means of talking would definitely make group rides much more interesting for me.
I’m sure a product like this already exists, but it would be even cooler if everyone had one and you could just beam your voice directly to the other cyclists. It would probably also serve to get rid of a lot of miss connections on Craigslist.
Now, if it were like CB Radio I wonder what my nickname would be? JamisJami? GarbageDay? Balloonbiker? The possibilities are endless.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Bike Dreams
It was actively snowing today, so I rode the train in to work. Not my favorite thing to do, but I’ve been impressed lately that the trains are a lot faster. Since I didn’t ride, I’m going to do something very annoying and talk about what happened in some recent dreams. Sorry.
I’ve been having biking creeping into my dreams. I’m usually a fairly vivid and action packed dreamer. Sleeping for me is kind of like going to the movies and having the bikes thrown in is definitely exciting.
Two recent ones were entertaining. In one I must have been on my cross county bike trip because I was at my Aunt’s house in Anacortes, WA. We got in a huge fight so I stormed off on my bike down to the little convenience/grocery store that is a couple of blocks away. Well, it was no longer a convenience store, it was now an Ethiopian restaurant. I wanted some food, but I needed to find a place to lock up my bike. We went out back and I talked to the Ethiopians and hung out by my bike. That was about it, not very exciting at all.
The next dream was much more interesting. I was biking around Ravenswood Manor in Chicago. As I approached an intersection I noticed a bike parked and I guy just kind of standing around. This immediately clued me in…this was a stop sign running sting! Well, that pissed me off cause, but I still ran the stop sign. The guy (who was an Active Transportation Alliance volunteer) started running after me with the intent to tackle me off of my bike. I knew he was going to do that, so I went to out run him, and was successful. Once I was clear, I got off of my bike and starting yelling at the guy. I was pissed and basically yelled until it was time to wake up.
Oh, I think that somewhere along the line my bike’s brake lever broke and that made me even angrier. Damn stop sign nannies.
I’ve been having biking creeping into my dreams. I’m usually a fairly vivid and action packed dreamer. Sleeping for me is kind of like going to the movies and having the bikes thrown in is definitely exciting.
Two recent ones were entertaining. In one I must have been on my cross county bike trip because I was at my Aunt’s house in Anacortes, WA. We got in a huge fight so I stormed off on my bike down to the little convenience/grocery store that is a couple of blocks away. Well, it was no longer a convenience store, it was now an Ethiopian restaurant. I wanted some food, but I needed to find a place to lock up my bike. We went out back and I talked to the Ethiopians and hung out by my bike. That was about it, not very exciting at all.
The next dream was much more interesting. I was biking around Ravenswood Manor in Chicago. As I approached an intersection I noticed a bike parked and I guy just kind of standing around. This immediately clued me in…this was a stop sign running sting! Well, that pissed me off cause, but I still ran the stop sign. The guy (who was an Active Transportation Alliance volunteer) started running after me with the intent to tackle me off of my bike. I knew he was going to do that, so I went to out run him, and was successful. Once I was clear, I got off of my bike and starting yelling at the guy. I was pissed and basically yelled until it was time to wake up.
Oh, I think that somewhere along the line my bike’s brake lever broke and that made me even angrier. Damn stop sign nannies.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
To love your bike is to maintain it
My boyfriend Zach has this idea of getting a bike that that never requires any maintenance is super light and also very cheap. It’s probably just an excuse for him to not have to buy a bike since what he wants doesn’t exist. However, with any machine, you should expect a small amount of work. For a bike that generally means cleaning chains, wiping gunk off the frame, wheels and gears and adding air to the tires.
I’m not a biggest fan of bike maintenance and like most things I procrastinate on doing the job. My chain doesn’t usually get cleaned until there are a couple of rust spot, and right as we speak the bottom dropouts are encrusted with black gunk. I’m a bad bike mother. However, I always like the way my bike feels after its had a good chain cleaning or tune up or anything else nice for the beast.
Case in point: I’ve been feeling pretty sluggish lately and I have been suspecting that my tires are low on air. I came to that conclusion because I’ve been riding a lot, but I haven’t put air in the tires since early November. It’s really not much of a surprise, is it? I meant to do it this weekend, but didn’t…then I ended up skipping a riding to work day on the excuse that I don’t like riding with a low tire. Very lame and self defeating.
Finally this morning I forced myself to go down 5 minutes early and put the stinking air in the stinking tire. I’m not the biggest fan of doing this on my road bike since it has presta valves and I lost the presta adaptor that came with my pump. So I have to use the little portable one that goes with a tire. I find it to be kind of a pain in the neck, but I don’t want to buy a new pump. Once I got everything adjusted and check the pressure I found that my tire was only at 40 psi. I actually can’t remember what it’s supposed to be, but I pumped it up to 80 psi.
It was amazing to be able to ride so much easier. I’m always amazed at how much of a different I feel after basic maintenance. It always makes me do an internal pledge to do it more….I probably won’t soon, but I can dream. Now I just need to get Zach to get a decent bike, even if it isn’t super light and might require maintenance. At least we’ll be able to do it together.
I’m not a biggest fan of bike maintenance and like most things I procrastinate on doing the job. My chain doesn’t usually get cleaned until there are a couple of rust spot, and right as we speak the bottom dropouts are encrusted with black gunk. I’m a bad bike mother. However, I always like the way my bike feels after its had a good chain cleaning or tune up or anything else nice for the beast.
Case in point: I’ve been feeling pretty sluggish lately and I have been suspecting that my tires are low on air. I came to that conclusion because I’ve been riding a lot, but I haven’t put air in the tires since early November. It’s really not much of a surprise, is it? I meant to do it this weekend, but didn’t…then I ended up skipping a riding to work day on the excuse that I don’t like riding with a low tire. Very lame and self defeating.
Finally this morning I forced myself to go down 5 minutes early and put the stinking air in the stinking tire. I’m not the biggest fan of doing this on my road bike since it has presta valves and I lost the presta adaptor that came with my pump. So I have to use the little portable one that goes with a tire. I find it to be kind of a pain in the neck, but I don’t want to buy a new pump. Once I got everything adjusted and check the pressure I found that my tire was only at 40 psi. I actually can’t remember what it’s supposed to be, but I pumped it up to 80 psi.
It was amazing to be able to ride so much easier. I’m always amazed at how much of a different I feel after basic maintenance. It always makes me do an internal pledge to do it more….I probably won’t soon, but I can dream. Now I just need to get Zach to get a decent bike, even if it isn’t super light and might require maintenance. At least we’ll be able to do it together.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Fw: To the dentist
This morning I rode back out to the Oral Surgeon that I saw last week to get my wisdom teeth out. The last time I had ridden out there was in August and it was a lot easier. This morning there were lots and lots of potholes to dodge and wind everywhere. One thing that I’ve read on Icebike.com is that the cold temperatures make the air denser and thus it requires more energy to push through it. I really hope this is the case. Feeling like a wimp is not fun
It's about a 10 mile ride fromOak Park
It's about a 10 mile ride from
Taking the train shaved about 30 minutes off of my commute and also saved me from having to bike through some rougher neighborhoods. It’s certainly nice to have that option. Just remember, no bikes on trains until 9 am and then not from 4-6 pm.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Friday, November 14, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Spook Street
Last week I was out of town so it was a pretty easy way to not ride after having the accident. There were a couple of days of soreness and I had some pretty nasty bruises, but I'm okay now. Though, I did do a little riding when I was in Seattle.
Anyway, I got back on the bike on Wednesday and it was very scary. I kept on seeing all these parked cars and feeling just a little terrified that they could come out at me at any moment.
So, then I was thinking about a "Spook Street," for cyclists. This street would have grooved pavement, a couple of open grate bridges, lots of cabs and drunk pedestrians wandering around and of course random car doors flying open.
I get feel shivers just thinking about it.
Anyway, I got back on the bike on Wednesday and it was very scary. I kept on seeing all these parked cars and feeling just a little terrified that they could come out at me at any moment.
So, then I was thinking about a "Spook Street," for cyclists. This street would have grooved pavement, a couple of open grate bridges, lots of cabs and drunk pedestrians wandering around and of course random car doors flying open.
I get feel shivers just thinking about it.
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