Tag: bike

Sara posted this comment regarding the riding of bikes:

But the helmet messes up my hair! I want to ride my bike more and then I am stuck…should wear a helmet…but don’t want to look uncool. And then again I don’t want the contents of my skull spread out all over the road some day. See my conundrum?

It is a conundrum and I would by lying if I said that I haven’t struggled with it myself. The fact is that as cool as bicycling is, to be a safe biker you have to take the deep breath and choose to be the dork. It probably varies from city to city, but in Portland the coolest biker is some hipster chick (or guy) who wears skinny black pants and a dark sweatshirt, both of which gap to show their nifty back tattoo, and rides a fixie (fixed gear, one speed bike) with the wind ruffling though their hip haircut and insects bouncing off their cool black-framed glasses. If they are carrying anything at all, it is just a small messenger bag. If they are riding at night they have no lights.

But with the wind ruffling though their hair they are wearing no helmet and with all those dark clothes, no one can see them and with their back tattoo exposed they are getting cold and with only one gear it is harder to get up hills and if they have such a small messenger bag it can’t possibly hold all that is needed for a day at work and if it is dark outside, people can’t see them.

Me. Not cool. But my motto is that if someone hits me, it is darned sure going to be their fault. When I bike, I wear an ugly, but incredibly visible, jacket I bought off a road construction site, clear glasses and a helmet with lights mounted on it. My bike has 21 gears, more lights, a rack, fenders and a basket. Actually, the hipsters have fenders too. The only people who don’t have fenders in Portland are hard-core racing bicyclists concerned about weight. During fall, winter and spring they always have that wet stripe up their back.

The helmet will always mess up your hair, there is no getting around that. And I believe that you shouldn’t be without a helmet, though some would argue otherwise. I propose two solutions: one is to just live with the helmet hair (my choice). The other came to me from Urban Biker’s Tricks and Tips, a book I recommend any bicyclist read. Go on a bike ride wearing your helmet and get really sweaty. Then go to the hairdresser, take off your helmet and ask the hair dresser to cut it in a style that works with the helmet.

Bicycling, like so many other things, is just like high school. At some point you realize that the cool kids values don’t match yours and your forge your own path that follows you values. And just like high school, people who share your values will find you cool, and 95% of the time you won’t care what the cool kids think. That five percent of the time? You’ll feel like a dork. There just isn’t any way around it.

After one begins to ride a bicycle, one begins to figure out ways to not haul things on one’s back. At least that is how it worked for me. I hate having things on my back. I think this comes from my very first forays into bike commuting taking place during Idaho summers. Hot and sweaty backs and backpacks with sweat saturated straps are not for me.

Here was my first solution. These are very nice panniers which I paid a lot of money for in 2000. I think they were $70.00 apiece. When I eventually ride across the country I will take them along as they hold tons and are sleek and well designed. I have used them a goodly amount; when I was student teaching I rode to teach each day and all of my materials fit right in there.
But sadly, they are not quite perfect for Portland. It rains here. A lot. And every time it starts to rain, I had to stop and get out the rain covers. I didn’t like that so much and began looking with envy upon the rain proof panniers of other bikers. Also, I worried about them getting stolen and took them with me everywhere.
Here was my next solution. I don’t know about other towns, but these bike buckets are HUGE in Portland. It’s not surprising. They are fairly rain proof, not super expensive, and they are made from recycled materials. You can even make them yourself. I did not do this, however, instead choosing to purchase mine from my favorite bike store Citybikes. They were $25.00 apiece, so two of them set me back $50.00. Not cheap, but $20.00 cheaper than one of the above two panniers.
I used canvas shopping bags and they fit right inside the buckets. When I had to make a stop at the library or grocery store, I just lifted the canvas bags out of the buckets and walked away. It made hauling things simple.
Also, I put this fun reflective tape on the back to keep people aware of me.
So with all this perfection of my bike buckets, why would I need to go with another style? Well it had to do with not wanting to carry around canvas shopping bags all the time. Durable they are, but they look so sloppy. I bought this bag last winter, and it didn’t fit in my bike buckets. So began the search for a good but cheap expansion of the bike rack.
My solution came from wandering through Home Depot. I spied in the closet makeover section a variety of wire drawers. They turned out to be just the thing. I bought one and some zip ties to attach the drawer to my rack and voila! Bike rack expansion. The zip ties and drawer together came to $22.00 which is less than one of the bike buckets.
With this handy bungee ($4.95 in bike stores) my rack holds a variety of things. When it rains, I take a piece of plastic sheeting and set it across the top and we have a quick rain proof way to cart things around.

With all that evolution, I’m ready to evolve to the Extracycle. Someday.

Heidi, Kelly (my faithful biking companion) and I rode the 25 mile loop of the Portland Century. A century is a bike ride that is either 100 miles or 100 meters. This 100 mile ride is the only one that starts in the city of Portland proper. You can choose to ride 100 miles, 50 miles or, this year for the first time, 25 miles. For a 40 dollar entry fee you get a lovely ride, and a lot of food. Very yummy local food.

Here we are at the start. Just after taking this picture, one of the organizers gave Kelly a disposable camera to take pictures along the route with. We returned the camera at the end and they put the pictures on the website. There is a picture taken at the first rest stop that I hope never gets linked to my name.

The start!
This picture is taken at the (not so) new bridges over McLoughlin on the Springwater Corridor. It used to be a pain to get across that highway, but these new bridges make it a breeze. I was happy to ride over them.
Here we are at the strawberry shortcake rest stop. Look at all of the boxes of pound cake below the table.
Kelly and Heidi getting water.
We’re almost done here. We stopped to take a picture of the Freemont Bridge. I think my photo wasn’t that great, so you get a more South-bound view. That’s Big Pink off in the distance over those trees.
The official “we are done” photo.
Standing in the food line. The free beer line is the shorter one to the left. Not enough people were standing in line for beer, so a guy took to walking around and handing out cups to people. Thus, Kelly and I split one. Heidi, more of a beer fan than the two of us, had her own cup.
Their very cute logo, done in ice. The shirts were red with that logo on them. Very nice. I’m tired of commemorative race shirts that are white.
Our dinner. Salad, grilled salmon with a marionberry sauce, asparagus, roll and marionberry cobbler. Yummy!