The Fun of Pain

I must be improving my commuting skills but it’s happening slowly. I’ve purposely been increasing my return-home commute ‘cause I like this stuff DESPITE THE PAIN!!! Okay, I’m sick. Yesterday I conquered about 3 kilometers – out of 12.4 - of steep hill country, non-stop, though I was basically doing walking speeds for most of the climb. Except: when you walk you can talk. Am I to worry when lungs feel and squeal like bag-pipes? Is it normal to use very, very nasty language while talking to oneself on a bike? Like: What the f&%k am I doing here climbing this hill on an opposite direction from my house where food and warmth await me?

Yeah, sure, this is FUN.

Sheep-Jam

Traffic

"It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep may be."

- Virgil

Now that’s a crock of shit. Obviously, Virgil had no bike.

I’m tired of reading of urban commuting battles like the rest of us poor, rural bikers face no dangers at all. There we are riding along: “Oh, so fresh and aromatic these tulips, are they not, dear?” No. Well, yes. Tulips are cool; they don’t move either willfully or negligently; they do not jump; they make no animal noises; they don’t cross the road when you do. I like tulips that way. I really do, dear.

But there’s real danger out there, people; bike commuting is brutal. If you guys think otherwise or consider yourselves so well prepared, then tell me how the hell do you experts get a bunch of sheep to continue crossing the road without having them stop in the middle of it to stare at you? C’mon smarties? Have you ever had a hundred sheep stare at you, sheepishly so to speak? Scary shit. Do not trust Virgil.

No. Calling them ugly four-letter words doesn’t work. You can’t bang on their window; can’t slap their hood. They just stare at you. (If they could speak they would say they just didn’t see you.) What then is it they find so interesting and what is it that keeps them from finishing their crossing maneuver just when you arrive? What the hell does the traffic code have to say about that? A bike is a vehicle, a bike is a vehicle, a bike is a vehicle. Bahhhhhhh! No respect. These are real right-of-way issues, people. They’re supposed to stick to the green part of the highway. Why don’t they “shew” away when you shout “SHEW!, SHEW!?”

Hell, you guys don’t know one thing about difficult and dangerous commuting. (They did outnumber me they did, those puffy white things.)

They outnumber us all.

Bike Commuting: Once a Commuter Always a Commuter

Why should I be afraid to commute now when I used to be a thoroughly experienced bike commuter 30 years ago? Fear may be a strong word. Uncertainty, doubt, inconvenience, excuses. As a child I commuted on a bike to school for two straight years. Grade seventh and eighth. A child really. I rode on the road oblivious to hazards. Never thought of cars as bastards and never called a driver stupid.

I still have no idea as to how I could possibly have convinced my overprotective parents to let me do that, but I apparently did. After we had moved to another section of town I was supposed to change schools. I would have none of that; all my friends were at my old school; I liked the teachers; I was doing well with grades. Why mess it up?

So I commuted on my bright-yellow Columbia ten speed, drop-bar handles, blue lunch box strapped to god knows what. In the rain, in the snow. Never a problem. I still remember that one big hill and that old lady I ran into on the corner of Heald Street. (I was riding the side-walk.) I actually knocked her down and felt terrible about it, but she got to her feet quickly and was strong enough to yell at me. My apologies. I hope she didn’t remember me for years as that bastard biker kid.

What happens to that child in us? Maybe he never really grows up.

Lovely to commute by bike, is it?

Frankly, I have to say that bike commuters don’t make a good case for commuting on a bike. Do bike commuters really enjoy their rides to work or are they on some Quixotic quest to prove the world wrong? What I’m finding all over the internet – in blogs mostly – is this bitter, angry rhetoric about how terrible cars are. I suppose that applies also to drivers. There is this mean – us vs. them attitude – very evangelical in fact. These people on cars pollute, they destroy our lungs, they tailgate, they insult us, they drive us off the road. Hey, these people even kill us! People die on the road, on bicycles and in cars. Some drivers are negligent, others are criminal. So how do commuters enjoy their trip to work?

It seems to me that what is wrong – deadly wrong – is the society in which most commute to work and live in. People self-righteously talk about choices: about bikes vs. cars. What a joke! That is not making choices. There cannot possibly be so many angry people living in one place at the same time. It is not cars; it is not bikes. It is people. What the hell’s wrong with this picture?

Another Miss-Start (A.K.A. “Another Excuse”)

Another foibled attempt today at commuting on my bike. I’m only 4 kilometers away from work, mostly downhill on the way in and uphill on the way back. This will theoretically keep the sweat down on the way in and up on the way back home, after which I would presumably take a longer ride just to enjoy and train a little. (As a beginning biker my endurance is, well, none.) But once again I could not get started.

First because I had to dress a bit nice today for professional matters. That took care of the morning – cause in Spain we have to commute four times a day. We take a two hour lunch every day to eat with the family. It is our big meal and then return to work in the afternoon. Normal work hours being from 0900 to 1300 and from 1500 to 1900. (In summer we become European and try to work only from 0800 to 1500.) But for the rest of the year it becomes increasingly hard to comply with tradition and, as you can see, with commuting rituals. Luckily, unlike most Americans, we live very close to work. We could not afford it otherwise as we are heavily taxed on gas prices (3 times more than in the states), instead on being killed with property taxes a la Americana. I prefer the way here as I do with socialized medicine. (Perhaps we can get to retirement without having to sell our homes to move to Florida on account of unreasonable / untenable property taxes.)

But that was the first foible of my first commute. The second takes place because I have to meet with my kids’ teachers at 1800 and without a car – due to work commitments – I just couldn’t make it to the teachers on time. So once again I carpooled into work for those horrendous 2.49 miles of no traffic whatsoever. Life.

The Purple Pig

This is about my bike. It’s the only one I got. It dates to 1995 and it is / was my niece’s. It was lying, forgotten, in the basement until I started reading about bicycle touring. This at about the same time that my children began to ride their first "real" bikes, so to speak, and started demanding that I ride with them. I hadn’t ridden in about 15 years -- which did great things for my sore bottom on the first outings -- but what doesn’t one do for family?

So I don’t know how I ended up reading about bike touring or how any of this connects to bike touring or to what I may want to do with my bike: the purple pig. (I only remember not too long ago some guy struggling up a hill fully loaded with bags front and back on his bike. He was smiling in between puffs so that scene stuck in my mind. My obsessions start like that: with a scene that recurs happily over and over again…with that touch of masochism.)

Well the kids want to ride but I realize I haven’t put air on a tire in so many years and the pig's tires are flat. And I guess we’ll also need helmets and water bottles and hundred other things one may need to ride safely and comfortably. My children are only seven and eight (the third one three months, so no helmet for him!) So I do need to worry about safety and things careful. But I don’t know anything about this, this bike business. So I turn to Phred Org somehow and find they have this wonderful list were people talk everything you want to know about bike touring. If you want to know something you ask, they tell you. Good enough for me and so I embark. I suppose my first post there was “The Purple Pig” or something to that effect about my inane difficulties in getting my bike back into shape; sort of like bringing it back to life from the recesses of Hades. The kids bikes are new but mine isn’t and I’m the sort of fellow who doesn’t buy new things when old things are around that may just as well do the job. Indeed, perhaps foolishly idealistic, but what the hell.

Little did I know. Hence, the purple pig.