There are times however, when I’m on my bike, that I don’t feel welcomed by others on the road. Sometimes, it goes well beyond a feeling of being unwelcome, it feels like loathing or hatred even. It feels…well…horrible. Once, a while ago, someone threw a cup of tobacco spit at me from a car window. . . at that moment, I had some hatred myself. I […]
Continue reading →I enjoy cycling. I also enjoy my Ford F-150 FX4.Yup, Stock 18’s and a tow package. And my Honda VF-R 800makes me feel alive likelittle else. I usually get along fine with myself…Heck, we all usually get alongfine with ourselves…don’t we?
Continue reading →BLEVE (pronounced Blev-ee) is an acronym for Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion. I’m sure you’ve all seen one or two on the news, some amazing video caught on camera show, or YouTube at some point, but…just as an example, if someone takes a sealed can of any flammable liquid and throws it onto a campfire (this is […]
Continue reading →Detour for a second. A sidebar. From the point of view of a chamois pad in the crotch of a pair of cycling shorts, your perineum is purpose, period. The bike saddle? The bane of existence, the Nemesis of said purpose, ’tis what road salt is, once applied, to black ice. And chamois cream? Aah, beautiful chamois cream and its silky, silky, goodness, uniting […]
Continue reading →With the bike now off the road for all intents and purposes as a mode of adult transportation…at home, but content minding the kids, teaching skills of balance and basic first aid, teaching that taking things apart is often easier than putting them back together again, teaching would-be engineers the finer points of ramp building […]
Continue reading →Maybe there was some sibling rivalry through the early years, the good, healthy kind of sibling rivalry where, because of the friendly competition, bikes and cars became better machines together. Tit-for-tat. The growth toward becoming better was far from equitable however. America was solidifying itself as the world’s hub of innovation and manufacture, and the […]
Continue reading →Heeding my…err…bike’s advice I started to snoop around, do a little research, and found the following… Early automobile history is fraught with controversy, patent disputes, and in-fighting…so wading into that soal too deep could be all-consuming, deadly and thick black bottom mud holding you fast, and still yield no actual truths. I mean, knowing how subjective any history […]
Continue reading →I woke up this morning and with the usual rigamarole got ready to seize the day. Carpe Diem and a load of dirty clothes I went out to the laundry room, that’s when I saw it. The letter–written very neat and tidily, scroll-like, on a sheet of blue-paper shop towel. The black ink looked and smelled like a mix […]
Continue reading →My bike told me to “screw-off” this morning. She then went on about “how crap my behavior” becomes when I ride; that things were “fine” between bikes and cars long before I threw a leg over a top tube…long before even my grandpa got his hands oily tinkering with his first greasy two-wheeler. That we “fleshy, civilized, bipeds”, gripping […]
Continue reading →A large black limo comes to a stop at a light at 7th and H Streets, downtown Washington. A cyclist pulls up and puts a foot down to the right of the big Lincoln as two men begin to talk in the plush, leather backseat. “This bike thing is getting out of control. It’s blowing […]
Continue reading →