Just a Home Depot Run.

First, I want to apologize for my long absence from the blog. I'm sure some of you are aware that I have taken a "pro" blogging gig, and my time is consumed with finely honing my posts over there. Sorry, but that's the way of the world sometimes. Do you think that Lance rides his bicycle to work? No, he saves the riding for "the show".

Now that we are past that, I do have a story I'd like to tell you about my newest bike. My wife and I have been rennovating our laundry room, and as such, that has nesscesitated plenty of trips to Home Depot for me.  On one of the trips I spotted a garage sale, just down the street from my house. As always, I slowed and gave the sale a quick scan for bikes. Generally the bicycles at sales in my neighborhood are Huffys or Pacifics, etc - their owner has moved on to a car or a different state, and they are quickly replaced in the saddle by other day laborer types. As I scanned the sale I spotted an old ten speed lying next to the driveway, and that made me immediately pull over. I never see old road bikes around here, generally it's mountain bikes. I walked to the bike and glanced at the downtube first, taking note of the chrome lugs on the headtube. The chrome lugs made my eyes open a little wider, but the Campagnolo derailluers that I spotted next told me just about everything I needed to know. Despite the fine details and running gear, the bicycle had seen better days; there was a bare chain with a large padlock wrapped around the top tube, a modern rack was screwed into the fender eyelets and connected by wire to the rear stays,and 20 years ago someone had put yellow reflective tape on both the handlebars and stays.

                                          Ancient reflective tape on the handlebars

I asked the person in charge of the sale "how much", pointing at the bike. She shook her head and pointed to a fat guy in his late forties who was listlessly poking through some stuff on a table. Walking over to him, I said hello and asked if the bike as his, and if he would sell it. He smiled at me, shook his head, and with a little wave went back to stirring around the secondhand treasures on the table in front of him. I got his attention again and asked if I could at least ride it, and with the woman running the sale translating, I got my chance. I hopped on, noting the leather saddle peeking out from under the crappy rubber cover, and took the bike down the street. The tires were nearly flat, the chain wouldn't stay on one cog in back, and the ancient dried out brake pads slowed the bike, at best. I rode back to the owner and saw that he had acquired a friend roughly the same age, but a little shorter. He and the friend were engaged in a serious conversation, so I waited. When they were done, the friend turned to me and introudecex himself as "Sergio", and explained that he was going to interpret for his friend. I immediately offered $100 for the bike. Sergio relayed my offer, and the owner, now identified as Porfido, shrugged and gave a long reply. "He needs a bike to get around", Sergio translated.
"I'll take him to WalMart right now and buy him a bike."
The message was relayed to Porfido, he nodded, and I followed them to their apartment complex, where I winced as he locked the bike up by carelessly leaning against a metal railing, throwing the naked chain over the tube to secure the bike.

                                           Beat up top tube
Porfido and Sergio hopped in my car and we headed to the store. It was a fairly quiet ride,but I did ask Porfido where he got the bike. He told me he was taking a shed down for an old man, and the bike had been stored in the shed. Part of the job had been relocating the stuff from the shed into the garage, and as he wheeled the bike across the yard, the old man had offered to sell it to him, and he had paid $50.

When we got to the store, I tried to talk Porfido into a hard tail hybrid, but he insisted on a double "suspended" Next Powerclimber mountain bike. I shrugged, and we wheeled the bike to the counter, paid, and loaded it up in my truck. When we got back to the apartments, we unloaded his shiny new bike and loaded up my new crappy old bike. Porfido shook my hand a couple of times, and admired his new bike like a kid on Christmas morning. I thanked Sergio for his help, then left to finish my Home Depot run. I didn't really get a chance to take a closer look until later that night, after I had finished the day's projects. In that spirit, I will tell you more about exactly what I traded for in my next post - which will come fairly soon, I assure you.

As found, rack, rope, and all. 

Best bicycle related video ever.

I haven't forgotten this place exists - I have been busy with not enough saddle time. I did ride the train with my folding bike the other day, and I will say (as I have said before) that it is a whole different crowd after 9 pm.

I'll be back with something more substantial soon.

A long absence, a short article to commemorate my return

I have written an article on the "Biking in Dallas" blog. You may read it here.

I will be back regularly soon. I have been writing in other places, though those blogs are a little more commercial in nature.

More here soon, true believers!

NAHBS Video

Hubbard, Chris, and I took a ride down to Austin for the NAHBS. Chris made a video of us taking off.

I'll have some thoughts here soon, but for now, this will have to hold you over.

Big weekend a comin'.

My bike nerd friends and I are headed on a road trip to Austin this weekend to see how the other half lives.
If you read the other blog that I write for, you know that while we are all about bikes, we are also all about the used bike for the most part (with the occasional exception). It'll be neat to be able to get a close look at a ton of amazing bikes in that I won't be able to afford until my company goes public. I'm sure that some of you that are reading are saying to yourself, "Self, why would someone go to a giant show with nothing but bicycles? Can't that person just go to a bike shop and get the same effect?". Well, yes and no. For the most part, whenever I go to a bike shop I am on a mission to purchase something - and even if I'm just browsing, I'll often end up purchasing something, just because I have this bicycle sickness. At this show, I won't be able to afford to purchase anything anyway, and I'll be traveling with two people  who I can talk bicycles with who won't be trying to make a sale at the end of the conversation. It should be lots of fun, and I am looking forward to it very much. I'm  hoping that the trip will provide some content for both websites, and at the very least there should be some good photos posted here and at the other blog over the next few days. We will be sharing a room like college kids, looking at cool bikes, and riding around Austin on what looks to be a great weekend. However, I'm really pleased because I will finally be around people that understand all of my silly bicycle T shirts.

I got out for my first real road ride this weekend, and ended up doing a little over 24 miles. It was an expensive ride, because my expensive bike computer bounced off of my handlebars about 3 miles in. Normally I would have just stopped to get it, but it bounced right into a sewer. If I'd been standing there trying to throw it in, I never would have made it. Riding by at 17MPH it made a hole in one.

Since I am spending my disposable income in Austin this weekend, it won't be replaced for a while. I'm on the lookout for a new bike computer now, so if any of my readers has a suggestion, please feel free to pipe up with your favorites.

Until we meet again,

New product review is up.

I cunningly review the hell out of a coffee cup holder.

Here.

Enjoy.

The big gap

As I told myself I would do, I've been riding a lot more - my car hasn't started since last Friday, and if I'm not pedaling, I'm still on two wheels. After the crazy blizzard (which ruined the Super Bowl and locked up the state for a few days) we finally have that North Texas weather that we all love - it's been in the high fifties in the morning and in the seventies in the afternoon, which is perfect riding weather.


I finally got my High Sierra set up correctly to do some serious riding, and it has finally found its place in my bike rotation. I don't care to ride my regular roadie commuter this time of year because of the puddles that seem to be everywhere, and the wider tires on the High Sierra make it easier to take the occasional detour on the sidewalk or through a field to avoid traffic. As the days get lighter and I have to spend less time riding at dusk or in the dark, I will be riding the road bike more and more. Until then, when the sun goes down I like having more options available to me than my skinny tires provide. Drivers don't expect me out there as the sun is going down, so I alter my route to avoid driver interaction. It sometimes makes the ride home a little more fun too, as I end up bouncing through fields, or hopping on sidewalks to make my own shortcuts. I know I say this a lot, but it does make me feel like I'm a little kid again, getting that first taste of freedom that a bicycle brings.

Chris on his first day commuting.
My commuting buddy Chris, on the other hand, has a fancypants carbon roadbike that he commutes on, and while it's a great bike, it doesn't allow him the freedom to whip it through a field or hop on the sidewalk. He and I hooked up for the ride home on Monday evening, and at the intersection of Plano road and Renner we very nearly experienced a tragedy. That intersection is part of what we call the "big gap" - we have to get into the left turn lane on a pretty busy Renner road, and we have to make the turn onto even busier Plano parkway. As far as we can tell, there really isn't a better way to get into (or out of) downtown Plano on our route, and once we cross the gap in the morning, we are home free with most of our route on the paths or the protected lane on Waterview. Headed home on Monday night, we saw just how dangerous it is.

The turn lane has two turn lanes - we take the rightmost turn lane, so that when we turn we end up in the far right lane to finish shooting the gap and get away from traffic. As the light turned green, we made our turn and a guy driving a red truck in the other turn lane took his turn very wide and very nearly took Chris out - I heard some yelling and then the same truck passed me moving very quickly, straddling the lane and getting a little closer to me that I care for. Using the adernalin from the close call, Chris quickly caught up to me and told me how wide the guy turned, and how lucky he was - Chris shot over to the curb and was able to ride up on it enough to avoid being squashed. We both shook fists at the driver and tried to catch up, but he floored it to get away. I don't know if it was an intentional thing, but I suspect that it was dusk and the driver underestimated our speed when the light turned green. Chris was pissed, rightly so, as was I.

On our ride the next morning, we were talking about all of the trail construction going on in Richardson, and specualted that part of the construction might be the solution to our gap problem - we were hoping that someone was smart enough to see that there was no good way to get across this section of town. Chris did a little research and sent me a map.

The red line represents the new trail under construction - there will be a new protected crossover under 75, which is great, but the other part of the new trail crosses Renner road and then shoots back up to George Bush and Alma, and spits you out at another bad intersection that leads to the mall, where traffic is a nightmare. 

I don't know who planned this route, but it is a pretty useless piece of trail if you ask me. We will still have to shoot the gap every day. I will do it and do my best not to be killed, but I do wish that someone had considered having the trail head North and give a safe bicycle crossing into Plano from Richardson (or vice versa, depending on which way you are headed). I see more and more commuting riders on the trail every day, and that pleases me to no end, but I sincerely hope that somehow problems like this can be solved, so that people who are uncomfortable with being squished by an innattentive driver can ride without having to worry about it.

Even though I am not an engineer, I was able to put my mind to the problem and come up wtih an easy solution, denoted by the blue line - build a trail to the George Bush train station - from there the riding isn't too bad as there is a pretty nice crossing under the tollway there, and then into Plano.

Simple, right? Why is this not happening?