Tag Archives: bicycle

Pen or Bike?

Posted on by Bill Chance

I have a difficult choice to make. Pen, or Bicycle.

Last December, when people asked me what I wanted for Christmas, instead of the usual hemming and hawing and “Oh, I don’t need anything,” I answered directly and succinctly, “I want cash.”

You see, when I thought about what I wanted – it was too expensive for any one person to buy for me. I wanted a pen.

I’ve been collecting/addicted/messing around with fountain pens for a few years now. I am not a serious collector – I am what is known as a “user.” I am interested in actually writing with the things – getting ink on my fingers – which is odd, because I have the world’s worst handwriting – but it is what it is. I am not interested in glass trays of pristine pens in perfect shape and rare colors.

That is a good thing – because I can buy pens with small flaws (like scratches or engraved names) that do not affect the use of the pens, but lower the price. It is also good because it eventually came to limit the number of fountain pens I would buy. I can only use one at a time and once I have explored the gamut and found the pens I liked to use I could pretty much stop buying them.

That’s more or less where I am now. I have a goodly number of pens in my rotation, I know what I like, and I don’t feel an overwhelming urge to buy any more, really.

Except for one. There is what is called a “grail pen.”

I want a Pen for Men.

I have big hands and am always attracted to large pens – they simply fit in my hand better. I like the Sheaffer inlaid nibs. I like the snorkel filling system – the most complicated fountain pen. Put all of these together and you have the Sheaffer Pen for Men, or PFM. Sheaffer came out with the PFM in 1959, right at the end of the line for the classic fountain pen. The ballpoint was gaining ground fast and fountain pens would soon be known as an anachronism, a collectable, or simply an overpriced sign of affluence.

The PFM was an oversized version of the classic snorkel filling line (I have several older snorkels already – I do like the triumph nib style on these) and is highly desirable today – but was not very successful when it came out (few were made, that is one reason they are so dear now). They were only produced in volume for four years or so and all production ceased in ten.

So, in short, I want one. I figure I can get a nice, user grade PFM for a little over two hundred dollars. That’s a lot of money to spend on a pen. Too much money – but I so rarely desire material possessions, that when I do, it feels a little overwhelming. So I started saving up money until I had enough to pay for a PFM.

While I was saving up, I began to have second thoughts. I began to think that I was about to waste my money. At the same time, I noticed some internet ads for folding bicycles.

I have two bikes – both over twenty years old (a Raleigh Technium road bike and a beater mountain bike I bought at a pawn shop for ninety bucks) – though they are workable. The worst thing about my bicycles is the engine, of course: old, worn out, and not very taken care of. A goal I have for myself is to ride my bike more this year – see if I can get in better shape and see some countryside/urbanside while I’m at it.

So, the idea formed in my head – save some more money (maybe around four hundred) and buy a folding bike. I have the idea of keeping it in my car trunk and going for little rides here and there – on the way home from work, on the way to various spots, or on out of town trips. There are tons of bikes out there and I began to look… I’m thinking about a single speed model (less expensive, I live in a flat place, more reliable, and good exercise) – maybe a Dahon Speed Uno or a Dahon Boardwalk. I don’t need a high-end bike – this is for light use and short, flat distances.

So, what’s it going to be…. A bike or a pen. If I get a bike, is a folder a good idea? If I get a folder, what inexpensive model is the best idea? Candy suggested I buy the pen, then start saving for the bike. I’m not sure if I’m going to live that long. The bike would be a smarter decision – I can use it as a goal, a motivating factor.

The pen would be pure luxury. Then again, the pen would be pure luxury.

Decisions… Decisions.

Any advice?

Pen

Or Bike?

Bike Lids

Posted on by Bill Chance

Mockingbird Station, Dallas, Texas

According to the DART web site, these bike lids were all bought with a federal grant and meet all homeland security requirements. I had to think about that for a while – I guess it’s harder to hide a bomb in these, compared to the old bike lockers. There are 142 of these all over the system.

Bike Lid

DART Bike Lids

DART station access

Commuting Works For Me, but I have a DART issue

DART Bike and Ride Program

DART Bike Pods

Bike Friendly Dallas – DART Bike Lids and Katy Trail Phase III progress

Shopping Spree

Posted on by Bill Chance

Candy is in New Orleans helping Lee get all his crap back for the spring semester at Tulane so I’m holding the fort down alone (except for the dogs). I was in the shower when the doorbell went off (as it always does). There is a bunch of stuff (video games, clothes) that various kids have left in our house over break and they need to pick their crap up before they leave for school so I scurried out, threw on some dirty clothes and went to the door.

There was nobody in person, but a Fedex envelope was leaning up against the door, addressed to me. I wasn’t too happy because I rarely get good news Fedexed to me. This time I was wrong.

I remember a couple of weeks ago at work I received a junk email from some Industrial Trade Magazine. I usually ignore the hundreds of emails like that I get every day, but there was a link to a survey along with the usual “You Might Win” teaser. I had a few minutes to kill before a meeting so I went to the survey and filled that sucker out. I assume you all have done that – bland questions on what kind of equipment you specify and what sort of software services you outsource. I realize that this will generate even more junk emails going forward… but once you get to a certain point it doesn’t make any difference.

So I was pretty happy when I realized that the envelope had a hundred dollar gift card to Target. It said, “Congratulations! Your name has been randomly chosen as 1 of our 3 winners of a $100 gift card from Target in ***** ********’s recent “EAM/ERP” survey.”

Cool!

That did leave me with a minor moral dilemma. I firmly believe that money is money – so that I should add this card to the family fund, like anything else. There is no such thing as “Found Money” and what comes in goes out. There is a Super Target near our house, it has a grocery store, and there is a list of groceries that we need on the refrigerator – eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese, sandwich meat, sliced cheese… plenty of stuff.

I should either give the card to Candy when she gets back or, better yet, go to the store and buy the stuff on the list.

But still…. I’m here by myself. I earned this money by my work and good luck. Why don’t I just go out and spend that motherfucker on stuff I want.

I tried to think about what I wanted that they had at Target. There isn’t much, really. Luckily, this wasn’t a gift card to a pen store. I do need a new bike helmet and I’m always up for a new Moleskine… but there isn’t much else I could think of.

So I grabbed the food list off of the fridge and went to Target. I do not like shopping usually, but going to the store like this, with plenty of time and a gift card burning a hole in my pocket, was sort of fun.

I wandered through the electronics and found nothing much that I could afford. Then on to the office supplies and the Moleskine display. It was picked over and they didn’t have anything I wanted.

On to sporting goods. It’s hard for me to find a bike helmet at a mass-market store that will fit my swollen melon – but they did have one model that fit. I had looked at it before. The problem is that it had this fancy flashing light-thing built in and cost, like fifty bucks, which seemed excessive to me for a hunk of Styrofoam. I found that they only had two of these left and that they had been sitting there for so long the little batteries in the lights had gone dead. Because of this, they marked the helmet down to eighteen bucks. Score!

I picked up the helmet, a water bottle from a clearance endcap, a plastic tote that I want to attach to my bike rack, and all the groceries on the list.

I still have forty bucks left on the card. Hmmm, I wonder if some other Target Store in a little less literate neighborhood might still have a pile of Moleskines? I just might go for a little drive.

A Project

Posted on by Bill Chance

My greatest weakness is that of procrastination. I have so much to do I never get anything done.

One project I have had on my mind for a long time, long too long, was to find a way to watch movies on my recumbent exercise bicycle.

If you go to a health club, or purchase a high end exercise machine, they will have built-in flat screen televisions to help with the inevitable boredom of pedaling or running like crazy, but not getting anywhere. I have seen quite a few of these, and all of them work like crap. The reception is fuzzy and intermittent, the sound is tinny, and the selection of programming is inevitably as boring as watching the sweat drip off your own nose.

I have a cheap recumbent exercise bike I bought off of ebay years ago for a song. It works well, but it doesn’t have a video screen. I wanted to change that… and I wanted to put on one there that actually worked, worked well, and didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Actually, it couldn’t even cost an arm.

My first idea was to mount an old laptop to the handlebars. I could watch Netflix, Hulu, and DVD movies while I rode. There are a lot of instructional ideas on the Internet on how to do that, and I did my research. I designed a contraption of aluminum bars that would support a laptop… but it seemed awfully complex and flimsy.

Then I realized there was no reason to actually mount the laptop. I wasn’t going to be able to type – I only wanted to watch. All I had to do was to mount a screen and then connect it to my laptop with a cable. I keep my laptop on a stand next to where my bike is… easy peasy.

I bought a used monitor down at the computer sale for thirty bucks. I thought about it for a long time, long too long, and came up with a simple way to mount the thing.

The metal clip that attaches to the back of the monitor screwed to a piece of two by four.

I removed the metal plate from the monitor stand and screwed it to a block of wood I made from a two by four. A heavy angle iron went on the other side of the block. The use of the wood block gave me a little space between the monitor and the handlebars and made it easy to attach everything – screws in wood are a lot easier than bolts in metal.

I used a pair of heavy worm-type hose clamps to hold the monitor to the handlebar brace.

Then all I had to do was attach the angle iron to the handlebars with a couple of worm clamps. It’s surprisingly strong, yet I can adjust it and remove it easily if necessary.

The monitor attached to the bike. I need to clean the screen.

I connected the power and video cables and I had a picture. The sound was not satisfactory, though. I wanted the sound to come from close to the picture, not a tinny laptop across the room.

A trip to the thrift store a while back had yielded a pair of small Sony Vaio Powered Laptop Speakers for two dollars. I knew these would come in handy… they would be perfect for this – I didn’t need a lot of volume and they were of decent quality.

A speaker base attached to the cross bar with pop rivets.

I removed the screw that held the base on the speakers and pried it loose. I then mounted the bases to each end of a piece of square aluminum tubing.

The speaker bar attached.

It was a simple job then of screwing the aluminum to the top of the wooden mounting block I had put in earlier. I had my speakers.

The monitor and speakers attached to the bike.

Here’s the whole setup. Actually the biggest job was cord management. There was power to the monitor and speakers, plus cables for video and sound running from my laptop – it threatened to be a tangled mess and I didn’t want any of it to get down into the pedals. If you look closely, you can see a thick black cable tube running down – I was able to cram everything into this and then wire-tie it all down.

The pictures is excellent and the sound is good, if not too loud. The bike is comfortable and this is actually a pretty good way to watch a movie or TV show. I don’t ride very hard, but the idea is to get a long cardio workout.

Now I’m trying to ride at least an hour a day for a start – some in the evening (though I am so worn out when I get home from work) and I’m working on getting out of bed earlier and riding for at least a few minutes before I leave for work. There is Netflix, and Hulu, and DVDs from the library and my kids extensive collection.

Now, maybe a little table with a wireless keyboard and mouse so I can select what I want to watch without getting up. Also, maybe some small weights on a rack nearby so I can get some arm work in at the same time….

I’m so busy I never get anything done.

Preston Ridge Trail

Posted on by Bill Chance

It’s easy to get in a long bike ride on a weekend – the hard thing is to keep it up during the week.

On Wednesday, I gave it a shot – looking for trails near my work. I had my bike in my trunk and chugged as much water as I could in my last hour at work.

I drove over to a run-down shopping center at Coit and Spring Valley – only a couple miles from my office and changed in my car. I should have changed at work, but I’m not ready to walk through the building in shorts and a t-shirt.

I was going to ride the Preston Ridge Trail. It runs north from where I was all the way to the George Bush Tollway in Collin County. It’s the northern leg of the string of trails – Preston Ridge, Cottonwood, White Rock Creek, White Rock Lake, and the Santa Fe Trail which now form an unbroken chain from the northern suburbs to downtown Dallas. Hopefully, soon, I”ll be in good enough shape, both physically and mechanically (my bike is falling apart) to take a long day and ride the whole thing.

Unfortunately, when they built the George Bush Tollway they didn’t put in any connector under the road, and the Preston Ridge in Dallas does not connect with the same trail in Plano running north. If it weren’t for that little gap, you could ride a bicycle all the way from Highway 121 to Downtown without fighting traffic at all. It really aggravates me that when they put in a multi billion dollar tollroad they can’t make a little space for a bicycle to slide under.

I didn’t have enough time to ride the whole trail – my intention was to go north about three and a half miles to McCallum and then turn around and come back. The sun would be setting on my return trip. If you drive up Meandering Way (the street the trail parallels) you will say the road is flat, but it does rise between Belt Line and McCallum – so I would be riding out uphill and into the wind and returning down and with the wind at my back. This is good.

An easy seven mile ride is no big deal – but I am exhausted after work and the temptation to go home, eat, and collapse into bed is a strong one. It took willpower to drive, change, and assemble my bike from the trunk.

The only problem with this route is that the trail south of Belt Line Road slices through a very dicey neighborhood. The concrete is covered with broken glass, spray-painted gangsign cover every vertical surface, and groups of disreputable-looking characters start to gather as the sun starts to go down.

But I made it through alive and in one piece. I might try to find a starting point a bit past this area, though… for the next time.

Preston Ridge Trail Node

One of the nice little rest areas on the Preston Ridge Trail. They call it a "node." You can see how the trail runs under the right-of-way for the power lines.

Like a lot of trails in Dallas, this one runs underneath a set of high-tension power distribution towers. This is good because it gives a lot of open free running space, perfect for a connector trail. The only problem is that it is pretty damn ugly. They do their best to spruce it up, with landscaped “nodes” and other plantings, but they can’t put in real trees (because of the overhead power lines) and it’s all pretty much lipstick on a pig.

I stopped for a blow at one of the nodes and chatted with a guy that was there watering the landscaping – obviously a local trail volunteer. He hooked a short hose up to a hidden tap and used two five gallon buckets to shuttle water to the planted beds. The landscaping at this place was done with drought resistant plants but he said it had been so dry he had to walk out and irrigate it every week. Most summers he said he only had to water once or twice for the whole season.

It was a nice ride – there were a lot of people out on the trail enjoying the… if not cool, at least bearable… evening.

I made it back to my car just as darkness filled in completely and the creatures of the night began to creep out. I nice little ride. Now I need to work on a spot where I don’t think about getting my throat cut.

Sunset

Sunset along the Preston Ridge Trail

Cool People Live Here

Posted on by Bill Chance
Urban Reserve

Entrance to the Urban Reserve

When I was riding down the Cottonwood Trail to the White Rock Creek Trail, there was a little neighborhood I wanted to visit on my bike. It’s called the Urban Reserve, and it’s one street lined with custom homes “designed by a select group of regionally and nationally recognized architects.”,

Dallas is such an ugly city… both naturally (it is flat as a pancake, and far from the coast) and man-made (despite the great architecture downtown, most of the metroplex are cookie-cutter suburban developments thrown thoughtlessly across the prairie). So it’s pretty cool to see somebody doing something like this.

I discovered this spot driving around when Nick played basketball at a private school next to the Urban Reserve. The southern end of the street has a little strip of concrete that connects to the White Rock Creek Trail.

Water

Some of the homes have water as a design feature. Unfortunately, that doesn't work well with the horrible drought conditions. If Frank Lloyd Wright did the work, it could be called "Stagnentwater." Architecture humor.

Since I found it, I’ve been trying to get Lee to go with me down there and look at the homes. He’s studying architecture at Tulane and I thought he’d be interested in something like that in his own city. Despite my best wheedling and pleading, he never was able to carve out enough time to go with me, and he’s back at school, so I’m pedaling around by myself.

See-Through House

Not all the planned and designed homes are built yet. Do you want to live in the "See-Through House"?

X-acto House

How about the "X-acto House"?

Home

The architecture is billed as “modern.” A lot of the homes are of the contemporary boxy style – Personally, I’d like to see more variety.

Now, why would people pay the extra money to live in a place like this?

See the little blue sign against the dark wall in front of the house in the picture above? Look closely.

Cool People Live Here

This is what is says. “Cool People Live Here. please do not disturb.” This is it, really, isn’t it? Buy one of these houses, and be one of the Cool People.

Would I like to do that? You bet your life. I’ve always wanted to be one of the Cool People. If I could afford one of these houses, I’d do it.

Wouldn’t you?

Bicyclist

I wasn't the only lonely bicyclist.

Cottonwood Trail

Posted on by Bill Chance

I remember in the mid eighties when the White Rock Creek trail was built here in Dallas. The city was installing a new massive water line along the creek and they decided to construct a concrete trail along the top of the pipe. This was a new idea at the time – the trail was too narrow and poorly designed in many parts – but it was wonderful. I lived near the lake and after work I would ride my bike to the lake, around it on the White Rock Lake Trail, then up and back on the creek trail – a total of about twenty five miles – almost every day.

I was young and in good shape and the ride was a blast. I still remember the thrill of flying across the city without the worry of being hit broadside by a pickup truck. I loved riding after work because I could speed past the packed up and stopped rush-hour commuters on their crowded freeways. It was the best of times.

Since then I’ve been an advocate for hike and bike trails – and the city has come a long way. Now, I’m more of a spectator than anything else… but I do what I can.

For years I have been following the building of the Cottonwood Trail – a hike and bike trail that runs from Richardson down under the High Five Interchange at Highway 75 and LBJ 635, then south through Hamilton Park until it connects up with the White Rock Creek Trail. This is an important connector trail, enabling bicycle commuters to pierce a large part of the DFW metroplex by connecting long existing trails through areas of heavy traffic that are otherwise impassible by bicycle or on foot.

I attended a lot of meetings when the High Five was being constructed, because it was affecting the commute to work of thousands of employees at my work site. During the presentations of the enormous, expensive, and complicated plans for ramps, frontage roads, and levels of access I noticed a thin green line snaking down along the creekbed in the maps and diagrams. The legend said the green line was a “hike and bike” trail.

In true government fashion, when I would ask about the green line, they would stare at the diagram and say, “I have no idea what that is, we’ll check it out and get back to you.” I never heard from anyone. I had to wait years until the thing was finished and then park my car and walk down there.

Sure enough, beneath the massive construction, there was a hike and bike trail. A beautiful trail, wide, landscaped, lit, and carefully designed and built to all the newest specifications. There was only one problem with this trail. It went nowhere. It dead ended at each end of the massive interchange – truly a road to nowhere. They weren’t able to get the cities that bordered the interchange to commit to connect up with the trail.

For years this strip of pavement was the best homeless shelter you could imagine. I would visit it every now and then and the number of tents, campfires, and piles of sleeping bags near the broken-out lighting fixtures in the shelter underneath the ramps grew and grew.

Finally, the wheels of progress turned and after half a decade or so the trail began to reach out from either end of the High Five. Videos – Going South, and Going North.  I checked up on the progress, encouraged that the trail finally gave a safe bicycle route to the campus where I work.

There was one piece missing, though. The final little bit that connected the trail with the White Rock Creek Trail (the main spine of the trail system that runs through this part of Dallas – the one I enjoyed so much a quarter century ago) was missing. They were taking forever to finish the thing.

Now it is done. And today I had a couple hours to pack up my bicycle and try to ride along the thing.

I packed my crappy old bicycle into the trunk of my car and drove down to the Forest Lane DART station to hop on the final part of the trail. I bought this bike used for ninety dollars almost twenty years ago, so it’s not surprising that I’m having some trouble with it.

The engine, of course, is the worst. It’s old, worn out, and generally gone to shit, but I’m stuck with that. Otherwise, the seat is breaking apart and the derailleurs don’t shift very well any more. I did some work on the front shift levers, moving the adjustment knob to try and get the shifting to improve, but it didn’t seem to help.

I hopped on and headed off. The heat is a little less toxic than it has been, though it is still horribly dry here. Right away I was having trouble. It was a struggle to pedal and my legs were aching and my breathing a chore. I was beginning to feel a little spark of panic – it wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

Then I realized that I had been turning the wrong adjustment knob when I was working on the front derailleur. I had been tightening the front brake by mistake, and it was dragging the bike to a stop.

Fixing that helped a lot – though for the rest of the day I was panicked and tired.

At any rate, I had a good time. The little bit of trail seemed anti-climatic after all the years of anticipation, but that’s that. I wish the thing was there when I was riding all those years ago… or, really, I wish that I could ride like that again.

Old End

This is where the Cottonwood Trail ended the last time I rode it. This is in Hamilton Park, just south of the High Five Interchange.

Now

Here is the same spot now. Those "Trail Subject to Flooding" signs are everywhere, though I can't imagine a drop of water right now.

A little farther.

A little farther down the trail, where it crosses under Forest Lane. One reason the construction took so long is that there was a lot of work involved in this road crossing and the creek bridge.

Forest Lane DART station

The entry to the trail at the Forest Lane DART station.

Bicycle Lockers

Cool looking bicycle lockers at the DART station.

Creek Bridge

The bridge over Cottonwood Creek. Another "Trail Subject to Flooding" sign. Wishful thinking. I don't know where the trickle of water still in the creek comes from.

Rest Area

The trail runs through some thick woods between the train line and the creek south of Forest Lane. There is a nice rest area built there. This homeless guy was sitting in the rest area, reading and writing in his notebook. We talked about the weather and I helped him find a lost sock.

White Rock Creek

The southern terminus of the Cottonwood Creek trail, where it connects with the White Rock Creek Trail. The DART train is crossing White Rock Creek over the trail.

Superdrome

Posted on by Bill Chance

I remember when the Superdrome was built, thirteen years ago. There were some interesting news articles about it.

The thing was up in Frisco, which, back then, was some small town way up north of the city. It didn’t take long for the Metroplex, which has been vomiting new developments out north across the cotton fields for decades, to swallow Frisco and now it’s another tony suburb between Plano and McKinney.

There was a time that I was a good bike rider. A very good bike rider. That was a long, long time ago. I never did learn to/get to ride on a track. Some friends of mine in college did, though I have no idea where the velodrome was, now that I think about it. I remember when one of them had his track bike go out of control on the steep slopes of Mount Oread – no brakes, no freewheel – and he had to steer across a lawn and into a hedge to stop.

I was old and fat before the Superdrome was built, though I still wanted to go out and see it. A friend from work rides there and he used to always bug me to take Lee up to the track and let him try it out. I was worried about letting Lee see the track. I knew he would love it and we couldn’t afford another expensive sport.

That’s not really true. I wanted to let Lee give it a shot, but there wasn’t enough time.

Now, after all these years, now that it’s far too late, I was able to drive out there after work and watch some races.

I wanted to take some pictures, but my good camera is still broken and I don’t have the money to get it fixed. I had to settle for a few quick snaps. It didn’t take long for the sun to set and the bikes to get faster and all that I had were blurs on the track.

The most startling thing about a velodrome, the first time you see one, is how steep the banked curves are. It looks suicidal to go up there on a bicycle. In the races, though, you see how the riders use the bank to control their speed, to slow for a second without losing momentum – they pick their speed back up when then roll back down the slope.

Superdrome

The ends of the oval track are high banked curves.

There are several division of riders: juniors, masters, Categories 1-4, women… they even took a break to let a toddler pedal around on a bike with training wheels (the announcer said, “250 meters is a long way to go when your legs are that short – this is a track, no coasting!”) – and they were all fun to watch.

Superdrome

The junior riders were the first ones out on the track.

Superdrome

While one class is racing, the next group warms up on the infield.

There were enough races to get a feel for how it goes, for the different types of race, and for the different classes of rider. I was the only true spectator there – everybody else was either riding or there to watch a family member.

I enjoyed going out there and will go back. I have no idea why it took me so long to get out there, even though it is a long, gas-guzzling drive from my house during a Friday rush hour. It was fun to watch, but I would give anything to be able to ride on those slopes, and it’s never going to happen now.

Bicycle Rack

Posted on by Bill Chance

One of my main personal goals right now is to be able to commute to work on my bicycle a couple of days each week. I don’t live all that far (though there is a big evil city in between here and there) so it shouldn’t be such a big deal – but to me, it feels like it is.

I started riding on the trails by my house. Then I realized that they now reached out in the direction of my work. I found a route that would get me there without, hopefully, getting me killed.

My head was filling with progress until I had a setback – the heat here is deadly this summer; it’s making outdoor activities impossible.

Still, I plan ahead. Planning is, after all, a lot easier than doing. I’m thinking about logistics – what I must carry with me during a bicycle commute. I realized that if I’m going to ride to work I’m going to have to carry a change of clothes plus a towel and various sundries so I don’t sit in a pool of my own sweat all day. My crappy old cheap bicycle (I bought it at a pawn shop for ninety dollars more than fifteen years ago) is ugly with bags already (handlebar bag for phone, wallet, camera, keys, water and such – frame bag for lock, chain, and pump – and seat bag for repair kit) but even with that I didn’t have any place for a clothes bag.

I needed a rack. I used to have one on the bike but I took it off for some reason years ago and it is long lost. So I went to Bike Nashbar and bought one of their cheap, generic bicycle racks.

Rack

Bike Nashbar rack mounted on the back of my bicycle.

It went on easily. Doesn’t look too bad, considering.

But now I needed a bag. I could buy an expensive trunk, or a pair of even more expensive panniers, but I’m too poor for that… or at least too cheap. I did an Internet search for DIY bike bags and found more stuff that I could handle… all the way from 2×2 wooden mounting apparatus, to complex sewing instructions for pannier production. A lot of ideas were… sort of silly, but a few of the instructions seemed really helpful, and I’ll probably work my way towards some of these ideas.

But for now, as I am wont to do, I went cheap and I went simple. I stopped by Big Lots and bought a nine dollar gym bag and a set of little bungee cords for a buck fifty. I took the shoulder strap off of the gym bag and used its mounting points to bungee the bag to the rack.

Pack

The gym bag bungeed onto the bicycle rack. This was less than successful.

And off I went. I made it a good, solid twenty feet until I felt something jam into my rear spokes. The bag had slid off sideways and fallen over. I should know better – it is always stability that gives problems, not strength.

I thought about giving up. I was tired and hot. But I had packed extra bungee cords and I used them to attach the handle straps on the bag to the sides of the rack. And that worked. I went for a little four mile ride and the bag didn’t budge a bit.

Pack Straps

This works, but it looks stupid. Though not as stupid as when I'm actually riding the thing.

It sure looks awful, though. I’ll do some thinking, work on a more elegant way to attach the thing. At least I know now what the parameters are and that it will at least work.

But who am I kidding – it isn’t the rack or the bag on my bicycle that’s the problem. It’s the engine. It’s old, crappy, and wore out. That’s what needs to be worked on and worked over. That’s what makes the simple act of riding a bicycle to my work feel like Sisyphus and his rock.

Surfing around the web at random, I found this song and video I had seen when it first came out a couple years ago. I had forgotten how wicked cool this was. Love it.

http://vimeo.com/5020497

The best-laid schemes

Posted on by Bill Chance

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
—-To a Mouse, Robert Burns

 

Furnace

Furnace

I had great plans for the weekend. I even wrote them down – a two page list in one of my Staples Bagasse Composition Books I carry with me always. Two pages! Who the hell am I kidding?

Well, of the projects I wanted to complete, I finished… hmmm… let me count… none.

On Sunday, around noon or so, I was trying to decide whether to go to the library and write (I have a certain table at the Richardson Library I like to work at – the library is open from two to six, which is a nice constrained four hour writing time – it’s shocking how fast the time flies) or to go for a bicycle ride. I decided to kill two birds with one stone and ride my bike to the library.

Table

My favorite table at the Richardson Library.

I made my preparations – packing my Alphasmart Neo (don’t want to ride my bike with my laptop), pens, notebooks, water bottles, clean shirt, towel, and such and sundry stuffins. I put my backpack on and went out into the blast furnace of the garage to get my bike. The front tire was flat.

I stood out in the sun behind the house, found the telltale little white spot where the thorn had penetrated, took everything apart (nasty little thorn, really), patched the tube, put it together, and pumped everything back up.

Maybe a half an hour. I was drenched in sweat.

I had calculated that I would be able to get to the library in the awful heat by moving quickly. The time I spent fixing the tire was too much, though. I rode about a mile and decided it was too risky. The temperature, the sun beating down, the still air… it was all going toxic. By the time I made it home I was beginning to get a little dizzy.

I am too old and way too out of shape for this. All I wanted to do was veg out in a dark cave of conditioned air. The bit of overheated exertion wore me to the bone. At that point I wasn’t even up to driving to the library. I rested a bit, went to eat with the family, and at sunset walked down to Lee’s last softball game. Once the sun is down, it’s a lot more bearable. I think the solar radiation beating down is worse than the superheated air.

I’ve complained about the heat already. And it wasn’t even bad back then, not like now. It’s always hot here in the summer, of course, but this is getting ridiculous. It wears everyone out – it is so hard to get anything done.

Deadlier than the Male

Deadlier than the Male

The only thing I accomplished was to read another bit of Pulp Fiction I had queued up. This one was Deadlier than the Male, by James Gunn. No, this isn’t James Gunn, the science fiction professor that teaches at my alma mater (yes, I took a class from him, but that’s a whole ‘nother story). This James Gunn seems to have not written another novel. Nobody seems to know anything about him. The book was made into a film in 1947 called Born to Kill – which I’ll try to find.

Born to Kill

Born to Kill

It’s an odd, crazy book. I wouldn’t say it was a good book, but it was something. The language is simple, but arresting. The first line – ”Helen Brent had the best-looking legs at the inquest,” pretty much sets the scene. Most noir pulps have a small number of characters, but in this one, every chapter introduces somebody new. They keep arriving faster than they are killed off… until near the end. With each fresh character the story splits until the plot is like a big twisted knot of desperation and evil, stretching from Fresno to Frisco. I had a bit of trouble keeping track of who was who, and a few of the participants seem to simply disappear from the book once their utility wears thin, but the book was short and the story tumbled forward picking up flotsam and jetsam from the sewer of human malice until it all crashed down into the last few pages.

Since I wasn’t up for anything useful I was able to get through the book in one day. Now, I have some more pulp noir stuff in my reading list, but I need to find something different, maybe even something a little uplifting. After reading this one… I feel sort of dirty.

Heat
Heat