New Digs

This is the obligatory, "I haven't blogged in ages" entry that one posts either right before they start blogging again or right before they stop indefinitely. I've come across many blogs where this post is the last one written and it is often two to three years old. One thing is for certain, this blog will no longer be about biking in the NC triangle area, as I no longer live there. I have recently moved to Philadelphia to start a new post-doctoral position. I have not figured out if bike commuting will be possible from where we plan to live in Lansdowne, on the west side of Philadelphia. I hope there is a viable route, there are many bike lanes in the city, and the distance is completely feasible. If there are any Philly bikers out there with suggested route, leave me a comment and let me know you're there. Especially if there are any low intensity bike clubs in the area I'd love to hear about them.

Go little robot, go!

Robot knows what's up.

"Pooping on trail"

I just wanted to say how proud I am, that this week one of the search terms that landed somebody on my blog was "pooping on trail".

I was also found via "buffalo face mask", which I honestly can't imagine why that landed here.

That is all.

no words...sort of

hubratius pliesters or jointered ousmania?

You made it!!! to my little social media experiment. This is not a hypothesis driven study, and the results will just be descriptive. And the scientific method is only loosely in use here. There is no control group. And I don't really know what the question is. Kinda like the cartoons: "let's see what happens if I pour green goo in this tube".

If you're a regular visitor to my blog this post will be utterly confusing.
Nothing bike.

Forgive me, my life was experiments, up until recently, now I just sit at the computer reading and writing. I'm Jonesin' for an experiment. Even one that blows up in my face!

I'm not going to say what the experiment is, but it you want to join in, put the following phrase in a facebook status or tweet:

struntist forgram

And leave me a comment below, WTFLOL...really, whatever you want.

DANGER! at Kerley and Cornwallis.

As a blogger I get to see Google searches that land people on my site. For example people looking for a Carhartt hat often land here, or nude cycling, or free beer.

A couple of days ago I got a couple of searches that caught my eye, then got me thinking, and searching the internet myself for information:

You see as much as I could see, but I will almost guarantee that the intersection in question is Kerley and Cornwallis.







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I love flying down hills at top speed!

Right before this intersection with Kerley, Cornwallis has an excellent hill to get your wheels spinning. However, halfway down the hill is the intersection with Kerley. Cornwallis traffic has the right of way, Kerley has stop signs.

Legally, as a cyclist you have every right to fly through this intersection at full speed. Realistically, SLOW THE F DOWN. This is not the hill to fly down, you'll get your ass killed. Trust me.

Cars stopped at this intersection, espescially in the morning, can't see shit when they look up this hill. One, you're a tiny bicycle, two, in the morning the sun is at the top of the hill.

Recipe for disaster!

If you're flying down the hill at 40 mph, and a car on Kerley doesn't see you, you're toast.

I have now heard of one confirmed accident at this intersection, I also have the search result from a couple of days ago, and I almost got in an accident at the intersection myself.

For me it was the exact situation described above, morning, me flying at 40mph, car stopped on Kerley pulls out having not seen me. Fortunately I was able to yell loud enough to get their attention, so they didn't make it all the way in front of me, and I swerved around the front of the golden Prius.

Remember: You're invisible to the folks in their motorized boxes. Be safe.

Clegg's Pest Control

I'm not a heavy user of the pest control industry. I have a distaste for the chemicals they use. I was, however apathetic to their ubiquitous presence until today. Today I was nearly run off the road by a truck belonging to Clegg's Pest Control. You know the company with the tank logo on their trucks?

Yeah, that's a tank, not a raccoon skin hat.

I would refuse to use their services until they showed a good faith effort to train their employees about road rules, but like I said, I don't use pest control services. So I'm stuck writing a blog post about how crappy their drivers are.

And then I can just hope that my blog post makes it to the first page of google results for Clegg's, and those who ride a bike regularly or love somebody who rides a bike regularly (I fit both categories) will think twice about using their services.

How bad was it? The truck passed me at about 35 mph, and gave me maybe 6 inches of room. I've been buzzed before by vehicles, but this was ridiculous. One little wobble on my part and I could have been clobbered by the side mirror.

Nude Cycling

Warning: this post may be a little NSFW due to censored cartoon nudity and genital mutilation.
Why do people bike naked?

If you read the Wikipedia entry the goal is to "deliver a vision of a cleaner, safer, body-positive world." 


Sounds like a terrible idea to me. Bikes have a lot of sharp bits that I'd rather not have contact my tender bits. 

Sure, it wouldn't happen like the above picture, but you could fall and get yer niblets caught somewhere.


On top of it not being a great idea because of the dangers involved, in my opinion it also doesn't really deliver the message it's aiming for. I've never thought bringing out the crazy was the way to get your message across. And I fail to see how a bunch of naked/semi-naked people riding bikes through town "deliver[s] a vision of a cleaner, safer, body-positive world."

I could protest obesity by going out in public and setting fire to bologna and mustard sandwich on nutrient deficient white bread...

...but I'd probably end up spending the night in a rubber room. While the activity of burning the sandwich was related in a way to obesity, it really does not convey my message. 


I see naked biking in the same light. The message is in there somewhere, but between the people who are offended by the flapping genitalia, and those who just didn't realize there was a message to be seen, nobody save the cyclists themselves really get the message.


And I'm guessing half the cyclists don't even understand the message.


Ok, time to go for a fully clothed ride.

New Style with the New Name

That's right, I'm trying something different. The last post about the bee in my shirt was not a one-off.

I like to draw, and as of recent I've had no outlet for my need to draw. I was writing on this blog once in a while, so I figured why not draw some pictures to go along with the posts.

The only rule I'm setting for myself is that no picture can take more than five minutes to draw.

This is a trial run.

It ought to be fun. 

OW OW OW OW OW OW!

The other day it was hot. My jersey zipper was obscenely low as I rode home at around 5:30 PM.

My chest hair blowing in the wind, the little I have. I rode down the big hill. This hill is big for flat ol' Chapel Hill, it is in fact the hill referred to by the town name. I can get up to 40 mph on this hill, don't tell the cops (Speed limit is 35.) I was going 40 this day, did I mention it was hot, the breeze felt good.

Then along came a little bee...

It flew into my shirt, bypassing the chest hair, right straight to my armpit.

So I'm flying down the Chapel Hill, at 40 mph on a bicycle being stung repeatedly in the armpit by a small bee, that I'm sure just wanted out of my shirt.

To top it all off, I already had a scrape on my arm and a bruise on my leg from a prior spill. In reaching frantically for the bee in my armpit with my scabbed over arm, I managed to open that wound. I did not however manage to kill the bee that continued to sting my armpit over and over and over. That whole thing about bees stinging once then dying is horseshit by the way.

When I got to the bottom of the hill, I pulled up on the sidewalk, retrieved the bee out of my shirt and squished it. Several times.

It was still a hot 95°F, and now I was paranoid to ride with my jersey wide open, and my armpit, elbow and leg were all throbbing. But I got that bee dammit.

Name Change.

I've been "Triangle Bicycle Commuter" for a year now. This morning while sipping my Joe I came across the real Triangle Bicycle Commuter. I knew when I started the blog that the blogger subdomain trianglebicyclecommuter was not available, but I couldn't find a blog with that name, and the URL turned up nothing, so I went with the name. However, it's there now, so I'm vacating the name and I have more than one reason to do so.

• There is already a blog with that name.
• I am about to graduate from UNC and will likely move away from the Triangle.
• Since I started the blog the scope has changed so the name should be more broad.
• It's my blog and I'll do what I want to.

So without further ado, I reveal the new name, appropriately conjured up on my morning bike commute.

Another Place I'm Going

The new name fits with my URL that I had to come up with doo(sic) to the lack of availability of trianglebicyclecommuter.blogspot.com.

It begins with an "A" to plop it on top of alphabetically organized blogrolls.

It embodies my desire to travel to new and unfamiliar places.

And best of all, it tickles my juvenile need to make potty humor whenever possible. My apologies to my friend Will for the TP picture atop the new blog.

So, I hope the change doesn't throw you off track. The same info will always be here.

WELCOME BACK STUDENTS!!!!!!!!!

Welcome back to the Triangle, UNC, Duke, NCSU, and NCCU students. I have recently had a small uptick in google searches about biking in the Durham/Chapel Hill area, I will assume these come from new students in the area wondering about using bikes to get around the Triangle.

With the return of students to the area comes a lot of automobile traffic. So if you're a student driving a car around: Don't hit me.

For students with bikes, this blog has information about getting around by bike. I commute from Durham to Chapel Hill by bike almost every day, so here I have compiled a list of all the routes I've used with descriptions of the roads and traffic.

I also bike through the winter, and have biked on the coldest mornings that the Triangle has to offer (16°F). For these mornings I have written posts about the clothing I wore and how well it protected me from the weather.

On top of those useful posts I post random crap, rants about whatever, tidbits about my bike, and even a post about a bike trip through The Gambia I did almost ten years ago.

I hope you can find a useful bit of information here. Have a good school year!

Open letter to drivers about bikes

     This is not going to be a rant against drivers. The purpose of this post is to educate about and discuss safe driving practices around bikes. I think as far a bikers go I'm pretty lenient about what I consider acceptable driving around me. That said, there is one area where I have no flexibility:

My life depends on it

I don't care if you're young or old, put the phone away when you're behind the wheel. Whether the law says so or not, you are controlling a deadly weapon flying down the road. Respect that your car can easily kill a person on a bike, a pedestrian, somebody stuck with a flat tire, somebody's dog or any other person or animal that happens to be near the road. If you need more convincing watch the disturbing video below, if you believe me you can scoot past the video into the meat of this post.

JetBlue vs. Wolfpack Hustle during Carmageddon

Update: Sounds like the cyclists won!

Wolfpack Hustle races JetBlue. A group of cyclists are racing a jet plane today. With the onset of what is being called "Carmageddon" in Los Angeles JetBlue offered $4 tickets for crosstown flights. To prove an important point about wastefulness some talented cyclists are racing the jet across town.







Go Wolfpack Hustle!

It's opossums in the autumn, and it's farm cats in the spring

If you recognize the title of this entry, then I can say two things about you. You know who Tom Waits is, and probably listen to his music, and you know this post is going to be about roadkill. If you don't know, go find the song "Murder in the Red Barn", and have a listen, then come back.

Admittedly, Tom is an acquired taste that most people never acquire.

This post, like Tom Waits, some might find distasteful, so I'll do the nice thing and insert a jump break for those who don't want to read about dead stinky animals. So if you're game hit the jump and let's talk about roadkill.

Call for submissions

I bike between Durham and Chapel Hill. That is pretty much the extent of my cycling besides a weekend ride here and there. Yet my blog is called "Triangle Bicycle Commuter" implying a much larger scope than Durham to Chapel Hill.




View Larger Map

I would love to add some posts about biking between/within Raleigh, Cary, Carrboro, Morrisville, and other communities within the triangle.

So if you have a favorite commuter route, use the comment section to contact me. I would love to add some variety to the blog to make it a more useful resource for local cyclists.

...

Record your rides

I've been using Mapmytracks.com to record my cycling to and from work for the past year now. And if I were to offer any advice to aspiring cyclists who wish they could ride more, it would be to get a gps and record all of you rides. I found gps to be the best motivational tool available. Mapmytracks.com has multiple ways of analyzing your ride and comparing it to other similar rides in the past. You can figure out where you have gained speed and where you need to work on your riding.

The program can be combined with more serious training tools, which I do not use. However, it is possible to measure cadence and heart rate, and sync this data to your gps data to get a complete picture of your ride and the amount of exertion you are putting into your workout.

At any rate, today is the end of my first year recording my rides. My total mileage on my bike came out to 5059 miles. Not bad for a year of commuting to work on my bicycle. Assuming I drove those miles in our Prius, which gets 45mpg, and $3.50/gallon of gas that's 112 gallons of gas saved, and $433. Nice.

Five Thousand Miles

On June 21^st, 2010 I started recording my daily rides to work at mapmytracks.com. Today, June 17^th, 2011 I approach one year of recording my rides on my GPS.

5000

 Tomorrow I will ride in a charity event that will take me 62 miles if all goes as planned. That will put me over 5000 miles for the year on my bikes, Ralph and No-name. Something about that nice round number feels good. But what really impresses me about the distance is when I map it using GPS visualizer, I realize all the places I could have made it to if there were a direct bike route between us.

Places such as Timboktu, Mali. I could have traveled to Santiago, Chile. Most of Siberia is covered by my range. Granted most of my travels were to and from work, but imagining all the places that a year of part-time biking could deliver me is pretty impressive when you consider how massive the earth is.

Amharic and Riding

In the past couple of days all of my blog traffic seems to be coming from wife's blog set up to discuss our ongoing adoption from Ethiopia.

All of my traffic!

First rule of any type of presentation: Know your audience. I figure since you're coming here from Agnostic Adoption maybe I should post something relevant. Of course I have to maintain some order here on my blog, which is about cycling in the Triangle area of North Carolina. So this post is my attempt to speak both about cycling and international adoption.

As you know, if you're arriving from Kyra's blog, we are learning Amharic this summer. Learning any language is a huge undertaking. Learning a language that is in an entirely different family from your first language is even harder. Amharic has several things going for it that make it very difficult. It has its own alphabet, Amharic Fidel (see below), that has no connection to the english alphabet. There are several sounds (The ejectives) that don't occur in English or any European language for that matter. Ejectives are harsh version of some good ol' consonants. Imagine a very hard k, t, or ch. Verb conjugation appears to involve modifying the beginning middle and sometimes end of the verb stem.

Amharic Fidel

Taken together, it looks like Kyra and I have bitten of quite a large bit to chew.

In comes the bike part of this post.

I learned in my high school theater experience, the best way to learn lines is to keep your body in motion while you do it. There is something about kinetic activity that helps my brain work. So I have been using my daily bike commute, that's two hours each day, to work on my Amharic.

I can't read while I ride my bike, I have to concentrate on the road and the traffic around me. However, if I go out with a plan in mind, e.g. recite my body part vocabulary, or practice those sounds that I've never made before, I can make my hour long bike ride a productive learning experience.

I look like a crazy person!

The guy on the bike repeating the sound for the letter K. I've spent several bike rides working on my ejectives, and it has paid off. I'm getting close to being able to reproduce the sounds and put them in words. Getting them into words turns out is the hardest part, so my new exercise is repeating words with multiple ejectives.

Some of my favorites:
Leaf- 'q'tel (That's an ejective k and t right in a row)
Cold- 'qeze'qaza (two ejective k's)
Delicious- 'tafa'ch (Ejective t and ch)

Anyway, the practicing on the bike has been a great addition to my daily commute. We are now working on "simple" verb conjugation. I hope the bike practice will help with this task.