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.

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.

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.

What is it about Portland?

Why does Portland understand the cyclist like no other city in this country? If you don't know what I mean, watch this video:

You see, a bike lane needs to be more than a line painted on a road. There needs to be an acknowledgment that automobiles pose a serious threat to our well-being as cyclists. A well-being we value greatly, hence the constant biking.
I'm not here to pontificate about what is a good bike lane and what is not, there is plenty of that out there. What I want to try and do is explore why Portland understands what makes a safe and inviting bike environment, while other municipalities just paint lines on roads and wonder why it's not enough.  I'm not going to answer these questions, because I don't have the time or energy to do the research. I'm just going to speculate because that takes very little time or energy.

   Could it be that Portland just has reached that point of critical mass that has pushed the city over the precipice. Now that they have enough cyclists the biking development seems to drive itself? I could imagine this becoming a very productive cycle, where better cycling facilities leads to more cyclists leads to even better cycling facilities and so on and so forth. 

  If this self-driven movement is the reason Portland is so good for bikes, then I want to know what was the seed that started the community? And how do I plant that seed where I live? I suppose this is partly why I write this blog, I feel if more people see how to bike commute in the triangle then maybe more will bike commute in the triangle, leading to better facilities to accommodate the growing biking community.

   Alternatively, Portland could have just been blessed with local government with excellent foresight and strong conservation ideology. Because of the green/progressive image I have of Portland, I am prone to believe local government has played a large role in the development of biking facilities in the city. Throw in a couple of city managers who ride bikes and WHAM, you get excellent cycling infrastructure. I am hesitant to believe even a strong local government alone could drive this development because of my time spent in Charlottesville, VA during a time when the mayor was strictly a bike commuter. I saw little good bike infrastructure develop during Mr. Cox's tenure as mayor.

   I'm guessing what Portland has is the perfect storm.  I know they have strong grassroots cycling community that pushes for new infrastructure.  They probably have a government willing and able to provide the new infrastructure, and work out creative solutions that make biking from A to B safe even for young children. Now, how do I get the perfect storm to come to my hometown?

A Beautiful Day For a Ride

So I took a bit of a drenching on my ride home this afternoon. I took my usual route, which is about an hour of riding, plenty of time to get soaked through.  There is nothing like a shower, some dry clothes and a hot cup of coffee (I'm going to put some cocoa in mine) after a ride like that.

I got to turn on all of my blinking lights and plow through the pouring rain. I decided I would also sing at the top of my lungs since nobody would be outside listening to me. Yup, I'm that crazy guy singing and biking in the rain.  I am pretty ill prepared for rides like this, I'm sure there is a way to get from point A to point B on a bike, in the rain, without getting drenched but I don't know of it. Fortunately, it isn't cold in North Carolina at this time of year.

I'm looking forward to pushing my rides into winter this year.  I ride my bike year-round, but usually during the winter I head to the bus stop with my bike.  I'm going to try and bike all the way to work, at least once or twice a week, through the winter this year.

A mini rant

Dear Lady who cut me off at Mt. Moriah Rd,


View Larger Map

     Your little stunt today could have cost a life,  so here are some tips for sharing the road. First off a cyclist going straight at an intersection does have the right of way if you are turning right across the cyclist's path. If the cyclist is already in said intersection you do not have enough time to sneak in front of them and turn. If you absolutely must cut the cyclist off, for God's sake use your goddamn turn signal so s/he knows you're planning to be an asshole, it could make the difference between a pissed off biker and a dead biker.

Thnx Bye