Travels with Ralph

I've decided to name my bike. I didn't think long or hard about the name. I knew one thing I wanted to avoid the cliché treatment of vehicles as female. Plus the placement of his frame pump is decidedly not female:

Ralph

That's right, his name is Ralph. It's simple. It's easy to remember. It's synonymous with vomiting.

My wife asked me, "Why Ralph"? My answer, "Why not"?

I've had Ralph since January, and we've traveled over 2600 miles together. A major chunk of that (1087 miles) was when I was competing in the MarchMiles competition over at mapmytracks.com. A competition I came very close to winning if it hadn't been for the sneaky exploits of my closest rival in the competition, Roystein. 

While Ralph and I did not emerge from that competition at the top of the podium, we did emerge very familiar with each other. And we had some serious fun along the way.

Cool Guy, Cargo Bike

This video has little to do with biking. However, this guy is awesome, and he seems to move some pretty heavy stuff on his bike. So there's your tie-in to this blog.

Make Every Day Bike-to-Work Day

Somehow I missed that May 12^th was bike-to-work day across the country. Don't get me wrong, I biked to work, I just can't say I saw any sign of it being any different from the rest of the week, month, or year. In the triangle I didn't see scores of cyclists crowding the streets to participate in the event. It seems as though most of the bike-to-work day events that come up on a Google search are in sunny southern California.

Dear Triangle,
    We don't live in California. I know it has been a bit muggy/drizzly/cool here in the Triangle, to which I say you don't know the pleasure of riding in this weather unless you've tried it. I generally don't like to ride through downpours, but drizzle, sprinkles, showers, mist are all delightful riding companions...as long as you have a change of clothes, and fenders.

Sincerely,
Tabb

What I'm getting at is that I think just about every day in the triangle could be bike-to-work day. The weather is almost always acceptable. In the winter daylight is a bit short making it hard to bike both to and from work, but the triangle bus systems are great at filling in the after-dark/before-light gaps.

Anyhow, bike-to-work day may actually be on May 20^th, and bike-to-work week May 16^th-20^th. This discrepancy with other reports putting bike to work day on May 12^th just tells me cyclactivistas^TM need to get our own act together and start communicating to pick one day. It could make for a more impressive showing if bike-to-work day happens on one day.

Come out and bike with me any day, the invitation is open, sadly nobody is responding. I know you're out there dying to start biking to work. See Y'all out there.

Velos et le Vin

Kyra and I have started a new activity, which we really enjoy, and I hope we do several more times over the spring and summer months. It started on a beautiful Saturday in February, when we loaded the bikes on the car and headed west to the small town of Saxapahaw, North Carolina. I knew we had biking and dinner plans, but there was also to be a birthday surprise for me along the way. Turns out the surprise was a wine tasting excursion near the end of our ride at Benjamin Vineyards. It was a very nice end to a lovely ride through rural North Carolina.
    Well today we did it again making it almost a tradition. Today we parked the car at Horizon Cellars and Winery, just south of Siler City, NC. We went on a 23 mile ride and at the end we did a wine tasting and sat on the Winery's deck to each sip a glass of wine chosen after the tasting. Again, it was a lovely day, and we had a very nice time riding among NC farmland. We saw cows, horses, llamas, goats, and heard some roosters along the way.
     At the winery we sat in the fading afternoon sun and sipped red wine and relaxed. I think we'll do that again soon.

Short repost on Safety

I think this guy shares a lot of my personal safety procedures when riding so instead of writing my own post on being safe I'll do the lazy thing and repost his blog entry on "Conversations With US".

Like he says, be safe out there.