First ride of 2013

Greetings, Internet people!

It's a new year and I'm trying to get off to a good start. I made my first bike commute of the year last Friday, my first ride since October. Yay!

Speaking of that last ride, it did not go so well. This happened:

Yep, my pedal broke off. The thread was completely stripped, so it couldn't even be fixed. I had to catch a ride home for me and my bike.

This time around, it was very cold! I was struggling with the cold and some fatigue about halfway to work when I saw this:

What a great omen. I made it to work in one piece. So did my bike.

The afternoon ride home was warmer. At first. As I got closer to home, the sun started to fade away...

I made my last big descent, which opened up to the valley, and just like that, the cold hit again! I rode without gloves to that point, but I had to stop and re-don my gloves to finish up the ride.

All in all, it was good to bike commute again. I had some muscle soreness for a few days, but I can't wait until I can ride again.

 

Follow Friday

Recap: I began the week by finding out this very blog had been listed among the Best of San Diego 2011 according to San Diego Magazine. They deemed Bike 21 as Best Cycling Porn, which is crazy, and I pledged to 1) post a new photo each day this week, and 2) propose other deserving sources of cycling-related visual media.

























Finally the week has finished, so I figured I would feature four fantastic photogs from the Twitterverse, ala #FollowFriday. Check out the timelines of these folks for some top notch cycling porn pics.

• @BikeCrave: read the tweets of local cyclist and wordsmith Jeff Bean and you'll be treated to scenic vistas from the coast to Palomar. This guy clocks the miles and he's got the photos to prove it. His bikes often are featured in the pics, too, so don't worry about that. One word: Moots. Oh yeah, his blog is (usually mostly writing) really good, too.
• @TimJackson: the former Masi Guy is a self-proclaimed bike nerd, marketing nerd, and social media wonk. Another San Diegan, Tim now shills for Pivot/BH Cycles. You could always count on Tim to tweet sneak peek pics at what was in the works at Masi and it seems to be no different at his new gig. Also: pics of his cute kids.
• @pathlesspedaled: now I'm stretching beyond San Diego. The couple behind The Path Less Pedaled, Russ & Laura, were based in Long Beach for a time, but they've ventured out on a bike tour all over the map. Russ is actually a professional photographer. More than just bikes, they tell stories of the people & places they visit. It's real photojournalism.
• @copenhagenize and @_Cycle_Chic: moving over to the Old World, we've got Mikael Colville-Andersen from the cycling paradise in Copenhagen, Denmark. He's got the trademark on "Cycle Chic" and is a renowned expert on urban mobility, so what more do you need to know? Beautiful people on bikes. But also just regular people on bikes, where it is actually regular to be on a bike. Still, the regular people manage to look hip & stylish all the same. Nary a helmet to be seen.
• Don't forget: All the sites I mentioned the other day are also on the Twitter, too.. @velocult, @ecovelo, and @bikehugger

To close out, I did an impromptu night shoot, as seen above and below.

























Thanks to everyone who has checked out the blog for the first time this week. And if you've been coming back throughout the week, thanks again for that, too. I don't think I can keep this pace up, but maybe I can get in the habit of more regular posts. Maybe.

You can usually find me on Twitter, so follow me @juanrcm

Bike 21 in Chicago

Bikes. Bikes. Bikes. Old bikes. New bikes. Steel bikes. Teal bikes. Bikes with racks. Bikes with sacks. Bikes pulling kids with snacks. Bikes with fenders. Bikes as lenders. Bikes. Bikes. Bikes. 

Bench mural at the Chicago Children's Museum

For the second summer in a row, we took the family out to Chicago. During our trip last year we only spent half the time in the downtown area and I was certainly looking forward to the return trip to experience more of the city. I was astounded by the amount of cyclists out on the Lakeshore bike path. Even back in the city proper I saw cyclists on the street and bikes just locked up everywhere you could lock up a bike, block after block. This year was more of the same.

Maybe I just don't spend enough time in the more cycling-friendly areas of San Diego, but it certainly seems like the Windy City is more of a bike town than America's Finest City. Well, there really is no speculating because, in fact, it IS. Chicago was once named the #1 Bicycle-Friendly City in America by Bicycle Magazine, though it ranked 10th in the most recent list for 2010. San Diego? Nowhere in the Top 50. Anyway, my real point is to not belittle San Diego. Our city does have a lot of things going for it. We've got the weather and the beaches, and, you know, other stuff. I love Chicago in the summer, but I don't really have any immediate plans to go there in the winter.

Anyway, my point is...what IS my point? Oh yeah.

In Chicago I saw a lot of bikes. And it is not just seeing a lot of roadies cruising in packs, like you do see in San Diego, but just regular people riding bikes. Folks just out for a cruise. Folks commuting to/from work. Folks riding their bikes just going...somewhere.

And it was all over Chicago: The downtown Loop? Bikes. Lakeshore? Bikes. Lakeview? Bikes. Lincoln Park? Bikes. On the train, passing by Evanston? Bikes. Ravinia Park? Bikes. So you see, practically every place we went I saw people on bikes.

Cyclist in Oz Park.

I would also like to mention that I saw a plethora of old, lugged steel Schwinn bikes around the city. I know these bikes were actually built in Chicago for a long time, which certainly explains their abundance. It was just cool to see all of them still in regular use.

So, here's a few of my favorite snapshots of the bikes I saw this year. You can see more in my Flickr feed.

Cool vintage Motebecane fixed gear. One of my favorites.

Brooks saddle outfitted with a bunch of bells.
Would love to hear this bike go down the road.

Classy commuter rig.

A Breezer Uptown 8.
I'd never seen a Breezer Bike in person before.

Schwinn World Tourist. This things almost looks new.
Love the matching fenders.

Bike Commutes #16 to 21, in review

The last Bike Commute I really blogged about was #15, I think. Bike Commute #16 was pretty routine, at least I can't remember a thing about it now. I managed to jam Bike Commutes # 17 - 20 all in one week.

During spring break, the elementary school was closed. My mom came down to watch the kids for the week, so we didn't have to take any days off of work. I drove in to work on Monday that week, like usual. Tuesday we decided I would leave a car for my mom & the kids to use and I would carpool with my wife part way and then she would drop me off and I would bike to work. This would be a longer bike commute than normal, but I was up for the challenge.

 

Cesar Chavez Day bike ride

I had the day off on Cesar Chavez Day (March 31). I had to bring my car to the Saab shop (Swedish Auto AB), and while I waited for my car I thought I'd just hop on my bike and roam around downtown San Diego. I saw some old guys playing bocce in Little Italy. I accidentally did an impromptu tour of some of architect Jonathan Segal's buildings, though there are a lot of his buildings that I missed. Cool stuff. I had to stop by Velo Cult bike shop in South Park. I talked to the owner, Sky, for a few minutes and checked out some stuff I'd like to buy for my bike. I finally bought a bell for my bike, too. It was a fun day on the bike.

Check out the Flickr slide show below.

Masi sighting

We went to the San Diego Zoo and I spotted this nice orange Masi fixed gear on the bike rack outside. That is all.

First Bike Commute of 2010

January 6 I made my first bike commute of the New Year. I learned a couple things on this ride. Foremost is that I am not as fast as I thought on the new bike. Apparently this new cycling computer my brother & sister-in-law gave me for Christmas is smarter than me. Or I'm just a dumbass. The cycling computer will stop running the elapsed time when the bike is stopped for more than a few seconds. Makes sense. I didn't realize this when I used the computer's elapsed time to compare to my previous bike commutes timed with my wristwatch. Obviously the watch's stopwatch feature won't stop counting until I tell it to, so it is counting all the time I'm stopped waiting at stoplights.

I hadn't worn my watch on the first bike commute with the Masi. Since I remembered to wear my watch this time around, I figured I would run both clocks as a check. My elapsed time on the cycling computer was 23:15. My watch had me at 27:30. (I'm slightly rounding off the cycle computer time since it does still run as I'm walking the bike into the office since the front wheel continues to roll.) I still think this is a minute or so faster than I usually was on the mountain bike, so I'm still happy, just not as stoked as I was before. Aw, wait, a quick check back into my archives reveals I clocked in at 24 minutes for Bike Commute #4. I think I made all the lights that day, so little stopping. Hrrmm. At least the good news is that from now on I will know how much actual cycling time I am taking, and not counting the extended stops.

Another reminder of how slow I (still) am occurred on the ride home from work. As I'm struggling on the upside of a small valley section, an older guy on a skinny-tired bike blows right past me (I'm running the stock 700x35c 'cross tires - wide by most road bike standards). I do have one excuse: I was wearing a messenger bag, somewhat full of clothes, and it kept shifting on me during the ride home (on the way to work, it was fine). Still, I'm sure it was a pathetic sight, me sucking wind in nearly my lowest gear, and it's not even that steep a grade. Maybe I should have gotten a bike with a triple crank! I tried to blurt out "hey!" to the guy as he passed me, but he didn't give me so much as a sideways glance or nod. Why can't some people just say "hi" instead of being rude assholes?

The commute in pictures post

I rode to work this past Wednesday. I thought I'd take along a camera to try and take some photos along the way. Trying to take photos while riding with my iPhone is tough and it doesn't take very good pics when on the move. Plus, without any manner of wrist strap, there is a large enough probability that I could drop my iPhone and I'd rather not do that.

My wife had our Panasonic Lumix, which would have been nice with its wide-angle Leica lens (it's the ZS1, not the LX3, but still pretty good), especially for "panda" shots. I need some more practice with those. These pics were taken with an older Olympus Stylus. The main plus with this camera is that it is small and basically flat on all sides - it has no odd lumps or lens protrusions - so I could carry it in my shorts pocket without it being annoying. This camera is also supposed to be shockproof up to 5 feet, but they probably didn't test dropping it from a moving bicycle.

Here's my panda portraits. You might recognize my new Twin Six T-shirt (October T-shirt of the Month).