Dangers of bicycling

This is a horrifying article about two cyclists that were shot at by guys in a pickup truck in an upscale community near Houston while riding home from work:

Shotgun Blast fired at 2 on bikes in Woodlands.

Sometimes my faith in humanity is really, really challenged, as it was in the case of the physician I blogged about here, who weaponized his car to assault two cyclists because he didn't like them riding in his upscale neighborhood.

What is wrong with us? Really?

Fundraising, and bicycles

I'm very happy to be back in Atlanta, even if only for a few days. It's awfully nice to sleep in my own bed, and use my own shower. Even silly little stuff like having a coffee maker that I know how it works is nice.

Enough smalltalk: gentle readers, I want you to consider donating to a fundraising ride I'm doing at the end of the month for the Children's Hospital Foundation of Denver. As some of you know, I'm not very good at fundraising, in large part because I don't like asking for money. So, while I may or may not hit you up personally by email, I'd really like you to consider donating.

The Children's Hospital Courage Classic is a three day, 155 mile bike ride up and down mountain passes in Colorado I'll be riding in honor of J's best friend from medical school, Gretchen. She died in New Orleans in a boating accident in 2005, right at the end of her pediatrics residency, just before returning to Colorado to be a pediatrician in Rifle.

Gretchen's father and brothers have been riding this ride for the last few years, to honor her life, and her commitment to pediatric medicine, which she was natural at: she had an immense amount of love, compassion, dedication. She was genuinely one of the kindest people I have ever known.

Gretchen's death was, in a strange way, sort of caused by Hurricane Katrina (which I flew to New Orleans to assist with protests, rebuilding, and resistance work around, and to stay at Gretchen and Frank's house, only to show up on the doorstep and find out they had drowned two days before.) This drowning was a little different than the ones we heard so much news coverage of: Gretchen and Frank went out in a boat that Frank had built on Lake Pontchartrain shortly after the hurricane, it capsized in high winds, and they held on for hours: long enough to shred their lifejackets from the friction of the boat bobbing up and down. Before the hurricane, a boat floating out on Lake Pontchartain within a half mile of the Pontchartrain Causeway would have been cause for alarm. Not so after the hurricane, when debris was still floating throughout the lake, thoughout New Orleans. So for J and I, and perhaps for Gretchen and Frank's families, the official death toll from Katrina should be 1,838.

I've wanted to do this ride in previous years, and the stars all lined up this year: I'm going to fly back to Detroit, ride my bike from there to Denver, and do the ride. Then maybe I'll ride to California and thank some of you in person for donating. That remains up in the air.

Okay. Writing that made me cry, so I'm going to wrap up. Please consider donating toward my measly $300 fundraising goal at: www.couragetours.com/siteapps/personalpage/SearchPage.aspx?c=tmL0KbN0LxH&b=5612731, and plugging in my name. Any amount you can afford is awesome. Really. Thank you.

Fielding Street, Ferndale (Detroit) MI

This its a random sidewalk that kinda acts like a street in my sister in law's neigh,borhood, about three blocker from her house.

Detroit, Atlanta, Tennessee, Atlanta, Detroit, Denver.

Phew! I'm tired just typing that title. The US Social Forum has been fantastic, exhausting, exhilarating. I'm so glad I came. I rode with and met some fantastic people, and got to see friends in Detroit from many areas and timeframes of my life. That being said, I'm definitely happy to get back to Atlanta for a couple weeks.

Then go to Tennessee for an event. Then fly back to Detroit. Then ride my bike to Denver. I have such an amazingly great life.

Detroit is a city facing immense challenges, not the least of which is an urban core that has been in decay for four decades or so.


I stayed with J's sister and her boyfriend in a near suburb, which provided for plenty of bicycling and exposure to the city that I missed the last time I was here, in fall 2008.

Detroit is a city with an immense amount of heart; as cliche as it might sound, an immense amount of soul. Nearly every Detroiter I talked to had a sense of hope, of optimism, of struggle. I have no real desire to live here, but there is a tangible sense of energy, of passion.

Okay, I know my readers have been starving, pun intended, for food porn. Cooking in someone else's kitchen when they aren't around can be a little like camping when you haven't packed your bags well, and can't find anything. I made a tofu scramble this morning to use up some produce that would otherwise go bad:

ONIONS!

Peppers!

Tofu!

Cook it!

Add some spinach!

Eat it!

More to follow. Really. Maybe.

O Canada!

Today I volunteered on an urban organic farm in Buffalo trellising tomatoes for four hours, then our group returned to the community center where we're camping on the floor and I facilitated a discussion of the legal and logistical issues around crossing into Canada tomorrow, then facilitated a discussion of the politics and social justice issues around borders. Then I spent about three hours fixing and fitting people's bikes for them. Then I cleaned my drivetrain.

Sitba is still performing like a rockstar, after rolling over 1,000 miles on this tour coming into Buffalo yesterday. She's the prettiest bike on the ride, but I can't tell her so: I don't want her getting a big head about it.

I'm totally loving this. I have a ridiculously great life.

Internet access will be limited or nonexistent while in Canada, since I'm unwilling to pay verizon for data or voice roaming unless it's a legitimate emergency. So, more blogging to come when we get to Detroit!

Shuffle off to Buffalo!

I'm now with a group ride, headed to Detroit for the US Social Forum. While I love solo bike touring, it's really great to be riding with many wonderful people, committed activists, and eating the amazing food being prepared for us. I'm working on the medic team, and assisting with some legal stuff. The medic team work has mostly been pestering people about sunscreen, hydration, and a little poison ivy treatment.

In Rochester we were hosted by the incredibly generous and kind folks at the Flying Squirrel Community Space, where we did some volunteer work for them: replacing damaged acoustic ceiling tiles and painting all of the tiles in a room that's about 100 feet by 40 feet, removing a non-functional urinal from a bathroom, painting trim, cleaning and organizing their kitchen, and I removed an unused commercial kitchen ventilation fan from a wall and covered up the vent hole, and hole in the wall.

Tomorrow we're doing a group work project at the farm for the very kind folks hosting us at the Massachusetts Ave Project of the Grant Street Neighborhood Center.

Lots of pictures to follow, but today was 92 miles from Rochester to Buffalo, so I'm exhausted. BED!

Fast Times at College X

My college reunion was ridiculous, wonderful, funny. As many of you know, I went to a college that is, well, special.

Drinking copious amounts of beer with professors I never took a class with, people (not me) stealing golf carts, my mural still up on the basement wall where I painted it almost 17 years ago (inexplicably, since all the others, in a project that I initiated and got funded, have been painted over), wandering through the forest and farm center at night, the pool and sauna I spent so many great hours de-stressing. It was amazing.

Improvising

This might be the first in a series of single photo posts, unless I can get Blogaway to let me upload more than one photo at a time.

This is how to dry your biking jersey after sink washing it, since hanging it on the shower rod and hoping just doesn't cut it in a humid climate. And lemme tell you, putting on clammy wet biking clothes in the morning just isn't a hell of a lot of fun.

Tank crossing

From my ride though Camp Lejeune marine corps base. There was also incredibly loud artillery fire for the second half of the ride.

Rails to Trails, aka mountain biking

This isn't from the worst trails that google maps tried to send me on (the Southern New England Trunk Line, and the northern portion of the Airline North State Park Trail, both in northeastern Connecticut.) It's actually from the day before, on the trail I mention in  this post which was comparatively great biking.

This tunnel had standing water deep enough that a couple big sucks and rocks I tossed into it disappeared entirely. I'm not a fan of cycling with wet, muddy shoes, so I scrambled up the hillside, crossed the road, and scrambled back down.

Yesterday was another one of those rocky days in my tenuous relationship with Google Maps. When it sent me onto a dirt road on my third turn, a mile and a half into my ride, I seriously thought we might need to break up. (Hint: Cody Road in Fitchburg, MA is dirt.)  Shortly thereafter, it routed me through a church parking lot, and what was basically someone's back yard.

We're working on it. I have to work on it too, mostly by not putting so much trust in it, until it has worked on some of its issues. I'm looking in to relationship therapy.

Gardening, and green with envy

This is only part of my friend D's ridiculously lush backyard garden in Boston. His herbs grow like weeds. I miss being able to garden outside, though I've never had herbs like this, even in Alaska. Unless you count that fennel plant we could have used as a christmas tree. (The red cabbage the size of beach balls weren't herbs.)

D truly has the greenest thumb of anyone I know, and if I hadn't been the beneficiary of huge amounts of fresh herbs for the five days I stayed with them, I'd be even more envious.

For waking me up

Confidential to T: not all of us wake up at the ass crack of dawn. What were you thinking, calling me that early? You know I have much more embarrassing photos from your fridge than leaving the spoon in the peanut butter, right?

Reader Poll! How many of you leave the spoon in the peanut butter jar when you put it back in the fridge? Be honest.

Hills

I knew that western Mass was going to be hilly, but I'd forgotten what a gutbusting slog 202 from Athol to Pelham was. The upsides are two: it's almost all downhill from Pelham to Amherst, and I'm now sitting in Amherst Brewing Company drinking a ridiculously good oak aged double hopped double IPA. Too bad I still have three miles to go to the hotel.

Leaving Normal

With apologies to my favorite band. And okay, yes, as most of you know, I left normal a long time ago.

Actually, I'm leaving Boston, after a really great 5.5 days here. I spent a good chunk of it helping a friend clean out a cavernous basement chockablock full of books. The books ranged from very valuable, like a first edition of Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, to junk, to mold infested junk. It was an adventure.

And yesterday I ran into another friend completely randomly at the T station (hi C!) who has this uncanny knack of finding me when I'm in JP. I think she has me under surveillance. (C, do you have me under surveillance?) We had a lovely play date at the playground with two ~2 year olds, catching up.

Today probably just riding to Worcester or so, the on tomorrow to somewhere in the Happy Valley.

While it was really good to get a rest (if you can call lugging box after box of books up basement stairs resting), I can't wait to be back on the bike again. Speaking of which, I better get to it!

Google Maps, we need to talk.

Google Maps, ummm, we need to talk. I think we might need to break up. Not permanently, maybe just a trial separation while you get some help for your issues.

Yesterday's 57.4 miles from Mansfield Center, CT, to Milford, MA was the second or third most difficult day of cycling I have ever done. More difficult that 150 miles on a loaded mountain bike through Los Angeles? No. More difficult than 26 miles on snow and ice in Anchorage when it was 25 below zero? I'm not sure on that one.

Google Maps has this sillyass notion that the Airline North State Park Trail, north section, is suitable for bicycling. IT'S NOT. Just in case anyone finds this page while, oh, I don't know, GOOGLING, I'll repeat that: it is NOT SUITABLE for cycling. It's an unfinished Rails To Trails, and is loose sand that would be difficult even on an unloaded mountain bike, and is basically impossible on anything else. After walking for about a mile of it (imagine pushing a loaded touring bike for a mile on the beach, except the beach has poison ivy) I cut down through someone's yard to escape.

Later in the day, I attempted the Southern New England Trunk Line rails to trails, also on Google Maps sadistic recommendation. It is a series of rolling bumps that are basically impossible to ride. I even found hikers and runners online saying it's unsuitable for them. Too bad I didn't find those comments first.

Good things: I got to my hotel just in time to sit in the hot tub and watch the torrential downpour, and remembered I packed Lanacane in my first aid kit, which is very nice for poison ivy.

All this said, it's still an amazing life to be able to get up and ride my bike every day.

Today, BOSTON!

And yes, once I have a full keyboard in front of me, I am going to write to google with the various suggestions i have for fixing their very, very beta bicycling directions.

Good, hard, beautiful, grateful.

That yesterday's maximum speed was 41.0 mph (the fastest I've had the Surly) and my average speed was only 11.2 mph speaks to a tough riding day. It was also one of the most pleasant so far.

Eastern Connecticut is hilly. Seriously. I knew that as I got into New England the flat oceanside riding was over, but i'd forgotten how damn hilly it can be here.

And beautiful. The smells of mixed northern hardwood woodland and forest are so deep, so... lush. I think I still love western forests more, but it's amazing how the smell can bring me back to college, to outdoor trips, to figuring out who I was to be.

Speaking of smells, at least one of my readers (hi, S!) would also be transported back to a certain summer school for the arts we both worked at by the smell of the hallway of this Best Western: they are replacing the carpet, and have mattresses piled up in the hallways, and it smells just like the dorms did at the beginning and end of those summers. Another really good smell, good set of memories, good time of self discovery.

Due to my request for a ground floor room so I wouldn't have to muscle the loaded bike up stairs, I was accidentally put in the wing they are doing construction on and renovating, so I have it entirely to myself. It's a little strange, but also neat. S, imagine having McN to yourself for a night.

Yesterday included about twelve miles of varying packed dirt on rails-to-trails, some as wide as 15 feet and packed like Alta late on a powder day weekend, some of it legitimate singletrack.

I now am 792.7 miles into the tour, have 1358.8 miles on the Surly, and 2524.1 miles on this bike computer.

Every day while riding, I say to myself out loud, "FUCK, I HAVE A GOOD LIFE." Usually multiple times, often in a row.

Thank you, J - for everything. I love you.

Connecticut, and that city south of it

Spent a good three days in NYC with T, doing some treacherous city riding, which was an entertaining change of pace from touring. T and his 7 year old daughter, I, commute by bike ten miles every day to and from school, from the south Bronx to Manhattan. Pretty badass for a seven year old.

T and I emptied and reorganized his bike closet, replaced the pump in his washing machine, and I did a major cleaning of their fridge while they were gone. Also got to hang out with their ridiculous cane corso (another name for an Italian Mastiff) and equally ridiculous hairless Egyptian cat. I've started calling their condo The Menagerie.

Then I rode up, with a little distance assistance from the MNR, to J's brother and sister's house west of Hartford, for a very pleasant dinner, laundry, bed, getting my malpractice insurance renewal together, and most importantly, spending time with their three adorable children. They are all delightful, and almost creepy smart. I love other people's children!

Today is an easy day, due to the death of camping and hotels in eastern Connecticut. Hugely looking to Boston.