The car that didn't throw garbage

On Friday afternoon, I was pleasantly pedaling my way home from work.  Well, in actuallity, I was coasting my way home from work since the trip home is predominantly downhill, and I am not a person to expend effort if I do not have to... which really makes me wonder why I ride my bike to work.  Oh yes, I am not a person to buy gas if I do not have to either.  I'd say that my 2nd disposition outweighs the first.

Where was I?  Oh yes, I'm riding home from work.  And being the lazy bike commuter that I am, I choose the slightly longer, but signifigantly more downhill route home.  This route has the benefit of allowing me more coasting opportunities, but also has the draw back of being on a much busier road.  With no shoulder.  (With no shoulder is not a full sentence.  As a teacher in America's public schools I should be setting a good example; however, I feel that the sentence "With no shoulder." should remain as I typed it because it emphasizes the fact that there was *shock* no shoulder.)

As I was riding 6 inches to the left of the white line on the shoulderless road, a car approached from behind and began to slow down.  I was overjoyed.  A car that was going to go slow and wait for a safe opportunity to pass.  How exciting! How novel!  How courteous!

I was mistaken.  When it was safe, the car proceeded to pass me.  But what was strange is that the car didn't begin to excellerate once it was clear that they would not be turning me into biker jelly.  They continued passing me at this excruciatingly slow pace. 

I began to brace myself for the screaming of insults or the hurling of garbage.  Why else would you pass so slowly?  I also had my mind firmly focused on memorizing the license plate number.

But then, when I glanced left I saw a teenage girl with an uber-wide grin waving at me madly.  Behind her was her younger sister, also waving madly.  And then there were two other girls that I couldn't properly identify through the windows waving madly.  My good friend Mrs. Wee (psuedonym) was stationed at the wheel.

I'm not sure whether the girls were waving at me excitedly because they were thrilled to see their librarian on the road or because they were just thrilled to be going to see New Moon and thus Taylor Lautner.

Priorities

Last Friday night Anthony and I took a road trip to meet up with some others for dinner at a really really awesome restaurant that had really awesomely affordable meals that were delicious too.  I believe Anthony was mainly impressed with the inexpensively priced beers, but I should point out that while my soda was more expensive, it got a free refill.

On our drive down to Reading we passed through one area that has a decent sized Amish population.  While not all of you get to see the Amish on a regular basis, I'm sure you know the basics.  Cars - No.  Buggies, bicycles, and walking - Yes.

I love riding down in Lancaster, because not only is the scenery beautiful (if a little redundant, "Hey, look! A corn field!", bathrooms are easy to find), but you get the added thrill of occasionally yelling "On your left!" to a horse.  That's right, I enunciate every syllable, wanna make something of it? 

Back to my story... On the way to reading, I noticed a couple of flashing red lights on the shoulder up ahead of us, and as we approached I saw that it was a pair of Amish girls on their bicycles probably riding home after a day's work.  Each of their bikes was equiped with the requisite milk crate that I see on most bikes in Amish county.  They also each had 1 blinkie and 1 headlight.

It struck me as rather ironic that they would go out of their way to attach safety lights to the conveyances when I have never once seen any Amish go out of their way to attach a brain bucket to their head, even those children who are under 12 and therefore required by law to wear a helmet.  I am well aware that a helmet is hardly the end-all and be-all of cycling safety, but I'm sure you'll agree when I say that it is a rather standard part of that safety.  Also, a helmet is WAY more afordable than the combined cost of a quality lighting system.  I even found this PDF from Ohio State University that seems to be encouraging Amish to wear helmets.  I guess OSU has forgotten that the average Amish home is not equiped with DSL.

But then I got to thinking.  If you told me that I had to go ride at night, but I had to choose, lights or helmet NOT both, what would I choose?  I also tried to imagine what kind of situation would force me to make this decision, but I came up blank.  In the end I decided that I would rather have the lights since they are a preventative measure... trying to prevent me from getting hit, whereas the helmet is the last ditch effort to save my sorry butt after I get hit.  Lets try prevention first, shall we?

Make it to the church on time

So I leave the house at 8 AM this morning knowing 2 things:

1. I have to be at church at 9:30 to teach Sunday School
2. It takes me a little over an hour to get to church

At about 8:30 AM I realized two more things:

1. Sunday School had been cancelled and I had forgotten
2. The service had been moved to 9 AM and I had forgotten

I couldn't be late because I was responsible for recording the service today.  (Aren't we nice, we record CDs to send to shut-ins).  I had 30 minutes to get there, give or take a few since I can't trust the accuracy of the cyclometer clock.

Judging by the fact that I had left the house intending to arrive at 9:10 I had my work cut out for me.  I attacked hills that I really didn't want to attack.  I pedaled down hills that I really wanted to coast.  All the way sweating my butt off because I was really overdressed for the unexpected warm weather, but I didn't want to stop for fear that 30 seconds of jacket or hat removal would tip the scales to make me too late.

By the time I got to the drive leading up the hill towards church, I figured I could sit back, at this point any extra effort I put out would only change my arrival time by a matter of seconds.  I pulled under the covered walkway leading to the doors, leaned Transformer against the wall, ripped off both paniers and headed inside.  I made it to the tape room where my father had thankfully gotten a blank CD set up for recording.  (My dad is a genius.  He is smart enough to know when I am too stupid to remember a change in service time.)  I collapsed on the floor of the taping room (so called because we used to record the service on actual tapes), banging my elbow on the metal leg of the table in the process and giving myself a bruise.  And I embraced the bonky feeling.  Not a true bonk mind you, just a bonky feeling.

By the way, I couldn't get anyone to generate any pitty for me over my elbow bruise.  But let me tell you, it hurt.

A screw loose

This morning as I was riding to work I was thinking, "Gee, there is a lot of slop on my left foot!"

As this was my first experience with the Crank Brothers / Lake winter boots combination, I sort of came to the conclusion that this was not a good shoe/pedal combination.  Then, as I pulled up to a stop in front of the school and gracefully toppled over onto my side, I affirmed this belief.  So after wrestling myself out from under the 38 pound bike (and yes, I just stood on the scale to confirm this number), I checked to see if anybody had witnessed this.  Confirmed that indeed I had been spotted, then hung my head in shame and went inside.

It quickly became evident that my left foot was making a different noise from my right foot.  Whereas the right foot thunked loudly on the floor, the left foot made more of a chiming note, like the tintabulation of clunky bell.  So upon inspection I discovered a loose cleat.  By the time I reached my roome, that cleat was spinning around on it's one remaining screw.  Fortunately for me, the screw was spotted in the 7th grade hallway by a social studies teacher and repairs were made before I left for home.

I cannot imagine what life would be like trying to ride home with one cleat and a road sole. 

Batteries are cheap

Work technically doesn't start for another 15 minutes, so in 15 minutes or less, you will have the distinct privilege of reading about my first commute in 3.5 weeks.  Of course, you'll probably read faster than I type, so make that 5 minutes or less.  (I have now spent some time editing for the benefit of those of you reading for the first time.)

I see that Steve A made two very insightful comments yesterday, or this morning (well at least sometime after I went to bed last night).  Comment #1 was on my post about the relative pitifulness of a red-blinky when pitted against the awesome power of the sun.  His quote (which was quoting somebody else, and which I am paraphrasing here): "batteries are cheap so you might as well leave the light on."  I'm down to 10 minutes, I don't have time to look up exact phrases.  Sorry.

Comment #2 was "Tell us about your ride."  Of course referring to this mornings commute on legs that spent 30 minutes doing lunges with the extremely rude Jillian Michaels as trainer.

In any case, little did Steve A know that his first comment on batteries (which I didn't read till AFTER I got to work was the most important statement of all.)  Oh, I intend to fully address #2 as well.

The only thing that saved me this morning, was the fact that I remembered to plug in my Cutter headlight last night.  This is something that I always forget to do, and then this light always peters out after a few minutes.  This morning, as I unplugged the Cutter from it's charger and snapped it onto it's mount, I considered changing the batteries in the Cat Eye since they haven't been changed in a REALLY long time

Of course, at 5:15 AM this morning, I hadn't yet read Steve A's post informing me that batteries are cheap.  So I did not change the batteries. 

At approximately 5:45, fifteen minutes into my commute, I had one of those moments where I realized that a car was passing me without the requisite 3 feet required by law, and I was aimed dead at a pothole.  So I faced the pothole with a kind of resigned annoyance.  No use being upset, I was going in and there was nothing I could do about it.  (Like the time Lufthansa told me my carry-on was too big and I had to spend an entire flight to Germany with NOTHING to occupy my time... annoying, but nothing I could do about it).

When I hit the pothole, the elastic band holding my headlamp around my helmet did an awesome shift, and the entire headlamp flipped off my head.  Fortunately, I was able to retrieve all pieces and stash them in a pannier.

At around 6:00 I noticed that the pavement in front of me got noticeably dimmer.  Cue the dying of the Cat Eye batteries.  So, that left me with only the Cutter; the light that I have learned not to trust, because even when I do remember to charge it, it never seems to last.

I began thinking of contingency plans.  If I lost my last headlight, what would I do?  Would it be best to just dismount and walk until dawn?  I had plenty of time as a buffer.  Should I call somebody to come get me?  I hate doing that because it makes it seem like the bike is not a good form of transportation (when really all of my problems are caused by user error).

Fortunately, I didn't have to make this decision as the Cutter proved itself worthy of the money my father spent on it for Christmas last year.

My new plans:

1. Secure headlamp with velcro ties for security while riding yet still easy removal.
2. Label the Cat Eye with the replacement date of batteries so that they can be replaced again before it gets too late.
3. Dig out my 4th headlight from the bike box and mount it on the bars so that I have another spare.