Bike Blog

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It's easier to volunteer than be drafted
So, while I can go for long spans of time without needing a car and, whenever my wife is out of town on business, let the car sit in the parking spot or let her take it with her... well, my wife still drives. And last weekend, without much warning, we ended up carless all weekend because the car…

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Car privilege and condoning the murder of innocents
We have a mailing list for my neighborhood. And we have a problem with cars in my neighborhood. See, we've got a grade school near the park.. and the park has a crossing guard. And so a few months ago the crossing guard was hit and injured by a car while trying to ensure that things were safe. And…

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2011 200km Two Rock brevet
I deliberately avoided posting this for a while because you need to understand the context behind it. But I always like to tell all of the stories that I've done. Between November 2010 and Febuary 2011, I've been looking for a job. This means that I had to drive to work a few times because I didn't…

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A visitor from Sweden, or the cornerstone of my anti-car ranting
I was biking home from work. Behind me, two other cyclists were helping a third one, who was a bit lost and trying to get to Santa Clara, one town over. So, eventually, I offered to ride with her to get her un-lost and closer to her destination.. because it was pretty much on the way home for me…

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2011 200km Lighthouse brevet
Last year, I did the 200km Lighthouse brevet on a mountain bike, crashed, and walked my bike to the finish. This year, I aimed to do it on my new road bike and to not crash. I'd been working on my gearing up situation for the past year, figuring out how I could be a little more efficient and…

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2011 200km Lighthouse brevet prep
I'm signed up for the Point Reyes brevet with the San Francisco Randonneurs next weekend. This was, for a while, a cause of a certain amount of bellyaching. See, I'd put off registering for the brevet for a while for various reasons... and then I saw the email saying that all of the 150 slots had…

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New bike shorts... or how I understand women much better now
Even though I’m saving an insane amount of money because I don’t drive most of the time, I still hate spending too much money on bike stuff. Even though it’s one of the activities I do extremely consistently, it still feels like a little bit of affectation. As such, I have one short-sleeved jersey…

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Mortality (mine) and bonus time
To be honest, I'm somewhat surprised I made it through the period between when I was about 25 and 30. It was, while nobody was really aware of it, very depressing and I recognize now that, had it would continued, offing myself would have started to make a lot of sense. I mean, I wasn't suicidal, but…

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Brakes break
Just a reminder.... I was riding last weekend on a group ride and, before I started, one of the guys reminded me that the quick release on my front brake was open. I'd been monkeying with the front wheel previously, so I'd probably just forgotten about it. And, because the QR on road bike brakes…