Green Options

Like many cities, Buffalo has a number of reuse organizations and a few which concentrate on alternative forms of transportation; alternatives to driving, that is.
Green Options is the main one of which I am aware and it includes kind of a sub organization called Buffalo Blue Bikes. BBB's function is to take donated bikes and place them in densely populated areas where members can borrow them.
Today was a beer centered fundraiser. I volunteered to pour beer, which is maybe like putting me in charge of the M&Ms. But I don't really drink much; it just makes me less efficient. Here is a picture of the bike valet parking, which was increasingly popular as the day progressed. Yummy beer: Flying Bison.




Here is an image from a nearby commercial area called Elmwood Village. Note the mostly full bike racks.




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Training 3

It is always refreshing to discuss bicycling with other cyclists. As much as I enjoy telling non-cyclist, roadies and commuters about the joys of touring, it is simply unusual for me to find other touring cyclists.
The knot challenge. Don't let go of someone's hands, but untie the group.



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Training Day 2

Even though this is is an Adventure cycling training, since it focuses on leadership there is very little cycling involved, of course.
We did go out for a quick jaunt in late afternoon. The purpose was to model what a group shopping trip might be like. Not quite an accurate picture, since there are 24 of us and a normal tour usually maxes out at around 12. In addition, since there is a fridge and we don't have to carry the extra, we shopped for the rest of the week as well and sent it all back to camp in a car. Normally there would be just 2 people in the store, but we all went in, because all are responsible for the cooking.
All ranges of bikes were represented, from folders, to old school to mountain and carbon fibre racing.







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Adventure Cycling Leadership Training

Six months ago I decided to sign up for this leadership training and that is pretty much what it takes to reserve a spot. The motivation comes from an epiphany I had after coming back from Portland last year. The best way to advocate for cyclists is to get more cyclists on the road. Currently commuting is my basic advocacy. I took an online survey last week for a cycling advocacy group and one of the questions was: to about how many curious people do you talk about beginning cycling (in other words, "how do you handle the logistics of cycling"? After some thought, the math astonished me: about 300 people a year. I end up advocating almost once a day. And these are people asking me for information, I didn't necessarily bring it up.
So how did I handle the logistics of this trip?
I bought the trailer conversion kit for the suitcase my Bike Friday packs into, put it together and gave the whole deal a 20 mile test run. This suitcase is able to be checked as regular luggage. My gear went into a duffle and I used my handlebar bag as a purse. It was imperative to remember to pack my first aid scissors and nail clippers in the suicase.
This training takes place 57 miles from Richmond, VA. I met up with friends from the Trans Am trip from last summer and one of them rode to the training me, while the other drove the car.



You know you have cool cycling friends when the driver wishes she could ride instead of driving the car.
A beauttiful day to ride, especially since the spring has been so long in coming and great company to boot.
We relied on printed directions from Google Maps for bikes. Pretty excellent until the last 10 miles when the directions became confusing and were reduced to "turn right in 365ft" and there was a bend in the road, but nothing else. Google maps on the phone was also not useful,since there was no signal. A VA map might not have helped either, since we were off the beaten path. 57 miles turned into 77 miles and we got to the training with 15 sqeeky minutes to spare.
We crossed the James River,







saw hog farms, a Cyprus swamp and generally enjoyed the day.
















The evening was consumed by the training meet and great and initial scheduling.
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Google Maps, cycling directions and MyMaps

Missing from Google Maps cycling directions is a way to save those directions to the MyMaps application (available if you have a Google account only).  A save option is available if you use the driving directions, but not if you want to route using no tolls, walking or cycling.
This site does a pretty good job of hinting at the fix for saving cycling directions to MyMaps. The missing piece is this:

Paste the "link" email results in the address bar of a new tab, then add &output=kml part to the end of the address; hit return- this will cause google to ask if you want to save the file, which can be imported.

One warning- the directions format differently after you import them to MyMaps.  If you like them the original way, you should print or convert them to a pdf.

Becoming more normal

Doing most things, including errands, shopping and commuting has been mostly my domain in Buffalo, especially in the winter.
Things are changing, however. There were more cyclists out this winter than ever before, some even pretty hard core. Shopping has continued to be where I stand alone. Some people do run for small things or emergency items, but doing a family's shopping is unusual.



Today I parked next to this very unusual bike and thought "Wow".
It made my little trailer and milk bottles look wimpy. In addition to the huge box on the back, there was a small hard case box on the front. Both the yellow rear box and front had padlocks on them.

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Making the best of it

It is difficult to motivate myself to get out there and ride for fun when the weather is so unpleasant. The 30-40 degree temperatures could be dealt with, but in conjunction with the daily precipitation riding became untenable.
Friday's forecast looked much more pleasant, beginning with temps at freezing at 7am and building to near 50 later in the day with no precipitation.
I jumped on my bike and headed out of town. The nice thing about agreeing to meet someone somewhere far away and they are driving, is that they can rescue your sorry butt if you don't make it. So I agreed to meet this cute guy, to whom I'm married, 90 miles away in the Finger Lakes.
He passed me and stopped to chat at about 70 miles out from Buffalo, tried to give me a lift, then moved on. I was kind of tired, but a goal is a goal and I only had 20 miles left.
How did I route myself? I started out following a set of google maps for bikes printed directions, but quickly (30miles in) realized that the extra miles google added to keep me off major thouroughfares was going to add about 10 miles. Since I really haven't trained this year and the weather wasn't fabulous, I decided to stick to route 20. The speed limit is generally 55, but it goes through small towns and has a 5 foot shoulder.
Listening to RadioLabs podcasts pretty much the whole way, I noticed little orange plastic tags nailed to the shoulder. They were seemingly quite random. At one point I slowed to look more carefully and found they were actually tiny orange bowtie pastas. So bizarre! They lasted about 20 miles, barely decreasing in frequency until Avon, when I must have diverged from their path. All sorts of scenarios jumped from my head on this one. Someone abducted and stowed in a trunk or some little kid in a carseat dropping a 40 lb bag out the window one bowtie at a time...


I arrived in Canandaigua at 5pm, tired, hungry and stiff, but in good spirits and far from spent. Staying at Bella Rose b&b. Very nice, sweet hosts and excellent breakfasts. This is wine country!





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Adventure Cycling Flickr Post

Oooooh. 15Kb of fame.  4/5 of the way down. See us all!  (1) Bobby, (2)Rich, Nick and Mac, (3)Mike, Heidi, Jamie, (4) Sara, Leslie, Janelle, Ted, Bill.  Soooooo cool.

Returning to Bicycle Gearing

I came across my original table for calculating the gear ratios and gear inches of my original road bike. Searching through my older posts, I realized I never put that information out there, even after I had decided to buy the Bike Friday New World Tourist.  Determined to not dive into spending more money without guaranteed results, I had used this very fine site to determine the inches and ratios of each bike to make sure I would be gaining something meaningful.

Steps:

1. make a table with the number of teeth on each chain ring in the front and each cog in the back
2. divide the front chain ring teeth by each of the rear ring cogs to get the proportional (ratio) size difference between them for each combination
3. mulitply the size of your wheel by the proportion (ratio to 1) to get the gear inches.

Note in the case of my two bikes that I lost a little at the top end of the BF (I can't pedal downhill as fast), but gained significantly at the bottom end. The highest gear inch on the BCA is over 100 and on the BF it is only 94.55.  The lowest on the BCA however, is 28.93.  On the BF, I can get all the way down to 18.75.  Screaming downhill was far less important than effectively chugging up those steep hills. My top speed on the BF was 49mph, by the way.

Still snowing; Work on blog

Totally unrelated to bikes, bicycling or touring. Indoor hobbies- no not that one.
I decided to rework my blog, since it is so depressing outside. I can look at my bright, cheery computer screen.
One of my issues was that my blog only had 2 columns, causing the right column "stuff" to extend way too far down the page. Also, my pages where taking up space in the right column. Thinking I had to get a new template, I began searching for a new 3 column template, when low and behold a thing of beauty popped up in the results. This kind and industrious person scoured the internet to simply turn a 2 column template into a 3 column. And she/he DOCUMENTED it for the rest of us!
This is why I harp at work at documenting discoveries. So sweet. And quick (for me).
So a SHOUTOUT to the perseverance of a fellow blogger.

Weather report

Early last week- weather report for this week:
highs in the mid to upper 50's, lows in the mid 40's, very little rain

Middle of last week:
highs in the mid 50's, lows in the low 40's, chance of rain

End of last week:
highs in the low 50's, lows near 40, chance of thunderstorms

Reality:
Highs near 40, lows in the low 30's, snow

I looked out on my planned trip to the Finger Lakes on my ONE WEEK BREAK and saw 26 mile per hour winds and snow. Then I wimped out. Maybe I'll leave on Monday. Nope. Still snowing. Maybe Tues...



Cleaning bike instead. White BCA is perpetually nicked and dirty. So I am trying out black nail polish, paint pens and sharpies. Here is pretty much how I was thinking it would look. Pretty amazing, but we'll see if mine comes out nearly as spectacular. The BCA name is a little odd. With a mixed brand history, it seems unclear whether I got a really high quality bike, but it has lasted extremely well in my hands. Some leads state BCA was related to Ross.
I've started by making some doodles on paper. I realize the paper is flat and the bike is not, thank you very much.

NO RAINPANTS or SNOWBOARD MITTENS this afternoon! 34 degrees!

Business First called me for an interview today. It was an interesting experience. I wrote down some notes to self of things worth mentioning: since I work with so many people each year (teachers and students) and they know I ride a bike to work, when they see a cyclist they think, "Hey, I wonder if that is Ms. xxxxx, maybe I should be careful". This is probably the greatest advocacy cyclists can be involved in. For every one person on a bike, they have scores of fans; family, friends and neighbors. All these people are more careful of cyclists than they might be otherwise.
As for the cycling scene in Buffalo? It is improving. Hardly anyone ever honks at me, even though I continue to travel at least 2 feet out from parked cars (probably jinxing myself, but I have never been hit or doored). Hundreds more bike racks (thanks Green Options) and a school district which has never hindered my ability to commute.
Cheers to living in Buffalo!

Long winter

So. Seemingly long winter. On an unseasonably warm Saturday, my husband bet me the snow was done. 4 days later and 8 inches deeper I laughed at him. It was one of the few days I have driven this winter. Nasty 2 inch ice and 5 destinations detered me.
This morning I took this picture of my lonely bike in the Co-op bike rack, gloating because I was the only stalwart one out in 18 degrees, when someone else rode up.





I am reading "Bicycle Diaries" by David Byrne. In the preface he remarks that the state of cities is improving as people begin to realize there is more to life than sprawling lawns and parking lots. This seemed too much to hope for, but maybe not.
Walking through a business section near my home, there was a man looking for boot laces, which couldn't be found in the nearby stores. Employees recommended he go to a chain store in the burbs, but I jumped in and recommended a chain store in the city (better of two evils). The man commented that that would entail getting in a car (+1 point). I told him it would not and he agreed he could use the bus (+1 point for thinking on it rather than knocking the idea down).
A second note: a friend told me her son refuses to allow her to drive 3 hours to retrieve him from college, because it is a foolish use of gas. He wishes gas was $7.00 a gallon. He won't eat meat because of the resources it sucks.
So much hope and optimism.












To top it all off: blinding sunshine in large quantities. Had to remind myself why I don't move to Portland.

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