Google Trike

This morning, the google maps team invited us in this blog post to begin nominating off-street locations to be mapped out by the google trike.

You have till October 28th to submit a location at google.com/trike.

My first submission was not bicycle or Colorado related. I nominated the Ocean Beach Pier, up and down which I used to walk almost every day when I lived in San Diego.

bike google

Bike Pittsburgh spots the google trike and comments on plans to start mapping bike trails.

When I'm planning out a ride, I usually compare "Avoid Highways" driving directions to walking directions, and then overlay trailsdenver's trails map and my routes map.

Two suggested routes through two different maps, and then I'm able to plan out a third route through the city's bike infrastructure.

Sometimes, it is time consuming. Other times I throw caution to the wind and set out knowing only that I need to go generally southeast.

But I gotta admit, one-click bike routing will be handy.

Bikes and kites

This morning, Ladyfriend put the dog in the tricycle basket and I stuffed a kite in my pannier, and we rode down to City Park for a little kite flying!

Two cycles. Five wheels.


Me flying the kite.


Ladyfriend flying the kite.


Close up of the $5 "Iron Man" kite I got at the hardware store.


Just because you're tethered to a person doesn't mean you fly in the air. Sometimes it means you roll in the grass.


'Twas a lovely morning!

Belva Lockwood's tricycle

From Jeff Mapes's Pedaling Revolution, on the bicycle's role in women's liberation in the late 1800s.

Belva Ann Lockwood, the presidential candidate of the Equal Rights Party in 1884 and 1888, used an adult-sized tricycle to travel about the nation's capital and proclaimed after she was photographed riding: "There is a principle behind that picture. A tricycle means independence for women, and it also means health."

I'd have voted for her.

I've mentioned this before, but one half of our fleet here at the homestead is a 1950s adult-sized tricycle that we use to transport people, groceries, dogs, firewood, and anything else that needs moving.

A tricycle does mean independence. For women and for men.

I was initially reluctant to abandon my car because I didn't know how to carry stuff on a bike. I could only stuff a backpack with so much.

Once I procured a rear rack and some panniers, this problem vanished. There's now nothing I need to have with my during my commute—or on longer pleasure cruises—that I can't carry on my bike.

For bigger trips, I have an old Cannondale trailer to hitch to my bike.

And I have a trike with an extra large basket in the back.

I don't need a car to carry large loads around. I have two high capacity human-powered vehicles that suit my needs perfectly well.

And that means liberation.

And it also means health.

Everyone loves a dog in a basket

On the other hand, if you're a large dude riding a large tricycle with a small dog in the basket, you get a lot of hoots, hollers, and catcalls.

For example, pedaling through one intersection near my house, a white sedan slows down, and the window rolls down and some Fred Durst looking dude starts calling to me, "Yo, dude! Yo, dude! That's really cute!"

I smiled, waved, and we all continued on our own understanding ways.

Pedefish

So I was riding my bike to work yesterday when I encountered a pedestrian. You know, like ya do. But this pedestrian was Doing It Wrong.

Allow me to enumerate the ways in which this pedestrian was Doing It Wrong.

1. She was jogging in the bike lane.
   
   Which is not the biggest deal there ever was. But it was more than a little annoying because there is a nice, cute little dirt path alongside the road. Low impact, easy on the knees: ideal for jogging!
   
   In fact, there's a place for everyone here. Cars go in the road, bikes go in the bike lane, and pedestrians/joggers go on the walking trail.
   
   Get where you go.


2. She was jogging in the wrong direction, against traffic.
   
   Salmon! Pedestrian salmon! Pedefish.
   
   Pede. Fish.


3. She was jogging her McBiglarge dog alongside her.
   
   Hey all you dog walkers everywhere! If you are walking your dog, or jogging with your dog, or doing anything with your dog anywhere, then please, for the love of Buddha-sprinkled Christflakes, position yourself between your dog and oncoming traffic. Be that traffic pedestrian, bicycle, or otherwise. Dogs to the outside. Always.
   
   Some people are nervous about dogs. As a cyclist, I have been chased before and I have been lunged at before.

And so you have a good idea of what she was doing.

But what was I doing? Let's take a look. Because this is important.

See, every now and then, my own dog is a part of my commute. When necessary, I take him with me and drop him off at the pet-sitter before continuing on to work.

If he's looking particularly spry and peppy, well then I loop the leash around my seat post and let him trot along beside me.

But if he looks a little lazy, as he did on this particular morning, and if I lack the time to indulge his lackadaisical meandering, then I'll pull out the tricycle and put him in the rear basket.

Which is what I did on this morning.

So let's return now to the scene already in play: me in the tricycle with the dog in the rear basket, barreling head-on towards the god-damned jogging lady brandishing her over-sized dog at me like a doomstick.

My unwieldy tricycle is already taking up most of the bike lane. I see this ignorant pedefish coming toward me, and behind me I see several cars approaching, so I can't take the lane to get around her.

So my first plan is to engage her in a game of Chicken. I retain the middle of the lane, setting a course right for her. My intention is to convey the message that she needs to get up on the sidewalk and out of the way. (In retrospect, I really wish I had instead used more verbal and more non-verbal language to convey this message.)

She doesn't get out of the lane, but instead just kind of sidesteps into the gutter by the curb and pulls her big dog close to her. The big dog, of course, still being between me and her.

Being in the gutter leaves inadequate room in the bike lane for me to pass her, so I reluctantly take a few inches of the car lane as the cars pass by me, way too close for comfort.

And at this point, the dogs see each other and big dog starts lunging while the jogger lady is yanking his leash and shushing him sharply.

So on the left I'm trying to not get hit by a car while on the right I'm trying to pay enough attention to be able to kick the dog if it gets too close and snarly.

And then it's over.

It takes just under a second for us to pass each other, and I think I'm home free.

But then my own dog's excitement gets the better of him, he loses his balance and falls out of the basket into the street.

He hits the pavement and tumbles towards the curb. Not, thankfully, into traffic.

I think I dragged him for about 6 inches before I was able to come to a halt.

And I think it took about 5 seconds for me to get off, scoop him up, put him back into the basket, and finally pull off to the side of the road.

I probably spent a further 10 - 20 seconds looking him over for scrapes and scratches, and squeezing and moving all his limbs to see if he yelped or cringed.

Even though a little fear at this point had given way to a little anger, I was still mostly preoccupied with my dog's well-being, and so I began to pedal on -- getting right back on the horse, as it were -- not wanting to give him enough time to become scared of the trike.

We covered the four or five blocks remaining, and arrived at the pet-sitter.

Once there, I go to get him out of the basket and he's trembling. Once on the ground, I walk him up and down the block two or three times to watch for limping and to gauge his composition.

He seems fine.

So I check him in and continue on to work.

---

It's about 36 hours after the fact now and I'm still pissed in a very real way.

There are about 3 or 4 things I will do differently in the future if presented with a similar situation.

For the time being, though, all I can do is be thankful nobody and nodog got hurt, and continue to be pissed.

Worksman bicycles: Bikes That Work

There was a story on NPR this morning about Worksman, the oldest bicycle manufacterer in the nation. I didn't know about them before today, and now I seriously want one.

 

I love hearing about this kind of stuff, and I get really excited about Bikes That Work.  It's not common to see people moving oversized cargo on bikes here in Denver, but in San Diego, it seemed that one for every two surfers had a bicycle with a side loader for their boards.

 

I use a trailer on my bicycle for my grocery shopping, and I carry my dog around town in the Lady's tricycle. This week, the Lady came home from a jog through the neighborhood with a trunk full of firewood that somebody had left curbside.  I used the tricycle to carry the logs across the yard and into the back to the woodpile.

 

Bikes aren't toys, folks. And if you need proof, check out some of the heavy duty work some people do on their xtracycles.