books n bikes

Pirates > Ninjas

Everybody knows it.

Route profile: 16th Street/Avenue

16th Street Mall and 16th Avenue are collectively known as the Teenybopper Mallrat Route.



One of Denver's stranger bike routes, notable for running along the spine of the city, but at the same time not really taking you anywhere.

Access to the mall is limited to one day out of the week; and 16th Avenue has a bike lane but is not part of the Grid, and eventually comes to an abrupt stop after a couple blocks.

The route starts at one end of the city at the northwest end of the 16th Street Mall, either at Union Station or at National Velvet.



Now, unless it's Sunday, you cannot ride on the 16th Street Mall. This is one of bikedenver.org's Big Four rules, right up there with No Riding On The Sidewalk. Bike here 85.7% of the time, and you'll get a ticket.

On Sunday though, you can cruise right down the middle of the road. It's an interesting 1.5 mile ride that's not without its own unique joys and frustrations.

At the southeast end of the mall, your route crosses Broadway and becomes E 16th Avenue.

16th Avenue is not listed on the City of Denver bike map as a "grid" route, or even as a local bike route, but simply as a "road with a bike lane."

So even the city recognizes that it's kind of special.

Personally, I have a tendency to forget about 16th Ave until I cross it coming from the north or the south, and I see a bike lane, and I think to myself, "Oh! An E/W bike lane! I need to go east … might as well use this convenient bit of infrastructure!"

So I turn onto 16th and cruise along, slowly progressing through the the stop signs that litter the route, until suddenly it dead ends at East High School.



Near the school, there is suddenly eleven or eight fleets worth of cars parked on the street, and there are always—regardless of the time day, morning or afternoon—handfuls of kids milling about outside.

Enough to make you want to point out to them that there's no such thing as education by proxy. Being at the school doesn't count. You gotta, you know, go inside and learn stuff.

Anyway, so suddenly you dead-end at the high school. You options for continuing are, to the south, Colfax Ave; and to the north, 17th Ave.

Neither of these streets are safe to bike on.

That leaves you the option of, to the north, continuing past 17th into and through City Park or, to the south, riding on the sidewalk on Colfax for one block before cutting back up to a safe side street.

Of these options, one is illegal (sidewalk-ridin') and one is inconvenient (the winding route through City Park takes you out of your way.)

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So this route is interesting. It takes you from East High School to the far end of 16th Street Mall, and not really anywhere else.

But in doing so, you get really close to the real heart of the city.

Just off this route is City Park, Civic Center Park, the Central Library. Cheeseman Park is a short ride to the south. It runs parallel to all the wondrous crap on Colfax and it runs right through all the wondrous crap on the 16th Street Mall, including Skyline park. At the northwest end, you can get on the S. Platte River trail just north of the confluence with the Cherry Creek trail.

So from a wider perspective, I suppose it's quite a well connected hub.

But since all it literally does is connect a high school to a strip mall, I shall henceforth call this the Teenybopper Mallrat Route.

Beausage

A portmanteau is a blending of two different words and their meanings. The word itself, in this context, was apparently invented by Lewis Carrol.

So some portmanteaus grate on my nerves. Labradoodle, Brangelina, and other designer words are manufactured and created by marketing departments in order to sell something flashy and fab.

And some portmanteaus are so accepted that you—or I at least—rarely notice them as being a jumble of two different things. Like brunch. Or spork, blog, and wikipedia. These words seem more natural, at least.

So Grant Peterson, of Rivendell Bicycle Works, apparently coined the portmanteau beausage in an article he wrote for the Rivendell Reader, the bike shop's newsletter. Rick Smith used the word in the 10/11/2009 episode of Yehuda Moon.

I think it's a pretty great word, with great potential to be used "in the wild."

It's a blend of "beauty" and "usage," and is used to describe a beauty that comes from or through use. Like dings and nicks on a trusty bicycle. Or a leather bicycle saddle once it has been broken in and has adopted the shape of its rider's bottom. Certain sets of kitchen knives acquire beausage after many years. Or—and this might be the perfect example—musical instruments. Like Trigger, Willie's guitar.



Where pronunciation is concerned, I'm going to go ahead and say that the American pronunciation ("BYOO-sij") and the French pronunciation ("bo-SAHG") are equally acceptable.

I'm looking forward to noticing and appreciating examples of beausage in the future.

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!

When a dog is not your best friend

The Canine Pedefish Incident is still weighing on my mind, and I've been thinking a lot about dogs.

Last night on my way home, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye as something darted across a lawn on my right. I didn't see it clearly, and I thought to myself, "Dang! Big squirrel."

But then I saw more movement, and the thing had circled around behind me as was running along side me on my left.



Chihuahua.

I laughed at it and scolded it and told it to go home, which—once sufficiently embarrassed—it did.

Sometimes, though, being chased by a dog is obviously not a trifling matter.

You're not likely to ever encounter a pit bull in Denver, but if something equally large and especially mean is chasing you (Labrador, German Shepherd, Doberman, Large Mutt), it can be very scary. And quite dangerous.

The thing that's often easy to forget at the moment is that it's not a good idea to indulge the dog's "fight" and "chase" instincts by sprinting away. It's better to stand your ground and fight back in some way.

• Scream and yell at the dog. Call it names, call it a Bad Dog. Shame it and haze it.


• Ring your bell and blow your horn at it.



• Squirt it in the face with water from your bottle.


• If you can do it safely (as in the instance of me vs. chihuahua) quickly dismount (on the side opposite the dog), position your bike between you and the dog, and start chastising at it.


• Mace/pepper spray. (Maybe not a bad idea to carry some anyway if you're going to be riding around by yourself at night.)


• If you're in danger, kick the dog. Don't worry about the stigma attached to dog kicking. Worry about getting mauled by an aggressive dog.


• If you have an air pump on your frame, grab it and take a swing.


• I don't think I could find it in my heart to U-Lock a dog unless it's a "his life or mine" situation, but if that is the case, take a U-Lock to the dog.

And don't forget that you have the option of always keeping some bacon in your pocket to throw as a distraction!

The list above obviously progresses from best case scenario to worst case scenario. From what I've read and from second hand accounts, most dogs will hesitate and falter if you make lots of big noises at them.

And, just so you know, almost all pet-related fines and fees in Denver, including off-leash fines, are scheduled to go way up pretty soon.

"Unlicensed animals would incur penalties of $75, $100 and $200, and failure to pick up animal waste is punishable by fines of $150, $250 & $500.
The fine for an off-leash dog would be $80 for a first violation, $150 for a second, and $300 for subsequent breaches. The penalties for un-spayed or un-neutered pets are $250, $550 and $999, and those for animal cruelty are the most severe at $300, $700 and $999."

So it it's always the same dog at the same house that's chasing you on your way home from work everyday, for the love of Bob, call the police. Maybe a hefty fine will get that pet owner to take a little responsibility for their dog.

Stranded

This is me stranded at work.

I lost my work keys last weekend, and so have been forced to wait until my coworkers arrive in the morning to let me in. I remember one of my first bosses explaining to me that if I arrive at work at the same time I am scheduled to being my shift, then I am late. Since then, I've been in the habit of arriving to work 10-15 minutes early. Especially if I'm on bike and need to change my clothes.

I find it irksome to have to wait till somebody ambles up 10 minutes late to be let in.

---

In two months, I will have been car free for a full calendar year.

My car was named Annie. As in "Little Orphan," in recognition of all the times I locked my keys inside her and had to abandon her on the side of the road, and in recognition of all the times I spent the night alone, sleeping in my car somewhere.

It's not often that I'm stranded somewhere with my bike. This is one of the only times that I can recall.

It made me wonder, though, if I shouldn't rechristen my bicycle and call her Annie.

Why so clipless?

Platform are better.

It's about the freedom to pedal off in your Rainbows if ya wuntoo.

Caveat: a coworker told me this morning that a friend of his had her pinkie toe ripped off during a cycling accident while wearing flip-flops.

Just something to keep in mind.

National velvet

This is one of the strangest landmarks in the city of Denver. It's an installation of public art at the north end of the 16th Street Mall, right by the pedestrian bridge that crosses I-25 and connects downtown Denver to the Highlands.

At night, it's lit up from within, and it glows in a menacing way.

It is evocative. Everybody I've talked to about it has very strong feelings about it.

Mostly because it's hideous.

It's the Gelatinous Giant. It looks like it should be throbbing and pulsing.

It's nasty.

It probably has syphilis.

It rivals Mustang, ole Bluecifer, as Denver's most unsettling piece of public art.




I didn't know the title of the piece before today. National Velvet. I've always simply referred to it as the giant red blob.

(National Velvet is an old Elizabeth Taylor movie.)



I didn't even notice this as I was taking the picture, and it was only upon later review that I noticed that the new Salvagetti building is apparently right next to the monstrosity. That's it in the background above.

The sign and the "I (heart) bikes" mural on the side of the building are almost exactly the same shade of red as National Velvet.

We (Ladyfriend and myself) went to Salvagetti this afternoon. First time since they relocated.

The Lady had complained to me about her trike having some problems shifting. It wouldn't go into 3rd at all, and in 1st the pedals had a tendency to spin freely, not engaging the wheels at all.

That sounded like it was far beyond my meager mechanic abilities, so we shoved it in the trunk of the Subaru and ventured across town.

Once there, we unloaded the big thing, and once inside, Hannah fiddled with the tension on the shifter cable and fixed the damn thing in about thirty seconds.

Which just goes to show ya.

I consider myself a very bike-savvy dude. And I didn't recognize that this was something that could be fixed by tugging on a cable and turning a nut.

If you haven't seen Salvagetti's new digs yet, do yourself a favor and go take a gander.

It's pretty grand.

Tour de Fat photo-dump

I scoured twitter for photos of the Tour de Fat. And here those photos are!

I didn't take any of these photos. They're all from random twitterers, and from this dude.


This costume was pretty typical of the ones I saw. There were a couple neat hoop skirts made from bike tires. That was neat and resourceful!












During the ride, there was a pretty blond on a street corner, holding a bottle of Bud Light, jumping on a pogo stick, and whooooo-ing at the passing cyclists. I laughed and waved made a comment akin to, "Well, there's some alternative transportation I haven't considered!"

This picture's pretty blurry, but I don't think it's the same lady.




This dude was part of the festival and I'm glad someone got a picture of him. His rig played music and blew bubbles. You can't see the detail very well, but on the front is a little mechanical monkey who also pedaled, motivated by the banana dangling in front of him.
Giant Connect 4! Why wouldn't you build a giant Connect 4?





Slow bike race. The winner got a pretty championship belt.
This is from where the ride took us through downtown. I'm sad I wasn't able to find a picture of us riding past the protesters and the demonstrators. Near here, we rode between two towers, and it echoed a lot if you shouted or rang your bell, which everybody did.
Street sweeper bike! Another one I'm glad somebody got a good shot of him.



Tall tandem! That's quite a special bike. These riders unquestionably have style, but I think were I to ride a tall bike, I'd probably have on a helmet. Maybe pads, too. That's just a long way to fall.

And a tall tandem! That's trust, folks. Cause if you don't work together, you're both going down. Way down.



That's all I got.

There are tons of other photos over on flickr, but unlike these twit pics, they're all in one place so I'm not going bother gathering any of them and posting them.

Tour de Fat

Just finished riding in the Tour de Fat. It was awesome!

I got confused initially and thought that the ride started at 9:00 AM instead of 10:00 AM so I got there at around 8:00 AM to register, and I was WAY TOO EARLY. So I turned around, went back to Einstein Bros and got a bagel for my girlfriend, who was still in bed, and went back home.

I was a bit nervous initially because it was spitting rain, and I could hear very distant thunder, but it ended up not raining. It was just cool and cloudy during the ride.




Tour de Fat highlights!

• Large group ride! Riding your bike is often such a solitary act. It's really neat to be a part of large group rides like this, or like Critical Mass, and meet and see other people on their bikes and chat 'em up.


• Tall bikes. There were a lot of tall bikes! Most of the Ride Wardens (or whatever they were called) were on tall bikes, presumably so they could both easily survey the crowd and be easily seen. There was one tall tandem bike, which was pretty wicked cool. And there was one MEGA tall bike. This was no two-frames-welded-together bike. It was a custom built job, and it was at least a fully story tall.


• Other bikes. There were tons of gnarly cruisers, and other bikes. I was ogling them all. Hard.


• Riding past the Health Care demonstration at the state capitol! People were hooting and hollering! Both in favor of reform, and against Obama. (I don't think many of them were anti-reform, as much as they were anti-Obama.) I yelled back at them as I rode by, "Health! Care! Now!" and I heard some protester comment, in a derogatory fashion, in reference to all of us on two wheels, " ... They look like Obama people."


• Stopped at a red light, some guy looked out his window and saw hundreds of bikes filling the road outside his basement window, and hollered out through the screen, "What are you doing?" I answered, "We're riding bikes."


• Costumes! Both bikes and riders were all dressed up. There plenty of girls in tights and tutus and butterfly wings. What is that costume supposed to be? A slutty butterfly ballerina? There were also a couple folks dressed up like Waldo. Each time I saw one, it was fun to point and yell out, "THERE HE IS!"