Bits and Pieces

As I travel through this crazy world, I often run across something, and think, “I should write a blog post about that.”  (Sometimes, I think, “I should blog about that,” then I slap myself for using “blog” as a verb.) Shortly thereafter, I’m distracted by a honking car and I forget what I wanted to write about. Sometimes, I take a picture. That can help jog my memory, or make me wonder what the hell I was thinking when I took the picture. Then these pictures and blog thoughts stack up in my mind for a while and the next thing you know, it’s two months later and I forgot to write about whatever. I kind of blame the Twitter for this because in a way, I have written about the little random topic. But I only wrote 140 characters. So that doesn’t count. Thus I present another new recurring feature here: Bits & Pieces.

Bit 1:

Recycle-A-Bike!

RAB is RI’s community bike shop. I mentioned this organization a while ago when I took a class there. Then, they invited me to go to some crazy regional convention of community bike shops called Bike Bike Northeast. Shortly after that, I was helping out with Bike Valet and the next thing I knew I was on the board of directors. And thus I was one step further down the spiral of having bicycles take over my life. (Traveling down this spiral counts as a “descent.” I’ll know I’ve truly hit bottom when I enjoy cycling uphill more than riding downhill. I hear that step can only happen after one buys a pair of cycling shorts. I’m still holding out.)

But it’s been a happy descent, one I’ve enjoyed greatly. Recycle-A-Bike has gone through some major changes in the last year: getting our board together and really functioning, putting together different committees to get things done, and oh yeah, moving out of the Steelyard and into our own space! It’s not perfectly set-up yet, but we’re having open shops and classes and helping people fix up their bikes and get back on the road. During bike week, we had an open house for our new location, just to let everyone know where we are now:

The shop is coming along. It still needs quite a bit of work, but it is functional. Check it out at 12 Library Court, in Olneyville:

Right there on a little alley off of Olneyville square. Something called “Smokeez Smoke Shop” is at the corner, just before you turn in to the alley. I don’t know why they call it a smoke shop, seem like they specialize more in decorative glassware or something.

Bit 2:

No skateboarding in the Bank of America skating pavillion:

I did a little bit of skateboarding in my early teen years. It was mostly a means of transportation and an excuse to hang out with friends. (Kind of like cycling is for me today, but without the panniers.) As any teen who has ever skated knows, THE MAN is always out to get you when you ride a skateboard. Shop owners don’t want you riding near their stores because they think you might scare away customers, school principals don’t want you riding to school for whatever reason, and police don’t want you riding almost anywhere (or so it seemed when I was 13). So I was excited when I first moved to Providence to see that teens were allowed to skate on this nice flat surface without getting hassled by the man. In fact, for a few summers, someone even brought out ramps and rails every Thursdays so the skaters could have some fun. Last summer, I saw the tentative, awkward riding of a few people trying out some “fixed-gear freestyling.” But now, the skaters and cyclists are banned from the rink, and it sits empty, mostly unused except for the occasional concert or tape art installation. I’m pretty bummed out by this, when I first saw the skaters there, I thought it was a great sign that the city allowed its young people to have fun. Now, not so much. However, I’m happy to report, that the adjacent park is still safe for adults to park their cars.

admittedly, this is from January, but there are cars parked here every day

And evidently, the skating rink is okay for parking too.

But not okay for skateboarding.

Bit 3: Fenders!

So, I’m a fan of fenders these days. I have a pair of Planet Bike Speed-EZ Road fenders on my daily commuter. I would have installed a pair of regular plastic fenders, but the LBS didn’t seem to have any that would thread through the brakes without some fender reduction surgery. I suppose I could get a pair of more expensive metal fenders and crimp them around the brake calipers, but that’s not really the style of the bike. Of course, I’m not really sure if these “clip-on” fenders fit the style of the bike either:

That “I Voted” sticker does make it look rather smug, so maybe it is my style. They do seem to get the job done. They keep my tires from kicking up roadwater and mud onto my backside and legs. And that’s really all one needs from fenders. A little more length would help to protect my drivetrain a little better, and if I had mudflaps, that would be even sweeter. My yoga teacher recently returned from a visit to India and brought me a present!

A pair of bicycle fender mud flaps! I installed one on my Raleigh for my first post-injury ride, unfortunately, it fell off somewhere between my garage and my office (which I discovered when I got to the office). Luckily, “somewhere” turned out to be in my driveway, so it was easily recovered. Re-installation could require some duct tape.

During my recent travels, I came upon this fine specimen of fendering:

It’s hard to see the rear fender from here, but I wanted you to get an overall sense of the bike’s aesthetic. Let’s take a closer look:

I do admire the 1 by 7 (or 8 maybe?) drivetrain, but that fender is less than elegant.

It’s a nice looking commuter bike until you get to the kludged-together wooden rack and re-purposed plastic fender. Oh well, I guess we can’t all have custom paint jobs like this motorcycle that is often parked downtown:

It’s so patriotic, it has a bald eagle ripping through an American flag to reveal… another American flag!

A quick fix from Legend

I was down at Recycle-a-bike last night, “helping.” Although I took their 4 week bike maintenance course, it did not magically turn me into a bike mechanic (I still don’t dig heavy metal). I was trying to do a little brake and derailleur adjustment on a department store bike – without much luck. I now know why most bike shops will refuse to work on a department store bike. The things use such crappy components that they are difficult to repair and can easily break – and what bike shop wants to take in someone’s bike just to break it some more? Recycle-a-bike, that who! Well, actually, they get all sorts of donated bikes and fix them up so they are once again in riding condition. Sometimes these are old Schwinns that have been sitting in a basement for decades, sometimes they are old Huffys that have been in a basement for 5 years. After realizing that my skills were no match for a 10 year old wal-mart bike, I tried to find another way to help. Right now, RAB is getting ready for a big bike sale. So I helped get bikes out from storage and prepare them for photographs.  RAB stores their bikes with the pedals removed and turned around facing in (this allows them to stack bikes closer together in storage). So, now I know how to remove and re-attach pedals – pretty simple really. And I am one step closer to buying clipless pedals, because now I would be able to quickly swap them out for flat pedals. Oh man, just another step down the path to VSB land. If you are in the Providence area and want to pick up a bike for cheap, you should check out RAB’s big bike sale on Saturday, May 22.

On my way home from RAB, I was cruising along Promenade in the big ring when I down shifted on my approach to the ramp that goes up through the middle of Providence Place Mall (sidenote: believed to be the only bike path in America that goes underneath a mall, FWIW). Something didn’t feel right when I shifted.  In fact, I was not able to shift back up to my middle or largest chainring! This left me rather limited in my gear selection. My ride home is always uphill, so it wasn’t too bad, but it was not fun riding down the hill into work this morning. I was either coasting or spinning, and I was cross-geared the whole time.  I decided to swing by Legend Bicycle on my lunch break so I could at least drop it off and they could order whatever part was needed. I was dreading dropping off my bike in May – traditionally one of the busiest months for bike repairs.  I believe it was Jack who took a quick look at it and realized that my front derailleur cable was attached incorrectly. He re-attached it and it was back to shifting like a dream. He also took the time to clean my chain – I had overlubed it the last time I cleaned it and it was accumulating dirt. Going to the bike shop sometimes feels like going to the dentist in that I know I should be doing a better job of cleaning my bike just like I know I should be flossing every day. Jack felt a little wobble in my cassette, so he took off the wheel to show me. It doesn’t look too serious, but it sounds like I may be buying a new hub or wheel in the next year. I was happy to pay the $5 minimum repair charge since I was expecting to replace the front shifter! I’m beginning to like Legend more and more. The maintenance part of the shop is pretty much right in the open. This may be a result of the fact that its such a tiny shop, but it gives the shop a very open feeling. The mechanics aren’t hidden away behind a counter, they’ll pull a bike stand right into the middle of the shop so you can see your bike while they work on it. Reminds me a restaurant with an open kitchen, but a little less noisy (except for the heavy metal).

While I was at the shop, I noticed a bike that Legend had posted on their website. It’s a Surly Steamroller, (Surly’s fixed-gear/singlespeed bike), except Legend had built it with a fixed 3-speed internal shifting hub. It’s a pretty sweet setup – a nice compromise between the simplicity of a fixie and the practicality of a 3-speed. I took it for a quick spin around the block. I’m not totally convinced, but it was kind of fun.

picture from Legendbicycle.com

It was certainly more practical than this specimen I found in Harvard Square the other day:

The Mixte/Fixte is a nice look. Or at least unusual. That bike hitching post looks a little lonely though.

One last thing, for those of you who don’t read the Bike Snob, I’ll treat you to a quotation from today’s post:

Sure, “sharing the road” is an important issue, but [...] it seems like the only way anybody seems able to frame any discussion of cycling is in terms of “drivers vs. cyclists,” or “cars vs. bikes.” Have we as Americans officially reached the point where we are no longer able to understand anything unless it is presented to us as a war, or as some “epic” struggle between the forces of good and evil? Is nobody aware of the fundamental irony that many of us drive and cycle and walk and use public transit and fly? [...] Is it that hard to confront the fact that the real enemy is not the mode of transport but the idiot operating it? Do people become similarly heated over issues like “whisks vs. hand mixers?” Can I hope to one day live in a world in which people respect each-other’s humanity, and in which the helmeted driver of a convertible car waves to the helmetless Dutch bike rider, and the motorcyclist embraces the Rollerblader, and the hang-glider salutes the boater, and the newspapers of America stop fighting their inevitable death by trolling for comments in the form of recycled “car vs. bike” stories, and the sun shines on shared roads, and we all join together to feast on the “epic” burrito of compassion, and joy, and mutual respect, and, as Don Cornelius used to say, love, peace and soul?

Almost assuredly, the answer to these questions are: Yes; No; Yes; Probably; and Fuck No.

Oh bikesnob, I long for this world too. Or at least a world where epic burritos are available in Rhode Island.