National Bike to Work Day!

Happy Bike to Work Day!
How was your commute? I hope it was safe and fun.

The Greater Grand Rapids Bicycle Coalition hosted active commute week this week, and today about 15 local businesses offered pit stops for cyclists today.  I went to the one on the corner of Lake Drive and Diamond, thank you WMEAC!

It was sort of chilly today so I wore a long sleeve shirt with a cute polka dot scarf to keep warm. The scarf is KEY to keeping your neck warm on early morning rides. I was quite happy.

Tulips

Do rabbits eat tulips?  I noticed many stems on my ride in today without flowers. It's either that, or the flowers have all died.  It made me giggle to see all these stems lining the driveways of rich people's houses.....

I also noticed many steel valve covers to the water main lines in the street are missing. Is this due to scrap metal thieves? It's very dangerous for bikes, once removed these leave huge holes. There are many missing from Lake Drive and Lyon Street.

Many of these are missing in the streets of Grand Rapids, MI!!!!!

Active Commute Week

It's active commute week 2013. I guess I haven't blogged in a year. HA!

The bike ride in to work today was beautiful. It was 67 degrees and lovely. My commute is only 3.4 miles one way, but with all the running I've done for the past year, my quads feel every mile. I need to keep biking this summer to build up my quads and even out my leg strength. Having super strong hamstrings, and weak quads is not good....and it probably explains my knee pain. :(

I just bought a new pannier and a set of bike lights from Amazon.com. I can't wait for them to arrive. My pannier has two expandable sides, so when it's not in use, it's tiny and sits atop my bike rack.

I hope to make this a summer of bike commuting!

This is a picture of the pannier I ordered!

Air

I pumped up my tires before biking to work today, WOW, what a big difference that makes - my commute was much easier. Lesson learned. I need to check my air pressure much more often.

Today I packed a lot of stuff in my pannier. I am running at lunch today so I had to pack a towel, shower stuff, running clothes, work clothes, my phone, keys, etc. My bag was heavy and full, but I didn't even notice it, that is the beauty of panniers! A backpack would have KILLED my back and made me sweat, but the bag on my rack was effortless.

The high for today should be about 80 degrees. It should be a lovely ride home. I get excited to bike home after work, it's a great stress reliever and a great way to sneak in more exercise.

 :)

OY

I've biked to work maybe 6 times so far this spring and I have seen enough craziness to last a lifetime. I have seen both cars and bicyclists do stupid things. Today was one of them.

To cars I say please slow down for us. Share the lane. There is no need to zoom your car at us, drive within inches of us, and honk your car at us. This scares us, it makes us feel unsafe and unsteady. When you act aggressively it may cause us to fall or swerve. You can kill us when you behave like that, it's not funny. You are risking our lives. We do not want to die just because we want to bike to work and save gas. If you have to wait for us, or slow down a little, it's not going to make you late, or ruin your life. Everything will be OK if you pause for us when the road gets tight.

To bicyclists I say please stop being stupid. Man, I have seen some crazy stuff. I have seen bikers riding against traffic, running stop lights, crossing the street while weaving in-between cars and buses, making illegal turns, using cell phones or ipods while biking. All dangerous stupid shit that may get you hurt. Not only that, but this reckless behaviour really hurts the perception of bicyclists. A bicyclist that acts badly pisses off drivers and then the drivers will probably be less likely to respect us and look out for our safety. We need to model safe behavior to teach drivers how we want them to interact with us.

When we bike, we are theoretically safer in the road, not sidewalks; so when we are in the road we need to act and look like cars. We need to follow all the laws as if we were in a car, which means:

• stop at stop signs
• stop at traffic lights
• use hand signals 
• put reflectors and lights on your bike
• do not jump curbs
• do not act erratically or unpredictably in the traffic lane
• do not weave inbetween cars
• do not text while biking
• do not use a cell phone while biking
• do not listen to your ipod while biking

I am also a HUGE proponent for wearing helmets. You can debate me all you want, I will not change. If you get hit by a car, or if you unexpectedly fall down and your head slams into pavement, you can ruin your brain for the rest of your life. This is not worth risking, you only have 1 brain.  If you've ever met anyone with a brain injury, trust me, you do not want that to happen to you.

My rant for the day is over. Be careful and happy peddaling.

Fender and Chain Guard

It rained last night, it was great. We even had a little thunder and lightening, it kept me awake but I didn't mind.

I biked to work today, and I quickly realized as I zipped through some puddles, that I need fenders. If I'm gonna bike more often, I gotta get this bike decked out properly. I'm going to go to the Central District Cyclery in downtown GR after work to see if they can install some lightweight plastic fenders. Do they also make lightweight chain guards? It would be nice to get that too, but I do not want to add too much weight to my Trek.

Riding after a rain storm was nice. It was nice and cool and everything was very green. It was a very nice way to start my monday. But now I need coffee.....

Bike to Work Day

What a fun commute I had today! The Greater Grand Rapids Bicycle Coalition had bike to work day rally stops at  many local businesses, and on my route to work today, I passed by 3 of them! I talked to some cool people outside of Marie Catrib's and I was cheered by the people at GRCC. I made my way to Central District Cyclery, in downtown, and had coffee with Mayor Heartwell, and chatted with many cool people. Our local Fox TV reporter was there too, interviewing the Mayor, so who knows, maybe I am in the background on tv! :) 

I encouraged many people that I work with to bike to work today, I can't wait to see how many bikers we get! Yesterday, we had 9. Today I'm hoping for 15.

After work today, there is a big rally/party for bike to work day at the bus depot, The Rapid Central Station. Founders is also very close....sounds like a great way to end my day! Happy Pedaling!

Active Commute Week

Active commute week is here, and I finally biked to work this morning. I ran in the Fifth Third River Bank Run, 25K race on Saturday, May12, and it's taken my legs a lot of time to recover. I barely finished that race, but I did it! I came back from an injury and ran 15.5 miles with 6 1/2 weeks of training!

Just finished the 3.5 miles of hills! They almost killed me

So I biked to work today and left with wet hair, and no jacket, not really thinking about the temperature outside because it looked so nice. Boy was I COLD. I was freezing. My arms were bare and cold and I really needed a jacekt. Thank GOD my commute is only 3.4 miles. Running in the cold and biking in the cold are COMPLETELY different. When you are on a bike, the wind really gets to you!

Tomorrow is National Bike to Work Day! Join in the fun! Bike to work! http://www.bikegrandrapids.org/

Proud of this medal.

Earth Day -Vintage Bikes and Beer

On Earth Day my husband and I joined the Grand Rapids Vintage Bicycle Club for their first ride of the year. Our friend Ted organizes the rides for this group and he also fixes old bikes, particularly a lot of cool looking Schwinns. We met at a bar about one mile from our house and it was a clear sunny day, but windy and cold. I rode my bike with big thick warm mittens so my hands were warm (I learned from the last time I rode mitten-free on a cold windy day). I also had on a giant pink scarf which kept my neck warm. I was glad I opted for jeans today instead of a skirt.

I had never gone on a ride with this group before and I met a lot of nice people. My husband and I were the only two people not riding old bikes. I really want one now, I love the old Schwinns, especially their big comfy seasts and big metal baskets. At this bar, I had a vanilla porter which was delicious and warmed me up nicely!

We left this bar and rode to a local brew pub called Brewery Vivant, about 2 miles away. I rode in the bike lane on Wealthy Street and then turned on to Lake Drive. The bike lane on Wealthy Street by the hospital is not good. The street has not been swept for months and it has many potholes, and deep uneven grooves in it. Today there were two large piles of yard waste IN THE LANE that people thought was an acceptable place to dump it. So for a long stretch of Wealthy, it was ironic that I had to ride next to the bike lane because the bike lane was in such bad shape. What good are bike lanes if they are not maintained?

I covet this pink bike

 

At Brewery Vivant, I sat next to and chatted with a woman who likes to knit and we became friends on Ravelry. It's always nice to meet a fellow yarn addict! There were probably about 12 of us at Vivant, and it was fun that all of us biked to the bar.

When we went outside, we had a group photo and we all went our separate ways. It was a nice earth day ride/pub crawl! I'm happy that I spent mine car-free.

Why I didn't bike today

Call me a wimp. Call me a baby. I am both. The unseasonably warm weather is gone. The high for today is 43 degrees with a chance of snow flurries. I was going to commute to work by bike today but did not.

The failure doesn't stop here. The other excuses I have for not riding my bike are:

• I have a head cold or a really bad case of allergies.
• I have to run at lunch today, I'm training for the 25K distance in the Fifth Third River Bank Run and I need to run at lunch. I have to run at least 4 miles and I didn't feel like packing extra clothes or figuring out how to haul my gym bag with me. I will have to take a shower after I run. Luckily, where I work, we have showers...thus the need for my gym bag, shampoo, etc. 
• I have a professional dinner meeting after work from 5-8pm. The clothing issue looms again, and will it be too dark for me to ride home? Will the temperature plummet to freezing?

So on top of it being too cold for me, I felt overwhelmed by all that I have to do today. I can't even begin to imagine all the changes of clothes I would have had to have packed to be a bicycle commuter today.

Is being too busy a good enough reason not to ride my bike?  Am I just a lazy American?  I think the key to bicycling more often is preparation and organization. I failed today.

Easter Ride

My husband and I biked to Easter dinner at his sister's house, 2.7 miles away. It was about 57 degrees today and very windy but sunny. We mostly took side roads and we had to cross Burton Street, a busy road, but overall we encountered very few aggressive drivers (we still had a few drivers accelerate as they passed us on Hall Street. Why do cars do this? What is the point?).

It was my inaugural ride for my Yakkay helmet and the first time I've ever worn a skirt while biking. I must say, wearing a skirt was my favorite part of the ride. I felt free. Unbound. It was easier than pants, and I felt feminine and sassy. :) It was also nice to ride and talk to my husband, it was like we were on a little date.

My in-laws raved about my helmet and it was nice to be the only couple to have arrived car-free. Riding home was nice because we had eaten too much and it felt good to move our bodies and burn some calories after indulging. Happy Easter everyone, and GO TIGERS!

Yakkay

My new Yakkay helmet arrived yesterday! The helmet is from Denmark, and was distributed from a very cool bicycle shop in Chicago, called Heritage Bicycles.  Heritage makes handcrafted bicycles in Chicago.

http://www.heritagebicycles.com/
The cover can slip off for a more sporty look, so you get two helmets in one! I can't wait to break it in!

Yakkay has a lot of covers to choose from, I can't wait to use mine.

http://www.yakkay.com/