Not biking today

I rode the bus today - not all the way to work, because even the buses couldn't get through. By the end of the day, we had nearly a foot of snow. There was one cyclist out riding, but it didn't look like much fun.

Peaking early?

Riding to work at 28 degrees F (about minus 2 Celsius), I thought it might be too warm to photograph any cars running on remote start. After all, this is Minnesota, where we don't think of ourselves as weather weenies. Here's a multiple choice question:

When the driver came out, was it
A) an arthritic old lady with a cane?
B) a young mom with twins in car-seats?
C) a 30-something guy smoking a cigarette?

Road Rage

Thinking about the profane driver who "buzzed" me for not using the bike lane on a quiet residential street, I wonder how to reach that sort of person. The photo here shows what that lane looked like -- sheets of ice and snow, and piles of loose sand, on an uphill stretch. What sort of idiot, I'm wondering, would consider that a suitable place for a commuter with a heavy set of panniers to ride?

But labeling this guy (however much he deserves it) as an idiot and wishing for a well-placed patch of ice to take him off the road does not solve the problem. He'd probably be even nastier if he were reminded that Peak Oil will have him biking or walking to work himself soon. Does anybody know how to tame the raging American Road Hog?

Remote start

Exhaust coming from a car gets your attention when you're biking - but more and more, I'm noticing that those cars are empty. "Remote Start" is running about a half dozen cars every morning along my 5 mile commute. This has been a warm winter in Minnesota, with temperatures rarely getting to zero (F, or 13 below C). It's certainly not too cold to bike. How come it's suddenly too cold to get into an unheated car?

Nasty and nice

One very nasty road hog and one pleasant cyclist passed me this morning.

First the road hog. I was riding uphill on a quiet city street when a car zoomed by, very conspicuously gunning its engine. At the next stoplight, I pulled up behind and photographed his license plate. The driver jumped out and suggested that he should have photographed me riding outside the bike lane. Now, that striped bike lane along the street was full of the usual February loose sand and icy patches -- hardly a suitable surface for uphill riding -- and Minnesota law clearly treats bicycles as legitimate vehicles. I pointed out that I had a right to be in the street, and further that he did not have a right to threaten me with his car, and that he had to leave at least three feet of space when passing me. At that, this not very gentlemanly fellow said, "That means YOU have to keep three feet from ME, you f****** b****!" So here's the photo. If you see this guy, make sure you leave him plenty of room.

A friendlier guy, riding a bike toward downtown, passed me and commented "you really know winter's over when the recumbents come out." I told him I'd been riding all winter, including in the snow. He asked, "have you stayed up?" "Noooo," I replied, "have you?" He laughed and answered that he had gone down a couple times too.

Impractical vehicles

On Saturday (February 25, 2006), I went to Mondo Fest. It's about as far from a velomobiling event as you can get without leaving the human-powered world. Crowds of kids zipped around on unicycles, jugglers tossed hoops, rings, clubs, knives, and balls, sometimes while unicycling, and lasso-artists, people with hoops, and a wide variety of yo-yo experts filled four basketball courts and an indoor track. Last year, I rode a velomobile to this event, but a funeral in the morning left me with too little time for the long ride, so I drove there.

My favorite unicycle was this carousel horse. A slight offset in the attachment of the supports causes it to go up and down as the rider pedals. It was tricky to ride, but the kid in the green shirt was taking it around in circles. The link in this post is to some of the videos.

Very tall unicycles, fat-tire unicycles, big wheels for touring, little tiny unicycles for kids who didn't look older than 5 -- there were a lot of crazy things. Even some bi-cycles and tri-cycles in which one wheel turned another below it - and sometimes one below that.

Velomobile Experiences

There are several velomobile (velomobiel, velomobil) blogs up already. I'm adding this one with a focus on the Cab-Bike, but with attention to other velomobiles and other human-powered vehicles and their infrastructure.