Luke Has a Bike!

There’s a bicycling subreddit. One of the things they have is posts titled NBD – “New Bike Day.”

I’m putting together my bike. It’s nearly done. It won’t be 100% for a bit, but it will be mostly done Wednesday, when I plan to post it. I was excited because I did a custom yellow-to-orange gradient paint job. Looks pretty spiffy with the black trim and bar tape.

Yesterday, darkshizzle posted this:

SO much cooler looking than my bike!

I AM NOT ENVIOUS AT ALL.

I mostly put the bike together today. As I was slapping parts on it, trying to get it done this weekend, I realized lots of stuff needed to be replaced, and that I really have no idea how to properly set up a derailleur. So, I put it together as much as I could, threw the rest of the parts in a bag, and dropped it off at the bike shop.

Wednesday (or possibly Thursday): I ride!

Random things:

• I forgot it was Supermoon Day until I was riding home and thought “Hey! That’s a big moon!” Riding under a full moon always makes me feel like Tom Cullen from The Stand.
• I managed to get a decent ride in on a Monday after work, which is always a pleasure.
• While I’m still below my best pre-century months, as of today I have ridden farther, longer, and faster than I did for all of last month.
• I saw a co-worker while I was riding. I yelled to her, then realized when I saw her freaked out face that yelling at women on the bike path could be taken the wrong way.
• Today’s ride looks a little like a boat facing northeast and a not-at-the-same-scale outboard motor facing west.

I love my bike. It’s a great way to feel closer to the world and be healthy. It also gives me perfect thinking time: No conversations, and enough stimulation to keep my mind active, but not so much that I’m overwhelmed by distractions. It’s just me, the bike, the road, and whatever song my phone decides to shuffle into my right ear (California law won’t let me listen in both ears while riding). Today I got about 40 miles in, which gives a pokey rider like me about three hours worth of thinking. Here are some things I thought while riding today, in no particular order. Not surprisingly, there’s a lot of election-related brou-ha-ha.

• I’m a middle class heterosexual white guy in good health and with a good job, living in a nice neighborhood in a big city. It’s really easy to forget how many layers of privilege that I have.
• There was a man on the edge of the bike path, arms raised, shouting his messages to the world. I thought he might have been praying to Mecca, but he was pointed in the wrong direction. Maybe he was praying to Manitoba, or the LAVC Finance Office. As I rode past, all I heard him say was “Ultimately, Ultimately…”
  Social media can be like that guy shouting toward the college. It’s easy to post something, feel like you’ve made your statement, and move on. I need to do more than shout. I need to do.
• It’s always a bit exciting when the guy at the bike shop says he likes my bike. He wasn’t trying to sell anything to me; he just liked it.
• We need to stay friends with people we disagree with. We need to challenge each other to defend our beliefs. We need to call out our friends when they are wrong.
• Fighting is good, if it’s a good fight.
• I do not have all the answers. Some of my beliefs are wrong.
• I need to ride more.
• Liberals need to work like hell over the next two years.
• Trump is probably a one term president, if the Democrats pick the right candidate.
• My iPhone has a sense of humor about the election; it decided to play this song.
• It also played this song right when I nearly got clipped by a car.
• American sexism and racism means that “the right candidate” is probably a white guy, even though there are women with incredible qualifications.
• Riding to my parents’ house and back is a nice enough 40 mile trip, but it sure is flat. I need to start doing the ride around the valley thing again.
• I should adapt those Art of Photography youtube photo assignments as class lessons.
• I wonder who I know that’s going to the protest rally tomorrow.

So yeah: mostly political stuff.

I’ve been finding less and less time to ride my bike. I miss it. Today I woke up and said “It’s the first of the month. I am starting this month right by getting on my bike and going for a ride, damn it.”

I went for a little spaghetti ride after work, and it was great. Only 14 miles, but pretty good speed for a fat guy who hasn’t been riding lately.

The funny part: After the ride, Runkeeper told me it was my “fastest week and month.”

Dude: I went on ONE short ride. Maybe wait a few days at lest before handing out the awards.

This was a nice surprise:

I haven’t been on a real ride for a couple of weeks. Sure, I did CicLAvia last Sunday, but that’s sort of a lazy amble through downtown. Today, I actually got to do my regular Warner Brothers – Forest Lawn – L.A. River – Burbank Bike Path loop. I didn’t push, just rode comfortably… and had my Eighth fastest time for the route. Neat.

Two Points About Bike Physics:
(Note: If you are looking for bike psychics, please go here.)

1. When a rider want to make a bicycle move, they apply force to the pedals, which transfer that energy into the crank, chain, gears, and wheels. The wheels transform the energy into acceleration. This acceleration is limited by the energy the rider puts into the system. Energy is also lost to forces like friction and gravity. In general, the amount of possible acceleration is lower than the acceleration possible from a car. So: If you are in a car, and you’ve pulled into a bike lane behind a bike to make a turn, it’s very likely that it will take the bike more time than the car to accelerate.

   

2. Honking your horn will not transfer energy to the bike and so will not decrease the time it takes for the bike to get out of your way. In fact, in may increase the time, for the rider might stop to find out why you honked and/or stop to yell at you for honking at him while in the bike lane.

SCIENCE!

CicLAvia was yesterday. It was a version of my favorite route, all through downtown. I did the same thing I always do: bring a backpack full of camera stuff, then barely take any pictures because I’d rather be riding. Someday I’ll learn that I like to bike, and I like to take pictures, but I don’t really like to bike AND take pictures.

Oh, and I saw students there. That was cool.

Yeah, Spaghetti Ride. That’s what I’ve decided to call the rides where I just try to keep moving, even if it means I have to ride in loops to avoid stopping.

Here’s tonight’s ride:

Highlights of tonight’s ride include:

• looping twice past of Jamie & Brian’s place
• getting caught in a narrow space by Costco and technically continuing to ride by pushing up the street with one foot on the sidewalk
• mostly riding legally

Side note: I always enjoy looking at these maps because they include the old names for the neighborhoods. Why doesn’t anyone say they live in La Paco, or Vega, or even McNeil? Those all sound like more interesting places  than North Hollywood or Burbank.

Remember that time you wanted to spend three minutes watching me fix a flat? NOW IS THE TIME!