New Rules

I have been playing the game where I go 7 days, 8 days, 9 days etc without sugar. I got up to 15 days and made a couple unsuccessful tries attempts at 16 days during the holiday season. The game no longer holds any appeal for me so I’m changing the rules.

During the holiday season lots of people bring in delicious treats. I don’t have a problem turning them down even if they look so scrumptious. The problem comes in the next day when I feel sorry for myself because I didn’t get the scrumptious treat yesterday. So I buy myself a nasty coke and candy bar which is not even tasty. And I consume them furtively in my dungeon office. (Some people call it a basement, not a dungeon, but there’s even a labyrinth.)

I’ve been thinking also about the social role of food. I read an article recently that people with celiac disease experience higher rates of depression than the general population. It’s worst when their symptoms are flaring up and it gets somewhat better when they have their symptoms under control, but they are still at higher risk for depression than the general population. The primary treatment for celiac disease is to control your diet, which means no gluten. No wheat, no flour. The authors of the study speculated that the stress of maintaining that diet in our wheat-filled society puts them at risk for depression.

I could easily see that. It has to feel like everyone is inadvertently trying to kill you, because you have to be so careful what you eat to avoid gluten. When someone brings treats for the department, they actually are bringing treats for everyone except you. When you go to a potluck you provide food for everyone else and yourself, because everyone else brought food for everyone but you. Even if you know it’s not intentional it’s got to get to you.

Food plays such an important role socially. I don’t have a problem with disrupting social order, but if I’m going to do that it’s going to be about oil and transportation and bicycles, not about food and sugar and high fructose corn syrup. I want to eliminate insulin surges from my life without rocking the boat.

So here’s the new rules. No liquid poison (aka coke) and no cheap mass produced candy bars. I get to eat treats that people bring in– but only if I want them. See, that’s another weakness, is that when I wallow in self pity, I’ll drink a coke or eat a candy bar, not because I want to, but because I deserve it, since I didn’t get whatever treat yesterday. Since I started the no-sugar thing, I’ve eaten a lot of candy and stuff that I didn’t really want, just because it was my official sugar day. If someone brings in Hy-Vee cupcakes for a party I do not have a problem turning those down.

We’ll see how that goes. I can already see a potential problem–do I let my husband buy me chocolate? Because there’s this gray area there from him on his own going out and buying me chocolate, me “subtly” hinting that I wouldn’t be adverse to a gift of chocolate, and me outright asking him to buy me chocolate.

By the way, if you feel like baking something for me, I’d like homemade chocolate chip cookies WITH nuts. But I’ll accept brownies with nuts too. Or, well, pretty much anything.

My bike repair stand

A few years ago I built a bicycle repair stand using instructions from an article in Bicycling Magazine. (It was the only useful thing I’ve ever seen in that publication.) The article was how to make a bicycle repair stand for $30. It cost me $70 to get the materials because they assumed I had things like scraps of plywood and 2X4′s. The resulting bike stand was pretty useful. A little wobbly with my heavy bike but it worked. I used it regularly for a couple years. During our last year in Columbia I tended to swing by the bike shop which was next door to Iain’s college, and use their stand which was a lot sturdier and easier to use.

I clean my chain about weekly or more often in bad weather. So when we moved to Kirksville, I was using the repair stand more frequently again. But when we moved from the house on the highway to the house in town, the repair stand had to live outside. There just wasn’t any place for it to live inside. The plywood base quickly rotted through. I had only painted the top of it.

First step: Unscrew the nuts & bolts holding the plate to the plywood base. They were rusty.

Next step: Find a new plywood base. I asked around and someone brought me a very large piece of plywood. I cut it in half. It took 4 coats of paint, and I painted both top and bottom.

The plate was rusted onto the pipe. I took the entire thing to Westlake. They got it apart and found the right size bolts and suggested T-nuts. I got the 4 bolt holes drilled into one piece of plywood, using the plate as a template for where to place the holes. I did the same thing on the other piece.

The 4 holes wouldn’t line up. I could get 2 to line up and then the warped pieces of plywood would start to straighten out and the others wouldn’t line up. Since it had been over a month since I’d cleaned my chain, I went ahead and used the stand, but it was even more wobbly. I could see that even if I could get all 4 bolts in, it was still going to be wobbly, even with the additional piece of plywood.

What I needed was something really heavy, like a house. Or a concrete patio. I looked into how to attach things to a concrete patio or a brick wall. Then I hit on the solution. The shed! Not as heavy as a house, but it is attached to a concrete pad. Heavy enough even for my bike.

In the past when I’d used my bike stand, the height (4 feet) was an issue. It was pretty awkward and uncomfortable to crouch down to clean my chain that was only a couple feet off the floor. I set the plate at 4 1/2 feet up the side of the shed.

I took the bike stand to another shop to get the elbow join off the pipe that made the arm. It had also rusted on there. If I do much more of this I ought to get my own pipe wrenches.

I got the plate attached to the shed and screwed the arm into it. Then I put a bike up there and found the last problem to be solved: at 4 1/2 feet, it’s difficult to hoist a heavy bike up there. I’m thinking a step stool or something will probably take care of that.

Talent

I’ve always wished for better upper body strength so last year I started going to the gym and using the machines. Almost immediately I injured my upper back. I haven’t used the machines since then. People tell me that it’s better to do free weights, but I haven’t found anyone to show me how to do it, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned with all my injuries over the past year, it’s not to dive right into something without knowing what I’m doing.

A couple weeks ago we bought MineCraft. I love it. I played it for probably 5 or 6 hours on the weekends, and as much as possible on weekdays. Within a few days I had an upper back injury. I stopped playing for a couple days, then decided it had healed enough and I would just “be more careful” of my posture while playing. My upper back hurts like the dickens today.

I think it’s impressive that I could get the same injury working out, or playing a computer game. Around me, nothing is safe!

In addition to these two somewhat debilitating (but temporary) injuries, I frequently get a crick in my neck. Sometimes I think I know what the cause was, sometimes I have no clue. I couldn’t get into the OMM clinic today but I went downstairs and got an appointment with Family Medicine, which also does OMM. The resident worked on my neck a long time. He got it a lot looser but it will still hurt until it heals. I have heat on it.

I’m not a fan of pain killers. They work by blocking processes that happen for a reason. I prefer to let my body heal itself as much as possible. I’m not saying I eschew all modern medicine, or even pain killers in general. I just don’t use them lightly. Anyway in the past when I’ve had a crick in my neck I take ibuprofen and still have a crick in my neck.

I’d like to figure out why I’m prone to upper back injuries and cricks in my neck. Maybe there’s a way to avoid them in the first place. Based on the Chi Running stuff I’ve been reading, I think it comes back to posture, not strength. If it has anything to do with strength, it has to do with core strength, not upper body strength.

Invigorating

Every winter, I have to re-learn how to dress for the temperatures. Every winter, I tell myself I ought to be writing this down so that next winter, I won’t have to go through this again. I never have gotten around to it, but other people have. This chart was developed by a friend who lives in Norway. She bicycles to work every day. I guess I thought Norway had rougher winters than Missouri, but after converting her chart to Farhenheit, I was surprised that she thinks 5F is “too damn cold!”

What her chart really tells me is that dressing for winter is very personal. Different people have different comfort zones. At 55F, I wouldn’t wear anything on my head. (I’m don’t even know what a Buff is.) I start putting on my balaclava around 25F. My Norway friend and I clearly own different clothes, and wear different clothes. I don’t have knee warmers, leg warmers, and unlined tights. Then, as the year progresses, my comfort zones change. In the fall I might wear a balaclava as warm as 28F. But a balaclava on a 28F spring morning would suffocate me!

The Bike Co-op recently hosted a seminar by PedNet, Columbia’s bike/ped advocacy organization. The title was “Beating the Biking Brrrr”. Gina Overshiner has several years of experience not just biking in winter, but also leading the Bike Brigade, a group of kids who are now middle school age, and who bike to school nearly every day. They have biked through some extreme weather conditions and so she has experience with keeping these kids warm. Gina has her own set of ideal cold weather gear, but she knows how to make do with whatever a kid happens to have on hand (or foot).

She asked the kids what advice they would have for winter bicyclists. Their #1 advice was attitude. It’s not freezing, it’s invigorating! Brisk! Rejuvenating!

Not an all-weather bicyclist? A recent study showed that if midwesterners bicycled just four months of the year for most trips less than 2 miles, that would have a significant impact on public health, gas, environment, finances, and economy. (Money that goes into our gas tanks–and into Canadian oil–doesn’t do much for the economy. Take that money out of the gas tank and save it, pay down debt, or spend it on bicycle clothes, and you have a positive influence on our economy.) So if winter biking is not for you, take pride in your fair weather bicycling. And then maybe, try out something a little cooler than you normally do. You might be surprised at how…invigorating…it is!

The lady with the yellow coat

Today someone posted that they saw a woman trying to ride a bicycle in the newly fallen snow and it was funny. I bet it was! I didn’t ride because I knew it would be slick. Her friend posted, “Was it the lady with the yellow coat who doesn’t use the gears on her bike, peddling (sic) super fast but going no where? She was out in a terrible rain storm- grinning.”

I can answer that! No, it wasn’t the same lady, because that lady has to be me, and I didn’t bike today.

I got a huge kick out of that. People recognize me.

Actually, I do use the gears. The low gears. I can get anywhere without breaking a sweat.

You know who else wore yellow? That’s right, the man in the yellow hat.

My first city council meeting

I spent 20 minutes Monday morning sitting in City Hall reading the 2012 proposed budget. Before today I would never have believed that I would voluntarily do that. I had two main questions. 1.) What is the City of Kirksville annual budget? Answer: about $25 million. 2.) What is the City of Kirksville annual transportation budget? Answer: $1.7 million.

I have a third question that I was not able to ascertain. What percent of the transportation budget is spent specifically on bike/ped infrastructure? I went to the City Council meeting tonight. During the budget discussion they asked for public input. I looked around and they were about to move on and I stood up in a hurry. They looked surprised that anyone had anything to say. In fact, afterwards, someone made a point of telling me, “In all the years I’ve been doing this, no one has ever spoken up during the public input on the budget session.”

The city manager did not know the answer to that question off the top of her head, but promised to look it up. I continued with my remarks. The City, I know, has been looking into adopting a Livable Streets policy, and in line with that would be a commitment to spend some percentage of the transportation budget on bike/ped infrastructure. Already a percentage is spent, because when a road is worked on, if the sidewalk is affected, it gets worked on too. To formalize that percentage, and then increase it, would be a positive move.

I also used the opportunity to mention to the assistant city manager that I would be interested in serving on the Airport & Transportation Commission, the Lakes, Parks, & Recreation Commission, or the regional Transportation Advisory Committee should the current at-large member for our county retire. She’s been on the TAC for 30 years so she just might be thinking about that.

I’ve been considering one day running for city council but the more I’ve learned about the process, I think I would be more effective on the transportation commission. And that would be more comfortable for Iain who is adamantly opposed to being a “politician’s wife”. Sitting on one of these commissions does not preclude me from one day running for city council should I change my mind. I’m not even eligible yet anyway (you have to have lived in city limits for one year).

And I briefly spoke to one of the council members, the only current TAC member from our county whom I hadn’t spoken to yet, about identifying shoulders on Boundary as a high priority.

I stuck around and listened to the rest of the business which seemed to be of the rubber-stamp variety. The whole thing took half an hour.

Bike, jog, or drive?

Usually choosing transportation is automatic and requires little thought. I just get on my bike. Some days it takes a little more thought. A good day is when foresight wins and saves me trouble. For example, lately I’ve been bringing everything inside at night just in case the padlock on the bike shed is frozen shut in the morning.

Recently I tried jogging, instead of biking, to the pool. I liked it. I liked not having to go a half-mile out of my way to avoid Baltimore St. I put my swimsuit on under my leggings and shorts, wear a long sleeved shirt, a wind breaker, a hat, and gloves. I put my goggles around my neck, tuck my swim cap in my waist band, and tuck a pair of underwear (for the jog home) in my pocket. I carry the towel and a water bottle, and on the way home, the wet suit too. Today seemed colder and I thought I might use the towel as a scarf, until I warmed up.

Then I remembered I needed to get my allergy shot today. The clinic is not far from the Aquatic Center, just another half-mile up New St. It’s easy to bike, and while I could jog there, I’d then need to get home, shower, and get to work and I didn’t really have time for all that to be done jogging and walking. I decided I’d bike.

It was pretty cold this morning. Before I put on all the clothes I’d need to bike, I went outside and checked the shed to make sure I could get in.

I couldn’t. The lock was frozen shut. Regretfully, I concluded I’d have to drive to the pool today. I dropped Nell off at school first, went swimming, got my allergy shot, and went back home. I showered and breakfasted, and walked to work. That way Iain has the car this afternoon to pick Nell up, and I don’t feel guilty about driving everywhere today.

Christmas is coming

I’ve been seeing a few articles whose messages are making Christmas simpler. According to one of these articles, we spend $480 billion in the US on Christmas, and it would take only $10 billion a year to provide safe clean water to every person in the world. That’s a powerful statement. But–

I’m not sure I want to make Christmas simpler. At least– not too much simpler.
1. There are many worthy goals like providing clean drinking water to everyone in the world. The holiday season is an important time for charities. Without Christmas, these charities would suffer.

2. I don’t know about you, but a lot of our Christmas spending is on things we would get anyway, either things we need or things we want. If we didn’t have Christmas as an excuse to get these things for each other, we would get them anyway.

3. If not during the holidays, we would visit our families anyway. It’s not like we’d just go for decades without ever seeing each other just because we didn’t have an excuse to visit.

4. Every culture has annual festivals and ritual celebrations. This says to me that there is something important about them. Cultures that fail to establish these traditions failed to flourish. Chances are the traditions serve an important function, such as establishing and reinforcing social order.

So I would like to propose that we don’t simplify Christmas. If economic times get rough, we find other ways to celebrate. We skype instead of travel, send e-cards, give homemade gifts. That is admirable and sensible. But otherwise, why should we simplify Christmas?

Actually we already keep Christmas pretty simple around here. I don’t feel obligated to give gifts to everyone I know. If I have a laid-back year I might make cookies for a lot of people. My mouse cookies are popular. If it’s a busier time– like last year was– I probably won’t, and I won’t feel guilty about it either. My husband hates to travel so we are fairly particular about keeping our travel to a minimum, and only making one trip during the holidays.

I guess the articles are directed toward people who feel guilty for not visiting every living relative every year, who feel obligated to give a lot of gifts, and who resentfully attend every holiday gathering and white elephant exchange.

I make a point of enjoying Christmas. If I think I won’t enjoy a party, I don’t go. If that makes me a Scrooge, so be it. At least I’m a happy Scrooge. Which probably means I don’t qualify as a Scrooge at all! It probably helps that, in general, I tend to enjoy parties, unlike my husband, who despises them all.

Citizens meeting on Hwy 63 bypass

The meeting wasn’t really on the bypass, which would have been a short, violent, and bloody meeting. It was about the bypass, and in the high school cafeteria. After decades of planning and waiting, Kirksville finally got its bypass for Hwy 63. (Macon is still waiting.) At the opening, our state rep Zach Wyatt criticized MoDOT for the design which he thought was dangerous. Two hours later, there was a wreck at one of the intersections he was concerned about. He organized a commission and a public meeting.

To prepare for the meeting I went out that morning and rode a section of the bypass. I’d been on it plenty of times before it was open to traffic, but never since it was open. Then I sent an email out to KA-Motion and mentioned that the shoulders are wide, the rumble strips are placed so they don’t interfere with the shoulder, and the shoulders carry through on the bridges. Sometimes, shoulders are omitted from the bridges, so cyclists riding in the shoulder have to merge with 60 mph traffic to get across the bridge. What that actually means is we stop and wait until there is a break in traffic that we think is long enough to get across the bridge. If we judge wrong…

A few years ago, Hwy 63 became four-lane all the way from Kirksville to Columbia and beyond, except for a little stretch through Macon. Hwy 63 becomes Baltimore St when it reaches Kirksville, and gets backed up with traffic and trucks. The bypass was built to alleviate the congestion on Baltimore. The bypass is two-lane, and intersects three highways at ground level. The other highways have stop signs. I waited a long time for traffic to clear enough so I could get out onto the highway.

Nate Walker is chair of Zach’s commission. He started off by saying that when he was Missouri’s Highway Safety Director, in the late 1980′s, there was a push to get four lane highways through all the little Missouri towns, which he supported. He would like to see the bypass become a four lane highway.

I don’t hope to see that. First, we have passed peak oil and the technology has lived up to our expectations to provide us with cheap energy to replace cheap oil. Oh, there are rumors, but so far nothing has come of it. The best we’ve managed is more efficient cars. They can get further as the price of gas rises, but that will only prolong it a little bit. We’re running out. Gas is going to be prohibitively expensive and we are not going to be driving nearly as much. We’re not going to need four lane highways.

Second, Detroit has proven that it is possible to build our way out of congestion–at the price of our health and freedom. Detroit is (or so I’ve read, I haven’t seen it myself) a massive parking lot. There are other solutions to traffic congestion. Like reducing the mass of traffic by putting people in buses and on bicycles and on foot. Do you know how much cheaper a sidewalk is, than a highway? A pedestrian bridge, than an overpass?

But I digress. Many citizens were indignant that we got a two-lane highway with ground intersections instead of a four-lane with overpasses. They said MoDOT cheated us, they said MoDOT lied. MoDOT district engineer Kevin James responded a couple times. He said there had been public meetings during the design phase, and that MoDOT had sought public input and worked closely with the City (another avenue that public input could go through). They built what they thought we wanted. Northeast Missouri Transportation Advisory Council member Harriet Beard, who is in no way affiliated with MoDOT, emphatically objected to the allegation that MoDOT lied. The bypass was paid for by a tax that Kirksville citizens voted for and passed.

It got a little exciting. But as you can see from the snapshot above, there were no fisticuffs. No ruckus, no brawl, no public disturbance.

The people who come to this sort of things are the ones who are seriously unhappy. In addition to those who felt they were cheated, some came because the bypass altered traffic patterns on other roads that weren’t built to handle the loads they are seeing, some think there aren’t enough signs directing traffic back to the businesses in Kirksville, and some are worried about the safety of the overpass that is the entrance to the bypass.

Two people spoke up in favor of the highway. One was a school bus driver. One said we just need to give it time and we’ll get used to it. Of course, anyone who is content with the highway isn’t going to come to a meeting like this. Still, it did draw about 80 people, which is a huge crowd for this town!

I don’t have strong feelings about the bypass. It’s fairly bicycle-friendly. I did comment that if they do build overpasses, make sure they have shoulders, even if the overpasses are on the cross highways that do NOT have shoulders, because it’s basically impossible to add shoulders to a bridge after its built without them. I came to this meeting because I want to be involved. This road was built in a manner that is amenable to bicycles, and I want to be involved to ensure that other roads are built that way.

I’ve corresponded with Zach Wyatt but I hadn’t met him before. When he saw my bicycle pin he made a bee-line for me. He has a pin just like it, from the Legislators’ Ride in April. He talked about all the suits on bicycles! He mentioned “that FLATS guy” (Royce).

Bypass Commission member and former English teacher Mrs. Osborn (don’t remember her first name, and she looks like she’s been called Mrs. Osborn by more people than not) said she had gotten a phone call just before the meeting from a friend who received an email from a lady who had bicycled on the highway… yeah, that was me. I introduced myself to her afterwards.

In addition to meeting Zach and Mrs. Osborn, and seeing several people I’ve met before like Nate Walker, Harriet Beard, and Jason Hunsicker, I made another important contact. Chris Curtis, sports reporter for KTVO, contacted me afterwards and asked about doing a story on bicycling.

Another outcome of the meeting was that I was inspired to talk to Todd Kuhns about his experience on city council. I have some vague inclinations to run for council some day, although maybe not because Iain is vehemently opposed to being a “politician’s wife”, and I wouldn’t want to do that to him if he really hated it. The conversation with Todd was very illuminating. I mentioned that I might be more interested in serving on either the City’s Airport & Transportation Commission, or the Northeast Missouri district Transportation Advisory Council. He was really enthusiastic about those options, and also suggested Parks, Lake & Rec. He said there are always people on those commissions who would like to get off of them, if only there were someone to take their place. So, after Iain’s had time to get used to that idea, if he isn’t vehemently opposed, I’ll probably be contacting the city & district to let them know I’m interested if a spot opens up.

KTVO and the Kirksville Daily Express both covered the story with inflammatory headlines:
Citizens Give MoDOT the Heat
Public accuses MoDOT of lying to, cheating northeast Missourians

Community Blogger

I’m going to be a Community Blogger for the Kirksville Daily Express! I bet you can guess my topic: Bicycling and Walking in Kirksville. I’m to post twice a week and my posts should be around 300 words. 300 words isn’t much. Most of my blog posts on here are 500 or more. Research Eyes (my science blog) is generally quite a bit longer. So I don’t anticipate having any trouble keeping up with the demand. I suspect I’ll write a lot of multi-part posts, which will really be one long post split up into several mini-posts.

I also suspect that Rachel & Crush will be less active and more off-”topic”. This blog has been about bicycling, where the topic “bicycling” includes bicycling, fitness, traffic, diet, money, politics, and more. Plus recently I’ve noticed I have a tendency to post truly off-topic. Even in my own head the topics aren’t connected to bicycling. However, I don’t think this blog will go away altogether because this is my personal blog. It can’t be found by search engines, and while complete strangers could theoretically find & read it, I don’t think they do. Except for a little spam there’s no evidence of that. The Daily Express blog will be read by complete strangers. What I post there will be actually restricted to bicycling & walking, and there are some things I still won’t post there. And I’ll proofread it more carefully than I do this blog.

Like any discussion of Nell’s wreck. Once the legal stuff settles, I do intend to post more details about that here.

I’m so excited about the Daily Express blog. It will start probably sometime in December, no later than Jan 1. They’re still setting up the interface for their website. I will of course let everyone know what the link is.

I’ve already written the first introductory post. And a couple others. And I have titles for several more.

See what I mean about multi-part posts? With only 300 words, each post has one point and I can’t delve too deeply into that one point.

I intend that as much as possible, posts will be timely, that is, they’ll respond to current local events, changing seasons, that sort of thing. These posts that I’m pre-writing will fill in when there isn’t something local to respond to, which will be most of the time.

The topics I listed are all related to vehicular cycling. I have plenty other ideas: FLATS, weather, cargo capacity. Feel free to let me know if you have any ideas. I’m going to keep a list handy.

I’ve been thinking about doing series of related topics. For example the first post of each month will be an interview. I’ve got tons of people in mind to interview. The Public Works Director, the assistant City Manager, anyone on the Airport & Transportation Commission, MoBikeFed, PedNet, the Northeast Missouri Transportation Advisory Council, the Bike Co-op, the Possibility Alliance, Walt’s (bike shop in Columbia). Again, if you have ideas about who to interview, I’ll have an ongoing list.

Any ideas for other recurring topics like the interviews?

Healthy food = 10 piercings and 5 tattoos

Friday someone said to me, “Here’s vegetarian for you”. I was taken aback–I’m not vegetarian at all. At a couple departmental parties I had brought an apple or banana and declined the cake & ice cream, explaining that I don’t eat sugar. So she thought I was vegetarian? It was just a funny mistake, but in the two years since I quit eating sugar I’ve noticed something about food. We are inundated with recipes, health advice, and fad diets. There is a ton of information, most of it opinions with little supporting evidence. And lots of people experience backlash when they try to change their diet for any reason. If they explain why they have made changes–without suggesting that anyone else make changes–people get defensive about their own diet choices.

In addition to being swamped with information, most of it conflicts. Fat is bad, carbs are bad, protein’s good but we eat too much meat. The information we believe is what fits with our world view. We can rationalize any diet into a logical choice. The actual evidence of anything is thin. Even smoking took tons of studies to provide conclusive evidence that it was bad and it has a very strong link to lung cancer and emphysema. “Everyone knows” nothing when it comes to diet. The decades-old diatribe against fat is as inaccurate as the rest. It turns out, there’s no real evidence that fat is bad. It makes “sense” because fat is what we are and we don’t want to be fat so we shouldn’t eat fat. Right? But the scientific evidence points to insulin, not fat, as the thing that makes us fat. I read Gary Taubes “Why We Get Fat” with interest.

My personal opinion is that a diet with roughly equal portions of fat, complex carbs, and protein is probably good enough. And if you want to go with a diet that is more fat or more protein or more carbs, that’s probably good too. The main thing is that the carbs are complex carbs, stay away from sugar and corn syrup (including HFCS), avoid tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine. I could probably brand this paragraph with a catchy title, write a ten chapter book explaining it, and make a lot of money.

But what I find of more interesting is how wrought up people get when they talk about someone else’s diet. They lambaste vegetarians or vegans as animals rights hippies. Meat eaters are gun-totin’ rednecks. Anyone else is a health nut freak.

What we eat places us in our world, like our clothes, our styles, our homes, our entertainment. Our diet defines us as a group. Adopting a different diet is the equivalent of getting ten piercings and five tattoos and wearing our pants around our knees. You thought you were just selecting healthier food but people act like you’re making a statement, trying to break away. Some get defensive, and some try to join you.

Clarinet

Here’s another post that off-topic, not about bicycles at all. That’s twice I’ve done that recently, maybe that’s a sign that my life is expanding to include something other than bicycles. However, I’m going to do my best to bring bicycles into it. I’ve already included the word “bicycles” in every sentence so far.

Last year Nell prepared for district band but got hit by a truck a week before, and with a broken finger and concussion she couldn’t audition. She missed chair auditions too for high school band. In the spring she prepared a piece for contest and got a tough judge. She got a II on the piece but there was a mix-up about the judge’s copy of the music and her score was penalized to a III because the judge got the wrong copy. Then she was fairly dissatisfied with the part she ended up with in the play (not that that’s on clarinet, it was yet another audition that she was unhappy with).

This year she’s once again been working very hard on the district audition piece, which is also used for high school band chair auditions. But when chair auditions for high school band rolled around this year, she got very anxious and completely flubbed it and is sitting 6th of 8 chairs. She challenged the next day but had the same anxiety issues.

So we did not have high expectations for her at yesterday’s district band auditions. All week she’s been practicing performing for people, and her performance anxiety improved considerably. She’s been reading a book about dealing with performance anxiety. We hoped she would do well on the audition and not get performance anxiety, but we didn’t have any expectations of her getting a part.

KHS band has over 80 students, and 50 of them auditioned. Last year, 42 auditioned and 12 made either District or Honorable Mention Band. So we might expect around 15 to make it this year. 8 clarinets auditioned (6 who play clarinet in band, plus 2 who play other instruments). So Nell was the lowest chair clarinet who was auditioning.

17 clarinets were selected for District Band, and another 19 for Honorable Mention. Nell is sitting 6th chair which puts her playing 2nd part, 1st chair. Another KHS clarinet (the drum major) is sitting 5th chair. She also beat a girl from Columbia who always sat 1st or 2nd chair in every band Nell was ever in. There is one more KHS clarinet in District, and 4 made Honorable Mention.

She has a couple extremely proud parents. Even the cats are proud of her.

I really can make this about bicycles. When I was in the Bike Co-op attempting to fix my wheel, a student was insisting that bikes are all about performance. I disagreed, because he’s a racer, and I’m a commuter. His bicycle needs are a lot different (and more expensive) than mine. His performance-optimized bike is not at all suitable for commuting. He kept saying “It’s all about performance”, quoting hilarious rap video about bicycle performance. (It includes, in rap, the line “My cardiovascular fitness level’s right up there with Lance”).

Video link:
Performance

The point is, bicycle racing is nearly as much about equipment as it is about training. A highly trained cyclist on an inferior bike could be beaten by a lesser trained cyclist running better equipment. Well, equipment is also an important component in musical performance. Two summers ago we bought a professional model clarinet for Nell. Last summer we got her a top of the line mouthpiece. I could hear the difference in her tone right away with the new mouthpiece.

So her success yesterday was in large part due to her practicing both the music and practicing to get over the performance anxiety. But there was definitely an element of better equipment involved. There’s one other critical element too. She’s been studying with a college professor since 7th grade (Erica Manzo in Columbia, Jesse Krebs in Kirksville). When I was in high school, I only studied with a college professor my senior year. We lived an hour away from KU, so it wasn’t really possible before that. That year, I had a car (for some values of “car”), a driver’s license, and I was only in high school in the mornings. I drove to Lawrence in the afternoons for a college class and my french horn lessons with Dr. Bushouse.

Driving with bicyclists

In Kansas, the driving test includes a question about bicycles: How many feet distance should you allow when passing a bicyclist? (The answer is 4 feet in Kansas. In other states it is 3 feet. In some locales it is 1 foot per 10 mph with a minimum of 3 feet. In Missouri it is simply “a safe distance”.) I am passionate about wanting to educate bicyclists in how to drive their bicycles. That is not because they annoy me by biking unsafely, even when one runs over my daughter. It is because I want them to experience the joy of bicycling that I do. Knowing and following the best cycling practices increases your confidence on the road, enhances your experience on the bike, and frees you to bike any road.

But I am offended by any bicycling safety program that doesn’t include a motorist education component. After all, bicyclists don’t kill motorists, it’s the other way around. A recent article covered it pretty well but the tone was patronizing and in my opinion off-putting to motorists, despite that it starts out claiming that it is not anti-car. So I wanted to write an article directed toward motorists that isn’t judgmental or condescending.

Tell me what you think. Is this article offensive, patronizing, or condescending toward drivers?

Driving with bicyclists

Pass bicyclists safely, allowing at least 1 foot per 10 mph that you are driving, minimum 3 feet. If the lane is wide enough to share in this manner, you can pass without changing lanes. If the road is not wide enough to pass, change lanes, waiting until oncoming traffic is clear to use the left lane. Passing any closer than that might seem safe to you but the cyclist will feel like she is being “buzzed”. Allow this much room because the cyclist needs space to avoid obstructions in the road that might be invisible to you.

Pass bicyclists on the left. As with all traffic, don’t pass on the right. Savvy bicyclists also pass slower moving traffic on the left, but young or novice cyclists may pass a line of stopped cars on the right. Check for right-passing cyclists before making a right turn, especially if there is a bike lane on the right.

Be patient. If you need to slow down or even stop before you can safely pass a cyclist, it will rarely delay you more than a few seconds. A cyclist’s life is worth a few seconds.

Learn bicyclists’ hand signals. They point left with their left arm for a left turn, and either point right with their right arm or raise their left hand to indicate a right turn. Don’t pass a cyclist who is signaling a left turn. Savvy cyclists will move toward the center or left side of the lane in preparation for a left turn, but watch for left-turning cyclists who are on the far right side of the road.

Stop at stop signs and red lights. Cyclists and pedestrians are particularly vulnerable at intersections. Before proceeding, check both directions for cross traffic which may include cyclists and pedestrians.

When you back out of a driveway or exit a parking lot, watch for cyclists, pedestrians, and children. A savvy cyclist stays clear of the right edge of the road, but most cyclists don’t know to do that. Back out slowly.

When road conditions impair visibility, for example hills, curves, sun in your eyes, fog, or other conditions, drive slowly enough that you are able to stop quickly. When cresting a hill if you can’t see what is on the other side, slow down. The posted speed limit is NOT a minimum and is the maximum safe speed under perfect weather conditions with dry pavement and full visibility. Sometimes the posted speed limit is not all that safe even under those conditions, for example 55 mph zones on straight but hilly roads, or around curves, are common even though drivers can’t see over the hill and stop in time should they encounter an obstacle. Regardless of laws and posted speed limits it is your ultimately responsibility to drive safely and not kill anyone.

Savvy cyclists leave plenty of room between themselves and parked cars to avoid the “door zone”. Check for novice and young cyclists when you open your door. Dooring can be fatal.

Don’t honk, yell, or throw things at cyclists. This is harassment. Even if you mean it as a “friendly” honk or hello, it’s hard to tell a friendly honk from an angry one, and either way it startles and distracts the cyclist. And if you are honking or yelling because you think the cyclist will be safer on another road, you are creating an extremely unsafe and hostile environment! If you see a friend cycling, wait until later to tell her. If you really want to encourage a cyclist, roll down your window and put your hand out and wave. Better yet, get on a bike yourself. Seeing another cyclist is the best encouragement!

In fact, the best thing you can do for other cyclists’ safety is to get on a bicycle yourself. Drivers who are also cyclists are much more aware of cyclists and how cyclists (experienced or novice) may behave. Drivers who are also cyclists are usually safer and more patient drivers. When you have experienced 20 mph on a bicycle, it doesn’t seem unbearably slow!

The wheel

The time had come to rebuild my wheel. I’ve done it twice, in a bike shop with all the tools and trained mechanics looking over my shoulder. The last time was 3 years ago, and I don’t have a bike shop handy. I have or can borrow the tools. Even though Sheldon Brown has passed away, his wonderful website still exists. I believed I was capable of building the wheel. The question was, could I find the time to do it?

I had taken my bike to Columbia because it needed a tune-up and desperately needed new tires. When I realized how flaked the tires were I was surprised I hadn’t had a lot of flats lately. When they put the new tires on, they noticed that my front rim was very thin. “How urgent is it?” I asked.
“Welllll, you want to be safe, don’t you?”
Ok. That urgent.
“Just don’t stop too suddenly. It would probably crack the rim.”
Yeah. Sounds pretty urgent to me.

Most people would probably buy a new wheel. But mine has a hub generator that powers my headlight. The best option was to buy a new rim and re-build the wheel. The bike shop ordered the rim for me. They got me the same brand & model of rim I had been using. I asked if there was anything that would last longer? But 8000 miles and 3 years is a long life for a rim when you are a commuter (lots of starts & stops, and biking in all weather conditions). They could ship it, and I was told it would be about $8. But shipping was actually to be $17. Fortunately a friend was going to Columbia and she picked it up for me. The difficult part about this wheel was that, while I was building the wheel, I couldn’t use my bike. So I felt like I had to build it in one session. In retrospect, I wouldn’t try to do that again. It would be nice to have a spare wheel I could put on in these situations. But I could get by on Iain’s bike.

By then it had been about three weeks since they told me it was urgent. I had ridden a 65 mile ride, and all my commuting, on this thin rim, riding only on the hope that I wouldn’t have to stop suddenly and crack my front rim. I was lucky.

All week the rim sat in my office. The Bike Co-op has a truing stand, but it is only open from 12-4. A 4-hr window would be best, but I always had afternoon meetings, and I thought I could get it done in less than 2 hrs. I got the rim home, riding with it around my neck, my elbows splayed out to keep it from falling down like a hula hoop. After that I tied it with a bungie from the side of my basket so when I went around corners it clanged but otherwise rode just fine. Finally on Friday I skipped a couple things and went to the Bike Co-op at noon. I waited for someone to come open it up, and got started on the wheel at 12:15.

I unhooked the brake, unplugged the light, and took the wheel off. I let the air out and took the tire off. That took a while. It was pretty tight. I taped the old rim next to the new rim. I loosened all the spoke nipples. One by one, I took each spoke nipple of, moved the spoke to the new room, and put the spoke nipple back on. The Bike Co-op had several spoke wrenches.

I lost two spoke nipples inside the new rim. The Bike Co-op had a couple extra spoke nipples. The spoke nipples rattled inside the rim. They are still rattling in there.

It was 1:45 and I had a meeting at 2. The Bike Co-op is on Truman’s campus and my meeting was at ATSU. There were a couple students who didn’t have much to do, and I asked if they knew how to true a wheel. I left them truing my wheel and I walked to my meeting.

I got back from my meeting at 3:30. The tire was back on the wheel and aired up. It all looked good, but I thought the spokes were awfully loose. I tried to put the wheel on and I couldn’t get the brakes reattached at all! Another student, who is a little more skilled in bikes, agreed that the spokes were far too loose. They had trued the wheel but hadn’t gotten the tension right. It was almost 4. He handed me the more portable truing stand to borrow for the weekend and asked if I needed a spoke wrench. “Nope, I have one,” I said confidently. I called Iain to come pick up me and the bike.

Only I still had stuff to do at work, so he dropped me off and took my bike home. I walked home in the evening. On Saturday, I looked for my spoke wrench. I couldn’t find it. I made many frantic phone calls. NO ONE who was home had a spoke wrench! And no place in town carries a spoke wrench. Finally Ivy called me back and I rode Iain’s bike over to borrow Ivy’s spoke wrench. Such a tiny thing, but such a big thing!

It was Saturday evening by the time I finally got to the wheel with the spoke wrench. The truing stand was a little different than the ones I’ve used before. The left and the right aren’t attached, they screw in separately. I got the wheel trued, the tension was good, I got it trued round (vertically?) as well as laterally. I worked on it Saturday, and then again Sunday. Then I tried to put it back on my bike. The brake rubbed on one side.

I called Ivy, put the bike on the car and dropped it off Tuesday evening. The wheel was dished. I explained how the two sides of the truing stand screwed in separately and I hadn’t been sure how to cope with that. He told me the trick–only use one side, but turn the wheel over again and again. He fixed it, and he adjusted the brake. When it was even, the brake didn’t rub, but it was still too close to the rim, because the brake had been adjusted to the old, very thin rim.

I picked up the bike and rode it around. It was great! But at night I discovered my headlight wasn’t working. That turned out to be an easy quick fix. The wires have to be reattached just so, and I have plenty of experience doing that.

Building a wheel and truing it is fun and empowering and all that. But it just takes too much time. If you do it all the time you can do it very quickly. I’ve heard of people who can build a wheel in 15 or 20 minutes. I have built a wheel about once every three years. That is just not often enough to get good at it. So next time, in about three years, I will just pay someone to do it.

I still haven’t gotten around to returning the borrowed truing stand, and since the Bike Co-op just closed for the day five minutes ago, it’ll be Monday before I do it. I find the Bike Co-op’s hours extremely limiting. It’s just really hard to get over there in that 4 hour window in the middle of the day. That’s why I want to get funding so they can hire a part time manager. If they could just expand their hours a little bit so I could stop by on my way home, or if there were one person I could call to meet me after hours, that would make the Bike Co-op far more usable for the entire community outside of Truman.

Imagine…an elevated walkway

Tuesday afternoon we went out to the park to clear what will be Phase 2 of the Forest Lake Area Trail System (FLATS). It was chilly but actually that was a perfect temperature for the hard work we were doing. Along the way we shed jackets and tools which we retrieved as we came back.

There were 3 logs across the trail and we spent probably too much time attempting to move those, and to cut down a small tree. (We called it a trail, but it wasn’t a trail, not even a dirt trail. Just a series of orange ribbons tied to mark the way.) In one of those attempts, Jeff injured himself and couldn’t do as much after that as he wished. We got one log moved but the others we had to leave.

There were 2 places where the trail-to-be was completely blocked with brush. One of those had yet another log mixed in with the brush. We got the brush cleared away and we were able to move the log out too.

We had a little difficulty finding the start of the trail-to-be, and once we lost the trail-to-be completely. The ribbons Dan & Royce had tied to mark it two years ago were faded. We searched around a bit and found the next ribbon. We tied a lot more orange ribbons in the places we had trouble finding our way.

There is a little pond the trail goes around. Everyone says they have never seen it so low. Nor the lake.

The best part was the gorge and two berms. We climbed down a vertical bank into a gorge and then back up again. We climbed over the berm and down the other side, and then again on the next one. The gorge was the steepest. I ended up sliding down it like a slipper slide. My backside was completely covered in mud. I had rode out with Dan and I sat on a towel on the way back so I wouldn’t get his car completely muddy.

We think when Phase 2 is finished, this gorge will have a bridge. Or rather, an elevated walkway, because the regulations for an elevated walkway are more lenient than for a bridge!

It started to rain and it would soon be dark, as we were coming back. It was a really beautiful day.

The reason we did that Tuesday is because the architects from the Dept of Natural Resources (DNR), and a representative from the National Park Service (NPS) came out on Wednesday. We met with them in the morning. The DNR architects had blueprints of Phase 1 on top of a topographical map. They took us through them page by page. There is going to be a lovely bridge in one spot, with artwork of the petroglyphs. We talked about Phases 2 & 3 a little bit. The NPS has awarded us a grant which will help with the design & plan of Phases 2 & 3. The snow that had been falling early that morning stopped by the time we met, but it was still foggy and overcast.

The sun had come out by the end of the meeting. The DNR guys headed off to do some surveying. We took the NPS rep to walk what will be Phase 1 in the spring, and to walk Phase 2 that we cleaned up the day before. That was a lot of fun, and we avoided sliding down the banks on our backsides by making a human chain like in the pictures.

That, combined with some really fun I’m doing at work, plus NaNoWriMo, have made this a really great week. And I got my bike back today. Nell, on the other hand, has been having a terrible week, so I guess she is offsetting my good week, poor kid.

This is probably my favorite picture I took.

These next two really emphasize how steep the bank was. It truly was vertical. Pictures are two dimensional and they flatten out landscapes. Because the people are on different elevations, you can actually tell that the bank is vertical.

This next one is a close tie for my favorite, even though it’s just a little blurry. I just love how everyone is laughing.

The petroglyphs

The purpose of a novel

What is the purpose of a novel, a movie, a song*? People in entertainment get a certain amount of prestige, because entertainment is very popular, and a certain amount of flack, because they’re not out saving lives. I believe that a novel has an inherent purpose that is just as important as an EMT saving a life. Without novels (or an equivalent that achieves that purpose), an EMT saving a life wouldn’t exist. That is, the value we place on “EMT saves a life” is written in novels. In other times and in other cultures, life wasn’t or isn’t as valuable as it is to us. So the EMT saving a life simply wouldn’t mean as much. It wouldn’t be a romantic and noble purpose. It would be more like scrubbing the toilet. Just a thing that is done.

I’ve been thinking about this because I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). NaNoWriMo is a personal contest, more accurately it is a challenge, a challenge to write 50,000 words in one month. I don’t find the word goal burdensome. I’m well ahead of schedule at the moment. The difficulty is extricating myself from my novel. It is consuming me, and I can hardly think about anything else.

I love it. But I wonder, what is the purpose of it? What noble goal is served by writing what is roughly the plot of Lolita set in a Dungeons & Dragons type of setting: a 150+ year old dwarf instructor at the School of Sorcery falls in love with his 16 year old human student?

I’m a firm believer in Biology. I believe that everything we love and everything we hate is driven by evolution. We hate to feel embarrassed for a reason. We love video games for a reason. We see it as foibles or traits to be overcome in our pursuit of happiness, but there is a reason even for that pursuit of happiness. Figuring out these reasons is a lot of fun. (There’s probably a reason it is fun…it gets meta really fast.) Our drive for happiness is to keep us improving all the time. Those early hominids who didn’t have that drive didn’t thrive.

Most of our existence is about social order. We hate public speaking because early tribes had to maintain social order and if one guy mouthing off could make the whole tribe fall apart. We are programmed to feel embarrassed to maintain the unity of the tribe. Of course, sometimes the leader needs to be overthrown for the good of the tribe, so when it’s really important we can overcome our reluctance. And, some people naturally overcome that more easily than others, there’s a whole lot about personality that just makes me wonder. Is it like eye color, and there are some personality traits that don’t confer an advantage or disadvantage per se, but give us some variability so we can tell each other apart and identify individuals? But I digress.

A novel, I decided, has one (or more) of three purposes:
1. To maintain social order
2. To create new social order
3. To destroy social order

I got that far, and wasn’t sure which one of these my novel is doing. On another level, a novel has two purposes: to be written, and to be read. The act of writing is an author’s attempt to make sense of the world. The act of reading is the reader’s search for an interpretation of the world that makes sense. Both of these, I realized, are fulfilling the overall purpose of the novel that I just listed, to influence social order.

We have a world view. We learn it, maybe we are born with it? It changes through our lives. We resist its change. We make up stories to reconcile our experiences with our world view, because they aren’t always in agreement. When our world view does change, we have to re-write the stories. My novel is definitely an attempt to reconcile my experiences with my world views (no, I did not have a fling with a student or with a teacher, it’s more of an allegory than literal). I hope that some readers will enjoy it because it helps them reconcile their experiences with a world view (allegorical or literal).

That said, all of this meta stuff is just a story so that passionately writing a trivial bit of fluff makes sense.

*When I started writing this post, it didn’t seem to fit in either Research Eyes (my science blog) or here (my bicycle blog). My “bicycle blog” has a very wide theme because bicycling has affected nearly every aspect of my life. I decided to put it here, even though I didn’t see how it related to bicycling, because this blog is generally more personal, and the topic is personal. After I got started, it drifted into science, and then I started seeing all sorts of connections to bicycling. The passion I am feeling for my novel right now is precisely the passion I have felt at various times for bicycling, bicycle advocacy, health & fitness, diet, environmentalism, and more. In favor of the science blog, it is the same passion I’ve felt for changing science culture, postdoc advocacy, etc.

Groceries

A common hang-up for cyclists is the idea of biking to the grocery store. This has come up a few times recently so I thought it would be a good time for an article. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that if everyone biked for just half of their errands during only 1/3 of the year (the best weather third), it would make a significant difference in health and pollution, saving 1100 lives and $7 billion in health car in the Midwest. That’s a pretty reasonable goal! It’s the less ambitious aspect of our Two Mile Challenge, which was to leave the car at home for some, most, or all of the short trips during October.

But if you want to bike to the grocery store, the first obstacle most people think of is how to carry their groceries. Here are some solutions.
1. Make smaller trips more frequently. When you need to get heavy stuff, like cat litter, a bucket of ice cream, or that weekly 24-pack of your favorite unhealthy drink, take the car.
2. Use panniers, a basket or crate mounted on your rear rack, or a basket mounted on your handlebar. Any weight on your handlebar changes how your bike handles, so while this isn’t an insurmountable problem it is something to be aware of and be careful as you get used to it.
3. Get a bike trailer. You can spend a lot or a little on a new trailer. I assume there are reasons to spend more, like quality or features, but I’ve seen some for less than $200. If you are a little bit handy you can do what I did, and buy a used kid trailer for pretty cheap, and convert it into a grocery trailer. Take the seats out and replace with a piece of plywood. I can haul as much groceries in my trailer as I can in the car.

While cargo is the obstacle most people think about, getting to the grocery store can be challenging because the traffic tends to be thick in that area. A few days ago I was biking on Illinois past a grocery store right around 5:00 pm, when there was a lot of traffic. A bicyclist in front of me signaled a left turn, but pulled over to the right side of the road and stopped, looking behind her and still signaling her left turn. No one knew what to do. She did it kind of suddenly and we ended up passing her on the right! Other traffic squeezed by on her left.

It was a strange, unpredictable, and frankly dangerous maneuver. But I don’t blame her– she, like so many cyclists, simply didn’t know what she is supposed to do. The idea of stopping in the middle of a busy street to make her left turn, the way she would do in a car, was probably inconceivable.

Actually, she had at least three other options.
1. She could have taken a different route and only had to cross Illinois. There is a quiet residential road, Bradford, that leads right into the grocery store parking lot. This is my preferred option.
2. She could have turned right onto Bradford, turned around, and then crossed Illinois as in option #1.
3. She could have signaled her turn, scanned behind her for traffic, moved into the left part of the lane, stopped and waited for oncoming traffic to clear, and then completed her left turn. Yes, this means she is holding up traffic. But this is how motorists handle that same intersection and they hold up traffic to do it. I prefer this option over #2, because it is less inconvenient for me. But if you don’t feel safe doing it, #2 is perfectly acceptable.

So, one thing to think about if you want to bike to the grocery store, is what route you might take. You may be able to avoid the busy streets by using an alternate street or a back entrance, or–and I don’t generally recommend this approach but in certain situations it might be best–use connecting parking lots. If you use connecting parking lots, treat them like sidewalks. You shouldn’t bike on sidewalks, but if you do, which you shouldn’t, watch for cars backing out of driveways, alleys, and intersections, and go slowly enough that you can stop on a dime, about a walking pace.

Before it was converted to a flatbed

Advice on buying a bike

I wrote this advice for my husband’s cousin, then decided it would make a good article, and a good followup to yesterday’s post about bike fit.
Sounds like you need an all purpose bike. Going fast isn’t a primary concern which means you can sacrifice speed for comfort and cargo capacity. Trek has a good website and I’m familiar with them, so I’ll use them for examples. The types of bikes Trek sells are available in other brands, with different names. Your bike shop probably carries Trek or Specialized, and other brands, but Trek & Spec will be the cheapest. (They’re also manufactured overseas, but most of them are, it’s really hard and expensive to find bikes made in the USA.)

You probably want a hybrid. It’s shaped like a mountain bike, but doesn’t have all the suspension, and can take skinnier tires more like a road bike–but you don’t want skinny road bike tires, you want hybrid tires. The Trek 7000 http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/town/recreation/hybrid/7000_wsd/# or a Trek FX http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/town/fitness/fx/7_1_fx_stagger/# are examples.

I really like the women specific design (WSD) geometry but that is all about bike fit. I think WSD is an unfortunate name because not all women are proportioned like that, and some men are proportioned so the WSD fits them better. Both the 7000 and the FX are available in WSD and regular, whichever turns out to fit you & your husband.

Have you thought about a tandem? I don’t have any experience with them. They sound like fun to me. But I’ve heard that they do put a strain on a relationship, because someone has to be in charge!

Accessories:
-water bottle cage ($5-$10)
-helmet ($25-$50)
-a rear rack that you can put a crate or panniers on will let you use it for errands more easily. A backpack is ok but you’ll have more cargo capacity with a rack, and you’ll like not having a sweaty back ($25-$50)
-Lights even if you don’t plan to ride in the dark because it’s easy to get caught in the dusk and I use them even on cloudy days ($10 for blinkies, you can and should spend much more if you ride at night)
-if you want to ride when the ground is wet, even if it isn’t raining, fenders will a) protect your drivetrain (chain + gears), and b) keep you from getting a stripe of mud up your backside!

These accessories you can get at the bike shop, especially the fenders because they’ll install them for you, but you might be able to get some things cheaper from Nashbar. Or even walmart, some of them.

The features you are looking for are:
-Has to be able to take a rack (even if you don’t get a rack right away)
-Steel or aluminum, either one is ok, but you don’t want it to be heavy. That’s a big problem with walmart bikes. Mountain bikes tend to be heavy too. All bikes are made of steel or aluminum, unless they’re made of carbon or something, but you don’t need to worry about that, those are the expensive bikes.
-Good components (shifters, brake levers, gears, etc). That’s the other big problem with walmart bikes.
-Comfortable. The road bike style (dropped bars) is NOT comfortable. It’s fast. The beach-cruiser style is very comfortable, and very slow. You probably want something in between. Fast enough that you can get somewhere in a reasonable amount of time, but comfortable enough for a long ride.

For my mom, I recommended a step-through frame. Formerly known as a girl’s bike because it allowed someone wearing a skirt to mount the bike modestly, it’s now popular with people who have difficulty lifting their leg high enough to clear the top tube.

Bike fit

I do believe that people should start on a used bike. If you ride a used bike for a few months or even a couple years, you’ll know exactly what you want when you go to buy a new bike. I rode my old bike for 3 years before I bought a new one. I spent a long time getting my old bike to fit me, and it never did fit perfectly, but because I had tried so hard, I knew exactly what I wanted in a new bike.

Kirksville doesn’t have a bike shop, not even a used bike shop. I strongly advise against getting something from Walmart. If you can go to Columbia, or be patient with craigslist, Bike Co-op, etc, you will be much happier than if you settle for a walmart bike. It is tempting to spend $100 or less at Walmart and walk away with a brand new bike. But the bike is heavy and has shoddy components, like shifters and brake levers and brakes. It is put together poorly. Not only is it dangerous, it’s no fun to ride. The one exception to that is a friend of mine who ordered a single speed with coaster brakes. I forget if he assembled it himself or had someone do it, either way an expert checked his work. The simple components meant there wasn’t a lot to go wrong. He has a solid (and heavy) commuter bike that he uses for short trips, and he has a nice road bike for recreational riding and training.

The first thing to do is figure out what size bike you need. The only way to do that is go ride a bunch of bikes. Not having a bike shop in Kirksville makes that hard to do. If you can get to Columbia, Walt’s will help you find the right size. They don’t mind letting you try out a bunch of bikes even though you aren’t planning on getting a new one right away.

Every brand and model is different so if you figure out what fits you perfectly in a Trek 7000, and then you find a used Trek FX, or a Giant hybrid, it won’t necessarily fit you as perfectly.

The two basic measurements you need are seat-to-pedal, and seat-to-handlebar. Of course the seat can be raised and lowered, and it can be pushed closer or further from the handlebar, but that is like fine-tuning it. There’s one more distance which is a little harder to describe, handlebar height.

Imagine you have a bike that is too big but you put the seat down all the way, and you manage to find a stem & handlebar combo so that you can reach. If you have to reach too far or too high for the handlebar, it might seem tolerable at first but in ten minutes it won’t, and you can find yourself with pain in your arms hours and days after you get off the bike. For me it’s sudden shooting pain that leaves me breathless and in tears. No fun! Now imagine that you have a bike that is too small. You get an extra long seat post and you can get the seat high enough. But now you have to bend way down to get to the handlebar. It’s close enough to the seat, it’s just too low.

When you look at a bike the only measurement they give is “size”. This means the distance from the bottom bracket (where the pedals attach) to the top of that tube, where the seat post inserts. This is the seat tube, and it is angled, so you don’t measure from the ground up (besides the bottom bracket is a few inches off the ground).

Most people make the mistake of getting a bike too small. You should NOT be able to comfortably sit on the seat with your feet planted on the ground. If you can, your seat is too low. Your knees will regret that. You have to start the bike with your first pedal stroke and at the same time hop onto the seat. It’s easy to do, but takes a little practice, and it comes easier to some people than others. When you ride the bike, your knee should be almost straight at the bottom, and bent no more than perpendicular at the top. That’s the only way to size that right. The old “1-inch stand over height” is not valid.

The other mistake people make is getting a bike too big and lowering the seat all the way down. Then their legs are fine, but they have to reach for the handlebar. That’s really uncomfortable and you’ll start having problems in your arms & wrists. The reach is determined by the length of the top tube. (In bikes with a dropped top tube, or step-through frames that don’t have a top tube, the length is still there, it’s just imaginary.) They don’t sell bikes with a certain top tube length. The top tube is longer for bigger bikes, and shorter for smaller. That makes it really difficult to find a bike that fits you, if your geometry isn’t proportionally exact to their imaginary rider that they build bikes for.

The only concession bike companies have made is the women specific design (sometimes has other names). This is kind of an unfortunate name because there are many women who fit the standard bike better, and there are plenty of men who are more comfortable on a “women’s” specific design bike. The WSD has a shorter top tube, so you don’t reach as far for the handlebar.

I’m making this sound a lot more complicated than it is. The point is, you need to ride a few bikes and find out for example that a 15″ frame is probably the best height, and if your reach is more suited to a standard frame or shorter (WSD).

Once you know your size, you start looking for a used bike. There is a used bike shop in Columbia, Klunk’s, on the corner of 2nd and Broadway (just west of Providence). They are a good shop, but like any used bike shop, they rarely have what you need when you need it, and without the luxury of being able to drop by there every week or two, it’s hit or miss to find what you need. Other than that, visit craigslist all the time, and I know a couple people who have bikes come their way now and then, once you know your size.

The Rules

Iain recommend I write up the rules of my No Sugar thing. I’ll start by explaining what it is. A couple years ago, I was getting pretty concerned about how the world got so dark one day a month. Not visually dark, in my head it gets dark. The world is dark, everyone is out to get us, I feel paranoid and terrified. It’s pretty awful. I finally mentioned something about it to my doctor who prescribed Yaz. I wasn’t thrilled about that. I’ve never been fond of being put on hormones, and as a breast cancer researcher I know all of their side effects. But he talked me into trying it because this one is supposedly safer.

Warning: the following contains words like “uterus”.

That day, a friend of mine ended up in the hospital with 3 blood clots. They immediately took her off Mirena and started her on blood thinners and kept her in the hospital for a few days. While she was in the hospital, she saw a commercial for a class action lawsuit, “If you or someone you love has had a pulmonary embolism, and was taking Yaz”.

No way was I filling that prescription now! Had I really left no stone unturned? I thought. Is there anything else I could try? I had quit drinking coke from time to time, with no effect. That was about the extent of dietary solutions I’d tried. I got online and found the Endometriosis Diet and some other resources. Alcohol and tobacco have never featured in my diet. Caffeine I’d quit in the past with no effect. The rest of the list: sugar, dairy, red meat, wheat. Of those, sugar seemed by far the easiest to eliminate. I was definitely willing to alter my diet drastically rather than go on Yaz.

It had a profound effect. In just two months the “dark” day was merely a “dim” day. The monthly flare up of Inflammatory Bowel Disease subsided. The weird little cramps disappeared. (I got rid of my uterus 6 years ago. Apparently what is left can still cramp.) Whenever I needed any additional motivation to continue not eating sugar, my friend would tell me about the hardships of living on blood thinners for a year.

Since I started this, or rather, quit this (this being sugar), I’ve learned a lot about glycemic index and insulin. I’ve learned that fat is not the evil we’ve been led to believe. If anything carbs are…but the real villain is insulin. If you eat complex carbs, and carbs that are bound up in fibers (as in apples), you don’t get an insulin surge (the Glycemic Index).

I’m not allergic to sugar, or to a high glycemic index, so there’s no reason I have to be ultra strict about this. That’s good because food is a highly social thing. An insulin surge once in a while is all right. The question is, at what frequency does “once in a while” become often enough that I start having problems with mood & IBD?

In fact my goal is not to eliminate sugar but to minimize the insulin surges. It’s as much about managing my own psychology as anything else. It’s a lot of experimenting and finding out what works for me. This is one area that I don’t push on anyone, other than suggesting they try it when they talk about symptoms like mine. But if someone were to try it, I wouldn’t recommend they try MY way. Everyone has to find their own way.

So here are the rules. The first rule is that we don’t talk about…oh, wrong rules.

Sweeteners that are not allowed: Sugar, sucrose, dextrose, corn syrup, HFCS, and evaporated cane sugar or evaporated cane juice
Sweeteners that are allowed: Honey, molasses, maple syrup, apple juice concentrate, bananas, dried fruit.
Artificial sweeteners: I just don’t like them. Even the “natural” artificial sweetener, stevia.

When: I tell people that I don’t eat sugar, except for when I do. For a while, I allowed sugar on Thursdays. That made Thursdays turn into binge days, which I didn’t like. I keep changing the rules about “when”, as much to entertain myself as anything. I turn it into a game. The latest game is that each time I quit sugar, I’m going for a new goal. I started with 7 days. I just completed a 13 day run. The 13 day run was the first time I failed the first try…and the second…I succeeded on the third try.

FLATS half. All hills

I got up at 6:15 am. I had gotten my race clothes and my bag ready the night before. I dressed, checked that Nell was up, and double checked what time the shuttle was leaving. I thought it was leaving at 7:15 but the facebook page said 7:00! So I hurried and got on my bike and headed out. Partway there I called the race director and explained that I might be a few minutes late for the shuttle because I thought it was 7:15. He said he’d just been telling people 7:00, so that it would actually leave at 7:15. So I made the 5 mile, partly gravel trip with plenty of time to spare.

Waiting on the bus I saw I had faint signal. I hadn’t yet gotten a text from Iain confirming that Nell’s ride had arrived so I texted him. Her ride, which was supposed to pick her up at 6:40, hadn’t gotten there yet, and it was 7:15! I told him to take her to the marina. I called the race director and let him know that Nell was on her way. Nell was volunteering at one of the aid stations.

On the bus I pulled out the 2 boiled eggs I’d brought and ate them. And I drank some water. I wasn’t terribly hungry. The bus arrived almost an hour before the race was to begin. Nell was already there. I drank more water. I talked to friends. It was cold. I was reluctant to take off my jeans and jacket and long sleeved shirt and hat. The race director announced the race would begin in 10 minutes. I undressed, wishing I had decided to wear tights after all. And that I’d kept the long sleeved shirt on.

The race started and I quickly fell to the rear at an easy pace. I resisted the impulse to keep up with the pack. There was no sense in wearing myself out on the paved part. A couple women in front of me slowed on the uphill and I passed them. It seemed like a long time to the beginning of the trail. It was still cold.

Finally, the beginning of the trail. I took a cup of water and drank it, and 2 little pretzels for the salt. Once on the trail I passed a tall, skinny, and long-legged woman. She didn’t look like she was doing too well. I wonder if she was the one who had asthma, that I heard about later. I didn’t see any other runners for a long time. I intended to stop for a few minutes when I got to the aid station that Nell was at. I meant to ask her if she had a ride home. But I forgot both of those things. Instead, I hugged her, drank some water, and took 2 little pretzels. At every station I drank one little cup of water and ate 2 pretzels. I didn’t want to pretzels but I don’t like Gatorade anymore, and I thought I should have the salt.

I spent a lot of the race worrying about whether she had gotten a ride home.

I was a little worried as I neared the halfway mark. I kept thinking, “Almost halfway,” and that I was pretty tired already, and then that it was really, “Not quite halfway.” I hadn’t yet gotten to the section that I didn’t recognize. I’ve run on the trail from the beginning out and back, and from the end out and back (or the Rainbow Basin Loop using the shortcut). But there is a section in the middle that I’ve never run on. Finally I got to that section. Then it was a long, long time before I got to the part I recognized, from having come to it from the other end.

Mile 8 I started to feel a little more confident. I was now at the point where I’d run as far as I’ve ever run. And I felt all right. Still there was no one around and whenever I saw a mile marker I yelled out loud how far I had left. Of course at the half mile markers it took me a moment to calculate…I don’t do math in my head very well…but it kept me occupied for another minute or so.

I was worrying less about Nell–either she had gotten home, or she hadn’t, and we’d go pick her up. But she’s not a dummy and I was sure she’d figure out a way to call Iain, if her cell phone didn’t have signal at the park. My phone usually doesn’t work out there. Instead, I was thinking about Iain finding his father’s family.

I passed a couple girls who were taking a break, sitting in the sun on a rock. They got up after I went by. I tried not to think about if they might catch up to me. Either they would, or they wouldn’t. I’m not in any shape to race anyone but myself. Just to finish 13 miles was going to take it all, and if I tried to put anything more into it, I would run out.

I had tripped twice but not fallen. I rounded the switchback near the Lost Point–the point where you can see the marina about 200 yards on the other side the lake, but you are actually miles away from it. People always get to that point, and it’s dark, and they are lost, and they call in and say “I can see the marina” and the rangers know exactly where they are. That was the aid station that didn’t have water, only Gatorade. I don’t like Gatorade anymore so I didn’t drink anything there. That worried me a little. Then I tripped and this time I didn’t catch myself. I came up cussing, took stock, nothing damaged, just a little scraped. I saw a little root sticking up that I had tripped on. I took a moment to pull and twist at it, trying to make it so anyone behind me wouldn’t trip on it.

Now I was recognizing the woods all around me. I’d been on this section more frequently lately, because I could get to it without having to drive all the way out to Thousand Hills, so I’m more familiar with it. I got to the part that, 3 weeks ago, had the most lovely red red sumac. Finally I was at the next aid station. It had water. I had blisters on my feet and they hurt. At each aid station I slowed to a walk and walked while I drank water, then I threw the cup on the trail as instructed and coaxed my poor feet back into a slow jog.

Based on previous runs I estimated that I would finish in 3 hours and 20 minutes. On the trail I run a 13 minute mile, and I added time to drink water at the aid stations. I had forgotten to bring a watch and I didn’t stop at the aid stations, I just walked through them. Still I thought my 3:20 estimate was probably pretty good. I was running awfully slowly. I was having trouble picking up my feet, and I was doing a lot of heel-strike. I was seeing more and more landmarks and I knew I was getting much closer.

I thought of a slogan for the FLATS trail half-marathon: FLATS half. All hills.

I tripped again, and sprawled on the trail. Again, nothing damaged. I had yelled pretty loud when I fell, and I had just passed the next to last aid station. I hadn’t tripped on anything as far as I could see. I staggered on. Finally I reached the end of the trail and the last aid station. I thought it was a mile more on the gravel road, but according to the mile marker it was only 1/2 mile. That’s good because it felt a lot longer. My feet hurt so badly.

I finished. They handed me my t-shirt, with “FINISHER” across the back. I didn’t pay any attention to anything but where I could sit down. A couple friends tried to stop me from sitting, saying I should walk first, but I had to get the shoes off first. I got them off and then stood up and walked. They objected to that too because the ground was cold. The cold felt good. Eventually I put socks and regular shoes on. I hobbled around, getting a banana, my race results, pizza, another banana.

My race results! Two hours and 50 minutes! I couldn’t believe it. I had told Iain I would finish between 11:30 and noon, probably closer to noon. He wasn’t there yet. But it wasn’t even 11:30 yet! I called him and he said he & Nell were on their way. She had in fact called him from the marina–even though another family had offered her a ride. (She’s allowed to accept rides according to her own judgment, so long as the driver is not a teenager. However, she didn’t know the family at all, and I guess in her judgment she didn’t want to ride with them!)

My legs actually felt ok. It was just my blistered feet, and my knees. My knees feel like I biked a century on a bike with the seat much too low. I’ll definitely not run for at least a week.

I had intended to bike back to town, but they were on their way anyway, and I put my bike on the car. He dropped me off at the campus fitness center where I showered and changed into nice clothes for the last part of the symposium. I looked at the heels, and rejected them. There was no way my blistered feet were going in those. I put my FINISHER t-shirt on over my dress shirt. It looked goofy, but I had earned the right to look goofy if I wanted to. I have too many t-shirts already, and I will have to cut some up into rags to make room for this, because I am very proud of it!

I hobbled around at the symposium, getting more lunch (the 2 tiny slices of pizza did NOT fill me up), and painfully trying to listen to students explain their posters. They must have done a great job because the sense of their posters made it through the pain of my feet and the fog of my brain. Finally at 3:30 I could go home. I slowly biked home, coasting whenever possible. With all the stairs in our house, it’s hard to get around with these knees.

I will not be running this week. I’ve been thinking about getting the Chi Running book. I bet they have something to say about Runner’s Knee. And about overextending yourself. I think it is time for some serious swimming this week!