My first hyponatremia

Today’s ride report will go on this blog, because I’ve been tending to write more what I think people want to hear about, and less my own rambling, for the newspaper blog. For all I know the readership mostly overlaps between the two, so maybe it doesn’t matter where I post what.

I’m starting to feel nervous about Bike Across Kansas. It was all very well in March to say “I’ve got plenty of time to work up to 70 mile rides by June”. I started with 20 and 30 mile rides. But it’s May and I haven’t gotten beyond 20 and 30 mile rides. So today I was determined to go at least 40 miles.

Deb called at 10:00 to say she was done with her morning roto-tilling and how about we start at 10:30. I was in the middle of my garden so I put away the tools and washed up and went to see to Crush, who needed a little attention. The magnet for the odometer fell off on Friday when she fell over. I summoned Nell so she could learn a little more bike maintenance. She aired up the rear tire and put the magnet on the spoke. I aired up the front tire and cleaned the chain. I switched my flat kit out from my basket to the trunk, added a couple bottles of water and a banana, changed into bike shorts & a tech tshirt, and headed out right at 10:30, about 10 minutes late.

Deb & Keith were waiting for me. It was already warm. We put sunscreen on.

We went out Illinois to Highway 11 east. We turned south on J. The lettered highways are so much hillier than the numbered highways. I ate a banana and finished off my 2nd bottle of water. There was a woman holding a garage sale and she let me refill both water bottles. We rested a few minutes in Brashear, but my banana was gone and I hadn’t brought any more food. I had eaten a good breakfast, my usual 2 eggs on a bed of lettuce. But I was pretty hungry and we were just halfway done.

From Brashear we went south on V, then west on F. Those were both plenty hilly. At the top of a very long hill we stopped in a driveway. I had half a bottle of water left. I drank some and poured the rest on myself. I knocked on the door and refilled both bottles again. I had drank 4 bottles of water at that point, and sweated it all out.

That road took us to Hwy 63. Going north back into town on Hwy 63 is a joy. The wind is always from the south and it’s downhill. I don’t know how the wind is always from the south on Hwy 63 but it is. It makes it really hard going south and really easy coming back. I flew along at a pretty good clip despite feeling hungry and weak. My shoulders were starting to ache, and at the higher speed of the downhill with the wind at my back, I could ride with no hands easily despite the high speed traffic just to my left.

But then I took the exit to Baltimore St. It’s a steep exit ramp and overpass. My odometer counted up to 9000 miles. That’s 9000 miles since I bought  my bike in September 2008. It felt like it was 9000 miles since I’d left the house that morning. The top of the next hill I had to stop. My head was prickling from the heat. I wasn’t thirsty. I drank a little of the cool water and poured some more over my shirt. I moved on, coasted down the next hill, and struggled up to the stop light, where Deb & Keith were waiting for me. I was feeling awful. “You’re almost there,” they said encouragingly. “There’s not any more hills.” I showed them my odometer reading 9002 miles.

They turned on to Franklin and I continued on Baltimore. I considered La Harpe but it has a little bit of a hill. But so did Baltimore. My legs weakly turned over the cranks. Suddenly my weakness & hunger turned into extreme nausea. There is a big ash tree in front of the new urgent care clinic. I leaned my bike up against the tree and sat down in the shade. I waited for the nausea to pass. I wondered if I should call Iain to pick me up. But that seemed ridiculous. I was maybe a mile away from home.

I was still waiting ten minutes later when Ivy pulled in. He’d seen my bike. “Whatcha doing?” he asked.

“I guess I have a little heat exhaustion,” I said. “I’m afraid I’m going to throw up. Can you give me a ride?” In retrospect that might not be the most persuasive way to ask for a ride…threatening to throw up in someone’s car. But of course he did give me a ride. I stood up dizzily and stumbled to the car while he loaded my bike.

I tried to eat at home but I was still nauseous. This was disappointing because my favorite part of a bike ride is coming home and eating, and eating, and eating. I had been anticipating that part of it for so many hours. All I could do was nibble. A couple hours and a nap later, I was feeling better, if not exactly energetic.

I’m more worried now. That was only 40 miles. The shortest day of Bike Across Kansas is 43 miles, and one day is 80 miles. Kansas in June will be hot. On the other hand, Missouri  miles are hillier than Kansas miles, except maybe through the Flint Hills. And now I know better than to try to go 40 miles with only 1 banana. I should have brought 2 bananas and 2 V8s to go with the 5 bottles of water I drank and poured over myself.

I didn’t have a camera

It’s too wet for an organized trail run. Running on the trail when it’s like this tears up the trail. It also makes me muddy, but I don’t care about that. Running on a muddy trail is more dangerous to your knees and ankles, and it takes so much concentration that it’s not as good a workout.

But I try to run on the trail once a week anyway. It’s different than road running. I read somewhere that runners hold their elbows about an inch further from their body when they are running on trails than they do when they are running on a paved surface. At the end of the Trail Half Marathon last year it was my shoulders that hurt as much as anything else. So even if I’m not getting as much of a workout for my heart and lungs, I’m strengthening the ligaments in my ankles and knees, and strengthening my shoulders, when I run on a muddy trail.

There’s not much I can do about the fact that running on a muddy trail tears up the trail.

I biked to the TCC. That’s the only trail that’s convenient to get to by bike. Rainbow Basin isn’t too far but it requires three miles of gravel and I hate biking on gravel.

I didn’t notice the fog until I got to that side of town. The fog was even thicker in the woods. Spider webs, white and heavy with fog, littered the forest floor like used hankies after a bad cold.

The forest at this time of year looks like a page out of a coloring book that a toddler has scribbled on with a Spring Green crayon. Naked tree trunks outline the forest. Where the redbuds grow the toddler used Lavendar. There’s a little Burnt Sienna crayon where last year’s oak leaves linger on the trees.

In the open areas, the grass is orange and green.

Squirrels rustled noisily in the fallen leaves. I heard a grunting and I wondered maybe a deer? I didn’t see it. Birds chirped and chattered, and I heard geese. I heard a bird call or cry that I didn’t recognize. I heard a beating like a drum and saw a huge bird, maybe a turkey buzzard, flap away.

Not many smells made it past my congested sinuses. Where the trail met up to Ray St. I ran along the gravel road for a little bit and smelled the sharp odor of dog poop.

I’m experienced enough to know to walk down the steep slopes when the trail is slick like this. But I tried to run up the steep slopes. On the first one I slid, lost my balance, and fell uphill. My ankle ached a little and after that I walked up as well as down the steep slopes. There are a lot of steep slopes on that trail.

Our tour of Missouri S&T

We visited Missouri Science & Technology in Rolla, MO over spring break this week. This was our (Nell’s) first college visit.

They take their St. Pat's day festivities seriously.

We were struck by the quantity and variety of soap available.

If none of the soaps on the counter suit you, there are a few more up there.

Guys hammered snakes with trees 104 times, once for every year St. Pat's day has been celebrated at Rolla.

After hitting the snake 104 times, they bit the head off the snake. Each headless snake is a point for their club.

St. Pat is the patron saint of engineering.

Any organization could apply to paint a square on the street or in one of the tunnels. This was the Fencing Club.

Not bad for a Hummer.

This 2-story lab can simulate an earthquake. The columns tested were about 15 feet tall. Some of them stood up better than others.

While we were watching, they failed to launch their enormous kite. Later we saw some students failing to fly normal little kites. It was windy, but too gusty for kites.

The visit was very convincing. Iain was nearly convinced to go back to school. However, he isn’t allowed to until we have paid off his student loans!

Nell is very interested in Engineers Without Borders. The Missouri S&T chapter goes to Guatemala and Brazil. In Guatemala, they dug a well for an orphanage. Before the well, one or two kids died of dysentery each year. Now, no kids die. They are building plumbing for a village. The students are involved in planning every single foot of miles of pipe. The materials engineers have designed ceramic water filters using Guatemalan clay.

We stayed in a lovely bed & breakfast that night. The owners were friendly, the husband was an engineering professor at Missouri S&T and asked many questions about our tour. We were so tired and slept soundly. The next morning we drove to St. Louis to see the Star Trek exhibit at the Science Museum.

They didn’t let us take pictures at the exhibit. But there were opportunities for photos which we could then buy. Initially we decided not to spend $20 on a photo but we couldn’t resist when we saw the bridge and the transporter pad. And it was only $5 for the 2nd photo.

Engage.

Three to beam up.

The second picture has holographic treatment so that when you move it back and forth we appear and disappear, like we are beaming out. The scanned image looks like we’re mid-beam.

There was a green screen and when we walked past it, it looked like we were walking across the bridge on the tv on the other side. Nell’s green jacket was the same color as the green screen so it was just like an invisibility cloak.

We went upstairs to build bridges, a more meaningful experience from some of what we had learned the day before at Missouri S&T. Nell’s been studying them in Physics recently too, so she could tell us all about the strongest design.

We finished our day appropriately at Pi Pizzeria, and then a long drive home.

Trail run

The Conservation Area maps, as well as the state park maps for that matter, tend to be incomplete, misleading, and sometimes inaccurate. It looks like Big Creek has a trail leading from Royal Oaks that hooks up to Rainbow Basin. From the map, it is even possible that this trail extends into Thousand Hills State Park and actually makes a loop. After some discussion this morning, and seeing Adam’s GPS map, which shows a loop, I decided to try the loop. It should be roughly 4 miles which is about the distance or amount of time I planned to run today.

There is in fact a trail head at the end of Royal Oaks. So far so good. Unlike at Rainbow Basin, it’s easy to find the actual trail from the trail head. It went north, again a good sign. I soon came to a fork and took the left one.

Someone (hopefully rangers) has been out with a chainsaw. Lots of trees are cut down. Maybe they are thinning the woods, or maybe preemptively getting rid of ash trees before the emerald ash beetle spreads to our area. When the trees were cut down, they were cut so as to fall downhill. This meant that where the trees were uphill of the trail, they fell across the trail. I jumped over quite a few trees.

The trail went along a ridge for a bit and then straight down to a creek. There it appeared to end. Some trees were cut down and it looked like maybe the trail continued on but had been obscured by trees. I also noticed several trees with blue paint on them. I thought maybe the blue paint was to indicate the trail.

I looked and looked and could not find the trail by the blue trees. I thought maybe the blue paint was to identify trees that were supposed to be cut down. I went a little ways in each direction and came back. Finally I found a path leading away. It might be a deer trail so I looked back a couple times to make sure of where I am.

I’m really, really good at getting lost. I had left my keys on the wheel of the car, probably not a smart habit but I didn’t have pockets. I didn’t have my phone or wallet or anything to identify my carcass should I wander here lost forever. (Ok, I knew what direction the sun was, and I’m sure I’d have gotten out eventually.)

Then the trail reached a pond and became a track and it clearly wasn’t a deer trail. I followed it on. It led up the hill and intersected with another track. These tracks were more like something you’d drive your truck on, not so much a foot path. According to the map I should be hooking up with the Rainbow Basin trail, which I’ve been on several times. This track didn’t look like that trail. To the left it ended with State Park Boundary signs. I went to the right.

From that track there was another track leading off the way I’d come, and I was starting to get worried that I would have difficulties finding the right track back if I decided to turn around and go back the way I’d come. I headed on a little further. I passed some Conservation Area Boundary signs.

This track led to another track that seemed a little better traveled. I could go left or right. To the right I saw something that might be part of an old truck, the sort of thing you might see on private property. I wasn’t sure I was still on public land. I was more than halfway through the amount of time I’d wanted to run. If I kept going, I was almost sure to get lost–if I wasn’t lost already. Even if I didn’t get lost, I didn’t know how much further it would be to get back to the trail head. So I turned around.

Amazingly I took the correct track back. It led straight to the little pond and I found the possible deer trail leading away. I think now that the track is an access track to the pond, and the possible deer trail is just a deer trail. I found the creek and the blue painted trees and after only a little searching, the trail.

This part was very overgrown with prickly things and I have slashes on my ankles now. Ow.

On the way back I crossed a creek I’d crossed before. There were trees with blue paint near the creek. Maybe blue paint means “this tree is near water”. Just in case you’d missed the creek.

There were a lot of birds out. A black and white and red woodpecker was tapping away at a stick not very far away from my head. I stood still and watched it. It flew to another tree and tap tap tap. It flew again and tap tap tap.

The little black and white birds with the high pitched chirp that have a funny name I can never remember, flew up in a great flock as I passed by. More and more appeared out of the grass. It was so funny–first there was one and then a few and then they just kept appearing.

Back at the trail head, another vehicle pulled in. A young plump couple and an adorable beagle-lab got out. I asked them about the trail. He said a little further up is a second fork, and that is the one that makes a loop and connects to Rainbow Basin. The first one, the one I took, only goes down to the bottoms. It’s not on the map at all.

There had been some steep hills, and mud. The descents were slippery and treacherous, and the ascents required power that my legs are unaccustomed to, and they are also slippery and treacherous. It was sunny and almost warm otherwise. The creeks all had a little ice and a little water. I just wanted to sit and rest when I got home, but we needed groceries, and we walked to the store with our collapsible grocery cart.

Caught on the horns of a dilemma

I’ve been neglecting this blog shamefully now that I have a Daily Express blog. But my Daily Express blog is a) more public than this one, and potentially a higher readership of people who are complete strangers to me, b) focused on bicycling and walking in Kirksville, and c) more concise and less rambling. As a result, I am more careful what I say and how I say it, and I have my mom review it for grammar and my husband review it for outrageous statements like “Cars R Coffins” and “Gas should cost $15/gal”. Second, I confine the topic more tightly to bicycling and walking in Kirksville. That means no posts about diet. Third, I restrict myself to 300 words. Except for when I can’t possibly adequately explain in 300 words. The latest post on the Transportation Bill was closer to 500 words, and I’m not sure how long the post on the Community Strategic Plan Open House was. The post on the Community Strategic Plan itself was even longer.

With that long introduction (already at 162 words), I finally introduce the topic of today’s post: fair trade business casual clothing. It doesn’t exist.

Why fair trade? Recently I came across the Slavery Footprint calculator and determined that 44 slaves work for me. I remarked, “That’s probably lower than most people, but still kind of high.”

Nell replied, “One slave is too many.”

True. So we are more conscious now of the contributions of sweatshops to our lifestyle. What I’ve learned so far is depressing. Without going all Possibility Alliance or Dancing Rabbit (i.e, hippie communes), it is absolutely impossible to live in mainstream culture without supporting sweatshops somewhere. The only electronics company to address this at all is Apple, and all they’ve done so far is join the Fair Labor Association which will now investigate Apple’s suppliers  like Foxconn and give Apple a grade. It will, no doubt, be a very low grade. None of the other companies have done even that much. A low grade is higher, in this case, than no grade.

If electronics are impossible to own without supporting sweatshops, perhaps I can dress myself in Fair Trade products. I started browsing the web and discovered that Fair Trade clothes are hippie clothes: long flowing skirts and yoga pants.

My options are to employ slaves, or to look like a hippie, or to learn to sew and find the time to do it myself. (That would take a while. My sewing skills are rudimentary and it’s not something I enjoy tremendously.)

This illuminates an issue I’ve noticed with bike/ped. (See? It all comes back to the bike, eventually.) Some of the bike/ped “community” (whatever that is) (I appear to have a penchant for parentheses this morning) seem to be more interested in selling their lifestyle than in selling bike/ped. This is something I feel pretty strongly about, in fact. I want to bring bike/ped into mainstream culture, not try to convince mainstream culture to join my side and feel all smug and superior when they don’t. (I find other opportunities to feel smug and superior, such as when I’m looking down my nose at people who feel smug and superior.) (I think my overuse of parentheses is because I like to use a lot of parentheses, and I’ve been restraining myself from overusing parentheses on the Daily Express blog, so now I have a lot of pent up parentheses.)

Anyway, I want to bring bike/ped to mainstream culture, not bring mainstream culture to bike/ped. Mohammed comes to the mountain. Fair trade idealists need to provide fair trade clothing for  mainstream culture, not try to convert mainstream culture into wearing long flowing skirts and yoga pants.

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.