Dtrick.org

I don’t honestly know how many miles I put on my bike last year, but I do know it was far fewer than in previous years.  This year, however, I’m bound and determine to reverse the trend and get moving again.  I’ve been doing a reasonable job thus far, riding for a good forty minutes three times a week.  I also plan to do a better job posting updates here.

I’ve finally figured out how to meld my phone and the photo gallery on this site, so I can easily upload photos on the fly   This means, you all will be able to see far more of the photos I capture while out and about.  In fact, here’s one I caught the other day. Go ahead, tell me the people in this fine country aren’t addicted to television!  I’m sure, this is an apartment building, at least I hope it is, but still, I count nine satellite dishes.   A bit over the top?

Today was one of those perfect days for riding. The temperature was in the high fifties, there was no wind, and the sun was shining. I have to admit, my ride in was one of my slowest commutes yet, I just rode along enjoying the views; the sin shining off the bay, reflections in the water, and wild flowers blooming. How could someone not enjoy this mode of transportation?

On the local cycling front, I’m helping organize local bile trains every Monday during the month of May, June, and July. We are focusing on leading trains down the three major bile paths that lead onto Providence. Our goal is to try and pursuade those cyclists who have been toying with trying bicycle commuting, but for whatever reason haven’t goten over the initial hump. The train speeds will stay slow, so it’s possible for any cyclist to join us. I sure hope the project is successful and encourages some new bicycle commuters.

I’ve been terribly remiss about writing any cycling related entries on this blog, most of my energy has gone towards Bike Providence and Bike-to-Brown.

As of today, I finally have some bike related news that doesn’t quite mesh with either of these efforts, so I figured I would post it here.  I had a great meeting with Walter Burke, Bristol’s Director of Parks and Recreation, and Susan Klein, Bristol’s Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation.  Independently, they had been thinking about cycling around Bristol and were given my name by the Town Planner.  Perhaps I’ve just bugged her about enough bike related issues that she felt it was time to deflect me to somewhere else, just kidding … I think…

In the meeting today, we decided to work together to create a comprehensive plan for biking in Bristol.  We are going to take an inital pass of this plan with just the three of us and then open it up for public feedback.  Once we go through a round of public feedback, we will work to prioritize the list so that we have a ready to go list of projects as money becomes available.

What a great day.  Someone from the town government is paying attention to the needs of cyclists!

We got our first good snow of the year yesterday.  The local weather forecasters were talking up the event like it was going to be a blizzard.  I’ve heard this same talk plenty of times since we moved to Rhode Island and most times, the storm diminishes and we get a light dusting.  So I decided to ride anyways, figuring I could always catch the bus if it was too nasty.  Well, by about 2:30pm, we had somewhere around 5″ of snow and people were beginning to bail from work; so the forecasters weren’t completely off.

I try riding, it’s not far to the bike trail and I’d be totally safe once I made it there.  As it turns out, there was such gridlock downtown, that I was plenty safe.  Pedestrians were making far better time than cars.  As I approached the entrance to the bike trail, there was a woman standing on the edge of the road, her car was stuck.  She asked if I had a cell phone and proceeded to say, “oh, I thought you were the police.  You know, one of those bike police.”  I guess this gives you a sense of how much reflective gear I wear at night   She proceeded to make her phone call and I overheard her say “nobody would even stop for me, except this nice guy on a bicycle.  Yeah, a bicycle.”

I wished her luck and went on my way.  I brought my snow bike, an old mountain bike with 2.1″ studded tires.  The bike trail can get pretty rutted if people have been walking on it and this bike lets me stay upright.  Well, let me tell you, pushing it through 5″ of snow is a workout.  After 10 miles, I decided to bail and changed paths to find a bus stop.  I finally reached a stop and waited, waited, waited…  Fortunately, I had plenty of extra cloths in panniers.  I ended up wearing an  odd assortment of biking and work clothes, but they kept me from completely freezing.  As I was standing by the side of the road, I counted 5 buses going into the city, but not a one going the other direction.  I started to wonder, how would I know if RIPTA decided the weather was just too bad and they stopped service?  I could be standing out here a really long time!

At one point, I spoke with my wife and was feeling pretty guilty about my commute choice.  I figured I would have been home by now, if I had just taken the bus from the beginning.  Eventually a bus approached.  The driver didn’t seem to be slowing down, so I started waving madly.  He eventually stopped, a ways past where I was standing.  It was completely packed, but it was warm!  I later suspect I have the other riders to thank for the driver stopping.  As we continued on our way, passengers would start yelling, “driver, there’s someone at the stop up there.”  I’m not sure he would have stopped otherwise, given how packed the bus was.  The topic of discussion was invariably, how long peopled had been trying to get home.  A woman standing nearby, said they had boarded this bus downtown at 1:30pm!  That was more than an hour after I had started biking.  Suddenly, I realized my commute choice hadn’t been horrible, I managed to make it out of the city faster than I would have by bus.

Today, I had a chance to speak with some other people who tried to ride the bus.  Because of the weather, drivers were not allowing people to stand and only allowing people to board if there were enough seats.  How my bus became so full by the time it reached the point where it picked me up, I’m not sure.  Many co-workers were standing out waiting for the bus for two or three hours before they could even get on.

Once again, the bike comes out looking pretty good.  I do have to admit though, I’m pretty darn sore this morning!

The following came across the NBW mailing list recently and I thought it was cute:

A piece of road walks into a bar and declares to all its occupants: “I’m the hardest bit of bitumen in the whole of this town!”

The piano player stops and the bar goes deadly silent. After a brief pause, all eyes drop, the pianist returns to playing and the piece of road pulls up a bar stool and settles down to a beer.

Five minutes later, a piece of dual carriageway throws open the bar door. Once again, the bar goes silent but for the creaking of the slow-moving overhead fans.

The dual carriageway declares: “I’m the toughest piece of bitumen you’ll ever see this side of the border!”

The piece of road slowly turns and locks eyes with the piece of dual carriageway. The tension mounts, other drinkers scatter and take cover.

At that precise moment, in walks a piece of freeway which says: “I’m the hardest bit of bitumen in the whole country and I’ll take you both on!”

And there they stood in a three-way Mexican stand-off for what seemed like an eternity.

Once again, the door opens and, into the middle of the stand-off, walks a strange-looking piece of coloured bitumen with a blue stripe. The other three turn their backs to the door, sit down at the bar and stare sheepishly into their drinks.

The bartender sidles up to the three of them and asks what the problem is. “Shhhh!”, says the dual carriageway, “Watch what you say, that guy’s a real cycle path.”