Cycling The Cotswolds

Hired a cycle at the Toy Shop in town. This is some of what I saw/did:

Bike with Bike Ypsi Once Again

Spring is springing and it is time to ride, people! Come out for the Bike Ypsi Spring Ride and Festival 2009 on May 3. Medium and long rides start at 10:00am, a neighborhood ramble (self-guided) goes from 10:30 until 1:00pm, and then its hot- and not-dogs, booths, bike polo, and there is some talk of games. Cool people go to the Corner after for a beer. It was amazing last year (see those happy faces????) with 120+ people. And there is a new run of BY t-shirts!



Also, as we did last year, Bike Ypsi is organizing Bike to Work Fridays for the month of May. Here is the deal...

May is bike to work month. Meet up with local Ypsi-to-Ann Arbor commuters every Friday in May for a leisurely ride to work. We ride rain or shine.

On May 1, 8, 22, and 29, we will meet at 8:00am at Bombadill's coffee shop (217 W Michigan Ave) for the ride in to AA (leaving by 8:15am).

On May 15, there is a special Bike to Work rally in at the AA Farmers' Market and we will meet at Bombadill's at 7:15 and leave by 7:30am in order to attend. All riders are encouraged to wear their Bike Ypsi t-shirts on this day (these would be the t-shirts you can buy at the spring ride on May 3)! There will be food and give-aways at the rally.

Return rides will meet every Friday at 5:15pm at AA Farmers' Market in Kerry Town to ride back to Ypsi.

Bombadill's offers free coffee to all helmet-bearing cyclists before our Friday rides! Help yourself from the pot at the front of the store.

Routes are chosen based on where people need to go, but we generally have a group that rides out Packard and one that rides out through Gallup Park.

We will end our rides at the Tap Rom Annex (W. Michigan Ave) for happy hour specials. They haven't told us what the deal will be yet, but they were delighted to be asked and mentioned cooking up some "freebies" for us, so I'm excited!

All riders are encouraged to wear helmets for these rides!


See the happy riders in these pics from last year's Bike to Work rides? Yes, we even rode home in the rain one evening... but it was a warm rain and there was beer at the end and we had much fun being silly and wet. Give it a whirl if you are heading to AA some Friday.

Not a Sprinter

Here you go... my shining moment in the qualifying heats for Hell Yes Sprints a couple of weeks ago. I'm on the far bike (tan shirt), but you can measure my progress by watching the screen behind the riders. I'm the blue bar. After triumphantly pedaling my legs off for 25ish seconds, the smoke at the Blind Pig ate away at the core of my being and I fled. That victory would have to go unclaimed...

Freedom

Okay, Summer, I'm ready...

Pretty Bits

I am not an epic rider, nor am I a racer. But I like to ride and I'd like to ride further. And I'd love to ride on something like this....



I've ridden a couple of carbon bikes. I see them out there in the world. But they do not make my heart sing. I do not imagine myself riding them.

Nope, for me, it is the cleaner, old school lines of steel that pull me in. I went in liking lugged, but seeing some brazed frames up close and naked of paint... well, sure, I could go that way too.

So, yes, I spent a few hours at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show this weekend. And here are some things I loved. Ziiiiiing!

A Day for Me

Being department chair means that my days at work are filled with doing things for other people -- administrators, faculty, students -- and doing tasks that with which I have little familiarity -- budgets, strategic planning, scheduling.

But today I am not going to campus. Nope. Once I get the kids off to school, it's all about me and things I do know how to do. On today's agenda: editing the galley's of my article on challenging gender segregation in bars that is coming out in Feminist Studies this fall, reviewing an edition of Jacob Riis' How the Other Half Lives (a book I teach with frequently) that is being revised for a second edition (and I particularly like that I get paid $225 for doing this task!), and attending a workshop in AA on teaching about conflict.

And to top it all off, I get to ride my bike (a rare opportunity these days) to that workshop on what promises to be a lovely, crisp, and sunny fall day.

Things I Like -- Fall 2008 edition

Cabins (on rainy fall nights when temps fall into the 30s).
Exuberant dogs wearing silly sweaters.
K & N's friends.
Apple/cider/donut stands on rural roads, after big hills.
Wool base layers.
Vans that carry lots of bikes.
Wine with lunch after a long hike.
Dry trails.
Polish porters and Golabki.
Wheels with all spokes attached.
Deer bounding across trails.
Riding off the last trail with 18 miles on my widget and a smile on my face.
Euchre, beer, and ribald talk.
Apple pie and hot coffee for breakfast.
Adventure buddies.

Bye-Bye Summer

Here it is. The last evening of summer.

This was not the bloggiest of seasons for me. Like many of the friendly blogs in my world, YesterdayLooksGood got very little attention. Her sister blog, Breaking the Code, got even less.

I meant to record more of my happenings -- they are fun to look back at, a way to solidify memories, etc. -- but many posts were never started and of those that were, I abandoned more posts than I actually published.

Using my calendar and a scroll through the drafts-never-published here are the highlights of Summer 2008:

In May, we went to Traditional Arts Weekend at Wheatland. Just like always, and nicely so.

In June I went to Minneapolis/St. Paul for a conference and research (probably the highlight of my summer in terms of work).

In June, E finished 4th grade (which she loved) and O finished Kindergarten (which he tolerated). They understood that they were supposed to be happy about summer, but they didn't quite know what to do with themselves with day after day of unstructured time. Apparently, they didn't feel the chores I assigned them was the kind of structure they were looking for, however. They did a week of low-quality day camp that convinced us they were better off rattling around the house bored and beating on each other than in that environment.

In late June/early July, we went to my folks' cottage. This is a trip I have done for years, but this particular trip came with some twists. I went without my dog, for one. It was her favorite place in the world. She was dune colored and loved to romp there. [sniff]

In July, I became a stay-at-home mom. I struggled with this for awhile. I finally had to accept that my sabbatical was over and stop trying to parent and write at the same time. Things got much easier after that. I scheduled playdates so I could launch a new article and get ready for classes, but I also took other people's kids on adventures with us, rode bikes with my pups, went blueberry picking, hit the pool and the waterpark, danced to the bands at Crossroads, became a regular at the Tuesday farmers' market, and visited many area parks. The kids and I even rode our bikes in the Heritage Festival parade (which I think we all found pretty boring).

In July, E went off for a week at sleep-away camp. I loved camp as a kid and went for multiple weeks (regular, horseback riding, competitive swimming, and, my favorite, sailing) so I was rather excited for her. She did great there but was incredibly tired when I retrieved her. The promised "vegetarian option at every meal" also turned out to be salad and peanut butter sandwiches, so she was mighty happy to have a plate of pasta plopped down in front of her. I had hoped that a week apart would get the kids out of the negative patterns of taunting they had developed. It didn't. Almost as soon as I had fetched her I heard from the backseat, "mom, he's looking at meeeeeeee!"

July also meant beerfest and I had a lovely time with my dad, brother, and many buddies. I didn't pick a "best beer" this year, but I enjoyed several ryes... and I really enjoyed that there were several ryes to enjoy. Worst beer: Jolly Pumpkin's Perseguido. It almost doesn't seem fair, since I don't like their beers/sour beers in general, but EVERYONE in my universe that day agreed that this one particularly sucked.

In August, we went to Dunegrass, the music festival in Empire, MI. Year #2 for us and it held up well, which is not surprising because the kids are now old enough to be fairly sturdy on such outings, we took the camper and therefore had cushy digs, and there is a beautiful beach with great dunes just down the way. moe. wins for best band, I think. Particle was the same as always, only I was too tired to get into the groove this year.

Also in August, S finally got me to play water polo. Okay, yes, it is fun. Water polo easily slid into the hole left by us quitting clogging (E lost her interest and I wasn't going to force it). The kids could swim in the shallows while mommy dunked the college boys... then we would all go home mellow and tired. E wormed her way into one game and played well. I'll coach a tweener team next year if the pool folks will let me! Most of my other exercise came from the bike. I think my fitness level peaked somewhere in late August. If I had to pick a day, I'd say it was when I rode (read: held on for) the local shop ride: 32 miles in about an hour and half. Otherwise I rode with Bike Ypsi many Sundays and took to early morning roll outs so that I could do 20-30 miles and be back in time for W to leave for work. (Tom's right: it's a great time because there is no wind!) My favorite ride became the Saline-Milan route (40 miles), though it was hard to squeeze in on weekday mornings.

The last bit of August contained my birthday weekend. I celebrated Bike Ypsi's first birthday, helped break in Andre and Stephanie's new house at their first party there, closed the pool for the season, and celebrated my many revolutions around the sun with my extended family.

September saw me not only enter my forties but also take on my first big administrative job: department chair. The kids went back to school. We celebrated surviving that momentous week with a bonfire at the party barn, including a birthday king and queen, and chocolate cake with a milk fountain built in.

But the signs of fall have started to arrive. E started soccer, the rain pushed the last Crossroads act (Black Jake and the Carnies) inside, and it was time to make pesto. I rode 50 miles last Saturday to help make 35 pounds of pesto at Jeff's house out in Chelsea. It poured for much of the ride, but it was warm and I loved it except for my fogging glasses. On Sunday, I rolled out in the ran again to ride Tom's Taco Tour. Five taco stops over 19 miles and we ended -- very wet -- at the Corner.

What this summary, focused on specific events and dominant trends, glosses over is the emotional terrain of my summer. It is hard to characterize, but I think I have spent much of the last three months trying to get my head in the game -- whatever the game may be. I've been sad, I've been unfocused, I've raised indecision to a near art form, and somehow I became a procrastinator. I've decided I'm angrier (in general, or maybe it is that I am easier to anger) than I realized. This is not to say that I was not happy this summer. I was, at times, but these other things had me pulled off in too many directions to focus on the things that made me happy. So this is the problem I am tackling this fall: how to be in the right place... or at least how to be in the place I am. How old-school hippie-ish, eh? Yeah, well, I seem to need to go back to that school. To frame it positively (and find a way out of this post!), my goal for the fall is to be good with where I am and what I am doing in that moment and not overthink where else I might be. I'll be in that other place soon enough.

Getting Around

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a SEMCOG public forum on regional transportation issues. They held three of these around Southeast Michigan. I attended a session at Washtenaw Community College.

The results of the public forums have just been posted. You can read the full results of the survey done with forum attendees and see how we doled out the 100 SEMCOG "bucks" the presenters gave us to spend, if you are so inclined, but I can tell you [Spoiler alert] most people think our public transit system in the region is inadequate and more money should be spent on it. Astounding, eh?

I found the meeting to be disappointing overall. It didn't have much depth to it and it was hard to not snicker at hard-hitting polling items designed to gauge our level of agreement with statements such as this: "The region's transportation system has an impact on the region's economy."

Sniping aside, here are a few important points that did emerge from the meeting: First, "non-motorized transportation" is an awkward/inadequate category (one of six that SEMCOG focuses on). As one who frequently uses a bike as transportation, I found that lumping biking and walking together tended to pull the discussion in the "recreation" direction and away from "transportation." The focus then becomes more on expensive-to-build paved paths ($300,000/mile... just for comparison, it might be helpful to know that a 2-lane road only costs $950,000/mile!) and less on bike routes/lanes, sensors at lights that can detect bikes, and other fixes that would promote transportation/commuting by bike. Bike lanes are cheaper than paths and have more in common with other SEMCOG categories (such as "pavement" and "bridges"), but being lumped in with non-motorized seems to make these connections secondary.

The SEMCOG representative with whom I spoke about non-motorized transportation confirmed that this is, more than any of the other categories, the most intensely local issue. In other words, planning for regional non-motorized transportation has been quite difficult and, in some cases, is a non-starter. Considering that, those of us interested in such issues and interested in shaping the planning in this area, need to be working on the county, city, and township level. SEMCOG's planning for Direction2035 (the regional plan they are now developing) will move to this level during the winter (Nov.-March) and those are meetings -- with both regional and local officials -- that we will want to be attending.

Second, the regional rail project between Ann Arbor and Detroit is moving ahead. There was some big grant that was going to launch this initiative in style, but it didn't come through. Instead, a shoe-string budget, some heavy negotiation, and probably some political slight of hand is going to produce a much more modest system to be up and running by 2010. I'm stupidly excited about this. I don't care if it's third-hand rolling stock and passengers have to use an old loading dock as a station platform -- being able to train to Dearborn for my work would be gorgeous... half an hour to doze or read instead of drive. Oh yes, please.

I "one" it

Dead opossum in the middle of the road.

Car passes me, hits the opossum.

Wet, squishy, thud.

Dead opossum tossed up in the air behind the car.

Lands with a splat next to me.

Eew. Were those sprinkles I felt on my leg on this moist morning or opossum guts?

Catching up on the summertime haps

Two weeks ago, I went to the cottage: Celebrated Dad's birthday (a celebration that will not be complete until we attend beerfest on Saturday). Rode some good miles... including a 40-mile ride where I only unclipped ONCE the entire time, when I had to make a left onto Route 2 to ride the last 7 miles to the cottage. Walked the beach with the kids quite a bit. Saw the parade and the fireworks. We skipped the fire on the beach this year, as the weather on the last night was threatening.

W and I came back from the cottage without the kids. They stayed on with my folks for a few days and we had a couple of days of freedom from the tyranny of 6:30pm dinner. It was odd, I had too many things I wanted to do with that time and I had a hard time arranging it all. I did play water polo for the first time (fun!), work a bit (but not as much as I had hoped), and ride the potowatami trail (18 miles of hot, BUGGY hills -- I wanted a big challenge and I got it. Some tender parts of my anatomy were not on speaking terms with me after the ride, but we are all recovered now).

Then I took off for Interlochen to rescue my parents from the kids and attend a cousin's wedding. The grandparents (my folks) were 'plumb wore out' for sure after 5 days with the kids. I have rather exuberant children, I guess:) The wedding was a wedding. Very special for the most immediate people involved, I suppose, but I felt rather removed from the whole thing and fled pretty early when the children started to flag. Even after three cupcakes, Owen still would not dance more than a minute with me. E looked pretty worn out as well and she was dragging the whole next day. We ventured out to my aunt and uncle's cottage nearby and I borrowed one of their kayak's to take each kid out for a paddle. The wind was huge and kept us off the main part of Spider Lake, but there several sheltered bits that we could access. Both kids actually seemed interested in how to kayak and happily listened to me prattle on about stroke techniques, wet exits, and the like. Having them one-on-one is amazing... getting to interact with them instead acting the referee.

This past week has been one with W working lots of hours for his new job and me being at home with the kids. I had not finished the writing I needed to the week before, but friends A and G stepped in to give me some much needed time and I cranked out 22 pages on the Minneapolis research. This is a first attempt at writing on this material, so some of it was slow going, but I have enough done that I should be able to get good feedback from my writing group when we meet on Friday.

Yesterday I hung out with the kids in the morning, spending way too much time getting them to leave each other alone as we made the rounds of town gathering things for E's week at camp (she left this afternoon!) and checking out the Farmers' Market. I fled after lunch to ride in Thomas and Luke's alleycat around Ypsi. They had done such a nice job planning, it was a shame only a small group turned out to ride. In classic form, I changed my mind on my route (it is sort of like a scavenger hunt) as we were starting and then had to make up a new route while riding. The new route was fine, but prevented me from getting the bonus checkpoints. As it turns out, it did not matter in terms of my final time. I came in after riders 1 & 2, but then there was a long gap before anyone else rolled up. Rider 2 missed a checkpoint, though, so I took second place. Okay, the field was tiny, but, for the moment, let's not focus on that :) Anyway, thanks to Thomas and Luke, who not only sponsored, planned, and ran the race, but then fed us too!

Next stop for the day was the Corner and the Shadow Art Fair. The kids and W met up with me there. Friends came out, bike folk came out... it was a fun overlap of several different parts of my social world. The kids were bored and tired but I distracted them with lemonade and nachos while W spent his allowance on posters and t-shirts. Then he took them home so that I could roll home peacefully a bit later. I didn't buy any art this time around -- I have already bought from many of the folks there at previous Shadows and the leather bag lady wasn't there this time! I'd been toying with splurging on a funky bag with a long strap as a 40th birthday present for myself... guess it was not meant to be.

And that brings us to today... we made pancakes with blueberries and finished packing E up for camp. She has been so excited, I hope it lives up to her expectations. I loved sleep-away camp as a kid and it has been more fun than I expected to see her gear up for it. I wrote her a letter already! While W took her to camp, O and I rode the mtb/trail-a-bike rig up to the pool for a swim. He is so funny on the bike. He likes to sing as we cruise along, peddles like mad on the downhills (the boy likes speed), and is generally quite the good sport bumping along behind me. We chatted for a moment with the returning Bike Ypsi riders, but they had taken a route that would have been waaaay too long/fast for us. Another day I'll take O and go with a B group for a Sunday Social Ride.

There. Two weeks in seven paragraphs.

A Well-Traveled Banana

Knowing it would be a long ride, I put an extra cliff bar in my bag and tucked a banana in my jersey pocket for Saturday's ride. That banana traveled 63+ miles... out to Belleville, through the metroparks, on to Trenton (Natalie's ancestral homeland) and back. It got wet in rainy rain on the way out, but still got to enjoy a fast ride with my good friends and some sunshine on the way back. No bonking happened so the banana got to ride the whole ride. I did eat it, but later... after the return, the de-gritting shower, the nap, and that first beautiful post-ride beer.

Sixty-three miles. My longest ride yet. Yay!

Zoom

I opted to skip the receptions last night after 10 hours of conferencing and head downtown on my bike. It just so happens that at the same time that Minneapolis is hosting the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, it was also hosting part of a week long series of pro bike races. Who knew this town was big enough for all of us?

The women raced first: 40 laps on a 1.2 kilometer course through city streets. I parked myself at an outside corner and could see them take two corners and the straightaway to the finish line. I was surprised to see how different the women were in size, shape, and age (okay, that part I could only see after the race) -- lots of rippling muscles, but muscles on very different types of bodies from stocky to long and lean. There were a few teams, but all were small. Compared to the men who came out later, it looked like the women were doing a lot more individual work. Four strong riders up front traded off the lead -- all from different teams. There were a few stragglers, but the women stayed fairly well clumped. I know nothing of the riders or the teams, but it was fun to watch the race and to chitchcat with the fairly diverse crowd that came out. These were bikey folk, but all different kinds of bikey folk. Our little corner had riding companions of racers, fixie hipsters, dad with trailer and toddler, lycra dude, and me (historian chick on a rented commuter bike that does not express my personality).

For the men's race, I made my way around the whole course. Once the pack passed my spot, I'd move along. I did happen to be on the backside when some sort of crash happened in the thick of the pack. About a quarter of the field (123 riders) went down or got hung up 20 yards down from my perch. The barricades got knocked over, but no one seemed hurt. A couple of bikes were out of the race as a result, but everyone walked or rode out of the heap under their own power.

The men had big teams (6-8 riders, maybe?)and the Bissel boys were up front for 32 laps. Then the olive oil guys took over for a while, but none of them won. Who won? The guy in the Wheaties jersey (meaning he had won the bike race the day before) who had been buried in the pack the whole race while other people pushed the wind out of the way for him. Then he took it in the sprint. This kind of racing is a team sport... but individuals win. Bike racing is a weird sport.

After all the hoopla, I -- like many people on bikes -- rode part of the course before they took down the barricades. No worries, I rode about 14 mph... not 43mph (the speed for the final sprint!).

The evening was nice so I explored the northwestern part of town a bit -- lots of condos butting up against the warehouse district -- found some Thai food for dinner and made my way back to the dorm to rewrite my presentation for the umpteenth time.

Well done, Bike Ypsi... but now what?

Run down of the bike festival:

1. Gorgeous day. Bright and chilly in the morning, but stayed bright and got warm quickly.

2. Lots of folks. Maybe 20 on the long rides and 60 on the not-so-long rides. Over 100 rode the community ride.

3. Good booths. Washtenaw Biking and Walking Coalition, St. Joe's, Project Grow, PEAC, Rails to Trails, and the Ypsi Food Coop all had tables. Wheels in Motion and Tree Fort really turned out. The former tweaked mechanicals on lots of bikes, including a bit o' work on my back wheel and squishy brake. My next biking business will go to them.

4. Minimal no-shows. AATA was supposed to send a bus so we could let people practice putting their bikes on the racks but some sort of crisis downtown distracted them and the bus never came. I did get a call from them this morning apologizing (good) and they are eager to come out to our next happening. Two Wheel Tango notified us a few days before the event that they were not going to come -- disappointing, but at least they let us know. Ypsi Cycle just plain did not show. I do not understand that one.

5. Surprise hit. Bike polo and kids apparently go together quite nicely. I was really happy to see that the usual crowd of polo playing adults mostly wore helmets and then happily worked with the kids who got curious to teach them the game and let them play.

6. Nice rides. It looked for a while there like I was again going to have to shorten my ride, but the folks who were not up to the 19-20mph pace of the fast group proved happy to do the whole 30 miles at 16mph. I don't mind riding slow... as long as I get to ride long. I did have to do a few wicked sprints to move between the front and back of a way stretched out group (which we eventually broke into two) and a mechanical breakdown and the main group. Pretty fun to see that I could get 23.5mph -- and not just on a downhill. The community ride (pictured above) was a bit intimidating to launch but rolled nicely once we got going. Letting the group break into groups during the ride actually seemed to work, but that was mostly due to having sooooo many Bike Ypsi people there to make sure somebody who knew the way and would look out for the group was at the head of every clump of riders.

7. No major disasters. One kid fell (he was fine), we ran out of hot dogs (Andy got more), we forgot to mention that we were selling t-shirts (let me know if you want one!)... but really? Nothing big. No fires to put out. Nice.

So now what? I've been a part of planning the Bike Ypsi Spring Ride and Festival for months. K tells us it has been [deep breath] 5 months in the works. Wow. I didn't really notice that because there were a few other issues along the way (like weekly rides, Bike to Work, and preserving the Ford Blvd road diet/bike lanes) and because I really enjoy the people in Bike Ypsi. The meetings were fun, the post-meetings involved happy hour at the Corner, and the between-meetings meet-ups usually had us on bikes pedaling out and about in the world.

I suspect that with this second big and successful event (you might recall that we had a fabulous fall ride in Oct 2007), there will be some fresh blood looking to get in on the Bike Ypsi love and the group will change because of that. There will be new agendas. Organizational issues will have to be dealt with. People will take us back over ground we have already covered. Personalities may clash. I'm happy to have new recruits (we don't want to burn out!), but I just gotta say, this first year has just been a blast.

A Wheel-y Week

Now that I got the promotional blog post up, I can linger over the more personal bike-y things that have happened in my life of late.

Perhaps most exciting, O is up on two wheels. This has been a long time coming. I found him a cute little Diamondback at the ReUse Center last year and my brother fixed it up for him for his birthday. But O was impatient with the learning curve and preferred to blast around on the little bike with the training wheels. Last week, however, it came together for him and he finally got the feel for the bigger bike. By the second day, his inner hellion had come out. He was racing around pedestrians (yes, we're working on that), tearing up grass, and skidding every stop. He found a hill near E's soccer practice and took to pushing his bike up it so that he could barrel down it. He already has a trackstand better than his mama's and has been bunnyhopping along. I'm expecting curb jumping and wheelies next week. Yeesh. My mom is greatly amused by all this and in between her snorts of laughter has only managed to say "just like you were!"

On Saturday, I rode in a "Beat the Train" alleycat around Ypsilanti. It was a small affair (maybe 15 riders?) and not really a race. I knew we were in trouble when we rode up to the start and the organizer said, "I've never actually been to an alleycat but I've watched plenty on YouTube." Yikes! The idea was to follow the clues/map to five checkpoints, get a playing card at each, and then figure out who had the best poker hand. See? It was all about the hand you brought in, not how long it took you to get there. Oh yeah, and it was less than 5 miles of riding. I put more miles on riding to the coffee shop, brewery, and home. Anyway, I did the circuit with Andy and Luke and we got to all have a pleasant chitchat.

Last week I also acquired a new set of skinny tires for the black bike. I've had some on that bike before, but going from the heavy, big commuter tires I've been riding this winter to these Rubino Pros was amazing. I LOVED them. And then I injured one on only its third ride with me. A third of the way around the Milan loop (mile 22, if you care) I hit the RR tracks on Platt all wrong. The fresh, sharply cornered ties that had just been laid got ahold of my back tire. No surprise that I flatted (no biggie -- skeeters aren't out yet to eat me up!) but I was distressed to see that I'd damaged the sidewall. With reassurances from Bike Geek Supreme, I duct taped the inside and am still riding it. I like these tires bunches, but I guess I found out early on their weakness... lack of durability.

Finally, I'm loving the spread of bike-y-ness around me. Tierra the Earth Mama is an almost overnight and extremely enthusiastic convert to bike commuting and Bike Ypsi, my brother has signed on as Bike Ypsi photographer, and my neighbor has been out to ride with us a couple of times. O is on two wheels. We taught E's BFF to ride. Even W rolled out of the driveway on his bike the other day.

Bike Love.

Many of my bike freak pals and I have been riding enthusiastically since March, but May is going to be it... the month of the bike. I hope you'll come out and find your own bike love.

Bike Ypsi's Spring Ride and Festival is Sunday (May 4) in Rec Park. There are long, medium, and short rides in the morning and then food, bike related booths, bike polo, and a kid bike rodeo until 2:30pm (we'll be in the Senior Center if the weather is really bad). Cool stuff will be happening: mechanics to show you how to do basic things for your bike, an AATA bus so you can practice putting your bike on the rack without the threat of holding up a busload of impatient passengers, info on gear and nutrition, a helmet give-away, WCC fitness center passes, etc.

Every Friday in May I'll be biking to AA with anyone who wants to ride. There's been a "bike to work" initiative nationwide for years and my encounter with one of these rides in 1993, a week or two after I moved to Atlanta, helped launch me into being an urban bike commuter for the rest of the years I lived in Georgia. It is probably too much to hope that these Yspi-AA rides will have quite the same impact on any of the participants, but you never know... So, if you've thought about but hesitated to ride to AA, please come with me. We're leaving from Bombadill's: 8:00am on May 2, 9, 23, and 30; 7:15am on May 16 (since there is a big rally in downtown AA that day). Return ride is from AA City Hall, leaving at 5:15pm and ending at Haab's for free happy hour appetizers.

BTW, the image on this post is from a "Good Roads Rally" in SF in 1896: 5,000 riders showed up demanding, yep, better roads.

Where did the weekend go?

Friday night included live music (Hullabaloo + BackForty) at one of my local spots with a couple of good friends -- some drinking, some dancing, some hugging... all good.



Saturday morning found me awake bright and early. Oh, esp. after closing the bar the night before, how I wish I could sleep in... When I was awake at 7:something and didn't need to be, I felt myself mighty envious of W who was snoring away (and would be for several more hours). I cleaned around the house and sent the kids out the door. One did not feel well, however, and came back. No worries -- she decided to pitch in and we woke up the yard by raking out beds and lawn, running the core aerator, seeding the problem patches, and putting down the usual organic fertilizer (mostly chicken poop). It was a good day of manual labor with plenty of sunshine to leave me feeling toasted and tired.


Dropped in at the Corner while the Freighthouse banjo fundraiser was going and saw lots of the usual suspects and had a quick beer before heading down the road to EMU. Melissa Ferrick rolled through town on Saturday evening to do a *free* show as a fund raiser for the LGBT Resource Center. The crowd pretty well filled the ballroom, but overall, it was a small crowd for someone who is sooooo cool. I love her -- "mangina" and all (sorry, inside joke for those who were there). She is goofy, loud, irreverent, and spastic in ways that totally appeal to me and I'm impressed by her ability to tell stories while tuning and then integrate those stories into her songs -- a rockingly good live show, she is. The evening also gave me a chance to catch up with a friend who has been out of town for much of the winter, though I probably stayed up too late again.


Sunday morning I finally made it back to my pre-surgery weight levels while lifting at the gym. I've been cautious, since the right hip is still weaker than the left, but I'm coming up on 4 months since the surgery and have been fairly active so I thought I'd test it out. It worked, at least for squats... I'm still hesitant on lunges, since that leaves the hip out there pretty unprotected on its own holding all my weight and then some. Was back on target for chest, triceps, biceps, and shoulders as well. Yay!


After a shower, I played with the kids a bit and was going to take a quick nap, but E decided to brush my hair... Having my hair brushed is one of those small yet great pleasures in life.... and it was just as good as a nap, I decided.


Sunday afternoon found me out with Bike Ypsi folks. A dozen riders made it out this time, including a couple of new folks. We made use of the Ford Blvd bike lanes and then headed around Ford Lake for sixteen or so miles and lots of sunshine.


I left the BY people to ride into Ann Arbor and meet up with W and the kids for Festifools. It was a significantly larger happening than last year and they created quite the party by circling up and down Main Street. W is inspired to make his own giant puppet -- for camping, music festivals, and just those odd times with the kids when one wants a 10ft tall puppet to parade up and down the street.


Another shower, pizza, and polishing off the taxes rounded out the evening. I'm a tiny bit sore (mostly from the yard work... that core aerator is heavy machine), more than a little bit sun/wind-kissed, and ready for a good long sleep.

Wait, can it be????

Yes, it is spring. Okay, technically it isn't spring until 1:48am on Thursday, March 20th, but the signs are here.... There are birds chirping outside my window, there is an almost-warm (or at least not cold) gray rain falling, and only the once-largest but now all dingy snow banks remain. The temperature was 34 yesterday, but today it might hit 50 degrees. Yep, that is spring in Michigan.

A more personal measure... I have ridden my bike for six days in a row. It doesn't hurt that my car is currently on the bench due to illness, but I'd like to think I would have ridden anyway. The first couple of ventures out were tough after almost six weeks off (and not a whole lot of riding in the six weeks before that), but it got better quickly and I felt great zipping about with the Bike Ypsi crew on Sunday. That zingy feeling of arriving at one's destination with blood pumping is pretty cool. I even rode to and from the Women's Studies conference this weekend -- a first for me. Now I just need to get my bikes a bit more cleaned up, exorcise the gear-shifting demons that live in the black bike, and find a water/wind-proof/resistant jacket that has sleeves long enough to cover my wrists even when I'm riding on the hoods and I'll be all set to embrace the season.

Yay! Spring!

Sickness, a party, bikes, and bars...

I had a couple of intense days of parenting lately with a short school week last week and a boy who sprouted an unexplained but lingering fever. After pulling full-time duty on Friday and Saturday, I was mighty happy to head out to the Burns' Night festivities -- even if I did show up a bit late. Andre once again hosted a lovely party with a fine mix of academic friends, music friends, neighborhood friends, and friends of friends (and yes, some people fit into multiple categories). The kitchen reeked of Scotch by the time I got there, but considering the occasion and the host, that seemed fitting. I somehow ended up staying until 3:00am!

I don't sleep-in well and had been out way late the night before and that made getting my butt in gear for the Worst Day of the Year ride on Sunday a tad difficul. It was a realtively balmy 32 degrees and the roads were wet but plowed -- though the promised sunshine never appeared. I had a stupidly hard time choosing which bike to ride, but finally committed to the road bike (which has commuter tires and an insufficient back fender on it at the moment) and headed out to grab Andy on the way to the start at Kerrytown. We rolled up just in time to grab some coffee cake and jump onto the back of the 12-mile group. People bunched up and strung out quite a bit, so we opted to push up toward the front, but eventually ended up riding mostly with only each other. We would pick up another rider or a pair here or there, but there wasn't much "group" on this "group ride" -- and where were the ride leaders? I only saw one and he had this sort of annoying habit of riding way out into the lane in order to look back at the group and yell at us. I didn't mind losing him. Anyhoo, after a bit of creative route taking and a bit of cursing (on my part) of route planners that had us climb that stupid Broadway hill (I know North Campus is nice to ride through, but I'm still suffering a "decline in fitness" post surgery) we rolled up to Arbor Brewing for a beer and munchies at the after party. It was interesting to take in the crowd and find almost no bikey people we knew. Definitely an older crowd, but lots of pretty committed pedalers, which was very cool.

On Monday, the boy was still sick, so I accomplished little work but did make it out to the Bike Ypsi meeting. Put May4 on your calendars, people -- it'll be our big spring event with morning rides, some food, and afternoon exhibits/polo/other fun bikey stuff to be determined.

After the meeting there was a movement afoot to grab a beer at the Corner. Most folks bailed, however, which is a shame because it turned into a much later night than I was expecting, full of frivolity, flirting, new acquaintances, odd conversations, and general silliness when we ran into Bethany and her buddies. We were in a bar and we were drinking, so I'm thinking that the stories from the table should not be blogged about, but I'm gonna encourage ya'll to come out to SheBang when they have live music and meet Bethany (who does the organizing and sound). She's a hoot and I've enjoyed both bands I've seen there so far.

First Day, First Ride

In a move that confirmed my spouse's growing suspicion that I am insane, I took the mountain bike out for a ride today.


There is a wee bit of heavy, wet snow out there!

I only rode about 9 miles but it was really a lovely day with fresh white snow on the ground, branches, and rooftops. It seemed like a good way to start the year. I put out the call to Bike Ypsi folks, but only our adopted Ann Arbor member showed up. That's okay, we always have fun riding together and his soaked clothes made me appreciate the technical cold weather gear I've acquired over the past few months!

My first ride since the hip surgery 3 weeks ago and my first ride of 2008. Yay!