Consternation

I'm sure people assume that I'm always pro-bike path. I'm in favor of most bike paths- old railroad right of ways, separate bike lanes, places that have already been developed, etc. But, if the land is untouched or only touched by unpaved trail, but I think it's better of to stay that way than add pavement.

To that end, I received an email from the Town of Windsor yesterday asking us to lobby on behalf of a trail from the Bissel Bridge to Mead Rd in Windsor. At present, you can make this journey without too much muss or fuss, by either taking relatively quiet roads or using a few trails along the train tracks that are rather pleasant. The DEP owns the land they want to pave. Below is the area:

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At first, I thought they wanted to pave the trail from the Bissel bridge up to Loomis, which be a shame, because it's nice and quiet in there, but I guess they don't want to do that.

So, the questions, I guess is pave or don't pave. Am I just selfish? The C&O Canal isn't paved and people love using that.

Those Hockanum trails are unpaved except for complex bridges. I like that.

Don't I have the dorkiest cockpit set up ever there?

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Lace it up

When I last left off, I had a pile of parts that contained the makings of two wheels for the Trek. Not one to miss an opportunity to over-analyze things, I took a good hard look at the hubs. The Shimano Acera rear hub had proven to be a sturdy workhorse and promised more years of the same, but the Joytech 95D up front was looking more and more outclassed. The spoke holes were kind of huge and made for a sloppy fit for my new spokes, which is a bad thing. Everything I read about wheelbuilding was stressing using top-quality components. The Joytech had never let me down, but it was definitely the weakest link in this pending wheelset. In the end, sturdiness trumped sentimentality.

Since I already had the spokes and nipples ready, I searched for a hub with the same dimensions as the original. I found a new discontinued 36 hole Shimano Ultegra hub on ebay that fit the bill nicely. A lower than "Buy it now" price offer was accepted, and it was at my door within a few days. Holding the replacement piece in my hands made me very happy about my decision to upgrade. Nice hub!

I did my homework, re-reading Sheldon Brown's article and Peter White's wonderful and knowledgeable rants on the subject many times over. I had sought a copy of the well-regarded book, "The Bicycle Wheel" by Jobst Brandt while visiting Harris Cyclery a while back but they were out of stock, so I picked up Gerd Schraner's "The Art of Wheelbuilding" instead. I was initially sort of disappointed by this pricey, somewhat thin booklet, but warmed up to it when I got to the easy-to-follow spoking diagram. All the other diagrams I had seen in the past were a side view with color-coding for each series of spokes. Schraner's 3/4 view diagrams were much more intuitive for me and a cinch to work with.

I started with the front wheel. This would be the easier of the wheels to build, featuring all-new parts and symmetrical dishing. My readings have suggested that building a wheel should take about an hour or less from start to finish. It easily took two or more, but I'm really happy with the outcome. I oiled the spoke threads to ease tighteneing the nipples up to the proper tension. I used my new tensiometer a lot. It was fun and addictive. The wheel came out nicely.

I really like wheelbuilding. It's like a happy little safe house for all of my O.C.D. tendencies. I actually finished the pictured wheel shortly before I left for Oregon several weeks ago. I had a lot of opportunities to practice wheelbuilding and ply more experienced wheel geeks for tips while I was out there. Next up will be the rear wheel. I am going to reuse that hub for sure, but it needs some attention first. Coming soon: hub overhaul and freehub replacement, or how to make one solid hub from three somewhat tired ones.
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Bikes Outside: Bicicletas Fuera

This past weekend was a great one for Bikes Outside. Nothing short of the last Discover Hartford Tour put as many bikes on the street as this year's Puerto Rican Day. This year, Hartford's parade was moved from its longtime route down Park Street, A.K.A. "New England's Hispanic Main Street" to Main Street, which is just "Hartford's regular old Main Street." One of the nice things about this change of scene was that the added street width meant the parade floats kept to the right of the double yellow line as they headed north. This turned the southbound side into a handy bike-cruising lane. It was here that I made a few passes on the Mundo while Real Hartford's staff photographer snapped away from the cargo platform.

The Boricua bike representing was strong all weekend, with some classic cruisers and lowriders, vintage road bikes and three speeds, and a huge amount of BMX bikes, with Mongoose as the prevailing brand of choice. My favorites

included an early 1960's Royce Union 3-Speed and a 1970's Itoh 10-speed in a somewhat darker shade of the eye-assaulting apple green livery of my own bike.

Aside from a Sunday afternoon
downpour, the weekend was blessed with decent riding weather. The heavy traffic meant that pedaling was by far the fastest way to get around town, though you had to keep a sharp eye out for some of the
more rowdy car and motorcycle drivers engaging in smoky burnouts and other motorized jackassery. It would be a hoot to ride around, or in, the parade next year, but I saw that the loud paint color on the Mundo was not enough. Next year I will need a sound system, or at least a loud horn.

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First Fairy Ride of the Year: Ride to PRIDE

My Jenny would have been the perfect conversation starter if that's what I was looking for at this year's PRIDE. She got a lot of lustful looks, nearly straddled by an exuberant broadcast media icon of the queer world, and photographed by one of those "Page Six" type publications. Since Jenny's owner is as much of an attention whore as she is, this was welcome, harmless fun.

It was also another chance to feel smug. There were not many other people who bothered to walk or bike to the park. Not having to deal with finding parking when thousands of people are downtown? Awesome.







This guy was riding with a kid on his lap. I didn't want to get him in trouble by taking a picture of his face. People can overreact.

My basket makes hauling freebies so easy. Notice the fancy condoms that were given away. Why be limited to a mere handful of free condoms when there is a whole basket that can be filled with them?


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First ferry ride of the year

And I didn't see any fairies. :(

I also got caught in a thunderstorm in the Glastonbury Meadows. Spring is nice there; there's less gunfire.

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Big lots!

Look! I put a giant tire on my bike and made it very heavy.

And outfitted it with some big cranks and a king cage.

Deluxe!

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Brendan sucks at mountain biking

Riding a Nishiki Pueblo makes me nostalgic.

So, I got totally blown out of the water at the Coyote Hill Race this weekend. I don't know what it was, but I just rode really slow and couldn't figure out how to go fast. I think it was the worst I've ever done in a race.

But, the weather was beautiful and Johanna and I rode around Glover. And that made going to Vermont very worth it. (No pictures of Johanna riding without her permission)

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Bikes Outside: We Remember on Zion

This Monday, Bikes Outside takes us to the military section of Zion Hill Cemetery in Frog Hollow.

Far from complete, today's "bike" is merely the chainwheel for a British WWII Airbourne bicycle. I humbly suggest that your Memorial Day would be similarly incomplete without some time and thought devoted to its reason for being.

Ride safe, and have a good week.

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Bird Watching

Between the beautiful weather, holiday weekend, and a wedding featuring a gorgeous couple, I was grateful that we decided to bike to Elizabeth Park. We had our choice of spaces to use on the bike rack, but parking spots for cars looked very hard to come by, unless you were lucky enough to be driven to the Pond House in a sexy, gleaming classic.

After we had our fill of sunshine and roses, we meandered down too quiet streets in West Hartford toward the Center. I've never seen the streets so empty of traffic. I even rode on Farmington Avenue without pissing myself. I had to make a stop at R.E.I. for to buy an accessory using Interstatement's member discount. The secret to not dropping an entire paycheck there is to show up accidentally ten minutes before they close. That leaves no time to try anything on. From there, I did venture up to try out Chipotle, the new Mexican restaurant. I'd rank it as better than Moe's, though given the length of time I had to wait in line, it probably will be some time before I go back. Also, I think I weighed five pounds heavier after eating the burrito; thus, when we tried to see what our speeds were by zooming past the speed limit checker machine on Boulevard, I think the lasers hit my thick-with-burrito stomach and broke the machine. It said that I was going faster than Interstatement, who was a block ahead of me.

On what was possibly the easiest ride ever -- barely broke a sweat, didn't get cut off by any drivers -- I noticed that the bike lanes on Capitol Avenue in Hartford were recently repainted. The arrows were a little smaller and I think this helps put more emphasis on the bike stencil. Not sure if the two are related, but I did not see any cars drive in the bike lanes there, for once.


This picture was not even taken today, but I felt guilty putting up a photo of a car but not one of a bike. This belongs to a friend who should ride it to Elizabeth Park. See -- connection made.
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No Resevoirtions

If I had not read recent blog posts here on Beat Bike Blog or at CT Confidential by Rick Green, I would have had no idea there was any controversy. When I went to the West Hartford Reservoir this morning, there were no signs posted indicated that the MDC is thinking of closing access to bikers. Even after I dug through their website, I found nothing substantiating or denying this rumor. It still says that the recreation area is "more than 30 miles of paved and gravel roads for joggers and bicyclists." Cyclists were about. Nothing new was blocked off (the "roads" that had been off limits for at least a year due to construction were just marked better as being closed). It made me wonder how much truth there is to this rumor. It also made me wonder why they would only consider closing the area to biking, when clearly there are many other ways to wound oneself. Take the double-wide baby strollers that regularly infest the paths. Those could hit a small pothole and launch an infant into the reservoirs! What about joggers? They could run into a tree if they accidentally stray from the path. Okay, there are far more likely dangers one might face when venturing into the outdoors. There are deer ticks, spiders, snakes, black bears, mosquitoes, and other wildlife that can cause problems. But part of being human is taking risks. Deciding to get onto a bicycle, a person assumes a higher level of risk. Wearing safety gear, paying attention to surroundings (including gates painted a hue of retina-scalding yellow), maintaining one's brakes, and riding within one's abilities are ways of minimizing risk.

Closing the area to biking sounds impossible to regulate. I'd like to see one of those rangermobiles chase a biker up a dirt path. It's not going to happen. There are several entrances into the recreation area, anyway, besides the main entrance.



Maybe some signs have been added since the accident that prompted the frivolous lawsuit, but in any case, they are there now. If someone misses all of the million signs that decorate the recreation area, he is just one fleshy pile of FAIL.

Below, you can see a packed parking lot, showing the demand for use of the space. You can't see from this photo the number of people who chose to simply bike into the area, rather than drive their bikes there on top of their cars.

While out, the only real risk of injury I saw was of that to a little girl named Makaya (not pictured because I was too horrified to do anything but give "you die now" looks to her mother) who was about seven or eight years old. Her mother was yelling at her for not tying her shoes (the girl had stopped and was tying them) and then, ever-so-reasonably, followed the yelling by hitting the girl, very hard. I swear that I could feel the thud. Someone who will beat her child in public will do far worse behind closed doors. (Makaya, if you read this, I am sorry that you have such a hateful and abusive mother). People who have no patience for kids shouldn't be popping them out. There's this great invention called the condom -- use it. If we want to talk lawsuits, then I hope that some day Makaya wins one against her mother.


See that water? I just paid my bill for it. The money should go for delivery of a natural resource, not to pay for a ridiculous lawsuit.

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Calling you back to action

If you read the Courant, check out Rick Green's column today. It takes a much dimmer view than the positive rumors I've been hearing lately about trail closure at the Reservoir. It also makes mention to public hearings, to which we all must go.

If you live in a member town, you have commissioners who are appointed by your city council. There are also commissioners who are appointed by the legislature and the government. While not elected, these commissioners are supposed to be accountable to us, so we need to let them know what we think. Here's a list of the commissioners. In checking the agendas, I don't see anything yet about any ordinance changes pertaining to mountain biking.

Maybe we should be like Salem and make plans to move to a libertarian state like New Hampshire.

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Sundry

Firstly, Johanna & I were riding to get some Mexican food from the West End last night. When we passed through Pope Park, we saw deer. That was pretty cool. They were just chillin in the, well, meadow. I guess that's what happens when don't mow the whole lawn.

This weekend is the Coyote Hill Race. I've always wanted to do it because the rumor is that it's a fun course. So, we'll see. I like fun and I'll be in Vermont anyway.

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Mastication

So, I wasn't lying in my last post about going to Massachusetts for Johanna's brother's wedding in Lenox, MA. I really went and I brought my bike. I did everything that I set out to do in that post. Since Johanna is family and I'm just a glorified +1, she was busy and I had some free time. On Friday, I rode down the street and ended up on this cute little ribbon of singletrack about a mile from downtown named after some guy named Dan. I returned from my little sojourn and learned that I still had like two and half more hours until the rehearsal dinner. This would allow me to fulfill my dream of riding at October Mountain State Forest.

Well, October Mountain sucked, or at least I only found the shitty trails. I was also besieged by heavy gunfire. Maybe it's because I live in a city with gun violence, but even when I'm wearing orange, gunfire kind worries me when I'm in a forest. I guess in Lee, unlike in Hartford, "shots fired" means recreation instead of a reason to call the police. The trails were also totally eroded to the point of being marginally to totally unridable by ATVs and dirtbikes. And, I kept bottoming out my car. As much as I pretend, my Passat is not yet ready for the WRC.

At least my car isn't painted as garishly. (photo credit to rallybuzz.com for Loeb's car)

So anyway, not being able to do awesome mountain biking while attending a wedding is ok. I'm not that selfish and/or self-centered. Johanna and I went for a walk around Lenox & I bought some really good cheese and Miller Lite. I still had some more time, so I decided to explore Kennedy Park, which is like 500 yards up the hill from the center of Lenox, by bike.

And the day was saved! Kennedy Park has several miles of awesome singletrack and the bad memory of October Mountain was erased. Kennedy Park is like a hillier Keney Park with more letters in its name, however, someone took some time to put in some sweet and swoopy singletrack. I even rode down this steep thing and off of a wall, which I didn't see, and didn't kill myself. The wall a big surprise.

the picture makes me look like a liar (or a wimp), but I swear that it's really steep and that's a death wall!

Then, due to the improvement in the mountain biking, the wedding was a great success for all to remember for years to come! Seriously, it was a really awesome wedding.

ornamental cannon

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