However, in search of better times and making the best of what’s left of autumn, Mrs. P. and I will venture to our very favorite bookstore and perhaps have dinner somewhere in Charles Village, Hampden or Roland Park.  I will have a waterproof messenger bag, so treasures will make it home unscathed.  At least it’s going to be in the upper 50s/lower 60s.  I hate when it rains just shy of the freezing point.  Unless I’m cycling.  I do get a kick out of that.

Curiously, Normal’s is on 31st Street, where I blew a spoke last Sunday and had to miss the ride I’d spent so much time helping to plan.  Much better tidings today, I think.

My bike is out of commission currently.  Yes, breaking a rear spoke on the drive side can make your wheel no longer turn without hitting the frame.  No, this does not, as has been suggested, make me a wimp or perfectionist.  It’s a matter of my understanding bike wheels, at least a little bit.  Plus, there’s the empirical smack-your-ass part where my wheel literally does not turn.  The shop will take care of it; it’s under warranty.  It’s a good excuse to visit my favorite bike shop.

I need to get some new books and spend quality time with the Mrs. and our little belly/Baby.  As if it’s not obvious, I’m growing increasingly less patient with people’s bullshit.  A nice walk usually helps a lot.

Old Independence Day posts:
2008
2007

I picked the Novara Buzz V for a number of reasons.  It’s simple and practical.  I like the low-fi looks and anti-theft aspects like locking skewers and no quick-release anything.  It has custom fenders.  It’s STEEL.  It was in the price range of the insurance money I got for the wrecked bike.  I really, therefore, paid for it in September 2005 when I bought my first bike, which was replaced with insurance money when it got stolen in fall 2006.  The insurance folks paid for the lights, fenders, rack, computer, etc.  Everything that got destroyed  but my helmet.  I was buying a new helmet anyway, so I didn’t want to go after them for that.

The biggest “fault” I’ve noticed so far is that the paint is junk.  It’s matte and flakes off.  Mine has several chips already from the trip from the factory to REI, and the one locked near the train station looks like it’s been through a wood chipper.  I suppose this is to make it less steal-able?  Or just a consequence of the matte finish?  I feel like I should be annoyed that my shiny new bike is not perfect (or shiny).  But you can’t get a perfect bike.  I know that for sure now.  And bikes get scratched up when you ride them.  Even if you got a perfect bike, it would eventually get dinged up if you rode it.  I was being stupid, yes.  Thing is, you don’t care when you’re riding regularly.  I’m not.

But screw it.  I refuse to be a prisoner of my own neurotic and compulsive tendencies.  I always need all my shit to be perfect.  Forever.  Like you can buy perfectly-crafted goods.  And like you can use them without wear and tear.  Nah, if I resist the urge to be a stupid jackass, I feel particularly…invited to put some stickers on now.  I still have some that my cycling pal sent me in 2005 when I first got into cycling.  It’s all good.  In a few weeks, I’ll be riding my bike and laughing at the witty stickers on it.

We did have a bit of an adventure to get it, though.

Tuesday, I had an early appointment with my hand doctor and a big meeting all afternoon.  It was already a weird day.  I wanted REI to leave my bike in the box so that I would not be tempted to ride before I’m physically ready and get hurt again.  But they couldn’t, and it came in Tuesday, rather than Friday.  Our glasses were also ready early.  So I walked from near Penn Station to Charles Village after work, met the Mrs., walked to the Rotunda, got our glasses and walked to the light rail.  Took it out to Timonium, walked to Baja Fresh and ate amidst sad yuppies.  Walked to REI.  Picked up my bike, some spare inner tubes and an under-the-seat bag.  Walked to the light rail and took my bike on it.  Walked about a mile home.  So my bike’s first trip was on a train and being walked.  Not as cool as being ridden, but much cooler than coming home in a car or truck.

Memorable night, though.  And I would be a douchebag to let such a fun-ly-gotten bike be less awesome because it wasn’t perfect when perfection wasn’t even possible.

Perhaps by airing these stupid mind-fucks I play on myself, I can kick them?

In other news, after we got home, we went shopping for prenatal vitamins for Mrs. P.  (More on that later, of course).

1) One person, when my face was still leaking liquids and looked twice as nasty as this picture, said, “You gotta be careful out dere on dem bikes.”
No shit? Wow. Guess when I heal, I’ll have to stop riding stoned and with my eyes closed. I mean, seriously, nice way to fucking blame me for what happened without having ever seen me ride or even know what the hell caused the crash. And P.S. — “you” don’t ride anyway, so what do you know?

2) “I worry about you on that bike.”
Thanks, but, looking at the statistics and remembering driving a car, I worry about you in your car. (I don’t actually mind that one so much.)

3) The one I’ve heard the most and the one that makes me maddest: “That’s why I don’t ride a bike.”
Oh. Now. Where to begin?

What do you mean by “that“? Do you mean my injured limbs? The cuts I had? Not being able to ride for weeks and missing some awesome bike-related events? Or do you mean my wrecked bike by “that”? Maybe “that” means what it feels like when what stops your body from a speed of 25-27 miles per hour is the friction of your body hitting the ground and skidding to a halt, leaving half on your lip and pieces of your face on the cement? Do you mean that? Or maybe the sound it makes, i.e., a helmet hitting and scraping the visor off and grating metal?

Nah. I know you, and I know what “that” means when you say to me, “That’s why I don’t ride a bike.”

It could mean your own fear of riding in traffic. Well, guess what? I was not hit by a car. To my knowledge, there were no moving cars around me. Nor was I riding in the street. I was on the bike trail, and I hit an unmarked pipe, just small enough to not see in time big but enough for a poopy crash. In Baltimore, no one could get away with having that shit out in the street at 8:30 in a Wednesday morning. Certainly, getting hit by a car is a risk we all take. But in this case, when you look at me and say, “That’s why I don’t ride a bike,” that is irrelevant.

It could your own being in bad shape. But if you know me, you know I’m not exactly in shape, and I have a big ass to prove it — not to mention the belly I carry for someone my age. Being in less than great shape is a strange reason not to cycle.  I am in terrible shape and look like, even in (HA!) peak riding condition.

It might mean your lack of interest. That’s cool. You don’t have to be into cycling. I’m not into driving my ass around in a car. But do you need to state your interests when I wreck? I mean, I never told someone hurt in a car accident, “Damn, that’s why I don’t have a car. Those fuckin things are deadly.”

I don’t know why I’m so pissed off at this phrase being repeated to me. It feels like a judgment on one hand – like that I’m engaging in what amounts to dangerous behavior just by riding my bike for transportation. That’s annoying enough. But it also feels like people are working out or venting some of their own issues on me (paranoia, bad fitness habits, being left out of the cycling craze, etc.). These people are making my own traumatic experience (not to throw that term around) about them.

For the record, no one I know who has gotten on a bike to go somewhere in the last few years has said anything like that. Instead, there are well-wishes — like from my nicest non-cycling friends. I am lucky to have nice people all around me. To be sure, it’s not a matter of cycling or not cycling. It’s something else.  And I know it’s not me.

I haven’t actually gotten tired of winter since 2003, when I lived in Boston and didn’t blog yet.  It was a particularly bad winter, full of blizzards and April snow.  St. Patty’s day that year was 70 degree weather, with students at Boston College sitting around talking in tanktops next to mountains of snow still piled up.  I remember wearing flip-flops and crunching on snow that April and wearing a jacket in May and June a few times.

There was snow on the ground two years ago for St. Patty’s Day, too, after a January that was so warm that plants were budding the week after New Year’s Day.  I guess it could be worse.  I get to work from home this morning for afternoon meetings and can probably get away with sandals later, if I’m willing to have cold feet, which I am.

I have a fridge full of Irish stout, cabbage, homemade soda bread from the Mrs and Irish music.  What, you haven’t heard the new U2 album yet?  It’s excellent.

We bundled up, mounted our bikes and met a co-worker and fellow Nation Service member and walked down. We waited in line for about an hour or an hour and a half and then made it to the metal detectors. Everything went very smoothly, save me having to get wand-ed, even after removing all my metal and AmeriCorps pins. We got some Donna’s hot chocolate and found good spots, maybe a third of the way from the front. Considering that we didn’t get to the event area until nearly noon, I thought that was pretty good. I was mildly afraid that we weren’t going to get in.

At any big public event, a lot of folks are rude and butt in front of one another and hold their cameras up in front of people’s faces, etc. I think this was less widespread that day, or, at least, people weren’t so militant about it. (One note though: owning an SLR does not make you a Photographer and does not mean you can be a jerk. The dudes next to me were screwing over the people behind them during the whole speech holding multiple large cameras over their heads, and all their photos were poorly composed and blurry from what I could see on their LCD. Wankers. All that gear, and you still can’t take good pictures.)

But. Yeah. OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There were people there from all over. I was afraid it would be the Roland Park crowd or just students, etc. But no. The mix of people was fantastic and, frankly, unusual for a sometimes-self-segregated Southern city like Baltimore. In itself, it was worth the cold and lack of coffee.

Anything would have been worth standing in a crowd of Baltimoreans and hearing Barack Obama stand up and shout, “Hello, Baltimore!” I get chills and tear-up a little thinking about it. I’m listening to the Inaugural events on NPR right now, and I’m still thinking about seeing Obama in my city this past weekend.

There were a lot of bikes around, but mine was in my office. I wished I’d brought it closer to brag about riding in the cold. But I think anyone who was outside deserved credit and could brag about the chill we all braved Saturday. But it was so worth it, I think it was more about the benefit and less about bravery.

I am wearing a blue and white flannel under a red sweater today. Rode in the snow to get to work. It’s a good day.

Photo Friday: Iconic.

But I was still looking forward to the sunny, clear and cold weather of yesterday and today. I had on very warm winter cycling gloves, a puffy vest, scarf, flannel or sweater and LONGJOHNS. Yes, longjohns. Rather than getting home with pink and chapped and stingy legs, I get home toasty and warm and happy and full of fuzzies because they are new.  And my hips smell like ink from the dye.

Of course I also sit in my office with very warm legs, which is very strange.  Especially if you’re a hairy man like me.  And you know you’re not supposed to wear anything under longjohns, right?  When your underwear touches your socks, it feels like you’re (to quote Ned Flanders) “wearin nothin at all!”  I’m not exactly into that, uh, ahem, lack of support.  It’s very odd.

Totally worth it to be able to cycle through a winter which is certainly colder than some places, but not quite New England or Upper Midwest either.

Rider status indicates that there are still in fact some cyclists in Baltimore who are, uh, brave/crazy enough to ride through the winter.  I’m not alone, and I don’t want to be.  Even when it’s raining and 35 degrees, there were folks out.

Possible fun joint ride Sunday.  If you’re in Baltimore, comment here and come!

And of course having a bunch of new stuff makes a lot of people (myself included) re-examine their relationship to material possessions.  I really love my new gloves and fenders and Thermos, but it’s the cycling in winter weather and not dropping five bucks a day to have good coffee at work thing that I really like.  I suppose that’s a healthy relationship to gear, right?  Using it?

I do have the tendency to pet my things though and often get very upset when a new scratch joins the dozens of others on my bike or when dust gets under the screen cover of my camera.  Then I think about my bike and not riding and my camera and not taking pictures.  Then, as Tyler Durden would say, the things I own end up owning me.

I’ve always struggled to have a healthy relationship to possessions, my body, my health.  You can’t just ignore your pains or bike maintenance, but you can’t get attached to them, either.  Tricky, I tell you.  Tricky.

Photo Friday: Meditation.

Christmas came early for my bike though.  The seatpost clamp that is not QR doesn’t fit, but that’s Okay.  The seatpost does, and the saddle’s on, too.  The stitching is wacky on my seat.  But.  Whatever.  At least I can ride it today.  While staring at my maimed bike all last week across my desk made me ache to defy death in traffic, The Duke sitting here while I work has made me excited today for the chance to ride home.  For all it’s annoying quirks and imperfections, I do love my bike.

I think that my old (stolen) bike got me out of my car and into the fun world of getting around without four wheels.  This bike was under my butt when I really got into cycling in traffic and to get places that people look at me funny for riding to, like weddings, job interviews and community meetings in questionable neighborhoods.

There have been times I’ve badmouthed it myself, for all its hyrbid dorkiness, but I’d be beside myself if someone stole this one.

So he’s coming to the office with me until my workplace threatens me.  And I’m prepared to fight them, given what little anyone does to prevent bike theft these days.  (Though a UB detective tells me that they are getting siren locks to lend folks….)