While I’m away, tending to the birth of our child.


There are some excellent sites you should check out while I’m gone!

Armand, the founder of Moleskinerie, is back with a re-vamped Notebookism! I, for one, have missed a site devoted to all things stationery and the writing life, as Moleskinerie used to be. Stay tuned for what I’m sure will be one of your favorite blogs.

Joachim is travelling around the world between his 25th and 26th Birthdays and blogging about it all on 360 in 365.  I’m reminded  that all I did then was to worry about a car I didn’t like owning, jump through academic hoops and start a pencil blog.  Instead of regret, however, I’m just enjoying the stories.

And, of course, you should check out North Baltimore Bike Brigade, which I co-run with my good pal Dan.  There’s a blogroll of bike blogs on there of which we’re proud, and a nice community of cyclists, largely from Charm City.

Where I’ve been.

bikestand0809Mourning and covering the coverage of the recent cycling fatality in Baltimore.  In case you don’t live here and have no way of knowing, a cyclist was killed by a truck Tuesday.  The truck and driver haven’t been found.

Aside from being a cyclist, aside from the fact that this cyclist was on his way to the university where I work, aside from my own use of that intersection, aside from my wife knowing him from her old job — why am I so personally upset about this?  (As is the violent loss of life isn’t enough?)

I saw him.  Lying on the ground.  Not five minutes after it happened.  I don’t want to think through the details too much or share them.  But what I saw was…disturbing.  I’m not a person who sees a lot of dead bodies, especially not of people who died a terrible way.  Combined with being sick and having things to do for work even though I’m technically on vacation, I’ve not been myself this week.

Read more here and here.

There’s a memorial Sunday at 6pm.  Stay tuned to NBBB for more details.

“That’s why I don’t ride a bike.”

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I can’t tell all of the ignorant things some people have said to me since the bike accident, to complement all the very nice and very sweet words and well-wishes and gifts of candy and company from very good people I am lucky enough to know. In addition to people who have been very very nice to me, there is a whole platoon of people have taken it upon themselves to help me reform and understand my face-plant better with completely unsolicited advice. Indeed, even in defeat, there are insistent cycling-nay-sayers. A few:

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?
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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.

Three years carfree.


There I was this morning, meandering through wooded streets on my way to work in Central Baltimore.  The ground was wet and more filled with gravel than I thought it would be, so I was taking it slowly to avoid having to clean myself and my drivetrain later.  (My current fenders suck hard.)  My fingers were warmer than they should have been, and I was trying to remember why yesterday felt like an important date.

Yesterday was three years since we actually sold the car and took up legs and transit and trains to get where we need to go.  I’m probably not much thinner and don’t really have a ton of money saved (I made more money as a grad student than I do as a VISTA), but I’m much happier.

I feel like I should have some reflections on being carfree, but I’m too tired to think of much.  Like how you avoid the guilt that one of my neighbors told me about this morning, of driving everyday alone.  Or how you really do see more of your city and meet more people and stay in at least slightly better physical shape.  Or how you should try it.

But it’s hard to really try being carfree.  We decided to sell our car a few weeks before we actually handed over the keys and $6,600 to a Saturn dealer — because Thanksgiving was coming, and we were on the way to Baltimore, and we couldn’t meet with the car guy to sell it until we got back.  So we had time to get used to the idea.  How will I get here?  Should I stock up on stuff because I don’t get there as often?  If I still owned a car, I don’t think I’d be able to think very creatively about transportation and fun because the four wheels would always be there to make that commute quicker or that trip a little more comfortable.  That could certainly be my own weakness speaking, but it’s like imagining what it’s like to be a vegetarian.  Until you’re faced with what to eat at a steakhouse you go to with a family member (and when, like the car  in the garage, you could just eat the meat), there are alternatives that are fun and alternatives which are just unpleasant that are hard to imagine unless you have to.  It’s not a matter of weakness or strength or ethics.  It’s hard to imagine the tight spot that vegetarianism and being carfree can each be unless you’re in it.

I’m certainly not trying to get preachy or anything.  Even with the rise of cycling as transportation, I don’t actually know anyone in my family or circle of friends who is intentionally carfree.  I do know some car-light folks who cycle as much as possible, and that’s more awesome than I can say.  But there’s still the car when you “need” it and the difficulty in imagining being very carfree.  I know people without a car because of money or a lack of license.  But swearing off the auto is hard business. I think I’m stubborn enough to be able to stick with it, that stubbornness being a weakness dressed up like a strength in this instance.  But there are definitely times when a car would make some things easier.  With the way things are laid out and constructed around cars in the US, this is bound to be true.  I’m not saying that we don’t live in a great country; nor am I judging it.  But the US is arranged around cars for the most part, and that’s not just my opinion.  Look around, or read up on what smarter folks have written about it.

In the end, though, cycling, walking and transit make a boring trip a mega-fun adventure.  Going to The Charles to see a movie is a pain in the ass if you drive.  If you cycle from North Baltimore, it’s a fun ride, and the theater is warm and inviting.  Imagine grocery shopping without ever having to look for or fight for a parking place.  Being able to lock your bike right by the door at work.  The cool looks you get when you go to a dinner party or a wedding and tell people you rode there on a bike or walked.

All possible without a car.

[More BIKE LIFE photos.]

[If you think cars are the best thing ever and want everyone to have one, you should direct your energies toward a blog on that topic (I'll read it), rather than wasting it on trolling comments that won't get published.  Just sayin.]

Photo Friday: White.

Ikea bikes, etc.


Geez, with the bike blog and with my free time being tied up in bikes right now, I’ve been neglecting this blog. Sorry. Go on over to NBBB for more on Ikea bikes.

But I won’t do something jerky like make that my “this weekend I spent hours fixing bikes” blog.  That’s this one!  My pal needed work done on his front derailer (Sheldon’s spelling), and Mrs. P. needed both of hers attended to.  Thing is, I forgot about the moving sun where I was working, and I got a bit of a sunburn.  I’ve gotten a few of those this year.  That’s not going to help the fact that I already look older than I am and have reached the age where that’s not good news anymore, just news.

But fixing things is always fun, and when you’re helping people to keep biking, that’s awesome, too.  Sunburn be damned.  A liter of water, an energy coffee drink dealy and Chinese food, and I was ready to face the world.

Which I did that evening, and Mr. Dan and I blasted all over North Baltimore, in search of a milestone on his new cyclometer.  We celebrated with cold drinks and chocolate, Mr. Dan’s treat.

I recently watched all six Star Wars films, too, in chronological order.  That is, in the order of The Force, not The Box Office.  Mrs. P. had never seen them, and I tried to keep my mouth shut.  I really did.  I hate how they changed the song at the end of Return of the Jedi, one of the most [musically] triumphant movie endings ever.  The other CGI stuff, I don’t know.  Whatever.  I’m pissed about that song!

Where are all these frikkin storms?

Damn.