Skirt guard in San Jose

I was cycling down Santa Clara Street in downtown San Jose last week when I looked south down 1st Street and I spotted a distinctive white Dutch style bike with a skirt guard the next block down on San Fernando. Since I'm crazy about bikes -- especially slightly unusual bikes -- I raced down 2nd Street to meet this stylish cyclist. I caught up to Dolin on San Fernando in front of San Jose State University. She's obviously a stylin' gal, and then I learn that Dolin is a fashion designer in San Francisco. The bike is the Electra Amsterdam, which is equipped with chainguard, skirt guard, fenders and rack. Dolin also rides a vintage Raleigh around San Jose with her fiancé. About that last photo -- I realize she's in the door zone, but she was trying to be helpful to me by scooting right momentarily so I could take her cycling photo. You can read more about Dolin and her Bay Area commute over at Commute By Bikes. She also blogs about her craft projects at Lulu Bliss.

Bicycle propaganda videos

The NRDC video demonstrates the correct way to navigate your bike through heavy pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk.



State Farm Insurance shows us what it's like to "swap four wheels for two" in this ad, suggesting an excellent way to save money on insurance and gas prices! (Via, with numerous mentions all over the place.



Farmers Insurance demonstrates a cyclist wearing his business suit assertively taking his place in traffic, taking the lane and signaling his turns on his bike commute. The office worker rides a practical, small tire bike (prefect for multimodal commutes) equipped with fenders.

Farmers insurance rush hour commercialby business-garden

This more serious video is a cyclist instruction video on The Rights and Duties of Cyclists, from Cyclist View. The video shows cyclists making normal vehicular maneuvers including lane control, lane sharing, left and right turns, through movements and a freeway ramp crossing. This video is intended to show cyclists and motorists how it looks when cyclists act and are treated as vehicle drivers in normal urban traffic in the City of Long Beach, California. I've seen this video posted in a few places over the past few weeks, but I'll give props to Velo Chimp for the reminder.

Feminist therapy

Sara's working on her degree in Clinical Psychology. After reading a few paragraphs in one of her texts about feminist therapy, I made some completely uninformed and moronic comments to my wife, mocking the idea that all of society's problems are caused by men. She gave me that special smile reserved for small children, drooling imbeciles, and idiot husbands from across the dinner table and reminded me that almost the entire history of psychology is men telling everyone that all of your problems were caused by your mother. So I'll now go back talking about something I know a little bit about, which is bicycles.


Back in the 80s I used to watch a game show in Japan called "Naruhodo! The World." They'd show videos of the bizarre from around the world, and the contestants had to decide if they're for real or not. This running-powered tricycle video would have been perfect for that show. Via.

A nice kid with straight As in school swerves into the bike lane in Santa Cruz and kills a Mexican on a bicycle. The kid expresses remorse. His mother offers a tearful apology to the deceased's family. Amazingly, the judge throws the book at the driver, sentencing him to four years in state prison after he was convicted of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.

New York Times talks about death by blogging. Bloggers "can earn as little as $10 a post." Ha, don't I wish! :o) I haven't had problems with weight gain, sleep disorders, or any of the other maladies (including death) reported in the article, so I must be doing something right.

Photo of Ashlee above by Robert Kurtz. Go check his blog on life, biking and photography.

Therapy

I barely missed the bus to work this morning. I could have waited 15 minutes for the next bus, but instead I decided to bike the entire distance from home to work, which I've never done before. Breakfast was a small package of peanut butter crackers and a glass of water, and I filled by 24 oz water bottle with water.



The entire distance is 44 miles, which includes a climb from 500 feet to 1900 feet over the Santa Cruz Mountains with an accumulated elevation gain of about 4,000 feet. From Summit Road, I lost 1,100 feet of elevation in less than 10 minutes as I zoomed down Old Santa Cruz Highway at 35 mph (speed limit 25). I stopped at a gas station in Los Gatos (20 miles into the ride from Santa Cruz) for a Snickers bar and some Gatorade. A nasty headwind kept my speed below 20 mph once I got onto Foothill Expressway. My legs started to cramp a little as I approached downtown Palo Alto, so I geared down to spin. I saw a crosswalk light timer expiring and sprinted to catch the light, but I didn't have the legs for it; there was nothing there!

My trip to work took a little over 3 hours, which included two stops to check my map and one wrong turn. I barely beat my boss into the building.

God bless Denise at work, who had a big jar of M&Ms and jelly beans sitting outside of her office as I passed by. Yum!

Photo taken this morning while climbing Mountain Charlie Road in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Distracted

Thanks for the comments regarding my grandfather, all, including those that were sent privately. This is hitting me a little harder than I expected, to be honest. We weren't super close, but I loved the old man as did everybody around him.


Freddie Rodriguez (Rock Racing) @ Ronde van Brisbeen 2008. Photo ©2008 Ken Conley.

Instead of getting any work done, I've been talking with some of my family on the phone while also listlessly browsing the web. Here are a couple of items that caught my attention that might interest you:

A man was arrested for stealing used restaurant grease from a Burger King. This stuff has market value: 5,000 gallons (what a tanker truck carries) of used fry oil is worth $6,750. "Our guess is it's a biodiesel fuel thing. It's like someone stealing copper wire," said Morgan Hill police Cmdr. David Swing. "This might turn into something that starts to occur more frequently."

This is a little late but he's my buddy. Ken wants to know: should he shoot photos, make a poster, or make a book? He's gauging interest so shoot him a note. The photo of Freddie Rodriguez illustrating this post is by him.

Tour de Georgia VIP hospitality pass contest: Record a short video telling them "Why I Love the Tour de Georgia" in 60 seconds or less, upload it to your YouTube account by Thursday, April 10th at 11:59PM, submit the entry form and be entered to win two (2) VIP Hospitality passes to the final stage in Atlanta. They don’t need an epic production, just a sincere and exciting testament that shares your affinity for the Tour de Georgia. All entries deemed acceptable in content by Tour de Georgia staff will be displayed on the official Tour de Georgia website. Winners will be determined by fan votes (so let me know about the videos and I'll help get the word out for you if you're my friend). Details at Tour de Georgia website.

I'm not getting anything done, so I think I'll bail from work early and take a nice, long bike ride.

I've had better days

1. Overslept.

2. Got on the bus, from where I saw three major wrecks on the highway. One of them was a 10 car pileup.

3. I wore bike-geek clothes today and totally forgot to bring a clean shirt. Dug the cleanest shirt I could find out of the dirty clothes cache in my office.

4. Hair gel bottle in my gym bag broke open, spilling gooey mess on everything.

5. Stick deodorant in my gym bag also broke open, spilling chunks of aluminum zirconium whatever on everything, and leaving me with no deodorant for my dirty shirt today.

6. Just got an email from my dad saying that my grandfather passed early this morning.

*sigh*

Rest in Peace, John Beryl Masoner. He was 83 years old.

Sun cycling jersey

Some readers of Cyclelicious have expressed interest in buying a Sun Microsystems bicycle jersey. They're available now from the Sun Wear store for $104.

There's also this interesting photovoltaic backpack for $300.