Rich and Strange Aeons

Warning: this post may not be all that interesting.

Side note: Oiling my bike baskets worked almost too well. Now the basket I keep open while riding (I put my lock in it, don't have a bracket) tends to have the bottom jiggle up and catch on a higher rung. At least the other one doesn't spontaneously open. And all I did was dab canola oil around all the hinges with my fingers.

***

After getting my final Hep B shot yesterday, I decided to bike out to Belmont. The immediate challenge is that the bike path to Belmont has been closed for the past two years and is still closed -- apparently not because the area is too corrupt to renovate a bike lane but because it's an adjunct to an intense wetlands project next to it. But there's a detour marked on CambridgePark Drive. That's not too bad -- low traffic, though dusty due to yet more construction. Then I mis-read a sign and headed to the end of a parking lot (getting worryingly sprayed with something en route); heading back and seeing a runner emerge showed me where the actual entrance was, to a decent paved path paralleling the work. No shade, no traffic, sound of bullfrogs.

It ends at a random spot in Belmont, though. Another runner I asked said I had my choice of how to get run over, but the southern path wasn't too bad. The "bike lane" apparently indicated is possibly narrower than my bike and I stayed on the sidewalk, but it soon connects to a road between a lake and high school, nice enough. Then to Concord, with a real bike lane, in the door zone, and I thought of thoughtless teenagers opening doors to boot, but I wasn't going that fast.

Belmont Center looked to be a couple of blocks long. I stopped in a Bruegger's and was given free bagels, bought some milk, and observed signs of free-range parenting in the form of a couple of 7-10 year old girls on their own, who left on their own too. A pair of high school girls provided some entertainment when I overheard "They mostly speak French in Africa... there are places in Canada that only speak French."

But really, I ran out of center damn fast. Someone I know who lived there confirmed it's not very exciting; Belmont's for good schools and family-friendliness and being on the end of bus lines or in biking range of Harvard. Thus the title of the post; it's closer than Watertown or Waltham but has rather less of interest.

Except! When I moved on and tried the northern route back to the bike path, I found myself on wide flat roads with hardly any traffic. So a decent place to just cruise around on bike. I wondered if people go there to learn how to handle a car, the way I was taken to Daly City from San Francisco.

I really need a more comfortable seat or something.

Options in Cambridge/Somerville:

bike paths: there's a few, mostly for recreational purposes. One would be a good corridor out to Arlington and beyond but for my purposes that's recreation. None right by me.

bike lanes: more of these exist, and closer. They're far from a solid and usable network, though, let alone one that feels safe, especially as I've become more aware of the risk of 'dooring', running into a suddenly open car door. One of my two nearest lanes, on Beacon, now feels like a dangerous attractive nuisance, being quite narrow and close to the cars. Even if you rode the left paint line you still wouldn't be safe... and would get run down by the SUV I saw riding that same paint line a few days ago. That vehicle aside, it doesn't seem like the legally mandated "three feet of clearance by a passing car" is often fulfilled.

Oh hey, randomly found an article mentioning how unsafe Beacon is.

Massachusetts Ave is the other close lane, except it passes in and out of existence kind of randomly, and there's multiple points where high speed traffic merges in from the right, or where it looks safely wide (maybe with a bike lane) and then suddenly narrows (and the lane goes away, not that it'd be safe anyway.)

sidewalks: legal in most places here, apart from designated business districts, which puts MA one up on Canada or the UK. Practicality ranges from "awesome, wide sidewalk with few pedestrians next to dangerous road" (like where Mass Ave suddenly narrows, above) down through "narrow and crumbly but doable with care" to "impossible" like those same business districts most hours, when any considerate bicyclist would be walking their bike due to pedestrian crush. (Or being seated but pushing along with one's feet at walking or slower speed.) (If the sidewalks of those areas are clear, probably so are the streets!) Helps that I'm not a superfast bicyclist anyway, so going at safe speeds feels like less of a burden to me.

vehicular: aka taking the lane. Topical link dump!
edge bicycle vs. lane bicycle vehicular cycling
http://iamtraffic.org/2013/03/the-stories-we-tell-part-one/
http://cyclingsavvy.org/hows-my-driving/
drive your bike; bicycle accidents
http://www.floridabicycle.org/rules/driveyourbike.html
http://bicyclesafe.com/
bicycle width marker
http://bicyclesafe.com/index.html#laneposition

I'm increasingly tempted by the idea of it; actually doing it is spotty. Some streets are awesome, like Oxford, with narrow lanes and no bike lanes and inhibited traffic, and taking the lane feels both safe and reasonable. Sure, pull aside when I can to let cars past. Beacon... probably should take the full lane for safety, but that bike lane is problematic; given its existence, am I legally required to stay in it? Probably drivers expect me to, but damn, it sucks! Traffic's faster and heavier too, and I get self-conscious about holding up traffic. Mass Ave... given the random nature of the bike lane and parked cars taking the lane would make sense, and in lieu of bike lane there's often sharrows in fact, but much of the time traffic is even faster and heavier, in a 35 mph zone.

It's said that bicyclists tend to fear being run down from behind, while overlooking being T-boned or turned into which happen more often. I note that rationally, a lane-taking bicyclist might piss followers off, but drivers rarely drive directly into obstacles; being sideswiped by someone sliding past you seems way more likely.

I've been finding myself getting more law-abiding on the road, to cut down on risk and the possibility of misjudgement; this is especially true when I'm taking the lane. Wait for red lights, don't slip in along the right (that may be predictability and safety more than legality).

A few days ago I was lane-taking up Broadway, and noticed a pattern of sprinting faster than I usually do, to not hold up traffic, and thus welcoming red lights as a chance to rest and catch my breather rather than being annoyed by them. Enforced interval training!

Today I was out for three-four hours and had a bunch of close calls, none of which were obviously related to having 5 hours of sleep. Not sure I remember them all. One was at an intersection which was showing red light and "don't walk" in all four directions, with no one moving; after waiting a bit I headed out from the sidewalk, just in time of course for the cross light to turn green halfway. At a later intersection I was actually fine, having learned quickly from the previous incident, but more aggressive bicyclists almost got hit by cars turning left legally toward our right. I almost snarked out loud "and this is why we have "don't walk" signs."

Then there's Harvard Square, where I see no safe way to go north other than walking on the sidewalk for a bit. There's a bike lane right by Out of Town News, which in itself is perfectly safe... but then you're merging with fast traffic coming from the right. Even taking a lane doesn't seem like it'd help much. Then there's another bike lane but it's kind of deceptive, aiming you to a crosswalk toward First Church; if you want to continue on Mass Ave you have to keep left and go down a fast curve, which has more fast traffic merging from the right out of a tunnel. Oh and IIRC there's another deceptive bike lane leading up to that curve, on the left this time (you could use the crosswalk to get to it) but it directs you to making a U-turn back south.

If you've never been there, you can look at Google Maps. Start from the bike lane to the right of "2A Brattle Street" and try to make it here in good expectation of safety. I went through today, following another bicyclist, and it felt pretty suicidal. She was riding right on a paint line though, then hugging the curb of the final curve; no one tried to pass us thank god, but they could have tried. Maybe lane-taking would be better.

Hmm, I haven't been deep into Somerville recently, so have no cause for my other gripe about traffic-hostile one-way street layouts, that often give a choice of a long detour (I'm a bike, not a car), going the wrong way, or taking a crappy sidewalk. Though I did discover Ames in MIT has a one way stretch... for one block.

It apparently takes an engineering study regarding the public interest for an MA town to post a speed limit other than 30 mph in settled areas, apart from 20 mph for school zones. I don't know if the department in question would consider "make roads safer for bicyclists" a valid reason for a 15 or 20 mph limit. One page claims the speed zoning manual says the limit should be at the 85th percentile of free-flowing traffic, which begs many questions.

***

Mostly unrelatedly, this page about Harvard Square has people complaining that it's impossible to park there. I suspect they mean impossible to park for free, there's a fair number of garages in the area, though I have no idea how full they tend to be.

A neat image, the origins of which I have no idea of. Catgirls and bunnygirls in swimwear may not be for everyone, but the setting they're in has a magical feel to me. Makes me think of a future Neo-Venezia where the Martian neo-cats have merged with the people and gondolas been replaced by water buses.

Lois Bujold has a new novel coming out real soon now -- or sooner if you go DRM-free ebook -- and the first six chapters are online.

Article and comments on more productive farming.

The Met makes many catalogs free online.

Original pronunciation Shakespeare (Youtube).

Fake lesbian kiss upstages anti-gay rights protest.

Pre-sprawl aerial photos vs. modern satellite images.

Amtrak breaking ridership records. (Keep in mind Amtrak is young compared to US railroads.) (I was contemplating going to OVFF this weekend: ride, plane, bus, train? Nope, no train to Columbus Ohio.)

Lots of bicycle stuff! Bike paths may really be dramatically safer. A defense of electric bikes for SF hills. What bicyclists really want. A bicycle for carrying two small kids. The author is down on it, but the idea comes through anyway. And the Dutch contemplate heated bike lanes.

My Little Ponies teach fonts to use and avoid.

Someone: '"What's keming". is arguably the nerdiest joke I know.'

Why restaurant websites suck.

My cold from AB has rolled over almost perfectly into spring allergies. For a couple days I was feeling almost over things, then bam, wake up today to thick eye mucus and extra sandy eyes and being tired and all. I'm toying with getting to FilkOntario. I'm also wondering where I can travel that won't have air jizz at the moment. Besides the Southern Hemisphere. Not sure Florida would be enough. I guess dry country. Puerto Rico?

Finished Watership Down. Wheee. Requested other old children's books: Mrs. Frisby, Secret Garden, Heidi (so many choices of versions.) Remi is only available as a reference copy. ! I wonder what happened to my family's copy. Don't find an e-book of it either.

Went to SCA dance dinner, biked home, had reflective experience about biking on sidewalks. I was going up Prospect from Central Square, and didn't stay on the road long. It's one land each way, narrow, and busy. Choices seemed to be take up lane and slow everyone down, squeeze along curb and feel stressed about risk, or sidewalk. There were enough people on the sidewalk that I'd go slow for even me on a bike, but not so many as to not be going faster than I could walk. On average I think it works out okay: traffic passes me when it moves, including the braver bicyclists, but then waits at a light while I keep going, and I happened to not have to wait for cross lights much myself.

More evidence that my attitude toward biking modes is shaped by not going all that fast anyway, with me on my cheap heavy wide-tire mountain bike, and by my comparing myself to walking speed, not driving or ideal road bike speeds.

It's weird. I moved in with M&C and their four cats (two theirs, two A&L's) Tuesday, and within a few hours I was leaking all over, blotting my nose, definitely allergic. And in the morning I was not just tired but this deep lethargy like being sick or taking allergy medication, which I'm not. This went on for a few days, but Saturday and Sunday mornings have been a lot better in how I felt. And Sunday I wasn't even blotting my nose much. I've adapted? I've been taking raw honey, like a teaspoon or so a day, but there shouldn't be any cat dander in honey! If it works, it must be by calming down the immune system, or rebooting it to consider current substances (e.g. pollen or cat stuff) to be normal, and not worth freaking out about. Strange.

The cats have been very well-behaved around me IMO, even today when I'm by myself. I leave them alone apart from food, they leave me alone apart from marking my shins and calves, everyone's happy.

Got Ch out for a bike ride today, in the one day of good weather before the week returns to hellhole. Showing her a park and path, some nice old houses, then wandering around a graveyard she likes. We found a HUGHES tombstone or plot marker right across from ARMSTRONG. There's also... Satanism? (Edit: No) next to a Masonic symbol we saw a lot of. Also, and going to be immature here, BATMAN.

Then Ch made peach cobbler, which was excellent, and I had more of her butter mochi, ditto.

On the electronics front, the N900 had no problem with the local wi-fi. The eee running Eeebuntu 4.0 doesn't work; something about eee and this Ubuntu and WAP2 with non-TKIP encryption. This has not been fixed. I exploring tethering from the phone, but that only seems to work with service provider Internet, not random internet. In exploring *that*, I installed a power user kernel which promptly bricked my phone. I discovered how to flash new kernels, which didn't fix it after repeated tries, until it did. Um. Then I downloaded Eeebuntu 2.0 (from reports, 3.0 was where the problem started.) I was sad about losing up to date software... until I realized that I can run right off the USB stick. Ha ha! I did that for a bit, but have gone back to the ethernet cable that I thoughtfully packed with me, on account of having bought it in Tokyo for use with a hotel jack. Didn't expect it to pay off so early.

Went to the bike store today, thinking it was time to replace my 7 year old bulb-based headlight that doesn't do that much other than announce my existence. (Which is more than most bicyclists around here bother with, jerks.) There were a bunch of Blackburn lights, advertising long lifetimes, but no brightness measurements, just "extremely bright" or "superbright". So I got a Trek LED saying 225+ candles. I don't know what that means in practice but if I'd done some research I would, and I support giving numbers. I was told by the staffer that any of these lights would just be for self-visibility, not lighting up the road. Which seemed odd, since even my old light does that a bit, for a short distance, with the light down. (Of course, I generally had a choice between that and being able to illuminate stop signs.)

Yeah, he was wrong. I went for a spin just now and HOLY LEDS BATMAN. I'm sure it's no car light but it can certainly illuminate obstacles at some distance, and as well as lighting up anything remotely reflective from quite a ways away. It's awesome. And almost too bright to look at directly, I almost worry if it can mess with drivers like hi-beams do. The one thing is that it is pretty directional, so stop signs can pass in and out of visibility as my fork wobbles, but hey. And I think it claims some hours of life, whereas memory is that my old light would start draining after 40 minutes at full power.

I also got a lesson in 7-year old stuff. Had trouble getting my old light off, like the screw was stuck, and some rubber padding between it and the handlebar had decayed a lot. I also replaced my helmet -- had forgotten about duct taping the chin strap back on, and hadn't noticed a big crack in the temple regiong. Ended up getting a similar model, the only one with my size head and a visor. Trek bike, Trek helmet, Trek light. Overheard a conversation with someone who'd gotten a road bike and a flat, in that order; he said his Trek mountain bike hadn't ever had a flat. Neither have I, with my 40 pound Trek 800 tank. Can't remember if I ever had the store replace the tires for fear of them wearing down; I might have once, but might have been my old bike...


Oh yeah: walking home from swing dance I saw a bicyclist with, of course, no lights. He did have his cell phone in his hand, and I don't know if he was texting while biking or using it as a makeshift photon source.