for tonight's run, i took both panniers, empty. it was a test mission. removing them from my rack (a.k.a. 'carrier' -- the thing over the rear wheel) was completely effortless. no struggling, now grownup mad-words. easy.
i bought:
two 1/2-gallon cartons of oj
a gallon of milk
an 8-lb bag of ice
a green pepper
a plastic thingy of clover sprouts
6 or 8 roma tomatoes (hope there's no salmonella!)
a cucumber
two lemons
a head of garlic
two gi-normous portabello mushrooms
two 1-1/2-lb loaves of 7-grain bread
and two packages of multi-grain english muffins.
i could barely lift the panniers to get them out to my bike. as i headed out the door, i was thinking, "good thing my bike has wheels." even despite the large amount of stuff i bought, and the bags' enormous weight, one of them did have room to spare, even after i'd added my kryptonite lock and my cable & padlock.
getting the panniers onto the bike was a little trickier than removing them had been, but not because of the bags; it was just a balance issue. i'd bought a huge amount of heavy stuff, and had to attach the bags one at a time. a couple of grownup mad-words were spoken, but not bad. really not bad. you would not have believed how horrific my old panniers were. i should have replaced those the instant i had a chance. can't believe i never thought to do it before.
when i got on my bike (which i still managed to do by swinging my right leg up over the back of the saddle), i realized that it had been a seriously long time since i'd carried that kind of weight on the back wheel of my bike. moving slowly was pretty dicey. that much weight over the back wheel makes the front wheel quite squirrelly. so i sped up. when you're that weighed down, you really can't change direction very quickly. (this was a colossal experiment, remember. i plan to plan better in the future. we didn't even really need ice this run -- i just wanted to see if i could get it home before it melted. i could.) saratoga headed south from ogden had a fair number of cars at first; but the drivers made plenty of room for my red & yellow glory.
i got home fine. i probably expended more effort in doing so, but i didn't notice. once i got home, i wondered whether the weight of the bags would make any difference in how they would be to remove from the bike, but i needn't have worried. the mechanism worked as well as when they were empty. no hooks snagging on spokes, clothing, the rack, or anything.
i love 'my' new panniers.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
on the fine art of bagging groceries, and a few words of groceries-by-bicycle philosophy.
one learns when one starts bringing one's own bags to the grocery store, that present-day grocery baggers are trained to bag groceries... for the present day. presently, most people say "plastic, please." in fact, at jewel, i'm not sure 'paper' is even an option. and those plastic bags are cheaper than air. way cheaper than a broken dozen eggs; cheaper even than a tomato that's had a run-in with a can of pineapple. because those bags are so cheap, grocery baggers are trained in the opposite of conservation. that's why you so often get home to find that you have several bags that contain only one item each.
in our area, there really aren't any 'bag your own groceries' stores. i moved here from the twin cities. with a couple of schmancy exceptions (marvelously schmancy, i must say -- byerly's i love your doughnuts!! lund's i love your cubed steaks!!), the twin cities are a bag-your-own kind of place, and have been for over 25 years. so bagging groceries is second nature to me. once in a while i still forget, head down to the end of the conveyor to start filling bags, then say, "oops" and look sheepish.
what i'm getting at, is that this getting the groceries into the panniers-thing might turn out to be tricky. meaning, socially awkward. i'm all for educating folks on stuff like, that some people ride their bikes to the grocery store (ok, for now it's just me, but maybe some of you guys will start, too). but that's not the point. it's not why i do it. i don't want to be all, "ooh. look how awesome and virtuous i am, and look how you totally suck for driving to the grocery store." not. i just don't feel that way. always driving to the store just bugged me, personally, because i love my bike, and i love the fact that this groovy piece of 'recreational' equipment is also excellent transportation. i've been fascinated by that fact ove bicycles ever since i was six years old -- and i didn't even get to learn to ride a bike until i was 7 or 8. what i'm getting at, is i can see a day, perhaps in the not-too-distant future, when i might just cave and let the grocery bagger person put all of my groceries in jewel bags, and then re-bagging them myself outside.
crazy, right? but you didn't see the baffled look on the bagger's face as he looked from me, to my gallon of milk, and back to me. and you didn't hear him ask, "do you want this in there, too?" of course the answer is yes, but geez. i can be a little impatient. i didn't just say, "yes." i said, "i'm on my bike. it's not like i have a car."
i could have kicked myself.
because while i don't want to attract a huge amount of attention and be a complete asshole about the whole thing, i truly would like to convey the impression (to anyone who might notice me on my metallic red mountain bike with the bright yellow panniers) that the bicycle really isn't a bad way to make a grocery run. i would like to convey the impression that some grownups ride bicycles to get places and do stuff. and i would like to be one more bicycle on the roads, just a little more often. because it makes the roads safer for all cyclists. kids included.
i do not want to piss people off, or make them feel stupid.
in our area, there really aren't any 'bag your own groceries' stores. i moved here from the twin cities. with a couple of schmancy exceptions (marvelously schmancy, i must say -- byerly's i love your doughnuts!! lund's i love your cubed steaks!!), the twin cities are a bag-your-own kind of place, and have been for over 25 years. so bagging groceries is second nature to me. once in a while i still forget, head down to the end of the conveyor to start filling bags, then say, "oops" and look sheepish.
what i'm getting at, is that this getting the groceries into the panniers-thing might turn out to be tricky. meaning, socially awkward. i'm all for educating folks on stuff like, that some people ride their bikes to the grocery store (ok, for now it's just me, but maybe some of you guys will start, too). but that's not the point. it's not why i do it. i don't want to be all, "ooh. look how awesome and virtuous i am, and look how you totally suck for driving to the grocery store." not. i just don't feel that way. always driving to the store just bugged me, personally, because i love my bike, and i love the fact that this groovy piece of 'recreational' equipment is also excellent transportation. i've been fascinated by that fact ove bicycles ever since i was six years old -- and i didn't even get to learn to ride a bike until i was 7 or 8. what i'm getting at, is i can see a day, perhaps in the not-too-distant future, when i might just cave and let the grocery bagger person put all of my groceries in jewel bags, and then re-bagging them myself outside.
crazy, right? but you didn't see the baffled look on the bagger's face as he looked from me, to my gallon of milk, and back to me. and you didn't hear him ask, "do you want this in there, too?" of course the answer is yes, but geez. i can be a little impatient. i didn't just say, "yes." i said, "i'm on my bike. it's not like i have a car."
i could have kicked myself.
because while i don't want to attract a huge amount of attention and be a complete asshole about the whole thing, i truly would like to convey the impression (to anyone who might notice me on my metallic red mountain bike with the bright yellow panniers) that the bicycle really isn't a bad way to make a grocery run. i would like to convey the impression that some grownups ride bicycles to get places and do stuff. and i would like to be one more bicycle on the roads, just a little more often. because it makes the roads safer for all cyclists. kids included.
i do not want to piss people off, or make them feel stupid.
jewel at ogden and saratoga.
nice bike rack. small, but newer, and decently bolted to the pavement. it's on the west (saratoga) side of the store. which is the 'osco' end.
from downtown downers grove, cross to the north side of the tracks. saratoga is two blocks west of main st. between the tracks and franklin st. -- between franklin & ogden it's 3 blocks; head west until you get there. then go north on saratoga. at franklin st, saratoga jogs about 1/2 block west -- just follow the bike route signs. the street sign for saratoga is visible in plenty of time to make the turn. continue north to ogden.
cross at the light, and you're there. (yes! there's a light!)
the bagger at jewel was extremely confused by my panniers, my lack of a need for other bags of any kind, and did not know how to bag my stuff. this was not his fault. he asked, astutely, i thought, whether i'd ridden my bike to the store on account of the high gas prices. i told him, "no, i rode my bike because i can." he didn't really get that, so i explained, "i'm not too old, and i'm not injured -- and i can use the exercise!"
i think i was his 'story' for the day.
from downtown downers grove, cross to the north side of the tracks. saratoga is two blocks west of main st. between the tracks and franklin st. -- between franklin & ogden it's 3 blocks; head west until you get there. then go north on saratoga. at franklin st, saratoga jogs about 1/2 block west -- just follow the bike route signs. the street sign for saratoga is visible in plenty of time to make the turn. continue north to ogden.
cross at the light, and you're there. (yes! there's a light!)
the bagger at jewel was extremely confused by my panniers, my lack of a need for other bags of any kind, and did not know how to bag my stuff. this was not his fault. he asked, astutely, i thought, whether i'd ridden my bike to the store on account of the high gas prices. i told him, "no, i rode my bike because i can." he didn't really get that, so i explained, "i'm not too old, and i'm not injured -- and i can use the exercise!"
i think i was his 'story' for the day.
Monday, June 23, 2008
another great thing about bike vs. car.. !
if it's dark in the garage, or too cold, you can bring your bike into your dining room to work on it. not so feasible to bring the car into the dining room. *someone* would get annoyed for sure. and if someone gets annoyed about the bike in the dining room, you can always say, "it could be worse. i could have brought in the car!"
well, i *was* going to bike for groceries tonight..
but. my new ortlieb panniers had never yet been mounted to my bicycle. i somehow assumed that this would take but a few minutes.
i was wrong.
ok. now, it may help to know -- just to put things in perspective -- that i'm in general fairly well able to visualize how things are supposed to fit together. i can do pretty decent tech drawings, query a database, and if i ever needed to again, i could program and set the clock on my vcr. and i had that one old, crappy set of panniers for 15 years or so and knew how they went on the bike, and what about them drove me half off my nut.
so i'm not clueless. even so. ortlieb's 'instructions' are .. um .. wanting. and it was hard to find any information on the web. but i finally did. h/t to karen lipkow. the forum where i found her instructions omitted her e-mail address, so i can't thank her directly; and the date was also removed, so i don't even freaking know how *old* her post was.
anyway. the panniers have some movable parts that should be moved until they fit your rack, then tightened down so they don't move anymore. the point (*this* would have helped me, ortlieb), is to set the hooks so they are between cross-braces on the top of the rack. the hooks are not a super-tight fit (although the panniers come with some spacers that snap into the hooks to take up most of the extra space). but freakishly, the hooks don't really need to fit super tightly. this is counterintuitive; but their front-to-back placement keeps the bags from sliding forward or backward. there's also a movable, rigid plastic tab/hook thing on the bags themselves. the hooks should be set with the open sides toward the rider, so that if you brake suddenly and the bag has a bunch of stuff in it, the bottom of the bag won't swing toward you.
once these facts are known, you stil need tools. you need (for my model of pannier, but probably for all) a 3mm allen wrench; and if you need to move the female end of the threaded bit for the hook part, a thin, not-too-broad-bladed (get that?) slotted screwdriver (it seems to really want a star screwdriver -- i couldn't find one), and a wrench to hold the hex nuts on the inside of the bag. i used a small ratchet with the 12mm hex socket, which worked extremely well.
then i futzed with it, until the bags appeared to be going *nowhere*. of course, right now they're empty, and by the time i'd finished the process it was too dark to run my actual errand. grrr.
this would not have taken long at all, had i not futzed with it for a rather long time before i managed to locate karen's lovely instructions.
so shopping by bicycle will happen tomorrow. which is when i will begin training myself to make sure that the hooks are truly locked onto the bag before i start riding.
until then, we are foodless, and critically lacking orange juice. but i think i'm going to like these bags.
i was wrong.
ok. now, it may help to know -- just to put things in perspective -- that i'm in general fairly well able to visualize how things are supposed to fit together. i can do pretty decent tech drawings, query a database, and if i ever needed to again, i could program and set the clock on my vcr. and i had that one old, crappy set of panniers for 15 years or so and knew how they went on the bike, and what about them drove me half off my nut.
so i'm not clueless. even so. ortlieb's 'instructions' are .. um .. wanting. and it was hard to find any information on the web. but i finally did. h/t to karen lipkow. the forum where i found her instructions omitted her e-mail address, so i can't thank her directly; and the date was also removed, so i don't even freaking know how *old* her post was.
anyway. the panniers have some movable parts that should be moved until they fit your rack, then tightened down so they don't move anymore. the point (*this* would have helped me, ortlieb), is to set the hooks so they are between cross-braces on the top of the rack. the hooks are not a super-tight fit (although the panniers come with some spacers that snap into the hooks to take up most of the extra space). but freakishly, the hooks don't really need to fit super tightly. this is counterintuitive; but their front-to-back placement keeps the bags from sliding forward or backward. there's also a movable, rigid plastic tab/hook thing on the bags themselves. the hooks should be set with the open sides toward the rider, so that if you brake suddenly and the bag has a bunch of stuff in it, the bottom of the bag won't swing toward you.
once these facts are known, you stil need tools. you need (for my model of pannier, but probably for all) a 3mm allen wrench; and if you need to move the female end of the threaded bit for the hook part, a thin, not-too-broad-bladed (get that?) slotted screwdriver (it seems to really want a star screwdriver -- i couldn't find one), and a wrench to hold the hex nuts on the inside of the bag. i used a small ratchet with the 12mm hex socket, which worked extremely well.
then i futzed with it, until the bags appeared to be going *nowhere*. of course, right now they're empty, and by the time i'd finished the process it was too dark to run my actual errand. grrr.
this would not have taken long at all, had i not futzed with it for a rather long time before i managed to locate karen's lovely instructions.
so shopping by bicycle will happen tomorrow. which is when i will begin training myself to make sure that the hooks are truly locked onto the bag before i start riding.
until then, we are foodless, and critically lacking orange juice. but i think i'm going to like these bags.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
ow! i got something in my eye!!
so, i'm on some ride, in the middle of nowhere. on the illinois prairie path, or whatever that path is that runs into new glarus, wisconsin, or somewhere else. and i get a piece of grit in my eye. there's no pharmacy to buy eyedrops. this happens to me a lot. i have crud-catcher on my down-tube, which works quite well for preventing a lot of this. but sometimes i'm riding on a dry, windy day. and my prescription sunglasses seem designed to just funnel grit up into my eyes. i never wear contacts cycling. not sure anyone else should, either, but i wouldn't know about that because i've never tried it.
aside: carrying eyedrops with me might not be a bad idea, but it's not something i do. the quality would deteriorate in the heat even more, i fear, than that of that one chocolate/raspberry 40/30/30 bar that spent 4 seasons in my rack trunk. (yeah, i would keep eyedrops in my rack trunk for four seasons. i'm that kind of slacker.) i did ultimately eat the 40/30/30 bar; but after all that time i would never have stuck it in my eye.
ok.. back to my evil eye-grit. i'm not a health-care professional, but since i've been a cyclist for ages, i have had a bit of experience with sudden, painful, scary eye-grit. here's what i do.
i close the affected eye, but leave the other eye open so i can find a place off the path to stop as soon as possible.
then i relax.
i especially relax my eyes. it's hard, 'cause one eye hurts and i'm a little freaked out. but once i'm standing still, i take a deep breath and allow both eyes to gently close. then i stand there for a bit, allowing tears to form. the thing is, when i'm freaked out, still riding & trying not to crash, my eye with the grit just twitches, which keeps the grit moving, which just makes things worse. my eyes are really good at dealing with the grit-thing, if i'll just stop and let them. eyes fill with tears. i've even been known to think of something sad on purpose, to encourage more tears.. (but don't think of anything funny. giggling makes it worse.) either the grit gets washed out by the tears, or it will get covered with eye mucus, which also takes the edge off. which i figure is good enough to get me home, or back to the car, if i'm injured.
to date, i've never had to end a ride early 'cause of eye-grit.
but if something really bad should happen to one of my eyes on a bike-ride, i expect to do the same thing; then get to urgent care as soon as i can.
my own personal reasoning is: whether a grit-hit is serious, or just ouchy, being freaked out and letting my eye twitch away with grit under the lid can't possibly improve the situation.
aside: carrying eyedrops with me might not be a bad idea, but it's not something i do. the quality would deteriorate in the heat even more, i fear, than that of that one chocolate/raspberry 40/30/30 bar that spent 4 seasons in my rack trunk. (yeah, i would keep eyedrops in my rack trunk for four seasons. i'm that kind of slacker.) i did ultimately eat the 40/30/30 bar; but after all that time i would never have stuck it in my eye.
ok.. back to my evil eye-grit. i'm not a health-care professional, but since i've been a cyclist for ages, i have had a bit of experience with sudden, painful, scary eye-grit. here's what i do.
i close the affected eye, but leave the other eye open so i can find a place off the path to stop as soon as possible.
then i relax.
i especially relax my eyes. it's hard, 'cause one eye hurts and i'm a little freaked out. but once i'm standing still, i take a deep breath and allow both eyes to gently close. then i stand there for a bit, allowing tears to form. the thing is, when i'm freaked out, still riding & trying not to crash, my eye with the grit just twitches, which keeps the grit moving, which just makes things worse. my eyes are really good at dealing with the grit-thing, if i'll just stop and let them. eyes fill with tears. i've even been known to think of something sad on purpose, to encourage more tears.. (but don't think of anything funny. giggling makes it worse.) either the grit gets washed out by the tears, or it will get covered with eye mucus, which also takes the edge off. which i figure is good enough to get me home, or back to the car, if i'm injured.
to date, i've never had to end a ride early 'cause of eye-grit.
but if something really bad should happen to one of my eyes on a bike-ride, i expect to do the same thing; then get to urgent care as soon as i can.
my own personal reasoning is: whether a grit-hit is serious, or just ouchy, being freaked out and letting my eye twitch away with grit under the lid can't possibly improve the situation.
there's only so much to write about getting stuff done by bike, i find..
i've not exhausted the subject of nice routes for errand completion yet. i've been working weekends quite a bit, so my time for exploring & experimenting with different routes has been limited. but the day will come, probably before thanksgiving, when i'll run out of things to say about that. except for the occasional update about, i don't know... street work; and whining about the weather.
so i'll be writing about any other bikey stuff that pops into my head: near-death experiences on, and in the proximity of, my two wheels, etc.
which i've been doing anyway. but there'll likely be a fair amount of that, overall.
so i'll be writing about any other bikey stuff that pops into my head: near-death experiences on, and in the proximity of, my two wheels, etc.
which i've been doing anyway. but there'll likely be a fair amount of that, overall.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
the little rides count. (which is good. 'cause they're all i do, these days.)
there's this little loop we do. it's not very far. it's *depressingly* not very far. from home, to belmont train station in downers grove, generally to hinsdale -- either to the west hinsdale train stop, or continuing past the center of town and crossing the tracks at hinsdale hospital. to the hospital is about a 12.5 mile round trip. kramer foods, where i buy bell & evans chicken, is central - about halfway between that train station and the hospital. if i go to whole foods, it's a little farther. it's a liiiiiittle uppy-downy. which is good. i like to ride uphill.
tonight we had stuff to do at home -- so no grocery shopping -- and i was leading, so we just went to the west hinsdale train stop. (hinsdale's streets are pretty hard on the tush and internal organs, but we ride there a lot anyway. if we only go as far as the west train stop, we skip a lot of the rough stuff.)
it was totally warm out. that's part of why it was so important to me to go. the thing is, even if a ride is depressingly short, you still get something out of doing it. what i got tonight, was sweaty. this is good. i have an amazing tendency to overheat, and to trigger migraines that way. the closest thing i've found to a cure for that, is to get super acclimated to the weather, to the point where any water i drink becomes sweat immediately.
the weather has been flaky this year, but so what. i ride anyway. because the other thing about short rides, is that there's still a conditioning benefit to be had from doing them. the *very* short rides, like to the library & back, i try to do fast-ish. that's good, & fun, to try now & then. riding is always better than not riding. i have a story about how i learned this.
one summer in the early 90's, when i lived in washington state, i had the opportunity to go with a bunch of people to bike up the back of crystal mountain -- a ski mountain in the cascade range with a fairly significant elevation gain. there was only one other woman along. it was august, and she had gone off-road cycling with this same group of people every weekend all summer, but drove her car to work every day. i had never been off-road before, but biked about 7.5 miles to & from the university of washington pretty much every day. i had no technique to speak of, and struggled in the mud. one of the guys and the young woman gave me a couple of pointers*, but to little avail. the bike i had at the time just wasn't up to it. so i shouldered it and schlepped it up the mountain, figuring i'd learn a little about riding down a mountain, after i'd made it to the top.
so here's the thing. the other woman who was with us had lots more off-road experience than i did, and a way better bike, so she had the capability of riding up the mountain, which i lacked. but she didn't have enough endurance to ride more than a few yards at a time before she had to dismount. i made it to the top *far* ahead of her, carrying my bike, because those little 7.5 mileses twice a day (rain or shine, 'cause otherwise it would have been never in seattle..) had somehow given me some decent stamina, without my ever noticing it. i never had to stop and rest. that young woman knew i rode a lot just getting around. i have since wondered whether she started riding to work after that. she really did love cycling, so i'd bet yes.
*the pointers: 1. raise your saddle a bit (for ascending; lower for descending). 2. in mud, keep your butt on the saddle. scootch your butt further back if you have to, which you might. the point is to keep your weight over your back wheel for traction. then pedal hard. if you stand in the pedals, not only do you not have traction, you're top-heavy and the whole bike can go out from under you.
tonight we had stuff to do at home -- so no grocery shopping -- and i was leading, so we just went to the west hinsdale train stop. (hinsdale's streets are pretty hard on the tush and internal organs, but we ride there a lot anyway. if we only go as far as the west train stop, we skip a lot of the rough stuff.)
it was totally warm out. that's part of why it was so important to me to go. the thing is, even if a ride is depressingly short, you still get something out of doing it. what i got tonight, was sweaty. this is good. i have an amazing tendency to overheat, and to trigger migraines that way. the closest thing i've found to a cure for that, is to get super acclimated to the weather, to the point where any water i drink becomes sweat immediately.
the weather has been flaky this year, but so what. i ride anyway. because the other thing about short rides, is that there's still a conditioning benefit to be had from doing them. the *very* short rides, like to the library & back, i try to do fast-ish. that's good, & fun, to try now & then. riding is always better than not riding. i have a story about how i learned this.
one summer in the early 90's, when i lived in washington state, i had the opportunity to go with a bunch of people to bike up the back of crystal mountain -- a ski mountain in the cascade range with a fairly significant elevation gain. there was only one other woman along. it was august, and she had gone off-road cycling with this same group of people every weekend all summer, but drove her car to work every day. i had never been off-road before, but biked about 7.5 miles to & from the university of washington pretty much every day. i had no technique to speak of, and struggled in the mud. one of the guys and the young woman gave me a couple of pointers*, but to little avail. the bike i had at the time just wasn't up to it. so i shouldered it and schlepped it up the mountain, figuring i'd learn a little about riding down a mountain, after i'd made it to the top.
so here's the thing. the other woman who was with us had lots more off-road experience than i did, and a way better bike, so she had the capability of riding up the mountain, which i lacked. but she didn't have enough endurance to ride more than a few yards at a time before she had to dismount. i made it to the top *far* ahead of her, carrying my bike, because those little 7.5 mileses twice a day (rain or shine, 'cause otherwise it would have been never in seattle..) had somehow given me some decent stamina, without my ever noticing it. i never had to stop and rest. that young woman knew i rode a lot just getting around. i have since wondered whether she started riding to work after that. she really did love cycling, so i'd bet yes.
*the pointers: 1. raise your saddle a bit (for ascending; lower for descending). 2. in mud, keep your butt on the saddle. scootch your butt further back if you have to, which you might. the point is to keep your weight over your back wheel for traction. then pedal hard. if you stand in the pedals, not only do you not have traction, you're top-heavy and the whole bike can go out from under you.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
ode to the pearson's salted nut roll.
o salty-sweet nut roll
you contain no
eye-watering
taste-bud-shriveling
soy.
soy belongs in sauce.
edamame.
tofu.
how much petroleum can it take
to metamorphose soy into
powder?
or -- (tasty!) milk?!
much. too. much.
o nut roll.
precious.
gem-like.
you replace electrolytes.
you carry protein and healthy oil
and simple carbohydrates
to quickly end the bonk
and offer fuel to the engine
that spins my crank.
you are economical.
delicious.
i never tire of you.
you contain no
eye-watering
taste-bud-shriveling
soy.
soy belongs in sauce.
edamame.
tofu.
how much petroleum can it take
to metamorphose soy into
powder?
or -- (tasty!) milk?!
much. too. much.
o nut roll.
precious.
gem-like.
you replace electrolytes.
you carry protein and healthy oil
and simple carbohydrates
to quickly end the bonk
and offer fuel to the engine
that spins my crank.
you are economical.
delicious.
i never tire of you.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
local outdoor store understaffed. service suffers.
my favorite local outdoor store is suffering from the trend to try to do too much stuff with too few people. evidently store-delivery-to-avoid-shipping-charges is totally popular. their customer service area was overflowing with boxes, customer service had one guy working both the counter and phones, and it looked like a total nightmare.
it seemed extraordinarily busy for a wednesday night. maybe that was the problem. but i was glad i'd brought a book for my wait in line.
it seemed extraordinarily busy for a wednesday night. maybe that was the problem. but i was glad i'd brought a book for my wait in line.
panniers! and man, are they yellow! (review-like thing)
yep. and not a moment too soon. i got home tonight to find an e-mail in my inbox notifying me that my new panniers had arrived at my favorite local outdoor store. i'd gotten home from work too late to go out for a ride anyway, so i high-tailed it over there and fetched them.
they're 'police line: do not cross'-yellow. i think i might like the color. it helps that they are luminous on the inside. 'cause of that it will be very easy to locate stuff in them, should i ever need to do that. since they're yellow, i expect they will reflect heat in the summer, so i might even be able to get my ice cream home from the store before it melts, on all but the very hottest days. if i ride really really fast. ooh. that sounds like exercise. and the shape seems fine for library books, or a couple of bottles of wine or a 6-pack of beer.
these are 'dry bags', so they close by folding the top openings over a couple of times (think: lunch bag), and anchoring the side 'ears'. i am not shy about riding in the rain, so this is a good thing. for a closure the designers spec'd the bags with half a side-release buckle on each of the side ears -- a male end on one; a female end on the other (bless their hearts!). so one may either lock them together on top of the bag; or lock the half-buckles into a strap that slides into a hook on the front, and doubles as a shoulder strap. it looks as if the deciding factor between the two closure methods might well be the fullness of the bag. the rack hooks clamp onto the rails on top of the rack. this may be normal to the rest of the world, but not to me, so i'm happy about this. the hooks release automatically when one pulls up on the bag handle. there is also a hook-like thing to keep the bottom of the bag stable, and which i haven't quite figured out yet.
a product review i read noted that the instructions are kind of hard to follow. i didn't find them so much hard to follow, as hard to understand. it's a series of drawings that are very clear and well-drawn, so it's easy to see what's what and how it goes together. but because there are no words, it's hard to know initially what function a couple of the little thingies serve, or how they will work in real life.
my only concern with these, is with how they will ride when empty; because they really weren't designed for that -- they were designed for travel. but a review i read stated that the bags are decent for shopping, and the manufacturer says so too. so it seems one can make them work. the manufacturer also makes a similar bag in a so-called 'shopping' version, but a pair of those would be significantly more expensive -- about $15 per bag more -- for a slightly different closure and shoulder strap configuration. not sure why there's so great a price difference on those. but it looks as if the expectation is that consumers will purchase only one of the 'shopping' version. i just happen to need room for milk, flour, cans of tomatoes, and buns, which i would rather not flatten on the way home. for that one needs volume.
can you tell that i get a ridiculous amount of joy from good design? the designers of these things thought hard about their intended use, and did a lovely job with them. i am quite giddy!
expect a follow-up on how these things work 'in the field' ~
they're 'police line: do not cross'-yellow. i think i might like the color. it helps that they are luminous on the inside. 'cause of that it will be very easy to locate stuff in them, should i ever need to do that. since they're yellow, i expect they will reflect heat in the summer, so i might even be able to get my ice cream home from the store before it melts, on all but the very hottest days. if i ride really really fast. ooh. that sounds like exercise. and the shape seems fine for library books, or a couple of bottles of wine or a 6-pack of beer.
these are 'dry bags', so they close by folding the top openings over a couple of times (think: lunch bag), and anchoring the side 'ears'. i am not shy about riding in the rain, so this is a good thing. for a closure the designers spec'd the bags with half a side-release buckle on each of the side ears -- a male end on one; a female end on the other (bless their hearts!). so one may either lock them together on top of the bag; or lock the half-buckles into a strap that slides into a hook on the front, and doubles as a shoulder strap. it looks as if the deciding factor between the two closure methods might well be the fullness of the bag. the rack hooks clamp onto the rails on top of the rack. this may be normal to the rest of the world, but not to me, so i'm happy about this. the hooks release automatically when one pulls up on the bag handle. there is also a hook-like thing to keep the bottom of the bag stable, and which i haven't quite figured out yet.
a product review i read noted that the instructions are kind of hard to follow. i didn't find them so much hard to follow, as hard to understand. it's a series of drawings that are very clear and well-drawn, so it's easy to see what's what and how it goes together. but because there are no words, it's hard to know initially what function a couple of the little thingies serve, or how they will work in real life.
my only concern with these, is with how they will ride when empty; because they really weren't designed for that -- they were designed for travel. but a review i read stated that the bags are decent for shopping, and the manufacturer says so too. so it seems one can make them work. the manufacturer also makes a similar bag in a so-called 'shopping' version, but a pair of those would be significantly more expensive -- about $15 per bag more -- for a slightly different closure and shoulder strap configuration. not sure why there's so great a price difference on those. but it looks as if the expectation is that consumers will purchase only one of the 'shopping' version. i just happen to need room for milk, flour, cans of tomatoes, and buns, which i would rather not flatten on the way home. for that one needs volume.
can you tell that i get a ridiculous amount of joy from good design? the designers of these things thought hard about their intended use, and did a lovely job with them. i am quite giddy!
expect a follow-up on how these things work 'in the field' ~
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
about panniers in general, and the ones i've ordered in particular.
my personal feeling, is that if you're going to use only one set of panniers, rear ones are the way to go. it seems much more stable.
a counterintuitive point about panniers (based solely on my own experience): you can ride with a single, fairly-heavy pannier without feeling off balance. one could end up with some deleterious lopsided muscle development if one doesn't at least alternate between the left & the right (my old panniers had a left & a right), but i've ridden with some serious weight in a single pannier -- like, a stack of library books, for example -- and never felt at all lopsided. balancing the bike when it's standing still can be tricky when it's only loaded on one side, but i've never had a problem riding that way.
the panniers i'm waiting for are a set of ortlieb 'backrollers', in yellow. i hate yellow. but a little-spoken-of fact of bags, is that if they are a light color on the inside, it's way easier to find stuff. i learned from the vendor that the yellow ones are also yellow on the inside. the other choices were black (nope) and red (nope). i went with "don't kill me with your car"-yellow. the ortliebs were reviewed really well, and seem quite roomy. they've got to be bigger than my last panniers. we'll see.
a counterintuitive point about panniers (based solely on my own experience): you can ride with a single, fairly-heavy pannier without feeling off balance. one could end up with some deleterious lopsided muscle development if one doesn't at least alternate between the left & the right (my old panniers had a left & a right), but i've ridden with some serious weight in a single pannier -- like, a stack of library books, for example -- and never felt at all lopsided. balancing the bike when it's standing still can be tricky when it's only loaded on one side, but i've never had a problem riding that way.
the panniers i'm waiting for are a set of ortlieb 'backrollers', in yellow. i hate yellow. but a little-spoken-of fact of bags, is that if they are a light color on the inside, it's way easier to find stuff. i learned from the vendor that the yellow ones are also yellow on the inside. the other choices were black (nope) and red (nope). i went with "don't kill me with your car"-yellow. the ortliebs were reviewed really well, and seem quite roomy. they've got to be bigger than my last panniers. we'll see.
today's tiny grocery run.
this is a 'tale of woe'. and yet..
i almost fell asleep on the train on my way home from work tonight. and early. by cicero i was nodding. i soooo wish i could commute to my job by bicycle, but my job is 26 miles away, through some wicked traffic and blood-curdling neighborhoods. if there were a safe route, i'd shoot for doing it once every other week, but there's not. (i didn't have my current job when we bought our house. my commute eats into the biking, but i ride public transport into chicago, and hoof it a couple of miles to work from there.)
i'd promised my spouse that i'd make a grocery run. and i wasn't driving to do it. i had one pannier -- a piece of garbage that kind of wasn't, if one thinks about the fact that i'd had it (and its partner, which gave up the ghost last year-ish) since 1992. i hated those panniers, and have new ones on order, but they haven't arrived yet.
so i ate some brown rice salad, which was almost the last immediately grabbable food in the fridge, suited up my sleepy bones, grabbed keys & the pannier, and headed out. to kramer foods in hinsdale.
hinsdale is a wealthy suburb. which makes the condition of their streets an absolute mystery. i guess the town's residents never drive their beemers on their own streets. or something. hinsdale's streets are in some kinda rough shape.
kramer foods is not the only grocery store within reasonable biking distance, but they have bell & evans chickens (which i only buy very occasionally, 'cause a whole fryer's like $3/lb, and they're giant. i think the one i bought tonight may be the first 4-lb chicken i've ever even seen in a normal grocery store). kramer foods is also a liiiittle bit farther than the jewel i've just started riding to.
in my rush to get out the door, i forgot to grab a water bottle. duh. so i had no water for the trip there, but whatever. i figured i'd buy a gatorade for my water bottle cage while i was there.
i made my tour of the store, picked up milk, skipped the oj because it was too expensive, even considering the wear & tear i was sparing the car, got a few other things -- the entire time keeping in mind how much would fit in my pannier. i'm very good with the spatial relationship between groceries and that pannier. and i found the gatorade i needed, in a cooler near the front door by the deli section. it wasn't very cold.
i paid for my stuff, and said i didn't need a bag, then volunteered to pack my own groceries. i totally nailed it as far as what would fit. it was perfect.
then i popped the top zipper on the main compartment. i had burger buns floating on top -- and no bungee cord.
sigh.
but as it happened, the strap that secured the pannier to my bike rack fit exactly between the buns. so i cinched it up as tightly as i could (not especially tight under ideal circumstances), and biked carefully over hinsdale's crummy streets.
when i got home, i tossed the pannier into the trash. now i really want those new panniers to arrive.
i almost fell asleep on the train on my way home from work tonight. and early. by cicero i was nodding. i soooo wish i could commute to my job by bicycle, but my job is 26 miles away, through some wicked traffic and blood-curdling neighborhoods. if there were a safe route, i'd shoot for doing it once every other week, but there's not. (i didn't have my current job when we bought our house. my commute eats into the biking, but i ride public transport into chicago, and hoof it a couple of miles to work from there.)
i'd promised my spouse that i'd make a grocery run. and i wasn't driving to do it. i had one pannier -- a piece of garbage that kind of wasn't, if one thinks about the fact that i'd had it (and its partner, which gave up the ghost last year-ish) since 1992. i hated those panniers, and have new ones on order, but they haven't arrived yet.
so i ate some brown rice salad, which was almost the last immediately grabbable food in the fridge, suited up my sleepy bones, grabbed keys & the pannier, and headed out. to kramer foods in hinsdale.
hinsdale is a wealthy suburb. which makes the condition of their streets an absolute mystery. i guess the town's residents never drive their beemers on their own streets. or something. hinsdale's streets are in some kinda rough shape.
kramer foods is not the only grocery store within reasonable biking distance, but they have bell & evans chickens (which i only buy very occasionally, 'cause a whole fryer's like $3/lb, and they're giant. i think the one i bought tonight may be the first 4-lb chicken i've ever even seen in a normal grocery store). kramer foods is also a liiiittle bit farther than the jewel i've just started riding to.
in my rush to get out the door, i forgot to grab a water bottle. duh. so i had no water for the trip there, but whatever. i figured i'd buy a gatorade for my water bottle cage while i was there.
i made my tour of the store, picked up milk, skipped the oj because it was too expensive, even considering the wear & tear i was sparing the car, got a few other things -- the entire time keeping in mind how much would fit in my pannier. i'm very good with the spatial relationship between groceries and that pannier. and i found the gatorade i needed, in a cooler near the front door by the deli section. it wasn't very cold.
i paid for my stuff, and said i didn't need a bag, then volunteered to pack my own groceries. i totally nailed it as far as what would fit. it was perfect.
then i popped the top zipper on the main compartment. i had burger buns floating on top -- and no bungee cord.
sigh.
but as it happened, the strap that secured the pannier to my bike rack fit exactly between the buns. so i cinched it up as tightly as i could (not especially tight under ideal circumstances), and biked carefully over hinsdale's crummy streets.
when i got home, i tossed the pannier into the trash. now i really want those new panniers to arrive.
of course i ride recreationally.
i really do just hop on my bike and go out and ride around. but sometimes that just seems like too much effort. not the exercise itself -- deciding where to go, whether to turn here or there, deciding when to stop... it all seems like a lot of deciding. especially where i live. so a big part of my so-called 'physical conditioning program' relies on my having a destination and something to be accomplished.
besides. gas prices have gotten plain silly. and with all that gas, we're mainly moving the car. a bike takes a lot less energy to move overall, and the food we power our bikes with is mighty tasty. food prices are going up, too, but we humans on bikes burn way fewer calories than our cars, and there are some high-calorie foods that are pretty darn cheap. and have i remembered to soliloquize about the yumminess of food? [insert soliloquy: 'food is yummy' here] that's not my personal reason for riding. but eating is absolutely a fun and sanctioned activity ancillary to cycling.
i'm here to encourage everyone to start biking their errands for all kinds of reasons besides just wasting food. (but i'll probably mention what i eat from time to time, just for the heck of it.)
if you think you can't bike to the hardware store, or the grocery store, get out a map. you'd be surprised at what you can accomplish by bicycle. no, you won't be able to buy a table saw or a shop vac by bike; and i strongly advise against attempting to get a 36 x 48" sheet of foam-cor home by bike. but other stuff -- groceries and library books, for instance, are bikable objects. you can definitely bike to the bank. you can bike to the auto-parts store, if you're car's broken, and if you bike other places too, you won't have a heart attack on the way home with your new alternator.
so stay tuned. i'll be relating my adventures cycling in downers grove illinois, and environs.
besides. gas prices have gotten plain silly. and with all that gas, we're mainly moving the car. a bike takes a lot less energy to move overall, and the food we power our bikes with is mighty tasty. food prices are going up, too, but we humans on bikes burn way fewer calories than our cars, and there are some high-calorie foods that are pretty darn cheap. and have i remembered to soliloquize about the yumminess of food? [insert soliloquy: 'food is yummy' here] that's not my personal reason for riding. but eating is absolutely a fun and sanctioned activity ancillary to cycling.
i'm here to encourage everyone to start biking their errands for all kinds of reasons besides just wasting food. (but i'll probably mention what i eat from time to time, just for the heck of it.)
if you think you can't bike to the hardware store, or the grocery store, get out a map. you'd be surprised at what you can accomplish by bicycle. no, you won't be able to buy a table saw or a shop vac by bike; and i strongly advise against attempting to get a 36 x 48" sheet of foam-cor home by bike. but other stuff -- groceries and library books, for instance, are bikable objects. you can definitely bike to the bank. you can bike to the auto-parts store, if you're car's broken, and if you bike other places too, you won't have a heart attack on the way home with your new alternator.
so stay tuned. i'll be relating my adventures cycling in downers grove illinois, and environs.
why get around by bike?
1. bikes are cheaper than cars.
2. your entire bike is cheaper than almost anything you can have done to a car. ball joints? front wheel bearings? replacing the suspension? having a head gasket swapped out? depending what you drive, one of those things might cost more than your entire bike. a couple of them together, definitely. and the bike i'm talking about is not a big-box store p.o.s. a couple of major repairs on an older vehicle could add up to the price of a decent mountain bike. and that's just the repairs. and let's look into our hearts for a second. what are we paying for car insurance, these days?
3. biking will keep you at least minimally in shape and you'll hardly even notice that you're exercising. seriously. you'll be thinking so hard about where you're going and what you're going to do when you get there, that you won't even think about the fact that you're getting exercise.
4. parking your bike is easier than parking your car, even if you have to hunt around for something solid to lock it to. and you don't have to worry too much about accidentally running someone over or scraping their car.
5. if you decide to go for a recreational ride, you'll be able to crank out 60 miles without even feeling it. (as long as you've brought water and snacks!)
6. you can ignore a significant percentage of 'road closed' signs.
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