Going the Distance (Bengaluru)

As I've perhaps mentioned before, I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to keeping track of the number of miles I've ridden on my bike. It's helpful when it comes to remembering to do routine bike maintenance and having an idea of how often things like brake pads, chains, and gear cassettes wear out. 

I also find that it's motivational to be able to look back after some time and see how far I've gone. For instance, looking back in December to see that I've ridden over 3,100 miles on my bike just commuting to and from work over the course of the year does give me a bit of a sense of accomplishment.

Yesterday, I tallied up the miles I've ridden on my bike since I started commuting about three years ago. The tally, for commuting miles alone, was just over 8500 miles. 

With that in mind, I decided it was time to take a stab at an idea I've been kicking around for a while for a series of posts - highlighting some general information and some things about bicycles and cycling from a distant location. Using Google Maps distance measurement tool, I found a spot on the map that is the same distance away from home as I've ridden so far on my bike (in the year, say, or in this case the commuting miles I've accumulated since I started riding again a few years ago). Today's result: Bangalore, India.

So, without further ado, I present to you the inaugural post in the "He's Going the Distance" series.

Bangalore (Bengaluru)

The name Bangalore is an anglicized version of the city's actual name, which, in Kannada, the language spoken by around 38 million people living in that part of southern India, is Bengaluru. In much the same way as Bombay is now better referred to as Mumbai, Bangalore is more appropriately called Bengaluru or so it seems, so I'll refer to it as such for the rest of this post.

Bengaluru's situated at an elevation of nearly 1,000 meters, yet despite its relatively high elevation manages to average high temperatures of over 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer months. It is India's fastest growing metropolitan area, and now has a population of almost 8.5 million, more than five times its population 40 years ago. It was the first Indian city with electricity and it is home to the Indian Institute of Science, "the premier institute for scientific research and study in India". It is a high-tech hub and has been referred to by some as the Silicon Valley of South Asia, which makes its sister city relationship with San Francisco all the more logical. I suppose San Jose, Palo Alto, Mountain View, or Cupertino would be a better pairing in that respect, but I, for one, am willing to accept San Fran as a proxy for Silicon Valley, USA.

But I digress... Let's move on to a few cycling-related tidbits about Bengaluru.

• Since Bengaluru is a sister city with San Francisco, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to have found this post from the SF portion of StreetsBlog. Bengaluru, at least as of 2009, saw regular critical mass rides, just as many major US do.
  
  Unlike US cities, which by and large have seen an increase in cycling in the last 10-20 years, Bengaluru's mode share is decreasing. It's down to 6% (as of 2009) from 16% a decade prior. 
   

  

  Picture of girls riding to school from the SF Streetblog post

   

• While its website appears somewhat dormant (look at the pot calling the kettle black), there is also an organization called Ride a Cycle, that's a more mainstream advocacy group working to improve conditions and promote cycling, seemingly along the same lines as WABA in the DC area, at least in terms of approach if not level of activity
   
• *Apparently, there are more than a couple bike shops worth checking out in the city. This account of a guy's research and decision making process when buying a new bike sounds not unlike what someone here would go through if they hadn't bought a bike in a while. At least one of the shops mentioned has a website, and appears to have been the first Trek dealer in Bengaluru, if not all of India.
   
• That same bike shop seems to be an active participant in the BBCh (Bangalore [sic] Bicycle Championship), a series of competitive rides, both on and off road. The 2012 season is underway, and the second race was held last weekend. More details here. 
  
  
  
  

  

  At the first race of the BBCh 2012 season

• Now, I'm no fan of heat, so the idea of a hot, often dusty city is not necessarily appealing to me. The bicycle touring journal website Crazy Guy on a Bike has more journals including Bangalore (or Bengaluru) than I have time to go through, but one journal by two Canadians who cycled 2000 km around India with Bengaluru as their start end end point had this insight in their journal: "It's amazing how perspective changes with time; when we first arrived, we thought Bangalore was a huge, dirty, unpleasant city, but upon our return we found it to be a huge, dirty, and pleasant city!"

On that intriguing, and I suppose complimentary, note about Bengaluru, we'll end our virtual sojourn of a place far, far away. Hope you enjoyed it, Keep your eyes peeled for more posts in this series as time goes on.

In honor of Black History Month

Marshall "Major" Taylor

Before Jesse Owens, before Jackie Robinson, there was Marshall "Major" Taylor.

Who, you might ask?

Only perhaps the first athlete to challenge racial boundaries and participate in the mainstream of an American sport. The sport was track cycling, which was big at the turn if the twentieth century.

Major Taylor's story is a compelling one, as he fought through prejudice, injustice, and actual physical assault to compete, and win on a rather regular basis, in the sport of track cycling. According to his autobiography, he apparently had some very conflicted feelings about writes, harboring disdain (understandably) for those competitors who games up on him to try to keep him from winning only because he was black while at the same time crediting other whites for making his career possible. Sadly he passed away, largely forgotten at the young age of 53 during the Great Depression.

I recommend everyone look through his bio and a little about him on Wikipedia. There's also a Major Taylor Association with lots of resources and info, including information about the statue of him in his home base for racing, Worcester, MA.

As we take time this month to remember specifically the contributions of African Americans to our society, it's worth remembering Major Taylor.

Ouch!

Among the things I hope never happen to me while on a bicycle!!!

Sad Day in the World of Cartoon Cycling

Yehuda Moon is no more...

Part of my daily routine is to hop over to the best comic strip I've ever read, Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery.

Or shall I say, it was part of my routine for a long time. Sadly today, that time has come to an end. The strip had taken some time off the last couple weeks, but I remained confident it would be back. Instead of a cartoon, I was greeted by the image above when I opened the site today.

The authors of the comic, Rick Smith and Brian Griggs have posted that the strip is being discontinued. I'm gonna miss following the strip and the good storylines. It was also full of great commentary on being a cyclist. Before the site goes down (assuming it will), I urge you to go take a peek and read some of the strips. I may try to download all of them before the site goes eventually down, so I can have an archive of my own to refer to -- it was that good.

In any case, the end of the Yehuda Moon is a sad day. Now we'll never know if Yehuda made it to Interbike in one piece, or the fate of the Grow Bike. I'm glad at least I got to see into Yehuda's past when he was an architect/planner. I liked that bit of his bio, especially given my own current course of study.

Yehuda, Joe, Ghost of Fred, Sister Sprocket, et al. You will be missed.

Bicycle Traffic Report

I regularly have the radio on at work in the background, usually NPR, occasionally sports talk radio. A feature common to all types of stations is the rush hour traffic report. I've never driven to work more than a handful of times a year in DC, and that's usually been on weekends. So selfishly I find these reports annoying. If nothing else, they take away from time that could otherwise be devoted to more informative or entertaining programming.

Never mind the fact that, barring major accidents, they just announce the same bottlenecks and backups over and over and over day after day. For all I know, they've been running the same report recorded two years ago every day. Being a DC traffic reporter reminds me of jokes about how hard it must be to work as a weatherman in San Diego. Weather today? Sunny and 78. Weather tomorrow. Sunny and 78. Weather the next day. 78 and... Traffic in the DC area today? 95 south slow from 14th St Bridge all the way to Occoquan. Tomorrow: 95 south slow from 14th St Bridge all the way to Occoquan. Next day: 95 south... Well, you get the point.

Since I hear these traffic reports so often, I like to imagine what what a bicycle traffic report would be like as I ride home. I think it would go something like this:

Radio Program Anchor Joe: And now for the latest bicycle traffic report we turn to our very own Roland McCogs. Roland.

Roland: Thanks. Well, we've got a few reports of roving groups of tourists on and around the Mall walking five abreast blocking the entire path near the Washington Monument, so you're looking at a slow ride from Constitution Avenue down to the Jefferson Memorial.  

The Mount Vernon Trail is a smooth ride. That rider with a flat near the 14th Street Bridge we reported earlier has courteously moved his bike to the the side of the trail for repairs. You might encounter a minor delay of if you or another rider asks to check and make sure the affected rider has everything he needs to get going again. Delays are five seconds or less.  

Capital Crescent Trail is heavy near the trailhead in Georgetown, but conditions improve as you get closer to Chevy Chase. Beware the joggers with their headphones in, though, who can't hear your bell as you approach to pass. There seem to be quite a few out today.

The sun is bright, but there aren't any sunshine delays heading west on the Custis Trail through Arlington, since the Custis is pleasant and shaded unlike those wide, but still congested, interstate highways.

Should be a nice ride home, everyone. Remember to keep your smug smile on the inside as you speed past the motorists stuck in traffic on the bridge.

Back to you, Joe.

Joe: Thanks, Roland.

It's kind of a fun to pretend anyway...

VéloCity to Relocate: They Need Your Help!

I came across this this morning. This is the bike co-op that organizes the pedicab operation I pedaled for last summer, where I built up my lovely Surly Long Haul Trucker with the help of the volunteers, and where I've done too little volunteering myself. It's a great outfit, a great group of people, and a worthy cause. They've been in a great spot along Union Street near the water and right along the on-street portion of the Mount Vernon Trail in Old Town Alexandria. I know I have limited readership (to say the least) but if anyone sees this post and has any ideas, please help out Velocity Bike Co-op!

From their website:

Our warehouse home at 204 S. Union St. in Old Town has been sold, and we must move out by the end of January.

We have limited time, and need a short list of viable locations so that we can review options, make a decision, negotiate a lease, and relocate.  We can use your skills, knowledge, contacts, and ideas to help us find and finance a new location in Alexandria, Arlington, or DC that has:Close access to a bicycle trail or high-volume bicycle route

800+ square feet of open ground floor space

Bathroom and heat

Please spread the word; communityengagement and participation are what make this cooperative successful, and we are committed to our mission to support a vibrant and inclusive bicycling culture in the community!

Please direct suggestions/information/questions to: spokeperson@velocitycoop.org

Chain Links (9/14/2011): Pedestrian Safety and Exxon Asininity

I routinely scan the RSS feeds for headlines from several other blogs and local media to see if anything catches my eye. Sometimes, an item will be enough to light the creative spark for a blog post of my own. Other times, I really just want to bring a few things to people's attention and maybe add a few of my own personal comments.

A couple items from blogs and websites I regularly look at caught my eye today and are worth a look. So, I thought I'd start occasionally using a blog post type common on bigger, more established blogs, a rundown of relevant and interesting links. I won't be doing this every day, but sometimes, enough items catch my eye to make me think I should share in this way from time to time. My tentative working title for these posts: Chain Links. Enjoy!

• A very well justified rant (and I use that word without negative connotations here) in the Del Ray Patch this morning about pedestrian safety. The author, a mother of two very young children aged one and three, has some quite reasonable complaints about the lack of respect some motorists show for her and her family crossing the streets at crosswalks. This is my neighborhood. I've observed the same thing myself. That said, at least, the great majority of motorists driving through Del Ray are mindful of those trying to cross the street on foot. Sadly, it only takes a few bad apples...

• Finally, is there really no one in Texas more deserving of a $5.2 BILLION investment than the one of the world's largest oil companies?! Exxon makes enough they should have to pay for the new road to their proposed sprawling corporate campus themselves if they want it so bad. (Over the last six years, Exxon has made at profit of at least $30 billion every year, with the exception of one year, when its profits were a measly pittance of only $19.28 billion). Of course, I wouldn't expect a company that makes its money off of selling gasoline to people to realistically consider any sort of relocation plan that would allow people to minimize automobile use, but it shouldn't get a new expensive highway built for it for free. On the bright side, being outside of Houston's second beltway, I am sure that there will be no need for anyone driving there to have to avoid any pedestrians using those pesky crosswalks that get in drivers' way all the time! If this is Rick Perry's idea of good government, my ranking of him on a scale of 1 to 10 just went from negative 100 to negative 5.2 billion!

The Original Rails to Trails?

Now that's what I call riding the rails! (from Strange Cosmos)

A novel approach to cross-country bike touring!

We Are the Tide

There's exciting news, and then there's exciting news!!! This falls into the latter category.

Blind Pilot's new album, We Are the Tide, is set to be released September 13. That much I knew. I was already excited, but thought I had to wait a couple more weeks to hear the whole album.

New album to be released September 13

But now, thanks to the great folks over at National Public Radio, the new album is now available for streaming in its entirety in the First Listen section of NPR. 

I'm streaming it now as I work on some readings for classes, and I'm impressed. Their last album was really good, and this album, while a tad slower at times, is solid. The music is really good. I strongly recommend checking it out. That $5 credit to Amazon mp3 that I have is definitely going towards the purchase of this album!

So, why does this great news make it to my cycling blog? There is a very direct connection here. As NPR points out, they

have logged thousands of miles' worth of touring on bicycles, even after Blind Pilot's audience grew well beyond the West Coast [...] With its broad appeal and good-natured grace, We Are the Tide stands to keep them off the bikes and in buses for the foreseeable future. Environmental impact aside, that can only be a good thing.

That's right, they toured on bicycles, instruments in tow. That's how I first heard of them... they were that band that had toured from Seattle to San Francisco, going from gig to gig by bicycle. And they're coming back to DC! I saw them last time they came through, and I hope to be in the audience for their next DC concert, even if they didn't ride their bikes all the way here from their native Portland, Oregon.

A New Direction

By the time I started cycling seriously again two and a half years ago, I had already long been a proponent of denser urban development and effective public transportation. My stomach has always turned a little when I've gone a few miles further away from the DC and the close-in suburbs into the land blighted, in my opinion, by suburban sprawl, generic strip malls, and McMansion subdivisions with two SUVs in every garage. (I'm stereotyping a little here, but you get the point.) All this is to say that on some level, urban planning issues were always something I thought about.

Suburban sprawl

Then I started cycling. The vast majority of the miles I ride are commuting miles. Given the nature of where I live, that means I don't just ride on quiet residential backstreets or lightly traveled multi-use paths on weekend mornings. I was riding on more heavily traveled city streets and mixing it up with weekday rush hour traffic on the downtown streets of Washington, DC.

This new first-hand exposure to cycling as a mode of transportation and not simply a means of exercise or recreation made me begin to think more critically and seriously about what makes for good cycling amenities and what, by extension, encourages people to walk, ride a bike, or take a bus instead of hopping in a car.  It also refocused my thinking on all kinds of issues related to the ways that communities are organized - land use and zoning issues, density, development - since all of that affects the quality of the environment, of our lives, and the transportation choices we make. 

I started reading and following DC area blogs about planning issues and cycling. Combine this with a relative lack of interest in where my professional life has taken me to this point, and it wasn't a big leap from this kind of thinking to the idea of pursuing a career in the field of urban planning. Well, I finally begin taking the plunge. Today is my first day of classes in a graduate program in urban planning. 

What began with a bike ride is becoming a career change into a field for which I feel a real passion.

When I First Conceived of Bicycle Touring

Last month I went on my first overnight bike camping trip. I rode roughly 75 miles on back-to-back days, riding out to just past Harpers Ferry, WV and back. It was something I’d thought about doing for some time; I’d started thinking about doing this specific trip a couple months after I first started riding again a few years ago.

  

My bike and tent set up on my recent overnight bike trip on the C&O Canal

In a larger sense, though, I think the very first inklings of such a trip were born when I was still a teenager. I remember going to the beach with my dad in the Sandbridge area of Virginia Beach. At the southern end of Sandbridge, the paved road ends at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. South of that is False Cape State Park, which sits on the border with North Carolina.

View Larger Map

According to the state parks' official website, there is “[n]o vehicular access.” (By “no vehicular access” they mean cars. Bicycles are technically vehicles, just not motor vehicles, but I’ll let that little legal technicality slide for the purposes of this post.)

Anyway, back to my story. My dad and I went on almost yearly father-son camping trips from the time I was a little kid through the end of high school. Our camping trips were always car camping trips. We went to local state parks in Pennsylvania when we lived there. We went to places in Virginia, North Carolina, and later in upstate New York and even Québec.

False Cape State Park is not accessible by car. That meant our normal car camping modus operandi would not work. False Cape SP is, however, accessible on foot, on horseback, and by bike. I think it’s maybe 10 miles or so to the camping area. I had the idea that my dad and I should sometime take our bikes to Sandbridge and ride to the park’s primitive camping area by bike.

(Primitive Camping and Beach Views at False Cape State Park, from official Flickr page)

I didn’t figure out any specific logistics and I wasn’t yet hip to the world of racks and panniers and all the things that can make bike travel easier and more convenient. But we each had a mountain bike, and I figured for an overnight trip we could probably get everything we would need (a tent, a few cans of food, toiletries, and maybe some water) in a couple backpacks. Incidentally, the tent I thought we could use for the trip is the same one as in the picture above. I’ve had that thing since I was probably eight years old. Still works! That’s all we’d need.

While I know it probably would have worked, that trip never did materialize. That’s probably because by the time I had the idea, I was already in high school and working summers. It may have been one of the summers that my work schedule kept my dad and me from taking a camping trip altogether. Even if it wasn’t I don’t think I ever mentioned the idea except perhaps in passing. Now, though, I realize that what I have come to know as bicycle touring or bicycle camping is something I wanted to try almost twenty years ago. And even if it took nearly two decades before I actually took a trip involving a tent and a bicycle, I’m glad I finally did it.

On naming a bicycle

If you’re like me, you like to give names to certain inanimate objects and possessions in your life. In my life, I think it started with my parents’ habit of giving nicknames to their cars… Nina and Bertha being more recent examples.

So, when I first got (back) into cycling a few years ago, I had a challenge: to name my new bike. Fortunately, inspiration didn’t take long to strike with that first bike. She was Winnie. I had no doubt it was a girl, and the name (derived from the brand name Schwinn) rolled off the tongue just the right way.

My Schwinn is no more, and I am now the proud owner of a Surly Long Haul Trucker. I’ve been struggling with a nickname for this bike for months, though. I’ve had no shortage of ideas. These have included Orson and Napoleon (pigs in Garfield and Animal Farm respectively, based on the fact that the headset on my bike is FSA’s “The Pig”); Bubba (a classic trucker name); Bessie; and Dorothy AKA “Dot”. Yet none of these seemed to have that certain something.

Perhaps coming up with or committing to a name this time is more difficult because I hope to have my Surly for years decades to come. Maybe there has been something else keeping the creative juices from flowing. I don’t know. In any case, I’d been struggling to come up with a name for some time. Feeling stuck, I turned to the all-knowing Internet for inspiration and ideas.

Recently, I came across a site full of random name generators. It’s actually fairly entertaining and good for killing a few minutes if you’re interested. I tried the trucker name generator  there. It seemed logical, given the model name of my new bicycle. One trucker name stuck with me a little: Thunder. I got that by entering my own first name into the trucker name generator and entering sex as a male. Thunder happens to be the name of the dog I had when I was a kid. He had a lot of black fur (my bike is black), and was a faithful companion in the life (just as I am sure my bike will be). So, in some ways it seemed a good match, but still, it just didn’t grab me like I wanted a name to. I wanted something new and unique.

Last week, I got nerdy with the name generator site and excitedly clicked on the link to the Vulcan name generator. Yes, that's right... as in Star Trek planet Vulcan, birthplace of Spock. I typed in Long Haul Trucker, chose female, and got the name “Belna”. According to the name generator, Belna is Vulcan for “strong maiden”. Such a fitting description of my Surly, given the nature of an ideal touring bike... strong and sturdy, carrying a cyclist, full panniers, a tent, and who knows what else on its back. The name is really growing on me the more I think about it. And I'm becoming increasingly certain that my bike is indeed a she.

So, I’m going to give it a couple more days to make sure it really sticks, but I think I many finally have a name for my Surly… Belna. That’s Belle for short, because she’s a beauty.

Flood

Upon waking up this morning and checking my e-mail, I saw I'd received the following breaking news alert in my inbox. 

Flooding forces Metro to suspend Blue and Yellow line service between Reagan National and Braddock Road. Shuttle service has been set up.



Photo from the Wilkes County Photographs Collection



Were I still an everyday rider of Metro, this would be a serious pain in my behind. Instead, it just means, at worst, that I need to avoid a Four Mile Run Trail and detour through Crystal City for my morning commute. Times like this, I especially appreciate the convenience of bicycle commuting.

Update: The flooding was not along Four Mile Run. I rolled in on my regular commute route.

Saluton mondo!

Saluton mondo! This simple two word phrase is one of the few things I still really remember from a past feeble attempt to teach myself some basic Java programming. It means “Hello world!” in Esperanto and it’s what this blog is saying now!

Lest I confuse you, this blog is most definitely not about computer programming. While my attempts to teach myself Java failed to gain traction, one thing that certainly did gain traction a few years ago was a renewed, and in many ways new found, love of bicycles.

I loved my bike as a kid. I remember riding my BMX bike around and around the neighborhood where I lived as a little kid in Western Pennsylvania or to friends’ houses when I lived in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia during middle school and high school.

I’ll save some of those details of my childhood bike riding for future blog posts so I don’t get too far off track here. Suffice it to say that as I got older, I strayed somewhat from that childhood interest in cycling, eventually giving up a bike that I had when I went to Peace Corps.

Finally, a couple years ago, I procured a new bike. I had wheels and I fell in love with cycling again in a way I hadn’t since I was a kid, and probably not even then. I haven’t looked back since.

This blog will be my forum to share and discuss my passion for cycling: my experiences commuting daily by bicycle between Alexandria, VA and Washington, DC; bicycle touring; urban planning, bicycle advocacy and safety issues; professional cycling; and other random musings.

Welcome to my blog! Enjoy!