So, I have a couple different things to write about, but I'm going to stick them in different posts rather than trying to make them fit together.

First, this:

Be a Cycle Hero

I'm not a huge fan of the faux-drama style, but I love that they showcase the diversity of cycling possibilities (roadies, folding bikes, commuters, old-style, and BMX are all featured) and make cycling look fun, fast, and sexy. Which it is.

At the book fair this weekend, I picked up a ton of books for very cheap, one of which was The Gift of Fear, by Gavin DeBecker. The book has been recommended a couple of times on a forum I frequent, so I decided to see whether it would live up to the hype. I found it a really interesting book. The premise is that our intuition, both pure intuition and intuition when developed and helped by logic, is a highly accurate predictor of danger and engineer of survival behavior. It's when we ignore our intuition that we tend to get in the most trouble. (If this is true, also it means that danger and violence can be predicted, which goes against the general presumption in American culture that outbursts of violence are unpredictable.)

I appreciated his comparison of this skill to the skill we use when driving. We spend a lot of time while driving mentally predicting what everyone else on the road is going to do and how our vehicle will react if we take certain actions. This skill is developed during the process of learning to drive and is highly intuitive; it's not something we reason about consciously except in situations where it intrudes on our awareness for the purpose of increasing our safety. This led me to think about my experience with cycling. I spend a most of my time predicting car behavior, but I spend more than average time predicting other cyclists' behavior, and I've found that my predictions are equally reliable with either, despite the fact that I've heard multiple times that drivers are frightened by cyclists because they're unpredictable. This assumption is, I think, even used to justify the 'vehicular cycling' position that cyclists must behave as much like motorists as is reasonable to achieve greater safety.

I don't think it's really true, though. I think the reason that motorists think that cyclists are unpredictable is that cyclists are different, and they encounter them sufficiently rarely, and consider them such unlikely hazards, that they never bother gathering the stock of intuitive data about them that they do about other motorists. I found that I have a hard time driving around cyclists because when I learned to drive I never drove around cyclists (there just aren't very many in Albuquerque). So I don't have any data about how to deal with cyclists while driving, only while cycling. I don't have the problem that I can't predict their behavior, but I can't predict my own -- I don't know how close the car is to them when I'm on the driver's side, and things like that.

I do think it's a good idea for cyclists to behave like motorists to a large extent, because it's efficient and because if everyone did it, it would reduce the cognitive burden required of drivers to figure out some other set of rules. But cyclists are still a different problem to solve, one that requires specialized learning to deal with properly. Unfortunately, most people never bother to solve this problem and then we end up with smashed cyclists in cases where it could have been prevented. Not unlike the preventable violence that deBecker discusses.

In other predictive explorations:

What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.

"What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others," Ms. Schiller said.

If there's anything that best shows how out-of-it some of the print media is, I think it's this. Do they really think they couldn't have predicted this? They really thought that most of their users were going to come to them directly and pay them money to get a tiny section of their website, one which is frequently replicated for free on other newspapers' websites as syndicated content?

In other safety explorations: airport security gets coffee, misses boxcutters.

Do you feel smarter or safer now?

Recently I made a list of the things I can do to fix/maintain my bike, and discovered that the list is still very short. It is:

• Clean bike & lube chain
  
• Change tube/tire
  
• Center and loosen/tighten brakes
  
• Attach/detach accessories (lights, rack, fenders)
  
• Determine if the bike is running normally
  

Yesterday I added another thing to the list: adjust rear derailleur (shifter cable). My last skill had come in handy to notice that my bike had been tending to upshift in the back and make a funny noise when I rode in certain gears. Before when this happened, it was a symptom of worn cogs/chain, and then of broken shifters, so I thought it might be something serious, and I was going to take it in to a shop. Walt's closed recently (sad!) so I was looking for a shop in Mountain View, where I could leave it after work. I found the website of bikespring.com, which looked good, and noticed that they had a tips & tricks section, which includes the page How to Adjust Your Rear Derailleur. This information is probably in my bike maintenance book too, but the page explains it really well and without a lot of confusing details.

So a few turns and tests, and the bike is back running smoothly and quietly. At least some things about bike adjustment are easy!

And to complete the posting spree: After wrestling with my bike for a while, I finally successfully changed a flat on my road bike. Ultimate success is yet to be determined, since it's possible that in putting the new tube on I put a tiny puncture in it while putting the tire back in (which is quite a bit more difficult than putting the tire back in on the hybrid). But a new tube has been placed and everything is back on the bike and hooked up properly. A CO₂ cartridge has been mostly wasted, since I wanted to find out how the darn things actually work.

My tire went flat on Monday, on a ride with medryn -- fortunately, right at the end, so he very kindly rode home, got his car, and drove me home with my bike in the back. I thought I didn't have my CO₂ inflater gadget, but it was actually in a side pocket of my seat bag, as I discovered later when looking for it at home. Anyway, I realized I really don't quite know how they work, so I tried the one I would have used. It's quite hard to put in just the small amount of air required to seat the tube, though I think having done it I could anticipate that next time. And then it's hard to make sure all the air goes into the tube and that everything is right the first time you inflate it -- I had somehow ended up still with a tiny part of the tire not seated, so had to let all the air out to fix it, and several times I tried to inflate when the tiny round screw that keeps the valve closed (you can see it in the picture, it's the little round thing just below the skinny top) was still screwed down. On a ride where all you have is one cartridge, both of those things are going to cause failure to re-inflate the tire to sufficient pressure -- very bad. So my system is not at all failure tolerant. But I still can't imagine that I'd do any better with a hand pump. Even with the floor pump, I'm practically levitating on the tire to get it to pressure, and I can't hand-pump my hybrid tires even much higher than 40. Yes, I'm a wimp. Or, perhaps I just need a better hand pump.

This morning I was definitely reminded of the utility of having two bikes. When I got out to my commuter bike, I saw that it had a flat tire in the front. I don't know how it happened, but I was running a little late and didn't really want to deal with changing it. I'd been debating riding Maia anyway, and luckily had her tires pumped up from a ride yesterday (Santa Cruz/Foothill/Page Mill down to the shop to have her looked at for cable stretch -- a 16 mile round trip in the hot sun, but more fun than just riding Bryant), so I just changed my shoes and off I went. Made it here in just about 45 minutes too.

Of course, now I know that in addition to bike-cleaning awaiting me tonight, I also have a mysterious flat tire to deal with. So it goes...

While we were in Vancouver, we happened by a display from their Bike to Work Week, which was a few weeks before we arrived, which still had some pocket Vancouver bike maps. It's a terrific map, one of the best I've ever seen. Vancouver has the advantage of being reasonably small and compact, so it's not too difficult to create a complete street map with marked bicycle routes that nevertheless is wallet-size when folded. It has two cardboard ends to protect it and folds and unfolds easily. Bike routes are clearly marked as on-street or off-street, and street size is indicated by line thickness. Large, easy-to-see arrows denote "steep hill", and one-ways are also marked with a different style of arrow.

Even more impressive is what the map shows on examination. Bike routes are distributed with regularity through most of the city, often close to or immediately adjacent to major arteries for easy access. One of the biggest arteries, Broadway, has bike routes through nearby streets on both sides. The downtown peninsula is ringed by an off-street bike path (separated from pedestrians for most of the way -- we biked this as a "fun ride" and I was impressed to see the degree of separation). Certain downtown streets, just off the center, are set as bike routes, two on each side (they are one-way).

Most impressively, the bike routes all connect together to form an integrated network. A cyclist in Vancouver can get almost anywhere by path, route, and side streets, and cyclists are allowed in some form on most forms of transit and bridges connecting the downtown to the rest of Vancouver and Vancouver to the greater Vancouver area (the map helpfully devotes some of the "sea space" to explaining how these work). You wouldn't think this would be rocket science, but somehow it is in most cities. A view of the VTA map will show routes that begin and end seemingly randomly, or almost connect but don't quite, and highways and bridges snaking up and preventing a cyclist from getting anywhere without detouring way out of the way.

The map doesn't show what kind of bike accommodations the routes have. It depends on where you are. I saw quite a few roads set up as "bike boulevards", like Bryant St. in Palo Alto, where cars can only go through for short distances. There were also bike lanes (often with the bus lane between them and the curb -- very clever, no need to play leapfrog with the buses!), bike/HOV lanes, and just streets that are easy to share with cars. I don't think the type of facility matters to most people as much as whether the route they are on has been thought out with bicycles in mind. To focus on bike routes seems to obviate two of the biggest problems that I've seen in bike facility planning here: lack of connection and focus on bike lanes, which are not always the best accommodation for bikes considering their traffic-flow downsides (yet I remain of the belief that they are useful and helpful in some situations).

Amazingly, I still saw tons of cyclists on the sidewalks! Oh well, you can build the lanes but you can't make people use them...

I was also impressed by Vancouver's other sign of bike-friendliness: many small sidewalk bike racks, and of good design allowing easy securing of both bike and wheel. Not having an easy place to park is as bad a deterrent for cycling as it is for driving, and Vancouver seems to have this one covered.

Now how long until I can move there? ;-)

I had a fantastic ride yesterday. The weather was beautiful, everything went smoothly, and I enjoyed the hard work of climbing, the reward of long, gradual descents, and the varied scenery of the semi-rural areas out in the hills and the suburban areas on the bayside. I took the VTA #22 bus from the Palo Alto Transit Center, and the bus driver was very helpful in explaining how to deal with the bike rack and made sure he stopped at my stop. The ride from there to the VA was short. I didn't want to ride the full 6 miles before the ride, so the riding was only 2.5 miles before I arrived at the VA.

I've never seen so many racing bikes in one place before. I think I arrived at a time when a lot of people were still getting ready for the century and 100K rides, so there were so many kinds of bikes and clothes and things. My favorite bike I saw was a Trek with a cloud design painted on it; very beautiful. They were well organized and there was some good food; I ate half a bagel with a little cream cheese, partly to kill time after picking up my map/cue sheet and number.

I started out quite early for the 50K, right at the early start time of 8:00. I picked up a riding partner early on who had followed me out and asked if I knew where I was going. Apparently "sort of" was enough to qualify. (I had the cue sheet attached to my handlebars with twist ties and had seen the sign for the first turn on the way in.) She was a nice woman named Phyllis from Livermore. We chatted pleasantly as we meandered and climbed through Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. The bike path connecting Palo Alto to Los Altos is idyllic (except for the dogs being walked, luckily leashed). The air was getting warmer but still pleasant and so clear.

As we headed toward the Arastradero portion of the route, I took a fast turn on gravel that made me a little nervous. Sometimes I forget that my tires are thin and smooth now and don't have the kind of traction I'm used to. At the first turn onto Arastradero I muffed my balance in the clips again, but still didn't fall (and didn't even cut up my ankle this time), just hopped around for a while. The hill coming out from under 280 was brutal. We had done quite a bit of climbing by then already (about 600 feet, I think) and it was steep! There was a long rewarding descent, but I knew that more climbing was coming up as we headed into the Arastradero Preserve, so I stopped in the parking lot there for a bit of a rest break and leg-warmer removal.

Arastradero wasn't quite as hard as I remembered with my hybrid, but I was still pushing myself and breathing hard to keep a steady cadence and not have to stop and walk. The hill doesn't look that steep, but somehow it is! The descent is a little rough and I remembered a particularly bad bump from before that I fortunately avoided the worst of. I lost Phyllis at this point and later (when we met up at the official rest stop) found out her chain had come off. The next step was a gradual but thankfully short climb up Alpine with a view of the hills ahead, and then a long, gradual descent down Portola Valley Road, which was almost the best part. Just surrounded by forest and a few houses and businesses occasionally, going nice a fast down a fairly smooth road, with just enough spots to pedal instead of coast.

Then the final climbing of the route up Whiskey Hill Road (yep, the same one I've fortunately practiced on!) and the same descent down Woodside Rd (CA-84). I took a break before that to change my cue sheet to the other side. Someone nicely stopped to ask if I was okay, but of course I was fine. I felt even better about the descent this time -- it was so clear and beautiful I could see all the way to the bay, and I was speeding along nicely, hitting my top speed of 27.3 mph at some point along the way. It was especially good not having to make the sudden turn onto Northgate. There's plenty of warning for the turn onto Alameda because you go by Woodside High School first. Then I was back on familiar territory that I biked on Saturday, and swung down Alameda and Valparaiso past Burgess Park to the rest stop at the far end. It was funny being so close to home. I was tempted to stop at my own bathroom, but I wasn't sure I'd leave again if I went home. I was feeling tired while going down Valparaiso and concentrated on staying safe and getting to the park. But after a rest and some good food (strawberries, bananas and peanut butter, and a few Fig Newtons) I felt better. I saw some young kids there as well, some on tandems or even triples (tandem plus attachment), but one little girl on her own racing bike. Her dad said she wanted to do the 100K but didn't want to do all that climbing (which was exactly my reaction when I first picked up the flier). Gosh, I wish I'd been riding 30 mile rides at that age. No telling what she'll be doing later on. It was funny and cute and humbling to see the kids in these tiny bike shorts and tiny clip shoes, riding what even for me was a tiring course.

I started out again with Phyllis and we managed to stay together for the rest of the ride. I had enjoyed the solitary part but having company made it more fun. The next part wandered along San Francisquito Creek for a long way on a street called Woodland Ave, a very nice ride until the pavement quality degraded near East Palo Alto (we didn't actually cross 101 into EPA, thank goodness). It was bumpy and uncomfortable for a while, and by this time my hands were tired and not feeling very happy about that. Then a nice meander through Palo Alto, including a section of E. Meadow that I love because it's recently repaved with wide bike lanes. And finally, back to the VA via a back route on Los Robles and through Gunn High School.

We got back at 11:17, and my bike computer showed that I had been active for 2:28 (so I guess I stopped for longer than I thought) and had an average speed of 12.5 mph while the computer was on (it turns off at longer stops, and I'm not entirely sure it counts times when I have zero speed for a long while). The total distance it recorded was 31.5, which is close to the predicted 31.3. I'm not quite sure where their zero point was; I probably started my computer a bit before it.

After lunch and another little rest, my return trip was 6 miles and I had a pretty fast speed (avs 12.9 max 16.1); despite being tired I really wanted to be home. When I arrived my total mileage for the day was 40 miles almost exactly (2.5 to the VA, 31.5 ride, 6 back). So one mile more than my previous 39. I was still very tired and sore, but much less exhausted and much more able to walk. After sacking out on my bed for about half an hour, I was able to finish party prep and have a fun birthday party. A great day.

This is a long shot, but worth asking: I bought a Trek Pro Pack seatpack today, and I can't get the screws for the seatrail mount (cutely called "Quick Cleat") to thread all the way into the metal crosspiece; they just get stuck, as if I haven't threaded them properly. I can't really tell if I have since the metal piece is kind of tilted so it's hard to tell if they're at the right angle -- but they look okay. I've wasted a bunch of time, tired out my fingers, and scratched up my seat rail paint a bit trying, and it just won't go. Is it a piece of crap, or did I just get a defective one, or am I doing something wrong?

I'm more annoyed than usual because I really have a lot to do this week and going back to Walt's at lunch tomorrow to have them either make it work or take it back was not on the list. It was supposed to Just Work. I've discovered that as useful as it would be to be able to do my own bike equipment stuff, I kind of hate it, even basic things like racks and seatpacks and changing tires. It's all so fiddly and often doesn't quite work.

Also, some bastard stole the front light off my hybrid, bracket and all. It probably happened this weekend when I didn't ride it for a while, or last week at Trader Joe's and I just didn't notice then. It pisses me off, though I am glad it wasn't a wheel. That's one reason I'm confused about when it happened -- my wheels were locked this weekend, but to steal my light this weekend, you'd have to first find the bike and then stand there fiddling with it, whereas it makes way more sense that it happened downtown, but on the other hand, why not take my front wheel, which wasn't locked at the time? More conspicuous, I guess. And why not take my rear light too, in either case? It all makes no sense and kind of makes me question whether I might even have taken it off myself, but I really, really didn't.

It's been a nice weekend. Saturday I got to complete one of my 101 in 1001 goals: I went sailing in the bay! There were eight of us and a pretty big sailboat. It was cold and foggy most of the day, but for a while on the back side of Angel Island, it was calm and sunny and very pretty. It was very exciting for most of the rest of the time, with some big waves and high winds (gusts up to 30 knots). We didn't have any specific destinations, but did have a great picnic lunch on Angel Island. Other than that we just sailed around and back and forth. I was somewhat inadequately dressed for how cold it was (I factored in "cold on the water" but not "also a lot colder in Berkeley than Menlo Park to start with"), and at one point when I went below to get something, I started to feel quite ill, but after a while it passed without incident. I unfortunately didn't help out too much because I don't have any previous experience in how sailing works, but I learned some of the basic concepts and terminology, so maybe if I go again I can be more helpful and even try driving the boat for a little while. It's exciting to be out in the wind and weather and see the big waves push the boat up and down.

Yesterday was an early bike ride down to the bike shop and back up Junipero Serra/Foothill Expwy, then a nice (if foggy) walk in GG Park and the Haight, and today I repeated the Menlo-Atherton bike loop with my dad. Being more prepared this time, I felt less nervous about the hills and was able to manage my descents better. The hills didn't seem as scary this time, I think because I knew what to expect, I had practiced on some other hills yesterday, and I had my cyclocomputer to help get an idea of whether, when I felt nervous, I was actually going really fast objectively, or if it seemed faster than it was. I still tended to slow down when I was nervous, but having the actual number there in front of me tended to steady my mind (though I kept my eyes on the road and not the computer most of the time!). I'm looking forward to next week's short course for the Sequoia Century (31mi and 1200 feet of climbing). Just have to figure out how to get there in the morning, but it looks like the good old VTA #22 should do it.

Remember the letter I didn't think the Merc would publish? They did! It's lightly edited, so the reference to MPG tips is less clear and makes me sound a bit like I don't care about MPG tips (on the contrary, I applaud all efforts to save fuel), but my essential point comes through well.

I think Merc links disappear after a while, so the content, for the record:
( Edited letter )

Yesterday was Bike to Work Day, and it was pretty cool. I got ready early and left the house by 7:45 so I could make a few stops on the way and still be on time to work. My first stop was the Willow Place bike bridge, where the city of Menlo Park was running an Energizer Station. I picked up a goody bag and a bagel, and chatted with a woman I ran into Wednesday when she was piling BTWD stuff into a car. I was pleased to see that, at least in San Mateo County, the North-South Route map was included in the bags. I told the woman that I had helped with a test ride of the route, which she thought was neat.

Then I was off flying down Bryant -- and it did feel like flying, ever so much easier than pedaling the hybrid. I saw about five times as many people as usual, maybe more. It was nice to have camaraderie and all the cyclists were polite and everybody flowed smoothly -- most were even law-abiding, minus the whole not-stopping-at-stop-signs thing. At one intersection, we saw a guy with a high-wheeler (a bike with a large front wheel, instead of gearing that makes the ratios work out). Pretty neat.

It was 50 minutes later when I pulled up to the intersection of Mary and Maude and found another Energizer Station, this one with coffee cake! I also grabbed a couple of Sunnyvale Bike Maps, one for me and one for a coworker who may soon start biking. It was nice to chat with the people staffing the station and with other cyclists. Most of the others I talked to are also regular commuters, which was interesting. I was hoping to get to meet a few people who had gotten on their bikes just for the day, but it was also good to know that there are other regular commuters out there that I don't normally get to see.

The ride went smoothly both directions, although on the way back there were a couple of extremely rude motorcyclists who loudly revved past me and then turned right in front of me. (I want to like motorcyclists, because motorcycles get good gas mileage, but percentage-wise only about 20% of them are polite, so overall I strongly dislike them.) I didn't fall over or have any other clip-related mishaps, and I really enjoyed the whole ride process. No one else at work rode, so I was spared providing anyone else bagels. :P I was disappointed by that, since there are others who ride sometimes or are considering it, and BTWD is a good first day to ride because of the moral support and free materials you get.

Today I checked out the various front pages of the papers at the train station and saw that there was a picture about Bike to Work Day on the front of the Mercury News. I was excited to get to work and see what story they had, and was disappointed to find that there was no story. There was only a short caption and a reference to the "Drive" section of the paper for MPG tips. They did do a story preceding Bike to Work Day, but it was a short story and not prominently placed at all. I wrote the following letter to the editor:

I was disappointed today to open the front page and find that Bike to Work Day was covered only with a blurry, unidentifiable picture and short caption. Thousands of Bay Area commuters left their cars in the garage and got on their bicycles; hundreds of volunteers turned out to offer support at Energizer Stations. There must be hundreds of interesting commuting stories among these thousands of people, deserving of much more than a blurry photo and a reference to upcoming MPG tips. Bike to Work Day is news -- news of a healthier, more environmentally friendly way to commute. Instead of looking for tips to get a 10% gain in MPG, put your car away and get on your bike. Your MPG will go sky-high.

I doubt they'll publish it, but they know what I think now.

Exciting news on the bike front! This weekend I went back to Mike's Bikes, where M & I went almost two months ago (!). This time, I had my eye on the right level of bikes, so I asked to test-ride a LeMond Alpe D'Huez and a Cannondale Synapse (non-carbon). The last time I rode I felt the LeMond was too small, but this time it felt perfect -- comfortable stretch, with the right distance to the pedals. It was responsive and smooth, but very live (not quite as "hoppy" as its carbon sibling though), with easy shifting. I felt like it was quietly whispering into my soul "You want to buy me." I can only surmise that it was doing more riding since then that's made things feel different. The brakes felt fine, even though I remember them making my hands hurt a bit before, and I liked the width of the handlebars, which felt correct with my wide shoulders. I took it on a longer test ride with hills, up Page Mill to Hanover and back around. On the way back down, the rear pedal reflector fell off and got caught in the spokes. I was lucky not to fall, but unfortunately the bike paint was chipped a bit. To their credit, when I went back yesterday to tell them I had made a decision and wanted that bike, but not the exact one I had ridden, they didn't make any kind of fuss about it at all. So they're ordering it for me from one of their other stores, and if I'm lucky, I'll have it before Bike to Work Day.

The Cannondale I rode (Synapse 3 size 50, I think) felt extremely stiff to me, so I didn't like it much. I don't recall liking the carbon version that much either; it felt just average to me. Cannondale is just not my style, I guess. Comparing the Alpe D'Huez to the Contessa that I rode last week, the Contessa was nice and a good fit, but didn't have the smooth ride or speed I got from the LeMond.

I thought about going back to Chain Reaction or Palo Alto Bikes to look at the Treks again and check the fit with a different stem, but in the end I decided that the LeMond was more comfortable and was the right amount of bike. I've not felt right on the Treks previously and I decided to go with my gut that they probably are not right for me. The LeMond size 49 is almost identical in size to the Trek size 51, except for a smaller seat tube -- it actually has a teeny bit longer effective top tube length, surprisingly. If you compare pictures of the two bikes (comparing with the 1600 which is visually similar in color) online, it's tough to see any difference in the geometry, but the LeMond is a slightly more elongated and flatter diamond shape, which probably explains why it works well -- unlike the theory that women have short torsos and longer legs, I actually have a long torso and shorter legs.

I also like the fact that it's carbon on top and aluminum on bottom (except for the front fork which is of course carbon as well). This means I should theoretically be able to attach a rack if I do decide on some light touring. I think. The ride is also smoother and more lively than either of the Treks, although they have a nice solid ride that I liked fine as well. The gearing is the same, but the LeMond has an Ultegra front derailleur, while the Trek has an Ultegra rear derailleur. I found that while the Ultegra rear is nice, the Ultegra front actually makes front shifting easier by a large margin, so I'm happy with that difference as well. I can always upgrade to all-Ultegra later if I get really obsessed. For now, let's just say that the 105 series is approximately a million miles better than the SRAM shifters on my hybrid!

As I mentioned previously, white and the "aqua" color seem to be in this season (though the various brands each call the aqua something different -- Trek is Mineral Blue and LeMond is Light Blue Metallic). I think this paint job is stylish even if it isn't my favorite color, so appearance-wise I'm well-satisfied too.

This will soon be mine. And she will be named Maia (the mother of Hermes, associated with May and springtime).

Another small increment of my 15 minutes of internet fame is ticking by: A coworker interviewed me (and one of her co-church members) for an article about cycle commuting on a website for Christian social activism! She also posted the Bike to Work Day event and mentioned it in the article.

I did my best to give some useful basic tips and a few personal ones (like my Buff and Mr. Bento), and I'm really pleased to see them in print. I think my coworker did a great job of being informative without making biking to work sound intimidating, and of placing it positively in its social and environmental context.

I posted an email about Bike to Work Day to my work mailing list, and I just now realized I haven't reproduced the same information here, in case anyone in the Bay Area (or elsewhere, if you want to make your own BTWD) is interested. Here's relevant info:

• This year's Bike to Work Day is Thursday, May 17, 2007.
  
• Energizer stations with food, water, and bags with maps and other useful items will be staffed at the San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Mountain View Caltrain stations, as well as many other locations.
  
• Lots more information is available at the SVBC website for BTWD.
  
• If you want, you can ask me about routes and tips for safe and fun riding (though, all of you being my readers, you've heard all my tips already :-).
  
• I liked these pictures from last year. It's fun to see other people doing what I do (besides my usual companions on the Caltrain).
  

The SVBC explains the benefits of Bike to Work day and biking to work:

Almost 40 percent of Bay Area commuters live within five miles of their workplace, a distance considered ideal for bicycle commuting. If every person living this close to their workplace pedaled to their job on Bike to Work Day, more than 60,000 vehicles would be off the road, reducing tailpipe emissions by more than 150,000 pounds. Bicycle commuting also eases the parking crunch -- twelve bicycles can fit in the space needed to park a single car.

I hadn't realized so many people in the area are short-distance commuters, since almost everyone I know is a 10+ mile train or car commuter. Very cool.

I love the Cool Tools site that I discovered via BoingBoing. There's some great stuff on there in all areas (Kitchen is awesome), but I really like the Autonomous Motion section, which has the Xtracycle and a Recumbent Trike among other things. I stumbled on the Xtracycle first about five years ago while wasting my time in my undergrad Computational Linguistics class and I still think would be a really great option for hauling for me. I'm actually thinking of maybe once I get my new two-bike setup, modding my current commuter into an Xtracycle.

Or maybe I'll get a Recumbent Trike. I did ask someone recently why there aren't really grownup tricycles because they seem eminently practical. Apparently there are, and Sun makes them. Awesome.

What I love about this is that there are so many varieties of human-powered vehicles. Knowing that makes me even more excited about not owning a car and yet being able to do a huge range of things, from racing to hauling.

I went bike-testing again this past weekend at The Bicycle Outfitter in Los Altos and finally rode a bike that I really liked: the Scott Contessa Speedster. In terms of specs, it's about the same as most of the other bikes I've ridden, maybe a little bit lower-end. It's all-105 with an aluminum frame and carbon front fork. Unlike the Trek bikes, the wheels aren't Bontrager Race with light spoking, but an odd mix of elements. I don't know exactly how those compare, since they seem to vary depending where you get it. Anyhow, I just liked the geometry of the bike. I didn't feel crunched or stretched, everything seemed to go together nicely. The ride was smooth but responsive, and the gearing was about right for me, with my "middle" feeling being right in the middle of the gears.

After that, the guy at the shop suggested that I ride a Trek 5000, even though I told him that in general I've preferred women's bikes and am really not in the market for all-carbon. I was surprised at how much I liked it. The handlebar positioning was fine, especially width-wise, although I was more bent over than on the Contessa -- enough that I really noticed it, but not as much as on the Trek 2100 men's bike I rode back when I tested the 2100 WSD. I could really feel the improvement in shifting with the Ultegra rear, as has been the case generally, but I noticed that my "middle" was on the lower side of the bike's middle gears. The bike was still very responsive but I could feel how the carbon damped down the road buzz.

I really appreciated the service at The Bicycle Outfitter. They were very patient with all of us and very informative when we asked questions. They also have a climbing and descending loop and plenty of flat neighborhood area to ride in.

We went to one other place after that, the Chain Reaction in Los Altos, and I rode a Trek Madone (5.2, I think?) (they didn't have anything else in my size and I was there with others, so I decided to go out anyway). It was a really nice bike. The guy said that they got them unused from Trek, which used to use them on their tours, and that it was a wonderful bike and I probably shouldn't ride it unless I wanted to buy it. (He was kind of joking, I think.) Anyway, it's true. If I wanted a carbon bike I probably would have gotten that one right then. Light, responsive, smooth, good geometry. But no all-carbon for me.

I still have three sets of bikes on my mind to try: aluminum-carbon LeMond (Tourmalet or Alpe d'Huez) and Cannondale (Optimo, Synapse, or R1000 Feminine), and Trek 1600/2100 with adjusted stem length to see if I can get them to fit me. So this means at least one more weekend of bike-trying before I can decide...I was starting to get frustrated but the Scott gave me hope that the right one is out there.

I have to say, of all the paint jobs I've seen, the classiest is the Trek 2100. I know that doesn't matter that much in the end, and I'm not going to pick a bike I like less because I like the paint more. That's dumb. But I reserve the right to be annoyed that there aren't more classy paint jobs out there. (Not that the others are bad, but I'm not a huge fan of aqua, which seems to be the dominant color, and the Contessa I rode was white with burgundy curlicues, and...white? Why would you make something that by its nature gets dirty white?

Anyway, we'll see. Back to Mike's Bikes for the first two brands and either Palo Alto Bikes or the Redwood City Chain Reaction location for more Trekking it. I want to love the Trek bikes, because they are classy and seem to be well-made and well-outfitted for the money...we'll see what fit adjustments can do.