Slower, cheaper, less useful…
Until you've been there on a bike, you've not really been there.
my bicycle
I bought a Bike Friday folding bicycle to take on trips with me. So far it’s been to Mexico DF (before the flu) and the Bay Area.
Here I am just before riding across the Golden Gate Bridge last March.
Aloha!
Yesiree…time to bike to work! Of course I already bike to work most of the time. I think I use another means of transportation once or twice a month at most; if it rains hard I’ll bus it.
Here’s my Bike to Work tee shirt at my office. I wore it to work then changed to something more appropriate. Actually I’d be fine with the shirt at work, but our dress code would differ with me I suspect.
Aloha!
Surly Long Haul Trucker (LHT)
Originally uploaded by EcoVelo
I just keep looking at this as an example of my perfect city bike.
Aloha!
I was at the hospital last the other week getting some tests done. Naturally enough I’d ridden my bike there and while walking through a courtyard one of the medical types noticed I had a helmet. I thought he’d seen my the bag I was carrying which had the name of the hospital on it (which I did not get at the hopital oddly enough). But no, it was the helmet.
He remarked that he wouldn’t ride because it was “so dangerous out there.” Naturally I respect his opinion because he does see the results of accidents and they probably are pretty bad. But that’s not my experience. I’ve actually had it pretty easy over the course of the last year, but that may because I try to ride safely, staying visible and taking as much room as I need on the road.
I also recall reading some statistics that suggest biking isn’t all that dangerous. Thanks to EcoVelo, a great site about bikes I came across some statistics that show biking is, in fact, pretty darn safe; admittedly flying domestic airlines are safer. I’ve never lost my luggage on a bike though. Here’s the table they show, blatantly copied, but please go read the article yourself.
| Activity | Fatalities Per Million Hours |
| Skydiving | 128.71 |
| General Aviation | 15.58 |
| On-road Motorcycling | 8.80 |
| Scuba Diving | 1.98 |
| Living (all causes of death) | 1.53 |
| Swimming | 1.07 |
| Snowmobiling | .88 |
| Automobile Driving | .47 |
| Water Skiing | .28 |
| Bicycling | .26 |
| Flying (domestic airlines) | .15 |
| Hunting | .08 |
Okay, we’ve made it to May it’s now Bike Month, at least according the League of American Bicyclists (née Wheelmen).
They’ve got some good rebuttals for those excuses for not bike commuting, not that I need any convincing anymore. Here they are:
Overcoming Bike Commuting Excuses
My experience has been excellent. When I first started riding again a little less than a year ago I was somewhere around 300 pounds and out of shape. The first couple of days on the bike, riding less than 3 miles, was …um… painful. Today I could probably ride an easy 50 miles without trouble, routinely ride 15-20 a day, ride every day, and now weigh about 240; still too big, but still headed down.
From my place in Makiki I’m about 20 minutes from anything. I can get downtown in under 20 minutes, the university area in under 20 minutes, Waikiki in under 20 minutes. Admittedly going from one end of town to the other might take a wee bit longer, but for the most part it’s 20 minutes or less.
I live a mile from work. My challenge isn’t the distance – except in reverse. I have to keep adding distance to make it worthwhile. I’ve been known to take a 10 mile loop when 1 would do.
I’ve had no trouble. My employer has a locked area for bikes, my home is reasonably safe, and there are bike racks around town pretty much anywhere you’d care to park. The big problem is that while they are well placed, they are also well used.
So’s mine – from riding. It’s a continual battle and I’m learning more and more about keeping it shape myself.
I could shower at work if I had to do so, but frankly, I get here early enough in the morning that I don’t break a sweat. Besides I don’t have far to go and I save the “distance” for going home.
I’m lucky on this one. My job is pretty casual, no suits required, so I’m safe with casual pants and a collared shirt. I can wear black athletic walking shoes which work well on my bike.
Fenders are critical, but so is realizing I live in Hawaii and it’s going to rain and then it’s going to stop. I’ve gotten soaked and dried out by the time I got home more than once.
Ride sanely and they are okay. I’ve got just a couple of spots I’m not happy about riding, but oddly enough, I’ve discovered that by simply riding in the lane in those places I’m left alone and have no problems.
Racks and bags. I’ve actually got two different racks on my bike. The first is a normal rack that can take panniers – I love my cheap Nashbar shopping bags. The second is rack attached to my seat post. I needed that because my truly oversized saddlebag from Rivendell Bicycle Works, a large Sackville (serial #2!), requires it. Having said that I don’t notice the extra weight (did you read about my own weight above) and have discovered I can carry most anything.
No one in my area has shown any symptoms of the flu, but today in our elevators some posters started showing up about making sure we don’t spread germs. And I noticed today in the paper that there may be some cases in Hawaii soon enough. Read about it in the Honolulu Advertiser.
…and…
Yep, it's me.
Un Día Aburrido / A Boring Day
I'm the most useless thing in the house. If I'm there, I'm not doing much. I'd much rather be out and about.
Last week I took a stress test (treadmill) and it seems my results were somewhat abnormal. I’m not a cardiologist so I’ve got no real idea what it means, but I seemed to have some extra wiggles where there should have been straight lines; “wiggles” are the technical term I believe.
Today my doctor’s office called and told me that I’d be need to take another test, this time an “isotope stress test”; I’d guess the same sort of test with imaging.
Here’s a link to a site explaining a bit more about isotope stress tests.
I think the real test is to let you worry about this for a few days and let the stress build up – then they measure it. The treadmill itself is just a gimmick 🙂
There’s an excellent beating heart at Heart Site:
FullHeart_L2.swf
Or this somewhat more lighthearted version…
AMAZING Beating Heart (origami) – video powered by Metacafe
Aloha!
My Pops, Daniel J. Kahakeli'i, celebrated his 75th birthday this past weekend. Actually his birthday was the previous weekend, but because Hilo is host to the Merrie Monarch Festival it can be tough to fly in and out of Hilo in March.
I was enlisted as the photographer for the shindig held on Saturday night at a local Chinese restaurant. To see the images from the party just click on the picture of Pops. They aren’t all that good, but there are a lot of them. 🙂
Aloha!
For once I’m ahead of the curve…for this year anyway.
It’s just about time for our Hawaii Bike to Work 2009 week. It will be held from May 11 to May 15 and is the local part of National Bike to Work Week.
Of course last May I wasn’t biking to work, but in June I was. That means I’ve been doing this for 11/12ths of a year so far! I figure that I bike somewhere between seven and twenty miles a day, seven days a week. If I go with an average of 10 miles a day, which isn’t very hard to do, I’ve put on about 3,350 miles. That’s quite an impressive figure if you ask me. Since I live only a mile from work I have to out of my way just to get my heart rate up.
The thing is, I’ve gotten to love biking so much going out of my way isn’t even a little problem. Heck, I routinely try to find the longest way to a place that doesn’t involve hills. I’m still not big on hills.
Aloha!