pictures would improve this post

In these days of instant communication over the inter-tubes, people having the interwebs in their pockets, and taking pictures on the digitals, all i had was a bike and a notebook, and a grocery list. That is not to say that the grocery list really mattered. But it does indicate that I had other things to do, namely, make fajitas. This is not about fajitas. This is about the the recently announced resurfacing of Woodrow Wilson Drive.

Talking about municipal public works is boring. This is going to be very boring because of that. Also, i forgot my camera, thus, no pictures to liven the mood. Please forgive me.

Yesterday I saw a JFP (and JFP-Local) tweet about a press conference Mayor Johnson would be holding announcing the resurfacing of Woodrow Wilson Drive. I figured this would be a good chance to go and ask a question or two. Conveniently, I could combine trips and hit the grocery store afterwards, pay attention, this is almost a theme of the post.

I arrived at the corner of Peachtree and Woodrow Willson to see a small clutch of news-peoples, police officers and people of some local significance standing behind some orange traffic barrels by the park. I walked over to the cameras and leant on my bike waiting for Mayor Johnson to arrive at the podium. He announced the work to be done: a resurfacing of Woodrow Wilson, done with assistance from the MDOT Intermodal Connector Program. Work has also been approved on Mill and Pascagoula streets, presumably under the same program. Work had already been approved, and is presumably now to start, on Pearl streets. These are all being done under the guise of improving access to Union Station (which I absolutely and enthusiastically support!).

The details of the resurfacing program are as follows: The contractor is Superior Asphalt. As Woodrow Wilson is an important corridor, the work will be done to minimize disruption. The work will take place on one lane at a time, mostly at night. There will not be any work undertaken during Jackson State or JPS football games at Memorial Stadium or Newell Field, respectively. The work should start “in a week or so” and be done within three months. It is the undersanding of the Mayor that the work will take only 60 working days.

Three news cameras showed for the “turning dirt”: Fox 40, Wlbt 3 and Wapt 16. The Mayor was joined by a representative from Superior Asphalt, the City Council President, a doctor from the hospital across the street and probably somebody else. I think he mentioned that an MDOT representative could not make it.

While the photo op was going on I got to talking with an Officer Brister (im pretty sure thats his name). After opening with the standard “who are you with” we got to talking about the road and pedestrian access. We both had noticed that many people working for the hospital cross the road to get to their cars parked near Murrah. He asked me how the crossing was and said that he thought it looked scary – fast traffic on and off the interstate. I suggested a crosswalk with a warning light was needed but he said it would only make people speed up. We decided that the best option would be a pedestrian controlled red light. He encouraged me to ask the Mayor about any pedestrian accommodation they may have made.

Johnson said that there would be work done on sidewalks and crosswalks along the road. I am not sure if this is new or existing sidewalks. He did indicate that pedestrian facilities were important to development. I overheard him talking to one news man about a new development coming to Jackson. He spoke of a mixed use development where people could “work play and stay in one place” which was the trend of developments nowadays. I think this is fairly exciting for an American city, but i did not catch where this would be. He said that it would bring an estimated $2 million in tax revenue to the City when fully developed. This would be land that did not generate any tax revenue currently. Hopefully this is on a brownfield site, rehabilitating abandoned buildings is far better than paving over valuable, if unruly, greenspace.

Then he got to my real curiosity. I was wondering what sort of study was done on life cycle costs of road surfaces. A resurfacing is just a temporary solution to bad roads. I asked about different paving methods or materials and if they were studied to see if they could extend the life and value of the road. Johnson replied that they are not done on a case by case basis – suggesting alternatives to merely paving were not studied at all – but from an overall standard based on the type of road. He did mention that some alternative road materials (recycled glass or rubber) are used sometimes, but necessarily being used in this case. He did say that the standards they applied were designed to get the most bang for their buck. Without looking more deeply into the issue or studying alternatives more carefully, we may not know if we could get more bang out of that buck.

So. Speaking of road surfaces. I went to the grocery store. I got, among other things, eggs (and was told to wash them by the cashier – not necessary due to USDA regulations on egg producers). I rode my bike home. On these rough streets, my bike and I can absorb most of the smaller bumps, but the larger ones – not so much. Thankfully my eggs all remained intact – but it did get me thinking about the importance of smooth roads. Having less traffic on residential streets would certainly help slow the onset of potholes and ruts. This is one of the further, gestalt issues that should be looked at.

Improving sidewalks is important for pedestrians. Sidewalks, especially along busier roads give people a safe place to walk (ok, you knew that). In my neighborhood, in the evening, it is generally lovely and traffic free, so people walk in the streets everywhere (we also have very few sidewalks). Cyclists should not ride on sidewalks. This is dangerous for pedestrians and does not help raise visibility of cyclists on streets – which is what should be done. The most effective cycling improvements that I have noticed are cycling only streets (cut off to cars) and cycling catches at stop lights – allowing cyclists to filter out of the stopped traffic and get ahead of the cars. Motorists don’t notice cyclists amongst the cars, and its a horrible place to sit in between two cars with engines running. Cycling catches make sure the motorists see the bikes and get to the other side of the lane once the cyclist gets going.

I am a bit torn about bike lanes. They are great when they are respected – cyclists can easily fly through stopped traffic and not worry about a lane changing car not noticing them. the problem, however, is when they are not respected. People park in them, walk in them and drive in them. This is not safe for the cyclist. Additionally, merging back into traffic tends to be harder from a cycle lane than from within traffic. For example: a cycle lane on the right side of a four lane road is very difficult to move from when you need to turn left – if you were in the right lane, this maneuver would only require you to shift to the other side of the lane before changing – but without constant signaling and looking backwards (both unsafe to that extent), this is not easy to do from a bike lane. Integrating with traffic is difficult from segregated lanes. Cyclists need to move with the traffic – no salmoning! Riding on the side of the lane usually allows room for a motorist to squeeze through, and spaces between stopped cars allows the cyclist to race to the head of the queue at a stop light. Its all about maintaining smooth efficient traffic flow.

Perhaps instead of bike lanes, safe routes should be marked. Signs indicating that a road is also a key bike throughway may help. A wavy line of green paint in the lane (where it won’t get worn down by cars) with the occasional bike stencil could indicate to cyclists as well as motorists that that road is ideal for cyclists, and cars should be wary. It is the visibility of cycling that needs to be raised.

this is what i was getting at

NYC mechanic grades peoples locking job. This is what i do as i walk down the street too, except i don’t have a camera following me. Or dreadlocks.

He is a bit inconsistent though. Of course, as a bike mechanic, he is bound to deliver harsh judgments on all bicycles. I wouldn’t really give an F if some part of the bike were actually secured. Save F’s for those bikes that can be taken with little thought or effort. Thanks to KarlMcCraken whose blog i found this on.

So I suppose that if i were to make a rubric for bike locking, it would look like this:

A+: Top quality lock holding the frame and rear wheel to something that is well attached to the earth, plus a supplemental lock.

A: Impressive lock holding rear wheel and frame to something immovably sturdy.

B: Good lock holding the frame and rear wheel to something that is probably not going to give.

C: Frame only locked, but with decent lock.

D: (the pointless grade) Wheel only locked. Anything with a poor lock, or attached to an easy to move object (such as a small dog or a rubbish bin). Any vaguely desirable bike with a disproportionately weak lock.

F: Lock can be removed by mind power or hand tools. Freelocking in an area where pickup trucks operate.

There, now you too can go about your day judging other people’s skill at locking bikes.

bike thief

I am not a bike thief, but sometimes people make it easy to be one. David Cameron, for instance, ‘locked’ his bike to a bollard last summer. That was an easy score for somebody – all they had to do was lift the bike. Apparently Dave hasn’t learned his lesson and has had the bike taken again. No details on how securely he had it locked.

Not that I like it when a politician has his bike stolen. It may be amusing to read the story, and imagine the look on his face, but bike theft is not amusing in general. The problem is, many people just do not know how to properly secure their bike. Some people think that they may not even mind having an old wheel or seat taken from their bike. Or maybe they don’t feel that their bike is worth the trouble to lock up. That opinion will usually change when they try to ride the bike without having a seat, or wheel, or, when they realize that even though the bike wasn’t worth much money, it was very valuable for getting around town. The pain is multiplied when they pop into a bike shop to get a replacement wheel, or seatpost and find that they need to spend far more than the bike was actually worth just to replace a few bits. A decent rear wheel can set someone back over £70, far more than most people would pay for a used bike off the street. If David Cameron only had his wheels taken off of his £300 bike, replacing them with similar quality parts could run him around £200, a significant portion of the bike.

For the past few days there has been a bike parked just up the road. This bike appears to have a lock on it, but that is just for show. Not only is the lock a fragile combination lock, but it is not actually securing the bike to the stand anyway.

To take this bike away, one would only have to stretch the cable over the handlebars and slide the wheel through. Not that someone would seek out this bike, but it is all about opportunity. If someone wants the bike, they can easily have it.

Most bike parts are stolen by opportunists. Unattended bikes without locks can be ridden off in seconds, no questions asked. A loose quick release seat or wheel can be had with the flick of a wrist and sold on for a few pounds. It only takes a moment for a bike to plummet in value in the hands of an opportunist. Bikes poorly locked can be taken by anyone who has a moment to see how to circumvent the lock. BikesnobNYC notes that in this way cyclists can be their own worst enemies. Of course people hate having their bikes stolen, and incidents of bike theft discourage people from investing in a decent bike and using it often, but some cyclists just aren’t aware that they are leaving their bikes out for theft! (Another thing that could go on that post is cyclists on the pavement/sidewalk/any other exclusively pedestrian area – very dangerous, annoying, and fails to make use of the road. But that is a whole different matter.)

While nothing will stop a determined thief, locking your bike poorly will not stop even the most casual of bike thieves. With that in mind, try to lock your bike appropriately.

A strong lock with a key will slow or stop someone just looking to smash a combination lock with a hammer. D-locks, while not impervious to all attacks, will fare better against a pair of bolt cutters than a small chain or cable.

Two types of locks will deter professional thieves who are only used to breaking one type of lock. A D-lock and a heavy chain will require two large tools and a lot more time to break.

Any loose or quick release parts should be fastened down either with a cable or security skewers (to replace quick release).

The most important thing, however, is awareness. Be aware of where your bike is, and the risks that you are taking in locking it where you are. Use the strongest lock you can when you don’t know the area, or know you won’t be able to watch your bike. A smaller chain may suffice for setting down at a cafe where you will watch your bike, but a long shopping trip calls for something heavier.

Making your bike less attractive (either absolutely or relatively) is often suggested, but regardless of how good looking your bike is, an opportunist will go for what they see available – not necessarily what they like. Keep that in mind.

And of course, when you do lock your bike, actually lock it, don’t wrap it in a cable that can be slid off, dont lock just the wheel either. Get your frame and rear wheel secured to something which will not go away (don’t lock to an animal, small tree, or plastic drain which can be ripped off of a wall) and is secured strongly to the earth.

More tips on locking your bike can be found here:
The Guardian: Tips to Stop Bike Theft
Or see Sheldon Brown’s sneaky hint about locking up: Sheldon Brown: Lock Strategy

Ride more. Don’t get your bike stolen. And whoever has left their bike locked poorly, sort it out.

the second most famous philosopher from malmesbury was meant to be our lecturer for epistemology

With a run of two gorgeous days in a row, we bet on a third and planned to cycle to malmesbury. the fog at 9 in the morning was thick enough to hide the arches as i approached them half a block away. the train to chippenham would only take a half hour, for about £4.30, and went through Brunel’s Box tunnel, impressive. Malmesbury is only 10 miles from chippenham, although, the A road will take a bit of a longer route, mainly due to a major one way road in Chippenham centre. We took the B4069 through a slew of villages before turning off onto country lanes in Sutton Benger, quite a nice town. In sutton benger there was s church. on the door to that church was a price list. a baptism can be had for only £12, weddings run at £254 a piece, and funerals are a bit less at £240. I don’t remember if there was a reference to group discounts, advance bookings or student prices…
 
We continued on to cross the motorway, finding a few good views and noting that the fog was still strong around noon.

A few more less charming towns and a long stretch of hills and farms led to the A road that took us right by malmesbury. we did a bit of bantering around on the bypass before turning down a little lane that led across the river and up the hill into the town centre. we parked our bikes and pic-nic’d on the lawn of the abbey. we went in and enjoyed a little exhibit upstairs which had a lot of old photographs and paintings of the abbey “before restoration” of crumbling down parts, but nothing ever explained why it was falling down.  was it just lack of use? war? vandalism? politics? nothing mentioned why they had to restore the abbey, but around the back was evidence they didnt bother to restore everything, but did try to keep it out of the public eye:

As per tradition, we had tea in a local tea room, not welsh prices, but £4.50 for tea for two, a huge pot in a posh hotel bar. (for anyones reference, afternoon tea at the Bell Inn – next to the abbey – is served starting at 3, but they are happy to serve you tea at any time). it was a gorgeous hotel, with the ground floor just full of different rooms for dining, tea, reading and relaxing. the sun was streaming in and the fire next to us was burning happily, so we threw on another log before leaving.

It was a 2 hour door to door trip, cycling from redland station to temple meads, catching the first train out, and cycling up to Malmesbury, including photo ops. 

bikes and trains

This is another post where i say that it has been a long time since i added anything to this site. except, it really has been a really really long time since i added anything.
And a few things have happened as well. Marcus and I have continued our tradition of adventures whenever possible with the help of bikes and a fresh young persons railcard (although, it hasnt really been used yet). firstly was a trip to cardiff on train in the first week back at lectures. out lectures for hte last friday were cancelled, so there was only one obvious thing to do, go somewhere.

we shoved our bikes on the train and headed to cardiff.

Once there we cycled up the Taff river, along the Taff trail, to get to Taffs well. It was a lovely trail that was covered in trees and winding alongside the river. Although it started from the centre of cardiff, it seemed quiet and quickly turned to rural-ish area, and headed into a small town where we visited Castle Coch for tea and welsh cakes.

Since our fridays ended early, we decided to make a trip before the summer time ended. Looking on the map 50 miles around Bristol, marcus and i decided that Tintern abbey would be an easy shot. Taking our favourite line to severn beach, Ed (Crazy) joined us and we headed up on the cycle route to the first severn bay bridge. We cycled through chepstow and up the main road to tintern abbey:

Had a picnic out of the packed lunch that i had and headed to a tea room. Tea and scones and cream.

Most recently marcus and I decided early one morning, lectures cancelled (professor has been a bit ill as of late) to head out again. Avebury was the goal this time, and my camera died early on, so there is no evidence from this one. We hopped on the london-bound train and got off in chippenham. There isnt much to chippenham, but the next town was nice. Calne was a nice town with old buildings and little traffic, while still being decent sized and modern. The trail led to a canal that left from there. The trail from there was a bit more rough than before. it went off road and followed footpaths some ways, and cut across a landfill at one point. Through Cherhill, which has cleverly named the main road in town “The Street” we could see the white horse on the mountain, as well as some obelisk monument that we didnt know. Up hill in loose gravel isnt good on bikes.
We got to avebury cold and muddy, found everything too expensive, so bought some biscuits and headed back along the A road instead of the trail.

41, 23, 28, 11, 11, 13, 16 miles to the smallest city in england.

the photos on flickr are all out of order. But thats no matter.
Marcus needed his car, that was 60 miles away in Somerton, we had bikes. Thats how it happened. We planned on taking an easy two day ride down to his house, we would camp halfway, as it was a very hilly path, we figured we might have been slowed down quite a bit, even though our performance on the Bristol-Bath railway showed it would only take us about 5 hours to make 60 miles, we factored in the hills and decided it would take ages. But then, after a full cooked breakfast, we decided that we should go ahead and knock it out in one day. Taking all the goodies off of crazy eds bike, we topped up my tires and headed out.
Some of the trail was along old railway, leading out of bristol. We originally thought (by referring to the maps) that wells would be about 40 miles away on the trail. But only a few miles out of Bristol, a sign told us that we were only 23 miles away! Soon after, at the first junction we had to navigate, in a small town outside of bristol, there was a sign informing us that wells was only 11 miles away. It stayed at about that distance for a while, as we climbed the mendips, up roads like this:

and with foggy views like this:

The morning stayed cool and cloudy as we worked over the Mendips. So our view from the top was fairly limited. The ride down started with our descent into Priddy, which led to steeper hills to race along into wells. Total time to wells was around 4 hours, from 10 to 14.00. We passed up the Crown Inn (where Hot Fuzz was filmed) for the somerfield reduced price section for our lunch, where we ended up getting all the fixings for ham sandwiches and plenty of fatty extras before sitting on the Cathedral green to eat.

A quick pint to celebrate commemorate the film before we headed out of wells. More railway paths lead us into the countryside where smaller hills to climb offered views of wells looking back.

We got to the level ground, and misread some ambiguous sign-posting on the way to Glastonbury. We ended up taking an extra mile or so, but stayed in sight of the Tor the entire time, which is where we took a break to climb to the top. From there we could see all of our progress since wells, and most of our route ahead.

From wells, we spent just over two hours getting into Somerton. We think this was about 50 miles, originally to be 60, but somehow, with the ever-changing signs to wells, the distance actually did shrink a bit.

i overtook a ferrari on my bike

ok. its been a while. over easter break, besides the berlin trip, was oxford and london. and a lot of boredom. oh, there was the complete jokes trip to severn beach as well. then came some more lectures, and exams. which, i hopefully did ok on. they were rough. and we bought bikes. one day i went into marcus’ room and he had found a guy in bedminster selling bikes for £30, so we ran down there in 30 minutes and picked the bikes off him and cycled back. excellent ones, to be sure.
but this is what we did with those:
it was after exams, philosophy intro b was on thursday, our last. me marcus and crazy ed decided to head over to bath to watch our analysis lecturer play classical guitar. he was a pretty rubbish lecturer, but his classical guitar skills were impressive.

He had saved three tickets for us, by ste’s facebook flirting. So we met ste who had come on the train, and had dinner at a pub before heading over. The concert was lovely, a combination of some recognizable tunes and a compilation of a greek composer that Spyros had put together on his own.

But the main bit of the trip was, well, the journey. We took the Bristol-Bath cycle path, the first of the national cycle network to be built back in the day, along the old Bristol-Bath railway. It was pretty much flat the entire way, with the old platforms turned into little parks of ice-cream stands. I had my GPS keeping track of us the whole way, so over 15.1 miles we averaged 12.1 mph, with a top speed of 23.1 mph. It was a gorgeous trip, we passed a steam train at one point, and saw a village cricket match going on. Passed country pubs and the river avon twisted around it a few times lazily. It was a beautiful day, and the countryside was idyllic.