Posts by Sam F
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Kyle: nice. I've just started riding again myself, after about a month. My legs feel okay three days in - normally they'd be sore as hell for the first week, but I've been walking in to work for the last three weeks, so it's not as big a step up as it would have been from driving or public transport.
I like to swoop in down Symonds and Wakefield Streets to the bottom of town. Plenty of cycle parking in our building basement, and I'm lucky to have decent showers and ironing gear on hand to boot.
I also celebrated my first week back in the saddle with a tetchy response to some anti-bike Philistine in the Herald letters section, that being a pointless habit of mine.
My mother has also recently started cycling again, after not touching a bike for a good twenty years by my count. She'll be down on the Otago Rail Trail in a month. Good on her.
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2nd hand shoes? Ewwwww...
Think of them as well-priced loot from the battlefield of life.
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I really enjoy driving barefoot too.
Just reading that sentence brings back delicious memories of summer camping holidays. Driving in jandals comes a poor second, and of course is dangerous to boot (ooh, dontcha love subconscious puns?).
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If I've done my detective work right, Paremoremo Boys' High was my dad's secondary school.
I've asked him what it was like in the late 60s and early 70s. I never got many answers. For my part I was safely steered away into a Catholic boys' school with a similar obsession with rugby, but thankfully much less violence (although some teachers did persist with corporal punishment, this being in the late 1990s and early 2000s). I thought I had it rotten. Clearly I was wrong.
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The invisible hand every now and again closes into a fist and punches you in the nuts. Smith was the first to recognise that.
That was worth a Friday morning chuckle. Cheers.
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Stephen wrote:
artisan sausage inna bun
Me = slowpoke I know. But can I just say how awesome it is that we have references like these bandied around most days?
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Gah. __In__destructible, that is.
But as others have said, decent commuting bikes are everywhere. I prefer non-suspension MTB frames because the straight bars are nice and tractable in traffic, and slicks are a must-have for getting rolling resistance down a bit. I often ride bad distances over crap roads, and prefer slightly heavy but durable bikes to fast frames that bend from any impact.
Also, it doesn't hurt to get a cheap backup bike for when things go wrong, as they sometimes do. Say $50 for a serviceable but pug-ugly old MTB. Worthwhile investment if you ever need wheels rebuilt for a week or so.
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Cheap steel rigid MTB + straight bar + slick tyres = economical, undestructible commuting usefulness. Just don't expect the results to be pretty.
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If that was Critical Mass, in several US cities they have a reputation for being jerks who put off even other cyclists.
I've heard similar things for a while. However, from all accounts, the Auckland Critical Mass runs (which leave from Albert Park some Fridays) are being increasingly patronised by people less obsessed with reclaiming the streets than with having a nice Friday bikeride, to the horror of the diehard organisers.
CM has a romantic ring to it in theory, but: honestly? Exactly who in a motor vehicle is won over by a crowd of cyclists crawling through the CBD, slowing everyone down? Wouldn't it be a better advertisement for cycling to have a run through town where you don't obstruct traffic and actually get somewhere?
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And the bizarre things a quick confirming google can turn up...
Oh lord.