Archive for February 14th, 2009

If you have read any of my other entries, you know that I entered the commuting world via recreational cycling. I have no special “commuter” bike. I have a mountain bike and I have a road bike.

Neither is perfectly ideal for commuting and I switch between them frequently.

My road bike is a Masi Gran Corsa. I guess you’d call it a race bike although I have never raced it. I bought it used and built it up with a decent set of components. It is nice and light and fast (at least for this engine).

When I ride my Masi, it compels me to ride fast. It is so light and quick that before I know it, I’m hammering up the hills, chasing down other commuters/riders, and doing intervals between stoplights. It’s just the type of bike that is meant to be ridden hard so that is what I do.

There are some downsides to riding a racing style road bike for my everyday commute. First, it does not stand up particularly well to road debris. At first, I had A LOT of flats. Then, I wised up. I bought some kevlar tire strips and some more durable tires. Now, I don’t get flats very frequently (of course, I just jinxed myself by saying that).

Second, the Masi can be a bit harsh. In the name of safety, I take a several back roads to get to work. Some of these are not paved particularly well and my hands sure feel it by the time I hit the smooth roads.

It is not suitable for all conditions. I don’t ride it at all if it is wet out. I’m nervous (probably overly nervous) about the tires slipping out. It also is not very well suited for any non-paved surface.

Lastly, it is not entirely comfortable constantly being in an aggressive race position. It is not a bike that you just “cruise” on.

My mountain bike is a Ventana El Rey full suspension 29er. I love this bike. I’ve gone through my fair share of mountain bikes and I tend to be pretty hard on them. I have broken just about every frame (and more parts than I can remember) I’ve had over the past 7 years and several of them twice so I have gravitated towards a high end bike. I also have come to appreciate the quality of a nice frame outfitted with nice components. Alright…enough justification, I’ll just come out and say it…when it comes to mountain bike, I’m a bike snob. Not that I judge other people by what they ride, but when choosing my bike, I’m willing to lay down some coin.

When it comes to commuting, the mountain bike is definitely not the ideal vehicle. The big knobby tires make it like riding through peanut butter compared to the road bike. It is also considerably heftier than the road bike. The suspension is not 100% efficient so there is some power lost. That being said, if I had to choose only one bike, this is it.

The best thing about it is the versatility. I can ride it any where, any time.

When I ride my road bike, I have to stick to pavement which means that I have to go about 5 miles out of my way to stay on safe roads. On my mountain bike, I can just ride off road. In one of my routes, I will cut through the subdivision across the road before taking a hike-and-bike trail through the park. The problem is that the entrance to the subdivision is about a quarter mile away down a very busy road that has a small shoulder and a 65 mph speed limit. Needless to say, I don’t feel very comfortable riding on this road. I don’t even attempt this route on my road bike. On my mountain bike, it is no problem. I either ride behind a guard rail or I ride about 20 feet off the road in the dirt.

Debris, wet roads, glass are all no problems on my mountain bike. Having a tubeless tire set-up almost avoids all flats and the big knobbies prevent traction issues.

One other thought merits discussion. My mountain bike is expensive. Silly expensive. Embarrassingly expensive. This makes me just a little bit protective of it. I do not leave it unattended without a heavy duty lock. Even then, I will only do it in trusted areas or for short periods of time. When I arrive at work, it comes up to my office with me (so does the road bike).

Basically, I ride my mountain bike on my commute if:
1. I plan to hit trail after work
2. The pavement is wet
3. I just feel like cruising
4. I have no stops to make that require locking it up.

I ride the road bike to work otherwise.

The bottom line is that you can make any bike work for your commute. You don’t need anything special.

As they say…”Run what you brung”.

1. Wishes you’ve all seen a child dying of a simple illness like dysentery or hunger firsthand.
2. Wishes he didn’t like NFL football because it takes so much time and provides him with very little.
3. Wishes he could tour several continents by bike but probably never will.
4. Wishes he could live in Europe, Africa or southeast Asia for a year or more.
5. Never wants to be any kind of superstar. He never wants 15 minutes of fame either.
6. Feels blessed to have meaningful and not-so-meaningful little tasks to do every day.
7. Never regrets leaving northern Indiana.
8. Once assisted in the birth of a child in his front yard and massaged the uterus of the woman to assist in the delivery of the placenta.
9. Once slept (or rather listened) in the adjacent room of a moaning, dying man. He aroused to the sound of crying.
10. Would rather burn out in his sixties or seventies rather than fade away in his nineties.
11. Rather be remembered for how he lived rather than how he died.
12. Doesn’t think he could do Peace Corps again.
13. Believes you should seek experience rather than living status quo.
14. Feels like others think he’s adventurous but doesn’t believe that he really is all that adventurous.
15. Believes that instead of throwing away everything, we should seek to repair broken things that we need.
16. Wants to know if he’s mentioned that he likes cigars and beer?
17. Totally supports the premises of the bible but thinks people take it too literally and leave out the stuff they don’t like.
18. Does not believe in just wars.
19. Believes that physical hardship is liberating.
20. Has felt better since he started his own website, expresses himself through it and gets totally random comments from anonymous people.
21. Doesn’t really like working out that much. His mind and body require it though.
22. Would love to follow in the footsteps of Wallace rather than Darwin. Darwin’s trip was obviously noteworthy but he would choose Wallace’s.
23. Is surprised to learn that people would think he idolizes a professional athlete (in cycling (LA)) over an extremely forward thinking individual like Thomas Jefferson.
24. Believes we should be stewards of our planet rather than users or destroyers of it.
25. Doesn’t want to climb the corporate ladder. It would take too much time away from his family. He is just glad that he is helping to make devices that help other people.

1. Thinks Americans and a lot of others around the world are missing life. They live behind glass (televisions and cars), veiled behind music in headphones, interact with others primarily through electronic media, behind the walls of their homes. Hence, www.biketofeel.com.
2. Does not fear or worry about dying very much. He as had a fulfilling life and has had far more meaningful experiences and opportunities than a lot of people.
3. Believes that individuals should make good, intelligent and informed decisions about how they interact in society before being required to interact a certain way by law.
4. Tries to live his life by the motto, ‘Do the right thing.’ He believes he should ask himself, ‘Is this the right thing to do?’ on a daily basis even when making small decisions.
5. Had a hard time as a new father until he approached fatherhood with this objective: Try to teach your children how to live long, healthy lives even though they may be taken from you at any moment. That is all you can do.
6. Is learning how and strives to be a better father every day.
7. Really likes beer.
8. Thinks that a lot of people don’t understand him. He believes that his wife is not one of those people.
9. Would like to ‘retire’ in a few years and do ‘hands on’ work to help other people who haven’t had the opportunities that he has.
10. Really likes cigars.
11. Feels people vastly misjudge his character because of how he looks.
12. Has hope for the future.
13. Believes that war is fundamentally wrong. After all, why do we teach our children not to hit others.
14. Has few regrets about life. He’s made a lot of mistakes but has learned from them and moved on.
15. Believes that most people in his line of work (medical device regulatory affairs) are pretty weird and anal retentive. He maintains that he is normal.
16. Thinks all people inherently want to take the path of least resistance. But he thinks people have the cognitive ability to instead do what’s right. He would like people to use this cognitive ability more frequently.
17. Would like to be a vegetarian and is working hard at it. He feels it’s very hard though with a very carnivorous wife and daughter.
18. Believes that he should walk the world a humble man. He likes to substitute the word ‘bike’ for ‘walk’ in the previous sentence.
19. Believes fear is the pathway to evil.
20. Feels like the band camp girl from the movie ‘American Pie’ when he talks about his Peace Corps experience in Haiti . He’s apologizes for talking about it so much.
21. And his wife are building a house in Haiti that overlooks provincial capital of the Gran D’Anse and the Caribbean Sea .
22. Wishes he was better at brushing his kids’ teeth and reading a book to them before bed. He really doesn’t like doing either. He’d rather just sing to them but he doesn’t remember very many songs from childhood.
23. Had to finally get glasses this year. He bought the biggest, blackest dorkiest looking frames he could find just to spite his eyes. He is disappointed that people now call him Clark Kent or Superman because he looks like him/them. He is also disappointed that he agrees with their assessment.
24. Wishes he could just shave his head instead of cutting his hair but he realizes that his head looks too small anyway.
25. Once fell asleep in the co-pilots’ seat of a small commercial passenger aircraft and woke up to find his face only inches from pushing the yoke forward.
26. Is an overachiever and listed 26 things: Doesn’t love bikes, he loves biking.

He has recently been pressing the Texan government to ban tobacco smoking in just about every place known to man in the state of Texas. Obviously a part of his personal war on cancer. It’s a continuation of the end of civil liberties. Soon, no longer will private (I did say private) have the right to choose if they will allow their patrons to smoke. Next step, no smoking in your car or house.

I am biased as I am an avid cigar smoker. I also enjoy the occasional cigarette — the kind without all of the chemicals that speed nicotine to your brain. However, I would argue that smoking of a different kind is far more damaging to humans, and the world in general, than tobacco smoking.

While I have no hard statistics, I’m willing to bet that one day or one week of driving an undesirable vehicle (petrol-powered) releases more harmful pollutants into the environment than one year’s worth of tobacco smoking. I have read countless articles from reputable, no-agenda institutions reporting the vast destruction to which the oil industry has subjected our planet. Take a look at the environment impact of oil, and coal for that matter, on Pennsylvania, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Alaska. It’s ruined entire ecosystems. There are towns in Pennsylvania that are completely dead from coal mines that are burning, yes burning, beneath them.

Why do you not see this as a political issue? Just like big tobacco of many years ago, big oil owns you. They dictate what you read, hear, have access to, how you live, your mode of transportation, your government’s decisions. You happily drive your car everyday while they knowingly and willingly screw you. Big oil is the big tobacco of now. Don’t believe me? Sit in your garage with your car running. Seems stupid doesn’t it? Yet, billions of people around the world (everyone’s garage) everyday drive their cars tens of miles. That’s what I call smoking.

Lance, like many a professional athlete, your intent is good. Yet you lack the breadth of education to focus on the important issues. I agree — ban smoking. But ban the real smoking — oil burning. The future of the human race depends on it — not just cancer survivors.