a midway bikelog

I met Kieron Yates early this summer while he was on his 43-day bike tour along the length of the Mississippi. He is an avid cyclist from England, former restauranteur and correspondent for The Bike Show, a weekly radio show out of London. While visiting, we had him over for dinner, and he interviewed me during our ride to the house. Through the magic of editing, he apparently found some useful quotes, so i made it into the show. It was fun to meet him during his trip here, and i’m looking forward to hearing more about the southern half of the trip.

You can download the mp3 of the show or subscribe to the podcast feed through iTunes.

This post is right on in all ways, and sums up a lot of bike/car conflict from the cyclist point of view:
Things a non-cyclist may not understand
(via OIFS)

Since attending the St. Paul Bike Summit last month, i’ve been on the lookout while riding for new bike paths around town. Well, i didn’t need to look too far. Right on my street, Thomas Ave, the city has torn up the corner curbs at one intersection and is replacing them with curbs that jut out into the street, essentially making a bookend to the onstreet parking there. There’s probably a better name for these, i just can’t think of it.

This sort of corner curb treatment was a topic at the Summit, as some cyclists felt like the curbs pushed them out into traffic at the corner, in cases where there weren’t many cars parked there. Here though, there are almost always cars parked on this stretch of street, so you would have to do a lot of weaving to stay next to the curb anyway. I understand the complaint, but in reality, when i ride i never really try to be as far to the right as possible precisely because i hate weaving in and out of the parking lane. I’ll pick a line about even with the left side of the parked cars and ride there, whether there are parked cars or not. It’s a lot more predictable, and hence a lot safer.

The second project i noted was some new bike lane striping along a short stretch of Highland Parkway, apparently between Hamline and Snelling. I haven’t yet looked to see if it extends further west, but if it does, that’s fantastic news for everyone who wants to ride from one end of Highland to the other. Wheee! Unfortunately, no new stripes yet for those of us non-Highland types traveling north-south.

Went for a training ride this morning, heading for the river bottoms to ride some dirt for a change. We rode from home but with 2 hours we had to work with, it ended up being more of a time trial with occasional breaks in the pace. Luckily, the river trails were mostly empty, so there wasn’t a problem with going 21mph through the woods. I was getting pretty tired by the end of the dirt trails on the way back, but hit a good stretch of speed going across the bridge, and held on pretty well the rest of the ride home. It was a good workout, just what i needed, in a way, even though the trails are pretty flat, but then so are most of the cx race routes.