Sunday, July 26, 2009

Tricia tells 'em

Tricia (MyLilPony) is not a sprinter. She's a metronome. No matter how far the ride she ends at the speed she starts, and rarely coasts or hammers. So I was a bit surprised -- even shocked -- when, on our morning ride, she hit the drops and blasted away from me.

Fine, I thought, and started working to close the gap, which wasn't closing nearly as quickly as I thought it should be. Then she hit a rise, stood up and applied more power. Jeezel Pete I thought as I did the same, breathing hard and not catching up.

Then suddenly at the top of a small rise she almost stopped, and, doing a near track stand, stood tall, and surveyed the area like a bird of prey. She suddenly swooped down on a woman and young child standing behind a car on a suburban driveway.

"Excuse me, but did you know how close you came to me back there?" she asked in a completely sweet and innocent tone.

"No." said the woman. "I'm sorry."

"I didn't think so." said Tricia, who went on to ask her to be careful out there.

What made it even more perfect was that the woman just happened to be unloading a child's bike, presumably for the child with her, from her trunk.

"You'll have a cyclist of your own soon. Do you have a helmet?"

"Yes."

Turning to the child she asked the little boy "Are you always going to wear it?" When he nodded, Tricia gave him a thumbs up and rolled off, without even calling out the "Ho Ho Silver" I was just about expecting.

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Ruby in 50+ jersey


Ruby in 50+ jersey
Originally uploaded by ccorlew
Yep, that's her name, same as Tricia's new bike.
I had jerseys made for bikeforums.net 50+ forum (despite the fast that I'm swear I'm not a day over 29.) When they came the manufacutuer had included this mini-jersey. So she got photographed with Tricia's Ruby.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Government bicycle plans, oh joy!


Does this sound sexy or what?
The Contra Costa Transportation Authority 2009 Countywide Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan Public Review draft meeting.
And yet Tricia and I went with our friend Joyce to the bus station office to check it out.

If you ever wondered why government has so much trouble doing anything right, this meeting would have confirmed your concerns, but not provided a lot of hope for the future. What with overlapping state/county/city jurisdictions, agencies with conflicting concerns wrestling over limited funds and a general lack of interest in many communities, it may be the most amazing thing is that anything happens at all. Ever.

The big bottom line for us in Antioch is that the report shows that our city has spent zero money on bike or ped projects in the past five years. That's right. Nothing. Our neighboring cities, Brentwood and Pittsburg have some work going on, but Antioch has nothing. They've even removed some bike lanes.

Antioch doesn't even have have a bicycle/pedestrian advisory committee.

Though the CCTA does get some funding, it turns out cities have to apply for it. My guess: Antioch won't. Let's see what happens.