But don't quit the day job

Glass class was fun.

Old bike: fixer-upper or moneypit?

Three months of bike commuting and my legs are loosening up for the daily ride--okay, okay, I blamed my initial slowness on the vintage of my commuter bike and its parts, but most of it was me. But, there was that bit that was the 10-year-old bike.

A 10-year-old mountain bike: hardtail steel frame, no disc brakes, a suspension fork with a whole 2.5" of travel (they don't make those anymore, I checked), cheap wheels that I'd bought when my net worth was below zero.

And yet...

If the bike fits, ride it, right?

Well, there's not much to be done about the fork and brakes, but it's a commuter bike. New brake pads at least; a new, less-slumpy saddle bag; new tires (slicks), new wheels (and those make a world of difference), and someday soon even a new bottom bracket (square taper!).

The set of decent wheels alone probably cost more than the bike is worth as a whole, so the sceptic would say I'm throwing good money away that I could be spending on, oh, I don't know, braces? Or a new toy with actual easy-riding capability like Option A or Option B. But those would look pretty silly with a pannier rack on the back...

You're shitting me

Went to a new dentist this morning for regular checkup and cleaning, and I have come away feeling like I was being scammed. I mean, sure, you have to poke around and see if there's decay, but this guy was ramming into teeth as if he was trying to make holes--not a gentle touch. Younger guy, with way too much gel in his hair. One cavity found, so that'll have to get fixed, but then:

"So, your top front teeth are slightly intruded."

"They're slowly wearing the lower front teeth."

"You should consider orthodontics."

"It would cost about $6,000 to $8,000."

"We could do it right here."

What the fuck? I'm 32 years old and not one of my previous dentists--who I trust far more than this guy--have ever mentioned anything about getting friggin' braces. Gee, isn't it convenient that Mr. Dentist would recommend a few thousand dollars' worth of work that he could do--not covered by insurance, of course, it being a cosmetic procedure?

Now, I do think of teeth as being a worthy investment; hey, here I am scheduling appointments without my mother telling me. And I've donated generously by having rotten teeth, then having mercury amalgam fillings to be replaced, which will someday degenerate into crowns and the whole deal. But I'm sorry, you cannot sit in front of me after seeing me once for a matter of minutes and get $8,000 from me.

Learnin' the roads

I'm finally coaxing myself out for decent road rides on the weekends, with the first step being to figure out how to get up Tunnel Road to reach the other side of the hills to the east. It turns out that Tunnel falls into a black hole of sorts on most maps: Google Maps is car-centric; the "West of the Hills" map by East Bay Bike Coalition is out of print; Tunnel falls at the 4-corner intersection of the varying-scale pages of the scanned-in online version of the EBBC WotH map; and my Berkeley bikeways and walkways map doesn't reach far enough east to make things clear. Finally, the text directions from Missing Link for a loop ride out to Pinehurst Road made things relatively clear (points for the bike co-op).

It's a little funny to get back on the road bike after riding the commuter bike pretty regularly for three months. I think I should get out a measuring tape and see what the BB-to-seat and seat-to-handlebar distances are; my legs didn't seem to be extending and my arms didn't seem to be reaching as far (caveat on the BB-seat of different pedals/shoes/cleat stack height). Huh.

So let's see:

Tunnel Road. What a pussycat of a climb. The road must've been laid out with horse-drawn carts in mind, as it doesn't seem to get much over 5% grade--similar to the San Jose approach to Mt. Hamilton, though only up to what, 1200 ft?, instead of 4000 ft. Which is nice, because climbing Tunnel seems to be necessary to do any other East Bay rides if you want to ride from home in Berkeley or Oakland. Plus, it has great views.

Pinehurst Road. Um...is Pinehurst an up road or a down road? I was going down, and everyone else coming up seemed a bit surprised to see someone descending such a narrow road. It seems to have been repaved recently, but it is rather narrow. Pinehurst does carry you past Canyon, CA, which seems to consist of the post office, a school, and not much else. And riding under the trees is good for the soul.

Moraga Way. This 5-mile, two-lane highway connects Moraga (quaint, hoity-toity community to the south) to Orinda (quaint, hoity-toity community to the north), with plenty of room on the sides for shoulder/bike lane--nice! Um, except no one told me that the pavement is currently grooved. Not knowing any alternative routes, I plowed over the grooves for what, 3 of the 5 miles? Not fun, though it was good practice for relaxing my grip on the handlebars. I hope that the repaving is imminent.

Wildcat Canyon. Another pussycat climb--more of a traverse, really. No shoulders, so it's narrow and things have to be negotiated with all the cars driving up to visit Inspiration Point and Tilden Park, but the road is twisty enough to keep those cars from doing 50, which seems to give everyone time to figure things out.

Euclid Road. Having climbed back over to the west side of the hills, Euclid is a traverse to match Wildcat Canyon on the east side. Going down, it seemed to be an efficient through-way for a bicycle with a minimum of stops and not much traffic to deal with.

Past that, there was the messiness of finding my way back to Oakland. Some of Berkeley's bikeways work, and others are just complete nonsense. I think I forgot to wipe a bike commute (~4.5 miles) from my computer before starting, as it's telling me almost 35 miles while Missing Link claims a 29.5 mile distance from the shop. Anyway, if I know a 30 mile, a 50 mile, and a 70 mile route to ride, that oughta keep me occupied.

Another note to self: cut toenails. Road shoes fit tighter than commute shoes.

Where the hell is the autowash

After driving around on errands yesterday morning, I came home to discover that I had one more: the clicker to open the gate on my building's car park wasn't working, dead battery. To deal with it later, I parked on the street...under a tree. Oops.

So Car is now covered with little specks of Tree Gunk, the windows are a mess, it's probably overdue for a little TLC, and I can't expect rain to wash any of it off. After going in to work for while this afternoon, I drove past a few of the gas stations I know, and none of them have an automatic car wash: y'know, the kind with the spray and the big rollers and brushes that as a child was a terrifying thrill, that takes 5 minutes. It's all I need: I don't want a hand wash or wax or anything like that.

I've now searched online--Google and Yelp--for car washes in Oakland/Berkeley. The only listings are for hand car washes which almost universally get panned in their reviews, even for $20+ it seems. There are detailing outfits with good reviews, but for $100+ I'd expect even my car to be frickin' sparkling inside and out.

There may be a couple things going on here. First, Alameda County may have different ideas about water use, which may discourage the installation of automatic car washes. Second, the balance of the high capital cost of the equipment versus the availability of dirt-cheap unskilled labor may favor hand washes. This area does not seem to like investing in itself.

Crap. Well, Car doesn't get used during the week anyway.

Watching the corks pop

In general, I'd say buildings in Berkeley are unprepared for genuinely hot weather. Realistically, it doesn't happen very often: the winds just blow off the ocean and keep things cool. However, on days like today, that wind stops--and things get noticeably less comfortable.


The thermostat in the lab at work is usually set to 72F, moderate. As the outside temps climbed to 98F today, though, the indoor temperatures (in our one-story, thin-walled building) also started to rise. 74, 76, 78...I work in a chemistry lab. Ether boils at, oh, 87F. 80, 81, 82...OK, so we topped out at 83F or so, so nothing started overpressurizing or boiling over when we didn't expect it to, but try putting on neoprene gloves and standing over a bath of rubbing alcohol for any length of time when it's 83F. Arms sweating until it runs and fumes, fumes, fumes...

I wonder how many batches of ginger beer in Berkeley garages blew up today?

The other aspect of this hot, dry weather (18% humidity, woo-hoo!) is that it released a hellish cloud of god-knows-what dust and pollen this morning. It was Bike to Work Day, so I rode past a couple of the "energizer stations" checking for schwag (at 9am, good luck). Every 10 seconds it felt like a piece of broken glass had blown into my eye. I didn't see my face until I got to work (25? minutes of riding), by which point my eyes looked like ripe tomatoes.

(not actually my eye)

I can only wonder what the volunteers at the BTWD stations thought of my Hellboy look, yeesh. (I'm a normal...er, relatively normal person! Really!)

High and tight

Having not had blog inspiration for a while, time to get back in the saddle with a bit of petty complaining...

If you know how to fix a flat, chances are you ride a bike equipped with a saddle bag. Heck, some people even race crits with them. Most saddle bags have a velcro'd strap to go around the seatpost and another that loops through the saddle rails to hold them in place, and the manufacturer's photos show them snug and secure:

Typically, though, saddle bags fall victim to the combined effects of vibrations and gravity: the bag contents shift aft, the saddle rail loop shifts forward, and truth is many bags look like a bad case of...hmm, this is a family show...so let's call it "half-mast":

I had to move my blinky light down to keep it from getting masked by Limpy the Saddle Bag...Now, I realize Limpy serves perfectly well and I can't even see behind/under my seat while riding, but out of sight does not always mean out of mind. Yes, in those quiet moments when I can't be bothered to do or think about something useful, it sometimes occurs to me to think about why I can't get my saddle bag to stay up.

Whether or not their bikes are actually any good or simply represent another version of technical parity compared to the umpteen other manufacturers out there, Trek has made saddle bags with a "quick cleat" attachment that indeed provides unfailing support to its saddle bags. The tradeoff is that you can't switch the saddle bag from bike to bike quickly unless you buy another "quick cleat" for the other bicycle...but how often do you use the same saddle bag on more than one bike?

Anyway, I had a Trek bag for years until some yutz decided to steal it, gathering for him-or herself a patched tube, a set of levers, a patch kit, maybe a crescent wrench, and the bag itself--but they failed to take the "cleat" attachment, so it was gone from my life and useless to them, thanks for that. But the memory of that saddle bag faithfully tucked up high and tight when compared to the vision of Limpy above will probably send me to a Trek dealer sometime soon for an upgrade.

...what the hell am I writing about? Good lord, just push the "publish" button and be done with it...