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Where’s This Bike Noob Headed?

06.05.2015 by Scott Jangro //

Well there’s week one in the books as the new maintainer of the Bike Noob blog. We’ve updated the blog, given the Facebook page a facelift, and starting getting more active there. Ray did an amazing job here building this, and I hope to keep it going at least as well as he did.

Don and Jeff have both expressed interest in sticking around as guest bloggers, which is wonderful.

There is a pretty active group of readers here, and while I don’t expect to immediately become your bestie, I do hope you’ll continue to participate and I’ll get to know you better.

Here’s a bit about me.

Hello. My name is Scott. And I’m a cyclist.

I’m kind of obsessed with it, and I’ve discovered that of all the things to be obsessed with, a form of exercise is a pretty great one. I mentioned in another post that cycling has changed my life, and it has. First, it’s made me a happier person. I do believe that there is a “cyclist’s high“. And, I’ve gotten a heck of a lot healthier. I’m in the best shape of my life, though the New England winters do have a way of putting the pounds back on. They do come off quite quickly on the bike.

I ride both road and mountain, though pretty much all road unless my friends drag me into the woods. I don’t like mountain biking nearly as much.

I live in Massachusetts, about 20 miles west of Boston. Which pretty much means I say I’m from Boston. But I live in a pretty rural area with quiet windy roads. Cyclists drive from all over to start rides here, so I’m pretty lucky. I’m also on the eastern edge of where the hills start getting big around here. So if I ride west, it’s hilly. East, flat.

I love hills. Up and down. I also like going on long rides, metric century rides, century rides, and longer. Particularly when they include one or more mountains to climb. I’m lucky to have Mt. Wachusett climb as the turnaround point for a metric century ride.

Halfway up Mt. Wachusett

I started cycling about 4 years ago after watching some friends enjoy it for a few years. So I dusted off my old steel Schwinn Traveler from college, which I never rode, and gave it a go. This time I fell hard. In love. Not to the pavement. Well I did that too first time on clipless pedals. I put new wheels on it, way better than it deserved and told myself that if I rode for the entire year I’d call myself a cyclist and buy a new bike.

I rode 3,000 miles on that bike.

That winter, I bought a new bike, all in pieces, and built it myself. Everybody needs a winter project, right?

In my fourth season now, I’m about to pass 10,000 miles. I’ve learned a lot, and still have a lot to learn. I hope to share the former and do more of the latter here, and have some fun while doing it.

Please say hi in the comments. And join me on the Bike Noob facebook page.

And here I am on Strava.

Thanks for sticking around through the changes!

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Categories // cycling

The Bike Wave. Do You?

06.03.2015 by Scott Jangro // 11 Comments

via: Dave Strom

 

While riding recently with someone I don’t normally ride with, after passing the umpteenth cyclist going the other way, he proclaimed, “I don’t do that wave thing.”

I had to ask him to repeat himself because, what?

I didn’t consider it a thing. I just wave. Unless I hate the person.

I guess it’s sort of a thing. Let’s look at other similar creatures.

Jeep owners: They wave. I’ve always thought that was kind of dumb actually. If you’re surrounded by windows and a roof, a wave is kind of pointless.

Harley bikers: They wave that that down low wave. Doesn’t get cooler than that.

Walkers smile, and say “hi”. I mean, they have time for an entire conversation.

Runners at least give themselves a knowing look.
A look that says, “OMFG this hurts. Why do I do this?”

So cyclists? Of course we should. We’re freakin’ happy!

Personally, I do the Harley wave. Or the don’t-let-go, lift-your-fingers, wave if I’m bombing down a hill at 45 mph. Or at least a head nod.

For the love, life’s too short, give a wave.

But here are some important questions that I ponder while out there with my thoughts.

Should a cyclist wave to a runner? At least out of pity.
Should a roadie wave to a mountain biker? Respect.
What do you do when you pass a 20-man pace line? All the waves? one long one?
And what about if you’re overtaking someone? Especially on a big hill. I admit, there’s a bit of gloat there. Insult to injury.
And most importantly, what if you get snubbed? Chase him right down and confront.

Here’s a thought. How about waving to a motorist? When someone lets you cross, passes safely, patiently waits for you to go by before proceeding out of a stop sign. Do you wave a thanks?

There’s enough cyclist hate out there that we could use to diffuse it a bit with some nice gestures once in a while.

So I’ll leave you with that. Next time out, wave to a motorist.

They won’t wave back, but that’s ok. you’re not driving a Jeep. And they probably hate you. But hopefully a little less.

via: Dave Hunt

 

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Categories // cycling

A Dialogue Over Cycling

05.02.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 4 Comments

Two of my biking friends recently had unpleasant encounters with drivers. In one case, a car passed unnecessarily close to a cyclist, and he was concerned about being hit. That didn’t happen, but it upset my friend enough that he followed the car to the next stop sign, and started a dialogue about car-bike safety.

The driver didn’t take to it well, and my friend — one of the most mild-mannered folks you’d want to meet — thought it could have escalated to blows. He pulled away and continued his ride.

My other friend is naturally cautious while riding the roads, and most often stays on the suburban-style residential streets in our immediate area. But even there, problems can arise. At a stoplighted intersection, he had the green light and started across the intersection. An oncoming truck started to turn left across his path without signaling. My friend yelled and waved, and the truck stopped just five feet from him.

“I would have let it go at that,” he said. “But then he starts yelling at me like it was my fault. I had the right-of-way!”

He threw down his bike and started toward the truck with clenched fists. Believe me, you don’t want to tangle with him one-on-one. The truck driver figured that out, and drove on.

“What gets me is that some people figure if they’re in a motor vehicle, they’ve got the right of way,” my friend said. “They need to be better educated about the rules of the road regarding bikes.”

The guy in the first incident had another point of view. “We really need to start showing our neighbors who we are,” he said. “We’re just like them. We live in the same kind of houses, we work jobs — the only difference is, we choose cycling as a form of exercise or recreation.”

He suggested making an affirmative effort to talk to our neighbors about our biking, why we do it, how we hope cars behave around bikes, how they should expect bikers to behave around them.

People for Bikes, an organization that aims to promote cycling to more prominence in public discourse, offers the same idea in this video.

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Others suggest that as more people ride, biking will become more a part of our culture. This article on Business Insider urges more commuting by bike.

I agree with all of the above. I’m just not optimistic that things will change much. Recently, the city laid chipped stone over a lane of one of the main streets in our area. As my wife was riding along that section, a pickup truck passed her, and spun his wheels to throw the stone-gravel mix at her. “Some people,” she said, “are just asshats.”

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Categories // cycling Tags // advocacy, car vs. bike

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