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The General Store

07.18.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 9 Comments

One of the delights of cycling in the country is being able to take a break at an old-fashioned general store.

Convenience stores at gas stations are plentiful, and cyclists use them a lot to take rest breaks, buy Gatorade and munchies, and take a nature break. A general store offers those services, (usually without gas) but also much more.

The “more” is the atmosphere.

The other day, I joined a 400-person group ride that offered distances up to 50 miles. The turnaround point for the 50-mile ride was Andice, Texas, a crossroads hamlet about 30 miles northwest of Austin. Those riders that made it all the way to Andice were treated to a break at the Andice General Store.

Cyclists converge on the Andice General Store during a group ride.

Biking has brought these old stores a new lease on life.  Andice is on the route of several well-known rides in the area, and cyclists can be found in abundance on the weekends.  To cater to their needs, the Andice General Store has made some alterations.

For example, the store no longer features two or three small aisles of groceries.  Groceries line the walls.  In the middle of the room, on a well-worn wood floor, are a few tables and chairs for people to sit and rest after a tough ride. The store also sells a pretty mean burger — another reason for the tables.

I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade, and took it to the counter.

“That’ll be $2.12,” said the lady. “I got the 12.”  Wow.

She looked at the Gatorade. “That hasn’t been in there long enough to cool off,” she said. “Over there, take a cup and some ice. It’s free.”

“Over there” was the soda dispenser. Not only did it have Coke and the other usual soft drinks, but one of the spigots was plain water. I waited in line as several cyclists added ice to their water bottles and then refilled for the trip back.

Local biking celebrities Mike Gaudion and Oleta take a break in the store.

I sat down with my Gatorade, and found myself across from two bikers who are favorites with everyone who sees them — Mike Gaudion and his poodle, Oleta.  Oleta rides on a special platform on Mike’s bike. She’ll tolerate breaks like this one, but she really wants to get back out and hit the road.

While we sat there, some locals came in. Dressed like the farmers they were, they seemed out of place surrounded by lycra and spandex. We would have been the oddballs just a few years ago.

Outside and around back, the store has built a modern “two holer,” one side for men, one for women. Cyclists waited patiently in short lines. Nearby, more tables sit under a canopy so bikers can enjoy their break under the hot Texas sun.

It’s tempting to hang around at the store too long. Take care of business, get rehydrated, maybe a small bite to eat, and get back to the ride. But the general store harkens back to another time, and for a lot of riders, that slower, simpler time has its attractions. Mix that with cycler-oriented amenities, and these places are not just stops — but must stops.

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Categories // Uncategorized

That Pesky Wobble

07.15.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 4 Comments

Mrs. Noob has been complaining about her bike lately. She says it feels like she’s wobbling, especially when going downhill. This phenomenon first surfaced last month, when she was having trouble on a Saturday morning group ride. It turned out her rear hub was shot.

That was fixed by getting a new wheel. Everything should be fine now, right?

“I still feel a wobble,” she said, as we were taking an easy morning ride through the neighborhood.

“Let me ride behind you and see if I can see anything,” I said. But that rear wheel and tire looked solid to me.

She went out by herself the next day. “It’s still there,” she said, when she got back.

“Are you sure it’s the rear again?” I asked.

“No, it could be the front. But there’s definitely something there.”

I rode her bike around the block a time or two.

“The only thing wrong with this bike is that it needs new tires,” I said. She’s had the tires for three years.  They’re a bit chewed up, and the rubber has gotten soft.

I picked up new tires at the LBS two days later. After getting them mounted, I took the bike around the block again.

“It’s smooooth now,” I told her.

Last weekend, we were out on another group ride. She insisted on doing the 28-mile option, because she wants to build up her mileage. She asked me to stay with her. That meant I would be riding at the back of the group all day, even though there were sweeps from a local bike club to watch out for slower riders.

Even going slow, I found myself way out in front of her. On one section of moderate hills, the sweep and I both waited at the top for Pat to catch up.

“I don’t know why she’s that far behind,” said the sweep, an experienced rider. “With her heavy bike [a steel hybrid] she should be passing me on the downhills. But she’s actually slowing down. It turned out that she was braking on the downhills.”

Now, Pat doesn’t bomb downhills, but she’s no chicken. When she caught up to us, we asked if she was okay, and she urged us to push on.

But two or three miles later, I found myself waiting at the bottom of another long, easy downhill. This time when she caught up to me, she had a concerned look.

“This front end is wobbling like crazy,” she said. “I’m really uncomfortable going downhill. It’s not safe.”

Luckily, the ride provided sag, and we opted to stop and sag in.

The ride started and ended at Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop in downtown Austin. We took the bike right inside. The mechanic grabbed the handlebars and yanked on them a bit.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “We’ve got trouble.”

Headsets should be checked once a year. Pat's 1992 bike had never been checked.

A half hour later, everything was hunky-dory. The next day, Pat took the bike out for a ride again.

“How is it?” I asked.

“Fantastic!” she replied. “It’s like a whole new bike.”

She rolled the bike to its spot in the garage, put her helmet and shoes away, and headed for the door.

“But it’s not shifting smoothly in the middle gears,” she tossed back over her shoulder.

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Categories // Maintenance Tags // bearings, headset, Maintenance

“The Bicyclist Was Not Wearing a Helmet”

07.13.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 17 Comments

It’s a little story.

A short item in the police blotter section of the Austin American-Statesman newspaper tells of a collision between an SUV and a bicycle.

After reporting that the northbound cyclist was in the righthand lane, and was hit by the SUV, the reporter included the line, “The bicyclist was not wearing a helmet.”

So what?

That line implies that the cyclist was at fault. But the information about the crash said the SUV was coming from the opposite direction, and turning into a business. So it should have yielded to oncoming traffic, including the cyclist. The item did not point out that the SUV failed to yield to the cyclist. Instead, we learn that the cyclist was not wearing a helmet. There is no mandatory helmet law for adults in the state of Texas or the city of Austin. The information is irrelevant.

What would be relevant is whether the police ticketed the CRV driver for failure to yield. After all, the cyclist had to be taken to a nearby hospital with minor injuries.

This is the kind of little thing that can have negative repercussions. Bike-hating drivers who see the item will shake their heads and cluck their tongues, and mutter about those no-good cyclists.

Why didn’t the paper include a line about the driver being at fault in this case?

“We do not assign blame in straight news stories unless quoting/citing a police report or spokesman,” tweeted the Statesman’s social media editor, in reply to an outraged cyclist’s inquiry.

The Bike Noob worked in the news media for 16 years before becoming a journalism professor. I can explain a little about how this sort of thing happens, although I don’t defend it.

Newsrooms, like all organizations, operate on a set of routines. Collecting items from the police blotter is a matter of routine, handled by one of several reporters assigned to the police beat. Most blotter stories are short, because by newsroom standards, they don’t affect many people. That’s the situation here.

Once the reporter gets the information from the police, she writes it up, and moves on to the next story. Since only minor injuries were involved, it isn’t worth the reporter’s time and effort to get more details from the police. So she misses the chance to dig deeper and find out if the police are blaming the driver for the collision.

But the helmet info was probably included in the incident report filed by the police, so she dutifully made note of that.

I once worked in a TV newsroom with a policy of stating whether a cyclist wore a helmet whenever we reported on a cycling crash. Most of us weren’t cyclists. It seemed reasonable to include that information. We didn’t consider that we were making the cyclist appear to be at fault for not wearing a helmet.

But that’s just what happened here. While the paper did not “assign” blame to the cyclist, by reporting that she wasn’t wearing a helmet, and not reporting any action against the motorist, only the cyclist was put in a bad light.

What will it take to correct this prevailing attitude? Keep calling it to the attention of editors. Things aren’t really going to change, though, until more reporters and editors join the ranks of cyclists, and are alert to implications that such a seemingly innocuous line could have.

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Categories // Safety Tags // helmets, news media

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