So, Lately the weather has been permitting enough for downtown bike rides. I've let plenty of people know about these rides when I've organized them, but there have been very few bites. I would love to organize a bike ride that starts in midtown and loops down through downtown and ends back in Dundee. Eventually, a race will hopefully emerge from this ride, but that is far in the future. For now, just please come and ride bikes around downtown and this beautiful city of Omaha with me on Friday nights and meet new people and start a new leaf - cycling in Omaha should be well known, and the only way for it to get well known is for people to come out and ride. Not to mention that riding a bike through downtown Omaha is a beautiful thing especially with the new attractions like the Pedestrian bridge and the new T.D. Ameritrade baseball park. So if you have any questions or want to be a part of this bike ride, either show up and midtown crossing Friday nights at 9:00p.m. or Email me and we can meet up and ride down together.

Enjoy this nice weather while its here, and enjoy life on a bicycle!

DY

The first 10 minutes

The weather is manifest in the perception of the first ten minutes of a commute. But really its all about how you like at it. It depends on what kind of person you are. The stress of knowing that you need to be at school in 1 hour, and NOT wanting to gear up and get pedaling. Thinking about your ride can be demoralizing. It can make you want to crawl up into a ball and hide under your covers all day. It sucks.

Negative thoughts attack my passion, and in turn, corrupt my focus. "Its going to be freezing-a pain in the ass-windy-wet-and then I'll have to sit in class in wet gear and then do it all over again to get home-why am I thinking about riding my bike?"

The first ten minutes of the ride is like riding through hell and back again, but once your back, you realize just why your riding your bike. Eventually, the cold feels good, and your body warms up. The water vapor in the air starts to smell good, and the wetness becomes comforting and in a sense it feels cleansing. The clouds surrounding turn from devils and gremlins to the falling enemy of thought. You start pedaling more efficiently, and you want to keep going. Your focus is only on riding. Your heart swells, and your eyes let out tears from the cold wind kissing your face. The commute could go on forever at this point, and you begin to realize that you actually thought about NOT riding. "How foolish that would have been," you say to yourself.

Its getting over the initial launch that is often the most difficult to overcome. The easiest way to avoid the first ten minutes of your commute is to void the bike and hop in the car. I do drive occasionally, but every time I do, I find myself easily distracted, and focused on other things that only cause more stress, like girls, money, friends, school, work, etc. But when you ride, your just focusing on the next pedal stroke and getting to the top of the next hill-nirvana.

So, the next time you begin to realize the possibility of tragedy on your next commute in bad weather, remember why you ride. Remember that its who you are, not what the weather is-and most importantly-$0.00g

Ride on

Where to begin

Today was another day, full of life lessons, bike grease, and girls.

Bikes are a lot like girls - you always want a nice one, but you don't have $3,000. So you can't have it. Its hard to see people dating girls that you like or riding bikes that you want yourself, but this is a part of life. I see all these high-end bikes and all these guys riding them and I think, "Well, I can ride just as good if not better than that guy, why does he get the nice bike?" What does he have that I don't? Why don't I have high-end bike? Like girls, most of the problems we face as cyclists on budgets really puts us behind the curve in the dating game. We have to ride to dates, smell once we get there, and ride home afterwards (who wants to invite a smelly, sweaty biker over after dinner and a movie? Didn't think so).

 Sometimes literally having all the money helps a lot and most of the time it wins over pure love-or getting that 6.9 Madone just because daddy said you could borrow his Visa. Lets say maybe you don't want as expensive of a bike as a $3,000. Most likely taken by someone else, if you catch my drift. If there is one thing to learn from the short anecdote its this: Focus on the bike that you do have (or don't have) and just keep pedaling. Your bound to find a good deal one of these days.

Cheers

It was a beautfiul summer day

Last summer, I was riding my bike to work. I pedaled down Pacific street right by Elmwood golf course. It was a beautiful day and the sun was shining. I had on a checkered short sleeve button-down shirt on, and just riding shorts. I felt free, and equally beautiful. Like I start every ride to and from places I like to go, I started off with pace. I was flying down Pacific street just off of 60th. There were city workers, working on the lights in the intersection and there was a line of cars waiting to go around them, but one motorist decided he didn't want to wait any longer. Just as I pedaled up next to him, he peeled out of the left lane, and right into me and my bike. We both went down hard, my bike and I. We were both damaged-severely. I was bleeding and my bikes chain was off, as well as the bar tape, it was scratches identically to my skin. Road rash is no joke! The driver pulled away in a hurry and I was left thinking I was still going to be late for work. Impact with a car at 25 mph gets your adrenaline pumping, hardcore. I walked back up the street to my house, fixed my bike, put a sign on my pack that said "please don't hit me" and continued to ride back out to work. I got there on time, clocked in on time, and later that night, rode home, with fresh bandages, and neosporin spewing out from them. It was the most painful ride I have ever had to endure, and especially the scariest. I was never any more vulnerable than right after I got hit.

When I got home though, I felt proud. I got up and continued on. I knew the risks involved with riding in traffic. I suffered from them that day, and it was terrible, truly. But I persisted. Not only as a cyclist that day, but as a person. My focus and ambition resemble what my bike resembles. Our ability to sync up together and move to the future in both a physical or geographical sense, but as a person. I think a lot of who I am is represented in this story.

Ride on

$0.00g... If You Want

Gas prices are invariable rising and they won't stop for some time to come. I see more and more people becoming interested in bikes, and even purchasing them more often then not. Even people who don't go out and get a new, probably have one in the garage or storage collecting dust. Now, what if everyone who had a bike, rode them on a designated day during the some for things like: commuting to work, going to the grocery store, to a friends, or whatever utility purpose that a bicycle can accommodate? It would be an in prompt to strike on gas prices and gas stations alike. Ideally, in my mind at least, one day is all that anyone would ever need before they choose to solely rely on the bicycle as a means of transportation for most cases.

Now, Omaha, NE is exactly a bicycle friendly city; in large-part due to traffic congestion and motor vehicles. Bike lanes would give cyclist freedom to ride in the streets, but in Omaha that isn't enough. Cyclists should come before motorists, plain and simple. I see drivers yelling at bikers and even threatening them, purely because of rode rage or some external force in their lives that is causing them to have a bad day. That is not right. Just because you people in cars are in a hurry or having a bad day, doesn't mean no one should be riding a bike and getting in your way. Have you ever thought about what kind of day the cyclist had? Maybe he/she had a terrible day and just want to get home safely to their loved ones. And for drivers to get mad at cyclists, is completely and 100% unfair. Drivers are enclosed in a metal vehicle, and cyclists are left to defend themselves with their feet, hands, and maybe a pedal wrench. Drivers that swerve to show cyclists they mean business-I would fight anyone of you, hands down, in defense of any cyclist. A lot of people driving cars feel like they have more power than those who are riding bikes. But truly, cyclists have the upper hand. If a motorist wants to hit someone on a bike, they face serious penalties, or at least they should.. fuckers.

But back to main thesis, transportation. It really comes down to the individuals who have bicycles. They behold the power to use their bikes and fight against raising gas prices, and fight against reckless drivers, and overall "The Man" who gets us down every day. So, if you own a bike, RIDE IT! Besides the cost of the bike itself, and the food you need to eat to fuel your body with energy to ride, its $0.00g. You can ride past the gas station every day of the year, if you really wanted to. I've done it, and so have countless other cyclists. So get up, and ride your bike. It will benefit you immediately, your wallet after a couple of rides, and your community by setting an example to your fellow citizens of Omaha. Its hilly out there, but with the correct planning and the right kind of attitude it can be done! Don't let laziness cost you hundreds of dollars in gas totals; Ride your bike, get healthy, and use your saved cash to do something nice for yourself. Hey, you might even fall in love with cycling and buy yourself some new goodies or even a new bike!

Song of the Day: Aquemini by Outkast


Cheers

Its that time of year

The store was packed this past weekend. Hundreds of people walked in and out of the doors test riding bicycles, bringing damaged bikes in, and taking newly acquired bicycles to their cars to take home (and hopefully ride). The shop is located in West Omaha, but the demographics of our customers represent a wide variety of people from different geographical settings. I would consider myself to be a bike snob. Here are a couple of things I see at work that bug me:

1. Customer walks in with an entry level road bike and tells me what he thinks is wrong with the bike and just has to mention, "I ride a lot", when their computer odometer only reads 68 mi.
2. When customers breathe down my back when I'm tinkering with their bike.
3. When obviously novice riders come into the shop and tell me that they have put 100 miles on the original tires and that they need new ones.
4. When little kids ride bikes around the store where there are several bikes lined up next to each other and glass display cases throughout the sales floor, and the parents don't do anything about their child's reckless riding.
5. When the store is busy and everyone is doing something or helping someone, and a co worker comes back into service with a sold bike and starts telling me everything that the bike needs, and expect me to drop everything i'm doing and do what they need first.
6. When I'm helping a customer and a co worker is telling me a story as I'm walking past them back to the customer.

I ride my bike for utility purposes. I don't ride so that I can brag about how many miles I've ridden, or what kind of bike I have, or how many bikes I have. I do because thats just what I do.

Ride on

First

First post! Don't have a thesis to this blog yet. It will become apparent on its own.

Song of the Day: Haikuesque (when she laughs) by Bibio

Cheers