(no subject)

[eirias]

I just spent several hours outside with a bike and came home covered in bruises. The lame part is that I didn't get them from falling off, because I wasn't even riding it... just tripping over it a lot.

I am learning to ride a bike (...I know), so I walked my bike over to Williamson Bicycle to take advantage of their spring sale and of the fact that my friend Peter works there ;). Got myself a helmet, two lights, and a kickstand, for a bit more than I expected ;) but hey, the bike itself was super cheap, and I think it makes sense to spend money on safety features.

The bruises are a bitch, but the sunshine was worth it :).

Comments

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Yay bikes! Yay helmet! ...um, boo bruises.

Gotta say that I didn't care for the Vistalite I used to have (it looked bright at first but it went through batteries like nobody's business), but that looks like a different model, so maybe it's better. (Light technology has advanced tremendously since I had the Vistalite, with the now-unquestioned world domination of LEDs; there's much more in the intersection of "cheap" and "bright" than there used to be.) As for Cateye, my cycle computer's from them and I like it; can't say about their lights.

Looks like a sensible bike shop. Really, looks a lot like mine, except located elsewhere ;).

I would envy you your sunshine (pouring rain here) except that it's been nice here all week, for the first time in literally five months.

[cognative.livejournal.com]

Learning to bike in Madison is good. It's a very bike friendly city with lots of paths and whatnot. As opposed to Boston wich always involved what I call "militant biking", which is biking on poor roads with bad drivers and no bike lanes. Maybe a little dangerous, but what a rush!

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Aww, I love biking in Boston :). (Well...maybe not *in* Boston proper so much. But the suburbs, including Cambridge.) And I don't like bike paths much any more. I think I'm too militant...

[cognative.livejournal.com]

Oh I always enjoyed biking in Cambridge. The bikers here are soft. Everythings all paths and lanes. Sometimes I just wanna jump into traffic and mix things up! Like those bike messenger guys. Those guys are hardcore. Although the cool thing here is that since so many people bike sometime you'll end up in big packs.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Do the paths really go everywhere you want to go? That would be odd.

Big packs might be fun :). Or not. Depends. The only time I've been in a big pack was riding the Pan-Mass Challenge (http://www.pmc.org) last year, which was a ton of fun, but also not a normal bike-riding circumstance. I think big packs would be fun if their speed and their ideas about courtesy and road habits were similar to mine -- if not, they'd irritate the hell out of me ;). But it's awesome that so many people ride.

[cognative.livejournal.com]

Well the intown paths (or lanes) pretty much mirror the major streets. Keep in mind Madison is mostly an isthmus, so there aren't that many directional options. Once you get out of downtown it is more of a free for all.

The packs usually happen on the pedestrian street that's right downtown. So we don't have to pay attention to cars (mostly).

[thekat03.livejournal.com]

Yay learning to bike!

[trygve.livejournal.com]

Yay biking!