In which I try to explain the fixed gear craze: Welcome to the world of the fixie, where cycling is reduced to its purest essence. Bicycle racing today revolves around marvels of technology. The old “10-speed” has become a 20-speed or more. Carbon fiber allows bike frames you could pick up with a finger, and …
Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Diane Albert’s view of the city is different than the one you might get trapped inside a glass-and-steel cage on your morning commute. Out along the Rio Grande bicycle trail on her morning commute, she sees the coming and going of ducks, the cottonwoods changing from green in spring to gold …
Tomb of the VW Vans Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. The Junkyard Loop is one of Albuquerque’s great bike rides. It takes you past the city’s sewage treatment plant (the largest tributary on the Middle Rio Grande), and along the Tijeras Arroyo concrete diversion channel. One of its great highlights, the old Duke City Raceway, sadly …
So it turns out the Google satellite image is not live, so you’ll have to take my word for it that I saw an elephant down by the Rio Grande on my bike ride today. The Google Mapness is a little bit squirrelly, but I think I’ve got this working: View Larger Map Scroll in …
Continue reading ‘The Roundabouts of Albuquerque: Birthday Edition’ »
View Larger Map That’s the roundabouts in the shopping center north of Coors and Montano, on Albuquerque’s west side – the last piece in my “Roundabouts of Albuquerque” project. The blue line is the GPS track from today’s bike ride. Zoom out to see the whole thing.
cycling: Been sick for a week, happy just to get on the bike for 40 minutes this morning. paper of the day: Barnes and Roy quantify the radiative forcing due to land use changes in the United States reading: Jeffrey Sachs’ The End of Poverty factoid of the day: The average resident of Chad uses …
It is about the bike: I can still remember that exquisite feeling of freedom when I was 10 years old and my friends and I would pack lunches, jump on our bikes and head off. It was the late 1960s, and the place was the distant edge of suburban Los Angeles. We’d head off down …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Cycling Edition’ »
There’s a pair of well-used, dusty old hiking boots and two tattered bouquets where the Paseo del Nordest Bike Trail crosses Commanche Rd. midway between home and my work. I didn’t know Roy Sekreta, who died there Monday night. But I stopped and cried after I rode past the little shrine today. There’s something so …
Me: “Did you have snow at your house this morning?” Unnamed friend: “Yeah, but we could have ridden.” Note: I wasn’t asking about a bike ride. I just wanted to know if it was pretty.
To the guy in the Wheaties jersey out on the bosque bike trail this morning: Dang that was fun! I was out by myself, but (as often happens) I ended up amidst a train of like-minded riders. In this case, our like minds involved going fast. There are so many families with strollers and kids …