Thanksgiving

Last week, we all went through the exercise of remembering what we're thankful for.

That's nice, especially because we take so much for granted. But here's a question to be asking yourself, as the holidays, and the end of another year of your life are rolling into view on the horizon: Who's thankful for you?

If you don't know, then you might want to think about making some progress on that. Soonish.

Just a suggestion.

Today's Sightings

Q: What's worse than a Hummer?
A: A Hummer parked blocking the bike lane.

Q: What's worse than that?
A: A Hummer STRETCH LIMO blocking the bike lane?

Q: And what's worse than THAT?
A: A HOT PINK Hummer stretch limo blocking the bike lane!



But seriously: at some point it just crosses over into COMEDY.

Bikes of SF

OK, everybody else in the world has already blogged about this, but I can't resist. This poster is all kinds of awesome.

The only real problem here is that I see the so-called "Tenderloin" bicycle all over the city.

Tor Weeks made it, but she's sold out. Mission Bicycle still has them in stock.

Guide to the Traffic Signals on the Great Highway

RED: There are no pedestrians within miles of this intersection.

GREEN: At any moment now, somebody with a couple of dogs on a leash will pop their head out, jitter for a moment like a frightened squirrel, and dash across the street right in front of you.

NO SIGNAL (between intersections): Surfer crossing.

Hope this helps.

Type A-hole

Here's the scene:

I'm riding home on Howard Tuesday night, stopped at the light at Ninth. An elderly lady, walking with one of those canes with a cage at the bottom ending in four rubber feet, starts on the crosswalk late, and she ain't quick. It's clear to everybody there that she isn't going to make it before the light changes. Sure enough, she's still a good ten feet from the the curb when it does. So the car in the right lane waits for her, and I wait too.

She barely makes it past me when some biker behind me just can't stand waiting any longer. He swerves around me as I'm standing there, and swerves back within inches of the old lady. Keep in mind the light's been green for less than ten seconds at this point.

I keep on riding. Since he's a slow and sloppy pedaler, I catch up with him pretty quickly. He's on a new-looking Novara, wearing a grey two-piece suit and tie, and dress shoes. Using hair gel in lieu of a helmet. He's also weaving a bit, but the bike lane's a mile wide on Howard, so I pass him.

As I go by, against my better judgement, I snark at him, "Do you deck grannies every day, or just on Tuesdays?"

He can't hear me. He's got his iPhone earbuds in.

And still angry at the world that they repoed his Lexus.

Classy

Waiting by the light on Page & Octavia, watching the stream of 101-bound traffic crawl by. Some rocket scientist in a BMW SUV (WTF) with the windows rolled down thought it'd be hilarious if he SCREAMED AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS suddenly while driving by us.

"Bro, watch me make all them bikers jump."
"Go for it."
"BLAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWW!"
"Sweet."

My head might've twitched. The biker in front of me just silently raised a middle finger in salute. If anybody thought it was funny, they were all in the SUV.

In other news, that bright thing in the sky? I think it's the sun. You know, as foretold in the prophecy. Little darlin', it seems like years since it's been here.

Hatin' on the Fixies

OK, there's no love lost between me and the SF fixie cultists. But even I find this a tad bit strident:

"Early 1980's Eddy Merckx: Anyone buying this bike for a “fixie conversion” will be shot."

(via Kent Peterson, by way of BoingBoing.)

Your Tax Dollars At Work

Road construction again. Just because it'll be better later doesn't make it suck less today.

A big chunk of Duboce West of Church is dug up as of yesterday. The Westbound side consists of a) steel plates, and b) MUNI tracks. Both choices suck for a bike rider in the Irish Summer (50 degrees, foggy, drizzling) we're currently enjoying in SF.

Also, the Eastbound bike lane on Market was blocked off near Franklin this morning for some reason. Looks like I'm taking Page instead of The Wiggle for the next week or so.

Motivation

I've always felt that any effective training regimen requires that you get in touch with your Inner Asshole. This is the little voice inside your head that heaps abuse on you when you try to sleaze out of a workout.

By way of example, let's look at this morning. Freshly back from vacation, resolved to get on the bike every day this week, I woke up to find that it was damp and cold. Instantly, I started concocting reasons why getting on the bike this morning would be just a terrible idea:

• It's a steel-frame bike, it'll get rusty.
• Wet road surface: dangerous in traffic!
• Also, slippery MUNI tracks!
• Grey and foggy, bad visibility to cars.

Inner Asshole to the rescue! "There's a little water on the ground? Aww, WEEEAAAHHH, poor baby! GET ON THE BIKE, YEH FAT BASTID!"

Well, what do you know -- my Inner Asshole has a Boston accent. Just like my high-school gym teacher. Hm.

Wet Ones

Welcome to July in SF: cold and damp. Does that discourage the bike commuters? Not at all. I saw at least a hundred other riders out this morning.

As a side note, Mike's Bikes on Howard does great tune-ups. The brakes and shifting on my ride were as tight as two Scotsmen's grips on the same dropped farthing.

I still had the wet-weather tires on the bike this morning, and I was really glad of it too. I'm going to go ahead and pretend that's because I'm smart, and not just lazy.

SF Bike Accidents

This is incredible -- a Google maps mash-up showing all of the bicycle-related traffic accidents in the Bay Area over a ten-year period.

http://www.baycitizen.org/data/bike-accidents/

Check it out!

A Modest Proposal

A friend of mine was explaining to me last night about Portland's honor-based fare-collection system on its public transportation. "They have very few fare collectors, but they're very nice, polite... and very LARGE. They ask you nicely for your pass, and if you won't show it, three or four very large people come and nicely escort you off the train."

This gave me an idea. We have fare collectors in SF, too, and some of them are in fact quite large, and armed. The fines for fare evasion are steep: upwards of $100. Of course, most people don't pay them, since it's just like a traffic ticket, except without a vehicle they can boot.

I have a better system: public shaming, with clowns.

That's right: CLOWNS.


If you don't have a valid ticket, the fare collector sends in the clowns (or clown, or mime), who then PUBLICLY MOCKS you on the train to the other passengers. "Hey, THIS GUY here is riding free! That means ALL OF YOU paid for his ride! Let's give the freeloader a big hand, everybody!" (honks nose)

There are all kinds of benefits: free entertainment on MUNI, employment opportunities for clowns (because underemployed clowns generally turn to prostitution, and that's just disturbing.)

I'd bet fare collections would go through the roof. Nobody likes a public shaming. This is something we abandoned with the stocks, back in Puritan days, and I think it was a grievous mistake.

If the city is afraid of losing revenue from fines, well, they can collect it on the spot: "$100 cash, right now, or I send in the CLOWNS, pal."

I think this is a fabulous idea, and I plan to write to my supervisor, Bevan Dufty, right now to promote it.

If you agree, and you're an SF resident, please do the same!

Back In The Saddle Again

After a six-month hiatus spent mostly hating on the MUNI, I stopped procrastinating, dusted off the bike, and rode in to work this morning. Things are different. So different, I just have to say:

SF, I love you!

The new bike lanes are perfect, the Market St. closure means HUGE numbers of bikers are out, sharing the road with only a few buses, trains, taxis, and the very occasional truck.

It's so crowded, in fact, I had to bust out my best peloton manners, elbow-to-elbow with other riders in the middle of a mob, weaving around parked buses, right-turn lanes, and train tracks. I did see one rider go down after hooking his front tire in a track -- I hate it when I do that.

It's a gorgeous day, and I'm really looking forward to the ride home! MWAH!