Categories: blog | Bikes

# Thu Jun 29 08:32:07
Possible Merge Ahead; Things You May Have Missed
Hello, dear reader(s)! I have been quiet here lately, but noisy elsewhere. I've been chatting it up over at my blog on Vox. So if you are reading this in RSS land, here is the feed you should add to your reader:

http://mikepop.vox.com/library/posts/atom.xml

and for all you old-fashioned click-and-link browser types:

http://mikepop.vox.com/

Besides rambling on, I have even made a couple of things that may contain traces of amusement:

The seemingly-obvious (but I didn't see it anywhere else) Little Prince / Katamari Damacy mashup

And, the Web 2.0 / bike sticker mashup, that you can actually order and hold in your hands (or, stick to your bike/car):

I forget what we used to call these things before "mashups", but obviously mashup is the more fun term, so it has taken over.

I'm considering making the Vox blog my main blog, and archiving this one. On the plus side, it is just easier to blog there - uploading and including pics, sounds, even books/movies/albums to reference in posts is trivial - so I blog there more often. I can also post from my cameraphone easily. There are privacy levels, so in case strangers ever start reading my blog I can hide embaressing pictures from them. There is a sense of community among all users, for now. I suspect this will fade as more people sign on. They have a "Question of the Day" feature that can kick-start your brain if you can't come up with anything to write about, and it prompts stories that might otherwise not be told (I don't think I would have thought to share the time I was mistaken for Andy Dick otherwise). On the minus side, I lose the complete control over the backend I have here. There will probably be ads displayed or something. And, I lose continuity, unless I can import all these old entries. But, a clean break now and then is a good thing.

So that's what I am pondering. Keep an eye on the other blog in the meantime while I continue experimenting.

# Thu Jun 01 12:50:29
Back on the Bike
Back when I moved to California, I didn't have a car for a couple of weeks, or furniture for that matter. I had a rental car for two days after I arrived to start working, and I made two purchases: a futon and a bicycle. I had not been on a bicycle with any regularity since I was eleven or twelve or so. I tried to get riding again in high school but after a few rides and much frustration (this used to be easy! why is this not easy anymore?), the bike went into the basement and stayed there.

But with my new bike, a Marin Larkspur (1998 hybrid sort of bike), I biked to work almost everyday. Helpfully, I had geography on my side: my commute was just four miles, remarkably flat, and aside from some sporadic rain (and one day of light snow) the weather was very Californian^*. I put a lot of mileage on the bike, riding it around Redwood City, Menlo Park and Palo Alto.

The bike saw a decline in use once we moved to San Francisco. It saw a further decline in use when we moved to Maine, but then a slight uptick as I took it out to the beach a few times. Once we moved to the Portland area, the bike once again ended up in the basement. I did take Zoe out for a few rides on Paula's bike, but they were short hops to the store, usually.

And I meant to get it out last summer. Last fall I got it out for one ride and determined it needed a tuneup. So, this spring that finally happened. Then it rained for a couple of weeks.

But as of a couple of weeks ago, I am back to commuting by bike at least some of the time. The route is a bit more challenging - 6 miles instead of 4, hills instead of flat, traffic instead of trees. But I have made it so far without being run off the road.

It cost $35 to get my bike tuned up, and I am on track to make that back in saved gas/bus fare in less than a month. It saves me fifteen minutes each morning compared to the bus ride, and only takes about ten minutes longer than the average car ride home. Plus, I get exercise and a bit more flexibility in my travel schedule.

I am tracking my miles at We Endure, a sort of social training log. I'm hoping to log a lot of miles before the snow sets in :)

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