Just Ride

Grant Petersen, founder of Rivendell is speaking tonight at Harris Cyclery, 6pm.  It may be too late to re-arrange your schedule to go (I'm taking off early to bike all the way out there from downtown), but if you can I think it will be very interesting.  I'm perhaps not as familiar with the details of his work as some- I'm more aware of him as a general cultural force than of the specifics of his career, but I suspect I'll agree with most of what he has to say, even if we may come at it from different directions.

There was a huge turnout at the meeting last night about repairs to the McCarthy overpass.  I was very impressed with two things.  Firstly the size and passion of the crowd:  there were cheers and standing ovations and a group of 200 people of all shapes, ages and walks of life.   Secondly, the people who spoke were all very focused and mostly positive and thoughtful.  I've been to a lot of meetings where person after person stood up and ranted, and everyone was very on message, and largely positive in their comments.

The message was unequivocal, that the bridge must come down and no one wants the existing bridge repaired if that will stall the teardown by even a few years.  To me, and many others, the rational solution is to post weight limits, and/ or lane restrictions on the existing bridge,maybe performing a couple hundred thousand dollars of protection to keep chunks of concrete from falling on people,  and keep the pressure on to take the whole thing down.   One thing I learned is that once concrete has spalled to expose the rebar, any remedial work will never be structurally integrated, merely cosmetic.

We'll see if Mass DOT is willing to back down.  It had the feeling of a last ditch emergency meeting, as they were just about to release the contract.  And clearly, designing a new solution and getting the permits and funding in place to put it in place are not something that happen overnight.  But I see no need to buy time by wasting money on something that has to come down.

Notes from Bike Week

Went to the Harvard bike breakfast in the Holyoke center this morning.  The tuneup mechanic looked lonely in the misty drizzle, as everyone else was inside.  I was perusing the swag (bike maps, seat covers, little red blinkie lights that are great emergency lights of last resort)  when the woman organizing it came up to me and said,  "I'm sorry but this is only for people who rode their bikes"  Because there's no way a woman in a nice dress and heels could have ridden a bike right?   GRRRR.  I showed her my helmet and said,  "I bike all year round, almost every day."   I understand that she was running interference on free breakfast in an area where there are a lot of walk-through commuters, but I wasn't even at the free breakfast part of the setup, but at the information table.  God forbid someone who "doesn't look like they ride a bike" should have access to information about biking.

I "won" my choice of prizes in the little "raffle" they were running, and given the choices of a CO2 inflator, a mirror, and a cable lock, I chose a cable lock.   I don't actually own a cable lock, and maybe it would be good to have one for some occasions (locking to lamp-posts, locking my rear wheel,  locking to another bike).   Unfortunately it's likely that the times I'll need it, I won't have it, because I won't be in the habit of carrying it with me.

I sat down to a yummy breakfast of melon and chocolate croissant,  and was chatting with a nice lady at my table about panniers, when I saw a stereotypical "Bike Commuter" checking out my shoes.  He skeptically asked if I had riddenthere, and I said, yes, I had.  He asked, "how to you ride in those shoes"?  I said,  I ride using the ball of my feet, not the heel,  don't you?  He said, but don't you hurt yourself on the toeclips?  I said, I don't have toeclips, and he looked at me incredulously.

This kind of really clueless behavior IS becoming less prevalent.  At the Broadway Pancake breakfast, most people were in kind of hipster stuff,  the kind of clothes you could wear to an IT or biotech job without any comment.  The one guy at my table in lycra said, "Yeah, when I get to this part of town I feel like a bit of a weirdo because I'm the only guy in lycra."  He was riding about 10 miles each way from Winchester, so it probably makes sense for him to wear athletic clothes and then change.  But I think it's really great that people riding in "normal" clothes is becoming the norm, and I hope that I will not be an object of curiosity at these events much longer.

It started to rain as I headed off to work (a bit late).  I'd probably have been completely dry if I rode in at my regular time.   As it was, my legs and the bottom of my skirt got damp.  Legs are much faster to dry than any kind of pants,  and they work for me as "rain pants"  A quick brush off of road grit after they're dry and I'm good to go.   My shoes were fine for most of the ride, but by the end, my feet were slipping against the damp leather of the footbed a bit.  It was fine for biking, but when I arrived at work the elevator wasn't working, so I took them off to carry my bike up the stairs.  Fortunately our office is only on the 2nd floor, because carrying a 40lb bike up stairs is not much fun.

I'm testing a home-made skirt garter to keep my skirt in place while riding.  This is a beta version and has some issues.  It doesn't keep the skirt down really, but it does prevent it from flying completely up.

It tends to ride down, I need to create a version that's adjustable on my leg.  Am working on it, but having a hard time finding the right elastic. Need to try Windsor Button.

The rain is doing great things for my garden, if not for attendance at bike week events:

Tonight I'm going to the Ride Of Silence.  I don't like to dwell much on those killed while bicycling, because it's a pretty rare occurrence,  but I was very saddened by the death this year of a young MIT alum in an area I bike through regularly. He was apparently waiting at a light to turn left, when a tanker truck made a wide turn into his lane and ran over him.   The MIT Tech is doing a good job of keeping on the story, filing a Public information request for the records.  It incenses me that there will be no consequences for the driver for failing to stay in his lane,  when the consequences for the biker were so tragic.

I'm still processing my feelings about this, and hope to post on it someday, but in the meantime I plan to attend the ride.

Beyond the Spandex?

Last Thursday I went to the MassBike annual fundraising dinner.  I've never been to one, but I think that MassBike is a good organization, worth supporting, so I decided to buy a ticket and check it out.
They sent out an email the day before reminding us that the dress was "semi-formal"  To me that meant  this:

But as I suspected, it was really just a warning to people not to wear their rainpants or bike shorts.

The "Theme" of the night was "Beyond the Spandex"  and the evening's entertainment was to be a "fashion show" supposedly showing off looks other than classic racer kit.  I was skeptical, or as I told Cris during the cocktail hour, if you drew a Venn diagram of what I consider bike fashion and what MassBike considers bike fashion, I suspect the overlap would be very small.

There was a cocktail reception and silent auction first:

 I got a chance to chat with Nick Jackson of Toole design, and Cris introduced me to Pamela Blayley, whose blog I've read, but whom I'd never met before.  She has the most amazing EmmyLou Harris hair- a gorgeous color of white blond.

Then I was seated at a table of random strangers, which turned out to be just fine. Pamela was there, when she wasn't getting ready to be in the fashion show. I met the #2 rider of Hubway last year in terms of miles.  And I got to meet Armando Quiros, a frame builder who specializes in beautifully brazed track frames.

Armando Quiros, on right, and his assistant, Victor.

 He and his assistant, Victor, had brought a van load of bikes to use in the show.  I got some pictures after the show of Armando's personal bike with its liquid looking joints.

We had a nice discussion about tube types, powdercoat vs liquid paint, the collegiality of Boston frame builders, and his adorable 3 month old daughter.

The show was,  as expected, well, not really my thing.
There was Rapha fairly classic kit (not skintight, and probably wool)

 There was hipster cycling clothing- note reinforced shoulders- I guess for a backpack ?!?

And lycra-heavy "athletic dresses"  like something Serena Williams would wear.

These are all fine options for sport cycling, but having them presented as fashionable biking attire would give Mikael Colville-Andersen seizures.
I'm not exactly a fashion plate, but I can do better than that (see top photo above which is what I wore for the six mile ride home at 10PM)
 I think that the emphasis on making special recreational clothing that doesn't look like you just got dropped by the peleton is not really getting "beyond the spandex"   It's just pretty spandex in pastel colors.   If you really are doing a lengthy sport ride, why not just wear bike kit and be done with it?  And if you're riding 5 miles to work, in most cases, you'll look better and it will be easier just to wear what you'd wear to work anyway.  To me riding in your normal clothes is what's truly "beyond the spandex."  I am hopeful that MassBike appreciates that distinction, but I'm not sure that as an organization they're really thinking of cycling as more than something sporty and athletic and sweaty.

I know that the point of a fashion show is to sell stuff, and that it's hard for many people still to use bikes as a way to sell everyday clothes.   It seems like this can be done though, see
this and this example.  I just don't think this was a particularly good example.

Chinese food delivery

A couple of weeks ago  the NY Times published this moving profile of a bicycle deliveryman.  They are much maligned for not obeying traffic laws, and there have been a lot of very punitive laws proposed to try to rein them in.  The irony is that it seems that a lot of the people who complain about them, are also quick to complain if their dinner is delayed by even a few minutes.  Or the time it takes to only go the right way on one way streets and wait at red lights.  I'm not saying that deliverymen are blameless, but perhaps there needs to be a better system that rewards safety and not just speed.   I know that there's a safety program aimed at delivery bikers and their employers, founded by a woman whose husband was killed (by hitting his head) after being struck by a delivery rider.

We don't have much of a bike-food delivery culture in Boston- I guess because it's not quite dense enough.  I know that Bertucci's and Upper Crust both have specialized pizza delivery bikes,  and I think that Redbones does some local bike delivery, but I haven't heard about much else in that vein.  It surprises me a bit that there aren't bike deliveries of Chinese food to the Financial district-  Chinatown is close, but far enough that it's a bit of a long walk, and there aren't really any good asian restaurants in the FD.  For that matter the North end is close too, but too far to walk on a regular basis,  but there could be a lot of business in delivering sandwiches.

Anyway, I was craving Chinese food, so I organized my own bicycle transport.  The ride there is a lot more pleasant now that they've striped bike lanes on the Greenway's surface roads.  I actually mostly get Vietnamese takeout from Chinatown (yeah I know).  But this time I tried a Chinese place, and I think it may be a winner.  Will have to do more "research"

I parked next to this fantastically decrepit  Hudson,  which I had to take pictures of, because I think my Dad had one of these back in the day.   The owner and what I'd guess were his grown sons were taking photos of each other with the car and a restaurant in the background.  I volunteered to take a photo of all of them together.  It seemed like a family tradition or get together to drive into Chinatown and eat together.  I should have asked them, but after looking online I think this might be a Hudson Hornet-  anyone out there know for sure?  

groovy steering wheel

fantastic patina

Although for gas milage reasons it's probably a good thing, they really don't "make them like they used to."   it would be nice to have more detail and character on modern cars to get the best of both worlds.

Disaster relief by bike

I'm not the only one who has mused about the potential bicycles hold for evacuation in an emergency situation.    But the city of Portland is taking it a step beyond, exploring setting up cargo bikes as emergency response vehicles.  And Bike Portland reports on a neighborhood preparedness organization which is testing the concept.

Photo from Bike Portland/ Ethan Jewett

It makes a lot of sense. Obviously a bike can't carry as much weight*  but they're more maneuverable, and if gas is scarce they don't have an issue.  This is part of why bikes were so popular in the 30's and 40's: Gas was expensive/ rationed so people biked every trip they could.   There are a lot of people talking about how high gas costs are "driving" (pun intended) to bikes.  I don't think that at current gas prices there is a strong economic reason to bike vs drive.  However I think that there's the "latte effect"  where people cut out expenditures that they think they can easily see, even if they don't have significant impact on their actual financial situation.   Biking can benefit from people trying it when gas prices go up, and finding that they like it enough to do it even if it doesn't affect their overall financial situation.

In any case, I think that the potential for bikes as part of a disaster response, and not just as part of an individual's preparedness is an interesting concept.  One of the rationales that is often used for over-sizing roads in a way that is not bike and pedestrian friendly is to allow for the passage of "emergency vehicles"  which in turn get bigger and bigger until they won't fit through existing road infrastructure.  Rinse, lather, repeat.    I don't know how viable bikes would be for fire-response, but for a lot of first aid, and the distribution of supplies to displaced or stranded people, they could really be useful in a catastrophe.

*although you read stories like this, and the amount of weight you can carry by bike is pretty incredible.

Damn minivans

I spent a lot of the long weekend doing some frustrating wrenching work on Gilbert,  tearing my fingernails to shreds and doing a lot of cursing under my breath.  The Scientist was watching football in the wrenching room (AKA our TV room) for at least some of this time, and there was a particularly annoying commercial that kept playing for some kind of minivan that showed a variety of improvised cargo carrying situations (with cars),  and mocking people who have to resort to strapping things on top of their cars as shaming the human race.

Good thing they didn't see me biking around recently.  Not sure what they would have made of the dishonor I was doing to humanity by not having an enormous vehicle that I would use to capacity four times a year.

I read a nice post on a blog I recently discovered, "Chafe City" about shopping for dining chairs, and the satisfaction of carrying them home by bike.  I find that most often the people who work in loading docks are totally cool about you carrying big/ bulky stuff home on your bike,  much less surprised than people who don't deal with cargo all the time.  Perhaps many of them have had more than their fair share of Macgyver moments, so they sympathize.   I got the Scientist a desk chair for Christmas (not in "mucus" color- sorry Chafed),  and the loading person not only helped me take the (24x 36x13) box out to my bike,  but happily helped hold it stable on the rack while I strapped it in place.  I think there's a bit of a dopamine hit to the brain to figuring something out, and making it work that you wouldn't get if you just shoved the box in the back of your minivan.

In unrelated news,  the jersey barriers (and the traffic barrels)  are all gone from the Longfellow,  so the bike lane is completely open again (for now), and no longer have to take the lane going uphill with speeding cars coming up behind you.   Cars still go too fast, but at least you have a lane of your own to go your own speed in.   I wouldn't have minded too much if they left the barrels in though for a buffered lane :)

Even more importantly for Boston biking culture,  the Mass Ave bike lanes are in,  complete with the promised removal of parking all along one side of the road!   They're just painted,  not thermoplastic,  but that might not be a bad idea for the short term- so they can get an idea of what works and what doesn't.   There seemed to be some confusion with the lane shifting at Mass Ave and Newbury,  and while the parking spots had been removed,  the meters were still in place, which was confusing people.   I'm glad the city squeaked through and got it done before the end of the year.   I'll be even more excited when they figure out how to make things work through Symphony and connect the lanes all the way through from the medical center to the river.  The city committing to parking removal is a huge step forward,  and I'm very excited that they've taken it.


Finally, "Oh Frabjous Day! Callooh! Callay!  Yehuda Moon is BACK!  Go sign up and give them their $12 and let the good times keep rolling.

JSK at Harvard Thursday Night

Janette  Sadik-Khan,  the visionary Transportation Commissioner from NYC is giving a lecture Thursday at the Harvard GSD at 6:30.   Information here.  The lecture " New York's Sustainable Streets"  is free and open to the public, but these lectures often fill up early,  so come early if you want to be in the lecture hall (they generally have  video simulcast if they overflow, but I don't know if it's guaranteed.

You know those well educated cars?

You know, the ones with three or four stickers from Ivy League colleges in the back window?  Extra points if they're a mid-80's volvo wagon?

Who knew there was a bike equivalent?

Hubway is Here!

I don't know exactly when it went live, but the new Boston bike share system website is up!
I checked it out a couple of days ago when they asked for input on station locations (when is cambridge coming on I wonder...)
Annual memberships are $85, although pre-enrollment is $ 60.  I'm not sure when the stations are actually opening, but I suspect any day now!

I'm slightly tempted to buy a membership just to promote it,  but on the other hand, I rarely don't have my bike.    A couple of weeks ago though, I had not ridden in because it was pouring when I left in the morning.  In the afternoon, I needed to meet someone on the Longfellow bridge.   I ran out of time to take the T,  so I ended up taking a cab :(    The bikeshare would have been perfect as a way to get there quickly and simply.
A compromise might be to sign up for a pre-enrolled membership this year ( thinking of it almost as a charitable donation to support a good cause)  and then using the 24 hour passes when the need strikes after the first year.

One demographic that I think would really be well served by this is people living in teeny tiny apartments without a place to store a bike.  I was at a jobsite in Beacon Hill this afternoon,  and bike parking is made tough by all the "ye-olde" lamp posts and signs (too big to fit a lock around),  and the lack of parking meters.  Apartments are small there, and elevators are infrequent.  If I lived there, a bike share might be a better solution for getting downtown than dealing with the hassles of storing a personal bike.

Re-Cycle

I've seen this biketruck around a couple of times but never been able to get a picture.

I chatted a moment with the rider for just a moment,  and it's a project of the city of Cambridge to collect the recycling from bins on the street using bikes as the collection vehicle.  A lot of the dense city squares (Harvard, Porter, Central) have on street recycling cans,  and no parking, so this is probably a pretty efficient way to empty them.  It's a Metro-Pedal Power bike.  It seems like they've gotten to be a pretty big business here- I'd love to go see their facility sometime and see what all they're up to.

I like the wheels, although I couldn't quite make out what they said.

Bike date success!

So after our failure on Monday, we met up outside the Scientist's office Tuesday and then headed to Cambridge 1 in Harvard square for yummy wood grilled pizza.  It's almost as easy to walk to Harvard sq, but since we were already on bikes, we went ahead and rode there.

This morning, was not super hot, but very muggy.   I used a good summer strategy which is riding in a strappy summer dress which might be a little bare for the office, and carrying in a shirt that I put on once I got to the office.  I did forget the all important linen hankie though, so I was a little damp when I got in.
5 minutes later,  after a bit of purell and an iced coffee, I was cool and composed though.

On the way in, I passed Renata von Tscharner  from the Charles River conservancy.  She was on her way to a fund raiser at the Ames hotel (home of these bikes).   She looked very elegant despite the heat in a sleeveless shell and pencil skirt.  

She really was waving and calling out Hello,  not "no pictures please"- I swear.  I love her enthusiasm and how she rides year round on that sage green cruiser, with a milk carton strapped to the back.  Although her principle advocacy has been focused on the Charles river, she is a fierce advocate for bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure,  probably because she spends a lot of a time as a bicyclist and a pedestrian!

Long run for a short slide

Two weekends ago, at the very last minute, I decided to go to a "bike swap" out in the center of MA.   It's a little amusing to me, having grown up in Texas that in about an hour's drive you can get halfway across the state.   I had heard about this swap meet via the Old Roads website, and it was in Dudley, a small town south of Worcester, almost to the Connecticut border.   I had heard that it could be a giant event, full of guys with no teeth, who pull vintage bikes out of dumpsters and old barns, and that by sifting though the trash there was the possibility of treasure. It was this possibility that compelled me on a grey Sunday morning to get the Scientist to drive out with me to the "wilds."

Unfortunately it turned out to be a bit of a long run for a short slide.  We spoke to a couple of vendors (bringing a small and very friendly dog along is a great way to start conversation with anyone)  who said that it was much smaller than usual, and that nothing was selling.   Most of the vendors were selling heavily modified "chopper" style bikes out of the backs of conversion vans and pickups- some even had motors and were styled after motorcycles or dirt bikes than regular bikes.  Not really my thing.

There were a handful of decent English three speeds and similar city bikes.

I like the nostalgia of these child seats, but they don't look terribly comfortable:

This vintage tandem was out the parking lot.  I wanted it, but the Scientist did not  :(

This van had a very, very tall bike strapped on the back.

Nothing really tempted me enough to buy- the prices were very low, but I already have enough English three speeds, don't need another project.   Although after I got back home, I realized that I probably could have bought a couple for $50 each,  lubed the hubs, cleaned them up, put new tires on and sold them on Craigslist for $150.  I know that a lot of people do that, but I on reflection, I have a job,  and it's not flipping bikes.  I barely have enough time to work on the bikes I have, so it's probably better not to take on further obligations.

However, if you're interested in getting a project bike for a very low price, it would be worth it to check out this kind of thing, in hopes that you will discover treasure.

5 minutes in Cambridge

On a whim, I decided to stop for a moment at a busy corner on my route in and document all the cyclists coming by for about two cycles of the light.  I can't be certain that I got everyone, but it's a nice sampling.  At this corner it's a 50-50 mix of people coming in from Cambridge and points west and Somerville,  and it's also about a 50-50 mix of people peeling off at MIT/ Kendall and people headed over the bridge into Boston.

This woman was the only one to ask what I was doing-although a lot of people  looked at me curiously

Bike Dancing

The lovely weather is bringing out bikers right and left.

The first thing I noticed about this rider was the sparkly hula hoops that she had slung across her body.
The next was her enormous smile-  a smile that took over her whole face (even though she was squinting into the sun)

We chatted a bit at a light, and she said that she was off to a meetup of hoop dancers in Cambridge Common.  I wished I hadn't had to go to my livable streets meeting so that I could have followed her there to check it out.  Hoop dancing on youtube,

Speaking of Youtube, bikes and dancing,  I really loved the People For Bikes video that's been going round the blogosphere- especially the BMX trick guys.  This prompted a Youtube search which resulted in the most amazing bike video I have ever seen.   Wikipedia says that  Danny MacAskill  is perhaps the world's most renowned practitioner of what in the UK is called trials biking.  To me it looks like parkour or dancing on a bike.  It's incredibly amazing and terrifying, and he's an amazing athlete- absolutely one with his bike.  It's a bit long, but worthwhile!

Splish Splash

In the flooded underpass (guess that reflector works!)

It's been a pretty dreary bike week- actually the whole month of May has been a bit of a washout.
It's been the kind of weather that doesn't make an established bike commuter think twice (or at least not thrice), but not particularly conducive for convincing someone to try commuting for the first time.  As I've written before at a certain point, biking becomes such a regular part of your life, that it's just simpler to get on the bike than to figure out the other options.  However when you're trying to convince new riders that this is a great time of year to get on the bike for the first time in months,  rain just doesn't help.

It's been misty, and a bit drizzly,  and there's been a bit of rain, but no serious rain at rush hour.  The only time this week I got soaked was when I walked to dinner without an umbrella and it started pouring as I came home.  So riding has been damp, but otherwise objectionable.  And at least there has been conversation with like minded folks, and free breakfast  :)

This evening was the clearest it's been all week, and I rode along the river path, dodging puddles, and mostly staying dry.  Fenders will take care of most of the puddles, although I keep contemplating a mudflap to keep my shoes completely dry.  It was only when I left trader Joe's and was riding on the sidewalk close to the road that I got splashed by a car passing through a puddle and got pretty wet.

Fortunately I was almost home, which is where I keep the dry clothes!

I had been craving preserved lemons,  so I put a quick tagine together with onions, chickpeas, a bit of chicken,  olives, warm spices, a bit of leftover tomato and said lemons, put it in the oven, and biked to Target to return the curtains that we decided not to use in the kitchen.  Again the path was reasonably dry,  except for the underpass,  although it had started to mist again :(

Home again, a nice spicy stew was waiting for me, filling the house with good smells, and bringing to warmth of a mediterranean summer to a New England spring night.

Silver City and the importance of meaningless awards

The League of American Bicyclists announced its rankings of Bike Friendly cities today, and Boston jumped right in for the first time, skipping Bronze entirely on its way to a "Silver" designation.

Interestingly Somerville is listed as being a first time "Bronze" recipient, but Cambridge is nowhere on the list.  What's up with that?  I wonder if there's a population cutoff that keeps Cambridge from counting as a "city"  vs a "town".   I know that you also have to apply for the designation, I wonder if they just didn't bother.

On one hand it's a bit of an empty certification-  Cambridge without a certification is still a better place to bike than Boston (IMHO), but I think that it helps build political support when Nichole Freedman can say to council members, et al-  "with your support we've achieved this national recognition- let's see if we can go for Gold next year! "    We see that a lot with LEED certification- it doesn't really "mean" anything, but businesses want it, even though they could do the same environmental upgrade without the certificate.

I think it's all for the good when we celebrate the implementation of better policies,  but the better policies and their translation into more riders are the real reward.

brrrrr

I've been trying not to complain about the cold and blustery "spring" we've been having, because, in all honesty Spring in New England is always tough. Normally though it's tough because we'll get 2.5 gorgeous 65 degree days where every flower in the universe is blooming its little heart out,  and then we'll have 4 days of 34 degrees and rain.  Instead,  we've just been having 42 degree days, day after day, with a couple of 42 degree rainy days thrown in for variety.

It's mostly been cold and sunny though, and Thursday was no exception.

The day started out inauspisciously when I came across the aftermath of a bike accident.   I was close enough to the event that no one else had called 911, so I did.  When I arrived there was a biker huddled on the ground rocking in pain, with 4 people standing around her.   I stayed just long enough for the police to arrive (3 cars, sirens blazing) and to get the license plate numbers of the "witness" cars.  By this point the biker was up on her feet, with some pretty nasty scrapes.  I gave her a cookie (just happened to have 2 dozen with me) to try to get some sugar in her to prevent shock,  gave her a note with my phone number and a note about the license plates,  and headed off.   I overheard the first part of the police interview, and it sounded like she'd been doored by someone exiting the passenger door of a car in the travel lane next to the bike lane.  The couple from the car seemed nice enough- they were being very solicitous to her, but I hope that the passenger got a ticket anyway.  I thought about saying to him- let this be a teachable moment to you, and share with all your friends-  look before you open your door into a bike lane!

The victim at the right in the mustard colored skirt.  Based on the tire mark on the door, I think she may have been stopped at the light slightly in front of the car.

After lunch I ducked out of work to go to the announcement of the bike share program at city hall.
I didn't stick around to hear all the speeches,  but there was a good crowd of what I would estimate at  75 people- 25% news media and 75% bikers.  Although I don't think I'll use the bike share much myself, I am cautiously optimistic that it could have a positive effect on the bike culture of the city, as it has in Paris, Barcelona and Montreal.   I would definitely use it for "last mile" transit connections,  although it might be a while before it's at the size where it can really support that kind of usage.

There were some great bikes/ cyclists in the crowd-

The ride home was CRAZY windy.  I was being blown all over the place by unexpected gusts from all quarters.  Wind is one of my least favorite elements of biking downtown.  A steady headwind is no fun, but you just duck your head and grind it out.  The gusts that emerge from between buildings will blow you sideways in their unexpected strength.  I was glad not only that I had gloves, but a fairly warm coat, and it was nice to get home and have a nice warm dinner.