Yes, You Really Can Take It With You

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I once moved myself from an apartment in one part of town to another on my bicycle.  I still take pride in that, even if it's somewhat undeserved:  I didn't have much at the time.  Still, it helps to reaffirm what I've always known:  You can carry just about anything you need on a bicycle, as long as you pack it properly.  

Anyway, I now realize that I might take too much pride in my accomplishment.  A native of Sacramento-area Roseville towed his house with his bicycle.

Ike owned a local business but got sick and lost it all.  When he became homeless, he decided he didn't want to stay in one place.  So he fashioned a portable home for himself.  It seems to be made from scrap lumber and other materials from an old building.  Whatever its origins, it shows ingenuity on Ike's part.





He's also built a few others, he says.  He hopes to interest people who might help him build more by donating building materials or bicycles. As he sees it, his bicycle-towed home could be an alternative for other homeless people.

You might say that Ike is turning into an evangelist for his idea:  As he travels, mainly in and around Natomas (just north of downtown Sacramento),  he holds a small ministry.

Reverend Ike on a bike? You gotta love it!

(When I lived in Washington Heights, my daily bicycle commute took me past Reverend Ike's "Palace Cathedral."  It was housed in one of those beautiful or grandiose, depending on your point of view, Art Deco-with-Egyptian motif movie theatres from the 1920s.)

Wearing A Sign To Send A Signal

Most of the time, cycling is good for your health.

There are moments, though, when it can raise your blood pressure, especially if you ride in traffic.

In such a moment, you might be riding as far to the right as you can in the traffic lane because there's no shoulder or bike lane.  It's night, and someone drives close enough to tear off the back of your glove.  Oh, and that car has it's high-beams on.  And the driver honks repeatedly.

If the driver acknowledges you, it's usually with a gesture they don't teach in etiquette classes or words they don't teach in basic English or Spanish or whatever-language classes. 

If Dani Motze hasn't experienced that exact scenario, I am sure she's experienced something just as scary and irksome.  The 28-year-old Reading, Pennsylvania resident says she's been harassed, followed and run off the road in 11 years of pedaling her city's streets.  Oh, and she's been hit by a car.  Another time, she was "grazed"--ironically, when she was on her way to a meeting about cycling.

So, a year ago she took to wearing a sign:

"May Use Full Lane--Change Lanes To Pass"

Her objective, she explains, is not to crusade for the right to ride in traffic. That's already canonized the laws of Pennsylvania, as in most other states.  Moreover, the Keystone State has a "four-foot rule", designating the berth drivers must give cyclists when passing them.  What she wants, she says is to "educate" motorists as well as cyclists.

Motze, who is a social worker and online magazine editor as well as a cycling advocate, says that what she wants is to take the lane in cities and towns, not on highways with 60 MPH speed limits.  That, really, is about as good as we can hope for in the absence of physically separated bike lanes with provisions for turning and crossing intersections.

She sometimes drives a car she shares with her husband.  But most of her commutes and errands are done on her bike, and she sometimes rides for pleasure.

How have drivers responded?  Some well, some not so much, she says.  But, for them most part, in the year Motze has been wearing the sign, "people have been passing me with no issue," she says.   

Test Rider’s Remorse?

If someone were to steal your bike and bring it back a week later, what would you do?

If you are a bike shop owner and the machine came from your inventory, you most likely would call the cops, which would be understandable—and what Anthony Karambellas did.

He is the manager of The Cyclist shop in Costa Mesa, California.  A week earlier, Paul Verdugo Jr. took a $5000 BH Ultralight Evo Disc for a “test ride,” leaving only an ID card.  Apparently, Verdugo built a rapport with shop staff based on his knowledge of bikes.

But Verdugo decided to return the bike, not out of any sense of guilt, but because he was “tired of being recognized,” as he told Karambellas when he called the shop. He took the bike because he’d been a “bike geek” all of his life but couldn’t afford the bikes he wants.  That revelation, not surprisingly, helped the authorities to connect him to other thefts from area bike shops.

Karambellas gave the call to shop owner John Marconi, who arranged for a Lyft car. He also assured Verdugo that there weren’t any police officers at the shop.

Marconi, of course, fibbed. Officers hid in the bathroom and in a delivery van outside the shop.

Verdugo faces charges for stealing, not only the bikes, but the ID card he gave when he took the BH for a “test ride.”

What We Came From?

Being a writer and English teacher, I'm irked by overused (and often inappropriate) words and phrases.  It drives me crazy, for example, when a literate, erudite interviewer asks a good question and the interviewee begins his or her response with "So."  

Another annoying language tic is the use of the word "evolution" when "development" makes more sense.  I even heard someone talk about the "evolution" of medical devices.  Trust me, if you've ever had a mammogram or been treated with a vaginal device (I know that at least half of you haven't!), you know that some medical devices haven't "evolved" much!

And so it is with bicycles.  Writers facing deadline will refer to the "evolution" of the bicycle when they're describing how the Draisienne became today's computer-designed machines.

Then again, they might not be too far off the mark:

Hmm... Maybe the bicycle has "evolved" more than humans have--or, at least, more than humans ever will if we don't get rid of war.

I’m Not Crazy About Their Steaks—Or Bicycle Infrastructure

I have never been to Omaha, and I have met only two people who hail from O.N.E. (Omaha, Nebraska) in my life.  So I won’t make any generalizations about it.  I will say, however, that the seem to have made the same mistakes in bicycle infrastructure planning and construction countless other places—including my hometown of New York.

While city officials are congratulating themselves for stringing together a “network “ of bike lanes that will allow cyclists to get around in the city, local cycling advocates are making the same justified criticisms one hears all over this nation.

From what I can see, local officials think that all you have to do to make a bike lane is to paint lines on the side of the road, and all you have to do to “connect” them is to install a few signs.

I’d protest by boycotting Omaha Steaks, but It wouldn’t change their thinking.  Besides, I’ve never ordered Omaha Steaks before and very rarely eat steak at all.  I’m not a vegetarian, but—I know that this will seem like heresy to some—I’m not so crazy about steak.  Or most bicycle infrastructure I’ve seen.  And I probably won’t like Omaha’s infrastructure, either.