Across the Great Divide

Weekend Bike Blogging.

Bikes are entering mainstream consciousness. Just look at today's Strib.

Sure, this was Bike to Work Week and the print edition had a jump photo to Roadguy Jim Foti's article  (and blog post) about the opening of the new Midtown Greenway commuter bike station, but that's not what I'm talking about. Bike photos also featured prominently in a story about a green architect (shown heading for work) and one about the impact of gas prices on church attendance (a church encourages biking to services).

But the clincher for me came today at an orientation meeting for volunteers for next month's USGA Women's Open Championship. The auditorium at Normandale College was filled with volunteers from area golf clubs. Although the most obsessed golfers would rather play than work an event, this was still a pretty golf-focused subset of the population.

After an hour orientation, the session opened for questions, with speakers asking first for general questions before dealing with more individual queries. My DP whispered to me, "Are you going to ask if they have bike parking?" Sure, I said, but that's not a general question.

In fact, the first question from about 500 golf fanatics was, "Will there be bike parking?"

And the answer was yes, in three locations.

*****
I've been doing cross-town errands on my road bike outfitted with a couple rolls of Velcro on the handlebars in case I want to bring along an extra shirt or hang a bag of something on the way home. I have a messenger bag for hauling more stuff if required.

Riding back from St. Paul in the rain last week got me thinking about a rig more suited for commuting, but I thought I'd wait until I sold the car (send to a friend). I was not looking for a bike when we brought another to Hiawatha Cyclery for modifications, but it's certainly a tempting place if you have a taste for something out of the ordinary, use a bike for transportation and consider lycra a nonessential fabric.

Plus, there was this beauty in the shop, and I heard the magic words from owner Jim Thill: "I can't seem to get anybody to buy it." Which is his version of a hard sell and my version of how much is that doggie in the window.

Since most readers here aren't hard core hardware types (including me), I won't get into all the finer points of this modification, which you can find about here.

After mulling it for a day or so, I rode it home and spent the last few days tarting it up between rides — adding a commuter mug for yucks, an REI shaving kit to carry tube, tools and garage door opener and devising a pannier-like attachment for an unused leather brief case (I can even do matching saddle bags).

A hundred miles later, I still haven't ridden with a cup of coffee, but I've hauled a case of beer. So far, so sweet.

Photo Riddle.

Taken on today's Twin Cities ride. Can you identify the scene?

This is Your Mind on Bikes.

At least, on a Thursday  night.

Earlier in the day, I took my first spring spin down the Midtown Greenway. It's becoming evident how the taxpayer money wasted on this reclaimed rail trench is helping to stimulate development.

Old industrial buildings are being rehabbed. New residential projects are going up and connecting directly to the trail. The community garden is inspiring other plantings along the way. Freewheel Bike is opening a new shop today right on the Greenway at 10th Avenue.

Nearby, I saw this great tandem. The rear steering wheel had cruise controls to Set Acceleration and Coast. Another style of tandem buzzed past me, this one with two bikes and one rider.

Separating Right and Wrong.

A few weeks ago, blogger Two-Putt Tommy took a cheap shot at Sen. Norm Coleman through his wife, Laurie Coleman, who is promoting a hair dryer holder called Blo & Go. I didn't write about his juvenile stunt at the time and don't plan to now, because I thought it was in bad taste and not at all germane to Coleman's performance as a senator.

But I am interested in what Tommy said since.

The point is correct: even when the shot is open, even when the target damn near asked for it, doesn’t mean it’s still right to take the shot.

I was wrong. Taking that shot at Mrs. Coleman is a shot I should not have taken. The point I was going after with the complaint to the State Of California was the financial aspect; that’s where I should have focused. It’s where I’ll focus, in the future.

What brought about Tommy's change of mind? He listened to a Coleman partisan's point of view and reconsidered. He listened to a conservative blogger who just this week published his reckless speculation that Coleman's opponent, Al Franken, had forged the signature of a doorman at his apartment building.

Tommy's shot at Coleman was well-documented by comparison. Yet he was open to the thinking from the other side, which is a progressive characteristic. Meanwhile, good luck getting Mr. Right to admit he was wrong.

It Took Three of Me to Write This, I Think.

Crowd estimating is always contentious. The proverbial wisdom is that supporters of a cause over-estimate the crowd, opponents low ball and the police can't be trusted, even though they do this all the time.

This week I got another perspective. A meeting planner was trying to figure out how many people to expect at an event. The organization had hosted a similar one a few years before her tenure and had told her last time, 400 attended. She asked a friend who had been there — a state employee who was well-known for accurately estimating crowds at the Capitol. He called it 600.

Since she'd only sold 250 tickets, she was getting worried and called the venue. By the way, she asked, how many did we have last time?

The woman on the other end checked her records: 254, she said.

Step Through a Crack, Break Your Own Back.

I ran into a couple stories recently that call into question both the morality and effectiveness of our private health insurance system. I had meant to research this more deeply before writing it, but it's not going to happen. (Names and circumstances have been changed to protect their privacy.)

"May" works in a personal services business and was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple years ago. Her work is more physically demanding than a desk job, and she had to take time off from work while undergoing treatment. As a self-employed contractor, she didn't have group insurance through an employer, but was carried on her husband's policy through his company.

Last month, May's husband was laid off from his job in construction-related sales. The company had to reduce its sales force because of the slumping market, but it apparently didn't just look at seniority or sales performance when deciding who to cut loose. The one guy on the street is the one who has the wife with cancer.

I heard the company HR person apologized privately to May and her husband, which is at least an admission of human guilt feelings if not actual corporate culpability. They can COBRA coverage while he looks for another job, but if he can't find employment with health benefits, they may be out of luck when COBRA coverage expires. The company doesn't exactly get off free, as I understand it. Because it  self-insures, it will still have some costs it will have to cover for its former employee on COBRA. (Insurance experts are free to chime in here.)

Now May's husband feels like he's a bad provider who let his wife down. May feels like her condition led to her husband being laid off. This adds to the financial strains and anxiety of unemployment. The woman with cancer becomes the bread winner for now. For the future, who knows?

Karl quit a job that was stressing him out, right before the economy went in the tank. Because he has mental health issues, he made sure to keep his health coverage through COBRA. Months later, he discovered the policy he was able to afford only covered inpatient mental health services — not the outpatient services that were covered under his work policy — the primary reason he made sure to stay insured.

Was he misled about his benefits under the policy or did he screw up? At this point, it's hard to say, but now, though he's paid his premiums, he's also on the hook for $2500 in charges both he and the providers believed were covered. He's barely hanging on with odd jobs and collectors calling him.

Opponents of a single payer system who think health care access here is so much better than in Canada should look beyond their personal situations and talk to the Mays and Karls of the country. The measure of a great country is not just how well we treat the people with money.

If Cars Were Abolished, Would 60% of Us Drive Pugsleys to Work?

We spent the last several days fitting ourselves to live more without a car and this morning my DP biked to work for the first time. (One commuter retrofit and one new. More later, after I finish tinkering.) I rode with her to Wayzata and back, returning to find I had a meeting in St. Paul, so it was back on the bike.

Forty bike miles later, real life intruded on the bike commuter fantasy, and I spent the rest of the day motoring all around the Twin Cities, dealing with traffic that rarely touches me.

My sympathies.

The contrast was useful, though. Figuring out the details of daily human-powered family transport and testing a variety of bikes made me wonder: What if we chose our cars on the same basis? Would all SUV owners convert to Pugsleys or Xtracycles?

In some respects, the considerations are the same. Cars, like bikes, are largely single occupancy vehicles in America. We mull capacity vs. efficiency. Comfort vs. sportiness vs. safety. What the style says about me. Where will I park it? I imagine those who seek image enhancement, speed or funky utility in cars may lean in the same direction when selecting a bike.

There are other clear differences. On a bike, you pay for your mileage differently, and time spent commuting is more a function of you and your machine than of traffic and speed limits. As a cyclist, you have few illusions about your ride keeping you safe in a crash. The elements — usually meriting no more driver consideration than heated seats, all-wheel drive and maybe tires — become a major concern when you commit to riding in all weather. Ergonomics are huge; neck, shoulders, butts, knees, hands. None of that much comes into play in a car. Getting fat is not such an obvious consequence of our choices.

But the biggest difference is how bikes are made, assembled, sold and serviced. Buy a car and your main concern is over how the salesperson is likely to screw you. Select something that's not on the floor and you still have a limited number of options (packages). Then you wait weeks or months for delivery.

I like the people who sell me bikes and service them. I want to see them succeed. If someone doesn't want to respond to my whims, I can go down the street and find someone who will. I walk into a shop and customers try to sell me stuff!

I buy bikes like I bought my cars. A bunch of research. Test drives. But mostly it comes down to heart and aesthetics and relationship.

Not Feeling as Good as You Used to?

A Bluestem Prairie has noted a striking (i.e., word-for-word) similarity between the new message adopted by the House Republicans and a trademarked slogan for a drug "used primarily for the treatment of depression, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and panic disorder in adults."

The Change You Deserve.

Since Wyeth owns the trademark and the cure for the anxiety we've been feeling, I have to assume the Republican product is a placebo.

With recognition coming in from big national blogs, Ollie doesn't need this link from me. But I'll bet my readers do.

The President as Superfan.

Spot has already taken Michael Gerson to task for his characterization of the "Obama narrative [as] intellectual and ideological (not social) elitism." Voters want a goober, not an egghead, for president.

A president is expected to be a patriotic symbol himself, not the arbiter of patriotic symbols. He is supposed to be the face-painted superfan at every home game; to wear red, white and blue boxers on special marital occasions; to get misty-eyed during the most obscure patriotic hymns.

I guess having a president as superfan works well, as long as your affairs don't extend much beyond the Nebraska-Iowa State game.

There ought to be an Constitutional amendment, in fact, just to make sure we don't accidentally hire another smart guy to do the hardest job in the world.

Great guy to have a beer with? Not a bad qualification for my insurance agent, golf pro, bike mechanic and dentist. But I wouldn't pick a president on that basis, or an airline pilot or a brain surgeon. (I hope those dudes with the painted-on skeleton ribs joined in front aren't, like, pre-med.)

Gerson doesn't get Obama, as is clear from this lame comparison.

Obama is easily the most religiously fluent and informed Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter. But, over time, Obama has assumed a much more familiar, Democratic electoral profile — the candidate of the young, the educated and the secular (he has consistently won religiously nonaligned voters), who also gets nearly universal support from African-Americans. He increasingly resembles Bill Bradley or Gary Hart — a candidate of new liberalism — with this additional element of black enthusiasm.

Is churchliness all the evangelical Gerson can see that Carter and Obama have in common? And black enthusiasm all that separates Obama from a few liberal also rans? 

Carter, of course, also got near universal support from African-Americans and received a huge boost with younger voters from Hunter S. Thompson's Rolling Stone profile. I imagine Carter got more than his share of the young, educated and secular voters, too. The real difference is not in where their support comes from, their religion, or even their less warlike, more internationalist perspective. Carter's intelligence led him to  micromanage; Obama's seems geared toward enlisting other hearts and minds.

Folksiness has its uses, and genuine empathy is a great quality in a leader. But ultimately, I want my president to be a good decision maker, and there, intellectual rigor and vigor matter, not how just many people voted for the inner good old boy.

After the War Room.

I'm running with this because it's so brilliant — not to be anti-Clinton — but ouch!

Via A Tiny Revolution [h/t The Mississippifarian]