Posts by JackElder
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
bells
I don't have a bell on any of my bikes, for two main reasons:
1) I, personally, get really annoyed by people ringing their bells at me - it's a bit too "out of my way, peasant!". Rational, no, but I find it peremptory.
2) To ring a bell, you have to take one hand off the bars.Neither of these is a particularly major problem, but I've also never had a problem politely calling "Excuse me, please!" when I need someone to step aside.
Also, on the road bike, I can just say that a campag freewheel is rather loud. Very effective for letting people know where you are; just stop pedalling for a bit and watch all the pedestrians turn to figure out where the noise is coming from.
through the Mt Vic tunnel
You're a braver man than me. I abhor the Mt Vic tunnel; my typical commute loops around the bays rather than go through the tunnel. Sure, it's about 2k further, but it's just much nicer than having to go through that vile place.
Biggest surprise -- how much a decent pair of cycling gloves (again, 50% off at Katmandu) improved my experience. I don't like to ride without them now.
Yup, gloves make a hell of a difference. I favour red ones, as they make your hand signals nice and obvious to everyone. But in terms of comfort, it can be quite surprising how much of a different good gloves make.
Also, I've had various crashes over the years. Without gloves, I'd have lost a lot more skin from my hands.
-
Listening to the new MIA album at the moment. Is it just me, or is it a lot more like Sleigh Bells' "Treats" than it is like any of her earlier work? As in, lots of noise, lots of vocal distortion, giant beats and heavy guitar lines?
-
Heh, look at all these middle aged men with their cycling bidnezz!
Dude, I'm 34. Please say that's not middle aged.
One of my more humbling experiences was when I was living in the UK, when I did my first audax ride. It was a 100k around East Anglia as part of the Mildenhall Cycle Festival; a nice day out. About 40k from the end, I fell in with a couple of old blokes. Like, blokes who were saying how great it was since they'd retired, because now they had more time to train. I was 28, they were at least 65, and they ripped the legs off me. I could only keep up by wheelsucking like a bastard and riding my guts out. I think they'd taken pity on me.
Related: people's thoughts on drafting people you don't know? Personally, I don't mind being drafted, as long as you take your turn in front. But I do get annoyed when people draft me for ages, then sprint out past me at a higher speed. If you're going to draft, take your turn in front, be polite.
-
Whoops, looks like the Regional Council have dropped their paper maps in favour of a journey planner (http://www.journeyplanner.org.nz/) which is currently down for maintenance. But the WCC's mountain bike map is still available online.
-
My one tip is that cyclepaths aren't always the best route. When I'm commuting, I go up the Ngauranga Gorge to Johnsonville (that's Wellington if you don't know). The pavement up the gorge is a de facto cyclepath - it isn't signed as such, but everyone uses it and I only see a pedestrian about once a week. But at the top, the merge into J'ville gets hairy. If you stick to the path, you end up at an intersection where you have to cross several intersecting roads at once, with traffic on most of those roads with either limited or no sightlines to see you. It's a bit worrying. So the solution is to transfer onto the road just before the offramp (it's legal, as it's not a motorway at that point), then take the offramp with the motorised traffic. This can be a little intimidating, but is actually much safer than trying to navigate the intersection from hell at the end of the cyclepath.
Otherwise: for Wellington cyclists, definitely check out the council's free maps of cycle routes. These include both the city and regional councils (so maps of routes up to Upper Hutt on one side, Paraparaumu on the other). Also check out the map of MTB routes: many of the "easy" routes provide useful shortcuts and are perfectly rideable on a hybrid. For instance, when I lived in Newlands I used to regularly ride to/from work via the Wakely Gully track.
-
the other end of the bell curve
From the internal chastity orb to the bell end in seven comments. Efficiency.
-
Apparently sex is this thing I have, possibly in some kind of box.
Tupperware?
-
American School in Japan
ASIJ... pfft. You should have gone to ISSH.
-
I am thankful I've never had to have an MRI, as it's annoying to have to remove all the ferrous material from my body (and in some cases, requires specialised tools). Glad to hear that you're clean for the foreseeable future.
You should be OK with your new ink. From what I've read, it's mainly a reaction to older inks - new red inks don't contain the materials that react to magnetism (or which give people the notorious "red ink syndrome" problems with healing).
-
As an aside: if anyone's interested, I've found a supplier of vuvuzelas within NZ. I bought one yesterday: it's tremendous fun. I'm planning on bringing it to meetings this week.