spokesNspin

In his book, The Affluent Society, Galbraith argues that most of our wants beyond the basics of food and shelter are created by the marketing department.

I am trying to be a more responsible and less consumption driven. But there are a few things I still would like. And true to Galbraith’s assertion I didn’t even know I wanted these things until somebody in a marketing department told me I did.  But it could be a virtue.  Over at Ecovelo they are arguing that I should buy a new bike in order to help the economy.  It is a civic duty.

I am currently trying to down size and simplify my life. In less than a year I will probably be moving to something smaller. I currently have five bicycles. Here is my current plan for the bikes.

Get rid of the two mountain bikes. Take my current commuter bike and convert it to a fixie. Then I want to get this bike for my every day get around machine:

It’s the Homer Hilsen by Rivendell.

They are spendy but they make very nice lugged steel frame bikes.  With this plan you see that I am actually down sizing by one bicycle.

I also think this calendar is really cool.

So if anyone is interested that is my Christmas list.  Don’t worry about the calendar I can probably get that myself.  Go ahead and put the bike under my Christmas tree.

It might be simpler to just give me a Rivendell gift certificate for the bike.  I wouldn’t want  to burden you with working on all the details regarding size and accessories.

A comment was made in one of my posts last week about using terms related to bicycling without defining them for the non-cyclist.  Today for Friday Foto Fiesta I have decided to define a few terms and talk about bicycle touring. 

There are three types of touring I will mention.

Supported touring: This is where the bulk of your gear is carried in a support vehicle and the cyclist  carries very little on the bike.  Sometimes a group may hire somebody to drive the support vehicle.  A group may take turns driving and riding.  One member will drive one day while the rest ride the bikes.  The next day they switch off.

Credit Card Touring:  In this situation the cyclist carries all of the gear on the bike.  The amount carried is very small because the cyclist will stay in motels or B&Bs and buy all the food already prepared.   Hence the need for the credit card. This can be expensive for a long tour.

Self-Contained Touring: A cyclist carries camping and cooking gear along with everything else they might need on the journey.

Here is a pic of me at the end of a self contained tour along the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive.  I was sitting in Front Royal, VA waiting for a ride home.  No comments on my attire.

Notice that I have panniers(bike bags) on both the front and rear of my bike. I have also tied gear to the rack on the back.  There is also a bag connected to the handlebars.

One of the first things a  bicyclist tourist needs to do when preparing mentally for a ride is to remember that a bicycle tour is about the journey.  It’s not about trying to set or meet a speed goal. This can be a hard adjustment to make for a person who normally does weekend group rides.

When riding a self contained tour you just can’t go fast. The bicycle is loaded with anywhere from 30 to 50 pounds of gear. That makes for slower riding. Then you have all the time spent setting up and breaking camp, cooking, cleaning etc.

In addition you want to see and enjoy the sites. Most of my tours have been solo. When going solo people are more open to talk to you. I get to meet more people and that is a lot of fun.

I met Yuri while I was doing a loop near the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho.

Yuri was a school teacher from Russia who was bicycling across the United States.  He gave me his business card which referenced his web site.   When I went to the site it was of course in Russian and I couldn’t read it. 

Another very interesting fellow I met while touring through Yellowstone Park was Tai Chi.

I am not sure about Tai Chi’s name. He spoke very little English(Same thing with Yuri). He had been touring on his bike for 7 years without going home. That was amazing. I think he must have been a little crazy. He had been all over the world. You can see his gear was well worn and there wasn’t much of it. Tai was dirtbagging. Oh there’s another new term.

Dirtbagging: This refers to camping with minimal gear and just sleeping along any out of the way place you can find. This is of course an inexpensive way to go.

It is also illegal in Yellowstone Park and many other National parks. It is generally legal in National Forests.  I prefer an established camp ground for facility and safety considerations.  But the cost can add up.  I paid as much for a spot to pitch my tent at a KOA near Jackson Hole Wy as I would pay for a motel in other places.

Touring by bicycle gives you the opportunity to meet people and see things that you miss when traveling by car.  In Idaho I came across a field where an artist had gotten creative with bales of straw.

Unfortunately, it has been a couple of years since I have taken a self-contained tour.  It is time to do another one.  I have a few routes in mind.

 There are more posts to follow on other aspects of bicycle touring.   The pics in this post are linked to my journals and photo albums from some of my bike tours.

Christmas is coming men.  Better check this out.

Yesterday it was 22 degrees Fahrenheit when I left my house.  The weather site on the Internet indicated it felt like 15. I continued with my experiments on keeping my feet warm.

On my left foot I had a shoe that was a couple of sizes larger than the shoe on my right foot. I had silk liner socks on both feet. On my right foot I had a Defeet Blaze wool sock. On my left a thicker wool sock. I also had a shoe cover on both feet.

After riding for approximately 50 minutes I believe my left foot was slightly warmer than my right. I don’t think it was enough to justify buying a second pair of larger shoes just so you can use thick wool socks.

Two other interesting notes. One is that by the time I got to work my water bottle had ice in the top and it was becoming difficult to get water out of it. When it is this cold I can also feel the water go all the way down to my stomach.

There is also another thing that I have discussed with my biking friends. For some reason when we ride home after work it seems colder than our ride to work. Why is that? The temperature is actually much colder in the morning.

Do any of you other commuting cyclists experience this feeling of it being colder for the ride home? Could it be our bodies are tired and feel the cold more?

Recently the Mother of my children, Nancy, visited my kitchen. While there she needed a paper towel and commented that I had some strange paper towels for a man.

These towels were decorated with domestic divas relaxing on couches with sayings like “Happiness is a good hair day”. The border is lined with words like happiness, hugs, love etc.

I don’t often use paper towels. I try to use regular cloth rags or towels when ever I can. These particular paper towels have been sitting there for a few months and I have never noticed the motif. Which is precisely why these are the type of paper towels a man would have.

For a man paper towels are for wiping spills and cleaning. He could care less about what is on them. He goes to the store, finds paper towels and puts them in the basket. End of shopping. Very simple very easy. It’s function over form when it comes to paper towels.

My life was very simple when it came to paper towels before Nancy had to comment. Now she is messing with my head by way of paper towels.