Tony Yarusso's Blog

I was dismayed to see on Digg today an article entitled US Transportation Secretary Doesn't Consider Bikes a Form of Transportation. Surely this isn't quite true, I thought. Well, upon further investigation, it seems I was almost hopefully right. Turns out she merely doesn't think the surfaces used by bikes are remotely related to transportation...somehow I'm not feeling much better. In the context of the article, and for anyone who's been living in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) area recently, with portions of highways 36, 694, 35E, 94, and 35W out of commission this year, you'd think that the government would be doing everything they can to recognize and encourage the use of bicycles as an alternative to cars. It would seem that at least Mary Peters has yet to figure this out - sad for any official, a truly mind-boggling incompetency for a Secretary of Transportation. I guess all that can be said here is, "that explains a lot".

The guilty interview (PBS)

The Digg article again

My comment on such

We're quite officially into the reasons I'm not as fond of summer as most people. Yes, it's great to be out of school, and it's nice to have the occasional sunny weather and to be warm enough for a swim and such, but there needs to be limits to such things. Nineties are not my friend. That said, mom and I got a a short bike ride in today (sort of together, part of the time) to get to a graduation party, and survived. It would seem some other people are in agreement too, as we've had a few bikes come in for repairs now with the reasoning being that it's too warm to ride right now anyway, so might as well.

Meanwhile, I just had two new things suggested to me, so I'm going to check those out and you may hear about them later.

Wait, this song had a reprise too...guess that must be what August is for...

In addition to the bike posted about previously, I now have some of the other things to go with it. Here's the list of other things for me to try out!

• Decibel multiple-impact helmet (White/Silver) - picture
• Body Geometry Gel gloves (Black/Silver) - picture
• Turbo Elite two-sensor cyclocomputer - picture
• Body Geometry Pro Road Carbon shoes (Black) - picture
• Speedplay Zero CSC Edition Stainless pedals (Red) - picture

Also on the way is a Burley Nomad cargo trailer for when I need to take some gear with me. - picture

They all feel great so far; looking forward to riding on them.

So when I got into work this morning, I had an e-mail saying my bike had arrived at the warehouse, so after doing a couple of repairs I left for a few hours and picked it up. Towards the end of the day I had a chance to start unpacking it from the box and building it up, so now it's sitting in the stand mostly done, just finishing up the cables and such. Tomorrow Matt and Doug are going to help me get it adjusted to my fit right too. Only the bike came, so I'm still waiting on some accessories and such, and I'll have to borrow Adam's pedals until some are available, but that's not too bad. It looks just like this one; hopefully I'll be able to get pictures of mine later on, preferably with the full package.

Note: I'm still looking for people to go riding with me...c'mon guys, you know you want to get outside this summer (I'll got slow with you - I can get my fast rides in with the other nuts from work).

So today I had the opportunity of experiencing that weird phenomenon common in places were parts are stripped from bicycles and replaced with new, working ones - that of the "shop bike".

In case you can't guess already, what this means is something resembling a bicycle, constructed out of mismatched parts of all kinds that had something wrong with them to begin with, and then were coerced together in ways that sort of work. In our case, this means a Cannondale cyclocross frame, mountain bike disc brakes, a seatpost rack with a lock not worth using, who knows wheels, and a stem off a kids' bike. The front brake almost works. The rear one is 100% useless. It's pretty funny all around.

But it saved me a minute and a half to run to Panera for lunch. And isn't that what it's all about? ;)