Stubborn Snake!

     I had to be rescued the other day (Q would say there are many days I need rescue!)  I have a very cute lock that Molly, my fellow instructor gave me a while back. I don't know where she got it-it's definitely not something you would find in a bike store. Its probably the lightest weight bike lock you can have and still call using it locking your bike. But we don't have professional bike thieves around here (at least we didn't until recently, I will write about that soon), just thieves of opportunity so even a flimsy lock is of deterrence and this one is so cute. I am sure Mr. Snake scares all would be bike thieves.



My Viscious Bike Lock

   Of late, it has been harder and harder to unlock my lock and the day after the first rain we have had in over a month, I found myself locked to a fence unable to get myself unlocked.

  So who do I call?  Who do I know who can wrestle with an ornery snake and get it to open its jaws? Q, of course, and he showed up in short order with WD40 and if that didn't work, bolt cutters.

Luckily, one squirt of that magic solution and my little snake gave up all its fight. Its been opening easier than ever since. Thank goodness. I would miss my little snake friend if we had had to snip it to its demise.



Q, the snake handler

Parking Ticket

 I don't drive that often and rarely, hardly ever park downtown, so I guess I have an excuse for not knowing parking rules.  Because I had errands to run afterwards that necessitated the use of the car, I drove to breakfast at the Blue Plate.  I parked on River Front Parkway and totally ignored the parking meter.  It was Saturday.  There's free parking on Saturday, Right?  Wrong, as I found out when I returned.

   That's when things got really funny with me.  I found different parts of my self having very different reactions to this and it was quite uncomfortable  having this internal self squabble.  My driver self of course exerted itself fast and loud, "What the h...., Its free parking on Saturday.  I should get free parking.  This is ridiculous what I have to pay now, this is a trick by the city to reach into my pockets."

  Now, my alternative self had to work to get a word in," There is no reason to expect the city to subsidize my parking.  Willing to pay for my car's needs is all part of being a responsible car owner.  The fact that governments have subsidized not just parking but many aspects of car driving has produced many of the issues that we, as a society, have to deal with today. As a bike rider, I experience this everyday.   Now just pay your parking ticket and be quiet."

My car driving self- "It still feels like an injustice.  My expectation was I should get it free, so I think it is only right that I do get it free.  This is a travesty!"

   My Higher thinking self-  "Better pay it quick. That $11 fine  grows to gigantic amounts if it is not paid on time. Now just pay your parking ticket and be quiet."

It seems as though my car driving self got outvoted. I paid the fine.

Maybe the tension between bike riders and car drivers is just a bigger version of what went on inside me.  And maybe the results will be the same-one day.





 

Sunrise over the Tennessee River

  I have missed several Breakfast on the Bridge-blogging at least.  I haven't missed any to attend, so some Fridays my visits have been short and quick.    But I am here to catch you, dear reader, up with some images from the Brieakfast. 



Jeffry, a breakfast regular talking with an new resident-a new,Chattanooga resident and a new doctor resident.  I now know several doctors riding their bikes to the hospitals.  Can  I get my nurse daughter to do the same?



Preston Tyree of the League of Americn Bicyclists.  He was in town for the Pro Bike Pro Walk Convention in town and came by for breakfast.

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Another gorgeous sunrise

Randy Larson looking dreamy on the bridge



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Randy Larson's dreamy bike



Randy and his bike together, totally color coordinated

  Randy seldoms ride less then 100 miles at a time but this Friday he did a quick short ride (with his keds, no less) just to have breakfast with us.

As for this morning's breakfast, this was the picture for the day:

Q, ever quick thinking, with an unexpected cold and windy morning, modeling his makeshift windbreaker. Offering it to any bystanders taht was looking cold, he had no takers.  But several of us fought over his coat he was also sharing!



Moving Video

  Immediately after the wedding, my time was taken up with the ProBike ProWalk Convention.  This happened right here in Chattanooga and I got the feeling that many people were positively surprised by our city.  In fact many had said so.  Coming from places like Portland, Oregon, it was hard to imagine a small southern city would have anything of note going on in the biking/walking arena.

   At one of the sessions, given my our own Phil Pugiliese, this video was shown as a light hearted closer.  I put this movie together in a very quick mode.  I shot this of the bike move with the video recorder on my new phone.  To say I am not an experienced movie maker is an understatement and then putting it together was a true learning experience.  So excuse any rough spots.  With little skill or time, this is what I put together.
  So here it is-  THE BIKE MOVE, THE MOVIE

No Room For Bikes

  In the previous post I wrote about the neat bike rack that the city had installed in a parking place.  I went by it the other day and it was filled up with cycles-motorcycles, that is. That area is a favorite for motorscycle riders, and when their parking places filled up, I am sure  that bike rack just shouted motorcycle parking to them. 

   No room for bikes!

Wedding (rehearsal)

I haven't posted in a while.  Life seems to comes at ya sometimes like a steamroller and the past few weeks the steamroller has been coming!  A big part of the steam roller was my youngest daughter's wedding.  So that was decidedly a fun steamroller, but if you have been a part of planning a wedding, you  understand how it can take over your life.  This is a picture of me preparing to ride to the rehearsal and then dinner.  I didn't ask my YD if I could ride to the wedding,  I knew she would nix that in the bud.  But  she seemed resigned to the fact that I would be riding to the prewedding activities.  What an embarrassing burden I have been for my children!

    Q took the picture.  He came to pick me up at the DoubleTree Hotel  where the wedding party was staying. We are in the lobby and if you look through the window, you can see Q's bike parked outside.

My panda on the ride there.

Me on the ride to the dinner.  As we rode by these million dollar townhouses, a very stylish woman in a Mercedes  stopped to actually gush over me.  She was saying I was the picture of fashion forward style.  I always crack up when I get fashion compliments.  If they really knew!  But it tells shows how putting a dress on a bike makes the hohum cutting edge.  I am glad I do have that fashion trick!

And here is Q riding in his fashion forward style,

At Blue Waters/Big River we got to bike park in the new bike racks the city had installed.  The city actually took a parking place and put up this rack that is shaped like a car.  I had not realized that had been done so this was a wonderful surprise.

The evening was wonderful.  My family is used to my ways, but the rest of the wedding party did not know quite what to think.  A brother in town that I had not seen in 5 years was worried that I was riding from his hotel back to the DoubleTree late at night.  I had to convince him that this was par for me.  I did get back to the hotel at the same time the young people were getting back and they just stared at me as I glided in on my bike from the street and dismounted.  I could tell they didn't know how to react.

 Here is a picture of the bride and groom.  I won't post wedding pictures because they aren't part of any bike stories (to stay in theme with the blog) but if any readers are interested in seeing some pictures, go here

It was a great wedding!

Good bye, Cortney, We Will Miss You

 This Friday for Breakfast on the Bridge we had a littlest biker to come.  This is Henry. He is a little camera shy.  And he was busy.  
He stopped long enough to have some juice and muffin and then he was off again.

This weeks Breakfast was saying Good bye to Cortney, our Beautiful, Biking Ballerina.

 She is leaving us to go to Eugene, Oregon to study transportation. Yay, a biker getting into transportation planning!!!  Yay, Cortney is following her passion, to the eventual benefit for us all!!!   Boo, Cortney has to leave us. Eugene's gain is definately our loss.

In Cortney's short time here she was a strong force in coelising the biking community here. She started the Brews Cruise. 

She planned and led the our Jane's Roll Event, 3 Hoods, 3 Rides.  She is repeating this event for the  ProWalk ProBike convention next month (we are getting a bit of reprieve when she returns to do this)

And of course, it was just seeing Cortney in her classy presence on a bike.

She was serious about bike riding (and you should see the hill she lived on.  In this city of hills, in the part of town that is called Hill City, she had a heck of a hill to go up.  I would show a picture, except going up that hill, I was never able to think of taking a picture.).

  Yes, we will miss her, and we are hoping for her return.  Best Wishes, Cortney.  Come back to lead us on more bike advenures!

A View of Chattanooga.

  I am always fascinated by the impressions that visitors have of Chattanooga, and the impression of cycling visitors is of special interest to me.  I have written before the visit of Laura and Russ of PathLessPedaled.  They are the couple who gave up life as they know it to live on the road-the road on bicycles that is.

   Laura wrote yesterday of their impressions of Chattanooga:



    We found Chattanooga to be a really wonderful city with a “small town” feel. It’s an active city, with a city-sponsored focus on how many amazing outdoor activities are nearby. And it’s fairly easy to get around on a bicycle, as there are a lot of low-traffic side streets and a beautiful greenway that runs for many miles out of the city.
     Of course, when people say that Chattanooga is a “working” town, they’re absolutely correct, and this distinction colors everything that happens in the city. You spend time in Chattanooga and you can feel the work ethic that runs through the veins of the city. Even with all the recent progressive changes, it’s a definite Southern, old-money, conservative place (with a long history as such). But it’s also a city that’s not afraid to get its hands dirty, and Chattanooga has put itself to work transforming itself from the most polluted city in American to a gem of an outdoor recreation destination (Chattanooga is host to the highly successful Head of the Hooch Regatta, which now rivals the Head of the Charles).

  It sounds like they got a good impression of Chattanooga and got the nail on the head. But she framed this impression around another impression that we are envious of Asheville.  That caught me by surprise, and by the talk around here, it caught a lot of us by surprise.  Asheville?  I can't say that we talk about Asheville often and as far as I know, it is all positive.  A getaway to Asheville is considered a nice thing indeed.  But wanting to BE Asheville.  I don't think so.  We do talk about become the Boulder of the East, but as far as I can tell, it has not been expressed that we are trying to be Asheville.  Jim Johnson posted a wonderful reply to that impression.  Mostly, I think we are fashioning ourselves with waht we have-a unique mixture of southern conservatism and progressiveness.  We are following our own path into the future.  We might take our clues at times from other cities but the expression is always our own.  So much so, I know that other cities come to study how Chattanooga has done what it has done and how to emulate it. 

  But over all, I think Laura and Russ enjoyed their time here and we enjoyed having them.  They are getting to a lot of towns and I am sure they have learned how to read them. I find reading about their observations and experiences immensely interesting. I am glad we were part of it.

    To read their compete post go here

Breakfast on the Bridge Friday

It was a beautiful day for Breakfast on the Bridge today.  The air had a hint of chill to it.  How long has it been since that has happened?  Is our long hot summer drawing to a close?  The beautiful weather brought out  lots of bikes and people to enjoy the walking bridge and breakfast.

   The view was exceptional this morning.  The reflection of the Market Street Bridge  was clear and sharp upon the smooth as glass  river .

     And there was an interesting cloud formation over Lookout Mountain. Keith, a breakfast attendee, identified it as a lenticular cloud formation.  Lenticular clouds are called that because they are shaped like a lens.  It is theorized that many UFOs  sightings are actually lenticular cloud formations. 

What a treat to be in a spot to take notice of such things.  Thanks, Keith, for pointing me into the direction of more information.

Moving Lisa by Bike

  When Q heard that Lisa needed to move to a new apartment, he was immediately inspired to offer to move her by bike.  But who could blame her for being dubious?  Q convinced her he could pull it off, but then he had to convince others to join his moving crew.  It was, as our Lady Jane friend called, a hard sell.  But I have written before how stubborn Q can be and eventually he had rounded up a crew of 5 movers, strong riders all with trailers.  These movers found that saying no to Q wasn't an option!

  So early Saturday morning, in the fruitless effort to avoid the heat, they gathered and  moved.  This was the ideal bike move-the distance between the two places was only about a mile and a half, there didn't seem to be any hills (but of course on a heavily loaded bicycle, the hills appeared!) and while there were big items, the over all amount was modest.  It took five movers three trips to do it all.

  Watch the slideshow to see the fun!