So my friends, I've been commuting to work for two weeks now. Not every day mind you and that has to do with some of the more frustrating moments. I ride 12 miles to school at 5:30 AM and 12 miles home whenever I finish up there. Aside from the woes of it all, riding to school in the morning is joy. There are no cars on the road, I can move swiftly through empty intersections and arrive at school within one hour. The ride home is admittedly hairier, requiring maneuvers through shoulderless streets in a one mile stretch at rush hour. Cars typically heed me, mostly because I have a fluorescent yellow jacket, a bright orange messenger bag and two blinky LED lights tail and front. They do their best to accommodate me in narrow conditions.
The woes!
1. Getting a flat tire at 5:50 in the morning 5 miles from home with no cell phone, patch kit, pump or spare. That was a treat.
2. Purchasing new tires and tubes the next day only to have some kind of pinch flat during the school day. The new tires are snazzy puncture resistant ones that are an upgrade from my Bontrager Race x-Lites that just aren't built for the stresses of city streets.
3. Taking my new, shiny, unused tires home after changing said flat and completely slipping as I corner at 10 mph or so onto the next street.
4. The effects of a good bike crash! I missed the first two days of classes, spent one of them in the ER getting cat scanned, x-rayed, urine sampled and pregnancy tested. All manner of tests. Only for the doctor to go... "Yep, you've got a big bruise on your hip, a wrist sprain etc. Here's a script for some fancy drugs, off you go!" (I didn't even see the doc actually, he just wrote me some nice paperwork.) My boss made me stay home the next day and rest and I relaxed all weekend, my muscles recovering from the trauma gradually.
5. Today another rear tire flat that happened *during* the school day. I'm starting to wonder if trouble is afoot and if I shouldn't park my bike elsewhere. Literally I took my bike over to a coworker who also rides to repair my crooked handlebars with an allen wrench, put it back and then an hour later the rear tire is flat! What? Suspicion! I will have to stash my bike somewhere more secret I think, my god. I was near crazed with frustration, yelling like a mad woman.
Needless to say I'll be going to the bike shop to do some sleuthwork with them tonight. Figure out if some little bastard is popping my tire because "it's fun" or whether I'm just getting pinch flats or something... during the school day. (Which makes no sense whatsoever)
For now, I am determined to keep riding. It's keeping me in good shape and it's fun for the most part. There's a lot of joy in feeling the breeze on my face and the strain of my muscles before and after a work day.
Toodles for now.
The joys, terrors and frustrations of bicycle commuting
Posted by Larissa Labels: agony, bikes, injury, St. Louis
I have arrived! In this great land of beer, giant rivers, conservative minded folk, unnecessarily large arches and uh... thunderstorms? Truthfully, I've been here for a week and a half and I've been handily avoiding posting a blog, much to my mother's chagrin. She decreed that I should write a new one yesterday (I believe anyway... all the days blend together when you essentially have nothing to do). I'm not quite settled in because my motivation to settle in declined exponentially after the first week. It's also a function of my lack of storage units. Lots of closets and space, not nearly enough shelving!
Anyway, this might be more interesting if I were equipped with a Star Trek tricorder. I could tell you about the air quality schematics, local carbon density and whether it can sustain a New Englander like myself. Alas, I must rely on more primitive methods like trying stuff first hand.
I will organize this all for your benefit! You can thank me later
The Crib/Pad/Homestead/Base of Operations/Lair
My roommate, Dana, is an interior designer so naturally it is impeccably decorated. I imagine that one day if I own it will be a chaos of color and flea market finds and hardly as sophisticated as this. 
I like the kitchen. I hesitate to call the stove "vintage" but it looks vintage to me. It's probably from the 80s or something. I like that it's gas though. Electric stoves can eat my human waste products. Also I have several basil plants growing in the kitchen window that isn't pictured as well as a thyme plant. I've been line drying my clothes, out of conservation as much as necessity (we don't have a dryer) and stepping around the minefield of the house dog's doo in the back yard. We should totally look into a pet poop composter for his crap!
Sightseeing with Reesh
I will post pictures of the Mushroom Kingdom, which is my new, fond name for the back yard. I woke up yesterday morning and was delighted to find a veritable trail of large white mushrooms growing in the back yard. It's like they found the fungal version of the Northwest Passage and are all jumping on the bandwagon. I'm an odd person and I like mushrooms (and not just in my Marsala). Also, please note the attack against the kingdom by the fearsome monster Berrin.
So that wasn't really sight seeing, and maybe I'm not very good at compartmentalizing my blog. Let's try again.
Sightseeing with Reesh!
Saint Louis is a city unlike any I've ever visited. Quick observations:
- It's a driving city-- public transit is much more limited, everything is spread out and linked by more than a few major highways. Even taxis are expensive and less common.
- People routinely ask each other what high school you went to. I was told about this phenomenon and joked about being asked that question before I ever experienced it first hand. Sure enough, it's the first test you'll need to pass if you're a native Saint Louisan out and about.
- Nobody stops for four-way stop signs. Rolling stops all around. In fact I was told I'd be rear-ended if I stopped fully. I haven't been rear-ended yet, but maybe people cut me a break because I still have my NY plates?
- The Cardinals and Budlight are king. Don't mess with them.
- Don't ask about where you can find organic food, odds are if it's not Whole Foods or Trader Joe's you won't find it.
- All the museums are free! Weeeee! I've already been to the zoo... for free.
- Saint Louisans are otherwise pretty good, polite drivers. I have seen very little auto-aggression so far.
Anyway, in spite of the love for Anheuser-Busch and that sadness over its recent sale to InBev, there are a lot of really, really good beer stores. People like beer here! Yay! Just a mile up the road is a great beer/wine store cleverly disguised as a deli. Haha, Deli, I'm on to you. They make good pastrami sandwiches, but I like being overwhelmed by uncommon beer brands. There's a bar I've been to twice now that only sells beer in cans. It's been around long enough that it's actually called the "Tin Can" but tonight I went and sampled some of Milwaukees finest libations. I think there will be a forthcoming blog entry about that actually.St. Louis Folk
I could really use a copy editor here, because I'm almost certain that I'm not organizing this blog well. An observation: there are definitely men here that have a distinct "midwestern" look to them. Not all men, but definitely some. I'm not talking about clothes or attitudes, I'm talking about their faces. I can't define what it is that makes them look "Midwestern". All I know is that we don't have guys that look like that in the Northeast and that I know them when I see them. Maybe I'll steal a picture some time of said "Midwestern-faced man"? If I ever snag one, I will know without a shadow of a doubt that this man is from the Midwest and he's not lying to me about it.
The people are *really* friendly. Even when they're ultra conservative and cannot possibly find a way to agree with me! However, Dana mentioned that a lot of guys who are from Saint Louis are often pretty miserable. This is because they've lived here their whole lives, have had the same group of friends their entire lives and secretly yearn for a change but stay right here. Thus they become embittered and angry men. I would argue that they become unnecessarily staunch about their conservative values. The dating scene is probably a minefield of self-righteous Republicans. I gotta watch out for those. We'd bicker til we're finished.
Anyway, I suppose this is enough for now. This is MY decree, take that, Mom. I will regale you with my beer observation tomorrow, maybe even at dawn's first light if you're lucky.
Cheerios!
I went with Mandy's hair. I love, love how it came out. Big tip for the hair dresser, yay!
I'm getting my hair cut on June 4th, so I'm looking for everyone's advice on how I should do it.
Here's its current look... it's been growing out for a while but there are no layers and extra long bangs that I've intentionally gone without trimming for two months maybe.
Now here's what I'm looking at:
or
I have successfully completed my first 110 mile bike ride. It was the Placid Planet Century ride. Why 110, then, you ask? I'll explain later.
Sunday did not start out well. In a moment of brilliance the night before I'd decided to have two Caribbean Cowboy painkillers, paint my fingernails a striking magenta color and not stretch out for a good thirty minutes. Or ride my warm-up 15 miles on my periwinkle blue (admittedly it's a little girlier than periwinkle, but that's marketing for you).
I woke up at 5 am and thought to myself, well... I could just do the fifty. Get some more sleep in... feel more refreshed. My stomach was unhappy about the various kinds of rum I'd put in my body the night before and I was almost certain it would reject food if I tried to choke some down. 7:15 am, T-45 minutes before the ride, a friend convinced me that I really out to get my ass out of bed and do the 100. I did pay $35 bucks and it would be quite the feat. I pulled myself out of bed, threw on my shorts, my favorite bike jersey-- a bright pink Louis Garneau, ate an energy for a quick pre-breakfast and sped off to Lake Placid Health and Fitness for the start.
I felt like the lone amateur in a crowd of Ironman and racing vets, clad in their fanciful team jersey/shorts combos. I might have been one of the few with a mismatched jersey and shorts but you know what? My fingernails were painted magenta to match my jersey, which is more than I can say for them. Suck on that Team Placid Planet. So I was a bit self-conscious riding with a bunch of hammerheads who will ultimately bike 100 miles in five hours. "Pacing yourself" to them means 20 mph average speed. Christ.
Still apprehensive amongst the leagues of team jerseys I moved toward the back of the pack as we set out both intentionally and unintentionally. A. I'm not as fast as those guys and B. I didn't want to push it too hard at the start.
The weather was gorgeous-- cool to start and warmed up to a sultry 72 degrees by mid day. We started off going downhill toward Wilmington and it's really nice to get a tailwind on the gradual slope. I mowed on some peanut butter fluff sandwiches on Wonderbread at the first aid station 20 miles in. It's hard to believe the first 1/4 of the century took a little more than an hour. I made it to the second feed station in Peru by noontime, feeling good. The route had taken me on some rolling back roads with a good ratio of climbs/decents. Decents got the edge. Peru was the lowest part of the trip and naturally the second half of the day involved climbing.
I met a nice older guy named Dan who wanted to take it easy as well at the second feed station and we hung in with each other through the next twenty or so miles. After a while he just dusted me. I guess a former racer like himself might get a little annoyed/bored with a slow rider like me.
The last 30 miles were total agony. Between the pressure on my cooch for an extended amount of time, my decreasing abdominal strength and subsequent back/arm/neck pain from resting my weight on the handlebars, I was done. I was alone on the long sweeping climbs between Hawkeye and Blackbrook but climbed them steadily stopping a few times to call someone for moral support. I suppressed whimpers and sobs of pain and exhaustion. I routinely tried to shake my arms and shoulders loose, mostly failing.
By the time I arrived at the last feed station the sag-wagon guy was packing up to go look for me. I was moving slowly but steadily between 7 and 15 miles per hour depending on the terrain. I pulled over and was so overwhelmed by relief/other mixed emotions/trauma that I could barely pull together the will to speak. They gave me cookies and a banana to eat and lots of water. He promised he'd stop at pull offs and wait for me to pass before moving on to the next.
I pressed onward. Lots more elevation to go riding through the notch. I prayed for a tailwind. Much of it is gradual from Whiteface to Riverside Drive and if you have a strong enough wind on your side it's pretty much a coast. Somehow, I mustered some extra energy and ignored my ailing back and shoulders and carried my ass all the way into Lake Placid.
Once I reached Northwoods Road, the last of the mega-climbs I knew I'd make it. I patiently ascended the last of the hills toward the gym and rolled in at exactly 6 pm, streaked with grit, sunblock and bike grease. My cheeks were encrusted with salt where my sunglasses had collected sweat over the last ten hours. I'd failed to put sunblock on my fingers so I had a lovely bike glove sunburn. I rode straight by the last aid guys packing up. I sat in my car and mumbled to myself "I did it," over and over like I just might be partially schizophrenic. Then I made some phone calls, put away my bike and drove home, achey and shakey and unsure how to treat my body.
I may have been last but I feel good about that. I made my peace with the concept last year during the mini-triathlons. Most of those guys out there weren't pushing themselves or challenging themselves. They were just going out for a fun ride to keep them in their peak professional conditions. I, on the other hand, set out to finish in ten hours and that's just what I did, rest of the pack be damned. If you subtract my breaks at feed stations and other places probably 9 hours of riding all together. Considering I began road riding last June and just started this year a month or so ago, I am really thrilled with my accomplishment. Most of the people I told called me 'sick' or 'crazy', but they also said they were proud of me.
Today I feel pretty good. Sore, but not as sore as I'd been after climbing Street and Nye. I feel like I could actually run a few miles or god forbid it-- bike a few. Tomorrow I'm planning on riding in Keene Valley so that should be good, hopefully my poor, bruised rear hiney is up for it.
I also plotted an approximate profile for the ride based on actual elevations of the towns I rode through and the major climbs in between that I could remember and estimate elevations for. The last 40 miles are nutso.
I want to take a moment to appreciate quaking aspens, easily my favorite tree. I walked to the school building this morning and was overwhelmed by the beauty of the aspens which tend to burst into a crown of April green earlier than any other tree around here. I love their pristine silver tree trunks and the way the leaves jitter and spring alive at the slightest breeze. I love how they're the largest single organisms on the planet, several trees sharing the same root system over hundreds of square kilometers. Behold the beauty!
First movement. Well, I've found someplace to live! (Huzzah!) I'll be living on Finkman St. in the Princeton Heights neighborhood of St. Louis in a beautiful brick bungalow with a very cool lady (who also happens to have red hair). I'll be a whopping 12 miles away from school, which is a lengthy bike commute, but I think I can shave it down to 11 using my awesome powers of google map manipulation. I guess I'll just have to spend some time once I get down there learning
I mean... are biofuels really a sustainable alternative? Take powering cars with leftover vegetable oils, animal fats. Or cellulose based ethanol from corn. Or fuel derived from sugar cane. Do we really want to be using our food supply to power our cars when the earth's population is growing exponentially? Check this out.
Before I leap into this conversation about conservation (I did smirk a bit as I wrote that), I can't deny the growing need for fuel alternatives. Wind power, solar power, biofuel, etc... the research is necessary. Watching our desperation for petroleum shape our suffering foreign policy is vomitous. But finding fuel alternatives is not enough.
Conservation is a broad term and we all know what it means in terms of environmental issues. But you just don't hear the term thrown around anymore. I did a search on CNN.com and found just one result that actually had the word "conservation" in the title on the first page when sorted by relevance. It appears that nobody in this country is interested in hearing about ways to save on energy. Obviously things are being done about it. Technology is improving to improve heat efficiency, electrical efficiency, etc. Rather than depend on technology to save our precious lifestyles, what ever happened to plain old saving?
Heat/cold efficiency?
People are working to make their homes more energy efficient with heat efficient windows.
Transportation
Firstly...
look what Paris has done!
The solutions are pretty simple, but it requires commitment and dedication on everyone's part. Walking! Biking! Heck even little Vespa motorbikes. Using public transportation. It makes me crazy that we as a nation don't invest more into our rail systems. Anybody who has been to Europe and even Asia has experienced the ease and efficiency of their train systems. When I lived in Belgium, I'd ride my bike to the station, hop a train to Brussels and then hop out and walk or use Brussels' local transit system. It was brilliant. It was a way of life. What will it take for people to realize that rail is a more fuel efficient way to move goods (rather than semis), people and their pets?
Another interesting article about the future of rail in the U.S.
It would be so very simple if cities would just paint bike lines. More people would be willing to take to the streets on bike if the city as a whole was more aware of cyclists and bike commuters. Apparently St. Louis is in the process of making itself more bike friendly, but in my opinion, it should be every major road, not just the major major ones (short of highway). I always loved coming to a red light in Bruges with a pack of twenty or so cyclists on their way to work/school in the morning. We were expected. It was lovely.
Anyway, I'm losing grip on my focus here, so I suppose I'll cut it out for now. More later perhaps!
With a new job on the horizon that isn't
If the reasons aren't immediately obvious to you, I'll spell them out.
*Gas is up to nearly $4.00 a gallon. As is, I live at work and have no commute and filling up my tank on occasion cuts me deep. If I lived 8 miles away, I'd be spending a lot of money on gas. I'm just not interested.
*Instant work out! If I lived just 8 miles from school I'd be putting in 16 miles a day... that's about an hour or so of cardio built into my schedule.
*None of the headaches of waiting in a car at traffic lights. The thrill of zipping by long lines of frustrated drivers.
*Extending the life of my beloved purpley-blue Toyota Corolla. The longer that things lasts and looks nice the happier I'll be. It's at 70k miles right now, I'd love to have it many more years. Not driving it every day will make it last!
Anyway, those are the main reasons. I haven't thought as far as winter yet, but I could always drive during those times of the year. Or outfit my bike to handle it! I want a bike I can go pick up groceries with.
Here's a really interesting article about bike commuting
I wish bike commuting was better supported, frankly. Bike lanes in more cities and towns. Places to stash your bike. More share the road signs. If more people commuted by bike our nation would be healthier, less congested and polluted.
Once upon a time I lived in northern Belgium where traveling by bike was a way of life. Even in the rainy, icy winters, I would bike about 14 or 15 miles round trip to school. I'd bike to meet up with friends. I'd bike to the train station. That's just the way of things over there. You'd see crazy mofos riding holding umbrellas or coffees. It was so very awesome.
In another life I biked to all my summer jobs. The hotel housekeeping job at Tory Pines. The ice cream scooping job at Kimball Farm. At the very least it offset the calories consumed at the ice cream place.
Anyway, I love bikes and this is clearly no secret.
The history of my bikes:
The Spoiler
Now this is a modern version of a bike I used to have which was white with white knobby tires. It was a BMX styled sucker that came with training wheels when I first had it. I would ride that bike up Crotched Mountain or down our dirt road full tilt only to skid into our drive way. Lots of scrapes from crashing too. It has those velcro things that went around the handlebars that had the name of the bike. No streamers though. I was more hardcore than that. Here I am riding it on the right! Ha, the years before helmets.
The Raleigh Venture I don't know where we got them but we were given some heavy duty steel street bikes. I got the silver one! I rode this sucker to town or to work wherever I wanted. Sometimes to my best friend's house. I can't seem to find an old school picture. It was probably a late 80's model. We still have it hanging in the basement of my mom's house. They should probably consider selling it.
The Mountain Technium At some point my uncle decided that my Raleigh wasn't cutting it anymore and loaned me his Raleigh Mountain Technium that he'd raced on many years earlier. I used it to make it to the ice cream shop mostly as I didn't transition into recreational riding very well. It was a very utilitarian habit for me. I didn't really know how to take care of it though and was soon lured away from it by fast twitch shifters and shiny new parts.
2005: The Gary Fisher Marlin GS!
One summer day my friend Eli and I made a pact. "I'll get a guitar if you get yourself a new bike." And so we went shopping. Within a few hours he had a new Taylor guitar and I had this shiny new Gary Fisher. He sat on the trunk of my car and played songs while I cruised around the bike shop parking lot. I named my bike Super Taylor and covered it with DC Comics hero stickers. This was my first real recreational bike since the Spoiler I had as a kid. I took it off the road. I learned to mountain bike properly. It transported me to work. It still gets me to the school building and back!
2007: Trek Pilot 5.0
The big investment. A carbon frame road bike designed for distance and climbing. Damn do I love this bike. I've had it tailored to my body geometry. I have put hundreds and hundreds of miles on it. On May 25th, I'll ride it 100 miles as part of the Placid Planet century ride. I love this bike. I love it.
The next bike?
Undoubtedly something designed for commuting and lugging stuff. I'm considering the Kona Ute, but ultimately I'll have to test ride a bunch when I get to St. Louis. Woo!
I'm going to arrange this by FAQ, I think just so it's clear.
You're not going to Korea anymore?
True. Korea is no longer my destination of choice.
Why not? What changed?
Some time ago, really about a month, I made the decision. My sister announced that she was engaged and I decided that that was the perfect excuse to stay close to home. I didn't want to be 8,000 miles from my family when she was planning her wedding nor did I want to be in a place where your employer makes it near impossible for you to get away for a vacation. Or you know, I didn't want to drop the $2,000 on a plane ticket to go home for a brief time.
Upon further deliberation, however, I realized that I had been feeling less and less excited about the prospect of living there. Not because it's not a terribly cool place, but because the change I desired did not have to be quite so earth-shatteringly drastic. I could move somewhere in the U.S. and feel the same euphoric effects.
Did you want to come back to your current school?
Initially, I went to my administrative team at school and informed them of my sudden change of heart. Their response was obvious elation, although subsequent meetings left me less hopeful. I wanted to teach more science, or perhaps even geography, but it became rapidly evident that those positions were not available to me. Geography had shifted toward history and that made me less qualified. No science positions were opening up aside from the one I already held.
Math was offered to me but you know what? I hate math. Well, I don't mind it. But I certainly don't love it enough to make a career of it. Kids deserve a teacher who can make it exciting for them. I simply can't. There was a moment's excitement between two of my former houseparenting team that we might be able to live together and houseparent together. But ultimately that's only part of the whole package.
If NCS doesn't have anything, then what?
So I began my search. I reactivated my Carney Sandoe & Associates account, as this firm had provided me with a referral for my current and last job. Within a week they'd sent me 40 or so schools looking for someone just like me. A middle school teacher with 2-5 years teaching experience gets a lot more referrals than a wannabe middle school teacher with no regular classroom experience. Yay! But I entered late in the game so I wasn't feeling particularly confident about it all. Some schools piqued my interest and I sent out what felt like eleventy-billion cover letters.
Did you interview anywhere else?
I did. I interviewed at a school on the North Shore in Massachusetts. It was a great interview! Nice school... great people. I was very impressed when I left.
Well what happened?
Shortly afterward I went to Saint Louis and I fell in love. Every single person I met was warm and made me feel completely at ease. The city was beautiful and tree-covered, filled with adorable restaurants with umbrellas and terraces. The middle school head welcomed me into his home just hours after meeting me. I ate dinner with science teachers. They were incredibly hospitable.
My interview went remarkably well, so well that when I finally met with the head of all three divisions of the school, she extended me a job offer and a salary that is astoundingly high for a city that is so very affordable. Understanding what an amazing opportunity this was, I seized it.
THUS, that brings me to the present. I am planning to move to Saint Louis around August 1st. If anyone wants to come on a roadtrip with me... PLEASE... let me know! It would be fun. I figure I'll get a trailer hitch and a mini u-haul trailer and drive 55 all the way there.
And if you want to come and party let me know!
