20 is Plenty

God Beams

It was one of my children that called the heavenly sunbeams that occasionally appear in the sky "God Beams" and it was those wonderful shafts of light that greeted me on my commute downtown this morning.

Our weather station said the outside temperature was zero.  Looking out the front door window, I could see a sciff of snow that resembled a dusting of icing sugar on a bundt cake.  I had decided to ride my new-to-me 20" Raleigh even though it doesn't have studded tires.  I was gambling that the new tires with their thick treads that I had bought from the Raving Bike Fiend would cut through any ice/snow.

The pannier rack on the Raleigh is too short to mount regular panniers on the rear so I "improvised" by putting an Axiom top mounted bag on the rack first.  A kind lady from the library had given me two small saddlebags which I cleverly mounted on top of the Axiom bag.

I'm so smart!

It wasn't easy to find the bike lanes that the city installed and painted last year.  The markings are so faint, I couldn't help but think that the city was being passive/aggressive in their approach.  "Okay - we want to look like we are encouraging cycling in our city but we sure as hell don't want to piss off the vocal and powerful auto lobby!"

That faint smear separates bikes and cars

It doesn't really matter all that much where the bike lanes are since in the winter the city dumps all the snow on them and just this morning what do I see but some sort of construction vehicles parked right in the bike lane.  God forbid that they should park on the grassy verge!

@#$%^&*!!!