Nuts to Today

Strange day today...

A ton happened today, and I'm leaving a bunch out. For starters, I had to patch two flats before I even started my route. I'm getting to be a pro at this stuff. So that's one thing.

As a cyclist, I always know that there's a chance I could get drilled by a car or other obstacle and be injured by no fault of my own. 99.9% of the time, I forget about that fact completely. Just FYI, I wasn't injured today...but my friend was.

I had to stop by our bike depot this morning, so I saw him when I clocked in. He went out on the road, and I went to the other plant (see above) where I normally work. In a strange "small world" moment, hours later, when I returned to drop off the dirties, my laundry team manager told me she saw him on the bus with an ice pack while she was on her way to our plant. Apparently he had trouble just walking. Yikes...get well soon, pal.

About an hour later, I was in Northern Liberties on my way back from my last pickup of the day when I happened upon a group of students wearing blue shirts. From living in the area last year, I recognized them immediately as Bodine High School students. They were always kind of annoying, and today was no exception.

So back to that fact I stated above...some joker got the idea that it would be cool to attempt to impress his friends by jumping out in front of me and quickly jumping back. When I swerved, he was lucky I went the OPPOSITE direction. I almost wish I would have hit the little shit. He did slap on the side of the laundry bins as I continued to speed past, yelling obscenities in his general direction. Not my finest moment of representation for the company, but whatcha gonna do? I mean, I did a lot of stupid things when I was a kid, but jumping out into traffic (bikes are traffic, remember?) was not one of them. I think I reacted appropriately.

Just blocks up the street, I came upon another small group of people, this one gathered outside a small row of stores on Girard Avenue. I think there's a methadone clinic there. They all appeared to be recovering addicts, not moving very fast or with much intent. I see them just about every day, and this little story has caused me to think that maybe I should find out what they're doing there...

At any rate, I moved past them and heard the normal things like "Wow, you got laundry in there?" and "Boy that must be hard work!" But then I heard one woman ask "Do you take donations?" I said not really. Now, I don't think I'd want HER donations, but it's a noble idea, and something I might actually bring up to management. I'm not sure exactly what we can do with it, but something about it made a light go on in my head. Onward...

Finally, I was on my way home and I saw this. Just one reminder that today was kinda nuts:

Shoeless Joe and the Attempted Pyramid

I was stopped at a red light, facing east on Poplar Street at 29th Street this morning, when I saw a bizarre sight:

At first, I thought they were bike tubes, flattened and/or discarded. But those are definitely someone's shoes, and they appeared to be delicately placed upside down in the crosswalk near the edge of the road.

There are a lot of attempted explanations for shoes hanging from power lines, but I have no idea what this could mean. And one more thing: why are they facing different directions?

I saw this while I was in the midst of delivering 23 bags for 1 client (Outward Bound). It took three trips and two hours, but required absolutely zero gasoline (saying that never gets old). When I was finished, I wanted to stack them all into a pyramid, but laundry doesn't stack as nicely as Legos:

Close enough. It was also a beautiful day to work on my Farmer's Tan. Mission accomplished...

This Spoke to Me...

Bit of a delay on this one...last Thursday, Spoke Magazine hosted a happy hour for the bike-centric community of Philadelphia. They had an ulterior motive of garnering some donations for their upcoming issue (it's a magazine run by volunteers), but of course it was for a good cause: getting cyclists together to bitch about how much we hate cab drivers for always cutting us off!

Anyway, I made some new friends, drank some new beers, ate some FREE food (minus my donation)...what more could I ask for? I happened to mention this blog to them, so I'm hoping for a shout-out in the next issue...hah.

They're holding a launch party next Thursday May 7th, so if you happen to be in the area, let's hang.

Side note: The place where it was held, W/N W/N Coffee Bar, is collectively owned and operated by I think 7 people, one of which I met last year through SHI. Interesting idea to say the least...

Many more happy hours to come I hope.

ApPAlachian Elation

I took a vacation home this weekend to play a gig with my good buddy and talented author Vinny Tobia, visit family & friends and participate in other much less exciting extracurriculars.

I also found time to hijack my Mom's bike took to the trails near Palmerton. Even though it's just across the Lehigh River, getting to the Delaware & Lehigh Trail requires a car or riding your bike a few miles out of your way. Guess which one I chose. Hah...at any rate, by the time I got to the trailhead, I was already 5 miles in:

I haven't ridden on a trail in quite some time, and I forgot how different it is from city biking. I decided to go up to the upper trail (which used to be a railroad bed). Even though I'm in the best shape of my life,  getting there was definitely not easy on the legs. I had to pause at the top to admire Palmerton off in the distance...

I continued on the upper trail, around the bend in the river and into the narrow, rocky area where bikes are forbidden (I walked/carried it. Even I'm not that stupid). Along the way, I ran into a guy I met years earlier at TV-13. As good a time as any for a photo op, right? :P

...and a tad further ahead, a view looking east across the Lehigh atop where the railroad bridge once stood:

I also found this marker stone, signifying the Lehigh/Carbon County line:

The trail got very narrow and rocky here, and I walked my bike for most of the next half mile or so. Eventually, I came down by the Lehigh Gap Nature Center and crossed the route 873 bridge back to the Palmerton side of the river to pick up a small portion of the Appalachian Trail.

On the other side of the former railroad bridge, looking west:

Don't look down...

That's route 248 down below. That first step's a doozy.

From there, the trail was wide enough to bike until I reached a rather steep drop near the Aquashicola Creek. I walked down the hill and had to briefly hop on the shoulder of 248 to cross it before I took the back streets home.

I'm glad I got out there, even if only for an hour (and a measly 12 miles haha). I'll be back...

The Cost of Inflation

When it was super rainy and nasty outside on Monday morning, actually whenever the weather is nasty, we usually encounter some mechanical issues with the bikes. I fixed or replaced 3 flat tires that morning.

So you can imagine my surprise/disgust when I came in to yet another flat tire on Tuesday morning:

In case you can't see above, there's a pretty sizable hole in the tube:

So, annoyed, I thought "OK, it was just a bad tube. These things happen." I replaced it again, pumped up the tire and walked into the other room to get ready to head out on the road.

About 30 seconds later, I heard a loud noise that sounded like a gunshot, which based on the neighborhood, isn't that unlikely. Scared the freakin' shit out of me, and my ears were ringing for a few minutes.

Hesitantly, I walked back in to the bike room to find that the tube had exploded, which is more than likely what happened last night. Whoever rode it the night before was lucky it didn't happen to them while they were on the road.

At any rate, when shit breaks or the weather is too nasty to continue riding, the company allows us to rent Zip Cars. I don't like doing it, for a lot of reasons, but sometimes you get to drive some pretty nice wheels, like this 2015 VW:

Yes, that is a DC plate. I made you look good, Capital City...

I'm not a big fan of foreign automobiles, but I did enjoy tooling around in this jawn for a few hours.

A Tale of Two Days...in One

After torrential downpours water-logged my morning appointments yesterday, the clouds burned off and we were treated to a GORGEOUS afternoon.

LOVE biking in the Spring in Philly!

Super Soaker

Wash Cycle Laundry now offers mobile bird baths...