A Day Off From The Grind

Rejoice! The Sun! After a month of craptastic Sundays we finally got a nice one thanks to tropical dud, Dan.

After cruising up the hill from breakfast, we decided to celebrate the day by taking a drive up to West Milford to take a ride on Clinton Road. The road is closed to traffic because of a washed out bridge about half way between route 23 at the start and Warwick Tpk 9 miles away so we figured it would be worth using the car to get here.

Riding on the car free road was fantastic and I felt like we were on an Alpine tour. The area we were riding through is part of the Newark watershed and is filled with lakes and streams. Cathy posed in front of the stream that overflowed last year and washed out the bridge we were standing on.

When we got to the end of the road, a short ride on Warwick Turnpike brought us to our lunch stop where we ran into our neighbor, Kelly, and one of her riding buddies, Linda. Here the ladies share a laugh over lunch. It was a nice diversion and added to the holiday feel of the day. After lunch we pressed on and circumnavigated Upper Greenwood lake before making the return trip back across Clinton Rd to Route 23. All in all a terrific day!

After 6 weeks of almost constant work, bad news on the TV every night, politicians who can't get out their own way to just do the right thing for their constituents, and on and on... a nice bike ride is just what the doctor ordered!

Progress!

Mayor Hussa and Sgt. Donnelly
Originally uploaded by brendan61

Who You Are Looking At: Denville Mayor Ted Hussa and Sgt. Brian Donnelly of the Denville PD

What You Are Looking At: The start of the first Denville Town Bike Ride.

Why it is Significant: It is a mile post in our effort to make Denville a cycling friendly community.

Three years ago while Cathy and I were on a ride through Fayson Lakes a jerk in a car almost ran me down in an intersection and then tried to push me with his car because he was angry. In my years of riding I had become use to this kind of stuff and although I was pretty angry I would have just let it go and moved on. Cathy was not so willing to leave it at that and decided that we would have to do something. Three years later with two Washington bike Summits under our belts and a lot of talking with people and hard lobbying for our bicycle friendly agenda we are finally making some progress.

Last night we participated in Denville's family bike night. After the kid's safety rodeo we all went on the inaugural bike ride. The Mayor, who credits Cathy with getting him fired up for this work, has gotten the DOT to help improve roads and put up "Share the Road" and "Bike Route" signage around town. The Police are working harder on traffic enforcement and recently we got the town hooked up with some bike racks for parking down town. I know it may not seem like much but it takes a lot of cooperation to make this stuff happen. I think we are now ready to officially apply to the League of American Bicyclists to get our "Bike Friendly Community" designation. Very cool stuff!

Check out the photos by clicking on the picture above.

35 Days

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Originally uploaded by brendan61

It is the morning of day 36 in the year without cars and I realized that I missed the one month mile stone. I am now more than 1/12th of the way along. It has been a busy month at the store and these days pretty much all I do is work. It's a good thing I love my job!

In the picture above is Cathy patiently waiting while I snapped a shot of a huge traffic jam on Route 80 around 6:30PM. Knowing that traffic on all the roads in town would be a disaster we decided to ride our breakfast bikes into town to go to the hardware store for a new toilet handle. It's amazing how adding a bike ride into the mix turns a mundane chore into a fun adventure. From our vantage point on the bridge we could look down on all the unhappy drivers trapped in their cars. One guy in his car actually flipped us the bird as he slowly passed under us. A passing truck with two gentlemen inside motioned for Cathy to lift her shirt when she gave the universal sign for "blow your horn" by holding her closed fist in the air and giving two short pumps. She obliged them by reaching over and lifting my shirt instead. The guys in the truck cracked up and blew the horn. Good fun.

Before we got to this part of the ride, while riding in town, we almost got run over by a women who failed to stop for a stop sign. We were in the perpendicular lane getting ready to turn left and her poor driving forced us to swing wide barely missing getting hit. She pulled around in the direction we were going and parked her car so we decided we would have a chat with her. When I asked her why she did what she did she said that sun glare prevented her from seeing us. Huh? I said "so what you are saying is that you blew the stop sign and accelerated into the intersection because sun glare prevented you from seeing?" The woman started becoming belligerent at this point and when I asked her how she would feel if someone offered this excuse for running over one of her children she screamed "well no one got hit, did they?". This time, I thought to myself.

One thing I have learned since beginning my project is that people are much worse drivers than I realized. It's kind of shocking actually to see people being so careless in the operation of a powerful machine that has so much destructive capability. From this new perspective I wonder how it is that more people are not being killed or maimed by careless driving.

And finally, in my first month without cars I saved about $80 in gas (I used my bike for about 500 miles worth of transportation) and I lost 7 pounds.

Trek World!

Momona pano
Originally uploaded by brendan61

I love the panorama capability of my G10 and photoshop. Here is a three shot view from the Hilton Hotel in Madison, WI, overlooking Lake Momona and the Momona terrace convention center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I am here for a couple of days at "Trek World" the annual dealer show put on by Trek to showcase their new products and get us pumped up for the next season. It is tough to get pumped up for the next year because we are still pretty caught up in this year! But I won't lie and say that I am not looking forward to leaving 2009 behind us.

Trek is a great company and they make, arguably, some of the best products in the bike industry. But what I really love about Trek is the amount of resources they spend on bicycle advocacy. This year we were lucky to attend a fundraiser/thank you party for Congressman Jim Oberstar from Minnesota who is considered the father of the modern bicycle advocacy movement. Congressman Oberstar was the first elected official who had the vision to understand that bicycles could be an important mode of transportation in our country. He understood early on that bicycles are an efficient, environmentally sound, and healthy way for folks to get from point A to point B. Since the early 90's Congressman Oberstar, along with Earl Blumenauer from Oregon, has been a key supporter of legislation that has funded cycling and pedestrian transportation enhancements as part of our national transportation plan.

These events never fail to inspire me to keep trying to move the bicycle agenda forward. I will have to increase my efforts back at home and push to make Denville the first bicycle friendly community in New Jersey. John Burke, the president of Trek Bicycle and also a rabid dog advocate, displayed a map of the many League of American Bicyclist designated towns and cities that applied for and earned ratings. The number increase from 2003 to 2009 was dramatic but what stood out to me on the map was the big blank spot between Delaware and Rhode Island that had no stars. Pretty embarrassing for New Jersey. Anyway, at the Bike Summit in Washington for the past few years, we have been talking about a summit for New Jersey. I think it's time to make it happen. If you live in New Jersey, count on hearing from me in the coming weeks to get your help. In the meantime, if you have a bike, ride it. If you don't have a bike, get one. And then ride it!

Peace!

Jeff Lenosky Going By Bike

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Originally uploaded by brendan61

Another busy week with lots of riding and even more work. This past Saturday was our "Parking Lot A Palooza" event at the Long Valley store featuring a stunt riding demonstration by Pro rider, Jeff Lenosky. The picture here is Jeff's wheel as it was passing a few inches over me as he jumped over ten human beings lying on the ground all in a row. This guy is amazing! I've know Jeff for 15 years and seen various versions of his show and it never fails to amaze me.

In other cycling news the Tour De France is over and Lance Armstrong, another pretty famous "go-er by bike" came in third. Pretty amazing feat. On the other hand, the winner of the tour, Alberto Contador, is just a jerk. Say what you want about Lance Armstrong but at least he knows that team work is what wins the race and even if you don't like one of your teammates you should still present a professional attitude. Lance displayed professionalism and class. Contador? Mmmm...not so much. Next year's TDF is shaping up to be a great show!

And now the bad news. I had to drive my car this morning. A confluence of circumstances including a very impressive display of extremely heavy rain forced me behind the wheel. I felt like a drunk falling off the wagon. But driving, yeah, I can quit anytime I want. However, It is my only time behind the wheel since July 13th.

Including recreational and transportation riding I am getting in about 100 miles a week now and I expect the mileage will increase. Since January I have gone from about 190 lbs to 178 lbs as of this morning without really trying. I did cut out the half a dozen peanut butter cookies after dinner every night though. Speaking of weight loss, I was watching the news the other day and the big story was about how obesity related medical care was accounting for over 9% of our health care expenditures. Really? Is it news that eating mountains of crap and sitting on your ass isn't good for your health? Shocking. You would think that politicians would be trying to get more people to ride bikes instead of wrangling with the healthcare system overhaul.

I'll throw it out there again. For the individual, going by bike will make you healthier, happier (yes, the chemical cocktail made by your body during exercise makes you happier) and you will save money. For the Nation, more people on bikes means lower healthcare costs, lower dependence on foreign energy and increased quality of life. For the planet, more people on bikes means a more sustainable environment. It's pretty simple actually.

Day 11-Culture Shock

I was watching “Morning Joe” on MSNBC this morning like I do almost every day. I don’t care much for Joe Scarborough but as far as conservatives go he’s not so bad. I watch the show because they have good guests and the tone of the show is a good balance to the uber-liberal shows on at night. Naturally, today, they were discussing healthcare and the CIA program for assassinating Al Queada operatives. Meanwhile the crawler at the bottom of the screen throws a bunch of other headlines at you so you can get more information in less time. Hooray for technology! As the show was going to commercial they had a live picture on the screen of the current space shuttle mission while simultaneously running a crawler blurb about Walter Cronkite’s memorial service.

Suddenly, I had one of those moments where you feel like you are instantly spun to the other side of the room. It’s like you are standing there watching a scene in front of you and then Bam! You are now standing on the opposite side of the room and everything looks different even though you are looking at the same thing.

I grew up with Walter Cronkite on the TV. My parents watched Cronkite, without fail, every single night of the week. That was when news was news. The three things that stand out for me from the mid sixties through the seventies were the nightly reports about Viet Nam, the Apollo space program, and Watergate. In a large sense, I think these things, along with my Father’s commentary about them along way, have formed much of my own point of view about the world. Now, if you’re thinking that I am going to break my promise about this blog being non-political, you can rest assured that I am not.

The point is about how far we have come since John Kennedy first challenged America to achieve something great just for the sake of doing it. Here we are on the 40^th anniversary of meeting that first challenge. Walter Cronkite, the newsman through who's eyes we watched those momentous events unfold, is dead, and now we routinely send people into space and send crystal clear images back to our morning news programs as a matter of routine. Most of us barely give it a second thought. So where do we go now? As a society we seem to have forgotten how to dream big. Have we seen the passing of the greatest generation? Have we become so petty and selfish that we can no longer achieve great things for society? Historically it seems like all great societies crumble because people become complacent and lazy, forgetting how it is they got to where they are to begin with. What is the next great challenge that will fire our imaginations and fuel our ingenuity? Is it health care? Is it rebuilding our energy and transportation infrastructures? Who will lead us? For me, my year without cars is really all about rethinking what my actual requirements are for an interesting and satisfying life. What do I value and why? What can I contribute? These are questions that I think many of us struggle with at some point in our lives. But then again, it seems like many people never give it a thought and go through life grabbing at what ever they can without purpose.

So my quest will continue. Day 9 it poured rain all day long but I rode in to work and car pooled home. Day 10 was a nice ride in and then I headed over to the Tourne for our weekly mountain bike ride. Today I rode my mountain bike back to work. So that’s 11 days with one less car on the road. Beyond that I’m not sure what it means yet.

5,6,7,8!

It's Tuesday, day 9 in the year without cars and rain is finally making an appearance this morning. Yesterday I had an early morning chore to run so I car pooled to work and home again but I have yet to get behind the wheel of a car. Here's my Honda Element sitting idle in the driveway and I am starting to really believe that owning this car is totally un-necessary. Over the weekend I did a 35 mile ride with my buddy Steve who was visiting from South Carolina and another 44 miles on Sunday with Cathy. I suppose having Monday as a rest day was not a bad thing but it did get me thinking about Javier, the guy that works at the store who does not own a car and rides his bike 7 days a week and averages about 40 miles per day. Javier looks like one big muscle and has about 6% body fat but I wonder what the physical impact is on his body. He never seems to be tired or unhappy about having to ride. When offered a ride back home if someone is passing by where he lives, unless the weather is particularly crappy, he generally refuses because he does not want miss out on riding! Maybe it's pride but he's pretty adamant about it. Anyway, I am seriously thinking about ditching my car permanently and adjusting my lifestyle accordingly. Anybody want a Honda?