Does Specialized make toilet paper?

Put your trademark on this

Specialized makes some great merchandise. I have one of their Stumpjumpers in the garage, which has proven to be all the mountainbike I'll ever need. But as long as they are acting like the schoolyard bully that this article (see link) describes, TP is all I'll ever buy from them from here on out:

War veteran forced to change bike shop’s name after threat from U.S bike giant Specialized

From The Explainer (Charles Pelkey) at Red Kite Prayer: "...By now many of you have seen the story making its way around cycling-related social media about the Afghanistan war veteran in Cochrane, Alberta, who opened up a small bike shop over an ice cream parlor and his encounter with a @#$%ing bully..."

Sigh. Once again, life proves that Frank Zappa was right about hydrogen not being the most prevalent element in the universe.  Can someone up in the CEO office at Specialized turn this around and use a less heavy handed method to protect their brand against "brand confusion"?

As Warren Zevon might say, lawyers, guns, and money are nice to have around in a crisis and at least two of those three have been offered to our friend in Cochrane. But when mishandled, lawyers, like guns, can result in self-inflicted wounds and the suits at S need take notice. Perhaps better even than lawyers, the social media unleashed a shitstorm of criticism on the Big Red S. Lawyers and money may not be needed. Stay tuned.

This upbeat update in BRAIN, via Patrick O'Grady at Maddogmedia.

Exhibit A from Counsel

Its not about the bike

Nelson Mandela time line.

Sport Utility Vehicles?

"...the new V6 is a guilt free pleasure because in addition to its brisk acceleration, fuel economy climbed to 21 mpg..."
 --Jan, 2014 Consumer Reports review of the new Mercedes-Benz GLK350, which gets 14 city/29 highway, real world driving

On the weekend when everyone is supposed to be out buying yet more crap to support the economy, I did my best to avoid being mauled, er, malled, at least the big box variety.  I started out Black Friday walking the hounds back towards the stables on North Mesa. Ran into another guy walking his two pups and we marveled at how much nicer it was to walk dogs in peace rather than try to rush the counters to buy CSFC (cheap s*** from China). I did have a few groceries to pick up and a couple errands to run in Bombtown, so I put the panniers on the Long Haul Trucker and daisy chained my errands for a 20 mile Tour de Cat Food (Smith's), Art Shoppe (Village Arts), and our Food Co-Op.

Back in the '80's when I was working on my dissertation, 
I pulled a roll of freshly developed black and white film 
out of the developing spool wet and slipped with the tongs, 
gouging the end of the roll. That created this weird pattern 
that I called "llama" so I printed it.  Found the damn thing 
the other day while cleaning out old files and framed it.
The "art" made it back in one piece in the LHT pannier.

Long Haul Trucker in typical form

Today it was time for a run down to Santa Fe for some stuff I can't find here in easy bicycle striking range. Rather than use the car,  I put the travel luggage on the Large Two Wheeler and headed off the hill, filling the saddlebags and top box with groceries (and, of course, locally brewed beer) from Trader Joe's as well as picking up some maintenance parts I need down at the Santa Fe BMW shop so I can do some winter maintenance on the big bike.

Providence shines kindly on two-wheelers
Sun rays courtesy of a late afternoon return to Bombtown

Frankly, although the ride was glorious, it was not so much fun in the City Different. I was sitting alongside the bike in the Trader Joes et al, parking lot eating an instant lunch bought at Trader Joe's and it seemed every third motorist in the parking lot was beeping and muscling for a space. They have hired parking lot attendants at the TJ's shopping center to keep the peace between aggressive, careless motorists.  I finally decided to pack up my rollup sandwiches and find a more peaceful place to eat--perhaps the business end of a machine gun range would be an improvement.

A beautiful weekend to be on two wheels, at any rate. Enjoy it while you can. Next weekend should bring significantly more cold.

WARNING: Foaming Rant* follows. The title? Well, the Surly and BMW are extremely sporty and yet can be quite utilitarian, scaled to their size, as well as frugal in their operation. This weekend, I had no need for heavy hauling capacity, if you don't include my fat ass in that calculation. Furthermore, I'm not sure I agree with CU that 14/29 mpg in an age when it is well accepted that anthropogenic impact to climate change is driven by fossil fuel emissions, can in any way be "guilt free". Nor do I think CU even knows what consumer "guilt" means any more--they have become part of the consumer-as-glutton problem. Hence I may cancel my subscription. Why one needs a "small" (4200 lbs) SUV with minimal storage space and an engine powerful enough to accelerate "as quick as a Porsche Boxster", to quote Consumer Reports (and with worse gas milage than the Boxster), is a question I don't have an answer to, esp. since its emergency handling and avoidance maneuver capability (and probably its brakes) undoubtedly are not as good as the Porsche, which means the untrained bozos pushing the limits in the M-B Narcissist's Special are likely a little closer to the ragged edge.

Sure, bicycles and motorcycles don't fit the picture of a stereotypical SUV, but neither do they guzzle gas, take up a lot of space, or hit with 4200 lbs of impact. Either can carry a week's worth of groceries, at least with me eating.  How about an SUV that sacrifices blinding acceleration while providing for other people's safety, some real utility, and some fuel economy instead? I suppose it wouldn't fly very far in the Benz market. Besides, maybe its better to go whole hog and just hasten our extinction. (I used the Impreza as an example because Subaru shrunk the engine and vehicle weight to improve gas mileage while maintaining respectable performance. Yeah its still a "cage", but Subie did go marching in the other direction compared to the "bigger, faster, meaner" crowd.)

The Real Long Haul Trucker
Environmental Footprint?

In the final analysis, and if I recall correctly, Steve Avery has said this, riding a bicycle doesn't necessarily provide you with environmental saint status because one's lifestyle in totality and the energetics of food production trump mere riding efficiency. A good discussion of that is here. Depending on how and where your food was grown, that bike can look an awful lot like an SUV in its real environmental footprint. Indeed, perhaps driving an Excursion and dying young and childless of cardiovascular disease is better for the planet!

*Foaming Rant borrowed from Patrick O'Grady, without permission. I'll buy him a beer.

Happy Thanksgiving or Hanukkah, or Thanksgivukkah, if you prefer

As a Jewish friend from down the street told me over dinner today, the confluence of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah will likely not happen again for another 79,000 years. Wow.

The Arlo Guthrie song, for those unfamiliar, is based on actual history.

Commuter Trails?

Uhh...I'll be late for work today...

I got an e-mail from the local media today asking if I would comment on the idea of commuter trails. Apparently, these were suggested as an idea in a sustainability plan but there was some official dismissal of the idea. I won't go into this further until I have times, names, and quotes. I need to call the media back in a couple days, so if you have comments or curses, fling them this way. Note added later--please read Little Jimmy's comment in the comments section.

Here is my first take on the idea. Los Alamos is built on several distinct mesas and there are a limited number of easy ways to move between them in vehicles, bicycles being vehicles in practice if not always in law. Diamond Drive is a good example of one of the few well engineered ways to get from Here to There and Back Again; its our transportation backbone and we put in pretty good bike lanes. Along the golf course, there is a parallel multiuse path. Elsewhere, right of way limitations make a parallel path impractical. Indeed, that is the case for most of our major roads.

On foot or perhaps mountainbike, one has several more direct options to get between the mesas (take a look at the excellent county trails map and talk to county trails expert Craig Martin for examples) that offer routes closer to those that the venerable crow flies, but they are often not easy to ride, become snowbound and muddy, and may involve technical ascents and descents (as Jim Rickman might agree, based on his comment, many of our trails are pretty tough singletrack). Trails run steeply down into the canyons and up again and are primitive and often quite challenging. Others, like the Perimeter Trail, go pretty far out of the way and ain't always easy to ride unless you are a very adept mountainbiker. As we all know, transportation is best when it provides the option to be direct and swift and can be navigated by mere mortals. We can find diversions when we wish, but when we need to get somewhere, we often feel the need to get there posthaste. My commute to work is usually direct as I have stuff waiting that often makes my teeth grind at night. My commute home is often more adventurous; I love to take the opportunity our wonderful Northern New Mexico terrain provides to beat myself up.

Narrow bike/ped bridge with low speed limit and 
 with dog on leash restrictions.Speed in kph.
Calgary, Alberta, 2005

Then there are projects like the Canyon Rim Trail. A beautiful opportunity to build a multiuse path connecting Townsite to the east-end sprawl at the Airport Basin without sharing poorly designed NM502 with lunatics. I was on the Transportation Board when this path was planned and executed. I don't recall that we were consulted on the layout. Maybe I missed it, but doubt it. My criticism of the Canyon Rim Trail is not its beauty, vistas, intent as a parks and rec project,  or its artistic merit; in all of these I think it absolutely excels.  Furthermore, I think most agree. I rarely see it empty and we walk it a lot with the hounds and our breakfast burritos. But as far as a "trail as transportation", it has some serious drawbacks in the form of a low design speed, several very sharp, limited sight curves where a cyclist could hit or at minimum, scare the crap out of walkers or have to dive into the weeds to avoid a crash. And of course, crossing 50 mph NM-502 with not even a marked crosswalk to get to to Airport Basin can be tricky. Plus, while it has published rules, these seem to be suggestions. Imagine a county road without curve signs or speed limits, no keep right rules, and trip wires in the form of dog leashes waiting for you. Paths like Canyon Rim work best when everyone is thoughtful. Clearly, whoever built that trail did not design it as "transportation". That's OK, as long as we understand that.

That brings up the basic problem. If the county is designing trails as transportation or overtly encouraging their use as transportation, I think one has to strongly consider adopting standards set down for transportation when designing and building. That's for both safety and to avoid litigation when someone gets hurt. One can always work in artistic merit, natural beauty, a bit of primitive quality, multiuse rules, and the like.  That might be both expensive and might be an obscene suggestion to those who want trails to remain as unencumbered by civilization's clutter and as close to their "natural" state as possible. Keeping trails as "trails" implies a philosophy of "use at your own risk" and that doesn't work for transportation systems.

Wide multiuse path with higher speed limit (kph)
Calgary, Alberta, 2005

Roads, and I suppose, urban multiuse paths, differ. They are the backbone of surface transportation. We, in theory, build them to well accepted and published standards. We worked hard to improve our roads for bicycling via the Complete Streets and 2005 bike plan. We explicitly design our roads for motor vehicle and bicycle transportation and to provide pedestrian access along and across the streets (well, usually). The Bike Plan was explicitly designed around making sure cyclists could get where they need to go via good roads. Further, these two plans rely on published, tested, engineering standards designed around transportation. Yes, some stuff still sucks, but roads are both engineering and political compromises. Believe me, we worked hard on that bike plan and everyone (T-board, staff, Council) was on the same team.

Obviously, individuals can use trails as transportation to their heart's desire and I know some folks who do that. If it was more direct, I might too as it is pretty neat out there. I think if we want to officially identify trails as foot or bicycle transportation rather than as recreational resources, we need to pick them carefully and decide on the basis of terrain, funds, intended uses, compatibility with other intended uses, political feasibility, and whether they connect sources that need connecting in an efficient manner. They in no way replace our need for good roads. Extending the Canyon Rim Trail as a transportation option, to run along the south side of the main mesa towards the west, might be a good idea, but it would need to be engineered and regulated properly and maintained year round if for no other reason than to avoid lawsuits.  It should be vetted by transportation professionals. It should have published rules and limits, as do the multiuse trails in Calgary (Alberta), Bremen (Germany) and elsewhere.

The devils, as we know, are in the details. Ask the right questions and you might get good answers. Or not.
AASHTO Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities (1999 version, since revised)

Comments?

Fusion Multisport Opens Its Doors

Let's welcome another member of the Los Alamos cycling community, Fusion Multisport. Across from CB Fox and Starbucks, they have a great location.

Co-owner Brad Nyenhuis said he is hoping to hear from local cyclists as to what sorts of stuff he should stock, especially with regard to road bike goodies. I guess he is more familiar with mountain/triathlon, and hopes to hear what works for us roadies in Bombtown. I thought he had a really nice selection of cold weather clothing and I picked up an Endura Baabaa merino wool base layer with a turtleneck top that I hope to use for both cycling and cross country skiing. (added Sunday morning--I used it to walk the hounds in the wind and snow this morning and it was certainly warm.)

Brad's email is on the photo of his business card, below.  Click it for a full size view.

Unlike our previous brick-and-mortar bike shops that were either out on the outskirts of town (Dome) or in hideaway places (Oz), Fusion is right up front and center where it is hard to miss. I imagine their rent check is hart to miss, too; previous brick and mortar shops could not compete against the huge retail outlets in Santa Fe, so I hope Fusion's strategy works where other's apparently did not. Plus, I hope this actually grows the market so Little Jimmy's, Dome, and others see an uptick.

Check out the shop. Personally, and with nothing against Jim, Scott, Mark, other folks who are laboring to make cycling succeed here in a tough market, I hope this time the storefront idea works.  (I think The Bike Doc left--anyone know for sure?)