How nice of you to say

This evening, I had the dubious honor of being cussed at for being a law-abiding citizen--the first time a truly nasty action was directed as me as a road cyclist.

"Why don't you stay on the bleepin' sidewalk?!" shouted a young man from a passing car.

For the same reasons you don't, sir. I am a wheeled vehicle whose slowest safe speed is considerably faster than most pedestrians can walk, and the more often I am in the midst of slow-moving crowds (and I spend most of my time on a college campus, the definition of slow-moving crowds), the greater chance I have of wrecking and injuring myself and/or other people. Plus there is the minor detail that sidewalks do not go everywhere I need to go.

I'm a law-abiding citizen, keep to the right and clearly signal when I move left or intend to turn. I stop at the same stop signs as every car, and I am easy to pass because I keep as far right as possible without endangering my tires with the road debris swept to the curb (unless I am turning left, in which case I have signaled). But people still find it necessary to yell at me, beep their horns while going round me, and, in one instance I can only describe as idiotic, pull up in the right lane even though they are turning left, because I am already in the left lane like THE LAW-ABIDING CITIZEN THAT I AM.

People have no idea what it is like to be carless. For me, I either walk or ride my bike. There is no third option--I don't even have a driver's license. There's theoretically a bus system in Norman, but I doubt there's a stop near Boyd & Berry (where my local church is) at 6:30 and 9 Wednesday night. Or at 10 o'clock and 12:15 Sunday morning. So I follow the law while taking city streets, which is whenever I can, because I hate driving through crowds of people--and to the clueless young man in the white car, I say sincerely,

"WTH?"

Teaser and a Learning Experience

These three pairs of socks (yes, they are all pairs, even if they aren't pictured as pairs) have something in common, and I bet you can't guess what it is...... And yes, that's all I'm gonna say.

Learning experiences. Don't you love them? Aren't they just your favorite things to encounter when you're going about your business?--No, really, no one does--they're messy and painful and frequently the lesson isn't obvious. I appear to get more than my share of them, though--like yesterday when I got the point firmly sent home that I should not bike down the east edge of Adams Hall/Price Business College. It was quite literally messy and painful, too......

::flashback:: I am riding as safely as I can, from German to English Comp. I'm in a bit of a hurry, because this is my only ten-minute break between classes, and during it I have to ride across three-quarters of campus. (That is not as bad as it sounds--the trek takes 8 minutes on a bad day on my bike, and five on a good day, plus we had let out a little early.) On the east side of Adams Hall, there is an ornamental garden which is very geometric, with completely square corners (and thus the walkways around them are also abrupt angles), and there are always many people walking in the area. Earlier in the semester, I had run smack into a person (who sadly was not looking where he was going--it was not my fault, I could not possibly swerve or I would hit someone else) on one of the narrow paths through a portion of the garden, so I was warily keeping to the wider main paths. Friday, though, even on the main paths there were not many people, yet somehow a pair was standing just at the corner of the path I needed to turn on...... oh well, swing wide to miss them--crash! Head-on collision with one of those anvils disguised as a mountain bike.

We were neither much the worse for it and instantly start off again, wincing at the bruises. But I got only half a pedal-turn before I realized (damnation!) my chain had popped off! Well, I must fix it--good thing I'm a little early.--Yes, yes, I'm fine, but my chain popped off, I answer a kind inquiry as I bend to begin fixing it.

I was still 5 minutes early to English Comp, so I had time to smear my fingers liberally with alcohol sanitizing goop and wipe it off with a tissue, taking most of the grease with it, and I have an impressive bruise on my inner thigh (the size of my heel!) and a smashed finger that bled a little under the nail, but the more lasting result of my collision is the resolve to never ride down the east side of Adams Hall again, but only the west. It will not cost me much time--it may not even cost me any--and I will have a much smaller chance of more crashes and bruises.

Rhetorical Question

How much of a novice does one have to be, to deflate one's tires with a new pump, instead of inflating them?

As far as I know, no permanent damage has been done, though it did take me all the way across campus to realize that that was why it was handling funny..... Next weekend when I'm back in Tulsa (oh, yeah, school's been in for a week, so I'm in Norman; it's fun--maybe I'll dedicate a post to that tomorrow), we'll take it to Tom's for a tune-up, since I need headlight/rear reflectors since it's my transportation now instead of recreational/exercise vehicle.

Cheers! I'll be a better blogger sometime next century, kay? Too busy with school right now.

Good blogging will commence.....

.......sometime after the next blue moon. I was going to wait to post until I could show you all the more-magical-than-normal heel. Aforesaid heel is still not progressed to a point that would suitably show the transformation, though, because after starting the gusset Friday night (remembering to take Before pics), I spent Saturday and Sunday (well, it would have taken me less time, except for some other stuff which I'll talk about in a minute) tinking the few rows of gusset, and this evening I finally rearranged stitches to my satisfaction. The instructions are vague, I hadn't thought much about this crucial stage, and the pattern at the sides would be tricky to decrease in, NOT to mention one (I think) actual lapse of logic. I'll go into it all in detail at sometime that isn't after ten o'clock at night. So I'm decreasing on the bottom of the foot, which appears to be working better. Cautious optimism appears indicated.

Rest assured that when the heel looks really like a heel, pictures and extended commentary will follow on their heels. (And if it doesn't, it will be an interesting and probably funny story. But! Optimism!)

I had come to the conclusion that I needed to frog right before leaving for some hours Saturday afternoon & evening, so I managed to get perhaps a needle tinked, then tinked a little more after returning. The next morning, though, I worked a bit on my poor abandoned needlepoint scene (yes, I *do* go in heavily for the womanly arts.....), then dashed out of the house (with knitting; do not distress yourselves) to help Mom with manning a rest stop for Tulsa Tough. Aforesaid being a pretty big thing in biking, as Tulsa events go. There are criterion races (with, I understand, handsome cash prizes), as well as two days of endurance rides, from 50K to 100 miles. Mom and I were helping at a rest stop--food, water, and medical assistance--the last rest stop, on the 100 mile route. We had relatively few bikers, since it was not only the longest route, but the second day and a hot, windy one at that. I got to be the early alert system, watching for bikers to come over the rise and ringing my cowbell (Official Enthusiasm Generator) like mad as the signal for the others to dash out to the road with water, sports drinks and mister. The mister, a garden variety spray bottle, was especially nice! (The nurse on station was quite generous with the misting.)

Overall it was quite uneventful, except that somehow three bikers got behind the "last" biker, and we only caught them because the station before us mentioned that they had seen three bikers as they pulled out--those three had missed the two stops before us, and had to stop at convenience stores instead. They ended up catching a ride into town, after their "moral victory" 100 miles (our rest stop was 99 miles into the route--because of a detour, they started the timer late, so the route continued for almost 9 more miles). Tough as nails, those three--one didn't even intend to ride 100 miles, but only (!) 100K--and they even had a pretty decent final time!

I'll talk more about knitting later--it's much too late and I should be in bed.

The Beginning

All right. I have caved. For more than 18 months, I've had a Ravelry account, for more than 8, a Plurk account (for those that don't know, Plurk is a micro-blogging site like Twitter.com), and I have finally run into something that I don't have a Rav forum for (yet), and cannot describe in 140 characters or less, but really want to talk about.  (I'm Cinnabars both places.)

But first, a word from our sponsors a bit about me.  I am an obsessive knitter--I've been knitting since January 2006 (more or less), and obsessively knitting since--well, that's harder to pin down.  It probably began when the Yarn Harlot came to Oklahoma--one of my local librarians knits, and she went, and was talking about it, and I discovered the blogisphere, and obsessive knitters.  From there, and after discovering socks (you can make a whole project for $20!), it was a downhill ride, and oh! such fun! (I'll talk about my current projects later.)  I've picked up two more obsessions over the past year, too, making my life one with healthy, balanced obsessions ;-)--violin and biking.  I've always loved music and singing, and whenever I display it, I am told that I have a very nice voice, but I had no formal music training before last November. I've been learning violin since then (yes, as my first instrument; I can't do anything the easy way), and I'll talk more about how that began later.  Bicycling began--either this time last year, or around September--when I began talking about wanting to ride a century the next year. When I still wanted a bike, and to be fit enough to ride centuries (100 mile rides, FYI) in December, Mom decided I should get my bike.

And here we come to the crux of the matter, the spur to begin blogging. I began to ride, a bit, in January, but for the most part gave it up for the indoor exercise bike after I aggravated my respiratory system into some nasty coughs.  I also admitted to Mom that I wasn't comfortable enough on my bike to ride well, and she said, in the acute way moms have, that I needed practice, and a riding partner to ground me in the basics.  The weather is finally nice enough that we can borrow Dad's truck, drive down to River Parks, and spend a good portion of the day biking, getting comfortable with our gears and our bikes generally--we'll make a Friday date of it. But meanwhile, let's try out the bikes on the least busy portion of our nearby streets.

So yesterday, Monday, we go and try out our bikes on a non-busy street and the quiet rec center parking lot off it.  And I discover that I have been avoiding turning, and also that when forced to turn, I don't do it well (no doubt why I've been avoiding it).  As far as I know, I have never properly turned on a bike--I remember biking a lot when I was six or seven, and going fast, but I have no clear memory of turning, apart from taking the entire street to do so after riding really fast down the steepest drive in our neighborhood.  For the most part, I seem to remember, I stopped, manhandled the bike around manually (which was one of those anvils in bike form called childrens' mountain bikes, and was a lot more stable than the beautiful, sleek road demon I have now), and then tore off as fast as possible.  So. Whenever you learn a new skill, there are bumps in the idyllic path of knowledge.  True for math, knitting, and turning a bike.  Start with the fact that turning a bike is completely counter-intuitive (even if you know the principles of acceleration, and have taken Physics--they're the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you want to do), and combine it with my tendency to slow down when I'm trying something new (both physically and mentally), and you have panic attacks, short vision, and wipeouts.  Let's just say that I was blessedly aimed at curbs bordering grass both times I wiped out.

Oh, you wanted more detail?  The first wipeout, on Monday, was avoidable--I had nearly completed a good, sweeping turn, but I couldn't go past the curb at the speed I was going, so instead of pedaling hard and letting the bike stabilize and just miss the curb, I squeaked, froze, and ended up sprawled in the grass.  The second was avoidable also, but I would have had to start earlier--I turned into the parking lot too sharply, and was headed straight at the curb down into the park.  Once again, instead of keeping my turn and pedalling (so that it was just possible I might have avoided the wipeout, but then again, I might have fallen on the parking lot), I panicked and this time slammed on the brakes.  I cannot express the brilliance of this.  I damaged myself quite a bit more on the second wipeout (fortunately, Mom had bowed out of this ride and wasn't actually witness), and apparently it looked quite spectacular, because a party down in the park sent a delegation up to check on me.  Toll from the first--a small bruise that I only noticed when I was trying on a sock, afterwards.  Toll from the second-- an impressive bruise on the shin that included a blue knot early in the proceedings, a scraped elbow complete with grass stains, and a jolted neck and shoulder that are both much better after an application of ice, thanks for asking.

Okay.  The knitting's going to have to wait.  I'm gonna shower--I hurt all over again (but less so) after this recital.