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Old June 25th 18, 04:34 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Joy Beeson
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Posts: 1,638
Default AG: A Sunday Ride


I had trouble getting out of bed this morning, so I thought it wise to
ride my pedal-powered wheelchair (AKA "Trek Pure") to church.

On the way home, I took a tour of the Grace Campus in the hope that a
little extra distance would make up for missing my Sunday walk.

As I was passing one of the dorms, I saw a row of schoolyard-wreck
style bike racks with a slight twist: they still hold the bike by the
wheel, but by the *top* of the wheel instead of the bottom. Something
pushing against the bike couldn't get as much leverage as with the
dish-drainer style -- and the triangles hanging down from the top of
the rack cover a larger area of the wheel than the dish drainer.

I could see myself parking the Trek in one of these, but I'd continue
to cable the Fuji to the end.

In downtown, on the other hand, both of the rack designs installed by
the City of Warsaw support the bike by the frame.

Whoosh! While trying to find the names of the two styles of rack
(serpentine and decorative Sheffield), I learned that in Washington
D.C., a garage capable of parking one hundred fifty bikes was built at
a cost of eight million dollars. My calculator just gave up the
ghost, but my naked brain and a sheet of paper make that
$53,333.33/bike. That sounds like Washington. (The bogus precision is
all my own.)

While on the campus, I rode on a crosswalk, not only without getting
off the bike, but without stopping. Yes, I inveigh against this
practice, but the visibility was good. Not to mention that this was
in a school parking lot on a Sunday, during summer break. And the
right-of-way crossed wasn't so much a driveway as a neck between two
parts of the parking area.

When I found the entrance to the Heritage Trail after exploring the
campus, including an extra loop so that I could look at a one-way
drive -- the only car that I saw moving on the campus came out of that
driveway, so I didn't feel like being a scofflaw -- I noticed that a
bike lane painted on the pavement of the parking lot appeared to be
intended to be the main route to entrance, so I followed it to see
where it came from. It followed the edge of the parking lot for a
while, then changed to crosswalk paint where that parking lot branched
into a smaller one, and became a sidewalk on the other side. I
swerved onto the smaller parking lot and rode alongside the sidewalk,
only to discover that the parking lot ended and the walkway continued.
So I rode over the grass dividing strip without dismounting, which I
wouldn't have done on the Fuji, but the fat thirty-pound tires on my
wheelchair don't make grooves in grass. The walkway led to a sidewalk
along King's Highway.

So I turned around and rode across the crosswalk again. Just inside
the gates of the Heritage Trail, there was a worn spot beside the
trail. I parked the Trek on it and walked back to the parking lot to
take some notes. Just as I was preparing to walk back around the
gates, a bike rider wearing what bike-haters call "spandex" came out
of the trail, and said "Hi" as he passed in the general direction of
the dormitories. He overtook me shortly after I completed the steep
downhill portion of the trail; whether he had climbed the hill for
exercise or had a very short errand on the campus, I've no idea.

I've done this loop in the other direction on the Fuji, but I wouldn't
even start it on the Trek -- I have to get off shortly after crossing
the bridge over Wyland Ditch, long before I get to King's Highway.
(Though it was a short ride from the entrance to the road by sidewalk,
it's quite long by Heritage Trail.)

Hmm . . . How can I go down so much on the Trail, and along the level
on the sidewalk, when there is no noticeable hill on Pierceton
Road/Kings Highway? Google Maps gives no clue. Pity Top Maps are no
longer available.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/



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