Thursday, Thursday, Gotta Get Down On Thursday

Just about every week I attend the Thursday Night Social Ride, an Austin classic and my favorite night of any given week. As part of the LGRAB Summer Games, here is a post highlighting, celebrating, and all around pimping out this week's ride. All photos are with courtesy of and with the permission of Gordon Aikman, who is an all around cool guy for letting me use his pictures.

Among the best parts of the TNSR (as it is affectionately known) is that it follows a different route every week, routinely taking me to parts of the city I've never seen. I get to know my city so much better for the experience of having seen it by bike.

Every week, for all that the ride ranges from 200-300 people, I run into the same people. I always meet new ones, but there are a few regulars I get to see all the time. My dear friend Sunshine and I arrived around 7 or so for pre-ride socializing and all-important beers - those bags are heavy til you drink them lighter!


Does something smell funny to anyone else?


Nah, I'm just kiddin'

Around 8 the group took off from Festival Beach park. The exit is always interesting, with the inevitable bottleneck caused by 300 rolling vehicles trying to spread out but stay in conversation range. It's a social ride in every way, so while there are faster and slower cyclists, everyone is primarily there to hang out together, doing something we love. We follow the laws to the best of our ability, are polite to other vehicles and riders, and generally try to be good ambassadors for cycling on a grand scale. And it works! Generally everyone has a very nice time and nothing bad happens.


Takin' off

This week's route took us on a winding, hilly ride through east Austin, stopping at several parks, and ending at the Nomad Bar. As we rode, my bag gradually got lighter, but the end result of beer drinking is that I was completely starving by the time we got to the bar. Sunshine and I, having had our fill of beers, but having no clue where we were, decided it was time to make our way home after sitting on the curb and splitting a Coke and a medium-sized bag of Fritos between the two of us.

One problem - I had absolutely no clue where we were, just that we were "somewhere in central-northish Austin east of the freeway." Lucky me though, that my phone also functions as a GPS. We fired up my Device, I mapped us a route back to Sunshine's house/my car and slow-pedalled it the whole way back. I'm sure the Fritos helped in that effort.

In defense of heavy bicycles

It's been a recent thing that I seem to be catching a bit of crap from other cyclists as to how heavy the TARDIS is. This is up to and including in bike shops, on the part of the employees (which seems a bit backwards as a customer service strategy, but that's neither here nor there). So yes, I know my bike is heavy. Unloaded, it comes in around 35 lbs. The kickstand alone weighs over a pound. The rack has a sufficient payload that if you have an ass that doesn't mind the bars, a person can ride on it. It's not a lightweight.

But for every person that likes to rib me about the weight of my bike compared to theirs, it's amazing how quickly their tune changes as soon as they get a flat, need a quick repair, or are using my bike to lean theirs against because it actually can work as an impromptu portable bike rack. Observe:



That is the TARDIS, kickstand down, supporting two bikes leaning against it from either side while my friends ran into a convenience store for refreshments. We were parked directly next to a flock of singlespeeders with large messenger bags who seemed a little boggled in my choice of velocipede. Later, they were parking their bikes on mine, and it was decided upon that the TARDIS and I are sort of the Medics of the Austin Social Cycling world. We aren't the most glamorous, the fastest, or the slickest ones on the block, but in an instant can be called upon for something useful.

And that's my defense of my heavy bike. No, it's not light. But it's stable, comfortable, and has so many uses I haven't found them all yet. As a person, I am usually opposed to unitaskers, and so my bike is built to have almost infinite uses. So yeah, it's heavy. But damn if I don't absolutely love it.

Mixed Media Part II

As an avid reader of BikeSnobNYC, one of my favorite recurring themes of his is the "Indignity of commuting by bicycle." The last couple days have sort of thrown the indignity into sharp relief.

Last time around I wrote a post basically saying that for the sake of convenience, vanity, and timeliness, I often like to go the "Bike-N-Ride" route, blending public transport, catching rides from friends, and cycling. The last couple of days, Planet Earth apparently decided I was not going to be getting around in any other such fashion than by bike. My plan for yesterday evening was to take the MetroRail downtown to hang out with Sunshine McHappyFlowers, eat some pasta salad, and get a margarita.

I arrived at the train station and walk up to the ticket machine, which is surrounded by disgruntled looking people holding bicycles. Apparently the train south was cancelled. The rather stressed-out looking dispatcher said they would be sending along a bus shortly that would stop along the MetroRail's normal route, and that the travel-time would not be significantly different. The bus did indeed arrive, the problem became obvious. Austin's buses only hold 2 bikes a piece, on a front rack. Not only were the two spots on that bus already filled, but there were 5 of us standing there holding our 2-wheeled contrivances. So it was decided with two other people that we would simply ride the distance.

As I've mentioned, Texas is fairly hot in the summer. Yesterday it was 100 F out for the duration of the ride there and in those temperatures, it's almost impossible to stay cool and hydrated. I got to Sunshine's place about an hour later, and went upstairs to have pasta salad and get ready to go out. I spent a good amount of time drying off, cleaning up the raccoon effect I always get from the combination of heavy sweating and makeup, and nervously texting a lad I met at the park. Onto our bikes we hopped and off to the bar we pedaled, where we met DogParkGuy for drinks. Another friend of mine ended up meeting us out and being a bit inebriated, threw our bikes in the back of his truck and he drove all of us back to Sunshine's apartment to keep the party rolling and crash out. Theoretically, my friend was giving me a ride home in the morning so I could take care of my dogs, maybe get a little more sleep, and still make it to work on time.

Fate wasn't having it. Despite the relatively short amount of time we were there, and the late hours, my friend's truck was towed this morning. So at 6:45 this morning, it was time to get creative with getting home. I rode to the train station, only to discover that the MetroRail doesn't even run on the weekends. This left me two options. Take the bus, which takes forever, or ride. I think you all know which choice I went with.

An hour later, I pulled up to my house, in quite the state. A shower was what was called for, however, one of my dogs kicks up an incredibly racket if put outside and left alone (housepets do not understand banishment). Since I still had on the bathing suit I'd put on the night before under my dress, I turned on the garden hose, set the sprayer to the "Shower" setting, and took a quick shower in my backyard. I still made it to work on time.

Social Cycling

Yesterday I rode almost 30 miles, all destination oriented cycling (which is a fancy way of saying I was running errands and then decided to go out in the evening). The first 14 or so miles were by myself, and the second 14 were with my biking buddy and all around awesome friend Sunshine McHappyflowers (not her real name).

On our way to our event we passed a rather large groupride, on many different kinds of bike, all out to have a nice evening together. It got me to thinking about cycling not only as a sport or a form of transportation, but a vehicle for socializing. Sunshine and I are basically our own private little groupride and we regularly go frolic together on bikes. I'm realizing that cycling is one of my favorite ways to socialize partly because I most feel like myself on my bike.

Cycling, particularly of the errand-running variety, is most often a solitary activity (at least for me). You sit in traffic, wait at lights, change lanes, and so on. All of which is very practical when getting around town, but isn't doing a lot for my "Bike high" factor. But, the joy of doing my favorite thing with other people who love it as much as I go amps the Happy factor by a thousand times.

Sharing climbing up the hills, even the not-so-awesome experiences like getting cut off by buses, and that feeling of total freedom when you get to coast down a long slope.

It's also a great way to meet new people. Via organizations such as Social Cycling ATX and the Austin Cycling Events Calendar, there is no shortage venues for letting out your inner social butterfly on a bike in Austin, TX. And there are organizations like this in just about every major city I've had the privilege to cycle in.

Do you like to social cycle?