Ultimate Guide to Bicycle Safety

Someone sent me this really nice bicycle safety guide with tons of uplifting statistics and fabulous graphic design.  Click here to see the whole awesome thing. 

It's pretty NYC-focused, but most of this works for most anywhere. 

The New Bike Shoes

First:  A statement on my state of blogging:  I just never feel the same motivations for blogging as I used to. I also feel pretty private lately.
I used to sit at a desk for most of the day at a full-time job, and I think that gave me anxious fuel to write blog posts. Maybe I'll do better. But don't count on it. 

Here's the bike trainer my husband got us. We love it!
It's so nice to ride in your home and watch TV and pull a small table up near you with your phone and a tall glass of water. And the TV remote.

I love all the bike stuff we have going on in our apartment. People coming over to visit think they can spot our apartment from seeing the bikes in the window. It's funny, but my bike runs much quieter than Matt's on the trainer.

Spring is here in Arkansas! So outdoor biking should commence.

I even got clip-in shoes for my bike and started using them. It's a new, powerful world.

I wish I had some better jokes about how expensive these were and how I can't wear them anywhere fancy... With the exception of some of my knee-high boots, I think they are the most expensive shoes I own. They're the kind with clips and you can walk around on the ground like a normal person.

I am still totally in blind trust with my bike salesman from Chainwheel. That's the shop that nobody thought would be the shop for me. I can't believe how in-deep I am with a shop like this, and I can't believe how much crap/gear/stuff you need for road biking. Jumbo handbags and grocery totes aren't a part of this picture.

I think the road bike community and the commuters are two different communities, but I think one can participate in both, and I think doing this is going to give me better perspectives for both. 
Polite biking will carry on, and I will prove that you can do it in spandex. 

I can not get used to the ginormous maxi pads in bike shorts but you need them! They are so disgusting but necessary. Even riding the trainer in my apartment I have to wear them because my road bike's seat is like a woodpecker's beak. 

My Highlights of 2012

The way I spent New Year's Day last year was magical, and I just knew it was going to be a good year.  We knew for a very long time that we were moving away from NYC and going to Little Rock, so I really savored my last months there. I had constant visions of a huge page turning, because a huge chapter was turning in our lives. Matt was finishing his educational path which lasted 12 years. Even though he had three actual graduation ceremonies from medical school five years earlier, this was the final and real graduation. 

January - I was in the NY Post for having done a diet book review.

I only lost 2.2 lbs., but the book taught me some good stuff that I still think about.

February - I got to review this Nirve bike Momentum Magazine. It was published a few months later.

March - I got this awesome seat at Rachel Maddow's first book event. 

April - this one extra-awesome weekend I rode my bike to Brooklyn on Saturday night for a Leslie Hall show. This is one of the only concerts Matt and I go to together in full force. 

... and the next night I rode back down there for the Miss Lez Pageant and was delighted by the winner and thrilled by the runner up's gown made from nothing but tampons. 

May - Even though I was in the worst mood ever and felt totally lonely, I'm proud that I rode the 50+ miles in the 5 Boro Bike ride. It's over 50 miles and takes you through all the five boroughs. I'm also proud that I raised money for Planned Parenthood NYC in doing so.  And I ran into Bill Cunningham and snapped this pic. 

June - June was when we were really running out of time in NYC. I started eating absolutely everything, but that's not the point. June was all about saying goodbye to New York City and our friends and the experiences we got to have while we lived there. The most exhilarating thing for me was attending Barack on Broadway - An Obama fundraiser featuring tons of Broadway stars and Bill & Barack. It's really funny how much money I spent seeing Bill Clinton from afar while I lived in New York City, but now I see him up-close for free in Arkansas. 

July - We arrived in Arkansas! We took our time getting down there. It was hard to get a driver's license. It took us a couple trips to the office and we had to drag out our Hawaii marriage license, which I like to point out, looks exactly like Obama's birth certificate. Same green printed paper and fonts and stuff. Here's my Arkansas driver's lic. photo. 

August - August was about nesting in our new apartment, walking to the farmer's market and my volunteer career began at the Clinton Library. 

September - I got this sexy road bike that I still haven't ridden that much. 

October - We used our commuter bikes to go on our first bike date in Arkansas. 

November - DOLLYWOOD! We went to Dollywood with our best-friend couples. We only rode like 2 rides, but we spent the day and went for the Christmas decorations. I loved her Chasing Rainbows museum. 

December - I got a visit from Amalia, my best friend from kindergarten and 20+-year pen-pal and we fulfilled our dream of making a Bill sandwich. 

Amalia is a key factor in how I got myself on The Martha Stewart show. I was applying to talk shows to try to get me and Amalia a trip to be re-united because we hadn't seen each other much in the twenty years since she moved away and we were just pen-pals. I applied to Ellen and Oprah and I was tinkering around on the Martha website where I found the Teach Martha application. That's how I got on. That and all my skills. 

Arkansas Sights on Bikes

I used to have all these words and thoughts cooking in my head and blogging here was this outlet, like touching my finger to a socket and the words and thoughts would flow out, but that's not the case these days so here are some pretty photos of sights we saw while on a quick school-night bike ride on the 17 mile Arkansas River Trail in North Little Rock and Little Rock.

A lawn-mover-esque aircraft over hay bales.


My spandex bike look. Pink/Black/White 4ever.


I can never capture Matt smiling on camera - he makes a scowl at my camera but I caught him while biking.




I don't feel that great about this outfit. The butt-pad shorts feel DISGUSTING but it's a must for road bike times.


I'm still not on clips yet and I don't care.
Matt used to obsess about getting a bike-storage situation in our apartment but I actually like them parked by the window like decoration. They stay.

First Little Rock Bike Date

It's been a long time since we put on nice outfits and rode bicycles to an event.


Sunday we got ready to bike a very short distance from our apartment downtown to the Bernice Garden for an Arkansas Local Food Network dinner. Which was delicious, by the way.






Matt has a bushy beard this season.


Matt's commuter bike has a busted tube and I've got to go get a spare for him. He rode his new road bike. We were eating outside and I figured our bikes would be in our sight and the threat of having bikes stolen has diminished greatly here in this car-dependent place.

For example: I'm zero percent worried my saddle will be stolen here in Arkansas. I think it's more likely that the entire bike would be stolen, and I don't feel much of a threat about that either. (I'm talking about my Linus, not my new Trek.)

Yes, my single-speed now feels like I'm riding a molases whale compared to my new road bike. 
But I still love her cargo capacity. 

She doesn't have a name

I got a road bike. A fast and furious carbon bike. I rode it about 40 miles in the first 24 hours.

Yes, I rode in this outfit! I didn't even mean to go that far, just a jot around the neighborhood, but before I knew it, I was five miles out of town. Things happen fast on this bike.

Matt's pretty embarrassed for me using the flat pedals, but I think I need to adjust to all these other changes and upgrade the pedals (to clips or dual-clip) in a few weeks.

We did about 16 or so miles on the Arkansas River Trail today. We went from the bridge at the Clinton Library west to the Big Dam Bridge and back through North Little Rock.


The weirdest thing to me, about riding in these conditions is how many miles you can go without stopping at a stop light. I'm used to stop and go NYC traffic. This is free riding for miles, uninterrupted.

It's extremely peaceful and pretty desolate for miles.




This bike is an insanely fast, fancy, and lightweight machine. It's not for living my life; it's for sport and recreation. I even ordered a bike jersey.

I'm going to write a post on the selection process, but I'm too pooped from all the excitement. 

When too clean is a bad sign

See how this bike rack is clean and perfect?
It's not banged up. It doesn't have a rusty bike skeleton chained to it.
It doesn't have a hint of spray paint or a faded sticker.

It's brand new and shiny.


While it's nice to see this, and the other plentiful perfect racks, I am reminded of this. Arkansas ranks the lowest of the states in bicycle commuters.

Sad! But hopefully, it will get better.

Sorry for the trash can, but take pleasure in the extremely clean small town feel.




I rode about one whole mile to see Harry Belafonte speak at the end of a screening for a documentary about his activist life. It was really wonderful. I had no idea what a major role he played in the civil rights movement.

Field Trip: Historic Central High School by Bike

I made the long-overdue trip to the Little Rock Central High historic site & visitor center. I enjoyed the peacefulness that the middle of a week-day brought to the streets. I rode on the sidewalk a teeny-tiny bit but mostly the streets are wide enough that there's room for all of us. 

Mural of the Little Rock Nine. 

Bike rack all to myself! This bike rack, like many in Little Rock, I feel, is so fresh and new that I feel like I'm the first one locking up here. Ever. 

I've got on overalls and TOMS and a big LeSport Sac bag. 

The museum part was great, but my favorite part, and where I spent about two hours was watching these little oral history documentary films that they have in kind-of a phone booth setting. You can sit on this big bench and dial up the documentaries in chronological order and they're narrated by the Little Rock Nine and other people who were involved. I learned so much. I didn't realize the crisis went on for over a year. I always had it in my mind as a quick event, but oh, no. And even though there were army guards outside the school, the Little Rock Nine were bullied beyond comprehension all year long inside the school. Even anyone who was nice to them really, also got bullied.

Those students were really so young to be so amazing and brave. I'm glad I went.

This was an excellent field trip by bike. I ran errands, visited this historic place, then stopped off for lunch. I sat outside because I was so sweaty and gross. 

Tiny excursions by bike

I am still not in the mindset to go for joy rides on my bicycle. But I did go for a joy-jog on Sunday on the same path. I have to have a mission, no matter how small. Saturday morning I biked across the river to the Argenta Farmer's Market. It's legit, and I'll be back there soon.

I sat down and ate breakfast, bought goat's milk lip-balms and eggplants and more.






I rode down the very quiet Main street using the empty parking spots as my bike lane.

I'm studying for a new volunteer gig and I needed index cards so I decided that there was somewhere I could get them by bike (most stores that would offer stuff like that involve a highway that I don't deem suitable for my bike rides)

I locked up at the USA Drug store and got my index cards then basically took myself home.

I think of the San Fran bike blog girls when I ride around the trolley tracks.




Building blocks of tiny excursions.

Oh, wait! I had a big bike date planned last Thursday but Matt had a seriously flat tube and we had time constraints so we drove but a Little Rock bike date almost happened. 

Now serving... #BikeLR

My first Bike ride in Little Rock!

I thought I could finally go for a simple joy-ride but I can't. I can't just head out to roam aimlessly, I require a mission. I decided to find the AR Obama head quarters.

I found it pretty quickly.


I could be slightly embarrassed about the short duration of today's bicycle trip, but remember, this is my very first bicycle ride in my brand new town. Tiny rides are the building blocks of confident city handling, I believe. And I ran three miles as fast as I could on the treadmill before I did this, so I was beat. 

There are trolley-train tracks here so now I feel solidarity over this obstacle with the San Fran bike blog girls.



And my outfit was pretty wild, so I'm pleased that this is blurry. It's better this way. 



The bridge at the Clinton Library. 



I am also happy that I went ahead and tested the waters on a Sunday afternoon. That's a tip I would give to anyone trying out biking in a brand new town- Sunday typically means less traffic. 




Looks pretty good, huh? I think we're gonna be just fine!