Share the road, damn it.

I finally got around to doing it.  I had to go down in person to pay my registration fee to the Great State of Texas, and I asked how to get the special “share the road” plates.

For an extra 30 bucks a year, I can now advertise road safety for cyclists by having this on my Element:

The woman told me it will take two weeks for the plates to arrive.  She said they have two kinds of plates there on hand, one because they’re so popular, and one because it’s a message they feel worthy of getting out there more.

I’ll let you guess which is which:

 The Great State is making it all too hard on me.  You don’t know how tempted I was to snag one of those.  And I wasn’t even sure which one to pick, the Cowboys or Read to Succeed.

However, as I told the woman regretfully, when you ride a bicycle on the mean streets of Dallas, you learn quickly that drivers need to be educated about cyclists’ rights, and I do need to do my part by telling them to share the damn road.

What I really need is a “Share the Road” bumper sticker across my bum when I’m riding.

Lord knows there’s room for it.

Share the damn road, y’all.

It’s the law.

 

If you gotta go…

 

In Tour de France coverage it’s called a “natural break.”  Very genteel.

 

This pic  and many others available at the Graham Watson site.

 

And don’t forget the jerseys!

 

“There’s a lot of yelling, a lot of elbowing, a lot of farting.”

Um, that’s not exactly what Stuart O’Grady said.

But I have to admit, I was so distracted wondering where the farting came into the wild finishes of the Tour de France that it took me longer than it should have to realize he’d said “fighting.”

(Ya gotta love that Aussie accent.)

Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland races past Buckingham Palace during the prologue stage of the 94th Tour de France in central London yesterday.
Cancellara won the stage.
Photograph by : Stefano Rellandini, Reuters

 

Pretty and Affordable

So what if you really don’t want to spend a kilobuck (or two or three or six) on a bicycle?

Well, you don’t have to. I still recommend going to your LBS (local bike shop) instead of Walmart or Target or the like. Go to where there is somebody who can really help you find one that will be comfortable for you, and will know how to adjust it for you.

But I saw one of these at my LBS and have you ever seen anything so sweet?

The ones I saw were blue & white and red&white and cost a little over $300, and other Raleigh Retroglides come in yellow and periwinkle and even purple!

I think this would be a fabulous budget bike for somebody wanting to get more into the urban cycling scene. You know, pretending you’re in Amsterdam!

(And okay, I’ll admit it, it’s a way of getting you consider being just a little bit greener!)

Get out there and look around. Your LBS is usually your friend. Or check out REI. Just skip the discount warehouse stores.

Now. I’m on my way out to ride, maybe even to stop by Starbucks!

 

I love living in Seattle!!!

Okay, I am going to gloss over the floods and tragedies that have been happening in recent weeks due to the weird rain we’ve been having in North Texas — every single day.

Instead I’m just going to say that I have not missed the sun and the heat, that I have loved opening windows and hearing rain, and today since there was no lightning I had a fabulous bike ride. I set out to go to the post office in the rain. Light rain, so I figured, big deal, so I get wet, I’ll just come home and get dry again. I was just desperate to get on my bike.

And the sweet, soft rain was so lovely — I rode for an hour. Then I went to Starbucks and got a cappuccino (not a latte — I’ve switched) and their new (old) fruit and cheese tray (that I love-love-loved when they had before and they’ve now brought back) and it was a lovely-lovely-lovely afternoon.

If this is what Seattle is like, I could get used to it really fast.

Genes don’t lie. My Irish/English DNA may have been in Texas for five generations, but it still longs for the old country. This is proof.

ETA:  My cell phone is possessed.  When it rang at Starbucks, it kept ringing even when I tried to answer it.  No matter what button I pushed, it kept ringing.  Now that I’ve been home awhile, it is beeping at me.  The little beep it makes when it’s going in and out of network service.  I turned it off.  It turned itself back on.

Now, I just sit and watch it beep.

If only my microwave worked, I’d pop it in for a few secs.  (Maybe it got damp when I was cycling?)  But my microwave is sending off sparks for no reason when I use it.  So I don’t use it.

I don’t understand why these electronic thingies don’t like me.