The Blaſphemous Bicycler

I’m fresh back from a lovely 6.5 mile ride on the new and improved diamondback. My first impression is that it feels ridiculous, but in a good way.

When my hands are on the grips, my back is almost exactly perpendicular to the pavement. Since there is no weight on the front tire, the steering feels really light. I felt like I should be wearing a top hat and tails, smoking a pipe, and tipping my hat to people as I ride by and saying things like “tallyho,” or “jolly good” or something vaguely Victorian-British sounding. I’m probably going to swap out the B17 for the B72, since all my weight is resting squarely on my…arse…

_{A gentleman cycler}

It was kind of fun, but I think I’m gonna start saving up for the Karate Monkey. I don’t think I’d want to do long rides in this configuration. It would be ideal for a 6 mile park-and-ride commute. If I can drag my ass out of bed a little early, I may try that. I’m thinking of ditching the car at the Weis Market next to Holy Spirit Hospital. Think I’ll get towed?

Today: 6.5 miles
This week: 6.5 miles
January: 58
2007: 58 miles

I fell short of my meager mileage goal by a whopping 42 miles this month. Pitiful. That means I’ll have to ride 142 miles in February.

Tallyho!

The weather finally turned cold last week, and I found myself in the annual ritual of changing out the Diamondback’s slicks for studded snow tires: twenty-six inch Nokians. I’m six and a half feet tall, and a bike that fits me looks absurd with 26 inch tires.

_{Diamondback with flat bars}

This is the bike I was riding when I started this blog. I didn’t know anything about bikes when I bought her. She’s too small for me, and the frame geometry is only really set up for a beach cruiser.

As I have gotten more ’serious’ about bikes, I have tried to make the Diamondback work for me. I put drop bars on her, I put moustache bars on her. I even took her camping in the mountains. No matter what I did, I never felt really comfortable on her.

_{Diamondback with moustache bars}

Last week, I decided that enough was enough, and that I was going to replace her with either a Surly Karate Monkey or Crosscheck. After taking an honest look at my post-holiday finances, however, I decided to give her one more chance.

So, I ordered up a pair of Albatross bars from the right honourable gentlemen at Hiawatha Cyclery. I figure if the bike is designed for an upright riding stance, then that’s how I’ll ride it.

_{Diamondback with Albatross bars}

I have been stuck indoors with the flu for the past several days, so I haven’t been able to ride her in her new configuration just yet, but if these bars don’t work out, there’s likely to be a karate-monkey-shaped hole in my credit card in the near future.

You can learn all sorts of interesting trivia by pouring over old maps.

For instance, according to a topographical map created in 1899, City Island used to be called Foster Island.

_{Foster Island}

The 1956 version shows the Market St. bridge as a toll bridge.

Who knew?

I think I want to be a cartographer if/when I grow up.

I have been dragging my GPS with me for the past few days, and I’m starting to get something recognizable (to me, at least).

_{Click for the live map}

This is what I’ve got into the database and rendered so far. The red lines are Interstate 81 and Route 581. Tonight, I’m taking the turnpike to school, and I’ll have the entire “capital beltway” mapped. (Interstate 83 is still waiting for CPU in the render farm.)
Rendering seems to lag several days behind database uploads, so it will be out of date for a while. I am hoping to complete the borough of Mechanicsburg before I lose interest in the project

I’m also thinking it would be nice to get the CAG in the database, because the current map is an out of date PDF file.

I haven’t been making time to keep up the blog this week. I’ve been busy with the new job and with a new geeky project.

Something that’s always bothered me is that there is no Open Source equivalent of TopoUSA. This means I have to keep a windows machine handy because I like to play around with maps and figure out different routes to go on bike rides.

It appears the reason that there is no open source equivalent, is because the map data itself is locked up by copyright holders, who demand tribute from software developers. (Google pays tribute to NAVTEQ for gmaps, for instance.)

What we really need is for someone to release mapping data under a Create Commons license. I’m not holding my breath. In the meanwhile, a dedicated group of GIS geeks are running all over the place with thier hand held GPS devices, and creating a totally free version of gmaps, and releasing the data under a Create Commons license.

The project is called Open Street Map, and it rocks the proverbial bollock.

So, I picked up a handlebar mount for my GPS, and I took a quick ride into a housing development that was recently built near my house. The development I mapped was carved out of an apple orchard. It was a very interesting experience riding through the snow, with the smell of apples everywhere.

_{Click for big}

The dark black line is my contribution to the project.
Now comes the hard part. I have to convert a bunch of gps coordinates into a connected system of streets. I almost have my neighborhood completed.

_{The interface}

Today: 5.5 miles
This week: 8.5 miles
January: 51.5
2007: 51.5 miles
I need to get my butt out there more. There is a lot more road to map.