This morning on my way down Mass Ave, rather than potbellied cops on motorcycles waiting to give mild mannered cyclists unnecessary tickets, I came upon  some kind of huge DPW truck siphoning water from the nearby hydrants. The truck was in the left lane, across the road from the hydrants, and the 3″ thick hose was unavoidable. They expected traffic to go over it.  Yours truly, assuming they had taken ‘bicycle traffic’ into account when setting this up, expected the hose to give even just a little, allowing me to stay with the flow of traffic. Nope. It rolled instead, causing me to capsize in the street, completely wracking my left elbow and knee and smooshing my bike bell beyond repair. I guess my five mile run is out of the question now, as is going more than 8mph on  my bike for the rest of the week. Thanks a bunch for thinking of the cyclists, City of Cambridge!

Dicks.

So yesterday I made a post, and while putting on the finishing touches (after-post typos), it inexplicably disappeared into the ether. This has happened with a few of my posts here, which is one of many reasons I haven’t been committing my experiences to blog post in a while. Happily, I was able to salvage the text of the post via my Greader. Sorry if this post is a repeat for those of you with a feed. It wasn’t my fault, blame the gremlins!

Gloves. They’re fucking everywhere in the winter. I have many fantasies in which I pick up every glove that I see lying in the road or snugged over a fence post and open a small warehouse (sort of like the Garment District’s Dollar-A-Pound) where people can come hunt for their long lost glove or mitten. Or in some less frequent instances, shoe. Sadly, I am too lazy. However, I do feel as if there is some kind of mystic force that keeps me from ever having to buy a pair for myself. My last pair was given to me by my mother, who found them in a snowdrift by the side of the road in Gloucester, MA last year. They are now however much the worse for wear.

Exhibit A

If you think the outside looks bad, you should feel the sticky, shredded inside. Yeck.

So for a few weeks I have had my eyes peeled for a stray pair in need of a new home. I had decided, literally TODAY on my ride to work, that I would have to suck it up and buy a pair of new gloves as no karma gloves seemed to be forthcoming, when these beauties appeared on the sidewalk between my office and my cafe in the little village of Brookline.

I looked around but there was nobody in sight. Just me, and my new pair of cosmically bestowed handwarmers.

Thanks, universe!

I’m at work for the first time in three weeks. This year so far has been … annoying. Broken toe (incident with a shopping cart).  Frozen pipes, exploding washing machine, kitchen fires, oh my! The Black  Plague (or tonsillitis, I’m not sure) paid our friend group a visit. On top of it all, the death of our sometime friend Eric the Red (see posts from last summer) has Dadoo Climbout in an existential crisis. Oh, and DEAR BABY JESUS WTF SNOW!?

I know, I know. I talk a big fat streak of piss about how I loooove to ride in the winter. Seriously though, kids? I can work from home, and when the roads have three layers of sky diarrhea in various states of frozen covering them, I will do so.  So in bed I have been for the last four storms, and all the clean up in between. As much as I am very appreciative of this opportunity to out sloth the entire community, I was starting to get really bored. So here I am at the office, blogging for the first time since  August. (Sorry guys, shit happened.) Oh, I should blog about the shit that happened.

Ok, here we go.

I’m not really on any committee. I don’t go to meetings, for a few reasons, including inability to remember when/where they are, and crippling social anxiety. I’m not part of any official bike club or movement. I’m mostly a loner (Dotty), a rebel. But when I’m on the phone with people, I do make a lot of lofty claims about the level of contact I have in the community – I have a squeaky girl voice, so to be taken seriously on the phone is a bit of a challenge.

Today I spoke to a nice gentleman at the MASSDot about the state of the Mass Pike pedestrian bridge in Allston. He informed me that it is the Mass Pike Authority’s responsibility to maintain it, and not the city’s. He also admitted that he did not have the direct number to the Mass Pike authority. No wonder nothing really gets done around here.

I don’t want to jump the gun and get hopes up, but I have ordered a small, battery powered spy cam. I’m hoping to mount it on my helmet in such a way that all the idiocy I witness during my daily commute is captured and useful as evidence in the event that I am struck (again) or otherwise menaced. Not sure about the quality of the cam yet (it was cheap) or the method of mounting, so this plan is tentative, but I’m pretty excited. I have the feeling that attitudes will be completely different if people know they are being filmed. Better, or worse… we’ll just have to wait and see.

Thanks to my 16-hole, Satan resistant apocalypse boots and my Gore-tex jacket I am only relatively skin-soaked today, despite the deluge. It’s just typical that we get this piss blast immediately after I’ve done my spring bike cleaning, isn’t it? Luckily (for Kranky), the first epic rainstorm of this month had already washed all the sand and grossness out into the dying ocean, and I have been able to make my way around town almost entirely splatter-free. I’m so glad I opted for fenders and a rack, rather than a sleek and speedy silhouette. I’m never daunted in my tasks, no matter the weather or the cargo… though I DO need to pick up a bunch of TP, asap, and I like to buy that in BULK. Unwieldy to say the least. I should probably wait for a sunny day, lest I end up with a cargo load of paper maché.

I’m still waiting for a response from the MBTA on the continued bad behavior, but I’m not going to hold my breath. If the BPD doesn’t care about the laws broken by the MBTA, and the general populace would prefer speed over safety, then what is one person going to be able to accomplish? I’m thinking, not so much. I hate to say it, but I really do believe that the MBTA will continue to remain unaccountable for it’s operator’s behavior until someone is struck and killed by a bus, specifically while on a bike. And god willing there are witnesses, because I highly doubt the driver would notice – they apparently didn’t notice when they struck me on two separate occasions. It’s a dark topic, but one that I must address before the fact; I truly hope I never find myself in the position to say, “I told  you so.”.