StupidHurts

Mostly…..

So I entered into Wonderkat yesterday. I made reference to it a few days back . Aside from a headache I felt amazing. So in an uncharacteristic move for me I popped an Advil and got prepped to raced.

I was first off the line and carried the pace for the first half mile or so, but was soon forced to drop back and let several people in front of me who actually knew the way we needed to go. I was one of the first three people to the two check points I made it to. Even though I entered the Sopo parking lot on a sprint and off my brakes and over shot my mark. Unfortunately between the Freedom park stop and the High Museum, I don’t what happened. I am confident I had a had a seizure, passed, out and crashed my bicycle. Several people including the checkpoint worker told me they the heard sirens when I spoke to them later on that night. Unfortunately I have no clue when I went down or how long I was out for, but I was unconscious long enough for them to get me to the hospital and get an I.V. in.

When I woke up, I took stock of my situation, I was in a strange hospital……Again. I at least had my wallet and my cell phone, but I didn’t have my glasses. Looking around I could think of several better places to be. Lots of the people on the beds where wearing blue faces masks and so were several nurses. Considering that not everyone was wearing a mask the problem must have still been endemic, but still fairly infectious. So I made sure I could still walk, got up. And then read my name on the wall chart to see where I fell in the triage rotation. When I saw it was fairly fair down I pulled the I.V. and then walked out.

Looking at myself I saw was bleeding from both legs, my shoulder, and face. The large blood stain running down the front of my jersey came from mouth where I split my lip. Placing a few phone calls I was able to track down my bicycle and my glasses. Just the matter of riding the Marta a few miles and the walking a few more miles to pick them up.

Well happy birthday to me. Looks like a few days off my bike while I rest this time.

On a side note. Wonderoot’s grand opening was amazing. I really expect big things from them.

Wednesday was the weekly meeting of “Food not Bombs” to cook and feed people in Little Five Points. I try to help them when I can. Our personal ideology is a little different so I make it a point to learn from them as much as possible. It is also nice to be able to help out a decent cause thats helping out where others groups aren’t. Plus they work amazingly hard to make things happen. And I love the guys in the local group who work week after week to feed these people.

Recently one of the stores they were getting donations from got a new produce manager and started refusing to help on the grounds they believed we were keeping the food just to eat instead of feeding others with it. So I was asked to take pictures this time. I have several from past weeks as well, so it will be nice to have a contrast to show them how big it has gotten.

We spent several hours preparing dishes before heading out to pass out food. The food was well received, and went extremely quickly. Everyone was glad to see us come and liked everything we had to offer. For some reason there does seem to be a social stigma associated with accepting a free lunch for some people, so some seem insulted when we offer them food, but all in all things went really smoothly.

Leaving “Food not Bombs” I ran into Rafael and several other of my friends practicing bicycle tricks in a parking lot where I was coerced into shooting a few more pictures. Luckily it was perfect lighting conditions for tracking shots. So he got in his zone and rode out a few leg over skids while I shot. I really enjoy the amount of movement that’s shown in some of these shots.

Lots more can be found in the gallery here.
The Stupidhurts Gallery

First off I got a comment from cyclist Corey Keizer over at 15rides.blogspot.com
He is doing a lot to raise awareness for cyclist rights. It means something to me since any night while doing volunteer work I found out I can ask the crowd, “Who here has been hit by a car?” And alway get an affirmative answer from someone, sometimes several someones.

That being said. With my birthday coming up I either want a jersey from his site in a medium. Or a right hand 105 9 speed shifter so I can fix my road bike. Kills me having a broken bicycle I can’t fix, and it isn’t the sort of part people just leave lying around.

Or is this part one, since we are doing this first…..If health permits.

Two styles of racing in one day.
Should be fun.

The preliminary plan for my birthday is to attend the Faster Mustache birthday party at Lenny’s bar.

FM Bike Party May 31st!
Local Atlanta bicycle club and race team Faster Mustache is having a birthday party and fund raiser at Lenny’s on May 31st at 6 pm. The event will include tons of live music, great food like Jambalaya prepared by our guest chef from Baton Rouge, Chef Rock Steady, and a sprint competition INSIDE the bar!
This is the bicycle party of the year.

Event info on Faster Mustache

Event info on Facebook

After that Bobby and I are talking about hanging out so I don’t have to wallow in my misery alone.

I really need to come up with a better name for it. But this is the seventh reiteration of my current bag design. Not the current bag I have made. Unfortunately I lost count of that ages ago. This one has several improvements over my sacred heart bag which thankfully saw lots of use, but unfortunately failed in lots of places.

The Mark7 was built with strength in mind so all of the seams were rolled over and double stitched. I also tried a few new things with the compression straps this time. I am curious how it holds up over time. In the mean time, I am debating if I am going to be using my sacred heart bag a little less, or if I am going to cut it up and recycle that hardware for my next bag. I know it will be a bit before I embroider anything that detailed, and it is my favorite bag for purely that reason.

My uncle chose fairly late in the day to tell me he didn’t have anything for me to do so I essentially had a free day for a change. I believe this ruins my weekend plans. But I really shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I had felt cooped up lately and wanted to get out, several people had done little for my patience, and this would be my first time to get out and actually ride my bike hard in several weeks. So I made it a point to try and enjoy myself.

The highlights included the fact I now have a new useless skill. I got called out over the fact I had never ever bother learning how to do “leg over the bar” skids. Which is odd, because I had taught one of the people at the shop I hang out at how to do them. My usual excuse was the fact I ride with bullhorns on my bike, but that wasn’t enough to get me by tonight. So I finally got up and pulled out a few. After learning you are pretty much guaranteed to get your pants leg caught between the bars and your hands if you are wearing wide leg jeans. I revised my strategy and got pretty decent at them fairly quickly. Only later on to hear,“isn’t that hard with bullhorns?” I also proved the fact I can sorta ride in a backwards circle. I just don’t because it is a bicycle and it goes forward.

I also got to watch a bunch of what I am hoping were drunk cyclist play “Lean on me” in a studio. If they were not drunk, they may have been the back up band. But they are good cyclist, and they did call to check up me while I was in the hospital. I left after getting a phone call from Ben,“ we are in the fountain in Woodruff park!” There is a reason I hang out with him.

And on my way home after splitting up with everyone, I fell down a flight stairs I didn’t see while riding my bicycle.The killing part is that everyone else was drinking and I was sober. The take off wasn’t so bad, but the landing sorta screwed my ankle up.

I was thinking to myself. After having another pleasant night ruined by a seizure.

I have a boss who will not schedule because he thinks I am not medically fit to my job, and a doctor who agrees with him. Isn’t that the very definition of being disabled. I really need to follow up with someone on that on that Monday.

With the biggest smile on his face Stryder broke my glasses the night before last. Unfortunately just earlier that day during an impulse purchase I spent all of my money on an industrial sewing machine, and getting my current sewing machine tuned up. Thanks to the buyers remorse coupled with the fact I can’t exactly see, I haven’t really felt like finishing up any of my current sewing sewing projects.

Since glasses are one of only my real vanities I am putting them off until I can get exactly the pair I want. Which means I will need $400-600 dollars. (Which is unfortunate, because the parts I need to get my road bike street worth again will cost me just about that much.) Originally the eye Dr. was trying take the cost effective route and fit me for a pair of contacts that didn’t compensate for my astigmatism, but when we realized I couldn’t read. I vetoed that option fairly quickly and got the more expensive lenses. I wanted to avoid a post to my site that involved me plowing my bike into a car……Again.

Unfortunately I missed it this time.
But you can get an idea of what it is like to ride with 200-300 other cyclist in downtown Atlanta thanks to this video.

fdisk003 - Critical Mass Atlanta [April 08] from fdisk on Vimeo.

They occur once a month on the last Friday of the month at 6pm at Woodruff park. Look for the HUGE mass of bikes!

An article was published about the Co-op I volunteer at when time permits. A picture of me was also published, in a P&D swords shirt no less.

Original article here
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

ajc.com > Living
Non-profit bike shop gets cyclists in gear

By JAMIE GUMBRECHT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/21/08

It was a frigid night in late 2004 when the lights went out on a potluck dinner of frustrated bicycle enthusiasts. Brothers Jay and Stewart Varner and their friend Rachael Spiewak had posted fliers inviting bikers to Jay’s house in Reynoldstown, not realizing that 60 people would pack the living room and turn the porch into a parking lot.

Even in the darkness of a power outage, “there was so much momentum and excitement that nobody wanted to go home,” said Spiewak, a 26-year-old bike rider who lives in Poncey-Highland.

So in flickers of bike safety lamps, they sought ideas and answers. How to introduce biking to more people? How to get more bikes on the road in Atlanta? How to make biking safe?

The result was SoPo Bicycle Co-op, a nonprofit bike shop and maintenance space in East Atlanta. In 12 hours each week, it offers bicycle education to daredevilish kids bored with TV, young adult commuters who can’t afford cars, middle-aged parents remembering how to pedal and retirees who want a workout.

And it all started with a crank puller.

Jay bought the $40 tool one summer when he got around town primarily on a dilapidated bike. (Technically, the Varner brothers, who grew up in Dalton, share their mother’s non-working 1984 Volvo wagon, but even expensive bike repair is cheaper than car repair, they say.) Crank pullers are needed once a year, maybe less often. Nobody should ever have to buy this part again, the brothers decided. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a big tool drawer and share it with other riders?

The question was answered a few months later by the crowd in Jay’s darkened living room. Potlucks became planning groups, networking events and on-site neighborhood bike repair. Spiewak and Jay’s living and dining rooms briefly became a bike shop, where the roommates woke to bike parts strewn on furniture and all-hours maintenance requests.

As demand grew, they found a space for the shop: a $325-per-month concrete room in the alley behind the Australian Bakery on Flat Shoals Avenue. An artist worked with local kids to produce a bright, bike-filled mural. Donations of wheels, tires, frames, clips, cranks, pumps and wrenches poured in.

“We added a few tools to the drawer,” Jay said. “And by drawer, I mean shop.”

SoPo — South of Ponce, or “so poor we can’t afford a car” — is plagued by typical nonprofit troubles: too many ideas but not enough time, volunteers or money. It runs on donated cash and parts, with shared labor and knowledge, like the Wikipedia of bike maintenance.

One Saturday in April, a woman shopping for a bicycle wondered, can a 10-speed be made into a 21-speed?

The question volleyed to Spiewak, who bounced it to Jay. With no conviction but plenty of enthusiasm, Jay said “sure,” until Dana Scott, 60, a volunteer who hasn’t owned a car in 15 years, stepped in with an explanation.

The final answer: Maybe. Let’s find out.

Plenty of SoPo repairs and updates start that way. Volunteers and regulars are stumped often, especially by gadgetry from the last couple of years. They rely on books or the all-knowing-but-not-always-correct Internet for answers, then use on-site tools and parts for repairs.

“You don’t take the wrench out of their hands,” said volunteer John St. Louis, a 17-year-old student at Paideia School. “I learned a lot since coming here — how to fix, how to learn, how to teach.”

SoPo co-founders say it’s not unusual for someone to wheel in a dusty, half-working bike only to pedal away with a serviceable bicycle hours later. A few dozen people, many of them regulars, come by during each session.

At Critical Mass, a monthly downtown bike ride, Spiewak used to see only about 30 people.

“Now it’s 300 and I know exactly where some of their bikes came from,” she says.

Organizers say they try to make SoPo a safe learning environment for everyone, from reluctant-but-curious riders to those without cash to buy brand new. The logo, a puffy RoboSheep with wheels for feet, was chosen because it’s memorable, gender-neutral and nonthreatening. (So “cute” that the co-founders are tattooed with it, but not so cute that the Varners’ mom has seen the ink.)

Atlanta City Councilmember Natalyn Mosby Archibong said the organization fit easily into the community by attracting different age groups with an environmental, healthy, economical solution to transportation.

“Sometimes [alternative transportation] is an afterthought and it needs to be at the forefront,” Archibong said. “With gas prices becoming more expensive than gold bullion, I think they’re on track.”

On a rainy Saturday afternoon in the co-op parking lot, SoPo regular Jonathan Gaerlan and 12-year-old Dameion Johnson picked out parts and rebuilt brakes under the watchful eyes of SoPo volunteers. (Brakes, it turns out, are something worth checking twice.)

“I put new stuff on it every time I come,” Dameion said of the blue bicycle he rides to school. “If I didn’t know this place was right here, my bike wouldn’t even be fixed right now.”

The pair turned the final screws and Gaerlan announced the bike was ready for stopping. Dameion pedaled off with his friends; Gaerlan donated cash to cover the shop time and tool use and turned to his own SoPo-ized bike.

He said he gave up cars shortly after he moved to Atlanta six months ago. He fell in love with the city from the seat of his bike. He painted it black, swapped in a two-toned chain and added a bell that’s become his signature sound.

“It was a safe, functional bicycle,” said Gaerlan, 24. “Now it’s getting the way I want it.”

And there’s SoPo’s answer to problems pondered by bike lamp in a Reynoldstown living room: Help people make their bikes safe and build them as they want, and they will ride.

Before you bike

Don’t yank that old, forgotten bike out of the garage and expect to pedal away in minutes. Before you ride, SoPo bike volunteers recommend you put your bike through an ABC Quick Check. (If you’re not comfortable doing it at home, most bike shops sell tune-up services or SoPo volunteers will guide riders through the process.)

A is for air. Check the tire pressure and inflate to the proper level. If the tire treads or sidewalls are damaged, tires might need to be replaced.

B is for brakes. If the brake lever hits the handle before the bike stops, brakes must be tightened. If less than 1/4-inch of brake pads remain, it’s time to replace.

C is for cables, cranks and chains. Adjust cables when you check brakes. Make sure nothing wobbles when you pedal; if necessary, lube the crank threads. Make sure the chain isn’t stretched, and carefully oil with one drop for each link.

Q is for quick release. If your bike has quick releases, make sure they’re tight and nothing will catch on them.

R is for run a quick check. Nothing should feel shaky, loose or out of your control. “You probably know more than you think you do,” says SoPo bikes co-founder Rachael Spiewak. “If you’ve been riding your bike and something feels wrong, it’s probably wrong.”

Source: SoPo Bike Co-op and League of American Bicyclists

About SoPo

SoPo Bicycle Co-op is at 465-C Flat Shoals Ave. in Atlanta. It’s open 7-10 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays and 2-5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. For more information, contact 404-425-9989 or info@sopobikes.org. Information about volunteering, donating and maintenance also is available at www.sopobikes.org.

The Bicycle Frame Show, an art show that benefits SoPo, features 37 bike frames decorated by local artists. It’s on display at Radial Cafe, 1530 DeKalb Ave. in Atlanta. Any unsold frames will be auctioned off during a closing reception 7-11 p.m. April 26.

For more bike advocacy information, check out these organizations’ Web sites.

• Atlanta Bicycle Campaign, http://atlantabike2.org

• Critical Mass, www.criticalmassatlanta.org

• Georgia Bikes, www.georgiabikes.org

• The League of American Bicyclists, www.bikeleague.org