Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Look out! Three days of posts coming at you:

Monday, Dec. 1

Riding out to LovE, I had to cross two lanes of traffic on 99 to get into the turn lane and ended up behind a full school bus. We came up to the light and I did my best cargo-bike-trackstand for the kids sitting in back (super hard). When I finally had to drop a toe, I made a big deal out of it and threw my hands up in the air. They were stoked! I made fake talk with them by mouthing words and gesticulating wildly, which they also ate up. Yay kids. That made my day.

Polo is played at the 24th and Amazon courts noonishly. I got off work early, made it there before sunset and handed Andrea the camera. This was her best snap:

Around then, it started to rain, and we went to a secret location to play one more game. I took a snap of Mike's backwards chopper:


Tuesday, Dec. 2

Crucial upgrade today. Goodbye, busted Adidas and platforms:

Hello, clipless shoes and crankbrothers "eggbeaters:"



My feet are happier and my appearance is more pro, which is good for business. I'm faster, too.

Unloading sugar, rice and goji berries at Moc #10:

Passed this fella delivering the campus newspaper downtown.

I called 'em up and found out they've been doing this since September! More on this later.

Got snap-happy in the Alley behind Capella:




Saw this mean, 100-spoke machine outside Humble Bagel:

Sassy sticker was on the top tube:

Riding back from LovE, I pulled my phone out to check the time and dropped my pen. I had a spare, but, not one to litter, I pulled over to pick it up. There wasn't much of a shoulder, but the street wasn't busy, so I parked in the edge of the lane. As I walked back to pick up the pen, this tow truck made a big show of passing the bike:

And wouldn't you know it:

He ran right over the pen.

But then there was a baby rainbow:

And I got over it.

Wednesday, Dec. 3

Hummingbirds in-house rider, Anthony, was sick today. I, still recovering slightly, wasn't brave enough to take all the extra weight to South Eugene. This left Ryan, my shipping liaison, with the responsibility of doing that route. Here he is getting ready:


Ryan in shipping at Hummingbird has to do deliveries from alexander hongo on Vimeo.

Setting out on my route, I saw this charming old Toyota outside Farmers' Union:

Parked two spaces ahead was this BMW, which wouldn't have been so bad...

Except there were actually two people sitting inside. reading. sales. fliers.

As in the glossy part of the newspaper one immediately chucks in the recycle bin. I have to imagine this was their conversation:

"Hey honey, want to go get a coffee and newspaper downtown?"

"Sure, let's take the 'bimmer, since we live out in the 'burbs."

"But what to do afterwards?"

"Why not toss the actual paper and go read the sales fliers in the car?"

"Oh, honey, that's so commercio-romantic!"

Or something like that.

Continued on to Sundance to drop about 500 pounds of rice. This is what the bike looked like afterward, just before I headed back to base:

It's important to load the bike carefully, even when almost empty. See the wooden pallets sandwiched between the tarp and the cardboard box? On the way out, they kept the rice bags from getting dirty. On the way back, unladen, they would rattle around and make a bunch of noise, irritating me and frightening other road users. So you make a pallet sandwich with tarp and box, then top it off with bungees.

On the LovE route, I almost always stop at Eugene Fastener, the place for stainless steel nuts and bolts:

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