bike building

Two weeks ago, I got to help with a very cool program. The DC Public School system, with support from the DC DOT, decided that every kid should know how to ride a bike. They could teach it as part of the PhysEd curriculum, and aim at second graders, who would be old enough to grasp the basics without being old enough to fear falling or looking silly in front of their friends.

The problem was getting enough bikes.

That's where the crowd of volunteers came in.

Revolution Cycles, a local chain of bike stores (I feel like there's a pun in there, but I'll let it slide), took the lead in ordering the bikes and organizing the work force. They recruited several of their customers and staff to build bikes for a week in August (I was out of town then) in a hot, breezeless warehouse in northeast DC. Last month, they built the second round, and I was there for it. So were many more volunteers. More, even, than Revolution had expected. On the first day, we built four hundred balance bikes (no pedals, no brakes, no problems) and over 120 sixteen-inch bikes (pedals and coaster brakes).

The storage room looked like Christmas morning.

These took more time to unpack from the boxes than they took to assemble.

For the next two days, we built sixteen- and twenty-inch bikes (the twenty-inch bikes introduced hand brakes), bringing the week's total to 875 bikes, almost twice what was built in August. The build was such a popular project that the woman in charge of recruiting volunteers was contacted by half a dozen people Tuesday night asking if they could come help, too. The Washington Redskins wanted to build bikes, but by the time she heard from them, we actually had more help than we needed. In fact, we finished the build two days earlier than expected.

We built so many bikes so quickly that they ran out of room in the warehouse, and had to begin distributing the bikes to schools just to make room for us to continue working. For me, the funniest part was that the work I did was mostly taking boxes from pallets and moving finished bikes to storage. I only built one bike, at the end of the last day, when the pallets were empty and we had started storing the finished bikes in our build room, because we were once again out of storage elsewhere. Still, I had a lot of fun helping, and every time I see a news item about the kids getting to learn to ride because of that week of work, it makes me feel really good. Bikes are freedom.

(I am not artful enough here to properly embed the video, but one of the other volunteers made a time lapse of part of our last day of building. You can see it here.)

GOBA 25

Every year, on the third week of June, two to three thousand bikers descend on a circuit of rural Ohio towns like a swarm of spandexed locusts.  GOBAville, our itinerant campsite, claims status as "Ohio's Largest Moving City," and for that one week of the year, its inhabitants live in tents, shower in trucks, crap in Easy Bake Ovens, and wait patiently in lines to eat, shower in trucks, and crap in blue plastic hot-boxes. I've been doing it since I was ten.

Meadow View Growers maintains this Slow Moving Garden, and parked it at one of our food stops on Sunday.

The Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure has a new route every year, which in itself is impressive, considering 2013 was the 25th anniversary of the tour.  There's only so much of Ohio, and we've covered an awful lot of it.  Many towns have been revisited over the years, as food stops, overnight stays, or both.

Would you go here for a shave and a haircut?  Would you believe it's constantly busy? (phone number  has been obscured from picture)

I've written about GOBA before, but maybe you're new here, or maybe you're curious about longer bike tours, so I'll give some more background on what it's all about this time, because it turns out my pictures don't illustrate the whole week.  They do illustrate a lot of the statues in Troy, Ohio this year (they change regularly) depicting normal people doing normal things--normal enough that if you don't notice the circular plates they stand on or the creepy gold skin tone, it's possible to not realize they're statues.  Alternatively, my aunt pointed out a statue that turned out to just be a person, sitting very still on a bench.

If you look really closely, you can see that his watch is on backwards.  But I love kites, so I still like the statue.

Originally, GOBA was a solid seven days of riding.  Fifty (or so) miles a day for a week, with a new town every night.  Now, there are two "layover days," giving you the option of riding your fifty or staying in town and seeing the sights, watching a movie, doing laundry, or taking a bus to a local event, like canoeing or outdoor theater.  One of the loop days has a century option, which means one hundred miles in a day.  I've ridden the century for the last several years, and Dad joined me after the purchase of his much nicer, faster bike.  The trick is to not think of it as a century, but as two fifty mile rides.  The other trick is to get ice cream and other fuel at every possible opportunity.  Last year, Dad, The Girl, and I stopped for ice cream three times along the route.  It's a personal best.

Despite the stunning detail in the texture of his clothes, this is not a real person.

There are three food stops each day, sponsored by the communities along our route.  You grab whatever food you want, and pay for whatever you grab.  After 25 years, GOBA has a pretty good idea of what we need, and they do a great job telling the towns we pass through what (and how much) to provide.  The loop days are not as well supported, but usually those days pass through towns with good local options for food.  At night, there is almost always food available in camp, and local organizations like churches and schools will hold dinners (in addition to whatever restaurants are in the area).  Nobody goes hungry on GOBA.  A lot of people actually gain weight during the week.

I like that he seems to be the model for the sign he's ignoring.

Our tent city springs up each night at a high school, college, park, or fairgrounds--whatever the city has decided will best serve our needs.  Vendors and bike repair shops line up their booths, luggage trucks disgorge our bags, and the shower trucks (I really wasn't kidding about that) connect to water mains.  As riders trickle in to camp, we find our bags, set up tents, shower, and figure out what to eat that night.  There are usually lots of people who bring games and books to keep themselves occupied until it's late enough to go to sleep, but there are often local concerts and other entertainment options.  The next morning, you repack your duffel, collapse your tent, and toss your bag into the back of a luggage truck before you set out riding again.

Our route didn't cross this bridge, but I liked it, so I took a picture anyway.

With a ride this big and this popular, you see a lot of the same people year after year.  My aunt has only missed two years, and there are a lot of people who know it just from seeing her in the past.  On the very first year, my mom stole a bite of sandwich from a guy named Mike, and he still remembers her.  You end up with an ephemeral sense of community, because most of these people you only see for one week of the year, but you end up knowing a lot about them from talking at food stops, along the route, in lines, on shuttles, and in camp.  This year, we met a man named Dennis on the second day.  It was his first GOBA, but by the end of the week we knew about his sons, his recent (and very successful) improvement in health, and his riding club.  Saturday morning, he invited us to his place for dinner.  I thought he was joking until he gave Dad his address.  That's the sort of thing that happens on GOBA every year.  Mom's friend/victim Mike, who barely knows me, invited me to join him on a cross-country ride this fall, and if it weren't for the training I still need to do, I would go.

When you glue pennies all over an Ansonia tiger, it looks like a leopard.

There were a couple small problems this year, but nothing insurmountable.  Both of Dad's tires went mysteriously flat, but he had three spare tubes (on a vehicle with only two wheels--I can't figure this out, but it worked out well for him, so who am I to question his tactics?), so we took care of that.  The route markings were not as good as they had been in the past, and were sometimes located where they were difficult to find, because they were far from where bikes should be (and were) traveling, but with two thousand other people going to the same place as you, you can usually just follow the stream of people.

The Bicycle Museum of America, in New Bremen, let us try their penny farthing in a stationary rig.

We've been riding GOBA as a family (and ever-changing network of friends) since the very first year.  My first year was GOBA's third, and although I missed a few years in the middle, I've been riding it ever since.  Even when I was a little guy, I rode my own bike, under my own power.  Next year, of course, I'll have to skip.  Dad and I have been trying to decide whether to keep riding after that, or try a new ride.  He found out about a bike tour in Maine that's having its inaugural ride this August.  We can't make it this year, but maybe in two years, we can return to Mom's childhood home for a good long ride.  He and I took our bikes to Maine for a little trip a few years ago, just him and me putzing about in the mountains, and we had a great time.  But before we do another serious ride, I need a new bike.  Something light and fast.  Not this thing.

Sure, this seems reasonable.

GOBA 2012

When I was nine years old, my mom, two of her sisters, and a couple other friends embarked on the inaugural Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure.  I trained with them as much as they would let me, but I was told that I was too young to join them.  They were probably right; they still had to stop often to let me catch up.  In my defense, my bike was much smaller--and so was I.

When I was eleven, I got to ride GOBA for the first time.  Fifty miles of biking a day, every day, for a solid week.  We camped in tents at fairgrounds and school campuses, showering in their facilities or in semi trailers refitted for that purpose.  For the first time in my life, I was part of a traveling biker city which descended upon small towns like a swarm of spandex-clad locusts, devouring everything in sight and disappearing by dawn the next morning.

I loved it.

In September, when other kids started getting wound up for Christmas, I thought "it's only nine months until GOBA!"  It became a family tradition, and our riding group grew, peaking at around fifteen friends and family members.  2012 was GOBA's 24th year; my aunt has only missed two.  I've honestly lost count of how many I've ridden, but I think it's in the neighborhood of fifteen to twenty (I missed a couple years when I had to work, go to school, or couldn't afford it).

It's also become something Dad and I can do together.  I tend to ride a little faster than him these days (he has a great bike, but I still have an edge on hills), but several years ago GOBA started including loop days and a century option.  On days when we need to secure a campsite, I ride ahead from the second food stop and find a place for our tents, get the luggage, and set up camp (when The Girl started riding, she found out that part of riding my speed is doing more work when you get to camp).  On loop days and Saturday, I get to ride with Dad; last year I convinced him (on his shiny new bike) and The Girl to join me on the century ride.  This year, he suggested it.  GOBA is the week we get to hang out together without worrying about shoring up someone's house, trimming trees, or even doing laundry.  A lot of people would look at 400 miles of riding in a week as a brutal punishment, but for us, it really is vacation time.

This year, we started riding from Hillsboro, and spent the next two nights in Yoctangee Park, in Chillicothe.  We found an expansive mural, watched part of a criterion race, and drank dollar margaritas at a local tavern until they ran out of tequila.  That's how we roll.

Can you tell which windows are real?  How about that slate roof?

I wanted to include this detail because that lady looked at me, and it gave me the willies.

 The Girl rode her first century with us last year (it was also Dad's first, and my... third?), but opted out this year due to meteorological and dermatological concerns.  Plus, the last twelve miles into Wilmington the day before really pissed her off.  They pissed all of us off, and I don't think I go too far to include the other 2,000 riders in that statement.  It was slightly uphill, completely exposed (the only shade trees we could see were well back into the endless cornfields on either side of us), and most of it featured a headwind.  The Girl did the smart thing and drafted me.  I did the belligerent thing and pedaled hard, occasionally growling.  She might have made the right call; a couple parts of the century loop were very similar, but we did get to see my new favorite barn quilt and a pair of confusing signs.

Pay no attention to the smudgy UFO; I need to clean my lens.

I had no idea how to proceed.

Our midway food stop was unsupported by GOBA; they routed us to a tiny town called New Vienna.  There were only two tiny restaurants in town.  Not great news, but not bad, either.  The bad news was that a storm had come through a few days earlier and destroyed the roof of one of them.  The other bad news was that nobody had told New Vienna that they would soon feed a couple hundred hungry riders.  The diner that was still open ran out of bread and had to call in two more people to help staff the place while Dad and I were there.  They apologized profusely; so did we.  I was just happy to feel like I had experienced one of those moments from GOBA's early years, when our host towns honestly had no idea what to expect, and the gang of bikers would shut down entire restaurants, but I felt really bad for the staff of the diner.  They did the best they possibly could have, and probably set a local record for business done in a day, but they could have managed more easily if they had been warned ahead of time, instead of suddenly being swarmed with spandex.

That night, after Dad and I had found something to eat, the four of us went to downtown Wilmington for dinner (I know--but on GOBA, sentences like that make sense).  We didn't have any particular plan, but that worked out well, because we ended up wandering into two really neat places.  The General Denver Hotel, named after an American badass (also the namesake of Colorado's capital), is home to one of only two manually-operated elevators still running in Ohio.  I've never seen one of these in person, and I was really impressed to find out that two of them were in Ohio, much less that I got to step inside this one (only staff were allowed to run it, and I had no business on other floors, so I didn't get to go for a ride).

After we decided that the General Denver was way too busy for our dinner plans, we stepped back outside and I noticed that the nearby Murphy Theater offered tours.  I had no idea what to expect, but I'll tour just about anything if I think it might be cool, and I had high hopes that we'd get to see parts of the the theater one wouldn't usually see.  Our guide picked up on that and showed us everything.

Dad is easier to find than Waldo.  He's the one in the white hat.

 We got to see the Rope Room, high above the stage, and pull the lines to see how heavy the curtains and backdrops are to move; we went down through the dressing rooms and saw the under-stage entrance to the now-closed orchestra pit (she told us that no other tour that day had seen that, but after hearing that I wanted to see everything, she obliged--she even opened the door to the loading dock so we could peek outside), and I got to go into the box seats for the first time in my entire life.  The box seats in this theater have a peculiar acoustic property: you can hear the people in the matching box seat on the opposite side of the theater.  A couple people, unaware of that feature, have left believing that the theater is haunted.  One guy who had done work for the theater and received box seat tickets in gratitude had been sick and full of cold medicine during the performance and thought he had hallucinated the voices.

Each of the box seats has a small plaque with a fitting quote.

 Back on the street we found another, even larger, and more detailed mural.

None of these people are real, but Picasa wanted to label them.

We found large, tasty sandwiches for dinner at Jen's Deli, in the same cavernous space as a book/toy/furnishings store owned by Jen's dad.  They were also chock-full of bikers, and locals excited to see that their usual lunch spot was open unusually late.  Beware Jen's cookies.  If you ever get one from me, I guarantee there will be something creative inscribed upon it.

On the last night of GOBA, there is always a song contest.  This year's featured an unusually high number of portable toilet jokes, but it ended with me (and the woman who tied with me) winning sweatshirts for counting the barn stars we passed during the week.  Dad and I also got to talk to the gentleman behind Sojourner Cyclery, who hand crafts gorgeous black walnut bicycle frames.  I'd be afraid to ride it outside, but man, they were pretty.

TV lies

Over the weekend, I took a couple bike rides.  I don't really know how far I went, because the battery in my odometer is dead, and I haven't been able to find anyone willing to sell me only one replacement battery.  The first battery lasted six years.  Why would I want a two-pack?  I checked my routes on Google (they have a nice Beta feature to map routes along bike trails, but DC is a bad place to get really detailed directions that way because the trails are marked even more sporadically than the roads), and it looks like I managed about 40 Saturday and a bit less than that Sunday.  Blame for these abbreviated rides may be assigned to either my own lethargy, or my bikes urgent need for new bearings and gears.  Take your pick.

Yesterday I ventured along trails to Silver Spring, Maryland, where I was surprised to find the Discovery Channel.  They had a "sensory garden," which sounded interesting, so I stopped to have a snack and look around.

I'd like to think that a garden outside the headquarters for a cable which, although a corporate, for-profit entity, purports to be at least semi-educational, would get its own facts straight.  I let them slide on calling the garden a fractal design (it was arrayed in progressively smaller circles, though I don't know that they followed any mathematical structure)--we'll call that artistic license.  I'll even look past what I thought was a misspelling of "Crepe Myrtle," because after a quick bit of research I learned that their version may be an acceptable alternate spelling, but it still makes me itchy.

However, this is a flaw too far.

NOT Oregon Grape Holly

I'm from Oregon.  Oregon Grape Holly is the state wildflower.  I know Oregon Grape Holly.  This is NOT Oregon Grape Holly.  It's not even close.  I looked around, hoping the sign had simply been placed in front of the wrong plant, but Oregon grape holly was nowhere in that entire garden.

Myth: Busted.