Bike Touring: Minneapolis to Winona

My custom Long Haul Trucker admiring the view.

I just got back from a two day, one night bike trip from Minneapolis to Winona, Minnesota. The story of this trip really started on the bike camping trip I did last year. That trip planted the seed both for the touring bike I built this winter and for the idea of biking to Winona, where my brother and a good friend live. Once the custom build Long Haul Trucker neared completion, the reality of what I had done set in. I built myself a bike with 27 gears, the capability of carrying massive loads without flinching, and slots on the chain stays for keeping extra spokes. This bike could cross Mongolia. I figured I’d better at least get it out of the Twin Cities this year if I hoped to justify owning such a machine.

The trip was fantastic. I think that touring, in general, is fantastic. I’ve long loved camping, but until last summer, the experience has always been mediated by between 30 minutes to 4 hours in a car. Having to drive somewhere in order to have a natural experience creates an artificial wall between “nature” and my every day life.

Biking is different. I am on the trip as soon as I am out of my front door. There are a handful of state parks within 30 – 40 miles of my front door, and the best routes to them often pass through city parks or other green, preserved areas. By biking, I experience the urban and the natural as overlapping continuums, not as mutually exclusive places.

This trip was particularly great, though. The ride was challenging but still fun. The weather was cooperative, the company wonderful, the scenery good. We rode 71 miles the first day and camped at a friend’s farm just west of Lake City, which led us to some of the best scenery and the quietest road we saw the entire ride. We ate good food, slept hard, and got up the next day to ride 56 more (somewhat less hilly) miles to Winona. My buddy who lives in Winona took the train up to Minneapolis to meet me and another riding partner. At the end of the trip, the two of us took the train back to the Twin Cities.

I plan to write more in the near future, about the route I chose, the experience of getting bikes on Amtrak for the return trip, and the Trucker’s handling on her first real trip. In the meanwhile, I leave you with the numbers:
3 people
2 wheels each
127 miles
2 days
1 night
7 (!) Mississippi River Crossings (I’m counting Prescott, WI as the Mississippi and not the St. Croix. I could be wrong on that one, but it’s ambiguous).
1 train back to Minneapolis

 

 

The Other Kind of Drinking Game

A recent one mile bike ride to the store left me soaked in sweat. It has taken until mid-July, but the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have finally hit that point where it is consistently, uncomfortably, hot outside.

This is not a huge deal, nor is it a commute killer, but it does necessitate common sense. I play psychological games with myself to help make sure I don’t overdo it. I click my gears lower and force myself to resist the faster! urge. Today, I filled two water bottles and turned my downtown commute into a drinking game.

Like a college party, summer cycling requires you to drink before you really want to. Not alcohol – I’m talking about water. Waiting at a red light? DRINK! Quarter-mile straightaway on the bike path? DRINK! Cute dog being walked through the neighborhood? DRINK! Or just drink every time you see another bike, whether on bike path signage or a real one.

You can make your own rules, just keep yourself hydrated. Water + electrolytes is even better. Longer rides mean that you had better be replacing ALL of what you sweat out, which is a lot more than water. Devotees of the whole foods movement should check out Lovely Bicycle’s recipe for salty lemonade. Personally, I’m downing powdered Gatorade mix – it’s cheap, easy, and it got me through high school swim meets and college ultimate frisbee tournaments. It also tastes like a guilty pleasure (aka Kool-aid), so I want to drink it. Perfect. 

 

Tax Breaks for Bike Commuters

Everyone knows that biking to work instead of driving or using public transit can save you money. What I didn’t know until recently is that it can get you tax breaks, too!

For Employees
There’s this thing called the Federal Bike Commuter Benefit that allows employers to offer a tax free benefit of up to $20 per month for expenses such as “the purchase of a bicycle and bicycle improvements, repair, and storage.” You have to ride your bike a certain percentage of days, and it is an optional benefit, not one that employers are required to provide (unless you work in San Francisco). The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has a nice summary of the tax break, but again, this is not mandatory nationwide, only in San Fran. The Bike-Sharing Blog reports that there is a bill in the House of Representatives (HR  2288 or the Commuter Parity Act of 2013) that would increase the deduction to $35/month.

Wish my employer offered this as a benefit! I easily spend $35 per month on bicycle maintenance and improvement. Alas, I work for a teeny tiny firm that is unlikely to sign up. If there are a couple of bike commuters in your office, rally the troops and ask HR!

For Independent Contractors
OK, this one I did know about, and put into effect when I filed my 2012 taxes.

Many people I know (myself included!) make all or some of their living as independent contractors. For tax purposes, this means that qualified expenses can be deducted against your income. Transportation is part of that. Do you use a bike to run errands related to your business? To go to meetings? To get to your studio/office? Is your business bike-related? Talk to your accountant about what qualifies.

The Bottom Line
None of this is likely to add up to huge money, but little things do add up – a bell here, a new chain there, a saddle that you can love. Stretch your budget further by maximizing tax benefits – on top of the gas and bus pass savings!

The Custom Long Haul Trucker is (Basically) Done

Here’s a photo of the custom Surly Long Haul Trucker I’ve been working on. I don’t really consider it to be finished (lacking fenders & a bell and I am probably going to change the stem) but it’s rideable and I have been riding it for several weeks now.

I chose a touring bike for bicycle number 3 (see my other bikes here and here) because I want to do more bike camping and because I don’t care about being the fastest kid on the bike path. I also tend to haul a lot of stuff around with me. All of my purses are big enough to fit my large U-lock, which has been the case since before I biked everywhere and carried said U-lock in them. A bike that doesn’t squirm under 35 lbs of groceries/camping gear/potluck libations makes a lot of sense for me.

I decided that I wanted to buy a steel frame and build it myself, which I did with the help of Sunrise Cyclery and Grease Rag Ride and Wrench. The original idea was to find used parts and build this thing inexpensively. However, I’ve been working long hours for a while now, and it turned out that I didn’t have time to dig through used parts bins. It took me a long time just to decide what I wanted and to install all the parts.  In the end the handlebars are used and the tires were a swap, but everything else is new.

After test-riding a stock build LHT at Sunrise, I found a like-new frame in my size on Craig’s List that had previously been an REI test ride bike. Even better, it’s Surly’s blue velvet color, which was discontinued after 2010. Blue is my favorite color. It was meant to be.

I have mixed feelings about doing the custom build. Almost everything on this bike is a completely different system than my vintage Schwinn. This means that I learned a lot of new bike mechanic stuff, which will make me a more effective volunteer for Grease Rag. It also means that the build itself was painfully slow because I needed lots of help and redid a few things. Many thanks to those who patiently coached me through this process.

There was no true “new bike day,” but there was a day when I gave up trying to install the fenders I had ordered, wrapped the bars quickly, and rode it home (I managed to order fenders too fat for the “fatties fit fine” fork. Dang. They will fit on my mountain bike, though, and it needs them.)

I mostly followed the lead of the stock components, with a few deviations. I’ll be writing more about individual components as I get a chance to really try them out. Picking things out for a new build was an interesting process. I’ve replaced and upgraded plenty of bike parts before, but with a familiar bike there’s a point for comparison. Still so much to learn about bike components.

A partial parts list, for those who care about such things:
– Handbuilt (by moi, with coaching by Jamie at Sunrise) 26″ wheels with Suntour rims and Shimano Deore hubs
– Cane Creek SCR-5C brake levers (compact version for smaller hands)
– Tektro Oryx cantilever breaks (at the recommendation of my LBS)
– my old Selle Royal saddle from the Schwinn (I ordered a different women’s specific touring saddle, but it was not a good fit for my body and was returned)
– Ergon PC2 platform pedals

I topped off a utilitarian ride with a little bit of pretty – celeste (aqua) bar tape capped with blue and yellow electrical tape and matching cable housing and water bottle cages.

For now, my most exciting rides have been taking the long way to the grocery store. These photos were taken during a pit stop at Theodore Wirth Park en route to Trader Joe’s. I just finished a big project at work, though, and am hoping to do more riding (and blogging) in the near future.

I still can’t quite think of this thing as “done,” but then again, once one starts tinkering, when is a bike ever done?

Bicycling and Mental Health

May is both Bike Month and Mental Illness Awareness Month. Coincidence? Probably, but there’s some good stuff out there about the connection between biking and mental health.

Consider: the National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that 1 in 4 American adults lives with a diagnosable, treatable mental illness. Twenty-five percent! Whether you know it or not, someone you know is struggling with mental health. These illnesses include anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, PTSD, and attention disorders.

Aerobic exercise (like biking) promotes mental health as well as physical health. Here are some results from studies cited by Bikes Belong:
– Aerobic exercise can improve self-esteem
– Aerobic exercise can have an antidepressant effect
– One study found that cycling improves levels of well-being, self-confidence, and tolerance to stress while reducing tiredness, difficulties with sleep and a range of medical symptoms
– a 30+ minute round trip bicycle commute is associated with better mental health in men (somebody had better be funding a study to figure out the gender differential here!)

So there’s real science to support what I’ve noticed in my life – that I’m a happier, more pleasant person when I bike. I feel less stressed out, and whatever my boss did or said has usually been forgotten by the time I’m home after a half hour bike commute. This is not the case in the rare instances I drive and sit in traffic.

I started thinking about all of this after reading the story Riding is My Ritalin in Bicycling Magazine, found while surfing the internet looking for mental health information. Someone I was close to had recently committed suicide, and I was thinking a lot about the stigma of mental illness and lack of resources for people suffering from it in the U.S. I do not consider biking to be a substitute for professional help, but for many people, biking is part of taking active steps to maintain a healthy mind.

Other people writing about the connections between bicycles and mentally healthy lifestyles:
– the Washington Post reports on a study that gives mental health patients free access to D.C.’s public bike share program.
– Reporting by The Independent in the UK reveals that the positive mental benefits of cycling were noted as early as 1896.
–  Vermont Public Radio notes that two psychotherapists are promoting winter biking for mental health. (As a Minnesotan, my personal experience is that it helps prevent Seasonal Affective Disorder).
– A writer for the New York Times’ series on anxiety describes city riding as a brief break from constant, crippling anxiety.

Lots of individuals are also sharing their own stories, from a Boston Psychologist to a New York Commuter battling depression.

It seems like researchers are a long way from really understanding the relationship between brain chemistry and specific types of physical activity. I hope this area of study continues to receive funding.

What have you done to maintain your mental health today?

Commuter Pants for Women

Bike commuting pants. Not shorts or capris, but real pants that look polished and professional. Dozens of companies offer them for men, but if you’re female, the pickings are pretty slim. The good news is that they do actually exist (don’t think this was true 5 years ago). Here are your spring 2013 options in one convenient location.

First, what makes a commuter pant? Generally, these are designed to be something you would actually wear both to a meeting and on an urban commute.  I value sweat-wicking fabric, non-chafing seams, and a lack of reflective stuff in obvious places. I prize this kind of clothing – not having to change clothes saves me at least 10 minutes every morning. I could just bike slower, but I really really like going fast.

1. Outlier Women’s Daily Riding Pant – $225
These slim leg pants have generated quite the buzz in the blogosphere since being introduced in 2011. Reviews, both by friends here in Minneapolis and on the internet, have been pretty positive, though everyone I know who owns these got some kind of miraculous deal.  Notable features include the lack of reflective stuff and logos, Schoeller water and abrasion-resistant fabric, and a reinforced butt. As far as I can tell, the only thing not ideal about this product is the $225 price tag (up from $180 last season). Outlier also recently introduced a jeans style Dungaree pant.

2. Betabrand Women’s Bike to Work Pants – $108
This San Fran based company makes stretch cotton commuter pants with reflective tape on the inside of the pant cuff (for rolling up when you’re outside) and a reflective back pocket flap that can be tucked in for the office. They’ve got a reinforced crotch and a higher back to eliminate gaping, and have also gotten pretty good reviews. I do question the use of cotton in otherwise very bike-centric product – I like to bike fast and cotton makes me feel clammy and gross because it doesn’t dry very fast.

3. Visser Proof NY Pant – $180
These appear to be similar to the Outlier Daily Riding Pant – Schoeller fabric, stretch, slim cut. There’s no mention on their website of a reinforced rear, though. I’m perplexed by the fact that they brag about false pockets. I demand real pockets! This is a new product, and reviews are scarce. The only one I found is non-bike related, but positive. At $180, you’ll save $45 off the Outlier version.

I haven’t purchased any of these yet. My idea of spending a lot of money on clothes has been shopping at a consignment store instead of thrifting. Yet I fantasize about cute, well-cut, well-made clothes crafted from amazing technical fabrics. Maybe someday I’ll take the plunge. In the meanwhile, I’m stalking sweat-wicking but not bike-specific pants (like some from Lole) on sale websites.

I want to see Endura, Levi’s, Nau, and the dozen or so other companies with dedicated men’s commuter lines engage in a little gender parity. Women’s styles are often sold out of popular colors and sizes, so clearly there’s room in the market, especially if you can make something that costs less than $100. While I’ve been managing to get myself to work on a bike and look nice without $180 pants, I am frustrated by the non-functionality of most professional clothing designed for women (such as pockets so small they can barely hold chapstick). Dreaming of a day when my performance clothes and my dress clothes are the same clothes.

***
September 2013 UPDATE: REI recently released a women’s specific bike jean for $79.50. This makes me feel like the active wear industry might be hearing our collective cries of frustration!

Bikes and Hip-Hop: Two Reasons to Love Minneapolis

Bicycles and hip-hop. Sometimes two things you love about a place come together and create a smile as big as the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. I’ve been mentally composing a post about the confluence of the two in the Minneapolis for a while, but since Y.N.RichKids just released their newest video and it’s called “My Bike,” today seems like a good day. More about that in a few paragraphs.

1. First and foremost is Atmosphere’s “Sunshine.” This song is several years old now, and feels like an old friend that I only see in the summer (our radio stations know better than to taunt us in January). This live version won’t let me embed, so you’ll have to click the link. Some lyrics:

“Never really seen exercise as friendly/ but I think something’s telling me to ride that ten speed/ brakes are broken that’s alright* / tire’s got air and the chain seems tight/ hopped on and felt the summertime/ it reminds me of one of those Musab rhymes”

“Riding my bike around these lakes man/ feelin’ like I finally figured out my escape plan”

*It’s really NOT alright if your brakes are broken! Please don’t ride around the lakes without them. Some 3 year-old or puppy will dart in front of you and it won’t be pretty.

2. Another live video, my favorite version of one of my favorite songs, “The Bullpen” by Dessa:

In a brief but brilliant reference, Dessa describes sexism within the hip-hop industry, “They love me/ they love me not/ pulling pedals off my bike.”

3. Another fleeting bike reference in Brother Ali’s song “Star Quality”: “Battling me is like trying to bike in the sand.”

4. Doomtree’s video for Drumsticks features the Midtown Greenway and Stone Arch Bridge as well as the whole Doomtree crew.

I think Dessa is a genius, but it would be cooler if she were riding her own bike in this video.

5. Last but certainly not least, Y.N.RichKids (of Hot Cheetos and Takis fame) completely showed up Doomtree with their own bike-themed video, this time accompanying a bike-themed song.

Reasons why this is a better video:
a. The girls get their own bikes
b. They talked someone into letting them ride inside the Mall of America
c. T.C. Bear (the Minnesota Twins’ mascot) and Brother Ali make cameos

So now you know: Minneapolis is a good place to catch a hip-hop show and a good place to ride your bike. I’m sure there are a lot more examples I missed – leave a note in the comments!

Bike Trailer Errands

Today I borrowed this B.O.B. bicycle trailer from a friend and set off to haul heavy, awkward stuff around Minneapolis. I was pleasantly surprised at how simple it was! Sure, 30 pounds trailing behind my bike gave my legs a good workout, but the ride was smooth and uneventful. Connecting the trailer’s drop-outs to the fancy hub that goes with it was a snap. I felt very accomplished after successfully tackling the “hill” that is the Sabo Bridge, and fighting crosswinds on top of it.

Then I thought of Peace Coffee’s delivery people, who pull bigger, heavier trailers around the City of Lakes on a regular basis. Also friends who cart one or two children to day care via bike. All of this just proves that hauling stuff via bike is not generally very difficult for those whose leg muscles have been initiated (it does help if the bike has lots of gears). It was easy enough that I would do this regularly.

As you can see, there is an obscene amount of snow on the ground for April 19, even for Minneapolis. It was melting quickly and the streets were not icy, but I decided to ride my mountain bike with a studded tire. The Long Haul Trucker still needs four more parts before she will be a real bike, and the 10-speed Schwinn didn’t seem up to the task, especially given the slushy state of the roads.

This certainly isn’t a formal review of the B.O.B., but first impression was that it’s pretty sweet! The Trek 800 doesn’t corner tightly anyway, but I didn’t have to adjust the way I rode at all (maybe partly due to the single, central wheel). I would definitely check this trailer out if I were in the market and didn’t need to haul children.

30 Days of Biking – another year!

Like the image says, Monday, April 1st is the beginning of 30 Days of Biking. The name is pretty self-explanatory: bike somewhere – anywhere – every day for one month. This annual tradition started in Minneapolis, and has spread throughout the world. I participated last year and thought it was pretty sweet.

After a long, nasty Minnesota winter I’m feeling some inertia. Getting on my bike to get everywhere is less automatic than it was in October – the last few months have seen many days when the weather has made other transportation options more appealing, even more practical.

But it’s been nice this past weekend, nice enough to melt most of the snow. With it, viable excuses are melting away. So go sign up.

Need more incentive? Check out my post from 2012 about how 30 Days of Biking gave me a new riding experience.

Custom Long Haul Trucker – in progress

I’ve been wanting a nicer bike for a while. After saving up, I’m building up a Surly Long Haul Trucker frame. Here it is last week at the public shop space of Sunrise Cyclery, waiting for me to decide what tires, saddle and brake levers I want. Parts have been ordered! Stay tuned for the details.