Shek’s Footprint

Bajrang is up and running, smooth and nimble as ever. I brought it home Thursday night. On Friday, I bought a 40 Lb bag of dry dog food and a 12 can box of wet dog food, loaded it on Bajrang and we carried it as effortlessly as ever even with the load being unbalanced. I started off on a low gear but soon moved on to the normal gears and cruised home at 15 mph.

It feels like the free-radical was always a part of the bike and the bike was built with the free-radical in mind. The way it attaches itself to an existing bike is the most attractive feature of the xtracycle. You can go for longer rides and not feel any different than before the conversion. I rode it 10 miles to a friend’s house today and at times I forgot that I was riding an xtracycle. This is a genius invention and deserves a lot of credit.

I am Abhishek Mukherjee and on behalf of Bajrang, I approve this message.

By the way, I am looking for a name for my Dutch bike. Suggestions will be helpful. I do think it is a ’she’!

The particularly long box marked Xtracycle sat in the leasing office of my apartment complex when I went to pick it up. With the box in the trunk of the car and my Specialized on a bike rack, I set off on six lanes of concrete clusterfuck to Downtown Jacksonville.

Brooklyn at Cycledelic-Fixity has voluntered to be the only reasonable bicycle shop owner that will put it together for a reasonable price. His cool shop is around 14 miles from my apartment in the historic Riverside area of Downtown. He came out of his shop to greet me as I had started to un-strap the bike rack. He said that he recognized my bike as I am a celebrity thanks to these guys: link.

I browsed around his shop a little drooled on the fixies in various stages of completion. Some day after the car is sold! I did pop in at Jax Ebikes (link) but it was closed, so I decided to head back home. I have never ridden my bike from Downtown to home. Since I may have to do it tomorrow, I decided to give the route a shot in the car. I went up the Acosta bridge and then on Philips all the way south to Baymeadows (see route: View Larger Map)

The section of Philips between San Marco and Emerson is pretty desolate and sad. It is one slip away form being a ghost town. I hope the road is as less crowded tomorrow as it was today. Maybe I should have Brooklyn install a Katana holder while he is at it, a custom from Hattori Hanzo none the less!

As for the name of this post, well, that is the new name of my xtracycle-attched-specialized. The god of strength in the Indian mythology is the name of this bike which is my strength to go car free. In today’s car-dependent world, this bike is my Plan B and my extra set of bollocks! Eat this Big Oil!

Today was officially my first day with heavy rains and a long ride on my bike. I was on my way to the Jacksonville Humane Society (JHS) where I volunteer every Saturday to walk dogs and the rains came crashing down on me. I was kind of prepared with an extra t-shirt in my OYB 5-way bag and a rain jacket on my rack. My shorts got wet though. I reached JHS a half hour late with no change for soggy shorts.

I had some time to reflect back on my misery during my ride back home. Not only was I late, I was also soggy and tired. I put myself into harms way by riding my bicycle on roads with no shoulders and bike lanes during low visibility conditions! This is where a Plan B would help. A bus route, sub way, light rail or even the presense of a car-sharing agency like zip car would make my day a lot happier (and drier). The easy way out was to have carried a spare pair of shorts and protective rain-pants but the safety issue is still unsolved.

The better Jacksonville plan (link here) was put into action with an extra 0.5% sales tax to make jacksonville a better city in terms of infrastructure. So, they proceeded to improve vital elements like expanding libraries but have been also spending a considerable amount of money in expanding roads. People have been expanding roads for a century now. What problem has that solved? It is insanity to do the same thing and expect a different result. The city seems to be doing a fast-paced effort towards starting commuter rail but that is limited in its scope. We need more light rail and street cars for intra-city movement if the city does not plan to expand roads indefinitely. We need a plan B. I need a plan B.

I want to successfully live car-free and it appears that the city has made it very difficult to get around without a car. Till the city gets its act together and till I am patient enough to not move to a smarter city like Portland OR, I will have to grow an extra pair of balls and be my own plan B.

I am fairly car light if you read my Car Dependency page. It is a pain to be paying what I do for my car. The car in question is a 2007 Saturn Aura XE bought brand new with minimal down-payment. The sixty month payment schedule is hefty but reasonable if I use it a lot. I dont. Moreover, I have only had car insurance since the beginning of 2006. There are no violations in my record yet but I havent established myself as a safe driver to get a sub-hundred dollar insurance payment. If you do some rough math, I am paying upwards of $500 to park the car under my apartment every month.

The best option would be to sell the car and use the non-existent public transportation of the great city of Jacksonville FL! My other anchor is Laya. She is a fairly large dog, just as female greyhounds are. I need some mode of transportation in case of emergencies. Once these problems are creatively solved, I will be able to live car free. There have been thoughts of selling my car and buying a sub-thousand dollar beater-car for emergencies but that line of thought is a work in progress.

I am reading “How to Live Well without owning a car” by Chris Balish. It is a brand new book borrowed from the library with my brand new library card. Lets see if I can pick up something creative from that book.

I bought a new bicycle today. It is a old city bike and a true city bike brought to the USA by a German gentleman. He graciously gave it away to a colleague of mine. My colleague spoke about it to me upon which I started diligently pestering him to sell it. Today, I brought it home for a princely sum of $40.

It is a very simple bike, single speed, front cable brake, rear coaster brake, generator headlamp and tail lamp, internal wiring. It has a rear rack with a book holder for those who still read books, definitely not recommended for mac books or kindles! I have emailed a ton of people with grainy pictures of the bike asking information about it. Better pictures are on their way. We will have our first senior (bike) photography session some time this week.

In this process of acquiring my latest treasure, I have depleted another treasure that we all are in so much hurry to consume: gasoline. My endeared colleague lives in another county, 36.5 miles away. That round trip coupled with an impatient desire to eat out cost me a few gallons of gas bringing me closer to that dreaded trip to the gas station for another bleedy fill-up. I have been doing pretty well until today since the last fill up was on 21 June. This is the sour part of my day.

Driving a car is starting to leave a sour taste in my mouth. I have to chug a couple of beers and take a hot shower to get the stink of air conditioning off my body. Well, I dont ‘have’ to chug a few beers but they sure help in the healing process. 

Disclaimer: Beers are chugged only after parking the car for the night (and hopefully for a few weeks). No drinking and driving is allowed or encouraged by Shek. Only light beers are used in the healing process. Regular beers cause more damage than good. Heineken Light is the prefered beer in Shek’s household (just in case you want to drop by for a chat).