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For more than half my trips to work in the last year, I have bicycled to work. Given the region’s temperate climate, this requires planning.

For a snowy commute, You must be prepared:

1. Full fenders: The snow will melt. Melted snow mixes with dirt and sand, and becomes a nasty by-product.
2. Tires: In deep snow, a tire that will “plow” is the most useful.
3. Braking distance is significantly increased. Plan ahead.
4. Waterproof clothing: Snow melts quickly after landing on a warm surface (your body).
   Consider shoes, gaiters/chaps, and waterproof or water-shedding pants. I sometimes wear stretchy polyester soccer pants over my jeans. They absorb moisture and dry quickly.
5. Facemask + Ski Goggles: A balaclava-and-goggle combination is a strong defense against extremely cold conditions.
6. Gloves that afford control and warmth are the best. Sheepskin mittens, or choppers, are very warm, but limit articulated control for braking or shifting.

Today, I did not plan well. I had a soggy ride to work. I love riding fixed-gear in the snow, but the fully-fendered touring bike would have been a better choice.

There is a certain peace that comes with frequent bike commuting. Propelling yourself by your own energy and strength is both limiting and liberating; limiting because you cannot breach a certain speed or rate of acceleration; and liberating because a bicycle can go anywhere, and your “fuel” can cost as much or as little as you like. It is limiting still because you can carry only so much; and liberating in that when you ride, you don’t have much with you.

Finally, there is a peace that comes with appreciating a climate. It is inconsistent. It is sometimes physically uncomfortable. But it is always beautiful. From pouring rain to brilliant sun, the weather is an incomprehensibly strong force with which everyone must reckon.

Last winter, after a four-inch snowfall, my girlfriend Ashley and my friend Tavio and I biked to the mall for amusement. It took us two hours to travel the four or five miles to get there, amidst all the falls and snowball-throwing stops. On the way back, after eating more than 30 pieces of pizza at CiCi’s, we were discussing our weather preferences. Tavio, who commutes solely via bike and does not have a car, said it best, “I just love weather.”

By Tim Hrenchir. Republished from the Topeka Capital-Journal

In designing future street projects, the city staff should integrate and implement “Complete Streets” concepts targeted at making roadways safe and accessible for everyone, including bicyclists and pedestrians, the Topeka City Council decided Tuesday night.

The council voted 8-1 to approve a resolution sponsored by Councilman Larry Wolgast that changed city policy by directing the staff to make that move to the extent financially feasible. The measure also made it the city’s goal to adequately finance the policy’s implementation.

The outcome of Tuesday’s vote “shows we are progressive and moving forward,” Wolgast told the council.

“The important point is that our transportation plan will be designed not for moving vehicles as quickly as possible, but by taking into consideration all who use streets,” he said.

Councilman Jack Woelfel, the sole dissenter, said he wasn’t opposed to Complete Streets concepts but didn’t fully understand them. Woelfel also said he thought the proposal left too many unanswered questions and wasn’t specific enough, particularly about finances.

Wolgast told council members how a consultant brought to Topeka as part of the Heartland Visioning process earlier this year explained how cities nationwide were working to implement Complete Streets concepts.

“The Complete Streets policy will direct city planners and engineers to consistently design with all users in mind, including drivers, public transportation riders, pedestrians and bicyclists, as well as older people, children and people with disabilities,” he said.

The council heard support for Wolgast’s proposal expressed Tuesday by six speakers, including representatives of the Community Resources Council and the Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce.

Another advocate, Karl Fundenberger, told the council thousands die crossing roadways nationally each year due to poor design features.

He said: “Streets are not for moving cars. They’re for moving people.”

Joseph Ledbetter, who also addressed the council on the matter, asked members to make sure that money from a half-cent sales tax that took effect Oct. 1 doesn’t help pay for Complete Streets improvements.

City manager Norton Bonaparte said that won’t happen. He noted that the council earlier this month approved capital improvement plans calling for the city to borrow $100,000 through general obligation bonds in each of the next five years to pay to incorporate Complete Streets design elements into projects the city carries out using revenue from the half-cent tax.

The council also approved a 2010 legislative agenda consisting of eight provisions that include asking for the continued operation of the Kansas Neurological Institute, which a state commission has recommended closing, and supporting “continued development of the Capitol complex and state operations in downtown Topeka.”

Three other provisions of the approved agenda were targeted at helping the Topeka Metropolitan Transit Authority.

Council members voted 8-1 to approve that agenda. Councilman John Alcala dissented, saying he thought it had been “overloaded” with too many issues.

Also, Mayor Bill Bunten cast a vote as the city’s governing body:

• Voted 10-0 to approve Alcala’s motion to defer action on a proposed zoning change regarding property at 1236 S.W. Garfield Ave. Alcala said the deferral would give the city attorney’s office time to provide the council an opinion on the extent of participation in voting and discussion on the matter that should be permitted for Councilwoman Deborah Swank, who previously spoke about it before the Topeka Planning Commission.

• Voted 10-0 to amend the city’s zoning code to clarify that only fences within parks may exceed the city’s 4-foot height requirement in a front yard.

The first farms were subsistence farms. Families grew enough to sustain themselves, and made planting decisions based on their projected needs for the coming year. They used draft animals, compost, manure, and manual tools to cultivate their plots, and rotated crops to preserve the soil’s nutrients.

Only in the last hundred years have grocery stores existed.  They arose from general stores and trading posts — a natural place of exchange along trade routes.

But the food trade in this country has become gluttonous:

Americans spend a smaller share of their disposable income on food than citizens of any other country and choose from an average of 50,000 different food products on a typical outing to the supermarket. In 1994, the food supply provided an estimated 3,800 calories per person per day, enough to supply every American with more than one and a half times their average daily energy needs. (USDA)

Our system has become so efficient that industry now provides a gross excess of food. We throw away almost 1/4th of the food we buy, despite eating more than we need to and exercising less than we ought to.

Perhaps Ayn Rand was right, when in Atlas Shrugged, she suggested that the ideal society operated on pure capitalism, where producers of value bartered for goods and services they needed. Fiscal wealth was so insignificant that in her novel, a solid gold sculpture was the central fixture in her utopia.

What if the supermarket were more like the romanticized Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter films? Or even the true markets of London hundreds of years ago, complete with mixed-use development? Producers of value — craft — produced and sold goods locally in their shops (above which they dwelled), while farmers brought the excess produce of their toil into the city for exchange.

A system like this is limiting. It suggests a diet devoid of bananas, oranges, halibut, and saffron. But can we not grow spices in our windowsills? Can we not catch fish in our own state lakes and ponds? Do not fruit trees flower in Kansas?

It is radical to suggest that we should all survive on subsistence farming, or local agriculture, or barter systems. But more radical is my belief that maybe we could.

Here’s the plan:

Feel free to add to it if there’s something missing!

After throwing my chain and unintentionally flat-spotting my brand new tire on a high-speed, 50-foot skid the other day, I decided it was time to make another chain tensioner for the forward-facing dropouts on my newer fixed-gear bike.

Here was my first attempt.  I used two eye-bolts, a bracket, and two nuts on the first one.  But that involved a lot of work any time I needed to remove the rear wheel.  And the two eye-bolts took up lots of space on the axle.  So, why not go with just one?

And it totally works! The bracket was an L-shaped one with a single hole on each side.  The shorter side was sawed off so it would fit behind the axle.  And the bracket sits on the relatively flat part of the dropout (where the original derailleur tensioners stuck out).

I’m at Kansas City Startup Weekend. It’s Sunday. We’re down to the wire, but we’re doing well. Presentations start in less than four hours.

Startup Weekend is a convergence of developers, designers, and doers.  Friday night, people pitch ideas for online services that could be created.  The most popular ideas are picked, teams are formed, and the work starts.  The overarching idea rules the process, so the web developers do the heavy lifting to create the product.  Along the way, business plans and interface designs are drafted and developed.  At the end of 48 hours, 10 or 15 teams will present their ideas and product demonstrations in front of Angel Investors, the media, and the public.

The most attractive pitch I saw on Friday night was a service to connect bicycle messengers to available work.  Surely, people have messages and parcels that need to be delivered – but Kansas City (and many cities) have no bike delivery services.  Why not create a network for them?

I got together with five other dudes, and we set to work. We came up with TreadEx.org.

It’s a dispatching service for bike messengers.  Basically, we cut out the middle man.   Messengers create profiles, and “check in” when they’re available for hire.

Senders visit the site, and click the “send a package now” button.

The site sends a text message to the first available messenger, asking them to accept the mission.  Once they accept, the site sends them a phone number.

Within minutes, the customer receives a call from the messenger, and the two of them will work out the details of pickup, delivery, and pricing.

It’s simple, and it cuts out the middle man.

TreadEx. A dispatching service for bike messengers.

I am very proud of our product! I designed the look and feel of the site.  Devin designed the logo (look familiar?), and Ryan did the Ruby on Rails backend.

Joshua is working on Act2Go – a phone-banking application for smart phones.

Startup Weekend was stimulating and exciting, and I hope to attend another one.

It is an art collective with a progressive agenda.  And it is one of the most exciting things about life in Topeka right now.

http://www.chordsandoil.org/

Saturday was our public debut.  Three weeks of intensive planning and collaboration led to a fantastic success.

More than 250 people experienced original visual art, poetry, film and music at the Upstage Gallery.

But what is Chords & Oil?

It started in Chad’s basement.  Or maybe it started in Sam and Michelle’s living room. I’m not really sure.  We realized that instead of hanging out and complaining about the city’s lack of things to do, we could collaborate and create things to do.  So we put on an art/music show at Tavio’s house in January. We had a dance night at Bosco’s. We had a pot-luck dinner meeting at Chad’s house. And then we had a founding meeting to elect officers. I’m Promotions and Communications Chair, or Proms & Comms for short.

We want to do public art. We want to do illicit art. We want to change and challenge public perception of art. We want to move beyond art into the realm of education. We want to grow and cultivate the community to share ideas and communicate better.

Heartland Visioning has been very supportive. They are thrilled that we’re young and active in this city. Most of us are young professionals or students, and I feel like we’ve suddenly all realized that there is no point in working or creating if you’re not contributing to something bigger.