Hi Pete!
I spent the day on a bike running errands and chasing parts to make the special tool I need to do some maintenance work on the car, and so spent a lot of time between two towns on the bike lanes of Eugene and Springfield, Oregon. For fun, I took the 43 year-old Raleigh Gran Sports that looks like the photographic positive to the Nomad's negative -- it is all white with silver components compared to the Nomad's black-on-black Batman color scheme. Triple Stronglight 99bis drilled chainrings and the only accessories a Silca Impero pump with Campy steel head, tiny underseat bag, Bluemel's Popular mudgards and a Blackburn FastRack (like a Tubus Fly in alu rod) and a basic computer, which I left home. Oh! And a T/A Ergal alloy bottle cage. The tires were 27" Avocet Duros. Didn't dare park the Nomad and leave it where I needed to go; it -- or substantial pieces of it -- wouldn't have been there on my return. A shame, really.
Boy! It's much better here than in NYC and many other places, but it also requires some real vigilance while riding the on-street bike lanes. Lots of broken glass today,a nd some metal bits from collisions. Strange routings, too. For example, when I got into Springfield on Centennial Boulevard, the bike lane kept disappearing to make way for a left-turn lane for oncoming traffic. Apparently, bike traffic was supposed to simply vanish at those points. Yesterday, coming over Chambers Street overpass on my way home from the steel supplier, I heard a crunch just a meter or so off my left hip; the car there had just been rear-ended by another, and the glass from the headlights hit the bike lane just behind me.
Since working at home, I no longer commute in rush-hour traffic as I once regularly did, and it was interesting being back in the mix. There is a sort of bike messenger hyper-vigilence that obtains, and it surely kept me alert. Usually, I'm in traffic only in transit-connects for my day rides out in the countryside or for tours, so it was like riding in the MixMaster today. Brought me back to my uni days when I used to side-draft buses (ride in their bow-wake) and so make each commute a time-trial of sorts. Whew.
Are conditions kinder when riding in Taupo proper?
Best,
Dan.
