Two Wheeling

Memories of Morse Road

My good friend, Judge Bill Klatt, began twowheeling to his job as a Court of Appeals judge at the Franklin County Courthouse last year. When asked my a reporter what he likes best about biking to work, he replied, "It makes me feel like a kid again."

Like me, many of my twowheeling friends, hadn't been on a bike in decades........since they were kids. Once they reached "driving" age, they parked their bikes in a remote corner of the garage and eagerly embraced the rite of passage to adulthood.....getting a car. Everything in our culture, and on TV, conditioned us to believe we needed a car to be "cool."

On Monday I biked out Morse Road to Limited Brands to attend a meeting of the Council on World Affairs Sustainability Advisory Committee. I used to bike out Morse Road as a kid in the 1960's, before they built Northland Shopping Mall.......kinda ironic that when I biked out there on Monday there was no Northland Mall (they tore it down a few years ago). But boy, did this ride bring back memories.

In 1962, we moved from a 2 bedroom house in the heart of Clintonville to a rambling 1910 farmhouse on 5 acres at 366 Morse Road. (I was 6 at the time and had 3 younger siblings and one on the way.........I guess my parents thought we needed a bit more room, which was a good decision since they went on to have a 6th child a year later.) We loved this old farmhouse on the edge of town. Our 1/4 mile gravel drive was lined with 60 year-old peonies and when you drove down the lane in May when the peonies were in bloom it smelled like you were driving through perfume.

My parents bought our new/old home from a 50-something, never-been-married-or-had-kids bachelor named Morris Zuckerman. Part of the deal was that Mr. Zuckerman was permitted to live in the house for 6-12 months after closing WITH US! (In more than 25 years practicing law I've never seen any real estate transaction with this feature and would never recommend it to a friend or client.) I guess Mr. Zuckerman could drive a hard bargain. Of course, my parents loved this house so much they probably would have agreed to almost anything to get it.

So there we were.......my late 20-somethings dad and 8-months pregnant mom, us 4 1/2 kids under the age of 6, and a 50-something confirmed Jewish bachelor......just one big happy family. Mom instructed us to call him "Mr. Zuckerman" and to try not to disturb him. Mr. Zuckerman moved all his furniture and possessions into one downstairs room at the base of the stairs and he stayed in there most of the time with his door shut. I think he tried to be nice to us at first, but we asked him lots of questions, "Mr. Zuckerman, what's this?" and "Mr. Zuckerman, why are you doing that?" We were curious and he was a curiosity, so of course we pestered the daylights out of him. And we had the run of the rest of the house, and I mean RUN. We constantly ran through the house, up and down the stairs, yelling and screaming and fighting like brothers and sisters do. It must have been loud as hell because we had wood floors and no carpeting. We only had 1 full bathroom and a very small 1/2 bath downstairs (but the toilet didn't work).  

Mr. Zuckerman was a serious amateur photographer. We soon discovered where he kept all his equipment and negatives. He even had movie film stored in those cool metal containers. The basement was really dark, so we had to take the movies out of the cannisters and unroll them a bit to get them over to the window where we could hold them up to the light. We tried, but couldn't, get them back in the cannisters.

Mr. Zuckerman moved out in less than a month. He left so fast, he forgot to take most of his photo equipment and film.

I hadn't thought of Mr. Zuckerman in decades........it's funny, sometime, the things you think about when you're on your bike.

Join Us This Thursday for Happy Hour at Cafe Bella

All Consider Biking members and "prospective" members are invited to join us this Thursday, July 30, from 5-7:30 PM at Cafe Bella for happy hour. (Don't worry, we define "prospective" broadly, i.e. if you're not a Consider Biking member, you are by definition a "prospective" member.)

Cafe Bella is located at 2593 North High Street, just north of Hudson. We'll be out back on the patio so ride/drive around back to the parking lot where we'll have a secure place for the bikes.

If you've not been to Cafe Bella, you're in for a treat. The proprietor, Vince, is an engineer by training who prefers cooking great Italian food and pioneering an amazing urban gardening concept that he will explain to us. It's not just a concept.......he has raised and given away thousands of vegetable plants through the food pantry to lower income families. He's also working on an aquaculture system that he will also give away to lower income families so that they can homegrow fish.

Cafe Bella doesn't have a liquor license, but Vince allows his customers to bring in beer and wine to eat with their meals (and doesn't even charge a corkage fee!) Like the old Nancy's, Vince doesn't have a set price.......you pay what you can afford and feel the meal was worth (he does have "suggested" prices which are very reasonable.)

My good friend, Dale Crandell, and I are donating all the beer and wine for the happy hour, but we are asking cyclists to contribute $10 per person to pay Vince for the great appetizers he is going to prepare for us........all in all a pretty good deal, I think.

This event is brought to you by Consider Biking (which isn't making a dime on it).....consider it a "member benefit." If you're not already a member of Consider Biking, I would be grateful if you would consider becoming a member. Our mission is simple...........to get more butts, I mean people, on bikes in central Ohio. We're making a real difference by advocating for bicycling, working on the Bicentennial Bikeway Plan, updating the city traffic code, creating bicyle maps, sponsoring and helping with organized rides, like the Ride of Silence, and providing information on all things biking to our community. We have a very puny budget and are always dreaming of the things we could do with more resources. You can check us out (and sign up for a membership) at www.considerbiking.org. 

I hope you can join us on Thursday! (Please rsvp to me at dmorgan@calfee.com asap so we can get a headcount to give to Vince so he knows how much food to prepare.)    

Tour de Ouch?

I had never watched the Tour de France before, but Versus showed all the stages in their entirey and I couldn't wait to watch every night. It was captivating! The scenery, the athleticism,the courage, the tactics AND THE CRASHES! I didn't realize how often they crashed. There were a few crashes on downhills where they were reaching speeds in excess of 50 mph.....UNBELIEVABLE!

Unfortunately I had some personal experience with crashing 2 weeks ago. I usually don't ride on weekends, preferring to use the time to recuperate from my workweek commute. However, Sunday before last several friends invited me to join them on a 50 mile ride up in Delaware and Union counties and I accepted.

The ride was wonderful for 40 miles, but then I lost focus for a moment (probably looking at the beautiful scenery), crossed tires with the bike in front of me and before I knew it I was skidding along the chip and seal pavement on my palms, elbows and hips. We were on a downhill grade going 20+ mph, so the crash was horribly painful. My friend, Dale, was riding on my wheel and miraculously avoided running over me and crashing, too. My friends rated my crash a solid "10" which somehow didn't make me feel better. 

I tore the hell out of my elbow, palms and hip, but after sitting down for 5-10 minutes (I think I was in mild shock), I got back on the bike and road the last 10 miles to where we had parked. I headed home, cleaned up my wounds and headed to the emergency room where it took 3 stitches to close the deep puncture wound on my elbow. I was back on the bike the next morning to ride to work, but it was painful riding over the smallest bump in the road.

My crash and injuries were nothing compared to what the riders experience in pro racing like the Tour. Three riders have died riding the Tour de France, but it's amazing there haven't been more deaths when you realize that they used to ride the Tour without helmets.

They say that if you ride, the odds will eventually catch up to you and you will crash. I guess it was my time. I'm just thankful that I wasn't hurt worse and hope that, now that I've had my spill, the odds will work in my favor for a long time. 

Why I'm Not Riding Pelotonia

The number one question I get these days is, "Are you riding Pelotonia?"

My answer is, "No," for the reasons set forth below. But I AM supporting Pelotonia by making pledges to several of my friends who are riding. I support anything that gets more butts on bikes, so I support Pelotonia if it accomplishes that.

But I am not riding Pelotonia because:

    1. Pelotonia benefits a worthy cause, cancer research, but is only tangentially about bicycling. My passion and volunteer efforts are focused on getting more people to bike and walk to work, school, etc. because I think this is the surest, perhaps only, path to personal health, environmental health and community health. I give money to cancer research through other organizations. If I were to raise $2,000 for an important cause, I would contribute it to true bicycling initiatives.

    2. Getting 2,000+ people on bikes one day a year is OK, but getting an increasing percentage of our citizens biking and walking for everyday transportation would do as much or more to prevent cancer and other diseases ravaging our community and our nation. Adult and childhood obesity are rampant in our community and are contributing to cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other ailments that  kill our fellow citizens and drive up health care costs. I am happy that we are researching ways to treat and cure cancer, but I think we can and should do more to reduce obesity in this country, which former surgeon general Richard Carmona says is the #1 threat to the country's health. Exercise and dieting have not made a dent in this serious problem (the adult obesity rate in central Ohio increased from 25% to 30% in the last 2 years and Columbus just broke into the "Top 10" most obese cities in the U.S.) Converting to "people powered" transportation WOULD help solve this. 

    3. Getting 2,000+ people on bikes one day a year does very little to reduce our carbon footprint. 42% of the automobile trips in this country are 2 miles or less and 85% are 5 miles or less. Replacing just 10% of these short auto trips with bicycle trips would have a significant positive impact on the environment (and eliminate the need to import any foreign oil). That's another reason I'm working diligently to this end.

    4. A cyclist is required to raise $2,000 in pledges to ride Pelotonia (you can do a shorter ride if you raise only $1,000). This is too much money for most ordinary folks to raise. There are also lots of other, long standing charitable rides competing for dollars in these challenging economic times.......most other charity rides don't have pledge requirements this high. Many individual cyclists are not riding Pelotonia because they cannot raise this amount of money or wish to do several charity rides and need to spread their pledges around. Consequently, Pelotonia is soliciting local corporations to support the ride by encouraging and/or subsidizing their employees to participate. This is not a bad thing, but given all this, it is unlikely that Pelotonia will attract a diverse group of riders that are representative of the wonderful diversity of our community. Of course this is true of many recreational rides (although TOSRV always seems to to a good job on this score).

  5. I rarely do recreational or charity rides, preferring to use my cycling and my energy for getting to work every day and using the weekends to recuperate. ( I give lots of time and lots of money to charitable causes, so don't feel the need to bike for them, too.) I do enjoy the camaraderie and tradition of TOSRV and we have started a new Hi Lo ride to put the high tech and cycling communities together (in furtherance of our vision that Columbus will have the highest tech jobs in the U.S. but we will use low tech transportation (i.e. bicycles) to get to these jobs). My hope is that new riders introduced to cycling through Pelotonia and other recreational/charity rides will start to embrace the idea of biking to work, school, the market, etc. If we work collaboratively we can change the way our community gets around and prevent/cure cancer along the way.

Here's to "More Butts on Bikes!" Go Pelotonia!

    

Calfee Columbus Achieves 20% Mode Shift!

Since we adopted EcoBucks in February 2008, we've been tracking the "mode shift" among the 40+ employees who work in the Columbus office of Calfee, Halter & Griswold, a 100+ year-old, Cleveland-based law firm. "Mode shift" is the term transportation engineers use to describe the shift from automobiles to bikes, walking and mass transit for urban transportation needs.

To put things into perspective, consider these stats: Columbus, like other auto-centric U.S. cities, has a meager 1% mode shift. Portland is tops in the U.S. with 10+%. Many European cities have 20-50% mode shift. Congressman Blumauer, who heads the U.S. Congressional Transportation Committee, aspires for the entire U.S. to achieve 10% mode shift because this would eliminate the need to import ANY foreign oil.

Drum roll, please................................................since adopting EcoBucks 16 months ago, our office has achieved 15-20% mode shift every month. Last month we hit 20% for the first time. We're doing it with a combination of alternate transportation modes: cycling, walking, taking the bus and carpooling. I'm very proud of us.

Several other CBus companies have adopted EcoBucks, including Edison Welding Institute, Manley, Deas & Kochalski, and TechColumbus. I'd be interested to know whether they're experiencing significant mode shift, too.

Let me know if you're interested in EcoBucks......I'd be happy to send the materials to you. It's really easy and doesnt' cost that much ($1 per day for each day an employee uses alternate transportation to get to work............it costs us approx $1,500 per year for our office.) Even if you don't have EcoBucks, please consider using "people powered" transportation to get to work or to make those short urban automobile trips (42% of the auto trips in the U.S. are 2 miles or less and 85% are 5 miles or less). You and our environment will be healthier for it!